America by the Numbers – County Highway

Essay

The Cards We’re Dealt

There are beer nights, and there are whiskey nights

Three of a kind can beat four aces

Don’t be too quick to fold

By C.B. Huckabee

My father’s one-bedroom apartment smells of spilled beer soured into the carpet and SpaghettiOs etched onto the sides of the microwave. My little legs swing back and forth on the edge of the rickety dining room chair that I somehow managed to drag over to the coffee table, where he sits across from me, his caramel eyes peeking out from behind five blue-backed Bicycle playing cards he holds before him like a fan. I push another penny into the pot. He whistles. “Not what I’da done,” he says. “I don’t want to play anymore,” I say, imagining the royal flush he must have. I scatter my cards face up on the glass table and cross my arms, pouting in the way that only six-year-olds can. “Son,” he says, his voice gentle but firm. “Pick ’em up.” I do. “You can’t be too quick to fold, boy,” he says, putting his cards down slowly, one at a time. “You never know what the other guy’s holdin.” I fan my cards flat this time, instead of dropping them — a whole lot of nothing. Ace high. He laughs, …

Essay

Big Game

Only two distant stations are available through the rabbit-ear wire antenna, and your boss can only reach you through a pay phone. Welcome to the 1970s.

A doper lady who camps out under the stars hitches a ride from a millionaire with a hole in his heart.

When you pay, you can really move.

By Zan Jarvis

Back in the 1970s I had the perfect job. A motor club paid me to go to all the resorts and tourist attractions in Colorado. I crossed the continental divide 23 times that summer. I ran free as the snowy clouds that were scuttled over the peaks, close enough to touch. The boss knew I camped out every night along the rushing rivers, but I was never sure he knew I took my big brown dog along. Perhaps he turned a blind eye because I sold more advertising than my predecessor. Still, the job paid relatively little. The cheap motels I could afford felt like prisons and staying in them would have put my boss in my ear each evening. There are advantages to a lack of connectivity that we fail to value now. To me, forty hours seemed sufficient labor for the little I earned, so I dreamed under the stars and called him each morning instead. I didn’t have much of a car when I applied. The Rambler was okay for trips to the grocer, but I had to get out every third or fourth stop, pop the hood, and …