Buckley's Mill

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.