Popeye the Sailor’s Dog

The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.

Chrissy repeated the words to herself, eyes closed, until a scene from her past finally surfaced like a negative developing under the red light of her best friend’s improvised darkroom. The cramped dark space had made her too claustrophobic to share that part of the hobby, but they often did photo shoots together.

Eleven years old and two thousand miles from home, Chrissy sat cross-legged in aqua shorts, a horizontally striped red and white t-shirt, tennis shoes and pink socks on the pale grey carpet and smiled at the Dachshund who was sniffing and snuffling her.

Also sitting on the floor, her cousin, Marcia, giggled and said, “Sir Stink-a-Lot must like how you smell.” Dark-haired and scrawny, she could easily be the grandchild of the Wicked Witch of Oz.

“Yup, yup, yup.” Donald laughed as he shuffled the deck sloppily. Though younger than Marcia, he sat on his big bed like a prince on a throne covered in Batman cartoon images. His pudgy face only needed a greenish tinge and some antennae to make him into a Martian.

Chrissy resisted the urge to grab the deck and show him how to shuffle. Her maiden aunt, Bogna, who used to look after her shared quite a lot about dice games and cards. If only they were watching Bewitched together on the flickering black-and-white television or brewing some weed-killer together. She remembered Bogna’s warning that being lucky at cards meant being unlucky at love.

The cousins and their visitor had played Trouble until Donald tipped the board over because he was losing, his yellow pegs farthest from the home row. Then they tried Three Handed War, but Marcia scooped up and scattered the cards, announcing this was the most boringest game ever. Chrissy didn’t point out that boringest wasn’t a word—already knew it was best to hide her intelligence.

Popeye barked as the three of them gathered the cards which Donald had counted in pairs to make sure none were lost. Then he asked if Chrissy ever heard of a game called Poker.

“I saw it on television once,” she replied, “but can’t remember what show.”

Even if she intended to reveal anything else, Donald boasted, “Our dad plays Poker in the middle of the ocean for months and months, in Hong Kong and Hawaii and all over the world.”

“Groovy,” Chrissy said, trying to sound like she used the word all the time.

“He’s in the Navy,” Marcia added, as if this information had not already been provided. “And they have green mashed potatoes sometimes.”

“I’ve been on a submarine,” Donald said, “but you were sick, Mars, so you didn’t get to come.”

Chrissy decided Marcia could be a skinny Martian too. She liked how her mind made up stories and was glad that she had learned not to tell them to anyone. Lonely, though, to be the only one whose mind did that as far as she knew.

“You need to tell her the rules,” Marcia reminded him.

Though the rules of Poker snapped into view for her as clearly as the front page of a newspaper, Chrissy listened to Donald’s fumbling explanation and didn’t contradict what he said when it was wrong. She adjusted her understanding and planned to tell Aunt Bogna about the California variation of Poker when she next wrote her a letter.

Popeye snuggled up, a furry weight against Chrissy’s bare legs. She resisted dragging him into her lap, not sure if he would stay there. The Dachshund got his name because he gobbled dogfood as eagerly as Popeye chugged tins of spinach.

Donald cut the cards into three scraggly heaps onto the top of the upended empty cardboard box they were using for a table. Marcia reached out to restack, then Chrissy crowned the result with the remaining small stack.

Donald dealt the cards rapidly but haphazardly. The very last card flipped over, almost flung toward his sister, a two of spades, which he replaced in the deck.

“What if I needed that?” Marcia demanded.

“Dealer’s choice,” he replied with an authority that Chrissy thought must imitate their Navy dad. How lucky they were to have a dad, even if he was away with the Fleet for most of every year.

She examined her cards but didn’t rearrange them like a novice would. Her face stayed neutral, too, the result of hours and hours of practice with Aunt Bogna. 

“Hit me,” Marcia said, using her cards to fan her face.

Donald reached over and punched her shoulder.

“Ouch,” she complained as she rubbed the spot.

“Not your turn anyway,” he said and looked at Chrissy.

“Could I have a card please?” she asked and discarded the ten of spades that did not fit in with her plans.

The dealer made a big deal of thinking about whether he wanted a new card or not.

Marcia threatened to scream if he wasted another minute. Each of them continued to take their turn. 

“Need any advice?” Marcia offered, leaning toward Chrissy.

“No thanks,” Chrissy said, protecting her cards from view. She didn’t need to wonder what Aunt Bogna would recommend, simply did the next right thing as the tension in Donald’s bedroom racketed up. In due course, she revealed the Ace, King, Queen, Jack and ten of hearts which made her the winner.

“Beginner’s luck!” Donald yelled.

Chrissy gathered up the untidy heap of cards, made sure they were all facing the same way, then held the two halves of the deck tight to show them a shuffle in mid-air before easing the cards into one another sideways until she felt satisfied. Then she cut and placed three almost equal stacks on top of the upended cardboard box.

Marcia reached out to put the right stack on the far left. Donald lifted the middle and dropped it at an angle on top.

Chrissy felt that untidiness was deliberate but straightened the cards up and dealt like a professional, slapping the cards down efficiently.

“You cheated,” Marcia said when she won again.

“Yeah,” Donald agreed, “you messed with the deck.”

Though the taunt stung, Chrissy gathered up the cards and handed the deck to Marcia.

“Winner deals,” Donald protested.

“Dealer’s choice,” Chrissy said as cooly as if sitting with strangers in an old Western saloon.

By the time Marcia and Donald’s mother called them to lunch, she was showing them how to shuffle and beginning to explain strategy.

Chrissy, not eleven years old anymore, lifted her pen from the page of her counselling journal. This was as far as she could imagine because her cousins had been quite the opposite of being impressed with her skill with cards. 

While completing the assignment, she had resisted doodling in the margins as she wasn’t sure what that might communicate to her counsellor. Flower Power and daisy chains were her default, but sometimes she drew alien faces and surreal miniature landscapes.

Would rewriting an event from her past help her cope better? Could something that happened when she was eleven years old really still be influencing what she did and said now? What if she had remembered and altered the wrong one?

With only one last semester to survive toward achieving her Bachelor’s degree at San Diego State University, Chrissy had dropped in to the Health Center. She nervously explained to a counsellor that she wanted to give up and apply for a job at McDonalds instead. If only she could be normal so that people would like her and include her rather than shut her out or think she was invisible.

Chrissy twirled her pen in her hand for a while, then added one long sentence: Names have been changed to protect the innocent (my maiden aunt) as well as the guilty and Popeye is sadly only a figment of my imagination though I like to think he belonged to my Navy uncle who was always nice to me, unlike the rest of his family who were related to me by blood.