It is one of seven short stories previously published in the early 1980s in venues such as the New Yorker, Grand Street, Antaeus, and the Hudson Review.
[1] The short story begins with a young narrator whom on his twelfth birthday visits an amusement park he has not been to for over two years.
He has longed to re-visit the penny arcade “I had dreamed of it all that tense, enigmatic summer…”[2] and when approaching it has his mother and father wait outside.
He passes older teenagers and strolls past familiar games such as a toy derrick, and pinball machine.
But he came for something else, something “mysterious and elusive.”[3] He came across an old fortune teller and sees for the first time how the games have aged by her sullen appearance and general deterioration that comes with use.