Willie goes on a run...

The fire department is full of character heroes. One such was Willie, a notorious drinker until his late fifties before the realization of a sober life overtook him. He had eviscerated the idea that his heroism was generated by the rocket fuel (booze) of choice. He was also a badass clean sober. 

Before he became a sober thinker, he was notorious for going on runs and doing whatever, independent of any guidelines or behavior. It was at a Reno golf outing that he made his most famous assault upon logic.  The three-day golf tournament was truly a test for the stamina of the body, mind and most importantly the liver. Willie was taking care of two out of the three. 

We had a tournament banquet dinner, preceded by a hosted cocktail party, subsidized by free cocktails all day and night as long as you were gambling.  With wine at the table, Willie’s sobriety level first came into question; then was destroyed and buried. He was toasted and roasted.  Any other human would have collapsed in his room, fully clothed, awaiting the dawn. Not Willie. 

Willie charged out of the banquet room akin to Genghis Kahn leading a charge to the only operating crap table in the casino. First, at the rail, he was the lead gambler there before it became four or five deep. The problem wasn’t that Willie was standing at the table; it was way more complicated than that. Without the crowd behind him and the crap table rail ahead of him, Willie would surely be hanging onto the carpet threads surfing his way through the casino. Further, Willie insisted on placing his bets directly on the table numbers of choice with each roll of the dice. There are several problems with that; the dealers hate it and don’t allow it for a number of reasons, all of which Willie defied. Available bets on the crap table are numerous and complicated. Normally, a player places his chips on a blank portion of the table and announces his betting preference to the dealers. The table dealers, also known as croupiers, are the stewards and paymasters of all the bets placed therein and sometimes those that are expressed verbally at the last moment before a roll of the dice. At a crowded table, their systems are paramount to the functioning of and correct accounting for the bets, collections, and payoffs of betting monies place thereon. For instance, a player may make a two-stage bet, one bet is the standard bet while its odds bet is placed on top of the standard bet, offset and the in direction of the player. These systems are precise.  

When a person has lost all directional faculties of his limbs and speech, this can be problematic for the table whole. Imagine a hand holding numbers of chips operating like a construction excavator destroying piles of chips placed carefully by their managers whose accountability is paramount. There was Willie, placing his own bets instead of directing the croupiers and destroying piles and piles of monetary representations. In Willies' defense, he probably did that because he was incapable of forming cognitive words. This went on for thirty frustrating minutes for all concerned; in addition, the croupiers lost complete control of the table. True to the nature of gambling, the house stayed ahead of the players except for Willie, who just kept on winning and acting like a bull in a china shop despite repeated warnings. The game stopped every time Willie made a bet. 

Suddenly, there was an announcement from the pit boss (a casino manager who supervises several tables). “This game will not continue, until that man leaves,” barked the aggravated pit boss as he pointed an arm and finger with some difficulty at Willie, still a moving target. Willie's success at that table was terminated; his career there was ended as he was spun unceremoniously away from the table through the raucous five deep crowd and directed to the darkness outside the building. That was the last visual of Willie that his roommate Mark had seen of him the night he had been banished into the darkness and wilds of Virginia Street. 

Sometime later that evening, Mark, alone in the room began to worry about Willie. Although Mark knew that Willie had always led a charmed life, despite his addiction, he began to become apprehensive about Willie’s well-being. It was 12:30am and there was no Willie. Mark fell asleep only to wake up every hour on the hour peering towards Willie’s unoccupied bed but to no avail, non occupado, no Willie. Finally, somewhere around the crack of dawn, Mark heard snoring. There was a small amount of morning light advancing through the part of the window curtain. Mark could make out a shape, clothed and on top of the covers. Alas, it was Willie, glory hallelujah. He was safe; but there is something odd about Willie’s otherwise slender form. He looked lumpy. Unable to control his curiosity Mark walked around Willie’s bed to the bathroom light that would shed just enough light into the room to clarify the mystery. As he walked, Mark had discovered some discomfort underneath his bare feet. Mark flipped on the bathroom light to discover that Willie was indeed on top of the bed clothed and covered with gambling chips, black and white gambling chips, Franklins, that is a hundred dollars each folks, and they were everywhere, they were spilling out of his pockets and had covered his body.  He was a betting chip volcano; and the sharp objects on the floor, they were hundred dollar chips as well, in a trail that went from the door to Willie’s bed. Mark quickly opened the door to see if there were any outside; perhaps the foodservice jockeys received an unexpected bonus that night. Mark now relieved of Willies absence was overwhelmed with undying curiosity as to the careless abundance surrounding his roommate. 

Despite the early hour, Mark could no longer wait. Overcome by the questions of Willie’s success he nudged Willie. No luck except for the deep log sawing emanating from Willie’s whiskey flavored exhale. A larger nudge and a whisper were used but Willie was not moving cognitively. Finally, overcome by the building quest for answers Mark grabbed Willie by his shoulders and gave him a shake and said, “Willie are you ok?” “Yeah,” said Willie, his voice producing the best imitation of a road grader. “Where did you get all this money?” questioned Mark. Willie, now beginning to focus on the trail of chips on the floor, the stream of chips spilling out of his pockets, the piles littering the bed and all in one hundred dollar denominations exclaimed, “Hell if I know!” and he meant every word of it. The last moment that he remembered was, walking up to the prize table at the golf banquet the previous evening. His wrecking ball experience at the crap table was lost in the 86 proof vapors distilling further in his bloodstream; as was his pitch onto world-famous Virginia Street where he came, saw and conquered the crap tables of Reno albeit unconsciously. 

That morning was departure day. Once Mark was able to persuade Willie to clean-up, pack up and vacate the room for the inevitable Reno departure. It was time to do two more things before getting on the road; cash in the hundred dollar chips and get a Bloody Mary or two into Willie for the long ride home. At the Willie refueling depot, also known as “the Long Bar”, in the casino, Willie sidled up to his first Morning Mary building courage for the ride home even though Mark was an excellent driver on and off the job. While Willie was achieving his normal alcohol balance, he was approached not by one but several fellow golf tournament members who had run into Willie during his late evening excursion throughout Reno. Each possessed a relieved expression of Willie’s survival and presented him with handfuls of hundred dollar chips that Willie had asked them to hold for him until tomorrow.  It was tomorrow and additional handfuls of hundred dollar chips; more Franklins. The ride home would not be so long now that it was supplied with the product of the previous night’s adventure. Sadly for Willie, he remembered none of it