"No, no, you just renigged, that's what you did, and so your hand is null and I win," argued Henderson, the leader of Sparky Anderson's old new wave spades club from around the corner of the building. (This was long after people started and stopped with those stupid bumper stickers, two hundred years into the future.) Sparky Anderson only heard his voice. She had reached the building near the alley where meetings were held and where Henderson lived, and had not yet turned the corner. Well, at least they are still playing the game, Sparky Anderson thought. She was disappointed that the spades club was no longer in existence, but that was life, and she got over disappointment pretty readily. She was ready to play spades for fun and not money. The asphalt, filled with giant cracks that had fat blades of grass growing in them, opened before her vision and she saw her dissolved new wave spades club members, all sitting in fold out chairs and with money on the tables.
"You guys rebanded!" she exclaimed, really happy. She lived a hobo's life; one had to grab happiness wherever they could, because it could not be easily purchased and then maintained. "Yay! Yay. . ." She sat down next to Smelly Henrietta, her best friend. "I literally couldn't have hoped for anything better than this! I was ready to start reading again, of all things!" Reading at that point in future-history was considered a massive waste of time that made people lazy and killed brain matter and productivity. Being a hobo wasn't about being lazy; it was about having no better options. Also, there were a lot of jobs that the hobos did do at some point and then quit, like elephant manure shoveling, and it's very obvious why any self-respecting hobo would quit that job.
Smelly Henrietta shifted uncomfortably, probably because of her self-consciousness over smelling like rotten bananas, Sparky Anderson thought. She wasn't the best at reading body-language, because she wasn't the best at looking at people. "How are you doing, Henrietta?"
"Not so good; I'm not doing good at cards today."
Sparky Anderson kept it to herself that nobody ever did well at cards when she was around, because she was a card-counter and furthermore didn't know how to shut off that aspect of her brain for long enough to have a fair game. She also had Asperger's and was a genius, which may or may not have had anything to do with it.
"I'm sorry," Sparky said, not just because she counted cards but also because she simply apologized often. "Do you want me to win some for you?"
"No," said Smelly Henrietta with surprising vehemence, "I want to win some for myself!"
"I'm sorry," Sparky repeated. Sparky wasn't having a good time. She wondered why nobody was smiling at her. They all must have been having bad days. "I'm glad that the club has rebanded."
"Hm." "Hm." "Hm." Three different "hms" from three different people. A sinking sensation went through Sparky Anderson's stomach. Something was going on, and she didn't get it. "Hm," she said, crinkling her eyebrows because she was confused and furthermore wasn't a big fan of repeating people. Her mouth twisted to the side, still confused. "Is there a table that needs an extra player?"
"No." "No." "No." The same three people spoke up again. Sparky Anderson's stomach kept sinking; it was possible that she was going to need to find new friends. "Really?" "Really." "Really." "Really."
Confused and downright upset, Sparky Anderson walked away before she could say anything regrettable, walked through an abandoned highway that had trees growing through the asphalt. She had her way of talking to the world: a mobile radio station where she pirated random and many radio waves. She had regular fans of her rambling, songs, sports commentary, etc, which was a consolation when the new wave spades club had rebanded but still didn't want to play spades with her. Sighing, she got out her walkie-talkie to the world and began to talk.
"World, I know sometimes you're giving me hints, but I am not good at reading them. It is better to be direct; new wave spades club, if you want to remain banded but don't want me on the team, it's much more efficient to tell me that. My feelings aren't made out of glass, and I appreciate honesty more than tact any day."
She waited patiently, hoping someone would call her walkie-talkie and have something to say about what she just said, because she seemed to be running low on friends. She kept talking, to fill up the time.
"It's my card-counting, isn't it?" Of course nobody answered. "Well, I can't help it that I'm smart at cards; at least I'm not some asshole wannabe comedian!" Sparky Anderson had no respect for comedians; the future had only made them meaner. The sun was setting and her pirate talk show wasn't getting any callers, and she watched the orange skyline and the sun hide behind the broken buildings of her town when fuzz sounded.
"Hello? I hear fuzz calling. . ." She always said this when somebody called.
"Yes, my name is Geraldine Powers, and our new-wave spades team needs another member, preferably one who can count cards," said a voice that was both cheerful and had good volume projection. Sparky Anderson nearly cried in relieved happiness.
"OMG, please let me be on your team," Sparky Anderson begged her listener. "I count cards, and people don't like me because I count cards. . ."
"That is a necessary skill for a professional gambler!"
"That's what I've always thought. . ."
Sparky Anderson held this conversation with this listener for quite some time, but the listener inevitably had other things to do, so the radio show again quieted to a lull. The night sky had become deep, inky blue, and giant stars began to twinkle next to the moon. Crickets rubbed their legs together. Sparky Anderson yawned and wished that the street was made out of mattresses instead of asphalt. The moon had a different shape from before, because a few hundred years ago New Ethiopia deflected a nuke headed its way and accidentally blew a large chunk out of the moon, so the crescent shape was at the edge of the full moon. She smelled the fond, familiar smell of rotten bananas.
"Hi bestie," Sparky said. Smelly Henrietta was allowed to seriously piss off Sparky Anderson as often as she wanted, because Sparky Anderson was very fond of her. "I don't really want to talk to you right now, because everybody hates me at the spades club and I guess you do too."
"No, I was just in a bad mood because I kept losing," said Henrietta, sighing and sitting down on the road. "I'm sorry, Sparky, I'd leave but I'm fucking tired." Smelly Henrietta cursed a lot. Then she stood. "You're right. I should go."
"I've changed my mind," Sparky said. "Please stay, and take a load off your shoulders." Female friends are absolutely necessary when one is female, Sparky thought. She wasn't gay or particularly happy, but she wasn't a bigot either, and best friends were vitally important. Smelly Henrietta was there for her, really there, whether or not she liked her in a game of cards. "You know, the card team aren't the only people I've annoyed this week. I have a radio show; it's very possible that I annoy a lot of people. This isn't the only club I've been excluded from this week, either. It's the second club this week to do so. Earlier this week, I got kicked out of the Extraordinary Hobo club, and I'm not sure why they did so. Then I went to go talk to Harrison about it, seeing if we could make a new spades club seeing as how the old one broke up, and it seemed like y'all weren't broken up at all. Second time this week. How long has this been going on? It seems like ever since I had that dream where I could count cards, and suddenly I could count cards, nobody's liked me since then. And that was in third grade! And not one of you has said a word about it, and everybody acts like it's all cool that I'm doing this card counting and feeding myself and my hobo habits, and I don't know. . . I won't do comedy; I've seen too many hobos go down that road."
"It really does sadden a person to see another person try to be funny," Smelly Henrietta empathized. Neither of them were fans of comedy, although they did frequent tragedies, the sort of tragedies where the world literally ended. "And when they're actually funny, that's sadder. Stop smiling, that's not funny!"
"I wasn't smiling because it was funny, because it wasn't," Sparky said truthfully. "I'm smiling because you of all people don't hate me. You were there for me when I was eighteen and I got small pox and almost died."
"I got small pox too! I shook the hand of Death and everything, and it was bony."
"I'm sorry," Sparky said. "Listen, I'm sorry. I will stop counting cards."
"Nobody wants you to do that," Smelly Henrietta said. "It's just that we're all losing our money and you're off spending that money on drugs."
"And food!" It was not one of Sparky Anderson's strong points, but drugs were legal then so she did them. It was possible that she would have done them if they weren't legal, but she wasn't that big of a rule breaker. It was a small problem in her mind. Her friends, however, had thrown several interventions and even brought a camera crew.
"It is not healthy that you are doing drugs," Henrietta said, and Henrietta was right.
"I'm sorry; I'm just so damn sad." One lone cricket chirped; the cricket also sounded damn sad. Then her friends chirped, and they were damn sad, too.
"You are killing yourself gradually over a long period of time, and it's hard to watch."
"I'm sorry." The crickets rubbed out the blues, all that was missing was a damn sad lady singer.
"I don't want you to die."
"I'm sorry." Not all hobos did drugs; Smelly Henrietta quit coffee years ago and had never touched any drugs ever since then. "I'm sorry. You know, I joke about not caring what people think, and then it turns out that it's really just a joke. How can a person not care what people think of them?"
"You're the one who chose to do drugs."
"Please, go on, I'm not depressed enough as it is. I'm not going to spend hours trying to figure out how not to offend people. Yes, I am. And then I'm going to find out that it's impossible, and I'm going to go somewhere else. The road is calling." She wasn't lying; although it would occur to her to try to rejoin her old clubs, she'd always decide not to. She knew it was wrong to hang out with people who didn't want to hang out with her, and she felt that it would be wronger than doing drugs and she didn't want to do anything wronger than drugs. "The next city over, they have a new wave spades club where card counting is encouraged."
"Will you teach me how to count cards?" Smelly Henrietta asked as they watched the accelerated spin of the full moon with the crescent crack crawl across the sky. "I've been longing to travel, too, and your card-counting really isn't as annoying as you think. It's just that people don't like losing their money."
"I understand that, but I do have to eat," Sparky Anderson complained. To her credit, although the future didn't encourage it, she also had a book habit to feed. Actual books, dusty old books, e-books, e-book readers, encyclopedias, the works. "I'll teach you, but you have to have The Brain Eye; it's a third eye in your brain."
"Ha, I see you're feeling a little better; see, you're too depressed over people not wanting to lose their money to your unfair gambling."
"Go on, I enjoy hearing this sort of stuff." Sparky Anderson really didn't enjoy hearing this sort of stuff, but she figured she had to know. "Are you saying that my profession is bad?"
Sparky Anderson was a professional gambler, and the only reason why she was homeless was because her landlords did not take kindly to losing to cards. They were in the habit of turning over tables and yelling at her to get her backpack and leave, and, although she was also an accomplished boxer, she left. Better than spending time arguing with them, she figured. She did not like to see arguments, although they were better than fights, and she knew that having the advantage in a fight meant usually walking away from having a temper, lest she feel bad about fighting later. Her hold on her temper was pretty good for someone who lived the hobo life, because the hobo life would try a person constantly. All the trying did have an effect on her, but she felt like it was her responsibility not to let the trying make her the person who she was. A professional gambler. She had to rethink her life.
"Why is gambling wrong? The government says it's wrong, and I just don't get it. Why is it wrong?" In her mind, murder was wrong. Stealing, also wrong. She also wasn't a fan of sleeping around, at least not after the point of marriage, but she knew some couples were actively polyamorous and while she didn't get the practice, she didn't care about their sex lives and therefore didn't judge them. When that guy sold her friends to those men, she judged the hell out of him for being wrong. She felt that industry standards were needed there. She'd never support prostitution, but she had no problem being nice to prostitutes, most of them, anyway. Gambling, though? OMG, WTF, she was born to gamble.
"Have you seen how these crazy motherfuckers act around here?" Smelly Henrietta complained, picking a fattened gray beige roly-poly off her underarm and eating it. "You beat them at cards and end up earning thousands of their barely scraped together dollars, and they go apeshit while you sit there blinking wondering what the hell you did wrong."
"Hm? I wouldn't call it apeshit. Be honest: do you hate me? All the people I thought I cared about whether or not they hate me, actually spent time worrying about it, I'm not too worried about it now. If I don't ask them, I won't know! I can just be perfectly content to make new friends and still think fondly of the old ones, but not delusionally so, you know? I feel like when you're a hobo and you do drugs and you're still smart, people expect you to be delusional, and I'm really not. Just the other day, a lady accused me of being able to kill a baby, and I'd never do that! I've never even had an abortion, you know, because guys are afraid of that boxing and so I don't really have to worry about ever getting pregnant. When you're a hobo, people act like you might be evil or contagious."
"I am ridiculously fond of you, no hate, and you're preaching to the choir. When you're a hobo, people act like you smell bad. Admittedly, it's more likely that we smell bad than the whole evil or contagious thing. Thank goodness we're neither of those. You really could use to stop using drugs, though, because keep it up and you might become contagious. Or possibly evil, you never know."
"Me? I hope not!"
"Probably not you, but you need to stop threatening those hooligans who beat up hobos, because they want you to do that."
"What?"
"Yes, they want you to threaten them and that's why they do it so often; it's not your fault, but you could use to know this to minimize the amount they torment you."
"They're the ones who are getting beat up," Sparky grumbled. She did feel bad about beating them up, but they started it. They were bigger than her and thought they could bully her for that reason; she was pretty agile and after some swift maneuvering, tied them to some ancient electricity poles with the old dangling wires. The next day, they caught up with her, and she caught the worst of it and was barely recognizable for the next three weeks. Smelly Henrietta's heart was broken in three places; she was also there. "You'd think they'd want to play cards with me."
"Nobody wants to play cards with you, unless it's someone on your team. You really kick some ass at new wave spades. If people hate you, it's because they're losing money, not because you're actually a jerk. You're not. You're just unpopular and weird, and that's how a lot of billionaires start out. You're also nice. Like genuinely nice; it would show more if you were less angry at those bullies."
"I'm sorry," said Sparky. "If I'm a billionaire, I'll probably still sleep on a crack in the middle of the street. It is amazing how soft the grass grows in the middle of the street. Anyway, you really think I can earn that much money?"
"With your Asperger's, which is really what I think is making this card ability possible, the sky is the limit."
The sky really was quite a sight at this time of night at this point in the future. The chamomile den (a white building shaped somewhat like a pumpkin stuck in the ground) puffed steam clouds of chamomile smelling just like their dreams. The problem with insomniacs like these two is that they had gotten an immunity to chamomile smell. They stared at the dim navy tin roofs and inky indigo skyline and brilliant assortment of stars and nebulae.
"Having a best friend is nice, I just thought I'd tell you that," Sparky said, giving Smelly .
"I think so too."
The next day the two of them set off for the next town, where card-counters joined teams of card-counters and made serious money, so the caller said. They walked in the cracks in the ancient highway ruins, because the bluegrass was softer than the asphalt on their bare feet, and made a pact to get an apartment this time with a shower. Smelly Henrietta was adamant about the shower; she also wanted to make sure that the shower came with unscented soap.
