Mike Roman, 1960 U.S. Army

Tough Guys, 1960

I

After that motorcycle accident in the desert, I came home to recuperate for 30 days. I was in the hospital for three weeks; then I came home to rest.

One night, I was home with nothing to do, so I went up to the hospital to visit some people. There was a recreation room there, with a good pool table. I was drinking beer. These two guys set me up. It was my break. We were playing for money. They were letting me win at first, but I didn’t realize that.

Abruptly, the guys said, “Its double or nothing.” I just nodded. That was fine with me. I broke and cleaned up the whole table. Then they got mad.

“You set us up,” they accused me. But I hadn’t.  I wasn’t that good at pool, really. When I won that time, these two guys were so pissed off, they decided to fix me good . They pulled out these straight edge razor blades.  I was wearing a leather jacket with my P38 inside.

I saw the razor blades and got so angry. I pulled out my P38 and said, “Now I’m going to blow your heads off.”

“No, no,” they cried.

“How about I just blow your b___s  off?”

“No, no,” they repeated, backing away.

I ordered, “give me those frickin razor blades.”

They threw them down at my feet.

“Now give me my money. “

A pile of cash was before me.

“Next time you try to pull off a trick like that, pull it on some dummy.”

I got the money and took off on my motorcycle. Now I had two highs, from the beer and from beating these two  guys.

I was tough. People used to go to me to buy protection. I could threaten people, warn them to stay away from the ones who paid me. I would beat them up or threaten to blow their asses off. Some Air Force guys came to see me. They were from Biggs AFB, from Strategic Air Command, where the big bombers were. They said they wanted to buy protection too.  I needed the extra money, so I did it.

Tommy was a friend from Army days who was good at betting on the horses. You didn’t make much money in the Army, so we were always looking for schemes to get more dough. Tommy was a jockey and also a druggie. He knew the horses. His mother was a bookie in Maryland. He was at Fort Bliss with me, and at MacGregor. Somebody would have to go to El Paso every day, a long ride. They’d pick out the horses and send bets to Tommy’s mother. He made us money by winning on the horses. We’d bet on it and split the winnings. Tommy’s mother would send us a money order. The set-up didn’t last long. Tommy was a good guy, but he was living a wild life. He died soon after, from drugs. He was only 23, too many drugs, always on something.