The Risk Pool

admitted me into his dream by telling me that the white jewel house would be his one day, said it with such dull, dogged conviction that he almost made me believe it, I wouldhave annihilated him right there to prevent the long odds, had it been in my power. Surely it was this same animal loathing that gripped my father so powerfully, made him homicidal whenever he had to eat a meal at the same table as Drew Littler, or listen to his sullen, irrational insistence—“What’s mine is mine.” The boy had nothing save that dogged insistence, but even that was too much to allow him.
    When the guy in the work boots came in a second time and left again, I flushed the john for show and scrubbed my hands in the dirty sink before returning to the bar. My father was still hanging on, though the skinny kid had just one stripe and the eight left. My father had five solids on the table, four of them more or less blocking separate pockets, leaving his opponent only two clear ones to shoot at. The kid looked like he didn’t know whether to shit or go blind.
    I had the bartender send a round over to the booth where Drew Littler was talking to a girl who, even from the rear, looked vaguely familiar. When she turned and smiled, I saw it was Marion from the Big Bend Hunting Lodge.
    “You the one done this?” she said in reference to the fresh Seven and Seven.
    I stole a chair and planted it at the end of the booth so I wouldn’t get trapped on the bench with either of them.
    “You’re from around here too, I suppose,” the girl said. “Everybody around here’s from around here.”
    I couldn’t tell whether she didn’t remember me or just wasn’t letting on.
    “Originally,” I admitted, “but not lately.”
    “Old Drew here’s from around here,” she said. “I bet you were buddies when you was kids.”
    “He was a couple years older,” I said. “He gave me rides on the back of his motorcycle.”
    “You had a bike?” she said, pronouncing it “baak.”
    “Till I totaled it,” Drew Littler said.
    “Lucky it wadn’t
you
that was totaled,” the girl said. “My little brother had one and they had to spry him off the road with a far hose.”
    A roar went up behind us, and I turned in time to see the skinny kid whistle the cue he was using across the room where it hit a post and shattered. “That’s dirty fuckin’ pool,” the kid said to myfather. “You never even tried to win. I’d rather fuckin’ lose than win that fuckin’ way.”
    “Good,” my father said. “I’d rather have you.”
    “What happened?” Marion wanted to know.
    “Sammy just got the little shit to scratch off the eight ball,” Drew explained to her. When he said my father’s name there was something of the old respect and awe in his voice. “That means the end of the game.”
    “I don’t thank it’s very nice to throw the stick like that. Coulda put a eye out.”
    “It’s a local tradition,” I said. “At the end of the game the loser is supposed to throw his cue.”
    “How come the guy before this one didn’t do that?” Marion wanted to know.
    “He was black,” I explained seriously. “Black people aren’t allowed to throw things.”
    “That don’t seem fair,” Marion frowned. “I thank you’re pulling my laig.”
    “Maybe a little,” I said. “Actually, the black guy was supposed to throw his cue too.”
    “Well I should thank so,” she said, clearly relieved. “This
is
America, after all.”
    During my entire conversation with Marion, I was aware of Drew Littler studying me through narrowed eyes, as if, despite the physical resemblance, he couldn’t quite believe that I was the kid he’d known. “I hear you’re tending bar down to Mike’s,” he said, rather pointedly putting an end to our banter. “How come you got that job?”
    I shrugged, unsure whether he was asking why I’d taken it or how I’d got so lucky to be offered. I decided maybe it was the latter. “Things just worked out,” I said.
    “Sammy got it for you, I bet.”
    “He and Mike are friends,” I admitted. “Why? You looking for work?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Right kind of job comes along.…”
    “I’ll keep an eye out,” I said, vaguely wondering what Drew Littler would consider the right job.
    Nobody said anything for a minute. My father broke a new rack of balls. The skinny kid had disappeared before it occurred to anybody to ask him to pay for the broken cue. As far as I couldtell, my father