Sunset Lanes
A short story
Written almost a decade and a half ago, I’m surprised by how much I still like this story. I think I used some of the descriptions from the scene in my debut novel, Let’s Get Lost, but had largely forgotten about it until a whim made me look up some old pieces. Enjoy!
When the earthquake hit Sunset Lanes in Monterey, CA, Richie had already let go of the last bowl in his so-far perfect game.
It wasn’t The Big One, but it was a 6.4, the biggest one in years. Some people at the bowling alley would tell you that it felt bigger than that, especially Leslie Truffles, the man playing Richie in the Monterey County Silver-Senior Singles League championship match that night.
Leslie Truffles, who’d finished with a score of 297, argued that the earthquake had been massive, catastrophic, had clearly knocked down the pins well before Richie’s peach-colored size 14 could hit them. A re-bowl was in order, he said. Many of the people watching the match from the snack bar area had a grudge against Leslie Truffles, certain that he had overcharged them that time they took their car into his mechanic shop. He’d overstated how much labor had been required to replace their alternators. They knew how long it took to replace an alternator, and it certainly wasn’t what Leslie Truffles had written down on the invoice. So even though they had been busy taking cover from the earthquake and weren’t entirely sure whether Richie’s ball had hit before the earthquake, they loudly proclaimed that this was the case, that the earthquake was barely felt. Some of them hadn’t even really noticed the shaking and didn’t know why everyone was making such a fuss.
The problem was that there was no established protocol set forth in the League rulebook, and so League president Billy Gabes was unable to make a decision. The two sides argued endlessly. Some of the audience members insisted that they’d heard the smack of Richie’s ball hitting the pins. Leslie Truffles argued that those members of the audience were insane, and liars, and for that matter, their hearing aids were turned all the way down. After they asked Leslie to repeat this argument, they were forced to surrender that point, but insisted this didn’t change a thing. They stood by their argument, despite not being able to prove how they knew it was the sound of Richie’s ball and not one of the many other balls being bowled at the time the earthquake hit.
Richie, however, stayed quiet. Normally he would have gladly taken a replay on the frame and avoided all the brouhaha. But Richie had never done a single perfect thing in his life. He had averaged low B’s throughout school, his sinusitis kept him from ever feeling completely healthy, he’d never cooked a burger just right, they were always too raw or overdone, too fat in the middle or crumbled at the first bite. His work performance reviews were always satisfactory, never excellent, he’d married a woman who lied to him. At the age of fifty-seven, Richie was ready to do one thing perfectly, even if it was with the help of an earthquake.
So instead of arguing, Richie just sat back and observed the bowling alley. The clownish shoes, their leather cracked with wear, their laces knotted beyond undoing, all of them tossed uncaringly onto the counter into a pile that split pairs apart. Florescent bowling balls rolling imperfectly toward the pins, causing white explosions that only a few seconds later would undo themselves, everything back to normal, as if life had a rewind button. The unseen machinery spitting the balls back out, people holding their hands over the air current to dry the sweat from between their fingers, sending the ball down the lane only to have it come back an undone explosion later. A group of teenagers in Lane 1 were being raucous, throwing the ball between their legs, behind their back, high up into the air so that it landed with a satisfying boom, the sound like a promise of violence, the kids’ laughter coming across as intentionally amplified, as if they were trying to convince the world that they were having fun. The snack bar, with its greasy pizza slices drying out under heating lamps, one lone pretzel left hanging in the glass case, the soda dispenser leaking cola syrup, the fridge being emptied of its beers by people who had tired of arguing with Leslie Truffles and needed alcohol’s calming presence to keep from getting physical against him. One of those spectators brought Richie a beer and offered words of encouragement, then went back into the argument, ready to point out logical fallacies in Leslie Truffles’ protestations.
After an hour of this, a few beers, pleasant observations of the bowling alley, the argument still at a heated impasse, Richie stood up and announced that he would re-bowl the last frame of his so-far perfect game. Yes, he was tired of aiming for perfection, of struggling for it, of believing in his bones that he could achieve it for once in his life only to be denied, only to be proved yet again that what he was best at was messing things up in one way or another. But he was also used to it, and it was getting late, and maybe he could throw another strike anyway.
He re-laced his shoes so that they were just right, readjusted his wrist brace, aired out his palm, picked up his size 14 peach-colored ball, and walked up to the lane. He took two deep breaths, picturing, as he always did, the way his wife had looked at him that one night at the billiards hall, her eyes bright with love, her smile tight with lust, the lighting in the room seemingly intent on making Richie remember his wife exactly that way, at her most beautiful. He lined up his toe with the center marking on the floor, took two long steps and let go of the ball.
That’s when the aftershock hit.