“So, when you’re out there and you meet this probable coke dealer, do you think there’s any danger you might get whacked?”
“Well, that possibility has crossed my mind, but I know I can make him more money.”
It was a Friday night in Croydon at about midnight. I was talking to my flatmate about my flight the next day to Riga. A two-night business trip, initiated after dealing with a Lithuanian bloke via a Latvian translator over Skype. One night in Riga being shown around by a bloke we will call A, then a drive on Sunday morning to Kaunas, Lithuania, to be hosted by the likely coke dealer.
At the time I was a poker product manager for a gaming firm in North London. Nine months in. After a shaky start, I was finding my feet. It was an office that largely fit William Goldman’s description of Hollywood: “Nobody knows anything.” What I did know, after six months, was that the deals the company had formed with poker affiliates were setting fire to money in some cases for both the affiliate and the company.
One such deal was with the affiliate in Lithuania. Call him R.
More or less every time his players played on the site, it was costing the company money. Poker sites make money by charging you a small fee to sit down. If you lose $100 in ten minutes, the site makes about $0.20. The company may have paid $30 to acquire that player. So: $100 deposited, $0.20 earned, $30 spent. Whoever sealed the deals hadn’t understood the key difference between poker and everything else the company offered. If a slots or blackjack player loses their $100, most of it goes to the house. A $30 acquisition cost makes sense. For poker, it doesn’t. You want break-even players, people who sit down hour after hour until the seat fees have chipped away their bankroll. Most players aren’t break-even.
I had worked out a better deal for both the company and R. Hence the trip.
R also managed a bricks-and-mortar casino poker room. That was his main method of recruiting players for the company. Aside from his other probable income stream, he was in a death metal garage band and had recorded a song about poker.
I arrived in Riga at about 6 PM. A picked me up at the airport. A was a decent person, working alone for our company in Riga and had a resting meme face. I checked into my hotel, a building haunted by Soviet ghosts and went out to see the city. By coincidence, it was the anniversary of Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union. The atmosphere was intoxicating. Everyone seemed happy and glad to be alive.
Kaunas tomorrow. Tonight: the joy of not being in Kansas anymore.
Next morning we left for the drive to Kaunas. I don’t drive, but A was in cruise control with air-conditioned breeze and an on-off death metal playlist. We’d arranged to arrive after lunch. R was having what I was told was his traditional Sunday. He’d booked an out-of-town venue, hosted a pre-lunch basketball two-on-two tournament, eaten, then offered a poker tournament. A and I had been invited partly as an icebreaker before the business meeting Monday morning.
I’d declined the basketball.
I’m 5 foot 9 and much more of a badminton player.
We parked outside the venue. Wanting to be taken somewhat seriously, I was dressed business casual: I looked like every white, middle-aged stand-up comedian in Britain.
R greeted us floating basketball extreme casual. If the game had been skins versus vests, he was clearly the former: white basketball shoes and a pair of Texas Hold’em poker board shorts. Shaved head. Echoes of Steven Berkoff.
He was also hench. I am not hench.
He was not visibly perspiring. I was visibly perspiring.
He couldn’t speak English. I was temporarily unable to speak English.
R looked me up and down and said something to A. They both grinned. I was told the poker tournament was about to begin.
A was able to speak Lithuanian, Latvian, Russian and English which, to put it mildly, helped.
The lunch plates were still being cleared when we walked into the room hosting the tournament. The kind of place that looked like it hosted wedding receptions for the economically prudent couple. Long tables, adequate space between them and through a set of double patio doors, a moderately sized green space with a small pond.
One long table against the side wall was dedicated to vodka bottles and shot glasses. As I looked over, a player took a bottle and a glass and went to find his seat. A smaller table held beer. Unlike the vodka table, this one had no glasses.
I picked up a can of lager.
I don’t drink spirits. They scare me. I know where I am with beer. I can predict how I’ll feel after one, two, three. With vodka, I’d go from sober to unable to stand in under an hour.
As I watched another player select his bottle, I noticed I was the only person who had opted for a can.
A took a bottle and a glass. “Vodka, David?” He gestured to the table.
I smiled, shook my head.
He nodded. “That should be OK.” Then went to find his seat.
There were about sixty players, including A, R and me. Everyone paid €20 to enter. I paid from my own money.
At the first break, two hours in, about fifteen players had been knocked out, including A. I found him outside by the pond, vodka bottle in hand, about a third remaining.
During the first session I’d noticed a bear-sized man at another table. Loud, passionate, thirsty. Dressed in an outfit made famous by Orange is the New Black. He looked like he hadn’t been born as much as emerged fully formed from a blast furnace.
I asked A about him.
“Yeah. Everyone knows him. He’s ex-KGB and spent a few years in a Soviet prison.”
“Are those two things related?”
A smiled without opening his mouth, closed his eyes and nodded slowly three times.
I still regret I didn’t get a gif out of that moment.
“He gets upset when he’s knocked out,” said A.
The players were called back to their seats.
Two more hours passed. The field was down to about thirty, including R, the bear and me. I’d had four beers. The vodka table was at about 20% capacity. A was outside by the pond, smoking and laughing with the eliminated players, all of whom had booked to stay the night.
The second break came at about 6:30 PM.
Twenty remaining players. Three to four hours until a winner. Which meant forty drunk men with nothing to do, a possible vodka shortage and a pond.
It was time to return.
After about nineteen minutes we were at the final table of ten. I was seated opposite the bear, R to his left.
Just before we started, the bear proposed a toast.
Nine glasses of vodka raised. One can of beer.
The bear looked at me and shook his head rapidly. He growled something and gestured to the vodka table.
I offered a cheesy smile, shook my head, hoisted my can and looked around for A.
The garden had him.
The bear was still indicating that he would strongly prefer it if I drank vodka, if I would be so kind.
His gesticulations probably lasted less than a minute but felt, at the time, like I should be requesting a last cigarette.
Bravely, R put his hand on the bear’s shoulder and said something to him.
The bear looked to R, then to me, then back to R. Said what I guessed was a question while jerking his head in my direction.
R nodded.
The bear shook his head.
And then we did the toast.
I was very glad it was time to shuffle up and deal.
About an hour later I was knocked out in sixth place. R dealt the killing blow and I was partly pleased: I’d made the money and it wasn’t a bad thing for Monday’s negotiation that the affiliate had been the one to knock me out. But mainly I was pleased because I wouldn’t knock out the bear. He was currently in third. Two bottles of vodka deep.
I left the table to what I thought were good-natured jeers.
On the way to find A, I noticed the vodka table had been restocked. The beer table hadn’t needed to be.
He was in the garden near the pond. His bottle was half empty but his glass was half full. More than fifty happy drunk men were now milling around, the vibe late-stage wedding reception; one featuring two sets of families who liked or at least tolerated each other.
A’s ability to translate into English had become increasingly compromised as the day had gone on.
Even with five players remaining in the tournament, it could still take a while. I thought: did I want to still be hanging around, almost literally like a spare at a wedding, when the bear was knocked out?
I looked around the garden. Everyone was drunk. Drunk-happy, admittedly, but drunk. And still drinking. And with nothing else to do. And it was hot.
I had a premonition.
A vision of being held by four blokes, one at the end of each limb, stretched like a human hammock, with odds of somewhere between one in two and one in three of being launched into the pond. I even envisioned emerging with the obligatory small fish coming out of my mouth.
I can’t swim. I once dived into a swimming pool as a kid and my cousin’s review was that I’d gone in like a cow being surprised by a cattle prod. After that, fuck swimming.
So, for that reason and quite a few more, not least that being tossed in once arguably made a repeat more likely, I told A I needed to send a few emails and make some calls from my room and would see him at breakfast.
When he only tried once to dissuade me, I knew it was the right call.
I told him I’d finished sixth and perhaps he could collect my winnings from R.
My room was on the second floor, window facing the garden. Darkness had descended but the area was lit and I could hear the players below.
After about thirty minutes there was what sounded like good-natured uproar. Although I couldn’t understand the language, it was the bear’s voice. My guess: he’d just been knocked out.
Another fifteen minutes passed and I heard something like:
“With a woo… with a wee… and… a hurrah!”
Followed by something like, “Noooooooo” and about two seconds later by a large ker-splash and a lot of laughter.
I sighed with relief.
I pulled out my phone and texted my flatmate in Croydon.
Still not whacked.
He responded: ⏳ 🔫
In the evening there were about four more moments of “Whey!” followed by splash sounds. They slightly interrupted my ability to fall asleep. I still felt pretty good.
The next morning the room that had hosted the tournament had reverted to its normal role. It was about 8 AM. Six players, coffee, the sound of cutlery.
I was on my second cup when A appeared.
He was wearing sunglasses.
He also looked like a diluted Kermit the Frog.
I asked how the rest of the night had gone.
“I woke up lying on my back on the floor of my room. Totally naked.”
“Where were your clothes?”
“I couldn’t find them. So I gently opened my door and put my head out. Someone had tied my clothes into a bundle. On top of the bundle was a card. Someone had written on it my name and room number.”
He went to get breakfast and two cups of coffee. When he returned I said I’d already had two cups.
He had already started to move his scrambled eggs and jerked his thumb to his chest. Both cups were his.
The business meeting was scheduled for 11 AM in R’s poker room in a Kaunas casino. We’d been told to follow his car.
Before we set off, I asked A, who did not look like a man who wanted to be asked anything, if he could help me have a quick conversation with R.
I asked R for my winnings.
He suggested it would be a good gesture if I donated them back to the pool, to be shared with the other players, some of whom played online poker with my company’s product.
He had a point.
But in about an hour I’d be negotiating with him on his turf, using a translator to communicate. I didn’t want to concede the winnings. It was only €60. It wasn’t about the money. It was about communicating that I valued fairness and myself and I wanted him to know that before we talked business.
After about two minutes of translated exchange, he handed me the money.
He gestured that it was time to drive to Kaunas.
The meeting was in the back of the casino, past the slot machines and blackjack tables that line every route to a poker room: the games the house would prefer you played, the ones that take your money directly rather than letting you take each other’s. The same psychology that had produced the misapplied acquisition deals that brought me here in the first place.
Five sat around a poker table. The sixth fetched a bottle of vodka and six glasses.
I declined.
So did A. His sunglasses remained on. He still looked green.
After about two hours and four bathroom visits from A, we had a deal.
I joined R for a shot of vodka.
A didn’t.
We walked back to the car. A removed his sunglasses.
“I don’t think I can drive all the way back to Riga.”
Four hours. An informal meeting with Russian affiliates at 6 PM in a small Riga bar. My flight at 9.
“Here, take the keys.”
I don’t drive. He knew that, but I told him again.
“I know. But it’s easy. Plenty of people don’t have licences here. It’s OK. It’s an automatic.”
There was no way I was driving.
“How much would a taxi be?”
“No. Not taxi. I can’t leave my car. Just drive, it’s OK.”
Having apparently survived the prospect of being whacked, I was now facing the probability of being stranded in Kaunas.
“Have you got any water?” I asked.
He nodded and produced a half-litre bottle.
He understood.
He downed the water. We found somewhere selling sandwiches, ate them standing by the car.
He agreed to drive.
He put his sunglasses back on.
We made it to the bar in Riga on time, despite stopping twice for roadside strategic vomiting.
Him, not me.
I made my flight.
I made the affiliate more money. I made his players more money. I made my company more money.
And because of that, my disability was largely overlooked.
I have a right arm disability. No biggie, but I’m no pianist. It is mostly overlooked. But not always.
I feel other people’s reactions to it most keenly with strangers, particularly in pseudo-liminal spaces: a pavement, a car park, the queue at a till. Instead of eye contact and a nod, I get scrutinising looks aimed at my arm. Rarely, but often enough, I get asked: “Can you manage?”
It’s meant well. I’m usually asked when carrying bags and walking my dog.
And so I perform politeness. “I’m fine,” I say, with a thin smile.
What I want to say is: yeah, I can manage. In fact, I’m very good at it. Could you go to the Baltic States with a business proposal, hold your nerve through a slightly testing situation involving an ex-KGB man and a toast and know the exact moment to leave before you risk being tossed in a pond?
But yeah, of course I’m struggling with a bag of spuds and beans.
I don’t blame the people who ask. I’m not always irritated by them. But every time it happens I think about how quickly we form an opinion of someone’s capabilities and how completely that opinion can change if you can demonstrate you’ll make them money.
The company I worked for employed no women in income-generating roles and no people of colour. Everyone at the poker tournament in Kaunas was white and male. My disability was something to move past. I think about whether a woman or a non-white man sitting across from R in that room would have found the same reciprocity I did. I know it would have been a different room.
My dollar sign was legible to people who had already decided whose dollar signs were worth reading.
Those moments when strangers scrutinise my arm instead of meeting my eyes have given me a small insight into how women might feel when strangers look at their bodies rather than their faces. You stop being a person and become a feature.
I often felt, in any income-generating role, that what a company sees above your head is something like a health bar in a first-person computer game. Mine was high enough. I was given my chance.
Others were not deemed to have one.
Not yet whacked. Just very, very lucky.
If you think this is a damn fine piece, of writing, maybe you could buy me some beer. Just not vodka.