House of Cards
It took him awhile to open the door. When he finally did, I noticed he only had one leg. He wore green moth-eaten sweat pants pinned at the knee where his leg was missing and a t-shirt sporting a faded superman symbol on the front. His body leaned toward the left side of his body which was the side that lacked the leg; all of his weight leaned onto one crutch.
“Big tip or small tip?” He asked me as a large bead of sweat formed in the trench between his bushy eyebrows. I watched the bodily fluid move downward on his blemished slope of a nose toward the snowy ground, suddenly finding myself drawn inside of its disgusting dampness. I wondered how he could be sweaty on a December day in Vermont.
“Uh…” I reached up to stroke my pony tail. I paused, glancing over my shoulder to the sunset behind me. This apartment was only a few blocks from Lake Champlain so with ease I watched the sun playing with shades of red on the water’s frozen pallet-like surface before it dipped beyond distant New York and the Adirondack mountains. The scenery was lovely in drastic contrast to the obvious squalor of the cluttered piles on his front porch. There were old tins stacked as if at attention, a bike with one tire, plastic buckets filled with old magazines and a fishing pole with a worm frozen to the rusty dangling hook.
He repeated himself, apparently annoyed that I hadn’t answered, this time louder, “DO YOU WANT THE BIG TIP OR SMALL TIP?”
Although a graduate of the local university, I had not found a “real job” yet. My student loans had to be paid and I owed more than I made every month. The answer was obvious. “Big tip. Of course.”
“Well, come in then.” He hobbled back away from the entrance and extended a hand.
I was about to break the first rule of pizza delivery, but he offered to pay me a big tip, and it was cold outside. He was sweating, so I assumed it would be warm inside. Indeed it was. It looked like a one-bedroom apartment. There was a modestly lit fireplace, green shaggy carpet, tan couch and a studio kitchen with dishes piled high and teetering. A large butcher knife was crooked and balanced on the edge of a piece of orange Tupperware on the counter’s edge. I searched for a spot to set down his pizza box, but the kitchen table was not an option because a “house of cards” took up the entire table space. As soon as I the fragile tower, I moved slower.
“You can put the pizza down on the coffee table there.” He gestured toward the small living room space.
I found a level spot on top of a Rolling Stone magazine next to a fake furry flower in an equally furry flower pot. The red and yellow blossom started to dance and sing as soon as I set the box down, “I can see clearly now the rain is gone.” If I wasn’t so uncomfortable, I would have joined the little battery-powered dancer. I was glad to set the box down because the heat was bothering me through the cardboard.
The one-legged man hobbled his way to the kitchen, stood near the metal grooved edge of the table and added a card to the “house of cards” with ease. I moved closer.
“For the big tip. First you have to answer a few questions and then you have to hear a story. Then you have to add a card to my “house of cards” before you go. That’s the deal. Then you get your tip.”
I was trapped in his apartment. Why had I come inside? “Okay.” I heard myself say. “What’s the first question?”
“Do you want to know why I have one leg?”
“Well, I hadn’t thought about it, really. Well, sure. I guess so. Did you want to tell me?”
“Yep.”
“Uh- okay.”
“Well, it was a number of years ago. I used to drink. A lot. I drank all sorts of alcohol most of the time, but rum was my favorite drink. I practically gargled with rum every day. I also used to have a motorcycle and I used to drive it drunk. I was drunk almost all of the time. But here’s the funny part. You probably think I lost my leg because I drove around drunk on my motorcycle. Nope. I was actually just walking along College Street one day, and a random passer-by behind the wheel of her car and hit me. She claimed she was avoiding a woman who had darted in front of her in the street. She reacted and hit me as a result. I was stone cold sober when it happened. I barely lived. But somehow, with modern medicine, they put me back together. Sort of.”
He stopped and picked up a card and added it to his tower. I watched as the card balanced on its side, amazed. He said nothing else as he added another two cards to it.
I didn’t know how to respond. “Wow.” I said.
“So of course, I sued the woman. I got an eager lawyer who worked day and night to get me tons of money. The woman pleaded temporary insanity, but I got tons of money and enjoyed it for a time. But money didn’t give me back what I lost. Then my wife left me because I was a pissed off drunk with one leg. She took me to court and got everything, and here I am.” He stopped and slid what remained of the deck of cards to the table’s edge. He picked them up and slid them over each other in the stack, shuffling them smoothly in his sausage hands. “I don’t drink anymore. I got sober a few years ago and after losing practically everything in my life, I realized what really matters.”
I needed to hear the rest. “What?” I asked eagerly.
“Loss.” A smile cracked his weathered face. “Loss brings us to face ourselves and learn that nothing is important. The more I lost, the more I gained.”
“Really?” That was it. He had wrapped his one-legged philosophy up for me in a little bow, stuffed it into green sweat pants and pinned it all together with a safety pin.
“Well… I find it to be true. I don’t know about you, yet.” He fanned the cards out for me. Every card’s back looked the same and gave no hint as to what was on the other side. I felt pressured to pick the right card. “Take one.” He smiled. His teeth were yellow in the dim lighting of the apartment.
My fingers wiggled along the sea of red and white swirled designs. I finally settled on a card and pulled it. As I turned it over, I was not surprised to see the Queen of Hearts.
“Ah. The perfect card for a woman your age. That is what it’s about for you, isn’t it? Love… the best game to play at your age in your prime of life.” His tongue escaped his mouth and ran along the edge of his chapped lips. “Now, add her to my “house of cards while I tell you more about my story.”
“What?” I laughed. “I can’t do that. I’ll knock it down!”
“Try.” He hobbled his body closer to the kitchen sink leaning his back against the counter’s edge.
“Can I practice? Can I have some other cards and practice first?”
“Nope.”
I stared at the Queen of Hearts. She smiled at me. No matter how I moved the card, her eyes remained locked with mine. There were actually two Queens on the same card because she was attached to herself at the waist and was an exact reflection of herself. I couldn’t look away from her smug smirk. I looked at his card tower and took a deep breath. Approaching the table, I turned the Queen’s face away from mine so I could concentrate. Suddenly, a train lumbered along the train tracks directly behind the apartment. Everything in the tiny apartment shook. Remarkably, the “house of cards” stood strong. It felt like an eternity before the noise of the cars along the tracks finally stopped.
“What’s your name?” He asked me.
I looked up. He comfortably held the butcher knife from the edge of the sink in his hand. It took me a moment to realize what I had done to myself. Why had I come into the apartment? I was going to die in the dead of winter in a messy apartment that I never should have entered in the first place. Great.
“Christy.”
“Beautiful name. Are you from Vermont, Christy?”
“Uh. Yep.”
“Then you must have heard the Legend of Emily’s Bridge… yes?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” He still held the knife. He held it like a person would hold a large emery board. I decided my best approach to the situation was to act as if he was not holding a knife, but I felt my knees jiggling nervously and I struggled to breathe.
“Well, Emily was a woman who apparently people believed died on her wedding day. -- She darts in front of cars. The woman who hit me claims that she saw Emily dart in front of her in the street and she didn’t want to hit her so she hit me instead. I’m not so sure what to think. I just know that I no longer have my left leg. That’s my story.”
“Uh- wow. That sucks. Pretty weird and random.” What else was there to say? He pointed to the Queen in my hand. I forgot I held her close to me. I glanced up at the one-legged man and slowly added the Queen of Hearts to his “house of cards” just like I watched him do with his cards. She perched sweetly above the three of diamonds and the King of Spades and actually stayed as I backed away. I felt proud of myself. I exhaled and the entire tower tumbled to the faux-marble surface of the table.
He laughed an explosive laugh.
“I am so sorry.” I was petrified of what would happen next.
The one-legged man used his chin to hold the butcher knife against his collar bone as he reached into the side pocket of his sweat pants. He pulled a worn leather wallet from its depths and slid out a twenty dollar bill. Grinning, he handed it to me. “Tip.” He said, nodding.
“What?” I took the money in disbelief. “That’s the big tip. I knocked down your “house of cards”. I thought I would get the small tip.”
He still grinned, proudly. “Twenty dollars is the small tip.” He tossed the butcher knife back into the crowded sink. It stabbed its way to the bottom of the messy dishes.
Perplexed, I asked him, “What would the big tip have been?”
“Well, I would have given you the best gift of all. I told you earlier! Weren’t you listening? Through loss, we gain so much.” His eyes met mine for a moment. They reminded me of the gray of a Vermont sky over a mountain range working hard to build a snowstorm. “I would have asked you which one of your toes I could chop off with my butcher knife. The only way to learn about what is important is to lose something, right? I told you that.”
I had the twenty dollars. The knife was back in the sink. I had to go. He was crazy. “Okay. Well, thanks.”
“No.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“Uh- sure. Enjoy your pizza.”
“I will.” He hobbled his way to the couch and settled himself on the groove on the striped blue and white upholstery. “You can leave the door open a crack. It’s really hot in here, isn’t it?”
I said nothing else. With terror at my back moving me quickly, I jumped from his porch. The front sidewalk was slick. While I was inside, a snow dusting had decided to present itself to the city and powdered-sugar coat every surface. I started my car and turned on the wipers to clear the windshield. I was sure they would be wondering where I was back at the pizza place. This delivery had taken way too long. Rapidly, I bumped over the train tracks to turn up the one-way alley behind the one-legged man’s apartment. I took College Street back toward the University. Students bustled on every sidewalk, i-pods in ears and books in arms or on backs inside backpacks. They were in the middle of their final exams before Christmas break. I felt a twinge of envy to have that same pseudo-pressure of college again.
Suddenly a woman dressed in a white gown stepped in front of my car. I had to swerve to avoid her.
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