Pool Shark: On the Joys of Beating Men at Pool

I hated shooting pool. I hate anything I’m not good at the minute I pick it up.

But the man I’d run away to the Big City with when I was not quite 19 was determined that I was going to learn how to play pool, godammit. And this was back when I didn’t know I could say no and then simply not do that thing. Ok, so I did whine and piss and moan about it night after night at the old Paragon Lounge at the corner of Lorain (pronounce LO-rain) Avenue and West 130th Street on the West Side of Cleveland, Ohio. But that man ignored my whining and bullied me onto the pool table every time we were at that bar which was every night of the week. And every Saturday.

I was really bad at pool. Until I wasn’t.

There came an afternoon when I made a bank shot to win a game of 8 ball and something dinged inside. And then there was the night when I beat that man fair and square and that ding got louder. But when I beat a guy I didn’t know (and beat him bad) choirs of angels sang out in eight part harmonies and I was hooked.

Pool requires concentration, spatial intelligence, a grasp of basic physics and the ability to see into the future (aka “leaving yourself good” for the following shot and, ideally, the one after that). Barroom pool requires a fair amount of trash talk as well. I was better at that part and usually inconsistent with the actual shooting part of the game. Some nights it was as if every shot was preordained to sink into the hole and I would win game after game. Other nights….not so much.

There was that Super Bowl party in someone’s basement where they had a pool table and I cleaned up at 3 ball to the tune of $20. In 3 ball each shooter takes turns seeing who can sink 3 balls in the least amount of shots. The ideal break sinks at least one ball right away. Once you do that and are slick at leaving yourself good for your following shots you can win with two or three shots. That’s hard to beat. I was consistently nailing games with three shots tops and winning piles of wrinkly dollar bills.

We, of course, went back to the bar after the game where I promptly lost all $20 in one game of 8 ball.

The dorky kid with thick blue framed glasses who the cool kids pointed and laughed at in the hallways of Cloverleaf Junior High was now a hot ass little pool hustler. I had arrived. I’d sashay into the bar, slap my quarter onto the table and start talking trash at whoever was trying to shoot. And, predictably, I believed that the more I drank the better I shot (dear God, it’s a good thing I never got a driver’s license).

Ask me about Bobby Kovach.

Bobby and his brother owned Kovach Bros Auto Body and Repair just up the street and he’d come in after work some afternoons to unwind over a couple of games. The guy looked just like Jackie Gleason playing Minnesota Fats with his white button down shirt and creased black trousers. Bobby could run multiple tables; he was that good. He never broke a rack because then his opponent didn’t stand a chance of getting in even one shot. I got to where I could see two, sometimes three, shots ahead and could leave myself nice to keep shooting. Bobby could see the whole table.

His concentration was complete and, even with his bulk, he moved like a dancer around the table. Fascinating to watch.

I never ran a table on Bobby and once he started shooting it was all over. I may have never won against Bobby Kovach but every time I had the chance to play him for any length of time I got better.

As I already said I was an inconsistent shot and that earned me the reputation of being a hustler. I wasn’t. I was just sometimes a really lousy shot. We always played for drinks back when a shot of whatever and a beer were $1.75 so some nights I’d lose one or five games and then other nights something would click and I’d just tear the place up. The owner of the joint always let me put my full glass of brandy into the fridge with a little piece of foil over it for when I came back the next day.

I got mouthy and full of myself quick. And got away with it because I was all of 5 feet tall with waist length blonde hair and legs up to there.

There was something so intoxicating about winning against men at pool. It made me higher than the brandy I downed or the joints I smoked or the whatever-it-was that I lined up to snort off the Space Invaders table game in the corner. I couldn’t wait to get back to the bar and start in on them. For awhile a local biker club, The Descendants, made the Paragon their home bar and beating one of them was especially sweet.

The more I won the more powerful I felt.

You’ve seen this movie, sung along with this song, skipped to the last page to see the same old ending in the book. I only felt powerful. I had no power. I was, as they say, powerless. I made no decisions, had no direction, set no goals, and achieved nothing in those years. I let those very men I thought I was beating choose where and what I would do. And I just went along thinking I was the one calling the shots.

Eventually the Paragon got sold and then sold again. We drifted to other dive bars on the West Side, shooting pool and getting trashed, starting trouble. My “skills” eroded and I was well on my way to becoming one of those sad, old drunks who talk shit and who everyone ignores.

My rescuer was a junkie and that’s another story.

But for a brief shining moment I was the star of my own gritty drama taking place in the shutdown, loser world of dive bars and government cheese lines in a city that had gone into default and was a laughingstock (Mistake on the Lake anyone?). Someone ought to write a book!

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