Jack
Saturday, June 5, 7:59 p.m.
The smell of fresh garlic assaults my nose. There’s sawdust on the floors, and the walls are lined with framed pictures of Italian movie stars. Without even trying a slice, I know this place is going to be amazing. Dad would have appreciated it. He was a pizza aficionado. Some of my favorite memories are of when he’d have a night where he wasn’t on call and he’d take us out for a pie. It was one of the rare times we’d have dinner as a family, and for one hour everything felt perfect.
Out in public we seemed like a happy family. Everyone got along great. And then we’d go home and all scatter to our respective corners like roaches when someone flicks the light on.
I order two slices of extra cheese, pepperoni, and mushroom—Dad’s favorite. Alex gets two slices of deluxe veggie, which takes me by surprise.
“Veggie pizza? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat a vegetable in my life unless you count fries. Is this some side effect of adulting? Like you hit your twenties and suddenly develop a newfound appreciation for brussels sprouts and acorn squash?”
He laughs. “I’m trying to get healthier.”
“You know it’s still pizza though, right?”
“Don’t bust the illusion.” He winks. We sit at a table in the corner next to a signed picture of Sylvester Stallone from Rocky. Alex grins and taps his fingers on the table. “So—this is kind of weird, huh?”
“A little.”
“I guess we have a lot of ground to cover.”
“Yeah.”
His expression grows serious. “But first I guess I should start by saying I’m sorry.”
“Alex—”
He cuts me off and holds up his hand. “I brought a lot of shit on myself, but you didn’t need to get dragged into it. That wasn’t cool, and I hope you can forgive me. I also want to thank you because if you hadn’t found me, I probably wouldn’t even be here to apologize.”
So, he does remember. But how much does he know? I can’t have any sort of honest relationship with him going forward if I don’t tell him the truth. “You shouldn’t thank me. My intention in the moment wasn’t as pure as you give me credit for.”
“How so?”
I’ve never said it out loud to anyone but Hallie and that seemed to go okay. “I waited to call for help. On purpose. I’m not proud of it.”
I wince and brace myself for his response. He nods and cracks a half smile. Not even a look of surprise. “I don’t blame you. I was an asshole. I would have done the same thing. But the thing is: you didn’t. So—what changed your mind?”
“Honestly? I got scared.” I take a long drink of water, and Alex jiggles his leg restlessly, his eyes darting around the room. He reminds me of a bird, like at the slightest startle, he could just take off. I wonder if he’s wishing he could.
“That I would die or that you’d get caught?” he asks with a disarming smile as an older guy with silver hair and a sauce-stained Kiss the Cook apron walks over with our slices and puts them in front of us on the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. They glisten with oily perfection.
“Hey! Alex! How you doin’?” the guy says, giving my brother a pat on the shoulder.
Alex lights up with a smile. “Hey, Sal! How’s the machine working?”
“Great! No problems since you fixed it. It’s been getting a lot of play.”
Alex turns to me and says, “Remember how I told you I fix things? I’ve been working on helping Sal restore an old pinball machine for the last few months. It’s around the corner by the bathroom if you want to check it out after dinner.”
Sal motions toward me with his hand. “Who’s this?”
“This is my brother Jack. Jack—this is Sal, maker of the best pizza in the East Bay.”
“Who needs advertising when I got this one,” Sal jokes. He pumps my fist and tells us to enjoy our meal before heading back to the kitchen.
Alex sprinkles red pepper on his pizza, then stuffs it into his mouth ravenously. With his mouth full of food, he asks, “So, where were we? Oh, right—you thought about leaving me for dead but got scared.”
“Right. Well, that and I probably wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. But I learned I’m capable of actually thinking like that, which is even scarier.”
He washes his food down with a sip of soda and says, “I think most people are capable of thinking like that. Didn’t you ever have to read Lord of the Flies? The reason doesn’t even matter; you didn’t do it. But if you had, I would understand why. I’m sorry I put you in the position of having to make that choice. I was way out of control. But I’m not that person now.”
“That’s good.” I want to believe him. “I’m not that person now either.”
He smiles. “It’s really good to see you.”
I can’t hold it in. I have to ask. I twist the Parmesan shaker around in circles on the table. “Why didn’t you come to the funeral?”
He stops chewing for a second, then wipes at his mouth with a napkin and swallows. “I didn’t belong there.”
“Of course you did. You belonged there as much as anyone. You’re his son.”
“It didn’t feel right. It’s not like he was there in that box. Besides, everybody grieves differently.”
“Fair enough. Still, I wish you had been there.”
I would have given anything to have had my brother to talk to during that time, no matter what happened between us in the past.
“The truth is, sending me away and not allowing me to come home was the right thing to do. In case you never noticed, I was a walking threat to everything Paul and Suzanne Freeman believed in, especially you. I wasn’t a kid anymore. They made clear they’d pay for treatment but then I was on my own. I needed to figure my life out. It turns out going away was exactly what I needed. It gave me a chance to be alone and tune in to myself. Sometimes you need that space, and if you aren’t willing to create it, then sometimes life creates it for you.”
“Were you in touch with them at all?”
“I sent them an email telling them where I was staying, but we never spoke, no. That’s how Dad would have known Mei’s address. And then Suzanne contacted me when he died.”
“Oh.” Why did my mother withhold that information from me when I asked about him? She saw how much I was hurting and how I needed us to be a family again.
“How are you doing with all that?” Alex asks. “I mean—I’m sure this must be hard for you. You were close.”
I definitely had a better relationship with Dad than Alex did, but I don’t know if I would call us close in the way I think he means. It seemed as if Dad tried to connect with Alex, but he was rebuffed every time. Alex was always testing him to see how far he could push him before he gave up. By default, I was the good son, and I liked the attention, but to call us close would imply a level of unconditional love and understanding that I hoped for but never found.
“Depends on the day or the hour. It kind of fucked me up. Nothing makes sense the same anymore, you know? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“How do you think it was supposed to be?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Nothing turned out the way I’d imagined. It’s made me rethink a lot about my life.”
“Sounds like a positive side effect of a negative situation.”
“I guess that remains to be seen,” I tell him.
I’m actually grateful when he switches topics. “So, what are you into these days? Tell me about you.”
“I’m pretty boring, actually. Mostly I listen to music, or hang out with friends and binge-watch TV, or play video games, or write.” I give him the elevator pitch for my book. He seems impressed.
“I didn’t know you wanted to be a writer.”
“It’s definitely something I’m pursuing.” Saying that out loud feels like an affirmation, the first step toward making it so.
“Sure.” He nods. “So what games are you into? Overwatch? League of Legends? Counter-Strike?”
“That stuff is fun, but honestly I’m a little more old-school: Mario, Zelda, Pac-Man, pinball.”
“Nice!” His face lights up. “That’s what I’m hoping to do eventually—make video games. I’m taking some classes to learn programming and design. Seems like that would be a cool gig.” He grabs another slice of pizza and tears into it. “Hey—since you like pinball, we should play Sal’s machine after. It’s an old Simpsons. You familiar with that one?”
“Of course. It won ‘Best Pinball Game of 1990’ by the Amusement and Music Operators Association and brought pinball back from the dead. It’s pretty fun.”
“What was that game you were obsessed with at that arcade in the Valley we went to with Dad once? You had some unbelievable score but then the machine broke. I forget what it was.”
“TRON: Legacy.”
“Right. That was a fun time.”
I remember the day he’s referencing too, although slightly differently. Dad and I were supposed to go together, but at the last second Alex glommed along. Dad had to step outside for an emergency conference call and left us on our own for nearly an hour feeding quarters into a TRON: Legacy machine. I’d engaged multiball play and was threatening to overtake the high score when Alex decided to be a dick and slammed the side of the machine as a joke, which triggered the tilt mechanism, ending the game. I actually cried. I never realized how much I hold on to shit but there it is.
“So, let’s see this machine.”
He grabs the remainder of his slice, takes a final sip of his soda, and walks me to the back of the restaurant and into a dimly lit room with a sign above it that says GAMING PALACE. And by palace they mean a lone Simpsons pin table, a Street Fighter IV with a line of missing pixels across the center of the screen, and one of those machines where you put in fifty cents and get a bouncy ball. There’s inexplicably a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and it casts glittering lights on the walls.
“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.