Barry's World

Behrman's office in Q-Master Billiards is a storehouse of U.S. Open memorabilia.

If it wasn't a story of a life unraveling out of control, it was definitely one of a shattered reputation and likely a forever-tarnished legacy.

"I'm not proud of what I've done," he says, sipping on a Crown & Diet Coke, even though his probation officer has all but ordered him to abstain from alcohol. "I was wrong. No excuses. I did some stupid and ridiculous things, made some poor judgements. Hopefully, I'm smarter now. No one is perfect, but I'm more perfect now than I've been in 58 years." He leans back in his chair, crosses his legs, and even closes his eyes for a while. His voice turns soft, the words for once are unhurried, and his lips instead of forming a squiggled grin make a rare flat line. It's a shockingly muted Behrman. "I wanted to believe for a while that what happened to me was bad luck," he says, "but I've come to realize that you make your own luck in life. If you're unlucky all the time, you're not living life the right way. And for three years, I was not living the proper way. I just lost control for a while, where I didn't care about anything. I just didn't care. I was broke, feeling sorry for myself, feeling unlucky, and instead of working my butt off, like I always have, developed a lackadaisical, irresponsible lifestyle. That's what happens when too much salt gets poured on an open wound. It was one thing after the other. I finally got to the point where I said to myself, 'Okay, what else is going to go wrong?' I've been sane for most of my life, but for a while, maybe two solid years, I suffered from major depression. I crawled into a shell at times, didn't want to see people, stayed home a lot, and kept to myself. And that's not me."

Twisting in his chair, he points to a pencil sketch pinned on the wall behind him. It's of a starkly grim-faced, barely recognizable Behrman. "One of my friends in jail did that for me," he says. "A Filipino kid named Brian. He's an artist, and I asked him one day to 'draw me the way I really look, not something posed.'" He stares at the sketch without saying anything for several seconds, then: "Look how sad I look. When I got out of jail, I made sure to pin it up where I would see it all the time. It's in the place where I drop off my belongings in the morning. The first thing I look at. It reminds me that I don't ever want to look like that again."

Having sold off his sprawling 6,600-square-foot-digs, he's been renting a decidedly smaller place near Q-Masters for $1,400 a month since May. It's not exactly slumming: a 2,200-square-foot ranch house with a hot tub on the sun deck, a big plasma, surround-sound TV in the living room, and a card room with a poker table.

He's wearing a navy blue Nike T-shirt, khaki shorts, and two necklaces - a silver Star of David and a gold U.S. Open 9-ball rack. His hair, which is professionally colored and has an orange tinge, is buzz-cut short these days, and his stomach and face are noticeably puffier from having gained 20 pounds in jail. "All that garbage I ate," he explains. "Lots of popcorn, potato chips, and Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies." He's been trying to work off the extra weight by eating better and riding around on his silver 12-speed mountain bike. "I still think I look pretty good for my age," says the 5-foot-6 grandfather. He's a guy who gets his hair cut every two weeks, his nails done frequently, places gel packs over his eyes daily to reduce the bags, and is constantly in the mirror checking himself out and slapping on Eternity cologne. "You know Carly Simon's, 'You're So Vain'? She wrote that song about me."

He claims since getting out of jail he's especially cut back on extravagances. "If I don't really need it, I don't buy it. I get a lot of my clothes at a place called Value City and most of my home stuff at a discount place next door to my poolroom called Big Lots. Like I used to pay $1.49 for air freshener; now I pay 88 cents. See this shirt? Twenty dollars. See these shorts? Liz Claiborne - $20." He takes out his wallet and pulls out all his cash. It's three twenties and three singles. "This is all the money I'm carrying," he says. "So, you see, I'm not exactly Donald Trump. If people think I'm rich, I'd be glad to give them my accountant's phone number. I've spent every dime of my father's inheritance just to stay afloat. But I do have checks." He smiles. "The truth is, I still have money problems, including owing over $275,000 in back taxes - which I'm digging out of with the help of a tax lawyer; we've made the government an offer of compromise - but I'm certainly in a much better position than I was several months ago."

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