by Robert Maxxe
Back on the road, Carrie wondered why she hadn't made the call earlier, taken the pressure off. Nick could have finished his game, she wouldn't have had to blow up at him.
Then the pendulum swung in the other direction. Why did she have to feel so damn insecure about interrupting his silly game, the meaningless contest with a machine?
Her preoccupation with the matter was in itself confusing. She suspected that it might be subliminally related to something larger, the whole worrying business of television's influence over children—the hypnotic effect of that screen—and the modern malaise people felt in an increasingly computerized society. Foolish as it was, in the presence of that machine she had behaved for a second as though she were pitted against it in a struggle for control of Nick's will.
"I owe you an apology," she said to Nick as they drove into the outskirts of Millport. "I shouldn't have shouted at you before, not like that. I never want to embarrass you in front of other people."
"That's okay, Mom. It was my fault. I should've listened to you." He looked at her and smiled. "After all, it's only a game."
"You do play very well, though. You must have practiced a lot."
"Nah," Nick brayed. "There's one over at the candy store near school, and a couple others around town. I play now and then."
"How did you get so good at it?"
Nick shrugged. "You just learn. You get to understand the machine, and then it becomes really easy."
Yes, that was the secret, Carrie mused. Nick's generation had an instinct for communicating with these electronic contraptions that hers would never have. They had grown up with them, could take them in stride. And they could beat them, so they didn't have to be suspicious or timid around them. To Carrie, the computer or anything even vaguely akin still seemed a threat. Computers were things that screwed up your electricity bill in a way that could take endless phone calls and correspondence to untangle. Computers were things that stole your identity, put your name and statistics into their memory and turned them against you. Computers were enemies of humanity, dedicated to proving the superiority of machine over flesh and blood, the infinite capacity of an electronic mind unhampered by emotion. Carrie didn't know exactly where the attitude stemmed from, she only knew that it was part of her outlook.
It was time she got over it, she told herself. For the past three months her accountant had been suggesting she put a mini-computer in the store to keep track of inventory and accounts. She kept ignoring the advice. Business had been done for hundreds of years with pen and ink scrawled into ledgers; she couldn't believe her efficiency would be so improved as to merit spending four or five thousand dollars on the equipment. But maybe that was just a result of her limited outlook, her bigotry—this blind prejudice in favor of the human being.
It was nearly seven o'clock when they drove into town. Carrie turned onto Elm Street, heading for Alice Revering's house on the far side of town. The street was washed with the purple light of early evening, the sidewalk lamps glowing like moonstones set in amethyst. Here and there people scurried along the sidewalk, collars turned up against autumn winds that had blown in to stay. Carrie drove slowly, savoring the scene. She felt a rush of affection for the town, its tranquillity and safety; and, most of all, its resistance to change.
Approaching the east end of the street, she peered ahead toward Pooh's cottage, checking the progress of the renovation. Even from a block away she was able to perceive that the cottage had been freshly painted. The stark white of the siding stood out through the gloom like a square star floating in a void. Could the work be finished? Carrie wondered. If it had been painted, then all the other work must have been done. In just two weeks. The virtue of having an outside contractor, perhaps. She leaned forward over the wheel, anticipation rising. For all the curiosity that had swept the town about the new business coming to Pooh's cottage, Carrie was aware of no one who had yet picked up a hint. But if it was completed, there must be some clue. . . .
Driving nearer, she saw a steady glow emanating from the front windows on either side of the entrance door. Someone must be inside, working late to get ready for the opening. Carrie slowed the car for a better look through the windows.
Pulling even with the cottage, she saw that it was pitch-dark within. The cold blue light came from two electrified signs. Hanging in the middle of the two front windows, they seemed to animate the facade of the old house, transforming it into the caricature of a face, two square blue eyes flanking a straight nose. The whimsical effect momentarily blocked Carrie's attention to the illuminated signs, each spelling out the same word in neon.
"Look, Mom," Nick said.
Then she read the six letters. As their meaning penetrated, she couldn't help feeling dismayed. She understood now what the electric outlets were for, and beneath that understanding a curious feeling stirred that her clash with Nick over the game had been a kind of omen. Pushing her foot down hard on the accelerator, Carrie sped off down the street as if making a getaway.
Behind her the two neon signs went on shining. The steady ice-blue light seemed to etch the words immutably into the cold autumn air, the same word in each window.
ARCADE.
5
Five minutes after Carrie opened up the next morning, George Patterson walked in. A neat man with straight iron-gray hair, George owned the stationery and office-supplies store two blocks away and was also head of the Elm Street Merchants' Association.
"I suppose you've seen what's going on at the other end of the street," he said.
"Yes," Carrie said. "Are they opening today?" Patrick had not yet arrived, and she was on a ladder, placing some cans of olive oil on a high shelf.
"Got no idea when they're opening," George said. "But if it's up to me, it'll be never. Fact is, I'm making the rounds this morning to tell our members I expect to be asking for a special assessment to set up a legal fund."
"Legal fund? For what?"
The stationer had been pacing back and forth. Only now he stopped to look up, as if suddenly aware that he was talking to someone eight feet above him.
"To get these arcade people evicted," he declared.
Carrie climbed down from the ladder. "George, they haven't done anything wrong. Isn't it a little soon to talk about riding 'em out of town on the rails?"
"Think so? Maybe you haven't heard as many stories as I have about how fast neighborhoods and shopping districts can go downhill —especially when the wrong kind of people get their foot in the door." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Know who's behind these game places?"
"No. Who?"
"Same people who own all the jukeboxes and cigarette vending machines, that's who."
Carrie shook her head blankly.
Patterson leaned closer still, and his voice sank to a whisper. "Mafia."
Carrie stifled a smile. Whatever apprehensions she had about Mr. Peale, she couldn't imagine he had the remotest connection to the underworld. He projected too much quiet zeal, too much of a sense of mission. It just might fit with a dedicated capitalist. But there was none of the sly flexibility of someone used to bending the law. Peale was more like someone who made the law.
There was no way to counter George Patterson's suspicions, however. He would believe what he wanted to. Indeed, it was only because he consistently gave great weight to small matters that he could tolerate all the petty duties that came with being head of a small town's merchants' association.
"How do other members feel about contributing to this legal fund?" Carrie asked.
"I've already had a couple pitch in. Jim Hanson from the shoe store and Lily Arbuckle."
Hanson's Shoes and Lily's boutique were three blocks apart. Assuming George had gone in a straight line soliciting reactions, thought Carrie, the vast majority of merchants were not yet ready to man the cannon.
"I think I'd prefer to take a wait-and-see attitude myself," she told the stationer. "Of course, we'd all prefer it if Pooh's had been used to open a branch of
Cartier's. But I'm not going to worry. This new place may not even last. There have been lots of stories in the news lately about how badly the arcade business is doing. The boom seems to be over."
Patterson regarded her gravely for a moment. "I hope you won't be sorry. As for me, I intend to do everything in my power to keep Elm Street free of corruption!"
And safe for democracy, Carrie added silently. It was impossible not to think of George as a parody of the "main street" businessman. He even raised a warning finger in the air as he took the sacred vow to protect his business district, and headed for the door. Then he stopped. "Oh, by the way: the Missus says to save her a loaf of that Vermont soda bread. She'll be in to get it later."
Carrie permitted a smile to creep out after Patterson was gone. The Mafia! Mr. Peale? She couldn't help regarding the kind of anxiety that afflicted people like George Patterson as rather comic. If the shadow of a pigeon passed over, they were ready to sound the air-raid sirens.
Yes, there was something about having that place at the other end of the street that bothered her, too. But she also realized the feeling was purely subjective: she had simply liked it so much better when Pooh had been alive, when it was a place to go to rummage for bargains, and have tea on a winter afternoon.
Throughout the rest of the day, views on the arcade continued to be aired by customers passing through.
Juliet Wallace, the elderly grande dame who lived in a sprawling beach-front estate bequeathed to her by the stockbroker she had married when she was a Ziegfeld girl, vented her outrage.
"Shocking, to say the least!" she proclaimed when she came in to refresh her supply of Twining's Orange Pekoe. "A games emporium! My word, it knocks Elm Street right down to the level of the Coney Island boardwalk. I can't imagine this sort of thing ever happening in Southampton."
There were others whose alarm rested on more reasonable grounds than snobbery. Bev Marwick and Jill Sutter, both mothers of children Nick's age, spoke to Carrie about articles they had seen in newspapers and magazines reporting the temptation for some youngsters to while away their days and nights in arcades, spending their lunch money and neglecting their schoolwork.
"You know," Jill Sutter said, "there are other towns where they've organized to shut down these places."
And Bev Marwick brought up the case of a small town in Texas where local authorities had moved to close an arcade, and the owners of the establishment had fought back. The resulting legal battle had wended its way all the way up to the Supreme Court.
"What was the final decision?" Carrie asked.
Bev shook her head. "Last I heard the place is still open. Can you believe it—the courts have ruled that closing a game parlor would violate the Constitution?"
"In what way?" Jill demanded.
"First Amendment," Bev replied.
"Freedom of speech?" Jill said, amazed.
"Freedom of expression," Bev corrected. "The feeling is when you're standing in front of one of these games you're expressing yourself as much as . . . as if you want to spout off on your political opinions."
"Can you beat it?" Jill Sutter said, rolling her eyes.
But after the two women left and Carrie could reflect, she saw the sense behind the court's decision. If you permitted laws to be made against playing a game, any kind of game, then where did you draw the line? Dealing with the arcade boiled down to the thorny issue of censorship. And Carrie was unremittingly and unequivocally against censorship. She had been in college back in the Vietnam era, had known several young men who went off to the war and died, and she had been devastated by the waste of life. The most evil part of the war, she had come to believe, was that it had been fought without the consent of its participants, without anyone knowing the whole truth about its reasons or its results.
So she was against censorship in all its forms. In fact, it was probably her most deeply held political principle. Though she wondered sometimes under what circumstances her stand might soften: if, for example, a pornographic bookstore ever did open in Millport . . . No, even then, people had a right to their pleasures. Their games. If they were bad for kids in any way, then it was up to their parents and elders to exercise discipline.
She was not the only one who remained relatively sanguine about the arcade. Some people were so glad to see Pooh's cottage freshly painted, the sagging roof reshingled, that they didn't care what had brought the change about. A few even welcomed the idea of an amusement center for itself. Myra Lampkin, the town librarian, came into Treats as she did every day to buy a bottle of organic apple juice to have with her lunch. "What does that mean exactly?" she asked. "Arcade? I always thought that was a sort of passageway through a building."
Patrick explained that this was different, just a place to play games.
"What a perfectly sweet idea!" Myra said then. "Fills a need, I'd say—a place to go for a few minutes of harmless fun."
All that week it remained shut. People who tried to see what was happening inside were thwarted by large sheets of brown paper that had been taped over the windows just behind the neon fixtures. But since the departure of the builders and painters, there was absolutely no activity to suggest the place was being readied for an imminent opening. No trucks stopped to make deliveries. No one was seen going in or out. There was, in fact, only one thing to indicate that the business had not withdrawn.
At sunset every evening the two blue neon signs lit up.
ARCADE
All through the night they glowed, until at dawn they went off.
6
"It's open!" Patrick announced when he returned from lunch on Wednesday. He often used his midday break to stroll along Elm Street and compare window displays.
Carrie was at the meat-slicer preparing some Genoa salami to go out with a telephone order. She looked up in surprise. The opening of any new business in Millport was always preceded by some sort of commercial fanfare. Bunting was hung out over the sidewalk, free giveaways were offered; at least an announcement would be placed in Tides 'n' Tidings, the town's weekly newspaper. But there had been nothing at all for the arcade. One day it was closed, the next, open.
"What's it like?" she asked, looking back to the slicer. If you didn't watch it you could lose a fingertip.
"Not bad, actually." Patrick came behind the counter and tied on his apron. He ran his eyes down the list of other phone orders by the cash register and began assembling one himself. "Not a bit like the old penny arcades I remember from my misspent youth," he went on as he cut a wedge out of a wheel of brie. "They used to be such god-awful tacky joints, with chewing gum stuck to the floors, and creeps in raincoats hanging around." His eyes were distant as he put the cheese back in the cooler. "Come to think of it, the first time I was ever picked up by a man it might've been—"
"Patrick, if you don't mind, I'd rather not hear that part of your memoirs. Stick to the subject."
"What was the subject?" He was at a shelf now, selecting some canned items.
"The arcade. You said it's not so bad. . . ."
"Oh, yes. The decor's lovely, anyway. Wall-to-wall carpet, subdued lighting. Nice color scheme, too. Pale tones. A misty gray for the walls and—"
Carrie started to laugh. "You're putting me on. This sounds more like the ladies can at Bonwit Teller."
"Cross my heart. I told you it was different. Even the games."
"Naturally. They're electronic nowadays."
"No, not just that. It's the way they're arranged. Not all crammed in. In the whole place there's not more than nine or ten machines. Don't you think that's pretty weird?"
"Weird?" Carrie wrapped up the salami and put it in a cardboard carton with the rest of the order. "The only thing that sounds weird to me so far is the wall-to-wall carpet."
"I'm talking about all that space, the way it's used. Think about it, dear. With what you pay to lease this shop, would you leave half of it empty? That's not cost-efficient. The lease on that cottage is much more, and they could fit five or
six times as many games in there. . . ."
Carrie was quiet a moment. "Those computer games are fairly expensive, I guess. The owners probably don't want to plunge too heavily at the start. The town hasn't exactly welcomed this venture with open arms. There may yet be a move to close it down."
Patrick seemed to buy her reasoning. He shook his head. "Jesus, can you believe people being so asinine? With all the things there are to take a stand on—the nuclear freeze, unemployment, gay rights!—they have to get worked up about games."
"The problem is," Carrie said, playing devil's advocate, "that these things appeal mainly to kids. They can easily get too caught up. Somebody has to watch out for their interests, make sure they don't waste too much time and money."
"If these video games are for kids," Patrick responded, "then I can't see any reason to worry about what kind of education they're getting. I tried to play one of the things myself. Popped in my quarter, looked at the screen, and suddenly a whole big production number comes on—thousands of flashing lights moving around. Before I could figure out what the hell was the object of the game, I hear the thing go boom-boom, and the screen lights up with a sign: game over. I don't know what I did to lose or how I was supposed to win. For kids, you say? Looked to me like Einstein would've had trouble figuring it out."
"I know," Carrie said. "I've seen some of these games and they move too fast for me, too. But Nick gets in front of one, and he can play for hours on a single quarter. It's like his generation was born with some kind of electronic receiver in their heads."
Patrick nodded. "Yeah, I watched them playing in there. The kids get right on the wavelength."
Carrie put two large bottles of Perrier into the carton and turned to Patrick. "You saw children in the arcade?"
"Sure," Patrick replied. "Like you said, that's who it's for."