Weeping Willie

'Do not be moved by what you see. Appearances can be deceiving.'

That statement from someone I knew a long time ago appropriately describes Willie. The other poker players at Lake Elsinore's Sahara Dunes Card Room between Pomona and San Diego nicknamed him Weeping Willie for reasons you will soon discover.

Tina came up with the statement on not being moved by mere appearances, by the way. She was a dancer, a native of the Philippines. She grew up in a the tropics, the only child of a Filipino Captain who served honorably against the Japanese Empire during World War 2.

Among the other things he taught Tina as a child was how to make hand grenades. Our relationship was short-lived, which was probably a good thing. But she did leave me with some good memories and some excellent advice in reading other people.

So there I was in the Sahara Dunes Card Room on a Friday night. It was near midnight and most of the players, including Willie and myself, were well into our cups. The table was full and the game had plenty of action. We were playing $5-10 Texas Hold'em with a kill, and some of the pots were huge.

The first thing I noticed about Willie was that he had only one arm. The other was terribly scarred and he had only stubs for fingers. He noticed me looking at his arm and cocked an eyebrow.

'Wanna know how I lost my arm?,' he said, drowning a shot of whiskey and chasing it with a swig of beer. 'It's a sad story. Sad but true. The story of my life.'

Willie was a little guy, not over five-four. Somebody in the card room claimed he had once been a jockey at Santa Anita Race Track. Somebody else claimed, 'No way. Nobody would hire Willie for anything that important. He's totally unreliable. Maybe he exercised horses, but jockey? Not a chance.'

The regulars at Sahara Dunes were all drinkers. No mineral water or Perrier for that bunch! Friday evening was our night to howl. Most of the regulars like Rita, a former topless dancer who lived in Hollywood, Jake, her crop-dusting boy friend, and Tony, who claimed he once served as a body guard for Al Capone, were divorced or drifters. They lived for the moment 24 hours a day, and they never had a dull moment in their lives.

I wasn't really interested in chatting with Willie if you want to know the truth. I was ahead about $600 after 18 hours of playing, and I was interested in keeping my profits. Listening to somebody's tales at a poker table can be destructive to your bankroll.

But Willie was an engaging sort and he kept prodding me. He asked whether I had a family and, reluctantly, I confessed I did. Over the next hour I told him about my wife and two children, and admitted in a candid moment that I spent too much of my time playing poker when I should have been at home taking care of family things.

Willie nodded and signaled for another drink. 'Yeah, I know all about that,' he said in a voice roughened by liquor and years of hard living. 'I had a family once. Wife and two great kids. Then the fire came.'

'Fire?'

Willie drained the beer bottle and reached for another. 'Electrical malfunction. Hit the apartment complex where we were living. I woke up to find the apartment filled with smoke. I couldn't see a damn thing. By the time I came to my senses, it was too late. I somehow managed to crash through a window. Saved my own life, which was regrettable. My wife and children didn't make it.'

That signaled for another round of drinks. I felt sympathy for Willie -- deep sympathy. Thinking off my own wife and children put me on a guilt trip I simply could not handle. By the time Saturday morning rolled around, my mountain of chips had dwindled to an anthill while Willie's had grown into Mt. Everest.

I finally decided enough was enough. I tossed the female dealer a chip, picked up the rest of my stack and headed for the cashier's window to collect what was left of my winnings.

Red, the cashier, counted my chips and handed me my money. 'What happened,' he said. 'When I last looked at the table, you were king of the the hill.'

I shrugged. 'Win some and lose some,' I mumbled. 'That's really something about Willie. Losing his wife and kids to that fire.'

Red looked at me and grinned. Then he shook his head and began laughing.

'Did he tell you that cock-and-bull story?', he said. 'Hell, Willie didn't lose anybody in a fire. He's never been married. He was born with that bum arm and uses that story to gain sympathy from people he can't beat at poker. That's why we call him Weeping Willie. He can make anybody cry with that yarn before he takes their cash.'

'Do not be moved by what you see.' If I ever meet that SOB Willie again, hopefully at a poker table, just wait. I have a yarn to tell him that he'll never forget.

Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.

(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter. If you have a unique gambling story to share with him, you may qualify for a cash award. Send your story with all the details to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).