A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE

The winter wind is blowing like snot across Saskatchewan as my two friends and I huddle in a half-ton truck, the heat cranked high to warm our frigid bodies. As we bump along a frozen deeply rutted road leading to a highway, which leads to another butt-fuck town, I wonder where we will spend the night. My friend Rex Smith is driving, and I’m squished between him and his brother Cyril on the front seat, which I suppose is the back seat too, since there is only one seat in the truck. Rex has a contract to hook up underground telephone lines all over the province and to think I left balmy Vancouver Island for a couple of weeks to be with my friends without pay; not my idea of a winter vacation; busty-blondes sipping pinacolatos stretched out beside a pool in a Mexican resort was more to my liking but I doubted my wife would have approved.

Night arrives early during the winter on the prairies and when we rolled into the little town of Bengough, a few stars could be seen twinkling in the black sky. We were as hungry as a pack of starving coyotes chasing a skinny jackrabbit across the snow when we walked through the door of the only café in town. The proprietor was a tall oriental man and judging by his accent, he was further from home than I was. He was about to close up but welcomed us in and took our orders—something fast—hamburgers, fries and coffees to thaw our bones. I watched him as he mixed onions and chunks of bread into the ground beef and then shape it into meat-patties. Unlike those perfectly round McDonald death-on-a-bun burgers, these were thick out-of-shape delicious, run down your chin juicy burgers.

Next stop was the only hotel in town. The room was small and was had two double beds, a small dresser, an antique armoire and two electric baseboards, which were pounding out the heat. As soon as we settled in, hearing the slight beat of drums and music, we headed to the bar, our evening beers always the highlight of the dreary days.

It was a Friday night and when we entered the bar, it was almost jammed packed, and the warm air was filled with blue smoke—ahh—my kind of place I thought as I sucked the whole atmosphere in. Besides the blaring jukebox and several intoxicated dancers, the patrons were all talking loudly, every eye in the place trained on the three strangers as we maneuvered our way to a small round table near the pool table.

I’m a mediocre pool player at best but since I enjoy playing, win or lose, I added my name to the challenge board. The frothy golden amber beer felt great as it slid down my throat while I waited for my turn. Not sure how many beers I imbibed, but who was counting, until it was time for me to slide four quarters into the pool table’s vending slot and drive the coins home. It was a friendly game; the challenger paid the fee and the loser bought his opponent a beer. Not feeling very confident about winning because the locals most likely knew every quirk of the pool table, I racked the balls and grabbed the pool cue the last loser had used—there were no others to choose from.

Before the game started, we exchanged names and then chalked up our cues. There’s nothing like the sound of a white cue ball as it zips across the table and smacks into a tight triangulation of colourful solid and striped balls. The clickity-clack, clack…clack…clack of them hitting together sounds like a train disappearing around a bend. It was a good break; the balls were spread all over the table and two of them had vanished into holes. When my opponent sunk his next shot easily and then smiled as he lined up his next ball, I was wondering if I would even get to play, had only donated some money and a beer. However, I needn’t have worried because he missed. Before I lined up the cue ball, I motioned to the hole where I expected the ball that I hit would be swallowed up. It was an easy shot and so were the next three shots, all the balls disappearing down different holes like trained mice searching for a hunk of cheese. As unbelievable as it was, I never missed a shot and won the game.

There was a line of names chalked on the challenge board and as each one plugged in their quarters and then bought me a beer, some of them never even getting the chance to use their cue—I was that fluking good. None of them were sore losers as I began strutting around the table like Tom Cruise in The Color of Money thinking that I owned it. It almost seemed as if I had become the legendary Minnesota Fats as I sunk one ball after the other. Then, the unexpected happened, a high-pitched belligerent voice rang out. I didn’t take much notice of it until I realized the complaint was directed at me. But not to be unraveled, I took my next shot and sunk it. I’d never played pool this good in my entire life before and wouldn’t you know it, one of the arm-chair bystanders was taking affront to the fact that I seldom missed a shot, must of thought I was a pool shark and was fleecing all the town yokels.

After trying to play it cool as if nothing was happening and ignoring the loud scathing remarks, not even looking in their direction, I finally decided I’d heard enough. Since the overhead pool table light was diffusing my view, I walked to the other side of the table to see who was upset with me. From the loud screeches that had been hurled at me, I wasn’t surprised to discover it was a woman and oh my gosh, was she ever obese. How she ever pried herself into that tight red dress was beyond me. As she stared daggers at me through her pouchy pig-eyes, her scraggly dyed blonde hair enhancing her crimson face, I thought perhaps she had been one of the women pool players that had lost but I would have remembered playing her. I’m sure as soon as she bent over the table, she would have split the ass right out of her skirt. Even the mealy-eyed, skinny guy she was sitting next to hadn’t stepped up to the pool table, so what was her bitch?

Still attempting to ignore the loud-mouthed, gargantuan orangutan look alike and trying to keep my cool, I turned my back on her. So far, I had been polite as possible, but she kept on badgering me, perhaps trying to distract my shots so that someone else would win but that didn’t happen, I continued to win much to her chagrin. I was about to break the balls for a new game when she finally yelled out something that offended me. The bar went quiet when I yelled back to shut her big yap to which she responded, “Well you can kiss my big fat ass.”

This was probably the time to keep my gob shut but being known for a sharp tongue, I just couldn’t help myself and I said, “Lady. No matter where I kissed you, I’d be kissing ass because you are all ass!”

Whoops!

As she rose from her chair like the Goodyear Blimp and almost toppled the table over with her massive belly, I was more than a little bit concerned. At first, I thought it was funny and laughed but when she bellowed like a bull getting its nuts cut and then charged at me like a rhinoceros dressed in a red tutu, the bar’s best pool player dropped his cue on the table and ran like a scared rabbit to the exit door leading to our room. We must have made a spectacular sight because I could hear the whole bar roaring with laughter as I dashed out the door and sprinted down the hall, the bitch from hell close on my heels. I could hear her huge feet thundering behind me as I hightailed it around the corner. Unfortunately, she was too close behind for me to stop at our room, so I kept on running right past it. When I charged around another corner and ran down the hallway and around another corner, I managed to lose her. Dashing back towards our room, I ducked into a small alcove and took a peek. I could hear her chugging and puffing like a worn-out steam engine as I watched her huge ass go by. Then as lightly as a gazelle and just as fast, I sped to our room, inserted the key and softly closed the door behind me. When she stopped just outside the door wheezing for air, I thought perhaps she had seen me enter so I stepped back. The last thing I needed was to have the door burst open and flatten me against the wall as the enormous fat lady charged through it. I didn’t breathe easy until I her grunt off down the hallway and around the corner.

Rex had decided that we’d take the weekend off, which was fine with me after the near-death experience. However, when they later went to the bar that night, I declined. I wasn’t taking any chances.