I'll start it off with a post I was going to make in the Norman Hitchcock thread but it really didnt contain enough Hitchcock to my liking to put it up.
I went to Oklahoma City in the early 70s and hung around Chester Truelove's pool room at 50th and May. One-Eyed Tony Howard from Hazard, KY was still alive at the time and he was playing there too. I was on the road with the famous tush-hog, Sugar Shack Johnny Novak, but OK City at that time was still the scariest place I was ever in. There was a "range" war going on between the North and South side stick-up gangs, and Sugar and I were in the middle of it. Everybody had a gun but us.
A very bad gunman named Boatware had stolen my Ginacue and Sugar Shack was terrorizing all the bars in town trying to find him and get the cue back. I knew how dangerous Boatware was, and my nerves were in a constant state of shock. For some reason it didn't affect my pool game, as a matter of fact I never played better in my life! It's probably something a psychiatrist should study and look into.
Finally, Boatware shows up at Trueloves while I was playing One-Eyed Tony, and has nine more brutes from the gang with him. They all had cue-butts and blackjacks, and Boatware was packing a .38 long. I figured this was it, and I was hoping maybe I could escape with a few broken bones.
To speed this up, Boatware called to Johnny, "You looking for me?" Johnny's reply, "Yes, I certainly am. I want that cue stick back!" Boatware opened his shirt and flashed the .38 in his pants. Boatware, "You ready to die for it?" Sugar Shack, "Yeah, show me a bullet!" Crazy as Boatware was, he realized Sugar was even nuttier, so he took another path. Among the nine cohorts was a famous tush-hog from Arkansas named Dennis Parker. He was about 6'4" and weighed about 240 lbs. Boatware: "You want the cuestick? He got it." pointing to Dennis Parker. Goofy as Sugar Shack was, fighting some big gorilla was a better option than trying to outrun a .38 slug.
Sugar Shack: "You mean all I got to do to get the cuestick is whip him? Ok, I'll meet him anywhere he wants, just him and me, and we will fight to the death for that cuestick!" Now big Dennis was no coward, but sanity was now starting to infect these lunatics. Fighting "to the death" for a piece of wood just didnt seem like a good idea. Boatware, now sensing that move wasn't going to work either, next told Sugar to meet him out on some point on the highway about 9 PM and he would give him the cuestick. With that, we all dispersed.
I begged Johnny not to go, I said it has to be a trap. He went anyway, met Boatware, Boatware gave him back the cuestick that he had stolen from me, said to meet him later at some action bar and he would dump his backer to us. We went, and he did (about $600), and we all would up getting drunk together. To close, now that all the horror was over, and the town was tame again, Sugar Shack wanted to leave, so we went back to Florida.
Now, about the earlier part when I said all that fear made me play my best: Old-timers know how good One-Eyed Tony Howard and Norman Hitchcock played, I was robbing Tony Howard giving him his scratches dont count and he would play me 8 to 6. I was playing Hitch one pocket on that real tough pocket table there, spotting him 10 to 8, for thousand dollar sets. The funny thing is, Hitch could have given me the six ball playing nine ball. Now, Tony is long dead, but Hitch is still alive(no longer) to confirm my story. They were both in Trueloves when Boatware came in with his boys. Boatware was later arrested in a shoot out with police at a motel and given a long prison term.
Beard
