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Pastor Stewart

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“Nigga, is you gonna play or what?” Sammy asked. His big brown eyes were staring at me from across the table. He had his hands out in front of him, holding on to his cards tightly. I couldn’t tell if the look on his face was fear or confidence. I didn’t know what cards he was holding.

I looked down at my hand, confident. I was holding four 9’s and a 7. I knew his ass wouldn’t be able to beat it, so I decided to play with him a little bit. “You sure you ready?”

“Go, nigga,” he said to me, his deep voice rumbling. The other three players at the table were sitting there looking back and forth between us. Sammy and I had a history of having some pretty nasty arguments with one another, a few that had even turned physical. We were otherwise cool, but something about playing poker brought out the worst in us.

I sometimes wondered what the members of my church would think if they knew the truth about their pastor. Ever since I was younger I’d been a big time gambler, and the more money I made, the more gambling I did. It was something that I’d come to terms with. But lately, I’d been greedier than ever, and it was starting to get me into trouble. That was why I’d been praying so hard to try and find a solution. If I could get control of my addiction for a month alongside my church members, then I knew that I’d be able to control it for real. I’d also need the month to start paying back the money I owed. My wife didn’t know it, but we were behind on a lot of bills, including the mortgage.

“What you got?” I asked. My eyes stared into his.

“I got this,” he said. His fat hands laid his cards out on the table, three kings and two eight’s. Sammy looked up at me and smiled, flashing his yellow teeth that were crooked as hell on the bottom.

“Watch this,” I said. I laid my cards out on the table and watched as Sammy’s face dropped. He couldn’t believe it. Preaching was second nature to me, but playing poker was something that I learned. I first got introduced to it in college. We’d play in the dorms for a couple of quarters. There wasn’t any real money, but that was all it took for me to get hooked. I learned how to become the best player that I could be, and after a while, the small games for quarters weren’t enough.

I ended up finding a game with some older cats. The first couple of times, they kicked my ass and ending up taking all my money. I took every loss as a lesson though and made sure that I learned their strategies and their tells. After a while, I was on par with them, and then I got better.

“You motherfucker!” Sammy said. He banged his hands on the table in frustration. He stood up abruptly and sent his chair flying backwards. The security guard standing by the door was about to make his way over, but I told him to chill.

“Sammy, relax,” I said. “It just ain’t your week.”

“Whatever G,” he said. “Don’t get all high and mighty on me now.”

“Never that,” I said. I stood up and started grabbing my money from the table. I’d just won a little under ten thousand dollars. I was glad for it too; I had plans for that money.

“See you next time,” I said. I stood up and walked out of the backroom and into the front part. Catherine’s wasn’t the type of a place you usually found a man of the cloth. It was far enough away from anyone that I knew that I’d never run the risk of running into them. Catherine’s was the type of place that attracted a certain type of crowd.

I’d been coming to the place for about three years. It was a dingy hole-in-wall bar about an hour away from my home and my church. A long bar with a couple of stools lined one wall. There were old, dusty paintings lining another. They had a couple of tables and booths. I guess they’d sold food at some point. Nowadays, all they sold was liquor, and if the bartender didn’t like you, he’d water down your drink.

As the name implied, the bar was owned by an old woman named Catherine. She was in her late 60’s and had apparently been the wife of a big mobster in Georgia who’d been killed. There was a rumor that she’d been the one that had put the hit out on him, but that was a story for another day.

I never stayed in the bar area. I spoke to the bouncer at the front door and the bouncer in the card room. Outside of them and the people at the table, I just kept my head down. I might have come into that bar often, but I didn’t need to do anything memorable. I liked to keep to myself. If people knew who I actually was, they never said anything. Most people in Catherine’s had secrets of their own, so they mostly just minded their business.

I walked through the dimly lit bar and went straight out the front door. It was a warm, clear night. My car was parked to the right, but I glanced to the left because I heard people talking. There wasn’t much light outside either so I couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like one of my parishioners, Tanya Bell was talking to some guy about something. I wasn’t all the way sure whether or not it was her, but I decided not to stick around. I hopped in my car and started the drive back home.

I’d heard some rumors about the life that Tanya lived, but I tried not to listen to them. If she ever felt the need to confess anything, my door was always open. Besides, who was I to judge?

I was living a double life and it was getting harder and harder to find a balance to both. I couldn’t keep being the man of God by day but sinning behind the backs of the people I knew and loved. I was trying to get myself together. It was ironic how my prayers had been for the church but would end up helping me too. I needed to get home and rest up. Tomorrow the fast would begin.