I didn't say anything. It'd been a long time since I'd given a serious listen to someone else's troubles.
"But I'm only twenty," she continued, "and I don't want to end up like this."
Our conversation was temporarily brought to a halt while they arranged our dishes on the table.
"You're young," I said, "with everything still ahead of you, love, marriage. Your life's going to go through 311 kinds of changes."
"Nothing's going to change," she muttered, deftly wielding her knife and fork to crack the lobster shell. "Nobody's going to take a fancy to the likes of me. I'll spend my whole life assembling lousy roach traps and darning sweaters."
I sighed. I felt as if I'd suddenly aged years.
"You're cute, you're attractive, you've got nice legs and a good head on your shoulders. You crack a mean lobster. Everything's gonna work out just fine."
A glum silence fell over her, and she continued eating her lobster. I ate my lobster, too. And all the while I thought about the switch-panel at the bottom of the reservoir.
"What were you doing when you were twenty?"
"I was crazy about a girl." Back in 1969, our year.
"So what happened to her?"
"Things came between us."
"Were you happy?"
"If you look at things from a distance," I said as I swallowed some lobster, "most anything looks beautiful."
By the time we'd finished our food, the place had begun to fill with customers, the clatter of knives and forks, and the screech of dragging chairs. I ordered a coffee, and she ordered a coffee and a lemon soufflé.
"How about now? You have a girlfriend?"
After thinking it over, I decided to exclude the twins. "No," I said.
"And you're not lonely?"
"I'm used to it. I've had practice."
"Practice?"
I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke not half a yard above her head. "I was born under a strange sign. You see, whatever I've wanted I've always been able to get. But whenever I get that something, I manage to spoil something else. You know what I mean?"
"Kind of."
"Nobody believes me, but it's true. I only realized it myself three years ago. That's when I thought, better just not want anything any more."
She nodded. "And so that's how you plan to spend the rest of your life?"
"Probably. At least I won't be bothering anybody."
"If you really feel that way," she said, "why not live in a shoe box?"
A charming idea.
We walked side by side to the station. The sweater kept me comfortable in the night air.
"Okay, I'll keep plugging away," she said.
"Wasn't much help, was I?"
"No, actually, it took a load off me just to be able to talk."
We caught trains going in opposite directions from the same platform.
"You're really not lonely?" she asked one last time. And while I was searching for a good reply, her train came.
13
On any given day, something claims our attention. Anything at all, inconsequential things. A rosebud, a misplaced hat, that sweater we liked as a child, an old Gene Pitney record. A parade of trivia with no place to go. Things that bump around in our consciousness for two or three days, then go back to wherever they came from to darkness. We're always digging wells in our heads. While above the wells, birds flit back and forth.
That autumn Sunday evening it was pinball that claimed my attention. The twins and I were on the golf course watching the sunset from the green of the eighth hole. It was a long par 5 hole with no obstacles and no slope. Only a straight fairway like the corridor of an elementary school. On the seventh hole, a student from the neighborhood was practicing the flute. The sun was setting behind the hills to a heart-rending backup score of two-octave scales. Why, at that very moment, I had to get stuck on pinball machines, I'll never know.
Not only that, but as one moment followed the next, the pinball images expanded at a frantic pace in my mind. I shut my eyes, and my ears rang with the sounds of bumpers rebounding balls, and the score tallies clicking away.
* * *
In 1970, when the Rat and I still had our bouts of beer drinking at J's Bar, we were by no means the most earnest pinball players around. The machine in the bar was a rare three-flipper "Spaceship" model. The field was divided into upper and lower sections, the upper with one flipper and the lower with two. A model from the nice, peaceful times before solid-state circuitry inflated the world of pinball. There was a photo of the Rat and the machine, taken at the peak of his infatuation with pinball to commemorate his best score: 92,500. There was the Rat grinning away, leaning up against the pinball machine, also grinning away with the numbers 92,500 still in place. The only heartwarming photo I ever took with my Kodak Instamatic. The Rat looked like a World War II ace. And the pinball machine looked like a veteran fighter plane. The kind of fighter plane whose propeller the mechanic had to spin by hand, and whose canopy the pilot would slam shut once it was off and running. The number 92,500 forged a bond between the Rat and the machine, perhaps even a feeling of kinship.
Once a week, the money-collector-cum-repair-man from the pinball company would pay a call on J's Bar. He was an abnormally thin man of about thirty who almost never spoke to anyone. He'd come in, and without even so much as a glance over at J, he'd unlock the lid to the compartment under the pinball machine, and let the coins come gushing out into a canvas drawstring pouch. Then for a spot test, he'd take one of those coins, put it back into the machine, check out the plunger action two or three times, and finally let the ball fly with no trace of enjoyment. Next he'd aim balls at the bumpers to observe the condition of the magnets, send balls down all the rails, and into all the targets. Drop targets, kick-out holes, the lotto target. Then, last but not least, he'd hit the bonus light, and with a look of utter relief, drop the ball into the out lane to end the game. That done, he'd turn to J, give him this casual-no problems, eh kind of nod, and leave. All in less time than it takes to smoke half a cigarette.
I'd forget to tap the ash off my cigarette, the Rat'd forget to drink his beer. Just watching that commanding display of technique always took our breath away.
"I must be dreaming," said the Rat. "With technique like that, you could score a hundred fifty thousand, easy. Nah, more like two hundred thousand."
"He's a pro, what d'ya expect," I consoled the Rat. Even so, there was no salvaging the ace pilot's pride.
"Compared to that, my game's about as strong as a little girl's pinkie," the Rat pouted, falling into a silent huff that lead to visions of scores soaring to six digits.
"That's only a job to him," I continued my spiel. "It might have been fun at first, but just try doing that every day from morning to night. Who wouldn't be bored out their minds?"
"Not me," the Rat said, shaking his head. "You'd never see me bored."