Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim Read Online Free PDF Page B

to stand out and ruin your life forever. “I hate to tell you,” I said, “but it’s against my religion to play poker.”
“Yeah, right,” Walt said. “What are you, Baptist?”
“Greek Orthodox.”
“Well, that’s a load of crap because the Greeks invented cards,” Walt said.
“Actually, I think it was the Egyptians.” This from Scott, who was quickly identifying himself as the smart one.
“Greeks, Egyptians, they’re all the same thing,” Walt said. “Anyway, what your pooh-bah doesn’t know won’t hurt him, so shut the hell up and play.”
He dealt the cards, and I looked from face to face, exaggerating flaws and reminding myself that these boys did not like me. The hope was that I might crush any surviving atom of attraction, but as has been the case for my entire life, the more someone dislikes me the more attractive he becomes. The key was to stall, to argue every hand until the sun came up and Mrs. Winters saved me with whatever cheerful monstrosity she’d planned for breakfast.
On the off chance that stalling would not work, I stepped into the bathroom and checked to make sure I was wearing clean underwear. A boner would be horrible beyond belief, but a boner combined with a skid mark meant that I should take the ketchup-smeared knife and just kill myself before it was too late.
“What are you, launching a sub in there?” Walt shouted. “Come on, we’re waiting.”
Usually when I was forced to compete, it was my tactic to simply give up. To try in any way was to announce your ambition, which only made you more vulnerable. The person who wanted to win but failed was a loser, while the person who didn’t really care was just a weirdo — a title I had learned to live with. Here, though, surrender was not an option. I had to win at a game I knew nothing about, and that seemed hopeless until I realized we were all on an equal footing. Not even Scott had the slightest idea what he was doing, and by feigning an air of expertise, I found I could manipulate things in my favor.
“A joker and a queen is much better than the four and five of spades,” I said, defending my hand against Brad Clancy’s.
“But you have a joker and a three of diamonds.”
“Yes, but the joker makes it a queen.”
“I thought you said that poker was against your religion,” Walt said.
“Well, that doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. Greeks invented cards, remember. They’re in my blood.”
At the start of the game, the starburst clock had read three-thirty. An hour later I was missing one shoe, Scott and Brad had lost their shirts, and both Walt and Dale were down to their underwear. If this was what winning felt like, I wondered why I hadn’t tried it before. Confidently in the lead, I invented little reasons for the undressed to get up and move about the room.
“Hey, Walt, did you hear that? It sounded like footsteps up in the kitchen.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“Why don’t you go to the stairway and check. We don’t want any surprises.” His underwear was all bunchy in the back, saggy like a diaper, but his legs were meaty and satisfying to look at.
“Dale, would you make sure those curtains are closed?”
He crossed the room, and I ate him alive with my eyes, confident that no one would accuse me of staring. Things might have been different were I in last place, but as a winner, it was my right to make sure that things were done properly. “There’s an open space down by the baseboard. Bend over and close it, will you?”
It took a while, but after explaining that a pair of kings was no match for a two of hearts and a three of spades, Walt surrendered his underpants and tossed them onto a pile beside the TV set. “Okay,” he said. “Now the rest of you can finish the game.”
“But it is finished,” Scott said.
“Oh no,” Walt said. “I’m not the only one getting naked. You guys have to keep playing.”
“While you do what — sit back and watch?” I said. “What kind of a homo