"Without Really Thinking, I Threw a Punch at Him"

This story took place last summer.  I was playing in a strip casino, but not BSC.  I won’t say the name of the casino because then you’ll know for sure a casino that isn’t BSC.

I was playing at the limit table as I always did back then. I sat next to a somewhat cute young blonde girl. Probably mid to late 20's.  Not at all sexily dressed....she was wearing a zipped sweatshirt jacket (it was very cold inside the casino).

Seemed like a nice enough gal.  We battled together on a couple of early hands and we chatted a bit about the hands.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I changed seats early and a guy took the seat between us and  started chatting with the blonde.  The guy was here from Phoenix.

Phoenix guy found out the blonde's name was Marsha and that she was a local, not a tourist.  He asked if she always played at this casino.  No, she said, she plays all over town, she plays "everywhere."  I didn't recognize her from the BSC so I asked if she played there.  No, she never has, she's been there, seen the room, but never played there.  She remembered the bar near the poker room as being nice.  I told her it is a really nice room and she should definitely check it out.  

At this point I'm thinking later that night I'm going to tell this story to some of pals at BSC and tell them I should get a commission or a recruitment fee if this gal shows up there to play some day.

But then....maybe not.

Marsha soon volunteered that she really prefers to play at a certain off Strip, locals poker room, especially because it is like five minutes from where she lives.  But unfortunately, she just got banned from there.  She explained why.  It seems just the previous night she got into a fight with a guy.  A physical fight.  She said she punched a guy in the face.  She was quick to point out that it didn't happen in the poker room, and she didn't hit a casino employee.   Nevertheless, she was told not to let the door hit her on the ass on the way out.

She said it happened by the cashier (where there are, of course, lots of cameras).  She said she isn't even sure why she did it, she didn't know she was going to do it until she did it, and she didn't even say anything or give any kind of warning she was going to do it.  All she could say to justify it was, "it was part, he was hitting on me, and part....the look in his eyes.  He was giving me this odd look.  I think he was wearing contacts and it made his eyes look funny when he was looking straight at me.  So without really thinking, I just throw a punch at him and hit him in the cheek.  It wasn't that hard....it was almost more of a push than a punch.  But security came over immediately."

Phoenix guy and I quizzed her about this.

“How long are you banned for?”

“Forever....and it sucks, because it’s is so close to where I live.  Now I might as well come to the strip to play.”

“Did they take your picture?”

“Not that I saw, but I'm sure they have me on tape punching the guy.”

“And they escorted you out of the casino?”

“Yes.  I tried to run as soon as I did it, but they stopped me and took my ID and stuff.  I wanted to get the hell out of there before security came over because I once got into a fight at a Blockbuster and I don't want to get stuck in that "treatment program" ever again.”

A fight at Blockbuster?  Boy, don’t ever try to charge this lady late fees!

We kinda let it go at that point. At one point though I was talking to her about a hand, looking at her, and Phoenix guy says to me...."Hey, whatever you do, don't look her straight in the eye."  She didn't react to that at all.  Later when she left the table for a second Phoenix guy and I looked at each other and shook our heads....that was weirdest story I've ever heard at a poker table, I said.  He said yeah, especially the part about the "treatment program."  I said I guess she has anger management issues.

The guy kept talking to her when she returned.  He asked what she did when she wasn't playing poker.  I took the question to mean, "what do you do for a living." but she took it to mean what else does she do for fun.  She mentioned a couple of hobbies, including yoga.  The guy almost choked.  "So I guess yoga isn't all that it's cracked up to be for stress relief, huh?"  She mumbled something I couldn't hear.

The guy kept talking to her and I couldn't hear a lot of what she said....she was speaking softly.  I did hear her say at one point, "Well, I'm very quiet but I'm also very open, I'm an open book.  I don't hide anything."  Yeah....like volunteering that she was kicked out of her favorite casino for fighting just the night before!

At one point Marsha took off her jacket, revealing her arms (and nothing else).  She had a tattoo on her arm, but maybe it wasn't really a tattoo.  It was amateurish, even childish, perhaps just drawn on there by someone with a couple of pens.  I won’t describe it because I don’t want Marsha to be easily identifiable but it looked really unusual—it was unattractive and totally unidentifiable.  Why anyone would want this permanently on their bodies was totally beyond me.  But I couldn’t dismiss the possibility it was just drawn on her with regular ink and not a tattoo.

It was very weird body art for a very unusual girl, to say the least.

When I left the casino, Marsha was still at the table talking to Phoenix guy.  I was trying to figure out what was weirder—the story she told, or the fact that she told it to a couple of total strangers without any need to, or any prompting whatsoever.  In thinking the whole thing over, I guess I hoped I’d never see the woman again.  But that was not the case.  I have a follow up story about Crazy Marsha.  You can find it here.