"Pool Sharks" by Gerard Brennan (BADASS HORROR)
I'm Guessing that Attila the Hun Wasn't a Manchester United Fan
This story perfectly sets the book's tone. It's violent and nasty with a pervasive sense of dread. There's no pity, no grace, only death and booze. The narrator is in a bar in Wexford, playing pool and losing badly. Then he starts winning. That's when things go bad. Very bad.
Brennan uses the first person to obfuscate and reveal the narrator. This would be a standard “man in peril” story, except the narrator is just as evil as the other characters. Early in the story, the narrator tells us that he wants to smash a man in the fact with the thick end of his pool cue. It's a throwaway line. Maybe he's speaking hyperbole. He's losing. He's frustrated. He's fantasizing.
He's not fantasizing.
This bastard is more than capable of destroying someone's face or shattering a tibula. As readers, we are only catching a glimpse of the protagonist. He drinks too much whiskey; he is a mean drunk. He has no problem shooting people in the face; even with a broken finger. Most horror tends to the work within the Gothic tradition. This story is pure Noir. The characters are bastards. Fear guides every interaction.
Brennan makes Noir look effortless. This is harder than it seems. The characters are nasty. Events thrive on stupidity. The ending is never pleasant. Great Noir is still in competition with Jim Thompson and James M. Cain. Bad Noir is edgelord garbage; Garth Ennis at his worst. Brennan writes great Noir. His other works include Disorder, a comedy set against recreational riots, and Fireproof, a novel about Mike Rocks, released from Hell to spread Satanism in Belfast.
This story follows a three act structure. Three act structures are not necessary but they are popular. Ever since Marx theorized that revolution follows a thesis (Neo is the Chosen One), antithesis (the Matrix made Neo to maintain control), synthesis (Neo makes a deal with the Matrix), fiction has tended to work within that framework. Sadly revolutions (Marxist or otherwise) never follow it.
Act I: So I'm in a bar in Wexford
Our hero is in Wexford playing pool and drinking Jameson's. His throat burns. He's losing pool. He's losing badly, but he's still playing. Every time he loses, he says “double or nothing” and he's losing more. He claims that he's terrible at the game. Ronaan, his opponent, is cleaning the table. Ronan is a “clumsy slope shouldered youth” until he gets to the table. Ronan cleans up and as the narrator imagines bashing Ronan's head in, Ronan buys him a drink.
Ronan even knows that he drinks Jameson's. They talk about football, cars, women and the political state of Northern Ireland.
Act II: Winning
“Fancy a quick friendly?” asks Ronan.
With a drink in him, the northerner starts winning. He starts winning against everyone. Who is the pool shark in this story? What do we know about the narrator? Who is he talking to? Was he lying when he said that he wasn't any good? Suddenly he's beating everyone. No one in the bar can win against him. He starts playing and when he's taken enough money from the suckers, he buys them all a round. When Ronan was buying him drinks with his winnings, he found it strange, but now that he's got everyone's money, he's happy to buy them drinks.
The bar locks up. The patrons stay in the tradition of the “Irish Lock In,” only most of them are sneaking out the fire exits. The protagonist gets paranoid. He can't even piss at the urinal for fear of getting whacked in the head. The whiskey is making him scared and reckless, so reckless that he goes to beat up Ronan’s brother.
Act III: Torture
This is the best part. The sonofabitch wakes up tied to a pool table. Ronan is beating him. He attacked Ronan's brother, Jimmy, with a pool cue. They all take turns beating him. Then they untie him and offer him a chance to play pool for his life. If he loses, they kill him. They also break his finger just to make sure he's not going to win. Our hero is a violent scumbag, but they are sadistic bastards.
They don't even serve him his favorite whiskey. They give him Black Bush instead.
He's fucked.
The ending might feel a bit deus ex machina. They let him get more whiskey from the bar. He finds a shotgun. He blows off Jimmy's head. Ronan goes after him. He shoots Ronan's cousin. Then the bartender comes out of nowhere and bashes Ronan's head in.
Yay! Happy ending!
Happy enough. The dude's finger is broken and he's probably got internal bleeding. Also the bartender is traumatized. Apparently Ronan and his cousin and brother have been luring strangers to their after hours torture and death game for years. Their previous victims probably didn't smash them with a pool cue before passing out.
As our hero walks into the sunrise, his one regret is not stealing a whiskey bottle.
Maybe I wasn't being hyperbolic when I said that these stories slap you in the face, kick you in the teeth and burn cigarette holes in your couch.
Last note: When Michael asked me if I was interested in publishing this anthology, I asked for the best stories he had collected thus far. He sent me three stories. This was the first one I read. As soon as I was finished, I sent him an enthusiastic yes. Brennan definitely deserves all the writing success.
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