The arcade on the pier logs every coin in and every coin out on every machine, because the take is the pier's income. The oldest penny falls, which is kept because people photograph it, is unplugged and its coin mechanism is jammed. Every night at twenty past one it logs a payout. Into the tray, with the clatter, old pennies, big ones, dozens, and the tray is empty by morning, and the machine's own count says it has paid out more than has ever been put in.
I am the arcade manager on the pier and the penny falls at the back is the machine I would save in a fire, and the machine that runs without me.
The machine.
A penny falls from the fifties, the big wooden kind, with the moving shelves and the pennies on them and the slot at the top, kept in the corner because people photograph it and because I like it. It is unplugged. Its mechanism is jammed with a penny that went in sideways decades ago. It is on the arcade's logging system because every machine is, and the log says it has done nothing for years.
At twenty past one it pays out.
The payout.
The log shows it. Machine one, payout, a number of coins, and the number is large, a proper win, the kind that empties a shelf. The tray at the bottom, which is empty, fills, with the clatter that everybody who has been in an arcade knows, the pennies falling over the edge and into the tin, and they are pennies. The old ones. Big, copper, with the king on, dated in the fifties and sixties, and the machine has not had a penny in it since 1971, because it was emptied when the money changed, and the shelves have washers on them now, for the look.
By morning the tray is empty. Somebody has collected.
The machine's own counter, which is mechanical, which has not turned in fifty years, shows a total paid out that is more than the total paid in, which a penny falls cannot do, because a penny falls is built to keep more than it gives.
What has been checked.
The machine, opened, by me, with the key. Washers on the shelves. The jammed penny in the mechanism, still there. No pennies anywhere in it. I closed it and at twenty past one it paid out and I heard them fall.
The arcade, at twenty past one, by me, beside it. The shelves moved. Unplugged, jammed, they moved, back and forth, the slow push, and on them were pennies, the old ones, and there was nobody at the slot, and a penny went in, I heard it, the drop and the roll, and the shelves pushed, and the pennies went over the edge, and fell, and the tray filled, and beside me somebody laughed. A boy. The laugh of a boy who has won on the penny falls, which is a laugh of pure disbelief, and a hand went into the tray, I heard the pennies being scooped, and pocketed, and the boy ran, on the boards, out of the arcade, and along the pier, and the boards creaked, out, towards the end.
Who.
The pier's book, which the pier masters keep, has a boy. Nineteen sixty something. A boy who had spent his holiday money on the penny falls, the way boys did, and had won, the book says, a big win, the shelf, a pocketful, and had run out of the arcade with it to show his mother, who was at the end of the pier, and had not got to the end of the pier, because there had been a gap in the rail where the council was mending it, and he had been running, and looking at his pennies.
The pier master had written it up. The book has the amount. It is the amount in the payout every night, to the penny.
He is winning. Every night. And running to show his mother. And the boards go out, and do not come back.
What is done about it.
The payout is on the arcade's log every night as a machine fault and the takings reconciliation has a machine paying out more than it takes, which the council's auditor has queried, and I have said the machine is unplugged, and the auditor has said that is not an explanation, and I have agreed.
What I do.
I run the arcade.
He ran because he had something to show. That was all. A pocketful of pennies and a mother at the end of the pier. And the rail had a gap.
The rail does not have a gap now. But a boy running along a pier in the dark with his winnings does not know that, and the boards go out and do not come back, and I have listened to that for too many nights.
So I am at the machine. At twenty past one, when the tray fills and the boy laughs and the pennies are scooped, I say, hang on, before he runs, and I hold out my hand, the way you do to a child who has won, and I say, let's see, then, and the running stops. The boards do not go. There is a boy, beside me, I cannot see him, showing me a pocketful of pennies, and I say, that's a good win, that is, and I say, your mum'll be pleased, and I say, walk, don't run, it's dark, and the boards go. Out. At a walk. All the way to the end, and there is, at the end, on the nights I have listened for it, a woman's voice, saying, look at you, and the boards come back, two sets, at a walk, and the turnstile at the shore end clicks, twice.