‘There is nothing miniature about East Iowa’s ‘Miniature Bowling Alley.’ The qualifier is meant to draw comparisons to ‘miniature golf’ – to communicate that this is not your normal bowling alley, but one in which Rube-Goldbergesque set pieces will aid or impede plays.
The ‘Miniature Bowling Alley’ is actually massive and convoluted, its lanes crossing and crisscrossing and generally overstaying their welcome. The weight of the balls. The length of the courses. The constant, uneven crashing of gutter balls. Nobody has scored a perfect a game simply because so few people have finished.
Much of the ‘Miniature Bowling Alley’ has fallen into the sort of disrepair one expects to see in the latter stages of a sports venue’s life. The plastic chairs are scratched and sticky. The food is lukewarm and overpriced. The people who work there never seem to leave. They blend in with the furniture, maintain a stoic indifference that is occasionally interrupted by something like blind existential panic.
The panic is timed with the orrery finale of the ‘Miniature Bowling Alley.’ The 18th hole requires that nine bowling balls, unlocked at various stages previous, be aimed and timed such that they orbit a massive and vaguely sun-decorated center ball. Nobody knows what’s supposed happen if this succeeds because it’s a near impossible ask and because, when it nearly did happen in the late seventies, the man behind the shoe counter threw himself into the lanes to block the shot: an action he was contractually obligated to take.
Labor laws have changed in the meantime but then, interest in bowling has declined. Most now visit the ‘Miniature Bowling Alley’ to engage with the lesser obstacles: a lobster that playfully squeezes rogue balls, a literal cannon, an industrial clown with bowling pin teeth that gnashes and chimes. This hardly seems to comfort the owner who is very, very old and yet still paces the orrery, still grips the railing when a young couple-in-love tries for a clumsy win. There is no doubt he will throw himself in front of a winning shot. No doubt it will kill him.
Then, there will be no one to stand in the way.
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
