– No, sir. You can’t change your seat again. Oops, where’s he gone? That’s funny. Hmmm.
The old man smiled as the flashlight beam went through him.
The hot dogs looked naked in the steam bath of the Main Shooting and Game Alley, an amusement arcade on St. Lawrence Boulevard. The Main Shooting and Game Alley wasn’t brand new, and it would never be modernized because only offices could satisfy the rising real estate. The Photomat was broken; it accepted quarters but returned neither flashes nor pictures. The Claw Machine had never obeyed an engineer, and a greasy dust covered the encased old chocolate bars and Japanese Ronsons. There were a few yellow pinball machines of ancient variety, models from before the introduction of flippers. Flippers, of course, have destroyed the sport by legalizing the notion of the second chance. They have weakened the now-or-never nerve of the player and modified the sickening plunge of an unobstructed steel ball. Flippers represent the first totalitarian assault against Crime; by incorporating it into the game mechanically they subvert its old thrill and challenge. Since flippers, no new generation has really mastered the illegal body exertions, and TILT, once as honorable as a saber scar, is no more important than a foul ball. The second chance is the essential criminal idea; it is the lever of heroism, and the only sanctuary of the desperate. But unless it is wrenched from fate, the second chance loses its vitality, and it creates not criminals but nuisances, amateur pickpockets rather than Prometheans. Homage to the Main Shooting and Game Alley, where a man can still be trained. But it was never crowded any more. A few teen-age male prostitutes hung around the warm Peanuts and Assorted machine, boys at the very bottom of Montréal’s desire apparatus, and their pimps wore false fur collars and gold teeth and pencil mustaches, and they all stared at the Main (as St. Lawrence Boulevard is called) rather pathetically, as if the tough passing crowds would never disclose the Mississippi Pleasure Boat they might rightfully corrupt. The lighting was early fluorescent, and it did something bad to peroxide hair, it seemed to x-ray the dark roots through the yellow pompadours, and it located every adolescent pimple like a road map. The hot-dog counter, composed mainly of bells and pits of aluminum, exhibited the gray hygiene of slum clinics, which depends on a continual distribution, rather than elimination, of grease. The counter men were tattooed Poles, who hated each other for ancient reasons, and never got in each other’s way. They wore the possible uniforms of an infantry of barbers, spoke only Polish and a limited Esperanto of hot-dog conditions. It was no use to complain to one of them over an unanswered dime. An apathetic anarchy mounted out of order signs over the slots of broken telephones and jammed electric shooting galleries. The Bowl-a-Matic habitually divided every strike between First and Second Player regardless of who or how many threw. Still, here and there among the machines of the Main Shooting and Game Alley a true sportsman would be losing coin in gestures that attempted to incorporate decay into game risk, and, when an accurately blasted target did not fold away or light up, he understood it merely as the extension of the game’s complexity. Only the hot dogs had not declined, and only because they have no working parts.
– Where do you think you’re going, Mister?
– Aw, let him in. It’s the first night of spring.
– Listen, we got some standards.
– C’mon in, Mister. Have a hot dog on the house.
– No thank you. I don’t eat.
As the Poles argued, the old man slipped into the Main Shooting and Game Alley. The pimps let him go by without an obscenity.
– Don’t get near him. The guy stinks!
– Get him out of here.
The pile of rags and hair stood before William’s De Luxe Polar Hunt. Above the little arctic stage set an unilluminated glass picture represented realistic polar bears, seals, icebergs, and two bearded, quilted American explorers. The flag of their nationality is planted in a drift. In two places the picture gave way to interior-looking windows which registered score and time. The mounted pistol pointed at several ranks of movable tin figures. Carefully the old man read the instructions which had been Scotchtaped along with fingerprints to a corner of the glass.
Penguins score 1 point – 10 points second time up
Seals score 2 points
Igloo Bull’s Eye when entrance is lit, scores 100 points
North Pole when visible, scores 100 points
Walrus appears after North Pole has been hit 5 times & scores 1000 points
Slowly, he committed the instructions to memory, where they merely became part of his game.
– That one’s broken, Mister.
The old man pressed his palm against the pineapple grip and hooked his finger on the worn silver trigger.
– Look at his hand!
– It’s all burnt!
– He’s got no thumb!
– Isn’t he the Terrorist Leader that escaped tonight?
– Looks more like the pervert they showed on TV they’re combing the country for.
– Get him out!
– He stays! He’s a Patriot!
– He’s a stinking cocksucker!
– He’s very nearly the President of our country!
Just as the staff and clientele of the Main Shooting and Game Alley were to succumb to a sordid political riot, something very remarkable happened to the old man. Twenty men were swarming toward him, half to expel the disgusting intruder, half to restrain the expulsionists and consequently to boost the noble heap on their shoulders. In a split second the traffic had stopped on the Main, and a crowd was threatening the steamy plate windows. For the first time in their lives, twenty men experienced the delicious certainty that they were at the very center of action, no matter which side. A cry of happiness escaped from each man
