“You want to play for all of it?” the fat man asked.
“Sure,” Billy said. “Why fuck around? Lag for break, or flip a coin?” He grinned at old Larkin, whose face had gone gray.
It was really over before the game started. Billy knew it, he knew he had defeated the fat man’s spirit, and all that was left was to win the actual game. The fat man won the toss and broke safe, as one always does one-pocket, and then Billy sized up the lay of the balls very carefully, his whole body burning with a kind of calm ecstasy, shot what would have been a safety even if he had missed, a two-rail bank that dropped into his pocket without even touching the side rails. Then he made two more balls and left the cue ball frozen to the far rail. The fat man shot safe, and Billy made another bank, this time three rails and the cue ball safe anyway, made the shot, and ran out. The game was over. Billy took all the money, counted it, put his thousand dollars back in his shirt pocket and the rest in his pants pocket. Then he went back to the counter and began tipping another cue. He did not even see the fat man and his friends leave.
But it was not over yet, and Billy knew it. He went home at four in the morning and lay in his bed unable to sleep until well after sunup; he listened to the rain and wondered what part of himself he had opened up by defeating the Arizona fat man so thoroughly, so finally, and (what seemed worst of all) so dramatically. He remembered how incredibly sweet it had been, and how terribly he had missed that kind of victory; and he wondered why he now felt so down and empty. His wife knew something was the matter and did not bother him with questions. After she fed the children and ate breakfast, she took the little boy and girl to a neighbor’s and left Billy alone in the house. He could hear her bickering with the little boy about putting his rubber boots on. He wondered where they were going until he heard the little girl say something about it, and then he knew his wife was being considerate. This irritated him. Finally he fell asleep, and dreamed of vast clicking pool games.
When he awakened in the late afternoon, none of the tension was gone. He ate, and caught a bus back to the bowling alley. He had never managed to buy a car; no car seemed to fit him. He would not have a cheap car, and the usual Cadillac embarrassed him, yet to choose a different expensive car would have been to play their game, too, not to mention the down payment money that would have had to come out of his caseroll. He tried to make himself busy at work, but it seemed futile and dull, and so he went to see Luanne.
For once she was home alone, but in a sullen mood, and for an hour she and Billy sipped quietly at the whiskey he had brought. The place was so sordid. Instead of a kitchen there was a table against the wall with a hot plate on it and, even though Luanne ate out almost all the time, garbage bulged from wet sacks under the table and spilled onto the linoleum, and she had a tiny back porch also covered with old magazines, sacks of garbage, bottles, newspapers. The wallpaper in the room was puce, with heavy purple grapes and green vines decorating it, and the ceiling looked dirty. The bathroom was unspeakable and smelled of urine and face-powder. The slovenliness of Luanne’s place, Billy reflected with irony, had once seemed romantic and sensual to him, but now it was just filthy. He wanted to say to her, “Why don’t you clean this goddam place up?” but he knew what she would say: “If it bugs you, baby, clean it yo’ self.” And of course she was right.
He wanted to tell her how frightened he was, but she would have asked him what was frightening him, and he would not have known what to answer. She could be amused at the idea of generalized, even abstract, fear. Angst, Billy thought, drawing the word out of his memory, that’s what I got; eighteen pounds, four ounces of Angst. I’d be better off strung out; at least I’d know how to make me feel better. He knew Luanne was never troubled by such feelings. Or if she was she didn’t know it, would get drunk or loaded or find a man, and get rid of the bad feeling. She felt good, bad, or indifferent: it was that simple for her. She could go on a five-day drunk, sleep with eight or ten different men, get into a razor fight, end up in jail, get out and be ready to start all over again; she could talk, argue, listen to music, or dance with a rapt attention that involved her entire being, and five minutes later she could be bored and sulky. In fact, he realized, she seemed simply to absorb the mood of the place she was in, the feelings of the people with her, and she was sulky now because Billy was down himself; he had noticed in the past that when he had come over ready and willing to have a good time, needing a good time, she was always in the same mood. She was a sponge. There was that whole sponge world; the black world he had fought so bitterly to pull himself out of, a rathole in American society reserved exclusively for Negroes who refused to be like Billy and refused to climb into the middle class, who demanded their pleasures and terrors now, could not, would not, wait for the calmer satisfactions Mister Cholly promised but never quite gave. Billy snorted to himself. He envied them their quick pleasure, but he knew he was too white, too far gone, to travel that road; he knew he would be frightened. Yet he knew too much about the other world to try to pretend to join it. So he was not a member of anybody’s club, and he was lonely. Just a tourist, he thought; never a resident. Blah.
He was trying to think of a way to say good-bye to Luanne that would be neither ambiguous nor corny, when somebody pressed the buzzer. Billy felt a start of fear and gritted his teeth in self-anger.
Luanne opened the door and a big black man named Uncle Vance came in; Billy knew him, stood up and shook hands with him. He was not afraid of Uncle Vance. In fact, Uncle was kind of funny; blue-black skin, three teeth resembling yellowish fangs, two in his lower jaw and one in the upper; a suit that had once been in fashion and even a little flashy but was now spotted and shabby, the cuffs too thick, the pantlegs too billowy, the coat too long. He was even wearing a necktie with a Windsor knot which Billy could tell was never untied but merely slipped loose and over his head; the knot looked grimy.
But Uncle Vance was a nice man, and immediately, Billy was angry at himself for putting him down. Uncle Vance ran a trucking company, which is to say he and the finance company owned a truck, Vance’s eighteen-year-old son drove the truck, Vance went around getting loads to haul, and the finance company took the profits; but then, the very fact that Vance had the truck—the doors of which were lettered: VANCE TRUCKING COMPANY—FAST HAULAGE—ANYWHERE, ANYTIME—made him a member of the middle class in good standing, a voice in the church, a member of the Negro post of the American Legion, all that. He was a respectable man. He was not a man to settle things with a razor, and in fact he belonged to the NAACP, whose members, one wit cracked, spent their Saturday nights hidden in their basements.
He accepted a cheese glass of Billy’s whiskey and the three of them sat listening to the radio. It was dark out, overcast, and through the open window Billy could smell the impending rain. It rained a lot in Seattle, winter and summer. It was one of the things people in Seattle talked about. That and Boeing. And how green everything was. Of course, you pay for the green with the rain. But wasn’t everything so lovely when it didn’t rain! Think of the fools in Harlem. But they didn’t talk about this. They sat and listened to the radio and waited for the rain to start.
Finally Uncle Vance broke the ice. “I heard you won a large amount of money from some Cholly down to your bowling alley,” he said. “Six hundred dollars, was it?”
Luanne looked at Billy, and he smiled and said, “Yes, I did just that.”
“Nice money,” Luanne said. “We runnin out of whiskey.”
Uncle Vance looked at Billy uncomfortably, and then with an embarrassed air, reached into his coat pocket and brought out an envelope, which he opened with his thick fingers, and removed three small, tightly rolled marijuana cigarettes. “I have these,” he said. “Would you care to share a few puffs?” Billy nodded, amused, and the girl said, “Well, you are sweet,” and Uncle Vance gave up being embarrassed by Billy’s presence, licked down one of the joints, lit it, drew his lungs full of smoke and air, and passed it to the girl, his eyes standing
out of his head; she toked, passed it to Billy, and he drew deeply, hoping it was good marijuana and he would feel it hit him right away. They passed the joint around several times before Billy knew it was not going to be any good; it was probably locally grown and for that matter full of twigs. He felt a little high, but the whiskey obscured the feeling, and none of his tension seemed to have gone away. Abruptly, he stood up. “I got to go to work,” he said. Vance tried to look politely upset, but it didn’t come off, and Luanne was obviously glad to see him go. She and Vance probably had an appointment anyway; Billy had come over without telephoning. Billy wanted to tell the girl good-bye, but he couldn’t with Vance sitting there looking so stiff and respectable.
Vance walked down the hallway with him. “Maybe sometime we could talk a little business,” he said.
“Maybe,” Billy said. He felt a strong yearning for he did not know what. He looked up at Uncle Vance in the dark hallway. He could come here, sneaking back down into the rathole, for-bidden cigarettes in his pocket, to snitch a few pleasures he obviously did not get in his own respectable circle, and he could even be proud of himself; he and Billy could meet on this neutral ground and even share the girl and the whiskey and the marijuana, and even talk about discussing business. It seemed stupid.
“You ought to invest some of that money,” Uncle Vance said. “While you still got it. You got to think of the future, boy. You know that.” He chuckled softly. “Things are gonna open up one day, Billy, and those of us with the cash invested are goin to be on top.”
“Oh, yeah?” Billy could not help saying. “When does all this happen?”
“Take it easy, Billy. Maybe not for a while, maybe not in our lives; but we got children, both of us, and we got to think about them. Maybe in their time, you know?”
Billy left the building and caught a bus for the bowling alley. He was angry. Of course Vance was right and his was the right way; and of course Luanne and her spade friends were right and it would never happen and it was too much work and they were too angry and too full of passion to wait for anything; and of course the liberals were right and the time was coming, and the niggerlovers were right, too, because the niggers were pretty to look at, and the niggerhaters were right, too, because the niggers were sloppy and lazy and sensual, and so just naturally everybody was right except Billy and he was alone and that was just tough. But I don’t want to be a Negro; I don’t want to be a white man; I don’t want to be a married man; I don’t want to be a businessman; I don’t want to be lonely. Life seemed to be a figure eight. It terrified him, sitting on the bus, as if time had opened black jaws and swallowed him.
The fat man burst into the bowling alley a little after midnight, his two friends with him. He walked right up to Billy, who was seated in the customer’s chair of his shoeshine stand watching a game of nine-ball on the number one table.
“Come on down out of there, my friend,” the fat man said. “We got to talk.”
Billy grinned down at him. “I’se comfy,” he said.
“What would you like to play tonight?”
“You rob a bank or somethin?”
The fat man smiled coyly. “I got money. What do you want to play?”
“What makes you think I want to play at all? I’m tired. I worked all day, mon.”
“Shee. You’ll play. Come on, what’s your best game?”
“One-pocket.”
“Never. You’re the best one-pocket player in the world.” The fat man reflected for a moment, and then said, as if it had just occurred to him, “How about some eight-ball?”
“Not in this life; you’re the best eight-ball player in the world.” Around and around, Billy thought.
“Well, I brought the money, I’d like to gamble.”
The crowd was beginning to gather again. It was going to be just like last night, except for one thing; Billy would no longer have the emotional advantage. He did not know just exactly what this advantage was or how you got it, but he knew it was gone. He really did not think the fat man could beat him, though. They argued, showed off for the crowd, joked, insulted each other, and Billy made the fat man show his money, and they ended up at the fat end of the pool section playing straight snooker. Billy lost the first three games, each time with the seven ball crucial, paid off $150, and quit. They settled their time and then the fat man said, “I aint sleepy. Hell, let’s play some nine-ball just for fun. Five dollars a game.”
“Okay,” Billy said. They took the number one table and Billy racked it for nine-ball. The fat man won the toss and was standing ready to break. He looked at his two friends, who were leaning against the number three table, and he laughed. They both grinned. The fat man turned to Billy and laughed again. “I got you now, sonny,” he said. “And I won’t let go.”
“We’ll see about that,” Billy said. “If you’re too good, I’ll hit the rack; but you ain’t that good.”
“You won’t hit the rack,” the fat man said with assurance. “I know you. You’re dead.” They eyed each other steadily, and Billy knew the fat man was right; he would not quit, neither of them would, until the other was broke. That was it; that was the center of it all, the nugget of truth he had been searching for all his life: to do something that was endless, to risk it all on himself.
They played until four o’clock the next afternoon; most of the crowd had gone home, slept and come back. For several hours they played for five a game, and then jumped it to ten. Billy could not remember whose idea the raised bet was. It did not matter. At the end he was broke: casemoney, salary, winnings, everything. He had played his best, he hadn’t dogged it; it was just that over the long haul the fat man was just a tiny bit better than he was, and so took all the money. It was really very boring. When it was over Billy signed for his share of the tab and went into the bowling alley office and talked to the manager, getting an advance on his wages. Then he came out, still carrying his cue. The fat man and his friends were sitting at the lunch counter, eating cheeseburgers. Billy unscrewed his stick and instead of putting it in its wooden slot back of the checkout counter, reached down and got out his leather carrying case, dusted it off, and slipped the two halves of the cue in. One of the white kids wanted to talk to him, but Billy brushed him off, and started out of the place.
“Where you goin, Billy?” the kid asked him.
He smiled. “Out to win that money back, boy. You think I like to lose?” But he knew it was a lie, and he was leaving out of shame. Outside, it was raining hard. Conscious of the deliberate irony, he took a cab to the Greyhound bus depot. He did not telephone his wife. The shame included her. I am a child, he thought. When am I going to grow up?
Sixteen
“Night or day it’s all one in those damn 24-hour joints,” Billy said one slow evening a few days before he was killed. “That’s the hell of it, man; they’re air-conditioned, open all night, soft music playin, an you don’t know what day it is after a while, or if it’s winter or summer. Time dies in a place like that, you feel pulled loose from it, like dreaming, dig, you don’t even know if you’re hungry. Like comin out of a movie, dig, and it’s bright sunlight out and you’re blinkin away and people are walkin around on business and you wonder what the hell world you fell into.
“But how do you stay away from it? It’s like so safe. Anyway, pool cracks me up. And it aint simple, either. You never were good at it, were you? Maybe you felt it, anyhow. Everything is connected. You know, it’s your turn to shoot. It starts then. You come up to the table, sightin the shot, lookin over the layout, and you can already feel how all the balls, just sittin there on the table, are connected, an you’re connected to them, an your cue is part of your arm, and you chalk up and feel the connection there, and it gets good, man, and I mean good, cause you’re buildin up all that good stuff, you know you can make any shot in the world and the shot is there—it aint somethin you can see but it’s there —that feels good, like, a lush might walk into a bar someplace an when he walks in he’s all pulled apa
rt, but he sees all them rows on rows of bottles and he feels em and they feel him, an he sits down at the bar, all connected to the whole world, an orders his drink, an he throws that shot of liquor back into his throat an it’s like comin in your head. The same for me on a pool table. I can feel it. So it’s there. I sight the shot, bend down, and there’s somethin goin on between me and the cue ball and the object ball and the pocket, and I feel it build up, shoot, and that’s it. You waited for that all your life. The connection is made. The thing is complete. It’s inside you now.
“But, if you miss the shot, the ball hangs up in the pocket or you miscue or somethin, that connection is broken and some of you dies. I’ve felt that, too. I know it’s the truth. Somethin busted and gone, not a run of a hundred balls is gonna bring it back. When you lose you lose forever, an when you win it only lasts a second or two. That’s life. I aint lyin. I aint comin on. Why should I?
“Everythin in the whole fuckin world is connected, I think; and the connection turns you on, an the broken connections burn you out. Suppose like you see this woman, see? You send out a hot line of connecting stuff to her if she’s your action, and if you’re hers, wham, you connect; you don’t have to say a word, it’s there and you both know it. But you know what we really do; we think about other things, or come on or get smart or worry about ourselves, and fuck up the connection. Then do we know it’s gone? No, man, we keep tryin an it just gets worse and worse. It’s like you get this tremendous urge to bust a window with your fist, dig, and if you went ahead and did it right then, wham, for about a half a second there you’d feel like the king of the world; but instead, you get to worryin about cuttin your hand and all that shit, so you hesitate and then get pissed off at yourself and bust the window anyway, only you’re self-conscious about it and don’t get any pleasure out of it at all.”