The Risk Pool

said, apparently unconcerned. “Or did you forget.”
    We were standing in an entryway, between the inner and outer doors, the noise from inside louder now. “You better come in and say hello anyhow, before he spots you.”
    We went in, Wussy making an immediate detour into the men’s room. “First thing I gotta do is pee, Sam’s Kid. Tell your old man it’s his round and I’ll be right there.”
    I heard him before I saw him. There were only a dozen or so men at the long smoky bar, a few others around the pool table, off to the side. My father’s voice, the unmistakable pitch and texture of it seemed to come not so much from the far end of the room as from some prememory, filtered through amniotic fluid.My heart fluttered in the old way, and when I located him through the smoke on the last stool before the bar cornered, I stopped and watched for a second. He was talking to a young fellow about my own age. The only vacant stool at the bar happened to be right next to him, so I slid onto it quietly, jostling him only when I stuffed my duffel bag in between our stools.
    When he turned to see who’d nudged him, his eyes were red and slightly unfocused, but only for a second.
    “Son,” he said.

31
    It was almost two in the morning when I remembered I was supposed to call my mother. We’d closed the Mohawk bars and were on the lake road, climbing into the dark Adirondacks, Wussy at the wheel of my father’s convertible. For some inexplicable reason we had the top down and it was cold as hell. I was in the backseat, leaning forward between my father and Wussy, trying to take advantage of what little protection the windshield offered against the brittle wind. The dark trees extended out over the narrow road, their top branches forming a canopy, the full moon darting among them, racing us all the way.
    “Shit,” I said.
    What, my father wanted to know. He’d been half asleep, and didn’t know where he was.
    “I was supposed to call my mother,” I said.
    “You can call her from up here,” he said.
    “It’s too late,” I said. “She’ll be asleep.”
    “I’ll call her if you’re scared to,” he offered. “She’s used to being disappointed in me.”
    “Let the kid call her,” Wussy advised. “You’ll get her all worked up and then she’ll shoot me by accident.”
    “I’ll call in the morning,” I said.
    “It is the morning. Before you know it, it’ll be this time
tomorrow
morning.”
    In fact, the night had just that deliciously out-of-control feel to it, enhanced by the fact that I had no idea where we were headed, though my father and Wussy claimed to. The proceedings had begun innocently enough. I’d told my father that I meant to have just the one beer with him, that I was exhausted and smelly from the long trip, that I needed to flop. He was already pretty bleary-eyed and it was my intention to drag him home with me, wherever the hell home might be. Wussy said he was going home himself, after just the one, but then somebody they knew came in and said who’s this, and my father had told him, and then the somebody bought a round to celebrate. This happened several times. Before I knew it, I had three sweating bottles of beer lined up in front of me. They hit me like a shot of adrenalin from a cardiac needle and the next thing I knew I was shooting pool and quarters were lined up in challenge from hell to breakfast. I hadn’t played in a long time, but my first two opponents were my father and Wussy, and by the time they’d beaten themselves I was beginning to get my stroke back. Wussy said so long, he was going home, and so, after traveling nearly three thousand miles, ostensibly to rescue my father from alcoholism, I discovered myself partners with him, the two of us winning beers faster than we could drink them, my father seldom even getting the opportunity to shoot. It took us two hours to leave.
    “Let’s stop in here and say hello to somebody you know,” my father said when I wheeled his big convertible onto North Main. I had expected him to argue when I asked if I could drive, but he didn’t. The place he wanted me to stop at was another gin mill that had been something else before I left Mohawk. It was called Mike’s Place now. The first person we saw when we came in was Wussy, who bought a round in the time it took to walk from the front door to the near end of the bar.
    “What can I say,” he said before my father or I had a chance to comment. “Anymore, this is