When the conversation died for lack of an easy connection, David suggested that we, good-natured, intelligent group of friends that we were, should run the pasteboards together. He wanted to play poker, but Teresita absolutely refused. The only game we all knew was Go Fishing, but no one could remember how to play it, so we settled on Hearts even though we had to teach Morning of all people as the game went along. Teresita had learned the game from another girl at the Cave; David had been taught, yes, by a Navy lieutenant's wife at Subic; and I had learned the game at my father's hairy knee.
Not to brag, mainly because it isn't worth boasting about, but I was and am a tough Hearts player, and I pinned David's ears to his short-haired head. Oh, I played sloppily, acted the fool, spilling my hand about, and being so amazed each time I dropped the queen of spades and thirteen bad points on David's trick. "Har har har there Davey-boy. Guess ya caught the old bitch again, har har." He caught on quick, but it didn't help, and he lost his cool, stopped his incessant man-man-man routine, and started sweating. Twice he whispered to Teresita in Tagalog, but she answered with a shrug as if to say, "Maybe so. Maybe not." The single time he managed to drop the queen on me, I said, "Well, ya got my butt that time, Davey-boy," and then ran the rest of the tricks and put twenty-six bad ones on him. "Sons of bitches" he shouted, slapping the table; then whipping on his too-swift smile, said, "Oh, not you. These damned cards." Teresita was completely indifferent to the whole game, and played as if it were just a game, though she knew that in some dead-end alley of the masculine mystique we were playing for her. Morning lost his love for David and sat on him a few times too. Teresita soon tired of both games, but not too quickly for David to think that he had been humiliated.
She walked away to see to the bar or some other unnecessary thing, displaying her wares for the bidders one more time. The price rose right away. David said, "You're a big guy. Want to arm wrestle? I'm just a little guy, but I'll take you on." I put him off longer than I really wanted to, but he kept pushing and Morning kept prodding, so I finally said okay.
David was wiry and not lacking in flesh and muscle, and had probably beaten all the kids in town the same day he saw his first arm-wrestling match in a movie; but he was giving away forty or fifty pounds to me. I was fair enough at the game to be able to quietly, humbly boast that I had only been beaten once, and then by a professional football player, as long as I didn't add that he was a halfback in the Canadian League. I had been held or nearly beaten several times by medium-sized wiry guys, and I understood how David beat Goliath: not only God, but the whole damned Christian world is always on the side of the little guy. It's like never getting to play on your home field. So I worried. Everytime I happened into one of these things I would reassure myself that the world wouldn't end, nor my life become meaningless, nor my pecker fall off, if I were beaten. I always told myself such and, of course, never believed it, but I should have realized that night in Dugupan that my instincts had been correct all along.
I was ready, I thought, but not for the knife in David's hand, a balisong, a blade with a split handle which folded over the two cutting edges, a sort of primitive switchblade. David opened his slowly as if it were an old friend in his hand, laid it edge-up on the table, and motioned to his two buddies sitting behind him who no one had noticed coming in. They looked like something out of an L.A. rat pack, and one was slipping another balisong from his pocket.
"To make losing more fun, man," David said with a sly grin on his face.
"Not me, man," I said. "I only play for marbles and match sticks."
"Sure, man," he said, closing his blade and waving his troops away. I noticed that my troops had gathered, and wondered at all this fuss for a fuck. "Just putting you on, man." Like hell.
The knife had chilled me, had scared me in a way I didn't like to admit, but it made me madder than hell, too. It was back in his pocket, but the challenge still gleamed in his arrogant smile, and his shadow lay flat and stark against the tabletop like an echoing slap. He reared his forearm on the table, strong and supple and slightly weaving in a hypnotic dance. I matched him to the murmur of a muffled "Get 'em, Slag-baby," to Haddad's voice wailing like a street vendor as he took bets. I placed the brown of my arm, white against the brown of his, in the circle.
"Let's put a little bread on it, man," he said, snapping his fingers. I shook my head, knowing as he knew: whoever lost, left.
Our hands clasped, separate fingers carefully placed, molding a primeval bond. Morning held the hands as David and I eased into the clasp, then stepped back and shouted "Go!" No fancy stuff, no waiting, no more playing around, I leaned into his arm as if trying to shove him out of the universe.
I should have known. What match was primitive cunning and arrogance against the enlightened rage of a civilized man? I should have known. White, paunchy middle-class American that I was, I was also the boy who had dug ten-thousand post holes before I was eighteen, milked twice that many cows, and lifted how many countless pounds in how many curious ways for the past ten years to retain that initial strength. Fed on eggs, fattened on steaks, nourished in the land of milk and oatmeal, was it any wonder I slammed a skinny Filipino's hand to the table, ending with the same motion I began?
Before the echoes of David's hand on the wood stopped, I already felt silly, even guilty in the sudden quiet. He slowly flexed his hand, staring at the sliver of blood which split the middle knuckle. He grinned wildly and said, his bop-talk gone, his accent heavy, "We play your game, motherfucker, now we play mine."
He stood up, kicked his chair away, flipped the table from between us, and opened his balisong in a nickering, sickening twirl. The instance charged into my mind, clear and stark as if time tripped again. I saw everything with an incredible vision: the writhing crowd making room; Novotny's aghast face; Teresita waving frantically at the bartender; an old whore already crying; Morning's perplexity. All the figures as clear and distinct as if I had sculptured them, molded and cast the panorama of the stricken crowd. A crystal drop of sweat paused in its race down the side of David's face. If I could have held that cleft in time, God knows what flaming stars, what nights of space I might have seen – but for fear. But I couldn't have seen those things at all, for even as David moved, I stood as swiftly as he, and as his blade held the light, my chair already flew toward him.
Ah, poor David. He might have sliced me into slivers, but he had no luck. The chair leg, four pieces of wrapped bamboo, slipped past his raised arm and slammed into his mouth. He staggered back with a surprised pinch around his eyes, as if he remembered all the movie chairs broken on virtuous backs, then he stumbled to the side as if the world were spinning too fast for his legs. He fell, then propped on his elbow, lay on his side still amazed. When he moved his hand from his face, he exposed a bloody gap where several teeth had been broken off at the gum line. The stubby root of one still gleamed optimistically in the cavity.
This too was a clear picture out of the corner of my eye as I ran away, but I didn't realize what it meant until I bumped into Morning standing like stone next to me. I turned back, no more thinking now than when I had run, and leapt toward David as he tried to get up. His blade scraped in his struggles like a rattler on the cement floor. I kicked him in the ribs, then stomped his hand, and scooted the knife away. Behind me I heard a crash as Morning and Novotny tore the legs off the table and cornered David's rats without a fight. David was up now, and I caught his staggering rush, blocked his right, then grabbed his arm and spun him toward the bar. A clot of spectators kept him from hitting the bar, and he was quickly up. But in the short spin I had heard the singing and knew where my blood beat. When he came, I was ready.