Fast and Loose at the Club

They've been at it for 18 hours. Single elimination, 125 points, straight pool, fourteen and one continuous. For the City Championship.

We're sitting here at the Boulevard Social and Athletic Club where cigarette smoke is politically correct, and twenty-two Gold-Crowns are greener than Fenway in June.

The windows are painted black. Daylight is not welcome here.

Read the signs:

No masse shots, no cursing, no gambling

No nine-ball on Table 8

Laraine's Chicken Soup Tonite

This is a 24-hour, 7-days a week poolroom. There is always action here. At 4 A.M. on Christmas morning there is action. Five a game 9-ball, race to 5 one-pocket for a hundred.

Mosconi practiced here. Minnesota Fats played 16-year old Ricky Broccalini on Table 8 and lost. Dollar a game hustlers and the best in the world play here: Mizerak, Hopkins, Sigel, LeBron, Reyes, Rempe. A hundred, 5 hundred, a thousand a game.

Picture an enormous NOW at 2:30 on a Monday morning. Day jobs are toxic for this crowd.

All the tables dark, except for one--green felt brilliant under florescent light

It's Jimmy Fusco, the Philadelphia Flash and smooth stroking Wilmington Lou Johnson lagging for the break.

It's Lou breaking for the final game. Not bad, didn't leave much. Deuce is possible. But experts say play this one safe.

Jimmy studies the rack as if it were his first. Pensive. Nervous. Focused. Chalk squeaks on cue tip as Jimmy stalks the table. Brain comparing now to countless thens--sees the shot, smiles, shakes head no. Circles the table. Feels the physics--not much geometry at this level. No straight lines, clean angles when you're a master of the game. The colored balls, the felt, the pockets are all a hair out of spec. Jimmy winces as he feels a tiny nick in his Szamboti cue, continues looking for an entrance to the zone.

Spectators in chairs and bleachers hush as minutes pass. Jimmy leans in to make the shot, then strokes. Cue ball cracks the deuce into right corner pocket, spreads the remaining 14 balls.

One, says the referee.

Two, and Jimmy is in the zone.

Three.

Fourteen and the referee racks.

Jimmy strokes and number 15 drops as the cue ball
explodes the rack again.

Sixteen

He's in dead stroke, whispers someone in the bleachers.

Lou slouches gracefully in the CHAIR where half this game is played,

Fifty minutes pass--frozen beads on a string, then:

One forty-nine

One fifty and OUT. Winner Jimmy Fusco.

Lou never got a shot.

Straight pool, 14 and 1 continous. The zone is heaven; the chair is hell.

Hey Laraine! How's that chicken soup?

Peter Clement Davis, April 1996
Peterzen@aol.com