You’ve been moving around the card rooms in Las Vegas for a few months…played at Bellagio, Excalibur, the Station Casinos, Sam’s Town, and every place else that you could get to and afford the action. You’re always hearing talk of “the old days”. No limit poker at it’s finest…the days when ranches were won and lost on the turn of a card…and you’re really yearning to see some of that action.

So what do you do? You pull out your handy time configuration unit…the one that’s strapped to your neck because you might want to escape where you are and what you’re doing in a heartbeat…and set it to the year 1954. You’ve set your geo-locater for Montana, the Northwest Section…Missoula to be exact.

Suddenly you’re on Higgins Street, right in front of the Oxford. Higgins Street is paved with cobblestones, rails run down the center of it…the cobblestones end by the Railroad Station on the North and turn into blacktop where Higgins crosses the Clark Fork River on the South.

Montana State University is here in Missoula. There’s all kinds of recreational activities such as fishing, hunting, canoeing, but you don’t care…you came to find the games of old…the no limit, lose everything you own in one hand, kind of action and you’re looking at the place that holds all of the mystique and awe of a man’s world…women are rarely seen in the Oxford!

You’re tapped out. You’ve lost all of the money you withdrew in the Dhranbix Galaxy and you’ve got to find some kind of work or you’ll be sleeping in the streets by nightfall.

You’ve become a master at melting into any scenario since you came to Earth. You’ve picked up a self-imposed limp and you wear loose fitting clothing and an oversized hat. You fit into any crowd…people give you a once-over kind of glance and then go back to their business…but your heart starts to race as you move out of the alley across the street and head into the “Ox”.

As you step inside, it takes you a moment to adjust to the dim, smoke filled interior after the morning sunlight. A 30-foot, liquor bar runs along the wall to your right and on your left is an ice cream stand guarded by glass cases filled with cigars. You’re wondering what the connection is…ice cream and cigars? Get an ice cream cone or a shake and then buy a cigar as a chaser?

The ceiling, which is at least 20 feet high, consists of panels of pressed metal with a design that’s lost on all of the present clientele. Its dark, gold color comes from all of the nicotine from smoking patrons and grease from the open grill on the right just past the liquor bar. An overweight, sweating cook is standing over the grill, filling food orders.

The waiter sings out, “He needs them!” Another customer ordering brains and eggs.

There’s additional food service seating in a mangle of mismatched tables and chairs next to the cafe counter. One of the late night side shows is a cook that throws an egg high enough to crack it on the ceiling and then catch and deftly dump the contents of the shell onto the grill. It’s really a crowd pleaser as the bar is being closed for the night and people flock to the counter and tables for food.

Straight ahead of you, at the back wall, is a cashier’s cage. That’s your destination…find some kind of management and see if you can pick up a job. You’re in luck. They need a dishwasher and a prep cook. Hell no, you don’t know how to do it, but you’re a quick study and you know you can figure it out!

From the cage, if you take a right, you end up on the street again, take a left and you’re facing a wall that has a small doorway into a dark, dingy room. After filling out the minimum of forms…that is where you’re led.

The dingy room holds a labyrinth of doors and confusion. Directly in front of you on the left sits a shoeshine stand, fully active and ran by a single entrepreneur…just like the guy that rents the space for the ice cream and cigar concession up front.

As you move past the shoeshine stand, straight ahead, you have access to another exit door that’ll put you in the alley behind the OX and right across the alley is the bus station. Just before the exit, on the right, are the public bathrooms. Just before the bathrooms is a doorway that opens to a flight of stairs…the stairs lead down to a prep kitchen. The prep kitchen is used to set up the menu for the small steam table by the cafe grill…soups and gravies, hash browns and the regular grease that goes with fried food. It also has a secret door that leads to the “game”.

Across from the shoeshine stand, on the right, is a row of chairs backed against the wall and a sign overhead that states, “NO LOITERING!” The row of chairs is known as Dead Pecker Row!

Just past the row of chairs is another opening into a room that holds Pan Tables. The boys that work on the railroad love to play pan in their off-hours. A door on the left of that room will lead you into an employee’s area that contains a bathroom, a storage area, and a stairway that leads down to the “game” – a secret, hideout room that only the people who work at the Ox are supposed to know about. A room where people bet and loose everything they own in no limit poker. This same room also has a secret entrance thru the prep kitchen.

You start peeling potatoes, scrubbing pots and pans and washing dishes, throw in cleaning up around the place in general and having a square meal every day, plus now that you’ve got a job…there’s an old hotel that allows you a room because they know you’re employed…things are looking up!

A few weeks pass before you are actually accepted into the normal flow of the OX and its patrons. You’re quiet and stay as much to yourself as possible…but you’re itching to find out what goes on behind that door off the prep kitchen.

Then it happens. It’s Friday and you’re normally finished with work by 3 a.m. but your boss asks you to stay over and help with running food and drinks. You jump at the chance because you’ve heard just enough to know that this is IT!!! There’s going to be a game tonight and you’ll be part of the action…even if you’re not playing…you’ll see what it’s like, what everyone talks about.

About 10ish…Dave Earl shows up from Spokane, Washington. He’s the big draw. A few regulars have been hanging around waiting for him to arrive. They barely exchange pleasantries…nodding to each other as one after another gets up from coffee or a meal at the counter, each one giving the last one a few minutes before making the move into the employee’s area and down the stairs.

You’re nervous and fidgeting…you’ve got a notepad, just in case they order so much you can’t keep up with it, and you can feel the excitement creep up your throat, your stomach’s in a knot. The last one out of the room turns impatiently and waves for you to follow. This is it!!!

You slip past the look-out at the top of stairs and almost fall down them…they’re very narrow and steep…ending in a small room that isn’t more than 14 foot square, having a wood partition at one end of it, (to give the smallest amount of privacy to whomever whishes to use the toilet and sink), and next to the partition is the door that opens into the prep kitchen. There’s a small table that will seat 6 to 7 guys and they all sit, pulling up chairs and pulling out cash.

A few guys left without seats at the table sit on the sidelines. One of them is a dealer. Two dealers will work this game and they’re the best in the business at this time. They’re king of the snatch game and they’ll pull so much money out of this game that no one would believe it except the guy that owns the game.

If the local police start to nose around or come into the OX, the look-out at the top of the stairs bangs noisily on the floor and everyone playing in the ‘game’ just gets up and moves into the prep kitchen. They start peeling potatoes and washing dishes. Unusual to find this assortment in a kitchen??? Oh well, who can argue with it, they aren’t doing anything wrong if they just stopped in to help with the morning meal!

The room is small and stifling without ventilation, smelling of dust and old odors of leaky faucets, misplaced streams of urine, and stale smoke and cigarette butts. There are 2 spittoons on the floor that look like they’ve never been dumped.

But as bad as it smells…the boys don’t even slow down. Immediately they’re slinging orders. Dave wants a T-bone steak with hash browns and gravy and a couple of eggs…he’s first to order and you’re told to run for it – NOW. Dave always gets served first because he’s the live one.

The cash moves back and forth across the table for hours, you run up and down the stairs for hours, packing coffee, cigarettes – smoking every time you step into the room without even lighting one, bringing food and more food, packing away dirty dishes and dumping ashtrays. Every once in a while you have an opportunity to stop and watch the action…the look-out even sneaks down the stairs and watches from time to time. There’s no swearing or fighting but you know from the look on some of their faces that this is the worst of the Bad Days at Black Rock.

The game lasts until Sunday early a.m. and you’re crawling by now. You found a little piece of cardboard to throw on the floor and curl up on until they grunted at you to bring more food or coffee. It’s all a blur of coffee and food service, mixed in with a few poker hands that you watched in which Dave seemed to play everyone and never won one of them You’re so glad it’s over that when they hand you some cash for your services you trip up the stairs, mumbling as you go that you’ll clean up tomorrow, and head for your room.

You sleep until Tuesday and head back to work. The whole OX is buzzing with the news. So…over your coffee before work…you hear the whole tale and can’t help but chuckle inwardly while you’re listening.

Dave was a banker in Spokane, president of his bank and worth a small fortune. He lost a small fortune in that game…rounded off the amount was close to $32,000.00. He’d written IOU’s all weekend and when he finally gave up the battle, he wrote a check to the boys at the OX. The banks opened at 10:00 a.m. and he told the boys to give him time to get to work on Monday and transfer the amount from his savings into his checking account. They agreed.

Well as sometimes happens, people become mistrustful and edgy. The boys were guilty of those feelings and they jumped into a car late Sunday night and drove all night to be in Spokane and at the bank when it opened. As soon as the doors were unlocked, they went in and tried to cash the check. The clerk knew the account didn’t have that much cash in it so he tried to call Dave at home. He got Dave’s wife. He asked her if he should pay the check. She said, “Most certainly NOT!!!”

Well the boys went home empty handed, out the $32,000.00 which Dave was good for and would’ve honored but their haste actually allowed them to break even…that’s how much they raked out of that game over the weekend.