Mother and Father

Abstract

THE GAME IS POOL, sometimes called eight ball. My father and mother play the game each night before going to bed. am there as ob server, too young to account my age. My father likes to break and my mother, who is new to pool, tends to give the old man his head. It is her habit to admire his every gesture, his hesitations, false starts, benign mis chances. Sometimes when he chalks his cue in his unassuming way, she can't help but emit a crow of pleasure at the secret grace of the gesture. Her praise makes him irritable, tends to throw him off his game. I don't know what's wrong with me, he says when he scratches on the What a stupid thing to do. My mother allows that there must have been a distracting noise from outside and offers him the occasion to replay the opening hit. You usually break so beautifully, she adds. I can spend whole days just watching you make the break. Well, you won't have another chance of watching it today, my father says. I take full responsibility for my misplays. My failure is already part of the recorded past. I don't blame you for saying that, my mother says. By the way, have you seen my stick? like, as you know, the little one. My father hands her his cue, which she accepts for an unhappy moment, then returns. This is nicer, but really prefer the one I'm used to. She goes to the back wall and checks out the four remaining cues, dis carding each in turn. One of them must be yours, my father says, chew ing on his impatience. That's all we have. Unconvinced, my mother selects the second smallest of the four remain ing ones, which is visibly warped and has a worn tip. That one's no good, my father says, trying to take it from her. Their struggle produces inertia. You never let me use the one want, my mother says. My father reads the cracks in the ceiling as antidote to that remark. It is my mother's practice to address the first ball she fixes on and then decide in the ensuing moment that it is not for her. At that point she will ask my father if there is a better shot available, something more in keeping with her limited skill.