—
The warehouse looked like an animal crouching in the dark. Tall grass grew thick around its base, and its gray walls were windowless. A gloomy, foreboding structure. Above the double steel doors a name, probably that of the company, had been daubed over with white paint.
I stood ten paces away and looked at the building. The more I thought, the less likely it seemed that I would come up with any good ideas, so I walked to the entrance and gave the ice-cold doors a push. They swung open into a darkness completely different from the one I had been experiencing.
22
I found the wall switch in the dark and flipped it on. A few seconds later, fluorescent ceiling lights blinked into action, bathing the warehouse in white light. There must have been at least a hundred lights in all. The warehouse was bigger than it looked from the outside, but even so, the cumulative brilliance of all those fluorescent bulbs forced me to close my eyes. When I opened them again, the darkness was a distant memory—only the silence and the chill remained.
The warehouse resembled the inside of a giant refrigera- tor, which made sense given its original purpose. The ceiling and windowless walls had been painted a glossy white, but they were covered with stains, some black, some yellow, and some like no color I had seen before. I could tell right away the walls were very thick. It was like being stuffed in a lead box. I kept glancing back at the door, fearful that, somehow, I might be trapped there forever. Surely no building had ever been designed to create a more disagreeable feeling.
Viewed in a charitable light, it could have been an elephant graveyard. But instead of white skeletons with folded legs, there were endless rows of pinball machines spread across the concrete floor. I looked down at this strange sight from the top of the steps. My hand crept to my lips, then returned to my pocket.
There were lots and lots of pinball machines. Seventy-eight, to be precise. I knew this because I counted, several times. Seventy-eight, beyond a doubt. They all faced the same direction in eight columns that stretched to the far wall of the warehouse. The columns were precise, as if following chalk lines on the floor. Like flies suspended in acrylic resin, the machines were frozen in time. Seventy-eight deaths, seventy-eight silences. My instinctive reaction was to start moving. Otherwise, I might be inducted into this company of gargoyles.
It was cold. And the smell of dead chickens was everywhere.
I slowly descended the five steps of the narrow concrete staircase. It was even colder at the bottom. Yet I was sweating. A nasty sweat, too. I took a handkerchief from my pocket and mopped my face, but there was nothing I could do about the sweat pooling under my arms. I sat on the bottom step and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. This was not the way I wanted to meet the three-flipper Spaceship. And I was sure this wasn’t the way she preferred to meet me…pretty sure, anyway.
By closing the door, I had shut out all the insect voices. A perfect silence blanketed the floor like a heavy fog. The seventy-eight pinball machines stood rooted to the floor on their three hundred and twelve legs, tons of metal with nowhere to go. It was a pitiful sight.
I tried whistling the first four bars of “Jumpin’ with Symphony Sid” from my seat on the step. Stan Getz and his head-shaking, foot-tapping rhythm section. My whistling resounded throughout the cavernous warehouse—I thought it sounded beautiful. Somewhat revived, I whistled the next four bars. Then the four after that. I could feel every thing around me pricking their ears to my tune. Of course, they didn’t shake their heads or tap their feet. My whistling died away, sucked into the far corners of the warehouse.
“Damn, it’s cold,” I muttered, after running through the whole song. The echo didn’t sound like me at all. It flew up to the ceiling before swooping down to settle like mist on the floor. I sighed, the cigarette still in my mouth. I couldn’t sit there forever doing my one-man show. If I didn’t move, the cold and the chicken stink would penetrate my core. I stood up and brushed the cold dirt off my trousers. Then I crushed my cigarette with my shoe and tossed the butt into a tin can close by.
Pinball…pinball. Wasn’t that why I had come? The cold seemed to be paralyzing my brain. Think! About pinball. About the seventy-eight machines…Okay, consider the switch. There has to be an electric switch somewhere in the building that can return all seventy-eight machines to life. Look for the switch.
With my hands in the pockets of my jeans, I shuffled along the wall of the cavernous room. Torn electrical wiring and severed lead pipes dangled from the naked concrete, remnants of the days when the building was used for cold storage. Holes gaped where the various meters, junction boxes, switches, and other machines had been located, as if they had been ripped out by brute force. Up close, the wall was slimier than it had appeared from a distance. Like the trail left by a giant slug. As I walked, I realized how enormous the building was. Not your usual chicken-packing plant.
At the far end of the floor was a staircase like the one I had just walked down with an identical steel door at the top. It was easy to imagine that I had walked in a full circle back to where I had started. I tried pushing the door open, but it didn’t budge. It had no lock or bolt, but there was an absolute lack of movement, as if it had been glued shut. I withdrew my hand from the door and wiped my sweaty face. My hand smelled like chickens.
The switch was next to the door. A big lever. The moment I pulled it, a deep growl filled the room, a spine-chilling sound that seemed to rise from beneath the earth. Next came an immense flapping of wings, as if tens of thousands of birds had taken to the air at once. I wheeled around to look at the warehouse floor. The noise came from thousands of numbers flipping back to zero in unison as the seventy-eight machines drank in the electricity. Once they finished, all that remained was a dull hum, like a swarm of bees. The sound of seventy-eight pinball machines, restored to life if only for a moment, filled the warehouse. Primary-colored lights flashed on every playfield, while the boards on the back cabinets competed to assert their individual dreams.
I descended the steps and strolled through the columns like an officer reviewing his troops. A few of the machines were vintage models I had only seen in photographs, while others I remembered with fondness from arcades of the past. Still others were remembered by no one, machines lost in time. There was Friendship 7, released by Williams—who was the astronaut featured on its board? Glenn…? That would have been from the early ’60s. There was Bally’s Grand Tour, with its blue sky, Eiffel Tower, and happy American tourists. Gottlieb’s Kings & Queens, the model with eight rollover lanes. It featured a Western Gambler with a manicured mustache, a nonchalant expression, and an ace of spades tucked in his suspenders.
Superheroes, monsters, college girls, football players, rockets, women—so many dreams left to fade and rot in darkened game arcades. Now they were all smiling at me from their boards. And the women…Blondes, platinum blondes, brunettes, redheads, Mexican girls with raven hair, ponytailed girls, Hawaiian girls with hair to their waists, Ann-Margret, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe…each thrusting out her glorious breasts from beneath diaphanous blouses unbuttoned to the waist, or one-piece bathing suits, or pointy bras…Their colors would fade, but their breasts would retain their eternal beauty. The lights flashed on and off as if in time with the beating of my heart. The seventy-eight pinball machines were a graveyard of old dreams, old beyond recall. I walked slowly past those dream women.
The three-flipper Spaceship was waiting for me at the end of the line. She stood there, a picture of serenity, sandwiched between her gaudy sisters. She could have been seated on a flat stone in a forest clearing. I stood before her, gazing with fondness at her familiar board. The blue of her cosmos, so deep and dark it looked like poured ink. The tiny white stars. And the planets: Saturn, Mars, Venus…A pure white spaceship floated in the foreground. Lights burned in its windows, inviting you to imagine the happy family moments being shared inside. Shooting stars arched across the night sky.
The field was just as I remembered. The same
dark blue. The targets were pure white, like teeth flashing through smiling lips. The ten lemon-yellow bonus lights, stacked to resemble stars, pulsing up and down. Saturn and Mars, the two kick-out holes, and Venus, the rotating target—taken together, the epitome of peace and tranquillity.
Hey there, I said. Well, maybe I didn’t say it out loud. But I placed my hands on the glass surface of her field. It was as cold as ice. When I removed my hands, their warmth left ten cloudy fingerprints. Awakened at last, she smiled at me. How I had missed that smile. I smiled back.
It feels like ages since I last saw you, she said. I pretended to add up the time on my fingers. Three years, I replied. Gone in a heartbeat.
We silently nodded at each other. We might have been sipping coffee in a café, toying with the lace curtains.
I think of you a lot, I said. It gets me feeling pretty low.
When you can’t sleep?
Yes, when I can’t sleep, I parroted. Her smile never wavered.
Aren’t you cold? she asked.
Yes, I’m cold. Freezing, actually.
Don’t stay too long. This place is too cold for you.
Seems so, I answered. My hands were trembling as I withdrew a cigarette from my pocket, lit it, and inhaled the smoke.
Want to play? she asked.
No thanks, I replied.
Why not?
My top score was 165,000. Remember?
Of course I remember. It was my best score too.
So I don’t want to spoil the memory, I said.
She didn’t speak. Only her ten bonus lights continued to pulse up and down. I studied the ground as I smoked my cigarette.
Why did you come?
I heard you call.
Call? She seemed confused for a moment; then she smiled a bashful smile. Yes, you may be right. I may have called you.
I looked for you everywhere.
Thanks, she said. Talk to me.
There have been a lot of big changes, I said. Your game arcade became an all-night doughnut shop. Their coffee is the pits.
Is it really that bad?
It looks like the muddy water the dying zebra drinks in that old Disney flick.
She laughed softly. She was a real knockout when she smiled. But that was an awful neighborhood, she said, her face growing serious. Everything was so crude, so filthy…
It was like that everywhere back then.
She nodded. So what are you doing now?
I’m a translator.
Fiction?
No, I said. Scum. I scoop it from one ditch and dump it into another one, that’s all.
Is it fun?
Fun? I’ve never thought of it in those terms.
Do you have a girlfriend?
You may not believe me, but I’m living with twins right now. They make really great coffee.
She looked off into space, the sweet smile playing on her lips. It feels strange somehow, she said. Like none of it really happened.
Oh, it happened all right. But now it’s gone.
Does it make you sad?
No, I said, shaking my head. There was something that came out of nothing, and now it’s gone back to where it came from, that’s all.
We fell silent again. What we shared was no more than a fragment of a time long dead. Yet memories remained, warm memories that remained with me like lights from the past. And I would carry those lights in the brief interval before death grabbed me and tossed me back into the crucible of nothingness.
You’d better go now, she said. For sure, the cold was becoming harder to bear. I was shivering all over as I stubbed out my cigarette.
Thanks for coming to see me, she said. We may not meet again, but take care of yourself.
Thanks, I said. So long.
I passed between the columns of pinball machines, climbed the steps, and threw the switch. The machines fell silent, like balloons emptied of air. Silent and asleep. I walked the length of the warehouse once again, mounted the steps, turned off the lights, and shut the door behind me. Not once in all that time did I look back. Not once.
By the time I hailed a cab and returned to the apartment, it was almost midnight. The twins were in bed, finishing the crossword puzzle from a weekly magazine. I was as white as a sheet and reeked of frozen chicken. I threw my clothes in the washing machine and hopped in the bath for a long soak. After thirty minutes in the hot water I felt ready to rejoin the human race, but that didn’t get rid of the icy cold that had seeped into my core.
The twins pulled the gas heater out of the closet and turned it on. It took fifteen minutes for me to stop shaking; then, after a short break, I ate a hot bowl of canned onion soup.
“I’m all right now,” I said.
“For real?”
“You still feel cold,” the other twin said, frowning, her hand on my wrist.
“I’ll be warm in a minute.”
The three of us climbed into bed and worked out the last two words of the crossword. One was “trout,” the other “stroll.” I warmed up in no time, and none of us knew who fell asleep first.
I saw Trotsky’s four reindeer in my dream. They were all wearing thick wool socks. It was an awfully cold dream.
23
The Rat never saw the woman after that. Nor did he return to observe the light in her apartment. In fact, he avoided going anywhere near her building. Something had floated up in the pitch black of his heart like a wisp of white smoke from a blown-out candle and then disappeared. A dark silence followed. Silence. When you stripped something down layer by layer, what remained in the end? The Rat didn’t know. Pride?…He lay on his bed and studied his hands. It seemed that no one could live without pride. If that was all one had left, though, it was too dark. Way too dark.
—
Breaking up had been easy. He simply hadn’t phoned the woman one Friday evening. He guessed that she had stayed up late waiting for the call. The thought pained him. Time and again he had to hold himself back from reaching for the telephone. He put on his headphones and turned up the volume on his record player. He knew she wouldn’t phone, but even so he didn’t want to hear it ring.
She had probably waited until midnight before giving up. Then she would have washed her face, brushed her teeth, and gone to bed. Maybe he’ll phone tomorrow morning, she’d have thought as she turned out the lights. But the phone would not ring Saturday morning, either. She would open the windows, make breakfast, water the potted plants. She wouldn’t give up on his call for good until the afternoon. Then she would brush her hair and smile a few times in the mirror, as if practicing. Oh well, she would think, this is the way it was bound to end.
The Rat spent all that time in his room with the blinds pulled down, staring at the hands of the electric clock on the wall. The air never moved. From time to time he lapsed into a light and fitful sleep. The clock no longer signified anything. The darkness grew thicker and lighter by turns—that was all. The Rat could feel his body losing its substance, its weight, its sensations, but he bore with it. How long have I been like this, he wondered. How many hours? The white wall facing him wavered with each breath. Space grew dense, and began to invade his body. When he judged he could stand it no longer, the Rat took a shower and shaved, still in a daze. Then he toweled himself off and drank a glass of orange juice from the refrigerator. When he had finished, he changed into fresh pajamas and went back to bed. Well, that’s the end of that, he thought. This time he fell into a deep sleep. A terribly deep sleep.
24
“I’m leaving town,” the Rat told J.
It was six in the evening, and the bar had just opened. The counter was waxed, the ashtrays emptied of butts and scrubbed clean. The rows of liquor bottles were wiped and shining with their labels facing out, while a neat arrangement of sharply creased napkins, Tabasco sauce bottles, and salt shakers perched on each of the little trays. J was whipping up bowls of three different salad dressings. The smell of garlic hung in the air like a fine mist. That quiet moment befo
re the customers arrived.
The Rat had borrowed J’s nail clippers, and was trimming the fingernails of his left hand, dropping the clippings into one of the ashtrays.
“Leaving? To go where?”
“Nowhere in particular. Someplace new. A small town probably.”
J funneled the salad dressing into three large flasks. When he finished, he stuck the flasks in the refrigerator and wiped his hands.
“What’ll you do there?”
“Find a job,” the Rat said, carefully inspecting his fingers.
“What’s wrong with this place?”
“Not an option,” said the Rat. “I sure would like a beer.”
“It’s on me.”
“Thanks a million.”
The Rat took his time pouring the beer into a frosted glass. “Aren’t you going to ask why this town doesn’t do it for me?” he asked after draining half the glass in one gulp.
“I think I know already.”
The Rat laughed and clicked his tongue. “See, J, it doesn’t work,” he said. “The way everyone pretends to be on the same wavelength without questioning or talking about things—it doesn’t get anyone anywhere. I hate to say it, but…I feel like I’ve been hanging around that kind of world too damn long.”
“You could be right,” J said after some thought.
The Rat took a sip of beer and began working on the fingernails of his right hand. “I’ve given it a lot of thought. And I know the situation may be no different wherever I go. But I still have to leave. If it turns out to be the same, I can live with it.”
“Think you’ll ever come back?”
“Of course I will. Someday. It’s not like I’m running away from anything.”
The Rat took a few peanuts from the small bowl, opened them with an audible crack, and tossed their wrinkled shells in his ashtray. He took his napkin and wiped away the condensation his cold beer had left on the paneled counter.
The Wind (1) and Up Bird Chronicle (2) Page 19
