Cards

By Ethan Jacobsen

This isn't the life of an average fifteen year old. He's forced to assume his deceased brother's identity in order to survive in a world of gangsters, drugs, and run down clubs. The only thing he hasn't lost is his sense of humor.

His day to day life is a struggle to support himself with what little money he can scrape up in card games.

The teen's difficult life takes a crazy twist when he meets a unpredictable character and has no choice but to join him on a zany roller coaster of an adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ethan Jacobsen
• Release date: Dec 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386320975

Ethan Jacobsen

The Chlorophyll Campaign is the fourth book that I’ve written and completed. Although I’ve been a storyteller all my life, my initial attempts at writing an actual book didn’t happen until I was nearly twelve. My first three books were a series of fun, fantasy adventures that I named the ‘Journal’ series. The Chlorophyll Campaign is a departure from The Journal books. At fourteen I’m ready to explore new ways of telling stories and my hope is that you will enjoy reading this tale as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Book preview

Cards

So here I am, alone in a low rent studio apartment that isn't even mine.

I don't care for another living soul, well I used to but they’re gone along with my own identity.

The last documentation of my identity is still sitting in the trash that I've been neglecting to take out for some time. I guess it’s been around a week now since I tossed it. It's only my student ID, but I just rather not leave a trace of myself.

Even so, it was more difficult than I thought it would be, letting go of that little piece of laminated cardstock. Tossing your identity is a physical thing that affects you emotionally. I’m not me anymore.

I guess I should have taken out the trash just to get rid of it, but part of it is that I see no point as to the fact it's only half full, and the ID card is stuffed in the middle somewhere. The other part of it is, it’s the last piece of me and now I’m garbage.

It's hard to go out and make friends when you feel like everyone in your presence may just collapse and die, so I avoid it as much as possible.

Of course there is a reason for all this; thinking about it doesn't make me want to sob into my pillow anymore so I may as well say something.

Both of my parents, older brother, and guardian are dead, and that's pretty much it. My entire family is gone, all of them.

Sometimes I blink and they’re all in front of me, then I blink again and they’re all gone.

I suppose that most who have lost loved ones have had a similar experience. I’ve heard of people seeing their departed grandparent in the reflection of a store window, or hearing their mom’s voice clearly after she’s passed on.

Everyone responds to the finality of death a little different, and yet there’s a commonality to it as well. Right now I can only think about how it affects me. Selfish right, but it’s the truth.

My parents along with my older brother were killed in a bank robbery gone bad. They were just going into the bank for a few minutes to open a checking account for my brother Alex. Thinking it would be boring, I chose to wait in the car so I could play a game on my phone. Now every time I hear the sound of distant thunder, it haunts me.

My guardian, who was also my aunt, went missing just a few months after the incident, as the police report calls it.

I woke up one morning and found a note on the kitchen counter. ‘I’m sorry.’ Was all that was written.

She was found almost two weeks later on the floor of an abandoned house where she and my mother had grown up. Dead from a supposed suicide. I guess losing her twin sister was just too much for her.

Before you ask, the answer is yes, my parents had owned a house. In fact we had a pretty normal life, house in the suburbs, two cars, and a pet cat.

Here’s another truth, life costs money. The house had a mortgage, the cars had payments due. Banks don’t like it when you don’t pay for these things. They’re not big on excuses either, even death isn’t an acceptable reason for non- payment. 

The house was seized and sold at auction, the cars were repoed, or to use the more formal term, repossessed.  Most of the items of value were sold off, because it turns out that death costs money too.

Oh, and the stupid cat ran away. He always preferred our neighbors anyways; they have a pretty little Persian.

Yes, I was able to keep some items, but I ended up selling most of those to pay Alex’s, well, I guess it’s my rent now.  That money only lasted a couple of months; the majority of it went towards paying the rent, the rest I splurged on cheap instant noodle soups. Hey, a guy’s gotta eat. 

Technically, I was supposed to go into foster care, but my case worker had retired and somehow I slipped through the cracks. It’s okay though, I really didn’t want to become someone’s monthly paycheck.

And now you want to know why my only identity is in the trash. Well, my older brother, Alex was eighteen; in fact he was just a few weeks shy of nineteen when he was ended by a trigger happy robber.

Back to the point, he was old enough to have a place of his own and he wanted to try out life outside of the family nest. He was doing okay, could support himself, as long as the rent was cheap that is. To fill his cupboards and fridge, Alex ‘shopped’ in mom and dad’s pantry. I could always count on him to take the potato chips and junk foods that mom bought for me. What are brothers for?

Alex had been taking a couple of odd courses at the local community college, but he hadn’t really put his heart into it, because he hadn’t yet decided what he wanted to do with his life.

He paid his rent by working for a buddy of his, dad who owned a construction company.

Alex always liked building things, me not so much.

Mom and dad had not been a fan of Alex’s living arrangements, and that’s the reason they were at the bank. Our parents had decided to help supplement the rent money, so my brother could afford to live in a little less sketchy of a neighborhood.

What’s the saying about the best laid plans?

Anyways, after my aunt’s death, I found myself sitting all alone on Alex’s second-hand store couch that always smells vaguely of garlic and stale cigarettes, wondering what I should do with myself. 

There was a framed photograph of Alex and I on a beach during one of our family vacations sitting on his scratched up rickety wooden side table.

We had our arms around each other grinning like crazy idiots while the ocean wind blew our hair into wild arrangements.

It struck me just how much we looked alike. In the photo he just looks like an age progression of me. Sure, I’d have to gain a few pounds and master the art of contouring, but I knew I could pass for him.

It was then that I decided to assume Alex’s identity. 

It all came together after that. I wouldn’t fool anyone who knew us from before, but when it comes to getting into the club next door I check out. 

While the club isn’t big on checking ID’s the rest of the world is, including apartments and job applications. 

Why do I need my brother's ID for all this? I guess the short answer is I'm only fifteen.

Life for me is a gamble and quite literally at that. Thanks to the years of practice with my less than ethical grandfather on my dad’s side, I’ve almost mastered poker. I practically know what my opponent's hand is by just a glance at mine. Grandpa taught me how to count cards and figure my odds in every hand.

The real trick is to pick out the idiots in the bunch and play against them.

I should call myself a con artist, but I only do this to survive.

Chapter One

It’s a Monday night and I’m in my usual place, down in the club. It’s one of those places that my dad would have referred to as ‘seedy’.

The interior of the place is dimly lit while the entrance has significant wattage.

This is done on purpose, so that the occupants of the club can see clearly who just walked in the door, but the newly arrived are at a disadvantage until their eyes have adjusted.

More than once poker chips, cards, and other less than legal items, quietly disappeared until law enforcement had finished their prowl.

During those times, I made myself scarce as well. I know better than to press my luck especially with cops. Even Alex’s ID won’t pass with them, because the numbers won’t add up to twenty one.

The club owner’s name is Gerard, pronounced Ger-rald, which is French sounding to my ears, but his last name is Bruno, and he has a slight Italian accent. Whether Gerard’s accent is real or assimilated is a matter of speculation since he is rumored to have been born in New York.

Why he settled into the Pacific Northwest is yet another set of rumors.

Gerard is an intelligent, think on your feet kind of guy. He always takes the time to filter through every scenario before committing to anything. His quick thinking ability has gotten him out of more than one perilous situation.

Everyone who has ever been in the club knows that Gerard went to college. A large, nicely framed certificate declaring that Gerard graduated with a degree in business is hung in the dead center on the main wall of the club. It’s the only thing in the space that gets cleaned on a regular basis.

Gerard is very proud of his academic accomplishment.

Unfortunately for Gerard, he has a ‘the bus is loaded, but nobody’s driving’ brained son, Joey.

Joey will tell anyone who listens that he has earned his degree ‘on the streets.’

The actual truth is after barely squeaking by in high school, Joey couldn’t get into any college except the local community college. We all secretly suspect that Gerard paid ‘extra tuition’ to get Joey in.

After signing up for a full load of classes to impress his father, he lasted for almost three whole days before quitting.  Apparently the professors wanted him to do unreasonable things, like read.

Joey tries to act like just like his dad as he swaggers around the neighborhood. But, no one buys the act, because we’ve all seen him misspell his own name.

Joey spends a lot of time trying to get people to take as much notice of him as they give his father. He’s loud, self-important, and always working on a plan. The problem with Joey, well I should restate that, one problem is Joey is only capable of making one plan at a time. Occasionally, when the stars align just right, one of his plans will work. Usually though, his plans fail, because Joey never has a plan B, much less a plan C. When Gerard makes plans, he involves the entire alphabet. 

What the Bruno’s do have in common is they both have a love of anything to do with crime family movies. They each own a wardrobe that looks like they were purchased right out of the ‘Godfather’ movie set.

‘Cliché’, I know, but that’s who they are.

Other than the business certificate, the club’s cheap paneled walls are covered with odd sized framed photos that range from movie shots of Al Pacino and classic Godfather movie posters. A variety of framed black and white photographs of tough looking nobodies fill in the gaps.

I don’t know what the floor is made of, all I can tell you is it’s in a permanent state of sticky.

The air smells like a mixture of cheap beer, stale cigarettes, and something else, indescribable and far from pleasant.

A pair of wood grain ceiling fans takes all the cigarette smoke in the room and blends them into a misty haze that lingers over the tables like a light fog.

I’ve just played my seventh game of poker and am stealthily counting my bills all the way up to five hundred.

Not a bad night’s work, considering I had started out with a mere twenty five dollars and some change to my name. Five hundred dollars is enough to pay rent for the month, nothing more.

I’ll have to get a couple more wins under my belt if I want to eat anything in the near future.

However, if I keep my thoughts on the positive side, it means that I get to keep a roof over my head for another thirty days.

I’m silently congratulating myself when Joey swaggers over and challenges me to a game of cards, offering to double my nights earnings. 

Feeling uncomfortable with the bills in my hand, I make them disappear into my jacket pocket.

Joey is wearing an expensive looking charcoal gray suit jacket, white shirt with a silky gray ascot tucked into it, and a pair of black pants.

I know that he has a weird tattoo under that ascot, but that’s a story for another time. 

His costume is completed by a narrow black belt with a gold buckle.

He reminds me of Michael Corleone in the Godfather part two, which is probably the look he was going for when he got dressed today. 

I play the evening out in my head and remembered him winning about four out of seven games, mine have been five out of seven, the odds were tight, but on my side so I accepted.

‘‘Good thing, I've been itching for a decent opponent all night.’’ he says handing me a half deck of cards. They’re a bit heavy on the corners but I didn't think anything of it at the time, after all he had the other half of the card in his hands, or so I thought.

He leads me over to a spot with two crude red duct tape circles about three feet apart and has me stand on the one to the right. Mine wasn’t really a circle, more like a rectangle with rounded sides. Confused I ask what was going on, this isn’t exactly how poker is played. Or any game that I can think of.

‘‘This is a new game that I named ‘Heist’, we both stand in our circles the board in front of us is an extremely soft Styrofoam that I rescued from a packing crate. You know, reuse, recycle, retry, think of me as an environmentally responsible guy.’’ He smiles and winks at me as if he’s just let me in on a little secret.

‘‘Anyways, we each have a side divided by the tape in the center.

You shuffle your cards and take one from the top and one from the bottom repeat once more, and now you have four cards now the game begins.

We each throw our cards and try to stick them into the board.

If you miss that card is gone and you can't use it again. If your card hits my side, then that card gets added to my score.

The score is based off your card number if you only land a four of spades or a four of anything you score a four.

Whoever has the highest score when we are out of cards wins, got all that?’’ He asks, while shuffling his cards with one hand like a pro.

I nod and shuffle my cards as he has instructed. The game seems too easy and almost childlike. Then again it’s a game that Joey made up and he’s just gotten the recycle jingle wrong, it’s renew, reuse, recycle, no retries in that trio.

I grin with delight, an ace, a king of hearts, a three of spades, and a queen of spades.

Looking over at him with a boasting