Fast Eddie entered the joint
all eyes glittered in the sparks of his gold-lite jacket;
“Eight hundred large, two hundred small!”
He fawned his cash on the table like a Japanese fan.
Tight Mike wheeled in two townies for three-hundred
an hour back, was looking to hit and run,
fast Eddie changed all that.
He had a way of doing that.
Eddie was coked up, excited, had the nervous
shakes of a chronic degenerate.
Eddie played nothing but the nuts.
That’s what got ‘em, that’s what made ‘em all
leave black eyed like a hypnotised siamese cat—
enough for bus fare. Sometimes, not even.
It was dawning five a.m. and tight Mike was on his fourth beer,
down to his last two white. He had the look.
For the past two hours he had had the look.
The scavengers were still droolling,
they’d taken turns chewing on the leftovers
when Fast Eddie swept Mike out of nine-hundred
when his four-to-a-diamond-flush didn’t imrpove.
Julia the Jewel chewed him off, as Mikey
remembered the beach, on the other side of the wall.