Summer of 1960.
An old Ford pulls up to the front of a gas station on Main Street. Two men step out of the car, Charlie MacAvoy and Corey Lester. It’s a beautiful day and Corey stays with the attendant while Charlie walks toward the bar across the street.
Yes sir.
Hey friend. A beautiful day and a beautiful gas station filled with beautiful people who know how to do their job.
Appreciate it sir.
Easy now. You deserve it. I know you gonna check the oil and fill her up alright. I knew it from the very moment I got here. You go on now boy. Make this country proud of you.
Charlie waves at him from the other side of the road.
Hey Corey! Move it, will ya?
I’m coming Charlie, I’m coming! Hey! You promise me you gonna take your time to enjoy these precious little things instead of rushin’ it all the time. You do that and you gonna be a better man! A better man I say!
What’d you say? I can’t hear you! Come over here!
I better man Charlie! A better man!
Yeah yeah!
The small bar was something like a diner. A chromium plated trailer that a bunch of good willing people had hauled from Jersey when Corey was still playing softball in Oakland on the other side of the country.
A pool table was there. Locals had never played seriously except for few friendly games before sitting their saggy asses in those stools and drink straight bourbon till dinner time. It was an old town for old people and it had no name. All it could have been was beautiful in the way that Corey looked at it. But the truth was that all those shiny things, all those big cars cruising on main street were nothing more than a habit establishing itself through the passing of the hours, days, years and dull decades, when each good citizen would wait for his chance to throw the dices of malice, go to bed, and live another day.
A chubby bartender stood ready behind the long counter and Charlie was caressing the pool table with a wondering face like he had seen it only in a sale convention that curious four-legged thing. They were pool hustlers and they had to look like flakes. The big idea was just knowing when to flake on and when to flake off in front of those people.
Corey stared for a bit at Charlie and then returned to the chubby bartender.
Aloha to you sir. Whisky please, JTS Brown. Give us a bottle and pour yourself a nice glass. I feel good today.
Might as well.
Sure. Hey Charlie! This is one of those men that make this country a great one!
Yeah? And all he gotta do is drink a glass of whisky? Buy him two and we’ll get to the moon.
Don’t be grumpy now Charles… There you go sir, here’s your whisky.
Thanks. You boys just passing through?
Charlie rushed it to the counter willing to own the beginning of that conversation. He introduced himself and his partner to the bartender with a respectful tone.
This is young Corey Lester mister, the best salesman I ever met.
What do you sell?
Druggist supplies. Corey’s gonna get an award. Now he might look embarrassed to you but he’s still the fastest boy in the territory.
Thanks Charlie, but that’s too much.
Well you are.
Ok ok… I saw you moving around that pool and maybe you might wanna find out who’s gonna buy the next bottle.
Ok Corey. But we have to be in Pittsburgh before it gets dark.
And we will. C’mon grab a cue now. I feel like I won’t miss three balls in a row today, you know what I mean?
And they’ve been playing for one hour, gambling money on corner pockets and sipping whisky as good friends who would take every dollar spent as a joke. Charlie had lost ten bucks more than his partner when four or five men with the belly and the curious eye gathered around the table.
Corey, I bet you twenty that you will miss the same shot again.
I think I can try it just for you Charlie. Ok… Set the balls the way they were before.
Hearing those words and twenty bucks for a single shot even the chubby bartender approached the table, and all those locals standing together for the smell of money that came out from that happy asshole seemed like a bunch of hungry wolves studying the prey. They put aside the glasses and started lighting cigarettes passing the matches around. One of them asked what the happiest of the two men was in hock for so far and somebody answered thirty bucks.
Corey was burping alcohol like a tractor when he hit the ball the same way he did before and it went down the pocket just like before. Charlie eyeballed him kind of angry and said what everybody there hoped he would say.
Luck.
Pay up Charlie. It was luck alright but I tell you now that it won’t leave me till we quit playing.
I’m not sure about that Corey. You’re good at sales but this is something else… Ok, once again. Forty bucks says you choke right now.
If that’s the way you want it Charlie, you sure got it. Set the balls!
There was a mysterious silence from the audience before Corey hit that ball again. One of those when a man’s mind is spotting the flaw on the picture while one hand touches the crucifix and the other reaches for the wad of money. It was the same strange silence that only wolfe traps could produce.
There!
Corey stroke the cue ball and it hit the thirteenth too much on the right side that it jumped out of the pool. The wolves stood silent, still watching. Charlie collected his forty bucks and Corey asked him to bet another forty.
C’mon Charlie It wasn’t a steady touch! That’s it!
You wanna lose another forty? That’s it for me kid. You should know that you can’t control luck, that’s why they call it luck. It’s not talent for chrissake!
Yeah? Think so?
I do. C’mon now. Let’s go to the hotel and get some rest. We got a bad day tomorrow.
I can do it Charlie! Here’s a hundred!
Are you crazy?
No, I’m not. Just drunk, but I got this. I got this Charlie! C’mon take this last bet!
I don’t want it.
And those were the last words before that same silence became lauder than ever. The end of an hunt finished with a bottle of JTS Brown, when the eyes of Corey and Charlie kept staring at each other waiting for that call.
I’ll try you.
The bartender stepped ahead and repeated what he had already said once more. I’ll try you boy. Corey closed his eyes and smiled drunker than ever. But Charlie had decided to go out after he told him that he would have waited for him in the car for the reason that he was tired to babysit him and that maybe this time he would have learned a lesson a hundred bucks worth.
Corey looked around till he met the face of the bartender.
Ok chubby old man. Sorry I’m drunk. Ah ah ah. Can I call you fats or fatman? Ah ah ah. C’mon I’m sorry, don’t be mad please. It is a beautiful day in this sparrow-fart town ain’t it? And we have to make the most of it me and you, here and now, two gentlemen with no grumpy faces around, ok?
Ok.
Ok. And now, good old man, set them the way they were before.
Alright.
Now Corey was looking straight in those black tiny eyes of the bartender asking him if the balls were all set. He wouldn’t watch them balls and continued laughing bending over the pool table ready to shoot.
I’ll take a piece of that action, said a man around the game, and then another one and three more. Corey laughed in his head, waited for the bookie to get done writing down numbers of dollars, closed his eyes and shot the cue ball great.
When he stepped out of the diner Charlie was sitting in front of the steering wheel and wouldn’t look at him. It was getting dark all over the town with no name and the gas station was closing up. The attendant recognized Corey and nodded ‘hey’, but the young pool hustler didn’t say hello but spit on the curb, grinned and got in the car that vanished on the red horizon just like a ghost.
