What Love Is

We’d been playing for two hours. Texas Hold ’Em. Five Card Draw. Seven Card Stud.  Chicago. From my childhood, I knew the names well enough, my father a long-time gambler,  but I was hardly an expert. All I really knew was that it was a loser’s game, my father ending up in a nursing home bankrupt and bedridden, watching Antiques Roadshow. But for my husband’s  family, at least at Christmas, winning was everything. This Christmas there were five of us at the table, my husband’s brother Wayland, his niece Carla, and nephew Zeke. There was also a newcomer, Jayden, Carla’s boyfriend, but he was in the living room watching TV.

“Okay, losers. Five Card Draw. Ante up.” Wayland was shuffling now. A top-notch  Bridge player, he didn’t suffer any fools, didn’t like delay, indecision, yet in other ways was  timid. In a restaurant if he didn’t like the table we got, he’d ask me to ask for a new one. 

Everybody tossed a white chip in the kitty. 

“Anything wild?” Carla asked. A scrappy player, she’d lived her life the same way,  grifting off of anyone she could, including my husband and Wayland, the latter padding her  holiday card each year with a wad of cash. 

“Nada,” Wayland said, dealing, opting for a “pure” game, the way the professionals  played, according to my husband. But apparently Wayland himself wasn’t always so pure, had  his skeletons, and Carla, the bone collector, knew it. 

But I kept my nose in the game. And now, for a change, I had something, a pair, so I  hung in for the first round. But after dumping three cards and Wayland giving me only garbage  in return, I folded.  

Then there was a lull. 

“Hello? Anyone home?” Wayland had gone to college on scholarships. My husband had too. Carla, like Zeke, had dropped out in the tenth grade. “Now which was a Supreme Court  Justice? Mickey Mantle? Thurgood Marshall? Homer Simpson? Or none of the above?” 

“Will you cut that out, Man?” Zeke rubbed his forehead as he studied his cards. “I’m  thinking here.” A plumber always at the ready to fix a leaky pipe, he still had his work overalls on.  

“Well, don’t think too long,” Wayland said. 

“Oh, just keep your wig on, Uncle,” Carla said. 

Siblings, Carla and Zeke sometimes forged alliances, my husband had said. Sometimes they kept each other’s secrets—or tried to. And every now and then Zeke floated Carla a twenty. Zeke tossed a chip in the kitty. “Bastard,” he mumbled.  

“I heard that,” Wayland said. 

“Love you, Uncle,” Carla said. 

The betting done, one by one they showed their cards, Carla first. 

“Ooh. Four of a kind for the lady,” Wayland said. 

“Damn, Carla.” Zeke laid down his cards. “Nada. Nothing. Zip,” he said. 

Eying the chips, Carla opened her arms wide. “Come to mama.” 

“Hold on now,” Wayland said, as my husband laid down his, and everyone gasped at the pretty display of hearts all in an order. 

“Straight flush beats four of a kind,” Wayland said. “The gentleman takes the pot.” 

My husband, opening his arms wide, pulled the chips toward him. “Come to papa. Come to papa.”

Carla shuffled the cards. Earlier at the dinner table she’d been ranting about Mad Cow  Disease and John F. Kennedy. She didn’t like Arabs either. “Now no more pussying around.  Texas Hold ‘Em.” She started dealing, her eyes darting from one corner of the room to the other. 

Everyone anted up.

I could barely remember how to play that game. Normally I used a cheat sheet. But this time I hadn’t bothered. 

My husband leaned in to me. “You need help?’  

I yawned, ready to call it quits, ready to go home. Even a once-a-year trip here from  Berkeley to the San Joaquin Valley to Zeke’s house depressed me. Despite all the elaborate  lights, reindeers and sleighs, nativity scenes—the Baby Jesus and all—on people’s front lawns,  the valley was still flat and gray, the smell of burnt peat hanging in the air. And every year our  late-night drives back home through the Tule fog had been scary. I turned my cards face down,  then looked out the window at Zeke’s front lawn. His blow-up Santa, lit now, was waving both its arms as if it were a warning to get out, out before it’s too late, from a hokey horror movie. 

“It’s on a timer,” Zeke said.  

“Cute,” I said. 

“You have to have a lot of skin to play in this game,” he said. 

I nudged my husband. “You can have my chips.”  

No one protested as I wandered into the living room, which was still a mess, wrapping  paper scattered about, the tinseled faux tree off kilter. I sat down opposite Jayden, who was  sitting on the couch, head craned back to the kitchen. All of Carla’s prior beaus—she brought a  new one each year—had either been drug addicts or boozers and practically aphasic. No doubt  Jayden suffered from the latter. Earlier, at dinner, shoveling food in, he’d said little except  “please” and “thanks” and then during dessert suddenly launched into a stuttering soliloquy no one could understand. It might have been comical if my husband hadn’t warned me that Jayden  was unpredictable, had, in a rage, pulled out a clump of Carla’s hair. 

“Well, fuck me,” Carla said. 

“No thank you,” Wayland said.  

“You can say that again,” Zeke said. 

“Thanks, bro,” Carla said. “I’ll remember that next time you can’t keep it in your pants.”  

A two-time loser at marriage, Zeke had fathered a litter in and out of wedlock. Why God put me on earth, he’d often said coupled with his rendition of his various bar exploits: This last one wore this leotard thing, and when she took it off… 

Jayden turned his head back to me. “They nasty,” he said. “Why so nasty?”  “That’s what love is,” I said. 

More chips were being flung, clattering on the table. More grumbling. Then the table  went briefly silent until Carla cackled. “Read ‘em and weep, you dip-shits.” 

“Guess she finally won,” Jayden said. 

I looked over at the TV. Snowing there, the benched players had blankets draped over  their shoulders. 

“Who’s winning?” I asked. 

“Hey, you can’t do that!” Wayland said. When he got incensed, his voice got high and cracked.  

“I didn’t do nothing,” Carla said. “Won fair and square!”

“Bitch!” Zeke snickered.  

“Brain alert, bro,” Carla said. “Check out your chips, Einstein. You hardly got none.” “Shh! Lady at the table,” Wayland said. 

“Lady? Where?” Zeke leaned over and peeked under the table. 

Smirking, Jayden started thumping his fists on his thighs. “They sure like to fight.” “I heard you and Carla are living with your mother now,” I said. 

“Oh, she a nurse. She love to cook. Chili and banana cream pie. Fried chicken. My  favorite.” He smacked his lips, not stuttering once. Then he looked back at the TV.  

“You ever play?” I asked. 

He tapped his temple. “Touched. That what my mother always say.” 

A commercial came on, a boat shooting out a stream of water. Once a day. Abilistream. I  was going to say something, but my husband was standing in the entry way now. I didn’t know  how long he’d been there.  

“You lose?” I asked. 

My husband eyed Jayden. “How are you doing?”  

“Good, man,” Jayden said. “Good. Your wife.” 

In the kitchen another beer cracked open; the deck was being shuffled. My husband  looked back at the table and then at me. “Sure you don’t want to play?”  

“Maybe Jayden does.”

“Me? Oh, no. I’m no good.” 

My husband went back to the table. 

I peered at the TV again, at the puffed-up men arranging themselves on the scrimmage line. 

“You look sad,” Jayden said. 

“Just tired. Long drive back through the Delta ahead of us.” By day, fallow fields of long necked egrets made for a bucolic trip, but by night, in winter, the fog blotted everything out. 

“Kiss my ass,” Carla said. 

“Skank,” Zeke said. 

“Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the dumbest of them all?” Wayland said. Jayden shook his head, blowing air between his teeth. “They do that every year?” 

“Will you quit it already?” It was my husband this time. He must have been tired too. It  took a lot to get him angry. 

“Oh, don’t you worry, Uncle,” Carla said. “We was just kidding. Weren’t we, Zeke?” “Course we were. Love you, Sis.” 

“Love you, Bro.” 

“Love you, everybody,” Zeke said. “I really do.”  

“Are you crying?” Carla asked. 

Jayden and I both looked at each other and went into the kitchen.

Zeke turned away and lumbered over to the fridge. He opened the door and hung there,  sniffling. Then he came back with another can of beer.  

“You okay, Man?” Jayden asked. 

“Yeah, we’re okay,” Carla said. 

“Zeke, why you crying?” Jayden asked. 

“Too much beer,” Carla said. “He always gets that way.” 

Zeke cracked open the can. Foaming up, beer dribbled over the edge. 

“Look.” Jayden said. “I be a bouncer. I took care of people. When they were bad. Now  who made Zeke cry?” He started pumping his fist into his palm.  

My husband pulled me over to him and sat me on his lap, wrapping his arms around me.  

“Right,” Wayland said, pulling back in his chair. He kept looking over at the front door. “Now there’s no reason to get upset, Jayden. We’re mean, but we don’t mean it.”  

“That’s right,” Carla said. “We’re one big happy family, right?”  

Jayden stopped punching, his fist resting in palm cradling his fist. “Family. Big. Happy.”  He was prying words out of his mouth now. 

Zeke’s eyes still watery, he raised his can. “To us! Family!” 

“Family!” Everybody shouted out. 

“Now for God’s sake, are we going to play or not?” Wayland said. 

“Last hand,” my husband announced.

*** 

Everyone in the kitchen with their coats on now, my husband pulled me aside. “Look, I  know it’s late, but Carla and Jayden need a lift. And Zeke’s had too many.” 

I knew what he was thinking, them in the backseat, in a dark car. No telling what could  happen when all I wanted to do was get back home, out of the valley, out of the fog. 

After we all hugged, Zeke walked us out. 

“So long, suckers.” Wayland, heading to his own car, was staying overnight at a hotel before driving back to L.A. 

In our car my husband turned on the defrosters, colder inside than out. Then he looked in the rearview mirror. “So where does your mother live, Jayden?”  

“We don’t live there no more,” Carla said. “We’re at the Starlight Motel. Downtown. But don’t you worry, Uncle. I got me a job. Managing the front desk there.” 

“Yeah, you should see Carla, how she kick ‘em out when they don’t pay up. She the muscle.”  

“Got us a free room too,” Carla said. “So I won’t be asking you for no money this time, Uncle. Now what do you think of that?” 

The windows clear, my husband turned the heat on full blast. Then he put the car into  drive, and we headed to the highway. On the way there, we drove in and out of patches of fog,  but visibility was still good; it would be much worse in the Delta. 

Ten minutes later, Carla, leaning forward between our seats, said, “Off here, Uncle. Then head to Main Street.” 

“So what’s it like there—the motel?” I asked.  

“You can come in if you like.”  

“It’s pretty late,” my husband said. 

“Now keep going another block, then right up there on the corner. See? That’s it. Up  there on the roof. The Starlight. The Starlight Motel. Ain’t it pretty?”  

A blue neon sign with its namesake sat atop an old brick building.  

My husband pulled up along the curb. There weren’t any trees, but many of the other  brick buildings had a charm, and it looked like there was nice restaurant across the street, but it was closed.  

I looked over at the entrance of the motel. Something like an old blanket was strewn across it.  

“Things are starting to come back here, Uncle.” 

“Is that a body?” I asked. 

“Just all homeless before,” Jayden said. 

We all got out of the car and paused at the door. 

“That’s Frank,” Carla said. 

“He a drunk,” Jayden said.

One by one we all stepped over him. 

Inside was a steep staircase lit by a single bulb hanging from the rafters, a steepled  ceiling like a church or an attic. Everything else looked like rotting wood and smelled damp. “What happens if the bulb blows out?” I asked. 

Carla pulled a small flashlight out of her coat pocket. “We only take in quality people here.” 

My husband and I looked at each other.  

At the top, it was better lit, though the hallway was narrow, door after door, like a prison.  

We followed Carla. 1C. She turned the lock. “This here’s the manager’s suite.” She turned the light on. 

“Got us a Queen,” Jayden said, looking pleased, as if he’d just given birth to something. 

But it was just a mattress on the floor and an old rug we’d given Carla a long time ago  when she was living someplace else. On a stool sat a hot plate plugged into an outlet. Clothes sat  in piles on the floor. 

“We’d a picked up if we knew we was having visitors,” Carla said. “Community  restroom and shower this way.” Carla gestured to the door, the tour to continue, but then  someone appeared, a shirtless man with a white towel draped over his shoulder. He had  bloodshot eyes and stank of whiskey. A long red scar ran down his chest. “Dammit, Carla, soap’s  out again.” 

“Oh, pipe down. Can’t you see I got visitors, important ones, from out of town?” “We really should be going,” I said.

“Yeah. They afraid of dying,” Jayden said. 

Carla peeked out the door. Then we all went back down again and stepped over the  wrapped-up man. “Shouldn’t we call someone?”  

*** 

As we pulled away, I could still see the outlines of Carla and Jayden behind us, waving us away. Then we headed to the outskirts of town, crossed the San Joaquin Bridge, and then  passed the sewage treatment plant. Fewer street lights here, the road turned curvy, and suddenly we were enveloped in fog, the Delta, I knew, alongside us.  

“Shit,” I said. I felt my heart clench up. “We should have stayed in a hotel like your brother.” 

My husband switched on his fog lights. “Just relax. I’ve driven this a million times.” 

My eyes peeled on the road, I could barely make out any of the yellow lines, and no  taillights ahead to follow, I could only imagine our car, flipped over, wheels spinning, slowly  sinking into the Delta, into the reeds.  

“Why don’t you put on the radio?” my husband said. 

An old one came on. Reflections of My Life.  

“Miss your sister?” I asked. Last year she’d died of a heart attack. 

“You know, they weren’t always that way, my family,” my husband said. “They used to be nice. All the trouble started later.”  

“Zeke still is. Or at least tries. But Wayland…”

“Wayland’s always been the same,” my husband said. 

“What about you?’ I asked. 

“Remember, I was the baby.” 

“‘And Mama always spoiled you.’” I was imitating Wayland now.  

“So what were you and Jayden talking about?” my husband asked. 

“His mother likes to cook. Pie and fried chicken, I think. Are you really sure he beat her up?” 

“He wouldn’t touch you.” 

“I thought he was sweet in a way.” 

“You never know.” 

“So what did you think of their place—the Starlight?”

“Probably a swanky place in its time.” 

I tried to relax, glad to be away from all of it. 

“It was funny when they all said they loved each other,” I said. Then I glanced over at the temperature gauge. “You don’t think he was dead, that man?”

“Probably just sleeping it off.” 

“Couldn’t he freeze to death?”  

My husband turned the heat up again. “You can’t save everyone.”

The road started to straighten out. Ahead I thought I could make out lights. “Discovery  Bay. Right?” It was a massive development of newly built homes. Flags fluttered at the entrance, though now they were engulfed in fog.  

My husband slowed and turned on his signal. Up ahead I thought I could make out a  gauzy traffic light. We turned onto Marsh Creek Road. Now that we were moving away from the  Delta and into the foothills, the fog started to lift a little. Still, I worried about the cows, sheep,  horses, all the animals we’d seen on the way in, and all the animals that came out at night like  raccoons and skunks, out there, shivering. 

Then suddenly the car jarred and got shoved sideways. 

My husband yanked the wheel back just as another car was passing in the opposite  direction, its horn blaring. 

“Jesus,” I said. “What was that?” My heart was ramming through my chest all over again.  

My husband looked in his rearview mirror as if he could see anything. “I don’t know. An  animal or something.” 

I looked too, out the back window, imagining a body on the side of the road languishing  until daylight. 

“Probably a raccoon or an opossum.” 

I tried to relax again. We were almost out of the worst of it and wouldn’t have to make  the trip again until next year. Another song came on. You Keep Me Hangin’ On. I knew the lyrics 

to this one. My husband did too. He turned the volume up, and together we both started singing.