Chapter 8
DEION
Marcus called it a fact-finding mission.
What it was, in fact, was him hearing about a card game in East Oak Lane and deciding I needed to get out of the Archive for one Saturday afternoon, using the language of a man who understood that I responded better to logistical framing than to expressions of concern about my general state of being.
“There’s a jawn tomorrow,” he said Friday night. “Leon’s. You remember him.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You’ve been in that space every day for three weeks,” he went on. “I’m not watching you spend all of Thanksgiving break in there like that.”
I leaned back in my chair, looking at the wall I hadn’t stopped adjusting since Tuesday. “I’m working,” I said.
“You’re circling,” he replied. “Different activity.”
I let out a breath.
“Be there at two,” he said. “This is not a request.”
Leon had been Marcus’s college teammate and spent twenty years in New York doing something in finance that Marcus described as extremely legal with a tone I had learned not to examine too closely, and had come back to Philadelphia three years ago and bought a house in East Oak Lane with a porch that wrapped around two sides and something to say about everything.
By the time I pulled up, the front gate was already open. Voices carried from the side of the house, the type of conversation that didn’t stop when somebody new walked in. I followed it around back.
Leon’s porch sat just high enough off the ground to catch whatever breeze was moving through, screened in on three sides with an outdoor heater keeping the space comfortable, a long table set up with cards already in play.
Two hanging plants leaned toward the light, one of them half alive, and a speaker somewhere behind us was running something with a bass line that stayed under everything else.
“Look who decided to come outside,” Marcus said without looking up.
Leon stood from his chair, dapped me up, pulled me in with the other hand. “About time,” he said. “You been hiding.”
“I’ve been working,” I said.
“That’s what he said,” Marcus muttered.
I knew three of them. Leon, Marcus, and Kyle, who taught history at Temple and carried himself like a man who had been in a long argument with the past and had no intention of losing it.
The other two I met there, Big Ray, compact and steady, and Darius, who had already formed an opinion about me before I sat down and would revise it in real time depending on how I played.
“Sit,” Leon said, sliding a chair back with his foot. “You with Kyle.”
I dropped into the seat, picked up the cards Big Ray pushed toward me, the deck still warm from his hands.
Kyle showed himself quick, not in the cards but in the way he moved through them, steady, no wasted motion, and I adjusted within a couple hands so we didn’t have to say anything about it.
Marcus played the way Marcus always played, somewhere between instinct and belief, like the game might reward him for confidence alone.
Big Ray shuffled once, twice, then dealt, cards snapping against the table. I picked mine up, fanned them out, started sorting.
“Go ahead,” Kyle said under his breath. “Tell us what you about to do.”
Marcus barely glanced at his hand. “Give me four.”
Kyle let out a quiet laugh. “Already?”
“I know what I got.”
“You absolutely do not.”
Big Ray didn’t look up. “Call it.”
Kyle glanced at me. I gave him a number. He nodded, then looked back at Marcus.
“That four about to hurt us,” he said.
Marcus leaned back like he had already decided how this was going to go. “Play the hand.”
We played it out. First book, clean. Second, a reach. Third, Marcus cut early. Kyle glanced at me once.
“You ain’t have to do that.”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Marcus tapped the table once, like that settled it. By the fifth book, it was already leaning the wrong way. Big Ray took the next one without comment, slid the stack toward himself.
“That’s three.”
Marcus sat forward now, cards tighter in his hand.
“You still got two more?” Kyle asked.
Marcus didn’t answer. We didn’t give them to him.
Big Ray dropped the last book on the stack, squared it with the others. “Set.”
Kyle leaned back, satisfied but not loud about it. “Told you,” he said, reaching for the scorepad.
Marcus exhaled through his nose, looking at the table like the cards had personally disappointed him.
“The method needs time,” he said.
“The method needs honesty,” Kyle replied, writing the score.
Marcus shook his head, already reaching for the deck. “Run it again.”
Big Ray gathered the cards, shuffled, started dealing. Leon came through the screen door with a platter of wings, the smell hitting first, hot and seasoned. He set it down between us, handing out plates without asking who wanted one.
“What happened?” he asked.
Marcus didn’t look up. “Experimental round.”
Leon glanced at the books stacked on Big Ray’s side. “Four?”
Kyle didn’t miss a beat. “He thought he did.”
Leon nodded once like that told him everything he needed to know.
Darius laughed, already halfway through his plate. “Eagles been doing that all season,” he said. “Calling games like they got something they don’t.”
“That’s coaching,” Kyle said.
“That’s ownership,” Darius shot back. “Let’s be clear.”
We played a couple more hands. Marcus hit one clean, leaned back like he had proven something, and Kyle shook his head like he hadn’t.
Leon brought out more food. Somebody turned the music up just enough to notice it. The light shifted across the porch, the air cooling enough that Darius pulled his sleeves down without saying anything about it.
“You cooking this week or you showing up empty-handed?” Darius asked Marcus.
“I show up where I’m invited,” Marcus said.
“That’s not cooking.”
“Not my concern, nor my problem.”
“Go ahead,” Kyle said, glancing at Marcus. “What’s the adjustment now?”
Marcus smirked, picking up his hand. “Adjustment is I’m about to win this one.”
“That’s not an adjustment.”
“That’s confidence.”
“That’s the same problem you had last hand.”
Marcus ignored him, then nodded toward me. “He over there building something, though,” he said. “Whole storefront. Been in it every day like it’s already open.”
Big Ray didn’t look up. “Yeah?”
“Archive,” Marcus said. “Comics, space to sit. Not one of those spots where they looking at you if you don’t buy something.”
Darius leaned back in his chair. “Where at?”
Marcus told him, giving directions like he worked for Apple Maps before the latest update, then he flicked his eyes at me. “Tell it right.”
I set my cards, fanned them out. “Couple blocks over,” I said. “It’ll be about comics, some records. Adding a space to listen and chill.”
Marcus let out a quiet breath through his nose. “That vinyl part sound like some Nova shit,” he said.
I glared at him, but Marcus being Marcus didn’t let it affect him. “It sounds like the store.”
“If you say so,” he replied, already sorting his hand. “Just don’t stall out trying to make it perfect.”
“Call it,” Big Ray said.
We went around. Cards hit the table, the hand moving.
“You planning anything in there?” Kyle asked, glancing over his cards.
“Thursdays,” I said. “I teach eighth grade, so I want to hold space for them to just be, you know. Got a kid who doesn’t fit anywhere they’ve decided he should.
Smart, just not in the ways they know how to measure.
I want him to have somewhere else to land, and I know he’s not alone.
It was tough being a Black kid growing up in Philly when I was coming up. These kids got that on steroids now.”
“I hear ya.” Leon leaned back slightly, studying me for a second. “That’s a good thing to build,” he added.
Kyle nodded once. “That’s how it starts. One place.”
“The block built it,” I said. “I just showed up.”
“Showing up,” Big Ray said, cutting a card clean, “is most of it.”
Marcus glanced at me once, then dropped his card. “He been showing up,” he said, like that was enough said on it.
“You ain’t gotta carry that solo,” Kyle said. “We around if you need it.”
“’Preciate it,” I said, catching the quiet smirk on Marcus’s face. For once, he actually played a hand right.