The Man on the Third Stool

There is a fellow who comes into my room most weekday afternoons. Sits on the third stool from the end, orders a coffee, watches whoever is on table four. He has been doing this eleven years. In all that time I have seen him pick up a cue maybe twice.

His name is not important and I would not use it anyway. What matters is the first year he came in, he did not sit. He paced. He would stand behind a match with his hands going in his pockets and out again, and he would ask me things like what do you think, Sal, who takes this one. I always said the same thing. I think I am not the man to ask.

Eventually he told me why he came. He said the room was the only place he could be around it without being in it. He said the sound of the balls was the sound of his whole adult life, and he did not want to lose the sound just because he had to lose the action. He said it plain, the way you say something you have already said out loud to other people in a basement somewhere with bad coffee.

I have thought about that a thousand times since. Most folks think walking away means leaving. Slamming the door, changing your number, never speaking of it. Sometimes it does. But for him, walking away looked like a stool, a cup, and eleven years of choosing the same seat.

Nobody claps for that. There is no scoreboard for the bets a man does not make. He goes home at five and his wife does not throw a party, because from the outside nothing happened. That is the whole trick of it. The good days look like nothing happened.

If you are the one pacing right now, I would just say this. You do not have to be finished to sit down. And if you want somebody to talk it through with, there are people on the other end of 1-800-MY-RESET who do this all day, and 988 if the night has gotten too heavy.

The stool is there. It is not going anywhere.

Sal