Haruki Murakami - Pinball, 1973

* * *

It was past midnight Monday when the Rat pushed up the shutters to J's Bar. There sat J at a table in the half-darkened interior, the same as usual, doing little other than smoking a cigarette. J smiled and nodded when he saw the Rat come in. J looked ages old in the dim light. A stubble shadowed his cheeks and chin, his eyes bulged, his thin lips were cracked and dry. Veins stood out on his neck, and his fingertips were stained yellow with nicotine.

"Tired, eh?" the Rat asked.

"Kind of," J replied, then paused. "One of those days. Everyone has 'em."

The Rat nodded and drew up a chair at the table, sitting himself down across from J.

"Like the song says, rainy days and Mondays always get ya down."

"Ain't it the truth," said J, staring at the cigarette between his fingers.

"You ought to beat a path home and get some sleep."

"Nah, it's okay," J shook his head slowly, as if shooing away bugs. "Get back home and I wouldn't be able to sleep well anyway."

The Rat glanced down at his watch out of sheer reflex. Twelve twenty. There in that deathly quiet dim basement, time itself seemed to have passed away. In J's Bar with the shutters down, there was not a glimmer of the cheer he had sought here for so many years. Everything was faded, everything was tired out.

"Could you get me a cola?" J said. "And while you're at it, grab yourself a beer."

The Rat stood up, took a beer and a cola from the refrigerator, and brought them over to the table along with glasses.

"Music?" asked J.

"Nah, let's keep it quiet tonight," said the Rat.

"Like some kind of funeral."

The Rat laughed. Then, without a word, the two of them drank. The ticking of the Rat's wristwatch on the table began to sound unnaturally loud.

Twelve thirty-five. Yet it seemed as if an awfully long time had passed. J hardly moved. The Rat fixed his eyes on J's filterless cigarette burning up in the glass ashtray, even the stub turning to ash.

"Why're you so tired?" the Rat asked.

"You got me," J said, then rearranged his legs in afterthought. "Doubt there's any reason, really."

The Rat sighed and drank half the beer in his glass, then returned it to the table.

"Say J, I've been thinking, people – I don't care who – all get to rotting. Am I right?"

"Right enough."

"And there are many ways to rot." The Rat unconsciously brought the back of his hand up to his lips. "But for each person, it seems like the options are very limited. At the most say, two or three.

"I guess you could say that."

The last of the beer, foam gone flat, left a pool at the bottom of the glass. The Rat took a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and put the last one to his lips. "But y'know, lately I've begun to think, it's all the same to me. You're just gonna rot anyway, right?" J reserved comment, his glass of cola poised mid-sip while listening to the Rat.

"People go through changes, sure. But up to now, I never did get what those changes were supposed to mean." The Rat bit his lip and looked down at the table pensively. "Then it came to me. Whatever step forward, whatever the change, it's really only a stage of decay. Does that sound so off target?"

"No, not so very off."

"That's why I never felt the least scrap of love or goodwill toward the run of the mill people who go merrily about their way to oblivion not even in this town."

J said nothing. The Rat said nothing. He struck a match on the table, and after letting the flame slowly burn its way down the shaft, he lit his cigarette.

"The thing is," J said, "you yourself are thinking about making a change, correct?"

"Well, as matter of fact…"

A frightfully quiet few seconds passed between them. Maybe even ten seconds. Then J spoke up.

"People, you gotta remember, are surprisingly hit-or-miss creatures. Far more than even you're thinking."

The Rat emptied the rest of the beer into his glass, and downed it in one gulp. "I'm torn, what to do."

J nodded.

"No way to decide."

"I kinda figured that," said J with a tired, talked-out smile.

The Rat slowly stood up, and stuffed his cigarettes and lighter in his pocket. The clock read past one.

"Good night," said the Rat.

"Good night," said J. "Oh, and one last thing. Somebody said it: Walk slowly and drink lots of water."

The Rat smiled at J, opened the door, and climbed the stairs. Streetlamps brightly illuminated the deserted street. The Rat sat down on a guard-rail and looked up at the sky. And thought, just how much water does a guy have to drink?

The Spanish lecturer called on a Wednesday after a holiday weekend in November. My partner had gone off to the bank before lunch, and I was eating spaghetti the office girl had made in the apartment's dining-kitchen. The spaghetti wasn't bad, tossed with slivered shiso leaf in place of basil. A scant two minutes overcooked perhaps. We were locked in debate over the issue of spaghetti preparation when the telephone rang. The girl picked up the phone, exchanged two or three words, and then handed it over to me with a shrug.

"About the 'Spaceship'," he said. "I've located one."

"Where?"

"It's a little hard to say over the phone," he said.

And for a brief while, we both fell silent.

"You mean to say?" I puzzled.

"I mean that it's difficult to explain over the phone."

"One look tells all, eh?"

"No," he said, swallowing. "I mean, even if it stood before your very eyes, it'd be difficult to explain."

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I waited for him to continue.

"I'm not trying to be mysterious and I'm not just carrying on. In any case, might we get together?"

"Sure."

"Shall we say, today at five?"

"Fine," I agreed. "By the way, will I get to play?"

"Of course," he said. I thanked him and hung up. Then I started in on seconds of spaghetti.

"Where're you going?"

"I'm off to play pinball. I don't know the location."

"Pinball?"

"You got it, batting balls with flippers."

"I know what pinball is. But really, why?"

"There are – how do you say – things in this world our philosophy cannot account for."

She leaned on the table and propped her head up to think it over.

"You're good at pinball, are you?"

"Used to be. The one and only accomplishment I ever took pride in."

"I don't have any."

"Then you don't have any to lose."

While she gave that some more thought, I polished off the rest of the spaghetti.

"Little meaning is there to the things one loses. The glory of things meant to be lost is not true glory. Or so they say."

"Who said that?"

"I forget. But, anyway, it fits."

"Is there anything in the world that doesn't get lost?"

"I'd like to believe so. You'd do well to believe it, too."

"I'll try."

"Maybe I'm too much of an optimist. But I'm not that stupid."

"I know."

"I'm not proud of it, but it sure beats the other way around."

She nodded. "So you're off to play pinball tonight?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hold up your hands."

I raised both hands up toward the ceiling, while she carefully inspected the underarms of my sweater.

"Okay, off you go."

* * *

I rendezvoused with the Spanish lecturer at the coffee shop where we'd first met, and we caught a taxi straight away. Head up Meiji Boulevard, he said. Once the taxi was off and running, he took out a cigarette and lit up, then offered one to me.

He was wearing a gray suit and a blue tie with three diagonal stripes. His shirt was also blue, a shade lighter than the tie. I wore a gray sweater over blue jeans, and my scuffed up desert boots. I felt like a failing student who'd been summoned to the teachers' room.