Hearts in Atlantis(126)

'Fuckin Rip-Rip, out in this crap - I don't believe it,' Ronnie breathed.

Stoke came rapidly down the path which led from the north entrance of Chamberlain to the place where all the asphalt paths joined in the lowest part of Bennett's Run. He was wearing his old duffle coat, and it was clear he hadn't just come from the dorm; the coat was soaked through. Even through the streaming glass we could see the peace sign on his back, as black as the words which were now partly covered by a square of yellow canvas (if it was still up). His wild hair was soaked into submission.

Stoke never looked toward his KILLER PRESIDENT graffiti, just thumped on toward Bennett's Walk. He was going faster than I'd ever seen him move, paying no heed to the driving rain, the rising mist, or the slop under his crutches. Did he want to fall? Was he daring the slushy crap to take him down? I don't know. Maybe he was just too deep in his own thoughts to have any idea of how fast he was moving or how bad the conditions were. Either way, he wasn't going to get far if he didn't cool it.

Ronnie began to giggle, and the sound spread the way a little flame spreads through dry tinder. I didn't want to join in but was helpless to stop. So, I saw, was Skip. Partly because giggling is contagious, but also because it really was funny. I know how unkind that sounds, of course I do, but I've come too far not to tell the truth about that day . . . and this day, almost half a lifetime later. Because it still seems funny to me, I still smile when I think back to how he looked, a frantic clockwork toy in a duffle coat thudding along through the pouring rain, his crutches splashing up water as he went. You knew what was going to happen, you just knew it, and that was the funniest part of all - the question of just how far he could make it before the inevitable wipeout.

Lennie was roaring with one hand clutched to his face, staring out between his splayed fingers, his eyes streaming. Hugh Brennan was holding his not inconsiderable gut and braying like a donkey went down together, but managed to keep their combined balance. We all applauded.

At my table we began a hold hand. Ronnie's weaselly little friend Nick dealt me an incredible thirteen cards, maybe the best pat hand I'd ever gotten. It was a shoot-the-moon opportunity if ever I had one: six high hearts and no really low ones, the king and queen of spades, plus court-cards in the other two suits, as well. I had the seven of hearts, a borderline card, but you can catch people napping in a hold hand; no one expects you to shoot the moon in a situation where you can't improve your original draw.

Lennie Doria played The Douche to start us off. Ronnie immediately played void, ridding himself of the ace of spades. He thought that was great. So did I; my two court spades were now both winners. The queen was thirteen points, but if I got all the hearts, I wouldn't eat those points; Ronnie, Nick, and Lennie would.

I let Nick take the trick. We spilled three more tricks uneventfully - first Nick and then Lennie mined for diamonds - and then I took the ten of hearts mixed into a club trick.

'Hearts have been broken and Riley eats the first one!' Ronnie bugled gleefully. 'You're goin down, country boy!'

'Maybe,' I said. And maybe, I thought, Ronnie Malenfant would soon be smiling on the other side of his face. With a successful shoot, I could put the idiotic Nick Prouty over a hundred and cost Ronnie a game he'd been on his way to winning.

Three tricks later what I was doing became almost obvious. As I'd hoped, Ronnie's smirk became the expression I most enjoyed seeing on his face - the disgruntled pout.

'You can't,' he said. 'I don't believe it. Not in a hold hand. You ain't got the f**kin horses.' Yet he knew it was possible. It was in his voice.

'Well, let's see,' I said, and played the ace of hearts. I was running in the open now, but why not? If the hearts were spread evenly, I could win the game right here. 'Let's just see what we - '

'Look!' Skip called from the table nearest the window. His voice held disbelief and a kind of awe. 'Jesus Christ, it's f**kin Stokely!'

Play stopped. We all swivelled in our chairs to look out the window at the darkening, dripping world below us. The quartet of boys in the corner stood up to see. The old wrought-iron lamps on stuck in a mudhole. Mark St Pierre was howling uncontrollably and saying he was gonna piss himself, he'd drunk too many Cokes and he was gonna spray his f**kin jeans. I was laughing so hard I couldn't hold my cards; the nerves in my right hand went dead, my fingers relaxed, and those last few winning tricks fluttered into my lap. My head was pounding and my sinuses were full.

Stoke made the bottom of the dip, where the Walk started. There he paused and for some reason did a crazed three-sixty spin, seeming to balance on one crutch. The other crutch he held out like a machine-gun, as if in his mind he was spraying the whole campus - Kill Cong! Slaughter proctors! Bayonet those upperclassmen!

'Annnd. . . the Olympic judges give him . . . ALL TENS!' Tony DeLucca called in a perfect sports announcer's voice. It was the final touch; the place turned into bedlam on the spot. Cards flew everywhere. Ashtrays spilled, and one of the glass ones (most were just those little aluminum Table Talk pie-dishes) broke. Someone fell out of his chair and began to roll around, bellowing and kicking his legs. Man, we just couldn't stop laughing.

'That's it!' Mark was howling. 'I just drowned my Jockeys! I couldn't help it!' Behind him Nick Prouty was crawling toward the window on his knees with tears coursing down his burning face and his hands held out, the wordless begging gesture of a man who wants to say make it stop, make it stop before I burst a f**kin blood-vessel in the middle of my brain and die right here.