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"You gotta tap the
cue ball lightly." Doc said in a slightly disapproving tone.
"You have to stroke the cue ball like a woman's breast, gently,
lovingly. When you can shoot like that, you'll never miss."
Doc's advice wasn't entirely lost on me that morning at the
Staff NCO Club, Camp LeJeune. I was thirteen. I would have willingly
stroked any part of a woman's body, however gently the moment required.
Despite having no actual experience as to the image he'd just invoked, I
did get the point. Instead of pounding the cue as I'd been taught only
weeks before at the Tarawa Terrace Marine Dependents' Community Center, I
did as he suggested and softly stroked it, sending it across the table
into the nine ball, which in turn slid silently into the side pocket as if
having been persuaded to retire from the game by some sliver tongued
con-man.
"Much better." Doc's approval was like cool water
on a hot day. Ever since he'd married my mom, moments like this were all
too rare. Much more often we were screaming at each other at the top of
our lungs, his voice a 90-decibel US Marine Corps bellow, mine a desperate
cry of "This isn't fair!" and "I hate you and I hate this
place!" Secretly, I wanted him to be my dad. But the gap between us
was enormous and usually insurmountable.
Where pool was concerned though, we agreed to agree. He would
be the teacher. I would be the student. This common ground was established
between us because we shared an enemy named Sharkey.
Doc was a Navy Hospital Corpsman attached to the Fleet
Marines. Master Sergeant Sharkey was Corps through and through. When it
came to war or matters military, the two of them formed a team so
formidable that no foe could stand up to them. When it came to whiskey,
beer, fist fighting, skirt
chasing (though no apparent skirt catching) they had no peers. But when it
came down to pool, no more bitter rivals existed.
It had been Doc who suggested that I start going up to the
community center on weekdays after school. It had been Doc who put
peroxide on the abrasions that resulted from three straight days of fist
fights getting to know the other kids who went there as well. And it was
Doc who suggested that
pool settled disagreements between men and between boys. He revealed that
upon hearing that my nemesis, the kid responsible for all those minor
injuries, was Brian Sharkey, Sarge's boy.
So Doc paid Sarge a visit one morning early, dropped off
three Cuban cigars and suggested that the nagging conflict between the
Navy and the Corps could be best resolved in a friendly father-son pool
tournament "over at the Tarawa Terrace rec center one month' from
now."
The stakes were enormous. The pride of two major military services
hung in the balance, as well as one case of Coors beer from Sarge's
private stock against one bottle of seventy-year-old Scotch Whiskey that
Doc had been saving for his own wake.
No pressure.
My scrapes and abrasions as well as one parting shiner were
well on their way to healing. Part of our truce arrangement was a no
fighting agreement between Brian and me, which was OK by me, but irked
Brian somewhat. Strangely, the more of Doc's tutoring that sunk in, the
better my relations with the rec center kids seemed to get. Even Brian
seemed more intent on pool than fighting, as the days grew ever shorter.
There were thirty participants in that tournament, fourteen
Marine fathers and sons, and me and Doc. The room barely held us all as
the games began on the three somewhat threadbare tables provided us by
government kindness. It was a whirlwind of stripes and solids and cues off
the table and busted tips and swear words seldom heard or spoken outside
of combat. The participants, the onlookers, the referees, even the
refreshment stand people were all guys. It was one of those moments in time
when there were no moms or aunts or teachers or waitresses to shhh you or
tell you to wipe your feet. It was, quite simply, war and we waged it with
the zeal of the holy defenders of Islam.
The day came down to Doc and me, Sarge and Brian. One game,
sudden death for the championship. Brian broke the balls and sank the
fourteen. They had stripes. He shot again and missed. He banged the cue
too hard, trying to bludgeon the twelve ball into the corner pocket. It
double bounced and rolled away.
Doc leaned over and whispered, "When you try to use
force, you always end up losing the game.
I nodded agreement and got up for my shot. Carefully, as I'd
been taught, I stroked the three, five, six and the one ball into
different pockets around the table, while placing the tip at just the
right part of the cue to invoke the "English" necessary to
position it for the next shot. I missed on the two ball, but set it up for
Doc, an easy shot.
Sarge sank the reluctant twelve, but then missed on the nine,
scratching.
Doc dropped the two easily, but had nowhere to go afterward.
He was caught behind the eight ball.
Brian was under pressure. He powered the nine ball into the
corner as Thor might place his hammer in the skull of a Frost Giant. But
the look of triumph on his face turned instantly to tragedy as the
careening cue ball bounced madly off three cushions and cut the eight ball
by a kitten's whisker right
into the side.
I leaped into the air and shouted, "YES!" My joy
was boundless. I had triumphed over the enemy. He was mine.
Then I heard Doc say, "Spot the eight ball," just
as matter-of-factly as if this were a causal game between us, and not the
most important event in all of Tarawa Terrace.
I cleared the table, called the eight ball in the corner and
sank it as well. Doc spoke to me afterward, in the car, on our way over to
Sarge's house for the post tournament cook out.
"Winning by default is no victory at all." He told
me. "Only by overcoming an obstacle or an adversary can forward
movement be achieved."
That evening, Brian Sharkey and I shared half a can of sweet,
frigid Coors beer, something that would have got us skinned by both our
moms, had they not been shopping on a ladies night out.
The next day, Brian and I had a rematch at the rec
center, during which I shared the virtue of softly stroking the cue ball,
like a woman's breast, gently, lovingly. We stayed friends until his dad
got transferred to Paris Island, two years later.
Another thing I noticed, Doc and I didn't shout at each
other as much or as loudly after that pool game, though I witnessed many a
heart-stopping game of nine ball between him and Sarge during which
neither one missed for three or four racks at a time. When asked for an
explanation as to the difference, Doc had said, simply, "Rec center
table has small pockets."
For a long time, I believed his answer.
(c) 2001 by Bob Liddil.
All Rights Reserved
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