"What I'm thinking," I say, "is is it a number that's also the name of a game?"
"Hmm," Mike says, which is what he always says when I come up with something I think is really clever, but which to Mike is completely obvious."
"You know, like 'Three', or 'Seven'."
"Yes," Mike says. "I understand."
Mike is more intelligent than me. But only, like, in IQ. It makes him laugh whenever I tell him this, and then he looks sad.
We leave the clue and try to do the others we've missed. We get one, and then cheat another, because we're never going to get it, and we've not got long left on the bus. Mike makes an attempt at one more. "What if... No. But... Could it...? Hrmm."
"Cheat it," I say.
"Cheating it," he says, and cheats it.
"That's disappointing," we both say.
We go back to the first clue, 'Figures it's a game [5].'
"What about 'Nines'? I say. Is nines a game?"
Mike looks at me, like, "Of course nines isn't a game, you utter moron." But he doesn't say it out loud, just in case nines really is a game, and he ends up looking stupid.
"What about--" I say.
"Nope," Mike says. "I'm cheating it."
"All right. Cheat it. If it's 'Three' or 'Seven' or 'Nines', though, I'm having half a point."
Mike looks on his phone. He's pretty quick at finding the answers to cryptic crossword clues on his phone, like he's got the page bookmarked on Chrome or something.
"The answer," he says, "Is 'FIVES'."
"Fuck off," I say. "That's a quarter of a point."
We trundle along a ways. The bus is pretty busy, with office workers looking weary and worn down. We're at Broomhill now, a few stops away from home.
"What's fives?" I ask. "Is it a card game?"
"I reckon," Mike says patronisingly. "It's called 'fives'. It's not going to be a bloodsport, is it?
We continue on. I'm feeling a bit put out by all this condescension, to be honest.
"It could be a bloodsport. It could be a fight to the death in a ramshackle arena. I think it probably is, in fact."
"Five must enter!" Mike intones.
"Two must enter. Then three more must also enter. Five must remain! Four of course could also have entered, but then only one would be allowed to enter. Five must remain!"
"Seven may enter. Two must leave. Five must remain!"
"Eighty-nine may enter. But look, where are you all coming from? There are far too many of you for this arena. We only built it to fit five. A lot of you are going to have to turn around and go right back out. As I said, five must remain!"
The bus rolls on.
"...Eighty-four," Mike says.
"What?"
"Eighty-four is how many would have to leave."
"I know."
"Oh. It just sounded like you were being vague because you couldn't do the arithmetic when you were on the spot."
"You better watch that tongue, boy, or I'll challenge you to a game of fives!"
- - -
So that's basically what happened. We made each other laugh, I made myself laugh, I got all giddy, then we got off the bus and went home.
I didn't really have any reason to write this -- although I've just now thought what I should have done was to begin the post explaining briefly that we came across the game of fives in a crossword and, not knowing the rules, decided to do some research, and this is what we found -- And then I could have written a little story about how fives is a post-apocalyptic bloodsport played by the slaves of scavengers , in an iron-fenced arena presided over by a mutated and fiendish leather-bound monstrosity, called Tina Turner, in an outpost town built of oil drums and barbed wire, the last vestiges of humanity eking out a harsh existence in a scarred and forsaken land.
But now it's 01:05 and I've got work in the morning and I haven't done that, so, *shrugs*. Maybe that'll happen tomorrow, if it doesn't seem like a stupid idea by then.
P.S. So I Googled fives, and it turns out it's an actual physical sport, played with balls and walls, a bit like squash, that probably everyone in the world has heard of. But Mike didn't know that, so he can suck it. Card game indeed!
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