Vern Fein
Our family never played games together. We watched games other people played—all kinds of sports depending on which Chicago team was in season, the Cubs being the only one on which we had a choice over the cross-town White Sox—the Bulls, Blackhawks and Bears be-ing singular. My Father, Aunt, and Uncle even played those little white gambling cards reli-giously and even though, for a number of bizarre reasons, their favored college team was Pur-due 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 cho-sen 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 had not was not appreciated. These were the games our family grew up on.
Therefore, one Thanksgiving after dinner was done and the women had done the dishes, out of the blue, when my Father proposed a family Monopoly game, he sparked stunned silence. The family never played these kinds of group games. However, being a standard patri-arch, seven of us gathered around the poker table that he and his men 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 played Monopoly until its repetitiveness and the steady introduction of myriad new games in the exploding play land of Middle Class America, rendered it boring. But, at that time, it was new and fresh and exciting so we all, 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 or four people, not usually the allowed maximum of seven participants. This means that the chief goal of each player— getting a monopoly so you can build hotels and destroy the op-position, 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 monop-oly. 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!”
The Monopoly game was as much a part of that era of Americana as black and white TV sets. But even after all the others had passed away, my brother and I remembered not really the Monopoly game, but the anger, which colored our family history across the years.