Freecell Royalty
2004-09-15 - 5:18 p.m.

Aaron Gray sat in a corner, playing Freecell by himself. The smoke from his smoldering cigar enveloped him in a cocoon, and inside it, he was being transformed from common man to master of the cards.

Freecell is an arranged game, that is, in order for the game to be consistently winnable, the cards must be arranged in some special fashion. Solitaire was, in theory, winnable every time. Freecell, much like Monopoly, was not. Aaron picked up a queen of hearts, and laid it on a king of spades. He imagined they were making love, reunited at last. Cards had been mixing the races for years, and he had yet to hear anyone complain about seeing a red king played on a black queen. Of course, you didn’t see too many Chinese/Black couples anyway. He giggled at his own joke. No one else did, but then, there was no one else in his cocoon.

Two tables to the right, there was a girl named Helen. She’d had her eye on the enigmatic smoker in the far corner since she’d walked in the door, and had been slowly revolving around the tables in the barroom to get as close to him as she could. She wanted to buy him a drink, but didn’t know exactly why. He wasn’t handsome, or muscular, or anything, really, and she could’ve sworn she’d just seen him lay a queen of spades on a king of clubs, making him not only unexceptional, but also dishonest. Of course, Helen had always had a thing for dishonest losers.

The bartender sidled up to her table, checking her out as subtly as he knew how. He was a stupid, vulgar man, so this subtly was limited to not actually drooling down the shirt of any girl with nicely-shaped breasts. Still, Helen tried to appreciate the effort.

“Would you like a drink, lady?” he said, in a slow, stupid voice. It sounded like she imagined a snail or possibly an alligator would if they could talk. Were alligators stupid? She didn’t know, but that was her impression, regardless.

“Only if you can get me a tall glass of that man in the corner.”

As soon as it left her mouth, she realized it was the most asinine thing she’d said all day. It barely seemed to register with the barkeep. He was still staring at her chest, and had backed up a bit in hopes that he could catch a peek at her legs under the table.

“It’s on the house, if you do.” he said dully.

Helen shook her head no, relieved to know that she’d only made an ass out of herself in front of someone who was probably wishing she’d leave so he could check out hers. It made her feel a little better.

Aaron had no idea what a fuss his presence was causing for the little number two tables down. He hadn’t looked up from his cards in twenty-two minutes. He hadn’t even moved any for the last two. After two minutes of staring at the spread on the table, he had come to the conclusion that there were no moves left to make. The cards were stalemated against each other, and there were no free spaces. Remembering that Freecell is an arranged game, and that a true champion does whatever it takes to win, he decided that the best course of action would be to play red on red for a couple moves, just to get back in the swing of things. After all, he could hardly be blamed if the cards were stacked against him. He doubted that an Olympic weightlifter would lift an unbalanced set of weights, and that was pretty much what this deck was. He lifted a queen of spades, and made a king of clubs very happy.

Helen was tired of sitting. Between the uncomfortable warp of her ancient chair, and the leering stares of the bartender who wouldn’t stay a safe distance away, she decided it was time to make her move. She steeled her resolve, stood to her feet, kicked the chair back, and began walking toward the mysterious man with the cards, drawn by some unexplainable force. A stupider girl might’ve said it was love at first sight.

Out of the corner of his eye, Aaron saw someone approaching his table. Probably some poor schnook hoping to pad his pockets from a crooked game of poker. The idea made Aaron laugh aloud, which drew a quizzical glance from an elderly woman sitting fifteen feet away, but no reaction at all from the rest of the smoky barroom. Since he was king of the cards, Aaron assumed that he could probably win just about any card game fair and square; however, there was no point in being stupid. Freecell was his best game, and he knew it. He looked up, ready to field an attack on his honor by some hotshot young upstart cardslinger, but was surprised to see a striking young lady giving him barroom eyes.

“Excuse me,” she said, in a voice as sweet as the thwipp of a shuffle, “but is that Freecell you’re playing?”

“Yeah, it’s Freecell. You know it?”

“Know it? I’m the queen of it.”

Aaron looked at her amusedly. Not at her chest, not at her legs, not even a sideways glance at her buttocks. He looked at her, sized her up, and then chuckled.

“So you’re the queen, huh? Well ain’t that a coincidence.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, I just so happen to be the king.”

She sat down across from him, looked into his eyes with a face as unreadable as Arabic, and said, “Shall we see who’s really fit to rule this kingdom?”

With that, she took the cards, and began to shuffle. She had hands to die for. When she was done, she began flipping through the cards thoughtfully, laying them out one at a time.

Aaron smiled. This could be a challenge yet, he thought. The queen knows that this is an arranged game.

He watched her move card after card, creating sequence from chaos, and then she was done, and it was his turn. He was sweating and rattled, but his hands didn’t shake as he laid the cards on the table as best he could. He then set about restoring order in the monarchy. He played his best game ever, and, when the last two was covered by the last ace, he breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t had to break one rule.

“You really are good, you know.” said Aaron.

“Oh, I know,” said Helen, “but you’re not so bad yourself.”

She leaned forward, and looked into his eyes. They looked like brownish spades. He looked into her eyes, and thought they looked like blue diamonds. Their hands touched for moment, and they began to deal the cards again.

Of course, it was inevitable that the Freecell Queen and the Card Game King would fall in love. It was, you might say, in the cards.