Уолтер Тевис - The Color of Money

While he was drying with paper towels, the door opened and Earl Borchard came in. Borchard did not even look at him. He walked to the urinal against the wall on the other side of Eddie and stood there using it loudly, blankly facing the tiled wall a few inches from his nose. Eddie began combing his hair.

At the sound of flushing, he turned to see Borchard head into one of the marble stalls, slamming the door behind him. Eddie finished combing his hair.

He was putting the comb back in his pocket when Borchard came out of the stall, still not looking at him. He walked to the mirror, stopped next to Eddie, looked at himself, took out a comb. In the bright fluorescent lights, pink blotches were visible on his face.

Borchard was only a vain, edgy kid. Without his pool cue that was all he was. Eddie turned toward him and said, “Sometimes it’s a bitch.”

Borchard turned sharply. “I’m not your friend,” he said, barely moving his lips.

He looked away from Eddie and took a paper cup from the wall dispenser, half filled it with water, abruptly turned to Eddie again. “I’m going to beat your ass.” He looked down at the water in his hand and smiled, then turned back to stare unblinkingly into Eddie’s face. “ This is going to beat you.” He parted his lips. On his tongue sat a wet drug capsule, green and black.

Eddie’s response was like a reflex. His open hand came up immediately, slapping Borchard full on the cheek, the way a parent slaps a smart-assed child. Borchard dropped the water.

The pill hit the floor, spun, and stopped a few feet away. Borchard stood transfixed, caught stupidly in his act. Eddie walked to the pill and crushed it with his heel. His back was to Borchard, but he felt no alarm. The kid would not hit him. He walked to the door.

“I’ve got more,” Borchard said as Eddie pushed the door open.

“Take a dozen,” Eddie said.

“Play will resume as soon as the players return,” said the voice on the PA. Eddie walked through the crowd and up to the tournament table where the lights now flooded the green again. The referee was standing with his hands behind his back, in position. Eddie stepped up to the table, elevated the butt of his cue stick and gently tapped the cue ball into the rail. It bounced out, rolled softly, clicked into the edge of the one and stopped. The one rolled a few feet and came to a stop exactly where Eddie wanted it to, leaving Borchard no shot at all.

It was a moment before Borchard walked up and the referee told him it was his shot. He came over to the table and frowned at the position for a moment. He did not look at Eddie. He grimaced, shook his head, and played the ball safe. Eddie returned it, leaving the cue ball far from the one.

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Go for it, Earl!” Borchard stepped up to it, bent and concentrated. He shook his head and then let go with his cue stick, shooting hard. The cue ball sped down the table, clipped the one ball but rolled too fast. It raced back up and split apart a pair of balls before stopping in a place where Eddie could make the one. It was difficult, but it could be made.

Borchard turned quickly, walked over to the little table and sat down.

Eddie, suddenly feeling young, leveled his Balabushka and, without hesitation, sliced the one in. Then the two and three. He could not miss. He bent to the four ball, cut it thin as a whisper and made it. He shot the five, six, seven, eight and then the nine, hardly hearing the applause as the nine ball fell. He leaned his Balabushka against the chair and took the heavy factory cue. The referee racked the balls. On the break Eddie made two and ran the rest. The referee racked and Eddie broke again. He shot them in one after the other. He seemed to float from ball to ball, and his vision of them beneath the white lights of television was as sharp as the edge of a steel blade. The balls rolled the way they should and fell into pockets the way they should. There was nothing to it.

As he stood ready to break, voices shouted, “ On the snap, Fast Eddie ,” and “Nine ball, Eddie, nine ball !” and he thundered the cue ball into them knowing the nine would go. It did. The referee racked again while the applause continued. Again he made the nine on the break and the crowd, distant from his mind but enveloping a part of his spirit, exploded in applause. He broke again, made two balls, ran the rack. Again, with the nine on a combination. No one could touch him; nothing could make him miss these balls—these bright, simple balls. He broke again, watched the cue ball settle behind the one; made the one, the two, the three, on up to the nine, slipping the nine ball itself down the rail into the corner pocket. And then, shocked, he heard the deep voice on the PA speaker saying, “Mr. Felson wins match and tournament,” the voice almost buried by applause. He blinked and looked around. The people in the bleachers were applauding, some of them whistling, some shouting. They began to stand, still applauding.

Eddie dove into the deep water, going straight down until, by reaching out a hand, he could feel the rough concrete of the bottom at twelve feet. He let himself rise slowly to the surface and bob. He shook his head, opened his eyes, saw Arabella sitting at the edge of the pool looking toward him. He flipped his body around in the other direction, and with long, slow strokes swam across the pool and into the stone-lined grotto at the far end of it. Stopping there, he could smell the wet stones. The water was shallow and warmer. There was soft, flickering light from a lamp underwater. He could not see Arabella now.

Thirty thousand dollars. He had beat them. First Cooley and then Borchard. There was a stone ledge near the water. He pulled himself out gently and sat there with his feet and calves in the warm water, his wet thighs solid against the rough stone, his body dripping. Fifty years old. He had beaten the kids. He let himself relax now, uncoiling the last bit of the knot that had filled his stomach throughout this day, and let the pleasure of it touch his whole body like a warm garment. There were goose bumps on his upper arms. He stretched and yawned, a winner. He had never felt better in his life.

“I’d like to drive all the way around the lake before we go back,” Arabella said after he swam over to her.

“First thing in the morning.” He eased himself out of the pool and sat beside her.

After a while the music on the PA stopped and a woman’s soft voice said, “The pool area will be closed in five minutes.” Eddie looked behind him at the clock over the doorway to the gym; it was five minutes to one. He was beginning to feel tired.

Arabella stood and began drying herself with a towel. “This place is like a church,” she said, looking around her at the huge concrete circumference of the pool and up at the broad, black skylight.

“I like it.” Eddie lazily took his feet out of the water and held his hand out for the towel. “Let’s get dressed.”

They came around a corner and there was the casino, its lights garish and somehow comforting. Three crap games were going strong; all the blackjack tables were in play; a crowd milled about in the vast area of the slot machines. It was, after all, Saturday night. “Do you want to try your luck?” Eddie said.

She folded her arms and hugged herself nervously. “I don’t know. I’m still in a daze.”

“Then let’s go to bed.”

She looked at him, smiling faintly, still hugging herself. They were standing at the top of a wide and shallow stairway that led down to the still-empty baccarat tables. “You really did win, didn’t you? You really did .”

They walked through the casino, where people and money circulated freely and at ease. Arabella put her arm through his. Tired as he was, his step was light. As they passed the last of the crap tables, a very old man was shaking the dice fervidly; now, with a broad, sweeping movement he threw them powerfully from the side of his hand out onto the long green. Eddie and Arabella stopped to watch them bounce and glitter under the bright lights. The number that came up was eleven. “ Natural !” cried the old man joyfully, leaning forward to pull in a pile of bills.