‘Hey, do you remember Kevin from across the street?” my brother asked me a few Fridays ago, during a late-night poker game with some of our friends.
“Sure,” I replied.
It was only a partial bluff. I did remember him, though I had forgotten about him. It’s been years since our paths crossed.
And to be honest, I expected the next sentence out of my brother’s mouth to be bad news.
Call me a pessimist if you must, but I saw a fair share of foster children come and go from that house across the street. Some stayed for a week, some for a month. And some left when they got into trouble.
That’s just how it goes sometimes.
Kevin was a foster child, too, but he was different.
He stayed longer than most, becoming family to my neighbours – one of whom was a social worker – and a friend to all the neighbourhood kids, even though he used to drive a few of us crazy, me in particular.
He was prone to making inappropriate comments at the worst possible time – like the time when he yelled at a police officer from the passenger window of my car as we drove by.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked.
“I dunno, I felt like it,” came the reply.
Yes, he could be maddening, and no, he didn’t always make the smartest decisions – personally, I make a point of not yelling at law enforcement, but maybe that’s just me. So imagine my surprise when my brother finished his sentence.
“He’s a professional poker player now – Google him.”
Turns out my brother was right. Good ol’ Kevin was, in fact, making a living playing cards – and a healthy one at that.
Healthy enough, in fact, that after I figured out how many years I’d have to work at the Peace Arch News to equal what’d he’d made in the last 10 months, I took a second to reconsider my own career path.
Then I looked down at my own quickly dwindling stack of chips and realized a World Series of Poker bracelet isn’t likely in my future.
But maybe one day it’ll be in Kevin’s.
And though poker has its detractors – those who say it’s not a sport, or that no one should make an honest living by gambling – there’s something to be said for those who play professionally.
It takes skill and intelligence, and the ability to read both people at the situation, often running mathematical probabilities and percentages through one’s head in the short time it takes to draw the next card.
It also takes guts, and a real killer instinct – the ability to take chances and go all-in even if you’re not 100 per cent sure you’ve got the cards.
Quite frankly, it’s not a skill I thought Kevin had. After all, I was standing just outside the sandwich shop where Kevin worked in high school – and where I mooched food for free – the night it was robbed by a man with nothing more than a small paring knife.
As soon as the thief made his intentions known, Kevin – a hulking teenager, who towered over the intruder – bolted for the back door, leaving the thief to figure out the cash register on his own.
At the time, having seen too many Stallone movies, I wondered why he didn’t just take the guy down. Looking back, it was obviously the smartest move he could have made.
Gotta know when to fold ’em, too, I guess.
Back in my friend’s basement, with my chip stack whittled away to almost nothing, I sat ruing my poor cards.
But I also thought again of Kevin.
Didn’t make me feel much better about my lost cash, mind you. But I was still happy for him – an awkward but good-hearted lug who made his own luck, even if he wasn’t dealt the best hand in the first place.
Nick Greenizan is the sports reporter at the Peace Arch News.
