Legacy

Let me tell you about my friend, John.  His friends called him Honest John because he was as honest as the day is long, honestly.  Honest John would never steal, rob, lie, cheat, mislead or not honor his word.  Honest John’s word was money in the bank as they say.

Exceptions, well that depends on ones viewpoint.  John honestly thought it was not dishonest to crook a crook.  Honest John thought  crooking a crook was honest and proper in the name of fair play and turning the tables, or leveling the playing field as some might say.

Now Honest John was an observant young man, had been since Junior High School a decade or so back.  John used to like to play the games at the State Fair.  John was very accomplished at playing the claw machines that had fairly decent prizes in them at a dime per play.

John had over a few years gathered up a half a bushel of pocket knives and mini cameras.  Retail about a dollar to a dollar and a half per item.  Its important to note it was the years of the late forties and early fifties that John  amassed the prime items, so that was a bit of value in those days.  The main prize in each machine was a silver dollar always back in a hard to reach spot at the right rear of the play field.

To make it sporting to get a silver dollar the not so honest concession operator who was surrounded by about thirty machines, would darn near bury the silver dollar.  It was hard for an inexperienced player to get even when it was laying in plain sight.  Now players would work hard to dig those silver dollars out, and more often than not would run out of dimes before they could actually get it.  As it were, they got it up where the next guy could get it if he was fast.  Now the concession operator would rebury the silver dollar as soon as he noticed someone had loosened it up and then quit playing.

So Honest Johns approach was to play and grab here and there nice items all while keeping a close eye out for a loosened up silver dollars that someone gave up on getting.  Then John would with great haste plunk down his dime before it could be reburied.  You see the operator of the concession couldn’t fool with the prizes once a player was active at a claw machine.  So Honest and observant John got quite a few silver dollars.

In fact Honest John was so good at playing those claw machines that at one time he was hauling out so much that the other players stopped and formed a small crowd just to watch him, and cheer him on.  This of course was not making any money for the unhappy concession operator.  You won’t believe what happened next, but I honestly assure you it’s the honest truth.  He leaned over and said to Honest John, I’ll give you ten dollars to go away.  Well since that was equal to the price of one hundred plays, Honest John accepted the offer and went away.  Honest John lived up to his reputation by doing as he’d agreed.

Of course he only went away about two hundred feet to another similar claw machine concession.  Wherein now being well funded for a fourteen year old, had a field day.

Now so far folk’s, I have just told you the start of things.  The next thing John observed is that most of the carnival type games were obviously rigged.  Some he couldn’t figure out how, others it was more obvious.  It was the obvious ones he was smart enough to use that knowledge to turn the tables in his favor.  There was this game where a ball about the size of a golf ball would be released from a chute and wander/wobble around a board about two feet by two feet until it fell into a colored hole.  There were six holes, each a different color.

The barker would cry place your bets folks on your favorite color, when all colors are bet on the ball will decide the winner, and there is a winner every time.  That was true.  However it didn’t take to much time for observant Honest John to figure out the winner by some strange coincidence was always the color that had the least amount of bets on it.

Having that new bit of insight, Honest John would wait until all colors were bet on but one, then bet on that one.  My, my, how phenomenal the amount of times Honest John was the winner.  You see the balls had a steel center and the holes were magnetically controlled.  Of course the game operator not being totally stupid probably figured out that John had figured it out.  But he didn’t care there was a winner every time, and a frequent winner was a good shill even if not hired to be.

Then there was the Shooting Gallery, three shots for twenty five cents, one quarter of a dollar. Three shots from a twenty two caliber rifle was supposed to remove the 22 caliber size red dot in the middle of the target.  Not even a trace of red could be left or it was not a winner.  What was crooked about the game?  All the front sights had been tampered with just a wee bit, not enough for the average person to note, but Honest John being an avid and excellent shooter/marksman noticed.

Now even with the finest target rifle money could buy, that would be a near impossible shot because round nose bullets don’t punch nice clean holes so much as they punch through the paper.  There were samples of winning targets up, which goes to show that accidents happen even in the face of million to one odds.  The barker would always ballyhoo  that if you don’t like our rifles, bring your own.  That of course was hot air because no one in their right mind would walk into a crowded carnival with a rifle.

That of course didn’t prevent Honest John from bringing his own bullets.  He brought six, to use at two different Shooting Galleries.  Honest John had honestly clipped the bullet noses so that they were now flat like a paper punch.  Honest John plunked down his quarter and was given a tube magazine with three bullets in it.  That magazine went into the rear of the stock on what they called “Galley Rifles”, short barreled Winchester pumps that is.

The only thing that kept the bullets from falling out was insertion into the rifle.  So honest John said whoops! As he accidentally dumped them on the counter.  Then with the hand he’d palmed his own special three bullets and put them  in, made  a sweeping motion and whisked the original off the counter and onto the ground.

The old, the hand is swifter than the eye bit in poetic motion.  Honest John then loaded his three bullets in.  Picked up the rifle and with the eye of an eagle determined just how finite and in what direction the front sight had been fooled with, and fired three rounds, punching out all of the red.  The game operator was more than a little irritated to be handing fourteen year old Honest John a twenty dollar bill as a prize.  But with the cheering on lookers, he had no choice.  Of course he hollered  “look folks, it easy, even a kid can do it”  Honest John smiled to himself, knowing it would probably take at least four hours worth of suckers for the operator to recoup the prize payout.

Honestly, I didn’t know what Honest John was going to do next. But here is what happened next.  Fast forward a few years and we find that Honest John has enlisted in the service.  Now Honest John liked to gamble small, just for fun, winning was just a way to keep score for John.  For others it was all too important, which never works in a card players favor.  When winning becomes so important that it takes the fun out of the game, then that person plays to tight and loses more than they win.

But when it’s just for fun, one plays loose and free and usually wins more than they lose.  Kind of like don’t take yourself to serious, never helps you in the long run was Johns attitude.

John played a lot of cards in the service, had a fun time, didn’t get rich, but managed to stay on top of it.  Honest John knew there were people who could manipulate a deck of cards, they were called “Mechanics” and could give anyone just what they wished at a table of players.  However in the service, John never encountered any such cheats.  Honest John wouldn’t even know how top manipulate a deck and wouldn’t learn to because Honest John was honest.

Honest John finished his time in the service and came back to civilian life, got married, got a job, and all the normal things a young man starting a family doe’s.  John still enjoyed playing cards.  So it wasn’t long until he and a group of friends met once a week for a poker game. It was low stakes and fun was had by all and the fellowship was excellent.

After a couple of years the group slowly broke up due to fellows moving away because of job changes mostly, until there were only two, left.  Not enough to form a playing group.

Now Honest John was never an addicted gambler, he never bet heavy stakes or wasted hundreds of dollars on lottery tickets.  He did however have an itch for poker games, as a fun activity, not a revenue gainer.  So John asked around and found out there was a regular Saturday night poker game at the local Antlers Club.

That John thought was good news, so he went on down to check it out the next Saturday night.  Sure enough there was a game going and he was made welcome.  Johns luck was unbelievably good, he right off won hand after hand, then like turning off a light switch John lost hand after hand, until he was cleaned out, about a hundred dollars worth of cleaned out.  John had never lost more than ten dollars during an evening of gaming before; and then only if luck had been totally bad.

Now, again observant John was quick to figure he’d been run up and down like a yoyo on a string, played like a fish, sucker fish that is.  Indeed there was a bunch of “Mechanics” at that table.  They may have played honest with each other, who knows; but John knew when he’d been cheated.

Now it’s hard to get the best of Honest John, because he’s honest and he’s savvy.  So Honest John let about six weeks go by so those rascals would have forgotten his face.  Then he came back for some more card playing.  Same song second verse, he just couldn’t stop winning, and after many hands, he finally lost one.

Honest John knew that they had had their fun and were about to reel in the fish. That being Honest John, sucker fish.  Only this time Honest John said, where’s the restroom?  Someone said out the door and down the hall to the right.  Honest John scooped up the pile of money and stuck it in his shirt pocket; got up a said keep the chair warm fellows I’ll be back shortly.

Honest John then went out the door but didn’t turn right; he turned left, hurried down the stairs and out of the building.  He went home with a smile of satisfaction.  He’d gotten his money back and a wee bit more to boot.  In telling his friends about it and to beware that place, he said, I bet that before the night was over they figured out I’d been there before.  That got a good round of laughter.

Now as fickle fate sometimes has it, John had to take a business trip, it would keep him in Las Vegas about a week. Now of course that meant access to casinos.  Honest John was a curious soul so he went and observed.  Now John had always heard and had no reason to doubt it, that most casinos employed shills.  That’s a person on the casino payroll which frequently wins big, but always turns the winnings back.  They are well paid to make it look like winning is easy, when it isn’t.

John observed at the Blackjack tables that early customers that played before the main crowds started coming in, would be frequent winners.  They were being used as unwitting shills.  The dealer would play loose and stupid making it easy for players to win two times out of three.  Others would notice and pretty soon a lot were playing.  All of the sudden by the strangest of coincidence the dealers would start playing like they had a brain.

Having taken due note, John for a couple of early evenings pocketed the equivalent of a few days extra wages, by taking advantage of the obvious.  Then John watched the Roulette Wheels for a while.  John had always seen in old west movies how Roulette Wheels were supposedly mechanically rigged.  John figured that to be just a lot of movie hype because he couldn’t think of a way mechanical rigging could be done

He though electronically maybe as he remembered the ball in the hole game at the carnival when he was a kid.  John figured rigging Roulette wheel was a waste of time because the odds were a hundred to one against winning in the first place.  Roulette was indeed a game favoring the Casino heavily.  In going from one Roulette table to the next John did observe that anytime anyone placed a huge bet, the ball would always end up on Black 00. A slot hardly anyone would ever bet on, and if they did, it was still a hundred to one shot.  However if they did, the wheel would run honest, with little chance of the casino loosing.

John also noticed that the operators of the Roulette tables were also dressed alike, even down to matching rings.  Then Honest John with the keen eye of an Eagle, also observed that when a heavy bet was down, that in addition to the ball always ending up on Black 00, the table operator would fidget and play with his ring.

That made it obvious to John that the Black Hematite stone in the ring was probably a micro switch.  One that sent an on signal to a powerful magnet under Black 00.  John being fairly certain of his guess being right, observed the rings appearance.

With that in mind he went to a Pawn Shop called Pawn Stars and bought a plain ordinary ring that looked exactly the same as the Roulette table operators rings.  Again the hand being faster than the eye, remember the swift bullet switch Honest John made when he was just fourteen?

With that in mind Honest John accidentally spilt his Milkshake on the ring hand of a passing  Roulette table operator on his way to his duty station, a table.  John apologized profusely and whipped out his handkerchief and wiped the mans hand off, removing his ring in the process.  Then he said whoops! Looks like I wiped off to much and while he’d palmed the real ring that was a micro switch.  Substituting the look alike ring.  No one noticed the difference.

Then Honest John went to another Roulette table, placed one thousand dollars worth of chips on Black 00.  If he won it would pay twenty to one.  Fancy that since the odds of winning are a hundred to one to start with.  You see the house always has it all stacked in their favor, no need to cheat, but they do anyway.

The ball went around and around, obviously the operator wouldn’t press the switch on his ring since the bet was on Black 00.  But John did.  The payout was twenty thousand dollars.  The operator was not happy; he knew the casino owners would grill him for hours about him being in on the win.

There is where John was smart; he knew if he’d bet ten thousand dollars with a two hundred thousand dollar payout, that he’d end up in a back office being grilled as to how he cheated the cheats,  crooked the crooks, if you will.  So he went the low road and came home happy it had been a profitable trip, not only business wise, but in his evening hours as well.

As they say, you can’t cheat an honest man, that’s generally true, but it doesn’t mean an honest man can’t cheat a cheat.  Fair enough, don’t you think?