Pumpernickel Pete

Pumpernickel Pete - David E. Malone - November 29, 2007.

Mully surveyed his surroundings.

He wasn't expecting much and the place pretty much met his expectations. The sign on the way in had said, "Mulberry Center for the Emotionally Disturbed" but 'nut-house' seemed more appropriate. The place reeked of disinfectant and something else which made his gut heave for a moment before he got used to it. Whitewashed walls and parquet flooring as far as the eye could see... not exactly Martha Stewart decor, more like a San Quentin cafeteria, but that was to be expected.

Damn that judge. All he'd done was smack a deserving thug with a cue-ball in the toe-end of a sock at the local pool hall and this was the result. For a moment he considered leaving... community service was one thing, but doing his community service in a loony bin was surely cruel and unusual punishment.

The doors locked automatically behind him when they swung to, and at the back of the main hall you could see what looked like prison bars. That must be where they keep the violent ones, he thought, shuddering. Thank God he would only have to interact with the merely slightly crazy inmates. His job was to try and keep some of them entertained for a while and free up the nurses and other hospital staff to do other things.

"What the heck..." he thought, and approached a relatively normal looking little old lady sitting in a chair all alone at a card table.

"Hi, I'm...."

He never got to finish his sentence. The woman looked up in absolute horror and started to scream, over and over again. She was shaking her hands in front of her and her eyeballs were rolled up into her sockets. Unsure of what to do, he backed off slowly with his hands up and a nurse came running over to take charge of the situation.

"Don't worry..." she said cheerfully. "Mrs Campden doesn't take to strangers very easily... why don't you ask old Pete over there if he wants to play some cards...?"

Shell-shocked, he did as he was told and nervously approached an old man in a hospital gown who seemed to be lost in thought and staring into space.

"Are you Pete?" he said.

"What's it to you...?"

"I thought you might want to play some cards...."

"For money?"

"For fun..."

The old man looked disgusted and went back to his reverie. Mully was at a loss, but eventually tapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't ever touch me again." said the old man, fiercely, waving a bony fist at him. His hands were thin with skin like transparent parchment, albeit heavily veined, and the finger-nails were uneven and short as if they'd been chewed. With the robe drawn tight, you could see he was as skinny as a rail and his ribs stood out under the cloth. Apparently he hadn't shaved for several days judging by the stubble on his chin.

"Um, so, do you...?"

"Do I what?"

"Want to play some cards..."

"Well, why didn't you say so... I was just thinking about doing that. It's probably a good thing you happened along."

They settled on gin rummy and Mully soon found that the frail old guy with the piercing blue eyes was neither senile nor stupid. In fact, he very quickly found himself down by a good number of points and thought maybe he'd better make an attempt at some conversation.

"So, how are you these days...?" he said.

"What you really mean..." said Pete, grinning broadly. "... is, what's a perfectly normal looking guy like me doing in a place like this?"

"I thought it might be insensitive of me to ask, but... okay... why?"

"It's not a long story." said Pete.

"My name is Pete Rowlings... I may have been the best pool player in the world at one time bar none - they used to call me Pumpernickel Pete. You heard of me...?"

"The name sounds vaguely familiar," said Pete, nodding. "I think my father may have mentioned you once..."

"If you play pool long enough in Canada, you've heard of me." said Pete firmly. "They call me Pumpernickel Pete because I only play for the bread and I always come home with the dough... I never lost a money game in twenty years. I can still beat anyone out there if they'd let me."

"So what the hell are you doing in here?"

"I got tired of playing smart-ass junior shortstops. Nobody has any respect anymore for one of the greatest players who ever lived... and one day I snapped. It was at a tournament in Oshawa and I was playing this kid.... don't even remember his name... doesn't matter... nobody else remembers his name either. He was sharking me and making jokes while I was shooting, and eventually I just walked up to him and cold-cocked him with the butt of my cue. When they tried to restrain me, I went nuts and just beat the crap out of anybody that came within reach. The guys in the white coats took me away in a straight-jacket and I've been here ever since. I'm as sane as you or anybody else but they won't let me go home.... the bastards."

He paused a few moments remembering.

"Fricking damned miserable bastards." he said again, bitterly.

The conversation soon turned to other things, but Mully made a mental note of the name.

Later that evening after his Mulberry 'shift' he logged onto Google and did a search on Pete Rowlings "Pumpernickel Pete". To his surprise there was a whole lifetime's worth of information about him there. Canadian straight pool champion six times in a row, winner of dozens of other big tournaments; he had apparently beaten both Willy Mosconi at pool and Cliff Thorburn at snooker straight up in an exhibition in Toronto in 1965. The more he read about the man, the more he was impressed. Like old Pete had said, there was no record of him losing... at all. Every tournament he was shown as having played in, he won. The evidence was right there on the Web...

On his next visit to the Mulberry, he looked immediately for old Pete and sat down beside him.

"How are you, Pete...?" he said, cheerfully.

"Who the hell are you?" said Pete.

"It's me... Mully. You remember we met last week and played cards..."

"Oh, yeah, now I remember. The born loser who sucks at cards... well, I'm just about as lousy as usual, son. But thanks for asking."

"Look, I did a search on the Internet and everything you told me about you being a great pool player is true..."

"Of course it is, you dumb putz... " said Pete. "Did you come here just to call me a liar?"

"No, no, no." said Mully quickly. "Not at all. I've been thinking and I have an idea... if you don't wanna do it, I'll forget about it, but... how do you feel about playing some straight pool again... for money? Can you still play, do you think?"

"Can I still play...? Get me outta this piss-palace and we'll see." said Pete with some enthusiasm. "Playing billiards is like riding a bicycle... you don't forget. I promise you I'll beat you like a tin drum and likely show you a few things you've never even seen before."

"Nope. Not me... there's this guy, Charlie Adams, down at the Coronation who's a real good shortstop and a high roller. Bit of a hustler too. Took fifteen-hundred off me a few weeks ago and I'm no slouch. I was thinking we could set him up for a few, mebbe five, dimes and then roll him. I get my fifteen-hundred back for smuggling you out of here and sweating the match - and you get the rest..."

"Lessee... let me get this straight. You want me to do all the work - and you'll only take a dime and a half? Maybe I can fetch your coffee and lick your boots as well?"

"I'm taking a big chance," said Mully, earnestly. "If they find out I smuggled you out of here, it'll be a breach of my probation and I'll get thrown in jail."

Pete thought about it for a while.

"Well, okay... cash isn't much use to me in here anyway." said Pete. "Okay, I'll do it. But you'll have to buy me a cheese-burger and a beer or two and get me back here as well. Just tell me when and where - I'll put my street clothes on and wait by the side entrance over there. When you get there... bang on it three times and open the door. I'll be ready."

After some heated negotiations back at the Coronation, Mully finally got Charlie to agree to a match. It was hard going because obviously Charlie was nervous about taking a match with someone he'd never seen play and whose name he didn't recognize. He was smart enough to know it might well be some kind of set up, but Charlie wasn't yet born when the name Pete Rowlands meant something in the world of professional pool and people had mostly forgotten about his exploits. It was only when Mully told him the guy was eighty years old and hadn't played for a few years that he reluctantly agreed.

"There ain't anybody out there over seventy that can still play except Willie Mosconi, and Willie's dead. I want proof he's eighty though before we hit any balls." he said. "And don't think I believe that crap about him not playing for a while. I've heard that one before - you must think I was born yesterday."

"Not a problem... in fact, the senile old bastard looks like he's ninety..." said Mully shrugging his shoulders. "It's an easy five dimes for you... I'd take him on myself if I could find enough backers to come up with the dough."

Saturday night finally arrived and Mully arrived at the side door. Sure enough, old Pete was waiting for him in an old brown suit that smelled of mothballs and a faded although clean white shirt. He must have weighed considerably more when he was originally incarcerated because the suit hung on him like clothes on a scarecrow and there was ample room in the shirt collar to stuff in another scrawny neck of the same diameter. He was carrying an ancient canvas cue case trimmed with brown plastic. Mully helped him into the car...

"Nervous...?" he said.

"Me...? Nervous?" said Pete, incredulously. "Do I look nervous?"

And actually he didn't. His blue eyes had a twinkle in them and he looked, if anything, agog with anticipation. Mully was rather more subdued because, after all, it was his money that was at risk.

When they arrived at the Coronation, Charlie and his cohorts hadn't yet arrived, so they shared a plate of poutine and a couple of beers. The old man ate with relish and took his time, savoring the cold beer. By the time Charlie eventually arrived, Pete looked relaxed and confident.

Mully had made some initial arrangements with the floor manager, Ruby, and they had cordoned off a Gold Crown next to the bar for the match. It was newly felted with forest-green Gorina Granito Basalt so it would likely be fast... and the pockets were tight, as Ruby had put it... tighter than a mosquito's ass stretched over a rain barrel.

"Best table in the pool room," opined, Ruby.

"Do you want to warm up, Pete...?" said Mully. "You really should hit a few balls first."

"Nope. Soon as I start playing, people will remember who I am and the cat'll be out of the bag." said Pete. "Let's keep it a secret a little while longer..."

He opened the cue case and took out an old two piece Dufferin. It certainly wasn't a Balbushka or Palmer, or even a custom-made cue, but it looked in good nick... a bit thin by today's standards, maybe 11mm at the business end, and the tip itself was nicely shaped to a dime. He stared at the two pieces for a short while as if they were old friends and then screwed them together firmly. Then he cast a critical eye down its length and nodded - satisfied.

Mully made the introductions and an awed Charlie didn't even ask to see Pete's proof of age. There wasn't any doubt he was 'nearer my lord to thee' than anyone else in the room and Charlie saw no need to insult him by asking his age. The stakes were collected by Ruby and stashed under the bar for safekeeping. Charlie threw a couple of balls on the table and said simply...

"Let's lag. Straight pool. Race to one hundred..."

Pete leaned over the table and played his 'lag' ball. The cue made a strange sound, skidded strangely off the cue-ball and his effort slid maybe a foot down the table - a complete and utter miscue. Charlie's parallel effort rolled smoothly down the table and then back up to within an inch of the bottom rail.

"No fricken chalk..." Pete said, absently. And then to Mully... "Don't worry, I'm just rusty... after all, I haven't played for fifteen years. But it's like riding a bicycle - you never forget."

Well, the wheels came off his bicycle pretty quickly after that. Not only was he a bad shot, there was even a nagging thought in Mully's mind that he'd maybe never even hit a billiard ball before. Every time he got to the table, Pete swung and missed badly... a detached observer could almost hear the sound of hundred dollar bills wafting their way into Charlie's wallet.

It seemed to take an agonizingly long time, but eventually a cruising Charlie reached his century and closed out the match. He smirked...

"What was he thinking...?" he said to Mully. "I'd bet the old man has never even played straight pool before... more money than sense, I guess."

"The two of us... Pete and me... we're gonna have a little talk about that." said Mully grimly, as he grabbed the old man by the shirt and dragged him to one side.

"That little exhibition just cost me five thousand bucks." he said heatedly. "You're not goddam Pumpernickel Pete Rowlands, are you? What in hell's name made you pretend you are... are you out of your freaking mind?"

"Yes..." said Pete. "Yes. Actually I am... "

He smiled apologetically.

"Why else do you think they'd put me in the fricken loony bin?"