Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

“I’m riding in back with it,” she squeaked, climbing in.

“Fine.”

John followed in the Trans Am.

They unloaded the machine onto the street, and Grace stayed with it while Henry and John parked. Then they wrestled it into the back room, complicated by the three steps that connected the room to the bar area. Luckily, the bartender was there, a hefty fellow named Lou, and he helped get it up the steps.

“Can I try it out?” Lou asked.

“Sure. We just have to get it set up,” John said, getting his level out. “We need to prop that side up.”

Henry slid a shim under the leg nearest him. “How’s that?” He wrote something in his notebook. “We should build screw levels right into the legs. There’s no telling what kind of floor these things are going to be on.”

“That’s level.” John took the gaming sticker out of his pocket and stuck it to the glass. “I think it’s ready. Plug it in. Grace, do the honors.”

Grace found an outlet in the floor and the game started up with a bit of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

“I like that,” John said.

Henry smiled. “Grace wouldn’t let me do ‘Caveman Rock.’ ”

“And right she was.”

Lou played a quick game against John. John easily passed the ball from flipper to flipper and slammed it down the center of Lou’s play field.

“Fuck!” he yelled as the tenth straight ball went down his outlet. “Damn. That was fun. Let’s go again.”

Lou played John again and managed three scores. He stood up, and said, “You guys should start making a few more of these right now.” Then in a whisper, he said, “Ray splits thirty-seventy with the jukebox people. He’s ripping you guys off.”

John nodded, then shrugged to his three companions as Lou walked back to the bar. “Oh, well.”

“Back here at what? Seven?”

“Yeah. It’s a Wednesday night. Who goes to bars on a Wednesday night?”

“People with quarters, I hope,” John said.

The game was sitting unplayed when they got there that evening. Henry checked with the bartender.

“No one played it,” he said.

The bar was relatively empty. A couple locals were playing pool and a few people were watching a baseball game on the TV above the bar.

“That’s ’cause they don’t know how,” Grace said. “Come on, John. Let’s make some noise.”

They played three games, and by the end of the third everyone in the bar was standing around them.

“I’ve got winner,” someone said.

Woodman’s was the place to be, and Ray had to open his doors at noon for the college students who wanted to play pinball. They cleared close to one hundred dollars one day.

“We need to redesign the flipper,” Grace muttered. “It keeps burning out.” They were sitting at the Burger Chef, eating a quick lunch.

“You showed Lou how to fix it,” John said.

“Yeah, but if it was properly designed, he wouldn’t have to fix it every other night.”

John finished with his calculator. “One hundred and twenty-two dollars and fifty cents apiece.”

“What?” Henry said.

“That’s a chunk of change,” Grace said.

“Not bad for two weeks,” John said. “But I didn’t take out anything for parts. I assume we donated that stuff for the good of the project.”

“Is it a project still?” Henry asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it needs to be, I dunno, a company?”

“Why?” John asked.

“One machine brings in three thousand bucks a year. Ten machines bring in thirty thousand. One hundred machines bring in over a quarter-million dollars per person sitting at this table!”

John nodded. “Do we want to do that?”

“Maybe we have to,” Grace said. “To protect ourselves.”

“How much time are we going to have to do this during finals? And next quarter is even tougher than this quarter,” Henry said. “I know I won’t have time to run a company.”

“You may be right,” John said. “Let’s give it another week and see if this fad sustains itself.”

“We’ve got the tournament this weekend,” Grace said. “I’m putting up flyers.” She showed them the electric orange flyer she had designed. It showed a huge ball speeding past a flipper. It read: “Pinball: The Best Game in Town. Tournament, this Saturday, Woodman’s. Bring your quarters.” She grinned.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?” she said.

“And bright,” John said, shielding his eyes. John blinked. He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Through the glass he saw Casey getting out of a car. She was smiling, leaning down with one hand on the top of the car to speak with whoever was driving.

Casey had said she was studying, John remembered.

And then the driver stood up, and John recognized Jack. His stomach clenched, and he felt the food he’d just eaten begin to rise.

Grace glanced over her shoulder, looking for what John was staring at.

“Oh, man,” she said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t find out.”

John felt a surge of anger. He slammed his cup down and rose.

Henry put a hand on John’s shoulder, but he was already up and headed toward the door.

His eyes were riveted on Casey and Jack. She had taken his arm and was leaning heavily on him. John swung the door open in Casey’s face.

She flinched, then saw who it was.

“John!”

“Casey,” he said coldly. “Jack.”

“Hey, dancer,” Jack said. “Excuse us.”

“Jack, let’s go someplace else,” Casey said.

“I thought you were studying,” John said.

“No, I want a Big Shef,” Jack said.

“Listen, John,” Casey said. “I didn’t want you to find out, but…”

John looked at Jack’s smirk and Casey’s pale face. She wasn’t upset, just embarrassed. He realized they’d been cruising toward this inevitably. In fact, he felt a moment’s relief. He didn’t ever have to explain to her about the device. He didn’t ever have to hide it from her again. It was really for the best.

“Sure, yeah, I’ve been seeing other people too,” John said. “It’s for the best. See ya.”

He pushed past the two and got in his Trans Am. His heart was thudding. There were a million other girls in the world anyway. There were a million other Caseys for that matter. This one didn’t even matter. This one could date Jack for all he cared. He’d have his choice of Caseys one day.

A local high school student won the tournament, beating Henry in the finals ten to eight. Henry sulked for an hour, then challenged the kid, pockets lined with the one-hundred-dollar prize, to a rematch.

“We should do this every weekend,” Grace said, her voice slurred from alcohol. She leaned heavily against John. “I love organizing these things.”

“You did a good job.” The music blared from the jukebox, and he felt her hopping to the beat. It reminded him of the dance he’d gone to with Casey. It seemed a long time ago. He hadn’t seen her since the Burger Chef, and that was fine with him.

Grace must have been thinking about Casey too, because she said, “John, I didn’t bring it up ’cause of Casey and that.”

John looked at her. “Bring what up?”

She looked away. “I wanted to let you get over it.”

“Grace, what do you mean? It was last week.”

“I love you, John.” She finally looked him in the eye.

He recoiled from her, and her face fell.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, and fled, running back toward the bar.

John stood stunned for a moment, then followed her, jumping down the three steps to the sidewalk, but she had disappeared into the street.

“Damn it all.” He sat at the bar, which was relatively quiet compared to the back room.

“Hey, John,” Lou said.