Stacked Quarters

I loved going to work with  my dad.

I hated it at the start. For those first few seconds when he’d wake me up on a morning with no school and say: “You comin’?”

But once I was up and awake and felt included in the day and his activities it felt good.

He always made me feel included. When he used to deliver bread he would have me call out items from a clipboard and he would have me fill in quantities. Only now as an adult do I realize there is no way he could remember an entire inventory’s worth of bread on a truck and he only did it to keep me busy and help me feel important.

I felt busy and important. I was officially part of the working world and was up and out the door before the sun even rose. I felt grown up.

This was in the days before cell phones, come to think of it my dad never owned a mobile phone in his life, so updates to my mom on the day were done from a pay phone or were delayed until they could be discussed over the waiting dinner.

After his time with the bread company my father worked for the local transit authority driving busses and streetcars. Once he was comfortable at that job I was able to come with him and sit in the bus getting a free tour of the city. Once he knew the schedules by heart he would allow me to jump off at certain stops to buy drinks for us both or a comic for myself, and then wait for him to come back around and start the pickups again.

We finished up one day and as we sometimes did, dad decided to stop in the depot games room.
They had a few video games, some chairs and some vending machines for the employees to occupy themselves between shifts. But what always caught dad's eye was the pool table.
It was one of those same tables you can find in any seedy bar. Small. cigarette burns on the side bumpers. Cues that were always meant to be straight but never quite made it. You dropped 2  quarters in to make the balls drop and then each was locked away again with every successful shot until someone paid to drop them for the next game. Any time there was challenger he would step up and stack his two quarters on the edge of the table near the quarter slot. Every new challenger paid for the game and the winner could play as long as he liked until he lost, then the new winner stayed on for as long as he could. We had played at this table before but dad, having once been a snooker player of some repute, to hear him tell it, back home in England in his youth, liked to play whenever he could and he seemed to enjoy getting me hooked on the game. We figured we had time for one quick one before heading home for supper.
Again, as an adult, I realize that whenever I played my dad, it was rarely a case of me beating him or not. It was how badly I was to lose. If I ever did win, and I don't remember winning often, it was likely because he was trying too many trick shots or just decided to throw one to his son every once in a while. He called his shots, he rarely missed, and even when I played against him he would make suggestions on where to hit the ball and what type of spin to put on the cue.
"What you want to do" he'd say as he walked around the table to reach the cue ball, "is hit it just near the bottom so it spins back instead of into the hole". He's patiently splay his fingers into a small bridge for the pool cue to slide smoothly between the knuckles. If I ever missed a ball, usually before it had even completed its trajectory, he would announce: "Too much top spin. You're gonna sewer". Sometimes even stopping the tragedy himself before setting up the cue ball again back where it started and simply say: "Try again".
I made two shots against him back to back just as some coworkers of dads had stopped by to chat with him and watch the game.
"He's pretty good" commented one fellow.
"I taught him everything he knows" answered dad.
"That couldn't have taken long." And they'd both laugh as they watched me make the third shot in a row. Their eyebrows raised in a "get this guy" motion.
I finally missed a shot, dad took his turn and missed. I called my final shot into the correct pocket and won and allowed myself a small smile for a hard won victory.
"He beat you!" said dad's friend.
"He does it all the time." lied dad.
"Well, we can't have that" said the friend who proceeded to stack his two quarters near the slots to hold his place while he took off his coat.
"You'll do fine" prompted dad quietly when he saw the look on my face when I realized I was to play another adult. I had played friends my own age but never anyone other than my dad.
Dad's friend, the challenger, hung up his coat, wracked the balls and took first break.
Stacked quarters
Stacked quarters

In all, nine members of the local transit authority stepped up to stack their quarters to test their skill and were beaten by a boy barley into his teens. Through the whole thing my father would advise and coach and, while keeping everything light, make sure the games were honestly won.

I don't play very often any more. My dad's cue gathers dust in the back of an upstairs closet and I can't bring myself to sell it or throw it away. Even to this day if I play pool I feel the memory of my father over my shoulder. If I miss, he quietly chides me. If I sink, he congratulates me and motions me on to the next ball.

I wonder if he was proud of me?

Trophies

I always swore I would never repeat what I perceived to be the folly of my mother.


I loved my mother.


But I learned early on that, whereas most people act to move on from insult or injury, for my mother, any slight, perceived or otherwise, was to be remembered.


Remembered is to mild a term. Everyone remembers, but not everyone forgives.
My mother preserved these insults. They were like trophies placed on a shelf just out of sight but always readily available to be taken down, polished, and examined. Sometimes forgotten, but at a moments notice it could be moved to a more accessible shelf, dusted off and poured over. Prioritized.


Somewhere along the way I built my own wall of shelves, and though sparse at the start, the collection is starting to grow. The trophies themselves getting slightly larger and being made of a more durable material. Slights and insults are making their way into the collection.
Mike forgot to send me the eBooks he's been promising for ages. He's on the list.