This was at the stone house on Glenmore at the top of the hill, these guys on a Friday or Saturday night, they’d get together and play cards, drink expensive booze, like Johnny Walker Blue Label—150 dollars at the time—and they’d give me shots of this booze. It was smooth as a baby’s hand. Couldn’t pay the money for it, but I could see where the money went. They’d bring me in there laughing and I’m sitting there drinking booze with these guys at the card table. They would give me like a $20 tip. They were mid-forties to late fifties, white guys, upper crust working men, like foremen or small business owners. They were a hell of a nice bunch of guys. They would order pizza and subs while their old ladies got together and did there women thing.
I had to be careful with deliveries like that, I’m already riding abound drinking beer and these guys are throwing me shots so I’m getting fucked up delivering pizzas. Sometimes the Indians I worked for would be calling me to see where I was and I’d have to tell my hosts it was time to go and leave the card table.
The card game they would play was either Texas Hold ’em or Five Card Draw, dealer’s choice games.
This stone house is built on the side of a granite ridge at the corner of a shaded lane that traces the ridge over to the top of the old Quarry above Route #1, locally, Belair Road, looking down upon the row of bars, including the infamous Hubcap, where Ron and his wife had their misadventures a dozen years earlier. This is one of the higher points in Northeast Baltimore, from where the Baltimore Harbor, from the Marine Terminals to the Key Bridge, may be seen by a man on foot.
Thriving in Bad Places Kindle Edition
