Three of Clubs

Three of Clubs, Part One

This is part one of my short story titled, "Three of Clubs". Enjoy! Comments and criticism welcomed!

Around 5 o'clock every evening or so, an old man quietly flips the sign on the shop door to "Closed". He gently takes our deck off of the shelf and spreads us out on the mahogany counter. The old man plays solitaire as though it were an Olympic sport, his fingers flying swiftly across our backs and his brain working like gears, turning and turning. I love the feel of his warm, callused hands moving smoothly, and hearing him humming softly to himself as he plays.

Allow me to introduce myself. Sort of.

I do not have a name, strangely enough, though I do have a house. Clubs. Three of clubs, to be precise. I suppose you could say that is my name. Is this beginning to sound like a riddle? Good.

My memory begins in a box. Flimsy, that box was, though it stood tall and strong with all of us cards packed inside it. It was small, and it was snug, but it was home.

Perhaps I had been some other place before that box, but before the box, everything is foggy.

I know I was in a store, and I know it was small. The old man owned it. He was old and rough around the edges. His forehead was creased in constant puzzlement, and he had deep laugh lines rimming his ice blue eyes. When the other cards spoke of the man, they referred to him as simply The Elder. The name fit him, I thought.

The Elder was a pleasant old man. Aside from the rare occasion of a bad day here and there, he was generally, well, happy. His jolly laugh shook our deck as it bounced off the shelves of his shop, and his smile was like the sun, radiating out so vibrantly you could nearly feel it. In the end, The Elder's heart was large and full like the moon, and I loved him very, very much.

Back many years ago, he had met and fallen madly in love with a beautiful waitress with shiny brown curls who worked at Ricky's Diner downtown. The Elder called her Betty Blue Eyes, because that was what her name tag read. He said looking into her eyes was like throwing your head back on a crisp fall day, gazing up at the cloudless sky without a care in the world. When he looked at Betty, he felt forever free and full of life.

The Elder and Betty were married for more than fifty years, years of challenging, happy, memorable moments that both would cherish always. He loved her more than his own life, and when she experienced the first of her seizures, The Elder was beside her before she knew it.

After a long, hard road of sickness, Betty passed away peacefully while sleeping. The Elder was never, ever the same.

His eyes dulled grayer than his hair, and his lips remained fixed in a tight line. The laugh lines upon his face grew sunken, defeated. His body sagged. Even his voice became scratchy, and he snapped at himself and the customers often. This was not The Elder I knew and loved.

But every Sunday morning, The Elder would come to the shop, and he would talk.

To whom, I am not sure exactly. But I have a secret, for even playing cards have secrets: whether he was or not, I liked to believe that The Elder was speaking to me.

The Elder told me about his life. His memories, Betty illuminating nearly every one. I think he missed talking to her, and this was his way of consoling himself.

I loved hearing his stories. He told me about his childhood, about the pale green house he grew up in, with the picket fence and crab apple trees. He told about the time he and his brothers had a crab apple war, where one flew and slapped his eye so hard he nearly cried. "But I did not cry," he said, "for I was a tough boy."

I loved hearing him speak. His raspy, thick voice echoed in the empty little store.

One autumn morning, though, he spoke not of his memories, but of the future. He spoke of what was to come. He spoke of something that gave me that sinking feeling, where you feel like you are being dropped a thousand feet with no warning.

The Elder was closing his shop.