Chris Offutt - Kentucky Straight - Stories

The riverman moved around the table to get his back against a wall. “Rack, loser,” he said to Jesse. He tossed money on the table. “Pay him and rack.”

Jesse jerked his wallet in front of him, jingling the silver chain that clipped it to a belt loop. He snapped his wrist to throw the money. A fifty-dollar bill drifted to the table.

“Hundred a game,” Jesse said. “Who all’s in?”

The riverman nodded. The other man backed from the table and leaned his stick against the wall. He bit his thumbnail, peeled it half off, and used it to pick his teeth.

“I’ll play,” Everett said.

He went outside and around the building to urinate against the shadowed wall. Money clogged his pockets and he wondered whose picture was on a fifty. Across the lot, the black van was rocking steadily. Everett heard a low grunt that didn’t sound like a dog.

He hurried inside, where the colored balls lay in a diamond shape, waiting to be knocked apart. Nothing fell on Everett’s break. Jesse and the riverman each made a shot and missed the next. Everett called a combination. The nine ball smacked into the pocket for two hundred dollars and he gathered the money, more than he’d ever seen before. The riverman racked while Jesse sandpapered the tip of his stick. It unscrewed to two pieces that fit in a vinyl case. He rubbed talcum on the burnished wood.

Everett pumped his arm and sank two on the break. He made three more, then paced around the table twice. The seven through nine were set to run with no chance for a combination. He had to make them all or lose. He dropped the seven and the eight, but the cue ball rolled too far for shape on the nine. It was a terrible leave.

“A hair hard,” the riverman said. “But you can cut her.”

“What’re you telling him that for,” Jesse said. “It’s your money, too.”

“Good pool’s still pool.”

The nine was an inch from the back rail. The cue lay in the middle of the table, aligned with the nine. If Everett shot too hard, the cue ball would carom off the table; too soft and the nine wouldn’t fall in the corner. He had to shave the nine ball gently into the pocket. A miss would give Jesse the game.

Planting one foot, Everett raised the other behind him. He hitched his body forward to brace his thigh, stretching the table’s length. His bridge hand was steady as a gun rest. Jesse dragged a stool from a video game and sat directly behind the nine ball.

“Double or nothing,” Jesse said.

“Yup.”

A car horn sounded outside, three bursts. The riverman chuckled. “That’s Porter,” he said. “All done.”

Jesse rocked his head above the table, sucking air through his teeth. Everett knew that asking him to move would be giving in, admitting that the cheap tactic worked. Everett peered down the cue, one elbow propped on the felt-covered slate, his fingers splayed for balance. He saw the spot to hit. It was one more shot, just another shot, and he had to shoot softly, very softly.

“Which one makes more racket,” Jesse said, “a hog or Sue?”

The screen door banged behind Everett, and he heard his sister’s laugh.

“I do!” she said. “Damned if I don’t!”

Everett hit the ball as hard as he could. It kissed the nine in the pocket, hopped high over the rail, and bounced against Jesse’s face. He screamed and fell off the stool. The cue ball landed on the table.

“By God, Porter,” said the riverman. “I wished you’d showed up a half hour ago. I done give a week’s pay to this boy.”

Sue pushed her face against Porter’s chest and smiled at Everett. Lipstick tinted her front teeth. She was weaving drunk, and her jeans were unzipped. Fresh bruises marked both her arms.

“Hidy, brother,” she said. “You ought to see their van.”

The riverman looked at him, then quickly away. Someone whistled. Jesse scrambled from the floor, his nose streaming blood. “Table scratch, Wall Eye! You owe me a hundred bucks!”

Quentin stepped in front of Jesse. “Somebody hit you?” he said.

“Fell off the damn stool,” Jesse said. “Tell that bastard he owes me money.”

“He don’t owe nobody nothing,” said the riverman. “Look where the cue ball’s at.”

The nine was gone and the white ball was lying alone in the middle of the table, throwing a crescent shadow.

“That ain’t no scratch,” Quentin said.

“The cue ball busted me in the nose,” Jesse said. “He cheated some way.”

The room became very quiet. Porter pulled Sue out of range and joined the two men from the river. Players moved from the back tables, holding cues, staring at the strangers. Everett realized everyone was waiting for him to deny Jesse’s accusation, but he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure that how he’d won was fair.

The riverman threw money on the table.

“It was a clean game,” he said. “That little piss-ant’s looking to get hurt talking that way.”

“Pay up,” Quentin said to Jesse. “Or you’re all done shooting here.”

“I ain’t got but sixty dollars.” Jesse spat pink and looked at the men behind him. “I’m good for it. Who’ll cover me till next week?”

No one spoke. Everett understood that they weren’t backing him up, or Quentin either. It was Friday night and they didn’t like Jesse. Whatever happened, they would enjoy.

“Take something off him,” the riverman said. “Fancy cue stick, maybe. What size boots you wear?”

Everett shook his head. Winning no longer mattered, and he wished Sue wasn’t his sister.

“You got to take something,” Quentin said.

“Gun rack,” Everett whispered.

Quentin jerked his head to the door. “Red pickup,” he said.

The three men led Jesse outside. Quentin unplugged the jukebox and began turning off lights. “Closing time,” he said.

The players left, snickering at Sue as they passed. Everett forced himself to look at her. She sagged against the table.

“Your face is all marked up with blue,” she said.

“It’s just chalk.”

His voice echoed in the vacant room. A hand-printed sign was taped to the far wall, its yellow edges curling. NO FIGHTS, the sign read, NO GAMBLING. LADIES WELCOME. Someone had killed a bug against it.

“Need any money?” He pointed to the table. “I got plenty.”

“No,” she said. “I ain’t about to start taking it now. Not off you anyway.”

“Why not?”

“You ever see a girl in here before?”

Everett shook his head.

“Well, I’m the first, then,” she said. “I’m fit for it, don’t you think.”

“I don’t know.”

“You know,” she said. “Don’t go playing like you don’t. I’m sick of it. Sick to death of it from you and everyone else.”

“Of what?”

“You know that, too.”

Everett placed the cue on the table. He pushed the stick and it rolled smoothly with no bow, a good cue. He wanted to run, but couldn’t; the pool hall was where he ran to. His head hurt.

“Not me,” he whispered. “I never done it.”

Sue stepped forward and slapped him in the face.

“No, you never did, did you! And don’t go getting brigetty over it either. Many’s the time you could have, but you never. You just looked at me with that old eye, like I wasn’t no better than one of them hogs. Well I am, Everett. I’m here to tell you. I am!”

Everett’s cheek stung and his head was throbbing. He wished he’d done it with her, too. He’d missed something that everyone knew more about than him. Now he’d never have the chance.

The riverman brought the gun rack in and set it on the pool table. The sound of Jesse’s truck came through the door. Gravel scattered against the pool hall before his tires squealed on the blacktop.