Free Digger 1.0 by Michael Bunker

the year the immigrant had
come over. This one bragged the number 56. Long before the American
troubles. A badge of honor, Jim guessed.
    He was friendly, tipped well, and even hired
some hookers he met in a bar run by a Vietnamese man named only Mr.
Larry. He spent lots of money on the two tiny girls, trying to show
them that he was just some big, rich, dumb Texan driving around in
a Cadillac with loads of money to lose. He took them to a fancy
dinner and bought them clothes for the three days he spent with
them. The two slight girls were incredulous, chirping in their
sing-song bird language. He knew they were telling each other they
couldn’t believe their unbelievable luck at finding such a stupid
rich Texan and his big sky blue Cadillac. They imagined he had
millions.
    He was under twenty-five thousand. The money
he’d been saving from the oil rigs to pay off the back taxes on his
dad’s old place.
    At the end of their three days he asked,
“You ladies know where I might find a game of cards?”
    They both looked at each other.
    No, they didn’t know.
    But later, one of them suggested that her
cousin Pham knew some boys who liked to play cards, and that she
could ask him because the “big man from Texas so good to her and
her friend”.
    Later he dropped them off at a home in a
tract neighborhood in Garden Grove. All the other houses in the
cul-de-sac were post-war Anglo-American families with the children
long gone or growing up. But in one house, the Vietnamese had moved
in. They’d saved and scrimped and cut nails and whored and done
every job no one else would do for a slice of the American dream.
And now they had it. A single story ranchero with a wide front lawn
they’d already planted some palms and bamboo in.
    The two party girls led Jim Howard into the
house and introduced him to Cousin Pham.
    After a couple of cold beers and the half
speak of a conversation in both Southern and Vietnamese, Cousin
Pham was sure he could find a place where his new “ Texas Best Friend Jim ” could play a
few hands. He would do well, Cousin Pham assured him. Vietnamese
people were notoriously horrible gamblers and very bad at
cards.
    It began to rain in the morning. A warm, wet
rain that made Jim think he was back in ‘Nam, as Cousin Pham showed
him the way to the card room, pointing the big sky-blue Cadillac
along the wet rainy streets of Garden Grove.
    They reached a bar called The Happy Hour, an
old faux stone front-windowless bar inside a fading strip mall,
nestled amongst an urban sprawl of endless tract homes. Inside,
older Vietnamese gentlemen played American-style poker. No Pai Gow.
Just poker.
    For a week he played and lost. He had to
lose, he told himself. Really just a thousand every day, by the end
of the day, on top of the four thousand he’d make on winning hands
each day. That way it looked like a lot. His plan had been simple:
win big at first, then drink a little too much, and yes have a big
bowl of pho and get sleepy, and then start to lose. Finally,
frustrated, throw it all away in front of all those South
Vietnamese ex-colonels and ex-generals, all of them exiles, but not
the ones he was looking for.
    That was the part they loved. When he lost
all their money back to them and then some. Mr. Best Friend Texas
Jim. So sorry. Very bad luck. Next time, much better.
    On the last day, he was down to that day’s
last thousand, which wasn’t even a thousand because it was
eight-hundred and fifty-six dollars. On that last
lose-another-thousand-dollars day in which Jim Howard was giving up
on ever finding the type of man he needed to find, in walked Mr.
Vo.
    He was small. He was thin. His eyes squinted
into slender slits, as though the oppressive glare of the lone
overhead light of the card room in the back was just too much to
bear. He smoked incessantly and coughed quietly.
    Maybe, thought Jim Howard. Maybe we have a
winner.
    He beat everyone that day and didn’t lose.
He won fifteen thousand dollars and