Joker by Kaela Li

Our love language is card games.

Idiot expresses our affection and respect, BS is our way of checking in with each other. War to express our shared frustrations. Spit and Blackjack to say hello and goodbye. A jack secretly gifted in the hallways between class is an inside joke. A queen is empowerment, when the hours get too long. A two is permission to rock the boat and get wild.

This is why when the girl shows up carrying a joker, none of us know what to make of it. Who is she, this smiling interloper, who so blatantly bares a word in our language? What does she mean by it? How much does she know?

None of the other students take note as she walks by; no heads are turned although she’s pretty enough for it. Some of us mutter, worried about the attention she will bring us. Others shift uncomfortably, looking at the card both foreign and familiar. A joker is not a card we regularly use. Those of us who are newer or bring finer dialects from afar are uncertain as to the exact meaning of the card. Jnak, one of our finest and oldest standing, recognizes it as a symbol of power and nobility: something old and unexplainable.

Then again, to speak cards is to accept that the meanings behind them are both infinite and nuanced. Perhaps she is saying something in a dialect we don’t recognize. Or perhaps she does not know what she is doing at all.

For two days we watch her, making note of every card she displays, of her twisting smiles and flashing eyes. We wait, anxiously, for her to initiate contact; what will it be? A one for a greeting? An eight, to declare intent? Maybe, and the thought infuriates us just as much as it exhilarates, she will give us a direct challenge; sit herself across from an empty seat and deal the cards for War, or Spoons, or any other such game. We debate who will we send if she does.

But two days pass without incident, and she makes no opening moves. We quickly grow impatient, dissent rippling through our ranks.

Pedro, our youngest, makes a plan to confront her.

But when we look for her the next day she is not there. Gone from the corridors are the black and white checkered sneakers, the flame bright hair, the vivid red nails splayed against white lacquered rectangles of colored mischief-makers.

A week passes undisturbed. We glance at each other over our notebooks and our games. Exchanging cards in the hallways becomes increasingly rare; we no longer feel quite so comfortable using our language, because it is no longer entirely ours.

On Tuesday we find the joker tucked in the window of the third-floor bathroom, wedged beneath the peeling paint so as almost to not have been there at all.

That night at school, when all the lights have been extinguished and the security guards have gone home, we reconvene to stand in a semicircle in an abandoned classroom and stare down at the card. Though long we stare, no answers come to our minds.

Perhaps it was a mistake. We don’t think so. It takes effort to wedge a card in like that.

We place the card in a rectangular cutout in the wall hidden behind the blackboard. We had been saving that spot for something special, for something purely for us. We had been saving it so long, that some of us were beginning to think the day would never come. And yet, even the most stringent of us all agree; what better use than for this card?

For two days we sit on the secret. In that nerve-wracking way in which anticipation changes time, schoolwork becomes more bearable, and sleep more rare; we vibrate with the energy of the mystery, our minds filled the possibilities it entails. Finally we decide that we cannot stand it; we open the secret compartment, but the card is gone.

***

The following day she is there again, as though she had never left. We eye her warily from across the cafeteria, watching as she smiles and shuffles her cards. When our more impulsive members rise to their feet, we hold them back, suddenly unsure of what this she-witch is capable of, uneasy over how many secrets she might know.

And still no outsider pays her any attention; to the school she is invisible, and the cards before her smoke in the air. She plays with the cards, shuffling them through the air in twisting columns, as though there is no one to see her hand. But we see it, and we watch as she lays cards out on the table; not solitaire (we would know), but some variation of it. There is no joker in her deck, but there is one tucked in her hair. If we read the cards correctly, she is telling us to stay calm.

We do not stay calm.

Our search becomes reckless. For two anxious days we watch for her on the grounds, neglecting our homework, cutting classes short and staying so late the school guards kick us out. And somehow –we anxiously suspect by design– we are successful. Several times we spot her throughout the school grounds, never in the same place twice, but always holding cards. At nights we convene in circles to interpret the meanings held within them.

Nothing to fear, says the first.

Everything is fine, says the second.

You will be ok, says the third.

But more important are the nuances.

Nothing to fear (and I am royal).

Everything is fine (but a storm is coming).

You will be ok is sent in spades painted mulberry, shuffled quickly between nails painted the same. Or perhaps, mulls our oldest, it is not mulberry at all. He traces his veins and shudders.

On the third day there is blood trailing through the hallway, and on the floor lies a single corner of a card, cut cleanly through. It depicts a nine of hearts. We wait anxiously for her return.

The rest of the month passes by. Then the rest of the school year. Then the rest of summer. Slowly we settle back into life as always; idiot is still affection, blackjack is still goodbye. These days Kings in the Corner takes on a special kind of reverence; we handle wildcards with care.

The day we come back to school there’s a boy sitting in our classroom. His jacket is checkered black and white, his stature small but confident, his hair brown and mussed. We take a collective breath.

There’s a joker tucked in the pocket of his backpack, and an eight of hearts held teasingly between colored nails. He turns to look at us and he smiles, and then he places his finger on his lip and winks.

We stare at him for several moments, and then we smile back.

Kaela Li

Image: A pile of playing cards from pixabay.com