After drunkenly dipping the tip of your cue stick into a stranger's beer, you somehow sidestep a fistfight. For a moment, your luck looks good. But there's still this last shot, and it's a tricky one. The eight ball is trapped against the cushion between the three and six. You chalk up. You take your shot. You scratch. You lose. You pay out another $20. Man, it's time for more tequila. The clock says 5 p.m., and this is happy hour at your favorite pool hall. There's grit and smoke and tough old hustlers working their evening scheme. Behind the black bar, lurid red neon spells it out in a cursive scrawl: "Sharp" to the left, "Shooters" to the right. Suddenly, some boozer kicks the jukebox and Merle Haggard begins singing: "Hell, we'll wake up the roosters if we drink them real slow/Well, let's have a double and a six-pack to go." Those words make you feel like Minnesota Fats. You order a $8.10 pack of Marlboros and another round of cheap booze. A table usually costs $6.50 a person per hour, but two happy-hour drinks get you free games till 8. This reposado is your fourth. It's time to play again.