Third excerpt from "Before the Flood," my new novel (2023)

The dorm was buzzing with pent-up energy after the test, and some of my usual Upper friends decided to hit town to celebrate. It was dusk by the time we made it to the town bandstand and crossed the bridge to one of our favorite spots, a pool hall across the river from an old textile mill and its manmade waterfall. 

Adolphus Johnson, a Black student from Pittsburgh on full scholarship, danced around Perce as we walked, jabbing and throwing punches he knew would fall short, as Vance and I watched in amusement.  “Up-Down, Right-Left, In-Out,” he barked in a spot-on Cassius Clay imitation. “The big ugly bear is too slow, too confused to react.  His ponderous punches start in air and end in air.  I'm pretty and I'm on his assss...”

 We laughed in amazement.  Dolph was a truly gifted mimic.

“Shit, Johnson, Clay's gonna be the one who ends up on his ass,” growled Vance, a conservative southerner to the core.

“He's going to be the Louisville Fat Lip when Liston's through with him,” added Perce.

But Adolphus was still going. “They call me Handsome Cassius, they call me Gaseous Cassius; I don't care what they call me, I'm the Greatest of All Tiiime...”

The pool hall was an under-lit affair off a sixteen-lane candlestick bowling alley.  Vance and Perce played at one table, Johnson and I at the next. I was pretty good at pool, but Johnson was really good.  He sank the eight ball to quickly finish me off.  

“You're too much for me, Dolph,” I said as I dropped my cue on the table. 

“I'm too much for anybody.  I was born with a pool cue in my hand.  My daddy 

hustled pool for a living.”

“I thought your daddy worked for the post office,” said Vance.

“That was his second job.  His main job was playing pool.”

 “Dolph, you are so full of shit,” laughed Perce.

Johnson cackled. I laughed with the others as I went out to the lobby to get a Coke.  I only found out later that a townie about our age walked over from a nearby table and addressed Johnson.

“If you're so good, maybe you'd like to make a little bet.  You against Mickey here.  Eight Ball.” He nodded toward one of four other borderline JD's who'd been playing at an adjacent table.  My friends were somewhat taken aback.  Perce nodded to a "No Gambling" sign on the wall.

“You know the rules.  Ferdie'd kick us out.”

The townies gave them derisive snickers. “Ferdie's busy watching the lanes... How 'bout it?  Everybody in for two bucks, winner take all.  Whaddya say?”

Silence; then, contemptuously, “We know you can afford it...”

Without a word, Johnson took his wallet out and extracted two one-dollar bills. One by one the other "Cads" followed suit.

Meanwhile, I was waiting behind a pretty townie girl at the Coke machine.  Her quarter kept dropping straight through despite her tricks--hitting the machine, punching the button simultaneously with the coin drop, etc.  Finally she turned to me.

“Sorry.  It won't take my quahtah.” She had a heavy working-class accent.  I’d been watching her as though she was in a movie.  Suddenly I snapped back to reality.

“Oh!  That's okay.  I think I've got a couple of dimes.” I found two dimes and popped them in the machine. “What do you want?”

“Root beer.”

I pushed the button and out rumbled a root beer.  I handed it to her, and she started to give me her quarter. “Thanks.  You can keep this.”

“No, no way.  It's on me.”

“You sure?”

I was too bashful to look her in the eye, so I looked through my remaining change. “Positive...Damn, now I'm out of dimes.”

The girl laughed warmly. “I'll get some change.”

“Wait a minute.” I popped a quarter into the machine, pushed "Root Beer"...and out it came.  The girl playfully dropped her lower jaw.

I smiled. “You've gotta have the touch, I guess.”

“Guess so.  Well.  Thanks”.

In spite of my nervousness, I seemed to have made a good impression, because when she got back to her friends at one of the lanes she huddled with them, talking animatedly.  They looked in my direction and quickly looked away.  I smiled, took a sip of my Root Beer and turned away, self-consciously cool.

When I returned to the tables I was surprised to find Dolph playing the townie hustler, Mickey.  Perce immediately came up to me.

“Quick.  Give me two dollars.”

 “What's going on?”

 “You're betting on Johnson.” When I hesitated he tried to reassure me. “Don't worry about it.  You'll get four back.”

I was a bit uneasy, but I coughed up the bills.  Perce took them over to the townie who proposed the match, who added them to the wad in his shirt pocket.

As I feared, the game was no easy takedown by Dolph; Mickey was just as good, and both boys felt the pressure, but like true hustlers, tried not to show it. Both Cads and Townies were quietly rooting their proxy on. Finally, both men had one ball left besides the eight.  Mickey sank his and confidently went for the kill.  The tension was visible on all our faces as he caromed the eight off a cushion and into a corner pocket.  

The Townies' triumphant smiles froze as the cue ball crept toward a pocket at the far end of the table, and finally, when its momentum had all but stopped…dropped in.  Us Cads were jubilant.  Johnson smiled with relief.

“Too bad.  You shot a good game.”

But Mickey pulled out the eight and one of his balls and went to spot them.  

“What are you doing, man?” demanded Dolph. “You scratched on the eight. Game's over.”

“It should be, but you got lucky,” answered Mickey.  “Your shot.”

“Is your name Mickey Mouse, man?”

Mickey's mouth tightened and he glared at Dolph ominously.  The townies’ appointed spokesman intervened.

“The way we play, you can't win the game 'less you sink the eight.”

“What is this bullshit?!” demanded Dolph.  “You can't lose, is that it?”

The commotion had attracted Ferdie, who pushed his way into the group of teenagers.

“What's going on here?  If you can't enjoy the game, go somewhere else.”

Vance piped up. “Tell these guys to give us our money back and we will.”

Big mistake. “Money?!  Can't you guys read?  Go on, get outta here 'fore I call the cops.”

The instigator feigned ignorance. “Money?  Ferdie, I don't know.  We were havin' a friendly game when these guys come up an' challenged us to a match.”

I noticed the girl I’d bought the soda for watching from the lobby. Things had gotten loud and heated.

Perce addressed the spokesman. “You're a phony asshole.”

 “Yeah?  Well you're a real one.”

Laughter from the other townies.  As Ferdie started for the bowling alley, Johnson called after him.  “Hey--what about our money?” Two bucks was a lot for Dolph to lose.

“You're big boys,” answered Ferdie. “And you're supposed to be smaht.” He glanced at his wife and mimed picking up the telephone.

I ended up being the last Cad to be interviewed by the ranking police officer, one Lt. Sheehan, a tall, pink-cheeked townie in his 30s. We’d been hauled in after a fracas in the parking lot, where Dolph had tried to grab the bet money from the townie’s shirt pocket, only to end up trading wild punches with him. Since the parking lot was iced over and extremely slippery, no serious punches were landed, but in the heat of the excitement, we didn’t notice two cop cars pull in. The townies bolted, leaving us soft, law-abiding Cads to face the music.

I had finished giving my account and sat back to await Lt. Sheehan's verdict.  He tapped his pencil on the desk for a few seconds.  Then, in a thick regional accent: “You seem like a nice enough fella.  Straightforward.  Respectful.  I like that.”

“There's no need to press any charges, is there?” 

“Nah.  We'll just turn you over to the academy and let them deal with it.  We're a lot more cooperative with them than they are with us.” He rose from his chair, half-smiling. “With the property taxes they pay, I guess they figure they own us.”

Sheehan moved to the door, looked out at my friends vaguely.  Then, seemingly out of the blue: “I noticed you fellas were in the same dorm as that Merrifield kid.  Anybody have any 

theories 'bout what happened to him?”

This threw me. “I…I don't know.” 

Sheehan's half-smile suddenly started making me feel very uncomfortable. 

“You don't happen to remember seeing him that Tuesday night, do you?”

I stared at him, running the night back in my head, finally shook my head "No."

“Mm-hmm,” he muttered. “It's funny, but you know I can't find anyone who actually saw him after early afternoon Tuesday.  That proctor of yours says he heard him in his room that night...but nobody can swear they saw him.”

I was bewildered. “What are you saying?  He died on Tuesday?”

“It was a few days before we found him, so it's hard to say for sure...but the coroner actually thought Tuesday was more likely, mm-hmm."

 “...Then why did the papers say Wednesday?”

Sheehan gave a sage smile. “The Academy assured us he was in his room Tuesday night, that's why.  If it's Wednesday then most folks are gone for the holiday. Certainly does take a lot of people off the hook, doesn't it?”

He let this sink in, then: “You've got some very smaht people over there.  So much knowledge.  But nobody seems to know anything about this poor kid's death.  That kind of thing doesn't happen at Harkness, know what I mean?”

I listened, tormented, but in the end simply nodded.  I wasn’t prepared to mention my unknown interloper and his planted whiskey bottle.

“If anybody over there knows anything, I sure would like to talk to 'em...”

He opened the door.  Then, breaking into a grin; “Anyways, good luck with the Dean.  Maybe he'll forget about your little adventure over Christmas.”

I smiled weakly. "Yeah, right. He’s the forgetful type…" We both laughed and I walked out.