Of course

“Put in your watch,” Roslyn’s eyes grew wild. She spoke to Daniel but here eyes were fixed on the Man in Green.

“What?” Daniel startled a reply.

“Put in your watch!”

Daniel looked down at his watch. Unlike the Man in Green’s, this was a much shabbier piece of hardware. While it maintained a golden sheen, only a fool would believe any real gold was used in its craft.

“The watch is worthless,” the Man in Green spoke quietly but everyone listened. Another silence followed in the wake of his words. Like a wave crashing and then receding, he returned to silence. His eyes flitted to Roslyn’s again for a moment. Another wave crashed upon the table.

“Your ring is not.”

Roslyn stared back at the Man. Her jaw hung loose in her mouth. She stared at the diamond ring that had made its debut on her finger earlier that evening. She fingered it for a a few seconds before pulling herself out of the stupor.

“He should see his hand first. It’s too valuable for a mere buy in.”

Daniel’s eyes looked at her in a confused horror.

All eyes returned to the Man in Green. He nodded to the dealer. Despite this flagrant breach of the rules, none of the players raised any objections. They had all been so criminally enriched by his blend of apathy and generosity, that the rules had stopped mattering hours ago. Even the dealer, clearly enamored or perhaps even frightened by this ludicrous display of wealth said nothing as three more cards landed in front of Daniel. Another minor miracle. Three kings. Suddenly comforted by his cards, the determination of play returned to Daniel. He nodded at Roslyn and she threw the ring into the center of the table. An enormous pile of chips were pushed in by the Man in Green. He generously valued the ring to be worth at least three times what it could possibly cost. The older man and the woman in the fur coat looked at their cards and folded. They weren’t too interested in a diamond ring. They were more curious to see what would happen next.

“Check,” Daniel replied. He would have raised if he had anything to play with but the whole table knew the diamond ring was their last chip. Roslyn predicted the Man in Green’s generosity would extend to allowing the rest of the round to play out.

“I raise,” the Man in Green put in a few more chips equating somewhere near a thousand dollars.

“That’s all I’ve got,” Daniel shrugged. He patted down his pockets for effect.

The Man in Green began reaching for the ring.

“You can’t do that!” Daniel cried.

“If you can’t raise you must fold,” the dealer interrupted. She chanted it more as a mantra than an instruction.

“But he can’t raise! You tricked us!” Roslyn flared up, ignoring all eyes but the dark green ones opposite her.

“It was my grandmother’s ring! You can’t do this!” Daniel threw his hands up.

The table’s other inhabitants looked at each other awkwardly, their discomfort clear on their faces.

Quietly the Man in Green let another wave wash over the table. In a gentler voice than before, yet deeper than the sea.

“I think I raised close to the value of that dress”.

The silence grew deeper. They all sunk into the the dark forest at the table. Roslyn was not sure when she had stood up, but she was standing. She looked down at her blue satin dress. The red ribbon still hung across her midsection. She remembered handing the cashier of the vintage store a twenty dollar note. The chips now in the center were ridiculously far above the value. Unless her dignity was included in his accounting.

A storm brewed inside Roslyn as she glowered across the table, but before she could work up a complaint, Daniel was speaking.

“Fine, I bid the dress,” he cut in.

“What?!” She rounded on Daniel.

“You bid the ring,” he reasoned. “So then why not the dress.”

“Besides,” he whispered to her, “look at these cards.”

Roslyn stared at Daniel for a moment. Several choice words stuck in her throat, before she settled on an uneasy calm.

“He bids the dress,” Roslyn declared shakily to the table.

Daniel sat back down, feeling somehow reprimanded. Roslyn took her seat as well.

“That’s not how we play,” the Man in Green echoed to the table once more.

Before anyone could stammer in a question he continued.

“We place our bids on the table.”