NO LIMIT HOLD'EM

They were men, very serious men. They had lots of chips and yesterday they didn't play a hand for hours, overnight even, they didn’t care. They were serious. They were there for serious poker. Not out of fun, but out of need. The first thing one would do when he arrived was to take out his artificial eye and bounce it off the felt table. Then he would bite off the dealer's ear, spit it out and announce “I am a poker player. I’m here for serious poker.” When the other man sat down for heads-up, they commenced the handshake. The handshake took two hours. They clenched and grinned, trying to see whose handshake was the wyliest. Seeing who would break first -- and how. Once cards were in the air, strategies began. First, the big stack assumed a fetal position, cried and grunted for whiskey, and while the waitress got it, he throw a card-protector through an interior window muttering “nothing personal, you understand it’s poker.” Then he stood up and pissed on the table talking about how bad beats are bleeding him dry. “Damn,” the other replied, staring at 9-5 offsuit, "you're gonna have to lick that up." They maintained civility while opening each other’s shirt and gouging into flesh with broken wine glasses --piercing layers of yellow fat -- the fat that just last month had been in a vinyard. Then while making an important raise with their left hands, they would stab each other’s over-worked liver with their rights, and find that above the liver was the heart. So, they would clench each other’s heart, eyes locked to eye, grin locked to grin, and they would face off. Each maintaining normal, relaxed conversational tone, broken by the occasional spasm from the other's white-knuckled grip -- that tight heartgrip. As of this writing, neither player has folded.