Уолтер Тевис: The Color of Money

The pool was empty and well-lighted. He dove into the shockingly warm water and began swimming across and back, not stopping between laps. He did twenty and then swam to the ladder and got his breath, then he climbed slowly out.

Fats was sitting in a poolside chair, wearing his bathing suit.

Eddie had brought a towel. He dried his hair and face with it and then looked at the other man, who was regarding him impassively. “You’re right about the glasses,” he said.

Fats said nothing. Eddie dried himself and sat down. They were not far from the highway and he could hear traffic. “That was my first game of straight pool in years,” he said.

Fats did not reply. They sat together for about five minutes and then Fats got up, walked ponderously to the ladder and climbed into the pool. He treaded water for a moment and then began to swim, slowly and lazily. He was not a particularly good swimmer but he moved along. Eddie watched him and wondered again how a person so huge could handle himself so well. After a while Fats stopped and climbed out. Sheets of water fell from his chest and belly as he came up the ladder. He stopped halfway up, resting his arms on the ladder’s bannisters. “Fast Eddie,” he said, “you’re going to have to do better. It won’t work unless you shoot better pool.”

“Sixty balls is pretty good,” Eddie said.

Fats shook his head, and water sprayed from his dark hair. “I missed deliberately to give you a chance,” he said.

Eddie said nothing and stared at the water. It was probably true. He had not cared enough about the game. Finally he said, “Maybe we should play for money.”

Fats was seating himself in a deck chair. “I don’t want complications.” Fats had brought a towel; he began drying his hair with it. “You said you wanted to get back in it, Fast Eddie. Why is that?”

“I need the money.”

“You won’t make much.”

“If ABC picks it up, I will.”

“What if they don’t?”

“Then it’s a start,” Eddie said.

“How much money do you need, Fast Eddie?”

Eddie looked at him. “Sixty. To buy a poolroom.”

“You can’t buy a poolroom for sixty.”

“My old one was sold and I got half.”

“Maybe you’re better off out of it.”

“I don’t know anything else, Fats. I can’t sell cars or insurance. I quit school after the eleventh grade.”

They were quiet for a long time. Then Fats stood up, picked up his towel and looked back to Eddie. “You’ve got a long way to go, Fast Eddie,” he said.

The game was in a proper auditorium downtown. The first six rows of seats had been taken out and a four-and-a-half-by-nine Brunswick table put there below the stage. Shaded incandescent bulbs hung over the green wool cloth. Admission was four dollars a seat and the auditorium was almost full. Two cameras from the local TV station sat on the floor near the table, and another was on the stage. It was a professional setup, and Eddie felt relieved to see it. There was even a referee.

Fats sat in the high leather chair at the end of the table. Eddie pocketed a half-dozen balls and then walked over to him. People were still coming into the auditorium. “I need to start hustling pool again,” he said.

Fats looked at him. “You’re not good enough, Fast Eddie.”

After a few minutes the referee came over to brush the table down for the game. The manager, who had met them earlier at the door, walked out onto the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “there are legends in the game of pocket billiards, and we have two of them with us this evening. Mr. Ed Felson, known as Fast Eddie. And the incomparable Minnesota Fats.” There was loud applause. The referee, finished with the brushing, placed two white balls on the balkline. He spoke softly, like a headwaiter in a pretentious restaurant. “The gentlemen will lag for break.”

Fats stepped up to the table with composure; Eddie was thinking of what Fats had said and did poorly on the lag. He left the cue ball six inches from the rail while Fats’ stopped a quarter inch from it. He would have to break them.

This table was a foot longer than the one in Miami; the distance made a difference. He had to squint to see the edge of the corner ball.

He managed a decent break but left the cue ball a foot away from the end rail. When Fats stepped up and shot, the cue ball came out of the bottom corner and rolled back up to freeze itself. Eddie concentrated on trying to return the safety, squinting hard and stroking with care, but he hit the corner ball wrong and spread the rack open. The audience was silent. It was a bad shot—embarrassingly bad.

Fats began to make balls. He ran out the fourteen on the table, breaking apart clusters with caroms from the white ball, and left himself in perfect position for the break shot, with the fifteenth ball near the rack and the angle perfect. Eddie looked down at his hands holding the Balabushka while the referee racked and then Fats broke, smashing the rack apart. Eddie tried to tell himself that it didn’t mean anything, but it wasn’t true. He felt each ball Fats pocketed as though it were a rude finger poking him in the chest. Fats’ position play was flawless and he moved nimbly around the table, calling out to the referee softly, “Seven ball, corner pocket,” and “Thirteen ball, side pocket,” and so on, until fourteen balls were gone and the only colored ball left on the table was the one he had chosen a dozen shots back to leave for the break. And when he broke them open this time, sending balls spinning across the table with a solid, sharp stroke, there was loud applause.

Fats kept it up for another rack, and another and then another. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes a player ran the whole hundred and fifty balls; it seemed now that Fats was headed that way. He had been good in the parking lot at Miami, but in here he was superb. And Eddie felt he was going crazy waiting to shoot.

Finally, after running eighty-six, Fats got a bad roll and was forced to bank on the three ball. He aimed carefully and shot; the ball rolled across the table, hit the rail and came back to miss the pocket by a fraction of an inch. The table was wide open.

When Eddie stepped up he could see there were shots all over and a ball well-positioned for the upcoming break. It was a splendid lie, but he felt awkward looking at it. Had Fats missed on purpose? He tried to dismiss the idea, concentrating on the order the balls should be made in. A part of his mind did that automatically, the way a bank teller counted money. The twelve would go in the corner, with the cue following down for the nine, there on the bottom rail. Then the three, fourteen and six. Finally the eleven, so the cue would sit a foot below the side pocket on the break. He would break from the pale blue two ball near the rack. He did not look at Fats but bent to the table, drew back his stick and shot the twelve in. It fell neatly, but the cue didn’t follow it far enough; he had to cut the nine a little more than was comfortable. This left him a bad angle on the three and he had to change his plan, shooting the six in first. He managed to recover and get the three in next. That was better. He ran the rest out and left the two, with his cue ball exactly where he wanted it.

While the referee was racking, Eddie walked to the corner of the stage where Fats was sitting. “Did you mean to miss that bank shot?” he said softly. He had intended his voice to be friendly; it surprised him with its tightness.

Fats stared at him a moment. Then he said, “Why should you care?” and looked away. Eddie stood there feeling foolish for a moment, and went back to the table. He felt impotent and angry. He wanted to hit someone.