On the Coat Tales of a Gambler
“Stubby” is another guy from those days back home that I knew about. He was quite a bit older and from the old school as well; he may have finished the eighth grade before hitting the streets. I can’t recall his real name. A lot of those guys had nicknames. Some had them because they did not want people to know who they really were. Others, like Stubby, came by their nicknames for a reason. He was not all that tall and built like a barrel, but that ain’t the reason.
Stubby only played poker, never dice or other gambling on cockfights. He was not a pro, but he was a high roller. He was bigger than Scarpone or any other guy that I came to know back then. He had a lot of dough that he made from the cattle business, feed lots and a slaughterhouse, I remember being told this as a kid.
Stubby lost parts of a few of his fingers while loading a steer into one of those shoots. The steer reared up and was getting wild, probably the smell of blood. One of the guys working with Stubby got anxious and slammed the gate before Stubby could get his hand clear. In those days, (1950’s) there was no such thing as sewing back fingertips. It was his left hand, and Stubby was left-handed so it was bad. As the owner, he had no business down on the killing floor, but Stubby was just that kind of guy. Nothing below his dignity, if you know what I mean. He would pick up cards with his right hand, but he would push his bet out with the stubs…kind of like plowing. He was a stoic man, without much of a sense of humor, and set in his ways. He took on the name of Stubby kind of like “Yeah, I messed up and ya’ll are right to remind me.” He took his lumps and he moved on. Stubby was in the war with the marines. Marine mule fits him. I say that now having been in the navy, no offence. He was known to have a collection of guns and hunted a lot.
He used to be a damn good pool player too. I saw him play at the Main Cigar and Pool Hall. Sometimes there would be a card game in the backroom of. It burned down in the 80’s, kind of funny to think of it. The cigar smoke in that place was like fog over the ocean. Nobody cared about secondhand smoke back then, let alone the stench. Some big money card games happen in that little backroom.
Stubby was a generous man at times. He liked to buy the boys a round of drinks now and then. He liked to drink a lot. He was one of those guys that seemed to drink and drink and never get drunk. Almost like the more he drank, the drunker everyone else got. Somehow Stubby made that part of his poker game. Almost like a trap. He’d drink whiskey all night while playing cards. He’d play aggressively and sloppy, losing hands. Then bam, he’d blind side’em all with a powerful hand and no one would suspect him having the cards. Stubby Raised and re-raised the other players, and they just figured he was drunk and on tilt, so they all stayed with him. Just like that, piles of chips and money moved from the other players to be in front of Stubby. I saw that happen and I will tell you true. Maybe it was just drunk luck.
Stubby is probably dead now. He was not too healthy back then. He smoked big Cuban cigars all the time and he drank a lot. I don’t know how he came by the cigars, but guys like Stubby, in business and all, he knew people that knew people. He had an “in” with the cops too, and the department of health. It was pretty wide open back then when wages weren’t much, and you could buy favors cheap. A side of beef or a few bucks greased palms… that Southern expression, “good o’l boys” ain’t no bull.
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While I was in the service a lot changed… back home and with me. Maybe from just being away I noticed more. When I’d come home on leave, most of the joints were shut down. Maybe they just relocated. All I know to tell you is, about 1975, I was told the town was cleaned up by a new police chief. But as for the games in the country, they continued into the late 70’s or 80’s… maybe they still go on today? I left that town in 1970, except for those few times visiting while I was still in the service. I never went looking for any of those places or any of those guys. I was told Scarpone was killed… I forget now just how… in a card or dice game I think, caught cheating, maybe. It is fuzzy history now especially the parts told to me by others. If it comes to me, I’ll write to you about it.
I did not make much of an effort to look up any of that bunch. Some got locked up and maybe some got killed. I still had my itch for a game but staying away from those characters seemed like a better idea to me, being older and having “seen the world,” like the navy “ad” used to say.
Let’s see, I told you about that roadhouse where the wife shot her husband, right? Yeah, well being in the service kind of forces you to focus attention differently. I did not gamble much while in the navy, an occasional card game, but those guys were too unskilled. Even as a low limit player, I was too far ahead of them, and it would have just been trouble under the circumstances, me beating the pants off them every game.
Scarpone knew this about young military guys. He asked me to drive him and two others to Columbus, Georgia, Fort Benning is there. Scarpone figured they’d catch the boys on payday and pull their pants down. Columbus was not that big of a town with a naive kind of feeling to it. Bible thumpers. You could get away with a lot if you were the crooked kind. There were a couple of illegal joints for gambling, and they were all within the reach of the military guys.
The place I remember was on a bluff overlooking the river. Below, there was an island. The river split around the island. It was covered in old growth sycamore trees. In the middle of the trees, on the high ground, was an old shanty house. It was said that it had been a Confederate look-out during the Civil war, with a big gun. One of them ironside boats sunk right there in the Chattahoochee River mud. Phenix City was just the other side, but there was never any action there. A lot of whore houses though, for a bible-thumping town… I think the soldiers would make it over to unsuspecting Phenix City for the ladies. You could go gambling in Columbus and get your ashes hauled in Phenix City. Although Scarpone was into prostitutes, he never stopped there for a reason. It is where he picked up his tools of his trade, loaded dice and marked cards.
The bluff house was safe from the authorities, but Scarpone did not like the idea of being trapped by water on one side. Nothing happened while we were there, except for separating solders from their money. Lots of liquor takes that pain away. By the time they were working off a hangover, we’d be well on our way back to Alabama. It was a long trip on lousy, winding, country roads. I made the one trip. I still can recall the smell of boiled peanuts. An old guy ran the game there. Looking just like “Colonel Sanders” with a beard, white coat, and all… “Yas sah,” pure southern he was. He had several big thugs there to keep the peace. “No guns,” was the rule. You were supposed to check pistols before going into the joint. Scarpone never did. He was never without his 38 in a game. I mean, this guy is walking around with twenty, maybe thirty thousand on him. He was not about to be without some insurance. Most of these guys carried some sort of weapon. I never did, though.
On the Coat Tales of a Gambler continues in Episode 6 –
Have you ever been to Florida?