brooklyn with danny and joe

FAMILY GAME OF CHANCE AND MORE STORIES

(BETTER IF YOU GO TO CH 1 AND WORK YOUR WAY TO CH 10--CLICK ON OLD ENTRY AT TOP OF JOURNAL)

The word would go out “Go get your money” and the family would go to different parts of the apartment to retrieve their stash. Everyone had their own hiding place for the little money we had. It was called the ripping of the oilcloth. My mother loved to play cards with the family; usually dad would win when we were young, but now that we were older and had more money, it was a real contest. My mother was the person who made the game of poker fun; she would never drop out of the hand even if you had her beat on the table. “Mom, I have a full house showing, and you don’t have a pair, you can’t beat me.” Mom would call any bet you made and then say, “I just wanted to see what you had”. Sometimes that is not bad strategy, but if you do it every hand, you will go broke, and mom did. My father would shake his head because he knew what was coming, “Denny, let me have some money”. When my father would protest she would say, “Don’t be such a fusspot,” reach over and get some more chips from his pile. This ritual happened at every game we played, except when mom was lucky.

The contest was about beating dad, when we were younger he would overpower us with money, and now to beat him was a great prize. The fact my father was a very good poker player added to the joy. The game would usually follow a discussion about the stakes of the game, we were all concerned about not really hurting anyone in the family financially, however once the game started you were on your own.

The game we played was dependent on the dealer, it was dealer’s choice and we played some strange games. My mom loved follow the queen, the wild card was the card following a turned up queen, which meant the wild card could change at any moment. You could go from having four of a kind to two pair by a flip of a card, mom just loved that game. I was the conservative of the group and liked five card stud, nothing wild. Agnes liked all the games and I think she favored five-card draw, jacks or better to open; she was also a good player. Carol loved wild cards and would call “Deuces wild” or “One eyed jacks wild”. Carol was the type of card player who could take all your money and you would spend a lot of time trying to figure out what happened. She beat me out of the chocolates and she used to beat me in the money games. Denis, when on vacation fromdoing God’s work, was also a good player, much more predictable than my sisters. The game always started on a reasonable level of betting, however the end of the game always, and I mean always ended with “Banker Broker”.

Banker Broker was a very simple game to play, depending on the number of players the deck of cards would be split into piles. The dealer had a huge advantage over the players and dad liked being the dealer. Each player picked a pile and made a wager by putting money on top of the pile, the remaining pile would be for the dealer, all ties went to the dealer and that gave whoever was dealing a big advantage. Once all the money was bet the dealer would turn over his/her pile and each player would then turn over their pile, if you beat the dealer’s card you won that bet. Dad would announce Banker Broker with a smile and I would moan, and say goodbye to my money. Sometimes things would backfire and dad would take a bath, but most of the time he would win and we would have to borrow money from him after the game. During the games, we had great fun sharing how our days were going. The best part were the stories, everyone loved to tell yarns about family members or something special that had happened years ago.

“Denis, do you remember the time of the sugar raids?” Agnes asked and the stories would begin. “We all used to wait until we heard mom and dad snoring away, and then slip out of our beds and crawl past their bed to get to the kitchen. Denis would do this four or five times a night. The rest of us would go for donuts or ice cream but not brother Denis; he would go for a sandwich made of butter and sugar. It got so bad I remember mom and dad would hide the sugar in the icebox. It only took Denis a few tries and he found where the sugar was hidden. Mom and dad became concerned about the amount of sugar and finally took a desperate step, they locked the icebox before going to bed. The only way dad could lock up the sugar was to wrap a big chain around the icebox and put a lock on the chain. This seemed to work really well until one night dad was tired and wrapped the ice box up before going to bed early and would you believe it, there was a knock at the door and when I opened it there stood Uncle John and family. Dad had the key and mom could not get the chain off before John, the oldest boy, announced that there was a big chain around the icebox. Mymom was mortified, and ran to wake up dad so he could explain why we had a lockand chain around the ice box.”

Carol, not having any luck with the cards would jump into the story telling, “Joe, remember the time you almost knocked down the ceiling of the old woman who lives across the street? Well, let me tell you what I know. Joe and some of his friends were playing stickball and the two “Spalldines” they were using landed on the roof and they had to go get them or the games would be over. They went over to Tony’s house and climbed up the fire escape to get on the roof. You know that old guy who lives a few houses down from Tony heard them on the roof and went up to find out what was going on. When he saw Joe and his friends, he started yelling and the chase was on. The only way to run was down the rooftops to the old lady’s house and jump. The problem with jumping meant going from a three story to a two-story house. Joe and his friends jumped and the old lady almost had a heart attack when they hit her roof. She came out yelling, the old guy up on the roof was yelling and Mrs. Pecci was yelling because one of Joe’s friends was her son.” 

I was winning the card game, so I was not paying too much attention to the look on my mom’s face, and then I saw it. The Walsh look, my mom did not know about me jumping off the roof. I made an announcement, “If I win at cards tonight, tomorrow after mass I’ll stop at the bakery.” The bakery was on Ralph Ave. and on the way home from church we sometimes would stop in and buys rolls, or the big half-vanilla and half-chocolate cookies, you knew you were near the bakery a block away, the fragrance was intoxicating. My favorite was the apple turnovers.

Dad was looking at the clock; I knew I only had a short time before he would say, “Banker Broker”. My mom saved us by saying, “Agnes, you remember the time Danny was running through the halls and trying to get everyone out because there was a fire downstairs?” I asked my mom to tell the story, hoping my father would forget about his game and I would get away with a few bucks. “Well, as I remember it, one of the Herberts was lighting the kerosene heater when somebody spilled the can and a fire started. This was a serious fire so Danny ran to warn the families in the house. He talked to Joe who ran in to wake up Agnes and tell her there was a fire downstairs and they all had to leave, and your sister looked at him and said something like, “The fire is downstairs, wake me up when it gets here.”

“Mom, your turn to deal,”Agnes said as she handed my mother the deck of cards. “Dad tell us about growing up in Ireland”, I asked. “Well, after the fourth grade I had to go to work for the rich farmer. We worked from sun up to sun down, and any money we made went to our family. I would see my mom and dad once or twice a year. “When did you come to America?” Carol asked “I got here in 1929, there was suppose to be gold on the streets; instead people were jumping out of the windows because they lost all their money.” “How did you get here?” I asked. “Your grandfather came first, then your Uncle Jack, then Uncle Bill and finally me. We all worked together to bring the next person over, but my sister fell in love and when it was time for my mother and sister to come over, they said no. Your grandfather went back to Ireland to be with your grandmother and we stayed.”

We were playing follow the queen and it looked like mom was going to win a big pot and God help the person who dropped out. Mom did win and Dad looked happier than my mom. “Joe, do you remember the time Mom and Dad had to give you your gifts on Christmas Eve because you thought Santa Clause was going to give you a piece of coal because you were bad all year?” Denis asked. “I wonder who told Joe something like that, Denis?” my mom asked. “He was crying so hard that his pajama bottom fell down and we could not stop laughing. The more we laughed the more he would cry, it was so funny.” said my older loving sister. “Well, you were bad all year and deserved to get coal” Denis said, there didn’t seem to be much arguing going on in my defense.

“Banker Broker” my father announced, the poker game was coming to an end. I remember thinking how I loved playing cards with this group and the next time we would play there would be new and funnier stories to tell.