The best way to shut someone up is to send them home penniless.

The first player to walk into the room was a middle-aged black man wearing a dark blue Mets baseball cap and a matching blue bomber jacket.

"Hi Daron," Amy greeted briefly as she opened the door for him and then immediately escaped to the other side of the room.

"Nerdy little princess, where you going? Let me pat your head!" Daron joked as he entered. He proceeded along, shaking hands and greeting everyone he knew. When he got to Pedro, Daron asked "Hey Pedro, you got the time?"

Pedro instinctively started to unfold his arms to take a look at his left wrist. Halfway through the motion, he remembered there was nothing to look. So he pretended he was stretching, brought his arm back down, and returned to watching the door. Everyone had a chuckle, but you had to give it to Pedro, the man was committed to a persona.

Amy introduced Joey to Daron as they started chatting. Steadily, more players streamed into the room until finally, Angelo declared, "Looks like we got enough. Let's get started." The players then proceeded to choose their seats at one table. The first dealer up in the rotation was Andrew and they started playing.

Time passed as Joey conversed more with Amy about his responsibilities as a dealer. "You're up next after Andrew. In a few minutes, it'll be your big debut. It could be a disaster. Have you prepared for the worst-case scenarios?" Amy asked concerned.

"What are the worst-case scenarios?" Joey asked, confused.

Amy thought carefully before responding. "Societal banishment...walk the plank...chased by hounds...laserbeam trap..."

Before she could continue, Joey urgently interrupted her, "I'll be fine. Thanks for your...concern."

"If you say so. Just a heads up first. You see that big guy over there sitting opposite the dealer?"

Joey looked over and saw an obese middle-aged man in a black tank top, balding in all the wrong areas. Right as he looked over, he listened as the man launched into a tirade, "can we get someone who knows how to deal around here?!? 20 hands already this guy's giving me nothing but garbage!"

"Hard to miss," Joey answered.

"That's Brian the heckler," Amy said with a small grimace on her face. "He has a bad habit of abusing dealers anytime the cards run slightly badly for him. He doesn't look to be doing great now, so it's likely he'll give you a hard time, especially since you're the new guy," Amy warned as she glanced at Joey to see if he grasped the situation.

"Don't worry, I can handle myself."

Finally, Andrew's time as dealer expired and it was Joey's turn. He walked up to the table and took a good, long look around. Although he was only dealing, this was his first time at a real poker table. He took a deep breath and sat down in the dealer's chair. Then he grabbed the deck of cards and started shuffling. After he finished, he verified with the players that the button was in the right position. Then he confirmed that the blinds posted their chips. Once it was all set, he dealt out the cards until each player had two down cards in front of them.

His half hour dealing session progressed without issue as he collected tips from the players who won their hands. Overall, it was uneventful. When his time was almost up, the first issue surfaced. Brian was in a hand and caught an unlucky card that lost him a big pot. As the winning player scooped his newly won chips from the pot, Joey collected all the cards and proceeded to shuffle for a new hand. The winner tossed a chip as a tip to Joey. Right at that time, the reality of the bad loss sunk in for Brian and he exploded. "Hey, you!" Brian said.

"You talking to me?" Joey looked around then replied.

"Yea you. Where the hell...did you learn to deal a hand like that?"

Joey frowned but stayed quiet. Amy had explained to him that while dealing, the dealers weren't allowed to talk back to the players. He just took his licks and dealt the next hand. Perhaps the stars aligned a certain way this day though, because the next hand went much the same way, with Brian once again getting an unlucky break. This time Daron beat him badly.

"Hey kid, keep up the good work." Daron laughed as he tossed Joey a tip.

This infuriated Brian further. He pointed at Joey as he erupted "What hole did you crawl out of, you piece of garbage!?!"

Before Joey could even get upset, another player beat him to it. "Alright, if you're going to make the game unpleasant like this, then I'm leaving." He got up and took his chips to cash out and leave. Now the game was temporarily stopped because some players didn't want to play with so few people.

Angelo came over and said, "Hey kid, your time dealing's up." Then he looked around at the dealers and asked, "we're short a player, do any of you dealers want to get in the game?"

Before any dealer could answer Angelo, Brian spoke first. "Thank god! Finally, this little weasel dealer is leaving."

"Disgusting," Joey said under his breath.

"...Huh? What did you say?" Brian asked, his eyes becoming red.

"I said...everything about you...is disgusting. Staying around you, it's like swimming in a cesspool of negative energy." Joey responded.

"Angelo, you gonna let a dealer talk to me like that?"

Before Angelo could respond, "I'm not dealing anymore. My 30 minutes just ended. Angelo, you asked for a dealer to play right? Here I am, get me some chips."

samsarawithwords

The poker play in the next chapter is going to be a legendary pro level one. It just flowed out in the writing and only after publishing I thought...wait, maybe it's too early for that? In the end, I decided to leave it though, so enjoy :)