The Shell Game is Everywhere these days, this decade.

The shell game is a classic trickster event. You see it in NYC all the time. There was a guy that worked my block for years when I was living in Soho. In fact, a friend whom I'll refer to as Billie, got taken. We were on the tenth floor of one of those great old buildings in downtown Manhattan. We would end up living here 6 years. Not sure when this particular event took place. I do remember that it was in October. The air was crisp and warm in the sun, cool in the shade. May and October are the months to walk around Manhattan. It is the city at its most beautiful.
Billie had gone down to do something on the block. We were in the heart of the shopping district in Soho. Great stuff everywhere. It was a holiday weekend of some sort. Billie came into our apartment pissed off. I mean, dark-faced, angry. Billie never got angry.
"I had him!!" He storms through the kitchen and into the living room of our loft. He's pacing. "Damn, I don't know how he did it!"
I think Billie is too pissed to have lost $20.
"How much did he take you for?"
"Eighty bucks." Billie is pissed.
Billie likes gambling, fishing, playing card and dice games. He took the bait.


I have been known to have a very keen eye. We were visiting a business associate of my husband's when I was six months pregnant, I think. Showing nicely. We were in the woods at the man's country home. It was a stunning country home. Ralph Lauren would have been entirely impressed. Our host was a tough, working-class guy with enormous talent. He was one of the best in his field. He was a direct guy. I doubt he went to college. He was too brilliant in his own field. He was a unique person. He flippantly tossed the skeet gun to me?
"So, you wanna see what you can do?" He was a bit patronizing. He likes the sexist persona. He exercises it well. He's thinking the little lady will get scared and shoot the trees. Years before he'd asked me to represent him. As long as I could agree to a decreasing commission as I brought more and more work in. Didn't make sense to me. So I had politely declined. This skeet shoot took place several years later.
I nod, take the gun. "I've never done this before." And I hadn't before nor have I ever since shot skeet.

He pulls the handle. I shoot the first, the second, the third and the fourth bird. The gun is heavy so I want to put it down now.
"Damn!!" our host is genuinely impressed. He likes to goad the educated, feminist, working-class girl. "Dead Eye!! Look at her! Pregnant and a Dead Eye!!"

So back to the streets of New York. I had tried the shell game once. I often saw the man because he had a spot he liked to work. In New York you often see people every day that you never have reason to speak with. So, one day I am amused and have a moment so I step up and watch for several of his demonstrations. A young woman loses twenty. I pudgy guy loses twenty. I'm grinning because I've seen every one. If I focus just the right way I can keep it in my sight.
He gestures, "Come on, come on, I can see you think you can do it." He waves me over. I don't give him twenty. I tell him I can do it. I pick the right shell 3 times in a row until he grows annoyed and packs up his stuff and leaves. I remember thinking he was a real spoil sport. It's supposed to be a game, right? I thought that was the idea? That the odds were equal. He should be ready to lose as gracefully as I was. As all the people on the street were. But he wasn't. He wasn't because the game is to take as much money of yours as possible and make it be about your own ineptitude. He looks smart. You look stupid. He's got your money.

No coincidence that a lot of people feel like this today. The Banks still have the money.


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