One afternoon after school a group of us, five in all, went to Adam's house to play cards. He’d received a set of poker chips and a deck of cards as a birthday gift from an uncle or someone and he wanted to try it out.
Adam's parents both work and he is an only child, lucky SOB, so we had the house to ourselves until around six pm when his mom got home. We kept it simple, just draw poker and five card stud. So after we played a few hands, those of us that didn't really know how to play caught on pretty fast.
Besides Adam, Danny, Paul, Barry, Craig and I (Rodney) were there. I didn't know Paul all that well. He was more Adam's friend than ours. He was Hispanic and bigger than the rest of us and let us know it.
Adam and the rest of us lived within a couple of blocks of each other and were
