billiards

When I was a kid, my family had a pool table. I was too small to shoot pool, though, and by the time I grew tall enough to make shots, the table was gone-- it took up too much space.

Over the years, I have switched back and forth between vast indifference towards playing pool and intense fascination with the game. In 1993, shortly after I took LSD for the first time, I suddenly "got" the game and went on a six-month bender where all I wanted to do was shoot pool. I instantaneously understood the geometry of the game and chalked it up to my acid trip.

However, the effects of the trip died down, and after a while I was back to not knowing what to do with a cue stick. And ever since then, my attitude towards playing pool resembles my attitude towards life: grab a stick, hit some balls, and hope that some of them sink.

Oh, and be careful not to scratch on the 8 ball...


*/*


I got off of work and drove over to Eve's apartment. When I arrived, she was ready to go out and shoot some pool. Seems that over the weekend, while I was playing a set with one of my bands, Eve and Daniel (Laurie's husband) occupied their time on the other side of the club by shooting some pool.

Daniel, a Brit, is very good at pool. Eve is no slouch herself. They played against a couple from out of town-- the guy was great and I don't know how good the girl was, but it evidently sparked a reaction in Eve.

Before I left from work, she asked me if I was down to go out and play pool. I liken this to the break, the beginning of any pool game. Eve likes to be the catalyst, the one who starts things off. It is in line with her cardinal view of the universe, her pioneering spirit regarding everything.

She is often the one in any group of friends who fires off the opening salvo.

From her break, I landed the first ball in a pocket, designating who was "stripes" and who was "solids" in this metaphorical pool game: I had to meet Purple Paulie at the Garage in order to try and get my friend Dotty a job at his pet wash, and so it made sense to visit House Of Billiards on Ventura Blvd, which is not very far from the Garage. By doing this, it would also enable us to pick up the Dynamic Duo a.k.a. Laurie and Daniel, while en route to the pool hall.

Everything worked out great: we stayed at the Garage for short time, then went on our merry way.


*/*


The conversation in the car resembled the intersecting paths of a game of doubles.

"Hope you all like gangsta rap," I said, as I played Ice Cube's Amerikka's Most Wanted in the stereo..

"Lovely," Daniel said, tongue-in-cheek.

"Gansgta rap?" Laurie inquired.

"Yes. You know, because I'm such a thug." I was joking, obviously.

"Oh really?" Eve asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, remember all those drive-bys I did? All the cops I was shooting at when I was a kid?"

"I'm more of a gangsta than you," Eve retorted, smiling.

"When did you ever shoot a cop?" Daniel asked, playing along.

"I never shot a cop, but..." Eve was thinking of something funny to say.

"Girl Scouts," Laurie replied. "We were in Girl Scouts. That's a gang, of sorts."

"Yeah, we got kicked out of the Northridge Mall once," Eve said.

"Really? That was you?" I seemed to recall, a long time ago, reading a news item about a troop of Girl scouts who were kicked out of the Northridge Mall for being disorderly.

"That was us," Laurie said.

As Daniel cracked up, I said, "Dan, can you believe this? We're in the presence of some bona fide gangsta bitches!"

"Oh, how scary," he dryly intoned.

"Seriously, though," Eve said. "It is scary. We were some crazy kids... shoplifting, being obnoxious..."

"I still can't believe you two were in the troop that got kicked out. That's so G!" I was on the verge of going into a hysterical fit of laughter.

Daniel asked aloud, "How did we get from gangsta rap to Girl Scouts in the span of five minutes?"

We kept on taking turns, all four of us, knocking imaginary balls into conversational pockets. No one scratched.


*/*


Daniel and Eve have one thing in common: both of them are extremely competitive.

Laurie and I have one thing in common: we don't like to compete.

As the ladies went across the street to grab money from a bank ATM, Daniel and I started a warm-up game. I broke, and instantly scratched the cue ball-- normally that signals the end of the game, but it was merely a warm-up so we continued.

I thought that Daniel was being nice, missing shots on purpose. He's that good. But no, it seems that he was really having a rough time of it. He blamed it on the table; then he blamed it on my break, claiming I "cursed" the table by sinking the cue ball.

I laughed at the notion. But when the ladies returned, we were still trying to make the balls sink. After a spell, even the ladies got impatient.

"Finish it off, Daniel!" they kept shouting. But Daniel was flustered, and it didn't make his game any better to be so flummoxed over this one-off game. Meanwhile, I kept expecting for him to find his stride and clean me up efficiently.

Daniel did manage to sink all of his balls but was having trouble knocking in the 8 ball. Imagine the irony when I stepped up to the table (with three balls left) and, in less than a minute, cleared the table and won the game. The girls were laughing, and Daniel couldn't quite believe what he'd just witnessed.

I had to laugh and say, "Dude, seriously-- this is not a hustle. I don't know how that happened. Seriously."

Daniel eyed me and said, with his accent in full effect, "We're not letting you break anymore. You're a jinx."

I started pouring myself a glass of Newcastle from the pitcher, smiling and shaking my head the whole time.


*/*


The next game was strictly for the ladies, to make up for our notoriously long warm-up game.

I don't remember a whole lot after that, because I was drinking my weight in brown ale. But I think Laurie won that game too, which would be utterly in line with our respective philosophies towards the game of pool. Eve was anxious to get a game going while Daniel and I were fumbling about, and if it's true that Laurie won the ladies only game, then it was probably due to Eve's competitive nature getting the best of her.

That same competitive nature came in handy, though, later on in the evening. We played boys against girls, mostly because it wouldn't be fair to have Eve and Daniel on the same team because they are both so good. Also, playing couples might lead to a fight, either between Laurie and Daniel or between me and Eve.

Daniel carried the majority of the game for us, while Eve did the same for her alliance with Laurie. We weren't exactly dead weight, though: I made a few shots here and there and blocked their chances at making shots as best as I could; likewise, Laurie actually won a game for her team by sinking the 8 ball when none of us thought she could do it.

We all agreed that the pool table was out of wack, because everyone had a strange game that night. And we all agreed that Laurie sinking that 8 ball was probably the highlight of all the games.


*/*


It was almost midnight when we played our last game and called it a night. On a weeknight, Eve had to be home within a reasonable hour because she has to wake up so early to go to work.

I was completely shitfaced by the end of the night, but somehow I summoned the courage and clarity to drive to Laurie and Daniel's place. On the way, I was searching for music on the radio but came up empty.

Eve looked over at me and said, "Play that gangsta shit you were playing earlier. I was feelin' that!"

Surprised, I said, "You bet." And I turned up my Ice Cube CD real loud. Eve bobbed her head, feeling the power of Cube's dangerous flow.

The DJ scratched to his heart's content on the album, but none of us scratched on the metaphorical 8 ball, and we were happy for that.

I woke up this morning with a really bad hangover. Eve was out the door, ready for work, and I was barely able to see. If this had been a pool game, I would've needed to use the rest stick (also known as a "snooker") in order to get a shot off.

I got home and tried to sleep, but I only managed to get one hour. My alarm clock went off, and soon I was racking up the balls, getting ready to break open a new game for a new day.

I applied some blue chalk to the edge of my mental cue stick and stumbled my way into my car, driving slowly, wearing my shades to avoid the direct sunlight... a small price to pay for such an eventful night, but well worth it all.