Stories by Gary Carson

A bar fight

Bill was crazy. And, very mean. He was a little guy, only about 5 foot 5.

An example of his erratic behavior was one night he and I and and another Sailor named Steve were in a bar. A hospital ship was in port (this was 1968) and the bar was jammed with the walking wounded. We were leaving, it was crowded, and Bill's elbow hit a Marines hat and knocked it onto the floor. It was an accident.

Bill was bending over to pick it up and the Marine said, "Pick it up, you fucking little twerp". Uh oh. Steve and I knew what was going to happen next, we started running for the door, jumping over tables, getting to that door. We heard a load "whack". Real loud. It turns out that instead of picking up the guy's hat, Bill grabbed his crutches leaning against the table and hit the guy in the side of his head with his own crutches.

The bar was called the Texas Bar (there's a Texas Bar in every port city in the world) and had western style swinging doors.

Just as Steve and I reached the door (we weren't jarheads with something to prove, we were sailors with lives to preserve) Bill scooted under our outstretched arms and hit the swinging doors just inches before Steve and I did. We kept running, didn't slow down for about a mile once we hit the street. Went to another bar.

When we returned to the ship we heard stories about some big fight in the Texas Bar where the Shore Patrol made over 20 arrests.

I'll tell you about Bill and the duck later. Bill was an interesting guy. His first day on the ship some 6 foot 2 signalman got lippy with him and Bill laid him out with one punch.

The Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Years ago, I was playing nolimit draw one day in Artichoke Joes in San Bruno, California. I had a few hundred dollars on the table. Maybe 7 or 8 hundred. That was all the money I had. That was it, my bankroll, whatever you want to call it.

I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich from the waitress. I think they were a $1.95 back then.

When the waitress came back with my sandwich, I was just standing up. She took a look at the green felt on the table in front of the seat I was leaving and said to me, "You can't pay for this damn sandwich, can you?".

Well, she was right, I couldn't. I was busted. I hadn't been playing with the rent money cause I owned an RV that was right there in the parking lot (my girlfriend had an apartment, whatever you do don't go busted if your girlfriend is pissed at you). But, I was busted.

She paid for the sandwich. The next day I borrowed 20 bucks to buy into the ten cent ante, no blind afternoon game and within a week had a few thousand and had given her $5 to pay for the sandwich and a little juice.

The point of the story is that if you've got any money left, then you aren't busted.

Car wreck

When I got out of the Navy a long time ago, my wife had gone ahead and was in Baton Rouge, and I drove from San Diego, almost straight through.

I had a cold, and stopped in El Paso at the Army base there and got a bottle of strong cough syrup. Back then strong cough syrup with codeine was sold over the counter.

So, I'm tooling down the highway, with this codeine laced cough syrup between my legs (I was 19, I wasn't very smart). Everytime I got a tickle in my throat I took a swig.

I got to Uvalde, Texas, and was going through town (no Interstate 10 back then) and I fell asleep at the wheel, went off the road, hit a parked car, went thought the windshield.

Woke up 3 days later in a hospital. I was fine. They told me they were going to keep me a couple more days, I called my wife in Baton Rouge to tell her what happened. I was still kind of groggy and after I hung up she realized all I'd told her that I was in the hospital in Uvalde, Texas, and hadn't told her what hospital.

She was staying at my parent's house while looking for an apartment in Baton Rouge, and she got frantic and told my dad that I didn't tell her what hospital I was in.

My dad said, "Well, how many hospitals do you think they have in Uvalde, Texas?"