Page 43 of A Dish Best Served Hot

“That’s the ficha I’m going to win with,” Abuelo answered. A bold claim considering he’d been forced to pass on his last turn.

“How do you know that? You don’t know what dominoes the other players have.”

“Mamita, I learned long ago not to ask him how he does that,” Saint said.

“I’ll tell you,” Abuelo told Rosie. “It’s because I’m a—”

“Liar,” Benny said from Abuelo’s left.

Benny’s teammate, Don Javier, laughed.

Meanwhile Saint fought his grimace. He didn’t know what had compelled Lola’s grandpa to challenge Abuelo to a game of dominó in the first place, but the four of them had been playing long enough for them to have learned that Abuelo Papo was uncommonly good. This was their third match and the other team had only managed to beat Saint and Abuelo once. That was mostly due to Abuelo’s skills. Saint’s jobs were to defend his partner and try to curb his trash-talking to Lola’s grandpa. He was only good at one of those jobs as was evidenced by the next words out of Abuelo’s mouth.

“It’s not a lie. I will win with this ficha.”

“Like the little girl just said. There is no way for you to know that.”

“My name is Rosie,” his daughter said to Benny with a smile.

Saint was shocked when the grumpy old man smiled back at her.

But Benny’s smile fell quickly when his abuelo said, “I know I’m going to win with this one because you suck at dominó.” Abuelo confidently placed the deuce-six domino down at the right end of the layout making both ends a six. “Dale, Benito. Pasa,” he taunted.

Benny, the next player up, glared at Abuelo. “You don’t know if I can go or not,” he said in Spanish.

“I sure do,” Abuelo replied. “You don’t have any sixes, so pass already.”

Benny grunted and knocked on the table. “Paso.”

Okay. Now that he passed, Saint was up. Saint examined the layout. In his hand he had three dominoes and two of them had a six. He had the six-four and six-five. He knew his abuelo was up to something, but he wasn’t sure what so he agonized over which domino to play. He quickly counted the number of dominoes for each in the layout. There were four dominoes in there that included a five, meaning there were only three more five dominoes left. Saint had two of them in his land, leaving one unaccounted for. There were also three four dominoes left (one being the double-four) including the one in his hand. He looked to Don Javier. The man only had two dominoes in his hand. Saint knew the chances of Don Javier having a four were greater, but that wasn’t the only problem. The problem was making sure his next move didn’t ruin whatever plans Abuelo had. If he chose wrong, it could lose them the game since Abuelo also had three dominoes (including the one he’d placed to the side). Praying he did the right thing, Saint played the six-five domino.

At his side Don Javier cursed softly and knocked on the table. “Paso.”

Abuelo laughed and played the six-one domino on the other side of the layout. “Pasa de nuevo, Benito, que tú no tienes na’.”

Saint had no idea how his grandpa knew that Benny didn’t have any one dominoes, but when the man did indeed pass Saint wasn’t surprised.

Since Saint also didn’t have a one, he was forced to open the other side of the layout. He played his five-deuce.

Saint almost cursed when Don Javier played the deuce-one, but then Abuelo started laughing. He took the domino in his hand and placed it down. It was the double-one.

Benny and Don Javier groaned loudly.

“You don’t have to say anything. I know you all pass,” Abuelo said. Then with grand ceremony he picked up the domino he’d placed aside and put it down. The one-four domino. “¿Saben lo que se llama eso?” Abuelo asked without waiting for an answer. “¡A eso se dice capicú, puñeta!” He crowed loudly.

“Abuelo,” Saint scolded his use of foul language in front of Rosie, who was taking everything in while clapping wildly.

It hardly mattered though because Abuelo was more focused on Benny, who pushed his chair back and stood up.

“That’s not capicú!” he protested. “There’s a double!”

“So? It’s not the one I won with, so it doesn’t matter. Ganamos el premio,” he said in reference to the hundred point reward given to the winning team when a player won in one of two special ways: one being when the final domino played could go on either end of the layout (like Abuelo had done) or when the player won the hand with the double-zero (a play called chuchazo).

“Yes, it does,” Benny argued. “It would’ve been capicú if one side had a four and the other a one, but what you did doesn’t count. You cheater!”

At that Abuelo Papo, who’d clearly been having a great time, got mad. He slid Rosie off his lap and stood. “Cheater? How dare you! It’s not my fault you are a loser! You want to know why you lost? Because you were so busy thinking about yourself that you kept screwing over your partner and falling into all of my setups.”

Benny’s face was turning an ugly shade of red. He was about to lose it completely.

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