Never witnessed an altercation in a formal pool hall or a roadhouse in East Texas (back in the 60’s). Not an argument over a game. Biggest controversy was whose up next on a table where quarters were lined up on a coin operated table.
I was a Witness to a Murder in the Pool Room
- Thread starter brunswick1901
- Start date
Been atercated (it's a word - now) a time or two. Just some shoving, lotsa yelling.
I came into a pool hall, Dicks on Airline in Baton Rouge, a few minutes after a murder of the bloody kind, a shooting. Teamsters and bikers feuding. I was there before the police but the guy was dead. It was decided we could play on a table well away from the body and we started play. About five minutes later a cop came up to me, "You are always around, what happened?" That was when I realized I was getting too well known to authorities. I really hated to tell him that I came in after the shooting since absolutely everyone was telling that story but not much option when it was the truth.
A fellow came in where I was playing cut all to hell and breakfast. Passed out and they let him lay an hour or so. Finally had him carted off in an ambulance. Cuttings weren't uncommon on the Port Allen strip at the time, probably averaged over ten a week. Mostly people didn't want to risk a murder rap and just sliced on the other person's spare ribs a bit. Sometimes inexperienced people stabbed, could kill a person like that.
A friend's brother got killed while he was in Chicago. A $2000 air barrel to a made man in a poker game. I don't know if it was the money or the irritation. Anyway, my friend got word and came home. The local good hands people might have been feeling lenient or maybe didn't want two killings close together. Instead of shooting they cut but they cut deep and nasty. I think got some of Sam's spleen, a handful of organs. He spent six months in the hospital and lost roughly half his body weight. Considering he was more fit than fat that was a lot of weight to lose.
No pool tables in that joint, it was standing room only weekends and the space was worth more for drinking and dancing room. It was across the four lane from where I started making my pool bones, Nick's Steakhouse. Pool tables and a little bar and a huge wasted space, none of it got used much. Seems like there might have been a wall about halfway back and another big room, not sure at the moment, I never went there in it's heyday. I might not have even been born yet!
Killings on the table too many to remember. One comes to mind, my road partner Bobby had went to Satsuma to make some money. He had about five dollars three days before. He parleyed that into about $500 playing twenty-four/seven for that three days. I don't know if that was with aid from chemicals or not. Either way he was crashed now, could barely stand. Old Joe was stripping Bobby as rapidly as it could be done and Bobby was down to just a bit over $150 when I ignored pool room etiquette and drug him out of the game. He had a wife and two smallish daughters at home with no food in the place.
Hu
A fellow came in where I was playing cut all to hell and breakfast. Passed out and they let him lay an hour or so. Finally had him carted off in an ambulance. Cuttings weren't uncommon on the Port Allen strip at the time, probably averaged over ten a week. Mostly people didn't want to risk a murder rap and just sliced on the other person's spare ribs a bit. Sometimes inexperienced people stabbed, could kill a person like that.
A friend's brother got killed while he was in Chicago. A $2000 air barrel to a made man in a poker game. I don't know if it was the money or the irritation. Anyway, my friend got word and came home. The local good hands people might have been feeling lenient or maybe didn't want two killings close together. Instead of shooting they cut but they cut deep and nasty. I think got some of Sam's spleen, a handful of organs. He spent six months in the hospital and lost roughly half his body weight. Considering he was more fit than fat that was a lot of weight to lose.
No pool tables in that joint, it was standing room only weekends and the space was worth more for drinking and dancing room. It was across the four lane from where I started making my pool bones, Nick's Steakhouse. Pool tables and a little bar and a huge wasted space, none of it got used much. Seems like there might have been a wall about halfway back and another big room, not sure at the moment, I never went there in it's heyday. I might not have even been born yet!
Killings on the table too many to remember. One comes to mind, my road partner Bobby had went to Satsuma to make some money. He had about five dollars three days before. He parleyed that into about $500 playing twenty-four/seven for that three days. I don't know if that was with aid from chemicals or not. Either way he was crashed now, could barely stand. Old Joe was stripping Bobby as rapidly as it could be done and Bobby was down to just a bit over $150 when I ignored pool room etiquette and drug him out of the game. He had a wife and two smallish daughters at home with no food in the place.
Hu
When I was at FSU I played mostly at Pastimes on Tharpe street. It was located next to a day labor place and was surrounded by woods in the back. Pastimes would cash the paychecks of the day labor guys and they’d typically spend the evening drinking and then crash in the woods and do it all over the next day. A really cool old dude would come in early and clean the pool room and he’d serve coffee to the guys waiting to see if they could get some work next door. One time the old guy was in the walk in freezer and looked up and saw two guys fighting. It ended up with one guy pinning the other on top of a 9’ Brunswick stabbing him. Fortunately the pastime employee had the cordless phone in his pocket, so while he called the police he barricaded himself inside the freezer. The crazy bastard looked directly at my buddy 3 or 4 times but never stopped stabbing. When the cops showed up the guy was still stabbing and had basically beheaded his victim. It turned out the guy was accidentally released from a mental institution in Jacksonville and wound up in our backyard. I saw the cloth the next day and it was gruesome.
In true pool hall fashion they recovered it and life went on. Well, not for everyone I guess.
In true pool hall fashion they recovered it and life went on. Well, not for everyone I guess.
I actually once got shot at in a DC pool room in 1968 (Brunswick Billiards at 14th & Irving), under a weird set of circumstances. I was playing a match on one of the front tables, when an acquaintance asked me to back him on a back table. I turned him down, but he nevertheless went on with his match, playing on ass. I wasn't really paying much attention to him at this point.
A few minutes later, he comes up and says he lost, and for me to pay his opponent. I told him he was crazy, that I'd told him before that I wasn't backing him. After a back and forth that went on for another minute or so, he pulled out a small gun and fired it at me, between my legs. It didn't hit me, but I could feel the "breeze" passing by. To this day I'm not even sure whether it was a real bullet or a blank, but in any case it was enough to convince me, and I handed him the money. Naturally everyone thought the whole thing was funny, and since I wasn't hit, I wrote it off as No Harm, No Foul.
But here's the kicker: An hour or so later, the gunslinger came up to me and handed me my money back, telling me he'd "just been kidding". Some joke!
A few minutes later, he comes up and says he lost, and for me to pay his opponent. I told him he was crazy, that I'd told him before that I wasn't backing him. After a back and forth that went on for another minute or so, he pulled out a small gun and fired it at me, between my legs. It didn't hit me, but I could feel the "breeze" passing by. To this day I'm not even sure whether it was a real bullet or a blank, but in any case it was enough to convince me, and I handed him the money. Naturally everyone thought the whole thing was funny, and since I wasn't hit, I wrote it off as No Harm, No Foul.
But here's the kicker: An hour or so later, the gunslinger came up to me and handed me my money back, telling me he'd "just been kidding". Some joke!
In that same Brunswick Billiards I mentioned above, on April 4th, 1968 I arrived just at the time that the MLK assassination had been announced over the radio. I was the only White guy in an otherwise all-Black pool room, but that wasn't a problem, since they all knew me. But what was totally bizarre was that while about half the players there were crying, or on the verge of it, many of the others were just laughing at them. This in turn set off one of my friends, and just as he was about to get it on with one of the mockers, I grabbed him and suggested we go outside and walk it off.
But what a night. We walked up the street, turned onto Mt. Pleasant St. into a racially mixed bar. Just when my friend was calming down, some old White dude started ranting about how King "had got what he deserved". And so for a second time I had to pull my friend out of a situation where he might've committed something barely this side of murder.
And then of course over the next 24 hours, the shit really hit the fan, and it took 14th St. 30 years to recover.
Your honor, let the record reflect that I only believe 64 percent of what I've read in this thread.
My favorite pool hall was in a rough area. Let me rephrase that, my favorite pool hall was in a ROUGH area. Long before official concealed carry it seemed over half the people in there were carrying.
Most were carrying very casually and guns were falling regularly. Half junk guns, they often went bang when they hit the floor. Seemed we averaged about one accidental discharge of a gun a month.
I go to the counter to get a beer for the three of us shooting pool to find the counterman, drunk on his ass, and another drunk playing with a revolver. A long narrow place as pool halls should be. We were playing on the table against the back wall, about sixty feet from the counter. A bullet could go anywhere in 360 degrees plus high or low, we only took up a couple degrees each, seemed fairly safe. This wasn't my first beer!
A few minutes later the gun went off. I was down on a shot so I pocketed the ball before checking out what happened. There were always a few tense moments when you waited to hear if there was return fire. Nope, just one of the idiots at the counter. Nobody hit, all good. Then I noticed the electrical switch box in the wall by the table had a fresh .38 hole in it. Still, a miss was a miss and the shot had missed me several feet. Back to pool.
Yeah, but the crazy thing is which 64% is true. My phone lit up like a Christmas tree one morning. "Did you hear about ..." The story was a little to wild to be true and made no sense besides. Logic, commonsense, said it had to be BS. Then the guy's best friend called me. "Did you hear about Jimmy?"
"I heard something but it is too wild to be true."
"It's true."
Hu
Most were carrying very casually and guns were falling regularly. Half junk guns, they often went bang when they hit the floor. Seemed we averaged about one accidental discharge of a gun a month.
I go to the counter to get a beer for the three of us shooting pool to find the counterman, drunk on his ass, and another drunk playing with a revolver. A long narrow place as pool halls should be. We were playing on the table against the back wall, about sixty feet from the counter. A bullet could go anywhere in 360 degrees plus high or low, we only took up a couple degrees each, seemed fairly safe. This wasn't my first beer!
A few minutes later the gun went off. I was down on a shot so I pocketed the ball before checking out what happened. There were always a few tense moments when you waited to hear if there was return fire. Nope, just one of the idiots at the counter. Nobody hit, all good. Then I noticed the electrical switch box in the wall by the table had a fresh .38 hole in it. Still, a miss was a miss and the shot had missed me several feet. Back to pool.
Yeah, but the crazy thing is which 64% is true. My phone lit up like a Christmas tree one morning. "Did you hear about ..." The story was a little to wild to be true and made no sense besides. Logic, commonsense, said it had to be BS. Then the guy's best friend called me. "Did you hear about Jimmy?"
"I heard something but it is too wild to be true."
"It's true."
Hu
Use to play 5 or 6 ball... (short game on 9ball).... wanna know how many games I can lose in 15-20 minutes.
Now 63. You finished the shot???
tomatoshooter
Well-known member
I guess Vinnie's family didn't eat much polenta.
Now 63. You finished the shot???
Yeah, I always finished the shot just to prove I could if I was shooting when a gun went off. Waiting to hear if there were more shots anyway. This was in the days before fairly clean carpeted pool rooms and I was waiting to hear if there were more shots to decide whether to roll across the pool table and hit the floor or straighten up.
Looking back, there was very little violence in the old pool halls. Jesse had that pool hall by then. A retired oilfield roughneck and a monster arm wrestler. He had a four feet or longer piece of pulpwood behind the bar maybe six inches in diameter. He had carved a handle in one end. I asked him if he ever brought it out from behind the counter. He said he had a few times. It was long standing policy though, we protected our turf.
Outsiders that didn't know the score were the only ones foolish enough to start trouble and when they found the entire rest of the hall backing up the owner or worker there was little reason to worry. Before Jesse there was an absentee owner, Lambert, and a lady running the place. All she had to do was make her wishes known. I was there several times when somebody thought they might come in and take over. Four guys that were on the front line of a local college football team thought they would take over. As already mentioned the hall was long and narrow with the counter most of the way back from the street door.
These four guys head to the counter. Nothing is said, they are ignored. When they realized they were getting ignored from behind the counter they look over their shoulders. Roughly two dozen of us had eased over, over half of us toting house cues. The football players hadn't been hit on the head that many times, they eased towards the door without a word spoken!
Hu
You might be Batman.
"You kept shooting all the shots?"
"Well the balls kept lining up!"
The other 48% is just woofing
I was a teenager. Life was pretty cheap then anyway. This was about the same time I argued with a man when he had a deer rifle pointed at my chest from about a foot away. A long list of not so bright things I did as a teenager! I buried a handful of people that didn't take a tenth the risks I did yet I'm still chugging along. I could have got bets at any age from fifteen to twenty-five that I wouldn't live another two years if I would have posted. I wasn't living a real mellow lifestyle.
Hu
In all the many years I spend hanging out in pool rooms, I had never encountered any violence (belligerents usually stepped outside to fight) until, while practicing one mid-90s afternoon in the Keystone (Indy), as the one-hole match at a near table was breaking up, and after one of the players had unscrewed, he turned and beaned his opponent with the butt (like the Bambino batting a homer). Guy lying unconscious on the floor, counterman phoning the police, I decided interaction not advisable on my part so I quickly packed up, paid, and took my leave.