Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27057718-20151009080232

                                                        The Crown Hill Poker Club

This was told to me by my old cell-mate at the Indiana state penitentiary while I was there serving a sentence for burglary.

His name was Sean, and he was a well-known gambler -  even in the joint he was always playing cards. You see in there everybody has to have a hustle: card-playing, intimidation... me? Well, before I got locked up I was an avid home-brewer, and it turned out this was a valuable skill for a guy to have in prison.

I didn’t know the whole story of why Sean was in there, but I knew it had something to do with an illegal card game he had taken part of some years earlier. He never did talk too much about it, and I didn’t care to ask.

Well one night Sean and I were more than a little buzzed from some hooch I had cooked up, and he started to open up a bit. What he told me that night chills me to this day.

This is the story of that card game, and the group who started it: The Crown Hill Poker Club.

It was one of those high stakes, invite-only games. Now on a good night, Sean could really work a table with the best of them, but at the end of the day he was just a two-bit hustler. He never would’ve scored an invite to a game like this on the virtue of his name alone... No, he got his ticket the old fashioned way: won it off some stranger in the back room of his corner dive bar.

It came down to a classic hand: 3 men still playing, where the bet works out so that one of them doesn’t have enough to cover the pot. The man with short stacks would often produce a valuable item of some sort. Family heirlooms were common; father’s watch, wedding ring, on rare occasion even a set of car keys would be thrown on the table.

This stranger didn’t have a watch or anything to throw in. Instead, with a sigh, he reached into his chest pocket and produced a strange looking envelope. The paper was old: it reminded Sean of the letters his grandmother kept from his grandfather when he was in World War 2. Scrawled on the front in presidential calligraphy were the words Crown Hill Poker Club.

I have here in this envelope a ticket of admittance to a very special poker game. You may have heard of it?

Sean noticed the guy across from him stiffen and shoot the stranger a suspicious look: “that there’s a myth.”

“Oh, I assure you, it’s no myth, and this ticket is very real.”

Sean had heard of these invite-only games before, and he knew that to gain entry to one was a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. Although something seemed ominous in the way the stranger couldn’t seem to hold eye contact with him, and obviously in the  way the other man was acting, he was already pot-committed over $500. Part of him felt like he was about to be hustled, but the gambler in him couldn’t resist.

Sean ended up winning the hand in dramatic fashion: he was waiting on a flush draw that didn’t look like it was going to come, and hit on the river.

It seemed odd, but the stranger had a bit of a smirk upon losing. After raking the table and as he was counting his chips the stranger said, “Looks like it’s your lucky day, Sean.” He looked up from the chips, demanding “How did you know my”... but the question died in his throat. The stranger, was nowhere to be seen. “Must have been the whiskey”, Sean thought, as he finished his drink and headed home.

He opened the envelope. Crown Hill Cemetery, plot 412, Friday June 13th at Midnight. Well, that was interesting. Usually these games were held at upscale residences. Sean had never heard of one being held at a cemetery.

On the morning of the 13th Sean could think only of the game. He picked out his best suit, swept out his SUV, and went out for a nice lunch. He wanted to use his day to relax his mind, so he would be at his best that night.

The drive wasn’t far; Sean lived a few miles away from the cemetery. Right around 11:50, he pulled up to the gates. With his windows down, Sean could hear the gravel crunch under his tires as he wound his way toward plot 412. He realized everyone else must have parked elsewhere, but as it was getting close to midnight, he left the car on the side of the path and approached.

It was a large mausoleum, grand and imposing, and as he gripped the rusty iron gate to the entrance Sean had to take a moment to compose himself before walking in. First impressions are important, and he didn’t want to look as scared as he felt.

Seated around a limestone table were a group of men, none of whom Sean recognized. All of them were impeccably dressed. Sean took the last remaining seat and drinks were poured as they began making introductions. He quickly realized they were using pseudonyms, as he was apparently playing against L.S. Ayres, Benjamin Harrison, and Ovid Butler.

Going along with the joke, Sean introduced himself as John Dillinger. A hush fell over the table, and the man two seats to his left turned to him. His lips were tight and downturned, as though he had just eaten something unpleasant. But it was his eyes. Sean was no killer, but he knew the look.

It wasn’t until a soft ca-clunk on the table that he was able to avert his eyes, and what he saw next didn’t do a bit of good to ease the tension. The man had placed a handgun on the table. Looking back up to meet the man’s eyes, Sean realized his stare remained exactly the same.

He was like James Bond with an American accent.

“Try Again”

Sean gulped. “Now now John, I thought we agreed to a civilized game,” chortled Harrison. “I’m sure he meant no offense; in fact, I rather like his sense of humor. Good sir, you may trust your identity will be known only to those of us present.

... Sean. Sean Levin. “Well, Mr. Levin, I salute you.” And with that, Garfield raised his glass, tipped it in his direction, and downed it in one motion. Sean did the same and they began the game.

If Sean had been lucky the night he won the ticket, then tonight he was on fire. He was catching pocket Aces, pots on the river - he even bluffed his way into a few big pots. After a few short hours it was down to him and “Dillinger.”

Sean peeked at his cards. Pocket Queens. He thought for a moment before announcing, “All in.” Dillinger hadn’t looked at his cards yet. He cocked his head to the side, sizing Sean up. Sean could feel the hairs on his neck stand on end. It felt as though he was looking at him for the first time, and it made him uncomfortable. “Call.” The man going by Dillinger said. He said this calmly and deliberately, and didn’t even flinch when he flipped his cards over to reveal a 2 and 7, off-suit: the worst hand in poker. Nothing of consequence was dealt, and so Sean’s pair of Queens won the evening. One more round of whiskey was poured and they all showed good sportsmanship as Harrison handed Sean his winnings in a leather briefcase. After thanking them for the evening, Sean turned to leave.

The man called Dillinger tipped his hat. “See you soon, Sean.” There was something odd in the way the others seemed to take amusement from the comment.

That was the last thing Sean remembered of the night.

The next thing he knew, all of the events, from the drive over, to the introductory toast, all of the whiskey shots during the game and finally collecting his winnings and toasting farewell, poured through his mind as a deluge, and he bolted upright in bed. His head was pounding. The alarm clock read 4:30 in the afternoon. He was covered in sweat and stank like something had died in his room.

While dreaming, his recollection of the game had been twisted into a drunken nightmare. He dreamt of gold-capped teeth pulled from their sockets and thrown on the table to guffaws. He even remembered grabbing the wrench and pulling out his own gold molar, which was met with cheers and whiskey shots. Jesus Christ, he thought, what a nightmare. Only... his face DID hurt like hell... he slid his tongue along the back of his teeth and to his horror he encountered an empty socket where his gold filling should be.

Before he could even process this, he realized the pounding in his head coincided with a very real pounding at the front door. Sean sprang to his feet. Flinging apart the blinds on his bedroom window with his left hand revealed a half dozen police cars in front of his house. Thinking quickly, he tore open the underpinning to his bedspring and tossed the briefcase inside, went downstairs, took a few deep breaths, and opened the door.

Now, as it turned out, Sean wasn’t in jail for illegal gambling. You see, that morning the caretaker noticed multiple graves had been dug up and the bodies exhumed from their coffins... a trail of loose dirt led singly from each grave to one mausoleum, where inside the police found the decayed corpses of five of the most well-known residents of Crown Hill Cemetery.

Traffic cameras showed Sean’s SUV leaving the cemetery at 3 am... a search of his house revealed a briefcase containing what the prosecutor would later describe as a “grotesque collection of trophies”: bundles of moldy bank notes, an assortment of pocket-watches, rings with their bony fingers still attached, an old .38, and at least a dozen gold teeth.

The only thing of value that had been left was the half-drunk bottle of 1934 scotch that according to legend had been placed in John Dillinger’s casket by an associate of his, so that he would have something to drink in the afterlife.

And that, my friends, is the story of the Crown Hill Poker Club. So if you ever come across a stranger with a ticket like the one I’ve described tonight, take my advice and fold.  