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SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK

“Eight ball, corner pocket, “ George said, leaning over his cue stick.

“Never happen,” Morris commented under his breath.

“Do you mind?” snapped George, still peering intently down the length of the cue. He swung the stick up and back a few times and then followed through, making contact with the cue ball and sending it flying down the table. It bounced off the far bumper, shot back towards George, narrowly missing each of Morris’ five remaining balls, bounced off the near bumper and spun down the table towards the eight ball to knock it in cleanly.

Morris threw two wrinkly dollar bills onto the table. George scooped them up and smiled at Morris.

“Maybe you should try bumper pool,” George snickered.

“Double or nothing?”

“No thanks, it’s past my bedtime,” George said, and sauntered out of the pool hall.

Morris checked his watch. 2:00 a.m. He didn’t have to work tomorrow, and he didn’t want to go home to his dingy apartment quite yet.

“Anybody else?” Morris called, “I still have a SEPTA token left; that’s worth at least a buck.”

The three other people in the pool hall glanced up from discussing the relative merits of two-piece rather than one-piece cues, saw who it was that was yelling, and resumed their discussion.

“Fine,” Morris said, “If you’re all afraid to lose your money, fine. I still have a token to get home.”

The three men didn’t even look up as Morris went outside and headed towards the trolley stop.

Morris returned to the pool hall a week later with his Shop Rite pay check burning a hole in his pocket. Not being married, and having completed payments on his apartment, his meager take-home pay was his to do with what he wished.

He arrived around 3:00, after the lunch-time yuppie crowd had gone back to work, and before the regular deadbeats woke up for the evening. Being alone with all that chalk and felt was a new experience for Morris, and he pondered which table was the best, since he had his pick. He decided to stick with the table in the far corner since he was used to it.

“Hey Sal, set me up on #15.” Morris said as he plopped the check down on the counter.

Sal appeared from the back room, quietly got Morris the cue ball and his change, and turned around and went into the back room again.

Morris took his time in selecting a cue, found one that was perfectly arced, and headed over to his table.

“Well, I’ll just warm up,” he said, pulling the balls out of the slot at the foot of the table, and racking them. He only came up with fourteen.

Ever shrewd, he took the three ball and dropped it into the corner pocket at the head of the table. There was the soft sound of it rolling down the tube and then a clunk as it fell into the bin at the foot of the table. He plucked it out and dropped it into the other corner pocket. This time there was a click as it hit the ball that was stuck halfway down the tube. However, when he reached into the slot he only came out with the seven ball. He looked at this ball puzzledly for a minute, then put it into the same pocket as before, giving it a little shove this time. He heard the click, and then two clunks as both the seven and the three appeared at the bottom of the table. Smiling at his ingenuity, he completed the rack, and placed the cue ball at the head of the table.

His break set the balls sluggishly in motion.

“All right, four ball, side pocket.” Morris said.

He took his time, aimed down his curvaceous cue, and stroked.

“Ooh, so close, the ten almost went in. Okay, five ball, all the way down.” Morris leaned way over the table, aiming to knock the five ball into the corner pocket diagonally across from him. Since most of the balls were still clustered at the foot of the table he had a clear shot. He checked the angle from the five to the pocket. He checked the angle from the cue ball to the five. He made a few practice swings and connected. The cue ball hit the five beautifully, the five headed straight towards the corner pocket, ricocheted off one side, then the other, and rolled languidly out to the middle of the table.

“AAAUGH!” Morris yelled, “I can’t hit anything in!” He swung his cue stick in anger and the nine ball slammed into the side pocket.

He waited for it to roll down to the foot of the table. It didn’t.

“Stuck again?” he muttered, I can’t play when balls are stuck like that. I just know that I’ll hit one into that pocket and it’ll bounce off that one and back onto the table.”

Not wanting to disturb any of the rest of the balls, Morris reached his hand into the pocket. He felt the ball with the tip of his fingers but couldn’t quite get a hold on it. He looked around to make sure Sal was still in the back room, and climbed onto the table so he could stick his arm further into the pocket. He got a hold on the ball and started to pull it out. This led him to the discovery that the ball and his hand would not both come out of the pocket at the same time, but his hand was jammed into the pocket in such a way that he could not drop the ball.

After several minutes of furious struggling, he realized he would have to swallow his pride and call Sal. However, as he turned his body, his supporting hand came down on the thirteen ball, and went shooting out from under him. His head cracked down on the granite and everything went black.

When he woke up it was still black.

“Oh, no, I’m blind,” he panicked.

“Shh, you’re not blind, you just need some time for your eyes to adjust.”

“Oh, okay.” Morris sat back patiently. Then, “Wait a minute, who are you? Where am I?” The throbbing in his hand and in his head brought back some of the humiliating events. “Am I still in the pool hall?”

“Yes, you’re still in the pool hall. Now relax.”

As his eyes adjusted, Morris saw that he was in a long, dark, rectangular room with doors at each corner and one in the middle of each of the longer walls. Light filtered in through the cracks around each door and strangely enough, around the junction between the walls and the floor. There were five men standing around looking at him, including the one who was reassuring him.

Searching for some bit of information that he could grasp, Morris asked, “How long was I out?”

“Three, maybe four hours.”

That explained the clicking and clunking that Morris was now becoming aware of—it was the pool hall’s busiest time of day.

Suddenly, there was a thump on the ceiling. Morris looked up, but all he could see was pitch black even though his eyes were almost completely adjusted. There were more thumps, and the man standing next to Morris shook his head and said to his companions, “I was afraid of this. All right, you guys get ready. I’ll explain things to him and then I’ll join you.”

The four men each grabbed a club from against the wall, and then stood in the middle of the floor at one end of the room, staring at the ceiling.

The fifth man turned to Morris and introduced himself, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“No, my name is ‘Hi’.”

“Oh. Morris.”

“Now, this may come as somewhat of a shock to you but—“

He was interrupted by a huge crack that sounded like lightning, and then a rumbling of thunder. It seemed to pass directly over Morris’ head. Before it subsided, the four men jumped up and hit the ceiling with their clubs, causing a tremendous explosion, and more thunder. Morris collapsed into a ball with his hands over his ears. However, he was vaguely aware of the four men scattering to different parts of the room.

Hi pulled one of Morris’ hands away from his ears and whispered quickly, “Okay, it’s like this, you got your hand stuck in the table, and you obviously weren’t going to be able to get it out so we had to pull you in and—“

There was another lightning crack, and Hi let Morris cover his ears again. This time as the thunder went by only one of the men jumped up to hit the ceiling with his club. Morris braced himself for another explosion, but there was only a lightning crack and more thunder that slowly died out.

“That should give you some time.” Called the man who had hit the ceiling.

“Thank you Moth,” Hi called back.

The meaning of Hi’s words slowly spread through Morris’ mind.

“What do you mean ’pull me in’? In where?”

“The table of course.”

Morris sat back.

“And what exactly do you mean by ‘the table’?”

Hi looked at him sympathetically.

“Do you know where we are?” Hi asked.

“Yes, we’re in a pool hall.”

“Right, and what do you find in pool halls?”

“Pool tabl—You don’t mean to tell me we’re in a pool table, do you?”

“Of course I don’t mean to tell you that. I already told you. It would be pointless to repeat myself.”

Morris smiled at Hi, and turned away, trying to decide whether he had gone crazy or whether he was stuck in a room with five lunatics who had a strange way of dealing with thunderstorms. Not being much of a mental giant, Morris scrapped the whole figuring out thing and decided to believe wholeheartedly in everything Hi told him.

“Right. So you had to pull me in because...”

“Because you accidentally got a hold of Fire’s leg and you weren’t letting go, so to save him we had to pull you in. We’ve only done it for one other person so far, you should be honored.”

Morris was saved from having to make a reply because there was another lightning crack, followed by thunder two more cracks and more thunder.

“Oh, here,” Hi said, extending two small objects to Morris, “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Well, yes I do, the noise doesn’t bother us. Anyway, Judy made them, they’re earplugs.”

“Judy?” Morris asked, putting them in.

“Yes, she was the other person we pulled in. She’d lost an earring down the corner pocket and as she was digging it out she saw Moth, so we had to pull her in and explain everything to her. You know how it is, we couldn’t let her run around telling everyone about us.”

Morris nodded slowly.

“But you did let her leave?”

“Oh sure. She was here for a couple of days, then she started getting homesick so we let her go. She had fun helping us play though. She was a much better player from the inside.”

Morris made a tremendous mental leap, “So the cracks and rumbles from the ceiling are balls being hit and rolling on top of the pool table.”

“Exactly.”

“So what are those guys doing with the clubs?”

“Well, we like to have a little fun. What fun is it, for us or for them, if the balls always go exactly where they expect them to? So we hit them from below and shake things up a bit. It takes a lot of skill to get it at the right angle so that it goes close enough to where they expect but just a little bit off. For instance, on a cross corner shot, you have to run all the way down the table giving it little taps so you can get it to look like it’s just about to go in and then it hits the side and bounces out.”

Morris though back to his practice shot.

Hi realized what Morris was thinking and quickly said, “That was Blue, not me. I usually hit them to go in when there’s no way possible in the world that they could have gone in on their own. It just keeps it exciting.”

There was another crack, much quieter thanks to the earplugs, and then a knock at one of the corner doors. Morris turned to it, thinking someone wanted to come in, then realized what it was as vibrations moved from that door all the way across the floor to the other door. Then there was a thunk that bounced Morris into the air, and silence again.

“So, are you okay?” Hi asked, “Can I join them now?”

“Sure, “ Morris said, “It’s your table.”

Hi grabbed the last club and joined in the game while Morris sat watching and thinking.

The game was over quickly and the five men gathered around Morris.

“I’ve already told you most of their names, but now you can meet each other. This is Moth, Fire, Blue and Skee.”

“Hello. One think I’ve been wondering—how do you know where the balls are and when the cue ball’s about to hit them?”

“Good question, " Hi said, “I’m not really sure. You just kind of know. The table has a power of its own.”

“That’s another question I had. Do all tables have people like you, or just this one? And where do you guys come from? And how do you eat? And where do you sleep? And how the hell did you shrink me down to this size?”

“As far as I know, all the table have Ball Bearers, that’s what we’re called, we don’t eat or sleep cause we’re not people, and we’ve always been here, for as long as I can remember.”

The others nodded their heads in assent.

“But how did you get me in here?”

“We just kind of pulled,” Skee chimed in, “We don’t question too many things. It’s too confusing. We prefer to just play pool.”

“But how do you play when there’s nobody out there?”

"We don't. We wait until they come. They always do."

What do you do when there's no one there?"

“Why do you ask so many questions?”

None of the questions got answered because there was a thump on the ceiling. They all looked up.

“Do you want to play this time?” Blue asked.

“Sure. I’ll try. I have to warn you though, I’m not very good from the outside so I don’t know how well I’ll do on the inside.”

He was a little overzealous on the break and the cue ball went flying off the table. There was a muffled noise that Moth interpreted as a man’s voice saying, “Oh, sorry about the clock.”

“You don’t have to hit it so hard,” Hi advised.

Morris hit it softer the next time and actually got a ball to go in the side pocket where he meant it to go.

“Hey, I’m good at it this way.” He said.

“Yeah, just don’t be too good,” Fire said, “That guy’s kind of cocky. He hits the ball like power makes up for skill. All that counts is good aim and a nice, soft touch.”

“Why?” Morris asked, “Why does aim matter if we steer it away anyway?”

“We can only steer it so far without them getting suspicious. And a softly rolling ball is so much easier to knock in than out. Get ready, here goes Mr. Powerhouse.”

For all of Skee’s best efforts he couldn’t keep the ball from going into the pocket.

“All right, I’m fed up. It’s time we teach this guy a lesson. Get the springboard.”

Since Blue was the one without a club he dragged the springboard out of the corner. It consisted of a wooden block mounted on a spring.

“Which corner should I put it in?”

Hi contemplated the ceiling. He pointed to a particular corner and the others agreed. Blue dragged the springboard over to that corner, and opened the door. Morris had to shield his eyes from the sudden invasion of bright light, but none of the others seemed bothered by it. Blue dragged the board through the door and centered it in the pocket. He ran back through the door, slammed it shut and leaned on it jut in time as the crack and rumble shot over their heads towards Blue. The ball clunked into the pocket, bounced off the board and sprang back onto the table. Blue retrieved the board and Morris didn’t need any help to translate the word that came hurtling through the open door.

“Hey, that’s George!” Morris remarked. “Heh, heh, heh.”

“It doesn’t pay to get too personal,” Hi warned.

“Sure, sure,” Morris brushed him off, wildly studying the ceiling. He got a feeling that the next shot was going to be all the way across the table and he raced to be there. He wasn’t quite under the ball so he leaped and although he did hit the ceiling with the club, he also smashed himself into the wall, and knocked himself out cold.

When he woke up it was black. Then he opened his eyes. Several inches from his face was an artistically reproduced simulation wood grain pattern. Turning his head he could see jeans and cowboy boots, and he realized he was under the pool table.

Morris shuffled his way out from under the table and heard “What th—“ as he came into view. A hand came down to help him up. As he got to his feet he looked at the person attached to that hand. Both he and George pulled their hands back as they got a good look at each other.

“What were you doing under there?” George asked.

“I don’t remember, “ Morris said more to himself than to George, “The last thing I remember is getting knocked unconscious when my hand--Never mind.”

“Well, Frank and I were just discussing this shot that we saw some guy pull off in a movie. I bet him it was a trick. You think you can do it, twerp?”

Still somewhat groggy, Morris agreed to the bet before looking down at the shot. George was right, it was impossible.

He took the cue and started chalking it.

“Quit stalling,” George said.

Morris took a deep breath and leaned over, aiming pensively down the cue. He pulled the cue way back to give it power and then reconsidered, stroking it softly. It curved around all the balls in the way and put the target ball into the pocket with a satisfying “thunk.”

Morris turned to George, “It’s all that practice on bumper pool.”

Andrea Blumberg

Copyright © Andrea Blumberg 2016