Pinball, 1973

16

Rain had been falling for days, then suddenly let up on Friday evening. From the penthouse window, the town made a depressing sight, soaked to the gills and swollen with rainwater. The setting sun breaking through the clouds turned them a mysterious color, and the afterglow painted the room in the same hue.

The Rat slipped a windbreaker over his T-shirt and headed into town. The asphalt streets of the shopping arcade were dotted here and there with still puddles that stretched out dark and wet as far as the eye could see. The whole town had that evening-after-the-rain smell about it. Pines along the river stood drenched top to bottom, fine droplets at the drooping tips of their green needles. Runoff coursed thick and brown into the river, then slid down the channeled concrete river bottom out to sea.

Evening was over almost as soon as it began, and darkness fell damp over everything. Then in an instant, the dampness turned to fog.

The Rat rested his elbow on the car window and made a slow tour of the town. Banks of white fog slanted westward up the drive into the hills. In the end, he took the riverside road down to the coast.

He stopped the car by the seawall, let back his reclining seat, and smoked a cigarette. The sand on the beach, the concrete blocks along the shoreline, the trees of the windbreak, everything was wetted down and dark. Yet a warm yellow light poured through the blinds of the woman's apartment. He glanced at his wristwatch. Seven fifteen.

A time for people to be finishing dinner, all warm and snug in their apartments.

The Rat put both hands behind his head, shut his eyes, and tried to picture her apartment. He wasn't really sure because he'd only gone in twice.

The door opened on a six-mat dining-kitchen; orange tablecloth, potted ornamentals, four chairs, orange juice and newspaper on the table, a stainless steel teapot, all neatly arranged, not a smudge or stain anywhere, and the two small rooms beyond with the partition removed to make one room. A long, narrow glass-topped desk, and on it three ceramic beer mugs crammed full of all sorts of pencils and rulers and drafting pens. And a tray laden with erasers, inkeradicator, old receipts, drafting tape, clips of assorted colors and yes, a pencil sharpener. Stamps.

Alongside the desk was a well-used drafting table with a long crane-necked lamp. The color of the shade, green. And over against the back wall, a bed. A small Scandinavian-style plain wooden bed.

It could hold two people, but the thing would creak like a rowboat at the park.

The fog grew thicker as the night wore on. Its milk-white obscurity hugged the coast, moving slowly. Every once in a while a pair of yellow fog lamps would approach head on, then pass by the Rat at a reduced speed. A fine mist crept in through the window, and dampened every last thing in the car. The seats, the windshield, his windbreaker, the cigarettes in his pocket, everything. The freighters offshore began to sound their foghorns like the plaintive lowing of stranded calves. Each foghorn droned at its own pitch, high or low, piercing the gloom and drifting up toward the hills.

And on the righthand wall? the Rat continued, trying to recall her rooms. A bookcase and a tiny stereo, and records. And a wardrobe. Two Ben Shahn reproductions. Nothing special on the shelves. Mostly architectural trade books. Some travel books, too, guidebooks, travelogues, maps, a number of best sellers, something on Mozart, sheet music, several dictionaries, some kind of dedication penned inside the cover of a French dictionary. The records were mostly Bach or Haydn or Mozart. Those and a few keepsake records from her younger days: Pat Boone, Bobby Darren, The Platters.

Beyond that, the Rat was stumped. Something was missing. Something important. Something that robbed the whole apartment of its reality, left it floating in space. But what?

Okay, hold on; got to remember. The lights in the apartment and the carpet. What kind of lights? And what color carpet? He just couldn't remember.

On impulse the Rat opened the door and was about to dash through the trees of the windbreak, to go knock on her door so he could check out the lights and carpeting. Of all the idiotic notions. The Rat leaned back in his seat, this time to look out to sea. Other than the white fog over the dark water, there was nothing to see. Except off and on, out there, the orange beacon light blinked, steady as a heartbeat.

For a while, her apartment simply floated in the obscurity with neither ceilings or walls. Then little by little, the image grew weaker in its details, until it had completely vanished.

The Rat turned his head toward the ceiling, and slowly closed his eyes. Then at the flick of an imaginary switch, he turned off all the lights in his head, and darkness came over him again.