Pinball, 1973 Read Free Page A

commuters. They’d spring up like clockwork at a little after five, have barely enough time to wash their faces before they’d be off to board their train, and return late at night looking half-dead.
    Sunday afternoons were the only times they could relax enough to appreciate their new town and homes. Also, as if by consensus, most had dogs. The dogs interbred, and strays were everywhere. That’s what Naoko meant when she said there used not to be a dog around for miles.
    * * *
    One whole hour I waited, and not a dog showed. Ten cigarettes I lit and crushed out. I walked to the middle of the platform, and took a drink of the crisp, cold water from the faucet there. Still no dog.
    To the side of the station was a large pond. A long, serpentine pool, as if they’d dammed up a stream. The banks were overgrown with tall marsh grasses, and from time to time a fish broke the surface of the water. Spaced out along the banks sat some men, tightlipped, fishing lines cast into the cloudy water. The lines never so much as twitched; they might as well have been silver needles stuck into the water. Yet there under the lazy rays of the spring sun, a big white dog that one of the men had probably brought along was eagerly sniffing around in the clover.
    When the dog came within ten yards of me, I leaned over the station fence and called to it. The dog looked up and gazed at me with the most sorrowful light brown eyes, then wagged its tail a couple of times. I snapped my fingers, and the dog came over, thrust its nose through the fence and licked my hand with its long tongue.
    “Hey, come on in,” I called to the dog as it withdrew. The dog turned away hesitantly, then resumed wagging its tail as if the message hadn’t quite gotten through.
    “Come on in. I’m tired of waiting.”
    I fished a stick of chewing gum out of my pocket, and held up the wrapper for the dog to see. The dog stared at the gum for a while before making up its mind to crawl under the fence. I gave the dog a few pats on the head, rolled the gum up into a ball in the palm of my hand, and chucked it toward the other end of the platform. The dog dashed off straight as an arrow.
    I went home satisfied.
    * * *
    On the train ride back, I told myself over and over again, it’s all over with now, you got it out of your system, forget it. You got what you came for, didn’t you? Yet I couldn’t get it out of mind, that place. Nor the fact that I loved Naoko. Nor that she was dead. After all that, I still hadn’t closed the book on anything.
    * * *
    Venus is a sweltering planet covered with clouds. Half the inhabitants die young from the heat and humidity. It’s a feat just to live thirty years. But by the same measure, that makes them all the more tenderhearted. Every Venusian loves all Venusians. They don’t hate or discriminate or hold grudges against anyone. They don’t even curse. No murders or fighting, only love and consideration.
    “Even if, say, someone dies, we don’t feel sad,” said the guy from Venus, an ultra-quiet type. “We’d rather just show that much more love while the person’s alive. That way, there’s no regret afterward.”
    “So it’s like you get your loving done ahead of time?”
    “Hmm ... the words you folks use sound so strange to me,” he said, shaking his head.
    “And everything really comes off with no hitches?” I asked.
    “If it didn’t,” he said, “Venus would be buried in sorrow.”
    * * *
    I returned to the apartment to find the twins in bed, snug under the covers like two sardines in a tin, giggling away to themselves.
    “Welcome back,” said one of them.
    “Where did you go?”
    “Train station,” I said, loosening my tie, and snuggled in between them. I was bushed.
    “What station, where?”
    “What did you go for?”
    “A station a long ways away from here. Went to see a dog.”
    “What kind of dog?”
    “You like dogs?”
    “A big white dog, it was. And no, I’m really not so crazy about