Preston L. Allen

A Little Birdy

There are some good players in these casinos down here—good enough to play with the big boys in Vegas. Some of them used to play in Vegas. Some of them used to be stars. Among the best of them is this girl, this guy, this girl everyone calls Birdy, or Little Birdy, though she should be called Big Birdy. She stands well over six feet. Add another three inches with the heels. Birdy always has an enviable stack of chips in front of her at the table. I’ve never seen Birdy without chips. I’ve never seen Birdy at the ATM machine. In tournaments, Birdy always comes in first, second, third, or fourth. She doesn’t always win, but she’s always in the money.

Birdy is hard to figure. It’s impossible to tell her age. Birdy could be thirty—Birdy could be fifty. Birdy has a hard face to look at, not exactly ugly, but severe and artificial and way too much makeup. The muted red hair does not help. The very big breasts do help. Yes, the pendulous breasts on that lamppost body help a lot. She wears these sweater things open at the top to reveal cleavage and art. Her breasts are being tattooed, you see. Everyday more of the outline is being filled in with color. She is having cat eyes drawn on her breasts—sexy amber cat eyes, with long lashes and black eye shadow. It is a deliberate distraction that I take pains to ignore.

I ignore her constant yapping, too. Her voice sounds like a child’s tricycle horn is stuck in her throat. When she talks, she sounds like she needs to cough up green phlegm. She yaps on and on about silly things, or she flirts with other players, the old men mostly, who don’t say much back.

But don’t be fooled by Birdy’s performance. Watch the quality of her play. Fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, and fold. That’s the sign of a good player. She plays very few hands—maybe one hand out of forty. Such enviable discipline. At the end of the night, she always leaves with more chips than she came with. Speaking of hands—Birdy has very ugly hands, long-fingered, liver-spotted, hard-looking hands with large gaudy jewelry on the wrist and fingers.

One day, I catch Birdy looking down at my hand. Her eyebrows are knitted in wonder, her thin, red lips scrunched into a not at all delicious looking "O." I’m about to ask her what’s up, but before I can say a thing, Birdy has clamped one of her big, ugly paws down on my wrist and has pulled it up to her face so that she can get a better look at my watch.

"What’s this?" she honks in that voice of hers. She’s referring to the jewels on my wristwatch, my ruby encrusted Fossil, a father’s Day gift from my wife and the boys, recently retrieved from the pawn shop. Birdy is strong. The way she holds my wrist, I know that if I ever had to tangle with her, I’d have to tangle hard—there’d be no punches pulled with this gentle lady.

"Pretty. Pretty," Birdy says, releasing my wrist after lifting her eyebrows in a gesture of flirtation.

"Yeah. Thanks," I say.

I give Birdy a polite smile and get back to looking at my cards. I’m a gentleman. I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. So the big lady wanted to look at my watch. But there are smiles all around the table, especially on the dealer’s face. Something’s going on, and I’m not in on it. We play a few more hands, and then Birdy excuses herself to the ladies room.
As soon as she leaves, I say to the dealer, "What was that all about? What’s up with her today?"

The dealer says, "Her? That’s a good one."

I say, "Yeah? Really?" coming to understand. "She’s a he?"

"Not anymore." The dealer says, "Yeah, oh yeah. He—I mean, she, really liked your watch. Ha-ha."

The other players are kidding me now. I wanna hold your hand, one sings like Paul McCartney. So how’s it feel? says another. I wanna peek at your pwetty, pwetty watch, too, says another. Are you free Friday night, toots? I got a bottle of Bacardi and a bucket of Vasoline, says another.

They keep at it until Birdy comes back to the table, and then the game returns to normal, except for the sly smiles. Birdy’s yapping picks up right where it left off, and she has the last laugh on us. By the end of the night, she has won most of our chips. As she packs up to leave, some of the guys, who are clearly her friends though they laugh behind her back, borrow money from her to stake them over until tomorrow. Some of them flirt with her. Hmmm.

A couple days later, I have lunch with Birdy in the Café, my treat. She does not eat like a bird. She swallows two Philly Cheese steaks and gulps down a mug of Budweiser and then a Diet Sprite. Birdy tells me that she used to be a Vegas performer—without bothering to explain what kind of performer—but then she discovered she had a knack for the cards.

"It’s patience," she says. "The best players in the world all have one thing in common. They hate the game. They find it incredibly boring. Boring because they don’t get to play much. They pretty much throw away every hand. Most hands are bad. The trick is to wait—be patient—for that great hand, and you can make money. But remember this: even that great hand can be beat. It’s a tough game. It’s really a tough way to make money. I haven’t held a real job in like three years. I live on my poker winnings. I can make like three hundred dollars a day in here. Most days I do, bad as you guys play. But it’s hard work. Some days I make nothing. Absolutely nothing—and you know how tight I play. You have to be patient. And you can’t get greedy. Greed kills."

"Is that right?" I say.

"Yes," Birdy says, leaning in close to my face. "Buy me another cheese steak, and I’ll tell you more, handsome."

"One cheese steak coming up."

Birdy sits back in her chair and poses so that I can get a good look at the golden cat eyes on her breasts. She winks. "Would you like to see the rest of the kitty?"

"Not a chance," I say to Birdy. "Not a chance."

Cover Design: Joseph McNair