Indeed it
is, because when Justin takes off his jacket and stashes it on the shelf next
to the jukebox, his play does improve. He sinks six balls without reply, and
what began as a fisting, becomes a tight-as-hell, black-ball game. Indeed, a
victory.
The kind of
victory that demands a rechallenge.
“…Must always play the break at
two-thirds pace…”
And as his fortunes improve, Justin
becomes talkative. Getting married in December. Noordhoek beach. He needs a
Plan B, but he still doesn’t realise it. He’s worried the surfers and
dog-walkers will want to hang around and watch his wedding. As if anyone would
want to watch a stranger’s wedding. In fact, his main problem is wind. If that
Cape gale decides to blow, there’s gonna be nowhere to hide for kays around,
and no one’s going to want anything to do with that sandstorm of a wedding, let alone come watch it.
They met in
rehab. Rehab romance. All those fragile psychologies, that first clarity after
all those years of skew priorities...
He’s
inconsistent too. He’ll sink three balls, then play the white right off the
table, so it rolls into the boys’ bogs there. There next to where the house
rules say, “Challenger sets up and breaks. If you lose with seven balls on the
table you must drop your rods and underjocks and hop around the table. If you
fail to do this, you must stand the whole bar (and management) a round”.
He plays a
lot of pool for someone so bad at it. The other night he was at Ballbreakers in
Northcliff still.
“I was in
the toilets and I had a hundred-rand note in my hand. I won’t tell you why. And
this enormous Nigerian guy just takes it out of my hand, puts it in his pocket
and walks out.
“So I followed him out there and
said, ‘Hey gimme my hundred rand’”
“He just said, ‘Now you’re
talkin’ too much’”
The second game goes down to the
last ball too, but he’s too busy telling stories, he’s losing focus. His
priorities are skew. He’s on about how he’s been a Lions fan all his life and
how Loffie Eloff stays in his same townhouse complex.
He needs to
play the black ball hard, so it’s not parked in front of the pocket when he
misses. He needs to use topspin when he’s doubling off the cushion.
But his eye
is good enough to get him through. One in four shots go in directly. It’s an
angles game, not a touch game. But when you’re on the black, it can go either
way.
He’s going
cross-table, with the ball about a foot from the pocket. Off centre. He’s been
playing every shot full pace since the break, and that chirp about two-thirds.
Justin’s
worm has turned, and he’s tired of the sparkling waters and ordered a Castle
draught. “Booze was never my problem. I was always a powder guy.”
The place
starts to fill up, now that the decent bands are on. The first one is often a
bit kak, with a weird name that’ll surely only last that one gig. Not Even The
Leftovers. My Aim. Spirit Of The Back Room. Cyst.
The second
band you’ve normally heard of and the third you probably know from seeing, or
meaning to see. Vendetta Cartel. Pistol Whip 45. Jet Black Camaro.
It hones of pizza, beer on the floor, brazier smoke, hormones, the bogs and probably zoelie, not to put too fine a point on it. That might be wishful smelling, though.
More
punters means more players means more coins on the table. Four so far. And the
kind of impatient body language implying they’re not very impressed with the
standard on this table and the sooner they get to win and take over, the
better.
As if
sensing it, Just from Rehab starts playing even slower. Now that he has a captive
audience of prospective pool players not prepared to let anyone snake them on
their place in the coin queue and also not so impressed with the music from the
next room that they’re actually going to go next door and watch. But they’re
cool to listen.
He really
powered down that draught. It seems like just now he got it. And his game’s
gone to shit. Still explaining out loud every shot he lines up and reverse
engineering the increasingly iffy outcomes. “You see there? I should’ve played
it with more backspin.”
The next
guy is putting his coin in before the black has even had time to settle into
the tray. He’s going to put an end to
this bullshit. You can see. He breaks like a shotgun blast, sinks three in
three turns and then has to wait for Justin who’s only now getting served at
the bar.
The girls
are already going to the toilet together. The jukebox comes on in between
bands, with the amended playlist affixed to the glass on a typed-up A4. No one really knows how to fix these things.
There’s a
cute one, there with the off-the-shoulder top and the bunny slippers. There’s
always one. Justin strikes up a conversation as he gets his draught.
The new guy
strips his moer. “Are you gonna play or you gonna talk to girls all night?”
Justin’s unfazed. Says nothing,
but cuts short his chat with a wink. She goes back to her mates, but she’s
noticed him. Seems her type.
“Right, what we got here?”
The night’s possibilities open
wide before him, as Shadowclub come on. The ladies vanish next door, but they’ll
be back.
He takes aim with an unsteady,
but swashbuckling tip. Weddings, rehab, pool theory, all is forgotten. From
here on out, it’s just instinct. You gotta fly while you still can, and tonight we flying on instruments.
He has talent, but has he luck?
