The Long Wait for Tomorrow (9 page)

Patrick kept a close watch on his steps, jostling against Kelly’s exuberant strides. With Kelly in the middle, it was hard to gauge Jenna’s reactions. The few times her face came into view from beyond Kelly’s torso, all he could glimpse was a smile.

A wide smile, detailing every emotion that Patrick didn’t seem to get out of the situation.

“So, Kelly …” Jenna broke free to face them as they kept walking. “Where are we going?”

“Well, the world is my oyster,” Kelly replied.

“The world’s always been your oyster,” Jenna reminded him.

“We’re going to his car,” Patrick told her flatly.

“What makes you say that?” Kelly asked playfully.

“Because here we are,” Patrick said, pointing to Kelly’s Jag, top still down.

Kelly stopped, traced a finger over the paint job. “Well, I’ll be damned, so we are.”

This tepid admission of guilt was followed by the sound of wild cries and catcalls.

Idling in a lane several spaces over, Cody leaned on the horn of his enormous Ford pickup. It was one of those stylish models. Marketed as a useful aid in hauling five hundred tons’ worth of construction supplies, driven by those without five hundred tons of construction supplies to haul. Though the handful of football players in the back of Cody’s truck came pretty close. They gave the hydraulics a good workout, hopping up and down, basso voices calling out their star quarterback’s name.

“ Kel-ly! Kel-ly! Kel-ly!”

“Gonna stomp Wilson!”
Cody roared out the open window. “FIGHT, FIGHT, OUTTA SIGHT! KILL, PANTHERS, KILL!”

The ensuing chorus of raucous cries was followed by cheers and applause from a number of passing students.

“Great.” Kelly rolled his eyes. “These guys.”

“Is it me, or has Cody been acting a little psychotic lately?” Jenna murmured, covering her mouth with her fist. “I mean, more so than usual?”

“Yo, Kelly!”
Cody yelled, punching the steering wheel a few more times.
“You coming to lunch, motherfucker, or what?”

Unabashed, Kelly threw his head back and laughed.

Patrick saw Cody’s face smolder, wounded ego visible along his twitching jawline.

“Unbelievable …” Kelly shook his head, leaped into his car, and started her up. “Let’s get the hell out of here before my brain collapses.”

Jenna was more than happy to comply. She sat on the passenger door, and slid backward into the car. Legs up in the air, skirt hitched, revealing snug green underwear. With her head in Kelly’s lap, she laughed and motioned for Patrick to join them.

The rest of the players in Cody’s truck had grown silent, still struggling with Kelly’s cold shoulder. In the front seat, Cody shouted Kelly’s name, team spirit replaced with a demanding snarl.

For all the bullets Patrick had taken for Kelly that morning, he knew this wasn’t a fight he wanted.

“Going once!” Kelly announced, revving the engine.

Patrick tossed his case into the car and dove in as Kelly pulled out and raced for the driveway.

“So where
are
we headed?” Jenna asked, sitting up.

“Patrick!” Kelly called out over his shoulder. “Can you get us to Long Street?”

Patrick nodded, scrambling for the safety belt.

Even with the school fading behind, he thought he heard Cody shouting after them one last time before Kelly really put the pedal down, and then they were gone.

he funeral home’s proprietor stood outside his place of business, watched as the three of them came to a stop across the street. They hopped out of the convertible with little reverence for the dead, and strode up to the pool hall.

Early-afternoon sun shone dully off large polymer windows that stretched across the front of the pool hall like a letter boxed film. Two of the windows were stenciled with large white letters against a green background, spelling out their destination:

Kelly pushed hard against the wooden door, an easy swing inward. He walked through without the slightest hesitation. Patrick and Jenna let the door slam in their faces, unsure of whether to follow. There, in the center of the door, a small, hand-crafted plaque spelled out the house rules:

Patrick and Jenna exchanged a look before the door swung open again.

“Are you two coming in?” Kelly asked. “Or am I going to have to take my game to the streets?”

Patrick decided it was best not to find out what that meant, and went ahead.

“Afternoon,” the bartender greeted them with a friendly smile. He was somewhere in his midtwenties. Tall, thickset. Massive, even, though hardly out of shape. Brown skin light enough to allow for all sorts of racial presuppositions. Wide smile set for a welcome, eyes roguish enough to recognize the same sentiment in others. He scratched the back of his head with a pen, muscles bulging beneath a green jersey with nothing more than the word HERE printed on the front. “Welcome to On The Rail: rock-and-roll capital of the universe.”

Patrick took a look around, searching for anything to back this up.

Sunlight filtered through the windows, stretching out over ten regulation-sized pool tables. Five on the left, laid out in horizontal dashes. Five on the right, four of them perpendicular to the rest. Brass chains hung down from the ceiling, dangling fluorescent lights over each table. Checkered tiles on the floor, alternating white and green. Green walls, white cracks at odd intervals. Foosball tables in the far left corner. Jukebox back by the men’s room.

The place had a well-worn look to it.

Old as hell, but in it for the long haul.

Not another soul in sight apart from two barflies, reflecting over bottles of Miller Lite.

“ Rock-and-roll capital of the world?” Jenna let out her pigtails and shook her hair free.

“Yeah, that was a joke,” the bartender announced. “Don’t give me any shit, I’m stuck here till two a.m. Got to get my giggles any way I can, gosh-damn it.”

“ Gosh-damn right,” Jenna agreed, stepping up to the bar and running her hands over the aging wood. “Gosh-damn right.”

“Nice outfit.” The bartender grinned.

Jenna bent sideways a little to look past her breasts, down to her skirt. “Yes, I’m a cheerleader.”

“Didn’t think it was my birthday.”

“Don’t give me any shit, I can leave anytime I want.”

The bartender threw his head back and let loose with two succinct syllables: “Ha! Ha!”

It almost seemed sarcastic, but Patrick quickly realized that this was simply how he laughed.

“All right.” The bartender pointed his pen at Patrick. “What do you want to drink?”

Patrick searched the room once more.

Spotted Kelly at a pool table, setting up a rack of balls.

“He can’t help you,” the bartender said with a dismissive grin. He backpedaled to a tall industrial-sized fridge with a glass door. Skimming past the rows of beers with his finger, he reached the bottom shelf and began rattling off all age-appropriate options. “I got some Kiwi or Strawberry Snapple, Snapple Diet Green Tea, Stewart’s root beer, Stewart’s Orange ’n Cream, water, Coca-Cola—”

“Iced tea,” Jenna interrupted.

“Orange soda,” Patrick added.

The bartender had their drinks before them in two shakes, and he pointed toward the back.

“Tell your boy over there it’s four dollars per hour, per person.”

“Thanks,” Patrick managed, and wandered toward Kelly. His footsteps sounded exceptionally crisp against the unfinished floor. Green-felt tables watching as he approached his destination.

“How’s your game, Patrick?” Kelly asked.

“Um …” Patrick placed his orange soda on the edge of the table. “I don’t really play that—”

“Hey!” the bartender called out across the room. “Drinks off the table, son!”

Patrick mumbled a hasty apology and moved his drink to a nearby stool.

“Grab a stick,” Kelly said, sucking back on a root beer. He smacked his lips. “Go on, Patrick, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Kelly jumped up onto a wooden riser, home to five chairs bolted into place. All with seats flipped up like wooden under-bites. He flipped one down and settled in. Crossed his legs and motioned for Patrick to get going.

Patrick approached the nearest rack, not sure what he was looking for in a cue stick.

He picked one at random and returned to the table.

Jenna had parked herself on the chair next to Kelly. Legs crossed, diet iced tea resting against her knee. She was smiling broadly, enjoying her little stint as the pool shark’s girl.

Royalty
, Patrick’s angels concluded with a quiet laugh.
All hail to the queen.

Kelly kissed Jenna on the cheek and hopped down. “Want to lag for the break?”

“Do I want to
who
for the
what
?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Kelly pulled out a quarter. “We’ll flip for it.”

Patrick stared down at the balls. The few times he and Kelly had played pool, it had always been eight-ball. Eight-ball on crappy coin-operated tables. Now he found himself looking down at a diamond-shaped rack, one through nine, enough green between pockets to cover a cemetery.

“I don’t even know what we’re playing,” Patrick said.

“ Nine-ball.”

“What’s nine-ball?”

Kelly smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. “My bad.”

“Huh?”

“OK.” Kelly leaned against the pool table, picked up a cube of blue chalk. He began to expertly file the tip of his cue, talking the whole time. “Nine-ball’s about as simple as it gets. We got nine balls on the table, one through. Your object ball’s always going to be the lowest one on the table.”

“Object ball?”

“Meaning, you always have to hit the lowest ball on the table first. If the lowest ball is the one, you hit the one. If the lowest ball is the two, then go for the two. Generally, this means that the balls are pocketed in numbered order. You sink
the three, then the four is the lowest ball, so you sink that. Sink the four, then you sink the five, all the way up to the nine ball.”

Patrick glanced up at Jenna.

Chin resting on her palm, pinky trapped in the corner of a fascinated grin.

“Now, the nine ball is the only ball that wins the game,” Kelly continued. “I could sink one through eight, miss the nine. Then you come along, drop the nine, and you win. Same thing goes at any point in the game. If the one is the lowest ball on the table, and it happens to be right next to the nine, which happens to be right next to a pocket … Well, you can hit the one to combo with the nine and win. You got it?”

Patrick did.

Thing of it was, Kelly’s sudden knowledge of nine-ball seemed more irrational than any of the ignorance he’d displayed over the entire day. Patrick had understood every word. It was as clear as Kelly had been, and yet he found himself shaking his head.

“You want me to play a game on my own?” Kelly suggested. “Let you have a look?”

“I’ll play you” came the bartender’s voice.

The three of them turned their attention, saw the bartender leaning against the thirty-foot shuffleboard table dividing the space. Couple of empty beer bottles in his hand, paused en route to further duties. His perpetual grin wasn’t challenging, wasn’t demeaning. Just curious, looking for a way to kill time, and Kelly nodded. “Race to five?”

“Sounds good.”

“Call it.”

“Heads.”

Kelly sent the quarter spinning.

Two minutes later, the thunderclap of Kelly’s break sent a spectrum of colors across the green felt. Kelly stepped back and watched, waiting for the second law of physics to catch up. When the dust settled, the two and four balls had found their demise in two separate pockets. The rest were spread out nicely, enough to warrant an impressed nod from the bartender.

“ Gosh-damn. Not bad, son.”