John Power
Plinko
Raymond sat in the lounge with the t.v. on and a newspaper laid out in front of him at the table. It was an old card table, a little wobbly, but it was a good place for lunch or breakfast. Commercials were on the television so Ray was looking at the paper—he didn’t want to lease a new car, have kitchen floors smell like pine trees, he didn’t give a damn about the Gap, and those shoe ads just annoyed him. The paper was all separated out into piles: read, to be read, and reading. In the “read” pile lay the comics and the ad inserts. He didn’t actually read the ads, but he had no plan to either. He liked the comics, but they just haven’t been the same since Garry Larson stopped writing The Far Side. Ray always made an attempt to do the crossword, but he usually stopped after getting seven or eight. Meg was always better at the crossword than he was. She was good at the jumble too. In the “reading” pile was the sports section, and the rest of the paper lay in the “to be read” pile. Ray always wanted to read the whole paper, but he usually never got around to it after he was done with the sports. Raymond was checking the box scores on the ball games from last night. He didn’t really have a favorite team or player, he just liked the game. When he was done with the box scores he checked if there was an article on bowling. There wasn’t. Ray reached for his coffee mug and noticed it was empty.
He pushed the chair back from the table, stood up, and walked the ten paces over to the coffee machine on the counter. He grabbed two packs of sugar, tore them in half, and dumped them into his mug. The mug was an anniversary present from Meg. It had a picture of the whole family on it, even the dog was included. He poured the last of the coffee into his mug and grabbed a small brown plastic stirrer to mix up the sugar. Ray took a sip of the coffee but it was too hot, so he sat the mug back down on the counter. He took the old filter out of the coffee machine, put a new one in, and added four scoops of grinds. He filled up the pot with fresh water from the sink, poured it into the coffee machine, and turned it on so there would be more coffee in a few minutes. Ray cupped his left hand and held it at the end of the counter while he swept spilled grinds into it with his other hand. He stepped on the lever to open up the garbage pail and dumped in the grinds, the sugar packets, and his stirrer. A strange smell came out of the garbage when he opened it, and Ray wondered when was the last time it was emptied. He put one of the powdered doughnuts on a paper towel and grabbed his mug as he went back to his seat. He looked up to see if Regis and Kathy Lee had come on yet, but it was still just commercials, so he went back to the sports section.
Steve opened the door and walked into the lounge. He took off his raincoat and hung it on the coat rack as he took his paper out from under his arm and tossed it onto the couch in one fluid motion. He rubbed his eyes and forehead, gave Ray a wave, and walked over to the counter to fix himself some coffee—heavy on the sugar and milk.
“How was your weekend, Ray?” asked Steve.
“Alright, I suppose. Spent all of Saturday under the cars and all of Sunday on the ladder.”
“What’s wrong with the cars?” Steve asked disinterestedly as he looked through the cupboard for his mug. Steve’s mug was bigger than the others were; he hated always having to refill the little six ounce cups.
“I was just doing a tune-up, changed the brake pads, the oil, and the spark plugs. But when I was done with that I had to take Bobby over to a soccer game. You know, if it’s not soccer season it’s little league. If it’s not little league it’s basketball. If it’s not basketball it’s something else. And in every sport the God-damn refs don’t know a thing. Bobby was just about to score a goal when he got called for off sides. I know off sides. He wasn’t off sides. But these refs think they know everything. And then Sunday I was trying to finish up painting the house but I ran out of blue.”
“What color are you painting it?” Steve asked, hoping that nobody in his right mind would paint his house blue.
“We’re keeping as it was. Not really blue, sort of a blue-gray, it’s nice. But at about one o’clock I run out of paint so I’ve got to go to the hardware store. Of course they’re all out. They need to order it. And because it’s special order they charge me five bucks more.”
“Five bucks!”
“Four-eighty-eight. Same difference, right? So I get home, take my shower, and T.J. starts asking when he’s going to get a car because Brian’s dad just bought him one.”
Steve took the sponge out of the sink to wipe up the little bit of coffee he spilled on the counter.
“When did T.J. get his license?”
“I guess about a month ago. He failed the road test the first time.”
“Parallel parking?”
“Yeah.”
“I missed that when I took my road test, too. I came in too shallow, left the car about four feet from the curb. The guy was cool, though. He let me do it again, I flubbed it again, and then he said it wasn’t that important so he gave me my license anyway. I remember my first night out with my dad’s car when I was 16. A few friends, a few beers, and just a little drag racing.”
Steve laughed to himself as he remembered his reckless youth, took a sip of coffee, and walked over to the couch to take a seat.
“You watching Regis, Ray?”
“Yeah, they just came on. I think they’ve got Tom Hanks or that DiCapreo character.”
“Do you know how much money they make?”
“Twenty million per picture.”
“That’s so… that’s just… all that money. That’s insane.”
“If I had that money I’d take Meg on nice long vacation.”
“You should probably save it to pay for college for T.J. and Bobby.”
“Christ, how can I pay for that on what we make?”
“Loans, loans, and more loans. That’s what we did when Julia went to college. Now she’s got seventy grand of loans to pay and she hasn’t found a job yet. And I’ll have to do the same thing for Joseph, Liz and Dan. Can you believe that? Seventy grand. And they keep raising tuition so it’ll probably be about ninety by the time Dan gets out. You can’t win.”
Steve looked up at a florescent light that was flickering, and then back at Ray when he started speaking.
“And this DiCapreo travels around Europe having sex with supermodels and staying in hotels while he makes twenty million for what comes out to two hours of work.”
“More power to him, right?”
Ray looked up at the t.v., saw it was still commercials, and he went back to looking over the sports section. Steve sipped his coffee, took out his own sports section, and started reading.
“Christ. And how much are these guys making for running around with a little ball?”
A cockroach scurried out from behind the counter, and Steve got up and stepped on it. He ripped off a paper towel, picked up the bug, and tossed it into the garbage. He went over to the sink, turned the hot water knob, and washed his hands with soap and water. When he stepped back to dry his hands he noticed that the water had spurted out all over his uniform. He took another paper towel to blot it up, but it was only water so he wasn’t that concerned. He went back to sit on the couch and read his paper, but he noticed Tom Hanks had finally come out to be interviewed.
“Could you turn it up, Ray?”
Ray stood up, walked over to the t.v., and turned the knob that controlled the volume. The television originally did have a remote, but the batteries stopped working and it eventually got lost. It’s probably under the couch cushions but no one ever bothered to look.
“It that fine?”
“Yeah, good.”
Ray sat back down and stared up at the t.v. The two sat there in silence watching the interview. When the commercials came on again Ray took a sip of coffee and went back to his paper.
“I saw that this weekend, that Private Ryan,” said Steve.
“That was some movie.”
“That was a film.”
“What’s the difference?”
“I’ve kind of got a ranking system,” Steve said. “At the top is cinema. That’s mostly foreign stuff and old movies like Casablanca. Then you have film: The Godfather, Rocky, The Natural. Then you have movies. And then you have flicks.”
“You know what pissed me off about Private Ryan,” said Ray trying to change the topic. “That sniper guy was my favorite.”
“Yeah, that pissed me off too. But what about when Ted Danson showed up?”
“Has he done anything since Cheers?”
“I don’t think so.”
The show came back on and the two became quiet again as they watched more of the interview. After a little while Hanks left and they brought out some new young band. Steve asked if Springer was on yet, but Ray told him that it didn’t come on until ten. Ray turned the sound back down on the t.v., and went over to get himself another doughnut.
“Do you want one?”
“Powdered?”
“Right.”
“No. I had a bagel in the car anyway.”
There was a sort of awkward pause as both tried to think of something to say next. Raymond took his doughnut and went back to his chair. Ray was the first to think of a question.
“Is it still raining out?”
“It was when I was driving, but it stopped by the time I got here. I was listening to the news in the car and it said that the showers were supposed to keep going off and on all day. It’ll probably be a bad drive home.”
“Like weathermen know anything.”
“Tell me about it. But did you hear the storm last night?”
“There was one huge clap of thunder about…”
“Two thirty?”
“Right!”
“My God, that was so loud. It scared the dog and he jumped into bed with me and Meg.”
“I think that woke everyone in the whole city up.” Steve thought for a moment. “When did you get a dog?”
“It was a birthday present for Bobby a few months ago.”
“Did you already tell me you had a dog?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind is it?”
“It’s a little one of those…you know that dog from Frasier?”
“Yeah sure. A…Jack Russel Terrier?”
“Right. That’s what it is.”
There was another long silence. This time Steve came up with the question.
“Have you heard anything about the weather for next Saturday?”
“No. Why?”
“The championship softball game is next week.”
“I didn’t know your team made it that far.”
“Yeah, we almost didn’t. We went into the fourteenth inning yesterday.”
“Fourteen innings?”
“It was such an insane game. The final score was like twenty to eighteen. We both had our best pitchers going, but both sides were just clobbering the ball.”
“You play third?”
“Some third, some left, some pitcher. We’ve got so many players that everyone has to move around a lot, you know? But it’s not bad. Nobody complains so that’s good.”
Steve took out a new section of his paper, and as he folded it he knocked his mug off the arm of the couch, and it fell and broke on the linoleum floor. Ray thought that was a stupid place to leave a mug to begin with. After Steve cursed a little he ran over to the counter and grabbed the entire roll of paper towels, and took the sponge out of the sink. He used the paper towels to set up a kind of barrier around the outside of the spill. He slowly picked up the pieces of his mug, being careful not to cut himself on any of the edges. When he got the entire mug picked up he used the sponge to mop up the rest of the area. He did a pretty poor job of cleaning it up and the floor was still sticky afterwards, but it was as good as Steve was interested in getting it. Steve then went back to the counter, looked through the cabinets to find a Styrofoam cup, and made himself another cup of coffee—heavy on the milk and sugar. Steve went back to the couch and sat down to read more of his paper. By now Ray had finished the sports section, and he put the entire paper off to the side as he pulled out a deck of cards to play solitaire.
Steve looked back up at the flickering light.
“Someone should call maintenance to fix that.”
“I think someone already called but they never came.”
“Should we call again?”
“No. Everything here takes such a long time. Just wait a few days and it’ll probably be fixed. If not, we’ll call again.”
Two knocks came on the door, and Ray stood up to go to work. He took a last sip of coffee, placed his mug back down on the table, and picked up his deck of cards and slipped them into his shirt pocket. His shoes stuck to the floor as he walked across the spot where Steve had spilled the coffee. He left the lounge, and walked down the hall with the four men that were waiting outside for him. The four came to another room. They opened the door, and entered.
The man on the left was tall. He had dark brown hair that looked like it hadn’t been combed in weeks, let alone washed. He could also stand a good shave, and his clothes were all wrinkled. Ray understood though—the man’s wife had kicked him out of the house a few days ago when she found out he had someone else on the side.
The man on the right was short and fat. Ray has known the man on the right for ten years: ever since he first came. He once wanted to be cop, so he kept himself in good shape in the hopes that he would pass the entrance exam. He didn’t. After trying for five years in a row he settled for where he is now, and gained about thirty pounds.
The priest was an old man. His hair was gray, what little he had left. He did have enough, though, to make a rather poor attempt at a comb-over. Ray was happy he still had all of his hair. The priest was thinner than Ray, though, and Ray hated him for that. The priest was reading from the Bible, and kept making the sign of the cross with his right hand.
Ray and the others led the fourth man, the man in the orange suit, over to the chair in the middle of the room and sat him down. Next they strapped him in. The leather straps were old and beginning to crack, but they still worked. Ray strapped down the legs. The short fat man who wanted to be a cop did the hands. When the priest was done reading they all left the room and went into another room next door. There were three buttons on the wall. Ray was at the one on the left. The man who was kicked out of his house was at the one in the middle. The one that wanted to be a cop was at the button on the right. At the count of three they all pressed their buttons. Back in the lounge the lights and the t.v. flickered, but Steve didn’t mind that much as he was busy wiping up the spill from his second cup of coffee.
Ray and the other men went back into the first room to clean up. The priest said a few more prayers for a man who could no longer hear them, and probably never deserved them to begin with. By the time they were done Ray had missed Springer, but he was still in time for The Price is Right. He loved Plinko.
John Power was born and raised in and around New York City, graduated from college in rural Virginia, lived and wrote for a year in Warsaw, Poland, and currently resides in Chicago. His short stories have been published in the William and Mary Review, West Trade Review, Penultimate Peanut, Pen 2 Paper, Cleaning Up Glitter, The Book Smuggler's Den, Thoughtful Dog Magazine, and The Great Lakes Review, among others. His most recent novel, Participation, is available on amazon.com, as is an earlier novel, Toy With the Flame. His first novel, Golden Freedom, is available on lulu.com.