MY PARENTS WERE TEENAGERS WHEN I WAS BORN. Their courthouse marriage ended before I was 2. Dad got custody of me, and we lived in Humboldt Park until he died when he was 23. I was 7. I went to live with my mom in Berwyn.
Some days instead of taking me to grade school, my mom, like all normal moms, took me to bars for no other reason than it was a Tuesday. One day in 1985, when I was 11, I ordered our usual (two Manhattans) and sat down near a green table with balls on it lit from above by three cones of white light. One of the regulars asked me if I played. I hadn’t — I had never even seen a pool table before. He explained how to use the white ball, called
