Bobby Johnson was a special case

He came to work at Dunnelton on a special grant from one of his high school buddies who had the power to hire potentially creative and responsible employees to fight the great war of the moment. In Dunnelton speak, there is always a war to be fought. Without that, there is no need to exist. War is hell, but it’s also a livelihood for thousands of civilian scientists who are paid handsomely to make the next super weapon to fight the next great war.

Bobby was a special case, however. He didn’t believe in wars or weapons. I never did figure out what his belief system was or why he got up every morning, but I do remember his antics. He was a funny guy.

Supposedly, in his younger years, he had been valedictorian of his high school class. He was also the star on the high school basketball team. But, when I met him, I saw no signs of these past achievements. By the time he passed my way, he had become a parody of himself. In fact, the only reason I befriended him was because he seemed to be completely inept at everything he tried to accomplish at work. He was so inept that he was fired outright at the end of his probationary period. FIRED FROM A GOVERNMENT JOB. Man, that takes some doing.

He was a tall man, almost six foot six. If there ever was a real life Kramer character, he was it. I still remember the first day I met him. He burst into my office like a giant on steroids. He introduced himself as a friend of one of my bosses, who happened to have grown up in my home town.

Even though Bobby was from my hometown, he was four years older than me and ran with a different crowd. We had gone to the same high school and lived in the same neighborhood but never knowingly met. However, that hometown connection was the hook for him and me to meet at work and form somewhat of a friendship. I wasn’t really his mentor because I spent most of my time trying not to get myself fired. So, Bobby had his mentors and he had me as a friend.

He drove around in a 1956 Chevrolet Caprice. It was more like a tank than a car. I had the pleasure of riding in his jalopy a few times. Even though the car was gigantic in size, only two people could ride in it because the back seat was completely filled with junk. The first time I saw the mess, I asked Bobby what was back there. He told me that there were old textbooks from college, dirty clothes from his last visit to the Laundromat, classic comic books from the fifties… Unfortunately, I knew that there were other nasty items lurking in the underbelly that was his backseat. One time we stopped at a fast food restaurant for a couple of hamburgers and fries. After Bobby would finish eating an item, he would toss the refuse into the back seat. When I asked him why he just threw his trash into the backseat with his clothes and textbooks, he gave me an inquisitive glance, and said, “Where else am I going to put it?” I thought that to be a reasonable albeit quirky answer, but readily accepted his explanation as I did most of his comments. Bobby had his own way of living and it seemed completely natural to him. If anyone questioned his idiosyncrasies, he became exasperated by their lack of knowledge of his view of the human condition.

To fulfill one of his work assignments, Bobby and I had met with some civilian contractors in Jersey City and then decided on the spur of the moment to take a bus down to Atlantic City to do some gambling. The trip was a good deal if one wanted to have some fun on the cheap. You could purchase a bus ride to Atlantic City for twenty dollars and then get back fifteen dollars worth of quarters and a five dollar meal ticket which could be used at any casino along the strip.

We arrived at Atlantic City and went in to the first casino that we saw. We split up for awhile since I wanted to play the slots and Bobby wanted to play Blackjack. I wandered over to the slot machines and lost the fifteen dollars in ten minutes. Ten minutes. I then wandered over to the Blackjack table to see how Bobby was doing. At the time I saw him, he was up two hundred dollars. Since I was already tapped out, I told him that I was going to redeem my meal ticket while he was playing Blackjack. He didn’t hear me, so I took off to get my free meal.

Unfortunately, I found out that the only food five bucks would get in a casino was a hot dog platter. Laughingly, the two items on the platter besides the hot dog and bun were relish and onions. A hot dog platter. Man, what a treat.

After indulging myself with this extravagant meal, I wandered back to the Blackjack table to see how Bobby was doing. He was now up three thousand dollars. I was amazed by his acumen but warned him about getting too greedy. I suggested that he cash out and then we could really go party. He ignored my suggestion and told me to just wait a little bit. He felt that he was on a run and that he could make some real money that night.

So, I decided to occupy myself by trying to find the Playboy show which was at one of the casinos. I was able to finagle free drinks and see a few shows for four or five hours. After having all of the fun that I thought that I could endure for one night, I went back to see how Bobby was doing at the Blackjack table. To my amazement, he said that he was down two thousand dollars. I asked him how he could run himself into a hole like that without any collateral. He told me that he was regular customer at the casino and he had a ten thousand dollar limit. So, I decided to sit down and watch him for a while. Fortunately, he was able to break even after another two hours, and he cashed in his chips with twenty dollars to spare.

On the trip back to Jersey City, I asked him why he drove around in a 56 Caprice if he could run a ten thousand dollar tab in Atlantic City. He only smiled and said that he was a card counter but had never been caught. He told me that he had purposely lost several times and then made the money back and more on the next trip to the casino. I told him that if he applied himself at work with the same intensity as he did at the gambling table, he might be able to keep his job. He looked at me with a condescending smirk and said only, “I don’t need that job. They need me.”

To be continued…