Billiards Transmogrified (pgs. 204-206)

With geometrical precision the first three were gone, two soft touches following a rude strike by the cue ball, the cue rolling back for easy shots after each successive strike. Too excited or overconfident, she sent the four ball into the outer lip of the corner pocket.

“Calm, babe,” he said, before coolly placing the ball in the side pocket, his voice, backed by melodic beats, rolling with the four in its languid traverse. The five slid down the rail, easily placed in the corner pocket, eliciting the jarring thud of wood. High tensile strength. Eying the table, lining up the next shot, vision expanding. Six,Seven,Eight,Nine. He searched for the best way to play it, his studious examination being filmed by ESPN 2 to be rebroadcast at 2am, seated on his couch, unknowingly watching himself, mind inured to alcohol’s touch. A mistake and she would quickly finish the game. The last three were tightly congregated, a group of friends ostracizing Six. He plunged a lime down the neck of his beer, sending a surge upwards, sipping the beer while he eyed the shot with a painter’s patience, distance rendering all outside his focus in mottled strokes. Gentle tap, a kiss, and he could place the six in the far side pocket, then break the pile gathered by the back rail. Those soft taps were tougher shots, however. That and table length shots along the rail. Would manage at times, particularly when drunk, to put it off mark, into the rail halfway, power robbing his stroke of intention. Nada ce tiempo. A soft kiss. A kiss, a kiss. “Only a kiss,” he said to her, briefly looking up from the table, a plain carpeted in perfect verdant felt. With his breath, the ball rolled off, a smooth ivory boulder across an immense glade, luxuriating in its rotation, across the table like someone at leisure through the bar, hearing the music from the seat of his soul, acknowledgment with the most placid of smiles, the ball bearing stoically it’s imminent meeting, looking past its divergence from Six. His stroll through Hyde Park, turning round the pond. Low clack, Zen clap, and Six into orbit drifting gently towards pooled squid ink, White trolling off in aplomb, hands in his pockets, whistling, or ruminating on the people passing through the park, the gallows door drop, Six in contact with the wood, the others left in communion by the right corner pocket, close to the back rail, two of them leaning upon it while sipping their drinks, Eight hanging out a bit. Seven the cute little brunette, Italian, lush lips, sheltered on both sides by Eight and Nine, friends vying for the same girl, eager, too afraid to let their chance slip away.

No chance of tapping seven and sending nine home. Could bounce it off the rail down the table. Slight chance. Place the cue flush with the seven, leaving her no shot. More likely to leave an easy one. Best to keep the congregation together, not to break the jocund company. Slip in amongst them. Introductions rather than division.

Gently off the side rail and riding the oblique angle, White smoothly coming between them, a ship smoothly to port, ignoring the companions to embrace her.“You bastard,” she said, seeing seven backed against the rail, the cue ball slowly rolling away. “Go on,” he said, drawing another sip. An air of hesitation in her study of the table, he pointed with his cue and said, “here, then here, and then-” “I’ll kill you,” she quickly interjected, a slight smile while she raised the heavy end of her cue-stick. She wanted to send the seven on an angle and pocket the nine. He watched the cue strike the nine past its center, sending it into the side rail.

“Sorry,” he said, placing the cue ball and lining up his shot. “Not much you could do there,” his words further stoking her distemper. Seven, blistering in inebriety, stumbled towards home, an apple in pendulum in procession through his mind, in her stagger pushing her friend along his way, colliding with Nine to drop him in the corner pocket, the friend pushing ahead, clamoring down the stairs towards the sidewalk.

“Hate you,” she said with her typical pertness.

“Don’t have to paint you in pigtails. You do it yourself,” he said coyly. Turning to Mike, “another bucket,” said in agreement, the music fully around him again, upon him like the rush of air through the Lincoln tunnel. Hardly overpowering, the beats and melody reverberated through all. Previously an accent in the background, it permeated the tables, the billiard balls, the cues, the people, everything.
The buckets came glowing golden again, bales of the sun, Phoebus bequeathing them a gift, energy of heaven pouring forth for all. Ambrosia. Ganbei,Ganbei,Ganbei like church bells languidly signaling the Eucharist, the nectar being imbibed.

Beat her the next two games, carefully making his shots and dropping the cue snug against the next playable ball when presented with difficulty, causing her to foul twice. Frustrated, she missed on other attempts, leaving the table open to him for two, three shots at a time. She botched an easy one in the third game that could have left her in command, instead letting him take the game, potting the final three with ease.

He slid the marker over, the plastic pieces clacking together to punctuate his glee. “No, no, no,” she said to her friends as they were chalking up. “One more game,” she insisted with flint in her eyes. “Can’t take losing,” he said, before pulling out of the way of her half-hearted attempt to pour beer on his head.

She made the first four with no trouble, slinking like a spider about the table, putting them away with professional aplomb. Cold stare upon missing her shot with the five ball. “Frustration or is it me?” he asked, chalking up, lining an easy shot. “Because the problem with nine ball is that you can go along doing so well and then one mistake…” and he calmly dropped the five, a low plunk-plunk gurgling up from the corner pocket. But she had hardly left herself exposed. The six was angled well off- the Black Widow would have a tough time of it. Would be hard enough to touch, let alone to not leave her several easy shots. Mein Gott, three rails, tilting forward and feeling as though the level inside his head was filled with Corona. “Side pocket,” and he let go with surprising smoothness. Coming off the third rail the cue ball hit its mark but Six missed the pocket, hitting with such English that it banked and came halfway back to the pile, strolling back from shop with a handle of gin, stopping to pull a smoke before reaching its friends. “Give it some Zhongwen- that didn’t work,” he said, knowing it was over. He watched, further ensconced by the haze fast upon him, as she bulled Six into Eight, sending him on his way- c’mon, you’ve had enough- plunk-plunk side pocket, ok guys, I’m out, the ball to his friends before exiting the evening. Nine left to eye Seven, finally left to primary purpose, while Six stood alone. Six disappeared while Nine plied Seven. A few words, yet she wasn’t having it. So sorry you have to go, the cue ball taking her away to a corner pocket exit. Nine all alone upon the felt stage, eyeing his drink, emptying his glass, seeing the world in different hues for a moment, a moment instilled with thought, what does- and then the assassin, white fate colliding, sending him on his way. Plunk-Plunk. Game-over. Over as Nine rolled towards that blackness, in the shadows the second he was sweetly struck, residing there in that unalterable trajectory, spinning, the world departing in transitory flashes.

They watched her friends play two games. He sat upon a padded stool with her close in to his lap. The buckets came as though scooped from the same mirthful stream, brought to enrich rather than to quell something destructive. “Lucky,” she insisted before drawing a sip. He watched the lime rise upwards, only to shoot back up the neck as she righted the bottle. “Too certain of yourself,” he said with ease. She quickly turned and he felt himself that lime wedge being rocketed upwards. Amazed by her stare, the severity atop her look of playful impetuousness, he kissed her gently on the forehead and said, “and you have every right to be,” the irises of her eyes sepia Van Goghs, effulgent russet gleams. She kissed him, a kiss of demure voluptuousness, which brought to mind that first night in Old City. Smiling inwardly, he sat with her leaning against him, falling back upon him, the world alive with tactile sensation.

He watched from across the table as she talked with her friends, then his eyes drifted away, replete with ambiguities of infinite warmth. Returning with another beer she pulled up a stool next to him. Pert with an inward curvature at the small of her back, she sat with Zen attentiveness. He began to make sense of it, the up-swell of warmth going through him. With that kiss she excoriated from his soul all worries of the moment.

A cloud about him, she took the next three games. No longer able to obstruct geometry, she won with ease. Even when he made her shots difficult, trying to be overly fancy in each attempt though his head was far too muddled, she found the proper angle. And in these attempts, he fouled twice, giving her play of the table in separate games. In the final game, he managed to sink two, turning the game over when he failed to connect on a series of banks- Magellan around the world to strike felt on his return. The room closed in as she paced to and fro. Watching her, he imagined the cameras, the spectators, the accouterments of a national telecast available at some bar in Thailand via satellite at 9 in the morning.