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It was Saturday, sweltering hot. On the stairs could be heard the short, muffled grunts of a man half obscured by a heavy, hexagonal slab of wood with folded metal legs. He was pushing it up three flights of stairs to his apartment. He had bought it on auction, at a storage facility out-of-state. A four-hour drive in a pickup with a broken AC unit. He worked slowly. He was still fresh when he reached his apartment. 

He was a construction worker and proud of his strength. On weekends he went out to the park, early, when there was still dew on the leaves. Your body was your greatest investment, he often said, the last and final refuge. You had to train with fierce greed, with religion.

That night, he invited the men from his crew over to play cards. Along with the table, he had bought a set of poker chips, arranged neatly in a plastic case, and what they called a "retired" deck of cards, the kind with a hole punched in the middle. He had bought tortilla chips and guacamole and salted peanuts, and several six-packs of beer. He had gotten the stools a week before, from a yard sale. They were barstools, high, with soft red padding, and it was from them he had come up with the idea. 

"Not gonna play there, Herman?" said Michael, the biggest man in the group. He had the shoulders of an ox and a heavy brow that seemed to jut out of his head like rain gutters. The others looked up to him because he had been with the company the longest and because he could sometimes do work that no one else could do. But he was a smoker, and Herman had invited him only as a courtesy, so that others would also come. 

"One guy has to be a dealer," said Herman. He flicked the cards to each player, just as he'd practiced all that week. In his mind, he went over the rules he had learned from the sheet of paper the local librarian had helped him print out. He couldn't remember her name but he remembered how eager she was to help him, and the slenderness of her wrists and fingers and the straightness of her teeth, the soft, sweet smell of shampoo. She had given him a flier for a computer class that she taught on Sundays. He had crumpled it up in his pocket as soon as he stepped out of the library but couldn't bring himself to throw it in the garbage. It lay pinned to his refrigerator door by a magnet, still creased.

"What're we playing again?" said Marco. He was the only member of the crew that had done time. No one talked about it. Michael, whose brother was doing two years for a carjacking, had recognized the tattoos and after that everyone knew. "I like seven-card stud. I used to play that all the time."

"I thought we'd just play Texas Hold'em," said Herman. He couldn't remember anything on the sheet about seven-card stud. 

"You not even playing, man," said Marco. "Why don't we just play seven-card stud? Everybody knows how to play seven-card stud." He held up his palms like he was measuring something between them. Everyone looked at Herman. The sheet had said Texas Hold'em was the most popular kind of poker. It was what they showed on TV and in the movies. Herman didn't know how to play anything else. Someone else would have to deal.

"Well, I guess if everybody--" said Herman.

"It's Herman's show," said Michael. "He set all this up. We'll play whatever he wants."

"He not even playing, man," Marco muttered. 

"Somebody has to be dealer," offered Herman.

"Dealer can play though. Dealer can play. Why you not playing man?"

"Herman doesn't gamble," said Micheal. "Right? I've never seen him take a bet." 

Herman finished the deal. "Can't afford it," he said. 

"Poker is not gambling," said Ruslan. "Is strategy." Ruslan was the boss's older brother and had just arrived from "old country". He barely spoke English and he had a frail, bony physique, like a turtle missing its shell, but Herman thought he worked the hardest out of anyone. And he was shrewd, with the quick, nervous intelligence of prey. 

"It's luck," said Marco, lifting his cards to his face.  

Ruslan shook his head. He carefully peeled his cards off the table, just the corners, cupping them like someone trying to light a cigarette. "How there can be--what do you say--man that plays on television? For money?"

"We all play for money, man."

"Professionals," said Micheal, nodding.

"Yes, professionals," said Ruslan. "In old country, I see. Some man, he win big one day, lose big tomorrow. But another man, he win every day. And if he lose, he never lose too much. Is strategy. Is professionals. Is not luck."

Marco knocked on the table. "Check," he said. "It's still gambling though, man. At the end of the day."

"You don't wanna gamble, you shoulda become a banker," said Michael. "Go on Wall Street. Play stocks. Those guys never lose."

"Because most of them are insider trading," Herman blurted out. "It's not strategy or smarts, they just rig the game. They're cheaters." 

Everyone paused to look at Herman. 

"You own stocks, Herman?" asked Michael.

"No," muttered Herman, clumsily turning over the flop cards. "Can't afford it."

"You know they have like an app for that now," said Marco. "My cousin told me about it. You can do it all on your phone and there's no fee or nothing."

"Sounds like a scam," said another player. 

Michael nodded. "Ditto that," he said.

Marco protested. The men laughed and the play went on late into the night. Ruslan came out the big winner, in the end, with Marco a distant second. Michael had lost all the money he had come in with, but didn't seem too peeved about it.