Уолтер Тевис - The Hustler

He sat upright, straight in his chair, a fairly small man of normal build, maybe a little heavy around the waist, although that appearance could have been caused by his sitting. His features were regular, slightly womanish if anything, for his skin was fair, and his cheeks mildly pink. His hair was brown, very fine, and freshly trimmed. He wore steel-rimmed glasses. There was something prim about him, about the set of his pale, thin mouth and the careful, almost prissy, way he handled the cards. And, although the face was ordinary, there was something very odd about it that puzzled Eddie until he realized that Bert’s hair was so fine that he seemed not to have eyebrows.

He had not intended to get in the game—he knew very little about poker—but when one of the players quit, complaining that he had to meet his wife, Eddie found himself slipping into the empty chair and calmly asking for chips. He immediately found himself in possession of the first two winning hands: two little pairs followed by an eight-high straight. For a moment he suspected a hustle; but he knew enough about poker to be able to discount that after a few minutes’ careful watching; and he quickly became wrapped up in the game, enjoying what was his first action in several days. But he played wildly, lost a few critical hands, and, when the game broke up at supper-time—it seemed to be an extraordinarily casual game compared with the poker he had known before—he had lost twenty dollars, which he could not afford. Bert, who had been quiet and meticulous throughout, had won about forty or fifty, as well as Eddie could estimate, since he had started playing.

The other men left the poolroom, but Bert went into the front and seated himself at the bar, and when Eddie started to leave—the pool tables were now empty—he said, affably, “Have a drink?”

Eddie felt a little irritation in his voice. “I thought you only drank milk.”

Bert pursed his lips. Then he smiled. “Only when I’m working.” He made what seemed for him an ambitious gesture, making his voice friendly. “Sit down. I owe you a drink anyway.”

Eddie sat down on a stool beside him. “What makes you owe me a drink?”

Bert peered at him through the glasses, inquiringly. It struck Eddie that probably he was near-sighted. “I’ll tell you about it sometime,” he said.

Irritated by this, Eddie changed the subject. “So why drink milk?”

Bert asked the bartender for two whiskies, specifying a brand, the kind of glass, and the number of ice cubes, without consulting Eddie. Then he peered at him again, apparently to give thought, now that that was taken care of, to his question. “I like milk,” he said. “It’s good for you.” The bartender set glasses in front of them on the bar and dropped in ice cubes. “Also, if you make money gambling, you keep a clear head.” He looked at Eddie intently. “You start drinking whiskey gambling and it gives you an excuse for losing. That’s something you don’t need, an excuse for losing.”

There was something cranky, fanatical, about the serious, lip-pursing way that Bert spoke, and it made Eddie uneasy. The words, he knew, were directed at him; but he did not like the sound of them and he did not let himself reach for their meaning. The bartender had finished with the drinks and Bert paid for them—giving the exact change. Eddie lifted his and said, “Cheers.” Bert said nothing and they both sipped silently for a few minutes. The bartender—the old, wrinkled man who was also rackboy, bookmaker and manager—went back to his chair and his reveries, whatever they were. There was no one else in the place. Some broad puffs of hot air came from the open doorway, but little else; nothing seemed to be going on in the street. A cop ambled by the door, lost in thought. Eddie looked at his wrist watch. Seven o’clock. Would Sarah feel like eating now? Probably not.

He looked at Bert and, abruptly, remembered the question that had been on his mind, hazily, all afternoon. “Where have I seen you before?” he asked.

Bert went on sipping his drink, not looking at him. “At Bennington’s. The time you hooked Minnesota Fats and threw him away.”

That was it, of course. He must have been one of the faces in the crowd. “You a friend of Minnesota Fats?” Eddie said it a little contemptuously.

“In a way.” Bert smiled faintly, as if pleased with himself for some obscure reason. “You might say we went to school together.”

“He’s a poker player too?”

“Not exactly.” Bert looked at him, still smiling. “But he knows how to win. He’s a real winner.”

“Look,” Eddie said, suddenly angry, “so I’m a loser; is that it? You can quit talking like Charlie Chan; you want to laugh at me, that’s your privilege. Go ahead and laugh.” He did not like this leaving-the-fact-unnamed kind of talk. But hadn’t he been thinking that way himself, for a week or more—leaving the fact unnamed? But what was the fact, the one he wasn’t naming? He finished his drink quickly, ordered another.

Bert said, “That isn’t what I meant. What I meant was, that was the first time in ten years Minnesota Fats’ been hooked. Really hooked.”

The thought pacified Eddie considerably. It pleased him; maybe he had scored some sort of victory after all. “That a fact?” he said.

“That’s a fact.” Bert seemed to be loosening up. He had ordered another whiskey and was starting on it. “You had him hooked. Before you lost your head.”

“I got drunk.”

Bert looked incredulous. Then he laughed—or, rather, chuckled—softly. “Sure,” he said, “you got drunk. You got the best excuse in the world for losing. It’s no trouble at all, losing. When you got a good excuse.”

Eddie looked at him, levelly. “That’s a lot of crap.”

Bert ignored this. “You lost your head and grabbed the easy way out. I bet you had fun, losing your head. It’s always nice to feel the risks fall off your back. And winning; that can be heavy on your back too, like a monkey. You drop that load too when you find yourself an excuse. Then, afterward, all you got to do is learn to feel sorry for yourself—and lots of people learn to get their kicks that way. It’s one of the best indoor sports, feeling sorry.” Bert’s face broke into an active grin. “A sport enjoyed by all. Especially the born losers.”

It did not make very much sense; but it made enough, dimly, to make him angry again, even though the whiskey was now filtering through his empty stomach, placating him, busily solving his problems—the old ones and the ones yet to come. “I made a mistake. I got drunk.”

“You got more than drunk. You lost your head.” Bert was pushing now, in a kind of delicate, controlled way. “Some people lose their heads cold sober. Cards, dice, pool; it makes no difference. You want to make a living that way, you want to be a winner, you got to keep your head. And you got to remember that there’s a loser somewhere in you, whining at you, and you got to learn to cut his water off. Otherwise you better get a steady job.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. “Okay. You win. I’ll think about it.” He did not intend to think about it; he wanted to shut Bert up, vaguely aware that the man, ordinarily quiet, was loosening himself from some kind of tension, some kind of personal fight of his own, was sticking pins into him, Eddie, to drive out his own private devil. And he had thought about it enough already.

Bert had finished his second drink and was saying, “So what do you do now?”

“What do you think? I hustle up enough capital so I can play him again. And this time I leave the bottle and concentrate on what I’m doing.”

Bert peered at him, not smiling this time. “There’s plenty of other ways to lose. You can find one easy.”