This is an idea I've had banging around in my head for months now. I
finally wrote it up as a little Christmas present for everyone here and on RSB. Hope you like it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mosconi's Ghost
By Daniel Salzedo.
Paul was past a lot of things. He was 5 months past his last relationship, 4 months past an abandoned attempt to gain a College degree, 3 months past his last steady job, 2 months past his last rent check and 1 month past his last visit to his grandfather. The last item was the only one he intended on addressing that day, which is why he found himself driving through Seapine retirement community that afternoon.
An azure southern Californian sky stretched from each corner of the horizon, as it did with such regularity it seemed to serve no purpose to the long-term residents except as a tool against which to measure the current smog level. The wide streets and small, monotone single-story homes reminded Paul of a military installation. Built on a wide flat stretch of former river delta, nothing punctuated the drab distance except the oil refinery squatting on the northern edge of the community by the freeway.
As usual he had played some desultory backgammon with his Grandfather, helped him with some trivial household chores to his embarrassed thanks, consumed 2 cans of cheap non-branded soda and failed to coax Heinz, his ancient and decrepit cat, onto his lap. Also as usual he had studiously avoided discussing his personal life, but as usual his Grandfather wheedled his current inventory of failures out of him.
"You know they had a Help Wanted sign up at the Clubhouse office. Why don't you check it out? I'm sure it's nothing you couldn't handle, and you could stay with me a few months, no rent, get some money together."
"I'm not going back to college."
"I didn't say that, but you need some money for pretty much anything you want to do these days. You do want to do something don't you? I mean sooner or later?"
Given that the remaining 1/16th of a tank of gas in his car gave him an endurance of about 20 minutes in any direction other than the Clubhouse office, Paul grudgingly agreed to check it out. The interview with Chuck, the Services Manager, was thankfully brief. As Paul had come to realize, there is a certain category of Californian job for which being a white college drop-out and a smattering of crude Spanish were the only qualifications. The duties mostly involved supervising the cleaning crews, directing visitors to the relevant locations and liaising with the numerous residents clubs and committees so that Chuck wouldn't have to.
It only took a few days of this before Paul was carefully organizing his schedule to be sure he could never be expected to be performing any actual work in any specific place at any set time. He found a good way to duck out of sight was in the Billiard Room, a long low building that resembled a very small aircraft hanger. It had only one entrance with a set of outer and inner doors that ensured he could always hear someone entering before they saw he was there, so he could quickly grab the trash bin or be wiping off the chalk board if it happened to be Chuck. It had 3 large Pool tables and what he later learned was a 3-Cushion billiard table, but which at the time he assumed was some old table parts that had somehow accidentally been assembled without pockets and abandoned. Beyond that were 2 rows of round Formica tables and cheap plastic chairs, and behind those an old glass cabinet with dusty boxes of ancient chalk, brushes and odd looking metal tools that had something to do with fixing broken cues.
For the most part the Billiard Room seemed to be very infrequently used, most residents preferring to be outside playing Bocce Ball or slowly swimming uneven laps in the nearby pool during the endless California summer days. It had no windows, so entering always made Paul feel like some explorer in the Egyptian desert entering a deep tomb cut deep in the rock, the tables sitting like mysterious sarcophagi and temple alters with the ceremonial racks of house cues gazing down on them, mute guards forever standing at rigid attention.
Idly at first he began to play little games with himself. He’d played in bars with friends of course, but these tables were larger and had no coin mechanisms. He liked that, because if he didn’t like how he’d made a ball he could just pull it out and try again. Late one afternoon he saw a resident come in with his wife. From their neat attire he guessed they were on their way to the concert scheduled for the main Clubhouse building that night. She had no interest in playing, so she sat in on of the high chairs in the corner of the room and watched as he evenly lined all 15 balls spaced in number order down the middle of the closest table. “The idea”, he told her “is to make all the balls in order, from one end to the other, and you have to do it without hitting any ball except the one you are making.”
He made the 1 ball slowly, letting the cue ball bounce off the rail to make the 2. “A really good player can do it without the cue ball even touching a rail. I’ve never been that good. But I have learned that it is not making each ball that matters you see, but getting in a good spot to make the next and go to the next one after that.” He had made it up to the 4 ball before getting too close to the 5, so he could not get it in the same corner as the others without hitting the 6 with the cue ball. Paul was watching intently at this point, having never seen anyone actually practicing Pool before. As he thought about it he realized there were really good players out there, professionals and hustlers, people he’d glimpse on TV occasionally, and that maybe they did this kind of thing too if they didn’t get good enough just playing their friends in bars.
“So now I’ll have to bank the 5” Paul knew that was a fancy shot, and was impressed when he made it hard and straight. A shot like that would have you branded a shark in any bar he’d ever played in. He made the 6 and was lining up on the 7 when his wife checked her small jeweled watch and declared it was time to go. The man gave the slightest of shrugs, lowered the cue he had been using onto the cloth and left, leaving the balls where they were.
Paul waited a few minutes until it was clear they were not coming back, then picked up the cue and looked at the balls. He tried to make the 7 in the side pocket, missed, and the cue ball went into the line of balls and scattered them out of position. Paul pulled them all out and lined them up just like the old man had. He tried to make the 1 ball slowly like he had, but as it rolled towards the pocket it hit the rail first and died in front of it instead. He put it back in position and shot it again and missed it again.
“How’s the job going?” his grandfather wanted to know. Heinz was slowly shredding a corner of the faded oriental rug covering the tile floor of the living room.
“Frustrating, but I think I’m getting some valuable on-the-job experience. Maybe I’ll stay at this for a while, get promoted, be a big shot here one day.” His grandfather just looked ahead.
In 2 weeks he found he could reliably get to the 3 ball before he got in trouble. He found he needed to concentrate on holding the cue steady and wondered how he had ever played before by just swinging straight at the first ball he liked. He found at the right angle he could hit hard and the cue ball would not move very far, but at other angles the cue ball would fly around the table like a startled bird. Sometime in the middle of a particularly warm and still afternoon, when he was focusing all his concentration on how the tip of the cue was moving back and forth as the wooden shaft slid between his fingers he heard the rustling.
The sound was simply pages being turned, but given he had heard no one enter, or even move near the building for over an hour, he was startled. In the corner, at the far most table a man was sitting reading a magazine, holding it in front of his face, his short legs straight out in front of him in neatly pressed gray trousers and polished leather shoes. The magazine must have been an old one lying around, as it was copy of Sports Illustrated from back when the “Red hot bat” of Ron Gants was igniting the Braves.
Paul usually made no attempts to strike up conversations with the residents, but he was thrown off balance by the fact that the man had been sitting there without him noticing, presumably able to watch him practicing, which was something he suddenly felt the urge to defend.
“You ever try doing this? I’ve been trying this damn thing for weeks and still can’t get more than 3 balls in a row.”
Another rustle, then a sigh, then he spoke. “Son, how can you hope to start that exercise when you don’t know the secret of playing Pool?”
As Paul opened his mouth to ask the stranger what the secret was, he realized there was no-one sitting in the corner. Unable to move at first, it was several minutes before he could walk over to the table, which had the same undisturbed thin layer of dust on it as all the others. There was no Sports Illustrated on the round table. The seat of the plastic chair was cold.
His local library had only one book he could find on how to play Pool. “Willie Mosconi on Pocket Billiards” was a small worn paperback. He’d lie late at night on the bed of his grandfather’s fold out couch, reading it carefully. The book had black and white photos of how to stand and line up with the shot, and how to hold the cue with his fingers gently curled. It seemed counter-intuitive to him, but clearly Mr. Mosconi must have known the secret, or something close to it, to have had his own book published just on playing Pool.
For the next few weeks he tried his best to copy the photos. He realized there were formalized ways to define and quantify how you play Pool beyond simply calling a pocket where you hoped a ball would go if you hit it hard enough.
He was regularly making it to the 7 and 8 ball in the exercise when he saw him again. Same corner, same chair, same table, same pressed grey trousers and polished leather shoes. On the magazine cover Ron Gants was still igniting the Braves.
“Make all of them yet?” came from behind Mr. Gants.
“No. Not yet I mean. Listen, what did you mean last time about…?”
“Do you think if you finish all those balls you’d know the secret of playing Pool?”
“What? Maybe. I mean I’m getting better. I’m even reading a book and…” And he was talking to thin air again and a cold unoccupied plastic seat again.
That evening his grandfather pointed to the library book and told him about the time he’d seen Willie Mosconi. “Only once. He used to do all these exhibitions around the country you see. Come to a town, play the local champ and do some trick shots. Went to watch him this one time, never saw him miss a ball. Best player that ever lived.” This was apparently all his grandfather had to say about Willie Mosconi. He had no questions as to why Paul was reading a book about playing Pool, or why he had started coming home later in the evenings despite getting up for an earlier morning shift. However the next morning he found a long black case on the small kitchen table where they ate breakfast.
“Kind of thing a young man could use” his grandfather explained. “I haven’t touched it for years anyway. Don’t think my back could bend like that these days.”
His grandfather’s pool cue looked a bit like the one in the book, and it felt better in his hand than the house cues on the wall. The tip was smaller but neater than most of those house cues, not all oddly rounded and unevenly shaped. Within a week with the cue he completed the exercise for the first time. As he got closer to the last ball he began expecting to feel done with Pool, like when you finish a jigsaw puzzle, stare briefly at the same image you’ve been staring at on the box lid all that time, then scoop it all back into the box and put it away. But as he sank the 15 he realized all he wanted to do was set them up and do it again, only this time to get a better angle from the 6 to the 7 so he would not have to go the long way around the top of the table and off 3 rails to get on the 8.
He was setting up the balls again before he realized he’d also expected the man in the corner with the magazine to materialize and tell him the secret. Maybe the man was just waiting for him to do it the right way this time. That night he fell into a dream where the balls, their angles, colors and destination pockets all seemed to merge into a complex three dimensional lock mechanism. He kept trying to turn everything just right and get the box to open. He knew if only he could do this he’d be able to reach in and take the bright, hard secret within for himself.
END OF PART 1
finally wrote it up as a little Christmas present for everyone here and on RSB. Hope you like it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mosconi's Ghost
By Daniel Salzedo.
Paul was past a lot of things. He was 5 months past his last relationship, 4 months past an abandoned attempt to gain a College degree, 3 months past his last steady job, 2 months past his last rent check and 1 month past his last visit to his grandfather. The last item was the only one he intended on addressing that day, which is why he found himself driving through Seapine retirement community that afternoon.
An azure southern Californian sky stretched from each corner of the horizon, as it did with such regularity it seemed to serve no purpose to the long-term residents except as a tool against which to measure the current smog level. The wide streets and small, monotone single-story homes reminded Paul of a military installation. Built on a wide flat stretch of former river delta, nothing punctuated the drab distance except the oil refinery squatting on the northern edge of the community by the freeway.
As usual he had played some desultory backgammon with his Grandfather, helped him with some trivial household chores to his embarrassed thanks, consumed 2 cans of cheap non-branded soda and failed to coax Heinz, his ancient and decrepit cat, onto his lap. Also as usual he had studiously avoided discussing his personal life, but as usual his Grandfather wheedled his current inventory of failures out of him.
"You know they had a Help Wanted sign up at the Clubhouse office. Why don't you check it out? I'm sure it's nothing you couldn't handle, and you could stay with me a few months, no rent, get some money together."
"I'm not going back to college."
"I didn't say that, but you need some money for pretty much anything you want to do these days. You do want to do something don't you? I mean sooner or later?"
Given that the remaining 1/16th of a tank of gas in his car gave him an endurance of about 20 minutes in any direction other than the Clubhouse office, Paul grudgingly agreed to check it out. The interview with Chuck, the Services Manager, was thankfully brief. As Paul had come to realize, there is a certain category of Californian job for which being a white college drop-out and a smattering of crude Spanish were the only qualifications. The duties mostly involved supervising the cleaning crews, directing visitors to the relevant locations and liaising with the numerous residents clubs and committees so that Chuck wouldn't have to.
It only took a few days of this before Paul was carefully organizing his schedule to be sure he could never be expected to be performing any actual work in any specific place at any set time. He found a good way to duck out of sight was in the Billiard Room, a long low building that resembled a very small aircraft hanger. It had only one entrance with a set of outer and inner doors that ensured he could always hear someone entering before they saw he was there, so he could quickly grab the trash bin or be wiping off the chalk board if it happened to be Chuck. It had 3 large Pool tables and what he later learned was a 3-Cushion billiard table, but which at the time he assumed was some old table parts that had somehow accidentally been assembled without pockets and abandoned. Beyond that were 2 rows of round Formica tables and cheap plastic chairs, and behind those an old glass cabinet with dusty boxes of ancient chalk, brushes and odd looking metal tools that had something to do with fixing broken cues.
For the most part the Billiard Room seemed to be very infrequently used, most residents preferring to be outside playing Bocce Ball or slowly swimming uneven laps in the nearby pool during the endless California summer days. It had no windows, so entering always made Paul feel like some explorer in the Egyptian desert entering a deep tomb cut deep in the rock, the tables sitting like mysterious sarcophagi and temple alters with the ceremonial racks of house cues gazing down on them, mute guards forever standing at rigid attention.
Idly at first he began to play little games with himself. He’d played in bars with friends of course, but these tables were larger and had no coin mechanisms. He liked that, because if he didn’t like how he’d made a ball he could just pull it out and try again. Late one afternoon he saw a resident come in with his wife. From their neat attire he guessed they were on their way to the concert scheduled for the main Clubhouse building that night. She had no interest in playing, so she sat in on of the high chairs in the corner of the room and watched as he evenly lined all 15 balls spaced in number order down the middle of the closest table. “The idea”, he told her “is to make all the balls in order, from one end to the other, and you have to do it without hitting any ball except the one you are making.”
He made the 1 ball slowly, letting the cue ball bounce off the rail to make the 2. “A really good player can do it without the cue ball even touching a rail. I’ve never been that good. But I have learned that it is not making each ball that matters you see, but getting in a good spot to make the next and go to the next one after that.” He had made it up to the 4 ball before getting too close to the 5, so he could not get it in the same corner as the others without hitting the 6 with the cue ball. Paul was watching intently at this point, having never seen anyone actually practicing Pool before. As he thought about it he realized there were really good players out there, professionals and hustlers, people he’d glimpse on TV occasionally, and that maybe they did this kind of thing too if they didn’t get good enough just playing their friends in bars.
“So now I’ll have to bank the 5” Paul knew that was a fancy shot, and was impressed when he made it hard and straight. A shot like that would have you branded a shark in any bar he’d ever played in. He made the 6 and was lining up on the 7 when his wife checked her small jeweled watch and declared it was time to go. The man gave the slightest of shrugs, lowered the cue he had been using onto the cloth and left, leaving the balls where they were.
Paul waited a few minutes until it was clear they were not coming back, then picked up the cue and looked at the balls. He tried to make the 7 in the side pocket, missed, and the cue ball went into the line of balls and scattered them out of position. Paul pulled them all out and lined them up just like the old man had. He tried to make the 1 ball slowly like he had, but as it rolled towards the pocket it hit the rail first and died in front of it instead. He put it back in position and shot it again and missed it again.
“How’s the job going?” his grandfather wanted to know. Heinz was slowly shredding a corner of the faded oriental rug covering the tile floor of the living room.
“Frustrating, but I think I’m getting some valuable on-the-job experience. Maybe I’ll stay at this for a while, get promoted, be a big shot here one day.” His grandfather just looked ahead.
In 2 weeks he found he could reliably get to the 3 ball before he got in trouble. He found he needed to concentrate on holding the cue steady and wondered how he had ever played before by just swinging straight at the first ball he liked. He found at the right angle he could hit hard and the cue ball would not move very far, but at other angles the cue ball would fly around the table like a startled bird. Sometime in the middle of a particularly warm and still afternoon, when he was focusing all his concentration on how the tip of the cue was moving back and forth as the wooden shaft slid between his fingers he heard the rustling.
The sound was simply pages being turned, but given he had heard no one enter, or even move near the building for over an hour, he was startled. In the corner, at the far most table a man was sitting reading a magazine, holding it in front of his face, his short legs straight out in front of him in neatly pressed gray trousers and polished leather shoes. The magazine must have been an old one lying around, as it was copy of Sports Illustrated from back when the “Red hot bat” of Ron Gants was igniting the Braves.
Paul usually made no attempts to strike up conversations with the residents, but he was thrown off balance by the fact that the man had been sitting there without him noticing, presumably able to watch him practicing, which was something he suddenly felt the urge to defend.
“You ever try doing this? I’ve been trying this damn thing for weeks and still can’t get more than 3 balls in a row.”
Another rustle, then a sigh, then he spoke. “Son, how can you hope to start that exercise when you don’t know the secret of playing Pool?”
As Paul opened his mouth to ask the stranger what the secret was, he realized there was no-one sitting in the corner. Unable to move at first, it was several minutes before he could walk over to the table, which had the same undisturbed thin layer of dust on it as all the others. There was no Sports Illustrated on the round table. The seat of the plastic chair was cold.
His local library had only one book he could find on how to play Pool. “Willie Mosconi on Pocket Billiards” was a small worn paperback. He’d lie late at night on the bed of his grandfather’s fold out couch, reading it carefully. The book had black and white photos of how to stand and line up with the shot, and how to hold the cue with his fingers gently curled. It seemed counter-intuitive to him, but clearly Mr. Mosconi must have known the secret, or something close to it, to have had his own book published just on playing Pool.
For the next few weeks he tried his best to copy the photos. He realized there were formalized ways to define and quantify how you play Pool beyond simply calling a pocket where you hoped a ball would go if you hit it hard enough.
He was regularly making it to the 7 and 8 ball in the exercise when he saw him again. Same corner, same chair, same table, same pressed grey trousers and polished leather shoes. On the magazine cover Ron Gants was still igniting the Braves.
“Make all of them yet?” came from behind Mr. Gants.
“No. Not yet I mean. Listen, what did you mean last time about…?”
“Do you think if you finish all those balls you’d know the secret of playing Pool?”
“What? Maybe. I mean I’m getting better. I’m even reading a book and…” And he was talking to thin air again and a cold unoccupied plastic seat again.
That evening his grandfather pointed to the library book and told him about the time he’d seen Willie Mosconi. “Only once. He used to do all these exhibitions around the country you see. Come to a town, play the local champ and do some trick shots. Went to watch him this one time, never saw him miss a ball. Best player that ever lived.” This was apparently all his grandfather had to say about Willie Mosconi. He had no questions as to why Paul was reading a book about playing Pool, or why he had started coming home later in the evenings despite getting up for an earlier morning shift. However the next morning he found a long black case on the small kitchen table where they ate breakfast.
“Kind of thing a young man could use” his grandfather explained. “I haven’t touched it for years anyway. Don’t think my back could bend like that these days.”
His grandfather’s pool cue looked a bit like the one in the book, and it felt better in his hand than the house cues on the wall. The tip was smaller but neater than most of those house cues, not all oddly rounded and unevenly shaped. Within a week with the cue he completed the exercise for the first time. As he got closer to the last ball he began expecting to feel done with Pool, like when you finish a jigsaw puzzle, stare briefly at the same image you’ve been staring at on the box lid all that time, then scoop it all back into the box and put it away. But as he sank the 15 he realized all he wanted to do was set them up and do it again, only this time to get a better angle from the 6 to the 7 so he would not have to go the long way around the top of the table and off 3 rails to get on the 8.
He was setting up the balls again before he realized he’d also expected the man in the corner with the magazine to materialize and tell him the secret. Maybe the man was just waiting for him to do it the right way this time. That night he fell into a dream where the balls, their angles, colors and destination pockets all seemed to merge into a complex three dimensional lock mechanism. He kept trying to turn everything just right and get the box to open. He knew if only he could do this he’d be able to reach in and take the bright, hard secret within for himself.
END OF PART 1