Billiards with me mates

I met Mike and Kristen this evening in Richmond. Our old friend David just got in town. We have all known each other since childhood, since middle school I think. Over a whole decade as friends now even though we have gone off in all sorts of directions. Mike and Kristen never went far from the area we grew up, David joined the military and has been living in Oklahoma, and I guess I started going and never looked back. Friends with different lives and directions but deep histories.

We shot pool downtown, drank beer, and made jokes and laughed all night. With them, there is no chit chat, no formalities needed we have known each other for so long. I like that so much, really knowing someone. Communicating without even having to say, knowing the character of a person through life changes, and of course being able to dish out and receive the most scathing jokes and insults in good fun and humor. Only amongst the three of us.

We played cutthroat all night. Mike, as usual ran the table. I beat him on the first game and the last though, and that's what counts I reckon. The light was low and the shutter speed long in the bar room gloom. The movement of my hand seared the neon lights onto the picture like a piece of modern abstract art. Bright fluorescent spotlights like an alien ship come down to land, neon scribbles jerking and electric, and the pool balls floating into space. And we only drank a few pitchers between us, seriously!