The following was written by Noel ‘Juicy’ Qualter anonymously for a Ben Earl magazine. Reprinted here in all it’s hilarious glory with permission from the author.
You don’t know me but I’m about to make you give a damn. My name is Jack “Juicy” Broad and I’ve been involved in hudsuckery my whole life. I’ve done it all from juicing the Patties and Selma’s to flossing flumps. I’ve paced this road long enough and I think it’s time I gave up ticklin’ orphans and spat the jive on my life. I’ve been running so long my legs can’t carry me and this soldier is takin’ a piss in a ditch.
First things first, I guess i need to address a couple things. I’m not a magician; I hate every one of the cocksuckers. Sure, I’ve muxied with the best of ‘em but I’ve never met one who, when it came down to it, could break bread when it came to the main meal.
Something I’ve noticed about magicians or spaghetti salesmen as we hudsuckers call ‘em is that they never use the true gillies vernacular. Even the ones who label themselves as the real deal expose themselves with their use of bully putz terms. I guess seeing as this journal purports to be focused on gambling conjuring I’d use this space to right some of the most common idiom ills.
No true hudsucker would ever say “he switched dice”, instead he’d say he, “whiskied some pups” and misspotted dice are called “Dalmatians” or “101’s” and loaded dice are “peg-legged pups”.
Card mechanics are called clerks and a much vaunted card mechanic would be called a filing clerk. Their skill could be judged by the name their peers gave to them. An inexperienced/or bedroom mechanic would be called “management” to flatter his ego but in reality it was a disparaging term. The highest praise you could hear would be this extension of office lexicon “are you new round here?” …said with a wry smile. Traveling mechanics are known as “paper salesmen” and some of the hardest working roadwarriors in the business.
Stacking a deck is “laying foundations”.
A deck to be switched in, often misnomered as a cold deck, its more accurately referred to as the “heiress” or a “Paris” and the deck on the table is the “Trump”
If somebody tries to bally his way into a game that’s already been sewn up by a hudsucker, the first guy would say to the newcomer “this is Delilah’s dance” i.e this is my game…walk away.
Chips are called either “frazzles”, “Krispy Kremes”, “spongebobs” or “Giraffe balls”
Cash is “Smurf bait”, “Jade” or “the honey”.
The old guard carneys had a name for inferior pickpockets and called them “Rodney’s”. This was a legacy to a renowned gypsy nip who worked in a gang called “Sylvester’s”. He was a barrel chested clumsy oaf and looked out of date even then and was easily picked up by the chuff hunters (police).
Bottom dealers are “grave diggers” or “sluts” and second dealers are “coachers” from Coach – second class travel or “manual laborers” i.e. people who work too hard for a living.
If the heat got too bad and the game was going 404 then you might “throw the jew down the well” which means to fold and skip out.
The top card is called TC as in “Top Cat – his close friends get to call him TC”. If you are dealing tops you’d be dealing TC’s and to secretly peek the top card is to “Benny” and the face card is “Dibble”. Discards are sometimes called “alley cats” or “strays”.
A pickled chimp is management who gives himself away with nervous fidgeting/body language.
Now you have no excuse. I’ve given you the knuckles on the real jargon used by netherworld grifters, shifters and shit clippers, don’t disgrace yourself a minute longer. In the future I hope to drop in occasionally to this manor with my tales of swimming with the dukes and duchesses of this age old game.
This letter comes to you from a railway station near Cleethorpes. I’m sitting on my old battered Nelly, sucking on a chuppa chup, watching the world going by…wondering who’s gonna get played next by the pixies of fate.
Till next time.
Read ‘em and weep, bitches.
Juicy.
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