The position was terrible. The cue ball was snookered behind the seven. He would be lucky to get a hit on the one ball, let alone a safety. He looked at this, and for a moment felt like walking out of the room. Borchard stood a few feet from the table with a cold, inward smile on his youthful face, waiting for him to miss. It was a nightmare position and there was nothing he could do about it but poke at the cue ball and pray.
Eddie gritted his teeth, tightened the joint of his cue and looked at the shot. The lights on the overhead boom went out.
Someone in the crowd applauded and a few laughed. Eddie stood and waited. He looked at the speakers’ table; the tournament director sat there with a frown, talking on a telephone. After a minute he hung up and picked up the microphone and his voice came on the loudspeaker. “They say we’ve blown a fuse,” it said. “There’ll be a ten-minute recess.”
Several people in the crowd began to boo.
“We apologize for the delay,” the director’s voice said.
Borchard was making his way roughly through the standees. Men in the crowd were saying things to him, but Borchard did not look at any of them; his mouth was set in a hard line and he pushed through the mass of people with a kind of heedless urgency, as though late for an important meeting.
Eddie left his cue on the table and walked to the players’ restroom behind the bleachers. No one else was there; he stood alone in front of the wide, brightly lit mirror. His eyes were dull and his hair limp. He looked down at his hands: greenish pool-cloth dirt outlined the fingernails; a ground-in smear darkened the heel of his left hand. He turned a faucet on and watched the sink fill with hot water while he peeled the wrapper from a cake of soap. He turned off the faucet and began to work up a lather over the palms and backs of his hands, over his wrists. He began to rub hard, lathering each finger separately, abrading the dark stain on his left hand with the fingers of his right. He filled the basin, rinsed, washed again and rinsed again. He took the soap and worked it into his face, lathering around his nose and eyes, then did the back of his neck and under his chin. It was a relief. He let the water out, refilled the bowl, ducked down and began rinsing.
While he was drying with paper towels, the door opened and Earl Borchard came in. Borchard did not even look at him. He walked to the urinal against the wall on the other side of Eddie and stood there using it loudly, blankly facing the tiled wall a few inches from his nose. Eddie began combing his hair.
At the sound of flushing, he turned to see Borchard head into one of the marble stalls, slamming the door behind him. Eddie finished combing his hair.
He was putting the comb back in his pocket when Borchard came out of the stall, still not looking at him. He walked to the mirror, stopped next to Eddie, looked at himself, took out a comb. In the bright fluorescent lights, pink blotches were visible on his face.
Borchard was only a vain, edgy kid. Without his pool cue that was all he was. Eddie turned toward him and said, “Sometimes it’s a bitch.”
Borchard turned sharply. “I’m not your friend,” he said, barely moving his lips.
He looked away from Eddie and took a paper cup from the wall dispenser, half filled it with water, abruptly turned to Eddie again. “I’m going to beat your ass.” He looked down at the water in his hand and smiled, then turned back to stare unblinkingly into Eddie’s face. “This is going to beat you.” He parted his lips. On his tongue sat a wet drug capsule, green and black.
Eddie’s response was like a reflex. His open hand came up immediately, slapping Borchard full on the cheek, the way a parent slaps a smart-assed child. Borchard dropped the water.
The pill hit the floor, spun, and stopped a few feet away. Borchard stood transfixed, caught stupidly in his act. Eddie walked to the pill and crushed it with his heel. His back was to Borchard, but he felt no alarm. The kid would not hit him. He walked to the door.
“I’ve got more,” Borchard said as Eddie pushed the door open.
“Take a dozen,” Eddie said.
“Play will resume as soon as the players return,” said the voice on the PA. Eddie walked through the crowd and up to the tournament table where the lights now flooded the green again. The referee was standing with his hands behind his back, in position. Eddie stepped up to the table, elevated the butt of his cue stick and gently tapped the cue ball into the rail. It bounced out, rolled softly, clicked into the edge of the one and stopped. The one rolled a few feet and came to a stop exactly where Eddie wanted it to, leaving Borchard no shot at all.
It was a moment before Borchard walked up and the referee told him it was his shot. He came over to the table and frowned at the position for a moment. He did not look at Eddie. He grimaced, shook his head, and played the ball safe. Eddie returned it, leaving the cue ball far from the one.
Someone in the crowd shouted, “Go for it, Earl!” Borchard stepped up to it, bent and concentrated. He shook his head and then let go with his cue stick, shooting hard. The cue ball sped down the table, clipped the one ball but rolled too fast. It raced back up and split apart a pair of balls before stopping in a place where Eddie could make the one. It was difficult, but it could be made.
Borchard turned quickly, walked over to the little table and sat down.
Eddie, suddenly feeling young, leveled his Balabushka and, without hesitation, sliced the one in. Then the two and three. He could not miss. He bent to the four ball, cut it thin as a whisper and made it. He shot the five, six, seven, eight and then the nine, hardly hearing the applause as the nine ball fell. He leaned his Balabushka against the chair and took the heavy factory cue. The referee racked the balls. On the break Eddie made two and ran the rest. The referee racked and Eddie broke again. He shot them in one after the other. He seemed to float from ball to ball, and his vision of them beneath the white lights of television was as sharp as the edge of a steel blade. The balls rolled the way they should and fell into pockets the way they should. There was nothing to it.
As he stood ready to break, voices shouted, “On the snap, Fast Eddie,” and “Nine ball, Eddie, nine ball!” and he thundered the cue ball into them knowing the nine would go. It did. The referee racked again while the applause continued. Again he made the nine on the break and the crowd, distant from his mind but enveloping a part of his spirit, exploded in applause. He broke again, made two balls, ran the rack. Again, with the nine on a combination. No one could touch him; nothing could make him miss these balls—these bright, simple balls. He broke again, watched the cue ball settle behind the one; made the one, the two, the three, on up to the nine, slipping the nine ball itself down the rail into the corner pocket. And then, shocked, he heard the deep voice on the PA speaker saying, “Mr. Felson wins match and tournament,” the voice almost buried by applause. He blinked and looked around. The people in the bleachers were applauding, some of them whistling, some shouting. They began to stand, still applauding.