My good fortune continued as I was able to find a bartending gig within a week of quitting at Cascade Pizza. It was at the Elks Club out in the nearby town of Sedro Woolley and I would be the junior bartender on busy nights and cover the waitress window. Great for me and the place even had a pool table. It was about 7 miles to the new job, too far to walk but the area had a free bus service that was very convenient. I also had my mom send me out my pool cue and my bike so I would have that option for work as well. Rosie would give me rides when she could otherwise I would take the bus or ride my bike, all in all things were going great. Since I had my pool-cue now and was playing ai work quit regularly I decided to talk to Lance over at Draft Pic’s about starting a pool tourney at his bar. He was very receptive to the idea and even told me he would put in another table if it was a hit. It was, and within two weeks there was another table down at Pic’s. The tourney was very good to me as I was winning every one of them and supplementing my income nicely. I had become the big cheese on the table and people were starting to fear my game.
One night while down at Draft Pic’s getting toasted and playing some pool, one of my old co-workers comes over and challenges me to a game for five bucks. I was never one to turn down a money game and instantly said yes. I broke and ran out the first game and he swore something under his breath and said “double or nothing, but this time I break”. I said sure and he broke and scratched, I ran out the table again, now he owed me ten bucks. He said let’s do it again and I even told him he could break again and he let it rip. This game was much closer going down to the wire but unfortunately for him, I won again and smugly told him that he owed me fifteen bucks! He told me to “fuck off” and that he wasn’t going to pay me. We were both fairly drunk and that fact was a great contributor to what came next. I told him that he had better pay me or else and he said or else what”? Then we got into each other’s faces and started talking trash and it might have ended with that but his dickhead brother was there egging us on to take it outside and finish it. That was the final push we needed as we started to head for the door to take it to the street. The bartender ( the same one who ratted me out when I had gone out drinking before work ) tried to break us up and failing that said he would call the police if we started fighting. His words barely registered as we went out to the sidewalk to settle things. At first we just kind of pushed each other talking trash but then he grabbed me and sent a fist my way. I ducked and sent one back, he ducked and it went this way for a handful of missed swings until we wrestled to the ground and I worked my way on top only to have his brother pull me off. As we were about to square off again the bartender comes out and says that he has called the police and they are on their way. This time I heard it loud and clear and so did the other guy because that was the end of it but I knew I had to get out of there and fast! My shirt had been ripped so I used that as an excuse to head out and grabbed my coat and was gone. I turned the corner and saw two police cars racing up the street, the only thing i could do is act nonchalant and hope they did not stop. They steamed past me and turned the corner towards Draft Pic’s, as soon as the second car was out of sight, I ran like Carl Lewis! I did not live far but there was Interstate 5 between me and home, usually not a problem to go the few blocks in either direction to the underpass but if the bartender had told the cops that the fighting parties had left and they had seen me on their way to the bar, then they would be coming for me and I would not have enough time to run the distance before they would catch me. My only option was to go over the Interstate, I had to jump up on a 6 foot retaining wall and then a chain link fence, after clearing the fence I looked back to see both cop cars racing in either direction for the underpass. I had to move fast! I knew that I would have about 30 to 40 seconds before they could get around so I zipped across the highway, dodging cars and bounded over the fence on the far side. The other side was all residential and I went about halfway up the first block and darted into some bushes in a backyard. I stayed there motionless, trying to control the anxiety that was feeling overwhelming, I heard a car creeping down the way and with it saw a spotlight flooding between each house. I thought I was hidden well enough the only thing was the rising panic I felt inside. Will they call in more cops? Did someone see me and are now on the phone telling them where I am? I couldn’t take it any longer, I slowly creeped out and checked the street, nothing! I was only two blocks from my home so I dashed through backyards and over fences to my backdoor and once inside, I let out the biggest sigh knowing that I had been one lucky s.o.b.
I knew I was still not out of the woods, if the bartender had given the police my name then my troubles were just beginning. I called down to the bar to find out and was greatly relieved to find out that even though he could have really screwed me, he had told the police that it was no one he recognized and not a regular from the bar. I was safe on that front but there was still the matter of the ex co-worker and what he would do. I asked the bartender if he was still there and he told me that he had gone to Cascade Pizza with a few other regulars so I made the decision to go finish things. I called a cab so as not to be walking the streets in case the cops were still out looking for me and when I got to Cascade, it was the talk of the bar. When I came in, the bartender calls me over to see what I am going to do, I tell him to pour me two shots of tequila and I take it over to my fellow bare-knuckle brawler and tell him that I was sorry and should not have made such a big deal out of things to which he replies that he should have just payed me and we both have a laugh as we down the shots. he even pulls out the fifteen dollars and gives it to me right there. My only recourse was to order two more shots and put this near tragedy behind us. The rest of the night was a blast and the earlier events were but a distant memory by the time it was over, I would never have a cross word with him again. Unfortunately there would be some fall-out from the night’s shenanigans, the tournament began to suffer, maybe because of that night or maybe because I was winning every one but the participants started dropping like flies and within a couple of weeks, Lance told me that the bar was discontinuing the pool tourney. As fast as it came, it was gone, but it was a sweet little nugget of time when I was the king of the hill and nothing can ever change that.
One thing the pool competitions at Draft Pic’s did was re-awaken my love for the game, it had waned over the past few years but now I was feeling it again and with it a new thought about making money with pool. I found a few other regular tourney’s in the area and started playing them, the level of play was much higher that at D.P.’s but I was holding my own and doing quite well. In tournaments that is, when it came to playing heads up for money, I found that I would choke when it came down to it and I was giving away more heads up than I was winning in the tourney’s. My big lesson came one night when I was choking away every game to a guy and when it was over I had lost all my money and my pool cue to boot, a very humbling experience but a valuable one as it was the last time I would play heads up for money, from now on, I would concentrate on nothing but tournaments. Rosie gave me some dough to get me through until payday and over the next few weeks I hunkered down and with tournament winnings along with my wages, I was able to buy my cue back, vowing to never let it go again.
A Continuing Story About Life On The Run