Kentucky Straight: Stories

by Chris Offutt

  Hours later she woke from Casey’s weight on the mattress. Outside, a rooster bellowed to his hens. Casey’s face poked pale and slack from the quilt.

  “I lost the truck, Beth.”

  “You’ll find it.”

  “But I came home,” he said. “I always come home.”

  “Lay down now.”

  She scooted across the tick. Casey fumbled straps and slid his overalls to the floor. Beth spread the quilt over them as he snuggled against her.

  “Ain’t never stayed a night away but the one, Beth.”

  “I know.”

  “Wished I hadn’t then.”

  “I never think about it anymore.”

  “You didn’t kill Lil, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Sometimes I don’t think I been much good to you.”

  “You’re here,” Beth said.

  “I feel kindly rough.”

  “Still drunk’s all. There’s one good way to cure that and I don’t mean coffee.”

  She opened her legs and towed Casey until his head lay between her breasts. She groaned as he mashed her hip.

  “What’s wrong, Beth?”

  “Hip.”

  “Bad hurt?”

  “No. Banged it on the corncrib or something.”

  “You always did hurt too easy.”

  She smiled at his ear, brushing her fingers along his lower back. He smelled of dirt and moonshine. She lifted her knees to guide him with her thighs.

  NINE-BALL

  Every afternoon Everett and his father drove to Clay Creek Grade School for barrels of leftover lunch to feed their hogs. Everett kept the heater on year-round to blow the smell out the windows. The WPA had built the grade school fifty years ago, but next summer the state was closing it.

  Everett glanced at his father, who stared straight ahead, a warm beer between his legs.

  “What’ll we do when school shuts down?” Everett said.

  “Get by, I reckon.”

  Everett left the blacktop for Bobcat Hollow, driving with his head tipped to aim his good eye at the road. He slowed for an oak bridge, gray from sun and flood. Steep hills laced with rock and timber rose on both sides of the narrow hollow. At its end, their house jutted from the hillside, its front supported by columns of stacked brick. Barbed wire fenced the yard to pen the hogs. Everett backed the truck to the wooden trough, watching hogs charge across the lot, their undersides stained brown by mud.

  “Ain’t nothing cheaper than hogs to raise,” his father said. He threw his empty beer can in the creek and walked to the house.

  Everett emptied a barrel of slop over the fence. The steady stream was almost pretty, fast-flowing threads of milk specked with broccoli and corn. The boar stood at the middle of the trough while the rest fought for position, snapping their jaws and thudding heavy flanks. The smallest hog waited in the rear.

  A dark strip of sky lay above the ridge and Everett wondered what he could see if hills weren’t everywhere he looked. His three older brothers lived out there but never came home, wrote, or called. His father liked to say they’d all left as soon as they were weaned except the runt and the bitch—Everett and his sister. Sue hadn’t really moved out, she just stopped sleeping at home.

  He walked the board path to the house, where the scent of frying pork churned his stomach. For years pork had been his favorite meal. Now ham tasted the way slop smelled. He had explained this to his sister once and a grin had creased her freckles.

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” Sue said. “It’s like the time I ate violets on account of them smelling so good. Just to look at them makes me want to vomit now.”

  Everett nodded, awed by her wisdom in simple matters. She’d always said he was lucky to have a walleye; it allowed him to see more than other people, and she wished she’d gotten it instead of him. Everett told her he’d swap it for anything.

  “Anything? she asked, unbuttoning her blouse and grinning until he blushed and turned away. He’d stayed in the woods all day, finally understanding why his brothers had left home so soon.

  His father fixed the same meal every night—soup, beans, corn bread, and pork. A pint bottle of bourbon stood beside his plate. He smoked a cigarette while he ate, bread crumbs clinging to the filter. After supper Everett knew his father would finish the bottle in front of the television.

  “Pool hall,” Everett mumbled and pushed back from the table. His father didn’t answer.

  Everett sprinkled after-shave in the truck cab to cut the smell of hog. The runt snuffled through mud below the trough, searching spilled food. It looked at Everett through pale lashes. Everett leaned from the window.

  “Hey, hog,” he said, his voice soft. “Fuck you, hog.”

  He drove down the hollow to the main road, and headed for Quentin’s pool hall. Five years ago, after Everett’s mother died, Quentin had taught him how to play. The terrain of pool was flat and clean, and Everett could make the balls do what he wanted. There were no secrets in pool, no hidden trouble. Everything stayed visible. When he was shooting well, time moved very fast. He always played alone.

  Across the pool hall’s packed dirt lot sat Jesse’s new red pickup with a gun rack in the rear window. Jesse worked in the coalfields two counties away, near Blue Lick River, and drove home every weekend to show off his money. He was short with big shoulders, a man who’d peaked by the eighth grade. Jesse was the only boy Sue had refused to date, and he hated Everett for it.

  Movement flashed inside a black van Everett had never seen before. Someone had brought a dog, he decided, probably a valuable coonhound he was afraid to leave at home. Everett walked past Jesse’s pickup, wishing his truck had a gun rack instead of garbage cans. He polished the toe of each boot on his opposite calf and pushed the heavy door open. Flies the size of bullets droned the smoky air. Lard buckets for tobacco spit sat in each corner.

  A cue ball sailed off the table and smacked Jesse’s thigh.

  “You hurt?” someone asked.

  Jesse lifted the ball in a big-knuckled hand. “Didn’t hit me,” he said, and laughed a short bark. He tossed the ball to a stranger. Jesse snapped a stove match against his fly and lit a cigarette, staring at Everett.

  “It’s a Wall Eye,” Jesse said.

  Everett kept walking, lips clamped like pliers. Quentin unlocked a tiny padlock, more for show than security, and removed a cue from a rack. Taped to the butt was a scrap of paper printed with Everett’s name. Three other private sticks stood in the rack.

  “Good wood,” Quentin said.

  “Just a stick.”

  “Could do worse.”

  “I have.”

  “You will,” Quentin said. “How’s your daddy?”

  Everett squeezed the cue as hard as he could, knowing it would hold. He’d seen one break, but it had taken three blows across a man’s back, a poor way to treat a good stick. He slowly relaxed, the cue damp in his palms.

  Quentin opened a round tin of snuff and dipped a pinch, tucking it behind his lip and working it into position with his tongue. The corners of his mouth were black. He jerked his head to indicate a table.

  “Boy yonder is tearing up pill-pool at two bucks a pill,”

  “He can keep it,” Everett said.

  Quentin punched his arm. “Good man, boy,” he said. “Gamblers die broke.”

  Everett shot a rack, banking the balls around a slash in the felt. He squatted to slip another quarter in the slot, listening for his favorite sound, the dull rumble of balls. Jesse brayed from the far corner, where he played nine-ball with two strangers. Everett figured they owned the black van and the dog. They were shooting the best table, regulation size, rented by the hour instead of coin operated. Below each pocket hung a braided leather pouch. It was ideal for nine-ball, a game he’d never liked. The first eight balls were shot in numerical order and whoever made the nine ball won. Everett preferred the precision of straight pool.

  Jesse moved around the table, rubbing the cue
between his legs and talking loud.

  “First time I had her she could piss in a thimble,” he said. “Now she’s got a stream wide as a handsaw.”

  The strangers grinned, leaning on their cues as if they were hoe handles. Quentin walked to the table and spoke quietly. The men stiffened, staring at Everett. Quentin went to the jukebox.

  “Hey, Everett,” he called, “name it!”

  “L-8,” said Everett.

  Quentin pushed the button for Boxcar Willie’s song about seeing the world from a slow freight train. Everett concentrated on his practice. The side pockets were the hard pockets, Quentin always said, and the long shots were the hard shots. After several racks, his arm felt limber and he was controlling the cue ball well. Jesse’s high voice rose above the crack of balls.

  “Can’t ask much from Wall Eye no way. His daddy’d done better to raise him like a hog. Could have sold him off and got some good out of him that way.”

  Everett’s back stiffened. He felt cold inside but his skin was hot. He crossed the room to the table and the two strangers gripped their cues across their bodies. Quentin began moving slowly from the back. Jesse pressed a finger to his nostril and blew snot to the cement floor.

  “What are you looking at?” he said.

  “Shoot some pool.”

  “Money game,” sneered Jesse. “Dollar on the five and two on the nine.”

  “Oh,” said Everett, turning away. “Thought you said money.”

  One of the strangers grinned. He lifted a dirty cap and pressed it back to his head. “How much you fixing to lose?”

  “Ten,” Everett said.

  “Show it.”

  “He don’t have to,” Quentin said. “This ain’t town.”

  “I’m not from town,” the man said. “Me and my buddy work the river loading coal.”

  “The Blue Lick’s not that close,” Quentin said.

  “Jesse brung us up here for some tail but I ain’t seen none yet.” He grinned to his friend. “Porter gets it and me and you are stuck in a damn game room. That Porter, he honks the horn every time he’s finished.”

  Balls thundered into the trough below a table, and someone asked Quentin for change. Everett lost the coin toss and shot fourth, following Jesse. If the others played well, he’d lose before his chance to shoot, and ten dollars was all he had. The riverman ran five balls and left a lousy leave. His buddy made the eight ball without calling it.

  “No slop,” Jesse said. He grinned at Everett. “Call everything and keep your slop at home.”

  Everett tightened his grip on the cue. As long as he stayed on the other side of the table from Jesse, he’d be all right. In a fight, Jesse would come at him from the side and pound his bad eye. He’d done it twice before.

  Jesse rushed his shot and missed. Everett dropped the nine with a simple combination for twenty dollars, half the money. Jesse spat between his teeth. “Forty on the nine,” he said. “No splits.”

  Everyone nodded and Everett broke. Two balls fell and he made two more before trapping himself in a corner. Both the rivermen missed.

  Jesse made the seven, but the cue ball rolled to the rail, trapped behind the nine. He could shoot a long bank on the eight, or nudge the cue ball and leave Everett the same choice. Jesse blew on his bridge hand. He lined up the shot and gently tapped the white ball.

  “Dirty pool’s still pool, ain’t it,” he said.

  The riverman tucked the cue into his armpit and over his forearm like a rifle.

  Everett wiped his forehead, smearing blue chalk into the sweat. If he did the same as Jesse, they would all pass until someone made a mistake and left the next man an easy shot. Never play safe, Quentin had said. Play for the game, not the shot. Always forward.

  Everett bent his knees and spread his legs, head cocked sideways to keep his good eye directed down the nicked cue. He was too close to the rail, on top of the ball.

  “Twenty-five bucks you miss,” Jesse said.

  “I want some of that,” said the riverman. His friend nodded.

  Everett stroked the top of the cue ball. It sped down the table, lost momentum ricocheting out of the corner, and slowed as it traveled back. It clicked the eight with just enough force to shove it in the pocket.

  “I be dogged,” said the riverman.

  “Nice shot,” his friend said.

  “Lucky,” Jesse muttered.

  Everett exhaled as he leaned over the table for the nine ball. It dropped easily in the corner. Quentin lifted his eyebrows to the locked cue rack on the wall. Everett shook his head, fingering the old yellow tape on the stick. A rapid fiddle whined from the jukebox.

  The riverman won the next game and Everett won two more. Jesse raised the bet to sixty, counting on a win to regain his losses. Play slowed at the surrounding tables as people watched. Everett broke, balls scattered, and the six crashed into a corner pocket. He called a combination on the nine. As he drew his stick to shoot, Jesse spoke in a voice cold as metal.

  “I hear Wall Eye went to sows after Sue shut him off.”

  Everett froze, staring at the cue ball blued by chalk like a bruise. His bad eye spiraled toward the ceiling. He knew what people thought, what everyone on the creek said, but they usually hushed around him. He took a deep breath and faced the table. Shoot each shot one at a time, Quentin had said. Shut your ears off and don’t listen to nobody.

  Everett sighted on the ball. Two quick clicks sounded and the nine fell into the side. He leaned on his stick. Jesse lit a cigarette and flicked the burning match at Everett. A spider hopped away from it on the floor.

  “You’re chicken of me, ain’t you, Wall Eye,” Jesse said.

  The riverman moved around the table to get his back against a wall. “Rack, loser,” he said to Jesse. He tossed money on the table. “Pay him and rack.”

  Jesse jerked his wallet in front of him, jingling the silver chain that clipped it to a belt loop. He snapped his wrist to throw the money. A fifty-dollar bill drifted to the table.

  “Hundred a game,” Jesse said. “Who all’s in?”

  The riverman nodded. The other man backed from the table and leaned his stick against the wall. He bit his thumbnail, peeled it half off, and used it to pick his teeth.

  “I’ll play,” Everett said.

  He went outside and around the building to urinate against the shadowed wall. Money clogged his pockets and he wondered whose picture was on a fifty. Across the lot, the black van was rocking steadily. Everett heard a low grunt that didn’t sound like a dog.

  He hurried inside, where the colored balls lay in a diamond shape, waiting to be knocked apart. Nothing fell on Everett’s break. Jesse and the riverman each made a shot and missed the next. Everett called a combination. The nine ball smacked into the pocket for two hundred dollars and he gathered the money, more than he’d ever seen before. The riverman racked while Jesse sandpapered the tip of his stick. It unscrewed to two pieces that fit in a vinyl case. He rubbed talcum on the burnished wood.

  Everett pumped his arm and sank two on the break. He made three more, then paced around the table twice. The seven through nine were set to run with no chance for a combination. He had to make them all or lose. He dropped the seven and the eight, but the cue ball rolled too far for shape on the nine. It was a terrible leave.

  “A hair hard,” the riverman said. “But you can cut her.”

  “What’re you telling him that for,” Jesse said. “It’s your money, too.”

  “Good pool’s still pool.”

  The nine was an inch from the back rail. The cue lay in the middle of the table, aligned with the nine. If Everett shot too hard, the cue ball would carom off the table; too soft and the nine wouldn’t fall in the corner. He had to shave the nine ball gently into the pocket. A miss would give Jesse the game.

  Planting one foot, Everett raised the other behind him. He hitched his body forward to brace his thigh, stretching the table’s length. His bridge hand was steady as a gun rest. Jesse dragge
d a stool from a video game and sat directly behind the nine ball.

  “Double or nothing,” Jesse said.

  “Yup.”

  A car horn sounded outside, three bursts. The riverman chuckled. “That’s Porter,” he said. “All done.”

  Jesse rocked his head above the table, sucking air through his teeth. Everett knew that asking him to move would be giving in, admitting that the cheap tactic worked. Everett peered down the cue, one elbow propped on the felt-covered slate, his fingers splayed for balance. He saw the spot to hit. It was one more shot, just another shot, and he had to shoot softly, very softly.

  “Which one makes more racket,” Jesse said, “a hog or Sue?”

  The screen door banged behind Everett, and he heard his sister’s laugh.

  “I do!” she said. “Damned if I don’t!”

  Everett hit the ball as hard as he could. It kissed the nine in the pocket, hopped high over the rail, and bounced against Jesse’s face. He screamed and fell off the stool. The cue ball landed on the table.

  “By God, Porter,” said the riverman. “I wished you’d showed up a half hour ago. I done give a week’s pay to this boy.”

  Sue pushed her face against Porter’s chest and smiled at Everett. Lipstick tinted her front teeth. She was weaving drunk, and her jeans were unzipped. Fresh bruises marked both her arms.

  “Hidy, brother,” she said. “You ought to see their van.”

  The riverman looked at him, then quickly away. Someone whistled. Jesse scrambled from the floor, his nose streaming blood. “Table scratch, Wall Eye! You owe me a hundred bucks!”

  Quentin stepped in front of Jesse. “Somebody hit you?” he said.

  “Fell off the damn stool,” Jesse said. “Tell that bastard he owes me money.”

  “He don’t owe nobody nothing,” said the riverman. “Look where the cue ball’s at.”

  The nine was gone and the white ball was lying alone in the middle of the table, throwing a crescent shadow.