The men sit around the table, their paper women visible behind them on the wall. Sebastian, at the head, appears grim in his lack of movement. Caleb appears guilty in his restlessness. Several decks have been brought to the table but they remain unopened and tenuous- each an unanswered question.
Will there be a game tonight?
Will there be another game at all?
I’m not sure what Eddie told them but I trust that it was more heartfelt than anything I could have said. That’s the crux of it all- in order to get in close with those who hold the cards a sacrifice is in order. Something pure, offered violently.
There are many types of friendships and a path to each. The path to common friendship is long and tedious and something that is done almost subconsciously. It consists of a hundred little interactions drawn out over months or years. It comes upon two people like sleep, or love, or old age.
I don’t know when I’ll have the time for something like that.
So, to secure admission to ‘The Library of Urban Legends,’ I chose to pursue the quick and dirty camaraderie of us-vs-them, the sort of friendship and mutual respect that forms when a newcomer seems to offer up themselves for the good of an existing group.
“It was Eddie’s idea,” I tell them.
“Eddie was tired of losing.”
“He knew it would be suspicious if he tried to pull something himself.”
“He said I could join if I threw the game.”
“He said it would be less suspicious because I wouldn’t know what I was doing.”
“But you’ve all been so kind.”
“And my time here is running short.”
“And I couldn’t leave the group like it is.”
Eddie doesn’t say a thing. He doesn’t seem to hear it at first, so sure, is he, that I would be selflessly sucking the venom from their wounds and ingesting the poison myself. Eddie would not turn on Caleb, would not stand up to Sebastian. He was not my first choice, but he was never not an option.
When Eddie does hear me, he does not know what to say. And when he thinks he knows what to say, he says all the wrong things. He tells them everything I told him, that Sebastian was behind the upset shelf and the upset mechanics of the game. He forgets to cite me, though, and by the time he remembers it seems petty. He guarantees that Caleb will not confess to the shelf. He ensures Sebastian will be too angry to think straight.
The room is silent when we are through and the men seem to consider all that has been said. Sebastian (and this is what I feared most) seems unconvinced, and I feel his eyes on me as he clutches a Traitor. He folds it, carefully, over and over.
The cheese, now green around the edges, warms at my chest, wringing out a line of grease that slides down toward my bellybutton. The card has no power over me.
They turn on Eddie all at once, spitting pretzels again, throwing cards. He defends himself, of course, and he tries desperately to trace the lines of my treachery but he buries himself in the holes of the story I told and the others step in to defend me.
I turn to leave, gathering my jacket from the pile on Sebastian’s bed, and I feel him in the room with me. The Traitor in Sebastian’s hand is becoming denser with each bend. It is folded beyond recognition, resisting him now. He pops it in his mouth and starts to chew.
“I’m sorry I blamed you,” he says, “I thought Eddie was a good guy.”
“Me too,” I tell him, “I’m sorry I got involved.”
“Know where you’ll go next?”
“I’ve got family a couple states over,” I tell him.
It’s not a lie.
“You said you were a traveler when you showed up here. Said you were looking for a museum.”
“Never did find it.”
“Well, I think I might know a guy that works there. Could get you in on your way out. We owe you that much for being honest.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Consider it a friendly gesture, then.”
-traveler
