Pinball, 1973

19

It was hard breaking the news to J that he was leaving town. The Rat didn't know why it was so hard.

Three days in a row he went to the bar, and not once in those three days could he bring himself to broach the subject. Each time he'd get up the nerve to tell him, his throat would get all dry, and he'd drown it in beer. Weak-willed, he kept on drinking.

You keep on floundering, thought the Rat, and never get anywhere.

When the clock struck twelve, the Rat could only stand up, somewhat relieved, say his good-night to J the same as always, and leave. The night breeze had gotten positively cold. He returned to his apartment, sat down on the bed, and idly watched television. He opened a can of beer and smoked a cigarette. An old western with Robert Taylor, then a commercial, weather report, commercial, static.

The Rat turned off the television, got in the shower. Then he opened another can of beer and smoked another cigarette.

He had no idea where to go once he left this town. He felt like he had no place to go.

For the first time in his life, fears crept up from deep inside him. Fears like dark, shiny crawly things from underground. Without eyes, without the least endearing quality. The Rat was dragging himself underground just like them. He felt their slime all over his body. He opened a can of beer.

Over those three days the Rat's apartment had become littered with empty beer cans and cigarette butts. He wanted to see the woman real bad. Wanted to feel the warmth of her skin all over, to be inside her forever. But you'll never go back to her place. Done burnt that bridge, thought the Rat, haven't you now, over that door, sealed yourself off.

The Rat gazed out at the beacon. The sky was getting light, the sea was beginning to turn gray. And by the time the crisp morning light had swept away the darkness like you'd brush off a tablecloth, the Rat had climbed into bed and fallen asleep with pains that had no place to go.

* * *

The Rat's decision to leave town seemed to have firmed up, at least for the time being. It was a conclusion reached after long hours of looking at things from every angle. It seemed impenetrable.

He struck a match, and ignited the bridge. There went the last of anything left kicking around in his heart, though maybe something of himself would be left in town. Not that anyone would notice. And as the town changed, even that trace would vanish.

Everything would go on regardless.

Now to tell J.

The Rat couldn't figure out why the guy's presence should disturb him as much as it did. A quick, Hey, I'm leaving town, take care, and that would do it. It's not like they knew a thing about each other, after all. Total strangers, just happened to be passing by, that was all. Even so, the Rat's heart ached. Lying face up on the bed, he shook a tightly clenched fist in the air.

* * *

It was past midnight Monday when the Rat pushed up the shutters to J's Bar. There sat J at a table in the half-darkened interior, the same as usual, doing little other than smoking a cigarette. J smiled and nodded when he saw the Rat come in. J looked ages old in the dim light. A stubble shadowed his cheeks and chin, his eyes bulged, his thin lips were cracked and dry. Veins stood out on his neck, and his fingertips were stained yellow with nicotine.

"Tired, eh?" the Rat asked.

"Kind of," J replied, then paused. "One of those days. Everyone has 'em."

The Rat nodded and drew up a chair at the table, sitting himself down across from J.

"Like the song says, rainy days and Mondays always get ya down."

"Ain't it the truth," said J, staring at the cigarette between his fingers.

"You ought to beat a path home and get some sleep."

"Nah, it's okay," J shook his head slowly, as if shooing away bugs. "Get back home and I wouldn't be able to sleep well anyway."

The Rat glanced down at his watch out of sheer reflex. Twelve twenty. There in that deathly quiet dim basement, time itself seemed to have passed away. In J's Bar with the shutters down, there was not a glimmer of the cheer he had sought here for so many years. Everything was faded, everything was tired out.

"Could you get me a cola?" J said. "And while you're at it, grab yourself a beer."

The Rat stood up, took a beer and a cola from the refrigerator, and brought them over to the table along with glasses.

"Music?" asked J.

"Nah, let's keep it quiet tonight," said the Rat.

"Like some kind of funeral."

The Rat laughed. Then, without a word, the two of them drank. The ticking of the Rat's wristwatch on the table began to sound unnaturally loud.

Twelve thirty-five. Yet it seemed as if an awfully long time had passed. J hardly moved. The Rat fixed his eyes on J's filterless cigarette burning up in the glass ashtray, even the stub turning to ash.

"Why're you so tired?" the Rat asked.

"You got me," J said, then rearranged his legs in afterthought. "Doubt there's any reason, really."

The Rat sighed and drank half the beer in his glass, then returned it to the table.

"Say J, I've been thinking, people – I don't care who – all get to rotting. Am I right?"

"Right enough."

"And there are many ways to rot." The Rat unconsciously brought the back of his hand up to his lips. "But for each person, it seems like the options are very limited. At the most say, two or three.

"I guess you could say that."

The last of the beer, foam gone flat, left a pool at the bottom of the glass. The Rat took a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and put the last one to his lips. "But y'know, lately I've begun to think, it's all the same to me. You're just gonna rot anyway, right?" J reserved comment, his glass of cola poised mid-sip while listening to the Rat.

"People go through changes, sure. But up to now, I never did get what those changes were supposed to mean." The Rat bit his lip and looked down at the table pensively. "Then it came to me. Whatever step forward, whatever the change, it's really only a stage of decay. Does that sound so off target?"

"No, not so very off."

"That's why I never felt the least scrap of love or goodwill toward the run of the mill people who go merrily about their way to oblivion not even in this town."

J said nothing. The Rat said nothing. He struck a match on the table, and after letting the flame slowly burn its way down the shaft, he lit his cigarette.

"The thing is," J said, "you yourself are thinking about making a change, correct?"

"Well, as matter of fact…"

A frightfully quiet few seconds passed between them. Maybe even ten seconds. Then J spoke up.

"People, you gotta remember, are surprisingly hit-or-miss creatures. Far more than even you're thinking."

The Rat emptied the rest of the beer into his glass, and downed it in one gulp. "I'm torn, what to do."

J nodded.

"No way to decide."

"I kinda figured that," said J with a tired, talked-out smile.

The Rat slowly stood up, and stuffed his cigarettes and lighter in his pocket. The clock read past one.

"Good night," said the Rat.

"Good night," said J. "Oh, and one last thing. Somebody said it: Walk slowly and drink lots of water."

The Rat smiled at J, opened the door, and climbed the stairs. Streetlamps brightly illuminated the deserted street. The Rat sat down on a guard-rail and looked up at the sky. And thought, just how much water does a guy have to drink?