Jaime
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In the shadow of the factory on the hill above town, Jamie Fahrney sat in the saddle of a rumbling Harley looking down on the city lights and their glow on the scattered low clouds. Sometimes he loved the place with its noise and excitements; other times, like tonight, he couldn’t understand why humans wanted to get up against each other. Jamie fired a Camel, a straight – the basic ‘screw you’ to the health conscious – and contemplated … poker. He worked a construction job, for appearances sake, but his real vocation was poker in any of its variants and particularly Texas Hold-em. Social gambling was not what Jamie played nor how he played, the stakes high and friendships rare. There are places these games are sanctioned by those in authority; here the play was strictly … unauthorized – and frequently dangerous. People are known to get excited over amounts of money sufficient for a good dinner out, these stakes involved amounts that would purchase very nice cars or even houses. Temper and cheating were continual risks. Some things are just fun because they are what they are – because running on the crumbling edge of the abyss is exhilarating.
Bikes are personal, they are personal in a way most non-riders don’t understand. There are those who choose sophistication and subtlety in a motorcycle and that would not be what a Harley is. This is a motorcycle that is about brute power that sounds and feels like just what it is. A Harley shakes; you could call it vibration if it pleases you but the low frequency of the V-twin really is a shake. The white-grey cigarette smoke swirled in the air around the loping scooter, Jamie was wasting gas for no more reason than the pleasure of the sound, the signature of a Harley Davidson. Riding a cruiser bike without a windscreen or helmet conditions the rider to keep his mouth shut while aboard so Jamie’s smile was quite subtle. If poker was his vocation, riding was his life. If he was in love, if he was winning at poker, if he was fighting for his life, riding made it better or, fixed it. This bike was a thing of beauty; Harley had sculpted an idealization of a motorcycle and if it was dirty it was being ridden, otherwise it gleamed. This wasn’t a vanity thing, a see what I’ve got statement; it was such an extension of him that it was no different than taking showers to be clean. Some people are validated by possessions, for some their possession is as much an expression of them as the art of poetry is of its author.
In an hour he would park the bike and call a taxi to get within a couple blocks of the game. This game held risks and the promise of a large payout, run and played by a character called Little. He was anything other than little, nearly a giant of a fat black man who played cards for something other than fun and made a living running drugs and women along with a nasty pack of thugs, with only Little and a penchant for criminality and violence in common – Little was truly an equal opportunity employer, race and religion mattered not at all to him. Jaime figured the table to be stacked with Little’s people but the game would be square as far as overt cheating went. Little was too smart to try card manipulation and good enough to think he’d not need it. Jaime intended to teach him that he wasn’t that good, and take his money.
As Jaime walked the blocks from where the cab had dropped him to the rooms where the game would be held – a temporary arrangement as the powers that be disapproved of such pastimes, at least for the common folks – he pondered the neighborhood. It missed absolute poverty by a narrow margin but not enough to fail to display the symptoms of lack. Up the street and across sat a squad car with its spot illuminating four teens spread eagled on a wall being frisked by two uniforms, no doubt for the crime of being young, black, and male. This being a part of Little’s domain there was not much chance any of the kids were dealing, Little would brook no competition and used adults who would not be molested by cops, money and other advantages can be spread around to avoid complications. The few passersby studiously ignored the activity, it was simply a fact of life in neighborhoods like this one and any questions would be treated as interference and result in an unfortunate ride, that with luck would end at the station or less fortunately at the emergency room. For a moment anger stirred in Jaime, as a white man he could probably avoid that ride, but he didn’t need the attention it would draw and he was carrying a rather large amount of cash – without Little’s protection. It passed, but not without leaving a sense of embarrassment behind, being a white male had saved him a certain amount of aggravation and consciousness of the why, didn’t feel all that good. Internally he shrugged, there was nothing to be done about it at any event, even if he could afford to make strenuous objections it would change nothing – that required wealth and power, both of which were well insulated from such goings on.
He turned down the mean alley that led to the door he was bound for, passing by appliance boxes and other detritus tolerated in a poorer neighborhood. Jaime was alert for any threat, though not foolish enough to go to Little’s game carrying, he was capable of handling threats. Of average height and weight the luck of genetics and the nature of his work combined to make him physically able which combined with his mindset, to make him a nasty opponent in a confrontation.
It was his mindset that stood him apart from most, while he could be startled by the unexpected, fear was absent from his emotional luggage. This doesn’t mean that injury and pain were immaterial to Jaime, they were simply consequences to be managed and hopefully avoided by an understanding of where the ragged edge actually crumbled. But there are opportunities and experiences out there that are missed by giving too wide a berth to the abyss.
Sometimes there are things in the mind that are better left unexamined, the relentless poking and prodding of analysis may unearth things that are not repressed but controlled and like Pandora’s Box may come flooding out in chaotic destructiveness when a key best left alone is turned. Jaime was aware of his controlled capability for violence but the very fact of that control meant that its limits and the outcomes of loosing it from its constraints were unknown.
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