studied; I pretended perplexity. And finally I put in my money, calling the bets.
The same betting pattern went on, with each new card, right around to the last card. And when
that last card went around, I hit another ace in sight. Three aces. And John hit another queen in
sight.
He bet a pile. Now, everyone else studied a long time-and, one by one, all folded their hands.
Except me. All I could do was put what I had left on the table.
If I'd had the money, I could have raised five hundred dollars or more, and he'd have had to call
me. John couldn't have gone the rest of his life wondering if I had bluffed him out of a pot that big.
I showed my hole card ace; John had three queens. As I hauled in the pot, something over five
hundred dollars-my first real stake in Boston-John got up from the table. He'd quit. He told his
house man, "Anytime Red comes in here and wants anything, let him have it." He said, "I've
never seen a young man play his hole card like he played."
John said "young man," being himself about fifty, I guess, although you can never be certain
about a Negro's age. He thought, as most people would have, that I was about thirty. No one in
Roxbury except my sisters Ella and Mary suspected my real age.
The story of that poker game helped my on-scene reputation among the othergamblers and
hustlers around Roxbury. Another thing that happened in John's gambling house contributed: the
incident that made it known that I carried not a gun, but some guns.
John had a standing rule that anyone who came into the place to gamble had to check his guns if
he had any. I always checked two guns. Then, one night, when a gambler tried to pull something
slick, I drew a third gun, from its shoulder holster. This added to the rest of my reputation the word
that I was "trigger-happy" and "crazy."
Looking back, I think I really was at least slightly out of my mind. I viewed narcotics as most
people regard food. I wore my guns as today I wear my neckties. Deep down, I actually believed
that after living as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently. I expected then, as I
still expect today, to die at any time. But then, I think I deliberately invited death in many,
sometimes insane, ways.
For instance, a merchant marine sailor who knew me and my reputation came into a bar carrying
a package. He motioned me to follow him downstairs into the men's room. He unwrapped a
stolen machine gun; he wanted to sell it. I said, "How do I know it works?" He loaded it with a
cartridge clip, and told me that all I would have to do then was squeeze the trigger release. I took
the gun, examined it, and the first thing he knew I had it jammed right up in his belly. I told him I
would blow him wide open. He went backwards out of the rest room and up the stairs the way Bill
"Bojangles" Robinson used to dance going backwards. He knew I was crazy enough to kill him. I
was insane enough not to consider that he might just wait his chance to kill me. For perhaps a
month I kept the machine gun at Shorty's before I was broke and sold it.
When Reginald came to Roxbury visiting, he was shocked at what he'd found out upon returning
to Harlem. I spent some time with him. He still was the kidbrother whom I still felt more "family"
toward than I felt now even for our sister Ella. Ella still liked me. I would go to see her once in a
while. But Ella had never been able to reconcile herself to the way I had changed. She has since
told me that she had a steady foreboding that I was on my way into big trouble. But I always had
the feeling that Ella somehow admired my rebellion against the world, because she, who had so
much more drive and guts than most men, often felt stymied by having been born female.
Had I been thinking only in terms of myself, maybe I would have chosen steady gambling as a
hustle. There were enough chump gamblers that hung around John Hughes' for a good gambler
to make a living off them; chumps that worked, usually. One would just have to never miss the
games on their paydays. Besides, John Hughes had offered me a job dealing for games; I didn't
want that.
But I had come around to thinking not only of myself. I wanted to get something going that could
help Shorty, too. We had been talking; I really felt sorry for Shorty. The same old musician story.
The so-called glamor of being a musician, earning just about enough money so that after he paid
rent and bought his reefers and food and other routine things, he had nothing left. Plus debts.
How could Shorty have anything? I'd spent years in Harlem and on the road around the most
darsice
(darsice)
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