At Sea With Big Denny

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

I have always loved the sea, and these lines of poetry by John Masefield enchant me. But after spending a week at sea with Big Denny, I think I’ll just stick to dry land for a while.

I saw the big guy a few months ago when I made my usual stop at the Barstow Card Casino and asked how business was.

“Kinda crappy, Maxey,” he growled. “I’m gettin’ tired of all dese cheapskate farmers here an’ needs ta take a break. Any ideas?”

“Well,” I said, “Barbara and I are taking a seven-day Card Player Cruises vacation to the Mexican Riviera next month. Why don’t you join us?”

“A boat? Anyt’ing ta do on it?”

“Oh, it’s nonstop fun,” I assured him. “Wonderful sea air and scenery. Activities all day long. Marvelous food. Music and dancing and entertainment at night. Lots to see at the port stops. And of course, poker all day long.

Big Denny was sold — especially by the food part — and said he’d sign up. Sure enough, a month later, as Barbara and I stood on the deck aboard the Royal Caribbean ship Mariner, waiting to set sail from Long Beach harbor, Big Denny came lumbering up the ramp …
trailed by Aunt Sophie, his ancient casino cocktail waitress!

We were surprised, because Aunt Sophie once before had a very traumatic shipboard experience. You see, she happens to be the last living survivor of the Titanic sinking. Working as a cocktail waitress, she was lucky to have escaped, because she refused to climb into the last lifeboat until all of the customers she served had paid for their drinks. And once the lifeboat was lowered into the icy waters littered with dead bodies, the other passengers nearly threw her overboard because all she did during the long ordeal was kvetch about having to leave her new fur coat behind.

When I later asked Denny if he and Sophie were now an item, he shook his head. “Dat old biddy? Ya kiddin’ me? I just figgered it was cheaper ta bring her along den to leave her steal all dem drinks at da casino.”

As luck would have it, Denny and Sophie were given the cabin right next to ours. We didn’t get much sleep the first night, because they had some kind of orgy going; all night long, we could hear Aunt Sophie screaming, “Oy vey! Oy vey!”

The next morning, Barbara, being your typical nosy female, took Aunt Sophie aside and asked what kind of a lover Big Denny was.

“Vell, a Rudolph Valentino not exactly he isn’t,” she replied. “More like a Rudolph Valen-tiny.”

“So,” Barbara persisted, “how would you rate him?”

“Promise nobody you won’t tell?” Aunt Sophie demanded.

Barbara gave her solemn word, and Aunt Sophie whispered, “I’d say maybe a jack-eight offsuit.”

Barbara fell down laughing hysterically, and by that afternoon, she had told the story to everyone on the vessel. Later, Big Denny asked me in a puzzled voice, “Hey, Maxey, how come everybody keeps callin’ me Mr. Jack-Eight Offsuit?”

“Oh, uh,” I stammered, “that’s just shipboard lingo meaning Mr. Nice Guy.”

Anyway, that morning we were seated at the same breakfast table with Denny. Ravished after his nightlong orgy, he ordered six eggs. Not satisfied with the way they were prepared, he sent them back. When they were still not to his liking after being returned a second time, he stood up and glared down at the terrified waiter. “Tell me, buddy,” he asked menacingly, “does ya know how ta swim?”

Finally getting the eggs to his liking, he had three more second helpings, along with mounds of ham, bacon, steak, waffles, donuts, and potatoes, then ordered more food through room service, and had a third breakfast on deck, stuffing extra food in his pockets each time. Later, as I was taking a relaxing nap on a deck lounge chair, Jan Fisher, a partner in Card Player Cruises, came up and jolted me awake with a slap on the head.

“Thanks, Max, for inviting that big ape,” she yelled. “Because of him, this will be the first time we’ll lose money on one of our cruises.”

“Oh, he doesn’t eat that much,” I said, trying to pacify her.

“He doesn’t? Then how come each time he’s at a railing, the ship tilts to one side?”

Boy, Jan sure knows how to show appreciation for my getting her business, I thought.

But then, things kept getting even worse. To get Denny’s mind off food, I suggested that we do a little skeet shooting.

“Skeet? Is dey good ta eat?” he asked.

I explained that skeet were just clay targets. Unfortunately, Denny’s aim had gone bad since his days as a mob enforcer, and he ended up shooting off the ship’s radio mast. Later, he went swimming. In doing a belly-flop off the high board, he splashed up a wave so huge that it washed an elderly couple off the ship.

That evening, he and Aunt Sophie showed up for the dance party. He arrived wearing a filthy sweatshirt instead of the required suit jacket. The biggest coat they could find to loan him was about five sizes too small, and he ended up tearing it apart at the seams. Even worse, he and Sophie weren’t exactly the most sophisticated dancers, and after bouncing around the floor and knocking a bunch of other dancers off their feet, he was politely asked to leave.

As I had feared, the poker room was another disaster. Despite my warnings that the ship would not tolerate any abusive behavior, he was true to form, splashing chips, abusing the other players, throwing cards, threatening the dealers, and uttering more curse words than John Bonetti used to have in his entire vocabulary. He was finally thrown out, but it took six security guards to do the job.

And so it went, day after depressing day. Things didn’t go much better when we made stops at Mexican port cities; again true to form, he loudly complained about the food in the restaurants, nearly got arrested for trying to lift some trinkets from a gift shop, stiffed the taxi drivers, got boisterously drunk at the local bars, and was warned never to come back at every port he visited.

To everyone’s relief, he spent the last few days of the cruise in the ship’s brig when it was discovered that he was using a forged passport, because he was still on probation by the Barstow Police Department for prior offenses, and under investigation for alleged criminal activities at his casino.

Yeah, a real fun trip. Oh, well. All in all, I suppose that it wasn’t as bad as being in a lifeboat with Aunt Sophie.

Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched more than 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read ’em and Laugh.