The Color of Money

by Walter Tevis

  He had come to see that there were only four or five serious contenders in this tournament: Babes Cooley and a few other young men who played the circuit. The others—some of them lured by the spread-out prizes that went as far as two hundred dollars for twelfth place, and some of them wanting to play for once in their lives against the top players—had no real hope of winning. If Eddie had a problem it should be with Cooley and his near-equals—not with people like this aging college boy who played nine-ball as though he were in a library.

  But the aging college boy was persistent; he capitalized on Eddie’s mistakes and after an hour was ahead by eight to six. Cooley was finished by that time, with a score posted ten-three in his favor, and some of the spectators came down to Eddie’s table.

  It was a critical point and Eddie was sweating it. Johannsen was in the middle of a wide rack; if he ran this one out, it would give him nine and the momentum to win the match. The one hopeful sign was that he’d begun taking a long time between shots, was being studiously careful, frowning now over even a simple position and chalking up with great care. He might be beginning to choke.

  He made the seven ball with agonizing deliberation, getting good position on the eight. All he had to do with that was shoot the eight straight in and stop his cue ball; the nine sat near the opposite pocket and would only require a simple cut. But Johannsen was sweating it. He frowned and shot the eight in with a lot of draw. The cue ball rolled too far; he still had a shot on the nine, but not as easy as what simply killing the cue ball would have given him. Eddie heard him speak for the first time. “Shit!” he said morosely, “I don’t deserve that.” Eddie looked up at him; he might just miss the nine, with that kind of crap in his head.

  Johannsen bent to shoot, frowning in concentration. He cut the nine ball so badly it was embarrassing; it bounced off the rail a foot from the pocket. The cue ball went around the table and came back, leaving a simple shot. Eddie looked away from Johannsen, got up and carefully shot it in. Eight-seven.

  From then on, Eddie knew he had him. He let himself loosen up a bit, ran the next game out as though it were part of a rack of straight pool. He stroked the nine into the pocket with a firm click. There was applause. Eight-eight.

  This time, he slammed them harder and made three on the break, leaving the nine near the side pocket and the four nearby. He ran the two and three and left the cue ball exactly right for the carom shot. He glanced at Johannsen’s face before moving up to the shot; the man looked like a sulking child. Eddie bent, took very careful aim, and stroked. The cue ball hit the four ball, bounced off it and tapped the nine. The nine ball rolled over twice and fell in the side pocket. The applause was loud. Johannsen got up, came over, and with a forced smile shook his hand. Eddie unscrewed his cue.

  ***

  The pairings were posted by the cashier’s desk where you first entered the room. Eddie stopped to check it when he was leaving. It took him a moment to figure out the difference between the losers’ brackets, on the left, and the winners’, on the right. He had never done this kind of thing before and it still seemed strange to him. While he was studying it, the tournament manager came up with a felt-tip pen. “Here you go, Mr. Felson,” he said, and printed FELSON on one of the empty lines to the right—the top half of a bracket with the bottom empty.

  “Who do I play next?” Eddie said.

  “You’re not going to like this,” the man said. He reached out and printed the name in the blank space: COOLEY.

  ***

  No one answered when he called Arabella, even though he waited until five-thirty, when she was usually home. He did not feel like eating out and ordered a hamburger with coffee from Room Service. He turned on the television. But he didn’t watch and didn’t finish the overcooked hamburger. His head ached and his palms were sweaty. He felt jumpy. If only Fats were around, or somewhere where he could be called. He would like to talk to Fats about Babes Cooley.

  ***

  Eddie’s lag was very good, but Cooley froze his ball to the end rail and won the break. They were on the first table, and every seat in the bleachers was filled, with a row of standing men craning to watch from behind the bleachers and another row squatting in front.

  Babes Cooley wore shiny black pants that fit his narrow butt as tight as elastic, draping with a Las Vegas crease to the tops of alligator shoes. His shirt was collarless and of pale blue silk; around his neck hung a slender gold chain. His black hair was feathery from blow-drying; his face electric from cocaine. He stepped up to break and, just before swinging his cue, looked over at Eddie, who stood leaning against the covered table next to theirs. “This is a privilege, Fast Eddie,” he said, and slammed into the cue ball. The break was magnificent: four balls fell in and the yellow-striped nine ricocheted completely around the table. Babes was thin and small; it was astonishing to see such power coming from his body.

  “Thanks,” Eddie said. Some people in the stands laughed.

  “It seems rude,” Babes said, “to do this to a living legend.” He made the remaining five balls with elegant dispatch, firing the nine ball into a corner pocket with finality. The referee racked the balls and Babes smashed them open again, made three this time, ran the rest. His body seemed to be wired with a quiet, electric arrogance, and his position play was immaculate. Eddie stood and watched, knowing that to seat himself would be weakness.

  In the middle of the third rack, with the score two-nothing, Babes got an unlucky roll on the five ball and was forced to play safe. He did it neatly, leaving Eddie snookered behind the seven with the five completely out of sight. Eddie walked to the table; it was his first shot of the evening and he would be lucky just to hit the ball. What he had to do was clear: the cue ball must be banked off two rails, through a cluster of balls and into the five. Eddie bent and shot it and—to his surprise—did it perfectly. When the white ball hit the five it sent the orange ball up the table and stayed where it was. There was applause. He had not only avoided giving Cooley the ball in hand but had played him safe.

  Cooley raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He stepped up and shot a safety without hesitation, leaving eight feet of green between cue ball and five. The five might be cut in, but it was a killer. Eddie sucked in his gut and stepped up to shoot it, not wanting to but knowing he had to. He could not go on playing safe, not on a shot like this, without giving Cooley control of the game. He had to spring for it.

  Eddie adjusted his glasses, took his stance behind the end rail, glared at the distant five ball and stroked hard. The cue ball clipped the five and the five arrowed into the center of the pocket. The white ball continued to carom around the table, coming to rest in position for the six. The bleachers behind burst into applause.

  “A legend in his own time!” Babes Cooley said.

  “You got it.” Eddie bent and shot in the six. Then the seven and eight, giving himself a cinch on the nine. He drove it into the pocket without hesitation and waited, through applause, for the referee to rack the balls.

  But on the break he could not get the power he wanted and no balls fell in. There was nothing to do but stand back and watch Babes size up the layout. It was terrible to dog the break, to lose his momentum; that was one of the infuriating ways this game differed from straight pool. In straights, if you were hot you kept right on going; in nine-ball you had to get over this goddamned hump of a break shot.

  Babes had a tough lie on the one, but he made it and sent the cue ball around the table in a way that Eddie would never have thought of, for position on the two. From there it was simple; he had to separate the six and eight, frozen together near the side pocket, but he tapped them apart on a carom and then cleaned up, firing the nine in smartly and then stopping to tuck his shirt in while the referee racked them. He looked over at Eddie and smiled faintly, with cold eyes.

  Just as he stepped up to the head of the table and drew back his cue for the break, someone in the stands shouted, “On the snap, Babes!” and Babes, his face distorting with
the effort, slammed into them like a sledgehammer, bellying up to the table as the balls rolled crazily. The nine, heading sideways into a rail, was pursued by two balls. They hit into it and seemed to shepherd it toward the corner pocket where, almost out of power, it hesitated a moment and then fell in. Eddie looked away. The score was three-one.

  As Babes got ready for the break the same voice shouted, “One more time!” and Babes rammed them open just as hard but the nine did not fall. Two others did, though, and the one ball stopped near the side for an easy shot. Eddie watched with furious impotence as Babes took them off the table one at a time. It was not like straight pool; Babes played a kind of position that was extravagant and unfamiliar, sometimes stopping his cue ball for surprising angles on the next shot. But the positions made sense and they worked. He ran out without even getting close to trouble. Four-one. Eddie sat down.

  The whole crowd was clearly with Babes, and he flirted with them between shots, going to one person or another and whispering something brief, with a tight smile, looking at them boldly while they applauded. He was like the MC of the game and Eddie himself only one of the minor performers. Eddie saw it and felt it and could do nothing about it. Babes kept making balls, avoiding trouble, playing elaborate and deadly positions. He moved around the table fast and certain, as though his small feet hardly touched the carpeted floor, sometimes running the fingers of one hand through his fluffy black hair. Eddie overheard someone in the stands say, as Babes was doing this, “He sure is pretty.” It was said with admiration.

  Babes was pretty, and his nine-ball game was more than pretty. It was beautiful and lethal. The next time Eddie had the table, the score was eight-one and the shot was unmakable. Wanting to kill somebody, Eddie held his breath and played it as safe as he could; but the safety Babes came back with was devastating, and on his return Eddie missed the object ball. Babes took the cue ball in hand, palmed it a moment, looked at Eddie and said, “Coup de grace city.”

  “Shoot the balls,” Eddie said.

  “On my own time, my legendary friend,” Babes said, “on my own time.” Someone in the crowd laughed.

  Babes set the cue ball down and made the shot, and then another. He ran them out as easily as breathing, not even bothering to chalk his cue or study the table, plunking in the nine ball at the end of it as though it were child’s play. Eddie’s feet hurt and his shooting arm was tired, but he was hardly aware of these things. He was being beaten remorselessly; he would have given his soul for Babes to miss.

  “One more time, Babes honey!” It was the same voice. Babes shotgunned the rack apart like a clay pigeon. The nine careened around the table but did not fall in. However, the three, five, seven and eight did fall. The one ball had to be banked across the side. Babes did not hesitate; he rifled it in, stopped cold for position on the two and had the two ball pocketed before the applause from the bank shot had died out. He could not be stopped except by a miracle, and no miracle occurred. He tapped the remaining balls in, hesitated a moment before shooting the nine, looked behind him at the bleachers and then back to the nine ball. He drove it in hard, stopping the cue ball dead. The applause was very loud.

  Ten-one. Eddie kept a tight hold on himself, walked up to Cooley and extended his hand. Cooley took it. “You shoot better than I expected,” Eddie said.

  “My friend, I always do.”

  ***

  “I felt like a fucking fool,” Eddie said on the phone. He lay on the bed with his cue beside him and a Manhattan in his hand.

  “He’s the best nine-ball player in the country, Eddie.”

  “If they came any better I’d cut my throat.”

  “You still have a chance to come back.”

  Eddie wasn’t sure he wanted to come back from the losers bracket and play Cooley again, but he did not say that. “I play in an hour. If I lose I’m out of the tournament, and if I win there’s another game at noon tomorrow.”

  “Then take a shower and relax. It’s no disgrace to lose.”

  ***

  He did what she said and showered. Then he put on fresh clothes, drove across the interstate and arrived exactly on time to play Gunshot Oliver.

  Oliver clearly did not recognize him, and Eddie did not identify himself. The older man seemed to be in some kind of meditative daze, coming out of it only for the time it took him to shoot. He shot well, but his break was weak and he seemed to have disdain for the game.

  During the middle of the match Oliver set his cue stick against the wall and walked slowly back to the men’s room. Eddie sat down, poured a glass of water and waited. On all four tables, losers’ games were being played and the crowd watching was slight. Eddie waited a long time, not really caring, until the old man came out again, looked around himself and ambled back toward the tables. But he hesitated at the first one he came to, where Evans was playing, watched a moment and then, shockingly, sat down in the empty chair at the wall behind that table, waiting to play. The old son of a bitch didn’t even know who his opponent was. He sat there in his baggy brown pants with his belly hanging over the leather belt and his lined face puffy, watching Evans play pool with a kind of weary disregard. He looked as though he’d just got out of bed.

  The referee was standing near Eddie. Eddie touched his elbow and said, “You’d better get Oliver,” and pointed to him.

  “Jesus!” the referee said. “He’s really out of it.”

  The referee had to lead him to the table like a seeing-eye dog. Oliver looked lost and angry, and when he came close Eddie could smell whiskey on him as strong as perfume. It was his turn to shoot. He made two simple shots, missed the third and sat down with a sigh. Eddie looked away. The score was five-three in Eddie’s favor. He finished off the table, broke hard and ran the rack. He felt uncomfortable and wanted to get this over with; he bore down carefully and won four of the next five games, getting scattered applause when the match ended. Ten-four. Oliver just sat there. Finally he got up and shambled off without shaking Eddie’s hand.

  ***

  His game the next day was with a young black man named Cunningham. Eddie bore down hard, but the man was good. He was the third-rated player in the tournament, the man Cooley had beaten just before beating Eddie, and he controlled the game. His position play was like Cooley’s—elaborate and sweet—and although he fought him hard, Eddie knew by the middle of the match that he was being outplayed. The man did not make any better shots than Eddie did, was in fact a shade less accurate; but he knew his nine-ball. And Eddie was being forced to see that there was a lot to know in nine-ball. Cunningham won the match ten to eight. That was the end of it. He could pack up and go home or wait and watch the semifinals and the finals.

  As he was unscrewing his cue stick, he looked up to see Babes Cooley elbowing through an aisle between the bleachers, screwing his cue together. Babes nodded curtly in his direction and stepped up to the table Eddie had just lost on. He began to warm up for the semifinal match.

  Eddie slipped his cue stick into its case, pushed through the crowd and left. There was a plane from Hartford to Cincinnati at ten-thirty, and a flight to Lexington at midnight. He could take his time and eat dinner in Hartford. For a moment he felt as though he should stay, should watch Cooley and study the ways he played position. But it didn’t make any difference; nine-ball was a young man’s game.

  ***

  Eddie handed her a cigarette and she lit it from his, tilting her head back to blow the smoke toward the ceiling. They were in the living room. She had waited up after he called from Hartford. “I know it’s upsetting,” she said, “but coming in fifth isn’t the end of the world.”

  His prize money was four fifty—enough to pay the entry fee and the hotel bill, but not the airplane tickets and rented car. “It was a second-rate tournament.”

  “It was your first tournament, Eddie.”

  “And last.”

  “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  ***

  But he didn’t feel bet
ter. When he got to the Rec Room and saw he had to begin the day by sweeping up, he felt worse. He cleaned up the bathroom, polishing the chromium and the two small mirrors with Windex. It was eleven o’clock by then, and still no customers had come in. This was the week before Christmas break, and there probably would be few students around anyway. He decided to cover another table with a rubber-back cloth. If he was going to be doing this for a living from now on, he might as well do it right.

  By the time Mayhew came in Eddie had the rails off Number Five and was working on the slate. Mayhew said nothing; when Eddie stood up from his work the old man was behind the counter looking bleakly around the near-empty game room. Eddie turned back to the slate he was leveling.

  ***

  For twenty years of his life there had been no excellence. Working for himself, running his own business, he had never worked as he was working now for the grim, detached Mayhew and for the college students with whom he almost never spoke. There was desperation in his covering of the tables, repairing the split cues, getting the faucet washers replaced in the men’s room, installing brighter bulbs in the light fixtures. Arabella asked him once why he worked so hard at such a job, and all he could say was, “I need it.” It was true. He needed something right about his life—if only a properly covered pool table, its fresh green cloth tight and clean, its rubber cushions firm, its surface level. By starting to play again, to put his skill and nerve on the line, he had awakened something in his soul that was not easy to stifle.