Sticks

by Joan Bauer

  “Maaaaaaaaaaatch to Mickey Vernon.”

  Yes!

  * * *

  It’s four o’clock.

  There are four players left. Me, Buck, Cindy Grassini, and the Sledgehammer. I’m the only player not thirteen years old. It’s a miracle I’m here. I stand extra tall because I’m the shortest.

  My hand is throbbing. I don’t know if I can play anymore.

  Poppy puts our names in a Yankees cap and picks two at a time to decide who’ll play who next. Cindy is the only one I can maybe beat, and I’m not laying money on it. She’s tough. Poppy hands the names to the umpires. I’m trying to read her face, but she’s wearing the one she uses for poker—eyes straight ahead, jaw shut, the one Big Earl says no one can decipher.

  “How come I gotta go there?” Buck Pender’s looking at Snake Mensker, who’s pointing over at my table.

  “Because I said so.”

  I close my eyes.

  No!

  I got Buck!

  That’s it.

  I’m not going to even make the finals. This whole year I’ve been picturing Buck and me as the last guys standing.

  Snake steps back to let Buck pass. Mr. and Mrs. Pender follow him. Mrs. Pender whispers, “Be a good sport now, Buck.” Cindy Grassini walks to the Sledgehammer’s table.

  My hand hurts so bad. I stand there at table nine because I don’t know what else to do.

  Buck stomps over, wipes his mouth on his work-shirt, and looks at me, laughing.

  “You’re going down, Vernon.”

  CHAPTER

  “This is the semifinal round!” Poppy announces.

  The pool hall is quieter than I’ve ever heard it. I step up to the table; I’ve got the break.

  Mom has her arms folded tight, trying not to look nervous.

  Joseph Alvarez nods at me and winks.

  The crowd around the table is two deep. Buck’s people on the left, mine on the right. I can’t concentrate on who’s here. I can’t think about my hand and how much it hurts. I can’t worry that Buck’s trying to get to me with that expression on his face that says I’m wasting his time.

  This is the semifinals.

  Slam.

  I ram my stick into the white cue ball and get two in on the break. My people applaud extra loud.

  I make the one. The three. Just get the five, tip the six into the corner pretty wobbly, but it goes in. That’s all that matters in pool. Three balls left.

  I can’t look at Buck even though he’s looking at me. I can feel it, though. Feel his fat smile breaking across his face.

  I miss the seven.

  Stupid!

  My people groan.

  Buck steps up to the table like he owns it. He looks at his father, who doesn’t look back. Buck aims long on the seven, bends down, and rams it straight in.

  He eyeballs the eight. It’s lying on the rail—a tough shot. Buck wipes sweat from his forehead, wipes sweat from his hands. He aims low; his stick slips.

  The eight moves three inches.

  I hit it in fast and set up pretty for the nine ball. I get the nine nice in the side pocket.

  “Yes!” shouts Joseph above the rest.

  “Match to Mr. Mickey Vernon!” Madman shouts, strutting.

  Buck’s looking at me like he can’t believe it.

  I look right back at him.

  Believe it.

  Madman racks the balls. I’ve got maybe one more break in me and then my hand’s going to stop working. I push back on my super-mega-traction Nikes.

  The cue ball crashes down the table.

  Seven in the corner.

  I rub my wrist. It hurts so bad. I do an okay safety on the one.

  “I’ll get him now,” Buck says to his father. Mr. Pender sits there like a statue. The only thing moving is that vein beating in his neck. Mrs. Pender is fiddling with her purse strap.

  Buck gets the one in the side in a great shot. He nails the two, the three, then he scratches on the four, which is a big mistake.

  I put the cue ball by the four ball, which is three inches from the side pocket.

  You can’t beat me, Vernon.

  Yes I can.

  Wham!

  My stick’s on fire. Five in the corner. Bank the six in the side. Long drive on the eight—right on the money.

  Just the nine ball and me.

  Nobody’s moving.

  It’s a long corner shot.

  I look down the table like it’s a runway. Focus in. Shoot.

  And yes! The nine speeds into the corner. That’s the match!

  Mr. Kopchnik’s shaking Mr. Gatto. “Did you see that, Gatto?”

  “I saw it, Kopchnik!”

  I touch the dark green cloth of table nine and throw back my head.

  Madman yells it so everyone can hear. “That’s a shutout for Mickey Vernon!”

  I go toward Buck to shake hands, but he won’t do it. He’s yelling it’s not fair, table nine’s a bad table, his stick wasn’t straight, the whole thing was rigged. He wants a rematch!

  Mr. Pender’s whole face is purple. He’s shoving Buck toward the door. “How come you can’t just lose decent?” he shouts.

  Mrs. Pender stands there waving her skinny hands in the air like a little bird. “You did very well,” she says to me. “You’re a fine young man. I’m sorry about . . . my son. He . . . doesn’t have much faith in himself.”

  She shakes my hand as the crowd breaks in on us like a big wave—Mom and Joseph and Camille and Poppy and Francine and Petie and T.R. and so many others. They’re saying I did it and I looked tough. Buck’s already gone. I can’t believe I beat him. I look through the crowd to Arlen, who sticks his thumb up in the air and smiles at me and goes back to writing like mad.

  Guys are slapping me on the back saying go give the big guy what for. I tell them thanks, I’ll try. I don’t have to pinch myself to see if I’m dreaming because my hand hurts too much. I know this is real.

  I walk to the Sledgehammer, who won his match against Cindy.

  “He’s murder,” Cindy says to me, moving off.

  CHAPTER

  I don’t know how I’m going to play.

  I’m icing my hand.

  Trying to find power in the fingers.

  “I’m stopping this game, Mickey!” Mom shouts. “I will not let it be destructive to your body!”

  “Mom, I’ve got to play.”

  “No you don’t!”

  I throw the ice pack down and grab her arm.

  “I’ve got to!”

  Joseph comes over. “Ruthie, I don’t mean to interfere here, but a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

  She spins around. “This isn’t the streets of Laredo, Joseph! This is New Jersey! I can see the pain all over his face!”

  I blow up my cheeks big to get the pain off. I don’t think it works. I swallow hard. “It hurts, Mom. You’re right. The doctor said I couldn’t do any permanent damage. I’ve got to play.”

  Please.

  She sits down on the bench against the wall underneath the photograph of Allen Hopkins, who was New Jersey state nine-ball champion four times and won the U.S. Open for nine ball twice.

  “Okay,” she whispers.

  Joseph sits next to her and says something I can’t hear. Mom shakes her head and smiles a little. He pats her on the hand. Arlen runs up to me and hands me a sheet of paper.

  “He doesn’t know the math, Mickey! Look, I’ve got it right here. I’ve watched every game the Sledgehammer’s played all day. I’ve charted the shots he can make and the ones he can’t in his last fifteen games. I know his patterns!”

  “That’s what you were doing?”

  “What did you think I was doing?”

  What a friend.

  I look at the paper.

  “Bad news first,” Arlen says. “He has an awesome break and he’s great on long straight shots—he made thirty out of thirty-five attempts. He’s a power shooter. But he’s got no touch when the balls are o
n the rail. See? He made three out of the last seventeen is all—that’s only eighteen percent. Banks aren’t much better. He made four out of the last sixteen tries for only twenty-five percent completion. He hasn’t even tried a bank in the last six games! Every time he misses a bank or a rail shot, he gets upset and plays his next inning bad. I didn’t clock his medium and short shots.”

  I check the stats.

  “You leave him bank and rail shots,” Arlen is saying. “It’s not the easiest thing, but try.”

  Joseph looks at the papers and slaps Arlen on the back. “Play position,” Joseph says to me. “Don’t look at his size. He’s a big guy with weak points. Play them if you can. You control the ball.”

  “This is for the championship!” Poppy yells.

  The Sledgehammer moves forward like a tank.

  I take my stick in my good hand and walk to table two.

  * * *

  “You boys go at this clean, now,” Poppy says.

  The Sledgehammer and I shake hands; mine disappears inside his. My head comes more than halfway up his chest. He’s got a mustard stain on the right shoulder of his striped shirt.

  He smiles at me. “Good luck, kid.”

  I swallow big. “You too.”

  I get the break. I ram it with all I’ve got.

  Six in the corner.

  I make the one, the two. The three’s impossible. I do a safety right on the rail. The Sledgehammer bends over the table and blows the rail shot bad just like Arlen said.

  I make the three, miss the bank on the four, but I get lucky and leave him another bank. He shakes his head, bends over to shoot. He’s sweating good. He looks around, goes for a safety.

  Arlen was right!

  My turn. I rub my hand.

  I maneuver out of the safety and get lucky. I leave him another bank.

  He blows it again.

  I get a bead on the four and line it up. It zooms into the side pocket. I’m eyeballing the five. Smack. In it goes. Three more left. I get them too. Seven, eight, and nine.

  “Game to Mickey Vernon!”

  The crowd is applauding. Earl racks the balls.

  Arlen’s going, “Yes, yes!”

  It’s my break and my hand feels broken. I feel like crying, but I can’t do that. I step back on my super-mega-traction Nikes and whack.

  The crowd groans.

  I can’t believe it. The cue ball just nicks the one and sits there—nothing in—a total dud.

  The Sledgehammer walks up smiling to take his inning. He’s got shark teeth. He throws his huge body into the stroke.

  He breaks the balls apart like lightning. The three ball zooms into the corner.

  He hits the one, the two. He’s eyeballing the four. Makes it in a combo off the eight. Gets a big round of applause. The five goes down, the six. The balls are lying perfect for him. He’s running the table, picking off the seven, the eight in his long straight rifle shots. It’s happening so fast.

  He makes the nine easy.

  “Game to Gordon Sledge,” says Big Earl.

  The Sledgehammer nods to the applauding crowd. Joseph slaps me on the shoulder as Earl racks the balls. The tank’s break. If he runs them again, I’m history.

  The balls crack apart like thunder. Seven in the corner.

  The two’s lying on the rail. I hold my breath.

  He misses.

  I let out a big breath, chalk my stick, and move toward the two ball.

  I’m pushing out the crowd in my mind, pushing out the pain. I can’t see the table like my dad, but I feel something. I smile big. And suddenly I see the lines. Not actual lines on the table, but I know where they’d be. I can feel where they’d be!

  Shooting out from the balls, shooting out from my eyes. Shooting out from my stick like vectors straight and true right into the pockets, and not stopping there, continuing like lines do out the door, down the street, all the way to the New Jersey Turnpike, and clear down to Florida.

  Energy zooms through my legs. Pool games are won one ball at a time. The energy carries me forward. It’s stronger than the pain.

  Two ball in the side. I bank around the five ball and get the three in the corner.

  The crowd’s going crazy.

  Four ball in the side, five. Bring the cue ball back for position on the six. Control the ball. Don’t concentrate on where it hurts. Feel the winning pump through my blood.

  I bank the six clean, bring the cue ball around to the eight. Give it a nice tap with the bridge and miss!

  No!

  I push back from the table feeling dead as Gordon Sledge takes his inning. He taps the eight in. Only the nine ball’s left—a hard slice shot. If he makes it, he’s got the game. I think he’s going to make it.

  The Sledgehammer’s sweating.

  He wipes his wide face.

  Just do it!

  He aims his stick and makes a clean hit. The nine ball heads toward the pocket. I close my eyes.

  He’s got the shirt.

  “Ohhhhhhhhhhh!” the crowd groans.

  I open my eyes.

  The Sledgehammer steps back shocked.

  The nine ball’s lying there hugging the cushion.

  He missed!

  I’m staring at the table.

  “I believe it’s your inning, Mickey V.,” Big Earl says.

  I step up to the table. It’s me and the nine ball eyeballing each other. It’s a two-rail bank of forty-five-degree angles. A maniac shot.

  But to win, sometimes you’ve got to risk it all. I find my angle, sense the line shooting off the rail.

  I aim the greatest pool stick in America and shoot. The nine slams once, twice, and zooms into the corner.

  “That’s the way!” Poppy screams.

  I lift my stick in the air as everyone starts running toward me. My hand’s killing me and I’m feeling fine.

  Joseph runs over and hugs me and Mom is trying to punch through the screaming crowd.

  Big Earl is pushing his way to me with the red shirt.

  “It was a clean Vernon knockout!” Poppy says.

  Big Earl is saying, “Mickey Vernon, I present you with the tournament shirt. You wear it proud.”

  I put it on; it’s pretty big, but I can feel the pride pumping through me. The Sledgehammer comes up and shakes my hand.

  “Congratulations, kid. Shirt wouldn’t have fit me anyway.”

  “Thanks, Gordon. You played tough.”

  Arlen’s waving his mechanical pencil in the air. Petie Pencastle and T. R. Dobbs plow through the big kids because this is a fifth-grade moment and should be shared by every ten-year-old in America.

  “Fifth grade rules!” shouts T.R.

  “All right now!” Poppy’s trying to gain control.

  The shouting and clapping die down. Snake Mensker starts it with his stick—pounding it on the floor in the pool player’s applause. Joseph grabs a stick from the wall, the umpires follow, and one by one the players join in, pounding their sticks for me on the old gray tiled floor until the sound bounces off the paneled walls and echoes down from the ceiling.

  It’s the greatest honor a player can get. I’m hoping with all my heart that my dad can hear it in heaven.

  CHAPTER

  I wear the red shirt for two weeks before I let Mom wash it. She says it stinks to high heaven and if she doesn’t wash it soon, it’s going to stand up by itself.

  I only wear it to school once—the night of the science fair. My hand isn’t hurting at all by then. Arlen and I hang Rory Magellan out to dry even though his mother lets him put the volcano in the middle of the big meeting room in Town Hall and everyone has to stand around while he gives a dumb speech about the importance of chemistry in our everyday lives that Arlen says would make Mr. Science heave. Rory pours Palmolive detergent into the volcano hole, adds some red food coloring, vinegar, and water. Then he quickly mixes baking soda with a little water and pours that in. If there’s an eruption we all miss it. The volcano burps twice and one drop
of reddish muck drips out. Sometimes chemistry in our everyday lives is a bust.

  Rory’s face is green, my favorite color, as Arlen slaps on his top hat and announces that Mickey Vernon, Vernon’s Pool Hall Youth Tournament champion and soon to be nine-ball champion of the entire universe, is going to demonstrate our findings.

  “Step up to the center ring,” Arlen shouts, “and see the amazing secrets of the pool table.”

  Everybody does except Rory.

  I perform death-defying shots on the little table that my dad and I learned to play on as kids while Arlen explains the math. I don’t miss once.

  Mayor Blonski tries a few shots and doesn’t do as well as me.

  Mrs. Riggles says she has never thought of a pool table as having “so many dimensions.”

  Arlen presents his chart, POOL IS ALSO ABOUT MATH, that he used to help me blow the Sledgehammer out of the water.

  Lots of scrawny kids are interested in that one.

  We win first prize.

  The mayor shakes our hands and if he knows that Arlen’s parents didn’t vote for him, he isn’t saying. He says we’re “a credit to the town and the furtherance of science.”

  I let Arlen have the blue ribbon since I got the red shirt. Mrs. Pepper takes a picture of Arlen with all his science fair ribbons and Arlen sends it off to Mr. Science the next day.

  I get my picture in The Cruckston Comet twice in one month.

  Here’s how the whole thing looks.

  * * *

  It’s like my winning the tournament gets everything going.

  Arlen and I win the jelly bean guessing contest at Pearlman’s World of Fashion. We’re only thirty-three beans off, which really impresses the store manager. She gives us a hundred-dollar gift certificate, but won’t let us trade it in for cash, even when we mention that Pearlman’s isn’t a guy store.

  “Maybe you boys could get your mothers a nice gift, hmmm?” she says.

  Arlen convinces his mother to buy it from us for seventy cents on the dollar. “I ask you,” Arlen says to her as she hands him the cash, “where in this world can you buy a hundred dollars for seventy?”