Timothy

Timothy.

Timothy sat down and introduced himself to me as the guy who has to come into this bar later and clean the floors. This is one of the last bars in the city to allow smoking, but they don’t have ash trays so all the cigarette butts end up on the floor. He set down two beers that were both for him and had a newly lit cigarette in his hand. The whole time we talked I don’t think that he took one drag from the cigarette. He explained that people in the other room were mad at him for beating them all at pool. We started talking about jealousy. We started talking about this because everyone in the room with the pool tables was jealous of his skills, and he talked about it was the same when he was in college at USC. He explained that he was the 4^th person in the nation to receive a scholarship for Frisbee. And because of this everyone was jealous. He couldn’t understand why people cant just celebrate others achievements. I completely agree with him. I gave my opinion that too many people feel entitled so they get upset when they see people get things that they want themselves.

Now Timothy very well may be a bullshitter. It’s a good possibility. But if he is, he is a really good one. He told me details that were almost meaningless. They were either the details of very well rehearsed story, or this was actually true. He told me that he has been shot. I actually believe this. He was shot in the leg and he lifted up his pant leg and showed me the scar. I believe it. Where the bullshit may lie is in the details. But I will describe them to you as Timothy told me. You see Timothy used to be a professional poker player, and over the course of his career he made millions of dollars, but obviously he had not been smart with it if he was now cleaning the floors of a bar. But the truth is that a irresponsible gambler is not entirely unheard of. Poker became a sport so that gamblers could call themselves athletes, it sounds better. Bad athlete even sounds better than bad gambler. Rabbit trail. Back on course. So he was traveling from Vegas to Illinois for a large poker tournament that had a million dollar buy in.

He was gassing up his Cadillac late at night at a gas station that was in the middle of nowhere. He had $300,000 cash on his person and another $200,000 cash in his car. He had $250,000 worth of jewelry on his body. He was walking into the gas station to pay for his gas when a guy with a shotgun walked out followed by a guy with a handgun. Timothy had a gun too. But it was in his car. The guys then told him to give them his jewelry, money, and car keys. He agreed. He started pulling off all of rings and trying to stall by explaining to them all the features of the rings. What kind of diamond, how many karats, where he got them. Didn’t work. He took off all of his jewelry and the cops still hadn’t arrived.

They then demanded his money; he pulled out of his pocket a wad of $50,000. And instantly he was shot in the stomach, and then once in the leg. He woke up six weeks later in a hospital in Chicago. He now has no money and no car. He is in Colorado because that’s where he ran out of the money that a friend had given him. He now works in a dive bar. Interesting. Right about that time a couple friends of mine walked in the door, so I excused myself from the conversation, but before he let me go he said this. “Find whatever it is your good at and do it, and don’t let any one try and stop you, I’ve been shot and stabbed and I’ve lost it all, but I know who I am.” I will probably see this guy again, I go to this bar pretty often and he said that he is there every night. He is a pretty good storyteller, so I might let him bullshit me some more. Or he could be telling the truth.