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Best Australian Yarn: Five Years Abridged by George Yankovich

George YankovichBest Australian Yarn
Five Years Abridged
Camera IconFive Years Abridged Credit: The West Australian

Five years earlier he showed up and started playing. Five years earlier he took the cue from the rack and started potting balls one after other. That’s how it all started. In a small room, in a dim, velvety room where faces flickered. It started when she asked for a drink and he put down a fiver, insisting all the way it was a shout. No ifs or buts, just take the drink and sit down like a gentlewoman, and watch something wonderful happen.

Five years later, the bar had not really changed, except the people, and the food was slightly better, and the beer, perhaps, a little bit colder, or else the weather had become hotter, and he was still playing pool, and still looked very young, but not very happy, which, he decided, was perfectly alright. It was okay not to be happy all the time, not to be jumping with joy and raising hosannahs upon high, and better yet to learn to live without ideals, for that’s when you learn that the absence of pain alone is something to be grateful for. He potted the eight-ball in the corner closest to the jukebox and went phooey as the coins jangled in his pockets.

Five years earlier, he did something extraordinary at this table, as a certain woman watched from a high bar, peering over the brim of her iced tea. It was the final leg of a knockout tournament and he decided to do something a little special, because winning by itself had lost much of its lustre. He closed his eyes, smiled mischievously, and followed through with the cue. He couldn’t remember whether the jeers and hollers and idle claps sounded first or the sound of the eight-ball rattling in the pocket. Then he bought drinks for the whole bar and made sure that lovely, lovely woman could drink as much as she wanted.

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