The Last Time I Played Pool for Money...

As many of you may know, I was a professional pool player in my yout (what's a yout?).

Actually, I should say I played pool professionally.  There were no real "professional pool players" back then.  Just hustlers who made their living convincing others they weren't very good with a pool cue.  But I was never a hustler.  I'd simply walk into a pool room and place my cue case on the nearest table.  While all the pool room toads were intently focused, I'd take out my cue, hold it high in the air and announce, firmly, "I'm the best you've ever seen.  And if you don't believe me, bring me the best you've ever seen, and let's play..."

At which point I'd begin to drill balls into the pockets, and wait; wait for a hustler to appear magically out of the wallpaper a few minutes later.  And we'd play pool for money.  Sometimes lots of it.  And sometimes all night.  And this is one such a story...

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I discovered at the age of 13 that when I picked up a pool cue people automatically gave me money.  Bushels of it.  Oh, I had to work like a rented mule for years to acquire that talent, but I was the best I'd ever seen by the age of 16.  And on the road by 17, "Touring" dirty dive bars (my favorite kind!) and seedy pool rooms all over the upper Midwest.  Would-be pool hustlers all across Kansas and Missouri and Iowa and Arkansas and Illinois learned not to answer the siren call when The Chuckmeister came to town...  

I keep getting asked, "What did your parents have to say about all of this?"  My answer: my Dad was the 1927 and '28 Missouri State pool champion, and so he understood that the DNA doesn't fall too far from the tree.  He convinced Mom to just let me be, as he was pretty sure I'd land on my feet.  Just as he'd done.  

And I did.  In spades (can I still say that?).  After a few scary years.  I was making money hand over fist.  I made $65,000 in 1963, as I recall, when the average postal worker was knocking down about $5,200 a year. 

A brand-new car cost $2,500.  Think about that.

You might therefore understand why I had great difficulty paying close attention to my college professors, who were making barely a third of what "The Chuckmeister" was knocking down.  My professional nom de plume.  That means moniker.  

And thus, the name of this unassuming little blog many years later.  Ahem...

Anyway, I played professionally for more than 10 years.  I even played in some tournaments, just for yucks.  I won the Ohio State Snooker Championship in 1961, for example, with a prize of a yuuuge trophy, a new Balabuska pool cue, and the chance to play 17-time World Pool Champion Willie Mosconi on television at the Grand Opening of the Olympic Lanes in St. Joseph, MO. 

What a trip!  I was a 17 year-old kid, sitting at the seat of my Pool God!  Given the chance to match wits with the absolute pinnacle of our sport!  Well before I was worthy.  I actually broke out in hives!  This was a enormous deal! 

Oh yeah, he won, if you have to ask.  But not by much.  We were playing 14.1 Call Shot.  I opened with a run of 16, then played a fairly good leave.  It wasn't fairly good.  He ran out to 125.  I mean, HELLO!  I was 17 years old and he was 67!  Unfair, much?

Anyway, I subsisted by living at college dorms, hiding from the draft to maintain my 2-S Deferment, buying new cars every six months, drag racing on a professional schedule to keep me from getting bored, playing poker in my spare time, chasing only the very prettiest girls, and doing whatever the Hell else I wanted, whenever I wanted.  Except attending classes, and studying.  Basically, I didn't attend college, I lived at college.  I mean, a guy has to have standards!  

And lemme' say again, I was 17!  I thought my feces had no odor!    

So you can understand I grew accustomed to being incorrigible.  And getting my way.  And winning gobs of money from room temperature I.Q.-types.  I told them to consider it tuition.  To the College of the Chuckmeister.  I don't think they appreciated my advice.  Or even understood it.

Anyway, to the-then present:  I parked my near-new black, 1965 442 Oldsmobile in front of the 12th Street Pool Hall on a Spring evening, just as the sun was setting.  My traveling companion "Little Dickie" Robertson (Hi Dickie, if you're out there!) and I went through the revolving doors and into the dim light of the aging pool room.

Revolving doors, I learned, because it had at one time been a hotel.     

And this was a glorious place.  It held about 14 pool and billiard and snooker tables, lined up one after the other, all the way back to end of the room.  So dark, and so smoky, one could hardly see the back end.  But we knew it was there.  You could hear it!  

As per usual, Dickie and I followed the noise.  It led to a 9-ball game.  One we quickly entered.  And one in which the stakes quickly escalated.  And the time passed.  And the players dropped off.  So that by about 11:00, there were only 3 of us left; Dickie and I, and one other miscreant.  Our mark.  Er, rather, opponent.

The normal way we played 9-ball back then was to put the money $stakes on top of the pool table light.  Then, after each game, the winner retrieves the stakes and the loser replaces them.  And the game goes on.  

So Dickie, on que, drops out.  And the "mark" and I continue on.  As I slowly "oooch" up the stakes.  By talking the mark into higher and higher bets.  I do so, I'm almost sorry to say, by belittling his talent, and sometimes his parentage.  And once the bets got to $100 a game, which was yuuuuuuge back then, and I was $2,800 ahead, I knew things were going to get "sporty."  

I started making "leaving" noises.  My yawning and stretching and shuffling my feet was supposed to let the mark know I was on my way out.  But the "mark" was having none of it.  When I finally said, "I'm going,"  the "mark" said, "Look around you.  Those guys all work for me.  And they'll rip your ass apart  unless you either give me back my money, or let me win it.  Your choice..."   

I'd broken the First Rule of hustling.  "Keep note of your surroundings."  And while I'd been concentrating on winning, about a dozen guys with motorcycle jackets had begun surrounding me.  You know, the kind with about 100 zippers on them.  Each.  And they all looked like a pack of wolves, just waiting for the chance to pounce.

Rule Number Two is, "Discretion is the Better Part of Valor."  That means, a strategic withdrawal is often wise.  As in, running like a bandit is a-okay.  Quite within bounds.  In fact, Rule Number Three is, "Running is great cardio.  Especially if it's away from a would-be assailant." 

So, I gave the raised eyebrow to Dickie and started making losing noises.  As in, I was going to start to lose to this sucker as he'd commanded.  But remember, I said this was an ex-hotel.  With a revolving door.  So, pocket full of cash, I gave the signal and we bolted.  I made it through the door first, then Dickie, who put his foot out to stop it from revolving further.  This caused about 12 guys to mash into a space normally occupied by about 8.

I ran to my car, opened it, reached under the front seat and pulled out my Model 29 Smith & Wesson .44 mag revolver.  The Big Boy.  The Dirty Harry gun.  The one if you ran out of ammo you could use it to beat them to death.  

I had several pistols sprinkled throughout the car, including a .359 S&W Highway Patrolman in the glovebox, but this one was closer.  And bigger.  Bit it was all about close.

I reached through and unlocked Dickie's door and rolled down the window.  I yelled for Dickie to come, and fast!  He gave up his blocking position at the door, ran to my car and dived through the window.  All at once there was a clot of humanity coming our way, dead-set on making us dead.  I laid my revolver over the roof of my 442, cocked it, and pointed it center mass at the lead "zipper."  And just as loud as I could, I shouted, "Take another step and I'll open you up like a can of tuna."  

Now, I don't know where exactly that came from, but at my threat, the cretins skidded to a halt.  It was a Mexican standoff, and all we had to do was find out which of us were the Mexicans.  

I couldn't tell you how long it took.  I remember thinking that even though I only had six shots in my revolver, being a .44 Magnum, I could could on each bullet taking out two, or even three guys.  I was actually calculating where to point to get the highest body count.  

It seemed like an hour before the Lead Cretin, the guy with the most zippers on his jacket, said, "Okay then, you son of a bitch!  But if you ever come back here, we'll kill you!"  I thought to myself, don't worry, I won't.  I seldom if ever revisit the scene of any of my crimes...

That's Rule Number Four...

And at that, they slowly melted back into the pool room, mumbling loudly under their breath as they went.  The Lead Cretin frequently looking back over his shoulder to try and intimidate me...as he did the walk of shame.

Dickie and I fired up the car and left a longgg strip of rubber as I put some miles between me and the pool room.  We said not a thing.  I doubt we could speak.  I don't know about Dickie, but I was shaking like a dog sh*tting razor blades.  I kept saying over and over again under my breath, "never again."

And then, when I found a friendly street lamp, I pulled over and parked.  I then opened the door, leaned out and projectile vomited.  For minutes.  Until there was nothing left to vomit.  Until it turned to bile.  Green bile.  Because I was was so fu**ing scared!  No, not afraid that I'd get killed.  No, afraid that I came ever so close to blowing that fu***r away and spending the rest of my life in prison!  

I had the hammer cocked.  I had my finger on the trigger.  I was more than capable of doing it.  I'd pulled down on a few others before, and knew if the cheese got binding I was ready.  And I was only his muscle twitch away from my life undergoing a major change.  His life, a big change for sure.  It would have been over.  But I'd be the guy the spending 23 hours a day in a 8' by 12' cell...

He could have zigged instead of zagged.  He could have blinked.  He could have have breathed wrong.  He could have just given me a dirty look!  But he didn't.  And he lived.  And so did I.  Barely.  Barely!  And so, that's the last time I played pool for money! Or had the slightest inclination to do so.  

I got "scared straight" that evening.  Oh, I've since trained others how to play, but I never again put my own money down on a game.  I found other pursuits in which to invest my time and attention.  I put the cue down after more than 12 years.  It was a demon that controlled my life for so very long.  I was addicted as if to an opiate.  Imagine, winning every time you play and rolling cash.  But for how long?  I barely escaped that life.  And earned a new one.  One with a wife and kids and a career and a life.   

But that's a story you already know...