A Sunday series from RVA Magazine featuring writers from Richmond and Virginia
Writer’s Block is RVA Magazine’s Sunday series highlighting contemporary writers working in Richmond and across the Commonwealth. Each week, we feature original poems, short stories, or essays. Just real voices writing right now.
This week’s piece comes from Cameron Ritter, a Newport News-based writer and VCU alum who came up through Richmond’s “Crud City” scene. Once a novelist and band guy, now a full-time dad with a day job, Riter writes poems in the margins, between toddler chaos, cooking, and cleaning. Poker Game is a gritty, low-stakes portrait of Monday nights in the basement of the now-gone Baja Bean, where folding becomes philosophy and waiting feels like fate.
If you’d like to be featured, send your work to hello@rvamag.com with the subject line “Writer’s Block.”
Poker Game
by Cameron Ritter
in a bar on
monday nights,
downstairs
where the roachtraps
wait.
regulars sit around
a greasy table
waiting
to pick up a hand.
“fuck,” she says, “jacks never hit.”
“shyaa,” he says, “but they fun when they do.”
philosophers
of cause-and-effect,
readers
of minds,
wile e. coyote
wirling towards a cliff.
well shit, i think.
this game
is
mostly
folding,
and folding . . .
and more folding . . .
they deal me rags
for
two hours.
meanwhile,
i’m still
in this basement.
wondering thoughts
while
waiting
for
a hand:
if i just double up
i’ll be good,
and then,
if i double up twice
i’ve got a shot
at vegas.
other thoughts while folding:
a brown liquid puddles into a corner;
the owner’s ass is out;
he is a big man
with even
bigger sweatpants.
over seven, they say.
no—seven and a half.
they know exactly how many hotdogs
he will eat tomorrow.
two paychecks
worth of
confidence.
bet on anything . . .
sports,
hotdog eating,
turtle racing.
my cards stick
to the table.
i hope it’s beer.
i peel back two fours;
sailboats, they’re called.
this orbit
they don’t feel so good,
so i flick them
into the muck.
three face cards come out
—almost like i knew.
almost.
the odds are the odds.
handlebar mustache knows it,
yellow teeth knows it,
male pattern baldness knows it,
gay trucker knows it,
office dipshit knows it.
to gamble
is to
wait
for the gods
to pick
you.
and to wait
and wait
and wa
it and
wait
and
wa
it.
somebody has to win.
“ey jim,” he shouts, “shots a jager
all around, would ya?”
“you got it buddy.”
win or lose he does this.
that’s character.
the trucker’s off
to greenville
tomorrow.
greenville, not greensboro,
he tells me.
tonight, he’s here.
he goes all in on a draw
that bricks out,
stands up,
walks to the bar,
slams a beer,
orders a second,
asks for the food
menu.
five dollar
burgers
that no one likes;
no lettuce, no cheese
lots of mustard,
best-seller.
the chinaman sits down.
(it’s not me who coined that.)
in a bucket hat,
bluffing
every other
hand.
when a guy bluffs that much
you call him a “maniac.”
when he hits,
he’s called a winner.
alan’s getting frisky, now:
“always fold four-of-a-kind,”
he says.
“alan . . . that’s insane
to fold the nuts,” i say.
wild-eyed, rancid breath
he tells me:
“it’s advertising.”
it’s a monday.
the turn and river cards
are the most
interesting
thing
that’s
happened
to me.
next monday, too.
unwritten shakespeare
unfolding
before
our eyes.
the woman storms out.
we call her that
because there’s
only her.
shaved-head
veteran
walks in late,
not for
any
particular reason
like a job.
he’s on the dole.
they made him throw a grenade
at somebody,
so,
his dole should be higher,
if you ask me.
by closing
four players
are left.
“i hafta call it, gentlemen,” he says.
“but i’m goin on a heater!” alan says.
the lights go off.
we flip a coin
so that someone
can leave
a winner.
well,
maybe i’ll
get picked
next
time.
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