We really were like a couple of mismatched
detectives. Randy, a tall, athletic, light-skinned African American dude from
Findlay, and me, a pale, scrawny, long-haired kid from Powell. Randy looked
most of the time like he was coming from a basketball game but had had time to
shower, and I, most of the time, looked like a Third World freedom fighter who
had been sniffing glue and needed sleep and was wearing more clothing than the
weather called for.
Randy was well-spoken, and I was a bit of a mumbler
who didn’t like to look you in the eye. If we were on the trail of the same
killer, like most mismatched detectives, I would not have survived the scene
where we get into a brawl. But we weren’t on the trail of the same killer – it
was just that we met in college, and had found that we had a lot more in common
than you’d think. Mostly, what we had in common was icy cold beers, poker, and
pool.
See, the way it worked back then was, we didn’t
have telephones in our pockets. We had them in our apartments, and there were
little boxes attached to the phones which recorded messages on cassette tapes.
Right about then, they were coming out with these “answering machines” which
did not use tapes, but instead made digital recordings. That was the kind of
thing that could flat blow my mind.
So what we’d do was, while we were throwing cards
around on a picnic table the night before, we’d compare notes about class
schedules, work schedules, and papers due, and we’d determine when we could
both stop doing productive things, and we’d say, okay so that’s when we’ll meet
at the Drake Union, where they had cheap pool tables, and draft beer for a buck
and a quarter.
That particular day, the time we figured we could
stop being productive was three o’clock. Yes, it was a Monday – so what?
We’d simply get a table and then play game after
game of eight ball, usually balancing out pretty evenly, sometimes slanting
over toward an embarrassingly one-sided ass kicking, and then slanting back.
We’d play for beers so, that mattered.
Frequently, the money would then slide back over
the card table later that night, finding its way home. It was a lot like we
drank the same twenty bucks for several years, just rolling back and forth
between us.
Ostensibly, the reason the Drake Union on the OSU
campus had a pool hall was that you could take billiards classes. There were a
few bowling lanes, too, if you were into that sort of thing – which we weren’t.
Now, why was there also beer for sale in the OSU building? I have no idea.
I’m not sure, but my guess would be, they probably
cut that out by now.
The Drake Union was on the north side of campus,
not too far from the Horseshoe. It was a fairly complicated building, and you
had to know your way around to find the basement pool hall, cutting
through several study rooms – bristling with students who were not there to
drink beer in the middle of the afternoon - and then down a quiet, tiled hallway with a couple of bathrooms to one side, and then you’d open a door. There was barely even a sign.
Inside, it was so relaxing that it made us
suspicious the first time we found it. A dozen or so decent tables, a sound
system that was perfectly adequate but easy to talk over, and a little bar with
a bored guy behind it, who only sold draft beer. Was this some kind of trap?
Nope, not a trap. Just tip that bartender a few
bucks right off the bat, and buddy, you owned the place.
That afternoon bled into the early evening pretty
smoothly, and resulted in a half dozen trips to the bathroom. Both Randy and I
clearly noticed each time we went in that there was somebody sitting in one of
the stalls, on the toilet. You might think that after six times or so, we’d
say, man, there’s always somebody in that same stall, or maybe, gee, I wonder
if that’s the same guy sitting in that stall all this time?
Since I can’t smell, I couldn’t tell you if there
was an odor, but if there was, Randy didn’t pick it up, or he thought to
himself, unpleasant smell in the Men’s Room, not exactly a big news story.
So we rocked in and out of there for several hours,
taking leaks, washing hands, and despite our heightened Pool Detective skills –
you see things, we observe them – it did not occur to us for a second that
there was a dead guy in there, until the cops showed up.
Apparently there an elderly man who had been an
usher at every home OSU game for thirty or forty years, who followed the same
routine every game. He’d go to the campus McDonald’s, get a breakfast sandwich
and coffee, and then he’d walk across campus to the game. He was a remarkable
figure, apparently, to the general Horseshoe community; they recognized him and
thought of him like a minor folk hero. A true Buckeye, they’d say.
So when he didn’t show up that day, it made the
news. The guy had been in the news before, in a little human interest piece –
he’d been an usher a really long time and looked like he was going to do it
until the day he died, the piece said. A little column, I think, in the
Dispatch.
And it was right. Two days before Randy and I
cracked the case – well, practically cracked it. I mean, we were there, when it
was cracked, and we’d been in the room with the dead body quite a few times,
taking a leak, thinking, man, I love playing pool and drinking a few icy cold
beers.
So anyway, two days before Randy and I practically
cracked the case, the usher came into the Drake Union to use the bathroom, and
he died in a stall, and he sat there for two days.
Our investigation later revealed that the cleaning
guy had encountered him Saturday night. He’d been wearing a Walkman – which was
an iPod the size of a brick that used cassette tapes like the answering
machines did – and so when he opened the door, it hit someone’s knee and he
just said, “Oh, my bad, sorry dude.”
And since he was wearing his Walkman, he didn’t
register that the guy didn’t answer. He certainly didn’t think to himself,
better check and see if that guy’s dead.
Eventually, the bartender found him. You probably
think that means the bartender cracked the case, but don’t be ridiculous. Bartenders
pour beers, they don’t crack cases. To crack a case, you have to be a pool
detective. That’s where me and Randy came in.
Sure, our investigation began after the cops
arrived, and sure, they hogged the collar. They were all like, we’re cops and
you guys are half in the bag and you didn’t even notice he was in here and one
of you isn’t even twenty-one.
We were used to it. We knew that cops and pool
detectives should be on the same side, but there was always infighting.
Posturing. Look at me, I’m an actual law enforcement officer, and you’re a
not-very-serious-or-observant college student.
Sometimes you hit the mean streets, we’d found, and
sometimes the mean streets hit you back.
But that’s how it is, the life of a couple of pool
detectives. No one thanks you, everyone’s out for themselves, everyone’s
focused on who actually detected stuff. I mean, sure, our methods were
unorthodox. Damn straight, we ruffled some feathers, broke a few rules. Stepped
on a few toes, you know what I’m saying?
But we got RESULTS. Or at least, we were frequently
hanging around with beers in our hands, when the results showed up.
One time a guy stole Randy’s ID, and then four
months later the guy came into the bar I worked in, recognized me, and said,
“Hey man, I stole your pal’s ID. Here it is.” Then me and Randy and him sat
down and had a few beers and a couple of laughs about it.
That’s kind of like cracking a case, although
again, the case did just sort of crack right in front of me, while I was thinking
about something else.
You know what, I’m tired of talking about this. We
were super duper pool detectives, I’m telling you.
Jeez.
