Poker Nights

Lately I’ve been running through dusty, dark hallways in my mind, trying to gather up remnants of my oldest memories. There’s a poker game going on in the dining room; it’s a Saturday night, and it’s the only time anyone is allowed to smoke in the house. Not cigarettes though. They are still exiled to the back deck, but the door outside is connected to the dining room that the game is in, so the smell fans in and out as people slip away for a few puffs. I think that’s mainly just my mom and perhaps another wife or two of the poker players who the table. I can’t be sure though. My age can still be shown by just my fingers on one hand, so I’m securely tucked into bed as the night begins for the adults.

You can smoke cigars in the house on Poker Nights, and everyone’s choice always seems to be fruity—grape and strawberry seem to be strong front runners among the various flavors. There is a thick, fold out poker tabletop set out on what normally serves as the dining room table. It is a wooden octagon, neatly upholstered with green felt for the cards to slide easily across when dealt. Perhaps there are a few stains from ashes and spills. There are chip holders on each of the 8 corners, a few ashtrays, beers, packs of cigars, and a plate or two of whatever the night’s appetizers entailed, all scattered about the table. But this is an organized chaos—nothing would dare wander to where the cards are to be dealt in the center, and to each of the 7 or so players.

One of these players is of course my dad, and these are his poker buddies. Friends from his childhood is perhaps the more appropriate label, but that’s not how my younger brother and I grew up referring to them as. Even after a divorce, a relocation, and years without a single poker night, the new normal we have finally found has brought the term “poker buddies” back into our everyday vernacular.

There was a unique smell to these Poker nights. I have only smelled something similar to it a handful of times since those days, but when I do memories flash through my mind like clips from a weird indie film—low angles, uneven lighting, and wavering focus—a viewpoint from when I barely stood two and a half feet off the ground. I’m tormented by my inability to freely recall these memories however. It is so heavily linked to scent, and the scent has rarely replicated itself in my adult life. It’s not just the cigar smoke, mixed with cigarettes, cold fall air, and something greasy in the oven. My bedroom door fit so tightly in its frame that perhaps it was impossible for air to seep in from the outside through the edges. It was as though it had to saturate the very wood of the door before it finally filtered through to the other side, and when it finally reached my tiny nose, it was something unique to both the home I lived in and the nights that went on outside my bedroom door.