Werewolves - Chapter 2

Jon Brody looked down at the two cards in his hand. One A next to a heart and another A next to a diamond. Normally he’d be quite excited about a hand like that, but considering that his luck had been running like a Californian on black ice during his first New England winter, he thought about laying it down. He looked at the stack of chips in front of him and then at the eight larger stacks of chips of the other men and women around the table. He really didn’t have a choice.

“All in,” he said, pushing his last $200 into the pot.

Three men and a woman to his left folded. A man sitting across the table, about twenty years older than Jon, in his early forties, with a graying, meticulously maintained goatee and a face that might as well have been carved from Greek marble, checked his cards and shrugged. “Call.” A neat stack of chips followed Jon’s into the pot. The final three players folded. “Just you and me, kid,” the man said. “Let’s see ‘em.” Jon was surprised to hear that the man was an American, too.

Jon stood up and turned over his two red aces.

The older man chuckled. He turned over the two black aces. “What are the odds of that?”

Jon did a quick run of the numbers through his head. “One in about 30,000. Or if you mean once you’re holding aces, the odds of someone else having aces is about one in about 150.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s pretty simple. You just--”

“No, it’s all right. I believe you. So are you like Rain Man or something?”

“No,” Jon said, “I’m just… good with numbers.” Which was a bit of an understatement considering his SB in Applied Mathematics from MIT. But Jon didn’t like to brag. Especially since he felt his education was as much a stigma as an asset in certain circles. Like with casino security. But now he could relax some. They both had the same hand. At least he couldn’t lose his money. Splitting the blinds would be the best result he’d had all night. Then the dealer flopped over the two, seven, and eight of clubs.

“Goddamnit,” Jon said.

“They always have to make you sweat, don’t they?” The older man grinned.

Jon tried to smile. He knew there was seven out of eleven chance they’d still split the pot. The odds were technically in his favor. As a man who put his faith in numbers, you’d think that would give him confidence. But he knew better. Even after the dealer turned over the four of diamonds, he was more certain than ever that the next card would be covered in clover-shaped symbols. And it was. With nine of them.

“Sorry, kid,” the older man said.

Jon shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” He thought about buying back in, he had a few hundred dollars left in his pocket, but instead he stepped away from the table and walked towards the exit of the casino. He didn’t really care about the money. Not that he could afford it, all that he had was in his pocket and a little more in the bank, it was just that he didn’t particularly care about anything at the moment. His apathy wasn’t helped by what greeted him when he stepped outside.

The tropical night air washed over him. It was hard to worry about money when there was a white sand beach less than 500 feet away. Jon was content to laze about until his meager savings were depleted and they kicked him off the island. What were his options? Find another job? He had one of those and it drove him crazy. Why the hell would he want to work 70 hours a week to help make rich people richer? Sure the pay was good, but it was peanuts compared to what he was helping his company’s clients make.

Jon figured his main problem was that he’d never had to work hard for anything in his life. His family wasn’t rich or anything, somewhere in the lower middle class, but he’d always had the things he needed and a little more. His parents never made him get a job because they wanted him to study, but school had always been easy for him. And even though he had gone to a good college, he still just coasted by. He somehow found the time to watch three hours of M*A*S*H everyday, and get his sleep. He didn’t know if he was lucky, smart, or both, but it had never really been a challenge. So he managed to graduate without ever really putting in a hard day’s work in his life. Then he got a job on Wall Street. Sure it was a lot of hours, but they weren’t particularly difficult hours. He did what he was told, and maybe just a fraction more to look good, but he spent most of his time in his office putzing around on the interwebs. He had no idea what the hell everybody else could’ve been doing with their time, but it depressed him that they considered it hard work. If this was hard, Jon hated to think what easy work would be. The final straw had come when his firm started investing in certain mortgage-backed securities. It was obvious to him that the bottom was going to fall out of the market, but no one paid any attention to him. He couldn’t stand working with such idiots. So he quit and got on the first flight out of JFK that he could. That brought him to St. Maarten. But if he was looking for his life to become more difficult, he’d come to the wrong place.

He walked between two hotels and pulled off his sandals when he reached the beach. He scrunched his toes up in the sand and made his way down to the water. A gentle surf lapped the shore, its low roar numbing Jon’s mind further. How could he possibly give a fuck about anything when he was surrounded by this? Maybe he’d just collapse on the shore and let the rising tide wash over him and drag him out to sea. If the seas were calm, he could float for awhile, maybe. He’d been working out. He was probably getting close to negative buoyancy. Before he left his job, he’d started hitting the gym after work. There was a girl, well he thought of her as a girl even though she was a woman at least five years older than him, and this in itself was an indication of what further problems Jon may have had, but at any rate there was a girl who was usually there the same time as him, usually on the elliptical. If at all possible, Jon would then start working out on whatever machine, be it elliptical or treadmill or exercise bike, that was behind her so that he could take what he imagined were surreptitious glances at her backside. He supposed this wasn’t the politest thing to do, but damn, the chick had a tight ass. And before you judge him too harshly, well, judge him as harshly as you want, but remember this is a story, and perhaps it's a story that might feature some character development. The point is, that between the leers, he got in some good reps and built a body that was lean and defined. So maybe he’d float, maybe he wouldn’t. Anything could happen. He might sink to the bottom of the ocean and get nibbled on by cute little fish. A shark might finish him off a little more quickly. Or maybe he’d bob on the waves until he got picked up by a yacht crewed by topless Brazilian supermodels. That might be worth living for. Alternatively, he could head to the hotel bar and drink until all the women started looking like supermodels.

He chose the latter option. He walked down the beach a little ways until he reached his hotel. The lobby was bright and Jon had to blink his eyes to adjust. He took the elevator up to his room, changed into a pair of pants and some shoes, then headed back down to the bar. Thankfully the bar was appropriately dim. The décor was clean and simple. It said money. But not too much money. It was sort of early and the place was only half-full.

Jon sat at the bar between two empty stools. He ordered a Heineken and leaned back to survey his surroundings. There were mostly couples scattered at the bar and at a few others in the booths in the back. At the end of the bar, an attractive redhead a few years older than Jon was sitting by herself. He assumed she was waiting for someone, but it couldn’t hurt to be sure. He sidled over and said hello. She said something in Dutch. Jon went back to the other end of the bar. He finished his Heineken and realized this wasn’t the sort of place he’d meet a lot of single women. So he’d either have to take a walk down the beach to find a better place or get so drunk it didn’t matter if he was alone or not. Considering his chances even if he found some single ladies, and you can imagine what those chances might well have been given his behavior at the gym, he ordered a Long Island Iced Tea.

He was deep into his second Long Island and starting to feel pretty good about it when someone to his left said, “Hey.” Jon turned to look. It was the man who had taken his last $200 at the poker game.

“Hey, kid, how you doing?” the man said.

“Awright,” Jon said.

“That was a rough hand. What were the odds of that?”

“About one in a-”

“That’s OK. I don’t need to know. I just came in here to tell you to not get down. You played good poker today. Sometimes the cards just don’t go your way.”

“I noticed.”

The man smiled. “I’m sure you did. How about I buy you a drink to make it up to you?”

“I won’t say no.”

“All right then.” The man looked around. “Jesus, this place is kind of sterile, isn’t it?”

Jon nodded. “Tell me about it. I’d go someplace else if I wasn’t so damn lazy.”

“I know this place a little farther down the road. There’s usually a bit more action there. I could use a wingman. You want to take a walk?”

“Not really, but why not?” Jon settled his tab and hopped to his feet. Despite being three drinks in, the weak hotel booze had done nothing to cure him of his debilitating case of sobriety. He followed the man out of the bar, through the lobby, and outside, away from the beach. They walked down the road a bit then turned onto a narrow, poorly lit lane. It dawned on Jon that perhaps following a stranger down a dark road wasn’t the wisest course of action, but once again he couldn’t find it within himself to give a shit. His apathy was actually rewarded when they came upon a little bar, it was a shack really, but it had a bright argon sign that said something in Dutch, and there were the sounds of merriment and music emanating from it. Definitely not your usual tourist trap.

They stepped inside. It was quite a contrast from the hotel bar. The walls were rough, darkly stained wood, the lights were low, and the owners had apparently never heard of air-conditioning, and ceiling fans uselessly pushed the warm, humid air around. A giant green foam sandal hung from the ceiling. Locals crowded around the bar with only a smattering of tourists and perhaps an expat or two thrown in.

“We’ve got to take this booth in the corner,” Jon’s new friend said.

“Why?” Jon asked as he followed the man to the corner and they sat down.

“You’ll see in a second.”

And a second later, Jon saw why. A waitress walked up to them. She was in her early thirties, tall and thin, but shapely. She wore cut-off jean shorts and her tight t-shirt was tied in a knot above her navel. Most of her black hair was tied back, but two, loosely curled locks framed her pale face and piercing, emerald-green eyes.

She smiled. “How have you been, miliy moy?” Her accent was something Jon had never heard before, a combination of different things.

“Khorosho, y usted?” Jon’s friend said.

“Muy bueno. So what can I get you?”

“Dos cervezas, puzhalsta.” He held up two fingers.

The waitress smiled again and turned to walk away, her hips swaying as she went, the sort of gait that deserved to be filmed and looped and shown at a contemporary art installation in counterpoint with Andy Warhol’s Taylor Mead’s Ass as an example of what people do want to see. Jon’s eyes followed the fine piece of art as it disappeared around the bar, glancing over several other attractive young women, women who normally would have held his gaze if they hadn’t been dealing with such stiff competition.

“So that’s why you wanted to come here,” Jon said. “What language was that, anyway? It sort of sounded like Spanish, but not really.”

“A little Spanish, a little Russian.”

“That’s an interesting combination.”

“She’s half-Cuban and half-Russian. Her name’s Tatiana.”

“That sounds about right,” Jon said, nodding his head. Then, as it dawned on him, “Wait a minute, what the hell’s your name?”

“Martin. Martin Simpson.” He extended his hand.

“Jon Brody.” They shook hands.

“So, Jon, what are you doing in this tropical paradise?”

“Doing my best to hit rock bottom.”

Martin scratched his goatee. “That’s, uh, interesting. Hitting a rough patch?”

“No, my life’s perfect.”

“Yeah, that’s a horrible thing to have to deal with.”

Jon told Martin about his dissatisfaction and disillusionment with his job and life and how he decided to give it all up and leave town and so that’s how he ended up in St. Maarten. He told it all in one sort of very long polysyndetic sentence because maybe he’d been reading too much Hemingway and maybe those drinks were hitting him harder than he thought and maybe he just really liked conjunctions and wasn’t everything in the universe connected anyway…

“Well then, what are you going to do about it?” Martin asked once Jon had run out of breath.

Jon shrugged exaggeratedly. “I figure that when I go broke I’ll either have to get a job that requires an honest day’s work or I’ll fucking waste away. One way or another I’ll find out what I’m made of.”

“I suppose that’s one plan.”

Tatiana returned with their beers, two Heinekens. “You need anything else, mi corazón?”

“Spasiba, but we’re OK for now.”

Tatiana smiled and sashayed away.

Jon smirked. “The two of you have something going on?”

“Not yet.”

“Good luck.” Jon sounded like he didn’t think much of Martin’s chances. That was because he didn’t think much of Martin’s chances.

“Hey, don’t doubt me. If you pay attention you might learn a thing or two. I’m a pro at this.”

“Really?” Jon raised an eyebrow.

“All right, wise guy. How about a little bet?”

“What?”

“See those two girls at the end the bar?” Martin nodded to the two of the young women Jon had glanced over before.

“Yeah.”

“It’s real simple. The winner is the one who leaves with one of them first.”

“OK, how much?”

“Double or nothing. Two hundred bucks.”

“Sounds all right. Wait, how’s the winner going to get his money?”

“Just collect on your way out the door.”

“Good enough for me.”

They shook hands.

“All right,” Martin said. “You want the one on the left or the right?”

The one on the left was blond and whiter than a 5800K ideal black body. It was like looking at an ice shelf. Not that she was unattractive, she was tall and had curves where they were supposed to be, but Jon was afraid he’d burn his retinas.

The one on the right, on the other hand, had a nice café au lait tone to her skin and piles of wavy black hair. A little shorter and less curvy, but Jon’s eyes would thank him in the long run.

“I’ll take one on the right,” he said.

 “OK,” Martin said. “I’ll give you a head start.”

“Why?”

“You’ll need it.”

Jon shook his head. “If you say so.” He finished his beer and got up from the booth. He walked over to the bar next to wavy-haired young woman. He smiled at her then turned away and leaned forward and put his hands on the bar and tried to look like he was just there to order another drink. When he finally got the bartender’s attention, he ordered a mojito. The bartender scowled at him. Jon knew he was being a dick. Nobody liked making mojitos, but he needed to order something that would take awhile to make.

He turned to face the young woman. “Hello,” he said.

“Hallo. Hoe gaat het?”

“Goddamnit,” Jon said. He didn’t think he knew a single word in Dutch.

“Excuse me?” she said. In perfect, slightly accented English. Shit.

He shook his head. “Sorry. Apparently, I like making an ass of myself.”

“I see.”

“So can I buy you a drink?”

“You really do like making an ass of yourself, don’t you?”

“I figure if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right.”

“At least you’re good at it.”

“Thanks.” Jon scratched his chin. “So. Can I buy you a drink?”

She laughed. “Yes, but only because I want to see how much of an ass you really can make of yourself.”

“Great.” Jon knew he’d already blown it, but he didn’t really have a choice other than to keep at it and hope Martin also failed as spectacularly. He got his mojito and ordered a drink for his new lady friend and did some of the small talk thing. He found out her name was Famke. Her father was Dutch, her mother was from St. Maarten, but she was living in the US and going to that other school in Cambridge. Well, not everyone could get into MIT. Her blond friend’s name was Marijke, and she was from Rotterdam. They had not seen each other since Famke had gone to Harvard so they had decided to take a vacation together.

It was at this point in the conversation that Martin made his move. He walked over and started talking to Marijke. A few minutes later, he had taken her over to his corner booth.

“I’d tell your friend to watch out for that guy,” Jon said.

“Who? Martin?” Famke asked.

“You know him?”

She shrugged. “We’ve seen him here a couple times. He seems nice enough.”

“Maybe, but I’m not sure he has the best intentions.”

“He probably just wants to fuck her.”

Jon nearly choked on a mint leaf. “What?”

“You see, when a man and a woman are attracted to each other-”

“What?”

 “Is that your favorite word? You seem like a smart guy, I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Jon started nodding his head. “Oh, I understand. It’s just, um…”

Famke sighed. “You Americans are so judgmental.”

“This is not going well, is it?”

“Not really, no. I’ll give you this though, you’re cute. You had a chance before you opened your mouth.”

“Goddamnit.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re in St. Maarten. It wouldn’t kill you to learn some Dutch. You really are an ass, aren’t you?”

“That thought has occurred to me.”

Jon looked over to Martin and Marijke just as they were standing up from the booth. Martin whispered something to her then walked over. He held out his palm. “Pay up.”

Jon pulled out his wallet and paid the man his money. Martin smiled, folded the bills, and stuffed them in his pocket. He went back to Marijke, took her by the hand, and let her out of the bar.

“Goddamnit,” Jon said.

“That must be your second favorite word,” Famke said.

“I just lost two hundred bucks.”

“What was the bet?”

Jon gave her a look. “Whadda you think?”

Famke shrugged.

“It doesn’t bother you that your friend just got picked up by some guy twice her age because of a bet?”

“As long as she has a good time. That's why we came here, after all. She was walking out with somebody. If it cost you two hundred bucks, even better.”

Jon shook his head and turned away. “Goddamnit.”