Pseudopod 196: The Hand You're Dealt

[Ben Phillips]

Pseudopod 196: The Hand You're Dealt


By Frank Oreto

Read by Jesse Livingston

“Find yourself a nurse,” he remembered his mother saying as they prepared for her act. “They always have jobs and they like to take care of men.” It was good advice but even Sharon’s patience had an end. Danny thought he had almost reached it. He borrowed the three hundred from her. Told her he was done gambling.

“Does that include poker?” she’d asked.

It was a good question. Danny didn’t think of poker as gambling. He learned to cold read rubes in his mother’s mentalist act. His card-sharp father taught him to make the cards dance – when the man was sober enough to hold a deck.

Poker wasn’t gambling. When you gambled you might lose. Danny knew all about losing. He was down twelve grand to Rod Renshaw due to a string of sporting misjudgments that climaxed when the Steelers had the bad grace to win the Super Bowl but lose the point spread. That was gambling.



Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[blueeyeddevil]

My first time being the first poster...it's a heavy burden.
But it is made considerably lighter by this fact: this is a great story.
The pacing was perfect, I don't think there was a spare word out of place, and the ending...
To elaborate a bit on something I think Alisdair touched on in his outro bit, there's something truly great at work in the ending of the piece. Horror, for my tastes, too often plays the bit of bugaboo morality tale, with people desperately trying to claw their way back to a normalcy, back to the boring old world where strange and amazing things don't happen.
But what about when you never had a place there to begin with? Sometimes horror isn't in the strange and terrifying things that menace you. Sometimes horror is in the moment, when faced with the unthinkable and awful, you find that some slumbering part of yourself wakes up, and smiles. It is this idea that has made vampires, werewolves and the like so popular in fiction.

Easily my favorite PP to date.

[stePH]

YES! This is exactly the kind of fucked-up shit that I listen to Pseudopod for.

[Millenium_King]

The pacing was perfect, I don't think there was a spare word out of place, and the ending...

I have to take umbrage with this, I thought the beginning few sentences were weak (for example: "shadows seemed to darken" does not need "seemed," the "alley's graffitti-covered wall" did not need the extra adjective - it slowed down a tense action sequence).  Those sentences along with a few other examples made me apprehensive about the rest of the story.

I was relieved to find that the writing tightened up later and that I soon grew interested.  There were a few moments of genuine dread and outright disgust that I was happy to hear.  This was a major step up from last week.

Besides the flimsy beginning, my only other negative comment is that I did not see why anyone felt compelled to continue playing the horrible game.  Surely, one could simply give up or Danny could have fled the house before receiving an extra hand.

There were some hints as to a "dark power" involved in the game (the crying gang-banger for example) but it didn't come across convincingly enough for me.  Furthermore, it stands to reason that some sort of agency must be running the game itself (where do the coins come from, for example?  Who is providing the black magic to animate severed limbs?) - perhaps it was that strange Doctor?  It would have been nice to have this malignant force be a little more implied.  I got the sense Danny was just dragged along for "some reason" not actively coerced by some nightmare force.  The latter would have been preferrable.

My last complaint is: why the reverb?  It was irritating in some parts.

Anyway, enough negativity.  Other than this, I really enjoyed the story and it kept me listening and interested throughout.  I also enjoyed the introduction and outro - great job Alistair.

The grotesque reatachment of limbs also called to mind "The Garden of Adompha" by Clark Ashton Smith.

[Boggled Coriander]

I don't even play poker; in fact I have no personal experience playing for money.  (Would be a terrible idea, given my personality.)  But I thought this story was great, easily my favorite Pseudopod in quite some time.

[stePH]

I don't even play poker; in fact I have no personal experience playing for money.  (Would be a terrible idea, given my personality.)  But I thought this story was great, easily my favorite Pseudopod in quite some time.

I've played poker for money at a party once; it was only a twenty-dollar buy-in.  It was fun... probably didn't hurt that I ended up winning a little money.

Tried blackjack at a casino once; went to the smallest-bid table I could find and lost twenty dollars in record time.  Poker in a casino... forget it!

[Scattercat]

Amusing enough, but I was disappointed when the really excellent ominousness of Crane's interaction with the gangbangers withered down to boring old body horror.  We've already had a story about playing poker for body parts, haven't we?  One where the characters all had a disfiguring/deadly disease and were playing for replacement parts kept on ice?  Frankly, that was a much darker setting that fit the premise more closely.  I don't really see why playing poker for body parts is so enticing to the characters here, and the mysterious dark force behind the game was kept a bit too mysterious to really explain that.  Having his boss/bully be his bank for the game was a clever solution, but the story as a whole left me flat.

I was hoping for something actually threatening.  Chopping people up and doing weird surgery on them doesn't particularly scare me.  It's gross, but not frightening.  I'm much more interested in the metaphysical than the physical.  (This story, for instance, would have been a lot more effective for me if it involved the taking of memories or personality or soul or whatnot rather than body parts.)

[HugoGrim]

I was quite happy when it wasn't a lame "playing the devil for your soul" situation.  Enjoyable.

[countblackula]

I liked this one a lot. The image of the hand in his armpit was pretty gross.

I have to admit, though, that the most frightening part of this story was when the narrator was mumbling "But I wooonnnn, I wonnnn!" Chills.

[Scattercat]

I was quite happy when it wasn't a lame "playing the devil for your soul" situation.  Enjoyable.

Sure, playing the devil for your soul is cliche.  But what does it mean to risk a part of your innermost self on a hand of cards?  How does it feel to gradually lose more and more of who you are?  And to get back other people's souls in return?  How does it change you?  Can you tell you're changing?  Would you know it when you're different?  Would you want to come back?

That is unnerving, to me.  That could be fearful.  There's no way, for me, to make "I have a third hand in my armpit" anything but a little goofy and gross.  I mean, souls are easily equated to life, so one can see the value in playing for them, but having extra body parts?  When, to quote Jayne, does that get fun?

[Millenium_King]

I was quite happy when it wasn't a lame "playing the devil for your soul" situation.  Enjoyable.

Sure, playing the devil for your soul is cliche.  But what does it mean to risk a part of your innermost self on a hand of cards?  How does it feel to gradually lose more and more of who you are?  And to get back other people's souls in return?  How does it change you?  Can you tell you're changing?  Would you know it when you're different?  Would you want to come back?

That would not work at all for me or (I suspect) a lot of people.  In order for it to be scary, you have to accept the existence of a "soul" or "afterlife" - lots of people belive those sort of things to be only childish superstition.  In fact, the concept that there is an "innermost self" is rejected by a lot of schools of thought - we are our actions.  Nothing more.  A story about a dark man in a black trenchcoat, smoking a cigarette with glowing red eyes beneath a slouch hat holding a hand of aces asking for your "soul" elicits more than a few chuckles from modern sensibilities.

[DKT]

I was quite happy when it wasn't a lame "playing the devil for your soul" situation.  Enjoyable.

Sure, playing the devil for your soul is cliche.  But what does it mean to risk a part of your innermost self on a hand of cards?  How does it feel to gradually lose more and more of who you are?  And to get back other people's souls in return?  How does it change you?  Can you tell you're changing?  Would you know it when you're different?  Would you want to come back?

That would not work at all for me or (I suspect) a lot of people.  In order for it to be scary, you have to accept the existence of a "soul" or "afterlife" - lots of people belive those sort of things to be only childish superstition.  In fact, the concept that there is an "innermost self" is rejected by a lot of schools of thought - we are our actions.  Nothing more.  A story about a dark man in a black trenchcoat, smoking a cigarette with glowing red eyes beneath a slouch hat holding a hand of aces asking for your "soul" elicits more than a few chuckles from modern sensibilities.

OTOH, some of us really go in for all that Rake at the Gates of Hell/Dangerous Habits stuff.

It's cool if you're not in that group, but please consider that your views, as valid as they, aren't gospel, and are no better or worse than anyone else's.

[Scattercat]

I was quite happy when it wasn't a lame "playing the devil for your soul" situation.  Enjoyable.

Sure, playing the devil for your soul is cliche.  But what does it mean to risk a part of your innermost self on a hand of cards?  How does it feel to gradually lose more and more of who you are?  And to get back other people's souls in return?  How does it change you?  Can you tell you're changing?  Would you know it when you're different?  Would you want to come back?

That would not work at all for me or (I suspect) a lot of people.  In order for it to be scary, you have to accept the existence of a "soul" or "afterlife" - lots of people belive those sort of things to be only childish superstition.  In fact, the concept that there is an "innermost self" is rejected by a lot of schools of thought - we are our actions.  Nothing more.  A story about a dark man in a black trenchcoat, smoking a cigarette with glowing red eyes beneath a slouch hat holding a hand of aces asking for your "soul" elicits more than a few chuckles from modern sensibilities.

And so what would it mean if you were gambling away your memories of the things you have done and the choices you have made?  How much can you lose before you become someone else entirely?  What would it feel like to lose your memories and gain new ones, foreign ones, alien ones?  How would it feel to have something you've never done before suddenly become part of your nature?  I would think that the mechanistic you-are-your-memories approach has even more capacity for horror along those lines.

BTW, if I make it clear that I'm familiar with the cliches and am talking about taking them a little further and thinking about what they mean and how to make them frightening again, then it'd be nice if you, y'know, read my response and incorporated it into your response instead of dismissing me as describing a "man in a black trenchcoat asking for your soul."  kthxbai

[blueeyeddevil]

Regarding the soul/body/memory discussion string (I'd rather not take the time and space to paste it in the fourth or fifth time, look above this post if you can't keep track):  
Far be it for me to suggest a lack horrific possibility within the concept of memory loss (I see no difference between memory and identity, memory loss is self-loss, i.e. death, in my understanding) and I think there certainly is a story in that trope. However, I would posit that within any story concerning memory loss the narrator perforce becomes unreliable; as parts of the memoryscape that form identity are lost and other alien memories are gained the identity of the narrator is likewise transformed.
I will go out on a short and fairly strong limb here and say that this story is, at least in part, a trickster story. Caper, heist, and con stories are our modern trickster tales; they rely on the wits and perspicacity of one or more figures to overcome difficulty and illustrate insights into society and reality. As such, one of the great ironies of trickster stories is that, due to their educational content, they contain reliable narrators.
The great power of this story is the in the main character's willful choice of path. Removing the reliability of his voice would have weakened the impact of his later choices.

[FrankOreto]

Howdy listeners,
Frank here.
Glad to see a lot of folks liked the story.  Does my weird heart good.
I especially loved stePH's first comment.  Man, if I ever sell a novel, I am so going to get you to blurb it for me.

I'm also happy that my tale started some spirited conversation on storytelling in general. If I may weigh in.  I don't think that gambling for intangibles versus the more visceral (gross) path I took is weaker or more likely to feel like a cliche.  But gambling for memories or a soul is much less likely to involve leather being shoved in someone's mouth or chrome pruning shears.  And I really liked the leather and pruning shear aspects of the story.

Again, thanks for listening.
Frank

[stePH]

On the subject of selling/trading memories: I'm reminded of the comic book series The Books of Magic; future Timothy Hunter has gained a lot of his power by trading memories to demons. 

It doesn't really work out to his advantage in the end.

[Millenium_King]

And so what would it mean if you were gambling away your memories of the things you have done and the choices you have made?  How much can you lose before you become someone else entirely?  What would it feel like to lose your memories and gain new ones, foreign ones, alien ones?  How would it feel to have something you've never done before suddenly become part of your nature?  I would think that the mechanistic you-are-your-memories approach has even more capacity for horror along those lines.

Okay, maybe there is a story there - but that is not what you said.  You specifically referred to "soul."

BTW, if I make it clear that I'm familiar with the cliches and am talking about taking them a little further and thinking about what they mean and how to make them frightening again, then it'd be nice if you, y'know, read my response and incorporated it into your response instead of dismissing me as describing a "man in a black trenchcoat asking for your soul."  kthxbai

Scattercat, I'm not willing to get into this too deeply with you because of the rules of decorum here.  I suggest that if you'd like to take our discussion much further, please just PM me.  I will only say that I clearly did read your post: You referred to "soul" not "memories."  You were describing metaphysics, not mechanical or biological memory, so I would appreciate it if you toned down the snark a little. Perhaps my example was hyperbolic, but you were defending "playing the devil for your soul" in one form or another and I stand by my original position: no matter what form it takes, gambling for your "soul" is an absurd concept to me that anyone without a spiritual/theistic worldview would not find horrific.  Memories are different but, politely, that is not what you said.

[Ben Phillips]

We've already had a story about playing poker for body parts, haven't we?  One where the characters all had a disfiguring/deadly disease and were playing for replacement parts kept on ice?

Close -- you're thinking of All In on Drabblecast, which I narrated.  The similarities were striking to me as well, although they could easily have been completely coincidental, and I liked how there was more to the plot development here than winning or losing the one game.

[Unblinking]

We've already had a story about playing poker for body parts, haven't we?  One where the characters all had a disfiguring/deadly disease and were playing for replacement parts kept on ice?

Close -- you're thinking of All In on Drabblecast, which I narrated.  The similarities were striking to me as well, although they could easily have been completely coincidental, and I liked how there was more to the plot development here than winning or losing the one game.

I liked this one better than that one.  Mostly because the image of the man with his shirt off, dozens of arms, and an anemone of tongues around his nipple was a really striking image.  And partly because the story was told with a closer point of view.  We didn't know what was going on in this story because the protagonist didn't know.  We didn't know what was going on in All In because the author was withholding the information from us (the protagonist knew but neglected to tell us). 

Anyway, I really enjoyed this story especially for the aforementioned above image.  The solution of playing with other people's money was really clever.  I generally have trouble relating to gamblers because I tend to be much too cautious and aware of the odds to blow any significant amount of money on such things, but the POV was conveyed well enough that I had no trouble with it.

And, perhaps I simply have my mind in the gutter, but am I the only one who was thinking about the sexual advantages of all those extra eyes and tongues?  And the story didn't even delve into part swapping with someone of the opposite sex.

Also, I wonder if the extra appendages would be passed on to offspring?  Pretty soon we'd have a new human subspecies with tongue anemones and eyes in the back of the head, whatever would give a survival or mating advantage.

[alpert]

Had to register to let you know how much i loved this story.  Of corurse you knew there would be a twist to the game, but I should have seen it coming!  The forshadowing with the hands... I just really enjoyed it.

[MacArthurBug]

Total win based for no better reason then I got to say "eeeeeeeeewwww!" aloud in public.
Atop that sits the fact that I LIKED this a lot. Back in my less responsible days I would have gone into games that were dodgy based on similar reasons. It's almost a need to feel the high of the moment. To "PLAY"

And leather gags. 

[Scattercat]

We've already had a story about playing poker for body parts, haven't we?  One where the characters all had a disfiguring/deadly disease and were playing for replacement parts kept on ice?

Close -- you're thinking of All In on Drabblecast, which I narrated.  The similarities were striking to me as well, although they could easily have been completely coincidental, and I liked how there was more to the plot development here than winning or losing the one game.

I agree that I liked the plot development; as I said, using his tormentor as his bank was a good twist.  I just preferred the world/reasoning of "All In," where it kind of made sense for people to WANT body parts.  Here, it was like... "Hey, I have an arm in my armpit!  ZOMG BEST DAY EVER."  I just didn't see what was so tremendously compelling about the game.

[blueeyeddevil]

I agree that I liked the plot development; as I said, using his tormentor as his bank was a good twist.  I just preferred the world/reasoning of "All In," where it kind of made sense for people to WANT body parts.  Here, it was like... "Hey, I have an arm in my armpit!  ZOMG BEST DAY EVER."  I just didn't see what was so tremendously compelling about the game.
[/quote]
Not to get too Lockean here, but money is an abstraction given in exchange for time and labor.  Now, that money, that abstraction, what can you do with it? You use money to buy things that were created through the time and labor of others. Essentially, your money buys you extra body parts. Don't have the time or will to clean up your house, buy an extra pair of hands (in the form of a cleaning service). Want to hear great oratory, but don't have the skill yourself? Buy someone's tongue for a few hours (in the form of a theatre ticket, or an audiobook).
I'm going to make a few presumptions about gamblers here, but in general I don't think professional gamblers do the work they do not for the money, but for the thrill and addiction of the chance involved. What happens to the money=labor and time/body parts equation when you're a gambler? The very nature of your occupation means you don't really own your money, it wasn't really earned when gained and it isn't stolen when lost. Plus, money/capital you have will always be in doubt because you will happily put your capital on the line the next time a game comes along. Money beyond what it takes to maintain your basic needs becomes as useless as having extra limbs hidden under your shirt, it/they are still valued because of the thrill and trouble of winning them, and there is always the chance that someday you will not only lose your surplus, but your essentials as well.

[Listener]

Hmm... this joke didn't really work out as well as I planned.

[stePH]

Hmm... this joke didn't really work out as well as I planned.

Can't fault you for trying