The humidity was heavy in New York City on May 25, 1969.
Duke stood on the corner across from the Coronet Theatre, watching the line.
According to the conventional wisdom of the film industry, Midnight Cowboy was a suicide note since the rating and content was too heavy.
But the line was there, it existed. And it was long.
It stretched around the block, there were college kids in Army jackets, serious-looking intellectuals with thick glasses, drag queens in cheap furs, and what Duke though seemed some tourists.
"Look at them," Robert Evans whispered.
The head of Paramount Pictures was standing next to Duke, his body a vessel of caffeine and nicotine from the nervousness.
Evans was wearing a suit that probably costed a lot, but he was sweating. He kept checking his watch, then checking the line and viceversa.
"They aren't rioting at least," Evans noted, sounding almost surprised. "The board told me to avoid riots. They said some people of the Legion of Decency had been threatening to burn the theater down."
"They aren't going to burn it down, Bob," Duke said, he was dressed casually, a dark turtleneck and a leather jacket. "They're going to love it."
"You really think so?" Evans pulled a cigarette case from his pocket.
"It's a great film," Duke answered. "And Paramount will get a lot of box office from it"
Evans lit his cigarette, and exhaled smoke.
"Well," Evans said, a grin finally breaking through his anxiety. "The tracking numbers are insane. The tickets for the premiere sold out in ten minutes."
He turned to Duke, his eyes narrowing.
"So," Evans said. "We did the Western, Love Story. and Midnight Cowboy. What's next now? What's the next project?"
Duke looked away from the theater, staring down the avenue where steam was rising from manholes.
(I never understood why New York has that steam things)
This was the question he had been wrestling with since the Oscar Awards.
He had a library of the future of cinema in his head. He knew a lot of movies from 1970 to 2026. Not even just american, korean, chinese, Iran he had watched movies from almost anywhere.
But he had to consider that timing was everything.
"I've been looking at scripts," Duke said cautiously. "Old ideas, things I've had in a drawer."
"Give me a genre," Evans pressed. "Sci-fi? Horror? Paramount would love another romance."
"I'm thinking about a war," Duke said.
"A war movie?" Evans grimaced. "Duke, Vietnam is on the news every night at six o'clock. Nobody wants to pay to see more mud and blood."
"Not that kind of war," Duke said.
He was thinking about Hacksaw Ridge.
The story of Desmond Doss, the conscientious objector who saved 75 men on Okinawa without firing a shot.
It feel like a perfect story for 1969, a war movie for a generation that hated war. It had grit, it had faith, and it had a hero who refused to kill.
"I have a story about a medic," Duke said. "World War II. Okinawa. He refuses to carry a gun. His unit hates him, calls him a coward. Then he goes up and saves them all."
Evans took a drag, considering it. "A pacifist war hero? It's... eccentric. I'll give you that. But is it cinematic? Where's the action if he doesn't shoot back?"
"The action is him surviving," Duke said. "But maybe it's too heavy."
He thought about Fury. A tank crew at the end of the war. Brutal, cynical, claustrophobic. It fit the "New Hollywood" aesthetic.
"Then there's the other one," Duke said softly.
"The other one?"
"A boxer," Duke said.
Evans scoffed. "Boxing? Sonny Liston just made a comeback. But i mean unless you're making a documentary about Ali, nobody really cares."
"It isn't about boxing," Duke said. He was thinking of Rocky.
He knew that somewhere in New York, a young actor named Sylvester Stallone from University of Miami was trying to get cast as an extra.
"It's about a bum," Duke continued, watching the crowd across the street. "A guy who works for a loan shark. He's got no future, no education, nothing. He talks to his turtles, he's also kind of a loser."
"And?"
"And he gets a shot with the champion. And then he goes the distance."
Evans looked at Duke, tilting his head. Evans loved stories about losers who refused to lose.
"A love story?" Evans asked.
"Has one. With a girl who's shy, works in a pet shop."
Evans flicked his cigarette into the gutter. "It sounds... a little sentimental, isn't it? We just made Midnight Cowboy. Ratso dies on the bus, Duke and that girl from your movie also died. Happy endings are for squares."
"Things changes," Duke said. "By the time we make it, maybe people will be a little tired of death. Maybe they'll want to see someone get back up."
Evans clapped Duke on the shoulder. "You write it, I'll read it. Let's go watch the movie."
Duke smiled. He was still considering his next project.
The next morning, Duke was on a flight heading west.
He slept for most of the flight, his dreams a weird story of Jon Voight walking down while getting robbed by Harrison Ford holding a laser gun.
When he arrived, he didn't go to his apartment. He rented a car and drove to an specific location while singing Hotline Bling by Drake.
Duke pulled into the gravel lot of a dive bar in Sunnyvale called Andy Capp's Tavern.
It was a place for locals. Peanut shells on the floor, and a jukebox playing Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Nolan Bushnell was waiting for him outside, pacing back and forth near the entrance. The young engineer looked calm. His hair still a mess.
"Duke! How was the premiere?" Nolan said smiling, rushing up to the car before Duke had even turned off the engine.
"It was good," Duke said, stepping out and putting on his sunglasses. "So what happened? Did the cabinet catch fire?"
"Worse. It stopped working. I haven't checked it yet."
Nolan led him inside. In the corner of the bar, next to a pinball machine that looked old, stood the Pong cabinet.
Duke had loved the unique look, yellow on the front, wood grain on the sides. A handwritten sign was taped to the screen, 'OUT OF ORDER'.
A few patrons, guys in work shirts glared at Duke and Nolan as they approached.
"Hey," one of the guys shouted from the bar. "You the guys who put that thing in here?"
"Yeah," Nolan squeaked.
"Well, fix it! I was on a streak. I had the angle figured out."
Duke smiled at the man. "We're on it."
He turned to the machine. "When did it die?"
"Last night," Nolan whispered. "Bill, the manager, called me at 2 AM. Said the coin mechanism jammed and then the screen went black."
"He was pissed, Duke. He said if it's going to take up space and not make money, he wants it gone."
Duke knelt down behind the cabinet. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket.
"A jammed mechanism could mean a bent coin," Duke said, more to himself than Nolan. "Maybe someone dropped a beer on it or something."
"I told you the environment was too rough," Nolan hissed. "These guys kick it. They spill beer on it. Electronics are delicate!"
"It's an arcade, Nolan. It needs to be tough."
Duke unlocked the rear access panel.
He pulled the door open.
Clatter. Clink. Crash.
Duke jumped back as a literal avalanche of metal poured out of the machine.
Quarters. Hundreds of them. Thousands.
They spilled out of the internal housing, cascading over Duke's boots and skittering across the wooden floor of the tavern.
The sound was deafening, a metallic rain that turned the heads of everyone in the bar.
Nolan froze. His mouth dropped open.
"Holy..." Nolan whispered.
Duke reached into the machine. The plastic bucket, a literal generic kitchen container Nolan had used to catch the coins was buried.
It was so full that the coins had piled up into a tower, backing up the chute all the way to the slot.
The machine wasn't broken. It was choking on money.
Duke scooped up a handful of quarters. They were warm, greasy and they smelled like copper and sweat.
He looked at Nolan, and then he started to laugh.
"It's not broken, Nolan!" Duke said, "It's full!"
The bartender, Bill, wandered over, wiping a glass. He looked at the pile of money on the floor.
"I'll be damned," Bill said. "I thought you guys sold me a defective product."
"This is two days?" Duke asked, looking at the pile. "This is from two days?"
"Thing hasn't stopped," Bill said. "Line out the door last night. Guys betting beers on it. Even girls play it. Never seen anything like it."
Duke looked at the quarters in his hand.
In his other life, the Hollywood life, success was a little abstract.
It was box office receipts reported in Variety a week later, money you would only see after months.
This? This was direct. Someone put a quarter in, they got joy out, and Duke got the quarter.
It was the purest transaction in entertainment.
"We need a bigger box," Duke said, echoing the thought he'd had months ago, but now seeing the physical proof. "Nolan, we need a real bucket."
Nolan was on his knees, scooping the quarters back into the machine's base.
"Do you know how much this is?" Nolan stammered. "If this is two days... Duke, the math. If we have a thousand of these..."
"If we have a thousand of these, we will be rich." Duke said, standing up and brushing the dust off his jeans. "
He looked at the machine. The screen was still dark because the safety switch had tripped. He reached in, cleared the jam, and flipped the reset toggle.
Blip.
The white dot appeared. The square wave sounded.
"Game on!" one of the guys at the bar shouted, rushing over with his own quarter in hand.
Duke stepped back, letting the customer take his place. He watched the man's face. The intense focus.
Duke walked out of the bar into the bright California sunshine. He leaned against the warm hood of his rental car.
Duke looked back at the door of Andy Capp's Tavern. He could hear the faint blip... blip... blip from the parking lot.
He got back in the car.
"Hey, Nolan!" Duke yelled back toward the bar.
Nolan poked his head out, clutching a bag of quarters. "Yeah?"
"Don't spend it all on beer. We're going to need capital for the injection molds."
Nolan grinned. "I think we can afford the beer, Duke."
Duke drove away, the gravel crunching under his tires. He turned on the radio. The Rolling Stones were singing Sympathy for the Devil.
"Pleased to meet you," Duke sang along, tapping the steering wheel. "Hope you guess my name."
___
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