The young man waits for his turn on the pool table. Most of the names written in chalk are penned by the drunk men around the table. They watch the balls roll around the table with hard faces and arms folded.            

The young man waits against the paneled wall. When the eight ball falls the winner screams. The frat-boy stands high above the table, stick in hand, raising the cue above his head. He struts and calls for the next player.            

The young man, Peter, creeps up to the table and puts his quarters into the slot, letting the balls fall with a clack and racks them. The frat-boy is busy ogling the girls that walk by on their way to the bathroom.            

The shot broke them fast but nothing went in. Peter on his first shot made two in. He positioned a stripe for the side but missed when he tried for it. The frat-boy, full of fervor, comes up and fumbles an easy shot into the corner. Peter lines up a shot when he notices a man come up from the shadows and put his name on the board. It read in a long scrawl: Jack.            

There was nothing peculiar about the man save for the way he walked. Sort of heavy, like he had an anchor on his shoulders. The man's boots sounded like gun shots on the wooden planks of the bar floor.            

Peter beat out the frat-boy who took his loss by throwing the pool stick across the table and cursing as he left the bar with his friends.            

The young man propped the pool stick on the toe of his shoe. He calls out, looking at the chalk board.            

"Jack?"            

At first there was no answer. Some kid comes up to the table. He’s about to put his quarters in.            

"You Jack?" Peters asks the kid.            

The kid backs off for a second. Then the man appears.            

"Excuse me," the man says.            

"Sorry," the Kid says.            

The Man nods.            

"Rack 'em up," the young man says, trying to push a little challenge to him.            

The Man is unaffected. He shuffles on his feet as he racks the balls into the triangle.            

Peter goes over to shake the man's hand.            

"Peter," the young man says.            

"Jack," the man says gruffly.            

"Good to meet you," the young man says.            

"Same," the man says.            

The young man cracks at the triangle and puts nothing down on the break.            

"Open," the young man says.            

Jack shuffles around the table, barely taking time to judge the shots. The 1 goes down. He follows the hit with three more. The last one he tries for hits the bumper and the 7 slows just off the corner pocket.            

"Good shootin'," the young man says.            

The young man takes the 12 and the 11 strong and quick. There is no reaction on the man's face.            

"15 side," the young man says and it goes down with a small tap.            

But the young man misses the next shot.            

"All you..." Peter tells him.            

The man comes up, leans on his back foot and positions the next shot. The 3 goes down easy. It looks like he’s not even trying.            

"Damn man. You a shooter, ain't ya?"            

The man leans on the table.            

"What's that?"            

"A shooter. You're a real shooter."            

The man just nods. There's no smile. There's no frown. One more goes down and the 8 slides perfectly and stops before the deep corner. There's a lot of green between the stick and the pocket. The young man knows it's over.            

"8 down the way," the man says.            

The young man already seeing his loss, puts his stick back in the rack. He turns around to watch his demise.            

But the man waits, stick in hand, by the table.            

"What are you doing?"            

The young man freezes.            

"You got me, man," he says.            

The man stands up straight and stares across the table. His eyes are serious.            

"You don't know that..."            

"Come on man," the young man says.            

The man won't hear it.            

"It ain't over 'till the 8 is down," the man says.            

The young man freezes. The man waits. Peter, getting the picture, goes over to the rack and pulls his stick out. He brings it to the table. The man lines up the 8 and puts it down.            

The young man shrugs his shoulders and puts the stick back.            

"See, I told you," the young man says.            

Jack comes over to him and shakes his hand.            

"Good game," the man says, shaking the hand back.            

"Indeed," Peter says.            

"You're a good shot," the man says, "but you give up too easy. Like you expect to lose."            

The young man doesn't say anything.            

Jack shuffles back to the table and waits for the next player.            

Peter goes over to the bar and orders another shot of whiskey and a beer. The bartender brings the drinks over. She smiles at the young man and he smiles back.            

"How's the night?"            

"Okay," the bartender says.            

"Good, good," the young man says.            

"You?" She says.            

"Fine. I just lost the game though," the young man says.            

The bartender takes a moment a looks over at the table.            

"Oh," she says.            

He leans on the bar.            

"You playin' Jack?" She says.            

"You know him?"            

"Yeah, he comes in late nights."            

"What's his story anyways?"            

She puts up a finger, takes an order, delivers it, and comes back to the young man.            

"What's that?"            

"That guy. Jack."            

"Oh, yeah, him. He plays here sometimes."            

"Who is he?"            

She takes a moment, looks back over at the man.            

"You're new around here, right?"            

"Yeah, I just moved here to the City."            

"Where you from?"            

"DC."            

She nods. Then she grabs the green bottle and pours both of them a shot.            

"Welcome," she says, raising the glass. They cheers and put the shot down.            

Peter felt the shots beginning to hit him. He moves off the bar and heads to the bathroom. He takes a long piss and comes back to the bar. All the people lean against each other with familiarity. He stares at the empty glass in front of him, alone. He looks back at the pool game.

It's over.

Jack’s standing there, emotionless, waiting for the next player. Peter could only one question. Why play if there's no joy left in it?            

Peter thought of Simone back in DC. He wondered what she was doing right now. She probably wasn't at some bar. She probably was sleeping, getting rest for her classes the next day. He didn't return her call yet tonight. She called earlier. He suddenly wished she was here, next to him, drinking with him. He suddenly wanted to tell her how much he loved her. Right to her face. He wanted to tell her how alone he was here in New York. She would probably start crying if she heard him say that.            

A couple girls passed and stared at him. Their glance came and he moved from the look back to his empty glass. He signaled the bartender again and waved some dollars to pay his bill.            

He put the twenty down and looked back to the pool table. Jack made the 8 and the opponent slammed the end of his pool cue down on the wooden planks.            

The young man watched the Shooter move to the back wall, take a slow drink from his pint, and wait for the next player. The young man stared at the Shooter. The Shooter, after another drink, met the eyes of the young man. There was such a dullness to his face. Like there was a desert behind those dull orbs.

The man raises his pint glass. Peter does the same. Then another contender came up to the table and Jack waits as the opponent racked the balls. Peter tapped the bar and left through the double doors.                

The air was still when he walked out of the bar. He starts down the sidewalk with only the echo of his footsteps around him. He could feel how big and vast the city was around him and he wished Simone was here to go to bed with him. His bed was empty. Too empty.    




                       

That night, Jack won seven games in a row. The last player came out of no where. When it came time to hit the 8 down he fumbled and scratched. The opponent took the win silently and came over to shake the man's hand. The opponent said, slipping the cue through his hands:            

"No way to win...no way to lose."            

"Right," Jack said.            

The man went to the bathroom. By this hour, the mirror was dirty with the streaks of a nights worth of hands. The man could barely make out his reflection in the mirror.              

Later that night The Man turned on the shower and waited. His bathroom began to fill with steam. The man undressed and put one leg into the stream of the shower. The water was hot on his leg. He waited a bit and went under the stream. The water washed over his head and poured down over his shoulders. He put the rest of his body into the stream.            

Already he felt it working.            

He laid down in the basin, letting the hot water from the stream fall down upon his body. The droplets splashed down on his chest and face. Everything became wavy. He felt very good.            

In the trash can by the shower the empty prescription bottle his doctor had given him to sleep laid under some used tissue. He began to feel very warm. The last thing the Shooter could hear was the water running in circles down the drain.  


Matthew D'Abate is the Creative Director of Le Chat Noir Productions, a film, literary and music collective based in Brooklyn, New York. His fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in Thieves Jargon, LitChaos Magazine, Dogmatika, Word Riot, and MI:BK. He lives and drinks too much in Brooklyn. .