The Broken Hearted

I woke up this morning in a hotel... big surprise since I've been living in hotels for 4 months... and I had Vegas on my mind. I noticed that the time I spent living there feels like a dream, as if it never actually happened. I'm not sure what sparked these thoughts. Maybe it was an association with the precise temperature and humidity level in the room, but I felt like I was outside the starbucks at the corner of Eastern Ave. and Horizon Ridge Parkway. That's where I got most of my coffee for the first 6 months. The view from the tables outside was magnificent and the feel of the air was something else during the winter months. I loved it. And even while I was there, the place felt like a fairytale, like a fantasy land. It was eerie. The sky seemed weird, the air felt strange, the whole atmosphere felt unreal. I felt that this morning.

A week ago I was craving non-electro poker. I wanted to touch cards and chips and have a dealer pitching my hands and pushing my pots to me instead of a computer. I decided to spend the weekend at the closest real poker room, Tri State Gaming Center in Nitro, WV. I drove up on friday and stayed as cheaply as possible at the Motel 6 right next to the casino. I'd heard some guys got busted running a meth lab in one of the rooms, I just hoped that it was over. The hotel sucked by the way and I'll never stay there again, I'd rather sleep in the streets.

The poker was ok but I ended up losing a little over a hundred bucks for the weekend. I was up most of the time but the key hand came near the end of the last night and that $500 swing would have left me up nicely. I had taken a walk and when I came back I was UTG. Rather than wait one hand I posted a straddle and after 4 limpers I looked down at KK. I popped the action by $20 and 2 called. Long story short, I bet $80 on the 9 high flop and got called by a flushdraw/idiot-end-inside-straight-draw. The board paired on the turn but that didn't deter the guy from calling my $129 all-in bet and getting there on the river. Bye-Bye pot.

I played hard all weekend putting in 30 hours for the three days. I didn't fool around much, I just got in there and put in hours. I did spend a bit of time searching for a birthday gift for my newfound, long lost daughter Drew though. That was an emotional experience to say the least. I mean, to most people it's just her birthday, but as I thought more about it, the meaning of the day of her birth engulfed my mind. I went through a flurry of emotions and feelings. The regret and the sense of loss was heavy. I may never get over the heartbreak of that.

My heartache was in good company for the weekend though. It was strange, but everywhere I turned in the poker room there was a sad story. I couldn't get away from it. It started early on saturday with a kid who was sitting at my table in seat one. I mean, his story isn't so sad now, but he was wearing a neckbrace and said he'd been in it for 3 months. The sad thing though was that when he was first injured, by what means I didn't catch, he was paralyzed from the neck down for three days. The doctors told him there was only a 50% chance he'd ever move again and he told us of the day he finally moved his arm. A nurse was holding a can of sprite for him to drink through a straw and witout warning his hand reached up for the can. He told of how he cried when it happened. The thing that touched me was the three days of horrific fear he must have lived through. It must have been tough.

On Sunday I sat in seat 9. They play 9 handed by the way. Across from me in seat 6 was a kid with a funny voice. He seemed like he struggled to talk and as a result stayed mostly quiet. I barely noticed it but he was wearing a scarf. After I'd played for about 30 minutes, a new player came into seat 7. He was an older man and he had a mechanical larynx, you know, one of those hand held devices that he holds against the top of his neck to talk. I guess he had cancer or smoething. But if he didn't hold the thing under his neck and tried to talk, which he did often, it was a pitiful sight, and sound. All that came out was a strained, harsh whisper. But get this, that's not the sad part of the story.

A new dealer came in and noticed the electrolarynx on the table. Because of a strict rule of the room that doesn't allow anything to be on the table, the dealer asked what the device was. The guy said that it was so he could talk and the dealer, embarassed, said, "Ok, I'll just shut up." Just after that, the kid with the scarf turned to the old man and said, "I used to have one of those. I had my trachea repaired last year in Boston." Upon saying these words, he pulled his scarf down to reveal an aweful scar on his throat. Then he just looked at the man, gave an understanding nod and said, "So I know." As he spoke I could read the pain on his face. He gave the old man a look that demonstrated to me that he was acknowledging to the man a secret type of pain that only they knew. I felt really sad for them. I don't know why they had this problem or why they shared this bond, and it doesn't matter. Seeing it punched me in the stomach. The beauty of poker however was demostrated clearly a few hands later when the two of them went hard after each other with the kid holding KQ against the old man's KK on a KQ flop. The stark contrast with the personal bond they shared versus the battle over a pot in poker was a thing of sick beauty.

There were other things I saw that weekend that for one reason or another I don't want to speak of here. One guy in particular, very quiet, looked like he had had a hard life. He was listening to a certain complaint from other players and he spoke up about how badly he missed what they were complaining about. He had a load of regret in his face that said the latter years of his life were heartbreaking and miserable. Regret was the overshadowing notion.

I guess the point of all this is that with each sad person I saw in that poker room, and there were many, I just couldn't stop thinking about my regrets. I couldn't stop feeling lost. I couldn't stop thinking of how life cheated me, although I played a large role in what happened years ago. It was all I could do to not tear up while browsing the mall, brainstorming a birthday gift for Drew. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I owe her 16 other birthday gifts. I won't take you further down this road right now. Suffice it to say that my soul is crushed by the loss of time and experience with Drew. I feel as though I'll cry, even if only on the inside, every day for the rest of my life.

On a brighter note, I returned to Cherokee on the following monday night and then on tuesday morning I hurriedly drove to Columbia to have lunch with Drew. By chance, her birthday fell on a day that school was closed so I picked her up in her driveway and we went to have our favorite burgers for lunch. Though I was worried about my gift, her eyes lit up and she seemed excited. She also seemed excited to see me which is hard for me to believe. She seems to really like me and that makes me feel great. Of course the double edge on that is that it makes me even sadder about the time I missed with her. Recently I told her that I was so sorry for the way things went down 17 years ago. Her response put things into a brighter prospective for me. She said, "Stuff happens. I'm just glad I'm here!" Believe me, I'm glad she is too.