He was hung over the next morning and did not want to be devious with Jean. He came into the kitchen and said, “I think it’s time I moved out.”
She was rinsing a plate and she went on rinsing for a minute. “Where, Eddie?”
“The Evarts Hotel. I can get a room for twenty-eight dollars a night.”
“And when?” They could have been talking about mowing the lawn.
“This afternoon.”
She put the plate in the dish drainer and looked at him coldly. “I’ll fix you a supply of vitamins.”
Before he unpacked, he found the history department number in the directory and called Roy Skammer. Professor Skammer was just back from class, the secretary said. Could she say who was calling?
“It’s Ed Felson.”
There was a wait and then Skammer came on the phone. “Fast Eddie,” he said.
“I have a favor to ask. I’d like to use the table at the Faculty Club for practice.”
“You aren’t good enough already?”
“The table I was using is gone.”
“Gone?”
“My ex-wife sold it.”
“Jesus!” Skammer said. “Put not your faith in things of this world.”
“How about it—the club?”
“The table isn’t played on much, but the committee takes a dim view of outsiders.”
“What about in the morning?”
“That might work. They open at seven for breakfast. Nobody shoots pool that early.”
“How do I get in?” He might sound pushy, but it was necessary to be pushy. If Skammer wanted so badly to be thought a nice guy, then let him worry about it.
“Well…” Skammer’s voice sounded doubtful. “Why don’t you come by early tomorrow and tell Mr. Gandolf you’re a guest of Professor Skammer. I’ll give him a call when we finish.”
“Where do I find him?”
“In the club library. All the way back on the first floor.”
His room faced a back alley; he was awakened at five by a garbage truck and couldn’t get back to sleep. He had lain awake for hours the night before, looking at the dumb wallpaper and the little sink in the corner of the room and thinking of Arabella. He should have told her from the beginning that he was a pool player. He should have told her about Jean. It was stupid.
He lay in bed now, waiting for daylight, and thought about her. It had never occurred to him that he could have that kind of woman, with her high-toned good looks—the clear jawline, the look of amused intelligence. He was crazy about her voice, her accent, the words she chose in the sentences she made. And she liked him. She even admired his pool game. He had almost blown it, but it wasn’t blown yet. He began to want her strongly, more than he had ever wanted Martha or Jean, more than anyone since that afternoon at Esalen when Milly—overtanned and sweaty in the sun—had bent down and taken him in her mouth. He felt like a teenager in the first throes of lust; he couldn’t get the thought of her out of his head. He got up, washed his face in the sink, and shaved. He rinsed the lather off in the shower, and by the time he had dried off and was getting his clothes on, there was gray light at the window and his desire was gone.
He left the room at six-thirty and was at the door of the Faculty Club, carrying his cue case, when the old man opened it up.
After such little sleep, his energy at the table was surprising. He had the room to himself, hearing only the occasional clink of dishes from the dining room below; and he shot the balls with concentration and force, hardly missing at all for hours. The pockets were a shade too easy—wider open than they should have been, and a bit filed down so that doubtful shots would fall in. But he didn’t mind that; it might help his confidence, and his confidence needed help. He kept making balls, setting up difficult shots for himself and pocketing them remorselessly. He felt sharp and clear, and the fact that he wore glasses seemed now to mean nothing.
For the rest of the week he came in every morning, after walking across the campus at dawn. He would drive out South Broadway, the wide avenue nearly devoid of traffic that early, and leave his car in the university lot marked for visitors. Then he would walk across the campus to the Faculty Club, following a long, curved concrete pathway under high dark trees, crunching underfoot the leaves from overnight. It was too early for students, but he would pass glum maintenance men in dark uniforms, puffing on cigarettes, or nurses on their way to the university hospital with white uniforms half covered by jackets. Few people talked at that time of day; something deep in Eddie responded to the silence. He liked the early-morning life of this big place, with it brick classroom buildings, the new high-rise dormitories off to the east, the solid old library that he walked by every morning. He wore his leather bomber jacket with the collar turned up against the chill, carried his cue case under his arm and walked briskly. It felt like a new life.
By Wednesday he had developed a routine. He would spread the fifteen colored balls out at the foot of the table, place the cue at the other end, pick the ball he would break the next rack from, and then try to run the other fourteen. He gave himself a difficult shot to begin with so the exhilaration from making it would carry him on through the rest of the rack. If he made it. When he missed, he set it up again and kept trying until he got it. It was painful at times to miss repeatedly, since the opening shots he set for himself were tough ones, but he needed that too. His game might look good to a person like Skammer, as the punches of a professional fighter would feel devastating to a street punk; but he wasn’t preparing himself for street punks. He would be playing Fats again in a week. It was time he started beating him. He could run a rack of balls easily enough, if he made the first one. But that wasn’t enough. This was an easy table and there was no pressure; he should be running in the seventies and eighties. As a young man he would never have missed on a table like this.
Every now and then people would come in to watch him shoot. Young professors, sometimes carrying their coffee cups from breakfast. They would stand around quietly for a half hour or so and then leave. No one asked to play and he was glad of that. He did not feel like an interloper at the Faculty Club after the first week; he felt he belonged there. Increasing the length of his runs was uphill labor, and there was a suspicion it might be hopeless, that whatever fire he once possessed had been extinguished; but he kept shooting pool. The difference between now and the way it had been before the tour with Fats was that now he could see the alternative more clearly.
At their next match, in St. Louis, he did better but Fats still beat him. One fifty to one forty-two.
“I don’t know what the hell to do,” Eddie said afterward. “There’s no money in this tour. When it’s over I’ll have less than I started with.”
“People won’t pay to watch pool games. We’re not rock singers.”
“That’s the fucking truth.” Eddie lit a cigarette. “I don’t know how to make a living, Fats. I have to get another poolroom.”
“I’ve already told you all I have to tell.” Fats stood up from his bleacher seat and walked over to the table where the game had just finished. They were waiting for a car to take them to the airport and the car was late.
“I remember what you told me,” Eddie said. He got up and came over. There were still a dozen or so people in the bleachers, but they were not watching Fats and Eddie anymore. “You told me I need balls. There’s truth in that, Fats, but no money.”