MR. Steve

This must have been around 1980, when I first moved back from Jackson, MS to New Orleans.  The infamous Sport Palace was my new stomping ground.  Once I set foot in this pool room, I virtually gave up the bar room pool action for good.

With all of the characters and action at the Sport Palace, one need not go anywhere else to be "edumacated".  I was a novice at best at this time in my life and was eager to learn as much as I could with my free time.  Hustlers, gamblers, scam artists, professional pool players, card sharks and the like were all so eager to help me with my learning.

In those days and even before that, you had to learn by "paying your dues".  That meant that you had to gamble with the better players and you would have to learn by having them beat you senseless or if you were a bit savvy in matching up with the players, you could delay or at least lessen the blows to your wallet while "paying your dues."

I took great care in learning all I could from one and all.   My teachers were many, of them New York Blackie, Al Werlein, Louie Knott, Earl Heisler, Fu Man Chu, Red Charlie, Jim the Lawyer, Mike the Lawyer, Tenneco, Chicken Joe, Big Willie, BJ, Knubby, Kenny the Cop, Rusty, Dave Tobin, Lance, Railroad Willie, Larry the golfer, Hotel Al (who gave me the nickname "Joey with a Tie") as well as many others whose names I have since forgotten and I can't forget all of the traveling pool players who regularly visited the Sport Palace those many years ago.  Each had a story.

This one is about a gentleman named Steve Paternastro (sp?).  Yes, we had gentlemen as well as con men and doctors who frequented the Devil's Den as some would be prone to call the Sport Palace.  MR. Steve was a distinguished man, known for his style of dress and his knowledge of pool, especially one pocket.  So it was no surprise to see me looking for him each time the door opened.  I came to learn that MR. Steve had emphysema and had trouble sleeping (well it seemed so).   MR. Steve almost always wore a stylish black hat and an overcoat and seemed to always arrive at midnight or just a bit after midnight.

If I had been working all day and playing into the night MR. Steve would seek me out, moving quietly and saying very little, but always made himself appear near wherever I was.  And as always, I made the first move, asking MR. Steve to play some one pocket.  At this time, he was a far more knowledgeable player than me but the fact that he would play for "cheap" made him the perfect teacher.  We would often play for $1 to $5 a game but never more than $5.  I never saw MR. Steve play anyone for more than $5 and he dressed well, so I just supposed that he didn't have the need to gamble for more than chuckles.  We probably played twenty to 30 times over a two year period and sometimes I would get lucky and we would break even but that wasn't a regular occurrence.  At that time, I kept track of my losses quite accurately and while I tried to balance my wins and losses, MR. Steve always got my cash or I broke even with him.  Who knows, he might have let me get even a few times to just keep me coming back for more.

Over a two year period, MR. Steve managed to win a total of $63 dollars from me.   It wasn't a King's Ransom but it was a lot of whippings because of the small dollars that we played for.   I didn't see him on a regular basis but I could always count on him teaching me a shot or two during our match and the bet was always cheap enough and it covered his pool time and I figured I would eventually learn and become a better player.  Over that two year period, I did become a better player with the "help" of MR. Steve and all of the others who shared my passion for the game of pool.  It seemed as I got better and better MR. Steve visited less often.  I didn't know if his lung condition had worsened or if he just didn't like to play pool as often but I did notice that he "appeared" less often as I improved my level of play at one pocket.  Finally, I had not seen MR. Steve for almost two months and one night just after midnight he appeared like a ghost in the night, slipping in quietly as he always did, wearing his trademarked black over-coat, black hat black trousers, black shoes and white shirt.  I immediately went into my pool sales spiel about having missed his lessons and so forth, eager to play him once again.  During those couple of months, I had worked hard on my game and had jumped up a ball or two and knew that MR. Steve was in for a thumping from Joey with a Tie.  Mr. Steve smiled and listened as I excitedly told him how I was looking forward to his match and then he lowered the boom on me and said, "Son, you are too good for me.  I can't beat you."  Well, I wasn't ready for that type of candor and sure didn't want to hear any of this.  After all, MR. Steve had beaten me mercilessly for over two years, never giving me a spot that I had a chance at winning with, reducing the spot (handicap) as the months and years went by to finally me getting no spot at all but only able to hold my own.  Now I was ready to get some of that money back that I had lost to him and while the money never was my motivation for playing pool and still isn't to this day as most will tell you, I was counting on beating on MR. Steve, at least hoping to regain some of my dignity in green backs no matter how small the count.  I looked at MR. Steve earnestly and pleaded my case, lamenting about all of the whippings I had taken from him, with him, all the time, listening and nodding his head in agreement and an occasional smile.  I wailed feverishly, "MR. Steve, I have never beaten you out of a dollar in these past two years.  The best that I have done is break even with you.  I have lost 63 dollars to you over these past two years.  YOU HAVE TO LET ME HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN SOME OF IT BACK!"  Now during those two years I had played individual matches for a couple of hundred dollars and even played for $300 for one game on one pocket, so it wasn't about the money.  In fact, I had won many thousands of dollars over those two years, "earning while I was learning" but MR. Steve just shook his head and finally said, "Son, that $63 is locked up in the vault."  I had never heard such a statement before and all I could respond with was a smiling grunt of appreciation as I learned yet another lesson from one of my teachers.  Expect no quarter and give no quarter.  What don't kill you will only make you stronger.  When you get ahead, stay ahead.  So there you have it.  MR. Steve, thank you for those solid lessons in one pocket as well as those lessons of survival and the humor in which you taught me well.

Dennis Troxclair, I hope you enjoyed my story of MR. Steve.  He was one of my favorite guys that crossed my path.

ROAD TRIP 1979 with Bobby Headrick of Jackson, Mississippi

Bobby Headrick was a top pool player from Jackson, Mississippi and we knew each other pretty well.  I had just purchased a new Datsun B 210.  It was a standard shift, 4 cylinder and had a very weak air conditioner but when he asked if I would be interested in making a road trip, I just had to check with my angel of a wife.  She told me to go and have fun.  Eat your heart out guys.

I was 39 years old at the time, loved pool, pinball machines (the gambling kind) and bass fishing.  Well I loved the flipper pinball machines too, but the gambling kind 20 hole and 25 hole machines paid off money back in those days.  Well the owners of the establishments paid off money if you beat their machines.  The gambling pinball machines beat most people but I developed a gift for beating them.  It required mongoose like reflexes and find motor skills which I possessed naturally and Bobby knew that I was barred from playing the pinball machines in Jackson so he invited me to to on a road trip.  He would play pool for money and I would gamble at the pinball machines wherever we went.  Bobby knew I could be counted on for coming out on the positive side with the pinball machines and I knew he could be counted on for the gambling at pool.  Back in those days, Bobby was a much better pool player than me.

We left Jackson, headed toward Augusta, Georgia and we would stop along the way, wherever a bar or pool room had a pinball machine.  I had discovered that if the pinball machines gave fair odds on the money that you invested and they didn't "tilt" too easy, I could beat almost all of them.  We stopped in a little town where they had some new $.10 per game 20 hole machines and it wasn't long before I had the machine up to 1,950 games.  That amounted to $195 and that came from about a ten dollar investment.  The owner of the pool room walked up to me while the machine was registering the final games and said in a very loud voice, "THE MACHINE IS BROKE".  I politely said, "No, it's working fine."  He bellowed once more that it was broke and for me to click off the games, get paid and get the hell out of his pool room.  Knowing that getting paid was a lot better than the alternative, I collected the $195 and we were back on the road in no time, happy to have made a nice score on the pinball machines.  It wasn't the only score we made on the pinball machines but it was the biggest for that trip.

Bobby picked up some cash here and there, winning every time that he played anyone.  He didn't play for big money but he always won and I liked that.  As we cruised into Augusta, Georgia, we were passing over waterways on low hanging overpasses that covered that part of Augusta,  Bobby told me that the motel that we were staying at was at the end of one of the overpasses and being the bass fisherman that I was, I had packed a rod and reel and tackle box for the trip.  When we stopped at the motel, it was just about an hour before dark and I hurriedly ask the lady that ran the motel if anyone ever fishes off the road down by the overpasses and she said no and asked why.  I told her that I liked to bass fish and wanted to see if I could catch some fish there.  She said that nobody every fished there and she didn't think there were any fish in there but the water looked like it could hold some largemouth bass and I was eager to try.  I asked her if I caught any fish if she would like to have them, and she laughed and said, "Sure son, if you catch some fish you just bring them back here and I will clean them and cook them up."  I hurried down to the water's edge as it must have been a 15 minute walk from the motel  and found a nice looking spot.   There was about 30 minutes of daylight left and I quickly tied on a broken-tail minnow by Rapala and made a cast.  Seconds later my lure disappeared and I set the hook, reeling in a 2 1/2 pound bass.  I repeated this over the remaining daylight three more times.  When I caught the first bass, I realized that I had left the tackle box because it was too heavy to carry that long distance and it contained the fish stringer that I kept in the box.

I had a pocket knife and quickly cut a reed from the shallows and threaded the long reed through the fish's gills and laid the bass in the shallow water, tying a knot in the reed around the fish's gills and another knot to the standing reeds that remained in the shallows.  The bass didn't put up a fight and could breathe in the shallow water so they stayed alive.  Anyway, by the time I had caught the fourth bass which also weighed about 2-3 pounds, it was too dark to continue and besides that I didn't know if I was in a dangerous environment of not so I headed back to the motel with the four reeds strung across my back.  When I walked in, the lady that ran the motel couldn't see the bass because I had them strung across my back and when I pulled them from my shoulder and back, she almost fainted and yelled that no one had ever caught any fish from those waters.  She took the fish but we never tasted any of those cooked fish, leaving early the next morning, headed back to Jackson, MS.

About 3 months later, my wife and I moved back to New Orleans where I was originally from and I told the story to my neighbor who had a brother who lived in Augusta.  He talked to his brother and about two months after that, his brother sent him a newspaper article about the lunker bass located in the waterways under the overpasses surrounding Augusta, Georgia.  It was nice having the story of the bass being confirmed by another source.  I wish I would have kept that newspaper article but I will always have the memories of a fine road trip with a good friend.
JoeyA