No sé si voy a zafar de esta...

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“Alright, listen up to the first few victims of my keen, sharp, observations:”  

 “Mystery Victim the first: You’re tough. You act like you had to be, but I’ve heard enough to know that your family had money. You didn’t have to fight your way out of anything, you ran right at it!! Heard you say a couple times that you beat up some guys for their debts- what’s that, you the fucking sherriff of nottingham? Psh. You got a loose screw.” 

“The next sorry state: What… is your story, man? You were much, much too O.K. with blood all over your face when you showed up. You’re an idiot, and an asshole, but.. also kind of a fun time, I won’t lie. I’ve seen that crazy look you get on your face in trials though… mostly when there’s a chainsaw. What’s that about? If we weren’t in this place where there’s an actual guy waving a chainsaw at me, I might be afraid of you.”

“Next up: You listen more than you talk. That’s a good way to get people to trust you, but you don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t even look like you trust yourself. Relax. Can’t you see people are always asking you about stuff? They trust you fine. You got one of those faces. Maybe.”

“Well…will it?”

“How ‘bout we up the stakes a bit? Play while being chased, bet with what you find during the trial, winner gets to-Oh- fuck.”  

[Full Post]

“Morning,” I said, trying to match the cheeriness in his voice, even if I didn’t feel like it. Generally, during greetings, you’d turn to the next person and start the whole process over again. However, our church had a tendency to be extra friendly to new visitors. It didn’t help that Cathy rather loudly proclaimed to my mom that she’d brought her date so he could meet our amazing “church family”. After that, even people from the aisle over were trying to shake his hand.

“Who’s your new friend, Cathy?” Pete, a regular to the church for ten years, asked. I found myself leaning in to hear her answer, even if it wasn’t my business.

 “This is Alejandro Varas.” Cathy replied, accentuating the pronunciation with an overdone trill.  “Alex is fine.” Ace spoke up, smiling at the man he was being introduced to. Cathy’s hand was pressed possessively into his chest as she showed him off.  Jesus, this was easy. He had her in the bag.   It would take something big to mess this one up. 

  He noticed the young, nervous man’s eyes lingering on him, and as they trailed back up to his face, gave him a wink. A reminder of the man’s earnest attempt to smile earlier was still on his face, though his eyes were wide with a different expression. Ace wondered if his eyes were actually that big or if they just looked that way through his prescription lenses.    He opened his mouth to ask the man’s name, but it was clear there wasn’t much time to actually get to know your neighbors when the pastor started coughing as a signal for everyone to sit down.   Later, then.    Ace realized much to quickly that he needn’t have worried about acting the part right for this type of church. You didn’t have to do anything. Sing some songs at the right time, pray... but all that involved, as far as he could tell, was bowing your head and continuing to not say anything.  Easy. 

Boring. How long was this service? Ace took a look at his watch when Cathy leaned forward to grab a hymnal. Still a frustrating amount of time left. He had learned to smother all signs of impatience or frustration a long time ago at gaming tables and negotiation stand-offs, so it didn’t show, but he was antsy.   A moment of relief came when they started passing around the offering plate. He rubbed his middle finger on his thumb as he thought. He didn’t need it, really. Cathy was taking care of him and his faux-missionary organization just fine.  The church patrons dutifully placed their bills into the wide open vessel. But, fuck it, he was bored. 

 Five people away. He unrolled the sleeves of his sweater.  Three. He leaned forward to pretend to grab one of the offering envelopes the church provided to conceal your donation, that nobody used, and deftly knocked over a hymnal.    One. “Oh! I’m so sorry…” He laughed as Cathy bent down to retrieve it and he turned to receive the offering plate. He slid in a $5 bill, which concealed his fingers underneath nipping a $20, $10, and what he hoped was a $50, but he couldn’t quite see. 

“Hold ‘em. No other game like it. You can see part of what your opponent is working with, and then you have to fill in the rest with what you know about them. What do they know about you? What do they know you know about them? You bet more than draw poker, so you can use that to get under their skin. Funny enough, takes some of the luck out of it, adds more strategy. But luck’s still important. 

   Least favorite? As for …actual games, slots. Don’t even bother with those blasted machines. What’s more humiliating than feeding your money right to the house? No. no. Just don’t. 

⋈ - What was the last thing you lied about? Why did you lie?

“Ha! Daddy hmm?

No, no as useful as it might have been to have someone who looked like me running around... no my life outside of here was much too exciting to be weighed down by something like that.

So, no. I don’t have any kids.

It was set up perfectly. Anyone who was familiar with the game would recognize it instantly; it was almost cinematic in how it followed the script. Real life didn’t work this way, but people liked to believe it did.

Fortunately, the mark he found on trusty christianmingle.com was not familiar with the game and preferred to believe the fantasy. Perfect.

Now all he had to do was.... go to church? Mierda. He knew this part was coming; you didn’t get a rich widow to fund your fictional missionary trip to Uruguay without hitting up her holy haunt. He had wished she was catholic at least; he knew that bit. This- he stared quickly at the sign as they walked in- “non-denominational” stuff was a wild card. He’d have to play it by ear.

“This is lovely, Cathy.” He smiled at her as they entered the very plain, boring, beige entranceway. She beamed.

As she led them to their seats, Ace’s eyes darted around for a patron of the place to mimic. He had to look like he knew what he was doing.

His eyes landed on a man sitting with horrible posture thumbing absently through a hymnal. He had a cute little anxious look on his face, and he seemed to want to be anywhere else but here. Definitely a regular.

He cursed internally as Cathy led them to sit directly in front of the man. Observation over.

He got one more chance to get a look at him when the pastor called for meet and greet. He turned around and smiled. “Good morning!”

“You know, I don’t recall ever betting it. Hasn’t stopped this particular house from taking it.