Strip Poker

Joyce Carol Oates

That day at Wolf's Head Lake! Nobody ever knew.

Of my family, I mean. Not even Daddy. I did not tell Daddy.

It was late August. Humid-hot August. At the lake you'd see these giant thunderhead clouds edging across the sky like a mouth closing over and in the mountains, streaks of heat lightning that appear and disappear so swiftly you can't be sure that you have actually seen them. For kids my age, nothing much to do except swim—unless you liked fishing, which I did not—or "boating"—but we didn't own a boat—and the only place to swim for us was on the far side of the lake at the crowded public beach since the lake on our side was choked with seaweed so slimy and disgusting only young boys could swim through it. That day we're over at the beach swimming, trying to dive from the diving board at the end of the concrete pier, but we're not very good at diving, mostly we're just jumping from the high board—twelve feet, that's high for us—seeing who can jump the most times, climb the ladder dripping wet, run out on the board and grab your nose, shut your eyes, and jump, reckless and panicky and thrilled, striking the water and propelling beneath and your long hair in a ponytail trailing up, bubbles released from your dazed lips, closest thing to dying—is it? Except sometimes you'd hit the water wrong, slapped hard as if in rebuke by the lake's surface that looks like it should be soft, red welts across my back, murky water up my nose so my head was waterlogged, ears ringing and I'm dazed and dizzy staggering around like a drunk girl all of us loud-laughing and attracting disapproving stares. And there comes my mother telling me to stop before I drown myself or injure myself, trying not to sound angry as she's feeling, and Momma makes this gesture—oh, this is mortifying!—makes me hate her!—with her hands to suggest that I might injure my chest, my breasts, jumping into the water like that, as if I give a damn about my breasts, or anything about my body, or if I do, if I am anxious about my body, this is not the place, the public beach at Wolf's Head Lake on an afternoon in August, for Momma to scold me. I'm a tall lanky-lean girl almost fourteen years old with small-boned wrists and ankles, deep-set dark eyes, and a thin curvy mouth that gets me into trouble, the things I say, or mumble inaudibly, my ashy-blond hair is in a ponytail straggling like a wet rat's tail down my bony vertebrae, except for this ponytail you'd think that I might be a boy and I hoped to God that I would remain this way forever, nothing so disgusting as a grown woman in a swimsuit, a fleshy woman like Momma and her women friends that men, adult men, actually looked at like there was something glamorous and sexy about them.

Momma is glaring at me, speaking my full, formal name Annislee, which means that she is disgusted with me, saying she's driving back to the cottage now and I'd better come with her and Jacky, and I'm stubborn, shaking my head no, I am not ready to leave the beach where it's still sunny and maybe will not storm and anyway my bicycle is at the beach. I'd biked to the beach that morning, so I'd have to bike back. And Momma says all right, Annislee, but if it starts storming, you're out of luck. Like she hopes it will storm, just to punish me. But Momma goes away and leaves me. All this while I've been feeling kind of excited and angry—and sad—why I've been jumping from the high board not giving a damn if I do hurt myself—this fiery wildness coming over me sometimes Why should I care if I hurt myself if I drown! Missing my father, who isn't living with us right now in Strykersville and resenting that my closest cousin Gracie Stearns went away for the weekend to Lake Placid in the Adirondacks staying with a new friend of hers from Christian Youth, a girl I hardly knew. People at Lake Placid are likely to be rich, not like at Wolf's Head Lake where the cottages are small and crowded together and the boats at the marina are nothing special. All this day I've been feeling mean, thinking how could I hurt Gracie's feelings when she came back, our last week at the lake before Labor Day and I wouldn't have time to spend with Gracie, maybe.

This guy I met. Wants me to go out with him. He's got a boat, wants to teach me to water-ski.

There was no guy. The boys I went swimming with, hung out with were my age, or younger. Older kids at Wolf's Head, I scarcely knew. Older guys, I was scared of. Mostly.

At the lake we stayed with my mother's brother Tyrone and his family. Momma and my younger brother Jacky and me. Uncle Tyrone's cottage which wasn't on the lake but a hike through the woods and a haze of mosquitoes and gnats and the lake offshore choked with seaweed and cattails and I wasn't comfortable sleeping three to a room, Momma and Jacky and me, anxious about my privacy, but Wolf's Head Lake was something to look forward to, as Momma was always saying now that my father was out of the picture.

Out of the picture. I hate such a way of speaking. Like Momma can't bring herself to say exactly what the situation is, so it's vague and fading like an old Polaroid where you can't make out people's faces that have started to blur. As if my father wasn't watching over his family somehow or anyway knowing of our whereabouts every day of our lives you can bet!

Him and Momma, they were still married. I was sure of that. This time Daddy said, I will lay down my life for you, Irene. And the kids. Just tell me, if ever you wish it.

Momma doesn't even know how true that statement is. Momma will never know.

There was a time when I was seven, Daddy had to go away. And Momma got excitable then. We were cautioned by Momma's family not to upset her. Not to make loud noises playing and not to get up at night to use the bathroom if we could help it, Jacky and me, because Momma had trouble sleeping and we'd wake her and might scare her. Momma kept a knife under her pillow in case somebody broke into the house, sometimes it was a hammer she kept by her bed, but never any kind of gun for Momma hated guns, she'd seen her own brother killed in a hunting accident. She made Daddy keep his guns over at his brother's house, his two rifles and his shotgun and the handgun called a revolver with a long mean-looking barrel he'd won in a poker game in the U.S. Army stationed in Korea at a time when I had not yet been born, that made me feel shivery, sickish, for my parents did not know me then and did not know of me and did not miss me. And if they had not married each other, it would be that they would never miss me.

So we were told not to upset Momma. It is a scary thing to see your mother cry. Either you run away (like Jacky) or you do something to make your mother cry more (like me). Just to show that it's you your mother is crying about and not something else.

"'Anns'lee'—what kind of name's that?"

This older guy must be in his late twenties named Deek—what sounds like "Deek"—oily-dark spiky haircut and scruffy whiskers and on his right forearm a tattoo of a leaping black panther so it's like him and me are instantly bonded 'cause I am wearing over my swimsuit a Cougars T-shirt (Strykersville High's mascot is a cougar), a similar big cat leaping and snarling. Just the look of this Deek is scary and riveting to me, him and his buddies, all of them older guys and strangers to me hanging out at the marina pier, where I've drifted to instead of heading back to the cottage where Momma expects me.

I'm embarrassed telling Deek that "Annislee" is some weird name derived from a Norwegian name, my mother's grandmother was Norwegian, from Oslo, but Deek isn't hearing this, not a guy who listens to details nor are his beer-drinking buddies with big sunburnt faces and big wide grins like they've been partying a long time already and it isn't even suppertime. Deek is near-about a full head taller than me, bare-legged in swim trunks and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, winking at me like there's a joke between us—or am I, so much younger than he is, the joke?—asking how'd I like to ride in his speedboat across the lake?—how'd I like to play poker with him and his buddies? I tell Deek that I don't know how to play poker and Deek says, "Li'l babe, we can teach you." Tapping my wrist with his forefinger like it's a secret code between us.

Li'l babe. Turns out that Deek is Rick Diekenfeld, owns the flashy white ten-foot speedboat with red letters painted on the hull Hot Li'l Babe you'd see roaring around Wolf's Head Lake raising choppy waves in its wake to roil up individuals in slower boats, fishermen in stodgy rowboats like my uncle Tyrone yelling after Hot Li'l Babe shaking his fist but Hot Li'l Babe with Rick Diekenfeld just roars on away. There's other girls hanging out with these guys, I am trying to determine if they are the guys' girlfriends, but I guess they are not. Seems like they just met at the Lake Inn Marina Café where you have to be twenty-one to sit by the outdoor bar. These girls in two-piece swimsuits fleshy as Momma spilling out of their bikini tops. And the guys in T-shirts and swim trunks or shorts, flip-flops on their big feet, and the names they call one another are harsh and staccato as cartoon-names: sounding like "Heins"—"Jax"—"Croke." And there's "Deek" who seems to like me, pronouncing and mispronouncing my name Anns'lee running the tip of his tongue around his lips, asking again how'd I like to come for a ride in his speedboat, quick before the storm starts, how's about it? Deek has held out his Coors can for me to sip out of, which is daring, if we get caught, I'm underage by eight years, but nobody's noticing. Lukewarm beer that makes me sputter and cough, a fizzy sensation up inside my nose provoking a sneeze-giggle, which Deek seems to find funny, and something about me he finds funny, so I'm thinking What the hell. I'm thinking, Daddy isn't here, I am not even sure where Daddy is. And Grade isn't here. This will be something to tell Grade.

This guy I met. These guys. Riding on the lake, and they taught me to play poker.

So we pile into Hot Li'l Babe, these four big guys and me. There's lots of people around at the marina, nothing to worry about I am thinking. Or maybe I am not thinking. Momma says Annislee, for God's sake where is your mind? Well, it looked like—I thought—these other girls were getting into the speedboat, too, but they changed their minds saying the clouds were looking too threatening, what if you're struck by lightning, the girls are saying with shivery little giggles, in fact there's only just heat lightning (which is harmless—isn't it?) 'way off in the distance beyond Mount Hammer miles from the lake so I'm thinking What the hell, lam not afraid.

"Hang on, Anns'lee. Here we go."

This wild thumping ride out onto the lake, full throttle taking off from the marina and the looks on the faces of boaters coming in—a family in an outboard boat, a fisherman in a rowboat—register such alarm, it's hilarious. Everything seems hilarious, like in a speeded-up film where nothing can go seriously wrong, nobody can get hurt. Deek steers Hot Li'l Babe with one hand, drinking Coors from the other, I'm hanging on to my seat crowded between two of the guys (Jax? Croke? or is this big guy panting beside me Heins?) trying not to shriek with fear, in fact I am not afraid, am I?—can't get my breath the wind is coming so fierce and there's a smell of gasoline in the boat and in the pit of my stomach that sickish-excited sensation you get on the downward plunge of a roller coaster. Overhead it's a surprise, the sky is darkening fast, the giant mouth is about closed over the sun, and the way the thunderclouds are ridged, and ribbed, makes me think of the inside of a mouth, a certain kind of dog that has a purplish-black mouth, oh God. Just these few minutes, there's nobody else on Wolf's Head Lake that I can see. The boat engine is roaring so hard, these guys are so loud, a beer can I've been gripping has spilled lukewarm beer onto my bare legs, can't catch my breath telling myself You are not going to die don't be stupid, you are not important enough to die. Telling myself that Daddy is close by watching over me for didn't Daddy once say My little girl is going to live a long, long time that is a promise.

To a man like Daddy, and maybe Deek, is given a certain power: to snuff out a life, as you might (if you were feeling mean, and nobody watching) grinding a broken-winged butterfly that's flailing beneath your foot, or to allow that life to continue.

"Made it! Fuckin' made it! Record time!" Deek is crowing like a rooster, we're across the lake and okay. Deek cuts the motor bringing the speedboat to dock, it's a clumsy-shaped boat it seems now banging against the dock, Deek has to loop a nylon rope over one of the posts cursing Fuck! fuck! fuck! He's having so much trouble, finally Heins helps him and they manage to tie up the boat, we're in an inlet here in some part of Wolf's Head Lake that isn't familiar to me, short stubby pier with rotted pilings, mostly outboard-motor and rowboats docked here. Getting out of the boat, I need to be helped by one of the guys, slipped and fell, hit my knee, one of my sandals falling off, and the guy—Croke is the name they call him—big-shouldered in a T-shirt, thick hairs like a pelt on his arms and the backs of his hands, and a gap-tooth grin in a sunburnt wedge-face sprouting dark whiskers on his jaw, grabs my elbow, hauls me up onto the dock. "There ya go, li'l dude, ya okay?" Greeny-gray eyes on me, in that instant he's being nice, kindly, like I'm a kid sister, somebody to be watched over, and I'm grateful for this, almost I'd want to cry when people are nice to me, that I can't believe I deserve because I am not a nice girl—am I? Damn I don't care. Why should I care. The fact is, these new friends of mine are smiling at me calling me Anns'lee, Anns'lee-honey, c'mon with us, next thing I know the five of us are swarming into a convenience store at the end of the dock, Otto's Beer & Bait, where Momma has stopped sometimes but which direction it is to Uncle Tyrone's cottage, and how far it is, I could not say. The guys are getting six-packs of Coors and Black Horse Ale and Deek tells me to get some "eats," so I select giant bags of taco chips, Ritz crackers, and Cheez Whiz and at the deli counter some cellophane-wrapped ham sandwiches and dill pickles. Out of the freezer a six-pack of chocolate ice-cream bars, I'm leaning over and the frost-mist lifts into my warm face so cool it makes my eyes mist over so one of the guys, I think it's Jax, pokes his finger toward my eye meaning to wipe away a tear, I guess, saying "Hey, li'l dude, you okay?" This guy is so tall, my head hardly comes to his shoulder. Maybe he works at the quarry, those guys are all so big, muscular and going to fat, the quarry at Sparta was where my father was working, last time I'd heard. Up front at the cashier's counter there is this bleach-hair bulldog-woman older than Momma staring at the five of us taking up so much space in the cramped aisles not cracking a smile though the guys are joking with her calling her Ma'am trying to be friendly. A thought cuts into me like a blade This woman knows me, she will call Momma. How I feel about this possibility, I'm not sure. (Do I want to be here, with these guys? Is this maybe a mistake? But girls hook up with guys at Wolf's Head Lake, that is what you do at Wolf's Head Lake, isn't it? What people talk about back at school, next month? And Labor Day in another week.) The cashier-woman doesn't seem to know me, only just regards me with cold curious eyes, a girl my age, young even for high school, with these guys who must be ten, fifteen years older, guys who've been drinking beers for hours (you can tell: you can smell beer on their breaths, their reddened eyes are combustible), speaking to the girl in a kind of sly-teasing way but not a mean way so I'm feeling a stab of something like pride, maybe it is even sexual pride, my flat boy-body and dark eyes and curvy mouth and my thick ashy-blond hair springing from a low forehead like my Daddy's prone to brooding. Anns'lee is like music in these guys' mouths, this name that has made me cringe since first grade. Hearing Anns'lee-honey, Anns'lee-babe makes me grateful now. Deek tugs my ponytail and praises the "eats" I've brought to the counter and pays for everything with a credit card.

Next we hike through a marshy pine woods, clouds of mosquitoes, gnats, those fat black flies that bite before a thunderstorm. A sultry wind is blowing up, yet the sun is still shining, rifts in black clouds hot and fiery so you think there might not be a storm, the clouds might be blown away. In the woods are scattered cottages linked by a rutted lane. Loud voices, kids shouting. Bathing suits and towels hanging on drooping clotheslines. Most of the cottages are small like my uncle Tyrone's, with shingleboard siding or fake pine or maple, crowded close together, but Deek's uncle's cottage is at the end of the lane with nothing beyond but trees, bushes grown close against the cottage so neighbors can't see into the windows. Deek tries the front door but it's locked, dumps his groceries on the porch and goes around to the back of the cottage to jimmy off a window screen, Heins is excited asking what the hell is Deek doing, doesn't he have a key for the cottage?—"This is 'breaking and entering,'" Heins says, but Deek only laughs, saying, "Din't I tell you this is my uncle's fuckin' place I'm welcome in, any fuckin' time."

When Deek gets the screen off the window, he turns to me, grabs me around my middle and lifts me like you'd lift a small child not a girl weighing eighty pounds and five feet three which is tall for my age, saying for me to crawl inside, and open the door, I am a better fit through the window than he is. Deek's fingers on me are so hard almost I can't catch my breath, squirming to get free like a captured bird, but a bird so scared it isn't going to struggle much, and next thing I know Deek has shoved me through the window with a grunt, headfirst I'm falling, might've broken my neck except I'm able to grab hold of something, scrambling up on my hands and knees panting like a dog and my heart pounding fast as the guys are cheering behind me and the skin of my buttocks, inside the puckered fabric of my swimsuit bottom, is tingling from the palms of Deek's hard hands shoving me.

It's no problem opening the front door of the cottage, just a Yale lock, the guys come whooping and laughing inside dropping six-packs and groceries on a dingy counter. Seems like more than four of them in this small room. It's one of those cottages that is mostly just a single room with two small rooms at the back for sleeping. In the main room are mismatched pieces of furniture, a rickety Formica-topped kitchen table, chairs with torn seats, against a wall a narrow kitchen counter, a tiny sink, and a tiny two-burner gas stove, cupboards and one of those half-sized refrigerators you have to stoop to reach into. Smells here of cooking, old grease, plain old grime. Looks like it hasn't been cleaned or even swept for months, there are cobwebs everywhere, dust-balls and husks of dead insects on the floorboards, ants on the sticky Formica-topped table on the counter, tiny black ants that move in columns like soldiers. Deek is looking through a stack of magazines on an end table, whistling through his teeth and laughing: "Oh, man. Sweet Jesus." The guys crowd around Deek looking at the magazine while I'm ignoring them, removing the groceries from the bags, wiping down the sticky Formica-topped table and counters with wetted paper towels, trying to get rid of the ants. Damn nasty ants! And the smell in here. The way the guys are carrying on over the magazines, crude things they are saying, I'm edgy, embarrassed. Deek sees me, the hot flush in my cheeks, laughs and says, "C'mere, Anns'lee. Look here."

But Jax says quick and sharp, "This ain't for her, Deek. Fuck off."

Deek is laughing at me, saying not to be looking so mean, but I'm turned away sullen and uneasy, not smiling back at him, saying maybe I don't want to play poker after all, my mother is probably wondering where I am, I can walk back to our cottage, I won't need a ride. Deek says, "Okay, li'l babe," dumping the magazines into a trash can and one of the guys has opened a Coors for me, icy-cold from Otto's Beer & Bait. They are trying to be nice now so I'm thinking maybe I will stay for a while, learn to play poker, it's nowhere near dark. Nothing waiting for me at the cottage except helping Momma and my aunt prepare supper and if it's raining just TV till we go to bed. Here I'm entrusted with setting out food for these big hulking hungry guys, there's a feeling like an indoor picnic, finding paper plates in the cupboard, a plastic bowl to empty chips into, unwrapping the mashed-looking ham sandwiches. The storm hasn't started yet, maybe there won't even be a storm, the thunder is still far away in the mountains. I'm thinking that Deek really likes me, the way he looks at me, smiles. It's a special smile like a wink, for me. Pushing me through the window He touched me! He touched me there—did he?

I won't need many beers to become giddy-drunk.

That buzzing sensation in the head when your thoughts come rushing past like crazed bats you can't be sure even you've seen, blink and they're gone.

Deek says: Name of the game is five-card draw.

Deek says: Poker isn't hard, is it? Not for a smart girl like you.

Hard to tell if Deek is teasing or serious. These first few games, I seem to be doing well. Deek's chair is close beside mine so that he can oversee my cards as well as his own. Like we're a "team," Deek says. Telling me the values of the cards which isn't so different from gin rummy, euchre, and Truth (which is the card game my friends and I play). "Royal flush"—"straight flush"—"flush"—"five-of-a-kind hand" (when the joker is wild) and it is all logical to me, common sense I'm thinking, except maybe I'm not remembering, Deek talks so fast and there's so much happening each time cards are dealt. In the third game, Deek nudges me to "raise" with three eights, two kings, Deek whispers in my ear this is a "full house"—I think that's what he said, "full house"—and the cards are strong enough to win the pot: fifteen dollars! This is amazing to me, I'm laughing like a little kid being tickled and the guys are saying how fast I am catching on. Heins says, "Li'l dude is gonna pull in all our money, wait and see."

Deek has been the one to "stake" me, these early games. Five one-dollar bills Deek has given me.

In his chair close beside mine, Deek is looming over me twice my size breathing his hot beer-breath against the side of my face, hairs on his tattoo-arm making the hairs on my arm stir when his arm brushes near. Like we are young kids whispering and conspiring together. I am thinking that poker isn't so hard except you have to keep on betting and if you don't stay in the game you have to "fold" and if you "fold" you can't win no matter the cards in your hand and so you have to think really hard, try to figure out the cards the other players have, and if they are serious "raising" the bet, or only just bluffing. Deek says that's the point of poker, bluffing out the other guy, seeing can you bullshit him, or he's going to bullshit you.

Doesn't it matter what your actual cards are, I ask Deek, if they are high or low? Deek says sort of scornfully like this is a damn dumb question he will answer because he likes me, "Sure it matters, but not so much's how you play what you're dealt. What you do with the fuckin' cards you are dealt, that's poker."

Through the beer-buzz in my brain comes these words What you do with what you're dealt. That's poker.

These first few games when good cards come to me, or Deek tells me how to play them, it's like riding in the speedboat across the choppy lake gripping my seat squealing and breathless and the boat thump-thump-thumping through the waves like nothing could stop it ever, such a good feeling, a sensation in my stomach that is almost unbearable, Deek casting his sidelong glance at me, stroking his whiskery jaws saying, "Okay Anns'lee-honey: you are on your own now." A flashing card-shuffle in Heins's fingers and the cards flicked out and I'm fumbling my cards blinking and trying to figure out what they mean, the guys keep opening cans of Coors for me, could be I am drunk and not knowing it, biting my lower lip and laughing, goddamn I am clumsy dropping a card (an ace!) that Croke can see, and the guys are waiting for me, seems like I've lost the thread of what is going on so Deek nudges me saying, "You have to bet, Anns'lee, or fold." I'm frowning and moving my lips like a first grader trying to read, what's it mean—ace of hearts and ace of spades and four of diamonds and four of clubs and a nine of clubs, should I get rid of the nine, I guess I should get rid of the nine, my thoughts seem to be coming in slow motion now as I toss down the four of clubs, no! take it back it's the nine of clubs I don't want, Heins deals a replacement card to me and I fumble turning it over, my face falls it's a nine of spades, I'm disappointed, should I be disappointed? The guys are trying to be patient with me. I am itchy and sweaty inside the Cougars T-shirt, and my swimsuit beneath, halter-top with straps that tie around the neck and puckered-fabric bottom, still damp from the lake, and my ponytail straggling down my back still damp too, Momma says we should shower and shampoo our hair after swimming in that lake water there's "impurities" in it—sewage draining from some of the cottages—diesel fuel leaked into the lake from motorboats—some people, Uncle Tyrone says, no better than pigs. Must be, the guys are waiting for me to make a decision (but what decision should I be making? I've forgotten), Deek leans over to take hold of the nape of my neck gripping me the way you'd grip a dog to shake it a little, reprimand it, "C'mon babe, you in or out?" and I try to ease away from him, I think it's meant as a joke, and not some kind of threat, and Heins says, "She's just a kid, Deek. Why'd you want to play with a kid?" and Deek turns on him, "Fuck you, Heinie! Anns'lee and me, we're a team."

This is warming to me, to hear. Team we are a team. So I say, "I'm in," toss another bill onto the pile. Croke mulls over his cards, decides to fold, Jax folds, Heins raises like he means to provoke Deek. By now my bladder is pinching so hard, I have to pee again, itchy and nervous, uncertain what to do, guess I will "fold" now, should I "fold"?—a single dollar-bill left of all my winnings. The winning hand is Heins's though maybe in fact Heins's cards are weaker than my "two pair," but damn it's too late, I'm out. I folded, and I lost. Could cry, my winnings are gone so fast, it's like the dollar-bills Deek staked me were my own, now gone. A childish hurt opens in me like an old, soft wound.

"Too bad, li'l dude. This is poker."

The guys laugh at me, I'm wanting to think fondly. The way you'd laugh at a pouting child who doesn't have a clue what is going on around her.

Outside, the sky is mostly clouds. But a hot steamy sun shining through. This smell in the air, it's like there is a lightning-storm somewhere else.

Heins is dealing. Heins says, "Cut, babe." Somehow, I'm betting my last dollar-bill. Something tells me I am going to win this time—win all my money back!—but the cards are confusing to me, can't remember what Deek was telling me, "straight"—"flush"—"full house"—"two pair"—I'm staring at my cards, king of hearts, ten of hearts, eight of hearts, five of diamonds, and two of diamonds, get rid of the two of diamonds that's a low card—should I?—or is this a mistake?—the replacement card Heins deals me is a six of spades, I'm disappointed, Ohhh damn, in my confusion thinking that the black spade brings down the value of the red cards, that's how it looks to me, so my last dollar-bill is taken from me when I'm too scared to bet and say instead "fold"—laying down my cards, and Jax peers at them, saying, "Shit, babe, you coulda done better." Anyway I am relieved to be out of the game needing to use the bathroom bad, swaying on my feet (bare feet? where are my sandals?), the floor is sticky against the bottoms of my feet, feels like it's tilting, I'm losing my balance falling into somebody's lap but manage to get to the bathroom and shut the door behind me feeling so strange like on a roller coaster where I'd be frightened except everything seems funny to me, even losing my dollar-bills, my dollar-bills you'd think I had brought with me to the poker game, only just makes me laugh. In the murky mirror above the cruddy sink, there's my face dazed and sunburnt and my eyes (that Momma says are my father's eyes, hazel-dark-brown, beautiful eyes but you can't trust them) are threaded with blood, that's a little scary but still I can't stop laughing. These guys like me, the way Deek looks at me, pulls my ponytail, slaps at my rear, maybe I am a pretty girl after all. Giggling leaning to the mirror, pursing my lips so they get wrinkly kissing my mirror-lips whispering Anns'lee-honey! Li'l dude! nobody has ever called me before.

"I will tell Gracie. Nobody else."

Thinking how I loved it when Daddy tickled me, when I was a little girl. Daddy spreading his big fingers and "walking"—pretending they were "daddy longlegs"—come to tickle me, making me kick and squeal with laughter. I was seven, in second grade, when Daddy went away up to Follette, and the woman from Herkimer County Family Services asked did your father ever hurt you, Annislee?—and I said No! He did not. Daddy did not. You would think that when you answered such a question that would be the end of it but repeatedly the question would be asked as if to trick you. Asking did your daddy hurt you or your brother or your mother, try to remember, Annislee, and I was angry saying in a sharp voice like a fingernail scraped on a blackboard No Daddy did not.

"Hey, Anns'lee: din't fall in, did you?"

One of the guys rapping on the door, making the latchkey rattle.

At the table the guys are devouring ham sandwiches in two-three bites. Big fistfuls of chips. Cans of Black Horse Ale opened and the ale-smell is sharp and acrid. Heins is shuffling cards, pushes them across the table for me to cut. Am I still in this game? With no dollar-bill to toss into the pot? They're asking where am I staying at the lake and I tell them. Where do I live and I tell them: Strykersville, which is about twelve miles to the south. Is your family with you at Wolf's Head, Deek asks me, and I tell him yes: except for my father who isn't there. Deek asks where is my father, and I hesitate, not wanting to tell him that I am not sure. Last I knew, Daddy was living in Sparta, but he's one to move around some. Not liking to be tied down, Momma says.

Croke asks do I have any brothers?—his greeny-gray eyes on me in a way that's kindly, I think. I say yes, Jacky who's nine years old and a damn pain in the neck.

(Why'd I say this? To make the guys laugh? You'd think that I don't love my little brother, but truly I do.)

Seems like the guys want me back in their game, Deek is allowing me to put up my Cougars T-shirt "for collateral." Since washing my face, I'm feeling more clearheaded—I think!—wanting to win back the dollar-bills I've lost. Maybe this is how gamblers get started, you are desperate to win back what you've lost, for there is a kind of shame in losing.

But the cards don't come now. Or anyway, I can't make sense of them. Like adding up a column of numbers in math class, you lose your way and have to begin again. Like multiplying numbers, you can do it without thinking, but if you stop to think, you can't. Staring at these new cards, nine of hearts, nine of clubs, king of spades, queen of spades, four of diamonds. I get rid of the four of diamonds and I'm excited, my replacement card is a jack of spades, but my eyes are playing tricks on me, what looks like spades is actually clubs, after raising my bet I see that it's clubs and I've made a mistake staring and blinking at the cards in my hands that are kind of shaky like I have never seen a poker hand before. Around the table the guys are playing like before, loud, funny-rude, maybe there's some tension among them, I can't figure because I am too distracted by the cards and how I am losing now, nothing I do is right now, but why? When Croke wins the hand, Deek mutters, "Shi-it, you goddamn fuckin' asshole," but smiling like this is a joke, a kindly intended remark like between brothers. I'm trying to make sense of the hand: why'd Croke win? why's this a "winning" hand? what's a "full house"? wondering if the guys are cheating on me, how'd I know? The guys are laughing at me, saying, "Hey, babe, be a good sport, this is poker."

Croke says, "My T-shirt, now!" Pulls the Cougars T-shirt off over my head, impatient with how slow I am trying to pull it off, there's a panicked moment when I feel the guys' eyes swerve onto me, my halter top, my small breasts the size of plums, anxious now like undressing in front of strangers, but I am trying to laugh it's okay—isn't it?—just a game. "This is poker," Deek says. This is Wolf's Head Lake in August, the kinds of wild things you hear about back at school, wish you'd been part of. And now I am.

In just my swimsuit now, and barefoot. Feeling kind of shivery, dizzy. Picked out the swimsuit myself at Sears, so can't blame Momma. It's like a kid's sunsuit, too young for me: bright yellow puckered material, a halter top that ties around my neck and a matching bottom and both of them kind of tight and itchy and damp-smelling from the lake. Croke is clowning with the T-shirt wrapped around his head like a turban, saying that li'l babe owes him one more thing: "This is strip poker, honey. You raised that bet, din't you? There's two damn bets here. My T-shirt, and now something else."

Croke is teasing, isn't he? All the guys are teasing? The way they are looking at me, at my halter top, I'm starting to giggle, can't stop giggling, like being examined by the doctor, icy-cold stethoscope against my chest, and I'm half-naked trembling on the edge of an examination table, so scared my teeth start chattering and the doctor gives up disgusted, calls for Momma to come in. Jax is saying, "She's drunk, we better sober her up and get her out of here."

Right away I mumble I am not drunk! which makes the guys laugh.

Deek says, leaning over me, brushing my arm with his to make the hairs stir, "Thass a cute li'l swimsuit, Anns'lee. You're a hot li'l babe, eh?"

Jax says, disgusted, "She's just a kid. Ain't even in high school, I bet."

Deek says, "Shit she ain't. How old're you, Anns'lee?"

Eighteen, I tell him. Can't stop laughing, wanting to hide my face in my hands. Thirty-eight! (Thirty-eight is Momma's age, so old.)

Jax says, "I told you: she's wasted. No way she's more'n fifteen."

Deek says, "Fifteen is hot. This is a hot li'l babe."

Heins says, "Want the cops to bust us? Asshole."

Deek says, "How's that gonna happen? This li'l honey is my girl."

My girl is such a warm thing to say. My girl my girl nobody has ever said to me except my daddy till now.

"Strip, li'l dude! C'mon."

"Got to be a good sport, Anns'lee. That's poker."

Deek is teasing me but he's serious, too. And Croke.

"I'll strip. Lookitme."

Deek yanks off his T-shirt that's grimy at the neck, suddenly he's bare-chested, coarse black hairs like a pelt over his chest that is hard-muscled but at the waistband of his swim trunks his flesh is bunchy and flabby. "Shi-it," Croke says, loud like a cross between yawning and yodeling, with a flourish yanking off his T-shirt baring his heavy, beefy, pimple-pocked chest like a TV wrestler, Croke's chest is covered with hairs like slick seaweed, and oily with sweat. There's a strong smell of underarms. Jax and Heins make crude comments. I'm saying that I don't want to play poker anymore, I guess, I want to go home now, need to get home where my mother is waiting for me, and Croke says, bringing his fist down hard on the table like he's drunk, "Not a chance, babe. Ain't goin' anywhere till you pay up."

Deek says, "When you won the pot, we paid up, din't we? Now you got to pay, Anns'lee. That's poker."

In just my swimsuit, what can I do. Can't take off the halter-top, but for sure can't take off the bottom.

My sandals! Maybe the guys would let me substitute my sandals.

Except: I don't see my sandals on the messy floor.

Maybe I lost them in the other room? climbing through the window?

The guys are pounding the table: "Strip! Anns'lee's got to strip! Top or bottom, you owe us. That's poker."

Deek is practically on top of me. Not just his underarms smell, but his oily-spiky hair that's cut mini-hawk style. Big yellow crooked teeth, breath in my face like fumes. Deek is saying, like you'd talk to a young child, or some animal like a dog that needs to be cajoled, "Take off your top, li'l dude, thass all, thass a damn cute li'l top, show us your cute li'l boobies, you ain't got nothin' we ain't seen already, wanta bet?" All this while I'm hunched over trying to shield my front with my arms, but my arms are so thin, and Deek is pressing so close, slides his arm around my shoulders and I'm on my feet, panicked, trying to run to the door. But Croke grabs me like it's a game we are playing, or him and Deek are playing, like football, Anns'lee is the football, captured. Croke's big fingers tear at the halter straps, Croke manages to untie the straps and pulls off the halter, Ohhhh lookit!—the guys are whistling and stamping their feet teasing, taunting like dogs circling a wounded rabbit, and I'm panicked like a rabbit, trying to laugh, to show this is just a joke, I know it's a joke, but I'm desperate to get away from them, stumbling to the bathroom, the only place I can get to, shutting the door behind me, fumbling to latch the door, had a glimpse before I shut it of Croke (I'd thought was my friend) with the halter-top on his head, tying the straps beneath his chin like a bonnet.

Somewhere not too far away Momma is looking at the clock fretting and fuming where is that girl?—where the hell has Annislee got to this time?

They wouldn't hurt me—would they?

They like me—don't they?

How long I am crouched in the bathroom in terror of the guys breaking in, how long I am shivering and trembling like a trapped rabbit, I won't know afterward and even at the time what is happening is rushing past like a drunken scene glimpsed from a speeding car or boat on the lake. My right breast is throbbing with pain, must've been that Croke squeezed it, an ugly yellowish-purple bruise is taking shape.

Croke, I'd thought liked me. Helping me out of the boat.

Back in grade school already we'd begun to hear stories of what guys can do to girls if they want to hurt them, though we had not understood why. And sometimes the girls are beaten, strangled, left for dead, it isn't known why.

"Hey: Annis'lee."

There's a rap on the plywood door. I'm not going to open it.

One of the guys rattling the door so hard, it slips open. It's Jax leaning in, seeing me crouched against the wall so frightened my teeth are chattering, says, like he's embarrassed, "Here's the swim top, nobody's gonna hurt you."

I'm too scared to reach up and take the halter-top from him. Jax shoves it at me, muttering, "Put the damn thing on."

Jax shuts the door. With trembling fingers I refasten the top.

Avoiding my reflection in the mirror. That greasy smudge where I'd kissed my own lips.

When I emerge from the bathroom, stiff and numbed, my eyes blinking back tears, the guys are still at the table, still drinking. Seems like they're between poker games. Or maybe they're through with poker for the night. Their eyes swerve onto me in that way that reminds me of excited dogs. Deek says, "Li'l dude! There you are. C'mon back sit on Deek's lap, eh? You're my girl."

A glint like gasoline in Deek's bloodshot eyes and a way his big teeth are bared in a grin without warmth or mirth warns me that I am still in danger. Through the plywood door I'd heard Deek mutter what sounded like ain't done with her yet, so don't fuck with me.

Outside, all I can see of the early-evening sky is massive bruise-colored clouds. Still there is heat lightning 'way in the distance.

"Here y'are, Anns'lee. Shouldna been so scared."

Croke tosses the Cougars T-shirt at me. I'm so grateful for the shirt, smelly from where Croke had wiped his sweaty face with it, I'm stammering, "Thank you!"

There is a break in what the guys are doing, I can feel it. Or maybe they've been waiting for Anns'lee to emerge from the bathroom uncertain what they would do with me, or if they would do anything with me: like turning a card, possibly. It just might be the card that makes you win big or it might be the card that assures you will lose. It might be a card that will mean nothing in your life. Or everything. It might even be a card you won't need to request, the card will come flying at you.

Now I'm wearing my Cougars T-shirt over my swimsuit top again, I am not feeling so exposed. It's a baggy shirt, coming down practically to my thighs.

I will pretend I haven't heard Deek. How he's staring at me with a loose wet smile running the tip of his tongue around his lips.

Things a guy can do. You don't want to know.

My heart is beating hard hidden inside the T-shirt, my voice is calm-sounding, telling the guys: "There's other kinds of stripping, not just taking off clothes. There's this card game we play called Truth—you ever heard of Truth?"

"Truth? Some kids' game? No."

I'm a little distance from the nearest of them, who happens to be Heins. The way I'm standing is to let them know that I am not going to make a run for the front door as I tried to do earlier, I am not panicked now, or desperate. I am smiling at them, the way a girl might. I am trying to smile. The heat pumping off these guys is a sex-heat so palpable you can feel it yards away. like the charged air before a storm. I don't want to think it's the dogs' instinct to lunge, tear with their teeth, they can't help it.

I tell the guys maybe we can play Truth: "It's a little like poker, except you don't bet money, instead of paying a bet you pay in 'truth.' There's high cards and low cards and a joker that's wild. If you lose, you reveal a truth about yourself that nobody else knows."

Nobody seems very interested in learning this game, I can see. Deek says disdainfully, "How'd you know what a person said was true? Any old bullshit, how'd you know?"

"You would want to tell the truth—wouldn't you? If it was the right time."

Croke says, "You tell us, li'l dude. Make up for how you been acting, like you're scared of us."

Quickly I say, "I'm not scared of you! I love being here, coming across the lake on Deek's boat.... There's nobody I know has a boat like Deek's."

At this, Deek smiles. Then the smile freezes.

"You bullshittin' me, babe? Wantin' a ride back acrost the lake, that's it?"

No! I'm smiling at Deek keeping my distance from him. Between us there is Heins, slouched at the table, idly shuffling the pack of cards. I tell Deek I wouldn't lie ever, not to him and his friends. I would tell only the truth, that is "stripping" the soul.

Jax shoves a chair out for me, beside him at the table. So I sit down. There's a little distance between Deek and me. One of the guys has opened an ale for me, I will pretend to sip.

I'm not drunk now—am I?

Drawing a deep breath. This truth I have to reveal.

"...two years ago this August, my father was driving back with me from his cousin's place down in Cattaraugus, this town called Salamanca on the Allegheny River. It was just him and me, not my mother or my brother Jacky. Driving back to Strykersville from Salamanca and Daddy wants to stop at a tavern in this place outside Java. Daddy was living away from us then, like he does now, and this was my weekend to be with him. At the tavern that was on a lake where people had rowboats and canoes, Daddy bought me some root beer and french fries and I was sitting at a picnic table while Daddy was inside at the bar. There were kids in the park, people were grilling hamburgers and steaks, some girls playing badminton asked me if I'd like to play with them, so I did, but after a while they went away and I was by myself and thought that I would walk around the lake. It wasn't a big lake like Wolf's Head, and I thought that if I walked fast, I would get back before Daddy came out of the tavern. But the path around the lake wasn't always right beside the lake and was sort of overgrown so I wasn't sure if I should keep going or turn back. I was worried that Daddy would come out of the tavern before I got back and see I wasn't there and be anxious. These years he'd been away, at Follette, he'd got so he worried about things more, like his family, he said, he'd had a lot of time to think—"

Deek interrupts: "Follette? That's where your father was?"

"Yes."

Not like I am ashamed, just this is a fact: Daddy served four years of a nine-year sentence for "aggravated assault" and was released on parole for "good behavior" when I was eleven years old. Follette is the men's maximum-security prison up north at the Canadian border, the facility in the New York State prison system where nobody wants to go.

The guys' eyes are on me now. The guys are listening and I continue with the story, which is a true story I have never told any living soul before this evening.

"...so I'm hoping that I am not lost, I'm on a kind of wood-chip trail and there's a parking lot nearby and a restroom, I'm thinking that I can use the women's room, except out of the little building there comes this man zipping up his trousers and he's seeing me, he's in these rumpled old clothes and his face is boiled-looking and hair sticking up around his head, older than my daddy, I think, and he's coming right at me, saying, 'H'lo honey, are you alone 'way out here?' and I tell him no, my daddy is right close by, so he looks at the parking lot but there's no cars there, but he says, 'Well! Too bad, this time'—I think that's what he said, he might've been talking to himself.

"I wasn't listening and walked away fast. And I waited for him to go away and I thought he did and I went inside the women's room that was hard to see in, there wasn't any light and the sun was about setting, and I'm inside one of the toilet stalls, and there's a scratching noise, and this guy—it must be this guy—has followed me into the women's room! where a man is not ever supposed to be! He's poking a tree branch beneath the stall door, to scare me, saying, 'Li'l girl, d'you need help? Need help in there? Wiping your li'l bottom? I can wipe, and I can lick. I'm real good at that.' I'm so scared, I am crying. I tell the man go away please go away and leave me alone, my daddy is waiting for me, and he's laughing telling me the kinds of things he was going to do to me, things he'd done to girls that the girls had 'liked real well' and nobody would know not even my daddy. But there was a car pulling up outside, and a woman comes into the restroom with a little girl, so the man runs out and when I come outside he's gone, or anyway I think he's gone. The woman says to me, 'Was that man bothering you? D'you want a ride with me?' and I said no, I was going back to my daddy's car and would wait for him there. Why I told the woman this, I don't know. I thought that the man was gone. I headed back to the tavern the way I'd been coming, now the sun is setting, it's getting dark. I'm walking fast, and I'm running, and there's the man with the boiled-looking face, almost I don't see him squatting by the path, he's got a rope in his hands, a rope maybe two feet long stretched between his hands he's holding up for me to see, so I'm panicked and run the other way, back to the parking lot, and the man calls after me, 'Li'l girl! Don't be afraid, li'l girl, your daddy sent me for you!' Things like that he was saying. I found a place to hide by some picnic tables, and for a long time, maybe twenty minutes, the man is looking for me calling, 'Li'l girl,' he knows that I am there somewhere, but it's getting dark, and then there's headlights, a car is bumping up a lane into the parking lot, and I can't believe it, it's my daddy. Just taking a chance he'd find me, Daddy would say afterward, that I'd be on this side of the lake, he'd asked people if they had seen me and somebody had and he'd come to the right place, at just the right time. He caught sight of the man with the boiled face. I told Daddy how he'd been following me, and saying things to me, wanting to tie me up with a rope, and Daddy runs after him and catches him. The man is limping and can't hardly run at all, and Daddy starts hitting him with his fists, not even saying anything but real quiet—Daddy does things real quiet—it's the man who is crying out, begging for Daddy to stop but Daddy can't stop, Daddy won't stop until it's over.... Daddy says, when a man uses his fists it's 'self-defense.' Fists or feet, nobody can dispute 'self-defense.' Use a 'deadly weapon'—like a tire iron—like Daddy used fighting another man in Strykersville, that got him arrested and sent to Follette—and you're in serious trouble, but just your fists and your feet, no. What Daddy did to that man who'd wanted to tie me up and hurt me, I didn't see. I did not see. I heard it, or some of it But I did not see. And afterward Daddy dragged him to a ravine, where there'd be water at some times of the year but was dry now, and pushed him over, and I did not see that, either. And Daddy comes back to me excited and breathing hard and his knuckles are skinned and bleeding but Daddy doesn't hardly notice. He grabs me, and hugs me, and kisses me, Daddy is so happy that I am safe. 'You never saw a thing, honey. Did you?' And I told Daddy no, I did not, and that was the truth."

Listening to my story, the guys have gotten quiet. Even Deek is sitting very still listening to me. The look in his face, like he's waiting to laugh at me, bare his glistening teeth at me in a mock-grin, is gone. Fresh-opened cans of Black Horse Ale on the table, the guys have not been drinking. Must be, they are waiting for me to continue. But my story is over.

Hadn't known how it would end. Because I had not told it before. Even to myself, though it is a true story, I wouldn't have known that I had the words for it. But you always have words for a true story, I think.

I am not going to tell Deek, Jax, Croke, Heins how there was never any article in any newspaper that I saw about the man with the boiled-looking face if he'd been found in Java State Park in that ravine. What was left of that man, if anything was left. Or maybe he'd gotten all right again, next morning crawled out of the ravine and limped away. That is a possibility. I didn't see, and Daddy never spoke of it afterward. Daddy drove us back to Strykersville that night. It was past midnight when we got home, and Momma was waiting up watching TV and if she'd meant to be angry with Daddy for keeping me out so late, by the time we got to the house she was feeling different, and kissed us both, saw that I was looking feverish and said Annislee, go to bed right now, it's hours past your bedtime. That night, Daddy stayed with Momma.

Off and on then Daddy stayed with us. Then that fall something happened between him and Momma, so Daddy moved out, that's when he began working at the stone quarry at Sparta. But Sparta is only about fifty miles from Strykersville and Daddy and Momma are still married, I think. Till death do us part Daddy believes in and in her heart Momma does, too.

I'm smiling at these guys crowded at the battered old table in Deek's uncle's cottage, so close I can see their eyes, and the irises of their eyes, and as far into their souls as I need to see. Saying, "I feel lucky, I'd like to try poker again, a few hands. I think I'm catching on now."