Hamster Tales

An Atheist Talks to God

2008-01-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

I was chatting with a good friend of mine who is an honest man and a bit of a cynic when he casually mentioned that he'd been talking to God. I was taken aback, after all he isn't even a Christian as far as I know and has said things in the past that led me to believe he didn't believe in said entity.

"I thought you didn't believe in God...?" I said.

"I didn't used to," he said. "But a few weeks ago, I was fishing on a remote lake in Northern Ontario - miles way from the nearest human being - and he introduced himself..."

"Just like that?" I said.

"Just like that." he said.

"Um... what'd he say?" I asked.

"He said, 'Hi, John... it's a remarkable day isn't it?'..."

"What did you say to that?" I enquired.

"I said, 'It is indeed...' I couldn't think of anything else to say."

"What did you talk about?"

"Sorry - it's personal" he said.

The conversation turned to more down-to-earth sorts of things but this got me thinking. John has always been a rational and intelligent man - a little reticent... a man of few words. But honest always. I thought to myself, maybe there's something to this after all?

It took considerable planning and expense but three weeks later, I was in a fourteen foot fishing boat with a nine point nine motor on exactly the same lake as John had described and miles away from anywhere. I was on tenterhooks, but nothing at all happened the first day except that I caught a few nice eating walleye and released a pair of unusually big muskie. The second day, it occurred to me that perhaps He wasn't feeling quite as chatty as he'd been with John and that I should be presumptuous enough as to start the conversation instead.

"God," I said, somewhat self-consciously. "How are You doing?".

I felt obliged to emphasize the 'You' because of who He was, but ended up sounding like Joey Tribiani from 'Friends'. Pretty lame I admit, but what would you have said...?

"Makes you feel like an idiot..." said a small, still voice, casually. "talking to nobody in particular, I mean."

"Is that you, God?" I said excitedly.

"No, Son... it's one of the walleye you just caught." He said, wearily. "Harumph... of course it's me."

I was flabbergasted and gobsmacked and doubting my sanity - all at the same time. I'd been an atheist for most of my sojourn on this planet and now I was talking to a being I was sure didn't exist. I checked over my shoulder and took a cursory look around the boat but there was nobody there... and no microphones or speakers as far as I could see.

"So you do exist?" I said cautiously.

"Evidently." He said, patiently. "I have always existed and I will always exist in perpetuity."

"That infinite in perpetuity thing has always fascinated me," I said "Is there really infinity out there?"

"Yes. At least as far as you can imagine..." He sounded bored. "I just know you're dying to ask me a whole bunch of intelligent questions..."

"Well, yes... yes, I am..." I said. And then paused because I couldn't think of any.

"If you created the world... who created you...?" He prompted.

"Ah, yes. Well, who did?"

"It's that infinity catch-all again..." He said. "Nobody or nothing did. I've always been here. There is no beginning and no end."

"But you did create the heavens and the earth?"

"Yes. Although you can't blame me for that. Even I have my off moments..."

"Hmmn... and after that you created man in Your own image?"

"Not at all. Think about it - I am everything that exists - I don't have an image."

"But it says so in the Holy Bible." I insisted.

"I didn't write that collection of fables and half-truths. As far as I'm concerned, it's a compendium of fairy stories..."

"You didn't create the earth in seven days then?"

"Nope. Actually it was a few minutes work - a mere afterthought after I created the universe. And it's only one of the many populated worlds that I made."

"So, we're not alone?"

"Alone...? You exist only in my imagination... but I must admit I have imagined other civilizations. So in that respect you are not alone."

"Here's a good question..." I said. "What about Heaven and Hell - do they exist?"

"Myths... both of them. Invented by the purveyors of judgment based religion. Make a man feel guilty and he'll do just about anything - Jewish mothers nailed that tactic down thousands of years ago..."

"But the fundamentalists claim they are already forgiven and they'll all go to heaven..."

"Forgiven?" He said, "Ask yourself by who? Not by Me certainly... and I already told you there is no judgment and no Heaven or Hell so what's the point of being forgiven?"

"So what happens when we die?"

"You cease to exist. Period. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that... think of it as the ultimate recycling or compost."

"Did Jesus even exist?"

"He did indeed."

"Is he your son?"

"Don't be silly. I have no relatives. He's part of me in the sense that all mankind is part of me and the product of my imagination, but we're not otherwise related..."

"So the virgin birth...?"

"Ridiculous."

I pondered all this for a while. It took a few very long moments to sink in.

"Then, apart from the fact that You do exist," I mused. "I was right about just about everything?"

"Yes. Most professed atheists tend to think clearly because they try to rationalize everything. They are wrong, but honestly so. I'd much rather chat with a thousand atheists than one religious nut."

"But what about all those religious people worshipping you and all those prayers?"

"Nobody asked me if I wanted to be worshipped. Frankly it doesn't do a thing for me... and all of those prayers? Wasted. They fall on deaf ears, or rather, since I don't have what you might call ears, they fall into the howling ether..."

"But you did give Moses the Ten Commandments?"

"Eleven to be exact. He only bought two small tablets and his handwriting was so big he could only get the first ten on them."

"What was the other one?"

"The other commandment? Thou shalt not."

"Thou shalt not... what?"

"I'll give you an example. When you're thinking about doing something and you hear that small voice in your head telling you it might be illegal, immoral, or fattening - just don't do it. It's like the infinity thing... it's a catch-all. It sums up all of the others in one pithy phrase."

"It is pretty pithy..." I said, hiding a grin.

"Don't forget I can read your thoughts, Son," He said calmly.

"Sorry. I love a good pun."

"I know you do... which is why you haven't been reduced to a small pile of smoking ashes yet."

"Incidentally," I said. "Why would you talk to me and John and not all of those religious people who do believe in you?"

"Practicality. Every time I talk to a religious person they tell everybody and make a big fuss... look at Joan of Orleans. She takes it as a sign, puts on a suit of armor, gets on a horse and attacks the British, and then ends up on a barbecue... Atheists, on the other hand, are usually too embarrassed to admit to everyone that they were wrong and so they say nothing."

"I was meaning to ask - did you talk to George Bush like he claims?"

"Never met the guy. Not that I'm concerned about it. There's a heck of a lot of people out there taking my name in vain and if I zapped all of them, there wouldn't be many preachers, TV evangelists, or right-wing politicians left..."

"So you're not a vengeful God like the one in the Old Testament? You're more of a New Testament kind of God?

"Actually, I'm neither. Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damnation..." He chuckled. "Good movie, that.... Humanity makes the mistake of ascribing rather too much importance to itself. I'm not interested enough in their little political shenanigans and religious differences to even think about them most of the time."

"Then why would you talk to me?" I said, curiously.

"Why indeed...?" He said.

I think I heard him laughing... and that was that. I haven't heard from Him since - perhaps he found my conversation lacking and went on to find another rather more intelligent atheist to chat with. Or maybe he's off exercising his imagination on another habitable world. Or maybe I just imagined the whole thing because of all of that beer I drank waiting for him to arrive?

God only knows. That is... if he really does exist.

RORT Global Warming Christmas

2007-12-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

RORT Global Warming Christmas

(A word of explanation - RORT is Rec.Outdoors.RV-Travel - a usenet group that deals with RV's and, lately, politics)

Twas the night before Christmas and all throughout RORT
Nothing was stirring, no-one had a thought.
The spammers were snoring, tucked up in their beds,
And loquacious ol' Linus was taking his meds...

Tories and Liberals had ceased their debating,
And for once, even Lon wasn't hating.
And Ferguson, Carl, and crusty Al Balmer,
Had mellowed out and were considerably calmer.

Ol' Gar had retired for the night, under his bridge
And Ginger had thawed out the food in her fridge.
Bob Giddings was off researching his genes
And Will Sill was dreaming 'bout washing machines.

Hugh, Jan, and Dusty were getting along
And Lampson was greeting the season in song.
Max was a sawing, and Hunter was too
And Janet dropped in for a natter or two...

When out on the Web there arose such a clatter,
That the Hamster logged in to see what was the matter.
A new YouTube clip had appeared, so it seemed,
The contents of which you could never have dreamed.

The scene opened up (after loading the file)
And I watched as the action unfolded in style.
When to my wonder, of all things ersatz
I saw a huge sleigh, drawn by six overfed cats

With a silver haired driver, his hand on the tiller,
I knew in a moment it had to be Miller.
Faster than light, his felines they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.

"Now Dozer! now, Jade! now, Pearl and big Bubba!
On, Rumble! On, Tank! Let's burn some more rubber!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to a mansion with lights bright as suns,
They rose into the air like a goose with the runs.

And there on the back a-plopping himself
Was a scowling bill horne, attired as an elf
I grinned as I thought to myself, "What the heck
Some folk will do anything just for a check..."

He was dressed in green silk, and looked quite disjointed,
His hat was aluminum tin-foil and pointed.
A forty-four magnum stuck out of his clothes
And he looked awful cute in his form fitting hose.

As I looked closer, I saw two more elves
(Who were doing their best not to laugh at themselves)
One had a cane and walked a bit stiff
And I wondered if that one could have been Cliff?

The other was bigger, not exactly a waif,
And perhaps his green tights were beginning to chafe
For he couldn't stay still on the back of that sled
And he squirmed in his outfit of greenish and red

He carried beside him a contraption of sorts,
It was buzzing and whirring, made of tin, wire, and quartz.
He pushed a small knob, and it lit up like a flame
And I knew in a flash, Neon John was his name.

They spoke not a word, but went straight to their work,
As they blew up the lights being used by this jerk.
Al Gore's house was in darkness and Kevin arose,
Saying, "We can't afford carbon credits like those..."

He sprang to his sleigh, to his cats gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, 'ere they faded from sight,
"Hasta la vista, Al baby... we turned out the light."

Pumpernickel Pete

2007-11-29T09:42:00.001-08:00

Pumpernickel Pete - David E. Malone - November 29, 2007.

Mully surveyed his surroundings.

He wasn't expecting much and the place pretty much met his expectations. The sign on the way in had said, "Mulberry Center for the Emotionally Disturbed" but 'nut-house' seemed more appropriate. The place reeked of disinfectant and something else which made his gut heave for a moment before he got used to it. Whitewashed walls and parquet flooring as far as the eye could see... not exactly Martha Stewart decor, more like a San Quentin cafeteria, but that was to be expected.

Damn that judge. All he'd done was smack a deserving thug with a cue-ball in the toe-end of a sock at the local pool hall and this was the result. For a moment he considered leaving... community service was one thing, but doing his community service in a loony bin was surely cruel and unusual punishment.

The doors locked automatically behind him when they swung to, and at the back of the main hall you could see what looked like prison bars. That must be where they keep the violent ones, he thought, shuddering. Thank God he would only have to interact with the merely slightly crazy inmates. His job was to try and keep some of them entertained for a while and free up the nurses and other hospital staff to do other things.

"What the heck..." he thought, and approached a relatively normal looking little old lady sitting in a chair all alone at a card table.

"Hi, I'm...."

He never got to finish his sentence. The woman looked up in absolute horror and started to scream, over and over again. She was shaking her hands in front of her and her eyeballs were rolled up into her sockets. Unsure of what to do, he backed off slowly with his hands up and a nurse came running over to take charge of the situation.

"Don't worry..." she said cheerfully. "Mrs Campden doesn't take to strangers very easily... why don't you ask old Pete over there if he wants to play some cards...?"

Shell-shocked, he did as he was told and nervously approached an old man in a hospital gown who seemed to be lost in thought and staring into space.

"Are you Pete?" he said.

"What's it to you...?"

"I thought you might want to play some cards...."

"For money?"

"For fun..."

The old man looked disgusted and went back to his reverie. Mully was at a loss, but eventually tapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't ever touch me again." said the old man, fiercely, waving a bony fist at him. His hands were thin with skin like transparent parchment, albeit heavily veined, and the finger-nails were uneven and short as if they'd been chewed. With the robe drawn tight, you could see he was as skinny as a rail and his ribs stood out under the cloth. Apparently he hadn't shaved for several days judging by the stubble on his chin.

"Um, so, do you...?"

"Do I what?"

"Want to play some cards..."

"Well, why didn't you say so... I was just thinking about doing that. It's probably a good thing you happened along."

They settled on gin rummy and Mully soon found that the frail old guy with the piercing blue eyes was neither senile nor stupid. In fact, he very quickly found himself down by a good number of points and thought maybe he'd better make an attempt at some conversation.

"So, how are you these days...?" he said.

"What you really mean..." said Pete, grinning broadly. "... is, what's a perfectly normal looking guy like me doing in a place like this?"

"I thought it might be insensitive of me to ask, but... okay... why?"

"It's not a long story." said Pete.

"My name is Pete Rowlings... I may have been the best pool player in the world at one time bar none - they used to call me Pumpernickel Pete. You heard of me...?"

"The name sounds vaguely familiar," said Pete, nodding. "I think my father may have mentioned you once..."

"If you play pool long enough in Canada, you've heard of me." said Pete firmly. "They call me Pumpernickel Pete because I only play for the bread and I always come home with the dough... I never lost a money game in twenty years. I can still beat anyone out there if they'd let me."

"So what the hell are you doing in here?"

"I got tired of playing smart-ass junior shortstops. Nobody has any respect anymore for one of the greatest players who ever lived... and one day I snapped. It was at a tournament in Oshawa and I was playing this kid.... don't even remember his name... doesn't matter... nobody else remembers his name either. He was sharking me and making jokes while I was shooting, and eventually I just walked up to him and cold-cocked him with the butt of my cue. When they tried to restrain me, I went nuts and just beat the crap out of anybody that came within reach. The guys in the white coats took me away in a straight-jacket and I've been here ever since. I'm as sane as you or anybody else but they won't let me go home.... the bastards."

He paused a few moments remembering.

"Fricking damned miserable bastards." he said again, bitterly.

The conversation soon turned to other things, but Mully made a mental note of the name.

Later that evening after his Mulberry 'shift' he logged onto Google and did a search on Pete Rowlings "Pumpernickel Pete". To his surprise there was a whole lifetime's worth of information about him there. Canadian straight pool champion six times in a row, winner of dozens of other big tournaments; he had apparently beaten both Willy Mosconi at pool and Cliff Thorburn at snooker straight up in an exhibition in Toronto in 1965. The more he read about the man, the more he was impressed. Like old Pete had said, there was no record of him losing... at all. Every tournament he was shown as having played in, he won. The evidence was right there on the Web...

On his next visit to the Mulberry, he looked immediately for old Pete and sat down beside him.

"How are you, Pete...?" he said, cheerfully.

"Who the hell are you?" said Pete.

"It's me... Mully. You remember we met last week and played cards..."

"Oh, yeah, now I remember. The born loser who sucks at cards... well, I'm just about as lousy as usual, son. But thanks for asking."

"Look, I did a search on the Internet and everything you told me about you being a great pool player is true..."

"Of course it is, you dumb putz... " said Pete. "Did you come here just to call me a liar?"

"No, no, no." said Mully quickly. "Not at all. I've been thinking and I have an idea... if you don't wanna do it, I'll forget about it, but... how do you feel about playing some straight pool again... for money? Can you still play, do you think?"

"Can I still play...? Get me outta this piss-palace and we'll see." said Pete with some enthusiasm. "Playing billiards is like riding a bicycle... you don't forget. I promise you I'll beat you like a tin drum and likely show you a few things you've never even seen before."

"Nope. Not me... there's this guy, Charlie Adams, down at the Coronation who's a real good shortstop and a high roller. Bit of a hustler too. Took fifteen-hundred off me a few weeks ago and I'm no slouch. I was thinking we could set him up for a few, mebbe five, dimes and then roll him. I get my fifteen-hundred back for smuggling you out of here and sweating the match - and you get the rest..."

"Lessee... let me get this straight. You want me to do all the work - and you'll only take a dime and a half? Maybe I can fetch your coffee and lick your boots as well?"

"I'm taking a big chance," said Mully, earnestly. "If they find out I smuggled you out of here, it'll be a breach of my probation and I'll get thrown in jail."

Pete thought about it for a while.

"Well, okay... cash isn't much use to me in here anyway." said Pete. "Okay, I'll do it. But you'll have to buy me a cheese-burger and a beer or two and get me back here as well. Just tell me when and where - I'll put my street clothes on and wait by the side entrance over there. When you get there... bang on it three times and open the door. I'll be ready."

After some heated negotiations back at the Coronation, Mully finally got Charlie to agree to a match. It was hard going because obviously Charlie was nervous about taking a match with someone he'd never seen play and whose name he didn't recognize. He was smart enough to know it might well be some kind of set up, but Charlie wasn't yet born when the name Pete Rowlands meant something in the world of professional pool and people had mostly forgotten about his exploits. It was only when Mully told him the guy was eighty years old and hadn't played for a few years that he reluctantly agreed.

"There ain't anybody out there over seventy that can still play except Willie Mosconi, and Willie's dead. I want proof he's eighty though before we hit any balls." he said. "And don't think I believe that crap about him not playing for a while. I've heard that one before - you must think I was born yesterday."

"Not a problem... in fact, the senile old bastard looks like he's ninety..." said Mully shrugging his shoulders. "It's an easy five dimes for you... I'd take him on myself if I could find enough backers to come up with the dough."

Saturday night finally arrived and Mully arrived at the side door. Sure enough, old Pete was waiting for him in an old brown suit that smelled of mothballs and a faded although clean white shirt. He must have weighed considerably more when he was originally incarcerated because the suit hung on him like clothes on a scarecrow and there was ample room in the shirt collar to stuff in another scrawny neck of the same diameter. He was carrying an ancient canvas cue case trimmed with brown plastic. Mully helped him into the car...

"Nervous...?" he said.

"Me...? Nervous?" said Pete, incredulously. "Do I look nervous?"

And actually he didn't. His blue eyes had a twinkle in them and he looked, if anything, agog with anticipation. Mully was rather more subdued because, after all, it was his money that was at risk.

When they arrived at the Coronation, Charlie and his cohorts hadn't yet arrived, so they shared a plate of poutine and a couple of beers. The old man ate with relish and took his time, savoring the cold beer. By the time Charlie eventually arrived, Pete looked relaxed and confident.

Mully had made some initial arrangements with the floor manager, Ruby, and they had cordoned off a Gold Crown next to the bar for the match. It was newly felted with forest-green Gorina Granito Basalt so it would likely be fast... and the pockets were tight, as Ruby had put it... tighter than a mosquito's ass stretched over a rain barrel.

"Best table in the pool room," opined, Ruby.

"Do you want to warm up, Pete...?" said Mully. "You really should hit a few balls first."

"Nope. Soon as I start playing, people will remember who I am and the cat'll be out of the bag." said Pete. "Let's keep it a secret a little while longer..."

He opened the cue case and took out an old two piece Dufferin. It certainly wasn't a Balbushka or Palmer, or even a custom-made cue, but it looked in good nick... a bit thin by today's standards, maybe 11mm at the business end, and the tip itself was nicely shaped to a dime. He stared at the two pieces for a short while as if they were old friends and then screwed them together firmly. Then he cast a critical eye down its length and nodded - satisfied.

Mully made the introductions and an awed Charlie didn't even ask to see Pete's proof of age. There wasn't any doubt he was 'nearer my lord to thee' than anyone else in the room and Charlie saw no need to insult him by asking his age. The stakes were collected by Ruby and stashed under the bar for safekeeping. Charlie threw a couple of balls on the table and said simply...

"Let's lag. Straight pool. Race to one hundred..."

Pete leaned over the table and played his 'lag' ball. The cue made a strange sound, skidded strangely off the cue-ball and his effort slid maybe a foot down the table - a complete and utter miscue. Charlie's parallel effort rolled smoothly down the table and then back up to within an inch of the bottom rail.

"No fricken chalk..." Pete said, absently. And then to Mully... "Don't worry, I'm just rusty... after all, I haven't played for fifteen years. But it's like riding a bicycle - you never forget."

Well, the wheels came off his bicycle pretty quickly after that. Not only was he a bad shot, there was even a nagging thought in Mully's mind that he'd maybe never even hit a billiard ball before. Every time he got to the table, Pete swung and missed badly... a detached observer could almost hear the sound of hundred dollar bills wafting their way into Charlie's wallet.

It seemed to take an agonizingly long time, but eventually a cruising Charlie reached his century and closed out the match. He smirked...

"What was he thinking...?" he said to Mully. "I'd bet the old man has never even played straight pool before... more money than sense, I guess."

"The two of us... Pete and me... we're gonna have a little talk about that." said Mully grimly, as he grabbed the old man by the shirt and dragged him to one side.

"That little exhibition just cost me five thousand bucks." he said heatedly. "You're not goddam Pumpernickel Pete Rowlands, are you? What in hell's name made you pretend you are... are you out of your freaking mind?"

"Yes..." said Pete. "Yes. Actually I am... "

He smiled apologetically.

"Why else do you think they'd put me in the fricken loony bin?"

Lord Chumley's Exhibition

2007-11-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

Lord Chumly's Exhibition - David E. Malone - Nov 21, 2007

In this life, there are billiard players and there are billiard player pretenders. Simon Montvale was an accomplished billiard player... and acknowledged as such by his peers in the English Billiards association. Tall and rangy, with a keen eyesight and an analytical mind, he was quite possibly the best of breed when it came to the royal sport of carom billiards. And, indeed, as a five time Merrivale Sporting Club champion he thought of himself as such with some justification.

So his interest was piqued when he ran into Stanley Attenborough at the club. Stanley was a foppish and elegant creature who affected a kind of upper-class dilettante persona but yet possessed a sly wit and a shrewd mind that belied his manner. Clapping one manicured hand upon Simon's shoulder, he took him aside before he entered the billiard room with the news of a sensational new game in town. The game was apparently called Boston Billiards and the object of the game was not carom but directing the balls into leather drop pockets at the sides and corners of a ten foot table.

"Pockets?" said, Simon blankly.

"Pockets..." said Stanley firmly.

"It sounds like one of those colonial abominations..." said Simon doubtfully. "Those American chappies are always trying to make a perversion of the game to make it easier to play."

"Why don't you attend the exhibition this afternoon." said Stanley smiling slightly. "It may or may not be an American abomination - I believe it may have been invented on the Continent in fact - but regardless, the gentleman giving the demonstration is none other than Lord Chumley, your uncle..."

"Uncle Algernon?" exclaimed Simon. "I don't believe it... he, of all people, would not let the noble game of billiards be taken over by a mere fad of fancy."

"Nevertheless..." said Stanley, and pointed him toward a small poster on the column in front of the lobby.

"Boston Billiards Exhibition." it read, "by Lord Algernon Chumley. The time: Three of the Clock Post Meridian. The venue: The Billiard Room."

After a light lunch of kippers and scones, Simon allowed himself to be led into the exhibition room which had been converted into an arena of sorts by the placement of a number of chairs beside the main table. Stanley was awfully keen and had saved him a ring-side seat by placing his jacket on it. There was some grumbling amongst those at the back who had arrived earlier when he took his seat, but as soon as they recognized him it was short-lived and good natured.

At the prescribed time, a relaxed and cheerful Lord Chumley made his appearance. Physically he resembled Simon not at all, being short and plump with a greying moustache and a receding hairline. He carried with him a bag with many colored ivory balls, a long leather case, and a large wooden triangle which further increased the sense of anticipation in the audience.

"Are you going to play that triangle..?" cried a wag in the second row.

"I am not..." said, Lord Chumley firmly. "In fact, I am going to play a volunteer from the audience."

He cast a theatrical eye around the room and feigned astonishment as his gaze lit upon Simon trying his best to remain anonymous in the first row.

"What have we here...?" he said. "I think I see the perfect opponent. None other than our distinguished club champion, Simon Montvale..."

"Perhaps another time, Uncle." said Simon, laughing.

"Nonsense, my boy. You are the perfect foil for this demonstration..." he said, and allowing for no refusal, pulled Simon out of his seat to a great round of applause and some friendly ribaldry from the assembled members.

"You'll pay for this, Stanley, you miserable worm... " said Simon wagging a mock stern finger at him and reluctantly allowed himself be led to the table.

He'd been set up and he knew it... but accepted this forced circumstance with his usual easy grace.

Once uncovered, the table turned out to be a new one - beautifully decorated with marquetry, and the half-dozen unconventional leather pockets shone with polish. But the surface of green baize was at least familiar as were the cushions which bordered the edges.

"There are fifteen balls in play," started Lord Chumley. "You will notice that almost half of them, seven to be exact, are yellow and another seven are red plus there is one solitary black ball. I will commence by racking all fifteen of them in a triangle on the foot spot with the black ball in the center. This is the foot spot..." He pointed. "And the white ball, which is called the queue ball I shall place in the kitchen..."

The laughter which greeted this temporarily interrupted his discourse, but eventually the audience settled down and he continued.

"By that I do not mean the domain of our esteemed chef, Monsieur Pelham but this area here on the table..." he said, and indicated an expanse that encompassed the end of the table opposite the foot spot and stretching from the rail to the first diamond on the short rail.

"Can I get an order of sheppard's pie and a draught cider just the same?" queried the same wag who had earlier questioned Lord Chumley's musical intentions with the triangle. This further sally drew a few titters but order was quickly restored and the member directly behind the comedian knocked his hat off and ruffled his hair for good measure.

Casting a reproving glance at the now disheveled miscreant, Lord Chumley produced two matched and exquisite maces from a leather case under the table. They looked like a traditional mace with a bevelled butt end except that the small end of each appeared to have a rounded leather tip, perhaps to cushion the effect of striking the balls.

"These are called queues." he continued. "I obtained them from a fellow in France by the name of Francois Mingaud who is the master of every aspect of this new game. He is a common rascal and, I understand, spent many of the last twenty years in the custody of the French constabulary, but no-one who has seen him play billiards can question his genius with this particular instrument.

Under his tutelage, I myself mastered sufficient of the arts to dazzle and defeat the average journeyman, such as my nephew, Simon here."

"Oh, I say, Uncle. That's a bit rich." protested Simon. "I'm not exactly a beginner, you know..."

"In this game, you are." said Lord Chumly with a smile, stepping up to the table. "Play always begins with a break-out of the balls..."

He stepped up to the table and with explosive power drove the cue-ball hard into the triangle of colored balls. This had the effect of spreading them out all over the table and one of them dropped randomly into a pocket.

"Since I was able to pocket a ball on the break-out, " he continued, "I have the honor of staying at the table for the first inning. And because the ball that dropped was yellow, I must continue to direct my attentions towards yellow balls only. Each shot I make must contact a yellow ball or it is considered a foul shot.

If I fail to pocket a yellow ball, my distinguished opponent will take my place at the table and must shoot only red balls. Once all of the red or yellow balls are down, whoever is at the table at that juncture may direct his attentions to the black ball. And whoever pockets that ball is the winner of the game. Simple, is it not?"

"I'm not sure I quite follow," said Simon, a frown creasing his brow. "What if I am in such a position that I cannot contact a red ball and either miss entirely or perhaps contact a yellow ball by mistake?"

"You have, by lucky accident or superior intelligence, seized upon the key to the game," exclaimed Lord Chumly delightedly. "We must be related in some fashion."

He waited for the laughter to abate and then continued.

"In that case, it is considered a foul and the queue ball is turned over to your opponent as a penalty. He has the opportunity to place it anywhere behind the balk line in the kitchen and fire at one of his particular suite of balls instead..."

He leaned over the table, his chin almost resting on the queue, and smartly pocketed a yellow ball that hung over a pocket.

"See how very simple it is...?" he said, winking at Simon.

"Perhaps not as simple as it looks, Uncle, said Simon. "But in this instance I rather think you've stymied yourself. Once you pocket the next ball, you will have no position to continue because the angle is absolutely straight in and you have no possibility of caroming off a rail with side..."

"Another cogent observation. I am more convinced than ever that we spring from the same genes..." said Lord Chumly. "However you are backing a lame horse in this instance... watch and learn, my dear boy."

He struck the cue ball firmly and pocketed the yellow... but then something extraordinary happened. The cue ball which was momentarily spinning in place suddenly obtained traction and rolled backwards, away from the point of contact, and indeed half the way down the table.

"Good lord..." said, Simon. "How is that even possible? Surely there is some mechanical motor or magnetic source inside that particular ball?"

"Not at all..." laughed his uncle. "It is called backspin or draw, and I will show you how it can be accomplished after the exhibition is over."

Now that the cue ball had travelled so far in reverse, he was presented with several options for additional shots. But, as he explained later, he wanted to use the situation for a further demonstration and carefully played the cue ball off one of the yellow balls and sidled it up tightly to another yellow - a veritable snooker.

"Good grief.." said Simon, heatedly, "How devilishly unsporting a shot is that...?"

"My dear young nephew... there is more to the strategy of this game than merely sinking balls. " said Lord Chumley calmly. " A player of your advanced facility and dexterity should have very little trouble making contact with a red object ball in any case."

And so it proved. Although Simon advanced the clock a good seven minutes calculating angles and the like before sending the cue ball three rails to make the required contact - his English Carom Billiards experience standing him in good stead. This feat earned him a warm round of applause, however the complexity of the shot made it patently impossible to pocket the red ball and he was forced to relinquish the table.

This abortive attempt left Lord Chumley in good position with his unique leather tip to complete the potting of the rest of the yellows at leisure and this he did in stellar fashion completing each pot with remarkable precision and some aplomb. On each occasion he managed to position the queue ball in such a manner as to make it ridiculously easy to pot the next ball.

Eventually and inevitably, he was left with just the black ball to pocket but sadly his last shot had created an untenable situation for him. The cue ball lay on a rail with a red in between the cue ball and the winning black ball which was also on the same rail.

"I rather fear you've put yourself in a position wherein your mastery of backspin cannot help you this time." Simon observed.

"I still have some tricks up my sleeve..." said, Lord Chumly with a twinkle.

The room hushed in anticipation as he addressed the ball - the queue held almost vertically over it. Then he struck it suddenly with a firm downwards motion as if to drive it into the cloth. To everyone's astonishment, the cue ball squirted out in an arc around the blocking red ball and then spun back, contacting the black ball... and tapping it gently into the top pocket.

A spontaneous burst of applause arose from the audience.

"What wizardry is this," said Simon, bemused. "I saw it, but I don't still believe what just happened. You are indeed the master of this new game."

"Thank-you, Simon, my boy... the French call it a masse and as to my mastery of it, everything is relative..." said Lord Chumly. "I can assure you that Monsieur Mingaud could perform that shot and others like it with some ease."

After the exhibition was completed, Simon sat down with his uncle and the traitorous Stanley to discuss what had occurred. Many of the tricks they had seen would certainly be useful to expand the limited vocabulary of available shots in English Billiards as well as the new Boston Pool and Simon was eager to learn them.

"All in good time..." said Lord Chumly. "All in good time. Now tell me... what is your opinion of this new game?"

"I think it an amusing pastime..." said Simon, "But I very much doubt it will catch on with the purists. After all carom billiards is an established sport and has been played here for decades."

Lord Chumley nodded sagely.

"On the contrary, I think it's entirely possible that Boston Pool will one day outshine even English Billiards and Snooker as the billiard game with the most currency worldwide..."

Simon laughed heartily.

"Forgive me, Uncle," he said, clapping a patronizing hand on his relative's shoulder. "But that is exactly what they are saying about this upstart Association football they are playing these days at Eton. Can you imagine it one day superceding our beloved Rugby Union football? I warrant it will never happen."

Lord Chumly settled himself a little deeper in his chair and allowed himself a wry smile.

"Simon, my dear boy," he said. "You are probably right."

If the Shoe Fits...

2007-11-22T10:55:00.000-08:00

If the Shoe Fits...

Ever have one of those days when nothing goes right? It took me an extra hour just to get to work this morning because of the snow and ice conditions...

And then there was the shoe thing.

I noticed, when I sat at my desk this morning, that one of my shoe laces was frayed at the end (spare me the jokes about I'm a frayed knot) and looked in my drawer for a pair of scissors. Why is it called a 'pair' by the way? I guess the thingie at the end had fallen off the lace. Anyway, I found some, clipped the frayed bit off and thought no more about it... until a short while ago, I noticed it had separated even worse and was apparently unravelling itself.

Must be those new nylon shoelaces I bought at Walmart, I thought, but I know how to deal with that. When I go camping we often have to cut nylon lines and then we simply melt the cut end with an open flame to seal it off and stop it unravelling. Works like a charm. I don't smoke but I have a butane lighter in my desk left over from lighting Christmas candles last year some time. So... I pulled this out, touched it to the end of the lace and put it away. It left a burning smell which made me wrinkle my nose a bit and it seemed to get stronger. I looked down and it was still burning - basically the whole top of my shoe and the lace was on fire.

I stifled it quickly with a bunch of serviettes I keep on my desk and the lack of oxygen put it out. The leather didn't seem to be damaged - which was a good thing because these are expensive shoes. You'd think that was the end of it, but no... when I got up, the laces gave way and the shoe nearly fell off. I surveyed the damage with a critical eye and removed the burnt pieces. This left me with maybe a third of the good lace and I laced it from the back and tied it off half-way.

Not so good. The shoe still flapped because the knot was only half way
up the shoe...

Sitting back, I thought about it for a while and wondered what people do in this situation. Then it hit me. I cut the remaining lace in two and made two knots - one at the top and one in the middle.

Tada... success. I am able to walk normally again.... I just have to ignore all the people pointing at my feet and snickering.

Tonight I'll buy a new pair and this time I think I'll keep the good, old one as a backup.

The Paul Potts Phenomena

2007-11-19T12:24:00.000-08:00

The Paul Potts Phenomena

A pudgy Englishman with a slightly crooked smile and a diffident manner stood on the stage of the UK series "Britain's Got Talent". It was obvious from the attitude of the judges that they were expecting one of those laughable performances that give these 'reality' shows their audience. And when he said, "I'm going to sing opera..." there were audible titters from the audience.

Then the unexpected happened.

Out of this shy and unassuming, sad-sack of a man, there came a voice of such beauty that tears sprang to the eyes of the judges and people in the audience were crying openly. Partly, of course, it was the romance of it all... little down-trodden phone salesman Paul Pottsie makes good on TV. He sang the last part of Nessun Dorma (Let no Man Sleep) with defiance and passion - it was as if he knew it was his one chance to make it or go back to his humdrum existence.

Everyone loves an unlikely hero and it seems Paul Potts fits that mold. His resulting CD 'One Chance' is a best seller both in the UK and here in North America and you can see his face almost every day on the US and Canadian talk show circuit. And, I noticed the other day, now even on The Shopping Channel hawking his CD. You can't blame him - this is his fifteen minutes of fame and it won't last forever.

Sadly, the reason it won't last forever is that he isn't really that good. Oh, his voice is indeed pleasant and when infused with the passion and desperation he showed on Britain's Got talent, it tugs at the heart strings.

But...

I've heard him sing 'Nessun Dorma' a dozen times now. Each performance is blander than the last. Very little of that bravado is now apparent in his voice and it comes across as weak and wavering. His largely untrained instrument is unpolished and his lack of breath control lets him waver slightly off key in places. In addition his poor phrasing appears to result from a palpable lack of confidence that makes me agonize that he will not reach the next note. Instead of simply listening to the music, I find myself feeling slightly sorry for him. His Italian would make a native Italian commit suicide.

I grew up in a family that prized great singers. My father was a baritone with a superb voice and my sister is a retired operatic mezzo-soprano. I have probably listened to Puccini's opera Turandot a hundred times... and Nessun Dorma a thousand times, sung by the best tenors of all time... Pavarotti, Gigli, Caruso, Domingo, Schipa, Campanini, Lanza, Björling, Boccelli. If you want to hear the aria properly buy a recording from one of these accomplished tenors.

Or, buy Paul Potts' CD and keep the romance, if not the music, alive.

The Shortstop

2007-11-18T08:56:00.000-08:00

The Shortstop - David E. Malone - November 16, 2007

One fine fall evening Smitty and me were doing the rounds of all of the local pool halls looking for some cash action.

I probably should mention that I make my living playing for money, so you could say I'm a professional although I don't play much in tournaments and I like to keep my head down. Fame or even notoriety is bad for business in this business. Smitty's a real good player too - specializes in one-pocket. There are so many players out there that think they know how to play one pocket, it's not even funny. And, fortunately for Smitty, most of them don't. My personal speciality is nine-ball... and my second speciality is matching up with pool-player wannabees and taking all their hard-earned money. So we get around quite a bit looking for pool players with inflated egos and wallets.

You could look at it as a kinda community service. Robin Hood used to take from the rich and give to the poor - we take from the rich... and it keeps us from being poor.

Things were quiet that night and no potential pigeons were apparent until we ran into young Charlie Mason at 'Le Spot'. Le Spot is a public pool hall that used to get a bit rowdy on a Saturday night and, as a result, has been turned into a private club. That just meant that they have given themselves the authority to throw out any troublemakers or, indeed, anybody else they considered a pain in the ass. We both knew Amos the bartender and he'd always let us in if he saw us buzzing the door. Nice place... up a long flight of stairs, with a well stocked bar, reasonably decent Asian and truck-stop diner type nosh, and some nice 9 foot Gold Crowns as well as the obligatory CPA league bar tables. There was even a snooker table at the back for what Smitty always referred to as the pin-prickers... a snide reference to their needle thin cue tips.

Le Spot was usually a last resort for us because we knew everybody there - and everybody there knew us, which means they all knew enough not to play either of us for money.

"Hi, Charlie..." I said, "Anyone new in town?"

He knew exactly what I meant and pulled us to one side. He pointed.

"See that fat guy with the beard and the leather jacket on table fourteen..." He said. "He's never been here before but I know him. He's flush and plays quite a bit for money..."

"What speed is he...?" said Smitty.

"He's a shortstop." said Charlie flatly.

In pool terminology, a shortstop is a player who may be the best local player around but isn't quite in that top one percent that includes the pros and the road agents like fer instance Smitty and me. In other words, Charlie was saying he could be taken for a few bucks but it would be relatively hard work.

"D'ya think if I gave him the eight and out, he'd go fifty smackers a game or is that a bit rich?", I said.

"I don't know him all that well, but I do know he thinks he's pretty good. Maybe he'd go for that if you... um... needled him into it..." said Charlie.

I moseyed on over while Smitty made himself scarce - didn't want the pigeon to think he was being ganged up on. Since the guy was alone just banging balls around, I stopped for a while and watched him play. He wasn't bad, but got careless and missed from time to time. He was practicing long cut shots along the rail and drilling them over and over again. Nice easy stroke with a long follow-through and decent speed control - a fair to middling shortstop just like Charlie had suggested. Nice playing cue... a Titlist conversion if I guessed correctly... and an old two-piece Dufferin banger for a breaker. Soon he became aware he was being watched and after another few minutes, without even raising his head, he said nonchalantly,

"Anybody 'round here looking for a game?"

"Yup...", I said.

"How much?"

"I don't want to waste anybody's time", I said. "We could piss around talking about it or we could go twenty a game, even up, for a few racks and see how we match up. After that, if you're still interested, we could talk about it some more..."

He nodded and started racking the balls.

Seems his name was Norman something or other. I nicknamed him Stormin' Norman after the General. We played a half dozen racks and I didn't try to hide my speed - ran out a couple as I got loosened up. He ran one as well and looked quite sharp doing it, but his break wasn't on and he gave me the table back a few times when he shouldn't have missed. I came out $40 bucks ahead and I bought us both a beer with his money. The rehearsals were over, it was time for the opera...

While I was sipping my beer, he wondered over to Charlie and they had an earnest little heart to heart conversation. I pretended not to notice. When he came back he told me, as if I didn't already know, that he'd been talking to Charlie and that Charlie had told him how good I was.

"Not that I hadn't noticed..." he said, with a grin. "I'll play you some more, but you have to give me some serious weight."

"Well, shit..." I said. "You play pretty sporty yourself. It was a toss-up who won those games - how about I give you a ball and we up the ante to a hundred a game? You get the eight and out..."

"A hundred..." he said, doubtfully. "A hundred's a bit rich for my blood... even if you let me have two balls, I have a feeling I'd still be in trouble. Tell you what... give me two balls, I'll go fifty bucks... ten ahead wins..."

I laughed good naturedly.

"Norman, old son... " I said, "Charlie didn't tell me you were a nit. I guess I'll have to go look for someone who has the balls to play for money instead of pocket change..."

His face reddened slightly. I am the master physiologist if I say so myself.

"You're not that good..." he said. "I'm in... but if I lose, you have to give me a fair chance to win it back."

"No problem", I shrugged, hiding a grin.

He started off strong with a couple of run-outs but his weaknesses eventually kicked in and he gave up the table on a break. I started doing what I was good at, running tables and piling on the points. Took me a little while but eventually and inevitably I got ten ahead and he ponied up the dime from a thick billfold in his vest pocket. That gave me the opportunity to notice that there was more left in that wad than had been taken out.

Hmmn...

At this point, he looked a bit distressed, so I reminded him I'd promised him a chance to win it back. And, I thought, a chance for me to get my hands on the rest of that loot.

"Double or nothing...?" I suggested hopefully.

He wasn't that dumb, but he thought about it for a while and then said,

"Look... you play a sight better than I thought. I'll make you a sporting proposition... give me the seven and out and I'll play you a race to eleven for two dimes. Hey, you win, you get my last two thousand bucks and I go to the poor house. I win and I get my money back plus a lousy dime to pay my rent and keep my girlfriend in lace underwear..."

I pondered this for a while. And especially I pondered the part about the girlfriend in the lace underwear - it gets kinda lonely on the road. And Smitty's not exactly my type. An inadvertent mental picture of Smitty in lace underwear came into my mind and I shuddered. Concentrate for Christ's sake. This guy Norman might be a shortstop but he wasn't that bad a player either and giving him the last two balls might be a bit of a shaky deal on my part. On the other hand, I've given up bigger handicaps before and still won easily. That's the thing about matching up at my level... If I'm running racks, he isn't gonna get to the table anyway and you can't win if you're sitting down.

"You're killing me..." I said, shaking my head ruefully. "But I'll take it.

I called Charlie over to hold the stakes and then continued.

"This is it though... you don't get another chance to get even... one race to eleven and the game's over - win or lose. Okay with you?"

"Okay." he said.

We lagged for the break and I won by the merest fraction, thank God. I always like to get out ahead and I don't like sitting and waiting. I broke and got a nice spread with a clean shot on the one ball. It was an easy rack and a good start - no real problems... I came up dry on the third rack but ol' Stormin' Norman was hooked on the one and didn't have a shot. His push-out put me back at the table but with no easy shot. I was going to give it back to him but thought he might have a chance to play a decent safety and so that's what I did. Take that, sonny boy. He managed to clip the one ball and left me with an even tougher safety. We traded safety's back and forth until I finally had him by the short hairs and no reasonable shot left. The lad didn't seem to be too upset, after all it was early in the match, and he went about measuring angles and such as if he knew what he was doing. I just wished he'd get on with it and miss like he was supposed to. I get impatient with these technical types.

To my surprise, he didn't miss... three fricken rails with a precision that was hard to believe. And not only did he contact the one ball clean, he sank it and left himself in shape for the two to boot.

That seemed to give him confidence and suddenly his attitude changed. He appeared more self-assured and even slightly cocky. I didn't know what had gotten into him until he ran out that table, and the next, and the next. Could it be that he had been dogging it up 'till then...? Surely not... but...

After that it was no contest. Shortstop my ass... this kid was out of my league and most other guys I've played with. I don't think he missed a makeable ball in the whole set. The long and short of it is that he won eleven and five and stopped only to shake hands and take the cash from Charlie on his way out. I thought I saw the sonnova bitch slip a couple of bills in Charlie's front pocket but he had his back to me and I couldn't be sure.

One thing I was absolutely sure of though, was that Charlie had misrepresented the truth of the matter... he'd lied like a dog. I stormed over to him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. I was so mad I was shaking.

"Screw you, Charlie... I said, heatedly. "I thought you told me he was a shortstop?"

He gently pried my fingers loose, looking puzzled and a wee bit hurt all at the same time.

"I wouldn't lie to you, Mully..." he said, "He really is a shortstop... I know that for a fact.

After all we're on the same baseball team."

Offensive Driving

2007-11-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

I drove to work this morning. I left the same time I always do but arrived around 20 minutes later than usual. The reason for that is simple... an inspired collection of dumbass drivers who don't know the one primary rule of the road...

"Don't do anything to inhibit the traffic flow."

I indentified seven different annoying driver types this morning that really make my blood boil. There may be others. It's not, as you may suppose the aggressive, pushy drivers (who knows, I may actually be one of them) but an additional assortment of mental midgets. I've labelled them 'mr.', but take it from me, I'm an equal opportunity complainer and there are 'ms.' versions of all of these as well.

Mr Passive Aggressive.

This sweetheart drives along in the fast lane on the highway at 60 miles per hour and makes everybody drive around him. It never occurs to him that he's holding up traffic, or, if it does, he's just bloody minded and enjoys the fact. His mantra is "I'm doing the speed limit so how can I be doing anything wrong?". Tell you what, buddy... if you're holding up traffic, regardless of speed, you can be ticketed here in Ontario. There isn't a permanent cure for this type of idiocy but people (not me, of course) have been known to pull in front of them and gradually slow down until they are forced to pull over or get in the slow lane where they belong.

Mr Hanging Butt

You're casually tooling along in the fast lane on a one or two lane street when the guy in front decides he wants to turn left. There's a middle turn lane for exactly that but instead of pulling into it parallel to the traffic, he turns sharply sideways and leaves his sorry butt hanging out in the middle of the driving lane holding up traffic until he finally gets a chance to cross. I've been tempted to use my bumper to nudge the back of his car out of the way before and one of these days when I can claim senility as an excuse, I'll actually do it.

There's another kind as well. This one wants to hang a left but there's already a lot of cars in the turn lane. So instead of simply pulling in behind the last car and getting out of the way, he sits half blocking the fast lane he was in and waits until enough cars have turned the corner before he finally pulls over. In the meantime, he's apparently blissfully oblivious to the honking and yelling going on behind him.

Mr I'm too Rich to Wait in Line

This particular putz burns my shorts. I labelled it 'too rich to wait in line' because the only people I've seen doing this are usually driving big Mercedes, Lexus, Cadillac, or Rolls Royce sedans. They see a line-up of cars waiting to turn left at a traffic light that doesn't have an advanced red, so it takes a while to get around the corner. These morons are too important and impatient to get on the end of the line... instead they drive to a point maybe second or third in the line-up and put on their turn signal hoping someone will let them push in. What really burns my ass is that some people actually do let them in. While they are waiting, they block an entire driving lane and make people like me froth at the mouth.

Mr Last Minute Larry

Last minute Larry's are devil-may-care adventurers seemingly willing to die for their art. They wait until absolutely the last possible minute before forcing their way over into the next lane to turn - this can be either left or right. It's like they enjoy the challenge of cutting off a few people every time and still making it into the turn lane before being struck. It doesn't seem to matter whether you 'let' them cut in... they are coming willy-nilly and they usually leave you with the choice of either braking hard or actually hitting them. My advice, if you have the time to spare getting your car fixed (retirees, independently wealthy, etc) is to just cut off the gap between you and the car in front and let them hit you instead.

Mr Hard Shoulder

This guy may be a relative of the rich guy who hates to wait in line. You've all seen it. You're waiting in a line-up of cars at a traffic light or driving slowly in a traffic jam, and suddenly someone comes bursting up the hard shoulder and either tries to time the green light and cut back in, or cuts back into a gap in the slow moving traffic. Someone I know has been known to burn rubber out of a stop-light and force a driver off into a ditch to prevent the former. Don't these people know it's illegal... and just how much time do they save anyway?

Mr Politeness

Traffic is moving smoothly along and there's a car coming out of an auto dealership or a restaurant parking lot, for example, when the car in front of you stops suddenly... just to let the guy get into the stream of traffic. In order to do this, he has made another twenty drivers brake violently and interrupted the flow of traffic. I always give the offending SOB a blast of my horn and maybe a few 'traffic' signals with one finger. They look at me like, "Well, how dare you... I was just being polite..." and wave at you. "Have a nice day..." One of these days, someone is going to very politely kick your ass.

Mr Schmucker Trucker

Finally, a common highway hazard. Two massive and ponderous semis are tooling along at a leisurely ten miles an hour over the speed limit, however the truck in the rear is doing 0.00002 miles an hour faster than the one in front and catching up. Because he's apparently in a huge hurry, he pulls out and occupies the fast lane for a half hour or more while trying to pass the other truck. In the meantime, the rest of us that could pass both of them in a milisecond are stacked up like cordwood behind the inconsiderate bum.

I should mention here that most truck drivers are good and safe drivers and it's not their fault that they have a schedule to maintain... although how much impact driving 0.00002 miles an hour slower for a few miles is going to make on their overall schedule, Deity only knows...

The Intruder

2007-11-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

I was warming up for my pool league in the pool room yesterday evening and Chico the dog was scratching at the door because he wanted to go out. It was darkish outside but in the moonlight I saw a shadowy figure move across the neighbour's back yard and into the back corner of the fence. I knew it wasn't Leon (my neighbour) or his son, because the person was tall and lightly built. Oh, my... a burgler or a fleeing felon perhaps?

Remembering another blogger's (Neon John) scary experience the other day, I thought perhaps he might be armed, so I picked up the nearest weapon I could find... which was the butt end of a very expensive pool cue... and dashed out into the garden.

"Hey, you... " I yelled, waving my butt (no jokes please). "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The intruder had a flashlight and turned it in my direction briefly before hopping over the fence and making his escape.

Now that he'd gone, I turned my attention to Leon's house. Everything seemed to be in order - no sign of a forced entry or anything else. Satisfied, I came back inside and wondered if I should call the police - after all it was probably just some local kid taking a short cut through the garden as they were in the habit of doing.

I did call Leon, however, and oddly enough, his 'phone didn't dial - it made a strange noise, not like a busy signal but an intermittent beeping sound. Shoot, maybe the son of a bitch had cut their phone lines before killing everybody in the house... I went out to the front of the house but there didn't seem to be anyone home. Not that anyone would respond if they were all lying dead in a pool of blood inside. My wife said not to worry about it. I mean it's not exactly a high crime neigborhood and we should just wait until they got home and phone again. I reluctantly agreed but continued to fret about it. I had this ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach and I just knew something bad had happened...

Later that evening I went to get a snack... and saw a light go on in their kitchen... for sure somebody was home. I picked up the 'phone again, and this time it rang normally. It was Leon - I explained to him that I had seen an intruder in his garden earlier on and wanted to make sure everything was okay.

"Oh, you saw him too, did you?" he said, "I was having problems with my phone line all day so I called the phone repair guy from Bell Telephone. He came a couple of hours ago and went out into the garden to trace the phone line and try and find out what was wrong with the line...

He said while he was out there he was attacked by a thug with a baseball bat and he had to jump over the fence to get away."

Frank Correnti Cigars

2007-10-10T11:08:00.000-07:00

Frank Correnti Cigars - David E. Malone - Oct 10, 2007

Any cigar smokers out there?

I don't smoke and my wife quit about 10 years ago... but she still likes to puff on a good Cuban cigar on special occasions. I suspect she enjoys standing around outside after a good meal with some of our cigar smoking friends - I know she doesn't inhale the smoke, just enjoys the taste.

Prices of good Cuban cigars are ridiculous - I recently spent a small fortune replenishing her humidor stock with Montecristos, Romeo & Julietas, and Bolivars. So I was suprised and pleased to get a note from one of our cigar afficianado friends recommending these people...

http://http://www.correnticigars.com/

It seems they make great cigars from imported Cuban leaf and their prices are less than half of what I'm paying for similar Cuban imported cigars. They claim they make a robusto that tastes the same as a Montecristo and it's a half or a third of the price.

So Saturday, we decided to take a trip downtown and visit Frank Correnti Cigars. I'm not fond of downtown traffic and this particular Saturday, the traffic was stacked up at Spadina and the Lakeshore and we slipped into Front street and then down Portland to get to King and Portland. There was no parking, so I found a residential back street and parked there. When we got to the intersection, there was no sign of 'Frank Correnti Cigars' at all. But there was a dark alley-way beside the first building and we decided to try it... about 40 feet down the alley, the ceiling was covered with a white tarp on a scaffold like an outdoor restaurant space but with nothing inside it. Very odd. We found out later that it was a 'smoking space' they use when hosting large parties.

At the very end of the alley, there was a small sign and a door. I thought, "This must be it, but it doesn't look like much...". Inside, it was gloomy with a few offices on each side of the corridor. There didn't seem to be a retail space so we just kept walking until we came into a well lit space with work benches and the smell of cigars. Two women were making cigars - one rolling the filler and another wrapping the finished cigars. Interesting to watch... the woman doing the final wrappers is a genius. They were making Churchills at the time. There was a humidified warehouse at the back where they say they age the leaves for at least 5 years, and a storage humidor room where they keep the finished cigars.

I said something intelligent like,

"Um... is this where we can buy cigars?"

and the woman making the wrappers said,

"Of course... what can I get you?"

She explained what was available and the different types of finishing leaf, Caro and Maduro. Ortelia was quite taken with the robustos which are quite short but have a ring size of 50 - very stout and a substantial cigar. The woman making the fillers was Spanish, so Ortelia had a conversation with her and asked her advice. Basically she said the cigars were all first quality and you can't go wrong with any of them. She smoked them herself at home.

While we were still discussing what to get, a guy wandered in and said,

"Hi, Rita... can you get me a robusto...?"

He looked familiar and after he turned around, I recognized a former senior manager from my office. He recognized me at the same time and I introduced my wife to him. Apparently he is retired and had sold his big house in the suburbs to move to a condo on the Lakeshore. It was his habit to stroll down to the cigar factory every weekend, buy a big cigar or two and then go home and smoke it on his balcony overlooking the lake. He recommended the Caro wrappers as being mild and easy to draw. I bought a half dozen for Ortelia to try - made as Rita mentioned 'last Wednesday'...

Ortelia loves them. She says they smell great, and taste wonderful. But all was not perfect in paradise - the robusto is rather too big for her little hands and now that she's gotten into smoking the Bolivars, she would prefer a cigar with a bit more 'bite' to it. So they are making us up some half-coronas for her with the Maduro wrapper which should be perfect. It's kinda nice that you can 'customize' your cigars. They'll even make you up custom personalized 'rings' and boxes/tins if you want to give them as a gift to somebody.

They looked so good that I (almost) thought about trying one myself.

Tribute to Luciano Pavarotti

2007-09-07T08:25:00.000-07:00

A tenor voice for the ages - Sept 7, 2007

My grandfather was born in Athlone, Northern Ireland and his best friend growing up was a scrawny kid by the name of John McCormack who grew up to become a world famous tenor. My father therefore grew up in a house where music and particularly opera was part of his daily life. Because of McCormack, he wanted badly to be an operatic tenor but around eleven years old when his voice changed he was chagrined to find that nature had instead endowed him with a nevertheless rich and musical baritone instrument.

He sang in various stagings of comic operas, Gilbert and Sullivan for example, and amateur productions of some of the classic Italian operas but making a living and the advent of WWII prevented him from taking up singing as a career. Instead, he regaled us with his recordings of basses, such as Paul Robeson, baritones like Tito Gobi, and a huge collection of recordings by tenors.... McCormack, Caruso, Gigli, Secombe, Schipa, Lanza, and Campanini among others. He always loved Beniamino Gigli's voice and said he was the most musical of all the great Italian tenors.

One day we were listening to classical music on the radio - I think Dad was doing the crossword puzzle and my sister and I were sprawled on the rug playing chess - when the announcer mentioned something about a new Italian tenor. He then played a new recording of Luciano Pavarotti singing 'Che gelida manina' from La Boheme.

My father sprang from his seat and turned up the sound, standing in front of the radio as if bracing himself against a powerful wind emanating from the speaker, his legs slightly spread, leaning forward, and his arms spread to capture the sound.

When it ended and he turned around, his eyes were shining and tears were running down his face.

"That's it..." he said simply. "That's it."

And he walked out into the garden... we could see his shoulders shaking as he stood there for what seemed like an eternity.

I had never seen my father cry before (and only once since) so this made a great impact on me. Our turntable thereafter became the platform for every recording ever made by Pavarotti and my Dad played the best arias over and over again. Gigli was relegated to a role as a sometimes actor on that stage and the Caruso recordings were left in the cupboard.

Dad loved Pavarotti's voice so much, he even forgave him for "Yes, Giorgio"... something I was never able to do

Pavarotti's voice is imprinted on my soul. I'm not a religious person, but it's my belief that the most beautiful song ever recorded is Luciano Pavarotti singing the Gounod version of 'Ave Maria'...

Requiescat in Pace, Luciano.

Universal Billiards Theory

2007-05-09T12:41:00.000-07:00

Scientists at the Hamster Institute of Technology (HIT) have recently postulated that the known universe may actually be a three dimensional pool table. This theory was also documented in the well known scientific journal JAM (Journal of American Misinformation) by a consortium of international scientists.

The theory seems preposterous at first but initial scepticism should be re-evaluated against the fact that most, if not all, heavenly bodies are perfect spheres and that, in addition, there are black holes (pockets) at regular intervals in the fabric of space.

Central to this theory, of course, is the radical assumption that the entity we call the Creator has someone to play against, but this is considered likely because as we all know everything in nature has an opposite eg. up/down, yin/yang, male/female.

HIT Chief Unclear Scientist David Edward Malone explains that as far as they can see at this stage in the proceedings, the creator has apparently won the lag and executed his break (also known as the big bang). The make of his cosmic cue is so far a mystery although some scientists are hypothesizing that the tip may well be a milk-dud, pointing to the so-called 'Milky Way' as a convincing argument. Others poo-poo this theory and maintain that the Milky Way is merely billiard chalk or talc dust created by quantum chaos.

Once the universe stops expanding ie. the balls stop rolling, and always assuming he sank a planet and the balls are not in an entangled state, the creator's first shot is likely to be the one ball (yellow ball... also known as Sol) into a corner pocket. And, since a supreme being likely plays rotation, the number two ball (blue ball... ie. Earth) will be next and then Mars (the red planet) and so on. A complete game will mean the end of life as we know it, of course, but the scientific community is confident they'll rack 'em again for a second game.

It's likely that it'll be a race to infinity...

Pun Country

2007-01-12T07:45:00.000-08:00

This is just a little exercise to see how many bad country puns it's possible to get into one short story....

I felt a little Hungary so I went to the bar to eat, Taiwan on, and play some pool. Guy saw my Mali with the Gabon ebony and wanted to play me for a few Guineas. I said, "OK... but Iraq. Why don't we Sweden the pot and play for some real cash?" He said, "Oman, Oman... it's kinda Sudan but I'll play..."

Iran the table.

Egypt me... leaving me holding just a Cuba chalk.

After that, I drank too much hurting my Bahrain and said to the bartender,

"Give me Samoa, Chad...".

He said, "I'll have Nunavut."

That upset me, so I said,

"Did I tell you I had sex with your wife Rwanda the other day...? She really knows how to shake Djibouti..."

He said, "You Turkey! Did Jamaica?"

I said, "No, she wanted to... it was just Guam of those things. Makes Uwanda, eh?"

He looked at me funny and said,

"Ok, I Bolivia. If I was in a bad mood you'd be Honduras. But just Kuwait... your Korea as a Laos is gonna be over soon. She was out with a Paraguays the other day and got a dose of the Hong Kong clap... "

Well, that explains the burning in my Burundi. I could feel his Spain, so I said,

"Uraguay - you know what women are like. I'm sorry but I don't think I'll Romania..."

He said, "So long... Abyssinia. Make sure you're Ghana long time..."

Gnu Finish

2006-11-13T08:53:00.000-08:00

Gnu Finish

I have a serious bone to pick with Bob Giddings... he recommended the product on RORT and claimed it would clean and polish my trailer at the same time.

I naively went out and bought some "Gnu-Finish" as you recommended, Bob. The ubiquitous and loquacious Bob Giddings uses it, I said to myself, it must be the best. Couldn't find it at the usual hardware stores, or even Canadian Tire, but eventually I lucked out and located a small bottle at the local vets office. That's right... the veterinarian... our dependable doggy doctor. He'd apparently had it in stock for about twenty-three years but since it didn't have a 'beast by' date we took it anyway. Man, that stuff is hard to find and that's no bull.

We also bought a small fold-up ladder so we could reach the roof. And some acrylic 'corking' in case anything needed to be corked.

When we arrived at the storage depot in Campbellford, the black marks on the RV didn't look particularly ominous, so we decided to omit the streak remover stage and just go with the cleaner/polish as you recommended. I dampened a cloth with water, added some polish, and rubbed it in carefully following the directions (which were in the African Khoikhoi dialect incidentally - good thing I speak a bit of Bantu. Oddly enough, from what I could make out, it said something about not getting any on the horns. I suspect it was a typo or a translation error on my part.)

It did a fair job of removing the streaks but it was remarkably hard going, balancing as I was on that tiny ladder, so we popped the slide out and sat in the RV for a time while it dried. I even had a beer or two... when we came out again, to our astonishment, all the areas where we had applied the Gnu-Finish were covered with coarse hair and the bottom edges had even longer hair - kinda like a long straggly beard!

I didn't mind the two horns that were starting to grow out of the front of the trailer (once I got used to them), but the back end was a mess. The storage lot manager made us shovel it up and bag it before he'd even let us put it in his garbage cans - I don't blame him, the smell was enough to make an ant elope or a cow hide. That long, shaggy tail may come in useful but we're not sure what for yet - maybe I can hang a back-up camera or some snazzy Christmas decorations on it.

My wife, Ortelia was furious - carried on like a wilde beest in fact - but proved she was up to the challenge and produced a little, pink 'lady razor' from her purse which restored it back to normal... except for a little stubble around the windows and other hard to shave places. If we'd have known about the side effects, I'd have bought along my Phillips electric razor - we'd have been done in half the time and likely gotten a closer shave. The stubble is annoying so this summer we're thinking about doing a 'Brazilian' on it. Women will know what that means... ouch.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend the product to anyone else.

First of all, it smells awfully rank - like a herd of unwashed cattle - and the side effects are not exactly benign. Whenever I hook the trailer up now, there's a whinnying sound, and when we pull it with the truck... I can hear hoof-beats. I know this is impossible but I swear to dog I saw a lion and two hyenas chasing us as we ungulated down the 401 at eight over... it behooves me to think twice about using this stuff in the future. I'll probably gnever buy agnother bottle once this is finished.

I realize you probably meant well... but thanks for gnothing, Bob!

(All in all, it's been a tough weekend. Since we couldn't be bothered to order the plastic gutter extensions from Camping World we took clothes-pins, as someone suggested, and put them at the corner of the gutters. What a disaster... the trailer is just too damn heavy and it keeps falling off the line.)

The Curse of Sanity Lost

2006-09-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

The Curse of Sanity Lost - David E. Malone - Sept 23, 2006

I moved to Burlington, Ontario in 1996. It was a boring little dormitory town - the only thing justifying its existence being the massive Ford plant just down the road on the 401. My wife was occupied in decorating the new house and the first thing I did was look around for a place to play a little straights after work. At that time, the only poolroom in town was called Sanity Lost. I asked old Jimmie why that was so and he told me that the original owner, Sam Hillenbrand got tired of everyone telling him he must be out of his mind to open a pool hall in a town with only five thousand residents. Thus the name. Of course, since then, the population has swelled to nearly five times that size and the poolroom must be making a fair profit being crowded every night. The new owner sagely got himself a liquor licence and a couple of nubile bar-girls with very short skirts and tight tops - business is booming.

It seems originally the place was an old barn, so the construction is massive support timbers and exposed beams. Without any partitions, there is room for two strictly regimented parallel rows of old Dufferin Challengers with plenty of elbow room in between. It's cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. The floor is chalky white concrete littered with the detritus of cigarette butts and discarded candy wrappers. Nobody ever makes any attempt to sweep it up, and you get used to pushing the trash aside with your foot before getting down over a shot. The only attempt at decor is a motley collection of posters advertising various tournaments that had been held there over the years... "Five Dollars Added!" one of them bragged in 1946. That's before I was born. There's a prominent sign on the door that says 'Gambling Not Allowed' and in smaller letters underneath some wag has added... 'If you're sure you can beat him... then it's not gambling...'. I soon found the No Gambling sign was for show and enforcement officials only and watched a great deal of money change hands while I was there. Unfortunately, and to my ongoing distress, quite a lot of it turned out to be mine. But that's another story.

An odd thing about Sanity Lost that caught my eye was the Forbidden table in the corner. It always had a black, fitted naugahyde cover on it and, even if every other table in the room was in use, this one remained sacred, untouched and unused. I played there for almost a year and never saw anyone playing on it. One night a brash young player boldly walked over and removed the cover - the table turned out to be a quite unremarkable and respectable Dufferin Challenger - and was quickly ushered away and chastened for his transgression.

This made me curious, so I approached the room owner, Gus and asked him why it wasn't used.

"It's a long story...", he said cryptically. "The table is cursed."

"I'd like to hear it, if it's alright with you...", I said.

"Well, the thing about telling a long story is that it makes a man thirsty, if you know what I mean." he said, winking.

I ordered him a pint of his favorite Old-Familiar Dark Porter throat lubricant and a Guinness for me. He sat down, took a long sip, and this is what he told me...

"Back in 1948, old Sam who owned the place used to gamble a lot. It was the only way he knew to keep enough cash coming in to keep the place afloat. And he was a great player... one of the best hereabouts in those days. Anybody new was promptly assessed and his prospective cash potential evaluated with a canny eye - old Sam knew how to match up and he knew when to take a chance... and he rarely lost. The locals got smart enough not to keep on making donations after a while, so his alternative sources of income began to dry up except for the fresh meat that walked in the door. It was a dangerous game, because many of the drifters and casual drop-ins were hustlers in their own right and looking to make a living themselves. But, like I told you, old Sam was one of the very best and he won more than he lost.

I was the bartender in those days...

One day, young Billie Scarsdale dropped in. Now Billie was a farmer... had a spread down where Smitty's farm is now and we had never seen him in the poolroom before. He was a skinny, red-haired, tall drink of water and wore the same coveralls he likely wore on the farm. Leastways, they smelled like it. There was something a bit odd about the lad - couldn't quite put a finger on it, but he was ill at ease and obviously had something on his mind. I asked him if he wanted a beer and he said, no, he was looking for a game.

"A money game?" I said.

"Yes...", he said.

Well, I didn't even know if Billie had ever played pool before, but I called over Sam from his office and told him what was going on. He immediately got that 'Hmmn... fresh meat...' look on his face and before you know it, he had young Billie down at the corner table racking for a respectable (in those days) fifty jellies a game, playing straights to a ton. Turns out Billie is quite a player even playing with an old house cue. Didn't try to hide the fact neither... before you know it he'd run a handy fifty-six and Sam was sweating a bit. Won the first game going away and pissed Sam off quite a bit. Old Sam didn't like to lose - especially when there was money on the line. But he came back and won the next one and they traded back and forth until Billie was ahead around two hundred. Looked like the kid had Sam's number and Sam was getting impatient.

"Let's stop farting around. One game, to a hundred, for five hundred bucks...?" said Sam.

"Make it a thousand and I'll play..." said Billie.

"A thousand?" said Sam, a bit shocked and not sure if he'd heard him right. That was a hatful of money in those days and would pay the taxes on the hall for two years. "You got that kind of money, Kid?"

"I have indeed." says Billie and digs deep into one of his overall pockets and briefly shows him a big fistful of twenty dollar bills with an elastic band around them. "You got the stones, old man..?"

Now what made Sam take him up on it, I don't know. Maybe he really thought he could beat him. Maybe he saw something desperate in those haunted eyes, or maybe his pride was stirred by the sheer arrogance of the kid. God only knows.

A crowd of on-lookers had gathered around as word spread quickly of the substantial stake. I guess, like me, some of them just wanted to see Sam get his ass handed to him after experiencing first-hand the same fate at Sam's hands. Some of them just enjoyed a good money game. Some of them were straight-pool purists. And, as usual, some of them just wandered over because everyone else was over and they wanted to see what was going on.

After the usual delicate foreplay with neither player moving the pack to any great extent, Sam finally miscalculated and sprung an object ball with just enough clearance for Billie to take a calculated risk and sink it... breaking out a few more balls at the same time. He started in on the rest of the rack, totally focussed and oblivious to any distraction. But he got himself in a heap of trouble right from the start of the second rack and each shot only seemed to make matters worse. His first run only slightly moved the counter recording a mere 26. Sam took full advantage with a sterling run of 86 balls and was grinning by the time he finally missed. And to make matters worse for Billie, he left him plugged behind the thirteen ball on the rail, almost touching it and with no reasonable shot in sight.

You don't tickle a tiger. Billie stood over it for a while and then called the 7-ball, kicked off the short rail with authority... and sank it perfectly in the far corner. The crowd erupted in applause before the stern look on young Billie's face cowed them again into appreciative silence. It became a clinic as Billie began to methodically sink balls. Nothing flashy... nothing wasted in the way of ball movement. Draw and drag... perfect angle... perfect position and then natural roll with the only adjustment for the speed of the shot. The beads crept up towards 100 and he still hadn't missed. You could tell by the look on Sam's face that he knew he wasn't getting back to the table and he tapped his cue nervously as he sat there.

Suddenly, the crowd gasped as the 9-ball rattled in a corner pocket and hung on the lip... refusing to drop. There was a hush as everybody held their breath and wished it into the pocket. It didn't drop. The score was 93 to 86 and Sam got up a bit unsteadily. The kid's face was white as a sheet and even that hardened old bastard, Sam may have felt sorry for him as came to the table. But Sam wasn't the kind to let sentiment enter into any game - to Sam billiards was a blood sport.

"Tough luck, kid... but now it's my turn." he said.

It took him just a few minutes to reach one the magic one-hundred mark and close out the match.

Billie was trembling like a leaf, but he reached in his pocket and handed Sam that big wad of bills. And after that, I can still remember it to this day, he reached into his other pocket and took out a little derringer pistol. For a small gun, it sure made a big impression and the room was full of people diving under tables and knocking over other people just trying to get out of the way. Sam just stood there - I think he thought his time had come. But instead Billie climbed up on the table and raised his arms like he was delivering a sermon from the Mount.

"I curse this table and anyone who plays on it...", he cried.

And then he put the barrel of the little gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. His brains splattered out the back of his head and he fell in a heap on the felt... stone cold dead. There was a silence that you could feel in the pool room and the remaining people simply filtered out until the only bodies left were me and Sam and the inert one on the table...

We found out afterwards that the bank foreclosed on the farm and Billie couldn't get the money together to pay the mortgage. Needed two thousand more or less to cover the tab or he'd have lost the farm. The thousand he ended up donating to Sam was all the money he could get together...

Sam covered the table the very same day and put up the room for sale. That one game broke his heart and put him off playing pool - I hear he never played another game of pool in his life. When I bought the room from him there was a clause in the contract that said the ill-fated table is part of the lock, stock and barrel of the room and cannot be sold or played on in perpetuity... I try to keep my side of the bargain."

He leaned back and finished his beer. I signalled to the bar tender to get him a refill.

"Besides, would you want to play on a table someone died on? The cloth has never been changed and if you take a look, there's a dark stain where the kid bled to death on it... the legend says that anyone who plays on it is cursed and will die within twenty-four hours."

He sat for a while, obviously moved by his recollections and I respected his silence and left him there with his memories.

I went home that night and told the wife the story. She was horrified but thought the whole thing was romantic and awfully tragic at the same time.

"That poor boy," she said. "He must have been in awful despair...". I myself couldn't sleep and lay awake restlessly thinking about the poor kid and his dreadful fate.

Thursday night I was back at Sanity Lost and played a few games. Because nobody else volunteered to be my next victim, Jimmie dropped over and we chatted about politics and what the morons in Washington were up to and why they should be shot or at least impeached. This triggered a thought and I said in a hushed voice,

"Talking about shooting people, I heard the story about Billie and the cursed table the other day..."

"What story..?" said Jimmie.

"You know... about Billie, and him shooting hisself when he lost to old Sam... and the foreclosure on the farm, and the blood stains on the cloth, and everything..."

Jimmie started to chuckle.

"What's so funny, you old jackass?" I said.

By that time, he'd nearly fallen off his stool laughing and wheezing and it was a good few minutes until he was able to coherently speak again.

"That Gus, he's such a card. The only reason we don't play on that table is because the ball-return is broken and the son of a bitch is too cheap to have it repaired..." he said. "The stain is where Sam dropped a fresh pizza on it a few years ago.

Um... how many beers did make you pay for?"

Rodman

2006-07-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

Rodman - David E. Malone - July 17, 2006

Every Friday night for the past two decades, big Jerry Bailey and I take a walk down to Hagerty's Bar and Pool for a bacon-burger and a few games of pool.

Hagerty's is your typical small town Ontario bar with a coupla dozen bar stools, a few dining tables and chairs, and three or four worn Valley Cougar bar-tables. Everybody knows us there, including the bartender and the owner, and apart from the odd friendly greeting everybody pretty much leaves us alone which is how we like it.

Both of us are pretty handy pool players if I say so myself, but not shortstop material by any means. We don't take it all that seriously and, although some cash is known to change hands from time to time, it's a pretty relaxed sort of affair when we play. Sometimes I win. Sometimes Jerry wins. The winner has to pay for the table and the drinks, so it all works out about even most of the time. In fact, the 'loser' often comes out ahead because the two of us have been known to consume remarkable quantities of beer in a given evening. Because we don't have to worry about drinking and driving we feel free to indulge and besides, Friday is singles night and the beer is half price. Can't beat that.

So it wasn't unusual that this particular Friday, we found ourselves pushing open the heavy brass door and walking into the bar at about 8:00 o'clock. Jerry is a loud, overweight, cheerful guy with sparse white hair on a slightly balding head and a penchant for ribald humor. His love of flowery waist-coats (he calls them vests) makes him look a bit like W.C. Fields on an off-day. I myself am slightly heavy, and maybe somewhat bald on top too, and, yes, I have occasionally been known to tell the odd off-color joke myself. But I'm considerably more refined and restrained than Jerry. I have to admit we do look somewhat alike although I'm far better looking - ask my wife. Someone once called us "Tweedledee and Tweedledumb"... and we both laughed, but only because we both knew they were talking about ol' Jerry when they referred to Tweedledumb.

Anyway, we made our way to our usual table and frowned at the couple of leather jacketed teenagers who were playing on it. I looked over at the bartender, Henry and gestured pointedly at the table. Jerry just stood there glaring at them, arms akimbo.

"Sorry guys..." Henry said apologetically to the kids. "That table is reserved for eight o'clock every Friday night by these two fine gentlemen here..."

I won't tell you what they called us, and it wasn't fine gentlemen to be sure, but after some discussion they did finally vacate our table and we started screwing together our cues for the fray. There was an unwritten law in Hagerty's that this was our table. On a similar note, I can recall visiting my dad in his pub in England one year, and as soon as we walked into the bar, the people sitting at his usual table got up and moved.

"It's my table..." he explained answering my question. "Of course they had to move..."

"That's unlawful discrimination, that is..." said a slurred voice at the bar. It came from one of those fixtures that you seem to see in every bar - the resident drunk. Although this one was new - never seen him before. He was thin and sandy-haired and had a sour expression that made him look like he was permanently sucking on a dill pickle.

"It's not discrimination..." explained Jerry, patiently. "It's just a fact of life... it's OUR table. We're here every Friday night at the same time."

"The kids got there first..." the drunk said doggedly.

"And now we're here." I said pugnaciously. "So what? Are you a goddamn lawyer or something?"

"Shouldn't be allowed." he said emphatically, and went back to his drink, although he continued to regard us intently.

"Somebody needs to mind his own goddamn business...", said Jerry, under his breath. "What a Putz..."

After that, we tried to ignore him and started our game. We tossed a quarter to see who got to break. I lost as usual and Jerry finished screwing together the old Palmer while I racked for 8-ball and nodded to him to break.

"Ten a game, ten ahead..." I said.

Not that I really had to say it, we'd been wagering exactly that for years now. It was understood. But saying it was as much of a ritual as the game itself like the way Jerry always waved his cue in a circle over his head, stretching, before he set up to break.

"Gambling is illegal in this bar" said the drunk immediately. "I'm telling the bartender... "

He looked up the bar to where Henry was polishing glasses and trying to look busy as usual. He waved a skinny arm to get his attention...

"Bartender..." he slurred. "These gentlemen are gambling on your plemishes... pwemises... plem... pool table."

Henry looked up with a twinkle and a mock stern expression and said in a shocked voice...
"Is this true, Jerry... are you gambling on my... er... plemises?"

Jerry laughed.

"You know us, Henry. Neither one of us has ever bet on a game in our lifetime... I think the asshole... I mean the gentleman here, must have misheard us."

Henry winked and went back to his polishing.

"Thought so..." he said. Good man that Henry.

"You're all in cahoots...", said the drunk indignantly. "Don't think I don't know what's going on here... I'm calling the police."

I gave him the finger and embellished it somewhat by some rather inelegant body language so he wouldn't miss the point. He obviously didn't have a cell phone to call anybody on and didn't look like going anywhere, so we ignored him again and got on with our game. But it seems the old sot apparently thought he was a pool playing expert as well as a freaking law enforcement officer...

"What kind of a feeble break do you call that!" he said, loudly. "My mother can break harder than that..."

"Get your mommy down here and tell her to bring lots of money..." I said, cheerfully.

"Yeah, we'll roll the old lady..." said Jerry.

It started to get annoying after that. The drunk had an opinion on everything we did and didn't do. He used to be really good, he claimed, and had beaten Fats in a grudge match for fifty dimes... Willie Mosconi was his bitch. He used to have to give Ralph Greenleaf fifty points ahead at straight pool, and Earl... Earl wasn't fit to shine his work boots... young whippersnapper.
We tried to make the best of it and named him Rodman for Really Obnoxious Drunk Man. A few times, I thought Jerry was going to walk over there and knock him off his stool, but I always restrained him in time. There's no honor in beating up an old drunk.

Finally, I had an idea.

"If I buy you a beer, will you shut the hell up and leave us alone?" I suggested.

"Thank ye kindly..." he said quickly. Maybe that's what he'd been angling for all this time.

And he did shut up for a while... now that we'd figured out his weakness, we simply kept on feeding him beers until he passed out on the stool and we had blessed quietness for the rest of the match. Jerry was having one of his good nights on the green and it was all I could do just to hang in there. He kept getting eight ahead and then losing one until eventually he prevailed (or maybe I got tired and let him win) and went to pay the tab. It was getting late.

"What are we going to do with old Rodman?" I asked. "We can't very well just leave him here because they're closing soon and he'll be out on the street."

It was as if we'd somehow gotten this responsibility because we had named him and given him beer. I don't know if that's ever happened to you. In a way we now felt responsible for his fate - a harsher pair of men would have simply left him there. Did I mention we were both men of principle? And more than slightly drunk?

"Yeah, someone will roll him and take his wallet... maybe worse." said Jerry. "He could get hurt..."

"When you're that drunk, I don't think anything is gonna hurt you. I'll ask Henry if he knows him..." I said.

"Nope... never seen him in here before." said Henry. "Tell you what, look in his coat and see if there's an address and I'll put him in a taxi..."

There was an address in his wallet... 176 Battle of Britain Blvd., Apt 3C, which was not too far down the road. He had a pretty good wad of cash which made Jerry a bit hot because he'd been paying for his tipple all night. A couple of twenties may... and I say 'may'... have found a new home in Jerry's pocket when I was looking the other way. His name wasn't Rodman, of course, but apparently John Peter Wiggan. There was also a picture of a nice older lady (called Helen according to the note on the back) whom we assumed must be his wife or significant other.

"Don't worry about the taxi, Henry..." said Jerry. "We'll drop him off - it's on our way."

So we picked him up and draped one of each of his arms over our shoulders and walked him out the bar. He was curiously light and fragile but had recovered somewhat by this time and muttered veiled curses at us as we dragged him along. Nothing intelligible. Since we weren't all that steady ourselves, it was quite an adventure and every once in a while one of us would stagger off the curb and we'd all end up in the gutter laughing like hyenas. From time to time we tried to make him stand up by himself but he always refused and just slid into a heap on the sidewalk. We had to carry the uncooperative son of a bitch all the way to his apartment.

When we arrived, it was a respectable looking old brownstone apartment building with stained glass windows in the doorway. No internal lights were evident. Jerry rang the doorbell and we waited. After a while, nothing had happened, so I banged enthusiastically on the door a few times as well. Eventually a light came on and a shadow appeared at the door.

"Who is it?" said a voice.

"That you, Helen?" said Jerry, nudging me.

The door opened a crack. A woman in a dressing gown and curlers, and looking vaguely like the picture although it must have been taken many years ago, peered out of the door. She was not in a very good mood having been apparently awakened by our ringing and banging.

"What do you want?" she said curtly.

"We bought home your husband, Rodman... I mean, John." I said proudly.

"I can see that..." she said.

"What have you two drunken assholes done with his wheelchair...?"

A Game at Dooley's

2006-06-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

A Game at Dooley's - David E. Malone - June 02, 2006

It was a warm, muggy summer's day in the poolroom. The sounds were muted... a background hum of quiet conversation augmented by the buzz of the cicadas through an open window and the sharp click of the balls. It was uncomfortably warm and close but no-one thought to complain. That's the way it always was in the summer at Dooley's.

Built, as it was, before the luxury of air-conditioning, the old pool-room had stood the test of time and needed no newfangled cooling machinery to disturb its velvet hush. It smelled, as it rightly should, of stale beer and the sharp reek of cigar smoke still lingered in the air despite the no-smoking ban in effect for the last five years. It was as if the stench had been absorbed into the very walls and furnishings of the old room. The pictures on the walls were as old as the pool-room or older... legendary players like Mosconi, Crane, Greenleaf... and the obligatory picture of W.C. Fields with his crooked cue and the one of the pool-playing dogs. The old polished beech floors shone dimly in the table lights and nothing jarred the mesmerizing and hypnotic pace of the regulars and their animated wagering and their niggling match-ups except the occasional rifle-like crack of a break shot. It had always been that way and likely would stay that way. It was their cocoon, their home away from home, and for the hustlers, their place of work.

There was a strict hierarchy in the room that had stood the test of time. The oldies were allowed their snooker table at the back where they could gum the odd chicken-salad sandwich and slurp their beer and generally chat amongst themselves about how good they used to be and how the new generation didn't know their ass from their elbows and how badly they'd be outplayed if it was only twenty years ago. The next group were the local heroes, the current crop of real players, the aristocracy of the room. They were cocky and confident and represented the only significant jellybeans that changed hands every day. And finally there was the rest, the assorted crowd of rookies, bums, yuppies, smart-ass kids, and pool wannabee's who paid their table money just to be looked down on by everybody else.

Everything was in its place and everybody knew their place. That's what made it Dooley's.
But on one particular day something changed. At first it was negligible, undefinable... then Nate the barman began to feel a slight chill in the warm air at one end of the room. He shivered and looked around but there was nothing there and the next time he passed by, it was gone. A draft maybe or a tiny glitch in the space-time continuum... nothing to fret about. Indeed, he forgot all about it.

A couple of days later he felt it again and this time called Billy Sturm over to see if he could feel it too. Billy nodded wordlessly as the hairs on the nape of his neck stood up and there was a shiver making its way down his spine. Something was definitely there... and then it was gone again. The two men looked at each other and shook their heads, but decided to say nothing. It was only an atmospheric disturbance of some sort and it wasn't worth making a fuss about.

A week later the calm was disturbed again, this time by the entrance of an odd looking man dressed all in black. It would have been hard to define what was strange about him but everyone looked up when he walked in, and then looked away nervously. Despite his handsome, aquiline features, there was something dark in his presence, an air, an aura, perhaps a foreboding. And in the heat of the day he was wearing a long, black-linen coat. Nate was quick to approach him. He wanted no trouble and he got paid to be the bouncer as well as the bartender. But the stranger simply nodded amicably and asked for a free table to, as he said in his low rasping voice, work out some of the bugs in his stroke.

"Well, sure, stranger...", said Nate. "Nice to see some new blood in this poolroom. Where are you from?"

His eyebrow raised quizzically, but all he said was... "Out of town..."

"Talkative son-of-a-gun ain't yer..." said Nat, laughing, but he respected the man's wish for privacy and gave him a set of old Centennials and pointed towards the Gold Crown in the far corner.

"No-one'll bother you there..." he said.

"I only wish that was so..." said the stranger grimly. It was as if Nat had touched a raw nerve or opened an old wound of some sort.

"No-one will bother you." Nat repeated firmly. "The locals are all good lads and they respect a man who wants to keep to his self."

The stranger nodded again, took the proffered ball tray and strode over to the table. He carried an ancient Brunswick cue-case over his right shoulder that they hadn't noticed because it was also black and blended in well with the rest of his drab attire. He took his time removing the coat and hung it carefully on the hook on the wall. Tall and thin and clad in an old black suit that was worn and threadbare, the stranger looked as if he had been transported ahead in time from the eighteenth century. It appeared he was totally unaware of his surroundings and focussed only on removing the cue from his case and screwing it together. The cue was nothing out of the ordinary - looked like a very ancient Palmer or perhaps a Brunswick - but it was well used and the width of the tip was worn down from constant use. He didn't spill the balls on the table, but methodically plucked them out of the tray, one-by-one, and placed them in the rack. Then with a practiced flick of the wrists, he racked all fifteen balls and strode around the table to break them up.

Nate kept one eye on the table and noticed that the stranger didn't seem to miss... ever. Playing straight pool, the cue ball looked like it was on a string and he never seemed to get out of position, never got trapped behind a ball, and never missed a pot. It all looked rather simple and easy to the untrained eye.

When Denny, the local straight pool hotshot wandered over to get a drink, he nodded in the general direction of the stranger and asked, "Is he any good...?"

"Too good for you, laddy..." replied Nate with a sour grin. "He hasn't missed a ball in forty-five minutes."

That's when things started to get really strange. Nate sensed rather than felt something over his left shoulder, where the chill had been the prior week, and turned sharply to see what it was. This time he could vaguely see something there besides the cold air. He couldn't make out what it was - it was a shimmering in the air, a sort of disturbance like a ripple on the water where it had been disturbed by a stone or a fish surfacing - and as he watched open mouthed, the shimmering began to intensify and take the form of what could only be described as an apparition of some kind.

"I'm going mad..." he thought, " I must be seeing things." and turned his head slightly to see if anyone else had noticed.

They had... half the players in the room were standing transfixed as they watched this thing and more were looking up as they saw their playing partners frozen in place. The shimmering deepened and the room vibrated with a tremor far below the hearing point of men. It was something they could only feel instead of hear. Gradually the apparition solidified and it became apparent that it was a man... of sorts. Dressed in a long black robe with a hood, there was no discernible face, just an impenetrable dark shadow where the face should have been and the long drapes of the robe hid any hands or feet. A huge intake of breath filled the room as the players fear became tangible now that the specter had revealed itself.

And then it began to move... slowly at first... and then with firm purpose towards the stranger's table. A quick glance showed that the stranger hadn't moved or even looked up. Indeed he continued with his methodical play. There was a scuffling and a desperate attempt by the locals to get out of the way, some of them crashing into tables or falling over themselves as they backed away. But the apparition seemed to be fixed on the stranger only and moved inexorably towards his table until he stood mere inches away. Oddly, although none of them had seen it before, it became apparent that the specter's long bone-like fingers clutched a jet-black cue.

"You came then...?" said the stranger, not looking up. It was not so much a question as an affirmation of fact.

"Do I not always come...? replied the apparition gently.

"I do not welcome thee."

"Your welcome is not needed... I ask only for your cooperation."

This last was flatly said, but the words exchanged seemed as a time-worn ritual and not common conversation. The two had met before and under similar circumstances it seemed. The specter lifted one bony hand towards the table surface and then slammed it down on one of the remaining balls.

"I have little time to waste. Let the game begin..." he said.

They lagged to see who would take command of the break and it seems the apparition won, although both lags were impeccably tight to the rail and an obvious advantage was not apparent to the poolroom onlookers. The stranger racked calmly and sat down. He looked straight ahead blankly and never looked directly at the menacing presence of the other. The soft initial break ball barely moved the pack and so the stranger stood up and did the same. It seemed this exchange of fine safeties would go on forever but eventually the specter must have seen a combination that worked, for he indicated a ball and pointed to the top-left corner pocket. His shot slammed into the pack... and the nominated ball slid smoothly into the called pocket. Now that the table was more open, he settled down and started scoring at will, picking off the loose balls at the edges of the pack. And each shot seemed to free up another ball, and another, until there was but one remaining. The stranger got up wearily and racked the sunk balls again. With his next shot the apparition sank the remaining ball and sharply broke up the pack. The next rack was a mirror image of the first and so he continued. Rack upon rack. His skills were at least the equal of the stranger's and one ball followed the other, the smooth continuity of the remarkable string broken only by the re-racking of the balls.

Now that it seemed the apparition was not immediately threatening, the regulars crowded around the game, getting as close as they dared - which was still no closer than the next table. Nobody had left. As the points accumulated, the table markers appeared to move by themselves and the totals changed. It was an uncanny sight as day turned into night and still they continued. Although they rarely missed, they were far from perfect and each had his share of turns at the table as the scores neared one thousand. Suddenly the specter stood upright and slowly lifted one hand in silent victory.

The match was over and it seemed the stranger had lost... shrugging his shoulders, he stood and said cryptically and to no-one in particular...

"I am sorry... sometimes I win."

The specter hadn't moved and stood still as stone while the stranger packed his cue and then walked out looking straight ahead. He hadn't paid for the table time and Nate weakly raised a hand in protest but let it fall again as he recalled the strange events of the evening.

As the door closed behind the stranger, the apparition also moved towards the end of the bar where he had first appeared. But this time he stopped along the way and turned to face old Billy Sturm who, like his mates, was rooted to the spot with fear. He lifted one skeleton-like hand and lightly tapped him on one shoulder before continuing and Billy's knees buckled slightly at his touch. As he reached the bar, the apparition started to fade and by the time he reached the other end there was once again just a shimmering... a slight disturbance... and then nothing.

After he left the bar that night, they never saw Billy again. Some said he was so terrified from looking into the blank, infinite face of the apparition that he lost his mind and wandered off. Some say he was plucked from this mundane existence by the other-worldly specter and taken who-knows-where. The words death and even the devil were nervously bandied about, but not at night... only in broad daylight, and then only in low voices as if they might be overheard by some unseen listener.

And Dooley's went back to being Dooley's, as it had always been, and as it would always be.

But from that time onwards, there was a noticeable difference in the locals, a wariness that wasn't there before. Whenever the door opened now a hush was created and subsequently you would hear the sound of a collective relief that was palpable to the senses as each newcomer was recognized. And old Billy's chair sat empty and unused because no-one dared to sit in it ever again.

The Hustler's Prayer

2006-05-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

The Hustler's Prayer - David E. Malone - May 4, 2006

I humbly beg the gods of pool
To help me live the Golden Rule.
To do to others constantly...
Before they do the same to me.

Let one-piece cues be straight to roll
And cubes of chalk not have a hole.
Make each new shot a fluid stroke
And guide my arm if I am broke.

And please supply an endless list
Of amateurs who still insist
That playing yet another rack
Will let them win their money back.

Give me the strength to walk away
And save it for another day.
Give me the nerve to see it through
When only running out will do.

And let each sleazy hall's decor
Boast open exits by the score.
And when I need to get out quick
I pray the window doesn't stick.

If they should lose, I pray the bums
Won't get upset and break my thumbs.
All of this I hope and pray
To ease my struggles every day.

And last, dear gods, please help me see
If anybody's hustling... me.

Buckley's Mill

2006-04-18T07:39:00.000-07:00

Buckley's Mill - David E. Malone - April 18, 2006

There's a poolroom in Unionville, called Buckley's Mill. Yuppie place... very clean and serves imported beers. The house-cues are well kept, the balls clean, and the tables brushed religiously every day. I can vouch for that because Jack Morris and I own the place. Anyway, one of the first things you'll see as you approach the bar, is a broken cue in two pieces in a glass case hung above the bar. It has a brass plaque with an inscription that reads...

"Right on Cue... Buckley's Mill. May 3, 2001"

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The wife and I were taking a stroll one day in the spring of 2000 through the delightful old town of Unionville - and got to the far end where the old mill used to be. It's actually still there but has been infested with cheap souvenir stores who prey on unwary tourists who don't realize that there's really nothing remarkable about the town except that it's old. This wasn't the first time we've been there but this time the building was dark and there was a sign on the door that said 'Bankruptcy Sale... huge Bargains!". We'd quite obviously missed the sale and were looking at the aftermath. Business was over for ye olde Unionville Old Mill Souvenir Shoppes.

That's when I had this great idea. It was like a flashbulb going off in what was left of my mind. I'd always wanted to open a pool room... and this site was ideally placed in a town full of pubs and bars without a single pool table as far as I could see. What's more, it was situated right on the highway - the only route into town, and sat prominently on a small rise after the bridge. I knew from looking around inside that it had plenty of room on two distinct levels and a solid beech wooden floor. The biggest problem would be trying to talk the town council into letting me have a poolroom on their high street and a liquor licence.

I told my wife, Myrna, what I was thinking. That was my first mistake... she punched me on the arm... hard. I have to admit, she got my attention.

"What the hell are you thinking, James Buckley?" she asked angrily, waving her hands like an Italian describing a horse-race. "You have a good job. Why would you want to throw our money away on a stupid pipe dream?"

I knew I was in trouble because she never used my whole name unless she was real serious. Time for some damage control.

"What on earth are you babbling on about, sweetheart...?", I said, rubbing my arm ruefully. "It was just a thought. And anyway if I did decide to do it, I can assure you I'd run it like a real business... I guarantee it would make money. You worked in a real estate office once - take a look at the terrific location..."

She wasn't about to be mollified.

"If you do decide to do it..." she said, coldly. "You'll be doing it without me!"

What was that line in the country and western song? I'm gonna miss her...? We drove home in complete silence. She had a look on her like a rabid pit-bull with indigestion and I wasn't going to chance saying anything. In the meantime, I did me some thinking and decided owning a poolroom was probably over-rated anyway. I kinda liked being married to this woman - she'd stuck with me for twenty-three odd years and I was used to the old girl.

So I kinda forgot about the big idea and filed it away in a private folder I call 'the bitch won't let me' along with a number of other old sore spots that included corvettes, custom pool cues, show girls, stags and strip clubs. But Myrna's a sweetheart. After we got home, she came to me, kissed me and apologized and said if this was something I really wanted then she would go along for the ride. It just scared her to take such a big gamble with our hitherto comfortable and balmy middle-class existence. I told her if I ever went into business, the first thing I would do is put the house in her name in case of bankruptcy, so she'd always have a place to live. This seemed to satisfy her, plus the fact that I had apparently given up on the idea.

I got on with my life... working during the week, playing pool on weekends, and enjoying my tranquil but boring existence until one day when I was having a few beers and shooting the shit with old Jack Morris at Coronation. He was rabbiting on about how dirty the pool balls were, and how they never brushed the tables properly, and how the house cues could all use new tips. I was only listening with half an ear, but my mind shot into focus when he said,

"You know, I've always wanted to own a poolhall of my own. I'd do a better job than these clowns... if I could find a partner, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

"Okay." I said.

"Okay... what?" he said, bemused.

"Let's open our own poolhall... I have the perfect place for it."

He looked at me as if I'd slapped him.

"Really..?" was all he could say. He looked like he was having trouble breathing.

"Yes. Let's do it. How much can you put together...?"

Turns out he was serious and had a spare coupla hundred thousand tucked away, so I agreed to throw in the same and form an equal partnership agreement. No lawyers or anything but we shook hands on it and it was a done deal. The rest of the night, we hashed everything over and over and I finally arrived home that night exhausted around 1:30am. Myrna was waiting for me and soon as she saw my face, she knew something was up. I told her about Jack and the poolhall and everything, and all she said was,

"I wondered how long it would take."

She knows me pretty well, I guess. I didn't quit my day job, at first. Jack was retired and the idea was that he'd manage the poolroom during the day and I'd take over at night. Our first task was to find a room and the three of us took a drive out to Unionville to see if the old mill was still on the market. It was. They wanted four-hundred thou for it but it had been on the market now for over seven months and we thought they might be getting antsy. After meeting with the lawyer and the bank manager, we made a ridiculous (according to the broker) offer of three-hundred thousand even. They came back with a three-hundred and fifty counter and we happily accepted thinking we'd made a heck of a deal.

Our application to open a poolhall was treated by the Markham planning office as if we'd asked them to approve a red-light bordello. The application was returned, a flat 'no' with a hint of 'how dare you' included. We appealed... and appealed again... and they finally agreed to put the issue before the town council. The date they selected for our hearing was another two months in the future so we were left holding the bag for eight weeks. I used the time to put together a business plan and set up a credit line with the bank. Not as much as I would have liked, but reasonable given the circumstances. That credit line may have been the only thing that saved us in the first few weeks. Finally the day of the hearing came and I used all of my considerable charm to convince some austere and prim looking council fuddy-duddies that this would be the ultimate in upper class recreational pursuits, an environment so far removed from the usual scuzzy poolroom decor that it would result in a landmark attraction that would appeal to tourists and locals alike. They bought it. Old Jack said he'd never heard bullshit so delicately coated with confectionary before, but I could tell he was impressed. The liquor licence was a foregone conclusion after that, although we did have to build separate Mens and Ladies washrooms to qualify.

The conversion took us over four months. We managed to find fourteen used Dufferin Challengers from the Silver Dragon, a poolhall that went bankrupt over a year ago. They were willing to take five-hundred apiece, which sounds like a bargain until you realize that didn't include moving and re-levelling and set-up costs. Luckily we found some reasonable piano movers who humped them over for us without even taking them apart. The pool table mechanic still charged us twenty bucks per table to re-level them all, but we figure we saved a bundle on taking them apart and re-assembling them again. That took care of the downstairs room but we had to buy six brand new Brunswick Gold Crowns for the 'Gold Crown Room' upstairs so we could create a fancier space for the serious players. Fortunately the outrageous initial cost included set-up and leveling. The oak bar, we stole from a used furniture dealer who was tired of this fourteen foot monstrosity taking up space in his warehouse and gave us a sweet deal that included refinishing. Jack's old partner from the brass foundry replaced all the missing rails and freshened up the existing ones. It looked fabulous.The beer pumps and fixings for the bar weren't a problem because we were inundated with offers from the various beer companies all eager to have us pump and advertise their particular beer. Molsens even paid for the new neon sign... 'Buckley's Mill - Billiards & Pool. Molsens on Tap'.

The only thing we didn't quite know what to do with, was the old grist mill itself. Originally built in 1842 by settlers in the area. it was still working and the previous owners had maintained it as a tourist attraction. Fed by the mill-pond and refreshed by the stream that ran through the village, it continued to rumble and clank, morning to night as long as there was sufficient water flow to move the paddle wheel. The two huge granite grinding stones were disconnected and one of them was pressed into service as a stoop just outside the main doors. We finally decided it was just too damn noisy, so an impatient Jack stuck a house-cue in the works one morning and it ground to a screeching halt. The cue bent slightly, like a long bow, but maple is real strong and it held. I understand there was originally a steel pin that was supposed to hold it if it needed to be stopped for service, but probably the workmen who did the conversion thought it was a piece of scrap metal and tossed it. No problem, the cue did the trick. We got lots of comments on the mill-works from the tourists, so we left it as-is for their edification and viewing pleasure. Besides it gave the place 'character' and a uniqueness that few other poolrooms could aspire to.

The start-up was shaky. You have no idea of all the various and sundry costs involved in setting up a new business. Everyone seemed to want a chunk of our cash reserves and we very nearly exhausted the line of credit and went bankrupt before we had even opened for business. But finally everything was ready and we opened the doors. To my surprise, there was already a long line-up of curious people waiting when I threw the doors open at noon. Hot damn! They wandered in, checking everything out and before long we had ourselves a few regulars that started coming in every day. At the request of a few of these old coots, we found an ancient Brunswick snooker table and set that up at the back of the room. It was like they had their own club back there. They played snooker all day and drank beer all day. I think we'd have been in trouble without them. Eventually we bought a couple of 7 foot coin-op Valley Cougar bar tables for the local leagues to use as well.

Gradually business increased. As I'd guessed, the tourists who got fed up with wandering around the village reacted positively now that there was actually something for them to do. Lots of the men would drop off their sight-seeing families and then come down for a few games before picking them up again at the end of the day. And the locals, the real pool players, took over the Gold Crown Room and kept those tables occupied all night as well. It was looking like a real good business decision... we even started to pay off some of the line of credit.

A few months later, a scruffy, young punk wandered in off the street. Not that that in itself it was unusual - we got all sorts. This one looked disheveled and a bit wild, likely high on something, and Jack came out from behind the bar to usher him out. We didn't want any riffraff in the hall. There was a heated discussion, a scuffle and then a loud bang... Jack got this astonished look on his face like people do when they've been shot and folded up like a pack of cards. I jumped up, but the kid had a loaded Saturday-night special pointed at my head and I wasn't about to do anything silly. The important thing was to get this kid out of there and take care of Jack as soon as possible.

"Hey, no need for violence, son..." I said, holding up my hands with the palms down in a conciliatory gesture. "I'll give you all the money in the till if you try not to shoot anybody else... there's quite a lot."

"Hurry up then..." he said, gruffly. His voice was unnaturally strained and his hand was shaking so much I had a real concern that the gun would go off without him even pulling the trigger voluntarily. He may have been more scared than I was.

I was bending with my hands in the till and the punk standing over me, when I heard a sharp crack... and the kid slumped forward and landed on the floor at my feet. My first thought was that someone had shot him, but after a second look it became apparent that something even stranger had happened. The house-cue Jack had wedged in the gears of the old mill had finally snapped, and the force of it had ricocheted the top third of the cue into the room with such force that the jagged end had gone right through his ribs - and exited out the back between his shoulder blades. It looked for all the world like a scene from a vampire "B" movie where the Count has taken a stake through the heart.

I signalled for one of the guys to call 911 and went to see to Jack. He was still breathing and a cursory look showed that he'd taken the bullet in his right shoulder, a long way from anything critical. He looked at me with a serious look and asked me if he was gonna die. I hadn't realized I'd become so fond of the old fart and a few tears welled up, but I said,

"No, you're gonna be just fine, you old asshole..."

"Will I be able to play pool again?", he asked. "My shoulder hurts and my arm doesn't seem to work..."

It wasn't funny but I had this wild urge to laugh. Jack is possibly the world's worst pool-player. It reminded me of that story where there's this guy in a big car accident on his way into surgery.

"Doc", he says "just tell me one thing. Will I be able to play piano after the surgery?"

"Sure you will...." says the doctor.

"That's wonderful." says the patient. "Before the accident I couldn't play a note...".

The police came, and shortly after that, an ambulance. The drug crazed kid was declared dead at the scene and they made Jack comfortable and whisked him away to the hospital at Centenary. To tell you the truth, the poor kid looked so frail and small lying there in a pool of his own blood, I felt kinda sorry for him. Addiction makes people do some awful things. Anyway, according to the police, there would have to be an autopsy as to the cause of death, although as one of them remarked, the cause of death was pretty self-evident. The Coroner would have to be blind to miss it. I asked the officer for the cue back after the autopsy and he raised an eyebrow but said he'd see what could be arranged...

Two major things happened as a result of all the excitement.

One, I hung the cue over the bar as a reminder that there was now a loaded Remington pump shotgun under the bar... and two, the old mill started back up... and we never tried to stop it again.

Comeuppance

2006-02-09T10:31:00.000-08:00

Comeuppance - David E. Malone - Feb 09, 2006

Wee Walter McCabe was perhaps the most irritating person you'd ever want to meet. He was a short (maybe five three if he was an inch) beady-eyed, bearded, mouthy individual with a short pony-tail, and a beer gut which he carried in front of him with some pride. Not that there aren't people like that everywhere and Walter wouldn't be at all remarkable except for the fact that he was the best pool player in our county. It was especially annoying because my buddy Jamie and me are probably the number two and number three best players. Walter regularly won the local Saturday night 8-ball tournament and pocketed a kingly two hundred clams every time. Nobody else has ever won it, and, indeed, Walter always bragged that he used to put it on his income tax return in advance as unearned income. Not earned, you notice, unearned because he said it was so easy he didn't consider it work.

His personality sucked. Whenever he saw Jamie or me, he would always make some snide remark, such as "here come the loser brothers.." or "been practicing, guys? God knows you need it..." I've come close to knocking him off his bar stool just to take that evil smirk off his hairy face once and for all. But he was right it seemed, whatever we did, he had our number and we never came close to beating him in the tourney. We even got together and planned a few harmless shark moves to try and put him off his game. For example, one day we both would rack the balls... and then go stand where he usually broke from and make him have to ask us to move so he could break. Then before we moved, we'd put a cube of chalk or two down on the rail exactly where he was going to put his bridge hand so he'd have the additional annoyance of having to move it before he shot. We kept that up for a whole tournament. One time we even got wild Mary Hennessy to take her bra off, open a few extra buttons and sit opposite him and pretend to tie her shoelaces. Didn't help, didn't even throw off his pre-shot routine, and we we're just too honest and upright to try any really big sharks. I don't know how Jamie feels, but I would give my left nut to beat the jerk even once.

One day, my daughter, Heather came home with a new boyfriend. Sven was a big, blond, likeable oaf from Norway and after the first few weeks we allowed him pretty much the run of the house like you would a family dog... he may have been almost as smart as one. In fact, Jamie, who's a bit of a wag, always referred to him as 'the great dane' which irritated me a bit because after all he wasn't from Denmark. I don't know why she liked him, but she did. Okay, I liked him too. It was impossible not to like him - he was so big, and so goofy, and so harmless. One of nature's friendliest people.

"He plays pool, Daddy" she said. "Why don't you take him down to Dooley's and have a few games?"

I didn't take her up on this suggestion for a while - the last thing I needed was for my concentration to be broken by having to shepherd Sven around and make sure he didn't get into trouble. Plus I wasn't at all sure if he was old enough to drink and I didn't want that on my conscience either. But she persisted and eventually one day when Jamie dropped in for a drink, I capitulated and suggested that we all go down to Dooley's for a few games. I figured as long as he didn't sit on anything fragile or break any house cues or other equipment we'd be fine. Heather could look after him and at least she would be happy that I was making an effort, as she put it, to be nice to her friends.

I found us a table at the very back of the pool hall, out of the way of the regulars, and racked the balls for 8-ball.

"Go ahead and break..." I said, casually to Sven and started to walk around the table.

Suddenly there was a sound like a cannon shot and I jumped like a startled deer... it was Sven breaking up the balls with a house cue. Holy Moses! I'd never seen anyone hit the balls that hard before and with awesome control too. After jumping a foot in the air, the cue ball not only stayed on the table but spun back a few inches to remain nicely in the middle of the table. "Damn good break," I thought, and there was more to come. His stroke was level and silky smooth and his position play was exemplary. He rolled that cue ball around the table like a pro and by the time he got to the 8-ball without making a mistake, I knew he was a cut above anybody we knew, including the moronic midget Walter McCabe. Then he did something that didn't make any sense. He slammed the 8-ball in so hard with topspin that the cue ball ricocheted about seven rails... before scratching in a side pocket.

"What d'ja do that for?" said Jamie. "You just lost the game..."

"Ve haff a tradition in Norway..." explained Sven "ve always hit der eight-ball as hard as ve can for good luck. Sometime it scratches and sometime it don't, depending on how lucky you are that night... that way you can see if der luck is positive or negative."

So they are a tad crazy where Sven comes from. We played for the rest of the night with Sven winning easily despite his 8-ball celebrations. In fact, he only scratched one other time but it sure struck us as an odd thing to do. Maybe one of them Norwegian bar-table traditions - what did I know.

About ten o'clock, it came to us. The big idea, that is. I don't know why we didn't think of it earlier, but suddenly Jamie looked up with a wild surmise and said, "I wonder...?" and I knew immediately what he was thinking. There was little doubt that Sven would likely beat Walter if he entered the weekly 8-ball tournament and it would surely shut him up for a while. And it would give us some on-going heavy ammunition to counter his persistent trash talk.

Sven agreed to do it with very little persuasion, noting that he'd won many a pool tournament in his native country. In fact, he was rather eager to participate. The tournament wasn't handicapped, so there would be no reason for any of the regulars or the tournament organizers to see him play beforehand. We would just spring the monster on Walter next Saturday and see what happened. As Jamie said, "I think we can arrange a little action on the side." because no-one in their right mind in Sierra County would bet against Walter McCabe.

When Saturday night came around, we arrived at Dooley's a little early and I went to have a chat with the Tournament Director, and Dooley's resident barman, Ernie Stallen...

"My daughter's boyfriend is here from Norway..." I said. "Is it okay if he plays in the tournament?"

"Does he play well enough to not make an ass out of himself..?" he said, quizzically.

"I think so..." I said. "Sign the three of us up... the worst he can do is go two and out."

"True." He said, taking the money. "I'll keep an eye on him anyway."

While I was talking to Ernie, Jamie was going around taking bets at two to one against Walter winning the tournament. He collected nearly two thousand dollars before I got there and people were still queuing up to take his offer. Looked like we'd be in for at least three or four thousand bucks before it was all over, but I was confident Sven would prevail. There was only one niggling little concern I had at the back of my mind and eventually I took Sven aside and made him promise not to hit the eight-ball so hard for luck.

"This is a tournament not a friendly game. Just hit it very gently... pooch it... dink it... pocket speed at the most..." I said. "Promise me...?"

"I'll try my best.." is all he would say.

The draw had me against Walter in the first round and I ended up on the one-loss side in short order. "You haven't improved, Davey old boy..." he sneered. "It's like taking candy from a baby." Normally I'd have called him an asshole and suggested we take it outside, but today I was in a good mood because his comeuppance was arriving in due course and I could wait. Jamie and Sven were on the other side of the draw and played each other in the second round.

Predictably, Sven rolled over him like a beer barrel over a centipede on crutches. Seven to two, I think, in a race to seven even though Sven told me afterwards he let up on him so he wouldn't feel too bad. Things were working out as I planned - it looked like Sven wouldn't get to play Walter until the finals, assuming they both went all the way. That suited us just fine. I leaned over and tapped Walter on the shoulder at one point as we watched Sven drill yet another hapless opponent and said,

"Hey, Walt, seems like the big kid knows how to play a little..."

Walter snapped back, "Are you kidding? The dumbass doesn't know what the hell he's doing..."

I chuckled to myself. I hadn't heard that tone of voice from him before - he actually sounded nervously uncertain, and maybe a little angry as well. Is it a sin to feel happy at another person's discomfort? If that was the case I was sinning big-time... and enjoying it tremendously.

As expected, the final was a Walter versus Sven matchup. It was a race to eleven as usual and Walter won the lag to break first. He ran out the first table. It seemed that he wasn't going to give up his title easily and I began to see aspects of his game that he had never shown before. People said he was a hustler once before he retired and used to hang out at Pro tournaments and take money from the winners afterwards. And the way he was playing, there may have been some truth in it. This made me think and I anxiously started to do some math - what was four grand at two to one... lessee... eight, that's eight, big ones. I began to sweat bullets and pray for Walter to miss. I talked to God directly and tried to call in all the favors I figured I must have amassed for good behavior.

Eventually he did miss, but only after clearing the first three tables in a row. I may have been sweating, but Sven apparently wasn't at all flustered and played cooly and methodically, putting an amazing five pack on him. You could see the stress on Walter's face now. I think he realized he was in over his head, but when his turn came again he buckled down and played out of his shoes... evening up the match. Despite Walter's heroics, Sven took a clear lead and was soon on the hill leading 10 - 7. He had the break and it seemed it was all over at that point. I began to relax slightly inside.

After the break, Sven was a little bit hooked, didn't have a clear shot at anything and attempted a bold kick to sink a stripe instead of playing safe. Uncharacteristically, he missed. This time when Walter approached the table his face had changed. You could see the relief - he obviously hadn't expected to get to the table again - and he began to play with a grim determination that made me admire his spirit even though I still hated his guts. The man wasn't a quitter and he obviously still thought he could win.

The spectators were hushed as he began to inexorably chip away at Sven's lead but at hill-hill, he finally missed a very fine cut into the side pocket and stood there dazed like an orphan who had been tossed out of the orphanage. I almost felt sorry for him as Sven smoothly dropped the remaining solids and lined up on the 8-ball. Something about the way he was lining up tipped me off and I desperately tried to get his attention. He must have forgotten about his promise to hit it gently and, as I watched with horrified fascination, slammed it hard in celebration. It went in, of course, but the whole room watched mesmerized as the cue ball flew around the table from rail to rail. I saw it in slow motion and I can still see it to this day like an out-take clip from a movie. Not many people could hit a ball that hard and this one went eight full rails before finally coming to rest... in the top corner pocket.

I don't think I cried. It was just too awful. Jamie and I were out around eight or so big ones, our wives would kill us, and Walter had won yet again...

As he went up to be presented with his two hundred dollar weekly 'salary', he looked directly at me as he passed and covertly gave me the finger with some enthusiasm. At that point, I simply didn't have the energy to respond. A sick feeling told me I'd be hearing about this for the next twenty years.

Now old Ernie is a smart guy and doesn't miss a thing. He tapped me on the shoulder as we were leaving.

"I knew that would happen...", he said.

"Oh, yeah...?" I said. "Sure you did."

"Well, if you think about it, it's a well known fact... "

He grinned broadly.

"Yes? " I said.

"You can lead a Norse to Walter... but you can't make him dink." he said.

The Way, The Truth... and the Wife

2006-01-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

The Way, The Truth... and the Wife - David E. Malone - Jan 27, 2006

Me and my best buddy, Harry, are slimey, lowdown, pool hustlers... at least that's what people tend to call us when they look back and think about how their cash migrated into our pockets.

It's a bit unfair. Don't they realize that in order for us to hustle them they had to have had a little larceny in their souls? If they weren't greedy and thinking they were going to make a killing, they wouldn't have gone for the hustle in the first place. So as far as I can see, we are really just providing a public service that allows these sinners to repent and learn a quick lesson in humility at the same time. Harry's a better player than me, so he gets to hustle the big dogs... me, I take care of the little ten bucks a game action, and between us we've managed to survive on the road for nigh on four years now.

One of the big reasons for that is 'Harvey' the RV who saves us mucho dinero in hotel and motel rooms. Harry obtained Harvey from his maiden aunt, Agatha who carelessly happened to leave the keys in it. Harry used to work in a scrap yard and has a collection of license plates from every state in the union so we change the plates every couple of weeks to throw people off the trail and it seems to be working... or maybe nobody cares anyway. Harvey is a twenty year old Winnebago but he still runs fine, doesn't leak in any place inconvenient, and has all the comforts of home as long as we stay in the warmer climes.

Hustling's a dangerous game and over the years we've learned to be cautious. We check all the exits, especially bathroom windows and back doors, before setting something up in case we get in over our heads. Occasionally, try as we will, the hustler gets hustled and if we don't have the jelly-beans to pay off the wager there's trouble. I think one or the other of us has been beaten up in every state of the union. It gets harder to find a bar or a room where we haven't been before and even then we sometimes get recognized by someone who just happened to have been in an action room where we previously visited. As the number of available rooms dwindles, we have begun to think seriously about ways to protect ourselves, and especially our bankroll, in those cases where it becomes obvious we are in trouble.

I mean, in the past we have tried simply 'hightailing' it, but inevitably there is someone at the door whose job it is to make sure we don't do that. Plus Harry's a bit overweight and doesn't run that good anymore. He once suggested I get a big handgun and wave it around a bit... it's a pretty good bet we'd be able to walk out if we had a gun, he said. But that's more dangerous than it sounds - in fact it's probably a good way to get shot to death by a bartender with a shotgun under the counter or some macho cowboy with a concealed weapon in his belt. I don't want to risk it. What we've always needed is a sure-fire diversion that would take everyone's attention away from the game and allow us to sneak quietly away whilst everyone was distracted.
Finally, one day Harry had what he thought was a brilliant idea.

"Here's what we do...", he said. "You dress up like a woman and come busting into the bar and pretend I'm your husband..."

"No offense, Harry" I said. "But you're not my type. Besides, why me...?"

"I'm the one who plays for the big bucks. So I'm the one who needs to get bailed out more often. Think about it...", he said.

I thought about it.

"I'm not into that sort of thing... I mean dressing up as a woman.", I protested.

"It's okay. You don't have to do anything kinky...", he said.

"You mean dressing up as a woman doesn't strike you as even slightly kinky?" I said, heatedly.

"Hear me out," said Harry. He was agog with excitement. "You come busting into the bar and scream at me... something like... you miserable, lying son of a snake... you told me you was going to church and here you are gambling again."

"Um...?" I said doubtfully.

"Then you grab me by the collar and drag me out of the bar..." he said. "It's perfect. There isn't a man alive whose gonna get involved in a man having a fight with his wife. In fact, there isn't a scarier thing on this earth than an angry woman. We've all been conditioned to stay as far away from them as possible... don't matter how big and tough you are, you ain't gonna tangle with an angry woman. Am I right?"

"That's true," I said, thinking of my dear wife I'd left to go on the road. "If Amy ever finds me she'll string me up... I wouldn't want to be in my shoes if she ever turns up."

"Right..." he said. "Hell hath no fury like a woman."

Now I really, really didn't want to do this. I'm a man's man. I don't look like a woman, I don't talk like a woman, I don't walk like a woman, and I sure as hell don't smell like a woman. Plus, if the dupes ever found out, they'd be madder than hell and I'd be lucky to end up in the hospital instead of the cemetery. But eventually Harry talked me into trying it - he called in every favor he had coming and reminded me several times of the time he'd saved my life... I reluctantly agreed to give it a try. After all, he had saved my life.

We went down to the local St. Vincent De Paul Society store and found a blonde wig and an oversize chintz dress with buttons down the front. I hadn't seen myself as a blonde, but Harry thought I'd have more fun that way. Quite the effing humorist is our Harry. They didn't have any tights or pantyhose so we had to go to the local WalMart and get a one-size-fits-all pair of stretch tights in a dark brown shade... 'ecru' I think it said on the package. I tried on the outfit in the RV and Harry near busted a gut laughing. Seems I reminded him of a girl he went out with in high school... musta been one butt-ugly cheer-leader. I had to pad the chest a bit with a couple of old tee-shirts and Harry sat down and sewed them right into the dress so I could get the outfit together in a hurry. In a pinch, I figured I could lose the tights because they took an extra five minutes to put on. My legs aren't that hairy anyway and I figured I'd seen worse on some women. Anyway, with a bit of pancake make-up, some red lipstick, and a pair of high-heeled pumps, I made a passable dame... think of a cross-dressing Dolly Parton impersonator after a binge-drinking weekend.

I still had reservations.

"Harry," I mused. "What if I wanted to grow a mustache sometime in the future?"

"No problem," he said. "Do you remember old Jamie's wife..? She had a better mustache than he did and people still knew she was a damned ugly woman. It'd be better if you don't though... just don't grow a beard."

Weeks passed and fortunately Harry continued to come out on the right end of his hustles until one night when we were in Salem, Oregon and he ran into a real player. This low-down weasel managed to hide that fact until they got into some substantial jelly-beans. I'd been dreading this but Harry gave me the secret signal as arranged and I excused myself and reluctantly slipped out to the RV to get changed. Five minutes later I was ready to roll.

I threw open the door of the pool-room...

"I knew it," I screamed in a high falsetto. "Harry Charles Verderchi... you evil son of a rattler... you told me you was going to Church. You lying bastard... you're gambling again... I'm gonna kill you when I get you home..."

I bustled right up to Harry, whacked him with my purse a few times, and then grabbed him dramatically by the ear. I could see the horrified faces of all the players as I led him out of the front door. He was probably in some pain but I wanted it to be realistic and apparently it was. Nobody said a thing... although I saw one big guy gulp and mutter, "Geez, that's one plug-ugly woman...".

I tried not to take it personally.

We piled into Harvey for our getaway. My knees were shaking and I was hyper-ventilating. And Harry was laughing so hard he could barely drive.

"That's the last time I do that," I gasped.

"I don't think so..." replied Harry, in between wheezes. "Come on... it worked like a charm. Did you see the look on them ol' boys faces. Priceless..."

"How much were you in for anyway...?" I asked when I got my breath back.

"Five dimes... and I only had sixty bucks in my pocket." he said. "They'd have skinned me alive if I didn't pay up..."

"So, now we're even," I said. "You saved my life and I just saved yours... I ain't doing this again. Ever."

About a month later, we were in Vegas - lots of high rollers there. We were getting pretty flush - with a bank-roll twice the size we could usually put together - and I could see Harry was itching for a high-stakes game. Vegas was his home town and he knew all the best gambling haunts. He'd been away so long, nobody recognized him anymore and he was pretty sure he could go most places without being fingered. I'm from Connecticut so no-one was likely to know me there anyways. We stopped in at a place called Smiley's and casually asked if there was any action. Appears not although the bartender, Jimmie, said there was a Russian guy throwing some cash about in there a day or so ago. He said he thought he'd be back on Thursday and since today was Wednesday we decided to go sleep in the Winnebago and come back in a while.

We slept in 'till noon on Thursday, ate lunch, and generally puttered about until about seven. There was no sign of any Russian at Smiley's when we got there but Jimmie said he usually didn't make an appearance until later so we'd have to hurry up and wait. I passed the time playing one of the locals for ten bucks a game and picked up a couple hundred before he backed out on me. Finally the door opened and the Russian walked in with a few friends (backers?) and we waited for Jimmie to serve him a drink and ask him if he was looking for a game. We could see him gesturing in our direction and eventually, the Russian guy got up and walked over. I had to do my best not to laugh, he looked and sounded just like that comedian, Yakob Smirnov... "I love this country"... he cracks me up. Anyway, he was looking for a game and wanted the nine and the breaks. Harry managed to talk him into a better spot, protesting he hadn't seen him play and wasn't a charity organization. Right from the start, Harry seemed to have his number. He's pretty much pro level is Harry and this guy was maybe an APA level six on his best day. A decent enough short-stop but not any kind of a match for Harry. I rubbed my hands together, this was going to be fun... and profitable.

Harry let him win a few and then started on the cycle of doubling up that makes for real money. Yakob, or whatever his real name was, seemed to have more money than sense because he just kept going, even after the bet had migrated into some serious money. He seemed a bit distraught and finally declared this would be his last set... he suggested twenty big ones - winner takes all. I knew Harry only had about five dimes in total, so I was hoping he'd decline and keep what he'd already earned, but you know Harry - he had to go for it. Suddenly, Yakob's game improved markedly. His buddy's all had big grins on their faces and I knew Harry was in real trouble. It seemed the damned Russian was no short-stop after all and had been playing possum.

It was time for a diversion.

I know I said 'never again' but those Russian boys looked tough and Harry was in deep trouble if he lost. I slipped out while everyone was concentrating on the game and donned the outfit. This time I didn't bother with the tights or the lipstick - I figured Harry didn't have much time left. I was leaving the trailer when I had to make a detour around this huge guy. He must have been close to seven feet tall and as big around as an oak barrel. It was easy to tell he was a wee bit drunk because he smelled like a brewery overflow and slurred his words...

"Hi, Darlin'..." he said, grabbing me by the arm. "Wanna date?"

"Huh?" I said, incredulously. "You can't be serious..."

Seems he was. I shook his hand off my sleeve, but he reached out and put a huge arm around my waist. It was an awkward situation and I knew Harry was waiting - maybe if I cold-cocked him with my purse I'd be able to escape. I wound up hard as I could and smashed him in the jaw with the buckle.

He laughed.

"I like a woman with some moxie..." he said, and grabbed me by the arm and pulled me down so that we were sitting on a nearby bench. "Gimme a kiss, Darlin'...."

"I'm a married woman..." I said, in a high pitched soprano voice, made higher by sheer panic. "Let me go at once...!"

"Just one kiss and I'll let you go, Darlin'..." he slurred. "I promise..."

I struggled for a while to no avail. He was simply too big and too strong. I'm no midget myself, but I have to confess I'd rarely come across a gorilla like this. I thought for a while and then... leaned across and gave him a perfunctory peck on his rough beard. For God's sake, don't tell anybody... this may have been the low point of my life up until then.

"There..." I squeaked. "You promised.... let me go."

I should have known better. I can remember doing the same thing to Amy when we first started going out, and when she gave me that first kiss I just assumed she was hot for me and wanted more. Seems like the big ape thought the same way... must be a male testosterone type of thing. He pulled me closer and puckered up. I felt distinctly faint as his foul breath threatened to suffocate me and he had me in a bear hug that I couldn't break. If he ever thought about going for second or third base, I thought, I was a dead man...

Suddenly, there was a commotion at the pool-room door and Harry came flying out, enthusiastically assisted by two Russian apes. He landed hard and something about the way he just lay there made me realize he was hurting more than a little. I slapped the gorilla hard and screamed.

"That's my husband... he's hurt... let me go you big ape..." which thankfully he did.

Apparently he wasn't such a bad guy after all. With some help from the big lug, I got Harry into the Winnebago and closed the door. The gorilla wanted to stay and help, but I persuaded him to wait outside. Harry wasn't hurt all that bad, maybe a couple of cracked ribs, a possible broken arm, and some bruises. He'd survived much worse in the past but he still needed to get to a hospital fast. As I looked down on him, his eyes opened and he said faintly,

"Where were you, sweet-heart? Some wife you are... they beat the crap out of me..." Always the smart-ass, even if he was in pain.

"I know" I said. "I... um... got delayed."

He raised himself on the elbow of his good arm and looked at me quizzically.

"What's that on your neck...?" he said incredulously. "A hickey?"

"Shaddap." I said.

I drove him to the hospital like the good buddy I am, but the dress, the blonde wig, and the tights went out the window on the East Bonanza Road and neither of us have ever mentioned the incident since.

The Monkey Principal

2003-08-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Monkey Principal - Aug 6, 2003

People who are new to USENET newsgroups often barge right on in without lurking for a while first - and are often quite astonished when they are lambasted by the 'regulars' for some real or imagined transgression and then they leave again in a huff. Let me try to explain what is happening when someone new joins a newsgroup and gets attacked.

Social scientists put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Soon enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.

One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious, but, undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly.

He has no idea why. However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder. A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out of him.This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he's not on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he's attacking the new monkey.

One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder.

All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why.

Unfortunately newbies on USENET are this weeks new monkey...

The Blood-Red Cue

2002-03-16T07:33:00.000-08:00

The Blood-Red Cue - David E. Malone - Mar 16, 2002

Back in the days when the old Gods ruled amid ignorance and strife
A cue was built of sacred wood from a branch of the tree of life.
The ferrule was carved from the bone of a roc and the points were unicorn.
And the stain was made from the blood of a child who had died while being born.
The shaft was as straight as a willow wand and the tip was hard as stone,
It was leather cured from a Minotaur's hide before it was fully-grown.
There were runes upon the shoulder and the joint was silver chased
And the wrap was the silk from a golden worm with damask interlaced.
Some say it was built by one of the Gods. Some say a craftsman true.
But the maker gave his heart and soul in the birth of the blood-red cue.

I first saw the cue when money was tight and the pawnshop had some cues;
It was one of a parcel of Brunswick sticks that nobody else would use.
But I needed some cues to put on the rack... for the local bangers to try.
I was just about to throw this one out when the blood red caught my eye.
I cleaned it up with mineral oil and I could see that it was old
And something about the way it felt made me take a tighter hold...
No-one was there but the bartender Nat as I set-up a 9-ball rack
And I broke 'em up with a house-cue and then put the sucker back.
The first shot I played I felt this surge... like wild music in the night...
And my shaking hands were firm again and my eyes were clear and bright.
I ran that rack, and then again... I've never played so well.
That blood-red cue had come alive - just like a magic spell.
I took it home in trembling hands and late I pondered this...
Would my troubled conscience let me use a cue that couldn't miss?

Now I am old. I've had my time as the world's best billiard pro.
I never lost and rarely scratched, and I watched my legend grow.
But before I die I have this need to set the record straight.
My whole life has been a sham - you wouldn't want my fate.
I felt no pride when I took each prize, no pleasure when I won,
My conscience pricked me every time when I thought what I had done.
So I found a brat called Willie who was hard-up for a cue.
I figure there's not much an Italian kid with one bad eye could do...

And if you ever come across that enchanted blood-red pole,
I'll leave it to your judgment and the scruples of your soul.
Think of this my youthful friend, if my life you would repeat,
It ain't worth the fame and fortune... because you'll be a cheat.
I'm lying here in a feather bed - but still I cannot rest.
I'm haunted by this secret that weighs heavy on my chest.
And when I die, will I rest gentle in that hearse?
And is that ancient blood-red cue a blessing... or a curse?

The Grass-Green Baize

2002-01-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

The Grass-Green Baize - David E. Malone - January 6, 2002

I was stumbling along the sidewalk - hadn't eaten for days...
When I sensed the smell of a poolhall, the scent of the grass-green baize.
I stood transfixed in the fading light as the memories flooded in
And I thought of the way my life had been before the spell of the rotgut gin.

I heard the click of the clashing spheres and the crack of the breaking balls
And I remembered playing for jellybeans in the smoke of the sleazy halls...
It was Sunday, late in the afternoon - I was going to confess my sin
I worshipped God in the bottle and I prayed at the altar of gin.

But I rested up by this open door and the music wafted wide
And a wrinkled old man with a dirty shirt beckoned me inside.
I only went in because the rain was cold. I knew I should never have tried
Only sometimes, son, the devil himself will take you for a ride...

There was a crowd of people there - and the buzz of a money game.
I knew that sound and I knew that I shouldn't, but I went there just the same.
There was the local boy with his Justis case and his custom SouthWest cue
And the out-of-towner, a rumpled roadie, who looked like he'd had a few...

His eyes were wild and he seldom smiled and he took a cue from the rack
It was bent like a bow but he appeared not to know and declined to put it back.
I had a finn I'd nicked that morning from the pocket of a careless whore
And I looked for the fellow holding the stakes because I'd seen all this before.

Only last time I looked it was me at the table and me with that rumpled look
And I laughed cause I knew that my money was safe on the back of that scrawny crook.
My laugh sounded loud in the pregnant hush, as the game got under way
But I didn't care what the punters thought as I watched them begin to play.

The star got out to an early lead - his stroke was smooth and clean
(While the other feller's stroke was maybe the worst you've ever seen...)
But as the game wore on his awkward stick began to straighten out
And slowly as a turtle's trot the numbers turned about.

The local's hands began to shake - the sweat ran down his face
And before the midnight hour had rung I knew he'd lost the race.
I should have left that moment with my winnings in my hand
But something made me stay there although it wasn't what I planned.

And as I watched the crowd dispersed and left the table bare
And only me and that S.O.B. were left still standing there.
Our gazes met and his eyes widened as I think he saw his fate
But he only winked and said, "Put up that wad and play some straight?"

The room went dark and the music dimmed as I picked up a cue
And I began to work this trivial thing just like I used to do.
My arm got loose and my mind went blank as I set back the years.
And I lost myself in the rhythm, in the music of the spheres...

Time went by and the balls went down and I permitted myself a smile
I had one ball left and I hesitated... and then missed it by a mile!
"Hey, old man. " The hustler said, "I'm a hustler - not a fool
I know you missed on purpose... But that's cool...

I'm going to make you pay the price for making that mistake.
I don't know what your game is but I'm taking home your stake."
And as he played I watched his face - he wasn't having fun.
Seems each ball got more difficult as he thought what I had done.

But still he won, and threw the cue, and cussed me up and down.
His eyes were full of tears and he looked all beaten down.
"I win", He cried, "But I have to know... why did you miss that shot?
You could've drank for days with all these jellybeans I've got..."

"Don't you see...", I calmly said, "you're where I used to be...
If you don't change professions, son, you'll soon be just like me."
So he broke down and wept because he knew it was the truth.
His life was going nowhere and he'd thrown away his youth.

"You're right", he said. "I'm going back to where I started out -
I'm looking for a real job and I'll turn my life about..."
And as he wept I swiped the cash and the wallet from his vest
Cause when it comes to hustling, son, I am the very best!