The kid

I remember the first time my dad took me to the pool room. It was a magical place for a twelve year old boy. There were mirrors around the entire room. Fifteen tables that looked like an ocean of turquoise blue water. Two, three-cushion billiard tables, the ones without pockets, one snooker table, the overgrown tables with extremely tiny holes, seven eight foot tables, also known as full size tables, and four bar size tables. They looked to be the most kid friendly. There were three or four arcade games and a jukebox. Donkey Kong, 1942, Digdug, Mrs. Pacman, and a claw machine that you could try to grab different toys out of. Those claws had the hand strength of a four year old's handshake. That machine later became a basketball game. There was a bar in the middle that served steak sandwiches and fries, with the best ranch dressing anywhere. Up a couple of steps and wrapped around the bar were video poker machines. The old quarter style ones.

My dad introduced me to a lady that was working at the bar. After our brief introduction, my dad asked for table ten. Gloria handed my dad the balls and some chalk. We walked down a couple steps and sat the balls on the table near the bar with the number ten above the table light. Not one of the smaller tables I saw near the arcade games when we first came in, but a full size one. My dad walked me to the wall that had sticks lined up, next to a huge picture of a Great White shark. He said to find a stick that has the number nineteen on it. That was the ounces that the stick weighed. We walked back to the table, racked the balls and my dad showed me how to break. That means start the game. I learned how to hold a stick, how to aim, how to make sure to keep the tip chalked up("chalk is cheap"), and most of all how to "rack" the balls. That's what you do when you lose. You have to put a rack on the table, pull the balls out from underneath and place the balls in a certain position inside it, lift the rack off and place it back in the table above where the balls come out, sit back down until the other player misses, then it's your turn. Not liking to rack can make anyone better at winning.

The longer we stayed the more people that showed up. Before too long there were at least fifty people in there. It was like a playground for adults. The smoke filled the room like a foggy day at sea. It wasn't long before my dad told me to sit up at the bar to watch him play a guy. There were seats at the bar that looked down on table ten. I'm pretty sure my dad had it planned all along. A chance to watch the master at work. People stopped playing their games to come watch my dad play this guy. When they were done, he handed my dad money. My dad smiled, shook the man's hand, put his stick back on the wall and we left. On the way home I remember asking my dad why the guy he played got so mad. My dad explained to me that in the ocean there are fish and there are sharks. Smaller fish who aspire to be bigger than they are get eaten. I guess that meant my dad was a shark, so that's what I wanted to be.

My dad would take me there during the week when he got home from work. He would show me a few tricks and make me practice spot, bank, carom, combination, draw and force follow shots with english. He asked the owner if he would play three-cushion billiards with me. Fortunately Frank Torres was a World Champion at that game and taught me the diamond system by the time I was fifteen. I got my first job working in the pool room that summer. I cleaned all the felts, vacuumed, and learned how to put new tips on the sticks. I made a hundred dollars a week, all the free pool I could play and free food. To say the least, I fell in love with the game and the food.

On the weekends my dad and I would go in early. Gloria would have the balls to table ten waiting on the counter by the time we reached the bar. My dad would play a couple sets, or races to seven with me, then would watch me practice for a couple of hours before other people would start coming in. They all seemed to know my dad. They all would say hi to him either before or after they played with others. My dad would only play with Frank sometimes while I was practicing. Some would sit down with him and watch me play. Then my dad would ask them to play against me. I would have random people tell me that my dad said to come and play the kid. When they were shooting I would sit down with my back against the wall in front of my dad. He would critique their stance, the speed in which they would shoot, when they would shoot too hard, or tell me to watch closely, which meant I would be racking a lot.

I remember warming up one day and my dad calling me over and asking me if I was trying to scare everyone away. I knew what he meant right away. I started aiming to miss and hang balls up in the pocket. Just before it seemed like I was missing too many, my dad would send a guy to play against me and after the match I would watch them hand my dad money. I played anyone at any skill level who asked to play. Eventually, I couldn't beg anyone to play against me.

We started traveling around Vegas to play in different pool rooms. Walking in felt like I was playing the lead part in a movie. Each room had it's own style, but there were always those concrete similarities. The people who sat in groups watching a couple guys play on their own money table, the guy who would sit quietly watching the new people walk in who showed interest in the money games, didn't always mean he was the best player in there but sometimes it did, and most but not least, the table, balls, and myself were the same. Yes, some felts played a little slower than others and each table if not entirely level had certain rolls that could get you into trouble if you didn't pay close attention to every shot taken.

By the time I was eighteen it was hard for me to find a game. People wanted me to give them weight, which means more balls on the table that were either wild money balls, or to simplify, just better odds to beat me. I asked my dad why is it that I had to spend all the hours I've spent getting better to make someone who isn't as good, "even" in order to play. He said the water is getting thin. Without completely understanding the statement I knew what he meant.

I joined the Army and after getting to my duty station, I couldn't wait to play a game of pool. It took me a few times to get my stroke back after all those push-ups and pullups, but eventually it was like I had never stopped. I entered a couple tournaments at the onpost bar, but after winning both easily I was told that if I played that no one else would. That wasn't the first time or the last time that I heard those exact words. I traveled around New York and made better money than I did as a soldier. I saw a few older gentlemen that reminded me of my dad. It was the main reason I fell in love with the game. It was awesome having my dad be my biggest fan and watching over me like an angel in my corner.

When I got back home, the pool room I grew up in closed down and became a Walgreens. My dad and I started going to the pool hall between our houses. We would play for a couple hours and then talk for a while before heading back to our own houses. I asked him how much money he thought he had bet on me over the years. He told me, it was around a hundred thousand. That number didn't really surprise me. And yes, when I won there was always a little inspiration money in it for me. Nice perk as a kid, with nothing to lose.

As my dad got older the two hours of pool and hour of conversation afterwards turned into an hour of pool and an hour of conversation. After a while that hour turned into about thirty minutes of pool and then I would continue to hit the balls around for another thirty minutes or so with my dad sitting above in the seating area watching over me. Then we'd talk for a bit and say see you next time. The last time I saw my dad alive was at the pool room after we played for a bit and talked for a bit. We said our goodbyes and see you next Saturday. It was actually a Saturday morning I got the call that my dad had a heart attack. I thought it was my dad losing track of time because it was about two in the morning. I miss the games we played together.

I never went back to that pool room and never played for money again. Every once in a while I shoot some with my brother and believe it or not, but there is a picture of a shark on the wall in the new room we play in. Everytime I piece a stick together I think of my dad. I think back to when I was a young boy. I remember the shark on the wall at the Palace near the sticks. I remember my dad talking about how as a shark it gets hard to find a game. After all the small fish are eaten the water gets thin and it's time to move on. I realized that that's what my dad was before me and he had to move on to make room for the shark he raised me to be. I sat and looked at the shark on the wall and thought to myself, I'm a shark after all.

The End