by Walter Tevis
The pool tables were beautiful and new. A few well-dressed young men with leather cue cases were standing near them; one was rubbing the palm of his hand over the clean green as Eddie came in, but no one was shooting. A few dozen people sat in the bleachers. A man at the speakers’ table was adjusting a microphone with one hand while holding a drink in the other. There would be no games today, but a ceremony was scheduled for nine-thirty; some players had not arrived yet and it wouldn’t be necessary to attend it. It was seven-thirty now.
Eddie stood between two sets of bleachers for several minutes, looking at the tables. Several younger men entered the room, pushing eagerly past him. He looked to his right; beyond the bleachers was a sign reading PRACTICE AREA: PLAYERS ONLY; and just as he looked, seeing the corner of a pool table and a patch of its new green, he heard the sound of a rack of balls being broken. Someone was beginning to practice. For a moment, in his stomach, he felt ill. He turned and left the room.
***
He ignored the telephone and switched on the big TV set. He had told Arabella he would call when he got there, but he did not want to call anyone. It was dark outside the window now, except for the neon on the Sahara. He should go eat supper, attend the opening ceremonies and then practice, but he did not want to do any of those things. He did not want to shoot pool or watch it being shot. He did not want to hear the names of the other players or hear about their trophies and titles and championships, hear the names of the referees, the expressions of gratitude to the pool-table manufacturer who had supplied the equipment, the officials who would keep score, the man who was directing the tournament and his assistants. But most importantly—dismayingly—he did not want to take his Balabushka and shoot pool with it.
A cop show had appeared on the TV screen, with pale blue cars screeching around corners in San Francisco and then roaring downhill in low, bouncing undulations toward the Bay Bridge. The sound on the set was low—barely above a whisper. Eddie picked up the phone, dialed Room Service and ordered a medium-rare hamburger with two Manhattans. He lay back in bed watching the screen. There was the bay from closer now. There was Alcatraz, pale in the distance, shimmering and insubstantial.
One problem with Babes Cooley was he reminded Eddie of Arabella’s dead lover. So sure of himself. So young.
Halfway through the second Manhattan, he fell asleep. He awoke with a sore throat at six-thirty, with pale light in the sky outside the still-open draperies. The air conditioner had been set high and he had not gotten under the covers; he still lay on the burnt-orange bedspread with his Balabuska beside him. A teacherly woman on TV was lecturing in Spanish. He felt stiff. He was catching cold.
For a moment he felt like getting under the covers with his clothes still on and going back to sleep. He was drugged already by sleep, had probably slept for ten hours, but he could sleep more. It was too early in the morning to be up. He had done this kind of thing before, on weekends when married to Martha—sometimes sleeping for sixteen hours at a stretch and then taking the rest of the day to wake up on coffee and cigarettes.
He shook his head sharply at the memory of that, and sat up. It was visibly brighter outside. He took off his wrinkled shirt, walked to the bathroom and began to shave, soaking his face awake with hot water. It was time to get on with it. Maybe he could get into the ballroom and practice.
***
But the ballroom was closed and locked. The casino certainly wasn’t. Although the action was light at seven in the morning, it was still action. Five weary crapshooters were huddled around one of the tables; there were a half-dozen blackjack games going; and a crowd circulated among the slot machines—most of them women, most of them motherly. Eddie pushed past them, found the coffee shop and had breakfast. After that he explored the main floor of the hotel, which was like a city in itself. He found a long mirrored arcade of shops; some were just opening up. Expensive clothes were displayed in windows: bathing suits from France, tweed jackets from Italy. One shop sold Krön chocolates; another, Cartier watches. He kept walking, carrying his cue case. At the end of the arcade, a sign over a doorway read HEALTH CLUB AND POOL. He walked in.
The pool was huge and free-form, under a skylight. It was surrounded partly by gray boulders, to give the effect of a grotto—in fact, there was a real grotto entrance across the water from him, with the boulders making an opening like a cave, where you could swim in. There were a few small palm trees. Off to one side was a tiled whirlpool bath big enough for a dozen people at once. Behind this stood a row of trees; through them was a glimpse of a glass door and a tiny bit of sky. It was the only natural light he had seen from the main floor of the hotel. On the other side of the pool was a restaurant, closed now, with pink cloths on its poolside tables. From speakers somewhere came classical music.
To the left of the restaurant was the entrance to the health club; through the glass door he could see a woman at a desk. He walked along the concrete margin of the empty pool and pushed open the door.
There was a gym—also empty—a few yards past the desk. In it sat a half-dozen new Nautilus machines, their chromium glistening, their leather seats and benches polished, deep red. Beyond the gym a sign read MEN’S LOCKER ROOM AND SAUNA.
He turned and looked at the woman. “Can I get trunks?”
She smiled like a stewardess. “Sure.”
He showed her his room key and she handed him a pair of disposable shorts with the same houndstooth pattern he and Arabella wore at the Holiday Inn the day they had decided to go into business. There was a pile of big yellow towels on the counter. He took two, headed back to the locker room and changed. The supporter in the trunks was no good. He left his Jockey shorts on under them, stowed his clothes, padded out to the concrete, took a deep breath and dove into the pool. There was still no one else there. He began doing laps, swimming in long, powerful strokes.
After twenty minutes of that he dried off and worked his way slowly through the Nautilus machines, using the same weights he used at the gym back in Lexington: the hip and back machine, the leg curl, the leg extender, the triceps and biceps, the chest and shoulder. They were better machines than he had ever used before, just as the pool was the best indoor pool he had ever seen. Their gears worked quietly; the weights moved smoothly and did not clank. He kept at each machine until he had exhausted the muscle group, sweating profusely. The music from the speakers stopped and a cultivated voice announced the Overture to The Marriage of Figaro, and Mozart music began. Eddie pumped the weights up and down, wearing his wet bathing suit, sweating. Only on the overhead press did he cut back on the drag, reducing it by twenty pounds from what he was accustomed to. He did not want to overwork his shoulders; they had to be smooth for shooting nine-ball.
***
The tournament would start at one, but the ballroom opened at ten. At a quarter till, Eddie was in his room exchanging his wet shorts for dry ones; he was at the ballroom door when it opened. He went to one of the practice tables, put the fifteen colored balls out on the green, screwed his cue stick together and began to shoot. His stroke was crisp and sharp, his eyesight clear. His body—clean, exercised and purged of its long sleep—felt tireless. He ran the rack, and then another. Some young men began a practice game on the other of the two tables behind the bleachers; he ignored them, clipping balls into pockets.
***
“…one of the all-time greats, Fast Eddie Felson!” the announcer said with forced enthusiasm. There was scattered applause. Someone whistled through his teeth.
This was the low bracket of the tournament, and Eddie was matched with a jeweler from Alameda who looked deadly earnest but could barely make three or four balls in succession. He wore steel-rimmed glasses, had a potbelly, and seemed never to have considered winning. Eddie beat him handily but without doing anything especially well. He needed more practice.
***
He hesitated several times before picking up the telephone and quickly punching out the Kentucky number. When she came on, the lack
of tension in her voice surprised him; he was surprised again by the ease in his own. Maybe the distance in miles was working for them. He asked if there had been any word from the police.
“They say they’re looking,” she said. “But I don’t know what they can prove. If they catch him.”
“I don’t want to think about it.” He reached across the bed for a cigarette. “I won my first round.”
“That’s good news. How many do you have to win to be in the money?”
“If I beat the next man it’ll pay back the entry fee. Fifteen hundred dollars.” He hesitated a moment and then said, “I’ve got to get back down there and practice.” He could not think of anything else to say.
“Sure,” she said, too quickly. “Give me a call in a day or so and let me know how you’re doing.”
***
When he came into the ballroom, the second round had started. Babes Cooley was playing on Number One, and most of the crowd in the room filled the bleachers near that table. Eddie got as close as he could and watched for a moment, standing on the back row and seeing as well as he could over the heads in front of him. Babes was running a rack, concentrating quietly on his position. When he broke the balls the power in his lithe body was phenomenal; the rack of nine exploded like a meteor, like a firework, like a heavy atom split to fragments by a neutron. Babes waited for the remaining balls to stop moving, chalked up, bent down, stroked, shot them in.
Eddie turned, climbed down the back of the bleachers. He found a practice table. He put the fifteen balls on it and began shooting them in.
After a half hour, he looked up to see Boomer watching him.
Boomer was no longer dressed in workman’s clothes; he had on a bright yellow shirt and tight designer jeans. He was freshly shaved.
“Fast Eddie,” Boomer said, “don’t shoot the fifteen balls. Shoot nine-ball.”
Eddie stood up from the table and looked at him.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Boomer said, “but it’s no good to shoot straights when you’re going to be playing nine-ball. Different games.”
“I know they’re different.”
“You stroke different, too. You don’t coddle the balls in nine-ball. You got to be firm with ’em.”
“I know that, Boomer,” Eddie said.
“Then get your head out of straight pool. Straight pool’s a dying game. I shouldn’t be telling you this. You want to be a gentleman straight-pool player, go right ahead.”
Boomer walked off to the other practice table, just left empty by another player. He racked the balls into the diamond and then took his cue from its case. “And when you break, forget your dignity,” Boomer said. “Don’t protect that Balabushka. Smash the fuckers.” He tightened his cue stick with a final twist. “Beats me why I tell people things like that.” He drew back and smashed the rack open.
Boomer was right. He had been protecting his cue stick while hardly being aware of it. He put away the six high-numbered balls and racked the other nine. Then he set the cue ball down on the line, gripped his Balabuska tightly at the butt, holding it farther back than he usually did, hesitated a second and let go. The balls spread wide. Two of them fell in. It was a good break, better than any he had made in New London. He could feel the power of it in his right shoulder as he swung.
When he was racking again he heard applause from the playing area and then the amplified announcer’s voice: “Mr. Cooley wins the match by a score of ten-three.” Eddie gritted his teeth and slammed into the rack. The balls flew apart. The nine rolled across the table and stopped just short of the corner pocket.
***
Something had gone wrong with the air conditioning in the ballroom. When Eddie left the practice table behind the bleachers and came around to the playing area, a heavy layer of cigarette smoke hung below the ceiling; the spotlights pierced it like sunshine through clouds. It was evening of the tournament’s first day. The bleachers were at last filling up. Cocktail waitresses circulated, taking orders for drinks. Eddie pushed through the people standing between the bleachers and looked over the playing area.
Above each of the five tables hung a yard-long metal lamp shade with a red Budweiser logo in the center and card holders on each side. A white-sleeved man stood on a stool and changed the cards at the middle table while another brushed the cloth with a heavy brush, cleaning off the chalk marks and talcum powder. The man on the stool put up a card that said MAKEPIECE, and then on the other side, FELSON. Eddie walked up and waited, holding his cue.
A moment later a tall black man in an impeccable brown suit walked up. He held out a huge hand to Eddie and Eddie took it. “I’m Makepiece.”
“Felson.”
“Fast Eddie?”
“That’s right.”
The referee put the stool away, slipped on his tuxedo jacket and straightened his tie. He put two white cue balls on the table and looked at Eddie and the black man. “We’re ready to lag.”
From loudspeakers came the announcer’s voice: “On table three, from Orange, New Jersey, runner-up in the Eastern States Nine-Ball Championship of 1983, Mr. Brian Makepiece!” There was mild applause. “His opponent will be the star of the Mid-American television series along with the late great Minnesota Fats—from Lexington, Kentucky, Fast Eddie Felson!”
The applause was slight. Earl Borchard was playing on Table One, and most of the crowd’s attention was fixed on him. “Star of Mid-American television.” Was that the best they could do? But he had no titles, not even as a runner-up in some regional tournament. All he had was the name, and sometimes when he heard it like that on a loudspeaker, he did not picture himself as being that person—Fast Eddie.
He bent to lag, and overshot. Makepiece won the break, stood erect at the head of the table, bent, and in a kind of swooping motion pounded the cue ball into the rack. The seven ball fell in. He pursed his lips in a scholarly way, studying the lie, then bent and shot in the one. A cool, detached black man. Eddie felt no threat from him. The idea was to keep calm, shoot the balls remorselessly, play safe when necessary and grind him out. Makepiece ran them up to the eight and mussed. When the eight jarred back and forth in the corner pocket and then hung up, he scowled at it and looked away. Eddie did not need to be an expert at nine-ball to see the man was a loser. He chalked up carefully and pocketed the eight. Then he dropped the nine in the side. On the break for the next game, remembering Boomer, he slammed into them with all his strength and made the nine. Two-zero. For the first time in nine-ball, he began to feel good, to see the multiple ways of winning a game not as a confusion but as an asset. He could make the nine on the break. He could make it after the break on a combination and, that failing, he could run the other eight balls from the table much as he might in straight pool and then pocket the nine. Looked at that way, the game was simple. He ignored the crowd that was ignoring him and bent to work. In an hour he had won by a score of ten games to two. His playing was not brilliant but solid. Makepiece lost his nerve during the fifth game, and the rest was mechanical.
The applause, when the referee announced the score, was better than before. Two down. One more win would put him in the money.
In the evening he played a kid on Number Two, in the corner to the left of the official’s table. The kid’s name was Parsons; he was some kind of boy wonder of seventeen. He had come in third in the World Open at straight pool, but this was his first nine-ball tournament. He was pretty good—far better than Makepiece—but not good enough. Eddie stayed ahead of him throughout, and the final score was ten-seven. A kid like this was no problem. Out of the hundred twenty-eight players maybe a dozen would be a problem.
He unscrewed his cue, got his case from under the table, slid the two cue pieces into it, fastened the lid. He looked up. The air conditioning must have been repaired; there was no more smoke below the ceiling. He felt tired. It was good to be in the money—a real start. Pushing his way through the crowd to leave, he was congratulated by several strangers
: “Way to go, Fast Eddie!” and “Good stroke!” As he left the ballroom he began to whistle.
It was ten o’clock and he had not eaten. That hardly mattered here, where time seemed without reference in the world and the casino never closed. He stopped at a near-empty blackjack table with a betting minimum of twenty-five dollars, bought four chips and hit a blackjack on his first hand. By the time he quit at midnight, he had won nine hundred. He tipped the dealer a chip and went to the hotel’s Polynesian restaurant for dinner, sat by an artificial waterfall that burbled between enormous ferns and ate sugary pork with chopsticks. He ignored the drinks that came in coconuts and ordered a half bottle of new Beaujolais with his meal, as Arabella would have done. Good old Arabella. With the money he had just won at blackjack he could bring her out here. He thought about that a moment as the waiter poured his wine and decided not to. Being alone was all right. He did not need help, or company, or sex. He needed to roll with the good feeling inside him, the feeling that came from winning money, and he needed to practice nine-ball.
At one o’clock he went back to the ballroom, found an empty table behind the bleachers, racked only nine, and practiced until the ballroom closed at three. His game, despite the wine and the deep fatigue he felt, was even better. He could see in glimpses the entire gestalt of the table, see the nine different balls as one patterned entity. He could run out a game as a unit. It was something he once had at straight pool and then forgot. It was mystical. Intuitive. The balls fell in for him as if charmed.
Later he lay between crisp sheets, listening to the nearly inaudible deep whirr of the air conditioning, seeing through open draperies the glow in the night sky from the huge neon sign of the Sahara. He had won three nine-ball matches in two days, had worked out each morning in the gym alone, had swum a dozen laps in the huge pool, eaten in the hotel restaurants, played blackjack in the hotel casino. His soul was easing into peace. The frenetic days working for Mayhew and then buying quilts and sculptures and wood carvings, then painting, wiring and cleaning the gallery were all past him, along with the confusions of middle age: sex, money and love. He belonged here, in this room. He belonged in the ballroom downstairs, in the casino, in the long mirrored hallways like a maze running by unworldly shops. He had not stepped outdoors and he did not plan to. This hotel was like an anthill or a starship, a dwelling offering everything in life that Eddie wanted. This week was like a religious retreat. Between these sheets at four in the morning, his shoulder faintly throbbing from the swing of his splended cue, he let his heart experience the fine old ecstasy of the gambler’s life: his dedicated life, lived at the edge of the world and partly in dream, where polished balls spun across a brilliant green, where his skill shone in a room beneath layers of smoke. He could see himself now as a monk, a sleepwalker in life. As a monk was drawn by God—or was in those moments in which he was permitted to be—Eddie was drawn by money. He played pool for money and he loved money deeply and truly—loved even the dark engraving on the splendid paper of fresh bills. He could love the game of pool and the equipment of the game, the wood and cloth, the phenolic resin of the glossy balls, the finish of his phallic cue stick, the sounds and colors of pool. But the thing he loved the most was money.