by Robin Reul
“Just needed for me to solder a few loose wires, add a few flipper rubber bands, fuses and lights, and it was good as new. Now, I should warn you that I have spent a great deal of time with this machine. Therefore, you should prepare to lose.”
“Not a chance,” I challenge him with a smile.
He laughs, and with that, the ice cracks. I feel like I get back a small piece of something I lost. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever experience again. I can’t let myself get attached to it. This is still too potentially combustible.
Over the next fifteen minutes, I completely let him kick my ass. As I drain my last ball, a smile spreads across his face, victorious. “What time do you have to head back?”
“I have no plans,” I tell him. “I’m on no schedule.”
It’s true. I don’t even know where I’m sleeping tonight, let alone what I’m doing tomorrow. It actually hurts my brain to think about it, so I try to focus on right now.
He grins. “I have someplace I want to show you I think you’ll dig.”
He won’t tell me where we’re going. Only that he’s helped the owner out a few times and I’m going to love it.
We relax into being with each other a little more. On the drive, we talk about all sorts of random shit like what we’re watching on Netflix to some song by some band he’s really into right now, and then ultimately wind our way back to Mei.
“They say you shouldn’t get into any relationships within your first year of recovery, so we knew it was dangerous to live together, but I didn’t have a lot of other options. One night I came home from work and found her wasted and partying with some guy in the apartment, and that was it. It wasn’t safe for me to be there anymore. I think that was probably the first time I’ve ever put myself first in the right way in my entire life.” Alex averts his eyes and nods his head toward a brick building with a turquoise awning up ahead. “Here we are.”
He slides into a parking space just past it. My jaw drops momentarily as I take in the front mural of pinball art and the large glass window that showcases some of the advertised more than ninety machines inside available for play. I seriously wonder if I’ve died and gone to heaven.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“The Pacific Pinball Museum. Four rooms with over a hundred machines from the 1940s on, an all ’80s jukebox, twenty bucks for all-day unlimited play.” I can see rows of machines lit up in play through one of the front windows.
As we enter the magical oasis, all thoughts of anything else fall away. I don’t even know where to start. I wander through it room by room, taking it all in. The walls are decorated with vintage murals, and every square inch of wall space is taken up with machines. They have a Seawitch from 1980, and of course an Addams Family because that’s the bestselling flipper game ever made. There’s a Modern Pinball Room, separate ones dedicated to machines from the 1980s and ’90s, and a fully working version of Visible Pin, the first transparent pinball game ever made. I run my hand over the front of the table. Ajay would seriously crap his pants with envy right now.
Alex points out the placards above each machine telling its history. There are so many here I’ve never seen in person. I can’t help but laugh and come to a stop in front of an Elton John Captain Fantastic pinball machine from the 1970s.
“Have you ever played this one?” I ask him.
“I can’t say I have,” he says. “It does have Elton John on the bumper caps though, which is pretty awesome.”
“It briefly made Bally the number-one pinball manufacturer for a game that was basically about a celebrity, which is hard to believe, right? They sold like seventeen thousand of these. Bally produced about eighty machines before they realized the extent of how borderline pornographic the artwork was. They recalled what they could, destroyed the backglass, and remade it using stars to cover up some of what was going on.” I point toward two people near the bottom of the screen by Elton John’s boot. “Like that lady has her hand down that guy’s pants, but you can’t see it because it’s covered over by a star.”
Alex leans in closer to examine the artwork. “Well, I’ll be damned. You sure know a lot about pinball.”
“I like how it’s never the same game twice. It’s art, it’s light, it’s sound—it stimulates all the senses. There’s nothing like it. I always thought it would be cool to open up a restaurant with the walls all lined with pinball machines, maybe a few classic uprights.”
“So—you want to franchise a Dave & Buster’s?”
I laugh. “No. Classier than that. A retro arcade slash restaurant and bar. A place to bring people together to escape reality, unwind, and have some fun.”
He nods approvingly. “I’ve seen stuff like that around. That would be cool. So, what’s stopping you?”
“From what?”
“From doing that.”
“Ummm…besides several hundred thousand dollars and the fact that it’s tricky to get a liquor license when I’m not even legally allowed to drink?”
“That’s what investors are for. You don’t need a fancy Ivy League degree for that; you need knowledge of the product. Maybe a good business partner. And passion.”
I allow myself to imagine it for a moment. It’s as viable an option as anything else at this point. “There would be a lot to learn about before it could become a reality. I’d have to spend the next few years researching pinball machines, writing business plans, doing market research, talking with experts, securing financing. I would imagine the first few years, any profit would be turned right back into buying more games, so I’d have to be prepared to do whatever on the side until it takes off.”
“The fact that you even know what you’d need to do tells me you’ve actually thought about this.” I totally have. He isn’t wrong. He selects two-player mode and pulls back the plunger, setting the ball in play. “You asked me before if I think you should go to New York, and I didn’t want to give you an answer, but I guess I am anyway. That look in your eyes when you’re talking about pinball or writing that book or opening that arcade bar, that rush you experience when you play a game—you should feel that, but it should be about the work that you do, the people you hang out with, the food that you eat, the music that you listen to. If this doesn’t seem like it has the potential to be that, I say don’t go.”
I laugh. “Seriously, who are you and what have you done with Alex?”
“Sorry—one of the side effects of rehab and step programs is it makes you think about all your shit and deal with it. My point being: you’re under no obligation to be the person you were before—a month ago, twenty-four hours ago, fifteen minutes ago. You have the right to change course. No apologies needed. The only expectations you have to live up to are your own. Anyhow, that’s my two cents.” His ball banks off a bumper and goes straight down the drain.
My father always told me he loved medicine because he felt like he was helping people. We connected over that aspect of it rather than the mechanics of the job itself. And that’s the part that’s still important to me. Letting go of the original plan we built together doesn’t have to mean letting go of that objective or falling short of it.
We play until closing, and they kick us out, the last ones to leave. By the time we get back to the car, it’s after ten and the moon is out, a waxing crescent peeking out between a smattering of clouds. Our evening is winding down, and I have no idea if or when I’ll see him again after this.
“Can I give you a ride back to the city?” Alex asks as we head back toward his car. “It’s getting late, and at the risk of sounding like a total grandpa, I probably should get to bed. I have to be up pretty early for work. Where are you staying?”
Good question. “Actually, I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“I just rent a room in someone’s house. I don’t have a couch or anything to offer, so I can’t invite you to crash with me. There�
�s a motel not far from me though, and it seems decent enough. I could drop you off there.”
I’m slightly disappointed that I can’t stay with him, but at this point I’m so exhausted that I only care about being horizontal soon.
“Cool. Maybe we could meet up in the morning for coffee or something before you go to work.”
“Yeah, sure,” he says.
Overall, I think tonight went really well. On the drive to the motel, I take in an awesome view across the bay of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city lights. “Wow.” I’ve seen my share of city lights in Los Angeles but nothing quite like this.
“Yeah, that’s what I say every time I see it,” he tells me. “Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Makes you realize we’re just specks. I mean, among those lights are millions of people, and every one of them has crap they’re dealing with. It puts things in perspective.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“So, when do you have to decide about going to New York?”
“By tomorrow at the latest. At least for the internship.”
“But you don’t start Columbia until the fall, right? You can always find another internship. You have some time to decide about the rest. Let it marinate. But just know—you don’t ever have to be someone you’re not for someone else’s benefit.”
We find ourselves behind a city bus, and my mind drifts to thinking about Hallie. She’s probably somewhere a few hours outside the city on her way back to Los Angeles. I visualize her, fists curled inside the oversize sleeves of her I Heart SF sweatshirt, earbuds jammed in, staring out the window at the same moon.
We reach the motel—a dumpy, two-story gray stucco structure on the corner of a busy intersection with a neon-pink VACANCY sign hanging in the office window. The kind of place where you probably want to sleep fully clothed on top of the sheets and the odds are fifty-fifty that the bed vibrates. Thankfully, it’s only for one night, and I’m not picky. Right now, the prospect of sleeping far outweighs curb appeal.
He points to a diner across the street. “How about I meet you there tomorrow morning around seven? Is that too early? I have to be somewhere at eight.”
“No, seven is good,” I tell him as I collect my things.
“Before you go, there’s something I gotta ask you,” he says. The look on his face is serious.
“Yeah, sure, anything.”
He puts the car in park and turns toward me. “What are you looking for from me exactly?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean did you come here looking for forgiveness to absolve yourself from guilt so you can go on with your life? Or are you just looking for someone else to make the decision for you about what you should do so if it doesn’t work out you can blame it on me? Because I’ve ruined enough lives through my errors in judgment, and I’m not up for adding to that list.”
“I—”
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer. “If you’re only here to feel better about yourself, then consider yourself forgiven, but I also ask that you just go, no hard feelings. I’m not saying that to be a dick; I’m simply trying to protect myself. You’re at a crossroads and looking to me for answers, and that seems like a huge responsibility.”
Now that we’re about to say good night, we finally get to the meat of it. I only wish it had happened earlier, so we had more time, but maybe it was by design. After all, he’s kept his distance for a reason, and obviously I’m part of it. By the same token, every time he screwed up, it pushed the bar higher for me to compensate, to prove that we’re nothing alike. At least not in the obvious ways. But he’s always been unapologetically who he is, and I’m the one pretending to be someone I’m not to make other people happy. It makes me think about the piece of paper I found with his stuff and his words about being authentic.
“I came here because I’m trying to figure out my life, and I think in order for me to move forward, I have to start by going backward. Look at all the pieces one at a time and be honest with myself, which requires me to be honest with everyone else too. I’ve missed you, and this last year I’ve really needed you. I think about what happened with you every single day, and I wish I could go back and erase that moment. Maybe everything that came after it wouldn’t have happened.”
“But it did happen, and believe me, I think about it all the time too. Things can never go back to being what they were, so we all have to make our own peace with that. I’m out here trying to live my life, doing the best I can, but it’s day by day, and if we’re being honest, your showing up here, looking to me for answers—it brings up a lot for me, and it’s a little overwhelming.” He averts his eyes and stares somewhere straight ahead out his front window. I can see that despite whatever work he’s done, he’s no more at peace than I am. Grief has no timetable.
“I get it. I’m not under the illusion that because we’ve reconnected, everything is back to normal, because I know it never can be. And I’m not looking for you to give me answers. I just want you to know that if and when you’re ready, I would really like it if we could be in each other’s lives.”
He considers what I’ve said. “I don’t know if I can be the person you need me to be right now.”
“I don’t need you to be anyone but yourself.”
He smiles and bobs his head as he kicks the car into gear. “Sleep tight, little brother.”
“See you in the morning.”
“Yeah. See ya.” I watch his taillights as he drives off, and although it didn’t go perfectly, at least it was a start. The door has been cracked open.
I wash my face and gently clean the tender skin where I got my tattoo. I lie on top of the covers fully dressed and let my head sink into the surprisingly comfortable pillow. It occurs to me as I’m falling asleep that Alex and I are the last remaining atoms and molecules of Dad left on Earth.
Chapter 22
Hallie
Saturday, June 5, 11:11 p.m.
My eyes are fixed on the small sliver of moon in the starry sky as the bus heads down the highway toward Los Angeles at a steady sixty-five miles per hour. I’m physically exhausted, and by all accounts, I should be sleeping, but now that I’m alone, the silence is deafening, and my mind is on hyperdrive.
The bus is freezing cold, and the guy next to me fell asleep and is precariously close to leaning on my shoulder. I tuck my hands into the sleeves of the sweatshirt Jack bought me and lean my head against the window. I breathe against the glass. It fogs, and I draw an upside-down happy face in the condensation. I feel a pang of missing Jack, which is weird because we’ve only just met. I mean, sort of; not really. Being with him was the perfect distraction.
Without him here and being in constant motion, the reality that Owen is gone is finally sinking in. It’s surreal.
Owen is dead. Owen died. Owen no longer exists.
My eyes well with tears. I dab them with the cuff of my sweatshirt. It’s impossible to imagine he’s not on the planet and that I’ll never speak to him again. Of all the kids I’ve met on the message board these past two years, he and I connected in a different way than the others. He was probably my closest friend. He helped me find the light in the darkness. I’ll miss his optimism and his twisted sense of humor. Having someone who understood me on so many levels was everything.
People say they understand, but they don’t. They don’t know what it’s like to be a teenager and not be able to do all the stuff your friends do because you feel weak or nauseous, to be watching numbers and checking levels and getting invasive tests and taking pills that make you feel worse than the illness itself. To be terrified to let yourself care about anyone and leave yourself vulnerable. Once they find out I have cancer, let alone see the scars on my stomach and soon potentially on my chest, it inevitably gets uncomfortable.
My hand reflexively reaches for my bracelet to rub the words on the metal band, my reminder to b
e strong and believe in myself, but I only find the skin of my wrist. The bracelet must have worked its way up my sleeve. I dig higher, but it’s not there. It must have fallen off somewhere. A momentary feeling of panic sets in, but then the thought occurs to me that maybe it’s time. It’s not enough to merely say alis volat propriis without living it.
It’s time to take the training wheels off the bike. Something has to shift. Happily ever after isn’t the sort of thing that’s just going to happen to me; I have to go out there and make it happen.
I have cancer, but it’s up to me if I let it control my life or define me. It always has been. Attitude is key. I can’t count on Owen or my parents or Jack or anyone else to make me feel okay about everything; I have to find that inside myself. While I’m here, I want to focus on enjoying as many days between as I can get instead of dwelling on what bookends them.
The guy next to me starts snoring loudly and wakes himself up. He adjusts in his seat, and I’m grateful for the extra two inches of space it creates.
I close my eyes and try to get comfortable. I’m still a long way from home. I’m hoping my parents will already be gone when I get back. Sunday mornings are super busy at the Pancake Shack. I’ll have all day to think about what I want to say.
The motion of the bus lulls me to sleep, and the next time I open my eyes, the bus is pulling into the station in Los Angeles. I reorient myself, stretch, and collect my things, following the other passengers into the terminal. Everything is exactly as it had been the night before when I’d been there with Jack, except the faces have changed. I look over at the spot where we’d been sitting when he invited me to go with him. The seat is now occupied by a woman knitting a really ugly scarf. Raisinets Guy has moved on, and Tuxedo Guy must have found a ride. The older lady and her granddaughter are no longer stretched out on the bench where we’d been at first. It seems like I’ve been gone forever, but it’s only been a little over twenty-four hours, and in that time so much has changed.