Down Hill Water

Down load Part Four

Groat Cakes

            The fraternity boys both got up and went to the table.  One of them racked the balls and the other talked to him in muffled tones, as if plotting a secret strategy.  When the balls were racked, one of them stood leaning on his pool cue and the other sat back down and took a drink from a bottle of Olympia beer that sat on their table.
            Ellis went to the table, chalked the tip of his cue stick and broke the balls.  The fellow that had racked had packed the balls loosely, and they didn't scatter much from the bunch.  The two-ball-did go into a side pocket and he took another shot.  He missed the six-ball, but buried the cue-ball in the pack of balls that still sat pretty much where they had been racked.
            "Sorry," he said, looking over at the well-groomed man who was going to have to make the best of a bad leave.
            The man nodded, shook his head, and got up.  He approached the table slowly, looking at the possibilities.  The trouble with a leave like this was, that there are so many possibilities, and they are all complicated.  He looked at the pack of balls for a full minute and then bent over and shot hard into the pack.  Balls rolled everywhere.  Three balls fell into the pockets, one striped-ball of his own, and two solid-balls that he would have rather stayed on the table.
            "Shit!" he said.  "At least it's opened up a little."
            The balls had spread out over the entire table, and at first glance it looked like it might be easy pickings, but when he looked further, he could see that the cue-ball had wedged itself between the end rail and the three-ball, touching both.  The guy shook his head and turned to his partner.  His partner shrugged and said nothing.  The well-groomed man did the only thing he could.  He tried to shoot the cue-ball into a place that would give Duncan a poor shot.  He didn't do too badly.  The ball bounced off the side rail and rolled to the other end of the table near a cluster of three or four balls.  Duncan got up and shot, but nothing went in.  The other man shot, making two more striped-balls before he missed.  The game was even now, with three balls down for each side.  Ellis stood and looked at the situation from afar, before approaching the table.  He had four balls to make plus the eight-ball.  They were spread out all over the table, which meant he had to do some careful shooting each time to get shape for the next shot.
            "Where do I start?" he said looking down at Duncan sitting next to where he stood.
            "Get that six-ball out of there and try to get shape on the seven in the other corner," he said.  "At least that's what I'd do."
            Ellis went to the table and did just what Duncan had told him to do.  It worked, and he made both the balls and was left with a straight in on the next ball and then an easy shot on both the last ball and the eight.  He made them all and the game was over.  The well-groomed fraternity boy sat down scowling and his partner brought a dollar over to Ellis and Duncan's table.
            "Nice shooting," he said, and returned to his table to sulk with his partner.
            The fat kid got up and racked the balls for another game.  Duncan and Ellis won this game too, and the next and the next.  They won seven games straight before Ellis scratched shooting the eight-ball and they had to sit out until their quarter came up again and they could get back in the playing.
            It was after midnight before Duncan and Ellis left the bar.  They had made twenty-five dollars at the pool tables.  They were also a bit tipsy from the beer they had consumed, and thought it best to take the back road home.  The only problem now was to get out of town without getting stopped by the police.  Duncan was sorry he had parked the car on Main Street, but there it was, straight across the street from the bar, and there was nothing to do but get in and drive away.  They both walked to the corner and crossed the street at the light.  They window shopped a little as a cop drove by on his regular check of the area, and when he turned the corner, they jumped into the Toyota and pulled away from the curb.  Duncan drove straight up Main Street, crossed Grand Avenue and headed out of town past the drive-in theater to the Union Flat road that would take them home.  The sky was clear and the moon was nearly full.  It shined down, lighting up the snow-covered hills before them as if it were day.  The road had been well plowed nearly to the pavement, and the snow was piled along the edge a couple of feet deep.  When they got to Union Flat, Duncan turned right on the snow covered gravel road and they proceeded down the valley.  Ellis rolled a cigarette and lit it.
            "Well, we did pretty good tonight," he said, filling the car with smoke.
            "No shit!"  Duncan answered.  "I think we only lost three games.  Or should I say you lost three games."  Ellis had scratched three times while trying to make the eight-ball, making for their only losses.
            "We had to lose a few times, or they'd never play us again, or they'd break our thumbs or something," Ellis said.  "You have to play them along so they don't catch on they're getting hustled.  In fact, we probably should have lost a few more."
            "I suppose, but we made twenty-five bucks, and that's nothing to sneeze at, you know.  Duncan too lit a cigarette, and turned off the car lights.  There was enough moon light to see, but with everything covered with snow, including the road, it was hard to make out where they were, so he turned them back on and drove along quietly until they came to Union Station.
            "Why do they call this Union Station?" he asked.  "There's no station here.  It's just a bunch of grain elevators."
            "Oh, I don't know.  That's just what they call it," Ellis answered.  There is a rail road track for the trains to haul wheat out of here.  They can call it a station if they want I guess.
            "Should I try to head over the hill from Gale and Liz's?"  Duncan asked.
            "In your wildest dreams," Ellis laughed.  "Only if you want to walk the last mile to the house.  Fred and I skied down that yesterday and I can promise that not even you could make it up there."
            Duncan laughed.  "I was just kidding, but with all this coal in the back, the Toyota can go anywhere."
            "Yeah right, even through a three foot drift a quarter of a mile long, I suppose."
            "Sure, if I'm driving.  I'm ready for a joint.  I wish you'd brought one for the trip home."
            "We'll be there pretty soon," Ellis said, rolling his window down a crack and throwing out his cigarette butt.
            Duncan sped up a little just thinking of the big fat joint he would roll when they got home.  The snow pack on the road had taken out the ruts and bumps that usually accompany gravel roads, and they rolled along smoothly.  They passed the dirt road up over the hill from Gale and Liz's without further comment and headed for the paved road that connected Colfax with the Snake River at Almota.  Duncan turned right on this road, traveled about two miles and turned right again.  They were now heading up Rebel Flat Creek, and only a few miles from home.
            Ellis yawned.  "I'm kinda tired," he said.  "It's hard work, taking all that money from the fraternity boys, and then you have to drink all that beer along with it.  I might even piss my pants before we get home."
            "Oh quit your whining.  We made enough money to buy some real groceries next time we go into town," Duncan said, sliding almost into the ditch as he navigated around a sharp corner in the road.
            "Keep that up, and I will piss my pants," Ellis squealed.
            Duncan sped up a little more just to get to Ellis, and then slid sideways into the driveway and came to a stop.
            "Here we are, safe and sound.  Hope you didn't lose your water on that last corner."  Duncan laughed and hopped out of the car.  "I suppose the coal can wait till tomorrow.  I just want to burn some 'tuna' and watch the rest of the late show."
            "I'll help you with the joint, but I'm afraid the late show will be over by now."  Ellis got out as well, and relieved himself in the driveway before he followed Duncan into the house.
            The house was quiet and looked as if everyone had gone to bed.  One light burned in the bathroom, and the stove was nearly out.  Duncan went back out onto the porch and got a can of coal for the stove and opened the draft to get it going.  Ellis sat down at the kitchen table and began to roll a large two paper joint that was sure to lull them into some far off dimension, while Duncan fiddled with the television, trying to improve the poor picture.  The late movie (something with Cary Grant and Doris Day) was still playing, but it looked as if it was about over.  When Ellis came into the room with the joint, Duncan had just flopped down on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table and Birthday and Sundance had curled up on either side of him.  Punt was wagging his tail and trying to get in Ellis' way just for the attention it would afford.  Ellis sat down in the overstuffed chair by the door and the dog stuck his head in his lap.  He lit the joint and stroked the dog's head at the same time, then handing the sweet smelling little cylinder to Duncan, he gave his full attention to Punt, who seemed to be exceptionally in need of it.  The movie ended about half way through the smoking of the joint, there was one last commercial and then two jet fighters flew low over some dessert somewhere while the national anthem played, indicating the station was about to sign off for the night.
            The national anthem quit and the white noise of nothing came over the airway along with the fuzz of the empty screen.  Duncan got up, turned off the television, announced he was going to bed and went upstairs.  Ellis got up, put two more cans of coal into the stove and damped it down for the night.  After turning off the lights, he and Punt headed out through the back porch to Ellis' nest of straw and went to bed as well.  Punt curled up next to him in what little room was left in this makeshift box that Ellis called a bed, and was soon breathing smoothly.
            Ellis lay thinking of Molly.  It had all happened so fast and easy that it worried him.  Girlfriends had never come this easily for him and it seemed that something must be wrong.  He had met her just before he and Fred had gone to Seattle.  She had finally decided to leave her abusive husband and had literally escaped to the safety of her brother's home for a while to let things cool off.  Ellis had met her merely by accident when he went to visit Dave one afternoon.  They had talked briefly, but seemed to have little in common, except recent break-ups with a spouse, and nothing had really sparked on that first encounter.  He had happened by later in the same week, and this time Molly had been the only one home.  They sat drinking coffee and relating stories of their previous relationships for nearly an hour.  This time, even though neither had realized it, they formed a kind of bond.  It was a loose fabric, woven from their very different past experiences.  Somehow the different lives they had led seemed to fill the voids in the other, and they grew closer without being conscious of it.  While in Seattle, Ellis had only thought of her a couple of times, and even then, his thoughts hadn't wandered into the realms of anything like where they were now.  He had only thought of her on a physical plane at first, but now she was more.  He thought that it was right after his return from Seattle, when he and Duncan had stopped by with the dumpster gleanings, that things had changed.  Something had happened, sitting there on the couch in Dave and Carol's living room that seemed to turn his attention from the physical to the metaphysical.
            Punt began to snort and whimper from some kind of dream.  Ellis slid a hand out into the cold from inside his sleeping bag and stroked him on the neck.  He let out a deep sigh and returned to his steady breathing of before.  Ellis wondered if he had interrupted a nightmare or had gotten in the way of some wonderful virtual experience the dog could never recover.
            His thoughts returned to Molly and the natural way they had fallen into each other's lives.  He wondered if this would become another one of his short flings with someone not looking for the same kind of permanence that he seemed to be in search of.  Ellis thought of himself as one of those neomodern, liberal thinkers that was out to reconstruct the world into something magical and perfect.  He didn't realize how old-fashioned he really was.  He had risen from that old school, where law was supposed to be the natural outgrowth of right and wrong, not the other way around, like his world had become.  He was in many ways an outlaw.  He lived without regard to the law, but instead, acted in accordance with some personal link to that fragile thread we call 'good'.  His mother had once told him, that she 'didn't care what he did or became in this life, as long as he was nice'.  This had stuck in his head and came drifting to the surface now and then, when he least expected it.  He thought about the coal he and Duncan had hoisted into the back of the Toyota earlier and wondered how it fit in with his mother's words.  This thought swirled him around for long enough that he finally fell asleep with images of a Christmas stocking full of the stuff.
            When Ellis awoke, the sun had just begun to peek in through the window of his room.  Punt's stirring woke him.  Then he noticed Fred's footsteps at the bottom of the stairs, and quietly moving through the room toward the door.  Punt hopped out of the makeshift bed and quickly followed Fred outside.  Ellis could hear the clicking sound of his toenails against the bare wood floor.  It was cold in the room, and Ellis could see his breath.  It was thick white breath, like blowing out smoke from a cigarette.  He wondered if he could blow out enough to form a cloud.  Maybe it would even rain.  It was certainly too cold for rain.  Snow seemed more likely, but then he figured, he had been breathing all night and hadn't made a cloud yet.  He supposed that the cloud idea was out of the question, and yawned.  His face was cold, now that he had pulled his head out from under the covers, and it made him shiver slightly.  The thought of crawling out of his sleeping bag and putting on cold clothes was less than inviting.  He heard Fred come back in from outside and dig the coffee can into a sack of coal.  This made him think that if he waited a little longer, the house would be warm when he went in, and he snuggled deeper into his sack.