Changes

Changes (Chapter Two)

The street was alive with commotion, every store on the block open for business. Men stood around on the corners, waiting for sex-hungry patrons to come buy some of their time. A homeless man was hiding just inside an alley between two stores, attempting to light a fire in large garbage pail. Cars drove down this street, but rarely, if ever, stopped on it.

Cassi eyed every aspect of the street before turning down it with Sven. “So, what do you want to eat, anyway?”

Sven shrugged. “I dunno…whatever. I mean, food’s food. Where are we going? Do you know somewhere that’s giving away food?” He strained to see over the crowd, attempting to figure out where they were going.

Cassi smiled. “Giving away food? They do that in this city?” She laughed. “No no, I’m thinking we sit down somewhere and have somebody else get us our food. You cool with that?”

Sven stopped. “You mean…somewhere…and…buy food? Like…a diner?”

Cassi looked over her shoulder at the frozen Sven. “Yeah. Of course. What did you think, a garbage can with a little remote control cat to scrounge us up some food?”

Sven gave her a weird look, not sure how to take that comment. “But…I don’t have any money, I can’t get anything.”

“No worries, my new friend. I’ll take care of it.” Cassi replied as Sven caught back up with her.

“But…if you’re living on the streets, how do you get money?” Sven wondered out loud.

“Ah hah. Now, that’s-“ Cassi stopped mid-sentence, looking at a pair of men that walked by, with a gait that projected self-importance.

The shorter of the two was wearing a fishnet shirt over some hot pants. His eyes and hair in particular stood out, the former being fiery red, and the latter nearly blue. For just a moment, Cassi felt an urge to go speak with him, but quickly pushed that thought out of her mind. The slightly taller male wore varying shades of black, but again, it wasn’t the dress that made him stand out. No, for this guy, it was his purple hair. Or was it his skin, which seemed off color, and violet, almost pink? Hmm…perhaps the darkening light was just playing tricks on her mind. No matter what, the pair were getting quite a large amount of looks.

Sven saw her looking at the pair, and just shrugged it off when she looked at him quizzically. “I think they’re heading to some club nearby. They do a costume night there every so often. What’s it called…something about fire. Blaze? No, that’s not it…” Sven seemed to strain to think of it, but eventually gave up. “Anyway. You were saying?”

Cassi thought back. “Oh yeah. Money. As I was saying, that’s what we’re here for.” Her eyes went back to the crowd, searching for her destination.

“Ah. I see.” Sven sighed. Cassi could tell from his response that in fact, he didn’t. That was fine. Maybe soon, he would.

They passed by a man coming out of a store, with a little girl trailing closely behind him. The girl gave the two of them a strange look before being pulled along by their worried looking father.

Sven turned towards Cassi. “So, where are you from, anyway? You don’t really seem like you’re from here.”

Cassi grinned as she spotted what she was looking for, and pulled Sven in that direction. “You’re right, I’m not from Chicago originally. I grew up in Buffalo actually. My family lived there pretty much as long as I can remember. I didn’t move here until just recently. Only a few days after my nineteenth birthday, to be honest. I guess getting one year older made me realize life just wasn’t working down there.”

“You’re only nineteen?” Sven looked at her, his face showing his surprise. “Wow. You look older than that. But, I suppose years of living on the streets like I have can do that to you.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” Cassi looked dejectedly at her feet as she walked. “I was shunned from my family when I was fourteen.”

“Fourteen? What kind of parents did you have? Why in the world would they send you off like that? Hell, can they even do that that young?”

“Well…let’s just say they didn’t like who I was. Or what I did.”

“Hmph. I guess I can relate on that last part. My family never quite accepted who I was either.” Sven frowned, looking down at his own feet.

“I’ll bet. A lot of parents don’t like it when they find out their children are gay.”

Sven’s head swirled around. “What? How did you know? I never said-“

Cassi gave a knowing smile. “Sven. We’ve been talking for the past forty-five minutes, and you haven’t hit on me once.”

Sven smirked. “Ah. Yeah. That’d do it, I guess. Yeah, my parents pretty much freaked when I told them. It was actually ok for a few weeks, until my mother’s coworkers started to talk, and my mom just broke down. My father couldn’t stand how my mother was taking it, so he just told me to go and never come back.” Sven’s eyes shone brightly. “Well, that and the fact that my older brother was the shining example of the ideal son…guess I just couldn’t live up to it.”

Cassi gave Sven a playful shove. “Oh, come on. You’re a great guy from what I’ve seen so far. I’d say, you’re better off without them.” Then, tugging on his sleeve, she made him stop in front of a man with playing cards on the box in front of him.

Sven looked confused. “What…why are we stopping here?”

Cassi raised a finger to her lips to silence him. “Gotta get money for food, remember?” Sticking her hands into her pocket, she pulled out a crumpled bill. Sven spotted a number one on it, and wondered what she was doing.

Stepping towards the man with the cards, she parted the few people that were standing around watching, and listened to the man’s raspy voice as he sweet talked the crowd.

“Step on up, step on up! Three card Monte, that’s the game. And as luck would have it, Monty’s the name, too! Just pick the Ace of Spades, and you’ll win. Any takers? You, sir? No? Too bad. You look like you’d do well. How about- well, hello there, missy!” The card dealer finally took notice of Cassi. “What do we have here? Would the lady like to play a game? Hmm?”

Cassi put her hand out, showing ‘Monty’ the ten dollar bill she had resting on her palm. Sven did a double take- then, he realized his eyes had played a trick on him moments before. He realized Cassi was only slightly less crazy than he thought- playing a dollar on a sidewalk con game?-but still, he thought, what is she up to?

Monty took the bill and started up again. “Allrighty, miss! Here we go! Three cards.” His hands deftly shuffled the well used deck twice. Fingers flying, he flipped out three cards onto the box. Flipping them over one by one, he showed the crowd the Ace of Spades as well as the other two cards. “Just pick the Spade out of the trio, and you win yourself double what you bet!” Hands flying once more, the cards were circled, piled, switched, flipped, moved, pushed- everything that could be done. Sven watched the cards for the moment, like the rest of the crowd, until he noticed that Cassi wasn’t. She just smiled and waited for Monty to finish.

When he did, he looked up at her with a grin on his face. Cassi pointed to the card on the right, which he promptly flipped over- and the crowed cheered. The Ace of Spades! Sven was impressed, especially since sidewalk cons were infamous for switching out the cards that their marks were supposed to be picking.

However, judging from the dealer’s face, Monty wasn’t. He scrowled, then put the cards back on the deck. “Hmph. Not bad, I guess…” He pulled out a crumpled twenty, and reached to hand it to Cassi. But she stopped and just said “Double or nothing?” in a sweet little voice.

Monty’s hand stopped. He smirked, and said, “Yeah…sure. Why not?” The twenty back in his pocket, he put his fingers back on the card. Impossibly fast, those fingers flew again, faster than the first round. Flipping three cards back onto the table, he did his show, flipping the cards to show the Spade. But then he went to work.

Sven’s eyes couldn’t keep track of the man’s hands. Flying back and forth, they seemed to be in two places at once, the cards nearly moving on their own. And once again, Sven was stunned to see that Cassi was just smiling and watching the card dealer sweat. Finally stopping, he looked up at Cassi with a wicked grin.

But that grin was wiped off his face when he flipped over the card on the left that she pointed to- the Spade once again! Monty’s jaw dropped, and Sven saw him steal a glance at his left hand, which Sven noted had been under the table.

Reaching again into his pocket for money, Cassi just said sweetly “Double or nothing again?” Monty’s eyes shifted between Cassi, then Sven, then finally the crowd. No longer smiling as he once had been, he nodded, and grabbed the cards again.

Sven couldn’t even watch as Monty, clearly frustrated, made his hands simply sizzle, the air around them growing warm. Once again, he stopped and with a less certain smile on his face, waited for Cassi to pick- she did, once again, the one on the right. His hand snapped out to confidently flip the card over. “Fuck!” escaped his lips as he (along with the crowd) saw the card was once again the Ace of Spades. Monty grabbed up the deck, quickly going through it in search of something. Apparently not finding it, he looked at a card that seemingly came from under the table. Completely angered, he took the cards and stuffed them into their box and tossed it at Cassi along with her winnings.

“Game’s over, folks. Get the hell out of here.” Monty eyed Cassi as she walked back over to Sven, who turned to walk alongside her away from the booth.

Sven looked wildly at her. “Where the hell did you learn to play games like those? And for that matter, how the hell did you win? Cons like those almost always switch out the cards!”

Cassi simply grinned. “Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do…” She handed him the cards.

He flipped through them, and just looked back at her with an ever growing look of confusion.

Cassi lead Sven around the corner onto the next street. “Take another look at those cards, I’d say.”

“Why? I just looked at them, there’s nothing special about ‘em.” Sven raised an eyebrow.

Cassi smiled once more and said, “ I insist.”

Sven looked back down at the cards, and flipped them back over. Once again, he stopped in his tracks. They were all the Ace of Spades! He looked back at Cassi. She pointed at the cards again, and following her gesture, he spotted that once again, the cards were normal. “What the hell?”

Cassi started to answer, but was cut off by a familiar sounding raspy voice from the shadows on their side. “What the hell, indeed.”

The two spun around to see a very angry looking Monty step out of the shadows. “’What the hell’ is in fact just what I was thinking. How the fuck did you do whatever you did? Conning me out of my money? You know what, I don’t even care! I’m just going to take it back.” Gazing at Cassi’s body, he added, “And maybe some interest.”

Sven glanced at Cassi, only to see she wasn’t looking at Monty, nor even Sven. She was glancing around the ground, apparently searching for something. His eyes flit back to the advancing Monty, who pulled out a threatening looking knife, and then back to Cassi again, who stooped to pick up a piece of paper. Once again completely bewildered, he watched as Cassi folded it several times, making a longer, thicker piece of paper. He turned back toward Monty just in time to see him attack Cassi.

Monty thrust the knife straight toward her, but Cassi stepped barely to the side, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it down and around, shoving the paper straight into his forearm. Sven was shocked to see blood gush from that spot, but focused on Cassi, who twisted the arm she had a hold of behind Monty’s back. Monty’s eyes bulged, and his face turned red, contorting with pain.

“I don’t think so, Mr.” Cassi snapped at him. “Attacking poor defenseless girls for winning at the game you offer them? Naughty, naughty.” She grabbed hold of the paper once again-still stuck in his arm- and gave it a twist. Monty gave a shriek. “And I must say, you’re not particularly bright, either. I would have backed off after the second game. But then again, you’re not me, now are you? Now, you’re going to leave us alone. Not just us, either. You’re going to stop conning people out of their good money. And now, you’re going to run home to Mommy.” And before Sven could process what she’d said, Cassi stepped back and kicked Monty between the legs with all her might.

Stepping away from the moaning mess that used to be a man, Cassi smiled sheepishly at the gawking Sven, and grabbed his hand and started to lead him away.

“Buh…wha…how?” Sven stuttered.

“Like I said. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”