Ed turned from his oatmeal to Mel.
“Are you okay?”
“What’d you mean, Ed?”
“Well… You just don’t seem like yourself. Look, you barely touched your eggs.”
Ed pointed with his spoon. They were at the counter of AL’S DINER that Monday morning. The oatmeal was glutinous. There was no telling what it might be doing to Ed’s stomach.
“I guess I was thinking about the weekend.”
“Weren’t you taking care of your nephew?”
Mel and Ed launched into a past weekend diner conversation.
“Right, my nephew Mort.”
“Isn’t he your sister’s kid? The one with the rhinestone glasses and gaudy jewelry?”
“No, Mort doesn’t wear much jewelry.”
“I meant your sister, Mel.”
“Oh… No… You’re thinking of my sister Francine. Mort’s Julie’s kid.”
Mel put down his fork. His eggs, which he’d barely touched, reached an unappetizing thermal equilibrium. The diner kept the temperature low to save on heating costs.
“Mort beat me seven games straight in gin rummy.”
“What?”
Ed couldn’t believe it. Seven in a row? Mort?
“How old is he?”
A 10-year-old had taken Mel for all the money he had over the past weekend while Julie was away with three of her friends in the Poconos. AL’S DINER was northeast of Philadelphia.
So Mort had cleaned out Mel. That meant Ed had no way of winning anything from him if they played a few hands of gin rummy in one of the empty booths. And what was the point of playing for nothing? 10-year-old Mort knew that, and had stopped playing when Mel had nothing more to put up.
David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).