That Oops Moment When You Step through the Door . . .

ShootingArts

ShootingArts

Smorg is giving St Peter the 7!
Silver Member
Some threads this morning have me thinking about the days of small time hustling on the road. One thread I don't recall ever seeing on AZB is about when you step through the door in a strange part of a big city or new town and realize that it might have been a mistake.

Walked in a place many years ago and as usual headed to the bar to score a beer to sip on, fitting in while surveying things and deciding how to approach the pool tables. Noticed a couple bullet holes behind the bar, one in a mirror, one near it. No big deal, but then I noticed there was still a little mirror glass scattered around and a big wet spot on the floor where somebody had mopped with a darker stain in the middle on the wooden planks. Hadn't been but a couple hours at most since somebody was shot in there and it was already forgotten. There were a lot of woods out back and nobody mentioned if the law had been there. Oops!

Started playing a guy in a little bar on the Port Allen strip in West Baton Rouge and only when he was light to cover the bet after a few losses did I realize that J.S. was backing him. People who won too much from J.S. or lost too much and couldn't pay had a habit of going fishing. I lost until we were even and got the hell out of Dodge. J. was looking mighty upset and if too much money changed hands it looked likely that a player or two was going fishing. Oops!

Stopped at a little country bar in north Louisiana that had a pool sign out front to see what was shaking one evening. I was a foreigner from south Louisiana just passing through. Everything stopped when I stepped through the door. Out of a couple dozen people in the place only two or three had front teeth and that was including the ladies. Oops!

How about it? What's the story? When did you step into a place and realize the best move was a quick exit?

Hu
 
I was in a Target store urinating into a commode one day a couple months ago and as I was relieving myself, I was wondering why there wasn't any stand-up urinals in this restroom. When a middle-aged lady came out of the stall next to mine and began primping in the mirror, I immediately thought...........OOPS!!!

Maniac (true story, although not pool-related)
 
20 or so years ago playing $3-$5 9 ball ring game in one of the local hangouts. Some of the guys I was playing with I kind of knew, couple others I didn't, but had no worries. I was up a decent amount when someone got on the phone and said he was inviting a friend. Bring it on, I was full of piss and vinegar. OOPS....

Mark Jarvis walks in and bee-lines to me. I pretended like I didn't know who he was. He offered to just play me alone, which I guess was the plan all along. At that time, I didn't make much money at my job, so the hundred or so I was up was substantial. I declined the offer from Mark, and with my tail between my legs, exited the premise, leaving Mark to figure out how to relieve the others of their cheese.
 
Walked in one bar about 9 at night, still light out. Got through the door and couldn't hardly see anything. After a minute or so, could make out the bar, so strolled up to it. Looked down at the seat and it looked like something was on it, so I put my finger in it. It looked black and was wet. I told the girl behind the bar that something was on the seat, and she calmly says "oh, that's where that guy got stabbed, just grab another seat". I didn't stay long, and didn't even attempt to play any pool.

Another time, I was in the Navy and kept beating one guy playing pool. I guess one day he finally decided to "get even". He told me about a little bar, and that I should get there about noon. So, I drive there on my little Kawasaki 400 and the front lot is empty. Figure I might as well check it out anyways. Again, takes a minute for my eyes to adjust, and I am already past the first pool table before I can see. I froze in my tracks. That SOB sent me to the Hell's Angels clubhouse! As soon as I froze some huge guy stands up and I know I am in big trouble. Then some Amazon biker chick stands up and tells the other guy "sit down, I got this". Normally I'm all for a good fight, this time, I used my head and spun around and ran out there as fast as I could. All the way out I could here all of them laughing their butts off. I later caught up with my "friend", and he kept insisting that I must have just got the directions wrong, so wasn't much I could do at that point.
 
Steve Carter and me were in this town in West Va--we couldn't find a parking place in front of the Poolroom, so we parked about a block away. As we walked by a Hoilday Inn on our way , there were a bunch of Bikes parked there (and down the street as well)....couple of young Ladies sitting on a wall as we walked by asked if we wanted dates--and we just kepta walking.
Hot July day it was--walked into the Poolroom and the bar was the first thing we headed too of course--Guy behind the bar has a Tshirt that's like half way down his front with a great big Swastica Tattooed under it-Rest of the Place about half full of rough looking souls-so we order some beer--I take a few sips and wandered into the next room where the tables were--Look over in the cue racks and there are only 2 cues--look over in a corner and there were about 4 or 5 cues laying there busted up--Well nature then hit me and I walked walk over to the head and go on in and there are Bloody Handprints that start at the midsection of the walls and then just smear down the wall to the floor--I finish my biz there and head back to the bar where Carter was a sitting--I looked over at him and said-They sure have cold Beer in this here spot-(He hadn't moved from his seat by the way) He responded--If I worked here ,I'd be afraid to serve nothing but cold beer--lets get the hell outta here
 
Maniac said:
I was in a Target store urinating into a commode one day a couple months ago and as I was relieving myself, I was wondering why there wasn't any stand-up urinals in this restroom. When a middle-aged lady came out of the stall next to mine and began primping in the mirror, I immediately thought...........OOPS!!!

Maniac (true story, although not pool-related)
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In situations like that, Maniac, my friend, you have to be able to think fast.
You could have said to the woman, "Pardon me, but do have any Grey-poop-on?" And then run like hell. :smile:
 
Tramp Steamer said:
In situations like that, Maniac, my friend, you have to be able to think fast.
Click to expand...

My days of thinkin' fast are wa-a-ay behind me, and after seein' a lady in what I THOUGHT was the men's head, I was more likely the one with the "grey-poop-on" :eek:!!!

Maniac
 
Years ago as a young truck driver in Chicago I walked into an 300,000 sq. ft.Old Factory basement on the southside looking for an address to make my delivery. I saw some young white guys way in the back of this place and went to ask them if I was in the right location. They did not see me for it was a really dark dank and musty old place but the closer I got more the hair stood up on my back as now I can see they are playing with a really nice looking 44 magnum Dirty Harry revolver. Its to late to turn back and I have about 15 yards to go and turning back would definetly show that I have never seen a gun before so as they look at me looking at them my eyes have to say to them I have no fear. I ask them if I am in the right location and they tell me its in another part of the factory. I tell them that its a nice gun and that I have one just like it. I thank them and turn around to start what is still to this day the next to the longest walk to the door I have ever taken.
 
How about the times you look at your Buddies and say... "Well, guys I hope your *#lls are big and swinging low today". Just before you open the door, knowing that this may be the last place you ever walk into. Reminds me of a place that is attached to the back of a tire store in LA.) ??? Go in through a blacked out door in the alley...... Someone know where I talking about????
 
ShootingArts said:
Some threads this morning have me thinking about the days of small time hustling on the road. One thread I don't recall ever seeing on AZB is about when you step through the door in a strange part of a big city or new town and realize that it might have been a mistake.

Walked in a place many years ago and as usual headed to the bar to score a beer to sip on, fitting in while surveying things and deciding how to approach the pool tables. Noticed a couple bullet holes behind the bar, one in a mirror, one near it. No big deal, but then I noticed there was still a little mirror glass scattered around and a big wet spot on the floor where somebody had mopped with a darker stain in the middle on the wooden planks. Hadn't been but a couple hours at most since somebody was shot in there and it was already forgotten. There were a lot of woods out back and nobody mentioned if the law had been there. Oops!

Started playing a guy in a little bar on the Port Allen strip in West Baton Rouge and only when he was light to cover the bet after a few losses did I realize that J.S. was backing him. People who won too much from J.S. or lost too much and couldn't pay had a habit of going fishing. I lost until we were even and got the hell out of Dodge. J. was looking mighty upset and if too much money changed hands it looked likely that a player or two was going fishing. Oops!

Stopped at a little country bar in north Louisiana that had a pool sign out front to see what was shaking one evening. I was a foreigner from south Louisiana just passing through. Everything stopped when I stepped through the door. Out of a couple dozen people in the place only two or three had front teeth and that was including the ladies. Oops!

How about it? What's the story? When did you step into a place and realize the best move was a quick exit?

Hu
Click to expand...

Funny you mention northern LA...I spent my formative pool years in Leesville at Fort Polk...two of the bars I frequented had murders in them on a night I was somewhere else (whew!) or just after I left...one was a biker club (the "Wolf's Den", an old Blackhawks hangout), a guy named Peanut (who was usually drunk or high) mouthed off to someone's Old Lady, then slapped her, then was stabbed to death (I played him for change the night before on the same table he later bled out under). Another little bar off the train tracks had a guy found dead behind it, "run over" by a train while passed out--I played that guy and others some 3 ball that night, then left with the cash when everybody pulled up. He stayed. The coroner said some train, how'd these chainsaw marks get here? Ah, Vernon Parish! :eek:
 
there are a couple places 50 miles west of Tallahassee that will make the hair on the back of your neck fall out.
 
Well, it wasn't a pool hall but a strip club that was next door to the motel that I was staying at in Little Rock while working in the States.

I had a United Motorcyclist tee shirt on. That was a small bike club where I was from. Toy runs, dances, swap meets, that sort of thing but certainly not a club patch.

A lot of clubbers in there as some of their property was dancing and working the bar.

Needless to say, some drunk clown out of towner with a patch got a hard on for me because of the shirt and was lucky to git when the gittin was good.

So, altho it was not a pool hall, I can say I know the feeling of being out gunned and out numbered.

When I hit the outside, lets just say I wasn't going for a night stroll, I was double timing it.

West Point. Sounds like a couple of people that you have played didn't have very good luck. Maybe if we ever meet, we'll just have a couple of beer and skip the table. OK.

Tramp, been meaning to ask. Did they have a pool table on the sub that you were stationed on?

Man, I don't know how you guys did it. I don't care for water, don't like closed in spaces and don't care to be under the water for long.

To me, that would be much worse than walking into the wrong bar. Can't just say, excuse me Cap but I think I made a mistake, would you mind dropping me off at the next available dock.
 
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was cruising thru the bars and clubs on Rush St in Chicago with a couple of buds back in college, and somehow wandered into a place full of argyle and popped collars!!! :eek: AAAAAHHHHHH! Ran outta that yuppy joint as quick as we could.








A little later with many more drinks under our belts we walked back in with a bet between us....first to get a chick named Buffy ('s) phone number got a hundo from the other two. lol :p I won!! :thumbup:
 
About 20 years ago, when I first started to play the game, my friend and I would travel up to the original Hollywood Billiards off of Western after our local room closed. One of those nights, my friend somehow got into an agreement to back a strong local player named Dana. I'm really not sure how this all got arranged because, to my knowledge, my friend was only the barest of acquaintances with Dana.

Anyways, Dana told us that he had a great game set up at a pool hall not too far from there. We all piled into my Honda Accord and ended up driving to Sportsman's Family Billiards on Crenshaw Blvd, in a neighborhood to which I never been. Insisting that he had the nuts in this game, Dana led us confidently through the front door.

As soon as we stepped into the place it was like a movie scene where the DJ brings a record he's spinning to a screeching halt. It was really like time stood still.

I immediately noticed 3 things in that instant of time:

1. There was a giant mural of all of the great black leaders in US history on the back wall. MLK, Malcolm, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass, et al. I recognized them because I had just taken a course on US Black History in college.

2. No one was playing 9 ball. This was a shock to me because I assumed that gambling in pool equated to playing 9 ball. Yes, I'll admit that I was young and ignorant at the time.

3. Everybody in there was black except the 4 of us. Dana was a tall, pasty white fellow and the three of us were Asian.

Actually, I noticed one other thing. Everyone in there was staring at us like we had just stepped out of a spaceship.

As it turns out, they were staring at us because they knew we had come to gamble. Everyone in there was totally chill; happy that a road player had come into to play for some cash.

Dana ended up playing banks with one of the regulars in there and coming out about $1000 ahead.

The denouement of the story is that I bought a house in a neighborhood not too far from Sportman's and decided that I'd drive down Crenshaw to see if it was still open. To my amazement, it was still there and in business. I called my friend, Dana's backer all those years ago, and arranged for us to play a couple of sets there for old time's sake.

Not more than 30 minutes had passed when the same guy that played Dana in banks 20 years ago started to practice on the table next to us.

Makes me laugh to this day.

Taek
 
Blue Hog ridr said:
.
Tramp, been meaning to ask. Did they have a pool table on the sub that you were stationed on?

Man, I don't know how you guys did it. I don't care for water, don't like closed in spaces and don't care to be under the water for long.

To me, that would be much worse than walking into the wrong bar. Can't just say, excuse me Cap but I think I made a mistake, would you mind dropping me off at the next available dock.
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Nope, but we did have a couple of sheep. Those mid-watches can get lonely as hell when out to sea for days on end. :smile:
 
I went to a hall out of town once because I was in the area and bored. I went to get a table to practice and some Asian guy comes up and asks to play some cheap sets. We play and I'm up about 40 bucks and I suddenly notice he's got about 10 buddies watching from across the room. About ten minutes later, as I'm shooting, I notice some more guys outside passing something from car to car. I looked a little closer and could see they were handfuls of baseball bats and pipes. Things were not looking good... so I said thanks for the game, broke down my cue, and got the heck outta there.
 
Leesville

:grin:
West Point 1987 said:
Funny you mention northern LA...I spent my formative pool years in Leesville at Fort Polk...two of the bars I frequented had murders in them on a night I was somewhere else (whew!) or just after I left...one was a biker club (the "Wolf's Den", an old Blackhawks hangout), a guy named Peanut (who was usually drunk or high) mouthed off to someone's Old Lady, then slapped her, then was stabbed to death (I played him for change the night before on the same table he later bled out under). Another little bar off the train tracks had a guy found dead behind it, "run over" by a train while passed out--I played that guy and others some 3 ball that night, then left with the cash when everybody pulled up. He stayed. The coroner said some train, how'd these chainsaw marks get here? Ah, Vernon Parish! :eek:
Click to expand...

Think I passed through the Wolf's Den a time or two way back when. Two of my best friends, fans from stock car days, and drinking buddies at times were from that area. A lot of those local boys were good enough fellows but the wore their clothes out from the inside first, rough as a cob! The younger of them was the one I first heard of PCP from, those country boys were eating pig tranquilizers long before it was cool. I never wanted any part of that myself.

Came close to marrying one of them's sister long ago. I used to hang at a biker bar she was running. No big score to be had there but the had four bar tables, maybe six, and the bikers were good to keep me in beer and maybe drag a hundred or two a week out of there in small bets.

One fine night two guys I knew, best friends with each other and running buddies, had been sitting at the bar and talking trash to each other since I came in and everybody was ignoring them. One decided he was ready to fight and reached in his belt to set his thirty-eight on the bar to try to avoid shooting his own pecker off rolling around on the floor. He neglected to mention his intention first and when the gun flashed Johnny hit Doug upside the head with the beer mug he had his hand around. Gore flew and they went to rolling around on the floor. For reasons I'm not sure of every other guy in the place snatched out a piece, half the ladies did too. I jerked the bottom of my t-shirt up, reached down, and snatched out a half a handful of belly hair! Damn that stung and reminded me of the little detail that I was the only male in the place except for maybe Johnny who wasn't toting a gun. Oops!

Hu
 
More than 10 years ago 2 friends and I walk into a poolroom in a less than stellar area of camden new jersey. We were there to try our hand at their weekly tournament. Fast forward several hours, the three of us took 1st-3rd place and all the payouts even the calcutta (bet on ourselves). Once we collect our winnings we could clearly see the body language change and the tension was palpable. I suggest its time we head home, its around 1a at this time. Both friends agree and we hastily made it for the door. On our way to the door I was alert enough to use anything shiny as to see the reflection of anything behind us as we were walking out, and boy was there. Several of the players had unscrewed their cues and were walking behind us with butt and shaft in each of their hands. We step outside and here were nearly a dozen people outside with objects in their hands that looked pretty intimidating. We are parked nearly 50 yards from the entrance. My buddy hits teh auto starter on his vehicle. At about half way to the vehicle both groups from inside and out start walking much quicker than before behind us. They randomly stopped and started yelling a ton of profanities at us. The driver of our group (the weakest player and physically weakest also) decides to turn around and hollars this gem of a question "hey whats the problem you wanna play for some more?" The entire gang of people rushed us. We got in our vehicle and took off. They piled into their cars like clown cars and started chasing us through the streets. We finally make it to the walt whitman bridge the chase seems to have been going on forever at this point. We are blowing red lights in speeds in excess of 100MPH. Not until we blew a red light and caught the attention of several patrol cars did they stop and turn around. Luckily the officers were incredibly cool and listened our story. Turns out a few of them were ball bangers just like us and let us go with a warning. Needless to say we never went back to that poolroom.
 
walked into a hall once and there was so much cigarette smoke that I couldn't even see the table closest to me, which was no more than maybe 8 feet away
 
ShootingArts said:
:grin:

Think I passed through the Wolf's Den a time or two way back when. Two of my best friends, fans from stock car days, and drinking buddies at times were from that area. A lot of those local boys were good enough fellows but the wore their clothes out from the inside first, rough as a cob! The younger of them was the one I first heard of PCP from, those country boys were eating pig tranquilizers long before it was cool. I never wanted any part of that myself.

Came close to marrying one of them's sister long ago. I used to hang at a biker bar she was running. No big score to be had there but the had four bar tables, maybe six, and the bikers were good to keep me in beer and maybe drag a hundred or two a week out of there in small bets.

One fine night two guys I knew, best friends with each other and running buddies, had been sitting at the bar and talking trash to each other since I came in and everybody was ignoring them. One decided he was ready to fight and reached in his belt to set his thirty-eight on the bar to try to avoid shooting his own pecker off rolling around on the floor. He neglected to mention his intention first and when the gun flashed Johnny hit Doug upside the head with the beer mug he had his hand around. Gore flew and they went to rolling around on the floor. For reasons I'm not sure of every other guy in the place snatched out a piece, half the ladies did too. I jerked the bottom of my t-shirt up, reached down, and snatched out a half a handful of belly hair! Damn that stung and reminded me of the little detail that I was the only male in the place except for maybe Johnny who wasn't toting a gun. Oops!

Hu
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i was visiting my cousin one time about 15 years ago who lived south of jackson tn. we decided to go to jackson and shoot some pool. the place was pretty dead and we got tired of playing each other when we could not get any action so we left.

we were headed back to his house when we come up on a biker bar. i decided to stop in, my cousin was not too keen on the idea and i told him it will be ok, you be cool and they will be cool.

well i got in some 5.00 a game action and i kept it close enough so they thought they had a chance beatin me. while playing i kept talking to this girl and my cousin was talking to her friend. while shooting she brought me a fried bologna sandwich from this free buffet they had. well i ate about 4 or 5 of them sandwiches and washed them down with about 8 or 9 beers. been drinking ever since we went to that pool hall earlier.

still playing pool and talking with that girl and my cousin tells me i am bringing some unwanted attention to myself. i say whatya mean. he says a few of them bikers is staring at us. i look over and see 4 sitting at a table staring at us and i figure one of them is sweet on this girl. oops. i say lets hit the road.

well we get to my cousins house about 2 in the mornin and he says spend the night. i say i can make it back to memphis i got stuff to do in the mornin. well i get back to jackson and the beer and fried bologna sandwiches take their toll on me.

i pull into a truckstop parking lot and throw up and just pass out.

lemme tell you .... waking up in a hot ass truck about 9 in the mornin with puke all over you and also evey inch of the dash and steering wheel is also covered too aint a good way to start the mornin.

i pull over to the pumps and get a water hose and just start spraying my self and the inside of my truck too. people were staring at me like i was an alien or something.

it took a week to get the smell outa my truck. oops!
 
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