Contributor: Jim Kokoris, author of The Rich Part of Life, Sister North and The Pursuit of Other Interests
My first experience with a Brunswick Billiards table was when I was in fifth grade. Our next-door neighbors, the well-to-do Ruzichs, had gone on vacation and had asked us to look after their house while they were in Florida. I wasn’t sure what “looking after their house” entailed, the specific responsibilities were never described to me, but I was looking forward to the job nonetheless. The Ruzichs had the nicest house on Dame Avenue and since the Ruzich kids were much older than me, I had never stepped foot in it. Now I had my chance to snoop around.
The day after the Ruzichs left, I took the key they had left us and nonchalantly announced that I was going over to make sure everything was “okay.” I didn’t get far. My father intercepted me in our driveway and wordlessly took the key. He then walked across our frozen front lawn and vanished in the Ruzich house. He was gone for hours.
He did the same thing the next day and the day after, disappearing for hours on end. When I asked what he was doing over there, he said, “watering the plants.” When I asked how many plants they had, my father, a man of very words, simply said, “more than you think.”
I followed him on the third day, ringing the doorbell minutes after he went inside. After an interminable wait in the February evening, he slowly opened the back door. He then stared at me for a moment before motioning me inside with a single jerk of his head.
“Where are the plants?” I asked.
My father said nothing. Instead he once again motioned with his head for me to follow him down to the basement.
I saw it as I rounded the corner, a full-size billiards table, its felt top as impossibly green as the infield of Wrigley Field. I approached the table and picked up one of the balls, marveling at its coolness and color, its heft. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, and my experience with balls was limited to foot, basket and base balls. A billiards ball was exotic, unique. I was mesmerized.
“Want to try?” my father asked.
We played for hours, my father teaching me what he knew of the game, the sharp click- clack of balls breaking the quiet of the basement. We returned the next day, and the day after. The rest of the large house held little interest for me now. As soon as I entered the backdoor, I went straight downstairs. All I wanted to do was play pool and I wanted to play it with my father.
The Ruzichs returned on Sunday evening, hours after my father and I concluded our final game. It would be years before we played together again, but eventually we would, this time on a used table we had splurged on, the click-clack of balls binding us together in our own quiet basement.
– Jim Kokoris’ novels have been published in more than 20 languages. His first book, The Rich Part of Life, won the Friends of American Writers Award for a Best First Novel.
Recent Comments