Bucktooth Bill’s Bowling Alley and Arcade was a fun place to work for about two days at which point Greg began to understand the source of his coworkers’ glassy-eyed stares and sluggish demeanour. You can only watch amateur bowlers gutter their balls so many times before even the euphemism loses its entertainment value. That being said, Greg was still ever thankful that he got a job at the bowling alley part of the complex and not the arcade. For whatever reason, children seemed far more prone to puking in the garish glow of blacklights and flashing cabinet screens which, as his coworkers had reported, made cleanup a psychedelic nightmare. Never could Greg conceive of such an assault to the senses, they told him. He often meditated on whether it was a greater pain to waste away in boredom or to suffer the slings and arrows of vomit detail. He often came to the conclusion that he ought to stay where he was.
Out on lane three, a group of old geezers in custom-embroidered polyester short sleeves were tearing up the lane at such a pace Greg was certain one would pull something and he’d have to call an ambulance which he was not looking forward to. What he wasn’t expecting was how quickly an old man’s health can deteriorate after one wrong move. The tallest of the bunch (still a good four or five inches shorter than Greg) gazed up intensely at the screen above the lane which was broadcasting his marginal failure. The squattest of the geezers clearly said something snide out of the corner of his mouth; Greg could read the devious grin on his face and the ever-tightening expression the tall one bore. He couldn’t make out most of their jabs, but he did catch one last exclamation from the tall one:
“Just you fucking watch, Jim!” He wound up way too far and his shoulder popped forward. From the pain or maybe just from shock and disorientation, he lost his grip on the ball and it dropped straight on his heel which sent him splaying out on his stomach. It was quite a spectacular fall, really. Greg stood in morbid amazement for a moment before rushing to the old man’s side. He helped a few other concerned bystanders turn him over.
“Hey, buddy, uh…” Greg read the name embroidered on his shirt “Cliff, is it?” No response. “You alright?”
“Do I look like I’m fucking alright to you?” The angry timbre came through despite the shaking in his voice. Greg looked to the other bystanders who were thankfully already calling for help. Meanwhile, Greg and one of his coworkers helped Ciff up onto a seat near the lane.
“Help is on the way, sir. Is there anything I can get you? Like um… water? Maybe?” Cliff beckoned Greg closer. He leaned in.
“Listen, kid,” he heaved, “I’m no doctor but I felt something burst on the way down. This is it for me, and it's a long time coming.” Greg went cold. “Look, I was born a winner, alright? I win, that’s what I do, and I’ll be damned if I lose my last match to Jim the fucking geriatric over here. You tag in for me. Get me a fucking strike so I can die knowing that asshole will wipe that smug fucking smile off his face.”
“Sir I-”
“Are you hard of fucking hearing? Get on it!” Greg struggled to find a way to say no, and even more so to tell this old man how truly miserable he was at bowling. Regardless, Greg approached the lane and toughed his way through the vulgar heckling of the old men. He lifted the ball from the same place where it had dropped. Deep breath. Eyes on the prize. Wind back and let it roll.
The ball almost immediately hopped into the gutter and clattered off to the side.
“You useless fuck! You work at a bowling alley and you can’t even keep it on the lane? You dumb fucking tool!” Cliff tried to stand but fell forward. Greg’s coworker caught him, but he broke free of their grasp and breathlessly hobbled over to the lane. He looked up at Greg. In a motion so swift he could hardly see it, Cliff smacked Greg right across the face. “Gimme the ball.”
He wound up once more. Everyone was watching at this point. Patrons, staff -- the crowd was overwhelming. The silence broke with the scattering of nine pins. Nine. Cliff was outraged. He marched up onto the lane. Several employees attempted to stop him but he pushed them aside. He stumbled forward and fell once again onto his chest, so he began to crawl. His breath was raspy and loud. Heaving. He reached the last pin.
He punched it so hard that it skipped a lane and then he died right there on the gleaming wood lane.
Greg requested his transfer to the arcade.