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Hank thought he’d found the Holy Grail of nostalgia: a 1982 Atari Pole Position arcade cabinet, the kind that once devoured quarters like a Baptist bake sale devours casseroles. He found it on Bring a Trailer, of all places—wedged between a ’72 Bronco and a DeLorean that couldn’t decide whether it was stainless or shame.

The seller was a guy in Castle Rock, Colorado. Claimed the game was “fully functional except for minor steering drift and intermittent sound.” Which, in the language of old electronics, meant “possessed by the devil.”

But Hank wanted it for the Lucky Lady Lounge before Christmas, no exceptions. “Can’t have half the town home for the holidays and no nostalgia to soak their beer in,” he told Rusty Hammer over lunch at Grounds for Divorce.

Rusty looked up from his breakfast enchiladas. “Couldn’t you just buy a dartboard?”

“Rusty,” Hank said, “this is Atari. This is America.”

The Road to Castle Rock

They left Fort Stockton in Rusty’s faded red F-250, the bed loaded with tie-down straps, moving blankets, and what Rusty referred to as “an optimistic amount of bungee cord.” The heater worked only on “sauna,” the radio stuck on a country station that played nothing newer than 1994, and the glovebox was full of expired beef jerky.

By the time they reached Lubbock, Hank had already gone through half a pack of Pall Malls and a lecture about how “men of our generation built character without therapy.” Rusty nodded along, silently wondering whether therapy might have been cheaper.

At a rest stop north of Amarillo, they ran into a couple in a Subaru who asked if they were transporting “something for Burning Man.”

“It’s a racing simulator,” Hank explained.

Rusty added, “For drunks.”

The Great Castle Rock Extraction

The seller turned out to be a man named Troy, who lived in a subdivision where every house looked like it came with a complimentary Labradoodle. The Pole Position cabinet was in his basement, wedged between a Peloton and a wine fridge.

“Thing’s a classic,” Troy said, patting the dusty steering wheel. “I had it in my dorm back in Boulder. Kept it ever since. Just time to let go, you know?”

Rusty crouched beside the cabinet. “You realize this thing weighs as much as a washing machine full of bowling balls?”

Troy smiled. “That’s why I listed it ‘local pickup only.’”

Hank and Rusty stared at him like men who’d just realized they were the locals.

Three hours later, after removing a handrail, part of the basement door frame, and one marriage photo (R.I.P. to Troy’s drywall), they got the cabinet out. Hank paid in cash—fanning out twenties like he was bribing a guard to escape East Berlin—and they wheeled it into the truck bed, tarped it tight against the cold.

“Worth it,” Hank said, lighting another cigarette. “History, right here.”

Rusty grunted. “Yeah. History smells like mildew and regret.”

The Motel Debacle

They stopped for the night at a roadside “inn” in Dalhart, Texas, where the neon sign flickered “OTA EL.” The lobby smelled faintly of cats and permanent marker.

The clerk, a woman who looked like she’d been laminated by nicotine, handed them a key with a fuzzy dice keychain. “Room’s got heat if you kick it,” she said. “Wi-Fi’s a rumor.”

Rusty checked the parking lot before turning in. “You think anyone’s gonna steal it?”

Hank shook his head. “Nobody steals video games anymore, Rusty. These kids are too busy stealing identities.”

They woke to find the tarp half off, flapping in a crosswind, the Pole Position cabinet coated in a thin layer of freezing dust. Hank panicked, brushing it off with his flannel sleeve like a parent cleaning up after a toddler.

“Don’t worry,” Rusty said. “I brought duct tape.”

“You brought duct tape?”

“Buddy, I brought the good kind. The silver one with extra Jesus in the glue.”

Return to Fort Stockton

By the time they rolled back into Pecos County, the cabinet had more road salt on it than a Christmas ham. They unloaded it through the Lucky Lady’s side door, right where the old jukebox used to sit before it “caught fire due to user enthusiasm.”

Delgado helped them plug it in. The screen lit up with that iconic start chime and the words Prepare to Qualify.

“Would you look at that,” Rusty said. “It’s alive.”

The steering wheel jerked once, the fan roared, and then a faint electronic vroooom filled the bar. Hank nearly wept.

“Gentlemen,” he said, raising a Lone Star, “Fort Stockton is officially back in 1982.”

The Boomers Return

Word spread faster than gossip at a Baptist potluck. Within two days, the Lucky Lady was packed with every aging motorhead and quarter-roller within a hundred miles. They came in jeans that hadn’t fit since Reagan and arguments that hadn’t died since the Eagles’ breakup.

Someone brought their original Atari T-shirt. Someone else brought their reading glasses just to see the screen.

“Back then,” one of them said, “you didn’t need no DLC or in-app purchases. You just raced.”

“Back then,” another replied, “you didn’t need knee surgery every spring.”

Hank stood behind the bar, tallying quarters in a cigar box, grinning like a man who’d just franchised time travel.

He’d even installed a leaderboard on the chalkboard next to the beer specials. Rusty held the top score for most of the week until Sister Thelma dropped by “to check on the sinners” and somehow beat him by two seconds. She credited “divine reflexes.”

Chad’s Confusion

Chad, the Lucky Lady’s resident millennial, stood there squinting at the cabinet like it was an alien artifact.

“So wait,” he asked, “you’re saying the car doesn’t move?”

Rusty sighed. “It moves on the screen, son.”

“But it’s not real?”

“Neither is your crypto, Chad.”

Chad circled the machine, frowning. “Where’s the USB port? And how do you, like, pause it?”

“You don’t pause it,” Hank said. “You drive.”

Chad looked horrified. “So if you need to pee—”

“—you crash,” Rusty said. “Like a man.”

Mayor Goodman Smells Opportunity

It took all of three days for Mayor Goodman to appear, armed with a clipboard and a toothpick he used like punctuation.

“Heard you boys are makin’ a mint,” he said, strolling up to the bar. “Now, under Section 3.12 of the Municipal Entertainment Ordinance, any revenue-generatin’ amusement device—”

“Hold up,” Rusty said. “You’re taxing fun now?”

“Not fun, Rusty. Revenue.”

Hank frowned. “It’s quarters, Goodman. Quarters!”

The Mayor nodded solemnly. “And them quarters add up. You got ten quarters, that’s two-fifty. A hundred quarters, twenty-five bucks. A thousand quarters—well, now we’re talkin’ taxable income.”

Rusty muttered, “You should run for office.”

Goodman grinned. “I already did.”

The Christmas Rush

By mid-December, the Pole Position had become a kind of holiday pilgrimage. Locals came home for Christmas, stopped by the Lucky Lady, and rediscovered the art of blowing on coin slots to make them work.

The jukebox blared Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, the floor was sticky with nostalgia, and everyone took turns shouting advice:

“Stay left on the Fuji turn!”
“Watch the billboard!”
“Don’t crash, you’re almost there!”

Even Lucinda from Grounds for Divorce came over one night after closing. She dropped in a quarter, took off her apron, and beat Hank’s best lap time by a solid margin. The bar erupted.

“Guess the lady’s got torque,” Rusty said.

Lucinda smirked. “Maybe if you learned to take a curve, Rusty.”

Hank’s Big Plans

As the quarters piled up, Hank started making plans.

“First, I’m getting new carpet for the Lucky Lady,” he told Rusty one morning. “Something that doesn’t smell like Pearl beer and shame.”

“Good luck with that,” Rusty said.

“Then I’m buying another machine. Maybe Galaga, maybe Donkey Kong. Build an arcade corner. Call it Memory Lane.”

Rusty nodded. “You should call it Financial Ruin.”

But secretly, he was proud of his friend. The Lucky Lady had seen its share of dry spells, literal and otherwise. Now, for the first time in years, the laughter sounded real again—loud, cracked, and full of beer.

The Breakdown

Two nights before Christmas, the inevitable happened. The steering wheel froze mid-race, the screen flickered, and the whole machine went dark with a smell like toasted capacitors.

Hank nearly fainted.

“Don’t panic,” Rusty said. “I know a guy who fixes these.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. He lives in Alpine. Used to rewire CB radios for truckers. Smells like antifreeze, but he’s solid.”

The man arrived the next morning carrying a multimeter, a thermos, and a level of confidence that suggested he’d fixed nuclear submarines.

He opened the back panel, poked around, and muttered, “Y’all ever try prayin’ over it?”

After an hour of soldering, he stepped back. “All right. Give her a spin.”

Hank pressed START. The screen came to life again. The little pixel car revved. The bar cheered like Jesus himself had joined the leaderboard.

The Race Never Ends

Christmas Eve in Fort Stockton was cold enough to freeze the beer taps, but inside the Lucky Lady, warmth and light spilled like whiskey from a cracked bottle. The Pole Position game hummed, alive and defiant, its screen glowing over a room full of faces that had seen better years and worse times.

Rusty leaned on the bar. “You realize this thing might’ve just saved the Lucky Lady?”

Hank smiled. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just reminding us what fun used to feel like before everyone started arguing online.”

“Same difference,” Rusty said, raising his glass.

Outside, the courthouse lights twinkled. Inside, the Atari car sped endlessly toward the finish line that never really came, roaring through turns, chasing ghosts of youth and high scores long gone.

And somewhere in the background, Sister Thelma yelled, “Move over, sinners—I’m goin’ for the record!”

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