Pinball, 1973

11

Thursday morning, the twins woke me up. Little did I notice that it was fifteen minutes earlier than usual as I shaved, drank my coffee, and read through the morning paper, still sticky with fresh ink.

"There's a favor we have to ask," said one of the twins.

"Do you think you could borrow a car this Sunday?" said the other.

"Perhaps," I said, "but where do you want to go?"

"The reservoir."

"The reservoir?"

They both nodded.

"What do you want to do at the reservoir?"

"Last rites."

"Whose?"

"The switch-panel's."

"I see," said I, and returned to the paper.

Unfortunately, on Sunday it began drizzling from the morning. To be sure, I had no way of knowing what kind of weather was most appropriate for a switch-panel's funeral. The twins didn't broach the subject of the rain, so I kept quiet.

Saturday night I borrowed my business partner's light blue Volkswagen. He insinuated that maybe I'd found myself a woman, to which I merely said

Umm.

The back seat of the bug was stained across one side, probably milk chocolate rubbed in by his kid, though it looked like bloodstains from a machine gun battle. My partner didn't have any decent cassettes for the car stereo, so we traveled the full hour and a half to the reservoir without any music, driving on and on without a word. As we drove, the rain came down harder and then weaker, then harder again, then weaker, alternating at regular intervals. It was enough to make you yawn, that rain.

The only sound was that of the high-speed whoosh of passing cars on the highway.

One of the twins sat in the front seat, the other sat in the back holding a shopping bag with a thermos bottle and the defunct switch-panel. The girls were properly somber in keeping with the funeral day. And I followed suit. We were even somber as we ate roast corn-on-the-cob at a roadside rest stop.

Only the sound of the kernels popping off the roasting cobs broke the restrained mood. We left behind three corncobs nibbled clean to the last kernel, then we were back in the car and off again.

There were an awful lot of dogs around, wandering aimlessly in the rain like schools of yellowtail in an aquarium. So we had to keep honking the horn nonstop. For all you could tell from their faces, they weren't the least bit concerned about the rain or the cars. Generally, their expressions would turn downright disdainful at the sound of the horn, but they dodged out of the way just the same. Of course, there was no way for them to dodge the rain. The dogs were sopping wet, right down to their buttocks; some looked like waifs from a Balzac novel, others like pensive Buddhist priests.

The twin in the seat next to me put a cigarette to my lips, and lit it for me. Then she put her little hand on the crotch of my cotton pants, and stroked. Her action was more like some kind of reassurance than stimulation.

The rain seemed destined to fall forever. October rains are like that. Falling steadily, ceaselessly, until everything is soaked through and through. The ground was soggy. The trees, the expressway, the fields, the cars, the houses, the dogs – everything without exception had soaked up rain, filling the world with a hopeless chill.

The road led up into the hills, and eventually we emerged from the depths of the forest onto the bank of the reservoir. Thanks to the rain there was not a soul in sight. As far as the eye could see, rain poured down across the surface of the reservoir.

The sight of that rain-swept reservoir was far more heart-wrenching than I could have imagined. We parked beside the bank, and sat in the car drinking coffee from the thermos and eating the cookies the twins had brought along. There were three kinds of cookies: coffee cream, butter cream, and maple syrup, which we divided up to make sure that we each got our fair share.

The whole time, the rain poured down relentlessly and silently over the reservoir. The sound was something like shredded newspaper falling on a thick pile carpet. It was like the rain that falls in Claude Lelouche movies.

Once we finished the cookies and had each had our two cups of coffee, we all brushed off our laps in unison as if by prior arrangement. No one spoke.

"Well, we might as well get it over with," voiced one twin.

The other nodded.

I put out my cigarette.

We walked to the end of the catwalk that projected out over the water without bothering to put up umbrellas. The reservoir had been formed by damming up the river. The surface of the water curved unnaturally where it lapped into the folds of the hillsides. The color of the water gave you an unsettling feeling of depth. The raindrops made tiny ripples everywhere.

One of the twins took our dearly beloved switch-panel out of the paper bag and handed it over to me. In the rain, the switch-panel looked more miserable than ever.

"Say some kind of prayer, will you?"

"Prayer?" I was caught off guard.

"It's a funeral, so we need to say last rites."

"It hadn't occurred to me," I said. "I haven't got anything prepared."

"Doesn't matter, anything's fine."

"Just for form's sake."

I searched for some appropriate words, meanwhile getting soaked from head to toe.

The twins glanced alternately from me to the switch-panel with a worried look on their faces.

"The obligation of philosophy," I drew on my Kant, "is to eradicate illusions born of misunderstanding. Oh, switch-panel! Rest ye at the bottom of the reservoir."

"Toss it."

"Huh?"

"The switch-panel."

I went into a windup, and hurled it up at a forty-five degree angle with all my might. The switch panel traced a beautiful arc through the rain, and struck the water. The ripples slowly spread, finally reaching our feet.

"That was a wonderful prayer."

"You make it up?"

"But of course," I said.

Then the three of us, drenched as dogs, huddled together and stared across the reservoir.

"How deep is it?" asked one.

"Very deep," I answered.

"Are there fish?" asked the other.

"Ponds this size always have fish."

Seen from a distance, the three of us standing there must have looked like some classy memorial marker.