Уолтер Тевис: The Color of Money

The lie was perfect. The two was easy, and the natural angle of the cue ball would take it into the side of the rack to break them open for the next shot. Eddie tightened his jaw, bent down slowly, pulled the butt of the Balabushka back farther than usual and slammed into the cue ball. The cue ball smashed into the two, and the two whacked into the corner pocket, vibrated back and forth and came back out onto the table. He had shot too hard. The cue ball buried itself in the rack like a small, furious animal and spread the balls wide.

It was horrible. He stared for a moment and then turned away. He walked over to the corner, not looking at Fats as they passed each other. He seated himself, holding the stick loosely at its joint with its butt on the floor beside him. Fats began running the balls.

Eddie tried to look away a few times but it was no good; his eyes were drawn back to the table in front of him where the fat man kept moving crisply from one side to the other, barely straightening up between shots, making them one after another, clicking them into the pockets and always, always playing perfect, dead-ball position.

In a monotone, the referee kept counting: “ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred, one-oh-one…” And then it became “one forty-nine” and, on a simple pocketing of the seven ball in the side, “One fifty.” Suddenly there was loud applause. The score was one fifty to nine. Eddie began unscrewing his cue.

When he came into the kitchen, Jean was at the sink putting vitamin pills into little egg cups, and she didn’t turn around. “I’m giving you four C’s, Eddie, because you smoked so much last night.” Jean was big on health. On the counter by the blender sat jars of lecithin granules, brewer’s yeast and desiccated liver, together with a large bottle of safflower oil. During their first month together, it was croissants and scrambled eggs with chives; now it was vitamin pills and instant coffee.

He walked into the little living room with its rock maple furniture, and raised the Venetian blinds. The morning sun was already ferociously bright on the suburban lawns; it would be another hot day. Across the street their Pakistani neighbor came striding from the front porch of his brick ranch house to the Toyota at the curb, on his way to the laundromat he managed. Before the poolroom closed, Eddie and he would sometimes nod amiably to each other in the mornings—neighbors off to work at the same time. Now that was over; Eddie’s working day would consist of one phone call. The Pakistani started his car and drove off. Eddie stood at the window, thinking now of Minnesota Fats. One fifty to nine.

Jean came in with the vitamin pills and a plastic mug of Folger’s Instant. “Maybe you’ll beat him in Chicago next week,” she said.

Eddie took the vitamins and said nothing.

“You looked terrible last night,” she said. “You shouldn’t have stayed up so late.”

“I couldn’t sleep. It hurts like hell to lose like that.”

“It isn’t that important, Eddie.”

“If it isn’t,” Eddie said, “what is?”

“I’ve got to go to work. I’m already late.”

Donahue had another sex-book author—a woman who talked about freeing yourself up and discarding the old tapes. When Donahue began working the audience with his coy smiles and earnestness, Eddie turned it off and called Enoch’s office. Enoch Wax ran Mid-American Cable TV from an office downtown. He never returned calls.

“Mr. Wax isn’t in right now,” the secretary said.

“What about my check?” Eddie said.

“Mr. Wax didn’t say anything about a check, Mr. Felson. But he did say that Chicago has cancelled. They decided to use Rich Little for the program, instead. The impersonator.”

“I know who Rich Little is. Have you called Fats?”

“I left a message on his answering machine. If you’ll come in Monday afternoon, we’ll be running the tapes from Miami. Mr. Wax will be in then.”

“I’ll be there,” Eddie said.

Without Chicago, there would be ten days until the next match in Denver. Eddie found the Yellow Pages, looked up “Eye Doctors” and was referred to “Ophthalmologists.” He picked one on Main Street, and called.

The doctor put drops in his eyes that made him squint and, eventually, see watery haloes tinged with iridescence. In the trick chair that was uncomfortably like a dentist’s, Eddie peered through eyecups at black letters on the far wall while the doctor clicked circles of glass into slots, making the letters go from black to gray and back again, making them elongate or compress, blur or sharpen. He chatted of the upcoming racing session at Keeneland as he slipped disks in and out of the machine, interrupting himself with questions about the clarity of what Eddie saw. There was some randomness to the progression, but gradually the white square with its letters became sharper, until the black edges had a delineation that was remarkable. In Eddie’s stomach was a sudden hope: he had forgotten how clearly a man could see .

“That’ll do it,” the doctor said.

“When do I get the glasses?” Eddie said.

“Eight days.” The doctor swung the machine away from Eddie’s face and Eddie blinked.

“Can’t I get them sooner?”

“Come in Monday.”

The red cloth on the table was even redder on the TV monitor, but you could see the balls well enough. Fats was shooting, and for a while his large body blocked the view of the balls—until the picture switched to the other camera. Eddie lit a cigarette, leaned back and tried to relax. It was the first he’d seen of the tapes.

“I’m really sorry about the money, Eddie,” Enoch said. “Wednesday for sure.”

Eddie said nothing. He caught a quick shot of himself sitting and felt a strange embarrassment. There he sat, doing nothing, not even at the moment watching Fats shoot pool. It was the first time he had ever seen himself on television.

Fats kept shooting for what seemed an intolerable length of time. In the TV office, Eddie sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup, smoked cigarettes and waited to see himself. He remembered the shot Fats would miss on—the three ball, a long cut into the bottom corner. The office was small and disorderly. There was no sound yet on the videotape, and the only noise was from the air conditioner in the window.

He got his glasses out and tried them carefully. They felt strange sitting on his nose and digging slightly into his ears, but the picture on the screen became clearer when he put them on.

Then Fats stepped up to the three ball and Eddie leaned forward in his chair to watch. Fats missed, but barely. It did not look as though he was doing it deliberately.

On the screen Fast Eddie stepped up. Looking at himself on television, Eddie was shocked at his inelegance, compared to Fats. He could have been the older man. The TV Eddie, holding the Balabushka, hesitated over the position for a long time before bending to shoot. And when he bent, he looked stiff.

“Well now!” Enoch said from his seat next to Eddie’s. “There you are.”

Eddie said nothing, watching himself with dismay.

He went directly from Enoch’s little suite of offices to the shopping center and parked where he had always parked when the place was open for business. The big sign was down now, leaving rough holes in the concrete-block facade, and there was a card reading THIS SPACE FOR RENT on one window. The door key was still on the ring with his car keys. He opened up and flipped on the lights. It was a shock. There were only seven tables. Numbers Five and Nine had red tags with the word SOLD. The cash register and the time clock were gone, but the water cooler was still there; after turning on the air conditioner he took a long drink. Then he folded the dust cloth off Number Four, got a box of balls and spread them out on the green surface. He took the Balabushka from its case, screwed the two pieces together and set the assembled cue on the table. He slipped his glasses from his pocket and held them up to the light; they seemed clean enough. He put them on and picked up his cue. It was three o’clock in the afternoon.