Pinball, 1973

24

"I'm leaving town," the Rat announced. He was trimming his nails into an ashtray with a nail-clipper he'd borrowed from J.

Six o'clock in the evening, the bar had just opened. The counter was freshly waxed, not a single cigarette butt in any ashtray on the premises.

The liquor bottles were polished and lined up with their labels facing out, small tabletop trays decked out with brand-new paper napkins folded to a sharp point, bottles of tabasco sauce, and salt shakers. J was mixing up three kinds of dressing in little bowls, and a faint garlic odor drifted through the room. A brief moment in the routine of setting up for the night.

"Leaving where to?"

"Dunno. Some town, someplace. Not too big, probably."

J poured the dressings into three large flasks through a funnel. He put them in the refrigerator and dried his hands on a towel.

"What you going to do there?"

"Work." The Rat kept glancing down at the nails of his right hand while he finished the trim-job.

"Can't do that in this town?"

"Nope," the Rat said. "I could do with a beer, though."

"It's on me."

"Much obliged."

The Rat slowly poured the beer into a glass that had been chilling on ice, then drank half of it in one gulp. "Aren't you going to ask me why this town won't do?"

"No, I kinda think I know."

The Rat smiled, then clicked his tongue. "Nice try, J, but really, if everybody went around understanding each other without asking questions or speaking their mind, they'd never get anywhere. Not that I really ought to be saying this, but it seems like I've stayed too long in that state already."

"Maybe so," said J, after a moment's thought.

The Rat took another sip of beer, then began to trim the nails of his left hand. "I've given it a lot of thought. And you know, maybe it's all the same, no matter where I end up going. Still, I gotta go. All the same's good enough."

"You're not coming back then?"

"Of course I'll be back. Sometime. It's not like I'm running away."

The Rat scooped some peanuts from a small dish, tossing their wrinkled shells into an ashtray as he ate. He wiped off the hinged section of counter top where the beer's chill had left a clouded ring on the brightly waxed surface.

"When are you thinking about making your move?"

"Tomorrow, the next day. Don't know. Probably within three days, though."

"Mighty quick decision."

"Uh-huh. Given you plenty of trouble in my time, I figure."

"Been through plenty together, haven't we? J nodded, wiping down the row of glasses on the shelf with a dry cloth. "But when it's all over, it'll seem like a dream."

"Could be, but I bet it'll take an extra long time before I get to that point."

J was silent a bit, then he laughed.

"Maybe so. You know, sometimes I plum forget there's twenty years' difference between us."

The Rat emptied the rest of the beer into his glass, and drank it slowly. The first time ever he'd drunk beer so slowly.

"What say to another beer?"

The Rat shook his head. "Nah, that's okay. I meant this to be my last. The last beer I drink here, that is."

"You're not coming back then?"

"Don't intend to. It'd be too hard on me."

J laughed. "I hope our paths cross again sometime."

"Bet you the next time our paths cross you don't recognize me on sight."

"I'll catch the scent."

The Rat gave his neatly trimmed fingers on both hands the once-over, swept the remaining peanuts into his pocket, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, then stood up to leave.

* * *

The breeze glided noiselessly over the face of the dark, slipping down unseen, stratum by stratum. It tussled the treetops overhead, periodically shaking down a shower of leaves which fell on top of the car with a dry rustle, danced aimlessly about the roof, and slid down the slanting windshield, before piling up on the wipers.

All alone in the woods of the cemetery, the Rat sat blankly staring through the windshield. A yard in front of his car, the ground dropped away into an expanse of dark skies and sea and night streets.

The Rat leaned forward with both hands on the steering wheel, and was perfectly still, his gaze fixed on a point in the heavens. He held an unlit cigarette between his fingers, tracing a series of complex though meaningless designs in the air with its tip.

As soon as he'd finished talking to J, he was overcome by an unbearably vacuous feeling. Diverse streams of consciousness he'd barely managed to assemble into one self seemed to have suddenly gone their separate ways. The Rat had no idea how long it would take before these streams merged again. They all seemed like dark rivulets destined to flow into a vast ocean. They might not even meet up again. Twenty-five years just to come to this, and for what? the Rat asked himself. Don't know.

Good question, but no answer. Good questions never have answers.

The breeze began to pick up. Whatever bit of warmth arose from the human world, the breeze carried it off to some distant place, leaving those countless stars to shine in icy darkness. The Rat released the wheel, and rolled the cigarette around between his lips until it occurred to him to put his lighter to it.

His head ached a little. Not an ache exactly, but a strange sensation more like cold fingertips pressing on both temples. The Rat shook his head, casting off these things he'd been thinking. It was all done with, at least.

He took a book of nationwide roadmaps out of the glove compartment, and slowly turned the pages. He began to read out the listing of towns in order. Most were small towns whose names were new to his ears. Towns strung out along the roads to who knows where. He'd read several pages when a massive sense of fatigue, built up over the last few days, broke over him like a wave. He felt a lukewarm sludge slowly circulating through his veins.

He wanted to sleep.

He felt as if sleep would wipe everything clean.

He had only to sleep.

When he closed his eyes, deep behind his ears he could hear the sound of waves. Wintry waves striking the jetty, threading between the concrete blocks along the shore.

Nothing to explain to anyone any more, thought the Rat. No doubt the bottom of the sea is warmer, more peaceful and quiet than any town. No, why think of anything now, already.