Two fit and handsome young men play 9-ball on table seven. One is intense, quick-moving around the table, and assumes an aggressive wide-legged stance before each shot. The other is languid, surveying with unrushed calculation the table illuminated by both the low-hanging light and the gallery of onlookers before and after every shot. They are both stoic—and imperturbable too if not for the occasional self-incredulity after missing a shot. Otherwise, they appear to be impervious to the cigar smoke crawling over from the adjacent table, to the Tupac thumping through the club, to the onlookers in the gallery waging small bets on these games of 9-ball, even to each other, as if each was engrossed in his own intensity or languidness. On occasion, however, they look to the table next to them, to see if the old men on table eight are watching.
If the old men are, they don’t show it. One white-haired and the other barefoot, both with clothes aged to perfection, they just take slow, pensive puffs on their cigars and continue on with one long-suffering game of bank pool after another.
Tables seven and eight are where the big money games have been played at the Cue Club for the past two decades, where on any given night pros visiting town play local legends for wagers exceeding $10,000, and where, tonight, Sunday, May 20, two veterans of the club and two rising stars fascinate onlookers as they play high-stakes pool in which the currency is not money but pride.