A break in the deal

With my recent computer problems, limited writing time, and a new-found desire to finish a book I’m working on, I’m suspending the 52 Cards project.  I plan on finishing it eventually, and to that end I’ll list the remaining cards, as they appeared in the shuffled deck back in January (I haven’t looked ahead until tonight).  Some of them might get skipped to if I feel like writing something off my regularly scheduled beaten path.

Remaining cards:

Six of Hearts (I know that it was last week’s, but I don’t want to let it go)

King of Spades (this week’s)

King of Diamonds

Seven of Clubs

King of Hearts

Three of Spades

Six of Spades (part 2 of Inside-Outside Straight)

Eight of Diamonds

Eight of Spades (part 3 of Inside-Outside Straight)

Five of Clubs

Ten of Diamonds

Ten of Hearts

Seven of Hearts

Two of Spades (part 3 of  Two-Island Lake)

Two of Clubs (part 4 of Two-Island Lake)

Nine of Diamonds

Queen of Diamonds

Eight of Hearts

Nine of Spades (part 4 of Inside-Outside Straight)

Ten of Spades (conclusion of Inside-Outside Straight)

Queen of Hearts

Nine of Hearts

Dr. Mosely tapped his pen on his glasses.  The rhythm of eighth notes wasn’t helping him finish the task that was reflecting in his glasses. He took another deep breath, and he moved the pen in front of his eyes.  He carefully examined how much ink he could see through the transparent midsection of the pen, and then his left hand whisked it away.  He began tapping another unsteady rhythm on his glasses when he heard a buzzing sound.  He tucked the pen into the pocket of his lab coat, and he directed the arrow on the screen to a taskbar.  An excel document shot up as Dr. Mosely slowly stood up.  He ran his hands down from the part in his hair as he walked to the door.  He opened the door, and a woman wearing a lot of blue stood before him.  Her blue blouse and blue slacks didn’t quite match, and her athletic shoes were a beacon of white on an unathletic body.  Her dirty blond hair was short and in a bob that wasn’t being well maintained.  She looked older than she should, and there was no makeup to hide what the years had been like.  Dr. Mosely nodded and stood aside so she could walk in.  The woman hesitated, and Dr. Mosely let a small smile emerge.  “Relax” he said.  “First trip to the morgue?”

“Yeah, more or less.  I’ve seen a few people die in the hospital, but that’s it.”  She slowly walked into the cold room, and Dr. Mosely shut the door behind her.

“They told me you would be down today.  Would you like to view the body?”

“Yes.”

Dr. Mosely walked slowly over to the wall of metal drawers.  He found the right one and pulled the lever.  Before he pulled open the drawer, he turned to the woman.  “I’m sorry…I didn’t catch your relation to the deceased Miss Prouse.”

“Mrs. Cynthia Carrabella now.  I haven’t been Miss Prouse in a long time.  Harl was my brother.”

“Harl?”

“Sorry” Cynthia said.  “Harrold.  We always called him Harl when we were all kids.  Harl was the eighth of the ten of us.  We all had nicknames for each other.”

“Ah” Dr. Mosely said.  He pulled open the chilled metal drawer, and Cynthia tried not to show any emotion as she looked upon her dead brother.  “He’s bigger than I remember, but that’s him” she replied.

“We didn’t need you here for identification Mrs. Carrabella.  The fingerprints did the trick.”  Dr. Mosely watched as she slowly walked up to the drawer.  The body looked peaceful, but the scars, tattoos, scrapes, burns and grime told a story that was anything but peaceful.  She looked him over until she reached the head, where a bullet wound had entered near his right temple.

“Was it self defense?”  She said.  Her voice remained strong and defiant as she slowly rubbed her own temples.  She began pacing at the foot of the drawer.

“That’s the report I’m getting from the police.  He was trying to shoot his way out of a botched hold-up at an Exxon on 14th Street.  Tox won’t be in for a while, but he looks to me like he’s on a few different drugs.  He was wanted in several robberies and assaults.”

“Harl was a wild child for a time.  He left the family under less than ideal circumstances.”

“If you don’t mind me asking Mrs. Carrabella, do you know what the tattoo on his right arm might mean?  I’ve seen all of them before, except that one.  It looks like the oldest.”

Cynthia slowly took a few steps and looked at the body’s bicep.  A faded tattoo of a nine of hearts was all by itself.  She said nothing, but her face was softening up.  For the first time since she’d walked in, she looked sad.  “I know what it is.”

“Really?  I’ve seen aces, kings, queens, jacks and the like, but never just a nine.”

“Back on the family farm, our golden retriever Sassy was expecting a litter.  Dad said we could each keep a puppy if we took good care of it.  He was convinced Harl would mistreat his, or do something horrible to it.  He took an old deck of playing cards, and he dealt out nine cards, one to each of us.  My oldest brother was in college, so dad made sure Harl got the nine.  He thought there was no way Harl would get a puppy that way.  Imagine…imagine his surprise when Sassy had nine puppies.  The last was the runt of the litter, so dad told Harl he had to spend every waking second with it until it was able to eat on it’s own.  He thought Harl would lose interest and nature would do the rest.  The thing is…Harl slept out in the barn for two weeks to make sure his puppy made it.  He fed it every few hours, and he made sure it was never cold.  It was like he was a different person.  He had almost failed second grade, and when the fall came and he went back to school, the teacher asked my parents if we were playing a joke on her by finding a different kid.  Nine turned his personality totally around.”

“Nine?”

“Harl named him Nine.  Dad said there was no way puppy number nine would make it, and Harl kept telling him nine would live.  The name kind of stuck.  God, he loved that dog.  Nine waited every day for him to come home.  He made the rest of us look bad because he took such good care of  Nine.  Do you know I don’t even remember what I named my puppy?  I was such a poor dog owner that my parents gave mine away in less than six months.  Harl became the best and the brightest of all of us.  Nine filled some kind of void he had.”

“What happened to him?”  Dr. Mosely walked to the foot of the drawer.  He kept his eyes where there were tissues.  Cynthia looked on the verge of crying.

“Nine lived a long, good life.  Harl found a college where he didn’t have to live on campus, and he had even found an apartment that let dogs live there.  Six weeks before college Nine died of natural causes.  Harl didn’t even know she was sick.  The vet said it looked like old age.  The other siblings and I all chipped in to get Nine a spot in a pet cemetery.  Harl cried for a week straight after the funeral.  He seemed all right after that, but then a week before college he just disappeared.  That was the last time any of us saw him.”

“According to his age…that would be almost twenty years ago.”

“I know…we all knew about the arrests, but he didn’t want to see any of us.  Granted, none of us made a great effort to see him.  Mom and dad died a few years ago, and our oldest brother died last year.  Everybody asked me about him, since I was the only one who had talked to him in the last twenty years.  We talked all of three times…every time he was asking for money, and every time I hung up on him.”  Cynthia reached out and touched the nine of hearts on the body’s arm.  The skid was cold to the touch, and Cynthia recoiled in horror instantly.

“I’m sorry” Dr. Mosely said.  He slowly pushed the drawer back into the wall.  As the latch locked, he looked to the right only to see Cynthia almost out the door.

“I…I’ll make arrangements with the funeral home…when…when do you think…think…”

“The body should be released in the next day or so.  Just have whichever funeral home call me.  I know them all, and they all do a great job.”

“Thank you…” Cynthia softly uttered, right before she flew up the stairs.  Dr. Mosely walked over to the stairway and closed the door.  He walked back over to the computer and minimized his excel document, which revealed his fantasy baseball team.

“Now, which shortstop is the better option” he said aloud to himself.  He sat back down, pulled out his pen, and once again started tapping his glasses.

Nine of Clubs

“Okay, run this by me again?  How does this work?”  Ross held the deck of cards in his hand.  Kris was guzzling down his Mountain Dew, and Ross’ question would just have to wait until he was done.  Bryan was reading a comic book, only half paying attention to what was transpiring on the floor of Ross’ dorm room.

“Simple” Kris said as he tossed the plastic bottle towards the tin garbage can.  As the bottle bounced off the rim and rolled under Ross’ bed, Kris took the cards away and started shuffling.  “You shuffle six times, while you try to focus on any spirit that might be in the room.  Then, you deal the cards out like this.”  Kris flipped over the first four cards, resulting in two hearts and two spades.  “Well, that didn’t work.  It has to be one of each suit to work.  If you get one of each suit, you’ve contacted a spirit.”

“Then I can ask questions?”

Bryan shook his head as Kris started shuffling again.  “Yep.  You ask questions, and then you flip up a card.  The position matches one of four answers.  The top card is yes, the bottom card is no, the left card is maybe, and the right card is I don’t know.”  Kris threw out three clubs and a spade.  “No luck for me.  Why don’t you try?”

“Y’know Kris, I can’t help but think you picked this up from  your new girlfriend.  She’s a Wiccan right?”  Bryan slid the comic back into the bag and sat it on the plastic bag holding several other comics.

“I knew about this before Tina.  We used to do it in High School.”

“Okay…I’ll try it.”  Ross said as shuffled the cards.  He tried to focus as the cards slid together in his hands.  He calmly flipped over the top four cards, and the four suits were staring back at him.  Clubs were on top, with diamonds on the bottom.  Hearts took the left side, while spades were on the right.

“That’s good.  You’ve made contact with a spirit.  Ask it a question.”  Bryan could tell Kris had mischief on his mind.  Ross could be gullible, and Bryan knew it.  Rather than get involved, Bryan turned another page of Marvel Team-up.

“Is a spirit really here?” Ross asked.  He flipped over the six of clubs.  “Are you lying?” Ross asked as he flipped up the next card.  The five of diamonds indicated a no.  Bryan calmly kept reading his comics as the two of them took turns asking spirits if they were really there, or if they were good or evil. He was almost through his week’s comics, and that meant he’d actually only have homework to read.

“Don’t you want to try it?” Kris said.

“Nah” Byran said.  “You two go nuts.”  A few comics later, Bryan was down to his last comic.  As he started reading Teen Titans, he heard the cards shuffle and Ross lead with the usual questions about whether it was really a spirit and all the rest.  He was in the middle of the comic when he heard a question that he wasn’t expecting.

“Is this my dad?”

“Uh…Ross?  I don’t think you should ask that.”  Bryan was sitting up in Ross’ beanbag chair, and even Kris looked a bit puzzled and concerned about this new question.

“Yeah…that’s…” Kris never finished his question as Ross flipped up the next card.  It was the nine of clubs.

“Okay Ross…just stop.” Byran had dropped his comic on the carpet.  The cover was getting a slight crease, and Bryan seemed to not notice or care.  Kris was waving his hands around and shaking his head.

“Dude, it might be trying to trick you.  Ask it if it’s lying.”

“Are you lying?” Ross asked.  The king of spades flipped up, and was dropped into the no pile.  Kris looked at Bryan, and Bryan shook his head.  They were all from different states, and had just gotten to know each other at college.  They knew Ross lost his father at a young age, and that he didn’t like to talk about it.  Bryan and Kris then looked at the piles of cards on the floor.  The I don’t know pile looked full, and the yes, no, and maybe piles were all about even.  Ross didn’t have many cards left.

“Maybe…maybe…” Bryan cut Kris off before he dug a deeper hole.

“Are you sure you want to keep going?”  Bryan asked.  Ross’ face looked the same as it had all night.

“Sure.  It’s just cards.”  Ross closed his eyes and placed thumb and index finger on the top card.  “Did I turn out like you thought I would?”  The spade went to the  no pile, and Ross’ hand went back to the cards in his left hand.  “But are you proud of me?”  The ace of clubs flipped over, and Ross tossed it onto the yes pile.  The card slid across the nine of clubs and rested just north of the diamond of card stacks.  “Did you want to go?” Ross asked.  Kris and Bryan bit their lips as he flipped over the two of spades.  Ross dropped it right by the pile of spaces in front of his crossed legs.  “Will I see you again?” was answered with a diamond that was quickly tossed into the maybe pile.  “Do you miss me as much as I miss you?” was Ross’ final question, and Bryan and Kris braced for an answer that would be inappropriate.  The jack of clubs turned out to be the last card, and that card was gently dropped into the yes pile, or relatively close.  Ross calmly stood up, while Kris quickly got up.

“I, uh, gotta call a girl.  I’ll be back later.”  Kris was up and out the door before Bryan finally managed to get up out the beanbag chair.  Ross was standing at the window of the room, which faced out towards a small parking lot and the football practice field.  Bryan gathered up his comics and other books and tried to think of something to say.

“Uh…are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah…I’ll be fine.  I’d like some time alone though.”  Ross didn’t turn around when he spoke.  He just kept staring outside at nothing in particular.

“Oh-kay then.  You know where to find me.”  Bryan carefully stepped over the four stacks of cards as he walked out the door.  He lingered on the other side of the closed door for a moment, but he didn’t hear anything.  While he walked down the hall back to his dorm room, Ross kept staring out the window.  After several minutes, he calmly turned around and started bunching up the cards on the floor.  He looked for the box they went in, and he found it under his bed along with Kris’ pop bottle.  He tossed the bottle in the garbage, and then he slid the deck back into the box.  Ross looked at the clear box, and he noticed the nine of clubs had somehow wound up as the top card that was face up in the box.  He lightly tossed the deck onto his desk, and then he let out a deep sigh.  He let himself fall onto his unmade bed, choosing to stare at the ceiling rather than through his window.  He put his hands behind his head, and let his mind wander to places long forgotten, and feelings long submerged.