When Harry Met Wolfgang

I was in a happy mood. I had just gotten my Card Player check, which paid for a full-course dinner at Burger King, with enough left over for a buy-in to a $2-$4 game later that night. But the moment I walked into the casino, my cheery disposition evaporated, because the first person I encountered was Happy Harry. As usual, his head was hanging down halfway to the floor and he was shaking it in despair.



"Hi, Harry," I greeted him, trying to sound upbeat. "How ya been doing?"



"Terrible," was the expected reply.



If I had a brain cell in my head, I would have just said, "Too bad," and walked away, because Harry's gloom was as catching as smallpox. He made Doomsday Don sound like Santa Claus. Spend any time with him, and your chances of winning that night dropped to a little less than zero. But, being the humanitarian (or idiot) that I am, I decided I would try to cheer him up a bit.



"What's the problem?" I asked good-naturedly. "It can't be all that bad."



"Worse," Happy Harry responded. "I haven't won once in the past three months."



"Really? How many times did you play in the past three months?"



"I haven't played at all. I've been too depressed."



"Well, how can you expect to win if you don't play?" I asked in annoyance.



"What's the use?" Happy Harry moaned. "I can't win. I'm too depressed. I have no luck. Everyone hates me, even the dealers. The only reason I don't kill myself is because I don't want to give my enemies the pleasure."



I felt my spirits plummeting. Either I had to do something to help him, or choke him to death to put him out of his misery and preserve my own sanity. "Look, Harry, I recently did a column called 'The Guru of Giggling.' It's about a doctor in Bombay who devised seminars that teach people how to laugh just by faking it and making themselves laugh. Maybe you should go to one."



"Somebody once took me to one of their seminars. They threw me out. I had everybody crying."



Figures, I thought. I tried something else. "Have you ever heard of Dr. Wolfgang Krock, the eminent poker psychologist? I bet he could cure your depression."



"Krock? That phony? I didn't know he got his license reinstated."



"Don't believe everything you hear, Harry. He's helped a lot of people. Do you know that before he began seeing Dr. Krock, Men Nguyen would drink 12 bottles of beer during every tournament?"



"He still does."



"Yeah, but now he drinks Corona instead of that cheap stuff he used to swallow. And Krock's also treating Phil Hellmuth.



He's positive that he can cure his ego problem with only 100 or so more sessions."



"Nobody can cure me," Happy Harry declared. "You're wasting your time, Max."



"Tell you what," I lied. "Just go and talk to Dr. Krock, and I promise to stake you in tomorrow's tournament."



That did the trick. Harry was dubious, but agreed. I made the appointment for him, and the next day Harry went to see him. Wolfgang Krock was located in a run-down area in the cellar of a condemned tenement. He walked into Krock's office, which was furnished with just a chair and a ratty couch, the kind you see abandoned on sidewalks.



"What a dump," Happy Harry muttered.



"Nice to make your acquaintance too, boychick. Dot'll be tventy-five dollars. Cash, please. I don't take markers like all your poker bum friends try to giff me."



Harry somehow managed to find that much money in his wallet, which he reluctantly handed over. It was more money than Krock had seen in quite a while.



"Make yourself velcome," the doctor said cheerfully. "Chust lie down on der couch und ve vill start mit der talking."



"I don't deserve a couch," Harry said mournfully. "I'll just lie on the floor. So, how do you like your job?" he asked.



"It ain't so bad," Krock replied. "Except for haffing to deal mit shmucks like you."



Happy Harry settled in on the floor and Wolfgang Krock got out his notebook and went to work. "So, let's start at der beginning and see iff ve can find out vat it is dat's bothering you. Vot vas your mother like?"



"Never knew her," Harry replied. "She left me in a basket on somebody's back porch."



"Vot!? You mean she never came back for you?"



"She came back the next day, but just to get her basket."



"Another nut case," Krock jotted down in his notebook. "Vot a shame," he said, trying to sound sympathetic. "So, how vas your childhood mit your adopted parents?"



"I didn't have a childhood. When I was still a kid, they made me go to work cleaning toilets in a hospital's contagion ward."



"You were young, nein?"



"Nine? I was only seven."



As Krock probed, Happy Harry related ever-more depressing details of his life: being whipped by his father, mocked by his teachers, and beaten up by schoolyard bullies; screwing up and being fired from a succession of jobs; being dumped by the only woman who ever consented to go out with him in his entire life, after she discovered he suffered from premature ejaculation, and so on.



By now, tears were flowing down Krock's face, and he blew loudly into a handkerchief. "Zo, you must have been pretty miserable by den."



"Yeah, but the real problem came when I started playing Omaha."



"Vot?" Krock screamed. "You play Omaha? Dot varshtukener game? I hate it! Chust der udder night I vas playing Omaha. I vas dealt A-A-2-3, suited mit spades. Der flop came mit der 4 and 5 in spades. Der pot vas capped. Den, on der turn …"



Happy Harry slapped his hands over his ears. "Stop it, stop it!" he pleaded. "You're making me crazy."



"Making you? Crazy already you are if you play Omaha. I can't treat nobody vot plays dot game because there ain't no cure for it. Get out of my office und don't come back. Und tell Max to quit sending Action Al around, too."



The upshot to all of this was that Happy Harry is now worse than ever, and Krock had to start undergoing depression therapy himself. Well, I tried to do a good deed. I guess I'm just not cut out to be a Boy Scout.