Coins in a Slot

Joe’s Place wasn’t much, but it was the only bar in town where the machines twitched, the cat judged you, and the bartender knew exactly how much of your life you had left in the cigar box.

Marvin Pyke cashed his welfare check at the bar, ordered a draft, and touched off his fifth Pall Mall in the last hour. The drafts were the cheapest beers in the place, and the unfiltered Pall Malls were the last things available in the ship stores from his Navy days, so he was used to the bottom of the barrel. Preferred it, actually. No hassles, no worries, no sweat. He had everything he needed—from the patched quilt draped over his stooped shoulders to his warm sleeping spot in Joe’s back room, twenty feet away. Some men needed purpose; Marvin just needed quarters. Quarters kept the lights on in the one world where he mattered.

Joe dropped the change on the bar and fiddled with the flickering TV that had a habit of changing channels on its own. Marvin fingered the coins in the beer rings on the wood, playing little ice hockey games with them until he scooped them up and wandered to the pinball machine, beer in hand. The quilt trailed behind him like a royal robe.

“Hello, Charlie,” he said to the silver-painted left fielder under glass. “How they hanging?”

He rested his brew on the glass top and fed in a quarter. Beneath the dust and grime, the field lit up. Marvin flexed his fingers.

“Play ball,” he said, hitting the button. The ball popped out of the hole on the pitcher’s mound. “Strike one,” he muttered after swinging late. He took a sip and tried again.

Quicker now, he shot one to left, past Charlie and off the painted scoreboard. HOME. VISITORS. Crescent Pinball Machines, New York, N.Y.

Charlie flinched but couldn’t flag it down. Bells clanged. Lights flashed. Solid double. The outfielders twitched, ready for more. Marvin lined up the next pitch; it ricocheted off the seats in left—foul.

Metal clinked, gears shuddered, and the whole machine trembled alive once more. The scoreboard flickered like Joe’s old TV—unpredictable, with a mind of its own.

Marvin sipped, squinted at the mound, and sent the next ball screaming off Charlie. Bells hammered. Sparks flickered. Runs tallied. Another ball launched.

The game that never ended. The lights always shining. The crowd always roaring—mechanically, endlessly. And Marvin won. At the only game that mattered. As long as the coins lasted.

***

Joe

Joe’s Bar was a scruffy place, a haven for a couple of genial alcoholics, including Joe, off the beaten track where tugboats whistled a distant tune, railroad yards added their own tired choruses, and the occasional crow coughed from the smog. A patron might leave his Sterno long enough to take a leak, stretch his legs, and breathe a little yellow air in the alley before returning to nurse his drink.

Joe—the owner, bartender, and twenty-four-hour habitant—kept things simple. A couple of clean bar cloths. A cigar box with a couple thousand bucks for cashing welfare checks once a month. And a dusty old pinball machine in the corner. The machine was for Marvin, the only other guy in the bar most days.

Joe slept in the tiny flat above the bar, on a cot beside a closet containing seven pairs of Docker khakis, seven red button-down shirts that didn’t match them, and one pair of loafers—one brown, one green. The socks were all the same color, though half were ankle-length and half calf-length. Nobody noticed. Including Joe.

Marvin kept things even simpler. He cashed his monthly check downstairs and left all his money in Joe’s care. Joe kept him stocked in Pall Malls and doled out the welfare money fairly so it lasted the entire month, keeping it beside the bar rags in the cigar box. Marvin slept in an old Navy hammock Joe let him sling in the back room between cases of Thunderbird and Night Train Express.

He coaxed the pinball game along, gently at times, not so gently at others. The scoreboard inning indicator was frozen at the seventh—always the seventh—but the thunk-thunk-thunk and ding-ding-ding were in fine working order.

Joe chuckled as Marvin talked to Charlie in left field, peering down through the palm-stained glass. Marvin had named all the players but liked Charlie best. Said Charlie reminded him of himself when he played on a battleship’s team, years before.

Joe saw Marvin’s beer was empty and drew him a fresh draft. He kept a running tally, not for the money but for his friend’s well-being.

“Here you go,” he said.

“What are you and Charlie discussing?” Joe asked.

“Just telling him this was Yankee Stadium,” Marvin said. “The original one.”

Marvin adjusted the quilt around his shoulders—his constant companion. Joe lit him up with another Pall Mall, laid a few more coins beside the beer, and went back to polishing the sticky bar top that had been shellacked by decades of spills.

“Hey Joe,” Marvin called. “Charlie’s talkin’ to me.”

“Again? What now?”

“Wants me to clean the glass. Says he can’t see the ball through all that haze.”

Joe tossed him a clean rag. Marvin wiped the glass. The game resumed.

Just before closing they had a last-call drink together.

“Charlie asked me if I was God,” Marvin said.

“You are,” Joe replied. “To him.”

Marvin thought about that. “Then what does that make you? You keep me going. Feed me quarters. Give me a place to sleep.”

Joe wiped the bar in slow, tired circles. “Guess that makes me God to God.”

They both laughed at that.

***

If You Knew Susie

Susie would be a barroom slut—mean, alcoholic, with a bitten chunk missing from one ear—if Susie were a girl.

Susie was not. Susie was a male. A feline male. He slept under the drink-stained bar Joe wiped constantly, atop the bar rags and the cigar box full of cash. Warm and cozy. Perfect spot to catch whatever seeped through the ancient mahogany. He also favored the laundry basket, among wine-stained rags, and after hours atop the pinball machine, trying to lap the beer rings clean.

Charlie grumbled about this, losing sight of the ball through the haze. Susie purred and whispered back amiably.

Susie made his regular rounds—fresh brown air, alley fights, female companionship—but always returned to the beer-stained floors, peanut morsels, and ear rubs of Joe’s Place.

He sat with Marvin on the alley stoop one night, staring up into the smog. Warm light spilled from the bar behind them. Marvin’s quilt wrapped them both.

There is a god, Susie thought. And he’s right here with us.

But which one? The one who feeds the quarters—or the one who provides the quarters to feed?

***

The Writer

Baldy—who had a full heap of flame-red hair—was born Archibald Gramacy Baldwin but had lived with the nickname most of his life. He paused over his manuscript, Joe’s Bar, on the flickering computer screen. Write what you know was his mantra, and it had served him well. He sold much of what he wrote, and he wrote what he knew: bars, story arcs, and the thin line between fiction and fact.

What exists? he wondered. The bar, not just its name but the ancient mahogany artifact inside Joe’s Place. Its beer-stained surface, polished ritually by Joe’s ever-moving rag. Joe’s hand probably circled in his sleep.

What else exists? The cigar box. The pinball machine. More beer stains. Were there tables, chairs, booths? Not mentioned, only implied. Interesting.

Who exists? Joe and Marvin—great pals. Needed? Background? Arcs? Maybe. Maybe not. Charlie didn’t need much; he was mostly Marvin’s projection. Susie too. All characters in a bigger play.

So what was the bigger play? Open-ended questions. What is this place? Who are these characters? Who creates whom? Who is god, and when? Marvin creates Charlie’s world. Joe creates Marvin’s world. And Baldy? Well, Baldy creates them all.

Gods stacked on gods, each one real to the one below, each one created by the one above.

Baldy smiled, cracked a Pabst, and decided he’d think about it later. Maybe he’d write about it someday.

Or maybe someone already was.

All is pretty good—if not well—in the world.