Pool Cue Drunk

First published Transmission Magazine issue 08

A stagnant wind rattles the rusting bell on your breath. Bald headed men with boiled eggs for heads, faces torn apart with apocalyptic boredom womble with canned feet past your slotted fucked face, nothing is making sense. Not even the balls on the table. Stood pissing over pots of flowers in the beer garden, itching to get back to the game. ”Must be my now go now,” you mutter, forcing the piss from your bladder ” must be my my go now.”

You return to find the cocksucker with horseteeth is on the black. The man has the whole of the human race condensed into his slouched lop sided eye that is raised just above the stick. Dear lord, how can you hate so many people all at once? Back and forth the stick slides between his fingers, he pauses dramatically, like he knows what he’s doing. Straightens up and wanders  around the table, one eye closed like a fucking owl, gets back to the shot, sliding the stick in and out of his fancy bridge hand. Then it’s gone, at speed, the white ball on the black, the black down the hole. If you wasn’t so pissed you’d fucking smash his head in with  the pool cue but as it stands, you’re liable to get yourself twatted if you dont hold your tongue. Ever the sportsman, you shake his hand, lay the cue down on the table in a gentlemanly fashion and walk over to the blackboard to stick your name down for another game.

Another beer. You kind of stumble and fall twenty or so yards towards the bar, aware that people are moving steadily out of your way, an arm steadies you at the elbow but you brush it away, quickly find yourself at the front of the queue, a white horrible noise screeching through the gap between your ears. Forget the beer, ”I’ll take a large whisky.” The change from the barman falls into your hand and you turn from the bar, the drink aloft, ‘scuse me, scuse me’ the drink is like  a lighthouse in your hand, the rusted anchor is up, adrift, adrift, staggering towards a chair in the pool room.

A woman with a big head and a low cut top shifts up the red velour of the sofa and taps the place she’s just vacated. With heavy feet, you take up her invitation and slide  down next to her and you look at her and see that her eyes are as empty as yours. You go to say something but instead you take a sloppy slurp of the whisky at your hand. You light a regal cigarette, offer her one, she takes it, smiles and you look at her again, your lips move  but nothing comes out, your brain feels shipwrecked across her face, she puts a hand on your shoulder and gives it a gentle rub, it’s the nicest thing anyone has done all day. You nod and point to the table, you want to say that you could have beat that cunt still playing but nothing comes out, apart from a mumble and sring of saliva, her head rolls a little then nods and she raises her glass to yours, they chink, like two tiny bells, announcing the beginning of a friendship.