The Stick  

Onofrio Lauri was his name and he was the greatest I ever saw 

They called him "The Stick"

The sign Jimmy Pappas puts up behind the bar says:

ONOFRIO LAURI - ALSO KNOWN AS "THE STICK" WILL SHOOT AN EXHIBITION OF

STRAIGHT POOL ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON JUNE 27 1942 AT 3PM SHARP

JIMMY PAPPAS WILL GO UP AGAINST HIM JUST FOR LAUGHS - EVERYBODY WELCOME!

The Stick is a small skinny man who always wears a tux when he puts on a show

He looks a lot like that old-time actor Donald Meek - He has a shiny bald head

Except for a little hair around his ears and he smokes one cigarette after another

He has these long arms for such a little guy that reach down almost past his knees

And big hands and long thin fingers

Fingers so long he can bridge over a coke bottle for some of his trick shots

Me?... I set pins almost every night except Sunday

In the cellar of Jimmy's Combination Bowling Alley and Pool Hall on 3rd Avenue in the Bronx

Twenty-five cents a line is what us pinboys get - Of course this is all before automatic pin-setters

And air-condition and it is hot work - We press this lever to raise the pegs from the floor

And set the pins on them that have holes in their bottoms

The Irish cops from the Combination Courthouse and Police Station across the street

Always come in to drink some free beer and roll some free lines before they go home

Also these big squarehead old Nazis from the ice-plant up the block

We call them "Nazis" because they're all German guys and we're at war with them and the Japs

They come in after supper all beered up and ready to roll some lines

And many's the time a flying pin whacks us pinboys in the legs

If we don't get them up on the shelf in time and those bums laugh like hell

When one of us gets clipped and yells

And they buy the guy who clips us another beer... the fat bastards!

But on this hot summer afternoon on Saturday June 27 1942 when the Nazis come in to bowl

The alleys are shut down because Jimmy Pappas who owns the place

Is getting ready to play an Exhibition of Straight Pool against The Stick

On his Personal Table that nobody ever plays on 

Except Jimmie and the great shooters he invites to put on a show

That beautiful table is always covered and God help anybody who uses it

There are fifteen tables for the customers and one beat-up old table for us pinboys

When we aren't working - But nobody is ever allowed to use "The Perfect Table"  

Which is always "trued up" by Jimmie every week and new felt put on every six months

So when these big bohunks start giving Jimmie lip about the alleys being closed

Jimmie reaches under the bar for his sawed-off double-barrel and they shut up fast

Nobody messes with Jimmie and his "lupo" because the story is he killed a guy back in Greece

With that same "Lupo" for messing with his wife

I get there early this historic afternoon because The Stick asks Jimmie

If I could rack for him and I'm too excited to stay home

That's because for months I follow The Stick around to pool-rooms all over New York

Where he is booked to shoot exhibitions - Then one night a few months back

When he puts on a show at the VFW Hall in Brooklyn for the USO

I bring him a carton of Luckies for a present because he is so great

And I guess he remembers me for that (A whole week's line tips go for those cigarettes

But it was worth it because he is so great!)

So now the place starts filling up with kids like me and guys too old

To go off and fight the Nazis and the Japs

Guys like me who follow the great shooters from club to club - Older shooters who didn't go to war

A few 4F hustlers always show up because they want to see The Stick go down in flames

By missing easy shots which he never ever does

He never plays any of them for money or even just for fun

So the hustlers can't challenge him and that really pisses them off

They say if money is riding he would fold but they never get the chance to prove it

I am there one night when this pimply-faced punk challenges him to a hundred-buck stakes game

But The Stick says to him that it's against his religion to play for money

And when this creep asks to play him just for fun - The Stick says he won't play him for fun either

Because he doesn't want to embarrass him in front of his friends!

Isn't that just great!

The Stick never drinks - not even beer

All he ever drinks is black coffee so Jimmie always has Black Sam make a fresh pot every hour

When The Stick is shooting - Black Sam is the super around Jimmie's place

He washes the floor and the toilets and polishes the alleys

And keeps the soda chest full of ice and Cokes and Dr Peppers and brushes the tables

And covers them up when the place is closed

Jimmie lets him sleep in the back room free so he can watch the place at night and he cracks

A few heads one night with his Louisville Slugger when some punks try to rob the place

The word gets around and nobody tries that again

They say Black Sam who has a southern accent ran away from a chain gang in Alabama

But maybe it's just a story somebody just made up

It is raining when The Stick and Benno the Bouncer get there

Benno the Bouncer can't talk - He's this great big bald three-hundred pound Italian guy

Who has shell-shock - Everybody says The Stick saves his life in the Great War

Benno the Bouncer goes everywhere with The Stick like he's his bodyguard

Black Sam takes The Stick's raincoat and brushes his tux and pours him some coffee

The Stick takes a sip and lights up a Lucky and takes a couple of drags

Then he waves the Lucky at me and smiles and comes over and shakes my hand and I feel so great

Because all my friends are there and see him do it!

Then he opens his snake-skin cue-case which is lined in this soft red velvet

And takes out his beautiful two-piece pearl-handle white ash cue with two rings of real gold

Where it is joined - He screws it together very slowly and the way he handles it

It's like it's made out of something very precious and delicate and he's afraid he might break it

He rolls the cue on the table to make sure both parts are in line

Then Benno the Bouncer starts to rub the fingers of The Stick's right hand

And then pulls on them a little and then rubs them some more to loosen him up 

The Stick is different from most shooters because he's a leftie

There is a story that when he is just a kid like me he hustles some guys

And they break his fingers and crush his left hand under the wheel of a beer wagon

So he learns to bridge right-handed and they say that is the reason

He never plays for money after this happens

I can't believe it when The Stick hands me his beautiful cue to hold

Then we all watch him as he picks up the cue ball and banks it lightly off the rails

To see how live they are - Then he puts his cheek down on the felt

And slowly rolls the cueball up the table and watches it slowly with one eye shut

As it bounces off the far end and comes back toward him

At the last split second he lifts his head off the felt as the cueball rolls past his nose

To a gentle stop flush with the rail at his end

Then he straightens up and smiles and says to Jimmie Pappas this is the finest and fastest

And livieliest pool table in all of New York and Jimmie beams

And me?...Jesus God!

All the while I'm holding The Stick's cue with all the guys around me looking at it

It feels like I could beat every shark in the world with it

It feels alive in my hands  - perfectly balanced - heavy in the handle with its drilled lead core

The pale ashwood shaft delicately tapered down to its hard rubber tip

It's a little longer than regulation because The Stick is short

And he doesn't like to use an extension bridge unless he absolutely has to

There are three rows of folding chairs on the bleachers around The Perfect Table

By now they're all taken so the late-comers sit on a couple of the pool tables that Black Sam

Puts boards on to protect them - Then Jimmie tells Black Sam to dim most of the lights

So the only bright lights are the three antique stained-glass Tiffany lamps

Shining down on The Perfect Table

At exactly three oclock on the dot The Stick tells Benno the Bouncer

That he is ready to start his exhibition and to quiet everybody down

The Stick always starts his show with some trick shots

He chalks up his cue with one of his personal gold-wrapped blue cue chalks

And begins his routine by lining up ten balls in a row

Then while one of the old guys on one of the tables holds a stop-watch

The Stick banks the ten balls into a side pocket in less than ten seconds

Next he carefully taps six balls into place in the center of the table

With each ball facing a different pocket and sinks all six wih one shot

Another one of his tricks is to put a empty coke bottle in the middle of the table

And set the cueball on its lip - then he bridges over the bottle with those extra-long fingers of his

And makes a five-cushion shot to sink the two balls

That Benno the Bouncer puts by opposite corner pockets - Then Benno the Bouncer

Lays the back of his head down on the table and The Stick rests the eight-ball 

Between Benno the Bouncer's lip and nose  and shoots the cueball off the coke bottle

And makes the eight-ball in the corner pocket!

The Stick then looks at me and nods and I set up the first rack

He always wants the yellow 1-Ball on the nose and thats how I rack them

The Stick sips more coffee and lights up another Lucky and takes a drag

And hands the cigarette to Benno the Bouncer who holds The Stick's lucky ashtray

It's made from a shell they say The Stick picks up from a battlefield in France

Twenty-five years before

The Stick steps up and plays a "safe" - The 7-Ball breaks away from the rack

And stops about three inches from the upper rail

Jimmie Pappas has a shot at it so he decides to bank that seven in one of the corner pockets

At his end of the table and almost makes it but it hangs there without falling

The cueball bounces off the rack and moves a couple of more balls away from the tight rack

But it stays behind the racked balls and The Stick is stuck behind the rack frozen up against

Another ball and he doesn't have a shot at anything except this hanging 7-Ball which he can't "see"

The Stick plays the cueball "english" off the side rail and sinks that hanging 7-Ball

And as they say - The rest is history my friend!

For the next eleven hours with a half-hour break around midnight

The Stick runs thirty-six racks without missing a shot!

That's five hundred and four balls in a row my friend without a miss!

Minute after minute - hour after hour - cigarette after cigarette - black coffee after black coffee

Perfect position after perfect position for that cueball!

The Stick keeps shooting and I keep racking!

Fourteen balls fall each time and the fifteenth is left for the break

Perfect break after perfect break! - never in any serious trouble except once

When he almost scratches in one of the side pockets and makes a fantastic "masse" shot

To curve around the sharp edge of the pocket

And makes a ball hung up in a corner pocket to keep his run alive!

On and on The Stick shoots! - sinking one ball and leaving himself in perfect position 

To sink the next one - Perfect "english" - Perfect "follow" on that cueball!

Perfect! - Perfect! - Perfect!

Jimmie keeps chalking up the racks on the blackboard between sips of ouzo and water

Some of the old-timers in the bleachers have gone home but there's quite a few guys still hanging in

After a while it gets so monotonous nobody except a few of us realize what is happening!

The Little Stick is on his way to shooting The PERFECT GAME!

That's over Thirty-Six racks my friend - That's over five hundred balls my friend without a miss!

The closest anyone has ever come is the legendary Ralph Greenleaf

Who runs sixteen racks in Chicago a few years ago

And they practically have to carry him out because he is so exhausted

The Stick never takes his jacket off even though it gets hot and smoky as hell in that cellar!

And by the end of the thirty-first rack... that's four hundred thirty-four balls!

He is practically staggering around the table

Jimmie pleads with him to quit but he won't quit

He keeps asking Jimmie how many more balls he has to go to sink his five hundred

Then he says to Benno the Bouncer he needs another break to take a leak

And wash his face for what seems the hundreth time

Benno the Bouncer helps him to the john and they're in there for a while

When they come back Benno the Bouncer wraps a wet towel around The Stick's head

And he runs the last five racks with this wet turban on his head

Five hundred and four balls have rolled in without a miss or a miscue 

And he leaves the black 8-ball for the break

The Stick wants to keep shooting but Jimmie says no more

And takes his cue away from him and tells Black Sam to put him to bed in the back room

The Stick finally agrees to quit after I rack for the thirty-sixth time

And he comes over to me and shakes my hand and when I look there's a five-spot folded there!

I tried to give it back to him but he won't take it because he says

I bring him the luck to shoot his Perfect Game!

The Stick then does something I will never forget to my dying day!

He tells Jimmie to hand me his beautiful cue and asks me to make the final break!

I can't believe it and I look at Jimmie and he smiles and says to go ahead!

I am so tired myself I feel like throwing up

The guys that are still there can't believe it either as I step up to the Perfect Table

With The Stick's magic cue and sink the break shot and scatter the balls into a perfect pattern

And run the final rack - all fifteen balls!

The Stick then smiles again and pats me on the cheek and tells me to unscrew his cue

And put it back into its beautiful red velvet case

Then he waves to everybody that's still there and we all clap as Benno the Bouncer picks him up

Like he was a bundle of feathers and carries him to the back room

The door is open and we see the two of them standing there 

While Black Sam puts clean sheets on the cots - Then Benno the Bouncer picks up The Stick

And tucks him in like he was a little baby!

I am ready to pass out too I am so tired - Jimmie looks around to make sure there are no cops

And he pours me a little ouzo and water and that helps

A lot of the younger guys are still there and we all keep talking about The Stick

And a few of the older guys keep saying The Stick's record run will never be broken

Just like Joe D's fifty-six game hitting streak that Joe sets last year will never be broken

Jimmie goes around with an old copy book and gets our names and addresses for witnesses

So he could prove that what everyone sees tonight really happens

He puts my name and address down too even though he knows where I live

Because he says that old copy book will be worth a lot of money someday!

It is light when I get home at five oclock on Sunday morning

I tell my mother I have to work because the nazis have an all-night beer party

And we had to stay and set pins for them - I don't know if she really believes me

Even when I hand her the money The Stick gives me for being rack boy

But that five-dollar bill sort of helps convince her and she could tell I am really tired

So she lets me go to sleep without too much of a hassle

When I go back to work the next night Jimmie tells me

When Black Sam goes to wake them up he finds Benno the Bouncer sitting on the cot

Holding The Stick in his arms and crying

Black Sam says The Stick has a beautiful smile on his face

And he is hugging his cue-case when he dies -