Biography of the Gangster Uncle

  Your Montreal Pool Room combat lesson: “You have a good spear if you have a straight cue. Here, grab it palms down, thumbs up and learn to twist and thrust it in a single motion. Boom! You’ve pierced a lung or bruised an organ.” Days before my mother died, she said you buried a jar of cash behind the plough and emptied a locker full of weapons in the pond before mechanic cancer let your bookend brother and sister cremate your remains in a canvas casket. “Word gets round, they’ll wonder where the cash is,” a friend warned me, “Don’t write about it.” Bring it. I have a cue and jar of ashes.