Player's Stories

Death of a Gambler By Johnny Hughes

I always arrive early at the West Texas gambler's funerals to see who is there, shake everyone's hand, and show my respects. I had known Dorman "Iron Drawers" Shaw for forty-six years, since I was nineteen.

He was an all around professional gambler and as far as I know he had never worked. Dorman scorned nine to fiving and often joked about maybe he'd look for work. He was expert at dice, poker, horses, sports, and golf. There are few people who carry themselves as he did and seem so absolutely delighted to be who they are.

At 79, Dorman was one the last of the old style Texas road gamblers. He was always dressed up in an expensive wide brim John B. Stetson hat, an expensive sports coat, a monogrammed starched shirt, a diamond ring that looked as big as a Cadillac hubcap, matching slacks, and expensive endangered species boots. With his Cadillac and colorful stories, he was what central casting would think a Texas gambler looks like and he loved it.

We played in the same no-limit Texas Hold em' game that lasted about thirty-five years. It was open to crossroaders, outlaws, and rounders from all over. Many came licking their chops and limped away licking their wounds. It was a very tough poker game. Some years ago the game ran all night but in recent years, the "Shop" as the place was called was open from early morning to exactly six o'clock Monday to Friday. It was an old abandoned auto repair shop with a concrete floor and nothing fancy. There was always a lookout with access to a shotgun.

Decades ago the police raided a few times. A couple of Detectives came around Christmas for drinks. In the mornings, in a mysterious ritual I never quite comprehended, the old ones would play dominos for modest sums, one dollar or five dollars. They would yell and scream at each other for mistakes and appear deeply angry but this was some type of act kind of like professional wrestlers. In the early days, boosters came selling varied manner of hot goods or goods they said were hot. My favorite were guys who sold fruit for 15c a pound. Then one day, the boosters were barred and I never asked why.

A few years back time finally began to take such a heavy toll in illness and death that the game broke up. I usually played in the Spring before the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas for practice and again around Christmas. It seemed like the game was always there and then it died like so many of the players. Dorman may have had a piece of the game. He helped cash in the chips at the end of the day but I never asked any questions. You never asked people's business, home town, last name, or where they got that money.

Dorman got his road name "Iron Drawers" for his infinite patience. He could sit and sit and sit until he got big cards. Dorman and his best friend Ed would drink a Coca-Cola in a bottle with peanuts poured down the neck together every single afternoon around four. Dorman would ask for a double shot of V-O in the late afternoons and always always say, "It is five o'clock somewhere."

Since he has gotten so old, he often went to sleep or pretended to go to sleep at the poker table. Way too often to be chance, when they woke him up, he would come out betting on two Aces.

His family called him Papaw Shaw and it said in the paper that he told colorful stories. When he would finally win a big pot after all that waiting, he would say "The sun don't shine on the same dog's ass everyday."

When I was pulling my most deceptive acting, coffee-housing, and fancy poker play, Dorman would say, "Don't give me that watermelon conversation."

If Dorman did lose his first buy-in or pullout, he would pull out a big fat wad of money wrapped in a rubber band and drop it behind his new buy-in and announce dramatically, "I am dropping the big pea." This means that he will and can cover any bet in this table stakes game. This was supposed the make him look upset and "on tilt" and fool someone into thinking he might alter his winning ways.He never ever went "on tilt." Dropping the big pea might have been what got Dorman killed.

At every gamber's funeral there is this awkward element, where some preacher he didn't know reads the obit, calls him a "businessman", looks for some Bible passage, and plays a song. I always want to say something about the deceased and his friends being gamblers.

There have been several of these funerals in the last few years but this one was very different. Dorman was murdered. It was one of the new young guys who has started to play poker who killed him in an apparent home invasion and robbery. That is what made the funeral sad but also scary.

On January 2, 2004, Dorman Shaw called 911 to report that Berry Thoms was beating, robbing, and killing him. The Lubbock police began to roll. It appears that Thoms, 29, had left Dorman to search the house and Dorman called 911. Thoms returned to shoot Dorman multiple times the most serious wound being to the neck. He never regained consciousness.

Cpl. Bloodworth saw Thoms running a block from Dorman's house where Thoms had stashed his car. The officer turned on the lights, and ordered him to surrender. Thoms cocked and pointed a twenty-five automatic at the officer and walked toward him saying, "You will have to kill me." That is kind of the way he played poker.

The officer shot him two or three times. As he lay on the ground, Thoms asked the officer to kill him. His wounds are very serious but he will recover to stand trial.

The funeral was better and very different. There was no preacher, and members of the family told loving stories. Dorman was also called "the Cowboy" and he loved all things from our cowboy culture. They handed out copies of "the Old Chisholm Trial" and we all sang two verses. Finally his brother-in-law said Dorman was a gambler and acknowledged the group who always sit in the back. He told of how on his first visit to Lubbock after World War ll, Dorman took him to a dice game at a lumber yard and the Texas Rangers came to break up the game.

He told us of the crime, paid tribute to the Lubbock police, and said they were treating it as a homicide investigation.

After the service, I talked to the family. They knew who I was from Dorman's stories. His brother-in-law and I agreed the unanswered question would be how did Berry get the drop on Dorman? Why did Dorman let him in the house? The police found a stun gun. Maybe that was it.

A neighbor saw exactly what Cpl. Bloodworth said happened. Another neighbor saw both men in the doorway and then Berry close the door.

Earlier in life I thought there would always be a place that I was comfortable swapping stories with these absolute gambling legends like Iron Drawers. The color picture on the front page of the newspaper showed him with his hat cocked back and that all knowing, all cynical, disdainful, stone cold poker face look.

The police said Berry got a substantial amount of cash, what Dorman had on him, "the big pea." He didn't get the end of the rainbow pot of gold that he must have thought Dorman would have laying around some closet instead of in a lockbox.

Now I am keeping the alarm system on whenever I am home. There is always a loaded .38 revolver as close as my coffee cup. I peek out the windows too often but I do not know what I expect to see.

I don't feel like playing poker here in Texas right now.