Cash pulled herself up and out of her window. Her heart beat in her ears and she shivered uncontrollably. Her eyes were wide and darted left and right as she took off running barefoot across the damp ground, She ran toward the plowed field ahead, in the direction that led to town. Her foot sank into the cold, damp dirt of the furrowed field. When she tried to pull her foot up, her front leg sank farther into the dirt. She threw herself forward, clawing at the dirt with bare hands, hearing the heavy, labored breathing of the person chasing her. Fear forced her from her body so that she was soon flying above herself. She looked down and could see herself stretched out in the mud below, buried to her knees, arms flailing.
Some of her long brown hair was tangled in her hands in the mud. Cash circled in the air above. She looked back to see who was chasing her, but all she could see was a body, the face obscured in the darkness. Below her in the field, the body changed from herself, struggling, to a paler, longer-legged, long-haired blond. The young woman looked up at Cash and screamed, "Help me!" On that happy note, Cash crawled out of bed, got dressed and headed across the Red River bridge from Fargo, N.D., to the Moorhead State College campus on the other side of the river. She nursed a tepid cup of coffee, intended to get her through both her English and Biology classes, while she tried to shake the dream from her head.
With a one-hour break between her Biology and psychology classes, Cash made a beeline for her Ranchero and retrieved her cue stick from behind the front seat, then took off across campus to the Student Union. Inside the spacious building, which also housed the cafeteria and several student study lounges, Cash headed to the billiard room where she threw her jean jacket over a tall stool that stood against the wall. She removed her new cue stick from the fringe leather case she had made a few years ago. The stick, with a purple ivory embossed handle was the right weight for her, a #21, and a little heavy in the handle to compensate for her short stature. She screwed the two lengths of stick together and rolled it across the green of the 9-foot table. The rec hall allowed students 24-hour access to the larger tables and no fee to play with your student ID. Her game had improved considerably since starting college. Barroom pool tables tended to be shorter so as not to take up too much drinking space.
But here at the rec hall, the full-size tables were always open. Apparently, Midwest farmer-type college students weren''t pool sharks. They spent more time writing term papers and reading textbooks. Cash was learning a lot at Moorhead State College. She had already found out that most girls her age considered shooting pool a sin, against their church upbringing. While Cash drank the occasional Budweiser and wore straight-legged blue jeans and a clean t-shirt under a Levi jean jacket each day, a good handful of the students preferred smoking weed to drinking. They dressed in bellbottom jeans and sheer peasant blouses - hippie attire. They talked about making love, not war.
They flashed peace signs at each other as they crossed the green campus lawn. And then there were the college jocks, the students from small-town, conference-winning sports teams who were big-shot scholarship jocks now. Still the jocks were too undersized for any professional team they might hope to be scouted for. And who knew to look for them in the Red River Valley of the North anyway? There were also the studious students - the students who in their small towns had been picked on, teased or ostracized because they got A''s in algebra without cheating, who read Macbeth and enjoyed it. The ones who willingly stayed after school to create potions in the under-financed science labs of the high schools ruled by the captain of the football team and his cheerleader homecoming queen. Where Cash had always shot 8-ball for money, here at college, she had learned how to play 9-ball against fraternity jocks who considered it the only pool game worthy of their time. It kept her in shape for the money-making games at her home bar, the Casbah, over on the Fargo, North Dakota side of the Red River. It was beet-hauling season in the Valley and Cash was driving beet truck afternoons and evenings when her class schedule allowed.
She had stopped at the rec hall to practice bank shots before she headed to the Wang farm around 8 in the evening to start hauling on an overnight shift. She chalked the tip of her cue and broke the rack, sending the balls spewing across the green. Her break hadn''t been forceful enough because nothing dropped in the pockets. Cash started with the one ball, and successively went after each ball in numerical order, attempting a bank shot of each ball into an opposite corner. She frustrated herself with her failures. Damn and shhh.t were frequent utterances. She stretched her 5-foot, 2-inch frame over the pool table, her cue stick rested easily on the arch made between her thumb and curled pointer finger, aiming at the 11 ball to bank it into the far-right corner pocket.
She had just pulled her right arm back in a smooth pendulous swing when, "Cash, there you are!" rang out. Cash''s zone was broken and she nicked the edge of the cue ball sending it toward the 11 but about 3 inches off. Cash slid back off the table and turned to see hippie Sharon hopping down the three rec hall steps, her flared bell-bottoms swirling around her platform shoes. "Hey, I was looking all over for you after science class. I''m in love. Do you think he''s married? Do you think he fools around if he is? Don''t you just love his hair, the way he kinda swoops it back over his forehead? And his bod, man." Cash leaned over the pool table and aimed at the 11 ball again. "Who are we talking about?" "Mr.
Danielson." Sharon hopped up on the tall stool, crossed her legs and opened her long sweater jacket, her braless chest visible through the sheer gauze of her Indian style shirt. "From now on I''m sitting in the front seat, just like this." She said tossing her long blond hair over her shoulder. "You can sit in the back row close to the door all by yourself. I want to be right up front where he can see all of me." "You''re crazy." Cash watched the 11 ball drop smoothly into the far-left pocket.
She scanned the table looking for the 12 ball and calculated the best angle for a bank shot. "He''s an old man." "He''s only 30." "That''s half dead." "Mary Beth said she heard from someone that some of the teachers give A''s for head." "What the heck are you talking about?" Cash had to stand on tiptoe to reach across the table to line up on the 12. Cash was also learning that college hippie chicks wanted to talk about free love, weed and ending the war in Viet Nam more than anything else. "You know, head, a blow job, go down on him.
"There are easier ways to get an A." "Maybe for you. Do you ever study? He is so groovy." Sharon exaggerated the flip of her hair over her other shoulder. "Thought you had a boyfriend?" "Haven''t you heard? Make Love, Not War." Sharon giggled. "Come on, grab a cue and play against me." "Sure, Miss Shark.
That''s not a game, that''s just me moving the balls around the table for you." But Sharon hopped off the chair and grabbed a cue from the rack on the wall as Cash racked the balls and got a house cue to break. Once again, she didn''t hit the balls hard enough for any of them to drop. She was going to have to spend a few sessions just practicing her shot, she could see. "Open table," she said to Sharon. Sharon walked around the table. "What should I shoot?" "Try that solid that''s right in front of the side pocket. Just nick the edge right here," Cash said pointing her finger at a spot on the purple ball.
"Nick it soft and it''ll drop right in." Sharon slammed the cue ball into the purple ball and both dropped into the side pocket. "Argghhh," she griped. "This is why you ran out of class? To shoot pool?" "Yeah, I drive shift tonight, beets, and wanted to get a few practice games in first." Cash ran five stripes before miscuing. "You have solids." Sharon aimed at the 7 ball. "Did you hear about some chick that disappeared from Dahl Hall last weekend? Kids are saying maybe she got pregnant and went home.
Others are saying she hitchhiked down to the cities, but she hasn''t come back. Her parents were at the dean''s office this morning." Cash watched Sharon get a lucky break, accidently getting the 7 in. She lined up on the 3 as she chatted. "No." "That''s right, you got special exemption to not live in the dorm. I hate it. Curfew and ''No Boys Allowed''.
" Sharon missed the shot. "She was in Mr. Danielson''s class. The sexy blonde that wore a mini-skirt and sat in the front row every class. He was always calling on her; she''d tilt her head like this and cross her legs before answering the question. His eyes were never on her face. Bet she was getting A''s. Your turn.
" Cash leaned over the table and took aim at the striped 10. "Where''s she from?" "Who?" <.