The Ivory Lady

For nearly a hundred and forty years, the first males of each generation of our family have been cursed by The Ivory Lady. No matter what game we play or the odds given, we always win. Most would not see this as a curse but you should hold off on making that assumption until you understand our story.

The Ivory Lady is a small figurine about the size of my pinky tip to the first knuckle. It is bright white and similar to a pawn sized queen. When held in sunlight, it twinkles as if it were made from a star.

Unfortunately, I cannot begin to tell you what she looks like. The figurine was carved in the form of a woman, that I am sure about, but I can’t put her description into words. None of us who have held her can and we don’t understand why this is.

She was found sometime in the late 1880s outside of Freetown on the west coast of Africa. All we know is my great-great-great-grandfather was off searching for diamonds and came home with The Ivory Lady. My grandfather remembers him talking about finding it in the mud on the banks of the Scaries River but never said if it was the Greater or the Little.

Ezekiel only found seven small diamonds in Africa but he won a few dozen on the boat home. There was little to do during the crossing and he spent much of his time playing cards. At first, he used silver dollars from selling a one-carat diamond in London but soon after they left port in England, his fellow passengers started using their smaller gems after running out of silver coins.

By the time they docked in America, Ezekiel had 37 gems ranging in size from a quarter to a half carat. The first thing he did when he arrived in New York was sell the whole lot for $15,000, which is about $480,000 in today’s market. That is just for the dollar value inflation and doesn’t account for the drastic changes in property values.

He moved on to St. Louis and married his second cousin, which was common in those days. A few months later, whichever common relative they shared, which got lots in the storytelling, died and gave their New Orleans plantation to whoever could pay off the debt. Ezekiel had more than enough to settle the deed to the estate and sufficient leftovers to repair the building, buy new furnishings, and update the windows.

The entire extended family took a riverboat to a new life on the Gulf. Along the way, Ezekiel played cards and won enough money to pay for the whole trip for all twenty-three family members. A considerable amount for the time period, yet none of the other players got upset over his constant winning.

Once a month, his wife let him go card playing in New Orleans as long as another male family member went with him. Ezekiel paid his largest cousin to stay sober and watch over him for protection. In the forty years he played, he never lost, and no one ever asked how he was able to accomplish such a feat.

He never remembered placing the figurine in his pocket when he went off to gamble, but it was always at the table with him. When he intentionally locked it away in his safe, it found its way to him. After a few attempts to lock it away, he gave up and never contemplated how the figurine and his winning streak were related.

Ezekiel lived until he was sixty-five, dying from a fall off a horse that was much too big for a rider of his low skill. In all the time he possessed her, The Ivory Lady never failed him. He won every hand he played.

The figurine was then passed to his eldest male child, his fourth. In secret, the boy had already benefited from her curse. He was a master of the game of chess and never lost a match unless he wanted to. Something his father would never do!

Whenever the boy played, the Lady found her way to his pocket. When the game was over, she ended up under her glass case on the fireplace mantle of the front parlor. No one noticed when she was not under her dome of glass, even Ezekiel.

And when there were three, the grandfather, father and son, she went to where she could be most helpful. If there was conflict, one of them would yield their playing, yet they never realized it was her influence. Her curse was shared by all living firstborn males.

The Great Depression drained most of the families' money, but they did better than a lot of others. The plantation sustained the family, plus a few hired servants working the land. Whatever was left over was donated to the local community and the family name rose in stature throughout the 1930s.

My grandfather spent most of his part in World War II on a ship going and coming home from Europe. Like Ezekiel, he played a lot of cards on the Atlantic crossing to kill time along the way, winning every hand he played. The stakes were low, with pennies, cigarettes and candy as the wagers.

His unit arrived in France, marched east for a few weeks and arrived in Germany a week before the surrender. His part in the war was to aid the wounded and help with the cleanup. At night, they played cards.

He returned unscathed from Europe but had developed a multi-pack per day cigarette habit, which eventually gave him cancer, but he won every hand dealt to him that he didn’t fold. It only took five years before he knew his life was near an end, and he volunteered for Korea after my father was born. The Ivory Lady stayed in his pocket until one morning my mother found it in my crib.

While my grandfather never figured out the connection between his winning streak, my father understood from a very young age. No matter what game he played, he always won. He learned quickly that the teams he played on didn’t share that benefit, so after the ninth grade, he only played individual sports.

He excelled at track events and golf, eventually earning a scholarship. On his first attempt, he won gold in the Olympics in the high jump and bronze in the pole vault. He finished twelfth overall in the decathlon and failed to qualify in the 400-meter sprint.

You may be asking why he only won gold in one event if The Ivory Lady was with him? Well, it wasn’t after his first event because she decided that I needed her more. He won the bronze all on his own and it changed something in him.

When he returned from the Olympics, he completed college and began playing golf professionally. He won every amateur event and quickly advanced to the top ranks. During the next ten years, my father won two major tournaments each year and placed at least three in the money, which allowed us to have a more than comfortable lifestyle.

While he was off playing golf, I played video games and ran a pool table for money. The Ivory Lady chose which of us to aid as she saw fit. This is why my father didn’t win every event.

My mother had, let’s say, extracurricular activities while my father was out of town, and when he retired, she took half of his wealth. He had amassed nearly twelve million, so half of it hurt his ego as well as his pocketbook. She also got the house and full custody of my twin sisters and me.

The poor bastard never recovered and blew through five of his six million in as many years. The first four of those five years was a constant playboy party, which he highly enjoyed. Unfortunately, for him, my father succumbed to hepatitis B, alcoholism, and acute pancreatitis.

My sisters and I split the million that was left over. When it came time to divide the insurance, they needed it more than me, so I gave them my share. Although, I put a caveat on the deal and it was put into an education fund for the two of them to share equally.

Me, I was doing fine. I paid close attention to what my father was doing and learned a lot about what not to do. Keeping below a six pack a day and wrapping my rascal were two of the important ones learned from dear old dad.

The lottery was my thing but I never hit it big but I always won more than I put in. A three-dollar draw ticket would get me forty-two in return here and a five-dollar scratcher got me fifty there. Playing twice a day for fifty years kept me financially secure throughout my life.

It was not as simple as you might think to fly under specific radars. I’d hit a win that would generate a tax form twice a month, and it quickly became apparent that I needed some accounting. From my mid-twenties on, I kept a daily record as a professional lottery shark.

About half of my wins were taxable income, and the other half was cash spending. I had to find ways to spend some money without drawing attention. Sometimes, it felt like a full-time job working in the system.

I spent more than forty years moving from state to state, playing the lottery and spending cash in strip clubs until my retirement. I still had all my dad’s money plus all the earnings, so the rest of my life was good. My sisters and their families settled back on the New Orleans estate and fixed it up and that is where I finish my days.

Unfortunately, there was no time for a family or children with my chosen lifestyle. I had no male to pass The Ivory Lady, too. Her curse on my bloodline ends with the sixth generation and my death.

If you have not figured out what the curse is, then maybe you have never won every game you have ever played. Without the risk of losing, there is no satisfaction. Never knowing the thrill of the game is the curse of The Ivory Lady.