You Can't Hurt Me

There is a house in new orleans

"I put 300 in," Race says, his face as stoic as he feels. The trick to a good poker face is to loose all feelings, all emotions, Race becomes just a lump of meat in this moment. A lump of meat about to win 4,000.

The other man looks nervous, his face relaxed, but the corners of his eyes hold a stress. Every bet he places higher numbers in, but his lip is red from chewing on it. Rookie move.

"I fold." Race raises an eyebrow, not surprised.

The other guy however, puts another 500 in the mix, easy. He doesn't blink, smile, or frown, Race wonders if he just fell asleep halfway through the game.

Race takes a long, deep drag of his cigarette, bumped it off of Robert, the man who folded. He turned his head up, and made a perfect smoke ring, blowing a smaller one through it.

The other guy, John rolls his eyes. He finds race immensely immature, which he was, but Race is a smart immature.

Race may be young, but he wasn't a looser. He looked the man right in the eyes, took a long drag and placed down a wad of cash.

"2,000 dollars."

His father, from his respective chair, sat up straighter. The man's poker face faltered, his eyes showing worry.

He was all out of cash.

Race didn't smile, that was for after the game, but he leaned back, and blew another smoke ring. The curly gray smoke dancing in the air, he rang his finger through it, feeling the thick smoke from his cigarette.

"I..." the man swallowed, and threw down his cards, "fold."

Race laughed loud and hyena like. Taking a long sip of his second beer, he threw down his cards. Grabbing the money he dragged the large cash towards him. His opponent scanned through the cards, anger setting on his face.

"This hand sucks." John was angry.

"Yeah it's called playing poker, can y'a hand me that beer if youse finished."

John scowled, and grabbed his lot of the money.

"Hey!" Race yelled, standing, "that's my cash."

"You cheated you dumb piece of crap."

"Ise won that fair and square!" Race grabbed the money back and pulled, it slipped out of Johns hands where he started to bag it up.

John growled, and fished around his pockets. He pulled out a switchblade, letting it loose.

Robert gasped at the shiny metal, taking a step back. He gulped and ran out the door, uninvolved.

Race's dad just stood there, looking at the knife with mild distress, this was Race's battle not his.

Race, at the dangerous end of the Knife, immediately lost all emotions on his face, he let his lip quirk up slightly. This was poker.

"You really gonna stab me here?" He laughed, "wait hold on let me help, this here is where my lungs are, won't be able to scream for help if youse stabbing me here."

His dad opened up the newspaper and read through it.

"I want my cash."

"And I wanna see a Tayler Swift concert, we can't all get what we want."

"I'll stab you, don't think I won't! that's my kids college funds in there."

Race barked out a laughter, "you shouldn't have gambled it off, hella good dad you are."

"What's about yours, just gonna let me stab y'a?" The man mocked.

Races face slicked off the carefree smile, his eyes darkened, "don't you talk about my fathar."

"You're just a scared little boy, crying for his daddy."

"Shut up."

"You-"

"It's time for you to leave John," his dad spoke up. "You lost the money, scram."

John took one apprehensive look, and walked out the door.

Race growled and threw off the poker pieces, running upstairs, money left behind.

There he sat on the fire escape, looking out. The stars were out again, but this time Georgina was welcoming him. He really had to stop giving his personalized constellations names.

"Are you smoking?"

Race looked over to see Jack, perched over the other fire escape, looking concerned.

"So? What if ise am."

"It'll kill y'a."

"Good."

Jack frowned, "wanna talk about that?"

Race laughed, "I'm kidding. Really! Don't give me that look."

Jack held up his hands, and they both got silent. Race searching the sky for his imaginary friends, Jack watching Race.

"Whatcha looking for kid?"

"Susan."

"Excuse me?"

Race sighed, turning to Jack. "You see those stars in the middle of the sky, the ones that are dimmer, bright bright, dimmer? No not those, follow my hand Jack, yes."

"What about them."

"Those are the first friends I had," Race leaned his head on his hand, "when ise was six I would look into the stars, and we would hang out togetha, we'd talk, I'd tell them my worries and they would shine and sparkle. I swear to you Jack, my problems would be resolved after a good chat. I found more and more as I scanned the skies, a Frank to marry Susan, and a Jessica to gossip about it. Ise had a family written in the stars."

"You wanna study astronomy?" Jack asked.

"Me? No, I'm taking over for my father when I gets older. He runs the poker joint down the street." Race said easily, he hadn't even considered another path.

"You're too smart to run a crusty poker joint."

"Crusty!"

Jack ignored him, "you were made for something special Race. I just don't know what."

"Besides I don't wanna look at the stars for an old job, it would ruin them." Race said honestly.

"So what do you wanna do."

Race thought about it, but he knew the answer,  "I wanna write stories."

"Stories?"

"I ain't good with words, or even with my thoughts, but I've got worlds I wanna makes. Ive got universes, characters I wanna give life too. I wanna father creativity."

"So why don't y'a?"

Race scoffed, "I ain't smart enough for that."

"Plenty of high schoolers have written successful stories," Jack reasoned.

Race frowned and looked at him confused, "Ise in middle school."

Jack looked surprised, "oh I thought you were 15."

"Ise am."

"Then why-"

Race's fathers booming voice called him down.

Race smiled over to him and tipped his hat, "till the next time."

He ran off, leaving Jack on that fire escape all alone, looking at Races first friends.