Al Ortolani

Shooting Pool with the Tough Kids

The boys were locked up for small crimes,
stealing cars, burning the school’s athletic shed,
hammering coins out of an automatic carwash.
A few had run from home once and then kept on running.
One on one, they were good boys,
not unlike any middle or high school kid.
Together, they were pirates, swashbucklers
roaming the streets at two a.m. They waited
around the pool table for my shift to start,
chalking their cues, racking the balls in a tight triangle.
They pretended to be hustlers from an ocean
of sharks. They owned the language, sloped shoulders,
cue stick slick against the thumb, elbows loose,
lips parted for a make-believe Marlboro.
                                                               Pool halls
are dark to keep secrets hidden. Our game room
was fluorescent. I’d arrive with a bag of small
Halloween candy bars. I preferred Three Musketeers.
The tough kids hovered over the table, one after another
taking advantage of my wobbly shot, my eight ball
scratch. I played my best game, but it was never enough.
I doled out Three Musketeers with the expected reluctance.
The boys had waited all afternoon to beat me up,
and that was ok. The world they knew had never
waited on them for anything. Most had lost
before they knew the game had begun.
At ten o’clock it was lights out. The tough kids slumped off
to their green rooms to suck on candy bars
while the hallway darkened, while the night counselor
made his rounds with a flashlight.

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Al Ortolani is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize and has been featured in the Writer’s Almanac, American Life in Poetry, and Poetry Town. He is a two-time recipient of the Kansas Notable Book Award. Bull in the Ring a novel was recently published by Meadow Lark Books. His most recent collection of poetry, Controlled Burn, was released by Spartan Press.