Our family never played games. We watched games other people played—all kinds of sports depending on which Chicago team was in season, the Cubs being the only one we had a choice on over the cross-town White Sox, the Bulls, Blackhawks and Bears being singular. My Father, Aunt, and Uncle even played those little white gambling cards religiously and, even though, for a number of bizarre reasons, their favored college team was Purdue University from nearby Indiana, they would pick against their favorites in any sport if they thought it would bring in some cash.
Due to the little white cards, Saturdays and Sundays, in the winter, when the games chosen for betting were listed, they really went at each other. The side bets they made between them were sometimes more important than the card bets they made through the local bookie and there were plenty of heated epithets thrown back and forth as the afternoon combats took place. My brother and I watched this all closely and were even allowed to bet “for fun,” though we quickly learned that telling one of the adults that we had won on our card when they did not was not appreciated. These were the games in our family except for a short stint with ping pong that fizzled enough for the adults, due to my Dad’s dominance of his brother, to let us play something on our own. Otherwise, it was The Games.
Therefore, when one Thanksgiving, after dinner was done and the women had done the dishes, out of the blue, my Father proposed a family Monopoly game, he sparked stunned silence. The family never played these kind of group games. However, he being a standard patriarch, seven of us gathered around the poker table that he and his male friends frequented on Friday nights and, of course, as the banker, Dad distributed the paper money and we chose the pieces.
Since then, like most Americans, I have played Monopoly until its repetitiveness and the steady introduction of myriad new games in the exploding play land of Middle Class America, caused it to be boring. But, at that time, it was new and fresh and exciting so those of us, my Father, my Uncle, my Aunt, my Step-Mother, my Grandmother on my Father’s side, and we two boys, ages twelve and ten, were privileged to gather around the green felt table.
The nature of the game set up the impending drama. Most Monopoly games are played by three and four people, not usually by the allowed maximum of seven participants. The full deck, so to speak, means that the chief goal of each player— getting a monopoly so you can build hotels and destroy the opposition, an American value since Rockefeller and his cronies—is extremely difficult to attain. It meant someone of the seven would have to luck into a monopoly or we would just dice our way around the board over and over without much movement towards a winner. And so it was for us that evening. All purchased some of the color-coded property, none got a monopoly, but a few got two pieces of land, notably my Uncle.
My Father was the banker, handing out the fines and money with gusto while smoking a cigar that made him almost look like the executive whose famous picture graces the bright red Monopoly logo in the middle of the board. The pieces—horse, locomotive, hat, thimble, all of them, went round and round, round and round.
Suddenly my Uncle spoke up:
“I want to buy a house.” Dead silence. Everyone at the poker table instinctively knew something was wrong. All the property had been bought. The game had stagnated. There was no chance to get a monopoly. Unless you bought a piece of property from someone.
“What! “ our Father steamed through the smoke of his cigar. “Marvin, how did you get a Monopoly” Eyes flaming with accusation.
“I bought St. James Place from Vince.”
Almost insanely calm, our Father asked: “ And how much did you pay my ten year old son? Did you low ball him?”
“$100,” was the quiet reply.
More silence descended than when Casey swung and missed.
An explosion. Our Father lifted up the poker table and upended it, scattering the players, the pieces, and the paper bills everywhere.
To my brother and me and our little sister who sat wide-eyed through the whole event as she was too young to play:
“To bed, now, immediately, all of you!”
Our family did not have a monopoly on trouble. All we children dealt with anger issues, but that game, which was as much apart of that era of Americana as black and white TV sets, after every one else at that Monopoly game had passed away, came up at Thanksgiving a few uncomfortable times.
Originally published in Euphemism Magazine