Ever tried to quit smoking? That's a bitch. Not as hard as the Ardennes or Normandy Beach, but definitely as hard as boot camp, for me. That's what giving up cards was like for Lucy, after she lost the house and went to Gamblers Anonymous. From the time I taught that girl to play when she was five, she carried cards around like some kids haul yo-yo's, or pocket knives. We built card houses together, we came up with a simple little code to spell words out in cards, we collected funny decks: little, big, old fashioned, cartoon-themed. We were big on "catching cheaters." I showed her how to mark cards, how to force them, pinkie breaks and dealing off the bottom of the deck. Takes one to catch one, I used to tell her with a wink. I can still remember going over to her house, the three perfect brothers studying or playing French horns or getting their underwear ironed or what have you, and little Lucy watching TV with cards in her hand, blind waterfall shuffles for hours, that snapping whirr soothing as the sound of a fan in the next room. But sometimes, we gotta move on. You heard it from a dead guy--I should know.
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