An Arcade for the Ages

It’s the air that hits you first.

You’re walking in from the frustration of finding parking, or from a short stroll from where you’re staying, but either way the air is a shock. It’s cold, bordering on frigid, and it blasts you as soon as the glass door parts to let you in. It’s welcome, really, as you flee the Garden City heat and sand and asphalt and road noise and peril of darting through traffic without a crosswalk, because you’ve got to get there NOW.

There are other things you should notice, and would, if you weren’t a 50-year-old man in search of a remnant of his past. The twinkling, whirling lights belong to machines foreign to you. You’ve certainly never played any of them, and haven’t heard of very many of them, for that matter. Your wife, whose good humor apparently knows no bounds, points out an adult-sized Hungry Hungry Hippos game that requires players to be seated to ride their assigned mounts, and which seems to shake the ancient foundations of the building with every bounce. The area where you cashed in your ticket hauls from long ago has evolved to the point that it requires its own room, and what appears to be digital counters instead of the sullen teenagers you remember dispensing prizes.

The right side of the building has, in what seems like a terrible miscalculation, become a snack bar. It looks like burgers and fries and hot dogs, maybe a couple of beach snacks like cotton candy. The problem is, you’re standing adjacent to Sam’s Corner. Calling it an institution would be a great disservice, especially considering the widely held rumor that during Hurricane Hugo, when Sam’s attempted to batten down the hatches, they had to hunt somebody to saw the padlock off the front door, because during the days of 24-hour service, the lock had rusted shut. It’s down to 11-9 these days, but they’re still five deep at the counter with a line hanging out the door. Selling hot dogs right beside the South Carolina capital of hot dogs seems silly.

You’re not looking for hot dogs, though, nor cotton candy, nor any fancy new games. You’re on a treasure hunt for memories, and there on the back wall in two-foot letters, you find them. And these aren’t fancy letters. There’s no neon here. Just solid, dark red letters against their white background, beckoning you to the back right wall: SKEE BALL.

If you’re on the right track, you’ll soon know.

A laughing family occupies two of the skee-ball bays, flinging the wooden balls toward their numbered destinations. And then as suddenly as the desire to mount your search was born, it’s over. To the right of the skee-ball games, right where you left it nearly four decades ago now, is Hitter’s Rally.

There are three games now, where in the past you’d have sworn there were 20. The popularity of pinball-baseball might’ve worn off with the video age. The pitches are still fastball and curve. The deceptively skinny ramps that launch home runs into the second deck are there, too. There’s a handle to control paddles that serve as bats. A silver slot still represents the pitcher’s mound. And at the bottom of the field of play, there’s the same message that’s taunted you seemingly forever.

“25 Runs Wins Choice. Call Attendant”.

Now, there have been some accomplishments in your life, video game-related and otherwise. But you have never, not once, approached the need to call an attendant for your choice of prizes.

All of this processes in your mind in half a heartbeat, along with every other memory of this place, about the time your wife asks you if these are the right games. And, inexplicably, your heart catches in your throat as you try to tell her how much this place means to you, and how weird it is that it does, so you force out a “Yeah. These are the ones,” and you nod as she walks to the end of the building.

You look down, ready to take a swing, ready to test those 25 runs, and you realize that in your pocket is a crumpled 50 that you got in a birthday card and a one, and that’s it. Then you notice there’s no slot for coins anywhere on the machine. You can swipe your card, though.

Then, out of the corner of your eye, just for a flash, you see him. He’s nine, maybe 10, and his fingers are flying over the buttons, hammering the paddles to swing for the fences, tallying up run after run. And he’s laughing.

You want to tell him to keep laughing. You need him to know that laughter is going to carry him through: through fractured families and poor decisions and failures and loss. You want to tell him to enjoy the tiny, simple moments that are taken for granted until they’re gone, and that laughing about them can keep them alive. You want to tell him that laughter will eventually lead you exactly where you want to be and to the person you want to share it with, and speaking of that, here she comes now.

And you look, and he’s gone. Because he was never there, of course. But YOU were, in a much simpler time. Just like you were tonight, pondering the importance of a children’s game on a grown man. Acknowledging the importance of memories, and that sometimes it’s worth it to chase them, even if they’re from a much different time and place.

“You’re not playing?” she asks.

You shake your head no, content in the fact that 40 years on, the games are still there. They’re still hanging on. The best parts of a whole lot of memories are right there where you left them. So you walk past the new snack bar, and the clamor of the new games, and into the night, with the icy blast of air behind you the last thing you feel as you leave.