Slim the 500 pound Biker Who Went To China
by
, 04-12-2022 at 03:10 PM (2754 Views)
My mom and dad fought often when I was a small. We started out in NC as a family but my dad Tony had a brother and cousins in Rock Hill SC and moved us there to be closer to them and the possibility of work in the family business of laying floor coverings. We lived on Lizzie street and one of my earliest memories was of riding in the car early one morning and pulling up the the " biker clubhouse" my dad was a part of and her barging in and catching him asleep on the couch with some whore, whose actual nickname was " whorie laurie" and I would meet some years later before going to prison in Ridgeland.
This clubhouse was like a converted car garage with a big swinging bay door and then a standard door that was used when no motorcycles or cars had to be brought in to work on. These guys that belonged to the club were all a bunch of guys that held trades or worked a plant job like Slim. My dad and his brother both laid carpet and then another fella named Eddie Hicks was a painter, whom years later on a trip down to visit with my dad , I nut punched the shit out of him and he was realll mad . Promised to fuck me up when I grew up lol. There were others , that were like hangers ons, like one fella named Boo who said he was an Indian and all the guys laughed and said he was full of shit and the he was a " Mo-Nig Indian" ---More N*gger than Indian- but this guy was the nicest guy and promised one day to make me a bow and arrow. I also met him years later and he actually was an Indian living on the Catawba Reservation down there in Rock Hill- My Dad and his friends were so fucking ignorant. I did not ask for the bow and arrow.
There was a pinball machine in the clubhouse and I kept remembering getting all the quarters everyone had and dumping them in. Eddie Hicks had been in a terrible motorcycle accident where he lost his big toe and was laid up a while recovering, The wrecked bike sat on an old wooden platform that sat against the side wall like some shrine. It was a real mess and I didn't understand at the time why they kept a broken bike, but years later I would learn the value of world war 2 and earlier Harley Davidson engines and transmissions.
My mom catching Tony with whorie laurie sent me back up to Grandpa Rays in NC and then back to Rock Hill and then finally back up to NC for good as they worked out his cheating.They stayed together and we lived behind Rays in a tiny single wide trailer until my dad started working at Winn Dixie warehouse in Raleigh and got us moved into a trailer park in Selma NC.
When Tony left or my mom threw him out, I'm not 100 % sure because I didn't understand the complexity and the nuance that goes with your father and mother breaking up the nest. I just know that my life was a complete fucking mess and I first went to jail at 14 for a week . It was Juvenile detention and it was basically a daycare but it was the start of being somewhere else other than home. My mom secretly contacted Tony who she hadnt spoken to in years to come get me and try to raise me after I had gotten out of wilderness camp and got into trouble again.
There are so many details I have to skip or else it will be a novel and I can certainly backfill later and correct and issues
It was during this period that I played in my very first home game-
The drive from Mesa Court to Baskins Road was solemn 2.5 trip. I had just came home to unexpectantly being kicked out from home and seeing a dad I havent seen in 8 years. Some other guy had been in my life and I was miserable and here was this fucking piece of shit treating me like I was doing him wrong.
Imagine the feelings of having no choice but to be somehwere where you don't want to be and the person who brought you into the world doesn't want you either but has to or not be in jail as required by law. I was really hurting from all angles and that ride was a bitch.
I had never been to his trailer before. It sat right across the street form York Technical college and was older as was the handful of trailers along the side street that ran behind the main road. Hurricane Hugo and sent a large pine tree limb through the roof by the door. The limb was gone but the severe damage was only covered with plywood and plastic. As soon as we pulled up, he said" I live here by myself , who do I have to impress" .
Because of my previous time in SC , I asked him where was slim and uncle Jerry? How about Hicks?, as thats what people called him. These were my only real highlights , meeting new faces that weren't my fucking parents. Tony said that we might go down to slims that weekend , there was supposed to be a BBQ and maybe a poker game " we'll see" is what he said.
That whole week, that was all I could think about and sure enough, he said we were going that Friday when he got home from work. Slim lived in Ft. Lawn, which was a good distance east and had a nice property where he would host huge parties.
Even though slim was a biker, he had a job at celenex in rock hill which was a chinese company making what I thought was cigarette filter chemicals or something but when I look up the company now it says gene therapy in kids. very scary-
anyway, Slim had a professional side of life. He didnt have the tattoos like my dad and their firiends. He had a motorcycle though and it looked like a toy when he rode it. He was a big dude and I think in a way that the bikers accepted him and his size and seen his person. So many people loved slim. He threw the biggest fucking parties where hundreds of people show up, lynyrd skynyrd and bob seger blasting the place and so much booze and weed flowing , it was the place to be for halloween and his birthday.
This trip down with my dad was a small get together- Slim, Shirley his wife , a neighbor guy named " droopy", his girlfirend who had a famous dad- I believe in the space program but I have to research.she was a real bad drinker and could not function normally without a drink Tony said. There was like 2 or 3 other people there that i didnt know and can't remember but there was one that I do rememeber and his name was " cruiseship dave" -
We ate dinner , then the cards and pocket change came out. These weren't serious stakes but pots could be $20 and thats pretty small compared to what the skill level was in the room. My dad nor any of his friends ever went to Vegas. I'm not 100% sure on slim but I can't remember him saying it as I have a photographic memory so i'll assume he never went and they all just learned at home games. Of course , the fish I was , lost all my money and then whatever else I could steal out of tonys stack. The gane was kinda breaking and thats when slim said -
" Did you know dave here deals on cruiseships and can do some of the craziest cards tricks you have ever seen? "
Dave sluggishly smiles and nods as he's been drinking like everyone else except me. He starts showing me a couple of warm up tricks which were impressive, but THEN he showed me , right in front of my face- with me watching his hands shuffle the cards and not doing anything I did not think was normal- proceed to deal out the whole table with each having a higher ranking hand and was calling it as he flipped them. when i said " SHOW ME AGAIN!!! SHOW ME AGAIN!!!" - he laughed, put the deck down and that was it. he showed me once.
The game broke, I had to drive my drunk dad home and all I could talk about was "cruiseship dave".
My dad tells me that cruiseship dave and his wife owned a lot of land near slims and that Tony- my dad mowed the grass around the house in the summers sometimes if they were out of town. Tony said that cruiseship dave had been under investigation in relation to a big cocaine bust called " operation avalanche"
https://www.google.com/search?client...e+rock+hill+sc
The present controversy arose in the following manner: Byrd was charged in connection with an extensive undercover operation centering in York County, South Carolina commonly referred to as "Operation Avalanche."
There was a missing person connected to the investigation and that he was supposed to be buried on " cruiseship daves" nursery/land.
I went to mow Daves house one time with Tony and it was an old farmhouse that had been updated . Lots of nice stuff and plenty of trees and land. I didn't see any bodies because thats all I could think of at the time.
I went on to be sent away again shortly after this but one of the next times I was with my dad he told me that they had found the body on the land and that dave went to jail and hung himself there because he wasnt getting out. I never forgot that card trick and I suspect someone with the same skill set was working the WSOP single table satellites when i first moved there in 2011.
I played a couple of sattys and after this experience I slowed down competely because I felt like it was a big possibility there could be cheating if dealers stayed at the same table all day dealing satties and the same guy plays at that table all day with him.
I'm reg the satty, before I can sit down , this guy is screaming last longer, last longer. I wasn't focused on last longer. I was focused on win seat and move on, not side bets etc. I refused and was fucking them up as usual . we got down to 4 handed and im in the 5 seat directly across fromt he dealer.
I am watching him shuffle but he's only doing the motion and there are no cards being riffled. I am watching him but not seeing it because I am focused on 4 handed play.
The satty ends like this- the guy in the BB who was screaming last longer wakes up with aces after I limp QQ induce pops to my left to jam with 99 and the sb calls off with AQ suited
GG. when i got to the car i realized it. I have no proof . I stopped playing single tables with one dealer all day.
If cruiseship dave can do it, so can someone else.
Anyway , I dedicate this story to Slim- the coolest Biker I ever knew
I will never forget Slim , How he treated me with such kindness and patience and now looking back with life experience , I can see that he knew my pain and that his way of helping me was kindness. I love you Slim.