by Walter Tevis
“I’ll take the break,” Boomer said.
Eddie looked at him, at his strange face with the look of crazy, mean intelligence; the veiled threat in his cool eyes; the small hands now holding his thin, delicate cue. “I won’t give you the break but I’ll bank the eight ball. If we play for five hundred a game.”
“I’ve heard of guys like you,” Boomer said.
“I bet you have, Boomer.”
Boomer stared at him a moment and then gave a small grin. “I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“Go ahead.”
He went to the pay phone at the end of the bar while Eddie got himself a cup of coffee. His shoulder had begun to ache, and now that Boomer was calling his backer or whatever, he felt the tightness in his stomach again. That was something else he had forgotten over the years: the goddamned fear.
***
The backer showed up surprisingly soon. He was a small man in a tight gray suit and dark necktie. The men leaning against one of the empty tables made room for him and he stood there, not leaning, and watched while Eddie racked up the balls and Boomer broke them. He made one on the break. It was going to be tough. For a moment Eddie felt like a fool giving such odds. Banking the eight could be ruinous. You couldn’t afford to miss against a player like Boomer and on tables like this. Boomer ran three of the stripes and then played safe. Eddie did not try anything fancy this time but played a safety back. It went back and forth like that for several shots, but then on a draw shot, Eddie did not pull the heavy cue ball back as far as he had meant to and he left Boomer a piece of the eleven. Boomer said nothing, but zeroed in and cut it into the side. He ran out. Eddie took five hundred out of his wallet. Boomer nodded over toward the man in the suit and said, “Just pay my friend.” Eddie walked over and handed the little man the bills. He took them silently, smoothed them out and began counting. Eddie walked back over to the table and racked the balls. Then he went to the bar and finished his coffee, watching the table as he drank. Boomer swung his bat of a cue into the break ball and spread the rack. A stripe and a solid dropped in. He began running the solids. Eddie walked back over to the table. His feet and his shoulder were hurting, and the coffee hadn’t really helped. What was he doing, saying he would bank the eight on this man’s own table, with his own crowd, here in some town in North Carolina whose name he had already forgotten? Haneyville. That was it—the first name on the list from Fats. “Some high rollers there,” Fats had said. Well, there one of them was, making balls like a machine. Plop, plop they went, into the big pockets of the little table. Plop. The last was the eight ball. Eddie got another five hundred and gave it to the dapper little man. He was now, after four hours of pool, three hundred dollars behind. And quite a few quarters. He put another quarter in, telling himself he had better bear down; when the balls came rolling through the chute he took them out and racked them, eight ball in the center, for Boomer.
And Boomer boomed them open, dropping three. He was getting hot now. Maybe he had been holding back before. Eddie watched him, for a moment feeling some of the helplessness he had felt against Fats in Miami and Cincinnati, with a tight, painful sensation in his stomach. Boomer was moving around the little table faster now, sliding balls into pockets quietly while the whole crowded barroom full of men in working clothes watched him, fascinated. The gray smoke above the cone of light over the table was nearly solid; men sipped their drinks silently; no one played the jukebox or talked. The sound of Boomer’s boot heels when he moved from shot to shot was like footsteps in a library. He made all the striped balls, shot the eight in the side, and Eddie paid the man in the suit.
“I may never find out if you can bank that eight ball,” Boomer said as Eddie was bent near him, getting the balls from the rack.
Eddie froze and stared at him a moment. “Let’s play for a thousand,” he said. He had twelve hundred dollars with him.
“You’re on,” Boomer said.
He finished racking them, surprised at his own steadiness. He had not planned to play for that much money. Boomer might run out without giving him a shot. Boomer had gone over to the nearby table and was whispering with his backer, whose face was impassive. Eddie looked at him and immediately knew he would miss soon.
Boomer stepped up to the table, drew back his cue and slammed into the rack of balls. They spread out, but nothing fell in. “Son of a bitch!” he said, this time meaning it.
The balls were wide, and the eight was an inch from the side pocket. After making the others, Eddie could bring the cue ball near it for a simple cross-side bank. First, he would have to cut the seven thin, slip it into the bottom corner, and let his cue ball roll the length of the table to sit down by the three. It wasn’t easy. He glanced up at Boomer, who was standing a few feet from the table.
“Don’t miss,” Boomer said.
Eddie stared at him a moment. “Boomer,” he said, “you’re scared of me.”
He bent down, stroked smoothly, and cut the seven ball in. The cue ball rolled up the table and sat down sweetly behind the three. He shot it in, and then the four ball and the two and the others, finally giving himself position for the bank on the eight ball. He stopped a second to chalk his cue and then bent, stroked, shot. The eight ball struck the cushion smartly, rolled across the table and fell into the pocket.
Boomer got the money from his backer, handed it to Eddie. This time Eddie did not take out his wallet. He folded the bills and pushed them down into his pants pocket while Boomer stood watching. “You’re not quitting, are you?” Eddie said pleasantly. He liked the way his voice sounded.
Boomer shook his head.
“Then rack the balls,” Eddie said.
***
He got her number from long-distance information and dialed from the phone by his bed. It was a little before one. He had woken up at noon, showered, and ordered coffee from room service.
“Pat told me you were living alone,” she said. Her voice did not sound friendly, but at least she was willing to talk.
“I sure am.”
“Where are you?”
“In the Holiday Inn in Haneyville, North Carolina.”
“What in god’s name are you doing in North Carolina?”
“Playing pool for money.”
“I thought you didn’t do that anymore.”
“Sometimes I even surprise myself.”
“Is that what you called to tell me?”
“I’ll be at Bluegrass Airport at six. If you’ll pick me up, I’ll take you to the Japanese place for dinner.”
“Eddie,” she said, “I don’t know….”
“I know,” he said, looking at the stack of over four thousand dollars he had won from Boomer. “Pick me up at the airport. We ought to be together.”
***
She was there waiting for him, looking terrific in a black wool sweater and blue jeans, her gray hair freshly washed and fluffy around her face, like a movie star on her day off. He was carrying his cue and nylon bag, and they didn’t kiss. She shook his hand, looking him over. Neither of them spoke. Finally she said, “We don’t know each other very well at all.”
“Like hell we don’t,” he said.
***
She hadn’t found herself a job yet and was getting tired of looking. She would have given up weeks before and settled for living on alimony if it weren’t that staying in the apartment was driving her crazy. They had a long quiet supper while she told him these things; afterward they went back to her apartment and, for the first time, made love. They were like old friends, old lovers. The week apart and the trip and the money had changed everything for him and they could both feel it. He knew what to do and so did she. They lay on her sofa bed afterward and talked. He would look for a while at the lights of downtown outside her windows, closed now against a September chill, and then turn back to her smooth white body beside him in the bed. They smoked his cigarettes and stubbed them out in a coffee saucer between them.
“You’re playing pool for money ag
ain?” she said, breaking the silence.
“It’s been a long time.”
“You mean gambling, don’t you? Not just giving an exhibition.”
“That’s right. Gambling.”
“In England people spoke of billiards sharks. You call them hustlers, I think. Is that what you are?”
He looked at her a moment. “I’m not a pool shark.”
“I’m sorry. What do I call you—a hustler?”
“Call me Eddie and hand me a cigarette.”
She frowned and gave him one. “Whatever you are, you aren’t a professor.”
He took the cigarette and lit it. “I fly to Albuquerque in a month to do an exhibition. Before that I’m going to Memphis to play eight-ball at a roadhouse called Thelma’s. How would you like to come along?”
“You want me to travel with you? Like a gun moll or something?”
“There you go again.”
“As the consort of a pool player.”
“Do you have anything better to do?”
She rolled over and kissed him on the neck. “No, I haven’t,” she said.
***
“You’d like it if I played tennis.”
“Or bridge?” Arabella, dressed only in pale blue panties, was pulling something big out of the closet. Another painting, apparently, wrapped in brown paper. She laid it flat in the center of the living room and, while Eddie watched from the bed, seated herself cross-legged on the rug and began to remove masking tape from the paper. “Or the French horn?”
“Something like that. Shooting pool sounds like shooting craps.”
“It does?” She got one end of the wrapping free and began slipping the framed picture out of it. Eddie leaned up on his elbow to see it better but could not make it out. Her small breasts as she bent over were wonderful, and so was the curved ridge of her backbone. “What happened to nightgowns?” he asked.
“It’s a warm apartment.” She began folding the paper neatly into a square, pressing the wrinkles out of it. He had already noticed the towels in the bathroom closet, folded and stacked as though displayed in an expensive store. Everything about her apartment was orderly. When she finished, she got up from the floor and carried the paper to the green oriental chest at the far wall and set it neatly in a drawer. From the drawer she took out a hammer and brought it over to the bed. “Here,” she said. “You can drive the nail.”
“Toss it on the bed. I’ll get it in a minute.”
“Come on, Eddie. I want to hang this picture.”
He reached over and got a cigarette. “Not without coffee.”
“I’ll make some instant.”
“Instant coffee leads to divorce.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “I’ll use the Vesuviana. It would be simpler if you’d take tea in the morning.”
“Arabella,” Eddie said, “it would be simpler if the world was flat.”
“I’ll make the coffee.” She tossed the hammer beside him on the bed and went to the stove. “Why should I want you to play tennis, Eddie?”
“It has class.”
She turned to him from the stove with the coffee can in her hand. “I hate that word. My grandmother used it all the time. It was working class or leisure class.”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re an aristocrat.”
“Come on, Eddie,” she said. “It’s my accent. You Americans are all alike when it comes to British accents.”
“I mean the way you look. The way your apartment looks, with the white floor and oil paintings.”
“It’s called taste, Eddie.”
“What does your taste say about hustling pool?”
“My taste doesn’t say a fucking thing about it.” She turned, carried the coffee can back to the stove and took its top off. She began spooning coffee into the basket of the little machine.
He hesitated a moment and then said, “I think Martha was ashamed of it.”
“Was Martha your wife?”
“Thoroughly.”
“That’s a funny thing to say.”
“I’m learning to talk like you.”
“You’re an Anglophile.”
“There’s a lot of that going around.”
She got the coffee machine back together and put it on the burner in front of the stove. “Well I’m not Martha. When I saw you playing pool with Roy I was thrilled.”
He looked at her back for a moment as she adjusted the flame. Then he stood up barefoot and took the hammer. “Where do you want to hang this?”
“I admire skill,” Arabella said, coming over to him, “and I respect people who live by their wits.” She handed him a brass picture-hanger. “Center the painting above the chest. The trees in it will look good over the green.”
He held up the framed canvas for a moment. Like the painting over the sofa, it was crude and bright, as though done by a skilled child. There were two figures and a horse standing under trees; everything was as simply drawn as in a child’s painting, but each leaf of the trees had been individually painted.
“It’s what some people call naive art,” Arabella said. “It was done by a woman without formal training.”
“It would make a good jigsaw puzzle. Sharp lines.”
“These two pictures are all I got from the divorce, if you don’t count the alimony. Harrison kept the furniture—even the sheets and towels.”
“Why did you get the paintings?”
“Because they’re mine. A friend bought me the other one and I bought this myself.”
“Harrison likes naive art?”
“He hates it. It was the friend who taught me about naive art. Contemporary folk art.”
“Okay.” He went over to the chest and held the painting up. “I’m pretty good with a hammer, too.”
“It’s what attracted me to you in the first place.”
***
On his fourth night in Arabella’s apartment he lay awake in bed next to her for over an hour. It was late, but there were still sounds of traffic from Main Street through the closed windows. He wore shorts in bed and she was naked, covered by the sheet and a silvery down comforter. She slept facing him, the sheet and comforter huddled under her left arm, which was bare and white with light freckles toward the shoulder. Even in sleep her face looked smart. What was he doing in bed with a woman like this? The lashes on her closed eyes were perfect, curling slightly upward above unblemished cheeks. Her small hand lay on his arm.
She was on the rebound from a genteel life and she liked him. She was interested in what he knew about running a small business, had asked him solid questions about it over dinner that evening, wanting to know how he had figured his operating expenses and what the problems were with taxes. She liked the idea of hustling pool; it excited her to be with a gambler. She liked his looks.
He liked her air of competence and ambition, the clarity of what she said, the authority her voice had on the telephone, the way she disdained makeup, did not talk down to him, slept naked, swore, and never wavered in matters of taste. When she made love she did it without the encumbrance of modesty or indirection, although her passion was restrained and her orgasms silent. But they did not know each other very well yet. He had his own restraints too and was afraid sometimes to let go, but he felt he could talk about that with her when the time came.
One thing that disturbed him was the newspaper in the desk drawer. Unpacking three days before while Arabella was out, he had checked the desk for an empty drawer, sliding out the bottom one first. A newspaper sat on top of a pile of newspapers. He took it out idly and saw that the paper under it was another copy. Below that were others—at least a dozen, all the same. There were two photographs on the front page; one was of Nancy Reagan and the other was of a smiling young man with light, curly hair. Above this a headline read: ART EXPERT KILLED IN CYCLE CRASH. The word art caught his attention; Arabella knew a lot about art. The article identified the man as Gregory Welles, assistant professor at the university and editor of the Journal of
Kentucky Arts and Crafts. Arabella wrote articles from time to time for the journal. He looked at the date at the top of the page; it was a little over a year old. Welles had swerved on a country road to avoid being hit, had gone over into the ditch, had died. With him at the time was Mrs. Harrison Frame, who escaped serious injury. Welles and Mrs. Frame had been visiting the shop of a craftsman in Estill County. Eddie had noticed two moon-shaped scars on Arabella’s knees; when he asked about them she said, “I was in a wreck,” and changed the subject.
Twelve copies of the same paper. He looked closely at the young man’s face. It was a plain, American face, but Eddie felt his stomach tighten as he looked at it. Of course she would have had other lovers. It shouldn’t bother him. What did he want—a forty-year-old virgin? And the man was dead. Still, he did not like it. He hated it. He hated the young man, the man Arabella had gone off with, riding country roads behind him on his motorcycle, the man she had been able to talk art with, had probably slept with as she was now sleeping with him. Eddie finished the article. Greg Welles had died at twenty-six.
***
Thelma’s parking lot was half full when they drove up at nine-thirty. He had wanted to get there before any serious games would start and was afraid he might be too late. Fats said this was the hottest place in the whole South. Eddie’s stomach was tight and his mouth dry. He was ready to play.
The bar was packed and noisy, with a Loretta Lynn recording from the jukebox—loud as it was—only barely discernible against the talking and shouting of the people jammed at the bar and filling the small tables. There were a half-dozen illuminated beer signs over the bar itself; a sequined globe hung from the center of the ceiling, with colored lights sparkling on it. There were no pool tables in sight. Arabella looked around as though she were at a circus, her eyes wide.
He spotted a doorway with a sign over it reading GAME ROOM, took her by the elbow and led her past the crowded tables. The dance floor was filled with couples in bright silky shirts and jeans, with young men wearing big mustaches, and long-haired women. Arabella seemed astonished by it all, and when he got her into the relative quiet of the other room, she said, “It’s just like the movies.”