To the side of the desk were a well-used drawing board and a desk lamp with a very long neck. The lamp shade was…green. The bed was straight ahead, against the far wall. A small Scandinavian model made of unpainted wood. It creaked like a rented rowboat when they were on it.
The fog was getting thicker with each passing moment, a milky darkness creeping across the beach. Now and then a car crawled past the Rat, its yellow fog lamps illuminating the road in front of him. The fine mist from the open window had soaked everything inside: the seats, the windshield, the Rat’s windbreaker, the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. The foghorns on the ships anchored at sea were emitting sharp, plaintive wails, like calves that had strayed from the herd. Some of the wails were brief, others long, but each had its own distinct pitch as it cut through the darkness on its way toward the mountains.
And on the wall on the left? The Rat continued to remember. A bookcase, a portable stereo, and records. A chest for clothes. Two prints by Ben Shahn. A modest array of books in the bookcase. Most had to do with architecture. Then there were travel books, guidebooks, travelogues, maps, a few best-selling novels, a biography of Mozart, sheet music, several dictionaries…a French dictionary with an inscription of some kind written inside the front cover. Most of the records were either Bach, Haydn, or Mozart. Also a few relics from her girlhood…Pat Boone, Bobby Darin, the Platters.
After that the Rat was stymied. Something was missing. Something important. Without it the room would remain floating in space, detached from reality. What was it? Okay, hold on a sec…I remember. The lighting and…the carpet. What sort of lights? What color carpet?…For the life of him he couldn’t remember.
The Rat was seized by the impulse to jump out of his car, cut through the trees, and knock on her door just to find out. Idiot! He sat back again and looked at the ocean. Nothing was visible except the white fog covering the dark sea. Deep within the fog, the beacon’s orange light flashed on and off, as repetitive and reliable as a beating heart.
The woman’s apartment floated in the dark for a while, minus its ceiling and floor. Then, one by one, its details faded until it had disappeared completely.
The Rat looked up at the roof of the car and slowly closed his eyes. As if flipping off a switch, he extinguished the remaining lights in his head and descended into a new sort of darkness.
17
The three-flipper Spaceship…her voice was calling me from somewhere. It went on like that day after day.
I sped through the work piled on my desk at a tremendous clip. I gave up my lunch breaks and stopped playing with the Abyssinian cats. I spoke to no one. The girl came to check on me every so often, then left shaking her head, appalled. I completed my day’s work by two o’clock and hightailed it out of there, tossing the completed manuscripts on her desk as I passed. My destination was the game arcades of Tokyo, my purpose the quest for the three-flipper Spaceship. But the quest proved fruitless. No one I met had seen or even heard of the machine.
“Wouldn’t the four-flipper Journey to the Center of the Earth do?” asked one arcade owner. “We just got one in.”
“No, it wouldn’t. Sorry.”
He appeared a little disappointed.
“Then how about the three-flipper Southpaw? Hit for the cycle and you get a bonus ball.”
“Sorry. I’m just interested in the Spaceship.”
Still, he was kind enough to give me the name and telephone number of a pinball enthusiast he knew.
“This guy may know something about what you’re looking for,” he said. “He’s what they call a catalog junkie. Knows more about pinball machines than anyone. Bit of a weirdo, though.”
“I owe you one,” I said.
“No sweat. Hope you find it.”
—
I went into a quiet coffee shop and dialed the number. A man picked up after five rings. He spoke softly. I could hear NHK’s seven o’clock news and a crying baby in the background.
I told him my name. “It’s about a certain machine,” I said, getting right to the point.
His end of the line went silent for a few moments.
“What machine might that be?” he said. The television sound had been lowered.
“The three-flipper Spaceship.”
I could hear him thinking.
“There’s a planet and a spaceship on the back cabinet—”
“I’m familiar with it,” he cut me off. He cleared his throat. “That model was launched by the Chicago company Gilbert and Sands in 1968.” His tone was that of a university lecturer fresh out of graduate school. “Some call it the machine of misfortune.”
“Machine of misfortune?”
“How about it?” he said. “Let’s get together—maybe we can work something out.”
Our meeting was set for the following evening.
We exchanged business cards and ordered coffee from the waitress. I was amazed to discover he was in fact a university lecturer. He looked a bit past thirty and his hair was thinning, but he was tan and well built.
“I teach Spanish,” he said. “It’s like sprinkling water in the desert.”
I nodded, dutifully impressed.
“Does your translation agency handle Spanish?”
“I look after the English and another guy takes care of French. That’s all we can handle.”
“How disappointing,” he said, arms still folded. He didn’t look disappointed, though. He fiddled with the knot of his tie for a few moments.
“Ever been to Spain?” he asked.
“No such luck,” I said.
The coffee came. We drank it in silence, with no more talk of Spain.
“The firm Gilbert and Sands came late to the world of pinball,” he said, breaking into his lecture. “From the Second World War right through the Korean War, their primary business was manufacturing bomb-delivery systems, but when the fighting stopped they took the opportunity to embark on a new path, what we call the peace industries. Pinball machines, bingo machines, slot machines, jukeboxes, popcorn vending machines—you name it, they made it. Their first pinball machine was completed in 1952. Not a bad job, either. It was very durable and cheap. But it didn’t spark people’s interest. To quote the review in Billboard magazine, it had all the sex appeal of a Soviet Women’s Corps government-issue brassiere. Still, from a business point of view it was a success. The machine was exported to Mexico, then to other Central American nations. Countries short on specialized technical know-how. They were happy to get sturdy machines that didn’t need the servicing more complicated models required.”
He took a sip of water. I could tell he regretted not having an overhead projector and a long pointer.
“Nevertheless, as you know, the pinball business in the United States, and by extension the world, was dominated by the companies known as the Big Four—Gottlieb, Bally, Chicago Coin, and Williams. Gilbert and Sands tried to force their way into this oligopoly, which led to a spirited, five-year-long battle. In the end, in 1957, Gilbert pulled out.”
“Pulled out?”
Nodding, he drank what remained of his coffee, grimaced, and dabbed at his mouth with his handkerchief.
“Yes—they were defeated. They still made money, though. From their Central American exports, you see. But they decided to get out before the bleeding got too bad…Manufacturing and maintaining pinball machines is a terribly complex operation. It requires a team of seasoned, specialized technicians, and planners to lead them. You also need to build a nationwide service network: agents who can supply parts when necessary and enough repairmen to reach a broken machine within five hours. Gilbert didn’t have the clout to operate on that scale. So they swallowed their disappointment and withdrew, shifting their resources to things like vending machines and windshield wipers for Chrysler automobiles. That went on for about seven years. But they never abandoned their plans for pinball.”
Here he came to a halt. He drew a cigarette from his jacket pocket, tapped it a number of times on the table,
and lit it with a lighter.
“No, they hadn’t given up. A matter of pride, I guess. They threw a big chunk of money into a secret factory for pinball research and covertly recruited Big Four retirees for their project team. The team’s orders were as follows: within five years, build us a pinball machine that can compete with the Big Four. That was in 1959. They took full advantage of those five years, so that by the end they had used their other products to establish a network that stretched all the way from Vancouver to Waikiki. With that their preparations were complete.
“They rejoined the game right on schedule in 1964 with their new model. The Big Wave.”
He pulled a black scrapbook from his leather briefcase, opened it, and handed it to me. In it were pasted what appeared to be magazine clippings, including a photograph of the Big Wave, diagrams of its playfield and board design, and even a play guide.
“It’s a unique machine, in fact, packed with all kinds of ingenious devices never seen before. Take the sequence pattern, for example. The Big Wave allowed you to set it to fit your own level of skill. People ate it up.
“Of course Gilbert’s innovations are all old hat now, but at the time they were startling. The machine was also constructed in a very conscientious way. First of all, it was durable. The Big Four were turning out machines built to last about three years, but the Big Wave was built to last for five. Second, it emphasized technique, reducing luck’s role in the outcome…Gilbert later produced a number of other great machines along the same lines. The Orient Express, Sky Pilot, TransAmerica—all praised to the skies by those in the know. Spaceship was the last model they released.
“Spaceship was radically different from its predecessors. The four machines that preceded it had been all about novelty, while Spaceship was extremely orthodox and simple. None of its mechanisms varied from what the Big Four were already using. In that sense, you could say it was a defiant gesture. They felt they no longer had to take a backseat to anyone.”
He was speaking slowly and distinctly, as if to a student. I nodded again and again as I sipped my coffee, and when that was finished, my water. When that was gone I smoked a cigarette.
“Spaceship was an enigma. At first glance there seemed to be nothing special about it. But that changed the minute you began to play. It had the same flippers as the other machines, the same targets, yet something about it was different. Whatever that something was, it captivated people’s minds, like opium. Why, I don’t know…There are two reasons I call Spaceship the machine of misfortune. First, no one grasped its true beauty. By the time they started figuring that out, it was too late. Second, its maker went bust. Gilbert was just too conscientious, I guess. So they got swallowed up by a conglomerate. That company saw no need to continue the pinball operation. End of story. That’s why Spaceship is known as the phantom masterpiece: few have actually played it, even though fifteen hundred were produced. The going price in the United States now is two thousand dollars, but Spaceship fans never get a chance to pick one up.”
“Why not?”
“Because nobody will let one go. They can’t. It’s a real enigma.”
With his lecture complete, he checked his watch, a habit of his, and lit a cigarette. A second round of coffee arrived.
“How many machines were exported to Japan?”
“I looked into that. Three.”
“Not very many.”
He nodded. “That’s because Japan wasn’t part of the distribution network Gilbert had set up. In 1969 an importer brought a small number to Japan on a trial basis. Those three. By the time he decided to increase the order, Gilbert no longer existed.”
“Do you know where those three machines are?”
He stirred sugar into his cup for a long time and scratched his ear.
“One ended up in a small game arcade in Shinjuku. That arcade shut down two winters ago. The machine’s whereabouts are unknown.”
“I’m familiar with that case.”
“Another went to a game arcade in Shibuya. That place burned down last spring. Fire insurance paid for everything, though, so no one lost out. Other than the fact that one more Spaceship was lost to the world…The more I think about it, the more fitting ‘machine of misfortune’ seems.”
“Kind of like the Maltese Falcon.”
He nodded again. “But I have no idea where the third machine went.”
I gave him the address and telephone number for J’s Bar. “It’s not there anymore, though. He got rid of it last summer.”
He jotted down the information in his notebook as though recording a message from on high.
“The machine I’m interested in is the one in Shinjuku,” I said. “Can you find out what happened to it?”
“There are several possibilities. Most often, machines are sold for scrap. The turnover is very rapid. A machine depreciates in three years, so it makes more sense to get a new one than it does to pay for repairs. Not to mention the role that fashion plays. So they’re scrapped…The second possibility is that someone might have picked it up secondhand. Old models that are still usable frequently end up in small bars, where they spend their last days being pawed by drunks and amateurs. The third possibility is that a collector might have picked it up. That’s very rare, though. Eighty percent of the time they go for scrap.”
I gave myself over to dark thoughts, an unlit cigarette between my fingers.
“Regarding the last possibility, is there any way to check?”
“I could try, but it would be difficult. Fellow enthusiasts have no way to contact each other. No registers, no bulletins…But we can still give it a try. I have some interest in Spaceship myself.”
“I’m deeply grateful.”
He settled in his chair and puffed on his cigarette.
“Tell me,” he said. “What was your best score on Spaceship?”
“165,000.”
“That’s something,” he said without changing his expression. “Really something,” he repeated, scratching his ear again.
18
I spent the whole next week in an oddly peaceful and quiet mood. Pinball was still ringing in my ears, but it was faint, not like before, when it was like the mad buzzing of a dying bee in a pool of winter sunlight. As autumn deepened, piles of dry leaves mounted up beneath the trees that surrounded the golf course. They were being burned here and there on the gentle suburban slopes; from our window we could see slender plumes of smoke rising straight into the air, like magic ropes.
Gradually, the twins were becoming a little less talkative, a little more meek. We took walks, drank coffee, listened to records, and slept entwined under a layer of blankets. On Sundays we strolled to the botanical garden an hour away to munch on mushroom and spinach sandwiches under the oaks. The sharp cries of black-tailed birds rang from the treetops.
Since the air was growing chilly, I picked up two new sport shirts and gave them to the girls together with two of my old sweaters, so 208 and 209 were replaced by olive-green turtle-neck and beige cardigan. The twins did not complain. Then I went out and bought them socks and new sneakers. I felt like Santa Claus.
The October rains were a treat. Cotton soft and fine as needles, they soaked the withered golf course. This time, though, the earth absorbed every drop, leaving no puddles behind. The groves were filled with the fragrance of wet fallen leaves; in the late afternoon, sunlight filtered through the trees, dappling the ground. Birds cut across the forest paths like runners in a race.
—
My days in the office were almost as pleasant. The work crunch had ended, so I smoked cigarettes and listened to tapes of classic jazz musicians like Bix Beiderbecke, Woody Herman, and Bunny Berigan as I worked, pausing every other hour for a shot of whiskey and a cookie or two.
Only the girl was busy, checking timetables, making plane and hotel reservations, and, as if that weren’t enough, mending two more of my sweaters and replacing the old metal buttons on my sport coat with new ones. She had changed her hairstyle an
d shifted to pale pink lipstick and thin sweaters that called attention to her breasts. She had begun to blend with the autumn air too.
A wonderful week that lulled us into believing things might stay that way forever.
19
The Rat found it nearly impossible to tell J he was leaving town. For some reason, the idea was eating him up. Three nights running he went to the bar, and all three nights he left without raising the subject. Each time he tried to say the words, his throat turned bone dry and he had to drink a beer. Then he would have another, and another, until he was overcome by an unbearable sense of futility. Damn it, he thought, what is the point of struggling like this? Where is it getting me? Nowhere.
When the clock pointed to twelve, the Rat gave up and, with a certain sense of relief, said his usual good-night to J and left the bar. The evening breeze had turned cold. He went back to his apartment, sat on the bed, and turned on the TV. Then he opened a can of beer and lit a cigarette. There was an old Robert Taylor western, commercials, the weather report, more commercials, and finally white noise…The Rat turned off the TV and took a shower. Then he had another can of beer and smoked one more cigarette.
Where would he go once he left town? No destination presented itself.
For the first time in his life, he felt real dread. Black and glistening it was, like a mass of eyeless, pitiless worms creeping up from the bowels of the earth. They wanted to drag him down, back to where they had come from. Their slime oozed through his body. He cracked open another can of beer.