Unpaid Bill

[vapros]

Nat Mulloy

Nat Mulloy

Nat Mulloy hit rock bottom on a Tuesday morning in March of 1964. On the previous Friday, he had lost his job driving the Galveston street sweeping machine, his boss having finally decided that he was hitting too many Datsuns and Ramblers. His little severance check had been appropriated by a player named Tall John in the pool room. Then on Monday night, Angela had left the trailer on the arm of his best friend, taking their last thirty-four dollars cash money. It wasn't even his trailer.

Nat decided that the only place for him was at the bottom of Galveston Bay, and accordingly he caught a ride to the bridge and began to walk. He figured there was no need to drown in worn -out tennis shoes, so after hoofing it a couple hundred yards over the water, he climbed the railing and debated whether there was any point in holding his breath. Almost immediately, a car pulled over and two girls jumped out, demanding to know what the hell he thought he was doing. He explained his plans, but they insisted he unclimb the railing and get into the car with them, so he did, reasoning that he could return later.

The girls took him to McDonald's and bought him a Big Mac and some fries, and then took him to the big house where they lived, along with several other chicks and a house mother named Claudine. They found him a place to bunk down, and gave him several chores that needed doing around the place. This was a far better gig than the water in the Bay, which might still be chilly so early in the spring. He fit into the routine around the place, and soon was a part of the family, so to speak, and a fair-to-partly-cloudy maintenance man, and had occasional access to some killer young ladies.

One day Claudine called him into the little office and asked him if he would like to be their bookkeeper, also, and was dismayed to learn that Nat could neither read nor write. In his shame, he decided that he best move along, and announced his decision to depart on the next business day, which could be any day at Claudine's. They never closed. The girls mourned for him and even took up a collection, sending him away with sixteen dollars in his kick. With a new and rosier outlook, he avoided the bridge and fought off an urge to try to find Tall John again. His first good move in a long time, one might note.

As he walked along, he met an elderly man – actually a really old man – laboring behind a dilapidated pushcart full of fruit. On a whim, he bought both the vehicle and the produce for twelve dollars, and four dollars left for another trip to McDonald's. He parked in the lot and went inside and ate lunch, after which he went to work, vending fruit. Trade was brisk, and he was able to trundle along to the market and buy a second load, which he also sold in a brief period. Nat prospered, after a fashion, and without laboring over the details I can tell you that in ninety days he owned every pushcart in Galveston, and several weeks later he began to think about Houston.

In the ensuing decades, Nat became very large in the produce business around southeast Texas, owning first shops and delivery trucks, and then markets and big rigs running the Interstates to buy and sell produce of every sort. He married and raised a fine big family of sons and daughters, all of whom went off to college and became physicians and attorneys and chiropractors and proprietors of tanning salons and billiard parlors. Never forgetting the humble circumstances surrounding the origin of his vast enterprise, he became a philanthropist of some note, bestowing large sums of money on charitable works and nearby universities. Nat Mulloy had made the grade in a big way.

It came to pass that in March of 2017, the civic organizations and bankers of Houston assembled in a suitable venue to honor this great man. With speakers of every stripe waiting in the wings to perform, the mayor of the town introduced our hero. At great length he told the story of Nat Mulloy, who had accomplished so much with so little, and then he confided to the multitudes in the theater seats that Mr. Mulloy had done it all with great effort and industry, in spite of being illiterate. Turning toward the honoree he asked,

“Mr. Mulloy, in your wildest dreams, can you even imagine where you might be today, if only you could read and write?”

Without hesitating, Nat Mulloy admitted, “Mr. Mayor, I know exactly where I would be. I would be a bookkeeper in a whore house in Galveston!”

 

[vapros]

Election Day

Election Day

One day a long time ago, I remember it is election day and I am on my way to vote, and I stop in the Greenville pool room on my way to the high school. Nothing at all is happening in the Greenville. Edith is behind the bar and Dickie is in front of it and Lexie is here today.

Dickie is a regular, and I believe he sleeps in the back room, along with the janitor supplies and broken cues and what have you. He is always ready to accept a free beer or to play you some eight ball, but only if he has the nuts. He has a game leg and some kind of small income, and I’m pretty sure there is a connection of some kind there. Today he says I can get the wild eight if I want to play some nine ball. I tell him where I'm bound, and he says I should come back after the election, and I can likely still get the wild eight or even the call seven, according to how he might feel at the time.

Lexie shows up now and then, but Lexie is nothing – just a guy to do something to. He always had a squeaky voice, and nobody would answer him if he spoke, up until the time he won the Hemocult. It made a big change in him, and his voice is bigger now and he is liable to stand up and address just about anybody.

The Hemocult was a program put on every year for a while, so you could check to see if you had cancer. You could pick up a kit and it had everything you needed – well, almost everything – to make a smear on a card and then mail it in to a clinic and they would notify you of their findings. Lexie embraced the Hemocult and took it as a challenge, and a sort of weird competition. His entry took two dollars eighty cents postage and it cleared out the big room at the Post Office for over an hour, both local records and a good bet to score pretty high on a scale of one to ten in any regional eliminations, if you can take a little joke. Lexie may have been the one to end the Hemocult. I don't recall that there has been one since.

Dickie and Lexie are both fascinated to hear that I am going to vote. “You gonna vote for ol’ Edwin Edwards?” Dickie wanted to know.

“Afraid not, Dickie. If Edwards needs my vote he is a gone goose.”

“Aw, man, you oughta vote for ol’ Edwards. He’s a smart sonofabitch. If he was a pool player, he’d be Buddy Hall. Ol’ Buddy always goes home with the cheese, and Edwards, too.” There is some truth to what he has said.

“They’re all smart sonofabitches,” said Lexie, “it’s just ever which one you think is the smartest. And if I decide to go vote, Mr. Bill, I’m gonna cancel your vote.”

“Me, too,” says Dickie, “If I go vote I’m gonna cancel your vote, too.”

“Well,” says Edith, “if I go vote, I’m gonna vote like Mr. Bill and yer gonna have to cancel my vote, too. Edwards ain’t been nothin’ but hard luck for me and I’ll be glad to see him lose. Since he been in office I’ve had about five DWIs, and that’s about how many I’ve had in the whole rest of my life put together. He had them troopers on the lookout for this redhead, you can believe that. One of ‘em pushed me up against my truck one night and I hurt my back, and I still might sue ‘em for that. I ain’t decided. I had to get my stomach medicine changed because of them DWIs.”

Edith continues her recollections of the governor. “I was married to ol’ Benny McAfee, up until his brud’n law shot him six times, and Benny went to jail for a lot of things, but never for DWI. I was the only one could tell when Benny was drunk. And he sure God loved Edwin Edwards. Benny said ol’ Edwards was a thievin’ sumbitch!”

There is no chance at all that any of the three will vote today, or any other day. By this time I am halfway to the door, and the last thing I hear as I leave is Lexie, and his voice is squeaky again, just like before the Hemocult,

“Muff___er goin’ vote!”

 

[vapros]

The joys of YouTube

The joys of YouTube

I don't suppose very many members here have as much free time as I do. Free time, when you don't have it, seems like Disneyland off in the distance. How can I get there from here? On the other hand, when you have free time, it can be difficult to decide what to do with it. Especially when you are growing older, time of any sort can be kind of scary.

All this is to say that I explore YouTube, and to point out that nobody has enough time to properly explore YouTube. It's a yellow brick road with no end in sight, and if you stick with it you will go almost anywhere. YouTube knows me, and caters to me. I like to take brief naps in my recliner, and to have some sleeping sounds going on my 'puter. Currently, I have been going to a site with hard rain and a train coming through a fog. The only train noise is the rhythmic clicking of the wheels over the joints in the track. Very soporific. So, next time I go to YouTube, it has remembered, and offers me a choice of a bunch of sound tracks with rain and trains. Now, if I visit two or three of them, then tomorrow there will be thirty such videos on my menu. Enough, already. If I ignore them, and spend some time on building mouse traps and killing rats, then that's what I will get tomorrow; three rain-on-train options and the rest just small rodents. I'm not sure if YouTube is doing that for everyone or just me.

And YouTube knows me really well. The pool matches, especially one-pocket, are always there, no matter what else I might be into today. I'm a fan of Simon and Garfunkel, so one day I call up Sound of Silence and Mrs. Robinson. Over on the right side of the screen is a menu of about fifteen related sites, and if I visit one of those I will be offered fifteen more – as far as I can see. So I go to an interview with Garfunkel. Bad idea, he interviews just about the way he looks; a character from the Wizard of Oz, but with a beautiful singing voice and an inflated ego.

Paul Simon, though, is better – much, much better. He does great interviews, and YouTube has lots of them. He will talk about nearly anything you want to know about him, perhaps except Garfunkel. Simon is a consummate musician, and has gone far since splitting the blanket with Artie. He continued to write songs, and has performed all over the world, often with the local musicians, and often with great black performers in the Caribbean and in South Africa. It's all on YouTube. Catch the production number Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. Watch Me and Julio, or You Can Call Me Al. Great entertainment. If you are a musician, especially a guitar player, Simon does a one hour interview for Barnes and Noble Booksellers. It is presented in seven segments, and the first half is casual talk, but in the second half he sort of gets carried away with playing and composing, and speaks of things about which people like me know nothing. 'Way over my head.

Not being a lifelong pool player or gambler, sometimes I find it difficult to present a journal to this group, and I have to scout around for topics. Currently I seem to be into interviews, and especially interviews about writing, which is close to my heart – or maybe it's my liver. John Grisham is really great in this area, even though we are far apart in politics. He's sharp and funny and agreeable and will talk about his writing.

Stephen King is his equal in every way, and also has done many good interviews. In a sit-down called Book Ends, the two of them - and they are longtime friends - take the stage together and entertain the crowd with their antics and commentary about their books. For example, in the old days when he was very poor, King overheard his father-in-law say, “I know I'm going to be supporting that four-eyed sonavabitch for the rest of my life!” King says he recalls that every time he buys the guy a car.

The yellow brick road took me last night to Stephen King with Lee Child, creator of my hero, Jack Reacher. Child is pretty good, for a Brit, and he and King get into the dynamics of making a movie with Tom Cruise as Reacher. He's about a foot too short, and it is a very real problem. Problem for me, too – Tom Cruise, my ass.

So, today I am pimping YouTube and celebrity interviews, for the benefit of all you one-pocket players who may not have as much free time as I do. No need to thank me.

 

[vapros]

Head Shot 6

Head Shot 6

In spite of everything, me and Sheriff Elray Pfister wound up on speaking terms, so to speak. He pretty much quit hassling me about Tom John, and we could pass the time of day without no harsh words. I bought him a Splasheroony one day at the Dollaroony, and he bought me a beer one day at the store, so me and him was cool, as they say today. He passed my place in his big car yesterday, and when he seen I was on the porch he u-turned and pulled up in my driveway and hauled his fat butt up the steps.

“How's it hangin' these days, Mr. Deakin?” said the sheriff.

“Well, I'm on standby, I guess, Sheriff. Hangin' loose and watching for a opportunity. Is everything in town under control?”

“Was when I left, a couple hours ago.”

I stepped inside and fetched us a couple of cold beers. He took his, but sort of glanced around to see if anybody was watching. I guess he might have been on standby, too.

“You and that little dozer stayin' busy?”

“On standby, like I said. You got anything you want pushed around? Special hourly rate for the county.”

“Not today. Might have to take bids, anyway. Didn't Ovide Burke buy a little dozer over to Bonham the other day?”

“He did, but I went over and talked to him about the dirt market, and how slow things was, and he sold the thing the very next week. I showed him how it was a bad move on his part, you know?”

“Yeah, I imagine you did, Deakin. While I'm thinkin' about it, Tom John's brother was in town the other day, and he stopped by my office to see if I had found out anything about what happened to Tom. I didn't have much to offer him. It's an open case. I told him we had found the truck, and he allowed it should have been his by rights, and I told him he was too late. Should have spoke up sooner. My man at the lot said you had been around, lookin' to maybe buy the truck.”

“I was interested. I believe it was a better truck than mine, but the old deputy said it was gone. He didn't know where.”

“It was ragged out – a piece of junk. A man with cash money showed up and wanted it, so I let him have it. Wasn't worth much.”

“I would have given you maybe $1600 for the thing.” I knew what was coming, but I made him say it, anyway.

“Well, it was a clunker, and you would have seen that. Didn't do it any good, neither, sitting out behind that old Special Deliverance church all that while. I sold it for $700, and felt like I was stealing, as it was.”

There; he had said it. I prodded him a little bit, so he would know I knew. “Could have fooled me, Sheriff. The truck sounded pretty good when it was at my place. Did you check it for fingerprints? Might have solved your crime.” I was feeling some relief, knowing where the truck had gone. It could have gone to the State Police.

“The deputy said he didn't see none. And I figure ol' Tom is not all that far from that church, either. What do you think?”

“Well, I don't know about that. He might be a hundred miles away. Or a thousand, if he might have just took off. Hard to tell about people. But I would say that your best suspect is likely in walking distance from that Special Deliverance church. Unless they was more than one person. If he didn't walk home, somebody give him a ride, I bet.

Now, if you go west on that road, it ain't all that far to Eugene Farr's place, so you might want to give him some thought. He's been known to lose his temper pretty bad, and Tom John could piss off the pope when he wanted. Who knows what-all might have passed between them two.

And if you go east, directly you will get to the Bergen place, and whoever comes to the door when you knock would make a handy suspect. Them is very strange people.”

“But Deakin, I ain't got no evidence on none of them.”

“Let's face it, sheriff, you ain't got no evidence on anybody at all, do you? Lily Rose bad-mouthed me when she was mad, but she got over bein' mad, and now she's dug in with a o'boy over on the river, and fishin' every day. What about him?”

“You and Lily Rose on good terms nowadays?”

“Occasionally, when the urge is on one of us. She calls me or I call her. She got on my nerves pretty bad when she stayed with me, but she loves to cheat, so that works out okay now.”

The sheriff had done finished his beer, and I slipped in and got him another one, without asking if he wanted it. I was getting a good feeling about this conversation.

He stretched his boots out in front of him and tipped his Boy Scout hat forward on his brow, and took a good slug out of his fresh beer. “Deakin, it's a fact that I ain't got diddly on this thing about Tom John. He's just gone. Lily Rose didn't grieve more than maybe thirty hours, and his brother come around just to try to take possession of the truck. What would you do if you was me?”

“Well, I believe I would join a health club and try to lose about seventy-seven pounds. Take a load off my heart, so I could live longer. By then I could prolly see my pecker again, and I might enjoy livin' longer.”

“Come on, Deakin. You know what I mean.”

“I will tell you about my Uncle Avery. Sort of a parable, I guess you could call it. Uncle Avery had something vexing him something awful for the last six years of his life, and it finally just worried him to death. Sucker just went back to room temperature from fretting. If you ask my aunt, she will tell you the same. And the sad thing was, it was something clear out of his reach; something he couldn't do nothing about. But he just couldn't see his way clear to let the thing go, and it finally got him.

They is just some things, Sheriff, you know what I mean? By this time, we got to figure ol' Tom is dead and buried, and it might be that the man who did him in just figured that they wasn't no way to get around it. One thing leads to another, and there it is. Forever and ever, amen, so to speak.”

It was coming on dark by that time, and neither of us spoke for quite a while. Directly Sheriff Elray Pfister made a belch and then a fart, and he straightened his hat and pulled his boots up under him. He stood up and thanked me for the beer, and then he shook my hand and he clapped me on the shoulder and he said,

“Mr. Deakin, I'm right glad I stopped here today. Elected folks should get out more to see their voters, don't you think?” He clumped down my steps and went to his big car.

I watched him go, and when he got on the county road he give me a little wave through the window, and I give him one back. I thought about calling Lily Rose.

 

[vapros]

People for sale

People for sale

In the year 1838, 272 slaves from Maryland plantations were sold by the Jesuits at Georgetown, in order to raise money to settle their debts and continue operation of the school known today as Georgetown University. Georgetown was partially financed by the owners of those Maryland plantations. Nearly half of those slaves were loaded aboard a ship called the Katharine Jackson and shipped to New Orleans. Bought by two Louisiana plantation owners, they went to farm operations in Terrebonne, Ascension and Iberville Parishes. As noted on the bill of sale and again on the ship, a ten year old boy named Cornelius was included. He grew up at Maringouin, just off I-10 and right down the road from Grosse Tete, where I spent a couple of years nearly a decade ago. Cornelius survived into the twentieth century and died in 1902 and is buried in the Catholic cemetery at Maringouin. The slaves were listed only by first names. I don’t know when he became a Hawkins.

Today, through a combination of circumstances, a lot of descendants of those slaves are discovering that they are related to one another, whether from the line of Cornelius Hawkins or some other of the Maryland slaves. Many are still in the Maringouin area, west of the Mississippi River, and on into Baton Rouge. Current interest in genealogy is tying them together. For many who never knew before, they have been able to follow their families at least back to Maryland.

On the other end, officials at Georgetown University are feeling the shame of the events of 1838, and are now making efforts to trace the families of those slaves. A couple of the campus buildings bore the names of the two officials primarily responsible for the sale, and now those names have been removed and the buildings renamed. I guess that must have been a big step for them. They now have a Slavery Archive. Several of the Ivy League schools are feeling similar regrets and are taking an active interest in current events. In almost every case, it’s the students who are pushing the effort. Contact with the descendants of the slaves in Louisiana has been made, and information is flowing back and forth.

At Georgetown, they are saying they’re sorry, but that’s only the beginning. There are folks in Washington and in Louisiana who are talking about reparations, and no doubt something will grow from that. My own feeling is that, with the perps and the victims all long dead and buried, there is no financial obligation at any level, but then I never have understood Washington people anyway. It seems likely that scholarships to Georgetown may be offered to present generations of those families, but that’s still in the future.

Communication is nearly always a good thing; information, too. The Catholic Church, which owned Cornelius Hawkins since his beginning, has kept up with him since he labored at West Oak Plantation. If you would like to see his headstone, take I-10 and get off at the Grosse Tete exit. Go north on La 411 and follow Bayou Grosse Tete and the railroad to Maringouin. The lady at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church can show you around their cemetery, and she will point out the broken stone that reads ‘Neely Hawkins’. Or ask anybody on the street in Maringouin – about half of them are related to him.

 

[vapros]

Errors

Errors

News is news. Maybe when news is scarce, or when you don’t like the available news, you can just invent your own. That seems to be what Bill O’Reilly and Fox News have been doing recently. We are hearing that one of the good-looking blondes recently got $20 million to hush up a sexual harassment complaint, another $13 million went out to several others, and it doesn’t seem to be over yet. Greta van Susteren is bailing out for some other reasons – no one has harassed her, so far. I sure have not.

I haven’t been a major fan of Bill O’Reilly’s, but Fox is my news network and he is the biggest Foxman. I can’t believe how dumb he has been. Obviously, the perks of being rich and famous do have limits, but he couldn’t see them. He thought the limits must be for other rich and famous people, but the ladies are socking it to him, anyway. I have to wonder if he is getting any smarter. Most of us know better than to play and earn in the same place.

For the Murdochs, it’s all about dollars and cents. Always is. O’Reilly is safe until the numbers quit adding up right.

I certainly don’t want my journal to sink down into the salt marsh trap that is politics, but there are some aspects of the Fox mess that can lead one into other traps. For example, in today’s highly-charged and politically correct environment, work places can be danger zones. When two genders, or more, are making their livings in the same shop, strange things can and do happen. Been that way for a long time. Enough said about that.

Turning to one-pocket, which is the favorite topic here, not many games go by without one or more errors, and some are big ones. Artie B has advised against making mistakes, but I do it anyway. Sometimes my choices are bad, or at least risky, but more often a good choice goes all to hell because I didn’t hit it well. I find myself in trouble that could have been avoided, and I have to give a big snap to the rubber band I wear on my wrist for that purpose. Few things at the table are as vexing as doing wrong, and doing it in spite of knowing better. We are reminded to avoid combinations and billiards that are ‘almost good’ but it is equally vital to shun mistakes in that same category. When I spot something that might turn out well, I often make that error. I think I am getting better about it, but very slowly.

In the matter of winning and losing, we can take risks against Joe Blow and get away with it, that we would not take against Alex the Lion, and that brings up another question. Should we take them, or not? Artie says no. I hardly ever gamble when I play. I’m not willing to go through the barking and negotiations that usually are required. I suspect I might play better if I bet, which is to say that I’m not trying hard enough, and that’s not good. Not good at all.

 

[vapros]

The Road to Dallas

The Road to Dallas

In the year 1952 I am a member of the Sons of Hermann Lodge in San Antonio. This is so I can be eligible to take part in league play, and whatever else might come up, in the Hermann Sons bowling lanes. Being in the military and having no vehicle of my own, I must ride to town on the shuttles from Lackland AFB, or Kelly Field, or Brooks Field, all of which were my assignments at various times. Except for the little Alamo Lanes, the Hermann Sons place is the only one I can reach easily, and I am a regular customer.

On New Year’s Eve I am involved in a pot game with Joel Vick, Joe Talerico, Freddie Moore and maybe one or two others. Chances are we are betting about five dollars each. A fine guy named Louie Veil is sitting at a table and enjoying a Lone Star beer. Louie is the local salesman for Dixie Cups, and a fanatical supporter of the Lone Star brewery. He may be hard-pressed to sell enough paper cups to support his beer habit. I don’t recall exactly what time it is when he strolls down into the pit and calls me aside.

“Bill,” says Louie, “pick up your ball and come with me. In Dallas, the Cotton Bowl Singles Classic at Hap Morse’s Young Street lanes will end tomorrow, and we should be there. It’s a four-game event, and the top score is only 819. You and I can both beat that, but only if we go to Dallas tonight.”

I am all in favor of going to Dallas to enter the bowling tournament, but I am reluctant to ride there with Louie, knowing that he has already enjoyed a great many Lone Star beers. I guess he is reading my mind, because he chuckles a little, and says I can drive his Studebaker up the road to Dallas. According to Louie, Ronnie Gaudern and Frank Kryda have already left, and will bowl tomorrow in the Cotton Bowl event.

Louie has a road map laid out on the table, and he shows me what highway I should follow as I drive to Dallas. Keep in mind that there are no Interstate highways at all in 1952. So it happens that I am driving to Dallas in Louie’s car, and Louie is sound asleep on the back seat. I recall that the weather is rotten for driving to Dallas that night, with a heavy fog all the way, and occasional rain, but I am making good time. Then it all goes to hell, in a matter of seconds. Topping a small hill, I see nothing ahead of me except a large wooden barrier, all done up in diagonal black and white stripes. It seems to be in the middle of the road. It’s there to show a fork in the road, but I can’t see the fork until it’s too late. I decide to take the left fork and turn the wheel that way, and the Studebaker goes into a graceful slide, rotating slowly as it slides along the slick pavement. Luckily, there is no other vehicle using the road, as I need it all. Just when I begin to think I might save it, the car leaves the road on the left and slides down into a shallow ditch with sloping sides, and comes to a stop. At least it is still pointed toward Dallas.

I can’t think how to explain all this to Louie, but there is no need. He is sound asleep in the backseat, probably dreaming that we are still on the highway to Dallas. Being careful, I drive along in the ditch and with a bit of momentum I angle up toward the road, which is maybe at eye level, but I don’t quite make it, and slide back down to the bottom. Mud is building up on the tires and under the fenders. Revving the motor is no help at all, but I do it anyway, just in case. The same maneuver fails twice more, and we are still in the ditch, but maybe three hundred yards from the striped barrier.

More momentum is the obvious answer, and I get after it, but at the increased speed it is a very bumpy ride, and when I look back over the seat, there is Louie right in front of my face, airborne and horizontal, and still asleep, but frowning a little. However, this time I make it up the slope and onto the highway, and away we go, with mud from the tires hitting the bottom of Louie’s Studebaker in great thumps.

As we reach Dallas, I have to wake Louie for directions, and he shows me the way to a motel on the highway, and we get a room – cash in advance, as we have no luggage except bowling gear in the trunk. As we drive to the room, we spot another room with lights on and the door wide open. We peek in, and there sits Frank Kryda and Ronnie Gaudern, busy with maybe twenty funny books they have bought somewhere. In 1952, they are called funny books, not comic books, and I believe they cost a dime each, maybe a quarter. Superman, Batman, the Green Hornet, Captain Marvel, et al, and so engrossed they don’t see us at all, so we leave them in peace and go to bed. I can’t believe two grownup guys with all those funny books, both good bowlers who should be sleeping. And why the open door?

Anyway, when we get to Hap Morse’s lanes, sure enough the top score on the board is still 819. That is a respectable four-game total in 1952, but certainly not out of reach for Louie and me. We pay our entry fees and get lane assignments, and suddenly we see why no one has posted a bigger score. The lanes are so slick that one cannot hook the ball, which returns with a ring of oil on the ball track after every shot. Tough conditions, for sure, but I discover a line that works and I begin stringing strikes. After three games I have 663, and nobody is within a hundred pins of that. Watch me, folks, I need only 157 in the last game and I will be the new leader here on the final day of the tournament. Well, I can’t shoot 157, I can only bowl 154, with a couple of splits and at least one clean miss. Three pins short, if the numbers are difficult for you, and a monumental embarrassment for me. As it turns out, a couple of Texas guys beat the top score and I finish fourth, and the prize check they mail me is not all that much money; I forget exactly.

Back at the Hermann Son’s lanes on New Year’s Day in the evening, somebody has already reported my failure in Dallas, and there is a certain amount of verbal abuse to fade before the end of the day. Even Louie takes a few cheap shots at me, in spite of having shot maybe 700 himself, but Louie enjoys several Lone Star beers and doesn’t really care about the bowling tournament. Louie’s Studebaker is the muddiest vehicle in San Antonio, and I keep waiting for him to want to know how it got that way, but he never says a word about it. Maybe a week later I see it is clean again, and all seems okay.

In a month or two I am reassigned to a place in the woods up on the Canadian border, and I leave town without telling this tale to anyone. Even years later I am reluctant to mention it, as who wants to tell a story about shooting 154 in a tournament in which he was holding the Mongolian nuts to win? Only the part about the ditch was funny, anyway. No doubt my membership in the lodge has lapsed. Louie Veil is long gone, the Studebakers are gone, and the same for Hap Morse’s Young Street Lanes, but they are all in my thoughts tonight, so I’m telling you guys.

 

[vapros]

The Road to Dallas

The Road to Dallas

updating this repetition

 

[vapros]

Monologue, 1998

Monologue, 1998

Hey, man it’s good to see you, you old motherf-----. You look good, you always look good, always did – I can’t understand it. Look at me, look at these wrinkles and the gray hair; you and me are from the same time, you know. I used to bowl in the leagues at Mid City, it was upstairs in that shopping center off Tulane Ave. Not at your level, but I knew your name – they knew your name at all them bowling alleys then – you could ask Dean Courtade or Jerry Materne or Phil Peperone, they all knew you in New Orleans.

I played at Warren Easton, you know. Everybody talked about Jesuit and Holy Cross, but at Warren Easton I was the big man in two sports. I could dunk the ball with either hand and hit a ball out of any park in town. John Petibon was the big name then, he was Richie’s older brother. Best athlete ever to come out of New Orleans, he was a champion at every level. Jesuit was state champions, and then Bohn Ford won the national American Legion championship, all-american at Notre Dame and then he played both ways, all-pro, for the Cleveland Browns when they was NFL champions. When Richie was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame he got up and said he wasn’t even the best football player in his family, and that was true. Me and John knew each other. I used to see him at City Park. He said if I was bigger they wasn’t nobody could handle me, but I played big, you can believe that.

The coach at Loyola said if he thought he could get even six or eight minutes out of me every night he would sign me up to a full ticket in a heartbeat, you know? But he couldn’t do it because of my knees. They just wasn’t reliable. But by that time I was too busy, anyway. When I was sixteen I was working for the man, you know? The little man – I ain’t going to say his name, but you know who I mean. When I was eighteen I had two big homes in New Orleans, and helping out my old man – I would slip him a couple bills now and then, just to help out. I never drove nothing but Lincolns. The little man and his guys all drove Cadillacs, but I always drove Lincolns. Weekends I would go to Pensacola or Galveston, and take at least one long-legged blonde, sometimes two. I was flying high in those days. My word was good all over New Orleans, I could get anything I needed, up to twenny large, no need to sign nothing.

Those were the days, weren’t they? I know you remember, and it ain’t like that any more. I got a little house on Calcasieu Street now, I’m gonna fix it up a bit, maybe this summer. I got me a little gal, too, she’s a real beauty and she really loves me, don’t ask me why. She admits to thirty-five years, but she might be a few days older than that. Look at me today, man, I’m really whipped, if you get what I mean. I can’t go like I used to, but she tries to kill me every time. I don’t know what she sees in me. She’s in some kind of medical rehab right now, but it won’t be long before she is back at work, and she will be wanting to pay me back, but I won’t let her. She’s a professional hair dresser. I buy her some nice stuff when I can, and she looks like a million bucks in it. I found her kind of by accident, I guess. Blind luck, you could say.

She’s got a couple of great kids, beautiful children, but hell on wheels, and they’re tearing my place to pieces right now, but I know how to handle kids, and I’ll have ‘em back on track in just a few weeks, wait and see. I’m working every day, now, and it’s tough at my age, but it’s worth it, man. I know the lady and the kids will be gone one day soon, and I’m enjoying all of ‘em while I can. Life is too short, you know.

Man, you really look good, and I’m glad you are making it okay in your later years. We’ll both be rocking back in comfort one day soon. I gotta get on back to the house – I promised to watch the kids this evening, so she can go out with the girls. I like to see her happy, and she has good friends to pal around with a couple times a week. I give her a couple twennies and tell her to relax and have a beer and enjoy herself. She might wake me when she gets back, or sometimes she lets me sleep. After last night, you know, I need to rest up a couple days. I don’t know why she loves me like she does, but I’m not complaining.

The old days are gone, man, and the old names, but you and me, we’re still here. I gotta run, but it’s good seeing you again and talking about when things was really sweet. Keep on keepin’ on, man.

 

[vapros]

Gerald Barnes

Gerald Barnes

I guess I knew Gerald Barnes for about a year, back around 2006 – give or take a bit. He was manager of the Albertson’s Super Market at Government Street and South Foster, where I bought my groceries. A fine-looking man, he stood straight and dressed well and spoke firmly. Here in this deep south town, he was the picture of a black man who had it all together.

He showed up at the poolroom and began to play in earnest, trying to learn. The first few visits he wore his work clothes, slacks and dress shirt and necktie and wingtips. Even when he went casual, he was much neater than the rest of us. He played either eight ball or nine ball, and worked hard at getting better. Before long he was an easy mark for bets of five or ten dollars, and a number of local players eagerly partook. He never complained and paid off like a machine and when he ran down several of them from behind they pulled up, as often happens in poolrooms anywhere. He and I played quite often, but we never gambled, and he said he wanted to learn to play one pocket. It was too slow to suit him, and he returned to the rotation games and eight ball. His time seemed too valuable for one pocket.

We had a number of conversations as we played, and he spoke plainly. He said he lived in Prairieville and was about to build an addition to his house with a large party room, where he would have a new nine foot Diamond table. He even told me that he and his wife often clashed about his fondness for other women. He said he told her he would continue to do as he pleased as long as he was the breadwinner, and she would have to learn to live with it. Ultimately she left him, and it made him very sad to see her go, but he wasn’t willing to do what was needed to save the marriage.

Gerald told me that he had bought his teenage son a nice used car and laid down the rules for the boy’s use of it. Within a week he saw his son driving on a north Baton Rouge street and he was slumped down in the seat, so that only his head was visible through the window. He forced his boy off the street with his own car and got out and approached. His son immediately sat up straighter, but it was too late. Without a word, Barnes reached in the window and switched off the engine and took the ignition key. He told me he sold the car the following day, and there would not be another. He related all this in a matter-of-fact tone as we played eight ball. This gives you some idea of the character of Gerald Barnes. He cut no slack.

One Saturday afternoon, he met with his wife in the parking lot of the Big Lots store, out on Florida Boulevard. He sat in her car with her, and I would imagine the topic was the marriage, and perhaps the other women. At some point she became afraid for her safety and called the police. They sat there and continued talking until the squad car arrived. Then Gerald produced a gun from his pocket and shot his wife dead. As the policeman stared, he got out of the car and turned the gun on himself and fired again.

I began here by saying that I knew him for about a year, but I suppose the truth is that I didn’t really know him at all. Come to think of it, how many of us really know each other?

 

[vapros]

Robert E Lee, et al

Robert E Lee, et al

I wish I had a good T.J. Parker story to pass along today, but I don’t. Androd is still in charge of those, and I am always ready for the next one. My journal entry is mostly about this and that, which is known as current events in the civics classes.

Locally, perhaps the hottest topic is about some statues down in New Orleans. Erected a great many years ago to commemorate Civil War heroes of the Confederacy, they have been at the center of a lot of bitter feelings for a long time. A large group of citizens says they are offensive, as they glorify slavery, and a different bunch says nonsense, they represent an era in the history of the South, which cannot be changed. Today’s commotion concerns whether they should be pulled down or left where they stand. Feelings are strong on both sides, and bloodshed is in the offing, I’m afraid. Mayor Mitch Landrieu says they will be removed, and already one such monument has been taken down in the dark of night. Statues of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard remain standing. The mayor is not as adamant as he was last week, and claims he is not responsible for dividing his community, although he is.

Death threats, some of which are of real concern, are filling the air, and the first contractor that signed up to do the demolition has backed out and wants nothing more to do with it. A man on the Mississippi coast was arrested yesterday over his threat to shoot Landrieu. He says he will arm himself and stand guard at any statue scheduled for removal. Would he really? No one knows. Also in question is what to do with the statues after they come down, and it seems likely that they will. There are a number of possibilities, and some of them are a bit spooky. As I noted, it ain’t over yet, and may hang fire for a long time.

Luckily, some other news is funnier. In a town in Virginia, some unknown criminal has been grabbing the local cats and shaving their bellies and then letting them go. I’m not sure what they will charge him with if they catch him, but no doubt there is an ordinance forbidding his offense. I have spent a bit of time going over all my potential comments on this matter, and have decided not to make any. It would only cause trouble here and there. However, I am certain one could create a humorous report of the banter among the cops in the station house. But not from me.

Not much escapes the eye of Jimmy B, who must stay up pretty late. Today, his fans can see a video of a female deputy in Iberville Parish, expounding on the various applications of the word f__k, and in quite a loud voice. And she is only on the office staff, too. For some reason she is now an ex-deputy, and her resignation seems to be related to her tirade. I hope this event will not be seen as being representative of Baton Rouge deputies or Baton Rouge people. Please understand that all this happened on the west side of the river. In Brusly, to be exact.

I am happy to see that several of the local automobile dealers have returned to the practice of selling used cars, and about time, too. Pre-owned vehicles was a ridiculous idea in the first place, implying that although someone else may have owned them, he may not have used them. Now the word is out. He did drive them around. Who woulda thought?

My eye doctor sounded a bit apologetic at my appointment this week, when he told me that I would probably have to continue using the eye drops forever. It moved me to look on the bright side and to observe that, at my age, forever is not very long. It may have made him feel a little better. Or not.

 

[vapros]

Random notes

Random notes

* * Watching a match on YouTube recently, the commentators were discussing the colors on the new balls in play. (Cyclops?) One of the guys, who should have known better, commented that the fourteen ball seemed to be the same color as the six ball. I’m always surprised to find how many people still don’t know that the color sequence for balls one through seven is repeated on balls nine through fifteen. As far as I know, it’s been that way since Paul Revere ratted out the Redcoats. How many years can you play pool without noticing?

* * I’m reading Joseph Wambaugh again, after a long time away. I think he first appeared in the early 70s, with his well-written tales of the cops and criminals of California. The Onion Field is maybe his best-known work; a true story and a fine movie. I read most of his early novels, and I was surprised recently to see how busy he has been since 2000. There is a Hollywood series, and Hollywood Moon is the one I am reading currently. First published in 2009, it is full of strange scams and strange people, many of them cops. As usual, there is plenty of belly laughs. Wambaugh is a genuine entertainer, and if you will read his stuff, you will learn to speak California, a weird and colorful language. How about the wired tweaker who jumps around like a tapdancer’s nuts? I will try to read them all, but not all in a row.

* * As a longtime reader of detective novels, I have noted the absence of the struggling private eyes, working out of cheap offices in cheap buildings, eating cheap food and drinking cheap liquor, and scrambling each month to make the nut. They seem to be gone, replaced by well-heeled protagonists who drive high-end cars and don’t seem to care about the cash from their adventures. I find it tougher to identify with them, and I miss the travails of the poor guys who occasionally got their asses kicked in fistfights. They made out with the high-society women in their cases, but only temporarily. The ladies laid ‘em and paid ‘em and broke their hearts and drove away in big cars. I miss ‘em.

* * In the absence of the poker machines, which promised a lot and occasionally paid off a little, the most popular machine in the local joint now is the golf machine, and today I sat at the counter and heard one of the good customers calculate that he had paid in something like forty large in recent years to play the thing. Man, that’s approaching the price of a small Mercedes! But nobody ever said golf was a cheap hobby. The other machines might get pretty expensive, also, as you can play them with the end of your finger and sitting on your butt. Might be some money to be made in those silly games. I know a guy I could ask, but I probably won’t.

 

[vapros]

Mutual satisfaction

Mutual satisfaction

Fakier (FOCK-yay) and Giroir (ZHER-wa) have been best friends and bitter rivals since their second year in the third grade, which was somewhat earlier than 1960. They competed at marbles, mumbley-peg, fist fighting, running and throwing rocks at traffic from cunning cover, right since the very beginning. Today, they have grown much too long in the tooth for any of that stuff, but they have discovered one-pocket, and neither has thrown any rocks since.

Fakier is a shooter and Giroir is a mover, but they are still too new at the game to see it in those terms. Each believes he is the craftier at the table, and much superior to the other in all three areas; shooting, banking and planning four shots ahead. However, like all one-pocket players everywhere, they negotiate often and loudly and at great length about what is a fair game. However, both are thrifty guys, and have learned to do the negotiating before they actually rent a table to play. This is a positive fiscal move on their part.

“Best t’ing for us to do is ax Authement (OTA-maw) for a fair game,” said Giroir. “After all, he is the one who invented this game, and it’s his pool room.”

“You right about dat,” agreed Fakier. “Authement will do the right t’ing, and I’m ready to play like he says we should.”

I think this exchange took place on the day after Mardi Gras, which fell on a Tuesday this year, so they went to the proprietor on a Wednesday. Sure enough, Authement knew what to do.

“Start playing even the first game,” he said. “Both going to eight. Then, the loser of the game will get a ball and the break on the next game. For example, the loser will break, and get one ball advantage. He can choose to play 8-7 or 9-8, whichever he likes. Make the same adjustment after each game, a ball and the break to the loser. That way, you can both win some and lose some, and nobody got any kick coming.”

Giroir and Fakier both found it a fair game, which it was. They bet twenty bucks a game and got a little carried away with the adjustments, and at one point they were at 16-15, and it was necessary for Authement to return for more instruction. Then, on the day before Good Friday, which fell on – well, never mind – the house man engaged Fakier after the day’s play and asked him how the system was working out.

“Man, it’s great,” replied Fakier. “We bot’ satisfied wit’ the game, and who woulda believed ‘dat? Me and Giroir agreeing on somet’ing. He got some kinda weird calculations and he t’inks he’s about even on dis bet, but I’m pretty sure I got maybe a couple hundred bucks of his money in my pocket. Might be mo’ than dat, but don’t tell him nothing. You know Giroir – he ain’t the sharpest needle in the haystack.”

 

[vapros]

Monday evening, comin'down

Monday evening, comin'down

I just finished a novel by Robert B. Parker, about a private eye named Spenser and his girlfriend Susan and their dog, Pearl. Parker is a fine story-teller, but Spenser and Susan are a couple of insufferable prigs, and the dog is the most likable character in the tale. I will probably read about Spenser again, but it will be a while.

I’m a great fan of YouTube, because it has a lot of almost everything, and one of the things it has in great abundance is billiard videos. Doesn’t matter which game is your favorite, they are all there for your viewing pleasure and at your convenience. I forget – did Al Gore invent YouTube, or just the internet? Either way, we owe him big.

My favorite game happens to be one-pocket, and I’m a card carrying Pinoy. Hard to go wrong, dialing up a Filipino for one-pocket. First choice is Bata Reyes, even though he isn’t what he once was, but then, neither am I. There are some videos from a period when he was in California, and went to the pool room and played anyone who was ready to put up $100 for a three-game match. Everybody got 9-6 I think, or maybe it was 9-7. He usually outran the prop, but he lost a few, too. What other champion, in any sport, has been so accessible to the funsy players? He just loves to play and to gamble.

There is a series of four videos, all filmed in one evening, in which he played a straight-shooting young guy named Bobby Emmons, giving up some weight, or course. Bata won three matches and took off enough money for maybe a used Ford Ranger in good condition. Looked to me like a good warning for anyone tempted to enter bigtime one-pocket with nothing but firepower. Don’t do it. Lots of people on hand for that action, and for a while the joint was chock-a-block with cell phones and C-notes. Emmons and his group were not busted, by any means. When last seen, they were trying to organize a rematch. Hard not to like a guy who can shoot like he can.

My next choice for viewing is Francisco Bustamante, just to see that sweet stroke. Then Alex Pagulayan, who is slow death and show business. But once in a while I like to watch Bobby Emmons, too. I guess for the same reason golf fans like to see John Daly. Grip it and rip it, man.

 

[vapros]

Long ago and far away

Long ago and far away

Jeff Sparks has stirred up a nest of elderly hornets, God bless him, with a thread on this site for recollections of things gone forever. I often wonder whether retrospection and reverie are a natural part of our ‘golden years’, or is it just me? I’m pretty sure we all take part in this as we age, but do we all remember the same things? Probably not. I was adolescent during WWII, and I have some pretty vivid memories – lots of ‘em. So bear with me today. Or not, if you prefer.

Yesterday I watched a video about the ladies of the Royal Air Force during the war years. They did not fly combat missions, or course, but they took part in the ATA, the Air Transport Auxiliary, for which they ferried war planes around. Sometimes they were bringing new aircraft from the factories, or what other such duties needed doing. On the show were interviews with the few elderly white-haired women who still survived at the time the film was made. Not all that many, but each had tales to tell about their service as fliers, and about others who lost their lives in flying accidents. One thing they all remembered fondly was the Supermarine Spitfire fighter plane. Everybody wanted to fly the Spitfire. They said it was designed for ladies, and it flew so easily and smoothly. Like all veterans of that war, they are few left today. Long time ago, but still not so far away in my mind. We were all part of the war, all day every day until it was over.

I saw the German soldiers, dead and frozen solid, at Stalingrad and Moscow. I saw Hitler’s high command planning Operation Sea Lion for the invasion of England, but the army cooled its heels at the Channel, waiting for Goering’s Luftwaffe to get the best of the RAF. It never happened, so they called it off and went to Russia. The British spent a week picking 340,000 troops from the beach at Dunkirk, because Hitler passed up his chance to kill them all at the edge of the water. Never had a war been so filmed and documented. Korea and Vietnam developed it further.

Now and then I have to watch a little bowling, and being one of the old guys, I watch the old black and white videos of Championship Bowling. On YouTube, of course. A former teammate of mine in Buffalo, Jimmy Schroeder, is in several of the matches. Jimmy is now a Hall of Famer. For the Chicago guys here, I can report that a bunch of their guys are on those tapes, also. I saw Carmen (the Spook) Salvino in several, and Joe Wilman, Joe Kristof and Johnny King, who bowled with a burning cigar in his mouth. A couple of the real old timers, Ned Day and Buddy Bomar, also lived in the Windy City at some time. Lots of familiar names and faces are there.

Anyway, it’s not all Jeff’s fault. I’m always looking for an excuse to remember. That’s where it’s at, man. Thanks for your attention.

 

[vapros]

Chappy goes bowling

Chappy goes bowling

Bowling came to Thibodaux in the fall of 1960. Sugar Lanes opened on Hickory Street, and changed more lives than just a few. Leagues were organized, and bowling shirts were acceptable at all events except funerals and the better weddings. The volunteer fire department league had a full twelve teams. The prettiest girl in town came in on her lunch hour two or three days each week, and bowled alone until her employer called her to return to work. A priest drove all the way from the Vacherie area to bowl in a Tuesday league and another on Thursday. Anyway, you get the idea.

Chappy Pertuit was an immediate bowling fan. He had a potato chip route that began in Des Allemands and wound through Raceland, Thibodaux, Labadieville and Napoleonville and points between. Chappy had been to New Orleans once or twice, and Baton Rouge several times, but had never crossed the state line. When his bowling team, along with several others, sent entries to a big handicap tournament in the city of Atlanta, he could hardly wait. He was one of my favorite customers, and always good for a laugh – a pretty sharp Cajun, ever ready for an adventure.

As a group, we boarded the train in New Orleans and arrived in Atlanta in the wee hours of the morning. Having made our reservations well in advance, we trooped into the hotel and went to bed. We rolled out about 8:30 am and had breakfast and set off to see the sights. All except Chappy, who had to get up early every morning to begin his workday, and was determined to sleep in. Bowling was scheduled on a six-pm squad on the tournament lanes. He had a waffle and coffee, and wandered off down the street, alone and walking. He found Atlanta to be not all that different from New Orleans. He passed stores and offices and coffee shops and failed to note that his surroundings were getting a bit seedy. He came to a small storefront with a huge dragon painted on the window, in many colors, a fire-breathing dragon, at that. Oriental massage was available inside, according to a sign. Chappy had never had an Oriental massage, and he decided Atlanta was a safe place for him to live a little.

Ten dollars was the admission fee, (hey, this was nearly sixty years ago) and he was escorted to a small room with a table. There were pegs on the wall. He was instructed to hang his clothes on the pegs – all his clothes – and was given a towel with which to cover himself. The Oriental massager – she may, or may not, have been a genuine masseuse – came in, wearing a sort of short lab coat, and apparently nothing else. For that matter, she may, or may not, have been a genuine Oriental. She massaged Chappy with a series of oils and lotions, telling him they smelled like lotus blossoms. Maybe they did. She turned him over and back several times, to see if he was done, and inquired if he would like anything else, but Chappy was too timid to speak up. With deft hands and a magic towel, she had built a sort of wigwam, with Chappy inside. Finally she gave up on him, snatched the towel away, and finished the massage with a vigorous flourish that sent him soaring high above Atlanta, beyond Valdosta and Waycross and Albany. It left him breathless and hopelessly in love with the young massager, who had departed, still in her lab coat, before he could kiss her. Chappy dressed in his badly-soiled garments and staggered off to find the bowling tournament.

Back in Thibodaux, someone asked me what I had shot in Atlanta, a perfectly innocent question among bowlers. I had to admit that I had not set the lanes afire, but I advised him to ask Chappy what he had shot. I don’t know what Chappy may have told him, but I’ll bet it was funny as hell. He was always good for a laugh, as I mentioned earlier.

 

[vapros]

Current events

Current events

I have neglected this journal, nearly ten days since the last entry. Rod has posted since I have. His stuff from the world of gambling pool players is always good reading. I have little to report from that category. It’s important to continue this journal feature, but I will have to have some help. We have writers, and they have stories and news, but no entries are appearing. I did an entry about the stake horses some time ago, and I want to know about the players who go on the road for action. Not today, tho. I’m going to start a thread in the main forum, asking for our pool hustlers, current or retired, to speak up and tell us about it. Curious to see who might respond.

Mr3cushion is hawking cue tips today. He reports that G2 tips are the best, and he recommends them to us. His post includes a link to the website, which has pictures and prices. Eight layers of Japanese pig skin – is that good? They go for $17.60 per, and to check authenticity you can reference the twelve-digit serial number, which must go under the glue or the chalk. I don’t think the VIN on my Honda has that many numbers. They offer chalk and patches, also. Patches to sew on your garments, I suppose. The patches are marked down to $4.95, but I think they should be giving them away. They want us to pay them for their advertising? Not likely.

A new restaurant is opening in about a week, right across Jefferson Highway from the complex where I live. There has been a bunch of cars in their lot in recent days, so I pulled in to buy a barbecue sandwich. They advertise seafood and barbeque, but I found that they are not yet open. All those cars in the lot are for the staff people they are training, and they will be training for another week! I think that may be a bad sign for my Subway budget. They invited me inside and showed me around, and it looks real nice; not a supper club, but not fast food either. The tables and chairs are already in place, including water glasses containing flatware and cloth napkins. The chef is part owner, and his partner is the guy who owns the culinary school about two hundred yards away. That’s a good omen; experts in charge.

They gave me a menu to take home with me. It’s a big double-sided display on stiff cardboard, and about 12” by 18”, very nicely done. I never saw one just like theirs. There are no prices showing, but each dish has a number listed – got to be dollars, I would think. Have any of you seen such menus? They sure don’t have ‘em at McDonald’s, you can take my word for that.

I could afford cast iron drop biscuits, as they are only 5. Fried green tomatoes sell for 9. For 38, one can choose a 24 ounce Chicago cut ribeye or a half rack of St. Louis ribs. I think that is a little high, but what do I know? These numbers might be for rubles or pesos or drachmas. One item caught my eye, and I will be all over it when they are finally ready for me. I will try their smoked rabbit pot pie – it goes for 16, and I don’t think you can get it for less anywhere in town.

 

[vapros]

Hustling

Hustling

Pool is not a hard game to follow, even for the most casual spectator, once the object of the game is explained. That’s true for one-pocket also, even if the viewer is required to try a little harder and to be patient. Watch slower, if you can follow that. The same is not as true for the terminology. As usual, I went to Google; Google knows everything, or almost everything. Take hustling, for example. One reference makes it sound like what the players used to call scuffling - making a bare living with a stick. Others tell us that hustling is done on the road, by gambling with lesser players, and maybe even with deception of some sort. No consensus. Wikipedia seems to have the best handle on such matters, as they mention such things as dumping, sharking and sneaky pete cues. I think that’s because they solicit the contributions of the readers, some of whom might know.

Anyway, it caused me to wonder about the hustlers, themselves. I don’t think anyone doubts that communication, notably the internet, has put a big crimp in hustling pool. It’s not easy to be anonymous today, if one is a top player, or even a top hustler. For a select few, there is no need to travel and hustle. When Efren Reyes is at Hard Times in California, players are willing and eager to take a bad match and make a modest bet, just to play him. He’s the best, he’s charismatic, and he is nearing the end of his time at the top. Maybe that’s his hustle. There’s others, too, but I think that real pool hustling today is done by lesser lights, less recognizable. You don’t have to be a champion, of course, to play for serious money.

A few of the veteran hustlers have written memoirs. I have Alfie Taylor’s excellent account of his days on “The Other Side of the Road”. Cotton LeBlanc and Freddy the Beard, and a few others have told their stories in print. None of them are available for loan at my local library, and that’s my loss. Others have stories, but they are not telling, for one reason or another. For one thing, there’s no money in it – not enough market. Is Artie Bodendorfer still among us? Is he preparing to write anything (with a little help) for our reading pleasure? I’m pretty sure we have some hustlers here, retired or active, and I will challenge them, in the main forum, to speak up and talk. We can hope. Rod has proven that tales of action, gambling and traveling to play are well received on our site. Jeff Sparks, when he writes, is entertaining. Dr. Bill could contribute worlds of pool lore. Notable characters also make great reading for players like this membership.

This is a big and fascinating topic, and I will touch on it again soon. For anyone who is interested in the names, go to Google and search ‘pool hustling’. Among the references, most of which don’t offer much, there is a long treatise by a source known only as ‘Hyper Texts’. Some unknown researcher has compiled a huge roster of past and present familiar names, rating many of them as best hustlers or top players for money. I have to say they have not missed many – in categories, they offer hundreds of names that you will know. There’s a picture of Artie with his reference. Lots or respect, also, and a picture with the mention of JAM’s favorite hustler. There are a few notable absences, too – Scott Frost is not there, nor is Danny Basevich, so it is not a current list.

I don’t know who put it all together, but he knew his way around, and it’s a great read, so don’t miss it. Tell ‘em I sent you.

 

[vapros]

Carpe diem, pal.

Carpe diem, pal.

Life is good, indeed. Life is great; it’s wonderful, and especially if one uses it correctly. We have been treated to an account of a couple of lives handled very well for a whole year – I’m speaking of a member here, 12squared, and of his beautiful wife. The tale can be seen in the journals forum, in five installments, and today he has posted a few pictures taken in Australia and the Orient, as they traveled. These folks hiked upon the Great Wall of China, for cryin’ out loud! It blows my mind.

They decided to quit jobs, relocate, and take a year off, and it included six months in Australia. How in the world could they do that? Maybe one of them is rich, or maybe they saved the money as they worked. Or maybe they borrowed it, and will spend ten years paying it back. It’s not our business, and it doesn’t matter anyway – they did it. But this entry for my journal isn’t about them or their trip. It’s about the rest of us, and I will suffer as I type.

Perhaps the pool players who go on the road to play experience something similar, in that they leave something behind, whatever it might be, to travel and live a life of their choosing, if only for a time. I recently tried, in the main forum, to get them to tell us about it, but I didn’t get much response. Most of them don’t get to Australia and the far east, but they travel, and that’s something. They may take a few pictures as they go, or not. But I’m not writing about them, either.

I’m thinking of Alfie Taylor, who hustled on the road for some years without great success, and gave it up one day, right here in Baton Rouge. He became a trader in carpets, and visited the middle east and the far east. Had his picture made in Turkey with Bill Staton, a player who bet high when he played, but made his way on the proceeds from the sale of a great many hot dogs. A couple of human interest stories not typical among pool players. While I think of it, treat yourself to Alfie’s book, The Other Side of the Road. He tells us how it is out there.

Most of all I am thinking of those of us who never did any such thing, and especially those of us who grow older regretting our failure to move when we could. I had a few years between military and marriage when I could have traveled a bit. I didn’t have any money, but a man can go anyway, if he really wants to. He can work his way as he goes, or at least he could have at that time. You didn’t have to have a union card to stop and earn some money. It’s not like a carefree six months in Australia, but let’s face it; what is? I wish I had seen Maine, and the American west, and a million other places. I can’t go now, for several reasons, but I could have then.

Regrets are malevolent. They squeeze your liver and your lights. They corrode your gizzard and your adenoids, and they cut off the blood to your heart and your pecker. They settle in your pancreas and your sacroiliac and they remind you of the things that might have been. They carry sand and tangles to your mind, and eventually they will close your eyes. I used to have a tee shirt that said ‘Just do it’, but I got too heavy as I sat at the computer, and I couldn’t wear it any more. Can’t remember what I did with it, but I recall that I never ‘did it’.

Don’t be an ant your whole damn’ life. Break out and be a grasshopper for a while, before the cold weather sets in. It’s later than you think.

 

[vapros]

Drilling Frank

Drilling Frank

I’m recalling the winter of 1953-54 (how many here could do that?). The best bowling team in San Antonio was the Phillips Drillers, just like last year and the year before. That would be Bob Harris, Fred List, Johnny Jowdy and a couple of other guys. List was the Texas Match Game champion that year, and would fly off to represent the Lone Star State in the All Star event in Chicago. I seldom encountered these shooters, as they didn’t like to leave Woodlawn Bowl, while I was a regular at the lanes in the Hermann Sons Lodge and Billie Simon’s old Alamo Bowl on South Alamo Street. Those were the downtown establishments within walking distance of the base bus route. I had no car.

Their sponsor was H.H. Phillips, the old driller himself, and he was known to appear now and then at Hermann Sons lanes. His intent was always to be the center of attention while he was in the building, and to leave some of his money with the poor people on hand. One afternoon he stopped me on the concourse and offered me a match. He proposed that he and Joel Vick would take on Ronnie Gaudern and me, but we would have to spot them twenty-seven pins per game. The old man was not as helpless on the lanes as he pretended, so I nixed his prop, and I said we might be willing to give up eleven pins. He never negotiated, so that was the end of that. He strolled along and made a game with someone else, taking a bad bet and laying two to one on the money, as well. He lost the bet, of course, and a bowler named Richie made some nice cash for himself. That was to teach me a lesson. He faded all bets on any game, and if he found that Joe Blow had bet on him, he might well go in the tank to teach Joe Blow a lesson.

So, one Saturday afternoon he swept into the joint and interrupted a small pot game, in which Frank Kryda, Freddie Martin, Joe Talerico, Vernon Wright and I were betting five dollar bills.

Phillips approached Kryda and said, “Frank, I need a ride to the Firestone store to pick up my car.”

Frank said, “Sure, I’ll be through this game in five minutes.” And he was. He took his ball from the rack and headed for his office to change his shoes. When he emerged, he found Valerie working the counter, and Wally nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Mr. Phillips?” he asked her. “And where’s Wally?”

“You know old Phillips ain’t going to wait,” said Valerie. “He’s gone to pick up his car. Wally is taking him, and he told me to watch the desk until he got back.”

Now Frank was sore at three different people, and he was steaming, and I must tell you a little bit about Wally. Wally was a buffoon, portly and with greasy straight hair hanging down in his eyes, and generally wearing a big expectant grin. He worked the counter in the daytime at Hermann Sons, and he drove a pre-war Nash that was far past its best days and carried the residue of a number of fast-food lunches. The hood was not the same color as the rest of it. The tires were worn so thin that one might almost see the air in them. It was said that a passenger could look through the hole in the floor and watch the white line drifting back and forth as Wally zig-zagged down the avenue. And on that day, H.H. Phillips was aboard.

Valerie caught the full force of Frank’s tirade, and responded meekly that Wally had said he would be back in forty minutes. It turned out to be more like two hours, and Wally replaced her on the hot seat when he returned, and endured the balance of the abuse for the next twenty minutes. Valerie was more than happy to return to her duty post behind the snack bar and Wally never gave up his foolish grin.

Vernon had promised to buy a car for the Mexican who looked after his little farm, and he had offered three hundred dollars for Wally’s elderly Nash, but Wally was holding out for four. On this Saturday Vernon was ready to pay the price and get it done, and he was outraged to learn that Wally’s price had jumped to eight hundred. The mystery was cleared up when he reached the parking lot and saw the Nash. It was decked out in four brand-new General Premium whitewall tires.

H.H. Phillips was teaching Frank Kryda a lesson.