“The Fool Killer’s comin’ to town, Jeff, and you don’t want him lookin’ fo’ you, so better not be a fool, understan’?”

Hobie Smith — a good man and at least 40 years my senior — was teaching me how to survive in the real world. “Keep your eyes on the hands of the man shuffling the damn deck, boy!”

The grandson of Alabama slaves, Hobie was tickling the tired, stained deck of cards, getting ready for the next hand of Tonk. In many ways, I grew up at Johnny’s Cab Stand, next to the railroad tracks in segregated Roslyn, New York, where Hobie was the taxi dispatcher and dispenser of gritty wisdom to anyone who’d listen. I was 15, the son of upper-middle-class parents who knew that if they couldn’t find me, to call Johnny’s.

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