The Silver Wheel Game 1: The Fall

Round Two: Craps

"Say, would you care to hear a joke?"

"Only if it's funny."

The blonde-haired bartender was named Ture, who despite his aggressively European name, had the accent of an American trying too hard to sound American. Unlike most Americans, however, he was neither talkative nor terribly outgoing, as the whole ten minutes Hugo had been here Ture had only asked him for his drink order and insulted him for it. And for the past nine minutes, the two men had simply waited in silence, neither of them volunteering much in the way of information or conversation.

But Hugo was a socialite at heart, and nine minutes of silence was too much to bear, especially with a brand-new mind for him to pick apart.

"I can't promise you'll find it funny, but I can guarantee it's tasteful."

"Then your taste in jokes must be better than your taste in drinks."

Hugo took a sip of spritzer. "Layla", sung by Eric Chapton, was playing on some invisible radio.

"So, a dog strays into a jungle, and is terribly lost and scared. While he wanders, a lion notices him, and never having seen a dog before, figures him to be an easy meal. The lion charges, and the dog, thinking quickly, sits next to some nearby bones and says aloud 'what a delicious lion!'. The lion, overhearing the dog, panics and runs away."

The bartender folded his arms over his chest.

"So the dog had seen a lion before? Otherwise it wouldn't know what animal was charging it."

"I suppose it must have, at some point."

"Alright. Go on."

"Well. A nearby monkey happened to see this and figured he could befriend the lion by telling him the truth. So the monkey tells the lion what the dog did, and furious, the lion says 'get on my back, we'll get him together'."

The bartender leaned backwards. His bangs fell into his eyes, which he pushed aside with a single finger.

"So the monkey's seen a dog before?"

"Perhaps. Or maybe it knew the dog hadn't created the skeleton."

"But the lion didn't."

"I'm sure a monkey would pay more attention to stray skeletons than a lion would."

The bartender bopped his head from side to side, thinking.

"Alright, I'll concede that."

"Anyway, the dog sees the lion and monkey charging, and gets another idea. Aloud, he says 'where the heck did that monkey go? I sent him to fetch me another lion an hour ago!'"

There was a pause. Ture eased his butt against the wooden railing of the ornate bar behind him, where hundreds of bottles of liquor were on display behind a sheet of beautiful glass, shimmering despite the sole, dull light in the room.

"...and?" He pressed.

"And that's it. That's the joke."

"Fuck. Lame joke. You should stick to drink orders, now those are worth a laugh."

"I'm sorry it wasn't to your taste."

"And I'm sorry I have good taste. Christ, my life would be so much better if I didn't."

"Hmmm. Are they quite done in the other room, do you think?"

"When they're done, you'll know. This ain't a social club."

"I can tell."

"I serve drinks, man. I'm not paid to be charming."

Hugo Snidely aspired to be a gentleman. One might argue he had already achieved that goal but he would firmly rebuke such claims. To be a gentleman, he argued, was a journey, never a destination. Gentleman is an evolving label, with a foundation steeped in tradition but an ever-shifting body to accommodate the sensibilities of modernity. Unfortunately it was a somewhat dirty word these days thanks to cretins who misappropriated it for their misogyny or self-aggrandizement. But he tried to not shy away from it himself: after all, no one could reclaim the word if nobody tried.