Pool Hall Hustler

were about to have a seizure all their own. I closed my eyes and stood straight up in order to calm myself down. I walked over to the table where two ladies were sitting watching the game. The one on the left offered me a drag of her cigarette to calm my nerves. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, forming a cloud of smoke under the lantern hanging over the table. The smoke filled light made the bar look eerie as if this was all a dream. I puts my clammy hands together, crossing all

of my fingers and pushed out and then in. Everyone in the bar could hear the cracking sound of my tense knuckles. I walked back over to the green felt that had become my worst nightma

re. The 300 dollars I had already lost kept running through my brain, repeating like an insane man singing the same song over and over. I shook my head to release it of the sound and focused on the shot that could determine if I would eat that coming week. I powered my hands and chalked

up my pool stick for the last time. Leaning down and lining up my shot, my eye all of the sudden became a sniper rifle as I looked again. There was a thin red line starting at the blue chalked covered tip of my slightly askew pool stick all the way down to the cue and then a second red line connected the cue ball to the top loop of the eight. It looked like a target with majority of the ball covered with black, then a white small circle that encircled the black eight, and within the eight were two white circles. I was aiming for the top circle. I pulled the pool stick back and

pushed it forward as it slid between my fingers. I repeated this movement until I was comfortable enough to let the stick slide until it hit the bold whiteness of the cue ball. The vibrations of the hit course though my bones and body and the sound seemed to ricochet off the thick walls of the bar/pool hall. Would I make

Some topics in this essay:
, cue ball, eight ball, pool stick, smoke filled, walked green, black white, red line, corner pocket, white ball, stood straight,