= "Pinball Zen"
  by Ray Nayler


"Your girlfriend's outside waiting for you."

"Where?"

"Just outside."

Stan went out, pausing to tell a kid that he couldn't drink soda in the arcade.

"I'm not drinkin' it, just carryin' it."

He stopped a second, staring at the kid's broad, stupid face. There was a thin blond mustache trying to grow above the kid's lip.

"What was that?"

The kid's mouth opened, but his friend pulled him away.

Jen was standing outside next to one of the big cement ashtrays, smoking. She had her arms wrapped around herself because it was too cold for her T-shirt; the cold made the skin on her arms blotchy.

"Hey. Phil called."

"What'd he say?"

"I didn't answer it. He let a message on the machine. Said call him back. He sounded pissed."

"Okay."

"You gonna call him?"

Her lipstick was too dark for her face. Under the mercury vapor lights she looked old. Stan could see the lines and pits in her skin.

"I already talked to Phil. I already went over it with him. What am I gonna say?"

"You just gotta make him believe it. I mean, it's true, right?"

Stan looked up into the light and watched a moth whacking himself against it.

"You act like you don't believe me either."

She finished the cigarette and mashed it out on the cement. Stan looked at the ashtray and back at her, but she didn't get it.

"What the hell are you smiling about? This is serious. He thinks...."

"What do you know about what Phil thinks?"

"Oh, right, what do I know," she said meaninglessly.

Back in the arcade, Jason was opening one of the machines up to give a kid a free game, then smacking the machine shut and locking it. Jason had long hair that hung in his face. He never paid attention to anything.

"That kid pulls that crap every time he comes in here," Stan told him.

Jason looked at him through his hair.

"It's no skin off my back, man. I could care less."

"Right."

Outside on the mini-golf course, a couple was kissing, two shadows near the lit-up blades of the windmill. Jason bounced one of the green golf balls against the counter and caught it.

"Some guy called for you."

"Some guy?"

"While you were out with Jen. Didn't leave a message or anything. I told him you were on break." Jason took his apron off.

"Don't you close with me tonight?"

"No. I'm off at ten-thirty. I closed the snack bar, though. I cleaned the butter pump, even."

"Thanks."

"So I'm gonna go, if that's cool."

"Sure." Stan saw Phil come in through the double doors but pretended he didn't. Phil was wearing his stained army jacket. His head was freshly shaven, gleaming under the arcade lights.

"So you want me to sweep up or anything before I take off?"

"Don't worry about it."

Jason balled his apron up and went out. Phil was loitering by one of the old Pac-Man machines, his back to Stan. There were a couple of kids in backwards baseball caps at the Street Fighter machine, kicking the virtual crap out of each other. Otherwise, the place was empty. The machines bleeped and shouted at one another. The Altered Beast game in the corner said "RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!!!" over the rest of the noise. They'd had it fixed the week before, and the tech had set the volume up too loud. Stan pretended to mess with his register, watching Phil out of the corner of his eye. Eventually, Phil got tired of being ignored and came over.

"Hey."

"Hey."

There was a scab at the corner of Phil's mouth. Stan thought of Phil kissing Jen, back when they were going out. He wondered what diseases he might be catching from Phil. Phil's fish-white hand darted over the counter and they shook. Phil always shook hands. It was one more thing for his hands to do. They were always moving--picking at something or running over his shaved head or popping into his mouth so he could bite the nails to the nub.

"I called your house."

"Yeah, Jen said."

"I didn't see anything in the paper. You?"

"Of course not."

"Don't think he called the cops."

"Doesn't seem like it."

Phil's eyes were red, the pupils huge, the way they always were. He used speed the way some people smoked cigarettes--to pass the time.

"Haven't slept in three days." Phil put a finger in his mouth and started chipping away at the nail. "I gotta have that half. It'd be one thing if you were just stashing it because you thought the cops...."

"Look...."

"No, serious. I gotta have it. I mean, I can understand you holding out if...."

"Phil...."

Phil smacked his fist down on the counter.

"You think you're better than me? I gave you the tip, man. I lent you the gun. You owe me."

Stan leaned in close to Phil, though it wasn't as if anyone could hear them over the chatter of the machines. "Look. He didn't have anything, Phil. He didn't. Why would I string you along? I'd give you your half if there was anything to give, but there was nothing."

"That's not what he said. He said he lost ten grand."

"You've been talking to him?"

"I called him up yesterday. Said I'd heard a rumor."

"Are you nuts?"

"How would he know it was me tipped you?"

"What if he didn't tell anyone else about it?"

"'Course he did."

"Who?"

"How would I know? Besides," Phil leaned in. Stan could see the tic and jerk of speed in his eyes, could smell the wet mouth and the rotting teeth. "What do I have to lose? I didn't do it. You did."

"He's telling you a story, man. I stuck the gun in his face and I made him show me where you said it would be. It wasn't there. There was nothing there."

Phil looked over at the two Street Fighter kids. A fireball skated across the screen. In the corner, the Altered Beast machine howled.

"He said if I found out who did it, he'd give me five hundred bucks."

"And...."

"And nothing. I want five thousand, not five hundred. But if you're gonna jerk me around, I guess I'll have to settle."

"Phil." Stan grabbed his wrist. Phil pulled away. "Phil, he didn't have it. I'm telling you. He's putting you on. Maybe he figures you tipped me."

"This is over," Phil said. "You and me? Over. Jen said you were acting funny."

"Jen said what?"

Phil raised one chewed hand and went out the door.

The couple came up with their clubs and slid them in the window.

"Thanks."

Stan leaned into the microphone. "The arcade will be closing in five minutes. Please finish your current game. The machines will be shut off in five minutes, and no refunds will be issued."

The two kids looked around for the robot voice that had come out of nowhere. Stan went outside and lit a cigarette. It was getting colder. He stared at Jen's mashed cigarette butt on the cement. There had been nothing. The whole thing was like a dream--the stink of Phil's ski mask, David opening the strongbox and showing him the gray steel bottom, the single dollar bill sliding across the metal. David with his wide Native American face lying calmly on the floor, letting Stan tie his hands with the plastic lock-rings, and saying:

"Who put you up to this? Who was it? You tell him...."

"Tell him what?" Nuzzling the barrel of the gun into his greasy scalp.

"Nothing. Forget it."

The kids came out and walked toward the parking lot, speaking to one another in Tagalog. He watched their white caps going away.

Inside, the Altered Beast machine shouted "RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!!!" again. He walked in and yanked its plug. After counting his register out, he dropped two tokens into the old Star Wars pinball game. It had a defective flipper that hit the ball too hard, but it was the only game in the arcade that he played. He was used to the flipper. He made the skill shot for two million, hit the ramp three times to light up the extra ball, and then battered the Death Star open for the tri-ball. Sometimes he could play, and sometimes he couldn't. Tonight he was on. By the second ball he had the replay, and he made the victory lap for 25 million. Even his bounces were lucky, as if the ball just didn't want to go down, He loved the cheesy quotes from the movie, the way the scratchy Leia voice said "This is some rescue!" when the third ball finally dropped.

Sometimes he could play for hours on a couple of quarters, and other times it was one play and nothing else. There was a secret to it--some perfect level of distraction, of Zen, he called it, that you had to have to play well. The ball seemed to know when you were trying too hard, and dropped right between the flippers every time.

In the second game he scored close to 200 million, the machine clacking out the replay before the first ball had even dropped. So Jen and Phil were talking? Let them. If she wanted to get back with her psycho speed-freak ex-boyfriend, that was her business.

An hour later he gave up. He just couldn't lose, and he left four unused credits on the machine. His eyes had begun to hurt, and his fingers were numb but still perfect on the side buttons. He flicked the main switch, and the machines turned off with an electric sigh. He locked the door. Let them sweep up in the morning.

The night had gotten colder, and frost sparkled on his windshield. The lights on the El Camino went from red to green to red again in sequence.

He heard the three pops, hollow like someone stabbing a balloon. He was on the ground, looking at his tire. His ears were ringing. There was another pop when he tried to stand up, so he lay very still. What was the trick? Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Maybe it was just luck.

A car started somewhere. 

No, it couldn't be just luck. There was more to it. He closed his eyes and tried to think.


RAY NAYLER was born in Desbiens, Quebec. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines, from Ellery Queen to Crimewave to The Berkeley Fiction Review. His first novella, AMERICAN GRAVEYARDS, is now available as a Crimewave Special from the publishers of Crimewave magazine; details are available at www.ttapress.com. Ray lives in California. He can be contacted at like_the_rabbit@hotmail.com.

Copyright (c) 2001 Ray Nayler