Divine Poker

This is a sort of spinoff from Divine Gift. There's no reason to read that story first unless you want to (people do seem to like it a lot). I'd sort of painted myself into a corner with the main character's power in that one so I wanted to explore that same world with a slightly toned down "gift" from the divine. Hopefully you enjoy.

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Growing up in the Bible belt is a weird experience. Let's be honest, for some people it's almost hell on earth. But for others, it can be wonderful. I had a foot in both doors, frankly. My father was a fifth generation Baptist deacon for our church. He lived and breathed it and so did our family. We spent every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday at the church. When I was young, I didn't really appreciate how stifling that environment could be. To me, it was just the place where all my friends were. The place with the hallways we'd play tag in. It was a second home and we treated it as such. Our family did a good portion of the landscaping which is where I learned to love working outdoors. My Dad would even preach if the pastor was sick or on leave. Our whole family would sit and watch proudly. Mom in her stiff, starched, floral dress. My two little sisters and little brother. We'd stare as our father told the congregation of his love for the Lord. I always enjoyed listening to him talk more than the Pastor even.

It wasn't until I turned 16 that I started to see the darker cracks. My two best friends, Malcolm and Olivia were hanging out with me. We were a pretty mismatched threesome. Malcolm was a tall, skinny black guy. He played basketball but wasn't a starter. He loved computers but wasn't a nerd. He was popular but no way was he going to be prom king. A pretty average guy all around. Olivia, on the other hand, always stood out. She was a knockout. Or she would be if she tried. Instead, she insisted on wearing baggy camo outfits or black dresses. Everything about her screamed "alternative girl". She had her nose and tongue pierced and even had convinced her mom to let her get a tattoo. She was also an open, unabashed Lesbian.

So you can imagine how the three of us looked. Me, a generic looking white guy with a polo shirt and khakis. Malcolm in his white tank top and basketball shorts covered in sweat and Olivia with a black t-shirt, knee length camo shorts and purple hair. But it didn't matter to us. We loved each other.

"You guys should really come to church with me on Sunday," I said, not for the first time. Malcolm had even come with me occasionally when we were younger but he'd stopped after awhile. Olivia had come twice and abruptly stopped.

Olivia and Malcolm exchanged quick glances and then said, "Naw... busy this weekend."

"Me too," Olivia said, looking away.

"It's homecoming though. Big potluck dinner with the best home cooked southern food you'll ever see. You don't need to bring anything," I implored.

Malcolm and Olivia looked at each other again and Olivia gave Malcolm a shake of her head. I looked back and forth and then said, "What, guys? What the..." I lowered my voice reflexively even though we were alone in the woods behind the school, "Heck."

Olivia rolled her eyes. She thought my reluctance to swear was stupid. I suppose it was a little bit silly. But it was the way I was raised. "Heck" was just another way to say "Hell" and you shouldn't say that.

"Fine... tell him," she said.

I looked between the two of them and Malcolm said, "Look man. I love you like a brother, you know that?"

I nodded.

"And your family has always been straight with me. For real. They're like a family."

"Me too," Olivia said. It was true. Malcolm and Olivia had probably had almost as many meals at my house as at their own in the last three or four years. "None of this is about them. You need to understand that, okay?"

I nodded, getting worried. What were they about to say?

"We just don't feel at home at your Church," Malcolm said in practiced words.

"What do you mean?"

"You ever see any other black people in your church?" Malcolm asked bluntly.

I thought about it. There was the Williams family that had done the janitorial work for awhile but they'd left. And the Smith family had an adopted black daughter.

"Sarah Jean Alstott's husband is black," I said, snapping my fingers as if that somehow proved a point.

"They go to my church now, bro," Malcolm said. I realized that I hadn't actually seen them at Sunday service in over a month. My shoulders slouched.

"It's a white bread church. Everyone's been in the church for generations. It just is what it is."

I frowned and thought about it. I'd never imagined the church that I loved as being uninviting. Unwelcoming.

"It's not just that either. How many times a year do they preach on the sins of homosexuality?"

I knew what this was about. The second time Olivia had gone they'd given that sermon. She'd nearly stormed out but had refrained out of respect for me and my family. I knew it had really bothered her but hadn't had the courage to talk about it with her.

"Well... I mean... it's a sin," I said.

Olivia glared at me but then her eyes softened. I got the distinct feeling she was looking at me like I was a puppy who'd just piddled on the floor. "It's not a sin to be what God made you to be," she said.

"Homosexuality is a choice though," I said, parroting words I'd heard a million times from the pulpit.

"Do you like girls?" Olivia asked.

"Of course," I said.

"When did you choose to?" she continued.

"I didn't, I was just..." I trailed off.

"Born that way?" she finished. I only nodded. I'd never really given it much thought before. Hadn't really critically considered the situation. The words. The arguments.

That day, I'll never forget. It changed everything for me. After that, I started sitting in through the sermons and would find myself grinding my teeth. I'd get angry at the thinly veiled hate that would spew forth at times from the pastor. The exclusionary language. The "us vs. them". The rhetorical arguments that didn't hang together and relied on blatant emotional appeals to connect the most critical dots.

I'll also never forget the first time my dad preached after I'd talked to Malcolm and Olivia in the woods. I was nervous. Afraid. Fearful that my Dad would turn out to be every bit as awful as I was starting to see the Pastor to be. I tried to feign illness so I didn't have to go but my parents insisted. I couldn't say 'no' and just slunk off to church filled with dread. When he got up and started talking about God's love, I felt something stir within me. He talked about God loving everybody. About God not caring about our individual failings or shortcomings. Because God didn't see them that way. They were the things that made us ourselves. He pointed at me and said, "Phillip doesn't take out the trash. He forgets every Monday night. Every. Single. One. Isn't that right, Phillip?"

I could only nod as people laughed congenially around me. My mother rubbed my shoulder as my cheeks flushed with embarrassment. My Dad's words were true. I did forget. And it was genuine. I was just forgetful. I wasn't slacking. I just... forgot sometimes.

My father continued, "Some parents would get upset. Accuse him of malingering. Get angry and yell and curse. But I realized a long time ago that my son is just forgetful. Weirdly and beautifully selective in his forgetfulness," he said as people laughed again. He paused and looked at me, giving me a tiny wink and a simple smile, "But forgetful nonetheless. It's a fault of his. But it's not really a fault. God made him that way and I love him. I used to wish that he was less forgetful. But last week he took the trash two Mondays ago for the first time in 4 years without being asked. I cried. Honest to God, I cried. God gave me this wonderful, forgetful son and I love him for it. When he forgot again last Monday, I looked up at heaven and said, 'Thank you, God' "

The crowd gave a quiet "Amen" in response and my father looked at me. I'd taken the trash out because I'd literally watched a show in which the boy got yelled at for not taking the trash out and it had reminded me. That was the only reason. My Dad knew that but he'd left it out of the story. It was a trick Pastor's learned. To bend or shade the truth just a little bit for the point of the story. And that made me realize, "What WAS the point of this story?"

I thought about it all through church, barely registering the rest of the words that were said, before shuffling out at the end. We shook hands with our friends and neighbors but the story was still on my mind.

I climbed into the car with my family as we waited for Dad to finish locking up. When he walked up, he gestured for me to get out as he dangled the keys for me to drive home. I sighed, he knew driving made me nervous. Nevertheless, I stepped out and he handed them to me.

"Did you understand the point of the sermon today?" he asked abruptly. It wasn't unusual for him to ask the family but it was unusual for him to ask me privately. I looked at him in confusion. "You sort of zoned out after I told the story about you," he observed.

I shrugged, "It's about loving people despite their faults, right?"

"No," he said calmly. Try again.

I thought about it for a moment, completely ignoring the rest of the family in the sweltering heat.

"It's about realizing that things that other people see as faults aren't actually faults. They're part of who that person is?" I said, unsure of myself.

My father smiled, "Sometimes I think people at this church forget that. They're good people but they sometimes see differences as problems. But if God didn't want us to be different, he sure wasted a lot of time on this whole DNA thing, right?"

"Is this about Olivia?" I asked, not sure where the thought came from.

My father's eyes flicked to the car and back at me, "It's about everyone that thinks that just because the church doesn't make them feel like they belong that somehow God isn't there for them as individuals. And yes... that means Olivia too."

My Dad stopped just short of saying, "It's okay that she's gay," but I felt like this was the basic equivalent.

After that, I found myself drifting away from the Church. I still loved to talk and learn about theology but something about that day made me realize that loving God and loving the Church were not the same thing.

When it came time to go to college, my choices were limited. State school was all we could afford since my grades were not exactly scholarship material. The plus side was that Olivia, Malcolm and I would be going to school together. The big plus was that they had a good theology department and I knew that I wanted to study all the world's religions.

And I did that. I studied them like a sponge. I loved it. And while they started to define me, they stopped being the driving force in my life after Sophomore year. That's when Malcolm convinced me to take a statistics class with him. I loved it. The way the numbers fit together just made sense to me. It was logical in a way that math had never been before. Something just clicked. When he convinced me to join them for a game of poker and I realized that there were real world applications for the game, I was completely hooked. I threw myself into learning the game. The statistics. I was terrible in face-to-face games. At least at first. But online? Where nobody could read me and it was all statistics? I loved it? I learned to play and was making a decent amount of money online. Then I learned you could play multiple tables. I'd sit and play 4 then 8 then eventually 16 tables all at once. Check, Fold, Raise, Check, Check, Call, Call, Raise, Raise, Raise, Raise. That became my life for three hours everyday.

I started tracking my winnings. At first they were modest. $10 an hour or so. But as I improved my game. Eliminated leaks. Smoothed off rough edges. It got better. Much better. By my senior year, I was paying all my bills through online poker. I'd even built a nice nest egg for myself. Enough to go play in Vegas... at least for awhile. I looked at it as a sort of Rumspringa. A gap year after college to try something I'd never have a chance to do. To go a little wild for the first time in my life and see if lightning would strike me down for my hubris.

I told my parents who were pretty startled. They tried to talk me out of it first with religion, "Gambling is a sin," and then with logic, "You'll go broke."

"If I go broke, it's fine. Then I'll know God wanted me to have a more normal career and life. But what if God has put these events in my way to get me there."

"To get you to gamble?" my mother asked incredulously.

"Maybe," I said and my Mom winced, "But maybe just to get me to go to Vegas. What if there's a person there that needs to be saved? Someone that only I can save? God sometimes uses sinners for good things, right?"

My parents nodded, they knew the Bible was rife with examples like that. "Maybe that's what this is. Maybe there's something good for me to do there and God just wants me to be able to eat while I'm doing his work?"

I didn't really believe the words. Neither did my parents. But they backed off and conceded the point nevertheless. I think both of them thought this was hubris and rationalization. They thought I'd lose my shirt and come home in a month. But that was three years ago.

I've done pretty well for myself. Nobody that needed to be saved though. Just me making a very good living and enjoying the tamer side of sin city. There's lots of temptations. Alcohol, Gambling, Drugs, Sloth and Gluttony galore. But the biggest one for me is the women. There are so many beautiful women that it's almost impossible to believe. I'd long since discarded the idea of staying a virgin until I was married. I'd even had a girlfriend in college that I'd had sex with. Lights out and missionary. Just like I was taught God wanted. But my life was so busy and weirdly scheduled, I didn't have much time for much social interaction and I really didn't know how to juggle a girlfriend.

All this is pretty mundane and, if that's all there was to it, I wouldn't bother telling you the story. But what happened a few weeks ago changed everything. I came back from a strong performance at a little mini-tournament at the Bellagio. I'd gotten to the final three where I was up against a random girl that I didn't know and a local pro whose name you'd recognize if I told you. He was the big stack and I knew I didn't have much of a chance. I waited until he folded under the button to try to isolate her. Ace - Seven suited wasn't the strongest hand but it was enough. I got pretty lucky to win the hand though. A7 vs. A6 when the board comes A76 rainbow is what some people would call a "cooler". For her, it was what busted her out of the tournament. We shook hands, my Two pair, Aces and Sevens with a nine kicker, beating her Aces and Sixes. Then I promptly busted out to the pro and took home my check for 20 grand.

It wasn't the biggest win of my career but it was definitely one of the biggest. I got home after 2am and collapsed in bed, exhausted. That's when I had, "the dream". I don't mean to make that sound as dramatic as it appears. But it was truly bizarre. I imagined myself in a strange forest, along the side of a small babbling brook. The crystal clear water was ankle deep and tiny little goldfish swam around the water, chasing something even smaller I couldn't make out. The water flowed into the mist that surrounded the clearing like a wall. I looked around, looking for something. Some landmark or sign of where I was but there was nothing. As I swiveled around, there was a strange figure sitting on a rock by the stream. He hadn't been there before. He looked up at me and I stopped dead in my tracks. His face was a swirl of... of... well... a swirl of stuff. One of his eyes looked like a glowing sun stuck in a strange hollowed out wooden socket that was the right side of his face. His other eye was a swirling whirlpool of water, complete with little drips that flicked out to his left. The water swirled and splattered out from the strange tangle of grass and roots that comprised the stranger's left half of his head.

My eyes took in the rest of the man and I swear to you, it almost broke my brain. His nose was some sort of weird hooked beak. His teeth shone like they were diamonds. His arms were octopus tentacles and one leg was a human leg while the other was a goat's, complete with a knee cap pointing in the wrong direction. He had on a T-Shirt for the latest MCU movie and a pair of jean shorts along with white socks and birkenstocks. Yeah... As weird as this was, it was the socks and birkenstocks that nearly made me wake up screaming. Somehow, I didn't though.

"Come here, child," the stranger said. His voice filled me with warmth and reassurance. He slapped his tentacle down on the stone beside him, beckoning me to join him.

"Sure... why not... weirdest dream ever," I said as I walked over.

"It's not a dream, my boy. More of an... an opportunity," he said as I sat. He stretched a tentacle around my shoulder conspiratorially and whispered, "Not my first time. Won't be my last. You humans are just so much fun."

The tentacle was less slimy than I thought. And the stickers more sticky. Three of them wrapped around my wrist and adhered with a pop. "Opportunity for what?"

"Phillip, my boy, you've had a crisis of faith in me. And I can't say I blame you. But I love the way you've handled it."

I blinked in confusion, "What?"

"You've lost faith in me, haven't you?" he asked, speaking slowly.

"I don't know you," I said.

"Oh... sorry... I'm God. Nice to meet you," he said as he extended his other arm, now no longer a tentacle and instead a hairy paw with sharp claws. I looked at it and then back at the stranger now claiming he was a divine entity. The creator. "Oh... sorry," he said and suddenly the claws retracted. As if that was the thing I was concerned about.

Nevertheless, I took the furry paw and shook it. "Okay... you're... God?"

"The one and only. At least in this universe."

"Uhhmmm... okay. Prove it?"

The crazy eyes rolled in exasperation, "Prove it... prove it..." he muttered to himself in annoyance, "Fine. Those playboys you kept under your bed when you were 15. I know about those."

"It's my dream. Of course you know," I said with a laugh. I was mildly disappointed that the God of my imagination wasn't more clever.

"Fine... fine... okay... your best friends are sleeping with your mom," he said.

"Wait... what? Who?"

"Malcolm and Olivia... oh... shit... did I get the wrong dream again. You are Phillip Short, aren't you? Very embarrassing if I messed this up," he said and started rifling through a thick book he'd produced out of thin air.

"No... I'm Phillip Short," I said. "But no way are Malcolm and Olivia... uhmm..."

"Fucking your mother? Doing the beast with two backs? I love that one by the way..." he said leaning forward, "Carpet munching? Doing the nasty? Yup... for the last two years actually."

"No way. My Dad works from home and Mom doesn't go anywhere," I said.

God shrugged, "Why would he. He likes to stay and watch," God said. "Every Sunday between services. They're quite good really. I even watch sometimes."

Malcolm and Olivia never were available Sunday afternoon. My sisters and brother worked at the church and didn't come home with my parents. My mom had started coming home for a nap... about... two years ago... ohh...

"Believe me now?" God said.

"Yes... or my imagination is more messed up than I realized."

"Well... both could be true... but this isn't proof of the latter. Look, you're going to be waking up soon and I need to explain the gift I'm giving you."