Mage Catalyst (13 page)

“Hey! That’s my girl you’re mauling there, buddy!” Tony’s voice called out from across the path.
I smiled back with genuine mirth – trust Tony to lighten up a tense moment.
“I’m done with him now,” Sarah loudly declared, playfully pushing me away. “You can have him if you want him!”
I laughed and she grabbed my arm.

“Tina’s my friend,” she said solemnly. “And she’s never had a boyfriend before. She really likes you.” She stared in my eyes. “Don’t hurt her, okay?”
“I don’t plan to,” I squeaked, and coughed, looking at my feet.
“Do you actually like her?” Sarah pressed.
There was a pause and we locked eyes.

“Let’s go back,” I said.
We walked back to the group silently.

There is a theory that time is relative. It was quite a popular theory in its day and it is indeed true. Anyone who has experienced the joy of an afternoon maths class will be able to testify to this.
Time plays havoc on the mind, making a forty-minute math class seem like it has lasted for three weeks. Seconds drag into hours as you watch someone scrawl semi-legible markings onto a white board. Minutes turn into weeks as you struggle keep your head aloft with a look of semi-intelligent concentration plastered onto your face. All the while your eyes keep flicking across to a clock whose hands never seem to move but made angry ticking noises nonetheless.
The ticking of the hands on the clock reverberated across the room in relative loudness defying the actual noise. Each ‘tick’ was followed several seconds later by the inevitable ‘tock’. The room quickly became a cacophony of ‘ticks’ meeting ‘tocks’ as soundwaves met bouncing from wall to wall. After a half hour of this, which seemed like a week and a half, my brain had shut down and my mental processing capabilities had slowed to the speed of a bowl of pudding. When the bell finally rang I didn’t react immediately as I mistook it for a particularly loud ‘tock’.
I knew with experience that it would take at least twenty minutes to wake up again after the class.
“Do you want to go to the pub tonight?” Tony called out as I turned into the locker bay.

He had already packed away his books and was waiting for me, in the five minutes it took me to get to the locker bay.
“It’s Thursday,” I replied in way of disagreement.
“What? Are you afraid you’ll miss your beauty sleep?” Tony drawled back, punching me in the arm. “Besides, tomorrow is a public holiday!”
“Well, I am feeling pretty ugly today,” I quipped, mockingly flouncing my hair and pretending to preen myself.
“You’re lucky,” he replied, deadpan.
“Oh why?”
“You don’t have to look at you,” Tony replied dryly.
“Fair enough, see you at the pub.” I laughed and punched him in the shoulder.
The pub in question wasn’t too far away from either of our houses. It was the local for Tony’s older brother, Greg, who was a bit of a boozer, but I’d never been there myself. I’d need to go home first to get changed.
Tony was already at the pub when I arrived. He was chatting with Greg by the bar. There were several bored looking barstaff serving drinks and a stereotypical looking barman lurking behind the bar.
“Devon,” Greg greeted as I approached. “Does your mother know you’re here?”
Greg was a good three or four years older than us and had picked on us both quite unmercifully when we were younger. Now that we could hold our own and were getting of a similar size and strength, the teasing had degenerated into taunting and childish insults. This isn’t to say that Tony and I didn’t like spending time with him. He was often a good source of entertainment when we were growing up.
“Does your parole officer know where you are?” I retorted.
“Nice.” He grinned. “Get this man a beer, and put some lemonade in it, he’s only twelve!”
“Going to need to see some ID there, son.” The barman nodded at me.
I’m not sure if Greg’s comment had made him nervous or if he genuinely felt the need to card me. I produced my passport and passed it to him. He seemed a little amused that I was using a passport, but let it pass.
“I’ll assume the lemonade was a joke,” he commented gruffly as he passed over a glass.
“Kinda strange to see you two in here,” Greg commented as I took my first sip.
“Why?” Tony laughed back.
“Well, it’s kind of like you’re stealing my local,” he replied, grinning.
“No, it’s not stealing. We’re just borrowing, like those magazines of yours Tony borrowed when he was fifteen,” I insisted, smirking back.
“Yeah... The difference is… I didn’t want those back afterwards.” Greg chuckled.
“Ha ha, shut up, the both of you!” Tony chuckled, finishing his beer.
The bar was relatively quiet. It hadn’t quite gone six o’clock so most people hadn’t finished work. There was the occasional worker like Greg who worked just around the corner and the pub was a short walk on the way home, but the main evening rush hadn’t started yet.
There was a TV mounted on the wall broadcasting horseracing , but other than that it was quiet. In actual truth I was getting a little bored.
“Want to play some pool?” Tony suggested, gesturing towards the vacant tables.
“Sure.”
We moved to one of the pool tables and racked up. I’ve never been very good at pool. I was a strong proponent of the ‘whack them really hard and hope one of them accidently falls in the pocket’ technique. This tactic wasn’t the most effective other than allowing me to pull off some really fantastic shots once every blue moon. I maintained hope that one day it would miraculously turn me into a brilliant pool player. Tony on the other hand was a very good pool player. He had spent years honing his skills against his brother. We were playing winner stays on which basically resulted in the majority of the matches being Tony versus Greg. Greg had a long running joke that to lose without potting a ball would result in having to run around the pool table with your pants down around your ankles. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not but wasn’t prepared to risk it.
“Well kids, I think that’s it for me tonight,” Greg said after our third game. “I’ve got an early start in the morning.”
“You’re working on a public holiday?” asked Tony.
“Who said anything about working?”

“We’ll hang around for a bit longer, right?” I asked Tony. I wasn’t sure what the convention was.
Even though I was losing I was actually having fun. Maybe it was the mixture of booze and pool that had loosened me up but I was having fun for the first time in ages and wasn’t about to let it go.
“Sure, no worries.” Tony nodded back.
“Try not to wake me when you get home.” Greg waved a mocking finger in front of Tony’s face. “And if there’s a tie on the door…” He winked.
“It’ll mean he’s picked up a businessman on his way home,” I interjected.
“Yeah, right Devon,” Greg chuckled and we said goodbye.
I’m not sure how much we had drunk at this stage. I definitely wasn’t sober but I wasn’t having too much trouble walking and playing pool either. In fact if anything I was getting better. There is a theory that the drunker you get the better your pool playing skills get. There may be some grounds to this as my game had improved dramatically over the past hour. I was now at least giving Tony  some competition before he beat me. I’d much rather rack this up to alcohol because it couldn’t have possibly been attributed to the several hours of pool practice I’d just had. That was crazy talk. I was leaning forward over the table with my arms lined forward holding the pool cue like a rifle before me. This shot would determine the game. I gently tapped the white ball carefully towards my desired target and with the most gentle of “thunk” noises my ball gently tilted forward into the pocket. This also knocked one of Tony’s balls out of the way. It couldn’t have been more perfect if I’d planned it. There was no way in a hundred years I’d have normally been able to pull off a shot like that. The only reason now I was even attempting it was because I was snookered everywhere else. Tony stared at me with a quizzical eyebrow slightly raised and a contemplative expression on his face.
“Are you cheating?” he asked, tentatively wiggling his fingers about in a random pattern.
“What? How the hell do you cheat at pool?” I retorted, confused.
“Uh, you know,” he replied, waving his fingers around.
“Oh... umm. No,” I replied, inwardly cursing myself. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
That would have been fantastic. Every jibe Greg had ever directed at us would have been returned in one fell swoop. Let’s see him try to wiggle out of running around the table with his pants down around his ankles.
“Hmm – well, good then,” he replied. “Sorry I asked really.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I would have been if I’d thought of it.” I smiled back.

“… Right, so, too honest to lie, too stupid to cheat,” he continued dryly.
“That’s me.” I nodded as I potted the final ball, winning the game. This was probably the first win I’d had against Tony in years.
“Rack ‘em up,” he grunted.
I felt it was a little uncharitable of him to fail to comment on my uncommon and definitely comment worthy win. Tony didn’t feel the same way. I’m not sure if Tony had something to prove now or was merely trying to make up for lost ground but he absolutely creamed me next game. By the time I had potted my first ball he’d already racked up four. It came to no surprise to anyone when he potted the final ball and won the game.
“Maybe you should start cheating.” He grinned as his last ball slid into the pocket.
“I can if you want; wouldn’t exactly be sporting though now would it?” I said.
“Give me some competition though.” He laughed.
We were halfway through our next game, which of course I was losing, when a gruff voice interrupted us. Tony had just leaned forward to take his shot and was tentatively lining up the white ball with his intended victim.
“Are you two ladies done with this table yet?” the voice demanded.
We both turned to face the newcomer. He was a rough looking tradesman wearing paint covered overalls and sporting a three-day growth. He was leering at us with a beer in one hand and an intimidating smirk on his face.
He was probably in his mid-forties and looked just a little bit worse for the drink. He had that jowly cheeked and bulbous red nose look attributed to people who spend half their lives glued to bar stools.
“There are other tables,” Tony replied calmly, finishing his shot apparently unfazed by the interruption.
“I don’t want to use another table.” He snorted.
You could tell he thought he was being incredibly funny but the amusement never quite reached his eyes. They had the look of a predator swooping down on its prey. Behind him there was another tradesman who was a lot younger, probably the older man’s apprentice. He was about our age or perhaps just a little bit older. He had a stringy, lanky look to him and looked ill at ease in the bar room. He kind of reminded me of myself about two hours ago when I first entered the bar – before the drinks.
“Well, as you can see, this one’s taken,” I said firmly. “We’ll move on when we’re finished, game’s almost done.”
“No rush ladies, I enjoy a good pool game,” he grunted, chuckling to himself at his own humour as he parked himself on a stool overlooking the table.
“Though what you’re doing hardly qualifies,” he finished.
The delicate sound of pool balls clinking together and the satisfying sound as they fell into pocket became a steady rhythm to the rise and fall of the game. The background noise had seemingly disappeared as both Tony and I were more focused on the game. We tried to ignore the lewd and mocking chuckles from our unwelcome onlooker. He would cackle to himself when one of us missed a shot and snort in derision when we did drop a ball. This game seemed to take much longer than the rest of our games.
I was about ready to call it a night when our less-than-welcome observer abruptly got to his feet and grabbed a pool cue from the stand behind us.

“I’ll show you a little something about the game.”
The words “No thanks” were on the tip of my lips when Tony grunted “Sure”, deciding the matter for me. He popped in a couple of coins into the table causing the balls to drop into the catchment. Well there was nothing for it – we were committed now.
I think Tony had reached the point where he’d had enough of snide backhanded comments and wanted the opportunity to take this lout down a peg. I wasn’t sure I was up for this, but after his rude interjections I was kind of looking forward to seeing Tony take him down too. I probably wasn’t going to be able to contribute much towards this goal, but it would be nice to watch nonetheless.
“I’ll break,” the lout announced and moved to the far end of the table as Tony set up the table.
As he broke he grunted slightly, as if the exertion of playing pool was almost too much. It was a good break though, he didn’t pot anything but it was a good, solid break nonetheless.
Tony took his turn. We had already determined between us that he would go first and quickly potted several balls. I was watching our opponent and his glittering eyes smirked as he watched the play unfold. His face never showed the amusement that twinkled in the light behind his eyes.
His apprentice upon order took the cue next and dutifully potted one ball and narrowly missed a second. He did set it up for an easy pot next round though, and then it was my turn.
I had a choice here. I could take the easy shot – the red ball into the close pocket, or the difficult one, which would put us in a better position for later. I decided the former. Sink the balls available – after all with my limited skills it was probably going to be better to assist in a small way rather than none. A small chuckle escaped our opponent as my white ball gently clinked off my intended target and rolled to a halt, both balls mere inches from the pocket.
“Laugh away,” I grumbled with somewhat poor grace.
“This merely means you’re snookered now,” Tony interjected with some degree of satisfaction.
This outcome was better than my potting a ball, as Tony would make far better use of the two shots he would obtain when my opponent messed up his turn.
“Shows what you know,” the guy grunted.
I’m still not quite sure how he did it but he managed to reflect the white ball off two surfaces to gently knock against one of his balls, grinning mockingly at me he tilted his cue in my direction.
“Nice,” I grudgingly said.
As much as I didn’t like the guy, that was a sweet shot.
“Won’t make much difference though.” Tony smiled and with casual and long honed skill sent another two balls into the depths.
Surprisingly enough, even this didn’t seem to faze him. I’ve always prided myself on being a good judge of character and something was definitely wrong here. For someone who was three balls down in a game he was awfully smug.
His apprentice didn’t fare much better than me. He obviously didn’t have much more skill than I did. That is to say we both had the ability to move balls around the table with reliable frequency to not sink anything. I also had a nagging suspicion that he wasn’t enjoying himself too much either.
After my next shot it had become more obvious that the game was actually only between two players and that didn’t include the apprentice and me.
“Want to make this a little more interesting?” the guy grunted as he stepped up for his next shot, sloshing his beer against the table as he clonked it down.
“What did you have in mind?” Tony smiled back. I’d seen that look in his eyes before and this didn’t bode well.
“Say ten dollars?”