Pinball, 1973 Read Online Free PDF Page A

divided in two, and that the two halves were at war. It took another four days to explain why Nixon was bombing Hanoi.
    “And which side do you support?” asked 208.
    “Which side?”
    “You know, North or South?” pressed 209.
    “Hmm, it’s hard to say.”
    “What do you mean?” returned 208.
    “I mean, it’s not like I was living in Vietnam.”
    Neither of them would accept that explanation.
    Hell, I couldn’t even accept it.
    “They’re fighting because they think different, right?” 208 pursued the question.
    “You could say that.”
    “So there’s two opposite ways of thinking, am I correct?” 208 continued.
    “Yes, but… there’s got to be a million opposing schools of thought in the world. No, probably even more than that.”
    “So hardly anybody’s friends with anybody?” puzzled 209.
    “I guess not,” said I. “Almost no one’s friends with anyone else.”
    Dostoyevsky had prophesied it; I lived it out.
    That was my lifestyle in the 1970s.

Chapter 2
    The autumn of 1973, it seemed, deep down, held something spiteful. It was painfully clear to the Rat, plain as a pebble in his shoe.
    Even after that year’s all-too-brief summer had vanished, as if sucked up into thin air along with early September uncertainties, some small reminder of summer lingered on in the Rat’s heart.
    There he was, still in his old T-shirt, cut-offs, beach sandals. Back again to J’s Bar, where he’d sit at the bar facing J, downing overchilled beers. He’d begun smoking again after five years, and every fifteen minutes or so he’d glance at his wristwatch.
    The Rat could almost see the passage of time cleaving away-slice-at intervals somewhere down the line. Why it had to be like that, the Rat could never understand. He couldn’t find the severed end. And so he wandered through the dimming autumn twilight holding the limp cord. He cut across grassy knolls, crossed rivers, forced open any number of doors – but the limp cord didn’t lead him anywhere. Like a fly that winter has robbed of wings, like an estuary confronted by the open sea, the Rat was powerless, alone. An ill wind had blown in from somewhere, and to the Rat it felt as if his protective blanket of air had been sent sailing clear around to the other side of the globe.
    No sooner had one season slipped out the door than the next came in by another door. A person might scramble to the closing door and call out, Hey, wait a minute, there’s one last thing I forgot to tell you. But nobody would be there any more. The door shuts tight. Already another season is in the room, sitting in a chair, striking a match to light a cigarette. Anything you forgot to mention, the stranger says, you might as well go ahead and tell me, and if it works out, I’ll get the message through.
    Nah, it’s okay, you say, it was nothing really. And all around, the sound of the wind. Nothing, really. A season’s died, that’s all.
    * * *
    Every year it was the same: came that chill time of autumn-going-on-winter, this university-dropout-rich-kid and that lonesome Chinese bartender would be huddled together, just like an elderly couple.
    Autumn always hit hard. Those few friends who had been in town for the summer holidays would not even wait for September to roll around before they’d bid brief farewells and be off again to their distant haunts. Ever so subtly the colors changed, as if the summer light had crossed over some unseen divide, and the Rat would note that aura-like brilliance fading away around him. Soon the last breath of the warm dream has seeped away like a stream vanishing into the autumn sands, leaving no trace.
    Even for J, autumn was by no means a happy season. From the middle of September on, the number of customers would noticeably dwindle. It was a yearly thing, but that autumn’s decline was something to see. Neither J nor the Rat knew what to make of it. At closing time, there’d still be half a bucket of potatoes for fries left peeled and