Ashe, Bethany, and I had gone out the Saturday afternoon after Bethany came back, and when I went into my room to change before heading back out; I found the door was locked... I never lock the door, a bad habit I know, but still. I knocked on the door hoping that somebody hadn’t just gone in and locked the door when they found out it wasn’t their room. It was hard to get used to the people being everywhere, but I was learning to cope.
“Who is it?” the voice from the other side asked.
“Who the hell are you? I’m Morgan Pride and this is my room,” I shouted back.
“One second,” he answered as he opened the door to me. “Sorry about that, but when I got here the door wasn’t locked,” he told me. He was a 6’ weasel with shifty eyes and a soft manner about him.
“Yeah I tend to forget that I’m not at home any more; who’re you?” I asked him.
“I’m your room mate, Johnny Powers, nice to meet you,” he said as he offered me his hand. When I gripped his hand I felt several bumps and such beneath the driving gloves he wore. He wore a plain white tee beneath a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. He had a straw trilby Fedora to cap it all off. In the end he gave off a feeling of calm.
“Alright... nice to meet you; I was just getting ready to head to the dining hall with a couple friends, we got room for one more if you want to come along,” I offered.
“Uh... sure, just let me put my stuff away in my room real quick,” he told me. As he went into his room I saw a bunch of boxes for a whole slew of different casino games in his room. The door slid shut; I just shrugged it off. Something was up, but it was none of my business.
We met the girls out in the hallway after I changed. “Ashe, Bethany, this is Johnny; my room mate,” I introduced them. Ashe curtsied slightly as she shook his hand then came over to slip one arm behind my waist. He looked shocked when he caught sight of Bethany.
“Hi... I’m Johnny,” he told her in a silky smooth voice. He hadn’t lost a step in all of that, he’d gone from shocked to cool without skipping a beat.
“Bethany,” she answered in an unimpressed tone as she held out her hand. When they shook hands he moved in closer to her... this was going to be painful to watch I could tell because Bethany wasn’t phased by this guy at all.
Johnny didn’t seem to bothered by the fact that Bethany had shot him down without saying anything. “So what do you like to do Johnny?” Ashe asked him conversationally.
“Well; I’m a big dork, I go nuts when I hear about anything Star Wars, but my real passion I guess you could say is gambling, nothing too big yet mind you, but I’m lucky,” Johnny responded.
I snorted. “A little cliche don’t you think? A gambler named Johnny?” I asked.
“I don’t follow you,” Bethany added in as she looked at me.
“Devil Went Down to Georgia,” I said as a hint... she was completely clueless. “Devil went down to Georgia looking for a soul to steal. He was in a bind cuz he was way behind and he was willin’ to make a deal, when he come across this young man sawing on a fiddle and playing it hot. Then the devil jumped up on a hickory stump and said ‘boy let me tell you what. I bet you didn’t know it but I’m a fiddle player too, and if you care to take a dare I’ll make a bet with you. Now you play a pretty good fiddle boy, but give the devil his due; I’ll bet a fiddle of gold against your soul cuz I think I’m better’n you-,” I started reciting the lines; I had every intention of saying them all but I got interrupted.
“The boy said ‘My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin, but I’ll take your bet, you’re gunna regret, cuz I’m the best there’s ever been,” Johnny chimed in. “Johnny’s the fiddle player that beat the devil, you’re good Morgan. No, Johnny’s not my real name; that’s Thomas, but I like to be called Johnny,” he told the girls.
“A little bit arrogant aren’t you?” I asked him.
He just chucked at first. “It’s not arrogance if I really am better than everybody,” he shrugged. I would have been upset usually, but he didn’t say it in an offensive or serious manner, he was joking... all-in-all... I liked him.
The dining hall was packed with people on this particular evening, so we had to wade through a crowd of people to find a booth for four people, but eventually we all sat down. We were all sitting around enjoying our food talking about our hobbies. I guess you could Johnny was a jack-of-all-trades as far as games went. He brought a deck of cards with him and began showing us magic tricks. It wasn’t all that exciting for me because one of my younger brothers wanted to be a magician when he grew up; so he’d learned thousands of different tricks already and shown me the secret... that combined with my rather acute attention to details makes spotting how a trick is done simple.
He was just showing off his ability to switch a card while flipping it with the deck. It’s a difficult trick really; you show everybody the card, put it face down, slide the deck under it, as you flip it over you slide the top card beneath it and slide it on top of the deck quickly... this way the card that you placed face down has “magically” switched.
It was then that the commotion happened... across the room some poor kid had a carton of milk dumped on his head, he’d been talking to a girl sitting down at the table and she had an angry look on her face. The kid looked crushed as this guy across the table from her dumped the carton of milk on him... he’d run from the cafeteria crying. Johnny got this upset look on his face as he tossed his head in the direction of the girl. “Who’s that?” he asked... I was curious too, nobody in the cafeteria seemed surprised by the outcome.
“Her name is Gizelle Crawford, she’s the captain of the cheerleaders and a total bitch, but unfortunately she’s one of the richest and most influential people in this school; her grandfather is on the board of directors,” Ashe answered irritably in a hushed tone.
“Who’s that guy sitting across from her? Her boyfriend?” Johnny asked as he stared at their table with a serious look.
“That’s Jared Baldwin, and no he’s not her boyfriend, though he’d love to be. He’s her biggest fan, totally has a crush on her, and her self-appointed body guard, if he didn’t keep most of the other guys away from her Gizelle wouldn’t even be seen with him, he claims he ‘protects her honor’,” Bethany explained.
Johnny continued to stare at them for a few moments before he stood up. “I’m gunna go talk to her,” he said as he took off... something in my mind told me that this wasn’t going to end well.
“I’ll be right back... you two stay here,” I told them as I slid out from behind the table and followed him.
When he got to Gizelle’s table he slid in next to her and threw his arm up behind her shoulders. I stood a few feet away... what the hell was he thinking?
“Hey, my name’s Johnny, nice to meet you,” he said as he offered his hand to Gizelle... Jared was obviously getting bent out of shape... he looked like the Hulk on steroids sitting there in his leather jacket with his face turning a strange shade of purple.
“Gizelle, now Johnny... I suggest you walk away before Jared over there hurts you,” she said in a threatening, yet innocent voice.
“How about we make a bet... we’ll each wager a quarter and the wager is I’ll give to you something totally unique that can never be taken from you, but at the same time I’ll steal something that you can never take back from me,” Johnny told her.
Gizelle seemed like the type who collected rare items, her face wavered... she wanted whatever he had to give her... even I was curious, though I thought I knew where this was going.
“Just a quarter? How about this, if you win you can take your quarter, and we’ll go on a date... nobody can steal anything from me,” she said confidently.
“As long as you promise that there will be no backlash from you or him, no matter what, you have a deal,” Johnny told her.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she told him.
Around us everybody was watching... it seems that Johnny had already made waves, every eye in the room was on their table and nobody was talking.
Johnny just kinda had this stupid smile as he lurched forward and kissed her. The entire dining room was shocked. Johnny pulled away from her and Gizelle looked like she would burst out into tears of rage. “There it is... you have my first kiss, which nobody can take from you, and I have taken yours,” he told her softly. He stood up on the table as he pulled his quarter and hers off the top. “EVERYBODY LISTEN UP! I’M JOHNNY, AND FROM HERE ON OUT I’M TAKING CHALLENGERS. IF ANYBODY HAS ANY SORT OF GAME THEY WANT TO PLAY WITH ME, ALL THEY HAVE TO DO IS STEP UP TO THE PLATE... I EVEN TAKE REMATCHES, BUT BE WARNED EACH TIME I PLAY I DOUBLE UP. I’LL TAKE THIS ONE QUARTER, AND BY THE TIME I GRADUATE... I’LL HAVE ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!” he shouted as he climbed down.
Jared jumped up and looked like he was about to hit Johnny when I stepped in. “Now, now Jared... don’t you protect your lady’s honor... if you strike him you’ll violate the terms of their bet,” I pointed out. Jared’s face grew a strange shade of purple as understood what I was saying.
The dining room was still stunned when we returned to our seats. “Think I made waves?” Johnny asked me on the way.
“I think there are hundreds of people in this school right now who don’t like you, and you just made a VERY dangerous enemy,” I answered him.
We sat down at our table, everybody was looking at Johnny and whispering. “Morgan... thanks for helping back there with the ape... wasn’t sure he would understand if I said anything,” he told me as he held out his hand for a bump.
“She had no clue what she was agreeing too, normally I would be upset that you violated a person like that, but she clearly got what was coming to her,” I answered as I bumped him back.
A few minutes later Jared stopped off at our table. “Coin toss! If I win I have sworn to Gizelle that I will never come near her again, if you win; you leave this place and don’t come back,” he challenged Johnny.
“I’ll take your wager, but instead of a single round we’ll do it like this: five tosses, instead of calling it verbally as it’s flipping we’ll use cards to mark our pick; face card means it’s heads, numbers are tails; we’re both free to choose one or the other, at the end we’ll flip all of our cards, whoever gets the most guesses right wins; we’ll reveal all of our cards after the fifth flip. I don’t trust you to flip and you don’t trust me, so we’ll bring in a neutral third party as the flipper... GIZELLE... if you flip for us I’ll let you out of your date,” Johnny proposed. She stood up and strutted across the room with a blank look.
“Sure,” she said gleefully.
“It doesn’t matter how you change the rules... you can’t win,” Jared said as he nodded.
“There will be no allowed outside interference of any kind; Bethany here will keep track of the results for us; once the match starts there is no backing out, and once it’s over it’s over,” Johnny told them.
“Let’s do this!” Jared shouted as Ashe stood up he sat down.
Johnny handed him a deck of cards as he fanned out a hand of cards. Gizelle tossed the coin into the air and laid it down on her wrist, where she covered it before they could see the end. Johnny didn’t even have to think about it; he just put a card down while the coin was still in the air, Jared slammed his down after it had stopped.
“You can’t win you know... I’m a baseball player, I’m well known because no matter how fast the ball comes flying at me, I have kinetic vision... I can even read the letters on the ball... reading a coin is really no different,” Jared told him confidently.
“We’ll see,” Johnny answered him calmly. Gizelle however took the news as great.
The first one was tails. Johnny just laughed... he’d put down a queen; he had to be insane to be happy he’d gotten it wrong.
Gizelle flipped again, and while it was in the air Johnny smacked down a four. Jared waited for it to stop flipping before he put down his own card. Tails again... at least Johnny got that one right.
“How are you doing so far? You don’t really think you can hope to win with luck do you? Adding all of these rounds only ensured that you can’t beat me,” Jared boasted.
“Really? Do you think you’re the only one at the table with kinetic vision? The difference is I can use physics to call them while they’re still in the air,” Johnny just laughed. Jared seemed a little shaken.
As the third toss was flying Jared threw down a seven... it came up heads, but he didn’t seem to be phased... what was he playing at?
Nobody said anything. Gizelle tossed the fourth coin, Johnny threw down a jack as it was still falling. heads... he was 2-2 if Jared was telling the truth about his vision Johnny was screwed... what was his plan with this bluff?
“Philadelphia 1986,” Johnny told Jared coldly. Jared seemed surprised. Was this part of his plan. “For this last toss I’d like to up the tension... how about if we make this a blind flip... instead of showing the result after it’s over, how about we have Gizelle flip and tell us?” Johnny asked him.
“Whatever you say flyboy,” Jared agreed, but his voice was shaken. The coin was in the air, and again Johnny went to toss out his card, but when he did he accidentally caught one of the corners on the edge of the table and revealed his jack; it was only for a second, and from what I could tell only two other people had noticed. Jared seemed completely disheartened, and that’s when I understood the bluff.
“Now... before we reveal, we’ll gather our cards and move them closer to the middle so we can’t cheat,” Johnny told Jared.
Johnny made the switch as he was sliding his cards together and as he slid them back out in the middle. That’s when I figured it ALL out.
“The first toss was tails,” Bethany called out, both of the guys flipped over their first card and both had number cards. “Then it was tails again,” she called out, and again both flipped over number cards. “Then came a heads,” again both had it right. “heads”... so far it was 4 and 4.
“Let’s up the stakes; if I get this next flip wrong you can hit me exactly like you wanted to after I kissed her,” Johnny offered.
“Agreed, but no matter whether I got it doesn’t matter if I get it right or wrong,” Jared stipulated.
“Sure... so what was it Gizelle?” Johnny asked her. She’s put her hands back in her pocket since the flip, erasing any proof to the contrary.
“Tails,” Gizelle said with a laugh.
When they flipped the cards over, Jared had called heads, and Johnny had called tails.
“Looks like you lose,” Johnny said with a shrug.
“That’s the game, and I can’t believe how good you cheated them Johnny,” I shouted out. I don’t like cheaters, but in this case nobody had called him on it int he game, even if I’d seen it.
“Cheated?” everybody asked.
“As per the stipulations of the bet I’ve already won, so go ahead Morgan... tell them what you’ve seen,” Johnny said triumphantly as he slid the money into his pocket.
“He used a one ahead system... he threw down a random card for the first flip, after that he dropped the same suit as the previous flip; when he picked up his cards to move them to the center he pulled his bad first hand and rotated in his last card. The part about Kinetic vision was just a bluff; he said that stuff before the final flip to confuse you Jared... and it worked, you were too busy looking at the date and mint on the coin to check the flip, then he let you see his card, knowing that you’d pick the same thing, and send it into a tie-breaker flip if you both got the same number right; and for somebody else’s sake I won’t reveal the last way he cheated,” I told him.
Everybody looked shocked. “You’re better than I thought... you might make a worthy opponent some day,” he told us. We left immediately so that nobody would attack us.
“You’re lucky you stipulated that game right... otherwise I would have blown the whistle right when I figured it out,” I told him in the elevator... it wasn’t a threat... I was happy he’d put them both in their places.
“Who were you protecting there?” Bethany asked curiously.
“I won’t tell you,” I answered back.
“Gizelle,” Johnny told her.
“How did anything you did involve Gizelle?” Ashe asked him.
“Simple... I gave Gizelle the power to decide what the final flip was going to be, and she saw my card at the same time Jared did... when I added the hitting me stipulation... I guaranteed that she would choose against me... she hates me... when I switched cards out I chose my final card to be the exact opposite of what she saw,” Johnny answered.
“If they hadn’t got what they had coming to them... I never would have called game before explaining,” I told him.
“I might be a swindler and a cheat, but I only swindle those who deserve it, and I only cheat those who try to cheat me... that kinetic vision thing ensured we were going to play HIS game, I just put a few cracks in his armor and let it crush him is all,” Johnny told me. He was too clever by half, but he had a good head on his shoulders.
“You’re quite the hustler,” I laughed.
“Oh yeah... and you caught every moment of it... we’re gunna have to make a bet sometime... maybe my final wager,” Johnny laughed. I didn’t like that he cheated, but at the same time I respected him for it... he’d picked a fight with two of the biggest personalities in the school and he’d walked away clean... twice. We were gunna get along great.
“You know... that was kinda hot up there,” Bethany told him as she slid a little closer to him.
“Stick around, babe, you ain’t seen nothin yet... I’m just gettin’ started. In there... now the bigger fish are gunna start to circle me, and when they’re gone I’ll get to take out the sharks,” Johnny said confidently.
