Bowling for Bobbies

A short story by the Rev. Prostata Cantata
In which it is described how "Bob" Dobbs picks up the 7-10 split.
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It was another tuesday night at Fiesta-Bowl. The sign hovered
over me like an extra moon as I pulled into a parking space in front of
the tacky old building. Some asshole had tossed a rock through the great
big glowing "E" again.

Yeh, real funny.

I retrieved my bag from its resting place in my trunk and began
to walk through the grey February slush. On the way inside I passed Bob's
old Dodge Dart parked sideways across three parking spaces and blocking a
honda in the space next to the wall. The bastard was lucky nobody keyed
his car or had him towed. The green paint on the dart was matte from the
years of dirty midwest smog, but there were no scratches or dents to mar
that smooth Detroit paint. I could see one of his tires was low.

The sounds and oily smell of a bowling alley on a busy night hit
me as soon as I opened the door. I walked into the brightly lit room
wondering why I came here every tuesday. I like bowling ok, but Bob is a
huge pain in the ass most of the time, and he insists on going to the
crappiest lanes in town.

A bunch of league assholes were just leaving, each in their cute
little date-mate outfit, leaning drunkenly on each other as they pushed
passed me out to the parking lot. I noticed that one of them still had
his lane shoes on, and I smiled as I thought of what the salt and grime of
the Fiesta-Bowl parking lot was going to do to the smooth leather sole.
Dumbshit.

Bob was in lane 9 as usual. The one against the wall. I'm pretty
sure he does that on purpose, he knows I'm clausterphobic. That wall
always seems to inch closer when you look down the lane. Not even here 5
minutes and I could tell it was going to be another one of those nights.

"Hey there, bud! How's the Billmeister?" He said, grabbing my hand
and pumping it with the intensity of a $50 handjob.

"The name's William, Bob. Not Bill, not 'the Billmeister'. Jeezus,
Bob, do I have to tell you that every goddamned week? Look, are we gonna
bowl or what?"

I don't know why the hell I even go bowling with Bob anymore. At
first it was kinda fun, Bob isn't like anyone I've ever met before and
for a while he was a hoot and a half. But that was a long time ago, years
it seems. Now it's become a habit. Maybe next week I'll tell him to piss
off when he calls, but then Darla would hear about it from Connie and...oh
hell, it's only one night a week. Usually it's not too bad...

I put on my lane shoes and my glove, knowing that if we can just
get to the bowling we can maybe get into a sort of "bowling groove" and
actually get in a few good games before things got too wierd.

The first game was torture. In between rolling the ball down the
gutter and smoking that stinkin' pipe of his, Bob was telling his
"Travling Salesman" jokes again. The same ones I've heard 100 times now.
I really hate it when he gets started telling those, because he just won't
shut up. The second and third game went a little better. Bob was really
getting into it, and he can bowl like a madman when he really
concentrates. I was having trouble keeping up my game, but I can bowl
through anything.

It wasn't untill the forth game that it got wierd.

It was right after a beer frame and of course Bob was nowhere to
be found. But, after an hour and half with Bob I was looking forward to my
next drink so much I didn't mind buying even though it was Bob's round.
The waitress dropped off a couple of longnecks and I was just taking a
long drag off of mine when I heard the waitress let out a loud "YELP!"
behind me and I knew Bob was back. I put my beer down.

"Bob, will you leave that poor girl alone. I'm sure she really
doesn't need that kind of crap from you." Bob gets pretty obnoxious after
a couple of beers. "Besides, it's your roll".

Bob picked up that sick looking, bright pink Brunswick he bought
for Connie a few years ago (Connie has never bowled a game in her life),
and lined up on the lane with a look like he was gettin' ready to crap his
pants. Oh Shit, when he gets that look it means we're gonna see some real
bowling. I began to worry about how many beers I'de had already and if
I'de be able to keep up my game. Bob staggered down the lane to the foul
line and let go the sharpest hook I've ever seen and that pink ball tore
into the triangle of pins at the end like a hungry wolf. I picked up the
little pencil and stared to write an X in the square, when I heard Bob say
something like "OYURGLE!".

Looking up I saw instantly what had caused Bob so much torment. It
was a sight that strikes fear into the hearts of even brave men...
The dreaded 7-10 split.

"Too bad, Bobbie.". He hates it when I call him that. "You're
gonna have a hard time picking that one up!". I grinned and marked an '8'
on his score card.

Bob just stood there for a minute looking down the lane like he
was thinking about a horse he had to shoot. Then, as the pin-setter
cleared out the other pins, leaving just those two, he turned around and
grinned, showing entirely too many teeth.

"Ya know, old boy", Bob said, "there is one tried and proven way
to pick up the 7-10 split every time. An old austrian buddy of mine
taught me how to do it just before the war."

I picked up my beer and smiled. Looking at the score card, I could
tell I was going to win this one. I do know some bowlers who can pick up
the 7-10 every now and then, and Bob isn't one of them.

"Yeh, and how *do* you pick up the 7-10 every time, Bob?"

Bob just smiled and put some powder on his hand. He sat down on
the chair next to the score table and started adjusting his shoes. I
figured at the time he was just stalling until he could make something up.
He smoked for a minute and looked at those two pins sticking up like fangs
down at the other end of the lane. Then, taking the pipe out of his mouth
he said:
"You're familier, of course, with Schrodinger's wave equations, right?"

Huh? I started to say that I really wasn't, but he continued.

"Now, It seems that if I roll the ball down the lane, 4 things can
happen. I can roll the ball in the gutter or between the pins, I can knock
down the 7 or the 10, or if I roll just right," he gestured with his hand
down the lane to illustrate his point, "I can knock the 7 pin into the 10
pin and get 'em both!"

I nodded and took a swig from my beer.

"Well", he continued, "If I roll the ball and nobody sees it, then
you don't really know WHAT happened do you?"

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. I could see where this was
going. "You're talking about that cat arn't you?" I said.

Bob chuckled and a great cloud of putrid smoke billowed from his
pipe. "Well, yes, that was similar, but in this case is even simpler.
You see, for a momment after I roll this ball and hit that 7 pin, the 10
pin exists in a state of flux, where the 7 pin is either hitting the back
wall, or hitting the 10 pin. Untill the light from those pins travels
back to our eyes, we can't tell where that pin is for certain. Thus, for a
brief momment the 10 pin could exist in both states, either up or down.
Schodinger claims that it's actually in both places and says that it is in
a state of superposition. He claims that for a short time the pin will be
unobserved and it's possition can only be described by a probability
waveform that it is in any given place. Once someone observes it, then he
says that probability waveform undergoes a 'collapse'", he gestured by
wiggling two fingers of each hand to show quotation marks arround the
word, "and then it only exists in one place again!"

Yeh, I had heard that dumb story about the cat and I knew what he
was talking about, but, I didn't see how this was going to help him pick
up the 7-10. At least he wasn't telling those stupid jokes again, so I let
him continue.

"Now, some people would say that at the momment where the pin
exists in two places at once, a whole new universe is created for each
possible outcome. In one universe I pick up the spare and you have to buy
the next round, and in another universe I don't make it and ol' J.R. "Bob"
Dobbs is gonna have to buy the beer". You could almost hear the quotation
marks when he said it even though his hands didn't move at all.

"Some people say that when we observe the pins we find ourselves in one
universe or the other and we..."

"And some people" I interjected, "think that it's time for you to
roll the damned ball already and get this overwith!". I had had enough of
this and just wanted to get the game rolling again, so to speak.

"Hold on there, ol' hoss! I'll roll in a minute." He said around
his pipe, "I was just getting to my point."

"Finally"

"My point is that the pins really are in two places at once for
that impossibly short moment. The trick is that you can't let the pins
know that yer lookin' at 'em!"

"Great." I sighed. "Thanks for the worst punch line ever. Now why
don't you just roll that labia-pink ball of yours and we'll just see what
happens."

Bob looked hurt, but he stepped up to the lane holding that pink
ball like a baby. He closed his eyes and started puffing his pipe extra
hard, creating a big cloud of smoke that drifted up to the return air
vent. He brought his arm back and let loose the hardest roll I had ever
seen him throw. That ball was just a big pink blur as it went down the
lane. Instead of a normal follow-through, he turned around and put his
hands over his eyes, like one of those brass monkeys. See no evil.

I heard the ball impact a pin, but Bob was in the way and I
couldn't see down the lane to see what had happened.

"Bob, will you move or something." I said, "I'm tired and I just
want to get this over with."

He opened his fingers a little bit and turned his head over his
shoulder. I glanced around him the other way as he did that and gulped the
rest of my beer down in one long swallow.

The 10 pin was still standing alright, but there was another lying
next to it and a THIRD pin lying in the gutter next to them both. As soon
as I focused on that third pin, the standing 10 vanished with an almost
audible "pop" leaving just the two downed pins.

Bob was grinning like a damned fool.

Next week I'll tell him I'm sick or something.

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Bowling for Bobbies copyright 2001 Prostata Cantata.
Redistribution is authorized if title and credits remain unchanged.
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Original file name: Bowling for Bobbies - converted on Friday, 29 June 2001, 22:36