Clubs are Trump

Edward was teaching a little girl how to play Caveman the other day; it’s a very popular card game in his extended family, in which clubs are trump. There was some question about whether the little girl was old enough to understand the concept of trump. I should make it clear that this was during the Trump presidential campaign of 2016. It was almost like the word had two meanings every time he used it, but he had to use it, to describe the card game.

Edward was retired and living in a public housing complex where rent was cheap. He’d taken to playing solitaire in the courtyard. When one 13-year-old, Ayesha, and her friend, came by, he taught them Caveman. They came around a lot, mostly in the afternoon, after school. This afternoon, Ayesha had brought her sister, Lili. Lili was about six, maybe. The afternoon sun shone into the courtyard. Ayesha, he had gotten to know, over the last few weeks; she was pretty, with olive skin and frizzy hair. Lili looked like her too; she was pretty, with the same dark brown eyes, and a look of innocence.

Compared to the other card games that used trump, bridge, hearts and spades for example, Caveman was relatively simple. On the first hand everyone got one card, and bet, one or zero, based on whether they thought they would win. Next hand, they got two, and bet two, one or zero; and on up to ten, and then back down to one, so there were nineteen hands altogether. The only thing that mattered was whether you bet right. If you bet too much, you got no points. If you scored way over what you bet, you got no points. But if you bet right, you got ten points and whatever you’d made.

Edward focused on teaching little Lili the game, but every time he said the word “trump” he thought about the election. From Edward’s point of view there was nothing much good about the election or the campaign. Trump, it seemed to him, was a shallow liar who just kept changing the subject or refusing to deal with things he’d said or done in the past. But this is not about his campaign, right or wrong, or his character, or the things he believed in, if any. It’s mostly about how you have this important idea, in cards, and now, every time you try to express it, or hear it, you hear this name. As he spoke he realized that he cringed every time he said it. He was no longer able to describe a card game easily.

And to the little girl, it was a hard concept to learn. She had just barely figured out that a nine was better than an eight, which was better than a seven, etc. Now Edward was telling her that clubs always win, it doesn’t matter the number. Two of clubs beat that ace of hearts. Clubs were trump; that means they’re the best, and you can’t argue with that.

The girl made a horrible wrenching face, and Edward couldn’t figure out if the problem was that she was getting the information from an old man, or she just didn’t like the information itself. Ayesha squirmed in delight. She loved the game, and was getting the hang of it, and was eager to gamble whether her single card would win among the three of them. She clearly had had so much fun playing Caveman, in the last three or four days, that she’d gone directly home and told everyone about it. Lili for one decided to come out and try it out. Ayesha was a pro already, quite good at the game; she had no trouble with the concept of trump.

As it turned out, in that hand, Edward had a six of hearts, and Lili had a ten of diamonds, but Ayesha had a three of clubs and won. And she was overjoyed because she had bet one. Lili hadn’t really bet, since it was a trial run, but she was devastated that she lost. Ayesha, in her older-sisterly type way, tried to convince her that that’s the way the game went. To Ayesha, it was simple, and it was a lot of fun.

Lili had a little fit, right there, and turned her lip, pouted, and then cried. To her it was simple. She had a ten, but her sister had a three. They tried to explain it to her several times. Her little lower lip stayed out. She wasn’t buying it. She was clearly unhappy.

Edward looked at the girls in the afternoon light. Little Lili had a bruise on her cheek. These were common in young kids, but it made people suspicious. It made Edward suspicious. They lived with their mom and stepfather. The stepfather wasn’t very nice, or so he suspected, though it was none of his business. It was only his concern, because he was retired and played solitaire a lot. In general, as the days turned into weeks, he tried to stay out of it.

He knew what he knew about the family from Ayesha, because they were actually pretty good friends. Many afternoons Ayesha would join him, and there were many afternoons before they even started playing cards, and a few after they started playing cards. Was it his fault that they liked playing cards? For several weeks Ayesha would come straight out to the courtyard and play cards with him, right after school. It was in plain sight. He was careful not to do anything to arouse her mother’s suspicion. The mother would see them, or watch them, from her kitchen window. The mother was actually pretty nice to him; she’d come out a few times to get Ayesha for dinner. Ayesha, in turn, would tell him about the family, tell him about school, and surely, tell the family everything she could learn about Edward or about such things as Caveman. It was a pretty good relationship, except that the stepfather loomed over it. When the stepfather came out, he was not very friendly. There seemed to be a threat of violence in everything he did. He’d barely look at Edward. It was almost as if he couldn’t bear anyone having influence over the girls except him.

The next hand, Ayesha was the dealer. Edward got a ten of clubs and an ace of clubs, and bid two. Ayesha looked at Lili’s hand and together they didn’t know what to bid; they finally bid one for Lili. Ayesha herself bid one and played a jack of clubs.

Now Edward had a choice – lose on purpose, and give Ayesha her one by playing the ten, or just rolling right over her with the ace and taking both. Either way, Lili would lose. But here he had the impulse to let Ayesha win, and he played the ten.

He had let her win before. She was familiar with his style, and she knew that sometimes he was as cutthroat as anyone, and would play to win; other times he was generous and let a little thirteen-year-old feel good. She would find out, in this case, that he’d let her win. But it all didn’t matter really. If it had mattered, he wouldn’t have let her look at Lili’s hand. He was beginning to realize that Lili hadn’t really mastered the idea of trump, and she was still struggling with the concept of how you figured out who won. In this hand she had the queen of diamonds and the queen of hearts. It was a very pretty hand, but she got zero. She lost to the trump, and she lost to the ace. When she asked what she got, her sister said, “nothing,” and she burst into tears again.

Fortunately it was dinner time, and the stepfather was on his way out to retrieve the girls. Thin and gaunt-looking, with a tattoo on his arm, he looked ominous. All he said was “Girls, dinner,” but the hostility was oozing out of him. Edward couldn’t figure out if perhaps he had hit Lili, or what, and he wondered if this was something he should get involved in. Ayesha made a face, but got up to go with him. Lili was a little slower, still trying to figure out why she got “nothing” and what it meant. It didn’t mean anything, Edward wanted to say; go get dinner. Finally the stepfather said “Now!” and the little girl wet her pants on her way, getting up out of the chair and turning around to run home. She was in tears. Edward had not explained well enough the concept of trump. Or perhaps, he should have engineered it so she was the winner.

The following day he changed his routine. He went out in the courtyard in the morning, and he was gone in the afternoon. He didn’t want to face either of the girls, or hear any more about it. He was retired, and wanted to be left alone for a while. He didn’t turn people in for little bruises; turning in kids and families to the authorities was serious business. But he doubted himself. He wondered if being proactive was better, in case he could prevent worse things from happening later. As usual, he was trying not to get involved. It was the mom’s problem, and if she didn’t want to see what he saw, he figured, that was her business.

But the little card game replayed itself in his mind in the next couple of days. He thought of the way the girl was stuck on the idea of “clubs win no matter what” – it sounded to him, sometimes, like “Dad is right no matter what,” or “just do whatever Dad says no matter how low he is.” A girl like that was naturally trying out her own independence, and taking a little beating for it.

And the news, of course, was full of Trump, Trump this, Trump that, Trump and the 13-year-old girl, Trump and the mistreatment of his underlings at this or that business. Eventually Edward turned off the television too, and took solace in a game of solitaire that was mentally rigorous, and almost impossible to win, but still relaxing, and made more so by a sip of alcohol in his own kitchen.