One With $2 Million Is One in a Million to Barroom Buddies

They waited Monday night for the little man with the big belly, the St. Patrick’s Day pants, the funny top hat, the scratchy voice and the nonchalant chatter that made people laugh and say, “If anyone deserved to win $2 million, it was Jimmy.”

James E. Smith, the 51-year-old Pacoima man who was the third of four $2-million lottery winners Monday, had called from his courtesy suite at the Sheraton Universal Hotel to tell his friends at the Sand Trap Cocktail Lounge that he would be by as soon as he could get away.

“He’ll be here about 8 o’clock,” the bartender said that afternoon, showing not a hitch of doubt that the instant millionaire would remember his friends.

A case of champagne was waiting.

The Sand Trap is an ordinary place with a plain wood facade standing between a coin-operated laundry and an Italian sandwich shop in a corner shopping center on Woodman Avenue in Panorama City.

Wagon-Wheel Lamps

Inside, it is dark and narrow with framed mirrors on the wall, wagon-wheel lamps suspended from stained ceiling panels and half a dozen cocktail tables spaced along a long red bench that parallels the bar. There is a pool table in the back.

About a dozen men and women sat around the bar. Their ages ranged from the 20s through the 50s and they wore jeans, light jackets and T-shirts that carried messages like “Valley Discount Tires. We Mount ‘Em Better.”

At 8 o’clock, Jimmy wasn’t there.

But business was picking up. Most of the stools at the bar were taken. A couple of men were playing pool and an elderly couple sat alone at one of the tables. It was half time of the football game and one young man was eating a hot dog provided free by the house.

A tall, slender woman of about 40 walked in wearing skin-tight jeans and a leather vest that was covered with Harley-Davidson insignia and a button that said: “Evil, Wicked, Mean and Nasty.” She brought her pool cue with her.

2 Shot Glasses

She sat at the bar and ordered a drink. Gil the bartender, a rounding man with thin gray hair, delivered two shot glasses with her order.

He poured them full and held one between his lower finger and thumb. He raised it in a toast that went something like this: “This’ll make you healthy, happy and beautiful, and I hope I make you too, beautiful.”

They downed them in a gulp.

The woman said her name was Kim Britches. Her real last name was Watson, but her daughter gave her the nickname when her boyfriend used to tell her, “Honey, I love it when you wear those britches.”

When they told her Jimmy was a millionaire, she was speechless for just a moment.

She could relate to his good fortune. She had won a lottery once and used the money to replace her stolen Harley.

Injury Described

Now she was out of work, she said, having fallen through a scaffold on the job, damaging several of her vertebrae. The worst part was, her Harley was in the shop and she had decided just to leave it there.

“If I got it back, I’d ride it,” she said. “I don’t think it would be right to ride the Harley when I can’t work.”

Then she danced over to the pool table and got into a game with one of the men, punctuating each shot with a sensual swing of her hips.

As the hours passed, a few people gave up the vigil.

“Tell Jimmy I said hello,” one young woman said on her way out.

But most of Jimmy’s friends stuck it out.

At one end of the bar, a 40ish woman named Lynn Ryll said she wasn’t losing hope. She said she had known Jimmy and his wife, Tiny Sue, for 10 years and had talked to them that morning.

She said Jimmy told her: “It doesn’t matter what I get. I’ll still come to the same bar.”

And she told him: “You better.”

Watching Rebroadcast of Award Show

At 10:45, Gil switched the television to the channel that was rebroadcasting the four $2-million spins. He handed Ryll the remote control and told her to turn it up when Jimmy came on.

Meanwhile, a young man sitting by the pool table seemed still unaware of what was happening.

He was telling anyone who would listen that he had a degree in physics but couldn’t get a job because the only job available was for Rockwell, designing bombs and the like.

“I’m a pacifist,” he said. “That’s why I’m drinking.”

Then the volume on the TV set went up and the room fell quiet.

Everyone cheered when Jimmy stepped up to the wheel. Even though they knew the ending, they screamed like it was the seventh game of the World Series when Jimmy’s Ping Pong ball stuck in the $2-million slot.

At 11 o’clock, they watched Jimmy and the other three winners answer questions live on television news.

Back to Routine

Then the bar got normally loud again.

About 11:30, a young woman in a leather jacket gave up.

“The baby sitter has to go home,” she said, walking out.

A minute later she came back.

“Hey, can we open the champagne anyway?” she asked Gil the bartender, snuggling back onto a stool.

At 11:56, Larry Keating, the owner of the bar, looked up from his seat near the door.

“Here he is,” Keating said calmly.

Jimmy walked in, arms raised over his head triumphantly, Tiny Sue behind him and, around her, an entourage of several of the couple’s eight children with their wives and friends.

Jimmy still wore the green pants, the green “Gallagher’s Pub” jacket and the black top hat decorated with ribbons, buttons and $2 bills.

“I came to see my friends,” he said. “I want a beer.”

“He wants a Bud,” Tiny Sue elaborated.

Not Tired by Excitement

Tiny, a rather stout platinum blonde in slacks and a blue checkered shirt, sat down on the lounge chair, and her children gathered around her.

“We’ve been like this all day long,” she said.

Jimmy hadn’t tired. He shuffled energetically around the room, greeting his friends with hugs.

“Now you know why I wanted to come back here,” he said.

“I’m not going to change,” he said. “I’m still going to come in here and drink my beer. It just might be a little easier for me to come here and get a seat.”

“Let’s drink a toast to Jim,” Gil the bartender said. “Hope we have a lot more millionaires coming through these doors.”

Everyone drank.

Jimmy said the first thing he planned to do the next day, after completing his television interviews, was go to his job at Action Computer Products, where he inspects computer boards.

‘Best Boss in the Country’

“I work for the best boss in the whole country,” he said. “He stuck with me when I was down. I don’t make a whole lot of money. But I make good money.”

While Jimmy celebrated, Tiny Sue kept her position on the bench.

One of her daughters, Vickie Mallory, got up to challenge one of the men to a game of pool. She won.

“One down and nine to go,” she said to her mother.

Jimmy sat down briefly and put his arm around Tiny.

“My right arm,” he said of his wife.

Then he got up.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “I got to go kiss a couple girls.”