Pittsburgh, early 1990s
Went to high school with a kid who was a year ahead of me but in one of my English classes. He missed school a lot or used school as a place to catch up on sleep. The reason, we later found out, he was skipping and sleeping because he was out playing pool every night. "Okay," I thought. "He goes out and plays with friends and stuff like that."
Fast forward a few months and I had started getting an interest in playing the game. Breaker's had handicapped 9-ball tournaments on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights with a $10 entry fee. I would go on Friday nights since it didn't interfere with school. I show up one night and the kid who used to sleep next to me in Mrs. Greene's journalism class is there.
It was Jerry Slivka.
