Troll's Road Shot
This short story was once published in the Minnesota Billiard News, the crowning achievement of Troll and his companions.
Troll’s Road Shot
By Robert Malone
Troll makes his stroke. With a soft rumbling, the cue ball spins the length of the table clanking off the lone red ball on the far end rail. The defiant red ball rolls away from the pocket and up the table. Saunters. Taunts. Spins to a stop in the middle of the green baize. Troll drops his cue stick to the floor with a clatter and grabs his head with both hands.
“It can’t possibly be made,” he moans, laughing, retrieving his cuestick.
“Just set it up again. Concentrate this time, fool,” Willis barks with measured levels of concern and vehemence in his voice. “You told me you could make it.”
“Alright,” Troll whines. “Alright, man. I can make it.” In a childlike sulk, he walks after the cue ball.
“I still say he can make the shot,” Willis challenges the shadowy men around the billiard table.
The Iliad Corner Pocket is on the second floor of a building wedged like a slice of pie in between the intersections of Iliad Avenue and Van Nuys Boulevard. Similar to many other pool halls we have wandered into up and down the West Coast, the Iliad has rows of tapered cue sticks in wooden racks on the walls and a dozen or more poorly spaced pool tables covered with tight green baize. Above each table a low slung fixture hangs producing a harsh, theatrical light, the dozen square frames of light marbled with clouds of blue cigarette smoke. Maniacally ticking pinball machines stand in a line in front of painted over bay windows. Way in the back, I have found a sorrowful dusty bar where I now sit mounted up on a stool sipping my beer. And next to the bar rail, as Willis had predicted, a snooker table, big, flat, with impossibly round tiny pockets, a green behemoth floating under the white lights where Troll bends now to make another attempt at his shot.
“How many more tries,” a tall lanky fellow wearing a Dodgers cap and checkered slacks asks the man standing next to him, a guy with noticeably flat temples in a sleeveless shirt who reminds me of a fireplug, an ex-boxer for sure I decide.
“Ten more,” says the Fireplug and smiles.
“Can anybody get in on this,” the lanky guy inquires of the men around the table.
Willis walks over to him. “It’s odds bet only now, buddy,” he says. “Two bucks to win a buck once the kid starts shooting. That’s what we all agreed.” The men around the table nod their agreement looking to me for the moment like solemn monks at their prayers.
“He thinks he can make it from there into that corner pocket,” the lanky man says and chuckles, pointing at the tiny pocket, looking around to the others for confirmation.
“Know I can,” Troll says defiantly. He stands back waiting for Willis to take the lanky man’s money. He passes the time trying to balance his cue stick on one finger.
“I’ll bet fifty on this silly deal,” says the lanky man staring at the diminutive Troll. The Fireplug grunts his approval of this decision as the lanky man takes a wad of cash from his pocket and peels off fifty bucks, gives it to Willis. “How many tries to start?”
“Twenty tries to start. Ten left,” replies Willis dryly as he takes the money. He holds up the cash and hollers over to me. “Fifty to win twenty five. Mark it down, Muse. Fifty dollars from…..” Willis peers through the smoke and the gloom outside the table lights at the lanky man.
“Ernie,” says Ernie.
“From Ernie here. Fifty bucks.”
“Got it,” I say to Willis raising my beer to toast lucky Ernie. But I write nothing down.
Willis nods to Troll who stops fiddling with his cue stick and sets up his shot for another try.
* * *
I know we are in Culver City. But looking at the intent alien stares on the pale faces hovering in the smoky light above the snooker table, I would put us in a crater on the moon. Troll has already squandered ten of his allowed twenty attempts. He is clowning around, flipping the chalk up trying to catch it in his pants pocket, holding his hand over his heart after every miss, and generally acting the buffoon, chattering incessantly to the by now fully confident onlookers. Willis circulates to collect any additional bets. I sit alone on my stool at the dusty bar watching out for potential troublemakers. I figure the Fireplug to be one so I keep my eye on him. By my last count, nearly seven hundred dollars of the locals hard earned cash rides on Troll running out of attempts before he makes his shot. This is the time lately in this roving improvised theater of the absurd, with Willis and Troll having argued sufficiently loud enough about whether or not he could make this shot to attract the attention of the denizens, with the bets all made and Troll making me crazy with his antics, when I start wondering if I should find another line of work – not that anybody would call what we are up to here a line of work exactly. No matter, I am just thinking more and more these days about how I can blame most of this on Jack Kerouac.
* * *
I attended two distracted and meaningless semesters at Santa Rosa Community College. I have my dreams, of course, and I thought to place myself in the proximity of others pursuing their dreams so that my own might be nudged forward a little. But it proved not to be as simple as all that. One day, wandering around campus skipping my classes, I wind up in the student library. I actually pick up a book off a shelf which happens to be Jack Kerouac’s novel, On The Road. I become so mesmerized by the tale of Sal Paradise that I sit right down and read every chapter. Kerouac could be talking about me or, at least, the guy I think I want to be. Intoxicated by the idea of some untethered life on the open road traveling from mystical city to mystical town, I must resist the temptation to rush out to the nearest highway and stick out my thumb.
I could not get enough. I would sit for hours on campus reading from Kerouac’s novels, becoming more and more convinced that the open road was the only place to be. I began to see myself as another Dean Moriarity rushing around wanting to dig absolutely everything, driving back and forth across the Great Divide like a maniac, riding freight trains huddled in blankets against the freezing wind like a hobo. So, I drop out of college, hardly a sacrifice. Same as Sal Paradise, I give a hug to my caring Aunt who has mostly raised me. I eagerly take to the open road reading my heroes novels during those stretched out idle times that frequent life on the road, following his tenets as though he were a prophet leading me to a promised land.
* * *
I watch from my stool as Troll misses again. His twelfth miss, except this time the cue ball sails in its arc down the runway size snooker table clipping the red object ball neatly where it is frozen along the far end rail. The red ball hugs the rail and begins to travel toward the right corner pocket, makes it more than half way. As the ball begins travelling and before anyone in the place realizes that it does not have enough steam to make it all the way, most of the now fifteen or so men hovering in the purgatorial light rock forward on their toes, stand up from their chairs, watching….watching as their seven hundred dollars drifts slowly along the rail. When the ball shudders to a stop inches from the pocket, I can hear a release of air that sounds as if a great valve had been opened.
Troll is an egg shaped twenty year old that Willis conjured up out of a Las Vegas card room. He has a shiny bald head and soft dome shoulders and the manic grin of the asylum patient he most certainly will one day become. He is by far one of the worst pool players in any pool hall, but possesses a sly talent. Troll is the master at looking incompetent. His eyes whirl and spin at times until you fear they might actually pop out of their sockets and roll in among the pool balls. But I have seen, too, in situations just like this one, those same whirligig eyes flick to sudden attention and focus like a big cat that has seen something move in his meadow.
He has perfected the shot he is now fumbling with on the snooker table. He spots the cue ball in the center of the half circle near the head rail on a big table like this one and then takes aim at an object ball frozen to the rail directly opposite, now, some eleven feet away. Whenever he announces that he can make the ball in one of the corner pockets along the same far rail, either one, left or right, those with even a general knowledge of the game of pool declare him insane. Like Willis has said, ‘You can see the man make his shot and still convince a jury of your peers that it just ain’t possible.’
I have watched Troll practice the shot for hours. By spinning the cue ball, striking high on the top right corner, Troll makes it hit the rail an instant before it makes contact with the object ball. If he is precise, and he must be precise, the cue ball caroms off the rail transferring most of its counter clockwise spin to the object ball. Most players could not even point to the top right corner of a spherical object let alone hit it with the tip of a cue stick. But Troll imparts radical english to the cue ball and then, if hit perfectly, transfers that spin to the object ball so the ball hugs the far rail like a Saturday night drunkard all the way into the corner pocket. He got so proficient at this particular shot that he could make it with the cue ball sitting on a piece of pool chalk.
In a pool hall in La Cienga, either because the money was paltry or because we were feeling bold, Troll inverted a water glass on the end rail and set the cue ball on top of it. He tries the shot from there five times and then pretends to pay us off while swearing he can make that shot off a water glass, his baby fat cheeks puffing out red as a snooker ball. Now everyone in the place wants in on that action. Willis and I make a big show of trying to talk him out of the bet. But Troll insists so the locals bet their mortgage money, more than a thousand dollars of it. They even set the shot up for Troll, balancing the cue ball on the water glass some two feet in the air and twelve feet from the object ball. Launching the cue ball into thin air, Troll makes the shot on the fifth try. I was amazed they let us walk out of there. I figure when they see Troll make the shot they got to know they are being gored. Instead, we left with all the money as some of the locals began damaging their pool tables trying to make the shot.
Troll has only six tries remaining, so the afternoon festivities should soon be drawing to a close. I survey the men around the snooker table who are beginning to light up in anticipation of their pay day. The trick is not making the shot. Troll could possibly do that blindfolded. The trick is making the shot at exactly the right moment so we get to leave with the cash and I do not have to wrestle with Fireplug in the sleeveless shirt.
* * *
Once on the road, I cannot maintain the electric frenzy with which I began my wanderings. The sweet elixir of holy life on the road, I quickly discovered, can turn into a sour potion. Soon I am tired and hungry and broke. I am cold, tattered and unwashed. In less than two months, penniless, I sleep in bushes beside the highway and smell like the inside of a garbage can. Forced to panhandle in towns like Atascadero and Grover City, I am set upon by sheriffs. I endure rides with jabbering long haul truckers, pawing bleak evangelists, and blind driving pill heads with the dazed look of perpetual flight in their eyes. One night it begins to rain, a steady portentous downpour, and in my frustration, facing the stark reversal of my expectations, I fling my tarnished heroes books off an overpass into a sea of oncoming headlights. I descend into that shadowy blank despondency reserved for those whose prophets have led them astray.
Coming to my senses, I forego my life as ascetic and take a job. As a road crew flagger on the county roads east of San Luis Obispo, I stand for hours in the hot sun dodging enraged motorists. I begin to reflect on my folly. I am rudderless, unclaimed, without substance. I am abject of spirit. Then I meet up with Willis in some roadhouse bar. He has a thin face and sports a trim tapered beard that underscores an overly attentive smile. His eyebrows seem to crouch when he talks as though he is forever peering through a slit in a door that opens onto a dangerous world. He speaks softly, conspiratorially, all the time and brings an air of drama to the most mundane conversations. Eventually, he walks me outside to his van and introduces me to an egg shaped character by the name of Troll. Willis tells me of a scheme to make some money. I consider my options and decide. Feeling in need of a new philosophy, I will travel with Willis and his daffy pal, Troll, for awhile.
* * *
“Damn it all,” Troll swears as he freezes the red ball once more to the rail after another miss. He eyes the red ball woefully. “I had it that time. Damn it.” The last try the red ball hugged the rail for a moment before floating away and I saw two of the men nudge one another. The time for clowning around is over. Troll is down to two more tries. I swivel on my bar stool and watch Willis move about the room. He looks bemused, not even a bead of sweat, not at all like a man with seven big ones hanging over the precipice. Troll looks worried and I gather that it is no longer an act.
Willis approaches him with fatherly patience. “Get it in focus, buddy,” he urges his man quietly, still the placid Zen master.
“I got it,” Troll pleads, waving his arms as though testing out the idea that he might fly out of here should he not convert on one of his last two tries. “I got it, OK. No problem.” Like a condemned man, he walks the length of the table, grabs the cue ball, freezes the red ball to the rail, and walks back to place the cue ball on the spot. He churns away with a piece of chalk on the tip of his cue and looks at the men around the table who smile openly at his distress. Troll smiles back, weakly now, a condemned man brave to the end. The he bends to his shot. He takes a long stroke with the cue, hammering down so the cue ball jumps forward and begins to travel in that same half parabola it has traveled eighteen times before without success. The ball not only rolls forward but spins like a tiny white planet, enough elementary physics at work to reign in its drift toward the side rail half way down table and turn it gently back toward center where it bears down on the object ball.
Something about this shot must be different from the others because the shadow men seem pulled in toward the hazy light. Some of them were dozing given the amount of time Toll has been at this agony, but none of them is sleeping now. They are almost touching the table, straining hard as the cue ball strikes the end rail firmly and caroms away with a sweet click that sets the red ball in motion. The red ball begins a slow…..ever so slow waltz toward the corner pocket…..and it is hugging the end rail.
A snooker table is five and one half feet wide. The red ball must now travel the better part of three feet and if it comes off the rail even a hair it will never go in the round corner pocket. Willis for all his aplomb is up out of his chair. I am off my stool and drawn down to the scene as if by a magnet. Perhaps because the little red ball must contend not only with the friction of the guiding rail but also with the evil eye stares from a dozen men who stand to lose their cash, its journey seems to take an hour. Troll is grimacing, leaning right, twisting at the waist as if to impart some more english to the ball. I realize I am leaning too, putting the weight of my shoulder figuratively against the little red ball, pushing it toward the pocket with all my mental strength in opposition to all those other demon faces desperate to make it stop. If the ball does not go in on this try, Troll has just one more. Although I have seen him make the shot three out five tries, there is absolutely no guarantee he can make it one out of one try.
The entire room is now following the red ball as it tracks along the end rail….watching it when it hesitates….watching it when it hovers….watching it when, like a thief, it dives into the darkness of the corner pocket with a gratifying little plunk sound.
“Sweet ever loving Jesus,” exclaims Troll and literally sinks to his knees while hanging on to the edge of the snooker table.
And there you have it. The whole ball of wax. I feel like I could kiss that bastard Troll’s bald head. What a sweet deal. Just then the Fireplug, who I only now notice has a tattoo of a rooster hanging from a noose scrawled on his bicep, barks out, “Hey, wait. Hold on here. What are you guys up to?”
I say to myself, ‘Alright, here we go. We’ll be fighting our way out of this dive.’
But Willis is a master in his own right. I believe he could talk a bull into charging a lamppost. He glides right up to Fireplug before he is able to incite the others. “OK,” Willis says to him, “I know it’s a goofy thing. I would bet he couldn’t do it and I just saw him make the shot. But there you have it. You guys bet he couldn’t make it, and, damn if he didn’t just drop it in the pocket. Now if you want action at getting your money back…” And Willis starts hustling Fireplug right there and then, offers to get him into a game and give him a chance to get his cash back. None of the others get excited. They walk off commenting on the wonder of that shot. What luck, they say to one another. Facing Willis and me, Fireplug thinks better of his complaint. Being absent any allies, he is not on terra firma. Still, I can see that he knows that his pocket has just been picked.
In no time, we are saying goodbye to the Iliad Corner Pocket. During the earlier commotion, Troll has disappeared down the stairs. I follow in short order with Willis close behind. Willis and I hop into his tinny Volkswagen van. We find Troll about three blocks away skipping backwards down the middle of the street taking big swigs from a quart of Jack Daniels. His big moon face floats angelically in the evening light.
As we haul him into the van, he croons “Ah, who so ever believeth in me…..”
Willis reaches into the back of the van and cuffs Troll on his dome head. “Two tries left, you maniac,” Willis barks but his heart is not in it. He screams out the window as I drive, “You maniac.”
“Never a doubt,” whistles Troll. “Never a blessed doubt.”
We pass the bottle of whiskey around and drive back to the motel. We are all drying sweat and laughing and counting our cash.
Now I may never turn out to be a true dharma bum or any walking spiritual warrior of the road. Just possible that the ephemeral lost America does not beckon to me as strong as it might to some. Forgive me if I neglect to be fully consumed by my dreams. I know this little immorality play of ours must end someday soon. More legitimate pursuits, the oblige bourgeoisie, will need to be found eventually. But until that time, I will continue to pursue my unexamined life with Willis and the imperturbable Troll – someone Dean Moriarity could surely ‘dig’ – as long as Troll keeps making his shot.