My grandfather taught me, leaning over his pool table, cigar stuck in his teeth as he squinted at the ball. Stripes, solids, eight ball. How to call a shot: ten to right corner. Bank to near left. Whatever you do, don’t scratch, don’t dig the cue into the felt, don’t put drinks on the edge. He told stories of sailors and bars, “places of ill repute,” as you stuck out your hip, leaned low to tease out trajectories, and prayed to some kind of god that if you ever found yourself in such a place, you’d remember all the rules.
Christina Kapp lives in New Jersey. Her writing has appeared in Gargoyle, Passages North, and The MacGuffin. www.christinakapp.com Instagram: @christinakapp_