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[RedCard]

Harv

Harv

I was playing nine ball with a goofy guy named Harv at a room in Tampa around '72. I think it was called Guys and Dolls or something like that. Me and a buddy had played cards with him and his boss and some others at his boss's house the previous year in St. Pete.

I had beat him a couple of sets for $50 and on the third one he couldn't take my verbal abuse anymore and pulled a gun. I remember the only thing that scared me was that he was shaking. They sold drinks under the counter and the 'bartender' came around quick and talked him down. He gave up his gun but the pool game was over. His angst might have been partially rooted in some residual memories from the poker games at his boss's house the year before. I have a couple of Polaroids I took of him playing pool in a bar with a friend of mine the year before. Before he turned on me. After he was disarmed I stuck around for a while, but didn't press my luck any further. They seemed to know ole Harve pretty well in there.

 

[Jimmy B]

I was playing nine ball with a goofy guy named Harv at a room in Tampa around '72. I think it was called Guys and Dolls or something like that. Me and a buddy had played cards with him and his boss and some others at his boss's house the previous year in St. Pete.

I had beat him a couple of sets for $50 and on the third one he couldn't take my verbal abuse anymore and pulled a gun. I remember the only thing that scared me was that he was shaking. They sold drinks under the counter and the 'bartender' came around quick and talked him down. He gave up his gun but the pool game was over. His angst might have been partially rooted in some residual memories from the poker games at his boss's house the year before. I have a couple of Polaroids I took of him playing pool in a bar with a friend of mine the year before. Before he turned on me. After he was disarmed I stuck around for a while, but didn't press my luck any further. They seemed to know ole Harve pretty well in there.

That post brought back a vivid memory for me, Red Card. I was in an old boarding house one time. A short order fry cook had invited me to go back to his room and play cards. I was with a friend named Shorty who was about five feet tall and didn't care if the sun came up. We played five card stud and all that I was doing was picking up the discards and quickly running me up a high pair and then false shuffling each time it was my deal. Other than that, the game was fairly straight. Shorty asked the guy if he could just not play cards but instead lay down on the guys bed and rest. The guy reluctantly agrees and Shorty falls asleep in one minute flat. We are drinking beer and I was having a great time and we were talking so much shit to each other in a good natured way, and then he gets up to go to the bathroom to take a quick piss but on the way back, he stops and opens the drawer to a chest of drawers and pulls out a 38 caliber revolver and points it at me and says he wants all of his money back right now. I just say "**** You" to him and stand up to leave. But then he pulls the hammer back and says I mean it. I can easily see the bullets in the 2 inch old Tarus pistol, and he gets scared and more angry and starts shaking badly. Some guns have a very light trigger and will go off accidently so I don't say anything. I just start staring him down, but about the time I thought I had him, Shorty who has woke up pipes up and says while still laying down there-" Better give it up Jimmy. That cocksucker is going to shake a damn bullet out of that gun in a minute" So I slowly reach in my pocket and try to palm off half of my winnings but he counts it and makes me give back every dollar I won, then he marches us down the old old steps and Shorty is still half asleep, and is going down the steps so slow and the guy is punching me in the back real hard with the barrel of the cocked 38 Tarus and I start to get scared the gun is going to go off and the harder he punches me in my spinal cord the slower that ****ing Shorty is walking down these narrow steps and the guy is making more threats and saying he'll blow out ass away and we better not ever come back here and blah blah blah and I thought I would never get down those two flights of narrow steps with that sleepy ass Shorty in front of me. I almost pushed him down the last set of steps. But the next week I was back in the restaurant with the cook making me a hamburger steak. He just needed his money back to pay rent and stuff and he didn't take a quarter of my original money so whatever............

 

[RedCard]

Seems like more stuff like that happens at the top or bottom of long narrow staircases than the law of averages would dictate. I once refused to follow a hooker up some stairs like those in Nashville for that very reason. If you would have known how it was going to turn out you could have loaned him his money back and ate free for weeks at the restaurant, assuming he could get a waitress on board.

I guess you know this is priceless: 'and all that I was doing was picking up the discards and quickly running me up a high pair and then false shuffling each time it was my deal. Other than that, the game was fairly straight'.

Sounds fair to me.