FanStory.com - Some Call It Luck - Chapter 39by Jim Wile

I went over and sat down in my chair and tried to put it out of my mind. I had to get a grip because Abby and I would be playing duplicate bridge tonight at the temple, and I needed to get in control before that. She had called a couple days ago to confirm. I turned the radio on and listened to some classical music. It was Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, which happened to be very soothing, at least the first two movements—perfect for the mood I was in. I began to relax as the booze took effect. I closed my eyes and just listened to the music and tried to put everything else out of my mind. I listened to the whole symphony. God, that was beautiful.

I felt somewhat better but was still on edge. I needed to take a shower and grab a bite to eat before leaving for the temple, so I had to get moving now. It was 6:15, and I had to be there by 7:00. No time to shave—just shower and eat.

By the time I finished rushing around and got to the temple, I had only two minutes to spare. I had not left myself enough time, and I was on edge again. I took a few big swigs from a bottle I kept in the glove box before heading in. I met Abby inside, and she looked relieved when I got there.

“I wasn’t sure you were going to make it,” she said as she looked at me kind of funny. “We’re north-south, table 2. We’d better get inside.”

As we headed in, I said to her, “Why don’t you sit north and do the scoring. I’m a little bit distracted tonight, and I’d probably make mistakes.”

“Okay. Is everything alright, E.J? You look agitated.”

“I’m fine. The match didn’t go like I wanted today, but I’ll be alright.”

We sat down and greeted our east-west opponents. We got our first three hands and started bidding the first one. Things went well enough for a while, but I didn’t feel very sharp. I made a defensive error that cost us a trick and led to a low score on the hand.

Little things started to annoy me. One of our opponents had a habit of clicking her tongue inside her mouth. She did it several times, and I said to her, “Do you have to do that? Could we have some quiet, please?” She apologized but looked a little hurt. Abby frowned but didn’t say anything.

Near the end of the session, I could tell we weren’t doing very well. My mood darkened. On the next hand, I was declarer (meaning Abby had to lay her cards on the table, and I would play both hands). The opponent to my left, who made the opening lead, was a little old lady named Ruth, who never struck me as particularly bright. She led the jack of spades against my 4-heart contract.

I played the cards assuming she did not have the queen, as the normal play would have been to lead it instead of the jack if she had both. I thought there was no way someone like Ruth would have the guile to try to fake me out by leading the jack if she had the queen too. So later, when she showed up with the queen after all and won the trick, I was flabbergasted! I threw the rest of my hand down and said to her in a peeved voice, “Ruth, what possessed you to lead the jack from queen-jack? Everyone like you leads the queen first! I can’t believe you did that. Did you make a mistake and pull the jack instead of the queen?” I almost shouted it at her. People at some other nearby tables began telling me to “shhh.” Ruth just had a fatuous look on her face and didn’t say anything.

Abby looked hard at me. “E.J., knock it off. She made a great, deceptive lead. Let it go.”

I felt chastened after that and apologized to Ruth for my outburst, but I was still seething inside. How could that twit have faked me out like that?

At the end of the night, I looked at the overall results, and we’d come in 6th out of 11 tables with 47%--a below-average score. Abby and I almost never scored below average.

As we left and were walking to our cars, Abby said to me, “E.J., I know you weren’t quite yourself tonight, but that was awfully rude the way you spoke to Ruth. She didn’t deserve that.”

“I know. I’m really sorry about that. I’m going to have to send her a card or something with a real apology.”

“That would be nice.”

“I had a tough day today. I know that’s no excuse, and I feel awfully bad about it now. I’ll try not to let that ever happen again.”

“Okay. Everyone has a bad day now and then. I’m sure you’ll do better.” She was a sweetie, and I could tell she was uncomfortable having to talk to me this way. She tried to cheer me up some by saying, “Hey, do you think we should consider playing Odd-Even Discards? Maybe we can start reading up on that convention.”

“Sure, why not? Anything to help us achieve greater heights than 47%.”

She laughed at that and said goodnight. As we were about to get in our cars, I called over to her. “Hey, Abby?”

“What?”

“Do you think she really meant to play the queen but pulled the jack by mistake?”

“Yeah… probably. She never really struck me as all that bright.”

A second or two passed, then we both broke out in a smile, got in our cars, and left.

When I got home, I headed straight for the cupboard and got down the bourbon bottle. Tomorrow was another day off, and I wouldn’t have to get up early to caddie, so I planned to have a few drinks before bed. Didn’t matter if I went to bed late. I wouldn’t think about the yips or jacks from queen-jack or anything else that got me in such a funk today. I would just drink and watch TV.

The Johnny Carson show always made me laugh, so after a while, I put it on and watched until the end. By that time, I was no longer stressed out, and it was time for bed. I took the Lucky 1 out of my pocket and placed it on top of the footlocker as I did every night, got undressed, did my bathroom routine, then got into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly.