Nov. 23: pool halls
Somewhere in there, my old gang became interested in pool. We used to
spend our weekends hiking up to the Video Show Place and then
McDonald's at Glenmore Landing. Now, whenever one of us had money, we
would gravitate to the Haysboro Pool Hall.
The place was run by an old Italian guy named Yvonno. There were about 18 pool and Snooker tables in the place, which smelled like furniture polish and French fries. There was a TV on the wall and a sign under the TV said that it was only to be used for sports. That sign was an early example of absolutism for me. Sometimes I would see the remote lying next to the cash register and I'd be tempted to use it to switch the baseball game to Little House on the Prairie. What would happen to me if I did? My guess was damnation.
Yvonno had a part-time employee named Phil, a tall tattooed dude with a mullet and glasses. One day he stopped coming in and it was explained to me that Phil had died in a skydiving accident.
The back room of the pool hall was filled with video game cabinets. It was in that room that I wiled away hours at a time, either playing games like Gauntlet or Elevator Action or Punch Out or watching people play games like Gauntlet or Elevator Action or Punch Out.
But when I grew older, it became apparent that the video game room was not the place to be. The action centred around the pool table.
It was me and Larry and Cade and James and Jay and Jason, God rest his soul, and we were the regulars at that pool hall. Jason was probably the best pool player among us and I was the worst. I remember one day when Jason's shot was off and he missed the easiest shot in the world - all he had to do was shoot his ball two inches and he would have sunk the eight ball - but somehow he messed up and this made me collapse in laughter. Normally, this would merit an ass kicking but I guess Jason was in a good mood that day so he laughed too.
I remember a guy with a bowl haircut who always wore a shiny black Philadelphia Flyers jacket. He would come in and play video games and then he would just sit there and stare at the wall all night. He gave me the creeps.
I remember an old man named Bill who went to the pool hall every day. The Calgary Herald had printed a couple stories about him. In one of those stories, Bill said that he would give pool lessons to anyone for $10 an hour. I paid him $10 once and he took me to a table and had me shoot balls for 30 minutes. The next 30 minutes he spent talking about his life. I didn't ask for five dollars back. I enjoyed the stories more than the lesson. Heck, I'm a writer. The stories were my lesson.
I remember getting into an argument with my dad about something fairly innocuous. I left the house for a good six hours and my dad came looking for me and he finally found me in the pool hall and he asked me if I'd like to go home and I said that I would.
Mostly, I remember the muted clicks of billiard balls striking each other, the muffled thumps of balls tumbling into pockets, the occasional profanity despite the signs stating that foul language would not be tolerated.
I remember Jason and I sitting in the pool hall one Sunday afternoon and watching a bunch of potbellied 40-year-olds play Snooker and tell dirty stories about some stripper they saw the previous night. Jason was so disgusted that he had to leave.
I remember the time I had a girlfriend named Camille and Jason finding out that her name was Camille and he did a Bill Cosby impression all night long because Bill Cosby was married to a woman named Camille. Later, Jason would meet Camille and he would do his Bill Cosby impression and Camille thought it was funny.
-
The pool hall isn't there anymore. I am sad about that.
We were playing pool around the time that the game was in transition. It used to be a demimonde game, only played by hustlers and gangsters or welfare bums. Now it was becoming a family event. I stopped being a regular at the pool hall after I graduated high school but on the rare occasions when I dropped in, I would see fathers playing pool with their sons and daughters. That made me happy but it also made me a little sad.
The last time I played pool was about seven years ago. I took my friend Heather to a hockey game. When it was over, we went to a pool hall and Heather beat me quite handily in three games. It wasn't the first time I'd lost to a lady at pool. I used to date a girl who was an amazing pool player so getting my clock cleaned was pretty familiar.
And another time, when I was living in Regina, I wandered into a pool hall to play a little stick and when I looked up, I saw the place was filled with natives. One of them approached me and started making fun of my purple scarf and I just laughed because I thought that if I took issue with him I might get beat up.
The guy then told me that I was in an Indian gang bar and that I wasn't exactly welcome there. He asked for a cigarette and I said I didn't smoke and he pointed to the rectangular bulge in my breast pocket and said "What's that?" and I showed him it was a deck of cards.
And he asked me why I had a deck of cards and I told him I was a magician and he asked me to show him a magic trick and I did and he was delighted and he called his friends over and I spent the next two hours showing card tricks to gangsters and then it was time to leave so I left and I never went back there.
The place was run by an old Italian guy named Yvonno. There were about 18 pool and Snooker tables in the place, which smelled like furniture polish and French fries. There was a TV on the wall and a sign under the TV said that it was only to be used for sports. That sign was an early example of absolutism for me. Sometimes I would see the remote lying next to the cash register and I'd be tempted to use it to switch the baseball game to Little House on the Prairie. What would happen to me if I did? My guess was damnation.
Yvonno had a part-time employee named Phil, a tall tattooed dude with a mullet and glasses. One day he stopped coming in and it was explained to me that Phil had died in a skydiving accident.
The back room of the pool hall was filled with video game cabinets. It was in that room that I wiled away hours at a time, either playing games like Gauntlet or Elevator Action or Punch Out or watching people play games like Gauntlet or Elevator Action or Punch Out.
But when I grew older, it became apparent that the video game room was not the place to be. The action centred around the pool table.
It was me and Larry and Cade and James and Jay and Jason, God rest his soul, and we were the regulars at that pool hall. Jason was probably the best pool player among us and I was the worst. I remember one day when Jason's shot was off and he missed the easiest shot in the world - all he had to do was shoot his ball two inches and he would have sunk the eight ball - but somehow he messed up and this made me collapse in laughter. Normally, this would merit an ass kicking but I guess Jason was in a good mood that day so he laughed too.
I remember a guy with a bowl haircut who always wore a shiny black Philadelphia Flyers jacket. He would come in and play video games and then he would just sit there and stare at the wall all night. He gave me the creeps.
I remember an old man named Bill who went to the pool hall every day. The Calgary Herald had printed a couple stories about him. In one of those stories, Bill said that he would give pool lessons to anyone for $10 an hour. I paid him $10 once and he took me to a table and had me shoot balls for 30 minutes. The next 30 minutes he spent talking about his life. I didn't ask for five dollars back. I enjoyed the stories more than the lesson. Heck, I'm a writer. The stories were my lesson.
I remember getting into an argument with my dad about something fairly innocuous. I left the house for a good six hours and my dad came looking for me and he finally found me in the pool hall and he asked me if I'd like to go home and I said that I would.
Mostly, I remember the muted clicks of billiard balls striking each other, the muffled thumps of balls tumbling into pockets, the occasional profanity despite the signs stating that foul language would not be tolerated.
I remember Jason and I sitting in the pool hall one Sunday afternoon and watching a bunch of potbellied 40-year-olds play Snooker and tell dirty stories about some stripper they saw the previous night. Jason was so disgusted that he had to leave.
I remember the time I had a girlfriend named Camille and Jason finding out that her name was Camille and he did a Bill Cosby impression all night long because Bill Cosby was married to a woman named Camille. Later, Jason would meet Camille and he would do his Bill Cosby impression and Camille thought it was funny.
-
The pool hall isn't there anymore. I am sad about that.
We were playing pool around the time that the game was in transition. It used to be a demimonde game, only played by hustlers and gangsters or welfare bums. Now it was becoming a family event. I stopped being a regular at the pool hall after I graduated high school but on the rare occasions when I dropped in, I would see fathers playing pool with their sons and daughters. That made me happy but it also made me a little sad.
The last time I played pool was about seven years ago. I took my friend Heather to a hockey game. When it was over, we went to a pool hall and Heather beat me quite handily in three games. It wasn't the first time I'd lost to a lady at pool. I used to date a girl who was an amazing pool player so getting my clock cleaned was pretty familiar.
And another time, when I was living in Regina, I wandered into a pool hall to play a little stick and when I looked up, I saw the place was filled with natives. One of them approached me and started making fun of my purple scarf and I just laughed because I thought that if I took issue with him I might get beat up.
The guy then told me that I was in an Indian gang bar and that I wasn't exactly welcome there. He asked for a cigarette and I said I didn't smoke and he pointed to the rectangular bulge in my breast pocket and said "What's that?" and I showed him it was a deck of cards.
And he asked me why I had a deck of cards and I told him I was a magician and he asked me to show him a magic trick and I did and he was delighted and he called his friends over and I spent the next two hours showing card tricks to gangsters and then it was time to leave so I left and I never went back there.
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