Shafted... The Early Years
Sitting at Trios the other night, I decided to tell everyone about the first years of our dart team... Shafted. While the modern day team is pretty good, the early team was, well, just say we had a lot of fun. One thing you have to keep in mind is times then were much different. It was the first year of the league and things were run much rougher than today. This isn’t a pretty story and thinking back to those days gives me a creepy kind of feeling in a way. Well I just know that the things we saw and went through would cause most people to drink. Not that we didn’t do plenty of that, but you’re soon see the trials and tribulations we experienced. So get a cold one, sit back, and hold on. It’s quite a ride.
Well let’s see, where do I start? How about the beginning? One night my best friend and I were sitting in our favorite watering hole, Trios, tossing back drink after drink; just talking and watching the one woman floor show which was named Shelly. Now you must know that Shelly was the bartender, and she has a problem with counting I think. If you ordered 5 drinks she would always make 6 drinks, and then end up drinking that one herself. Well after awhile Shelly would just quit counting and just start drinking... hard.
Now I’ve known Shelly for along time, right after she came down from Chicago. She had just gotten divorced from this heavyweight boxer named "Petty Boy Grabis," and she had wanted to start over. And what better place than Trios? She was quite the looker then, I must say. She never went home alone, but her main man was "Big Daddy" Shapiro. Now Big Daddy was a quiet kind of guy until you added whiskey. Then sit back and pray you weren’t the one he picked for entertainment that evening. Now I have heard that he didn’t get his nickname from just being a huge man, but as Shelly says, he has hidden talents... but back to the story.
I think it was a Wednesday night, and it was fairly quiet in the smokey little bar. There were three or four of us regulars at the bar. Cochise and I were talking to Shelly about getting some new music on the jukebox when these two guys in black suits walk in. Shelly walks down to the end of the bar to see what they wanted. The older of the two said his name was Rico. He handed her this paper, and they walk out.
"Hey, Shelly, was that your lawyer?" yelled "Cockroach" Jones.
"Fuck you, you mother mother," and she tossed this paper down in front of us. Cochise and I read it at almost the same time:
Now Forming - New Dart League on Thursday Evenings
Teams Needed!
Well neither of us thought much about it at the time and just ordered a couple more drinks. We went back to pestering Shelly about the jukebox, but the seed had been planted.
Three days later I was back at Trios, just sitting and sipping a Morgan and Coke and talking to Shelly when Rico and two huge guys stroll in. With them they had this machine, and Rico asked Shelly where she would like it.
"How about up your ass?"
With that remark the two goons with Rico looked up and and I thought to myself Oh boy, here we go.
But Rico just smiled and pulled more paper from his jacket. "Chuck ordered it." Chuck was the owner or Trios along with his wife Denna and were really neat people.
"Well how the fuck do I know? What is it anyway?" Shelly said.
Rico explained that it was an electronic dartboard, and that Chuck had signed a contract to have it in the bar. He showed Shelly that it should be placed in the far corner. Little did I know that evening would mean so much to the next four years of my life.
Chuck wandered in from the kitchen and Shelly started asking him questions about Rico and the new dart machine. I could tell that Chuck didn’t really want to talk about this. He was really nervous and told Shelly not to cause any waves with these guys. He mentioned that they were very "bad" men, and she might end up "sleeping with the fishes" if she pissed these guys off.
Part 2
It had been two or three days since "The Machine" had made its vaulted arrival at the bar, and I couldn’t remember anyone playing it. Chuck walked in and right away he looked stressed; you could see it written all over his face. He ordered a beer and motioned for me to follow him to his office. I picked up my Captain and followed. Once I had settled into my chair he told me how he had borrowed some money off Rico to pay some debts he owed from a couple of sure winners at the Chicago horse track. Now Rico and the boys were making him put the the dart machine in his bar. But no one was playing it. He had gotten a team to join the league but he needed more. Rico had told him two teams and he hadn’t had anyone else show any interest. He was worried that they would hurt Denna or one of his thirteen kids. See Chuck didn’t spend all of his time at the bar. I could see that he was scared to death, and before I knew it I told him to relax. I would try to piece together a team for him. I mean how hard would it be to get four people to play a stupid kids game anyway?
Now I hadn’t played darts since my Navy days in Singapore or Japan, but I remembered I wasn’t very good. So I needed to find some real dart players. I started making a list of possible teammates. And after awhile I had two people on my list, and one of them had turned me down. The other one was Coshise. I knew I could depend on him. Coshise was pretty good, but he was like me: once the booze started flowing, our aim started to wander.
It was getting close to opening night for us, and I hadn’t come up with four players. And to make matters worse. Rico had some of his goons hanging around the bar. I couldn’t bear to see Denna or her kids hurt. And these guys looked like they would enjoy it. So the pressure was on. Chuck had asked me not to tell anyone of his "problem" so I couldn’t use that to get players. I asked Coshise if he knew of anyone, and he said he would try and come up with someone. Chuck told me he would play on our team but just for home matches. That would mean I would have to get someone to play road games. I was getting worried.
Coshise had saved my ass many times, and I’ll be dammed if he hadn’t done it again. He called one day before our first match and said he had a friend who loved to play darts and would be our fourth player. He was even supposed to be "good.
Now I told you Coshise had saved me many times, I cant remember all the times I have followed his taillights down Sixth Street after a long night with the Captain. His words of wisdom have steered me from trouble more than once. So I knew I could depend on him.
Our first game was at Trios, so we were set. Where I was going to find someone to play on the road, I had no idea. But that was two weeks off. I had a drink and relaxed.
The Captains' meeting: Guess I should tell you about the league's first meeting. I believe there were 14 teams there along with Rico and six or seven of his boys. He handed out the rules and made it very clear that no-shows or dropouts would not be allowed. He told us how important it was to have our money turned in, and his men, which he called refs, would be around to make sure the league ran smoothly. After the meeting a couple of the teams captains voiced some complaits to Rico, and he told them he would send a ref around to help them with any problems they may have.