He turned and looked directly into the proprietor’s face. The mouth was tense, the words were harsh, but behind gold-rimmed glasses the gray eyes looked troubled, as if the eyes were trying to tell Billy not to mind the words, not to blame the proprietor. But then again, Billy thought as he went back up the stairs, maybe the old fart was just excusing himself. Billy paid no attention to the actual words; whether they were “Beat it, nigger,” or, “Take off, nigger,” or just, “Blah blah, nigger,” did not matter to him and he did not remember; it was not important; “The Rathole” was not the kind of place he was looking for. It was a dirty, two-bit joint full of pastime players and horsebettors in out of the weather; there was nothing for Billy there anyway.
Ben Fenne’s was different; he could see that right away. It was another basement, but the staircase coming down was wider and had been swept off; at the bottom there was a barbershop to the left and the poolhall to the right, and it was a bigger room, with a higher ceiling, more tables, more action; and instead of a cigar counter there was a long bar, of dark wood, behind which two white-shirted men worked, drawing beer or cooking on the griddle. A quick glance around the room showed Billy that there were no other Negroes in the room, but he expected that; there were no Negroes at the Two-Eleven in Seattle, either, or hadn’t been until Billy persisted, and finally was permitted to hang around. For that matter, he had even developed a reputation of sorts in Seattle as the “Kid Nigger,” who always played his best and showed real talent as a straight pool or one-pocket player.
The first table to the right was billiard, and there was a three-handed game of 31 going on. Feeling the hard-action tension in his gut, in all his muscles, Billy walked over to the counter behind the billiard table and perched himself up on the stool in the corner, leaning against the wall as he turned to watch the game. He felt the thrill of action in him, almost as if he were going to get into a game for a hundred dollars right then. It was a good feeling, and his hands were dry now and he could swallow easily. He almost laughed, he felt so good.
Pretty soon the counterman came over to him, wiping his hands on his stained white apron: a short man, monkey-faced, tired-looking, with thick, hairy forearms.
“What’ll it be?” he asked Billy.
Billy felt the laughter trying to bubble up out of his throat, because he knew what was going to happen, knew what had already happened. The counterman had chickened out; he had come over to tell Billy to leave, and then had chickened out.
“I’ll have a hot dog and coffee with cream,” Billy said to him.
The counterman’s hands were on the bar, and he drummed his fingers once and sighed. “Okay,” he said.
When he brought back the sandwich, a thick, rubber-skinned hot dog cut in half and placed between thin slices of white bread, he had to tap Billy on the back to get his attention.
“Here’s your sangwich, kid. Thirty cents with the coffee. Eat it and go, okay?”
“Did you think I wanted to sleep here?” Billy said innocently. Then he smiled his big show-off smile at the counterman, and pointed a long bony finger at the mustard pot down the bar. Automatically the counterman reached for the mustard and slid it to Billy. “You know what I mean, kid,” he said.
Billy ate his sandwich and sipped at his coffee, pretending to watch the billiard game; but actually he was casing the place, looking over all the tables to see where the gamblers were and what the action was. To his right was another billiard table, only with a keno rig on it—a wooden rack with a brass edge at one end of the table, with numbered holes in it for the balls. Keno was a purely gambling game, and a sign above the light rack of the table said, “Open Game, Ten Cents Per Cue,” which meant that anybody (well, practically anybody, Billy thought) could get in. He debated whether to make his stand here, and then decided against it. Because at one of the pool tables in the middle of the room there was a nine-ball game going on, between players not too much older than Billy, and there were plenty of watchers, sitting or leaning against other tables, whispering and making side bets. That would be the place.
After he finished eating he wiped his mouth daintily with a paper napkin, crossed the room to the toilet, and washed. When he came out, he went to the middle of the room, near the nine-ball game. He eased himself into a high-backed wooden chair, hooked his feet into the rungs, crossed his hands over his belly, wanting to laugh, wanting to let out a yip of joy, and said in a boyish, niggery voice that could be heard all over the poolroom, “Be fo you-all tho me out, who wants to take my money? Who wants a black boy’s hard-earned money?”
The place went dead for a moment as everyone stopped what he was doing and turned to look at him. Then slowly, some embarrassed, some uninterested, they went back to their games and talk, and the noises of the poolhall resumed. But Billy expected this; he knew that among them, probably around the nine-ball or keno table, some people were wondering what his game was and how good he was at it; wondering if they couldn’t take his money before the houseman threw him out. Billy also knew the houseman, wherever he was, would be over soon to do just that unless one of the regulars begged him not to, at least not until he had trimmed Billy.
As it turned out, the houseman himself made the offer. He was a medium-sized, well-built man of about thirty, with a leather apron on. He came up behind Billy and said, “What’s your game, boy?”
Billy turned and looked up at him. “I’ll play anything.”
The houseman said, “Why don’t you stay over on Williams Avenue, where you belong.”
“I’m from Seattle,” Billy said. “I never heard of Williams Avenue.”
“Colored neighborhood,” the houseman said. He stood patiently, his hands in his hip pockets.
“Sure,” Billy said. “Warped cues, ripped-up tables, dented balls, and ten cents on the nine. What do I want with a place like that? I got a future in pool.”
“Nobody’s got a future in pool,” the houseman said. “But I’ll play you, just to see what you got. Straight pool all right with you?”
“That would be just fine,” Billy said.
“Two dollars a game? Fifty points?”
“Just fine.”
“How about letting me see your money?”
Billy laughed softly and took out a fold of bills, with a ten on the outside. “Now how about I see yours?”
“Smart little fucker, aint you,” the houseman said.
“You want me to beg to get to play here?” Billy asked.
The houseman thought about that, and had to grin. “Well, I guess not,” he said.
I’m entertaining, aren’t I, Billy thought, and for a moment he felt a twinge of disgust with himself; he knew what he was doing was just a form of uncletomming. But the hell with that; it got him what he wanted. Maybe they started out by tolerating him, but they ended up respecting him, because the only thing that counts in a poolhall is how well you shoot.
“Let’s see your money,” Billy said. At once he wished he hadn’t; it just slipped out of him. But the houseman didn’t get mad; he laughed and pulled out his roll.
“New hustler in town,” he announced to the crowd that was beginning to gather.
“Little boy black,” Billy chanted as he came back from the bin with a cue, “will take your jack!”
That got a few laughs, and Billy could feel the tension in the room lessening. He hoped the houseman was one of the best, and he hoped, of course, that he could beat him. It would help.
At sixteen, Billy Lancing was already a brilliant pool player. He had the smooth stroking action only the young and the great ever get, and a young sharp eye, and above all, and what made him great, the inner necessity to win the money; because money meant everything in the world to Billy. He had learned how to play pool at the YMCA, and after the first rudimentary difficulties with bridge and stroke and eye, saw that for some reason or other, nobody else at the Y could beat him. He discovered that he had a talent. And he knew that down at the colored poolhall three blocks from home men
played pool for money. At the age of fourteen he made his debut at the colored poolhall, and after the grown men got over laughing at the picture of him leaning over the table, outsized cue in his hand, they saw that he was winning all the games and taking all the money, and cute or not, he was a menace. The owner of the place took care of that, and barred Billy for being underage. So he went downtown to the Two-Eleven, shivering with fright. Of course they threw him out; and that made him angry. He came back, and they threw him out again, and then he bet one of the men who took him down the elevator that he could beat him in bank pool, and the two of them rode back up again, both angry, both silent, and played on the number one table with everybody watching, and Billy got so far ahead in the first game (playing ten miles over his head in cold anger) that he made his last three banks contemptuously one-handed; and from then on he was the official mascot of the Two-Eleven poolshooters, and eventually, the best of them. A regular child prodigy, one of them called him.
The houseman won the toss and Billy broke the balls safe, but it was not a good break and the houseman started to run, six, ten, fourteen balls, and Billy reracked and the houseman fired in the loose ball and broke into the pack, spreading the balls all over the lower end of the table, and the houseman ran another ten balls before he missed. A total of twenty-five on the wire; half the game. But Billy was not worried; he was in action, and action was what he liked best. If the houseman had run fifty and won the game it would not have bothered Billy, as long as he had money in his pocket to back his play, and as long as he had his right arm. He leaned against a table and watched the houseman shooting, seeing the bright Kelly green of the new felt, the way the overhead light glowed off the balls, and beyond the table the seeming darkness of the rest of the poolhall, sensing the perfect security of knowing where he was and knowing he belonged there. Finally the houseman missed and wired his score. Billy advanced on the table, chalking his cue and sizing up the layout at the same time.
One of the watchers said, “Hell, John, you aint run so many balls in your life.”
The houseman grinned and said, “Keep the fuck outen the game, bigmouth.”
“You shootin over your head,” the watcher said.
Another, younger voice said, “I’ll give anybody two to one John beats the nigger.”
Billy turned quickly and squinted into the gloom. “Who said that?”
“I did.” The speaker was a grinning young man with dark red hair and freckles, and a dimple in the middle of his chin. He pulled a fold of money out of his shirt pocket and waggled it at Billy. “Want a piece of this?”
“I’ll take five for ten,” Billy said.
“The kid is a hustler! Okay, you’re on.”
Billy ran thirty-eight balls before he missed, feeling the charge mounting in him as ball followed ball into the pockets and rattled hollowly down the return troughs beneath, until the pressure was finally too great and he missed what should have been an easy cut into the side, and left the cue ball in the open. John the houseman, his face tightened into concentration, bent over the table and began to run, but missed his breakshot on the next rack and left Billy wide open. John sighed, put his cue down on top of an unused table and went to the back of the place and collected the time from some snooker players who had quit playing, and by the time he got back to his own game it was over; Billy had run out.
“Who said you could shoot while I wasn’t lookin?” he said angrily.
“You didn’t say nothin,” Billy said. “I didn’t even see you leave.”
“Christ Almighty, John, he win fair and square,” one of the watchers said. The red-headed kid handed Billy a five and five ones with an expression of disgust, and John paid Billy his two dollars.
“Another game?” Billy asked him.
“You’re too good for me, kid,” John said. Somebody yelled “Rack!” and John moved off to answer the call. Billy threw some balls out on the table and began shooting them, waiting for somebody to challenge him. But it was quiet now, around his table, and he began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t going to get thrown out anyway. The action-feeling was deserting him, and he began missing easy shots. After a while he quit in disgust, racked the balls, put his cue away and found John.
“How much do I owe?”
John rubbed his face. “Nothin. It’s free if you win.”
“I mean for the practice,” Billy insisted.
“Shit. Two minutes? Be two cents.”
“I wouldn’t want to owe nobody anything,” Billy said. I’m pushing it too far, he thought. What the hell’s the matter with me? But he dug into his pants pocket and came up with a nickel. He handed it to John, who stared down at the coin with puzzlement, almost disgust.
“Hell,” he said. “I’ll just take it and buy me a Coky-Cola. Thanks, kid.” He went off toward the bar, and Billy waited a moment and then sat down and watched the nine-ball game. There was nothing else for him to do. For eight hours on the bus he had been preparing himself for this entry into Portland, this triumph, and it had come and gone so quickly that it did not seem to have happened at all. It should have been more dramatic; somebody should have yelled about a nigger in the joint, people should have taken sides, and he should have silenced it all by his brilliant play. But it didn’t happen that way at all, and now he sat there, twelve dollars richer, ignored, another idle watcher. Almost as if he already belonged.
The red-headed kid flopped down in the chair next to his, crossed his legs, and began picking his teeth, watching the game before them.
“You could beat all these guys,” he said to Billy. “You just get in from Seattle?”
“Just got off the bus,” Billy said. The red-headed kid had lazy green eyes and an easy smile; Billy liked him right away. He got out his cigarettes and offered one to the redhead.
“Thanks. You ever play at the Two-Eleven up there?”
“Yeah. All the time. You know Seattle?”
“I been up there a couple times with my old man. You ever play on them big snooker tables? You play good snooker?”
“Well enough,” Billy said. “I play all games.”
“You want to make some money playin snooker?”
“Do I have to lay off to do it? I never lay off.”
The redhead chuckled. “You don’t have to do nothin but play. They got snooker players up at the Rialto; you don’t have to lay off or fake it or anything. All you got to do is go up there and get in the game. You don’t have to hustle; they’ll hustle you.” As an afterthought he said, “My name’s Denny.” He reached out his hand and they shook.
Billy thought for a moment. “How about that Rialto? I heard a lot about it in Seattle. Is there anybody up there can beat me?”
Denny laughed. “Oh, man, you’re good, but you’re not that good. There’s plenty of guys up there can beat you. What’s your high run?”
“Fifty-five,” Billy said.
“Fifty-five. You ever hear of Joe Cannon? He owns the Rialto. You think you can beat him with your fifty-five? And not only him. How about Reuben Menashe? Bobby Case? Bobby’s only about fourteen but he can wipe your ass. He went down to Frisco about a month ago and made eighteen hundred playin nine-ball at Corcoran’s, and they were spottin him the seven eight cause he’s so young-lookin. Can you beat these guys? You better stick to snooker. They got a bunch of snooker fiends up there that think they run the world; it’d take em a month to decide you were too goo for em, and by then you’d have all the money.”
“I don’t want to play no snooker,” Billy said. He did not know why; there was something in his mind about being the best, but he did not want to face that. Because, he thought, it’s not the truth. I don’t want to be the best. I aint the best. I’ll never be the best. But he did not want to play snooker, take the sucker’s money, while all the time the really good players were laughing at him. As a matter of fact, he had forgotten all about Joe Cannon; he could not understand why. Everybody knew about him. He was a really good player, and one of the few w
ho had made money at the game, enough to buy his own pool-hall and cardroom. The very thought of playing him frightened Billy; he knew his hands would feel heavy, the cue foreign to his grip, the balls distant. And Joe Cannon wasn’t even the best. He was just the best in the Pacific Northwest, and already people were saying he was getting too old, spending too much time playing poker, and his stroke was way off lately. Yet Billy was afraid to play him. I’m only sixteen, he told himself angrily. What’s all the fuss?
“How do I find this Rialto?” he asked Denny.
“Let’s go,” Denny said. “I’ll take you up there. I wanna hamburger anyhow. They aint got hamburgers in this joint.” He called out, “Hey, Levitt, I’m goin up to the other joint.”
Jack hardly looked up. He was beginning to feel desperate; he had played and played, and all he did was lose his money. This morning he had left his hotel for breakfast, and returned to find a padlock on his door. He knew that he would not be able to get his stuff out of the room until he had paid the fifty-odd dollars he owed, but instead of sitting down and planning what to do, he had gotten into a game of pool. He wondered now why he was so stupid. He missed an easy shot, and swore angrily, throwing his cue down on the floor. John the houseman came up to him and said, “Don’t bust the equipment, sonny.”
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