“There’s nothing wrong with my head. I’ve just been away from serious pool too long. I’m too old to play for money.”
Fats swallowed, drank some more Perrier and looked at him. “Fast Eddie,” he said, “if you don’t shoot pool, you’re nothing.”
“Come on, Fats. Life is full of things.”
“Name three.”
“Don’t be dumb.”
“I’m not being dumb. How good is sex when you’re half a man?”
“I’m not half a man.”
“I don’t believe you,” Fats said. “I can tell by the way you shoot pool.” He took the other Twinkie out of its wrapper. “Money comes after sex. Maybe before. I already know you don’t have money.”
Eddie tried to be cool, but he wasn’t able to smile “That’s sex and money. Two things.”
“Self-respect,” Fats said.
“I can have self-respect doing something besides shooting pool.”
“No you can’t,” Fats said. “Not you.”
“Why not? I didn’t sign a contract that says I shoot pool for life.”
“It’s been signed for you.” Fats finished his glass of Perrier. “I played all of them, forty years. You were the best I ever saw.”
Eddie stared at him. “If that’s true,” he said, “it was twenty years ago. This is nineteen eighty-three.”
“August,” Fats said.
“I don’t see so well. I’m not young anymore.”
“August fourteenth. Nineteen eighty-three.”
“What are you, a calendar?”
“I’m a pool player, Fast Eddie. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be anything at all.”
Eddie looked at him in silence. Then, not ready to let it go, he said, “What about the photographs? The roseate spoonbills?”
“Roseate spoonbills?” Fats said. “I am what I am because I shoot pool.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Eddie said.
“I am right. Practice eight hours a day. Play people for money.”
“I don’t know….” Eddie said.
“I know,” Fats said. “If you don’t practice, your balls will shrivel and you won’t sleep at night. You’re Fast Eddie Felson, for Christ’s sake. You ought to be winning when you play me. Don’t be a goddamned fool.”
“You make it sound like life and death.”
“Because that’s what it is.”
Back in Lexington, he tried it the first morning. Out to the closed poolroom at nine for eight hours of practice. When he unlocked the door he was shocked. There were only three tables in the room. He tried to shake off the dismay and began to shoot. It made him dizzy, walking around the table for hours in the near-empty room, bending, making a ball and going on to the next one. But he stayed with it doggedly, leaving for a few minutes at noon to get two hot dogs and a cup of coffee at Woolworth’s. He shifted from straight pool to banks but got bored with that and started practicing long cut shots, slicing the colored balls parallel with the rail and into the corner pockets. His stroke began to feel smoother but his shoulder was tired. Was Fats right? Had his balls been shriveling? He started shooting harder, making them slap against the backs of the pockets, rifling them in. Fats knew a lot. Loaded on junk food, his belly and ass enormous, over sixty years old, Fats shot pool beautifully; he had balls. Balls was what he, Eddie, had started playing pool for in the first place—that was what they all did. Mother’s boys, some of them. He had been shy when he was twelve and thirteen, before he first picked up a pool stick. When he found out about pool and how well he could play it, it had changed him. He could not remember all of it, but it had even changed the way he walked. He smashed the orange five ball down the rail and into the pocket. Then the three, the fourteen, twelve, hitting them perfectly. He went on blasting at them, but missed the final ball. It came off the edge of the pocket, caromed its way around the table, bouncing off five cushions, and then rolled slowly to a stop. His back was hurting and he had a headache.
It was almost five o’clock. The phone at the room had been cut off for weeks. He went outside to the pay phone in the parking lot and called Arabella.
“I’d like to come over for a drink,” he said.
“I’m going to a play at eight. You can come for a while.”
“I’ll bring wine,” he said, and hung up.
“Tell me about your husband,” Eddie said. He was seated in one of the white armchairs. “Is his name Weems?”
“Harrison Frame.”
“Haven’t I heard of him?”
“It would be hard not to,” Arabella said. “He used to do a television show on the university channel.”
“You sound like you hate him.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
She took a thoughtful swallow from her wineglass. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s not talk about him. What have you been doing today?”
“Catching up on my homework.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Catch up?”
“I only started.” He got up and went to the window, looking at the traffic in the street and the buildings across the street. “I like this apartment a lot,” he said.
“Eddie,” she said from the sofa, “I’ve been living in this one room for two months and I’m going crazy.”
“It’ll be better when you find a job.”
“I’m not going to find a job. There’s a recession going on. President Reagan speaks of recovery, but he’s another one.”
“Another what?”
“Another goddamned performer, like my former husband. He’s only working the room, our president. Counting the house and working the room. The son of a bitch.”
“Hey,” Eddie said, laughing. “You sound terrible. Are you drunk?”
“If three glasses of wine makes you drunk, I’m drunk.”
“I’ll get you something to eat.” He left the window and went to the refrigerator. There was a wedge of Brie and four eggs. Nothing else. “What about a soft-boiled egg?”
“If you say so.”
He boiled her two of them and, since there was no butter, merely put them in a bowl with salt and pepper and handed it to her. He heated some coffee and gave her a cup of it black.
She was a real cutie, eating her eggs on the sofa. She hunched over them with her silver hair glowing in the late afternoon light from the big window, spooning them in small bites. He sat across from her and watched, sipping his own coffee.
“Thanks, Eddie,” she said when she finished. She held the bowl in her lap and smiled. “Why don’t you tell me what you do for a living?”
He hesitated. “I was a poolroom operator until a few months ago. A long time ago I was a player.” He felt relieved; it was time he told her about pool.
“A poolroom?” She didn’t seem to understand.
“Yes.”
“But what has that to do with Enoch Wax?”
“I’m doing exhibition games for Mid-Atlantic.”
“Then you must be good.”
“I lost the first two matches.”
She didn’t seem to notice what he said. She just kept looking at him. Finally she said, “Holy cow. A pool player.” She sounded excited by the idea.
“My game isn’t what it was. I practiced all day today and it bored the hell out of me.”
She bit her lip a moment, then reached forward and set her empty bowl on the glass coffee table, next to a vase of orange gladiolas. “It must be better than sitting around an apartment.”
“Not by much.”
She stretched and yawned. “My God, Eddie! First you cheer me up, now I’m cheering you up. It could go on forever. Why don’t you go to the play with us tonight? I can inveigle a ticket.”