Pinball, 1973

22

I flicked the switch, and after a few seconds the overhead fluorescent lamps blinked on, flooding the warehouse with white light. There must have been all of a hundred fluorescent lamps. The warehouse was much bigger than it had appeared from the outside, but even so the amount of light was oppressive. I shut my eyes against the glare. A minute later when I opened them again, the darkness had retreated, only the silence and chill remained.

The warehouse looked like the inside of a huge refrigerator, but considering its original purpose, that should hardly have come as a surprise. The ceiling and windowless walls had been painted gloss white, but were all stained yellow and black and colors. I couldn't relate to anything. One look told you the walls were built thick and solid. Like being packed in a lead box. Suddenly, claimed by the fear that I might never get out of there, I turned around to check and recheck the doors. It'd be hard to imagine a more disturbing structure.

The kindest thing you could have said about the place was that it was reminiscent of an elephants' graveyard. But instead of the whitened skeletons of elephants with legs collapsed under them, the concrete floor was covered as far as the eye could see with rows of pinball machines. I stood at the top of some steps, staring down on this strange scene. My hand crawled up to my mouth of its own will, then returned to my pocket.

The sheer number of machines was overwhelming. Seventy-eight to be exact. I took the time to count them over and over again. Seventy-eight, no mistake. Eight columns of machines were lined up and facing me, each column extending all the way to the back wall. It was as if chalk guidelines had been drawn on the floor; the columns were not an inch off. The whole place was as motionless as a fly sealed in acrylic. Not the slightest hint of movement. Seventy-eight deaths and seventy-eight silences. My only reflex was to move. If I didn't, I felt as if I too would have been counted in with these gargoyles.

Cold. That and the smell of dead chickens.

I slowly walked down the five narrow concrete steps. It was even colder at the bottom. The place gave me the creeps and I began to sweat. I took a handkerchief out of my pocket and wiped off the sweat, though I couldn't do a thing about the sweat that had poured from my armpits. I sat down on the bottom step and smoked a cigarette, my hands trembling.

My three-flipper "Spaceship" – I hadn't wanted to meet her like this. And the same held for her probably.

After closing the doors, you couldn't even hear any insects chirping. The perfect silence blanketed the floor like fog. The seventy-eight pinball machines planted their three hundred twelve legs firmly on the floor, patiently bearing up their immovable weight. A sorry scene.

I sat there and whistled the first four bars of "Jumping with Symphony Sid," Stan Getz with the Head Shaking and Foot Tapping Rhythm Section.

My whistling echoed magnificently in the unobstructed emptiness of that refrigerator. I began to feel a little better, and whistled the next four bars. Then the next four. I felt as if every machine had its ears pricked to listen. Though, of course, none turned around to look, nor tapped a foot. My whistling simply died away, absorbed into the far corners of the warehouse.

"Awful cold," I muttered after having finished my whistling session. The echo didn't sound like my voice. It bounced off the ceiling and came down like mist across the floor. I couldn't sit here putting on a one-man show forever. Sitting motionless, I felt as if the chill would penetrate to the bone, and I would be soaked through and through with the smell of chickens. I stood up and brushed the cool dirt off my trousers. Then I ground out my cigarette beneath the heel of my shoe, and tossed it into a nearby tin can.

Pinball, pinball. Isn't that why I came here?

The cold was putting a damper on me. Think: It's pinball, right? Seventy-eight pinball machines. Okay, the switch. Somewhere in this building there's got to be an electric switch to bring these seventy-eight machines back to life. A switch, so find it.

I thrust both hands in the pockets of my jeans, and slowly began to walk the inside perimeters of the building. Here and there on the seamless walls hung ripped-out wires and lead pipes from the time when the building had been used for cold storage. Meters and junction boxes and switches had all been gouged out of the walls by brute force, leaving crater-sized holes. The walls were much slimier than they appeared at a distance. Like a giant slug had crawled all over them. It was a monster of a building when you actually started walking around the place. Unbelievably large for one chicken farm's refrigerated warehouse.

Directly opposite the steps I had come down was another set of steps. And at the top of those steps, identical iron doors. So identical that I thought for a moment that I'd done one complete lap around the building. I pushed on the doors tentatively, but they didn't budge a hair. No bolts or locks, yet they betrayed not the slightest sign of motion. It was as if they were painted shut. I withdrew my hand from the door, and without thinking about it, wiped the sweat from my brow. The smell of chickens.

The switch was beside the doors. A big old throw-switch. I threw the switch and all at once the whole floor started to rumble. The sound sent a shiver up my spine. Next, there followed an outrageous fluttering like tens of thousands of birds flapping their wings. I turned around and looked out over the refrigerated warehouse. It was the sound of seventy-eight pinball machines drinking in electricity, their scoreboards clicking down the thousands to zero. After the commotion settled down, only a piercing electric hum like a swarm of bees lingered on. In no time at all, that warehouse full of seventy-eight pinball machines had come to life. The playing field of each and every machine flashed with bright colored lights, the boards all bursting with their respective dream images.

I walked down the steps, and slowly paced the aisles between the seventy-eight pinball machines, a general reviewing his troops. A number were vintage machines I'd only seen in photographs, a number were models familiar to me from the game center. Then there were machines that time had forgotten, the likes of which I'd never seen. What was the name of that astronaut, painted on the board of this Williams' "Friendship 7"? 'Glenn'? Early sixties. A Bally "Grand Tour" with its blue sky, Eiffel Tower, happy American traveler. "Kings and Queens," a model with eight roll-over lanes. A beautifully mustached, crewcut, nonchalant-looking Western gambler, with an ace hidden behind his spur.

Super heroes, monsters, college girls, football, rockets, and women – all worn-out and faded dreams that had done their time in game centers.

These heroes and women smiled at me from their boards. Blondes, platinum blondes, brunettes, red-heads, raven-tressed Mexican girls, Ann-Margaret, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe – every one of them pridefully heaving an awesome pair of breasts. Some from underneath sheer blouses unbuttoned to the waist, some from under one-piece bathing suits, some from beneath the pointy tips of brassieres, breasts never losing their shape, but faded all the same. Their lamps kept flashing in time with their heartbeats. Seventy-eight pinball machines, a graveyard of old, old dreams beyond recall. I threaded my way past these old girls.

The three-flipper "Spaceship" waited for me at the far end of the row. She was lined up between more gaudily made-up numbers, looking awfully demure. Like she'd been sitting on a flat stone in a clearing in the forest, just waiting for me. I stood there in front of her looking at the familiar board.

Deep blue space, a spilled-ink ultramarine. And in it, tiny white stars: Saturn, Venus, Mars, while in front floated a pure white spaceship. The portals of the spaceship were lit up, and inside a family gathering appeared to be in progress. A few shooting stars trailed glowing lines through the darkness.

The field was just as I remembered. The same dark blue. The targets smiled bright white toothy grins. Ten raised star-shaped bonus lights slowly pulsed with a lemon yellow glow. The two kick-out holes were Saturn and Venus, and the lotto target, Mars. Stillness permeated everything.

So how's tricks, I said. Or maybe I didn't say it. But in any case, I laid my hand on the glass top.

Cold as ice, it clouded over from the heat of my hand, leaving the white outline of ten fingers. Only then did she recognize me and smile up in my direction. It was a smile just like old times. I smiled, too.

It seems so long, she said. I feigned a preoccupied look, and flexed my fingers. Three years it'd been.

Like no time at all.

We nodded to each other, then fell into a hush. If it had been a coffee shop, we'd have sipped our coffee and fingered the lace curtains.

Been thinking about you, I said, and I've been feeling just miserable.

Sleepless nights?

Sleepless nights, I concurred. She never stopped smiling at me the whole while.

You're not cold? I asked.

Sure I'm cold, awful cold. You really shouldn't stay too long; then I just know it's too cold for you.

Probably so, I answered. My fingers trembled slightly as I pulled out a cigarette. I lit up and breathed in the smoke.

You're not going to play a game? she asked.

Nope, I answered.

Why not?

One hundred and sixty-five thousand, my best score. You remember?

I remember. It was my best score, too.

I don't want to tarnish it, I said.

She was silent. Only the ten bonus lights kept pulsing on and off. I looked down at my feet while I smoked.

Why did you come here?

You called me.

I did? She was puzzled, then smiled shyly. Yes, I guess that's true. Maybe I did call you.

I looked all over for you.

Thanks, she said. Talk to me.

You know, a lot of things have changed, I said. Your old game center is now an all-night doughnut shop. They serve the worst coffee.

That bad?

You remember a long time ago, in those Disney animal films, the zebras would be dying of thirst and they'd come upon this muddy waterhole? It's that color.

She giggled, a beautiful little laugh. What a horrible town, she said, in her normal voice Everything's so crude, filthy.

Them's the times.

She nodded. So tell me, what you been up to?

Doing translation work.

Novels?

Nah, I said, your day-to-day sludge. Pouring it from one gutter into another. That's all.

You don't enjoy your work?

Hmm, never thought about it.

And girls?

You probably won't believe me, but I'm living with twins now. They make great coffee.

She burst into a big smile, and looked off into space. It's all so strange. It's like nothing ever really happened.

No, it really happened, only it's gone.

Taking it hard?

Nah, I shook my head, things that come out of nowhere go back to nowhere, that's all.

We fell silent again. The thing we had shared was nothing more than a fragment of time that had died long ago. Even so, a faint glimmer of that warm memory still claimed a part of my heart. And when death claimed me, no doubt I would walk along by that faint light in the brief instant before being flung once again into the abyss of nothingness.

You'd better be going, she said.

The chill was getting unbearable, to be sure. I shook all over as I stomped out my cigarette.

Thanks for coming to see me, she said. We may not meet again, but take care.

Thanks, I said, farewell.

I left the ranks of pinball machines, climbed the steps, and threw the switch. The electricity went out of all the pinball machines like air out of a balloon, and a sleep of perfect silence fell over the place. I walked back across the warehouse, climbed the steps, switched off the lights, and shut the doors behind me. I didn't look back once the whole time. Not once did I look back.

* * *

It was a little before midnight when the taxi delivered me to my apartment. The twins were sitting in bed finishing up a crossword puzzle in a magazine. I looked pale, and my entire body gave off the smell of frozen chicken. I stuffed all the clothes I'd been wearing into the washing machine, and soaked in a hot bath. It took thirty minutes in the hot water before I was back to ordinary human consciousness, but I still hadn't completely gotten rid of the chill deep inside.

The twins dragged a gas heater out of the closet and lit it. After fifteen minutes I stopped shaking, took a deep breath, and heated up a can of onion soup.

"I'm all right now," I said.

"Really?"

"You still feel cold," worried one twin, feeling my wrist.

"I'll warm up quick."

Then I sank into bed, filled in the last two items in the crossword puzzle. One was "rainbow trout," the other "trail." My body soon warmed up, and we fell into a deep sleep pretty much together.

I dreamed about Trotsky's four reindeer. All four reindeer were wearing red wool socks. It was an awfully cold dream.