Red Chip Diaries, Vol. 4: "Death Night"
“Red Chip Diaries” is the running series of stories chronicling my experiences as a semi-professional poker dealer at a semi-legal “charity” gaming operation. If you haven’t caught the previous three installments, you can check them out below to get caught up or better yet, just drop a cinder block on your head for not finding them sooner.
Today’s story details (and by details I mean skims over and probably exaggerates the facts as I vaguely remember them) the night that I and everyone at casino night almost died. Kindof. Keep reading.
The “night we almost died” centers around several key characters. On one side of the incident you’ve got “KJ,” the main character in “Killer Head” and her pseudo-boyfriend “Mike.” (I don’t know why I put quotes around “Mike” because that was actually his real name.)
On the other side are “Paul” and “Bubba,” two pretty cool guys that came around casino nights a lot with fatter wads than Costanza’s wallet. I’m pretty sure it was all drug money though because their beepers honestly blew up more than Ashlee Simpson’s cell at an “I Suck” convention – these guys put Jamal Lewis to shame.
Most of the better players liked when Paul and Bubba came around because they would play “loose” with their 1,000’s of dollars, just throwing chips into the pot like they were Chuck-E-Cheese coins. Now that I think about it, Chuck-E-Cheese coins are way better than money… and I hear they’re doing quite well against the Yen these days too.
Anyway, Mike and KJ were not too fond of these guys because they always seemed to lose to Paul and Bubba’s “shitty ass hands,” I believe they so eloquently described them. This night in particular was extra rough on the lovebirds and tensions finally boiled over.
I was dealing at their table and Mike got beat by Paul’s “2-4 offsuit” which – in case you haven’t caught one of the 5,476,286 World Series of Poker reruns on the ESPN family – is pretty weak. Completely frustrated, knowing his kids were going to have to settle for the “Sam’s Choice” brand of Cola that week, Mike threw his cards at Paul Gambit-style, who immediately took offense.
I had no idea what to do. My “boss” told me to get control of the table, but that was like telling Clay Aiken to “get in control” of a Tyson-Spinks streetfight. I had no idea what to do. What I should have said was “Take it easy guys,” but what I actually said to Paul was “Why don’t you settle this like a man and beat his ass?” Okay so I didn’t say that, but you can imagine what it’d be like if I did.
Yada, yada, yada, my shift at the table was over so I went to the other table to start my next shift, and this is when all hell broke loose. See, the operator of “casino nights” usually hires a rent-a-cop, but he’d left earlier that night. This left me, my buddy Lupus, and two thirtysomething, twohundredpound women to fend off
Something happened back at the “ground zero” table, and a shouting match ensued. Mike and KJ were yelling at Paul and Bubba for some reason that I can’t remember. Paul was playing it cool and said “Come on, you guys are adults,” but in his thug accent it sounded like “You guys are DOGS.” Uh-oh. Mike snapped.
At this point I honestly think I knew what it must feel like to attend the Source Awards. Given the fact that I’m pretty sure Paul and Bubba were “packing heat” and that we were about as close to any law enforcement as Taco Bell is close to serving real meat, I was starting to draft my final will and testament. I also wet myself.
Everyone froze. The tension was so thick, you couldn’t cut it with Jay Leno’s chin. Then, Vicki – the one in charge – stepped in and took control. Somehow she calmed them down by yelling and frantically shaking her disgustingly floppy breasts. She kicked out all the involved parties, they went their separate ways and the Robertcat lived to see another day. But his underpants didn’t. THE END.
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