Varsity

Tony woke up on his friends couch in the middle of the night to the sound of the boisterous water heater.  He wanted to fix it because he was staying there permanently now and knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep if the thing kept making noise all the time.  His friend Ike who’s house it was didn’t trust him to fix it, even though Tony was a heating and cooling specialist with a certificate from the local community college and everything.  There was really no one more apt for the job, but Ike just didn’t want his things tampered with.  It always made Tony really mad, but he was one of those guys that no one could really take serious in a fit of rage.  He’d stumble over his words, make weird sounds with his nostrils, and jump to conclusions that were completely un-substantiated.  In the end, he’d usually walk out of the living room where they always hung out and into his basement room where he’d pick up a book about the Zen of pool, or any other Pool books that were chill to read while stoned. 

He got up from the couch and kicked the thing softly to assure he wouldn’t bust a pipe.  It puttered for a minute and then refrained.  He dismissed it with an apathetic wave of his hand and went back to the couch where he turned on his little reading lamp that he bought for a haggled price from a local antique shop.  He loved the lamp because he was able to talk the guy down from 20 dollars to 10 dollars; he was always really proud of himself whenever he made a transaction like that, especially because the proprietor was known for being very terse.  There was a little weed left on the table so he packed it in the dim light and laid into the couch to enjoy the high that comes at an unknown time in the middle of the night.  He picked a book entitled “Pool and the Art of Beating Your Opponent” by Dave Snyder.  The sound faded as he read the book and thought about the upper hand that he’d have on all of his opponents he’d face the next time he was at the bar.  He slowly fell back asleep with his light on and the book facedown on his chest.

He was awoken in the morning to Ike playing Grand Theft Auto V at a really loud volume.  Ike was cursing the T.V. because he couldn’t beat a mission that was at the end of the game.  Tony figured that Ike been up all night because he had a dream about shooting a gun with his dad when he was a little kid.  He had good memories of shooting with his father when he was a boy, but the dream that he recalled was kind of evil and it made him feel a little tepid; he really hated waking up like that.  The water heater was still making noise and it began bothering him to no end.  It was Friday, which meant that it was his day off; he really hated having his relaxation time obstructed by something as trivial as a water heater and his friend making loud noises.  He resolved that he’d make coffee and go outside for a cigarette even though Ike allowed smoking in the house.  When he went upstairs into the cream colored kitchen he smelled the old food coming from the dishes in the sink and the pot that already had burnt coffee resin in it.  Everything in the kitchen was really carelessly organized and that really bothered Tony.  He didn’t pride himself on being a very serious guy or anything, he just hated carelessness and neglect in a very general way.  He yelled into Ike to see if he was the one who left the burnt coffee on the burner but he didn’t respond, so he left the house, walking past Ike on the couch playing the game brutally.

He resolved that if he couldn’t make coffee at home he would walk to 711 to get it.  He liked the coffee there better anyway because it was usually lukewarm and he preferred it that way.  The sun was out and it felt warm for the season.  He walked to the store with a contrived swagger that seemed to only come out on days like those.  He knew a lot of people in town and stopped to shoot the shit with a couple of them in their front yards; convivial exchanges made him feel like a man about town.  The neighborhood looked so much different that day than any other in a long time, he thought.  It was usually gray, but the sun really gave the affect of spring- the season he liked the most.  He thought that he could see a couple buds on trees but he really wasn’t sure.  When he got to the bus route that led to the 711, he passed the hardware store where his dad worked. It reminded him of the fight he had with his dad that made him move into Ike’s house.  Another thing he didn’t like was thinking about stuff like that because it always made him uncomfortable and brought down his mood.  A bus passed him and something rumbled in the undercarriage- he wondered if his handy skills were applicable to automotive work.

He got the coffee and shot the shit with the guy behind the counter.  He asked him if he liked the break in the weather and the guy nodded his head and said yes, yes, yes.  He asked him if he had bad winters where he was from and he told him that sometimes it got down into the 40’s at night but never as cold as it got here.  Tony thought that was interesting and said later to the dude as he was leaving.  On his way back he walked by the bar where he played pool every Friday night.  The neon sign that hung from the front of the place buzzed because the bartender who works Thursday’s always forgets to turn it off.  She really bothered him especially, that’s why he stopped going there on Thursday’s and started going Fridays.  She was always on some downers and had a really hard time doing her job when the place was busy.  She’d usually neglect him more than the other regulars because he hooked up with her one time and kept calling her to hang out but she would always ignore his attempts- the ringing on the other end was always really grating.  It’s not that he especially liked her, he just thought she was hot and wanted to get a thing going with a girl that was always around.  He never really had that before and probably liked the idea more for the aspect of convinence than anything else.  He wondered who would be there that night and if any girls would show up.  He got laid sometimes but not often enough to forget about the whole thing for Pool’s sake. 

He kept walking and drinking his coffee in micro-sips.  He was really enjoying the vibe of the day and went a little out of his way just to be outside for a little longer.  It was still early and all his friends were at work so he decided to sit in the house and read the Dave Snyder book.  He walked past Ike passed out on the couch with his avatar moving back and forth on this T.V. with a gun in his hand.  He walked into the basement and the water heater was still buzzing, but he started reading anyway.  He was studying defensive breaks and placement of the ball after those breaks.  He didn’t really understand the technique because he always thought that you should try to get balls in the pocket if you were the one breaking; he didn’t like the idea of doing tricky things right out of the gate, he was all about playing a fair game, but he figured it might do him well to try it if he can really grasp what Dave Snyder was talking about.  He read the book for about ten minutes before the water heater began to drive him insane.  The sound made the words seem all jumbled and if he wanted to beat anyone in the games that night, he thought he would be best suited with a couple new techniques, especially ones that the guys had never even thought of trying.  He went back upstairs to Ike and woke him up.  He asked him, sternly, if he could fix the water heater.  He was mad about the disruption on his life and just wanted the noise to end so he could get some peace and quiet, he told Ike.  Ike looked at him grinning and said no mockingly- he really liked getting under Tony’s skin, partially because it was easy and partially because he was 20 and Tony was 23.  The age thing really made the dominance that much sweeter for Ike.  Tony started to get mad and his voice started rising but everything he said to Ike was incomprehensible.  Ike told Tony how cute he was when he was mad and picked up his phone.  He put it on speaker and the volume of the ring was piercing.

Tony grabbed his book from the basement and walked towards the park where he could be alone and study new techniques.  It was impossible to do anything in his house because of that water heater.  The buzzing sometimes happened in his head and that is when he thought he would go really crazy.  There was nothing he could do about it then, he couldn’t fix his head, so what would he do even if he decided to move back in with his Dad and the sound kept happening?  He tried turning off his mind but that little display out of Ike really drove him crazy.  He stopped reading and started walking again, this time quickly with anger in his stride. 

The clouds started coming back and the gray made him docile.  The sun was too much for him at that moment.  He wanted to not see anything bright for a little bit because he had a headache from the sound.  It was around the time when his weed dealer would be getting back from work so he decided to call him to see if he could get a 20 bag.  He answered and said he could meet up with him in an hour when he got home; this calmed Tony down.  He went to these girls house where he’d hang out sometimes that was a couple blocks away.  The girls were real big drinkers and he hoped that they would have some Coors Light in their fridge.  He wanted to get a buzz on but he didn’t really want to do it alone.  He knocked on the door and no one answered so he went around back to see if they had a case of something lying on the deck.  He found a case of High Life that had three beers left in it and took a seat on a folding chair.  The beer was kind of warm from the sunlight and he had only one before he gave up the idea of getting his buzz going.  He didn’t normally drink during the day anyway.  He sat out back and smoked a couple of cigarettes, trying to forget about certain aspects of the day.  He needed to get centered for the games tonight because his reputation at the tables was good and he really didn’t want to ruin it.  He thought about the ultimate moves, ones that would completely disable an opponent but they were hard for him to find.  At least the beer got rid of his headache.

He went to go meet up with his dealer in the neighboring town.  The walk was about 30 minutes and he listened to Frank Sinatra the whole way there.  It gave him the pep back in his stride and made him feel confident about how he’d play that night.  He would always put Sinatra on the jukebox while he was playing, he considered it to be his power move; no one could touch him when Fly Me To The Moon was on.  He got the weed from the guy, it was a really easy transaction and done through the guys car window.  He picked up some papers from WaWa and rolled a joint behind the place where all the dumpsters are.  He took the route back to his neighborhood that wasn’t’ very heavily trafficked and smoked the joint casually.  He felt good then, kind of lucid, and just wanted to play Pool.

He walked over to Bill’s house and they hung out in his basement and watched some shows on Cartoon Network.  Tony rolled another joint and they smoked it together.  They didn’t really say too much to each other but Tony figured that was just what he needed with a morning like he had.  Bill was kind of a bump on a log as Tony liked to put it, but he still enjoyed his company because he usually had weed and he could go over there whenever he wanted to.  He went back to Ike’s after awhile and he and Bill made plans to meet up at the bar later.  Bill wasn’t very good at pool, not like Tony, but he always liked to play him because he was an easy win.

When Tony got home he was feeling good.  He didn’t really want to go inside but he was excited to get in the shower and put on some fresh clothes- fresh clothes and a shower always made him feel better.  When he got outside he saw a truck from the company where he worked parked in the driveway.  He figured he was working somewhere else and Ike let him park there because there wasn’t any on the street.  When he walked inside, the house smelled different than it did previously.  The air wasn’t as gross, which is something he didn’t realize before- it’s easy to get acclimated to the smell of your place.  He heard some people talking and joking in the basement and then the unmistakable goodbye of a handyman.  The footsteps on the stairs were heavy like the young guy, Jeff, that just got a job at his company.  He didn’t like him, not because he wasn’t a good guy, but because he was taller and more handsome than himself.  He was also two years younger than Tony and hated how his boss always gave Jeff praise for doing good work because he would rarely do that for Tony.  Jeff wasn’t even with the company long enough to prove himself before he became the bosses favorite; that really got to Tony. 

When the two guys came upstairs Tony stood there with an indolent pride, knowing that he was better than Jeff and confused as to why he did the job.  Ike looked at him with a mocking smile and asked Tony if he knew his buddy Jeff.  Jeff smiled and tried to shake hands with Tony and asked him how he was doing because he was gregarious by nature, but Tony ignored the big hand and stormed into the basement.  He grabbed a change of clothes and a couple of other things.  He didn’t even notice that the buzz had stopped by the time he left his house.  He called Bill to see if he could come shower there and he said it was okay.

When he got back to Bill’s house he divulged the entirety of the day and how everything kept adding to be really bad for him.  He didn’t expect much out of Bill and usually ignored his wisdom because he thought it was bad and senseless, but Bill didn’t offer much in the way of consolation.  He only told him to reconcile the problems with his father, because, Bill thought that was the root of all of his problems, at least the sound that happened in his head that gave him pain.  Tony cleared it all up for him and told him that it couldn’t be the problems with his dad giving him the pain because he didn’t even like his dad that much and that the sound obviously came from the water heater.  Transference, he told Bill, and asked him he’d ever heard of it.  Bill turned the T.V. back on and Tony went upstairs to take the shower.  He felt good again with the hot water inundating his body.  He thought that was just what he needed to forget about all the things of the day.  All he had now was a few solid hours of pool to look forward to. 

He got out of the shower and used some Classic Old Spice that he found in the cabinet.  It made him smell like a barber shop and he thought that that was a really nice smell.  It reminded him of the first haircut he got and the distinct scent of the place. His dad was standing right next to him, holding his hand that first time because Tony had been so scared.  Once he saw his dad start talking to all the guys in there and laughing, it really made him feel okay.  And now every barber-shop he’d been in to after that one smelled just like the first time.  He started thinking about the fight between him and his dad again and remembered how trivial it actually was.  He had asked him to clean up his room after Tony had been working all day for him doing chores around the house.  Tony refused, half-heartedly, and asked if he could do it later.  His dad was pretty antagonistic and liked getting under Tony’s skin when he would refuse to do anything.  He pushed him in the chest with his finger and got no reaction, so he did it again and kept antagonizing him, until Tony wound up and hit him in the face, knocking his dad over onto a pile of a scrap metal.  He came after Tony but, with his new-found dominance over his dad, he was able to duck all of his hits and get him where it hurt.  The fight ended with his dad walking back in the house with a bloody nose and sunken head.  Tony thought he was crying and he liked the idea of him being so physically hurt by his own son that he laughed at him.  Since the fight his dad had tried to contact him many times, but Tony always ignored the calls.  He thought that he shouldn’t be thinking about his dad because it would fuck up his game.

When he got to the bar that night there was a bunch of people that he played with regularly.  He said what’s up to all of them and grabbed a Budweiser.  The place was a dive-bar where live bands sometimes played.  The setting was bleak and scary but he liked it because he thought that it could just as easily have been the 1970’s in there, aside from the Jukebox which had every song you could ever want.  He hadn’t heard of the bands that were playing that night and one of the tables was covered with music equipment so there was only one table to play on.  He put quarters up for the first game and threw three Sinatra songs on the jukebox.  He won his first game, his second game, and ran the table in the third and scratched on the eight.  It was okay because it was a demonstration of good playing and a couple guys came up to him and told him he made some nice shots.  Remarks like those always gave him the boost of confidence that he needed. 

He was up to play again after shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking a couple more Buds.  The band was setting up and he saw they had some electronic instruments and a saw.  He hated electronic music because he thought it required no skill and was insincere.  He figured he’d see what it was about though.  When he approached the table he realized who was running it.  Gary Greggen was a pool master who rarely ever worked the table at the bar because he always would end up beating everyone.  He only ever played when he got really drunk, and, usually, that would make him a little more reckless.  Still, no one had ever beaten him and Tony saw this as his opportunity.  He put his quarters in the table and racked the balls by pushing them back and forth heavily.  He would always take out the 8 ball and touch the ball at the top of rack.  He thought this helped in keeping the balls steady or, he just did it for luck.  When Gary broke he got 2 stripes and a solid in.  He went for the solid and that made Tony hopeful because he already had two balls in, but when he looked at the table, he noticed that Gary was perfectly set up to run the whole thing.  Gary got in all his balls aside from the last that got him down to the eight- it was a straight cut shot from downtown; these were Tony’s specialty and he believed he could have made that shot and won the game if he were in Gary’s position.  Gary left him wide open on a couple easy shots that were near the two bottom corners.  He made all of them except for his shot on the 8 ball; under pressure Tony often botched the final shot.  Gary missed his final shot because the band started abruptly playing and it startled him, he was really kind of finicky guy for a pool wizard.  The band sounded like the water heater at it’s worst, or at least that’s how Tony heard it.  They made brutal grinding noises heavily, and it brought back his headache.  Gary seemed to be digging it; he was a guy that could really get off on any live music.  Tony lined up for his last shot which, was a pretty easy one- a straight diagonal shot from downtown.  He missed, by a long shot, and scratched.  He slammed his stick on the ground knowing that that shot was probably going to be his last opportunity to win the game.  Gary made his final two shots and went to shake Tony’s hand.  Tony gave him a limp shake and walked out back to smoke some more weed.

There were no stars out so Tony didn’t have anything to look at while he was smoking his joint.  He was upset about the outcome of the game and didn’t really feel like playing anymore.  He didn’t want to go back to Ike’s because he knew he’d probably be there with his girlfriend, so he called his brother and decided to go home.  When he was walking there he felt better, like the prospect of comfort made everything okay.  When he walked in his brother was making some eggs and potatoes on the stove without a shirt on and his dad was in the living room watching jeopardy.  He said whats up to his brother and he gave him a little nod back for recognition’s sake.  He went and said hi to his dad and sat on the couch and watched Jeopardy with him.  He liked when his dad shouted out the answers.