By George Fels
[Reprinted from August 2003]
So few people are awake at 4 a.m. that it remains largely unexamined, even by some of our most creative minds. The great Harold Arlen torch song “One for My Baby (And One for the Road)” only takes us up to a quarter to three. J.J. Cale’s “After Midnight” is much worse, stubbornly declining to specify any time (midnight, after all, is soon followed by another 23 hours, 59 minutes). Paul Simon at least named the time in his wonderful “Still Crazy After All These Years,” but quickly added that he felt like hell then.

Yet the fact is, four in the morning is an almost perfect time for pool. Whether you want to admit it or not, a good part of the game’s character resides in its being played for money, late at night, in unglitzy places. All-night sessions are the stuff from which legends are made.

Today, just about every major American city has at least one action poolroom, but only a minority of them have the license and/or political clout to stay open all night. New York City’s best room, Amsterdam Billiard Club, is only permitted those hours on weekends and host far more recreational play than gambling to begin with. Vegas’ famous Cue Club, like just about everything else in that city, has no locks and no clocks, but you could go for weeks without seeing a single money player there (except for the owner).

Personally, I’ve probably played more pool at 4 a.m. than any other white-collar guy with the possible exception of famed Seattle lawyer Harry Platis, and I didn’t require heavy duty action rooms for a playing venue. I’ve seen the sun come up on both coasts while returning home from pool, but most of my nocturnal activity was right here in Chicago. Today no licensed billiard room within the city limits may legally remain open later than 2 a.m., but that still doesn’t exhaust my possibilities.

Back in the early 1960s, there was a popular room attached to a very popular northwest side bowling alley called 20th Century Lanes. The family that owned the place had been in the neighborhood slightly less than forever, and owned at least one other business there, thus somehow got the cops to look the other way while they kept their poolroom open all night. I was in the place mostly on weekends, specifically after dates. My girlfriend occasionally complained that I was shooing her out of the car so fast she felt she ought to be “pulling a rip cord,” as paratroopers do, but I had my priorities. With her grudging cooperation, I could be in the 20th Century by 1 a.m., usually get a game for reasonable stakes, and play until dawn. Then I’d drive home listening, appropriately, to an American Airlines-sponsored program called “Music ‘Til Dawn.” I’ve never been that big a fan of classical music, but it felt right then.

One night I made a straight pool game with a man named Leland, who was the best 9-ball player among the city’s sizeable population of Appalachian whites. Like many 9-ball oriented Southerners, he didn’t understand 14.1 at all. But he liked to bet, and he had been steered to me by an old-time hustler named Al Miller, who played in the first few Johnston City meets, and who knew that I might bet as high as $20 at straight pool (which was just about all I competed at back then). I got lucky and beat Leland out of something like $200 — a huge score for me. It wasn’t until I reported the win, a few days later, that someone clued me in that Leland was a stone killer. “You can imagine how many notches he has on his gun,” I was told. “It’s just other hillbillies he kills; the cops never bother.” Suffice to say, we did not play again. He was unwilling to risk another loss; I was unwilling to risk considerably worse.

20th Century saw some significant action, too. Pittsburgh’s “Bunny” Rogoff trapped most of Chicago’s shortstops both there and at Bensinger’s. At that point, he was in his “Castro” mode, complete with squared fatigue cap and omnipresent cigar. He kept his wallet attached to his belt with a chain of a size that would have been suitable for restraining Rottweilers, and on the rare occasions when he had to pay off, he went not to his hip pocket where the last rack’s winnings were, but to that wallet. Finally, Javanley “Youngblood” Washington went out there to play him and made Bunny go fishing into his closely guarded wallet ad nauseam.

It was heavy-duty action that closed 20th Century down, too. The animal known as Detroit Whitey, getting his head handed to him in a bank pool session with Chicago’s great “Bugs” Rucker, actually dropped trou in pursuit of some vague point or other. Horrified, management called their buddies, the cops, and that was the end of all night pool in that place.

Today, I pull my late-hours stints at home, 42 floors above the city, with a heart-stopping view of the skyline at my behest. As mine is the tallest building for miles around, I cannot be spied upon, so a good deal of this play takes place in underwear. My beagle’s occasional fits of pique have made playing barefoot somewhat less appealing than it used to be, but he, the mountain is still there to be climbed. Fourteen years ago this month, I ran exactly 100 balls on my home table at four in the morning, with no one, not even my dog, around or awake to share my joy (or, for that matter, confirm my run). It actually felt like some kind of punishment from God. With any luck, I will be available for similar punishment at least one more time. It doesn’t have to be four in the morning. But I’ll take it if it is.