This is a fictional work that I began creating several years ago and have recently decided to make an attempt to pick up where I left off.
The work is semi-autobiographical; however, I have taken some liberties and embelished some of the stories in order to make them a bit more interesting.
This is a "Work in Progress" and I will be adding to it as I get around to working on it.
At the present time the story is called "THE KID"
Please enjoy and feel free to comment.
THE KID
I
PRESENT DAY
The old man sat at the corner of the bar nursing his cup of coffee and watching the ongoing match on the front table. The guys had been playing for hours and hours on end. They didn’t even seem to notice the old man when he came in about an hour ago. Not many people noticed him any more. He was just your average looking guy.
He was about 55 years old with a full head of salt and pepper hair. A handsome guy who you could tell had been a good looking guy when he was younger.
The old man never said much, just hung out and read the paper while drinking his coffee. He never seemed to want to play pool, even though he chose to hang out in the biggest action room in the south. He stayed to himself and always seemed to be deep in thought.
The old man always seemed to be a little sad. Although he rarely spoke to anyone, you could definitely sense that he would just rather be alone somewhere, but he just couldn’t stay away from this place.
II
The top floor of the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas was crowded with people scuffeling around outside of the large convention suite obviously set up for something special. You could feel the electricity in the air with the buzz of the people busily talking about the event going on inside. There were 2 lines of people excitedly waiting their turn to pay their 20 dollars to gain entrance to the main room where all of the excitement was obviously concentrated.
“That’s it folks, we’re full for the time being.” Shouted the short chubby guy in the grey suit, as he stuck his head out of the large double French doors that opened into the main arena. “All of the seats are taken for the simi-final matches. You can either remain in line so that you can go ahead and get your tickets for the final later on tonight, or maybe we will have some seats available if anyone leaves before the matches are over.”
There was an audible groan from the crowd who were clearly dejected by the development. Slowly the crowd at the back of the lines began to disperse and move toward the elevators that led back to the casino lobby on the first floor.
A quiet and obviously intensly interested crowd was standing around the entrance to one of the smaller suites down the hall, remaining unusually quiet while obviously trying to gain entrance to the room. The room was quiet yet crowded with people lining against the walls and gathered around the partially opened French doors trying to gain access to a better look at the action going on inside. The room was distinguished by a sign posted by the door stating that it was “Practice Room No. 1”.
Inside the room were four Gold Crown 4 ½’ by 9’ pool tables that had been set up for use by the professionals to practice before their scheduled matches under the lights of the ESPN cameras in the main room.
The tables were beautifully arranged on the bright casino style carpeting that always catches your eye whenever you walk into one of their convention suites. The carpeting was brightly colored with random swirls and turns and seemed to fit some pattern, yet you could never figure it out. There were bright greens, reds and blues in the carpeting which were obviously intended to implant some post-hypnotic notion in the mind of the casino patrons to stay awake and spend more money.
The carpeting was so loud that it took away from the focus and beauty of the green felted tables so neatly arranged in the center of the room. For this reason alone, the floor of the main room had been covered with a plain green room sized rug that had been temporarily rolled over the existing carpeting for the benefit of the ESPN cameras. This way the focus of the fans and people at home would be on the bright 860 Simonis cloth covering the finely crafted Diamond billiard tables.
Standing against the wall near the first table, the tall good looking young man in the kaki slacks and the maroon golf shirt with the emblem over the left shirt pocket designating “English Turn Golf and Country Club” smiled appreciatively as the tiny Phillipino sliced a difficult nine ball into the corner pocket for the winner of a hill-hill match for a thousand dollars.
His opponent, a big, dumb looking man with a thick country accent slammed his cue onto the table in obvious frustration, “You ain’t supposed to be able to beat me like that!” “Nobody’s supposed to give me the 6 out and the break!”
“Dude, you don’t get it do you?” said the phillipino. “I could give you the world and you still couldn’t win.” He stated this with just enough hint of bravado to entice the big guy to continue trying to make a game that he could win.
The tall guy in the maroon shirt quietly stated, “Go ahead and play him some more, I think you’ve got him right where you want him.”
“Stay the fuck out of this man. This ain’t none of your business!” the big man growled, his face so red that he looked like he was a couple of breaths away from a stroke.
The Phillipino knew who the guy in the maroon shirt was. As a matter of fact most of the professionals knew who he was. He had made his rounds playing quite a few of them and sent several of the top players home with empty pockets and a bad attitude. They didn’t know a whole lot about him, other than he played extremely well. No one knew quite how well because he was smart enough to make most of his games so that he could outrun them without really showing his true speed, although there were rumors of him running out back to back race to seven sets against Jose Parika for 5 grand a set. This was after battling for 6 hours at a thousand a set and staying pretty even. They said that he mysteriously caught a gear and fell into dead stroke whenever the stakes were raised.
He never played in the tour tournaments; however those in the know had little doubt that he could hold his own in any arena. Everyone called him “The Kid”, or “Billy the Kid”. You could tell by his slow drawl that he was from somewhere down south, probably New Orleans or Atlanta. The accent gave the impression that he wasn’t all that bright, although his track record when dealing with the best players in the world would show otherwise.
“Come on big guy, I’m just fucking with you.” Said the kid. “Hell, I might even play you some and give you the 6 out.” He said mockingly.
“Don’t let him play left handed!” Shouted Earl laughingly from the next table over. “Hell, I don’t know if I want to play even with him if he plays left handed.”
“Leave it to Earl, the dumb fuck,” Billy thought to himself. “Let’s face it Earl, you’re one of the best players that ever lived, but you ain’t no mental heavyweight.”
“Why you wanna knock his action man?” the phillipino spoke up from the players chair at the breaking end of the first table.
“Because I don’t like him, is that good enough?” shouted Earl threateningly.
“Hell, you don’t like anyone Earl. You probably don’t even like yourself.” Laughed Buddy. “Just be glad that you are playing me in the semis and not him.”
Buddy looked over toward the first table, “When you gonna start playing the tour kid, instead of just following us around trying to trap us in a game?”
“I kind of like being able to go places where people don’t know me.” Said Billy.
“Yea, so did Paul Newman in the hustler, and look what happened to him.” Buddy said under his breath. All of the pros knew the dangers of trying to make games in unknown pool rooms anonymously. Most of them felt that it was better to walk in and say, “Here I am, I’m a pro and I’ll play anyone that you’ve got.”
Some guys, like the kid, just couldn’t resist the excitement and rush that went along with the hustle.
II
FIVE YEARS EARLIER
THE ART OF THE HUSTLE
The kid walked into the room slowly, quietly, keeping to himself. He stayed along the outside wall trying unsuccessfully to blend into his surroundings. Seemingly trying to avoid being noticed. He looked from one side of the room to the other, looking unsure of himself as though he were afraid that someone would notice that he had no business there and throw him out.
He looked awfully young to be in an all night pool room at 4 in the morning. There’s a curfew in New Orleans for kids under 18. Most of the patrons in the Royal Cue wondered why a kid who was obviously no older than 16 or 17 wasn’t home in bed where he belonged.
He wasn’t a regular, which was obvious. He didn’t look like a local. He looked like he had been sleeping in a car for the past few days with his sloppy clothes and uncombed light brown hair.
“Cadillac Dave” and “Joe C” were playing One Pocket on the front table for a hundred a game. Cadillac was up four hundred after playing since seven in the afternoon. Dave was giving up Nine to Six and was outrunning the trap, but it was taking some time. He didn’t have his A game today. Had to have something to do with the fight he had with Trish before he left the house yesterday. “God damned women,” Said Dave. “What the fuck was she thinking when she hooked up with me?” “I’ve been playing pool for a living since I got laid off last year, and now she wants to tell me I need to start coming home every night! What the fuck does she think I’m supposed to do, go out every day and look for a construction job or something?” Laughingly looking at Joe while lining up a tough cross bank on the seven ball leaving himself one more ball for the winner. “Fuck that shit! I’m through taking shit off of some ass hole who can’t run three balls.”
Dave was a really good player. He had recently beaten Cliff Johnson out of two thousand getting Nine to Six, which made him kind of a local celebrity. Cliff was maybe the number one or two One-Pocket player in the country.
Cliff had come to town a couple of times during the past year and cleaned everyone out. He gave Eddie Black Nine to Seven and left with about Five Thousand of the local’s cash. Cliff was something to watch. He could outrun practically any spot if he was “on his game”, but he was bad about taking the worst of it when he wasn’t. That’s what happens when you’re known. The only way that you can get a game is by making a game that you aren’t supposed to win and then outrunning it.
“Hey, I’m keeping the bills paid,” said Dave. “I’ll never understand that bitch.”
“Don’t sweat it man, they’re all the same.” “You just gotta take their shit like all the rest of us.” Said Joe C.
“How the fuck would you know, you fat mother fucker? You ain’t had no pussy in ten years!” said Dave. “That’s about how long it’s been since you could find your dick, ain’t it?”
Eddie and a few of his buddies got a good laugh at the bar. “Looks like he got you on that one Joe.”
Joe lowered his head and went on about his business. “Hell, I’m gonna get out of here,” as Dave pocketed the winner with a two railed bank out of the far corner. Joe, usually very quiet, regretted saying anything. He was always getting fucked with about his weight and that really affected his confidence. That’s why he played pool.
Joe was a really good “league Player” who hung around the hustlers because it made him feel important. He had problems keeping a job because of his weight. They always found some other reason to get rid of him, but he knew what was going on. It was politically incorrect and probably even illegal to fire someone because they were overweight. He knew that they would never do that. It was always some bullshit like “reduction in work force”. He stayed stressed out all of the time because of it and the only therapy that seemed to work was gambling. Here lately, the higher the better. He could bet with the league players. He could always pick up two and five dollar action, but that didn’t do it for him anymore.
“Hey man, I’ll play some 20 dollar nine ball with you if you guys are finished” A voice from along the wall rang out.
Dave looked over at the tall, thin kid against the wall. “You don’t look like you could buy a hamburger.” Laughingly looking around the room, “Shouldn’t you be at home with your mama, sleeping in your nice warm bed or something?”
“I can pay, or I wouldn’t be wanting to play”, said the kid.
“Alright then, get up here kid”, said Dave. “I’ll take your lunch money.” drawing a few laughs from the bar.
They flipped a coin and Dave won the break. He broke the rack and made 2 balls. Three balls later, he hung the six up in the jaws of the corner pocket. The kid stepped up to the table, looking a little unsure of himself and fired the six into the pocket, leaving himself a long, straight in seven nine combination. He studied the shot for a few seconds and hit it with pocket speed. The nine rolled slowly toward the corner pocket and rattled in the jaws.
Dave got up off of his chair with a grin and walked confidently up to the table promptly shooting the seven nine combination.
The kid walked up to the table looking dejected, pulled a few bills out of his right front pocket and started counting them out onto the table. After a ten, a five and three ones, Dave snatched up the money and said, ”Go home kid, come back when you grow up and get some money if that’s all you have”
The kid reached into his right front pocket and retrieved a roll of hundred dollar bills, promptly throwing one onto the table, he said, “Give me some change and let’s play dude.”
Dave picked up the bill and gave the kid his change. “OK Kid, I’ll take your money. If you’re stupid enough to come down here with all that cash at 4 in the morning, I might as well take it before someone else does.”
Dave walked over to the bar while he waited for the kid to rack the balls, “Eddie, did you see how much cash that kid is carrying?” “Gotta be a couple of thousand in that roll!” Looking over at Eddie with his usual confident grin, “Let’s bust this little fucker and send him home to his moma.”
“Yea, I saw it, Pump up the bet and let me in for half.” Said Eddie.
“You got it my man!” said Dave. “Like taking candy from a baby.” Dave whispered to himself.
Walking back toward the table, Dave said, “Hey kid, let’s raise the bet! How bout 50?”
“Sure man, hit the balls, what you waitin for?”
Dave broke the balls and didn’t make anything. Six games and 300 later, Dave realized that he had been getting two or three shots a game, they just weren’t open where he could run out. He looked at the kid again, sizing him up. He didn’t look like much, just a kid of 16 or 17, but those eyes. There was something about those piercing blue eyes that belied the fact that he was just a kid. Those were the eyes of a seasoned veteran. It was obvious by now that this kid could play a little, but how well could he play. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” Thought Dave. “I know this kid can play, but hell, I can play too. This kid thinks he’s got a chump on the string.” “Hell, I’ve sent road players home busted before, and how good could this kid be at that age?” Dave said to himself. “But those eyes, I can’t get over those eyes.”
Eddie came over to the table and said, “Hey kid, I’ll take 50 on the side if you want.” Eddie was a tall, rough looking black guy; about 40 to 45 with a pock marked face and the look of a hard core criminal who might have spent most of his adult life in Angola State Penitentiary. “Come on kid, where’s your balls?”
“Sure dude, I’ll try a few that way.” Said the kid quietly.
Eddie figured the kid would rattle if he pumped the bet up. After all, how could this kid play with Dave? Dave was one of the better players in town and he had been beating some really good players lately and showing a lot of heart.
Two hours later, the kid walked over to his cue case and discretely unzipped the large pocket on the front. Inside, he switched on the power button to a walkie-talkie and started clicking the “send” button.
III
THE BODYGUARD
Big Mike woke from a sound sleep, startled by the shrill noise of the walkie-talkie. “Looks like I would get used to this after six months of it.” Big Mike said to himself. “I guess it’s time to make my entrance.”
Big Mike had come to terms with his decision to take the Kid on the road. He was his brother’s kid, actually. Mike’s brother Bobby never liked him. Mike was the proverbial problem child while growing up in Saint Louis. His own mother didn’t like him. Mike quit school in the ninth grade and spent the majority of his teen-aged years in the local pool room scuffling around for spending money until he was good enough to make any real money.
Mike was ten years younger than Bobby and always felt inferior due to his success. Bobby was a successful businessman in Saint Louis. He owned a successful sporting goods store and provided well for his family.
He lived in a 4 thousand square foot home in one of the more affluent neighborhoods on the south side of town.
Mike would visit while Bobby was at work. Mike and the kid were very close and mike felt responsible for him because Bobby always seemed to neglect him. The kid looked up to Mike and wanted to be just like him. He would walk around the house trying to walk, talk and look just like his Uncle Mike. The more that he would do it the more pissed off Bobby would be and the more he would rant and rave to Ann about “keeping that sorry bastard out of the house”.
Mike would show up as often as he could, spending most of his time showing the kid around Bobby’s Four and a half by Nine Gandy. He kept it in a 24 by 24-foot game room attached to the garage. Bobby rarely even went in the room even when he had any free time, which was extremely rare.
The kid had a knack for the game like you only read about in fiction novels. His stroke was a thing of beauty, like watching Fred Astair dancing across the stage. Even as a relative novice, Mike would sometimes sit back with his mouth open in awe. He was one of those kids that you hear about but rarely were privileged to see. He was great at anything that he ever did. He was the best player on his little league baseball team. He could draw like nothing you had ever seen. He could just look at something and sit down and put it on paper in such three dimensional quality that you would think that you were looking at a black and white photo. This kid could read on a second grade level before he was four years old.
With all of his apparent ‘god given talent’, there was one thing that stood out above all of the rest. Pool. His hand eye coordination was phenomenal. He had the grace of a dancer. His concentration level was top shelf. It was like watching Bobby Fisher playing a chess match with Boris Spasky. He listened to everything that Mike had to teach him and never forgot anything. His work ethic was something to watch. He would practice drills for hours on end. When others would have given up in frustration or sheer boredom, he would be smiling and asking for new things to practice.
Mike walked into the pool room confidently. He strolled up to within a few feet of the action and leaned against the next table folding his arms showing his apparent interest in what was going on. Everyone in the room looked at him with a veiled interest, noticing that he was out of place here. No one had seen him before; hell they would definitely remember a guy like that.
Mike was an intimidating figure to say the least. He stands six foot 4 and weighs around 255, the last time that he remembered passing a scale and curiously stepping up to see.
He looked like a battle weary fighter with plenty of hard miles behind him. Mike reminded you of Jerry Cooney, an old heavy weight fighter from the early eighties, with his dark wavy hair and wide nose that had apparently had the cartilage removed after being broken too many times.
The kid remained confident but friendly while taking advantage of every opportunity, seemingly knowing the moves better than the other players in the room. “Come on Dave, I know that I’m getting all of the rolls right now. I’ll give you the eight and we’ll play a race to 7 for a thousand.” Smiling at Dave, “I know you’re down about seven hundred of your money. We’ll play this one set and call that it. This way you can have a chance to get your money back plus 300.” Like you said, I need to get home to my mama.” The kid said laughing.
“Hold on a minute!” Eddie yelled jumping up off of the bar stool. “I’m down close to a thousand here!” You ain’t getting out of here without giving me a chance to get my money back!”
The big guy leaning against the table said, “I’ll tell you what buddy. I’ll bet that thousand with you on the side however they match up for this set.” He said confidently, “I’ll take this kid, he seems to know what he’s doing.” Mike pulled his wallet out and started counting out one hundred dollar bills.
Dave said, “Kid, I’ll take the seven and you can have the breaks. Then we got us a game.”
“Rack the balls then, what are you waiting for?” the kid said while walking around to the breaking end of the table.
Dave walked over to Eddie, “This kid’s been breaking like a little girl all night. He can’t win giving me the seven, even if I give up his weak assed break.” “Go ahead and take the side action.”
Eddie looked around the room and walked over to confer with Earl the bar tender. “What do you think Earl?”
“You guys got the best of it from what I’ve seen. This kid ain’t got the speed to give up the seven to Dave.” Earl said while pouring grapefruit juice over the shot of Old Granddad for the old black man sitting at the end of the bar.
Eddie strolled confidently back toward the action, “OK, you got it big guy. I got my thousand on Dave.”
The cue ball slammed into the rack with such force that the entire room went quiet while everyone looked over to see where the loud crack came from. The cue ball jumped up into the air and stopped dead in the middle of the table between the two side pockets. Two balls went in and the one ball stopped in the middle of the table leaving a very makeable cut into the right corner pocket. The kid moved around the table like an ice skater in the middle of a world class routine easily pocketing the rest of the balls.
The balls were racked again, “Crack!” the cue ball jumped up in the air and landed neatly within inches of where it had landed on the first break. This time three balls were pocketed on the break. Without breaking stride, the kid made the next two balls and lined up on a four nine combination. He fired the combination into the pocket cleanly.
Eddie walked up to Dave and said, “Look at that kid!” “He wasn’t playing like that earlier. Something is different.
“Crack!” The balls flew around the table wildly ending with two balls in the pocket and the cue ball right in the middle of the table again. The kid proceeded to pocket the rest of the balls.
Dave, leaning against the adjoining table next to Eddie. Looking confused about what was going on, he whispered just loud enough for Eddie to hear, “He’s playing left handed. He was playing right handed earlier.”
The kid ran the next two racks making the match five to nothing. After the next break, the cue ball ended up in the middle of the table with the seven ball between it and the object one ball. The kid could barely see the edge of the one with no chance of making it.
“Well, it looks like I’m probably going to get a shot finally.” Said Dave, who was so intimidated by now that he probably wouldn’t have been able to get out if he only had three balls to go and the first one was hanging in the pocket.
The kid hit the edge of the one and sent the cue ball three rails around the table stopping it right up against three balls on the other end of the table and leaving Dave in jail with no chance for parole. Dave walked around the table for a couple of minutes before exclaiming, “I don’t know where you came from, but when this shit is over, you’d better go your ass back there as quick as you can.”
Dave tried a tough three rail kick out of the corner and missed the object ball by a foot leaving the Kid “Ball in Hand”.
The Kid picked up the cue ball and gracefully ran the rest of the rack.
Dave and Eddie were leaning against the next table fuming as the kid broke the next rack with the sound of a crack of thunder. The nine ball neatly rolled out of the middle of the rack and into the right corner pocket.
The kid was breaking down his cue when Dave spoke up from the other side of the table, “So, what if we just don’t pay you?”
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.” Came a soft spoken gravely voice from the other side of the table. Mike stood up uncrossing his arms from his big chest causing his jacked to fall open. Eddie looked over at him to see the chrome plated Smith and Wesson nine-millimeter neatly tucked under his left arm in a brown shoulder holster.
Eddie elbowed Dave and said, “You’d better go ahead and pay him. After all, he beat your ass fair and square.” Eddie walked over to the big guy and handed over the thousand dollars that he had bet with him. He thought about pulling his own gun, he even thought about him and his boys trying to take the big guy when he went outside, but looking at his rugged face and hard eyes made him think twice. Without guns they would have no chance, that was obvious. Hell, even with guns, he wasn’t sure.
The kid went out the door first and Mike followed closely behind after surveying the room to make sure that there weren’t any of the bar patrons who might have wanted to make a name for themselves by trying to do something stupid. The kid had the Van started and in gear by the time that Mike jumped into the passenger seat. The Kid jumped the curb onto Dowman road and then turned right onto Chef Highway. Leaving nothing to chance, he had done his homework and knew exactly where to go when he left the pool room, just in case there might be trouble.
“How did we do this time kid?” Mike asked laughing nervously. “Man, feel that rush!” “Nothing in the world like living on the edge!”
“Well, I got 1700 from that guy Dave and a little over a thousand from that black dude, Eddie. You got another thousand from Eddie, I guess that makes about 3700. Not too bad for one night.” The kid said calmly.
“Kid, how do you stay so cool in these situations?” Mike asked. “My heart is still racing.” Mike thought for a few minutes while the kid steered the van up the on ramp to get onto interstate 10. “We gotta be careful now if we are gonna stay here in New Orleans for a while.” “This is a strange town. News travels fast.”
“Are you kidding dude? I’ve never been here before. I want to hand out for a few days.”
“Vegas can wait, hell, we don’t even have to be there for another two weeks.” The Kid said.
Mike looked over at the kid, “Yea, but we’ve got at least three more stops to make before we get there. Business before play, kid.”
IV
BIG MIKE AND THE KID
An unusual set of circumstances had put Big Mike and the Kid together on a permanent basis. Big Mike had come up with several reasons to take the kid on the road with him over the past year or so. Mike’s brother didn’t like Mike very much and barely trusted him at all. The only reason that he would let the Kid leave with him at all was to get him out of his hair.
Bobby was successful by most people’s standards. Successful in business, that is. He never had time for the kid. That’s what Bobby always called him, ‘the kid”. He was usually talking to the kids mother or someone else when he referred to him as The Kid. It was usually something like, “This Kid did this or This Kid did that, or come in here and get The Fucking Kid out of my hair!” The kid had a name. He used to worry about why his parents never called him by his name, Billy. Billy Ray Johnson to be exact. After a while it stopped mattering to him at all. He got used to the nickname after a while and the only time that he heard his real name was when he would run into kids that he knew from school. These instances were becoming more and more rare since he spent more and more time in the pool halls and less and less time around the mainstream kids.
It was always business first and chasing women second. The only time that he came home was to sleep, and that was only when he didn’t have some bimbo to sleep with somewhere else.
When Mike came up with a legitimate excuse why he wanted to take the kid somewhere with him, Bobby usually just said ok, because he knew that he would at least be out of his hair. By this time, the Kid’s mother had practically given up anyway. She wasn’t much help anyway. She woke up in the middle of the day looking for her first drink and spent the rest of the day looking for her medication or trying to scam some doctor into writing her another prescription.
Needless to say, there were rarely any problems with the kid leaving town with Mike.
Hell, this time they were gone for almost a week before anyone even noticed that they were gone. Mike had offhandedly asked Bobby if it would be alright for him to take the kid to Pensecola, Florida for a week with him to work on a storm clean-up detail. He said that he had a job already set up for the kid to sit in a construction trailer and answer the phone. "“Sure, get him the fuck out of here. I can’t get the little bastard to go to school, hell, he might as well be working or something.” Bobby stated while looking deeply into his tumbler of Crown Royal and water. “I’ll tell his mother, she won’t mind”
Mike wouldn’t have even known that they were missed if the kid hadn’t called one of his girl friends to check up on her. She had told him that his mother had been calling around asking all of his friends if they had seen him because she hadn’t heard from him in a week.
“Maybe you need to call your mother and let her know that you’re alright.” Mike said.
Billy said, “What the fuck for?” laughing out loud. “She will forget that she’s even looking for me by dark.” Let her get a few drinks under her belt.” The kid was looking at Mike with a grin on his face trying to gauge his reaction to what he had said.
“Kid, just give her a call and remind her that your dad was supposed to tell her where we were going.” With a serious gaze, Mike said, “All it would take is for her to file some kind of missing persons report, then I would end up sitting in jail while they tried to sort this shit out.”
“Yea, yea.” The kid said picking up the cell phone and dialing the number. “Not sure I even want to talk to the drunk bitch.”
V
THE BEGINNING
Billy walked down the street in front of the Ritz theatre. It was Saturday afternoon and there were lots of kids hanging out in front of the theatre either waiting to get in and see the next feature or just getting out of the last one. This part of town, this block in particular was a hang-out for most of the local teen-aged kids. Most of the kids were considerably older than the kid. Hell, he was only 12, almost 13. His birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks, like anyone would even notice.
Billy walked on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street trying not to be noticed. He didn’t fit in with the local kids who hung out late in the evening on Saturday night. They were all at least 3 or 4 years older than he was. Besides, he didn’t want to have to answer any questions about his appearance. It’s kind of tough to try to make new friends when you’re walking around with a freshly split lip and a big shiny black eye. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had gotten it in a fight with another kid, but it was kind of hard to explain why your dad came in drunk and decided to slap his 12 year old kid around like he was beating on a grown man.
Billy was torn between being depressed to the point where he wanted to just hide in an alley and cry, and being so mad that he wanted to destroy anything that got in his way.
“One day that bastard is going to wish that he never put his hands on me.” Billy said to himself. “God’s gonna deliver that drunk bastard into my hands, and I’m gonna laugh while I’m pissing on him.”
The kid fought back tears while looking up the street and seeing a crowd of people standing around outside a lighted business about a block up from the theatre on the same side of the street. “Gotta be something new, never seen that place before.” Billy said under his breath.
Crossing the street with his head down, avoiding the gaze of several girls standing on the corner obviously more concerned about how they looked than what they were saying, the kid slowly walked toward the lighted doorway. There was a brand new sign painted on the big store-front window that said “Slims”. An older man, kind of heavy with an eye patch over his left eye and a big friendly smile on his face was sitting on a makeshift bench next to the door seemingly holding court with a hand full of older boys who were gathered around him. They all seemed engrossed in the story that he was telling, each of them with their mouths slightly open and their eyes fixed on the mans face trying to make sure that they didn’t miss a single word of what he was saying.
The kid slowly walked past them and stopped at the large front window, cupping his hands over his eyes and peering inside. The room was long and narrow with 6 pool tables side by side from right in front of the window all the way to the snack counter about 100 feet toward the back of the room. In the back, past the counter was a double door that was closed, but tucked conveniently away from the area up front. You could tell that it went to somewhere important, It was obviously kept separated from the front area and you could tell that the kids hanging around the front section weren’t allowed back there.
There were two older boys playing pool on the front table, both seemingly concentrating very hard on what they were doing, as though there was more importance associated with the game at hand than bragging rights. The taller of the two boys shot in the final ball on the table after which the other boy slapped the pool cue onto the table exclaiming. “Shit!” He glared at the other kid and pulled two wadded up one dollar bills out of his front pocket and flung them onto the table. “That ain’t supposed to happen. I’ll be back, so don’t piss my money away.” The kid walked briskly out the front door pushing past the kids and the old man on his way up the street toward the theatre.
Watching the boy stroll down the sidewalk, the kid was startled when the tall kid tapped on the window where his face had been a moment before, “What the fuck are you looking at kid?” “You wanna play?”
“I don’t know how.” He nervously whispered.
“Get in here and I’ll show you how.” The older boy said sternly.
Normally, Billy would have just turned and walked away, but he was fascinated with what he had just witnessed. He slowly eased around through the boys gathered at the door. “Hey kid, you wanna borrow my eye patch.” The old man asked laughingly.
Billy shot him a quick glance, but found it difficult to make eye contact with him. He side stepped past him and walked around to the pool table by the window.
The boy said, “Hey kid, my name’s Pete.” What you doin in here this time of night, does your ma know you’re hangin out at a pool hall?”
“Ah, she don’t care where I’m at.” Billy said shyly.
“Got any money kid?” Pete asked with a gleam in his eye. “I can give you some lessons for about a dollar a game.”
“I’ll play one game.” Said the kid, “I’ve got one dollar that I can give you.”
Billy had never actually seen a pool table up close before, let alone tried to pick up a pool cue. He held it in his hands and walked around the table toying with it, trying to emulate the movements of the other kids in the room, hopefully not drawing attention to the fact that he was totally out of his element.
Pete racked the balls, “Go ahead and break them kid.”
Billy walked around to the end of the table and chalked up the tip on the cue as he had seen the other kids do earlier. He leaned over and lined up the balls nervously. The cue felt cool in his hands. Nice and smooth. He lined it up the best that he could and clumsily struck the cue ball and sent it flying toward the rack of balls set up neatly in the center of the table. Billy stood in amazement as the balls flew randomly around the table. Nothing fell into the pocket, so Billy backed up against the wall to let the other boy play, thinking to himself, “This is the coolest shit I’ve ever seen!” Something about lining up the cue and firing the ball into the rack caused his heart to race. Billy had butterflies swirling around in his stomach anticipating his next chance at the table.
Pete shot in four solid balls that were out in the middle of the table, then broke up the rest of the stack in the middle of the table.
Billy walked back to the table, thinking about what he was about to do. “This can’t be all that difficult.” He thought to himself. “Kind of like shooting a rifle. Just look at the angle, figure out where to hit the next ball and fire it in the hole.” The kid eyed a long straight in shot, leaned over the table placing his hand flat on the table. He placed the cue between his thumb and first knuckle, stroking the cue back and forth as he had seen the other boy do. The action felt natural and comfortable, almost like he had been doing it all of his life. He stroked it three times and then let it go, following through the cue ball as smoothly as he could. The 11 ball slammed into the corner pocket with authority. “Damn!” said the kid, unable to repress his obvious excitement. He lined up a couple of easy balls that were open and close to their intended pockets, making them with seeming ease. Billy walked around the table and looked at the thirteen ball, which was the only striped ball that was left out in the open where he might have a chance of getting it to go into a pocket. It would have been a long cut shot, difficult by most peoples standards. Billy lined up and shot at the ball, cutting it toward the pocket. It rolled toward the pocket, hitting the point on the rail and rattling in the pocket before falling in. Billy looked on excitedly as the cue ball bounced off of two rails and headed straight for the corner pocket.
Pete jumped up off of the bench against the wall and grabbed the cue ball out of the pocket. He neatly ran the other three solid balls off of the table and then fired an easy straight in shot on the eight ball into the side pocket. “OK kid, pay up.” He said loud enough for most every one else in the room to hear him.
Billy pulled his pocket inside out and put the contents on the table. There was an old boy-scout pocket knife that he had found in a box of his dads old junk, a couple of nickels and a crumpled up dollar bill. He picked up the dollar and handed it to Pete.
“Thanks for the lesson, dude.” Billy said with a big grin on his face.
“Yea, yea, go on home and raid your piggy bank and come on back kid.” Pete said making sure that the others heard him.
Billy didn’t mind the fact that he had just lost the last dollar that he had. He was excited, and happy for the first time in forever. He was sure that he had found something important, something that he had been looking for all of his life. He headed toward the door with a smile on his face.
“Pretty nice stroke kid. Don’t be a stranger.” said the old man by the door smiling at the kid when he walked by.
Billy walked down the sidewalk past the theatre with his head held high, walking with confidence and an obvious renewed sense of purpose. He was half way home before he realized that he had a grin on his face from ear to ear.
Billy walked into the house totally unnoticed by anyone else, went straight up to his room, turned out the light and got into bed. He laid there for what seemed like hours replaying each shot that he saw during the course of the evening, dissecting each angle and possibility. By the time that he fell asleep, he knew exactly what it would have taken to win that game. He had a much better understanding in his own mind as to how the balls react whenever they contact each other. He even had a pretty good idea how the balls spinning in one direction or another would be affected when they hit other balls or the rail. Billy always had a sharp, analytical mind and could usually figure out any problem given time to think it over.
Billy fell asleep with a smile on his face for the first time that he could remember.
VI
TOOLS
The kid crawled out of bed feeling better than he had in a long time. He was excited about what he had done last night. Excited and couldn’t wait to get a chance to go back again.
It was raining like hell outside. You could see the occasional flash of lightning through the curtained windows through the house followed by the loud crack of thunder a couple of seconds later.
Billy looked into his parents room to see his dad laying on top of the covers still in his clothing from the night before. His mouth was wide open and he was snoring loudly. This was a pretty good sign that he had been out late and had a few too many. He didn’t dare try to wake him or bother him in any way for fear of what he might do. He was dangerous when was drinking, but not nearly as dangerous as when he woke up the next morning. You had to give him his space and he would eventually come around.
Billy stood there looking at him, pondering his dilemma. How could he convince him to put a pool table in the house? He was sure that he could do it, he just had to put the thought in his head and let him think that it was his own idea. He was sure that he could do it, he had done it before.
Billy walked through the house and saw his mom sleeping it off on the couch. The television was still on from the night before with Jerry Springer spouting off about why people react the way that they do. There was an empty Grey Goose Vodka bottle laying on it’s side in the middle of the coffee table looking like a dead soldier left on the battlefield after giving his all for god and country. Hell, it kind of looked like everyone else in the house this morning. It all seemed kind of ironic to the kid.
The more that he was subjected to the ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude that runs rampant in this house, the more that he wanted to do something with his life. To the kids way of thinking, there was nothing worse that laziness. “Hell, I get up at the crack of dawn every day. What’s the matter with these damned people?” Billy said under his breath.
His mother rolled her head to the side, her eyes opening slightly, “Huh, did you say something?”
“Nah, go back to sleep.” Billy said. “What does it matter what I think?” “Hell, I just sleep here.” Billy said laughing out loud.
Louise sat up on the couch running her hands through her hair repeatedly trying to clear the cob webs from her head. She was still a great looking woman at 30 years of age although she was starting to show signs of wear. She was tall, about five nine with long dark hair. Here lately, she was starting to have dark circles under her eyes and it seemed as though they were always bloodshot. She looked tired and worn down. Billy always thought that she would be fine if she would just quit drinking and get some rest.
“You need to get dad to put some stuff in that room off of the garage, that way you guys can start having your parties here instead of staying out all night on the weekends.” Billy said to his mother. “You know, maybe a card table so dad can have poker games here, and maybe even a pool table or something.” Billy knew that she would catch the drift on that one. His dad had been leaving the house on weekends, sometimes not even bothering to show up at all until Sunday evenings leaving his mom here to do her drinking alone. He knew that she would do anything to get him to take her with him or at least bring the party home once in a while. Besides, there was a 24 by 24 foot room just off of the garage that was obviously intended to be a large game room that was totally unused. Hell, his dad could afford a pool table, and now he knew that his mom wouldn’t rest until they got one. Afterwards, they might use it once or twice, then it would just be sitting there like most everything else in this house.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Louise said rubbing her face with one hand while picking up the empty bottle from the middle if the table. She looked into the bottle with a look of bewilderment, like if she looked long enough, that it would magically be full of that poison again.
Billy left the room knowing that he had planted the right seed and the best thing that he could do would be to leave her alone with her thoughts. Billy ran back into his room, lifted the edge of his mattress and grabbed the neatly folded stack of one dollar bills that he kept hidden for emergencies. Hell, this was as much of an emergency as he could think of, he thought to himself as he headed out the door on his way back to the pool room.
VII
SLIMS
“Hey, what’s up old man?” Reggie shouted as he was walking up to the door of the pool room. Reggie was an old hand to the local pool scene. He was kind of a local legend. Everyone knew that he was the “Man to Beat” so to speak. He had the reputation for being the most talented player who ever came from the local area.
He could play, there was no questioning that. He didn’t mind getting on the table with a local hotshot once in a while and showing him where he really stood in the scheme of things. He usually made the guy look like a fat kid in a dodgeball game. The guy usually walked away with his tail between his legs after about 30 minutes of humiliation, not to be heard from for a while.
The problem with Reggie was that he had gotten religion and his wife wouldn’t allow him to gamble any more. That was probably for the best because the “knock” on Reggie was that he was maybe the best “fun” player in the state, but he couldn’t gamble for shit. His game would drop off 30 percent if there was a 10 dollar bill on the line.
Bobby, sitting at his usual perch by the front door, looking as unobtrusive as any large, menacing looking man with an eye patch could said, “Man, look what the cat dragged in!” “Where in the hell have you been, Long time, no see!”
Reggie continued forward with his right hand outstretched to greet the big man who moved forward off of his stool with surprising quickness. “Hell, I just thought I would stop by and see if you had any action going on.”
“You know there is always action around here, especially on a Friday afternoon.” Bobby stated. “There are a handful of guys in the back room. Pretty good little 5 dollar ring game going.”
Bobby knew that Reggie wasn’t here to play. He was just one of those guys who was drawn to action. He would come in once in a while and just hang out all afternoon just to be close pool action. He wasn’t going to bet anything, heaven forbid that, but for some unexplained reason he seemed to be able to justify hanging out in a smoke filled back room with a bunch of filthy mouthed guys smoking cigars and drinking out of state whiskey out of brown paper bags. His explanation to the guys was that he had made a promise to his wife that he wouldn’t be gambling. The guys all wondered how he could justify even being here and why betting a little money would be so much worse that what he was already doing. They all talked about it when he wasn’t here, but no one ever said much about it whenever he was. The truth of the matter was that they were perfectly fine with Reggie hanging out and shooting his mouth off about how great he is, as long as he wasn’t in the game taking the money.
“They will be glad to let you get in the game.” Bobby said jokingly, knowing that he wasn’t going to get in. “Hell, Reggie, you would more than likely leave with all of the money. I can’t imagine why you pass up an opportunity like that.” “I’d get in if they would let me, but that ain’t going to happen.”
“Nah, I just want to rag them a little. You know I don’t play any more, Bob.”
“You ain’t going to get anything out of hangin out with those guys. You ought to be watchin that over there.” Bobby said pointing to the table in the back of the main room. “That’s the future around here man.” “That kid is in here for hours on end every damned day. I’ve never seen anything like it.” “Hell, If I had a work ethic like that, I’d be rich!”
“Good stroke.” Reggie said. “Kid’s got some talent, no doubt.”
“Yea, the kid’s been coming in here for about 6 months and none of the local kids will get near him.” “He’s busted all of them.” Bobby stated.
“Come on, man. He can’t be over 14 or 15.”
“He’s only 13, I think.” “They even brought that Ladner kid from down on the coast in here last week to play him.”
Reggie looked up with some renewed interest. He knew the Ladners well. There were several of them that could really play well. They made their living and reputations shooting your liver in on a bar table. They have hustled most of the back woods bar rooms all over the 3 states along the gulf coast. The kid that Bobby mentioned was about 18 or 19 now, and played as well as any of the older ones.
Bobby continued, “They came in here with that little fat bastard and a pocket full of money trying to intimidate him.” “The kid promptly pulled out a roll with about 200 in it and locked up with him for a one hundred dollar set. Race to 7, I think.”
“So, how did it come out?” Reggie asked.
“The kid beat him 2 sets. Seven to 2 and Seven to 4.” “Damnedest thing that I’ve ever seen. Didn’t give the fucker a chance to even play. The momentum never even went to his side of the table.” Bobby shook his head “That fucking kid can play, and he’s going to get a lot better really fast.”
Reggie walked past the kid as he was headed toward the door to the back room, “Lookin good kid.”
The kid looked up, barely noticing the stranger walking by. A slight smirk was barely noticeable as the right corner of his lip raised in an almost noticeable attempt to smile.
The smirk quickly disappeared as the kid quietly went back to work pocketing ball after ball while moving the cue ball around the table like he had a string on it.
Reggie stopped just short of going through the door and watched in amazement for a couple of minutes. “Damn!” he thought to himself.
I
PRESENT DAY
The old man sat at the corner of the bar nursing his cup of coffee and watching the ongoing match on the front table. The guys had been playing for hours and hours on end. They didn’t even seem to notice the old man when he came in about an hour ago. Not many people noticed him any more. He was just your average looking guy.
He was about 55 years old with a full head of salt and pepper hair. A handsome guy who you could tell had been a good looking guy when he was younger.
The old man never said much, just hung out and read the paper while drinking his coffee. He never seemed to want to play pool, even though he chose to hang out in the biggest action room in the south. He stayed to himself and always seemed to be deep in thought.
The old man always seemed to be a little sad. Although he rarely spoke to anyone, you could definitely sense that he would just rather be alone somewhere, but he just couldn’t stay away from this place.
II
The top floor of the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas was crowded with people scuffeling around outside of the large convention suite obviously set up for something special. You could feel the electricity in the air with the buzz of the people busily talking about the event going on inside. There were 2 lines of people excitedly waiting their turn to pay their 20 dollars to gain entrance to the main room where all of the excitement was obviously concentrated.
“That’s it folks, we’re full for the time being.” Shouted the short chubby guy in the grey suit, as he stuck his head out of the large double French doors that opened into the main arena. “All of the seats are taken for the simi-final matches. You can either remain in line so that you can go ahead and get your tickets for the final later on tonight, or maybe we will have some seats available if anyone leaves before the matches are over.”
There was an audible groan from the crowd who were clearly dejected by the development. Slowly the crowd at the back of the lines began to disperse and move toward the elevators that led back to the casino lobby on the first floor.
A quiet and obviously intensly interested crowd was standing around the entrance to one of the smaller suites down the hall, remaining unusually quiet while obviously trying to gain entrance to the room. The room was quiet yet crowded with people lining against the walls and gathered around the partially opened French doors trying to gain access to a better look at the action going on inside. The room was distinguished by a sign posted by the door stating that it was “Practice Room No. 1”.
Inside the room were four Gold Crown 4 ½’ by 9’ pool tables that had been set up for use by the professionals to practice before their scheduled matches under the lights of the ESPN cameras in the main room.
The tables were beautifully arranged on the bright casino style carpeting that always catches your eye whenever you walk into one of their convention suites. The carpeting was brightly colored with random swirls and turns and seemed to fit some pattern, yet you could never figure it out. There were bright greens, reds and blues in the carpeting which were obviously intended to implant some post-hypnotic notion in the mind of the casino patrons to stay awake and spend more money.
The carpeting was so loud that it took away from the focus and beauty of the green felted tables so neatly arranged in the center of the room. For this reason alone, the floor of the main room had been covered with a plain green room sized rug that had been temporarily rolled over the existing carpeting for the benefit of the ESPN cameras. This way the focus of the fans and people at home would be on the bright 860 Simonis cloth covering the finely crafted Diamond billiard tables.
Standing against the wall near the first table, the tall good looking young man in the kaki slacks and the maroon golf shirt with the emblem over the left shirt pocket designating “English Turn Golf and Country Club” smiled appreciatively as the tiny Phillipino sliced a difficult nine ball into the corner pocket for the winner of a hill-hill match for a thousand dollars.
His opponent, a big, dumb looking man with a thick country accent slammed his cue onto the table in obvious frustration, “You ain’t supposed to be able to beat me like that!” “Nobody’s supposed to give me the 6 out and the break!”
“Dude, you don’t get it do you?” said the phillipino. “I could give you the world and you still couldn’t win.” He stated this with just enough hint of bravado to entice the big guy to continue trying to make a game that he could win.
The tall guy in the maroon shirt quietly stated, “Go ahead and play him some more, I think you’ve got him right where you want him.”
“Stay the fuck out of this man. This ain’t none of your business!” the big man growled, his face so red that he looked like he was a couple of breaths away from a stroke.
The Phillipino knew who the guy in the maroon shirt was. As a matter of fact most of the professionals knew who he was. He had made his rounds playing quite a few of them and sent several of the top players home with empty pockets and a bad attitude. They didn’t know a whole lot about him, other than he played extremely well. No one knew quite how well because he was smart enough to make most of his games so that he could outrun them without really showing his true speed, although there were rumors of him running out back to back race to seven sets against Jose Parika for 5 grand a set. This was after battling for 6 hours at a thousand a set and staying pretty even. They said that he mysteriously caught a gear and fell into dead stroke whenever the stakes were raised.
He never played in the tour tournaments; however those in the know had little doubt that he could hold his own in any arena. Everyone called him “The Kid”, or “Billy the Kid”. You could tell by his slow drawl that he was from somewhere down south, probably New Orleans or Atlanta. The accent gave the impression that he wasn’t all that bright, although his track record when dealing with the best players in the world would show otherwise.
“Come on big guy, I’m just fucking with you.” Said the kid. “Hell, I might even play you some and give you the 6 out.” He said mockingly.
“Don’t let him play left handed!” Shouted Earl laughingly from the next table over. “Hell, I don’t know if I want to play even with him if he plays left handed.”
“Leave it to Earl, the dumb fuck,” Billy thought to himself. “Let’s face it Earl, you’re one of the best players that ever lived, but you ain’t no mental heavyweight.”
“Why you wanna knock his action man?” the phillipino spoke up from the players chair at the breaking end of the first table.
“Because I don’t like him, is that good enough?” shouted Earl threateningly.
“Hell, you don’t like anyone Earl. You probably don’t even like yourself.” Laughed Buddy. “Just be glad that you are playing me in the semis and not him.”
Buddy looked over toward the first table, “When you gonna start playing the tour kid, instead of just following us around trying to trap us in a game?”
“I kind of like being able to go places where people don’t know me.” Said Billy.
“Yea, so did Paul Newman in the hustler, and look what happened to him.” Buddy said under his breath. All of the pros knew the dangers of trying to make games in unknown pool rooms anonymously. Most of them felt that it was better to walk in and say, “Here I am, I’m a pro and I’ll play anyone that you’ve got.”
Some guys, like the kid, just couldn’t resist the excitement and rush that went along with the hustle.
II
FIVE YEARS EARLIER
THE ART OF THE HUSTLE
The kid walked into the room slowly, quietly, keeping to himself. He stayed along the outside wall trying unsuccessfully to blend into his surroundings. Seemingly trying to avoid being noticed. He looked from one side of the room to the other, looking unsure of himself as though he were afraid that someone would notice that he had no business there and throw him out.
He looked awfully young to be in an all night pool room at 4 in the morning. There’s a curfew in New Orleans for kids under 18. Most of the patrons in the Royal Cue wondered why a kid who was obviously no older than 16 or 17 wasn’t home in bed where he belonged.
He wasn’t a regular, which was obvious. He didn’t look like a local. He looked like he had been sleeping in a car for the past few days with his sloppy clothes and uncombed light brown hair.
“Cadillac Dave” and “Joe C” were playing One Pocket on the front table for a hundred a game. Cadillac was up four hundred after playing since seven in the afternoon. Dave was giving up Nine to Six and was outrunning the trap, but it was taking some time. He didn’t have his A game today. Had to have something to do with the fight he had with Trish before he left the house yesterday. “God damned women,” Said Dave. “What the fuck was she thinking when she hooked up with me?” “I’ve been playing pool for a living since I got laid off last year, and now she wants to tell me I need to start coming home every night! What the fuck does she think I’m supposed to do, go out every day and look for a construction job or something?” Laughingly looking at Joe while lining up a tough cross bank on the seven ball leaving himself one more ball for the winner. “Fuck that shit! I’m through taking shit off of some ass hole who can’t run three balls.”
Dave was a really good player. He had recently beaten Cliff Johnson out of two thousand getting Nine to Six, which made him kind of a local celebrity. Cliff was maybe the number one or two One-Pocket player in the country.
Cliff had come to town a couple of times during the past year and cleaned everyone out. He gave Eddie Black Nine to Seven and left with about Five Thousand of the local’s cash. Cliff was something to watch. He could outrun practically any spot if he was “on his game”, but he was bad about taking the worst of it when he wasn’t. That’s what happens when you’re known. The only way that you can get a game is by making a game that you aren’t supposed to win and then outrunning it.
“Hey, I’m keeping the bills paid,” said Dave. “I’ll never understand that bitch.”
“Don’t sweat it man, they’re all the same.” “You just gotta take their shit like all the rest of us.” Said Joe C.
“How the fuck would you know, you fat mother fucker? You ain’t had no pussy in ten years!” said Dave. “That’s about how long it’s been since you could find your dick, ain’t it?”
Eddie and a few of his buddies got a good laugh at the bar. “Looks like he got you on that one Joe.”
Joe lowered his head and went on about his business. “Hell, I’m gonna get out of here,” as Dave pocketed the winner with a two railed bank out of the far corner. Joe, usually very quiet, regretted saying anything. He was always getting fucked with about his weight and that really affected his confidence. That’s why he played pool.
Joe was a really good “league Player” who hung around the hustlers because it made him feel important. He had problems keeping a job because of his weight. They always found some other reason to get rid of him, but he knew what was going on. It was politically incorrect and probably even illegal to fire someone because they were overweight. He knew that they would never do that. It was always some bullshit like “reduction in work force”. He stayed stressed out all of the time because of it and the only therapy that seemed to work was gambling. Here lately, the higher the better. He could bet with the league players. He could always pick up two and five dollar action, but that didn’t do it for him anymore.
“Hey man, I’ll play some 20 dollar nine ball with you if you guys are finished” A voice from along the wall rang out.
Dave looked over at the tall, thin kid against the wall. “You don’t look like you could buy a hamburger.” Laughingly looking around the room, “Shouldn’t you be at home with your mama, sleeping in your nice warm bed or something?”
“I can pay, or I wouldn’t be wanting to play”, said the kid.
“Alright then, get up here kid”, said Dave. “I’ll take your lunch money.” drawing a few laughs from the bar.
They flipped a coin and Dave won the break. He broke the rack and made 2 balls. Three balls later, he hung the six up in the jaws of the corner pocket. The kid stepped up to the table, looking a little unsure of himself and fired the six into the pocket, leaving himself a long, straight in seven nine combination. He studied the shot for a few seconds and hit it with pocket speed. The nine rolled slowly toward the corner pocket and rattled in the jaws.
Dave got up off of his chair with a grin and walked confidently up to the table promptly shooting the seven nine combination.
The kid walked up to the table looking dejected, pulled a few bills out of his right front pocket and started counting them out onto the table. After a ten, a five and three ones, Dave snatched up the money and said, ”Go home kid, come back when you grow up and get some money if that’s all you have”
The kid reached into his right front pocket and retrieved a roll of hundred dollar bills, promptly throwing one onto the table, he said, “Give me some change and let’s play dude.”
Dave picked up the bill and gave the kid his change. “OK Kid, I’ll take your money. If you’re stupid enough to come down here with all that cash at 4 in the morning, I might as well take it before someone else does.”
Dave walked over to the bar while he waited for the kid to rack the balls, “Eddie, did you see how much cash that kid is carrying?” “Gotta be a couple of thousand in that roll!” Looking over at Eddie with his usual confident grin, “Let’s bust this little fucker and send him home to his moma.”
“Yea, I saw it, Pump up the bet and let me in for half.” Said Eddie.
“You got it my man!” said Dave. “Like taking candy from a baby.” Dave whispered to himself.
Walking back toward the table, Dave said, “Hey kid, let’s raise the bet! How bout 50?”
“Sure man, hit the balls, what you waitin for?”
Dave broke the balls and didn’t make anything. Six games and 300 later, Dave realized that he had been getting two or three shots a game, they just weren’t open where he could run out. He looked at the kid again, sizing him up. He didn’t look like much, just a kid of 16 or 17, but those eyes. There was something about those piercing blue eyes that belied the fact that he was just a kid. Those were the eyes of a seasoned veteran. It was obvious by now that this kid could play a little, but how well could he play. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” Thought Dave. “I know this kid can play, but hell, I can play too. This kid thinks he’s got a chump on the string.” “Hell, I’ve sent road players home busted before, and how good could this kid be at that age?” Dave said to himself. “But those eyes, I can’t get over those eyes.”
Eddie came over to the table and said, “Hey kid, I’ll take 50 on the side if you want.” Eddie was a tall, rough looking black guy; about 40 to 45 with a pock marked face and the look of a hard core criminal who might have spent most of his adult life in Angola State Penitentiary. “Come on kid, where’s your balls?”
“Sure dude, I’ll try a few that way.” Said the kid quietly.
Eddie figured the kid would rattle if he pumped the bet up. After all, how could this kid play with Dave? Dave was one of the better players in town and he had been beating some really good players lately and showing a lot of heart.
Two hours later, the kid walked over to his cue case and discretely unzipped the large pocket on the front. Inside, he switched on the power button to a walkie-talkie and started clicking the “send” button.
III
THE BODYGUARD
Big Mike woke from a sound sleep, startled by the shrill noise of the walkie-talkie. “Looks like I would get used to this after six months of it.” Big Mike said to himself. “I guess it’s time to make my entrance.”
Big Mike had come to terms with his decision to take the Kid on the road. He was his brother’s kid, actually. Mike’s brother Bobby never liked him. Mike was the proverbial problem child while growing up in Saint Louis. His own mother didn’t like him. Mike quit school in the ninth grade and spent the majority of his teen-aged years in the local pool room scuffling around for spending money until he was good enough to make any real money.
Mike was ten years younger than Bobby and always felt inferior due to his success. Bobby was a successful businessman in Saint Louis. He owned a successful sporting goods store and provided well for his family.
He lived in a 4 thousand square foot home in one of the more affluent neighborhoods on the south side of town.
Mike would visit while Bobby was at work. Mike and the kid were very close and mike felt responsible for him because Bobby always seemed to neglect him. The kid looked up to Mike and wanted to be just like him. He would walk around the house trying to walk, talk and look just like his Uncle Mike. The more that he would do it the more pissed off Bobby would be and the more he would rant and rave to Ann about “keeping that sorry bastard out of the house”.
Mike would show up as often as he could, spending most of his time showing the kid around Bobby’s Four and a half by Nine Gandy. He kept it in a 24 by 24-foot game room attached to the garage. Bobby rarely even went in the room even when he had any free time, which was extremely rare.
The kid had a knack for the game like you only read about in fiction novels. His stroke was a thing of beauty, like watching Fred Astair dancing across the stage. Even as a relative novice, Mike would sometimes sit back with his mouth open in awe. He was one of those kids that you hear about but rarely were privileged to see. He was great at anything that he ever did. He was the best player on his little league baseball team. He could draw like nothing you had ever seen. He could just look at something and sit down and put it on paper in such three dimensional quality that you would think that you were looking at a black and white photo. This kid could read on a second grade level before he was four years old.
With all of his apparent ‘god given talent’, there was one thing that stood out above all of the rest. Pool. His hand eye coordination was phenomenal. He had the grace of a dancer. His concentration level was top shelf. It was like watching Bobby Fisher playing a chess match with Boris Spasky. He listened to everything that Mike had to teach him and never forgot anything. His work ethic was something to watch. He would practice drills for hours on end. When others would have given up in frustration or sheer boredom, he would be smiling and asking for new things to practice.
Mike walked into the pool room confidently. He strolled up to within a few feet of the action and leaned against the next table folding his arms showing his apparent interest in what was going on. Everyone in the room looked at him with a veiled interest, noticing that he was out of place here. No one had seen him before; hell they would definitely remember a guy like that.
Mike was an intimidating figure to say the least. He stands six foot 4 and weighs around 255, the last time that he remembered passing a scale and curiously stepping up to see.
He looked like a battle weary fighter with plenty of hard miles behind him. Mike reminded you of Jerry Cooney, an old heavy weight fighter from the early eighties, with his dark wavy hair and wide nose that had apparently had the cartilage removed after being broken too many times.
The kid remained confident but friendly while taking advantage of every opportunity, seemingly knowing the moves better than the other players in the room. “Come on Dave, I know that I’m getting all of the rolls right now. I’ll give you the eight and we’ll play a race to 7 for a thousand.” Smiling at Dave, “I know you’re down about seven hundred of your money. We’ll play this one set and call that it. This way you can have a chance to get your money back plus 300.” Like you said, I need to get home to my mama.” The kid said laughing.
“Hold on a minute!” Eddie yelled jumping up off of the bar stool. “I’m down close to a thousand here!” You ain’t getting out of here without giving me a chance to get my money back!”
The big guy leaning against the table said, “I’ll tell you what buddy. I’ll bet that thousand with you on the side however they match up for this set.” He said confidently, “I’ll take this kid, he seems to know what he’s doing.” Mike pulled his wallet out and started counting out one hundred dollar bills.
Dave said, “Kid, I’ll take the seven and you can have the breaks. Then we got us a game.”
“Rack the balls then, what are you waiting for?” the kid said while walking around to the breaking end of the table.
Dave walked over to Eddie, “This kid’s been breaking like a little girl all night. He can’t win giving me the seven, even if I give up his weak assed break.” “Go ahead and take the side action.”
Eddie looked around the room and walked over to confer with Earl the bar tender. “What do you think Earl?”
“You guys got the best of it from what I’ve seen. This kid ain’t got the speed to give up the seven to Dave.” Earl said while pouring grapefruit juice over the shot of Old Granddad for the old black man sitting at the end of the bar.
Eddie strolled confidently back toward the action, “OK, you got it big guy. I got my thousand on Dave.”
The cue ball slammed into the rack with such force that the entire room went quiet while everyone looked over to see where the loud crack came from. The cue ball jumped up into the air and stopped dead in the middle of the table between the two side pockets. Two balls went in and the one ball stopped in the middle of the table leaving a very makeable cut into the right corner pocket. The kid moved around the table like an ice skater in the middle of a world class routine easily pocketing the rest of the balls.
The balls were racked again, “Crack!” the cue ball jumped up in the air and landed neatly within inches of where it had landed on the first break. This time three balls were pocketed on the break. Without breaking stride, the kid made the next two balls and lined up on a four nine combination. He fired the combination into the pocket cleanly.
Eddie walked up to Dave and said, “Look at that kid!” “He wasn’t playing like that earlier. Something is different.
“Crack!” The balls flew around the table wildly ending with two balls in the pocket and the cue ball right in the middle of the table again. The kid proceeded to pocket the rest of the balls.
Dave, leaning against the adjoining table next to Eddie. Looking confused about what was going on, he whispered just loud enough for Eddie to hear, “He’s playing left handed. He was playing right handed earlier.”
The kid ran the next two racks making the match five to nothing. After the next break, the cue ball ended up in the middle of the table with the seven ball between it and the object one ball. The kid could barely see the edge of the one with no chance of making it.
“Well, it looks like I’m probably going to get a shot finally.” Said Dave, who was so intimidated by now that he probably wouldn’t have been able to get out if he only had three balls to go and the first one was hanging in the pocket.
The kid hit the edge of the one and sent the cue ball three rails around the table stopping it right up against three balls on the other end of the table and leaving Dave in jail with no chance for parole. Dave walked around the table for a couple of minutes before exclaiming, “I don’t know where you came from, but when this shit is over, you’d better go your ass back there as quick as you can.”
Dave tried a tough three rail kick out of the corner and missed the object ball by a foot leaving the Kid “Ball in Hand”.
The Kid picked up the cue ball and gracefully ran the rest of the rack.
Dave and Eddie were leaning against the next table fuming as the kid broke the next rack with the sound of a crack of thunder. The nine ball neatly rolled out of the middle of the rack and into the right corner pocket.
The kid was breaking down his cue when Dave spoke up from the other side of the table, “So, what if we just don’t pay you?”
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.” Came a soft spoken gravely voice from the other side of the table. Mike stood up uncrossing his arms from his big chest causing his jacked to fall open. Eddie looked over at him to see the chrome plated Smith and Wesson nine-millimeter neatly tucked under his left arm in a brown shoulder holster.
Eddie elbowed Dave and said, “You’d better go ahead and pay him. After all, he beat your ass fair and square.” Eddie walked over to the big guy and handed over the thousand dollars that he had bet with him. He thought about pulling his own gun, he even thought about him and his boys trying to take the big guy when he went outside, but looking at his rugged face and hard eyes made him think twice. Without guns they would have no chance, that was obvious. Hell, even with guns, he wasn’t sure.
The kid went out the door first and Mike followed closely behind after surveying the room to make sure that there weren’t any of the bar patrons who might have wanted to make a name for themselves by trying to do something stupid. The kid had the Van started and in gear by the time that Mike jumped into the passenger seat. The Kid jumped the curb onto Dowman road and then turned right onto Chef Highway. Leaving nothing to chance, he had done his homework and knew exactly where to go when he left the pool room, just in case there might be trouble.
“How did we do this time kid?” Mike asked laughing nervously. “Man, feel that rush!” “Nothing in the world like living on the edge!”
“Well, I got 1700 from that guy Dave and a little over a thousand from that black dude, Eddie. You got another thousand from Eddie, I guess that makes about 3700. Not too bad for one night.” The kid said calmly.
“Kid, how do you stay so cool in these situations?” Mike asked. “My heart is still racing.” Mike thought for a few minutes while the kid steered the van up the on ramp to get onto interstate 10. “We gotta be careful now if we are gonna stay here in New Orleans for a while.” “This is a strange town. News travels fast.”
“Are you kidding dude? I’ve never been here before. I want to hand out for a few days.”
“Vegas can wait, hell, we don’t even have to be there for another two weeks.” The Kid said.
Mike looked over at the kid, “Yea, but we’ve got at least three more stops to make before we get there. Business before play, kid.”
IV
BIG MIKE AND THE KID
An unusual set of circumstances had put Big Mike and the Kid together on a permanent basis. Big Mike had come up with several reasons to take the kid on the road with him over the past year or so. Mike’s brother didn’t like Mike very much and barely trusted him at all. The only reason that he would let the Kid leave with him at all was to get him out of his hair.
Bobby was successful by most people’s standards. Successful in business, that is. He never had time for the kid. That’s what Bobby always called him, ‘the kid”. He was usually talking to the kids mother or someone else when he referred to him as The Kid. It was usually something like, “This Kid did this or This Kid did that, or come in here and get The Fucking Kid out of my hair!” The kid had a name. He used to worry about why his parents never called him by his name, Billy. Billy Ray Johnson to be exact. After a while it stopped mattering to him at all. He got used to the nickname after a while and the only time that he heard his real name was when he would run into kids that he knew from school. These instances were becoming more and more rare since he spent more and more time in the pool halls and less and less time around the mainstream kids.
It was always business first and chasing women second. The only time that he came home was to sleep, and that was only when he didn’t have some bimbo to sleep with somewhere else.
When Mike came up with a legitimate excuse why he wanted to take the kid somewhere with him, Bobby usually just said ok, because he knew that he would at least be out of his hair. By this time, the Kid’s mother had practically given up anyway. She wasn’t much help anyway. She woke up in the middle of the day looking for her first drink and spent the rest of the day looking for her medication or trying to scam some doctor into writing her another prescription.
Needless to say, there were rarely any problems with the kid leaving town with Mike.
Hell, this time they were gone for almost a week before anyone even noticed that they were gone. Mike had offhandedly asked Bobby if it would be alright for him to take the kid to Pensecola, Florida for a week with him to work on a storm clean-up detail. He said that he had a job already set up for the kid to sit in a construction trailer and answer the phone. "“Sure, get him the fuck out of here. I can’t get the little bastard to go to school, hell, he might as well be working or something.” Bobby stated while looking deeply into his tumbler of Crown Royal and water. “I’ll tell his mother, she won’t mind”
Mike wouldn’t have even known that they were missed if the kid hadn’t called one of his girl friends to check up on her. She had told him that his mother had been calling around asking all of his friends if they had seen him because she hadn’t heard from him in a week.
“Maybe you need to call your mother and let her know that you’re alright.” Mike said.
Billy said, “What the fuck for?” laughing out loud. “She will forget that she’s even looking for me by dark.” Let her get a few drinks under her belt.” The kid was looking at Mike with a grin on his face trying to gauge his reaction to what he had said.
“Kid, just give her a call and remind her that your dad was supposed to tell her where we were going.” With a serious gaze, Mike said, “All it would take is for her to file some kind of missing persons report, then I would end up sitting in jail while they tried to sort this shit out.”
“Yea, yea.” The kid said picking up the cell phone and dialing the number. “Not sure I even want to talk to the drunk bitch.”
V
THE BEGINNING
Billy walked down the street in front of the Ritz theatre. It was Saturday afternoon and there were lots of kids hanging out in front of the theatre either waiting to get in and see the next feature or just getting out of the last one. This part of town, this block in particular was a hang-out for most of the local teen-aged kids. Most of the kids were considerably older than the kid. Hell, he was only 12, almost 13. His birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks, like anyone would even notice.
Billy walked on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street trying not to be noticed. He didn’t fit in with the local kids who hung out late in the evening on Saturday night. They were all at least 3 or 4 years older than he was. Besides, he didn’t want to have to answer any questions about his appearance. It’s kind of tough to try to make new friends when you’re walking around with a freshly split lip and a big shiny black eye. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had gotten it in a fight with another kid, but it was kind of hard to explain why your dad came in drunk and decided to slap his 12 year old kid around like he was beating on a grown man.
Billy was torn between being depressed to the point where he wanted to just hide in an alley and cry, and being so mad that he wanted to destroy anything that got in his way.
“One day that bastard is going to wish that he never put his hands on me.” Billy said to himself. “God’s gonna deliver that drunk bastard into my hands, and I’m gonna laugh while I’m pissing on him.”
The kid fought back tears while looking up the street and seeing a crowd of people standing around outside a lighted business about a block up from the theatre on the same side of the street. “Gotta be something new, never seen that place before.” Billy said under his breath.
Crossing the street with his head down, avoiding the gaze of several girls standing on the corner obviously more concerned about how they looked than what they were saying, the kid slowly walked toward the lighted doorway. There was a brand new sign painted on the big store-front window that said “Slims”. An older man, kind of heavy with an eye patch over his left eye and a big friendly smile on his face was sitting on a makeshift bench next to the door seemingly holding court with a hand full of older boys who were gathered around him. They all seemed engrossed in the story that he was telling, each of them with their mouths slightly open and their eyes fixed on the mans face trying to make sure that they didn’t miss a single word of what he was saying.
The kid slowly walked past them and stopped at the large front window, cupping his hands over his eyes and peering inside. The room was long and narrow with 6 pool tables side by side from right in front of the window all the way to the snack counter about 100 feet toward the back of the room. In the back, past the counter was a double door that was closed, but tucked conveniently away from the area up front. You could tell that it went to somewhere important, It was obviously kept separated from the front area and you could tell that the kids hanging around the front section weren’t allowed back there.
There were two older boys playing pool on the front table, both seemingly concentrating very hard on what they were doing, as though there was more importance associated with the game at hand than bragging rights. The taller of the two boys shot in the final ball on the table after which the other boy slapped the pool cue onto the table exclaiming. “Shit!” He glared at the other kid and pulled two wadded up one dollar bills out of his front pocket and flung them onto the table. “That ain’t supposed to happen. I’ll be back, so don’t piss my money away.” The kid walked briskly out the front door pushing past the kids and the old man on his way up the street toward the theatre.
Watching the boy stroll down the sidewalk, the kid was startled when the tall kid tapped on the window where his face had been a moment before, “What the fuck are you looking at kid?” “You wanna play?”
“I don’t know how.” He nervously whispered.
“Get in here and I’ll show you how.” The older boy said sternly.
Normally, Billy would have just turned and walked away, but he was fascinated with what he had just witnessed. He slowly eased around through the boys gathered at the door. “Hey kid, you wanna borrow my eye patch.” The old man asked laughingly.
Billy shot him a quick glance, but found it difficult to make eye contact with him. He side stepped past him and walked around to the pool table by the window.
The boy said, “Hey kid, my name’s Pete.” What you doin in here this time of night, does your ma know you’re hangin out at a pool hall?”
“Ah, she don’t care where I’m at.” Billy said shyly.
“Got any money kid?” Pete asked with a gleam in his eye. “I can give you some lessons for about a dollar a game.”
“I’ll play one game.” Said the kid, “I’ve got one dollar that I can give you.”
Billy had never actually seen a pool table up close before, let alone tried to pick up a pool cue. He held it in his hands and walked around the table toying with it, trying to emulate the movements of the other kids in the room, hopefully not drawing attention to the fact that he was totally out of his element.
Pete racked the balls, “Go ahead and break them kid.”
Billy walked around to the end of the table and chalked up the tip on the cue as he had seen the other kids do earlier. He leaned over and lined up the balls nervously. The cue felt cool in his hands. Nice and smooth. He lined it up the best that he could and clumsily struck the cue ball and sent it flying toward the rack of balls set up neatly in the center of the table. Billy stood in amazement as the balls flew randomly around the table. Nothing fell into the pocket, so Billy backed up against the wall to let the other boy play, thinking to himself, “This is the coolest shit I’ve ever seen!” Something about lining up the cue and firing the ball into the rack caused his heart to race. Billy had butterflies swirling around in his stomach anticipating his next chance at the table.
Pete shot in four solid balls that were out in the middle of the table, then broke up the rest of the stack in the middle of the table.
Billy walked back to the table, thinking about what he was about to do. “This can’t be all that difficult.” He thought to himself. “Kind of like shooting a rifle. Just look at the angle, figure out where to hit the next ball and fire it in the hole.” The kid eyed a long straight in shot, leaned over the table placing his hand flat on the table. He placed the cue between his thumb and first knuckle, stroking the cue back and forth as he had seen the other boy do. The action felt natural and comfortable, almost like he had been doing it all of his life. He stroked it three times and then let it go, following through the cue ball as smoothly as he could. The 11 ball slammed into the corner pocket with authority. “Damn!” said the kid, unable to repress his obvious excitement. He lined up a couple of easy balls that were open and close to their intended pockets, making them with seeming ease. Billy walked around the table and looked at the thirteen ball, which was the only striped ball that was left out in the open where he might have a chance of getting it to go into a pocket. It would have been a long cut shot, difficult by most peoples standards. Billy lined up and shot at the ball, cutting it toward the pocket. It rolled toward the pocket, hitting the point on the rail and rattling in the pocket before falling in. Billy looked on excitedly as the cue ball bounced off of two rails and headed straight for the corner pocket.
Pete jumped up off of the bench against the wall and grabbed the cue ball out of the pocket. He neatly ran the other three solid balls off of the table and then fired an easy straight in shot on the eight ball into the side pocket. “OK kid, pay up.” He said loud enough for most every one else in the room to hear him.
Billy pulled his pocket inside out and put the contents on the table. There was an old boy-scout pocket knife that he had found in a box of his dads old junk, a couple of nickels and a crumpled up dollar bill. He picked up the dollar and handed it to Pete.
“Thanks for the lesson, dude.” Billy said with a big grin on his face.
“Yea, yea, go on home and raid your piggy bank and come on back kid.” Pete said making sure that the others heard him.
Billy didn’t mind the fact that he had just lost the last dollar that he had. He was excited, and happy for the first time in forever. He was sure that he had found something important, something that he had been looking for all of his life. He headed toward the door with a smile on his face.
“Pretty nice stroke kid. Don’t be a stranger.” said the old man by the door smiling at the kid when he walked by.
Billy walked down the sidewalk past the theatre with his head held high, walking with confidence and an obvious renewed sense of purpose. He was half way home before he realized that he had a grin on his face from ear to ear.
Billy walked into the house totally unnoticed by anyone else, went straight up to his room, turned out the light and got into bed. He laid there for what seemed like hours replaying each shot that he saw during the course of the evening, dissecting each angle and possibility. By the time that he fell asleep, he knew exactly what it would have taken to win that game. He had a much better understanding in his own mind as to how the balls react whenever they contact each other. He even had a pretty good idea how the balls spinning in one direction or another would be affected when they hit other balls or the rail. Billy always had a sharp, analytical mind and could usually figure out any problem given time to think it over.
Billy fell asleep with a smile on his face for the first time that he could remember.
VI
TOOLS
The kid crawled out of bed feeling better than he had in a long time. He was excited about what he had done last night. Excited and couldn’t wait to get a chance to go back again.
It was raining like hell outside. You could see the occasional flash of lightning through the curtained windows through the house followed by the loud crack of thunder a couple of seconds later.
Billy looked into his parents room to see his dad laying on top of the covers still in his clothing from the night before. His mouth was wide open and he was snoring loudly. This was a pretty good sign that he had been out late and had a few too many. He didn’t dare try to wake him or bother him in any way for fear of what he might do. He was dangerous when was drinking, but not nearly as dangerous as when he woke up the next morning. You had to give him his space and he would eventually come around.
Billy stood there looking at him, pondering his dilemma. How could he convince him to put a pool table in the house? He was sure that he could do it, he just had to put the thought in his head and let him think that it was his own idea. He was sure that he could do it, he had done it before.
Billy walked through the house and saw his mom sleeping it off on the couch. The television was still on from the night before with Jerry Springer spouting off about why people react the way that they do. There was an empty Grey Goose Vodka bottle laying on it’s side in the middle of the coffee table looking like a dead soldier left on the battlefield after giving his all for god and country. Hell, it kind of looked like everyone else in the house this morning. It all seemed kind of ironic to the kid.
The more that he was subjected to the ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude that runs rampant in this house, the more that he wanted to do something with his life. To the kids way of thinking, there was nothing worse that laziness. “Hell, I get up at the crack of dawn every day. What’s the matter with these damned people?” Billy said under his breath.
His mother rolled her head to the side, her eyes opening slightly, “Huh, did you say something?”
“Nah, go back to sleep.” Billy said. “What does it matter what I think?” “Hell, I just sleep here.” Billy said laughing out loud.
Louise sat up on the couch running her hands through her hair repeatedly trying to clear the cob webs from her head. She was still a great looking woman at 30 years of age although she was starting to show signs of wear. She was tall, about five nine with long dark hair. Here lately, she was starting to have dark circles under her eyes and it seemed as though they were always bloodshot. She looked tired and worn down. Billy always thought that she would be fine if she would just quit drinking and get some rest.
“You need to get dad to put some stuff in that room off of the garage, that way you guys can start having your parties here instead of staying out all night on the weekends.” Billy said to his mother. “You know, maybe a card table so dad can have poker games here, and maybe even a pool table or something.” Billy knew that she would catch the drift on that one. His dad had been leaving the house on weekends, sometimes not even bothering to show up at all until Sunday evenings leaving his mom here to do her drinking alone. He knew that she would do anything to get him to take her with him or at least bring the party home once in a while. Besides, there was a 24 by 24 foot room just off of the garage that was obviously intended to be a large game room that was totally unused. Hell, his dad could afford a pool table, and now he knew that his mom wouldn’t rest until they got one. Afterwards, they might use it once or twice, then it would just be sitting there like most everything else in this house.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Louise said rubbing her face with one hand while picking up the empty bottle from the middle if the table. She looked into the bottle with a look of bewilderment, like if she looked long enough, that it would magically be full of that poison again.
Billy left the room knowing that he had planted the right seed and the best thing that he could do would be to leave her alone with her thoughts. Billy ran back into his room, lifted the edge of his mattress and grabbed the neatly folded stack of one dollar bills that he kept hidden for emergencies. Hell, this was as much of an emergency as he could think of, he thought to himself as he headed out the door on his way back to the pool room.
VII
SLIMS
“Hey, what’s up old man?” Reggie shouted as he was walking up to the door of the pool room. Reggie was an old hand to the local pool scene. He was kind of a local legend. Everyone knew that he was the “Man to Beat” so to speak. He had the reputation for being the most talented player who ever came from the local area.
He could play, there was no questioning that. He didn’t mind getting on the table with a local hotshot once in a while and showing him where he really stood in the scheme of things. He usually made the guy look like a fat kid in a dodgeball game. The guy usually walked away with his tail between his legs after about 30 minutes of humiliation, not to be heard from for a while.
The problem with Reggie was that he had gotten religion and his wife wouldn’t allow him to gamble any more. That was probably for the best because the “knock” on Reggie was that he was maybe the best “fun” player in the state, but he couldn’t gamble for shit. His game would drop off 30 percent if there was a 10 dollar bill on the line.
Bobby, sitting at his usual perch by the front door, looking as unobtrusive as any large, menacing looking man with an eye patch could said, “Man, look what the cat dragged in!” “Where in the hell have you been, Long time, no see!”
Reggie continued forward with his right hand outstretched to greet the big man who moved forward off of his stool with surprising quickness. “Hell, I just thought I would stop by and see if you had any action going on.”
“You know there is always action around here, especially on a Friday afternoon.” Bobby stated. “There are a handful of guys in the back room. Pretty good little 5 dollar ring game going.”
Bobby knew that Reggie wasn’t here to play. He was just one of those guys who was drawn to action. He would come in once in a while and just hang out all afternoon just to be close pool action. He wasn’t going to bet anything, heaven forbid that, but for some unexplained reason he seemed to be able to justify hanging out in a smoke filled back room with a bunch of filthy mouthed guys smoking cigars and drinking out of state whiskey out of brown paper bags. His explanation to the guys was that he had made a promise to his wife that he wouldn’t be gambling. The guys all wondered how he could justify even being here and why betting a little money would be so much worse that what he was already doing. They all talked about it when he wasn’t here, but no one ever said much about it whenever he was. The truth of the matter was that they were perfectly fine with Reggie hanging out and shooting his mouth off about how great he is, as long as he wasn’t in the game taking the money.
“They will be glad to let you get in the game.” Bobby said jokingly, knowing that he wasn’t going to get in. “Hell, Reggie, you would more than likely leave with all of the money. I can’t imagine why you pass up an opportunity like that.” “I’d get in if they would let me, but that ain’t going to happen.”
“Nah, I just want to rag them a little. You know I don’t play any more, Bob.”
“You ain’t going to get anything out of hangin out with those guys. You ought to be watchin that over there.” Bobby said pointing to the table in the back of the main room. “That’s the future around here man.” “That kid is in here for hours on end every damned day. I’ve never seen anything like it.” “Hell, If I had a work ethic like that, I’d be rich!”
“Good stroke.” Reggie said. “Kid’s got some talent, no doubt.”
“Yea, the kid’s been coming in here for about 6 months and none of the local kids will get near him.” “He’s busted all of them.” Bobby stated.
“Come on, man. He can’t be over 14 or 15.”
“He’s only 13, I think.” “They even brought that Ladner kid from down on the coast in here last week to play him.”
Reggie looked up with some renewed interest. He knew the Ladners well. There were several of them that could really play well. They made their living and reputations shooting your liver in on a bar table. They have hustled most of the back woods bar rooms all over the 3 states along the gulf coast. The kid that Bobby mentioned was about 18 or 19 now, and played as well as any of the older ones.
Bobby continued, “They came in here with that little fat bastard and a pocket full of money trying to intimidate him.” “The kid promptly pulled out a roll with about 200 in it and locked up with him for a one hundred dollar set. Race to 7, I think.”
“So, how did it come out?” Reggie asked.
“The kid beat him 2 sets. Seven to 2 and Seven to 4.” “Damnedest thing that I’ve ever seen. Didn’t give the fucker a chance to even play. The momentum never even went to his side of the table.” Bobby shook his head “That fucking kid can play, and he’s going to get a lot better really fast.”
Reggie walked past the kid as he was headed toward the door to the back room, “Lookin good kid.”
The kid looked up, barely noticing the stranger walking by. A slight smirk was barely noticeable as the right corner of his lip raised in an almost noticeable attempt to smile.
The smirk quickly disappeared as the kid quietly went back to work pocketing ball after ball while moving the cue ball around the table like he had a string on it.
Reggie stopped just short of going through the door and watched in amazement for a couple of minutes. “Damn!” he thought to himself.
PRESENT
The old man sat silently looking at his coffee, pretending not to listen to the kids gambling on the front table, but unable to avoid noticing the slightly cocky, short kid who was clearly getting the better of the exchange.
"Hey, you wanna play some, old man?" said the short kid.
Billy looked up from his coffee just long enough to flash a knowing smile to the kid, then went back to nursing his coffee.
"Yea, I didn't think so." the kid retorted, "You should probably stay over there with your coffee where it's safe." "You wouldn't want to get too deep in these waters!" The kid laughed.
Billy couldn't help but notice the uncanny resemblance that the kid had to someone in his past.
He lifted his coffee cup to his lips and let his mind wander back to a place that he had spent an untold amount of time trying to disassociate himself with. A time, by all outwardly appearances of domestic peace and prosperity, but with an underlying turmoil that, although kept neatly packed below the surface, would eventually cause his whole structured and seemingly happy life to unravel.
25 YEARS EARLIER
Jack was a pretty cool kid. Not a great looking kid who had above average success with the girls, but a slightly cocky, somewhat intelligent and interestingly gifted and, above all else, doggedly determined kid who know what he wanted and kept his nose pointed in the right direction, at least at the time.
Zack wasn't the only kid who came around looking for help and at the time he wasn't even the most talented, but he was without a doubt the most determined.
In a medium to small town where there is not a lot of local industry and very little chance for a kid with average intelligence and a middle to lower class family to get a proper college education and find his way to success, kids are always looking for someone who has something "On the Ball" who is willing to put forth a little effort to teach them something.
I was known as someone who lived in the area who had had some success over the past 15 years or so playing pool on the road. I had been all over the east coast and had, on many occasions been a thousand miles from home in a dive that I probably shouldn't have been in with no gas in my old ford pickup truck and playing for my last fifty bucks. Truth be known, that's where you really learn how to play pool. Back then, we didn't have the training opportunities that the kids have today. Growing up now, kids have access to watching the best players in the world match up on TV practically every day. They havee access to high profile matches and training videos from some of the best players in the world through accu-stats, youtube and many other online sites. Back in my day, practically the only way that you were going to be able to see a great player was to get out on the road and eventually "get in the grease" with them. You had to match up and play them for something because they didn't give away free lessons. They were out there to make a living, and just like any other job, "Time is Money".
As I said, there were others who came around:
There was J.D., who was a big kid with a good stroke and lots of potential, but lacked the proper commitment. Pool eventually took a back seat to other more addictive hobbies. I still see him around and he can still play a little, but he wasted a lot of his youth and tallent.
There was Heath who wanted to be a player so bad that he could taste it. He worked very hard and tried to learn everything that he could, but just didn't have the actual tallent. What he lacked in tallent, he tried to make up in dogged determination, but sometimes, as was his case, it just wasn't enough.
There was Grady, who was a good kid with a great stroke and a lot of potential. Grady was, (and still is) very arogant and incredibly sure of himself. He could always play god and had a stroke that would scare a lot of road players before they ever got in the grease with him. Grady obviously came from a good family with a little money. He was a high school kid with a nice new sports car to go to college in, he was a great looking kid who had tremendous success with the girls and everyone wanted to be his frield. All of these attributes combined to cause him to lack the determination and work ethic that was required for him to actually become a "Top Notch" pool player.
There was Chris C. from Slidell, a town about 15 miles west of my house. Chris was one of those kids that you meed once in a lifetime who is great at litterally everything that he does. This kid could play pool like nobody's business and didn't mind paying for a lesson. Chris started out early in life as a kid who loved to party and all that that entails, besides that, he was a crazy as a shithouse rat. I would say that his partying might have kept him from being a great pool player, but he had so many other distractions that he was equally as good at that probably would have kept him from getting there.
There was also Lil John, who grew up in Hattiesburg, which was about an hour away from my house. This kid, who was only 16 or so at the time, would drive all of the way to my house and make me play 20 dollar sets with him. He came 3 times and lost 4 sets each time that he came. Each and every time, I tried to give his money back to him and he would not ever consider it.
He has gone on to become a great player and become one of the best known high stakes players in the entire country. A lot of people have questioned his ethics over the years and have said that he has been known to not pay what he loses, but I never saw that in him. In my experience, he was a very well mannered and honest kid.
Zack was kind of a different story. The difference between him and the others was that he was smart. Instinctively smart, street smart, call it what you will. Zack had a great stroke, great concentration, great determination and a phenominal killer instinct. He and Grady S. spent many hours with me and I taught them many of the fine points of the game, from basic mechanics, to strategy and most importantly we spent a great deal of time on the psychological part of the game. Zack was my pick out of all of them to become a real player. Not just a "Short Stop", but someone who could go somewhere.
When Zack turned 18, or so, he came to me and said that he was going to join the Navy. I never could figure that move out. The first thing that I said to him was, "Zack, they don't have pool tables on battle ships." I still can't figure out what posessed him or influenced him to make that decision. Eventually, Zack fell prey to some of the same demons that, unfortunately, most of the youth who grew up in that area had to deal with. I saw him a few times several years later after he got out of the Navy and he always seemed to be under some type of influence, whether it be alcohol or something worse.
To Zack's credit, I heard later that he got control of himself and that he was playing great pool and traveling around the country. I saw him a few times and he looked great, had gained some weight and had that old gleam in his eyes. I could see the killer instinct brewing in his soul and looking for a place to get out and show someone what he could do.
PRESENT
