I've told this story a few times, but nearly 20 years ago, I played poker in a fireworks warehouse that doubled as a poker room and trebled as a weekly circus.
On this cold night, there was a four-figure jackpot on offer, a bench press competition, and a Ping-Pong match that—based on the screaming from the audience—carried the world’s fate on its outcome. In the 10 seats around each table, the winners laughed, the losers glared, and the poker chips flew with enough combined energy to power the whole damned town if the predicted snow turned out the lights.
It would’ve been a perfect night but for the argument that was ramping up in the corner. Though the temperature was going to drop below freezing, Steve, a regular face in the games, was in cargo shorts, flip flops, a wrinkled T-shirt, and a hunter’s cap—the kind with the flaps that come down over the ears. Hard to understand when he talked, Steve was impossible to comprehend when he yelled. He was the guy who said he’d played with Conway Twitty, and he was the guy storming out the front door in a huff over one thing or another. Though the squabble was done, there was a new, different tension once he left, because no matter how much anyone wanted to take his opponent’s money, no one ever wanted anybody to leave mad. Because if they leave mad, they might come back mad.
Steve came back.
Steve could’ve come back with the law. Steve could’ve come back with a gun. Instead, Steve came back half an hour later with a song. He sat down with a guitar, watched the Ping-Pong game, and, apropos of nothing, sang “Amazing Grace” prettier than that room deserved.
I told that story in an long thing I wrote called Bust, and it remains one of my favorite stories about poker that doesn't involve a single hand history.
What's your story?
