Years ago, when the Mirage first opened, I dealt to Joe R. and A.J. in the $75-$150 7 Card Stud games, every day it seemed, and I HATED it. At that time $75-$150 was about the biggest game we ever had running. Occasionally we had a bigger game that Doyle, Stu, Johnny, and the ‘high rollers’ played in but the norm was the $75-$150.

Joe sat in the 1 or the 8 seat and when he lost a few hands back to back, he would flip his cards over my arms so they’d land in the rack. If he was being judged at the Olympics, he’d probably get all 9’s because the cards always cleared my arms but stayed below my chin and all seven of them made the dive into the rack. I never liked to deal to him.

A few years later I wore my hair in a burgundy spike sporting a three inch strip of black that ran like a Mohawk from my forehead to the crown. Funniest part of it was that until I was dealing, under the lights, you would never know the strip of black was in my hair. Frank Cutrona, our Assistant Room Manager, told one of the secretaries in the office that a player had told him there was a dealer with two different colors of hair and Frank had no clue it was me, even though he saw me five days a week.

Joe teased me about my hair every time I went in to deal…”How would you like to go to bed with this one? You’d go to bed with a red head and wake up to a black head the next day.”

He’d laugh and I’d retort with something like, “You’d die in the first 10 minutes. I’m a race horse and you’re not equipped to handle that.”

He’d laugh harder.

His son, Chris, played $30-$60 and $20-$40 7 Card Stud every day and he was horrible to deal to. It took me some years of dealing to him before he figured out that I was just there to deal and not play games with him…we got along better as time passed and he got to where he acknowledged me when I sat down to deal or passed him away from the table.

I ran into Joe at the Gold Coast, we played $4-$8 Holdem together when his wife was at Bingo. He’d yell, “Spook!”

Mostly I ignored him.

Then he started calling me a witch when I dealt to him and he even went so far as to get a Porter’s Broom, (they’re short handled), and put it on the back of the chair when I was dealing. I started cracking up when he did it. I no longer disliked him…guess he wore me down.

One night as I was waiting to push into his game, he reached behind his chair and rubbed his hand up and down my calf a few times. I had on a skirt. He just chuckled over the fact that he got to ‘feel me up’ before I sat down. I laughed too. He was pretty damn audacious for his age, but I guess that’s why he got away with it.

Another time I walked up to deal his game and he had a whole wad of $100’s in his hands, counting away. When he saw me, he leaned back and said, “I had a dream about you last night.”

Me, “You did?”

“Yep, and I owe you a whole lot of money!”

He held out the wad of $100’s. I almost spit I laughed so hard.

I was really impressed with Joe when my youngest son, Darian, came into the room to see me. I happened to be by the table Joe was playing at and I took Darian over and introduced him to Joe.

Joe jumped right up out of the game, shook Darian’s hand, and visited with us for a few minutes. Most players wouldn’t leave their seat if the place was on fire. I felt Joe honored me with a compliment by standing up and stepping away from the table.

After we moved to Bellagio, Joe stopped playing for awhile. He had a stroke. Not long after that he lost his son, Chris. His wife hadn’t been well for a long time.

Joe went from being vibrant and active, walking everyday and busy, busy, busy…to old and frail, walking with a cane, almost over night. It was like watching the life being sucked out of a person. He still plays everyday, mostly $40-$80, and if I see him, I always go by and give him a little rub or pat on the shoulder. He loves it.

I dealt to Joe and A.J. in the same game again, a few times this week…after how many years?

A.J. hadn’t played a lot at Bellagio in the last few years and recently started again.

A.J. never gave me any kind of heat when I dealt to him although a lot of other dealers felt that he’s always mean and rude to them. As a matter of fact, the only two things that I ever clearly remember him saying to me was in the first few years I dealt to him. One was, “Deal my cards right here,” as in put them in close proximity to his chips, and “Always deal me in,” as in he wasn’t there to play the ‘If I wanted a hand, I would’ve anteed,’ game that a lot of players pull. He was there to play poker so if he didn’t ante, I made sure he wanted in/or out by checking with him.

A.J.’s wife, Marian, plays low limit 7 Card Stud and we’ve become ‘table friends’. She told me once at the Mirage, that all the high limit players loved me to deal because I just dealt the game instead of playing the idiot dealer game. She had to have heard that from A.J. which pays me a very high compliment.

A.J. has taken a stand in my defense many times over the last four to five years when a player starts whenging and whining because they are low card or they lost a pot.

A.J. takes a chiding bit of commentary and makes his point. It goes something like this, “Well who should she pick to be low then? Do you want her to stop dealing so you won’t be low? Do you think she cares if you tip her, there are other people that appreciate her dealing and do take care of her.”

And a few other queries and comments usually manage to shut the whining valve off.

A.J. never minces words with anyone so you always know exactly where you stand with him. He thanks me when I show him a courtesy as in bringing a chair for his wife, or looking behind me before I push out of the box, when he’s in the 1 or 8 seat, because he has a bothersome leg that he stretches out and I don’t want to hit his foot with my chair.

When we were at the Mirage, A.J. had a medical problem. The word at the table was that he had blockage in a vein in his neck.

The Dr.’s removed a vein from his leg to replace it and then found out that wasn’t the problem. The word was that A.J. went absolutely ballistic with and over the whole thing.

Another player said that wasn’t true at all, that A.J. had a heart transplant but his body rejected it because it had never had a heart before.

He did have a bandage on his neck so I’d have to go with something along the lines of the first ‘word’ at the table although the second one was funny as hell.

A.J. has also aged, along with Joe, but then so have I. They are a huge part of my Vegas history…might be they are an acquired taste…might be that I learned a lot about myself and consequently learned how to appreciate them.