Tommy Two-Pair #1 — Tales from the Rails

A wise man keeps a card up his sleeves. A wiser man keeps two. But a lucky man keeps his sleeves empty and hopes that maybe his pant-leg will produce something of value.

Every three and a half years, an event occurs which is only known as “The Show.” It’s the Olympics of locomotive gambling. The only people sorry enough to have heard of it are bastards like me, buried in debt that reaches twelve feet above their heads.

Locomotive gambling? Exactly what it sounds like, pal. You’re on a train, you’re gambling. That should be obvious, keep up.

The Show is different, though. If you win, well… Let’s just say you won’t be in debt no more. It ain’t that easy, though, Joe. No, sir. Each time The Show comes to town, it comes with a new rule book. Something fresh and sexy to up the ante. For example, this year The Show is taking place in the caboose of a train with an engine rigged to accelerate constantly, on rails leading straight off the edge of the Grand Canyon.

And I’ve got a great hand. A straight flush. For those of you’s who aren’t so gambling inclined, rest assured this is a great freakin’ hand!

I laid down my cards. I can’t hear the gasps that arise around the table because the walls are shaking so hard it sounds like a tornado is on our tail, but I see the light go out in three sets of eyes. One pair belongs to Gutshot Gauthier, the Frenchie bastard I’m playing against. The other two belong to the thugs standing behind each of his shoulders.

Gutshot mouths something that I can’t hear.

“What?” I yell.

“The man is a cheat!” he yells back in his little accent.

Next thing I know, his thugs have their guns out. I flip the table, cards and chips fly everywhere, and I’m out the caboose door. The thugs chase me up the ladder to the top of the train, and I have to lean at a frickin’ forty-five-degree angle so the wind doesn’t knock me off the damn thing. I’m sprinting towards the front of the train with the thugs racing to meet me from behind and the Grand Canyon racing to meet me from the front.

So I finally make it to the engine car and I drop down, rip the door open, and run inside.

“End of the line, pal,” says one of the thugs, gun aimed between my eyes.

“Fellas, you gotta understand,” I said, smooth as a cucumber.

“We don’t have time for understanding,” the goon says. And just then, both thugs glance down at the floor, eyes glued to something that’s just fallen out of my pant-leg. A business card, let’s say, printed on card-stock.

I slid the card over to the thug with my foot and watched his face fall as he picked it up and read what was printed on it, indulging myself a sly grin as it crept across my face. The thug reached up and forced his buddy to lower his aim. “Let him go,” said the first thug.

“But Mac,” said the second in protest before being cut off.

“We ain’t messin’ with him no more,” insisted Goon One. Goon Two’s face screwed up, like a dog that ate somethin’ wrong.

“Boss, what was on that card?” he asked.

“This low-life is Thomas Llewinson,” explained the first. “Tommy Two-Pair. Trust me, we don’t wanna mess around with this guy.” The thugs clicked their safety latches back on, spat at the ground in front of me, and turned to leave the cabin. I turned to the train controls behind me and yanked on the brake, stopping the train just short of flyin’ into the gaping mouth of the canyon.

“Lucky me,” I said.