Free Ghosted by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall Page A

him of Richard Scarry’s Busytown—every kind of folk doing every kind of thing—mohawked punks playing guitar, old Chinese women doing tai chi, a man on a unicycle being chased by small children, a circle of fishmongers smoking from a hookah, painters with their easels and watercolours, young Wiccans with their sticks and stones, people writing in notebooks, readers reading, singers singing, dealers dealing, drummers drumming, drinkers drinking—all together in the same small frame.
    There was a statue of Al Waxman there, and Mason sat beside it on a bench, staring at the birds as they pecked in the grass. He found a newspaper box that suited him, and then a diner or restaurant, ordered a coffee, then another, something to eat. He lingered over the most disturbing newspaper articles, reading some of them twice. He finished his meal, left the newspaper and a ten-dollar tip, and walked back towards his apartment.
    He stopped at the liquor store, then the Lucky Save to get some poppers—amyl nitrite disguised as an ancient Chinese remedy. Most of the convenience stores in Chinatown had them—little brown vials beside the cash register:
impulse purchases
. Mason, impulsively, bought a half-dozen. Then he dialled Chaz’s number.

    While he waited, Mason tried to think.
    He knew how to win. It was all about the Warrior Monk. The Warrior Monk won because he didn’t care. He was careful, carefree and ruthless. His head was always in the zone. Sometimes Mason felt like that before he played—that perfect mix of clarity and confidence and then the cards were like quick love notes passed into your hands. You could fight demons or bullets with hands like those. That was how you won.
    But poker is a cruel game, most of it played before the cards are even dealt. The more you care, the more you lose. The more you lose, the more you need to win, the more you care, the more you lose. That is called being
on tilt
and it is a vicious cycle—the opposite of Zen. Mason had been on tilt for a while now.
    The only way to break the cycle was to not care. But no matter how he tried he just couldn’t trick himself into it. He owed so much damn money….
A Warrior Monk wouldn’t care about such things
. But a monk didn’t have to worry about the rent. A monk didn’t have to worry about his drug habit and how much all this booze cost, and keeping the condiments fresh.
    Mason did a line, then cracked open a popper and inhaled deeply. The coke and nitro mix sent shivers through his brain stem. The rush was intense, and for a moment he felt something more than Zen. He felt kingly. Godlike. Powerful.
    And then Chaz arrived.
    After a while, Mason was losing. He’d bought back in twice for a thousand dollars. Chaz had humped his chair as he counted it out and now he was composing an opera. Its main theme involved Mason’s lack of prowess—mostly in the ways of courtship,lovemaking, rational thought and Texas hold’ em. Right now his aria went something like: “Why
is he so bad? Tell me tell me tell me, why so bad, at ev-ry-thiiiiiing?”
Chaz had a mountain of chips.
    There was two hundred dollars in the pot and the flop was yet to be dealt. Mason had an eight and an ace. They both checked.
    Mason dealt it: eight, eight, two.
    He checked. Chaz bet eight hundred.
    Mason sat there. His measly hand had become a great one. Three eights would kill just about anything. So he pretended to think, as Chaz worked on his opus—alternate tenors building:
“The sad man thinks (watch him think watch him think watch him think) nothing to do (to do to to do) but go all in or fold! Already lost three thousand toniiiiight (he should fold he should fold he should fold) … But no! His stupid heart—his hotdog cart! He’ll lose it all—never get laid again (he should go all-in, go all-in, go all—iiiiiiiiiiiiin) …!”
    “All-in,” said Mason.
    The sudden quiet had nothing to do with the calculating of odds, but with Chaz trying to figure out a