Small Balls
by Buck Dopp
Cecil and Clyde were ninety-something pool sharks who regularly won doubles matches at the local senior center. Their only problem: they couldn’t remember whose turn it was to shoot. Their memory lapses caused them to forfeit many games.
Cecil came up with an idea. “After one of us is done shooting, we hand the pool stick to the other guy. When it’s our turn, whoever is holding the stick will be the one who shoots next.”
This worked well until another memory problem emerged. When they were playing eight-ball, they couldn’t remember whether or not they had stripes or solids and would frequently be penalized for shooting the wrong balls.
Clyde slapped the table one Saturday afternoon during a practice session and turned to his buddy. “I got it. When we have solids, since they’re numbered one through seven, we’ll call them the small balls. When one of us is done shooting, we hand over the stick with a reminder that we have the small balls. If we have stripes we say, we have the big balls.”
That night they deployed the new strategy and it worked. They were winning again when the unexpected happened. Cecil collapsed after a shot and fell to the floor gripping the pool stick.
Fortunately the fire department’s emergency rescue team arrived within minutes, and the lead EMT dropped to her knees and applied oxygen. A few seconds later, Cecil opened his eyes.
“What seems to be the problem, sir?”
He handed the EMT his stick and whispered, “Small balls.”
***
Buck Dopp’s first novel, Kingpin and Eli is now available on Amazon.com. He and his wife of 40 years live in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Buck is the past president of the Lake Havasu City Writers Group and author of several published stories in Long Story Short including, “Lying Alcoholics,” “Gentle Care,” “Beach Prayers,” “Cheater,” “Neighborhood Brawl,” ”Dance Partners,” and “Pigskin Professor.”
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