“There’s all kinds of hustles,” the fisherman suggested. “Maybe you’ve hustled yourself.”
“Probably,” the kid admitted. “Seems like I’ve been doing that since about first grade.” He rattled his cue case, looked toward Beer and Bait. “So it’s rigged. So they teamed me wrong on purpose.” The kid looked toward the Canal where little wavelets danced before the wind. “I ought to be steamed, so how come I ain’t?” Then he answered his own question. “In a little while I’ll walk in there, shoot a hot stick, and lose. Guys will say it means something, and I’m gonna grin like it don’t mean nothin’, because it don’t.”
The fisherman privately told himself that miracles happen. This was a smart kid. In the middle of all this badness, something good. “There’s no such thing as an honest hustle,” the fisherman suggested. “Seems like you just made a choice.”
“Seems like.” The kid turned toward Beer and Bait. “You want to watch the show?”
The fisherman looked toward swaying treetops. He thought of his boat. It was doubled up on lines long enough to handle a rise in tide. He reminded himself he had no place to go, and no way to protect who he loved. “It’s gonna be illuminating,” he muttered. “Why not?”
The crowd inside Beer and Bait seemed nearly civilized. A few loggers even used words of up to two syllables. Hustlers kept their yaps shut as cueballs clicked, and as the aromas of fresh beer, and stale beer belches swirled through cigar smoke.
Rich guys in pastel golfing togs played to a gallery of butterflies. The butterflies, gorgeous from a distance, perched at tables arranged on the bandstand. They could see over heads of a crowd seated around small tables on the dance floor. The butterflies chatted and sipped nectar. They colored the joint with tones most gorgeous; pink and mauve, orange and money-flavor, buttercup yellow, aqua-teal, and purple.
A young guy at the bar took one look at the fisherman and offered his barstool. The guy looked happy, like he’d already lost the tournament and was free to enjoy the rest of the day. A nice guy.
The fisherman felt insulted and ready to fight. Then he remembered how he looked. Not many guys were polite to old men. He said his thanks, took a place at the bar, and had a great view.
Through windows so clean you couldn’t see them, the fisherman saw moderate chop rising on the Canal. To the east, and headed seaward, a crab boat glowed yellow and blue in sunlight as it traced a silver wake. Toward the middle of the Canal the creature moved ever so slow, like a wreck adrift. Waves were not yet breaking, but chop caused white furrows between crests. The fisherman shuddered. His storm gear, boots ‘n all, were parked in the cabin of his boat. He figured that mister sun would last another fifteen minutes before dirty weather hit.
A low murmur came from the crowd as a logger made a miracle type shot, then ran the table. The game of nine ball, it should be noted, moves quick. It’s possible to drop three or four games without getting a shot. The game asks for plenty of positioning, combinations, and not a few banks. The excited murmur came mostly from the crowd of Beer and Bait regulars, not from the butterflies who were otherwise occupied. Stinky stuff has a way of happening.
Because, arranged around the large room, poolers and wives and girlfriends sat at tables and sipped beer or pop. The women; secretaries, sales clerks, waitresses with rough hands, dressed in blue jeans and logging shirts, or ready-to-wear skirts and blouses. Hair was nicely brushed, tied back, or with bangs, or shoulder length and swingy. Bottoms were narrow or broad, legs slim or chunky, shirtfronts abundant; but mostly, the ladies broadcast vitality; were alive. The Beer and Bait ladies watched the butterflies, and the ladies were hostile.
The butterflies, with beetle-lady acting as choir director, pretended to pay no attention; but a two hundred dollar scarf might be dropped accidentally, or a diamond ring large enough to choke a snake might be twisted into plain view as a butterfly leaned forward, chin on delicately curved wrist.
Tension grew as rich guys watched the Beer and Bait ladies while pretending otherwise. Rich guys gave sideways glances that checked out nicely turned legs, or low cut blouses. The Beer and Bait ladies, in a less-than-loving attempt to communicate with butterflies, showed a little extra leg. Silent messages passed back and forth, and the messages were not kind.
The hustlers stayed out of it. Loners. Never sitting. Never congregating. They remained practically invisible except when shooting. The Beer and Bait players, though, watched rich guys checking out the Beer and Bait ladies. The Beer and Bait players started to get their backs up, a condition not advisable if a guy wants to win at pool.
The trouble being… a ‘course, that it probably wasn’t even a hustle, since rich guys are traditionally known to be horny…
The fisherman watched the two kid bartenders. The kids picked up on the tension and asserted control. They were like a pair of twins, except one had curly dark hair, and one had straight blond; both with white shirts, bow ties, goldy-brass rings in their ears, and hands so deft they could make change whilst wiping bar, drawing beer; and all the time flipping bartender-type bull that tells each-’n-all just who controls the joint.
Mostly the bartenders flipped it at the Beer and Bait guys, because those were the guys who suffered. This early in the game guys were getting shed like mange. Wizardry romped as cueballs backed the length of the table, and as three ball combinations became so common as to go unnoted. The level of play ran so high that ordinary players rose to the occasion, got hot, stayed hot, and lasted three or four games. Other guys who were very, very good, discovered that very-very-good was not good enough. Each time a team found itself eliminated, the players shifted from pop to beer, mutters, and excuses.
Meanwhile, the rich guy’s secretary kept everything straight. She dressed to look plain, wore big eyeglasses to keep butterflies from jealousy, and spoke nicely, but with authority. She took no crapola from anybody, rich guys and bartenders included. The fisherman watched her, thought her the prettiest woman in the joint, and certainly the smartest. Then, thinking about women who were pretty, he searched the crowd for Bertha.
She stood in a far corner and looked onto the Canal. Bertha should be joyous at so many customers. Instead, she slumped. Bertha pretended to look at rising waves, but was actually standing in a place where she could watch a weasel type gent who drifted through the crowd. The guy was too scrawny to be a cop, but a stench of copness dwelt about him; something too observant, something official, something slightly smarty. He dressed in work pants and chambray shirt, both new. He wore pointy shoes. A real wrong guy.
The fisherman told himself that there would be cops. The scrawny gent kept close to where guys were side-betting, even made a few bets himself. Money passed back and forth, and pretty openly. A lot of money.
The guy was a plant for cops. A bust was gonna happen, it was gonna. The fisherman watched Bertha, then watched the hustlers. Hustlers were not stupid. They paid no attention to the guy. It figured then, that the hustlers knew about the bust. And Bertha was not stupid, but looked scared and helpless. Seeing her that way was a new experience for the fisherman. He wondered if it was new for Bertha.
Busted Hustles
From the Japanese Current, sometimes, a warm front seeps north as clouds command satellite pictures on TV. The screen goes gray, like old-time black and white, as clouds churn slow cyclonic motion. When that happens we get abundant rain, and those who love the forest fear the very soul of wind. Our Pacific Northwest is so wet that trees do not grow massive root systems. When soil turns liquid with rain, and wind arrives, giants crash across the forest, and into houses.