At the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, Duke sat in a green-and-white semi-circle booth, flanked by two people.
To his right, Blythe Danner was wearing her blonde hair swept back, and a emerald green silk scarf.
To his left, Harrison Ford sat like a man waiting for a root canal. He was wearing a sports coat, his shoulders hunched.
Across from them sat a journalist from Life magazine, a man named Miller.
"One million dollars," Miller said, shaking his head as he scribbled in a shorthand notebook. "Duke, the trades are saying Love Story is on track to be the highest-grossing film in the history of Embassy Pictures."
"People are lining up in the snow in Chicago just to watch it again. How do you do that on such a small budget?"
Duke smiled, leaning back and signaling the waiter for another round of drinks. "You do it by lying, Miller. To everyone."
Blythe let out a bright, melodic laugh that caused a few heads at the bar to turn. "He's not joking. I spent half the production convinced I was going to end up in a Massachusetts county jail instead of at the Oscars."
"The Harvard takes," Miller prompted, leaning in. "The university has been very vocal about the fact that they never gave you permission to film on campus. They called the script 'oversentimental' and 'beneath the dignity of the institution.'"
"Harvard has a lot of dignity and very little imagination," Duke said.
"They told us no and then the city of Cambridge told us no. We also didnt have enough money for all the permits, so we had to get creative"
Harrison finally spoke. "Duke told me to just act without caring about others," he said, staring at his drink.
"I'm sorry?" Miller asked.
"Acting," Harrison repeated, "They would be dressed in Harvard Apparel and would quickly record before anyone would try to stop us."
Blythe picked up the story, her eyes bright. "It was freezing. We didn't have trailers, we didn't have craft service."
"We had a thermos of lukewarm coffee. Duke dressed up like a faculty member, tweed jacket, and everything. Harrison and I just looked like students. We would sometimes even record at six in the morning."
"The guards were a huge problem," Duke added. "They have these campus guards who take their jobs very seriously."
"One guy, a big fellow started heading our way while we were setting up the shot near the library steps. Harrison, tell him what you did."
Harrison sighed, "I did a 'distraction.' Duke told me to go over there and act like a confused freshman who had lost his tuition check."
"I ended up arguing with the guy for twenty minutes about the location of a building that doesn't even exist."
"We were sprinting," Blythe said. "Lucas was hand-holding the camera, running backward in the snow, whispering at me to 'look more tragic.' I was terrified I was going to trip over a frozen shrub and get us all arrested for trespassing."
"We got the shot in three takes, threw the camera back under the dirty towels, and sprinted for the van just as the guard realized Harrison was full of it."
Miller was laughing now, his pen moving fast across the page. "And the dialogue? It feels so much more... real than the book. Also was the studio aware of all of this?"
"It's the New Hollywood, Miller," Duke said, his voice turning serious. "The era of the backlot is over. People want to see Harrison's breath in the air when he tells her he loves her. You can't get that for a million dollars if you play by the rules. So, we broke them."
As the interview wound down, Miller turned to Harrison.
"Harrison, the 'Love Story' fever is hitting hard. You're being called the new face of the American leading man. How does a guy who was working as a carpenter six months ago handle becoming a sex symbol?"
Harrison looked like he wanted to crawl under the booth. He rubbed the back of his neck, his face reddening.
"I'm still a carpenter," he said simply. "Acting is... it's a job. I'm glad people like the movie. I'm glad the check cleared."
Duke put an arm around Harrison's shoulder. "He's a star, Miller. He's very grateful for the audience support."
Three hours later, the Polo Lounge was a thousand miles away.
Duke pulled his rented Mustang into the gravel lot of a nondescript warehouse.
He stepped out of the car. He took off his sports coat, tossed it into the backseat, and began unbuttoning his French cuffs.
Inside the warehouse, the air was a thick, acrid soup of solder smoke, ozone, and pepperoni pizza.
"He's here! Duke arrived!"
Nolan Bushnell emerged from behind an arcade machine, his hair a wild clump, his face smeared with something dark and viscous.
"Duke! You gotta come see it."
In the center of the room stood the first production prototype of Pong.
It was a heavy, upright cabinet made of brown plywood.
Ralph Baer was there too, hunched over the back of the machine with an oscilloscope. He looked up.
"Duke," Baer said, wiping his brow with a greasy rag. "Mr. Bushnell is an amateur, but he's learning fast."
Duke walked over, peering into the insides of the machine. "What's the problem, Ralph?"
"The fan," Baer pointed. "It's an old unit, and it was designed for a vertical mount. Nolan has it mounted horizontally to save space. The bearing is leaking lubricant onto the logic board."
Duke looked down. Sure enough, a slow, black drip of machine oil was oozing from the fan housing.
He didn't hesitate. He rolled up his sleeves, reached into the chassis, and accidentally brushed his hand on a grounding wire that was vibrating loose.
"Ouch! Damn it!" Duke hissed as a stray spark nipped one of his knucles.
"Don't touch the bus bar!" Nolan yelled, but it was too late.
Duke pulled his hand back, staring at a jagged smear of black oil that now ran from his palm up to his a third of his forearm, ruining his white custom-tailored shirt.
He looked at the stain, then at the machine, and he started to laugh.
"From the Polo Lounge to a grease shirt in three hours," Duke muttered. "That's got to be some kind of record."
"Forget the shirt, Duke," Nolan said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Look at the screen. Ralph, hit the toggle!"
Baer flipped a heavy industrial switch. The small Hitachi television embedded in the wood groaned to life with a high-pitched whine.
The black screen flickered, and then, there it was, the dotted line, the two paddles, and the wandering white square.
"We got the coin op working," Nolan whispered.
He held up a dirty Mason jar filled with quarters. He took one, his hand trembling slightly, and slid it into the metal slot they had sourced from a pinball distributor in Chicago.
Clink.
The machine let out its first official sound a primitive, square-wave beep.
"Let's play," Nolan challenged.
Duke stood there, his hands covered in oil, and he took the control. He and Nolan began to play.
The sound filled the warehouse. Blip. Blip. Blip.
It was hypnotic. Even Ralph Baer, stood with his arms crossed, watching the ball bounce back and forth.
"It's too fast," Duke said after a minute, feeling the difference from his previous life Pong. "If you hit it with the corner, it accelerates too much."
"It's better that it's fast!" Nolan argued. "It makes the games shorter. Shorter games mean more quarters too."
"No," Duke said, "If they can't win, they won't play again. It has to be easy to learn, impossible to master. Adjust it."
Nolan grumbled but started taking notes on a napkin.
They played for another few hours.
Suddenly, the machine let out a long, dying moan. The screen flickered and went dark. A small wisp of blue smoke curled out from the coin mechanism.
"What happened?" Duke asked.
Ralph Baer stepped forward, peering into the coin chute with a flashlight. He reached in and pulled out a handful of quarters that were jammed tightly against the trigger.
"It's full," Baer said, sounding genuinely surprised. "The coin box is completely packed. The weight of the quarters must have jammed something."
Duke looked at his oil-stained hands, then at the jammed coin slot.
"Nolan," Duke said, his voice quiet. "How many of these cabinets can we build by september?"
"I don't know. Maybe a hundred if we work around the clock?"
"Let's double it," Duke said. "And call the cabinet maker. Tell him we need a bigger coin box. No, tell him we need a coin bucket."
Duke walked over to a workbench and grabbed a rag, trying to wipe the oil off his arm, but he only succeeded in smearing it further.
"The Oscars are in April, Should i throw a party and have some people try Pong?" Duke said, almost to himself
He looked at the silent wooden box in the center of the room.
He picked up a quarter from the floor, wiped the grease off it, and tucked it into his pocket.
"Ralph, fix the machime. Nolan, get more plywood. I'm going back to LA."
___
Idk why today i have seen a lot of Zion Williamson also known as Gooner King or The BBL bandit slander on my timeline