'A CHAMPION DAY AT THE MALTINGS'
by Dan Pearson
A teenage wookie in Timberland boots and a Fred Perry
shirt speared the lager cans and crumpled kebab
wrappers blowing among the anxious Jedis outside the
Odeon. Hundreds must have slept out on the pavement.
Rollie and Bee pushed through a circle of Ewoks, into
the lobby, heaving with mutants and bounty hunters
listening to a bagpiper play the 'Imperial Death
March.' Leaning out over the soda spigots, Rollie
tried to flag down a staff member, to see if there
were any remaining tickets. But the girl behind the
candy counter was distracted, watching a clock count
down the final seconds until the debut screening. When
the clock reached zero, cheering and applause erupted
throughout the room, as young Jedis waved glowing
plastic lightsabers and an adolescent Kenobi, wearing
a fake beard and bedsheet cloak, stood on the top step
and shouted 'If you strike me down Darth, I will
become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.'
A middle-aged man, his hair bunned up like Princess
Leia, turned to Rollie, said 'I should have stayed the
night,' and covered his head in his hands, sobbing and
cursing.
"Let's make the jump to hyperspace," said Bee. "This
is depressing."
"You're all clear kid. Let's blow this one and go
home. Or, to the Maltings."
***
A few streets away, they expected the Maltings pub to
be full of other trilogy faithful waiting for the late
afternoon screening. Instead, the only customers
inside were a few pensioners reading the papers,
filling the air with the somnolent fug of stale ale
and pipe smoke. Rollie and Bee ordered pints of IPA
and plugged the Star Wars pinball game with pound
coins. Replay was set at 600,000. The afternoon light
was conducive for playing, leaving no glare. While Bee
punched her first ball into action, Rollie leaned
against the wall and relaxed, watching the digital
scoreboard racking up the thousands.
Rollie knew more about the game. He had taught Bee
all the tricks about triggering the extra ball and the
multi-ball. Technically, he was superior. But Bee had
a lighter touch. When she saw a ball bouncing
precariously close to the alley, she could hit the
side of the machine with just enough force to move it
back into play without a tilt. This worked to her
advantage, because Star Wars pinball was a game of
ramps, which made it a contest of patience and
accuracy. Bee could shoot ramps for hours, sipping her
beer and dragging on a Silk Cut, while she waited for
the silver ball to work its way back to the flippers.
Instead of methodically building points, however,
Rollie always shot straight for the Death Star, a
risky move that often sent his ball spiraling down the
alley.
As he watched her tap the flippers, Rollie recalled
that the first night he had ever seen her, Bee was
playing pinball in the Maltings. He was attracted, but
thought little of it until he overheard her explaining
to a friend how George Lucas and the entire creation
of Star Wars was influenced by Fritz Lang, Akira
Kurosawa's samurai films, B-movies about drag racing,
and the desertscapes of the spaghetti westerns. She
was right.
It wasn't love at first sight, but Rollie knew from
the moment he saw her and heard her talking about stop
motion special effects that they would be together for
some time. He could still remember the first night she
took him back to her flat in St. Leonards, two tins of
Carlsberg in front of the VCR. It was such a relief.
Edinburgh could be a lonely city. How many nights,
when he was stumbling home from the pub, had he turned
in envy and disgust from the silhouettes of couples
embracing in the alleys and closes? How many nights
had he dreaded the solitary walk home? Rollie wasn't
sure if he was in love with Bee. They had only known
each other nine months. But, they were now living
together, and what was love anyway?
With Bee, it was about the simple pleasures. How many
afternoons had he and Bee passed just like this,
drinking beer and playing pinball in the Maltings? It
was probably the best part about their relationship.
They weren't' really attracted to each other, with
primitive magnetic pull. Sex was more of a natural
conclusion to events and emotions as opposed to
something compulsive and consuming. But they were
happy together, getting drunk and talking about music
and films, especially Star Wars.
Rollie had seen each movie in the trilogy ninety six
times, seven in the cinema, including the reissues in
the Filmhouse and the accompanying lecture series. He
had the original Millennium Falcon model, an unopened
Boba Fett from 1977, the complete set of the green
series of the Topps trading cards, and an autographed
photo of Mark Hamill that he purchased for eighty
pounds at a comic book convention in the Assembly
Rooms.
The only problem with Bee was that she was a planner,
never content to enjoy the moment. Too serious. Always
planning. Dire. Rollie knew that he wasn't any
intergalactic fighter pilot. He was just an average
guy with a slight paunch who liked drinking beer and
watching the Hibs matches on Saturday. But he
sometimes felt that Bee needed more stability and
domestic comfort. In a way it was flattering and
reassuring that she thought of him in terms of a
future and a bond. But there was a downside. Sometimes
she seemed disappointed that he didn't want more out
of his job. He had talked about going to night courses
at the University to appease her. She was definitely
right that there was more money, flexibility, and
security in computers and information technology. But
he had everything he wanted just working for Gary's
father, doing odd jobs in heating and ventilation
systems repair. No pressure, relatively steady. His
tastes were comfortably terrestrial. He didn't need a
house in Corstorphine. He was happy, especially with
Bee in his life, happy with their simple pleasures:
the Maltings; pinball; a pint.
In the six months that they had known each other, she
had removed all the monotony from the mundane
realities of urban routine, such as standing in line
for milk, Starbars, and microwave pizza at the Spar.
Sometimes on the weekend, they would pack a lunch and
a bottle of wine and take the 32 bus out to Cramond.
There were no fairytale romances, even in Scotland.
This was not adulthood. Beer and pinball at the
Maltings was a good routine. It worked. Edinburgh was
better with Bee.
"Well, little fellow, looks like you've seen quite a
bit of action," said Rollie, when Bee's ball had
flipped down the gutter and out of play.
"When I left you, Obi-Wan, I was but a learner," she
returned, as Rollie punched his first ball into
action. "Now, I am the master."
***
After a few games of pinball and four pints, Bee
started to get in a rhythm. Rollie fell off when the
alcohol began to circulate through his system. But the
beer, as usual, only focused Bee's resolve. As the pub
started to fill up with a few of the droids and hooded
Jawas returning from the early afternoon showing, she
started to approach her own high score of 1,455,000,
which was the second highest score ever on the
machine. Lulled into an oceanic rhythm by the ball
rising and falling along the metal track, Bee lost
herself in the familiar score of the Star Wars
soundtrack, which played in a scratchy and digital
monotone through the machine's speakers. Ramp after
ramp, the ball flew up and back in response to her
touch. It was a ritual she savored. She closed her
eyes, timing the motion in her head, and still the
ball rose and fell with the same precision.
After thirty straight successful shots, the Tractor
Beam was disabled and the metallic Death Star
revolved. The space station, the most powerful weapon
in the galaxy, was finally vulnerable. A door the size
of a postage stamp opened, as did Bee's eyes. With one
flick of her wrist, she flipped the ball straight into
the Death Star, activating the Multi-Ball. Flashing
neon lights ignited across the machine, as silver
spheres flew from all corners. Bee sent shot after
shot along the ramps, against the bumpers, and up and
around the Force. The scoreboard blinked like tickers
in a Stock Exchange.
When the ball finally took an unexpected turn and
rattled down the alley, Bee had 1,675,000. Her best
score ever. And still another ball to play.
Bee and Rollie looked at each other. They were
thinking the same thing. But neither wanted to be the
first to say it. It would jinx it.
Rollie couldn't resist.
"Six hundred thousand and you overtake G-M-T. Perhaps
this is an inappropriate thing to say, but I think
that would be more important than seeing the film."
It was true. If Bee could score more than six hundred
thousand on her last ball, she would overtake G-M-T,
the mysterious pinball player who held the all time
record on the Maltings machine. His, or her, initials
and high score of 2,275,000, were both written on an
index card taped to the side of the machine. They also
flashed in orange light from the digital leaderboard.
Neither Rollie or Bee had ever seen GMT play, but they
assumed the trinity of letters represented a reference
to "Grand Moff Tarkenton," the villainous leader who
oversaw construction of the Death Star in the original
Star Wars. Rollie and Bee often joked that they would
'eradicate GMT from the Evil Empire.'
"Is she fast?" Rollie asked Bee, handing her a pint.
"The Falcon? You mean you haven't heard of her? She's
the ship that made the Kestle run in under four
parsecs. She'll be fast enough for you old man."
***
Bee punched the ball into action and tapped her foot
to the digital theme music. A group of Tuskan Raiders
smoking cigars through gauze facial bandages and a
heavy man in a black-striped Dunfermline football top
and a plastic Darth Vader mask crowded around. Again,
ramp after ramp, Bee sent the ball up and down the
metal track. That was what Rollie loved about pinball.
He loved the human element of the game, the tactics,
the skill, the ability Bee had to cheat death with
just the slightest nudge of her hip or palm against
the machine. It was never a game of chance. It was
calculation.
After the thirtieth ramp, the space station revolved.
She flicked the left flipper, as effortlessly as she
had done all afternoon, but the ball nicked the corner
of the Tractor Beam and rolled back toward the alley.
She was 90,000 away from the high score. One ball in
the Death Star and the title was hers. It was just a
matter of getting inside.
The pinball bounded against the metal pole that
separated the flippers from the alley. Once. Twice.
Again and again, wishing to come to rest, uncertain,
the ball bounced against the pole. Bee knew she would
need to push. But when? And, how much?
She closed her eyes to hear the ball's muted tapping.
When the wobbling ball began an ascent, she moved her
left knee into the leg of the machine. It was barely a
motion, the table didn't move so much as shudder, but
the arc of the ball shifted left, and fell to the
flipper. She opened her eyes and flicked the ball into
the Death Star. The board exploded with triple and
double scores. Bee kissed Rollie. The digital alphabet
popped up on the screen. Bee entered the initials of
the new leader. R.N.B.
"She's beautiful," Rollie said, into Bee's ear.
"How beautiful?"
"Well, more beautiful than you can imagine."
"I can imagine quite a lot."
***
Even though they had already had six pints, Rollie
and Bee celebrated the high score with a double whisky
and decided, with the first sip, to skip the movie and
get good and littered. Suzy, the barmaid, wrote up a
new index card and threw GMT's into the trash. Rollie
slid a five-pound note into the jukebox and played a
little bit of everything, some Jam, early Kinks, Fall,
King Tubby. And, as RNB flashed across the
leaderboard, they opened a packets of crisps, spread
out the pages from the Scotsman, and toasted Bee's
score. It was early afternoon. They were drunk. A
champion day in the Maltings.
As they read the newspaper, Bee came upon an ad for
computer classes at Napier University. "It's only
sixteen weeks, even Saturdays, you could do that
easy," she said.
Rollie didn't look up from an interview with the
Hibs' new Ecuadorian winger.
"Maybe."
"I'm not putting pressure on, Rollie, but this seems
a lot more suited to you than the ones at Heriot-Watt.
It's more IT, repair, troubleshooting."
"I have a commitment to Gary's dad."
"I know, but that's temporary. I mean, you were the
one talking about going to Skye in September. I want
to go too, but I would rather stay in a bed and
breakfast and go for a proper meal, instead of some
unheated hostel. It has to start somewhere."
"Look, it's four o'clock on a Wednesday, Bee, and
we're both getting pretty drunk. We put a fiver in the
fucking jukebox, and I have two packages of completely
unopened KP nuts. I can check out the Napier thing
tomorrow, I'm not doing it now."
"No, I'm not trying to pressure you, just mentioning
it."
"Right, I know, no pressure."
Rollie and Bee returned to the paper. Soon after, a
man in silver Adidas trainers and a maroon Hearts of
Midlothian windbreaker came over and blocked their
view of the scoreboard. With his silver shoes and red
suit, he looked like a Russian cosmonaut.
"Holy smokes," said the man, turning to Rollie and
Bee. "Who is RNB?"
Rollie pointed to his girlfriend.
"Right on, that's amazing. You do that today?"
"She did it just this afternoon," Rollie said. "It's
the first time I've ever seen anyone but GMT on the
leaderboard, you know."
"I know, this calls for a drink. Can I get you both a
whisky?" said the cosmonaut.
"No, that's fine, thanks."
"No, seriously, it's really nice to meet somebody
else who cares about the pinball," the cosmonaut said.
"This is amazing, I didn't think anyone else cared."
"Except for GMT," said Bee. "But we always figured
GMT stood for Grand Moff Tarkenton. He's on the
Imperial payroll. Surely a scoundrel."
"That's funny, I never thought of it like that," said
the cosmonaut.
"GMT clearly turned to the dark side," Bee said.
"Lured by wrongdoing."
"I wouldn't be so sure," said the cosmonaut.
"Oh, do you know him. Have you seen the GMT play?"
The cosmonaut laughed. "Aye, absolutely.."
"Who is he?" Bee asked.
"GMT is me," he said. "I am the evil empire."
***
His real name was George Michael Tarbert. After he
returned from the bar with a tray of lagers and
whiskies, he explained that he lived at Fountainbridge
and worked at the Safeway supermarket in Dalkeith,
where he managed a team of workers who prepared the
meats, fish, and cheeses in the morning before the
store opened. Everyday, Tarbert went straight from
work to the Maltings, arriving at around ten in the
morning, just as the pub was opening its doors and
clearing the previous evening's smoke. The bus out of
Dalkeith dropped him right outside the entrance.
Tarbert had seen Star Wars four hundred and thirty
times. His entire flat had been converted to resemble
sets from Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back. "Tarbert,
Tarbert," Rollie rolled the name round and round in
his head because it seemed familiar, and then recalled
that he had heard of Tarbert because his web-site,
Cloudland, which focused on the plot incongruities in
the trilogy's second movie, was the twenty-third most
popular Star Wars web-site in the world.
Tarbert rolled up his sleeves. His left forearm was
tattooed with a full color image of Darth Vader and
Obi-Wan Kenobi swashbuckling with blue and orange
light sabers. "That's my own design," Tarbert said. "I
had that tattooed in Glasgow. Seventeen hours, over
three days." Tarbert's other arm was clear of tattoos.
But he had a copper C-3PO and a blue and white R2D2
tattooed on his back, one for each shoulder blade.
Like Rollie and Bee, Tarbert had taken the day off
from work, but all the shows were sold out. He was
already drunk and breathing hoarsely, as if he had
just inhaled from an exhaust pipe.
Over the course of an hour or more, the trio
discussed all things related to the trilogy and its
cast. Mark Hamill in Corvette Summer. Harrison Ford's
carpentry career. Jefferson Airplane's performance in
the Wookie special. The Jawa language, moisture
evaporators, Jabba the human. They discussed their
expectations and concerns for the coming prequels.
Pirated footage and storyboards had been available on
Star Wars web sites for more than a year. Excitement
was mixed with reservation and nostalgia.
"It's all changing," Tarbert said. "Lucas is using
the movies as adverts for his special effects company.
There's no story, no humanity, no plot development, no
soul."
"True," Rollie agreed. "The thing about the original
Star Wars was that you had the technology and the
talking robots, but underneath it all you still had a
story of good and evil. You still had a hero and a
heroine, a princess, vendetta, real human conflict."
"But you couldn't have been conscious of that when
you first saw the movie as a little kid," Bee said.
"The story may endure, but so does the style and the
speed. Lucas' only direction to the actors was
'faster, more intense.' That's what you see."
"Aye, I suppose you're right," said Tarbert. "But the
menacing thing was Vader, you knew, even when you were
little, even before Empire, that there was something
tragic underneath all the circuitry. But, now, Lucas
is too reliant on computer generated images, he's even
talking about making one of the movies without actors,
entirely virtual."
"That would be cool," Bee said. "I mean, as an
experiment."
"That's an awful idea," Rollie said, slurring the
"s." "It wouldn't be a movie, it'd be a fucking video
game. It would be Tron or Pong or Donkey Kong with
mind tricks."
"I'm not saying I want it to happen," she said. "I'm
just saying that it could pave the way for more
advanced effects for the next film. It's all a process
of trial and error. There are six more movies in the
series. I'm sure Lucas can throw one away for
research."
"What you and Lucas should do is stop fucking with
the chemistry," Rollie said. "Everything was perfect
with Star Wars, perfect, and now he's losing the
plot."
It wasn't intended, but Rollie's response sounded
malicious. Bee was frightened by the violence in his
tone. Usually nothing, nothing at all, bothered
Rollie. Granted, they were drunk. The whiskies and
lagers were all drained. It was just Star Wars. But,
there was tension at the table. Tarbert sensed it and
tried to mollify the situation.
"Let's play some ball and take it out on the evil
empire" he said, motioning toward the machine. That
seemed reasonable.
Tarbert paid for three credits and punched up his
first ball. He went after the ramps, but his reflexes
were dull with lager. The ball rolled limply in the
gutter after only 45,600. Rollie stepped up next, but
he was too drunk to care. The lights and targets
swirled and pulsed in a nauseating borealis. The ball
bounced off the barricaded door of the Death Star and
tumbled in the gutter. Bee reached out for the
flippers, but fell face first onto the machine,
scratching the glass top with the zipper of her
jacket. When she found her balance, she leaned over
the machine, and started shooting ramps with the same
accuracy and rhythm that she showed early in the
afternoon. Rollie watched the silver ball racing up
and down the track, until he felt roast beef and
mustard crisps hurtling up and out of his stomach. He
closed his eyes and concentrated on the Star Wars
theme to suppress the vomit. There was comfort and
stasis in the familiar orchestral bombast, no matter
how diminished and digitally thinned by the pinball
machine.
***
Rollie felt a sickness, not only from the liquor, but
from the amount of worthless trivia stored away,
pushing on his brain. What was it about Star Wars that
meant so much to him and people like Tarbert? Here
were a group of adults, all with full time jobs,
analyzing and dissecting an intergalactic fairytale
made in 1976. Here they were, in the middle of a pub
in Edinburgh, Scotland, talking about the thoughts and
motivations of George Lucas, a guy they had never met
who lived on a gated ranch in California playing with
computer generated models of talking robots. Yet,
Rollie could remember the first time he had seen the
movie, when he was a little kid, on holiday with his
family in Texas. Nothing had prepared him for it. As
soon as the lights dimmed, and the giant letters began
to scroll off into the cosmos, he sensed that this was
going to be different than the animated Walt Disney
movies at the mobile cinema in Musselburgh. First
there were the letters. He could make out a few of the
words, "Princess" and "Space," but what was a "Vader,"
a "Galaxy," and what was "Death." Then the letters
disappeared into darkness and a slow silent pan
exploded with silver space ships and flying beams of
light. Frame after frame, Star Wars was beyond
imagination. Golden droids. Dune seas. The first sight
of Vader, climbing into the silver ship like a thunder
cloud, his cape flowing over the crumpled bodies,
walking heartlessly to the lamb white Princess.
Everything and everyone, airbrushed and polished to
look porcelain. It was all real and unreal.
Until he saw Star Wars, Rollie knew nothing of life.
If life in Musselburgh had ever even existed, it was
never more than a packet of crisps, a Mars bar, and a
walk along the pier, and that narrow world could never
exist again. Star Wars was a brilliant excess of light
and energy and speed and volume. Carnage, loss,
redemption, victory, fanfare and applause racing into
a concussive symphony of trumpets, tubas, and cymbals,
and then, after two hours, darkness, floor lights, and
new life.
Star Wars was perfect in every way. It set the
precedent for his generation and his entire life. What
experience, what revelations, what novelty could ever
compare to seeing Star Wars for the first time? There
were always drink and drugs, but highs came and went
with little impact, or left Rollie paranoid or
prostate in the bogs booting up liquor and kebab. Sex
had its allure, but it occurred with so much baggage
and anxiety, and then, even after all that, what was
it but a sleeping pill? Every experience in the life
cycle arrived with some anticipation. Childbirth,
sickness and suffering, winning the lottery, the death
of a friend, these are all events that could be
imagined and explained. But who or what could have
prepared Rollie's young mind for life among the
constellations?
Every consequent experience seemed a futile attempt
to recapture the movie's bright white light. It was
the first and last time that Rollie's life seemed
infinite. Star Wars was always with him. Pure and
celestial, like a glass of snow.
***
Nobody could control the ball. Even Bee's credit
expired without a replay. But Tarbert felt like
talking and drinking, so he bought another round of
whiskies and dropped a pound into the machine.
Rollie's limbs were waterlogged, gelatinous, as if
pudding or pie mix sludged through his system. He
punched halfheartedly at the pinball, just barely
keeping it alive. The alcohol only enlivened Tarbert,
who explained how he had attended several
International Star Wars conventions in San Francisco,
Hamburg, London, and Dallas. The stories began with
trivial descriptions of memorabilia, model
demonstrations, and guest speakers. By Rollie's third
ball, however, the stories were filled with lies.
Stupid lies. By the third ball, Tarbert no longer
portrayed himself as a simple collector, nor even a
fanatic, but as an intimate of the actors and
creators.
"When I was at the convention in San Francisco one
year, I ended up talking to Robert Stiles, who did the
Cloudland set designs in Empire, and it turned out
that he had lived in Edinburgh when he was a kid,"
said Tarbert. "So, after we talked for a while, he
said 'Hey, a bunch of crew members are going out
later, you should come along."
"Really?" Rollie said. He felt like he was talking
underwater as he struggled to get the words out of his
mouth. "What was that like?"
"Oh, man, it was amazing, we ended up in a private
room at this posh hotel, and everybody was there,
Richard Scholes, Paul Potter who wrote the flute parts
for the Cantina Theme, Peter Mayhew, Frank Thosel--the
guy who did lighting in Jedi, Anthony Daniels. I ended
up talking to Carrie Fisher for a long time, she was
great."
"You partied with Princess Leia?" Rollie said,
increasingly dubious.
"Oh aye, we talked a long time. She told me all about
working with Lucas and Alec Guiness, I think she was
really happy to talk to someone who cared about the
movie. Oh aye, we ended up doing lines with Shelley
Sharples, Martin Trover, and all the people from post
production and sound engineering, the Hoth crew."
"You did coke with Princes Leia?" Rollie said.
"Sure, when in Rome. There was a tonne of coke at the
party, tonnes, they had it in little bowls at all the
tables. All those Hollywood people do blow."
"Lucas doesn't do coke," said Rollie. "I read he
stays away from that."
"Right, of course, Carrie told me Lucas barely even
drinks. I had a chance to meet him. Carrie invited me
down to the Ranch. But I had to catch a flight back
here."
"You turned down an invitation to the Ranch?" Rollie
said. At this point, he was only humoring Tarbert.
Rollie was more worried about Bee. She had pulled her
chair up to watch the pinball, but now was snoring,
her chin propped on the edge of the machine.
"Well, Carrie thought I should meet Lucas. But I
still had business to take care of in San Francisco
with Billy Dee Williams, a marketing deal that fell
through. I don't think it would have been good for
Carrie anyway. I had some very critical feelings on
the cryogenics in Empire, I wouldn't want to
jeopardize her relationship with Lucas."
"Oh, really?"
"Absolutely. But Carrie agreed with me. She said she
would talk to Lucas about it. So I'm not worried. He
knows exactly what I think."
***
As the evening continued, Tarbert's lies grew only
more incredible. He claimed that he left the second
day of the London convention to play backgammon and
drink MaCallan with Alec Guinness at a private club in
Hampstead Heath. When he was in Munich, Tarbert
claimed, he was invited to a secret technology seminar
waitstaffed by drink serving androids. Now that his
web site was gaining recognition as the definitive
source on the Cloudland sequence in Empire Strikes
Back, Tarbert also alleged that he was being courted
and pressured with large sums of money to move to the
Skywalker Ranch as a creative consultant for Lucas'
Light and Magic special effects company.
When Rollie asked why he remained at the Safeway in
Dalkeith, Tarbert claimed that he and Lucas had
developed antagonistic views about science fiction.
According to Tarbert, he and the creator no longer
shared a vision.
Tarbert continued to amplify and embellish his
fictions, but Rollie ignored him. What good would it
do to confront Tarbert anyway? Let him have his
fantasies. There was no harm. So, a grown man focused
all of his ambitions and his energies into the
examination of a science fiction movie made for
children. What of it? Rollie imagined Tarbert's life.
He saw him, overweight and winded, boarding the blood
red Lothian Transport bus in Fountainbridge, saw him
at dawn on the top floor shuttling past the metal
fences of the brewery, and the gated entrances to the
canal, saw the canal littered with bike tires and
plastic carrier bags, saw the bus rolling down Lothian
Road, then rising up the Mound toward the Castle,
sensed him looking out over the spired cityscape,
feeling alone and worthless that no one, not the
financiers in Charlotte Square or the street sweepers
on Thistle Lane, not the school children on Viewforth
or the barbers in Woods, not the drunks in The Port
Hamilton or the punters and cabbies in The Penny
Black, not a solitary soul had a single thought for
George Tarbert.
Rollie saw Tarbert's bus passing the University and
then the Craigmillar housing estates, broken beer
bottles twinkling under the street lights, cats and
crisp packets curled up in the bus shelters, saw the
bus then rounding the roundabout outside the Safeway,
and then Tarbert, half asleep, navigating the steps,
out into the morning, walking through the empty
parking lot to the employee entrance beside the
loading dock, then inside, pulling his apron off a
hook, and punching in his time card while the harsh
light of the halogens cut into his morning repose.
Rollie saw Tarbert's day unfold, saw him in with the
butchers, a dozen of them, in and out of the walk-in
freezers, silently gutting pollock, unwrapping hams
and provolones, the dull thud of livers and salami
ends landing on the cement floor, the air rank with
garlic and disinfectant, teenage boys mopping up
intestines and fisheads, bagging up entrails and black
pudding casings. And, then, Tarbert, through it all,
his apron splattered with blood and grease, waiting
and waiting, waiting for the moment, knowing that
within six, then three, then just one more hour, he
would be out of Safeway and into the Maltings, the air
redolent of ale and apple pipe smoke, watching the
silver balls light up the ramp, ramp after ramp, and
then the metallic door of the Death Star withdrawing
to expose its hollow core, the Star Wars theme music
crackling from the speakers, saw his name flashing in
digital lights for the entire city to see, there was
no one better, there's only one, there's only one,
GMT.
Rollie could see Tarbert leaving the Maltings in the
early afternoon with a head full of lager, the buses
and the taxis rushing up and down Nicholson Street,
couples dipping dim sum in the Orchid, past the
university students laughing, heedless, along the
green expanse of the meadows, and then, street after
street, newsagent after cornerstore, just a single man
with a carrier bag of Flora and Cheerios, all the
glory stripping away.
But then, Rollie saw Tarbert flicking on the power
strip, saw him alone in his living room, his face
illuminated by his computer screen, saw him dialing
into Cloudland, his own creation, he the Webmaster,
every word and every image, his own, saw a grown man
clinging to an ideal, saw him screaming in keystrokes,
never letting the cursor rest, that even he, even
George Michael Tarbert of Fountainbridge, the stink of
Safeway gore and Derby sage still crusted in his
nails, black flecks of rusted metal baking trays
lodged into his forearms, knew and recognized that
there was a beauty in the world which he felt
compelled to perpetuate and publish. Rollie saw
Tarbert running his mind over and over the Empire
Strikes Back, how every line and every motion fit
exactly into place, how George Lucas, a guy from
California who dreamed of hot rod race cars, cattle
rustlers, and diner waitresses, had created enduring
truth with laser precision, knew that he and George
Lucas were not much different and shared a genius.
Rollie saw Tarbert sailing into cyberspace, trying
desperately to align his own life with that ideal
vision, the vision of battles and drama and escape, a
vision of life where every element was as it should
be, good conquering villainy, saw Tarbert asking into
cyberspace, unsure, desperate, "Is there anyone else
out there who shares my vision, surely I can't be the
only one." Rollie saw the message bouncing off the
satellites, in and out of chips, and circuits, down
phone lines and broadband wires, and then from
somewhere out in that vast anonymous cyberspace,
Rollie saw Tarbert's chatroom alight with urgent
response, Tarbert clicking his mouse, and there, in
block capitals, was not only one person but hundreds
writing back that 'NO, NO,' George Michael Tarbert,
'You are NOT alone,' there is a twenty two year old
file clerk in Sapporo, a travel agent in Sioux City, a
pipefitter from Long Beach, a department store shoe
salesman in Manitoba, a heating and ventilation
engineer formerly of Musselburgh now residing in the
capital, and many others who share your vision. Let's
not just leave it at that, let's talk about it.
And, then, for a moment, in-between the instant
coffee and microwave prawn curry, before the football
scores and chatshow repeats, before the alarm clock
signaled the first step back to the buses, the
brewery, and the butcher littered with snouts and
knuckles, there was connection. There, perhaps at that
very moment, in a galaxy far, far away, a great
adventure was taking place. Tarbert, Rollie, they
could feel the collective power of a Force. Star Wars.
Yet, it was not enough. These voices were nothing
more than digital characters, matrix dots, vibrations,
impulses: the prattle of electric currents running out
of room.
***
Rollie felt a hand slide into his back pocket. He
opened his other eye and looked down at Bee, who was
holding onto his jeans to keep from falling backward
off the machine. "Honey, Rollie, let's go home," she
said. "Tea and toast, little tea and toast." Tarbert
laughed and winked. Rollie lolled his head back to the
board, only to find that his ball was bouncing
precariously close to the alley. He only meant to
nudge the game, but he slammed the machine with his
knee, sending it careening off the wall. Bee's head
and then her entire body fell forward, the ball
plummeted into the alley, and the word TILT blinked
across the scoreboard. TILT-TILT-TILT, TILT wouldn't
stop blinking.
The theme music crackled into static then ceased.
Rollie liked the sound of screws and steel balls
rattling and coming to rest, so he leaned back and
kicked the front of the machine. He guessed that his
toenail split, but felt no pain. He aimed for the coin
return and kicked again, and again. The scoreboard
went black. Tarbert inhaled and exhaled like a pug,
then shouted, "No blasters, No blasters." "Who is
that?" screamed the barman. "Who's back there?" From
down on the floor, Bee reached out her hand. "Help me
Obi-Wan, you're my only hope." Rollie did not hear
her. He was gone, out the door, moving at light speed.
***
He was gone, out onto Nicholson Street, and he was
getting the fuck out of Edinburgh, enough of this,
twenty six hours a week in a boiler suit and face mask
crawling around air ducts and ventilation shafts,
asbestos, all those asbestos release forms, come home
and its already dark, microwave cheese and shells,
flip on the kettle, Pot O' Noodles, no way, he wasn't
ever going to eat another fucking bowl of cheese and
shells, no taste, day after day, go down to the pub,
day after day, talk about the clouds and the Hibs, did
you see, a thousand redundancies in Falkirk and
Grangemouth, all these fucking fat useless fucks,
living Saturday to Saturday, six hours of wages drunk
in a round down at the Persevere, oh yeah, heard this
new fellow from Killie is one to watch, did you see, a
peach, an absolute fucking peach against the Jambos,
you see that, did he see that, No, he was getting out
of Edinburgh, enough of this shit, crawling around in
the air shafts, snaking up the tubes, the metal seams
cutting into his thighs, banging his fucking head on
the tanks, up, up, and away, up and out of it, well
gone up into the hills, an island, An Island, yes in
the West, beyond the rail line, no phone, nobody,
Visa, there's enough on the Visa, first train to
Glasgow, Oban by noon, out there way out there, nobody
knows, no fucking cheese and shells, imagine the coal
fire, the coastal path, imagine walking the cliffs,
green fields, cobbled beaches, the tidal flats,
digging for clams on the tidal flats, what was a
month, he could live a month on nothing, post office
shop, wellies, a jumper, proper hat, socks, a
toothbrush, razor, save it for pints, clear nights to
see the stars, diving for oysters, no fucking cheese
and shells, Barra, Vatersay, Castlebay, enough of the
Persevere, pisswater. Bee. The far fucking Outer
Hebrides. He was going. Now. To Barra.
***
Rollie stumbled along South Clerk Street toward
Waverly Station, slamming his hand against street
signs and kicking newsagent sandwich boards and trash
barrels. Everything was now clear. He was leaving for
Barra on the next train. He would board the ferry in
Oban. What if there wasn't a ferry? He would spend the
night in Oban, climb up to the Folly with a bottle of
wine, or, why not just hire a boat, some local guy
with an outboard, give him fifty quid. Had to be done.
He just needed some time and space to collect his
thoughts. Too much pressure. Pressure drop. Bee. He
needed the pressure to drop. This was important.
He stopped beside a queue of people waiting in line
at the bus stand to tell them the news. "I'm not going
to say how to live your life," he said, "but I'm going
to Barra, okay, no more buses, so fuck off." It was
easy. Credit cards made everything easy. How long
could he live out on Barra? Rollie decided to
celebrate his new life with a pint. Maybe he should
just get a carry out for the train. Couple cans,
bottle of champagne. Sandwiches. Jaffa cakes. No, why
wait, why ever wait.
Where was he? Rollie didn't recognize where he was.
Tesco, automatic doors, grannie with a pram. All Days.
Three men drinking Carlsberg Special Brew on an
abandoned sofa. Stop lights. Criss cross, parallel
lines. Avalanche. Pakoras, starfruit. A wheel of
dripping doner meat. The discount store, costume
jewelry, ceramic Nessies.
He crossed the street, and walked into the Southsider
pub. It had changed. Where were all the old boys? The
Southsider used to be dim and smoky, a magnet for
bearded real ale campaigners perspiring over the guest
beer. But now, what was this? It was full of students
drinking neon orange, blue, green, and yellow liquids.
Dance music. Drum machines. Chrome stools. Had to be a
coke bar. Eggheads in turtlenecks. The Cantina theme,
LaDaDaDa-dadi-da-dadidadadadadida. What was in those
bottles? Rollie put a handful of coins onto the
counter. The barman faced him. "Yellow," he said,
directing the barman's attention to a pyramid of neon
bottles. "The yellow." Easier to serve him and wait
for him to go away than to risk the hassle of an
argument, he figured. Rollie grabbed the bottle and
walked out the door. What was it? What flavor made
Yellow? Pineapple? Lemon? It was sickening, syrupy,
like carbonated candy. With a rubber legged running
start, he hurled his arm into a windmill motion and
pitched the bottle at a garbage can. Shards of glass
shattered across the sidewalk. Two teenagers in
tracksuits applauded from a bench. What was he doing?
He was wasting time. Outside a red door, he spotted a
bike. Ten speed. No lock. Rollie shouted "Waverly,
just to Waverly," to anyone who might be interested.
"Going to Barra." Now he was moving.
***
Pedaling, faster, building speed, faster, getting
closer and closer, the bike blurred down the bus lane.
When Rollie hit the downhill, he continued to pedal,
refusing to coast, because he didn't want to lose
speed. First gear, tenth gear, the chain ringing in
time to his footfall, faster, faster, more intense.
There was no fatigue. He could pedal forever. Yes. He
would pedal forever, why wait for a train in Waverly,
when he could cycle all night and catch it in North
Queensferry? He would pedal across the Forth Bridge
and watch the sun come up in Fife. Better, all the way
to Ladybank, he could do it in a day, switch at
Ladybank. It was amazing. Rollie saw his entire life
rise up and spread itself out before him like an
iceberg. Nothing could contain him. Here he was
crawling around in ventilation shafts, when he could
be anywhere and anything. Tangier. Thailand. Cuba.
Pedaling, faster, faster, more intense.
Cold wet air drummed against his face as the cycle
picked up speed. He was bowed, in a crouch, when his
shadow raced before him, illuminated by the lights of
a bus. He jumped onto the sidewalk and pedaled past
the hydrants. Pedaling and pedaling. Five minutes. Ten
minutes. Where was the zoo? Rollie looked up and
around, expecting to see a glowing arc above
Corstorphine and the airport, lighting his way to
Fife. Instead, he saw the lamplit parking lot of a
Safeway. Where was he?
He was near Dalkeith, going in the wrong direction.
Not north. South. No time to spare. He squeezed the
brakes. Too sharply.
At first, Rollie and the bike crashed together in a
mangled sculpture of elbows, denim, brake wire, chin,
and oiled chain. When the bike stopped, Rollie did
not. For five, ten feet, he rolled and staggered
across the pavement, wobbling like a rugby ball, until
he came to rest next to a garbage can. He heard the
front rim click and spin and saw his knee cap gashed
and bleeding. Pffffft, the air whispered through a
puncture. Then, footsteps.
There was someone down the road moving toward him.
Who was it? Was it only one person? Actually it looked
like a couple, arm and arm. He couldn't make it out.
The world was spinning too rapidly. He had to rest and
focus on stillness. He heard a voice, maybe Bee's,
scolding, little boy, too fast, let's go home, this is
too intense, you should know what's good for you. Tea
and toast. The earth was off its axis. Where was
gravity? Rollie floated off into the cosmos, alone,
drifting in the solar wind.
***
The sensation of weightlessness was not how Rollie
envisioned it. Shooting stars left tracers, shot
across the galaxy with brilliance, but then burned
dull and brown, no different than the rest of the
inconsequent suns. The other planets were scarred and
cratered, swirling with malodorous and blinding gas
and dust. He floated off the pavement in Dalkeith,
floated up out of his body, circled the
constellations, effortlessly parting the atoms, but
still felt heavy. The sensation of space travel,
jetting off and disappearing in the infinite, held
little allure. He couldn't let himself go. Too much
pressure. There was some unidentifiable but pervasive
anxiety, that seemed to leaden all his thoughts. What
was it? Where was it coming from? Rollie focused on
the stillness.
Adult life was curious. When he was a kid, all the
games had a clearly defined purpose or a home base.
Motivation was black and white. There was danger and
safety. It was just like Star Wars. Good and Evil.
Rebel Alliance against Imperial Senate. Destroy the
evil Empire, before it destroyed you. Conflict.
Effort. Victory. But what was motivating now? Rollie
had no passion. He went through the motions of living,
working, sleeping, and buttering toast, just to create
the illusion that he had earned a deserved portion of
space and time. There were moments, when he was
playing pinball with Bee or walking through the
meadows after work, that he felt this illusion was in
fact contentment.
But life was far more complicated. It was not a
battle between good and evil, but a series of
perspectives, submissions, and concessions that would
never come to resolution.
Whenever Rollie was hired for a ventilation job in an
office, he wondered about all the clerks and lower
level managers. Waking up at seven. Coffee and toast,
out the door. Traffic from Dalgety Bay, a standstill.
Bumper to bumper. Passion, confidence, all directed
toward the need to change the marketing paradigms for
packing tape or no stick fry pans. Lusty thoughts
about temps and team leaders boiled in their heads.
Rubbing themselves under their desk at the prospect of
a Rover with heated leather seats. Life was not
everything they dreamed it could be, but they found a
way to cope with the tension between the ideal and the
real versions. They created new ideals or narrowed the
material and domestic possibilities of their ideals to
create the illusion of victory and success. They no
longer dreamed of blasting a laser into the Death
Star, nor did they fight the magnetic pull of the
tractor beam. Instead, they planned a perfect
Valentine's Day dinner, with flowers, and a hunting
weekend in the Borders. Rollie didn't want to concede.
So he rebelled with entropy. But there was never a
release from uncertainty and anxiety. When or would it
come? The pavement in Dalkeith wasn't even close.
***
The pavement. He was still on the pavement. How much
time had passed? There wasn't any pain, but Rollie was
slowly regaining consciousness. He heard a car speed
by, then several cars, then by the sound and rumble of
it, a lorry. Then, the sensation of weightlessness
gave way to the sound of birds, the fizzle of a
streetlight, and a nascent throbbing in his hip.
Something was jabbing into his leg. Damaged nerve,
bone spur, torn ligament, a sprain? No, it was a key.
It was the only key to their flat. Bee. What would she
do, where would she go? What had he done? He thought
of all the times that he had cursed the city, walking
home alone from the Maltings, confronted at every
close by lovers and intimates. Their alienating
shadows and embrace. A stabbing pain. All those times
he wished and wondered, all those times he woke up and
touched her shoulder. But here he was lying in the
street of Dalkeith while Bee was left alone. He felt
the pavement. Slippery. It had to be blood, it was
definitely blood. But he had to save her.
Rollie rose to move and felt a presence holding him
still. He opened his eyes to find the outline of a
head haloed by the streetlight. Then a voice, "Rollie,
Rollie," then the touch of a hand. Bee. Her touch like
a coal fire. He held his hands out to it, and let the
heat blaze across his contorted frame. Bee. Oh, Bee.
Skye, Let's go to Skye. The heat was scalding and
intense, burning and boiling in his bloodstream, until
it pushed out all the tears and pain. Anesthesia, and
a soft landing. Bee, when will we get to Skye.
***
A million light years away, the battle raged on.
Every nanosecond, space pilots and princesses were
born to regents and farmers on Endor, Degobah, and the
asteroid colonies of Alderaan. The universal balance
shifted, one peaceful nation eclipsed with firepower,
another Empire gathering more space in the infinite.
One vain warrior glimpses, cowers, revolts, sells his
soul to the dark side of the Force. Another, an
orphan, stargazer, hearing voices, wakes up from
ignorance to find he is the last remaining hope in the
universe. Supernovas. Rockets ignite. Hyperspace.
Landspeeders skimming across Tatooine. Intergalactic
hegemony. A thousand unseen wars and a million unknown
trials waged among the stars. But what of it? Here
they were together, in Edinburgh, Bee and Rollie, lost
in their own Dune Sea.
"It's a beautiful moon tonight," Bee said, helping
him to his feet. "Did you see?"
"It's not a moon," Rollie said. "It's a space
station."
© Dan Pearson
Reproduced with permission
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
POLVO’S ‘COR CRANE SECRET’ 
KING TUBBY
JAMES KELMAN'S 'A CHANCER' & STORY, 'REMEMBER YOUNG CECIL'
SPACEMEN 3’S ‘RECURRING’
THE FALL'S 'ICELAND'
