FAST EDDIE AND THE FAT MAN

"This is Ames, mister!"

Some films I've seen so many times I now remember them as past lives. Robert Rossen's "The Hustler" (1961) is one such movie where I can well recall spending numerous summers half-cut in Ames shooting the breeze with fellow bar flies and pool hustlers whilst the A/C creaked and strained from overuse in the old place.

Vivid memories in black and white flood back to me now, especially of 'Fast' Eddie (Paul Newman) compulsively chalking his cue, along along with those tiny explosions of talcum powder ('hand chalk') that danced in the air after 'Minnesota Fats' (Jackie Gleason) freshened up that seemed positively timeless gestures of gods. All those suspended days and nights in the pool hall seemed to exist as if hanging in the pocket for eternity. I watched the young buck challenge the old stag as they fought their 'straight pool' war like it was the most important event on earth.

And for awhile back then, to me it was.

And how could I forget the breaking of that hushed cathedral silence in Ames with that clean clacking sound of contact from one shiny pool ball to another always keeping me alert, no matter how few hours sleep I had clocked whilst those seemingly endless gladiatorial marathons between 'Fast Eddie' and the 'Fat Man' played out for many days and nights across the stretched felt. There must have been something deliberate in the design of the frequency at which those balls hit that make it so that it demands complete and total focus from spectators.

Always watching with us was Bert Gordon, the great parasite, leeching off of other men's talents and attempting to steal their women. Oh sure, he had a certain charm and a way with words, in that same way an oily politician does but with more street-smart. I mean who hasn't had a Bert Gordon (George C Scott) figure appear somewhere in their life? I know I have. That Mephistophelian figure that whispers in your ear, like a devil on your shoulder, seeming to determine whether you win or lose in life, the judge/juror and energy sucking vampire who makes a vocation out of draining other men's souls whilst gambling on your fate, good or ill. He might be real, he might be just a voice in your head, but he's always there, lurking and watching and blowing on some dice, like the satanic Jiminy Cricket.

I know that as much as Fast Eddie's worst and most destructive enemy was himself, the second greatest threat to his success in life and on the pool table was Bert Gordon. Perhaps that's why, although we all respected 'Minnesota Fats' "all pink and powdered, like a baby", it was Eddie we most related to. He was us, starting out on the road of life and trying to beat the man, and not always the one in front of him with a pool cue, but the one whispering and sharpening his knife behind him too, waiting to stick it deep in his back.

And as I stood there in 16o West, 44th Street watching on from the shadows as 'Fast' Eddie Felson made his bid for greatness on the blue felt canvas of the pool table, I wondered if I myself had what it took to climb such personal mountains with equal mental fortitude and grit. Some of us would later argue the prize of victory was not equal to the sacrifice as we also all knew what had happened to Sarah Packard (Piper Laurie) on Eddie's rocky path to final victory against the fat man.

But in the lesson he unintentionally taught us all we saw that true victories are more often than not forged from adversity.

And the Bert Gordons of this world don't define our ultimate outcomes.

They just think they do.

Yeah, those summers in Ames by way of VHS was a helluva a life school.

You just can't buy that kind of education.