(ten) "Punching Chuck E. Cheese"

(part four) Cul de Sac

“The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less”.
-Soul On Ice Eldridge Cleaver

(ten) Punching Chuck E. Cheese
Autumn had blown in unexpectedly early, before the middle of September and the Indian Summer that the boys wished for never materialized. The haze of summer was brushed from their minds as the hustle, bustle and dread of entering high school took its place.

Jake had stashed away a good chunk of change during his weeks at McDonald’s, but his savings plan would alter when his father demanded he scale back his hours to concentrate on his studies. In return, Big Jake would drive him back and forth to work. The boys immediately hopped on the idea that they would never have to ride their bikes up to the Mall anymore. They could hang out there all weekend waiting for Jake to get off his shift and then head out to parts unknown getting into any trouble that would be had. The boys thought that with this new mode of transportation, Summer could linger indefinitely, if only in spirit. But, Eddie had other plans.

Eddie had begun to extract himself from the rest of the children on South Martin. He began to eat at another table with older kids. Punk kids with long greasy hair that reeked of cigarette smoke. These were Burnouts. These were kids who traveled the Path of Least Resistance. Kids who enrolled in mentally strenuous classes like Wood Shop or Auto Mechanics. They would sit at the back tables dining on healthy foods like Munchos or King Dons and wash them down with half-liter bottle upon half-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. Occasionally, Richie and Morris would join Eddie with his new friends, but he never asked the Twins and least of all Jake. Eddie would laugh at one of the upperclassmen’s imbecilic jokes and then look over at his former thralls as if to say ‘I bet you wish you were me’. He would say something just out of earshot of the remaining boys clutched around the small round table, laugh and point in their direction. The upperclass men would laugh and clap him on the back in deference to his mental dexterity and verbal wit.

Following these lunchtime betrayals, Alex and Scott would rage and steam at Jake. He offered neither solace nor no explanation at their trusted leader’s transformation. He merely basked in the emptiness that he left and the joy that the leaving brought. He was more relaxed, more jovial without Eddie around. His transition from junior high to high school was running along its course without so much as a ripple. But, Jake was lulled into a false sense of security that would bare its ugly teeth and bite him when he least expected.

All the boys had English together, Jake and the Twins Carson seated in the front of the class and Richie, Morris and Eddie seated in the rear. Their teacher was a nearly blind arthritic hag of a woman named Miss Waltham, first name Madge. She was shriveled and brown with age, like a rotten apple, age spots standing out like major cities on the road map of her wrinkled skin. She had taken to wearing caftans about fifteen years back and had liked the comfort they afforded her enough that she threw away all her other clothes. Her fingers were caked with chalk dust that dried out the tips so much they cracked and bled.

Her major pedagogical thrust was the word puzzle. She would Xerox a dozen or so word puzzles every Monday and pass them out. The students would then be required to pass them in during the week or until she collected them at the beginning of class on Friday. For the first few weeks, Jake thought this was a joke. He thought that perhaps the real teacher had been on maternity leave and was set to come back anytime. Or, the real teacher was dying of an inoperable brain tumor and the school board was frantically looking for a replacement. But, the weeks wore on and Jake thought that perhaps Miss Waltham had read the same magazine article his sister Kay had read about crossword puzzles strengthening your vocabulary. Jake finally settled on the idea that Miss Waltham was preparing for retirement by scaling back her workload of teaching her students the beauty and majesty of the written word by replacing it with endless variations on the same Word Search or Jumble.

Jake, Alex and Scott would have them all finished by the end of the class period on Monday. It took others longer. Most of the students were done by classtime Wednesday, leaving them two days to fuck around doing nothing until Friday. On Friday, she would show an hour of a movie of the book the class was currently supposed to be reading and writing a paper on. This week Scott had talked her into renting Excalibur because they were reading The Legend of King Arthur. Jake suggested that he talk her into Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but then thought she’d catch on. Either way, she had no idea of the amount of nudity and gore in the movie and she had missed most of it during her nap anyway.

That was it, crosswords and movies. If any of the parents knew the kind of quality education their sons and daughters were getting they’d’ve yanked them out of public school and taught them themselves.

Eddie was passing in one of his crosswords and on his way back from his desk he dropped a note onto Jake’s desk. Jake opened and read it.

J.
They’re giving out free passes to the sneak of Fast Times at Ridgemont High at Harmony House. Ask to go to the library. You’re doing your report, whatever. Meet us by the bike racks. We’re going to the Mall.
E.

It was a masterful plan and Jake marveled at Eddie’s ingenuity. It would take ten, fifteen minutes to ride up to the Mall, they’d grab the passes and a little lunch and then be back by the time the bell rang. But, Jake had misgivings. Could he trust Eddie? Could this be an elaborate hoax to leave him stranded at the Mall with a flat tire so it looked like Jake had skipped school when in reality he had only skipped one class? Fast Times at Ridgemont High had looked good in the previews Jake had seen and he thought Phoebe Cates, who he thought was hot, was topless in the movie. He was torn. He decided that he would do it. He passed the note to Scott who read it and passed it to his brother. They were all in agreement.

The ruse went down smoothly. Miss Waltham-- Mötley Mädge, as some of the Burnouts had started to call her because of the huge pentagram Jeff Hogan had scrawled on the front of her desk with a black El Marko--scribbled out a hall pass in her cramped hand and they were off. They stopped by the library to get the pass signed by Jo Canton, a plain looking girl who worked in the library during this hour each day, restocking books and reading magazines, learning Library Science through a hands-on approach. She asked them to get her a pass too in return for the favor and Jake had agreed. She winked at Jake when she handed the pass over. Their alibi in hand, the boys met by the bike racks and took off to the mall. Traffic was light for 11 a.m. and they had no problem making it to their destination in under fifteen minutes. They parked their bikes near the Chuck E. Cheese and entered the Mall.

Most of the shoppers at this time of day were housewives, trotting around from Lord and Taylor to Olga’s Kitchen to Lane Bryant in their jeans and appliquéd sweatshirts. Some even had curlers in their hair neatly camouflaged by a Western print handkerchief tied Mormon-style over the bulky rollers.

The boys mounted the escalator and planned the rest of their mission.

“I vote we get McDonald’s”, Scott said. Alex slapped him in the back of his head.

“Yeah, Let’s get Jake in trouble, Butthole”, Alex barked.

“How’s he gonna get in-- Oh, I see”, Scott corrected himself.

“I say we hit Taco Bell”, Jake said. Jake always suggested Taco Bell because it was good food that was within his meager budget. Most times they agreed.

“We’re going to Chuck E. Cheese”, Eddie stated firmly. “Anyone who wants to eat can eat, anyone who wants to play Defender or Donkey Kong can play.”

It was settled like that. Without a vote, without even a cursory ‘What do ya think?’. Eddie was always that way. He rode roughshod over all the boys, all the time. Jake had relaxed in the past few weeks into the small, neat democracy he and the Carson boys had formed. There were only three, which meant there was never a stalemate. Everyone was fairly represented. Each had their own voice. Eddie’s reassertion of his power over them rubbed Jake the wrong way. He saw the discomfort that Alex and Scott were feeling also. They were pulling on their newly shed subservient mannerisms like old clothes they’d grown out of; ill fitting and constricting.

They entered Harmony House in a dispersal pattern, like an efficient gun squad. Eddie and Richie hustled to the Heavy Metal section. Morris cut right toward the front cash register. The rest of the boys wandered over to the movie soundtracks.

Morris was talking to the woman behind the counter and then turned, empty handed and headed toward Jake.

“They’re out of them. Eddie’s gonna be pissed”, he said under his breath as he made his way over to Heavy Metal.

“We rode all that way for nothing?”, Alex asked.

“I bet they told them not to give them out to kids who were cutting class”, Jake offered in response.

“How would they know?”, Scott chimed in. “Why else would we be here at 11:15 on a schoolday?”, Jake answered. “Unless...”

Jake broke from them and headed toward the woman at the register. He stopped short and began to cough violently. The woman looked up from her copy of Rolling Stone and Jake bellied up to the counter.

“You okay, Kid?”, the longhaired brunette asked. She was dressed in a chambray shirt tied at the waist and jeans. Her hair was swept back behind one ear. The tag on her right breast said ‘Hi, I’m Pam, How may I help you?’

“I’m sick”, Jake said.

“Well, don’t give it to me”, she returned leaning back a bit in mock horror then she smiled. “What can I get you?”

“My Mom heard on the radio that you were giving out passes to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. She told me to come over here while she was in Lane Bryant to get passes and to remember to get one for my brother, too”.

Pam looked intently into Jake’s face.

“You’re probably all out aren’t you?”, he ended this question with a small muffled cough and a sniffle, a trick he learned by intently studying the behavior of his mother, a devout hypochondriac.

Pam paused and then reached below the counter, retrieved three pink rectangular pieces of paper and passed them to Jake’s sweaty hand.

“You do have them”, Jake squealed a bit. “Thank you so much.”

He smiled broadly to the woman, turned on his heels and walked out of the store. One by one the boys followed him, exiting the store at approximately 30-second intervals. They walked to the pre-ordained regrouping spot at the fountain in the center of the Mall.

“How many did you get”, Eddie said grabbing them from Jake’s hand.

“I got three”, Jake answered grabbing them back.

“What good is three gonna do?”, Morris said. “Well, one goes to me, ‘cause it was my idea”, Eddie said. “The rest of ya can fight over the other two”. A palpable tension began to rise between Eddie and Jake.

Richie broke in , “I’m hungry. Can we figure it out later?” Eddie paused for a brief second before turning for Chuck E. Cheese.

* * *

They had finished their pizza, wolfing it down in quick gulps, searing the roofs of their mouths with the hot napalmesque mozzarella. Eddie simmered in the corner playing Defender and smoking cigarettes.

Jake had caused a shift in the power dynamic. He had spoken out against the dominant paradigm and was now in a situation that made Jake wonder if his rising dread was what Leon Trotsky must’ve felt. He expected Eddie to return with a pick-axe and plunge it into the back of his skull, wrench the Fast Times at Ridgemont High passes from his pizza sauce stained hand and bolt past the cartoon pictures of Ollie Onion, Peter Pepperoni and Tommy Tomato toward the exit. Alex and Scott were stealing furtive glances between themselves and Jake. Richie and Morris ate in silence, alternately taking a drag on a cigarette and chawing a hunk of pizza crust oblivious to the danger of the situation. Not the danger of inhaling artery clogging mozzarella cheese and massive amounts of tar and nicotine, but the danger of sitting so close to a doomed man.

Eddie finished his game of Defender by slapping the joystick hard. He returned to the table.

“Let’s went”, Eddie stated as he crushed his butt out on the half-eaten piece of pizza on Scott’s plate.

They exited into the sun. Next to the entrance, some poor soul dressed as the restaurant’s mascot was waving to the cars passing in the parking lot. Jake looked at the six-foot rodent and was amazed at the fact that a restaurant would enlist a filthy disgusting trash-eating vermin to be their sole spokesmodel. Surely this was a health code violation. Eddie pulled his pack of cigarettes from his coat and began to open it when he saw Chuck E.

Chuck E. had turned toward the group and his friendly manner went into the semblance of a swagger.

“Hey, Whassup?”, Chuck E. said. “Wassup”, Eddie said. “Who’s in there?”

“I’m not suppose to talk”, Chuck E. said.

The boys were unlocking their bikes while listening to the exchange. Alex and Scott were doing it more quickly than the others were as if they knew of some impending kitchen fire or explosion.

“Where’d you go to school”, Eddie asked. He turned to Jake and handed his cigarette pack to him. Under his breath he said, “Hold these for me”.

“Royal Oak Campbell”, Chuck E. answered. Richie and Morris were on their bikes.

“Campbell, hunh?”, Eddie replied. “Campbell SUCKS”.

Jake looked up from putting the pack into his pocket just in time to see Eddie rear back and punch the big Rat in the side of the head. His fist cracked the paper maché and fiber and left a dent in Chuck E.’s round flesh colored cheek. The Rat stumbled backward, his tail swinging wildly back and forth on its fishing line guide wire. Eddie stepped toward him and swung again, the blow glancing off the bulbous black nose, snapping it loose from the rest of the snout.

Richie, Alex and Scott were already pedaling toward the bike path at the edge of the parking lot. Morris was holding Eddie’s unlocked bike upright, in wait for the rider. Eddie took two steps and leapt onto the bike. Jake stood motionless, gripped in the utter surreality of the situation. Chuck E. rolled onto his front and got to his feet. The Rat turned, swinging his big dented head in Jake’s direction, the black nose lolling into and out of its correct position on a few intact fibers. He grabbed Jake by the arm.

“Are you with them?”, Chuck E. barked in an angry strangled growl belying the permanently cheerful grin and rosy cheeks of his outward demeanor.

Jake jerked his arm from the Rat’s grip and shoved him toward the door. He stepped back, on his own tail and fell flat onto his gray fake-furred haunches, the tail sticking between his legs like a gargantuan pink penis.

Jake jumped on his bike and pedaled fast. Chuck E. got to his feet and vainly gave chase. Jake was out of his reach and down the row of cars before Chuck E. could reorient his huge head. Alex and Scott were waiting at the viaduct, laughing their asses off as Jake rode up to them. He could see Richie, Morris and Eddie pedaling into the distance.

They looked back to the entrance to Chuck E. Cheese. The Rat was now decapitated. He had grown a smaller human head that was chattering away to Mall Rent-A-Cop and gesturing toward the highway with his furry grey paw.

* * *

When they stopped by the library they had exactly four minutes before the bell. Jake gave Jo Canton a pass and thanked her for her help. She smiled at him and stuffed the pink paper into the pocket of her supertight dark blue Sergio Valenti jeans. She readjusted the bottom of her baby blue Izod sweater over the waist of her jeans, exposing for a moment the flat plane of her stomach. Alex and Scott looked at Jake with confusion as he walked out of the library. They looked blankly at each other and followed him out.

“What’d you do that for?”, Alex asked. “Now there’s only one left”.

“Two left”, Jake said.

“You’re not giving Eddie his pass?”, Scott asked loudly.

“They’re my passes to do with whatever I want”, Jake said turning and stopping in the hall. “Here. You take them”.

He handed the Twins a pass each. They looked at them as if they’d just unwrapped a Wonka bar and found the coveted Golden Ticket inside.

“You’re sure?”, Alex asked.

“Yeah”, Jake returned, heading back to Mötley Mädge’s class.

“Why are you doing this?”, Scott asked. “Eddie’s gonna be pissed”.

“Ask me if I care”, Jake said as he turned the corner

* * *

Jake noticed that Eddie, Richie and Morris weren’t there. He gave Miss Waltham the pass and she pulled her glasses up from where they hung on a chain against the embroidered front of her caftan.

“Where’s Mr. Stephens and the rest of them”, she asked.

“I think they’re going to lunch from the library”, Scott answered. “They said you wouldn’t mind. Do you want me to go get them?”

“No, that’s all right”, she said as she wiped a bit of drool from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. Jake looked down to the velour front of her blue caftan to see a darker blue wet spot. She had probably fallen asleep again.

The bell rang and the kids funneled through the door into the cramped hall, filling it with sweaty noise. Jake pushed past the gaggle of sophomore girls clumped at he locker near the door. He turned to see Eddie leaning against his locker; one shoe resting on the vent grate at the bottom, the other plant firmly on the tiled floor. He walked up next to him and began to turn the dial on his locker.

“Where’s my pass?”, Eddie asked.

“I don’t have them.”

“What do you mean you don’t have them?”, Eddie had turned toward Jake and leaned into his face. He smelled strongly of cigarettes and garlic.

“I gave them away”, Jake pulled his locker open.

Eddie punched Jake’s locker shut with a clang. Eddie stood there a moment vibrating with burgeoning rage and then reached his hand down to Jake’s side. Jake felt him grab a pinch of his fatty lovehandle between the side of index finger and thumb and clamp his grip down. Jake bent toward the pain. Eddie then twisted the skin between his fingers and pushed in inward, intensifying the already sharp pain. Jake buckled and tried to wiggle from the pinch. His legs gave way and he collapsed in a clump, sliding down the lockers and onto the dusty tile floor. Eddie followed him down, never letting go. When he was pleased that Jake was indeed in excruciating agony, he finally let go and stood. Jake rolled onto his back holding his side. Eddie lifted his sneakered foot and brought it down hard, stopping three quarters of an inch from Jake’s face. Jake could make out the word Nike and the Swoosh under it. Dirt flaked off of the sole and into Jake’s eyes. He tried to blink away the dirt, bringing more tears to his already welling eyes.

Eddie removed his foot and walked away, leaving Jake balled in a fetal position on the floor.

(nine) Pedal faster, Fat Ass

(nine) “Pedal faster, Fat Ass”

Feeling guilty that he was not contributing his share to the tiny family income, Jake had taken a job at McDonald’s in the Mall, his first paying gig. He had lied about his age on his application in order to get the job paying student wage, $2.85 an hour. He worked like a galley slave for the pittance and in return they gave him a free uniform, complete with paper hat and a free meal every time he worked. It was Jake’s way of helping his family. They wouldn’t have to feed him as much and he would be bringing some extra cash into the house. In the trade off, he worked on weekend mornings during the summer. He was the first of his friends to get a job outside of Morris’ and the Twins respective paper routes and he was proud of it. Well, except for the uniform.

He despised being seen in this polyester disaster. He had taken to riding to the Mall in street clothes, changing into his uniform and then, at the end of his shift, changing back for the ride home. This day, however, he had woken up late and thrown on the uniform to save time. At about ten minutes to the end of his shift, the boys walked into his McDonalds.

They had ridden to the Mall, the boys, on what the weathermen had promised was going to be another fabulously bright sunny day. It was east down 14 Mile Road, across three major thoroughfares and under the I-75 overpass. It was a long ride and accordingly meant that they had likely spent the entire day wandering around, loitering actually, in the cool air conditioning. Jake knew the drill because he’d done it so many times before he got the job. They would rest up from the long trek, leisurely stroll through Harmony House and Footlocker, stopping by The Pretzel Man for a cheese-covered pretzel. Or, perhaps they would have lunch, which meant four large French fries and four large Cokes, at the Kresge Cafeteria because the fries were bigger than McDonald’s. Jake clocked out and joined the rest of the boys at the fountain that took up the center of the Mall. The fountain that, every fifteen minutes, shot its chlorinated streams into the skylight above; the mist from the spray landing on the boys’ skin cooling them even more than the conditioned air. And, they would need cooling. First from the long ride and then from the swarm of teenage girls.

The girls would herd by in clumps of five or six, flip-flopping their sandals or neatly tied shoes across the faux-marble granite floor. They would stop at the window of Baker’s Shoes or at Hit or Miss, the designated lookout craning her neck to see if any of the boys were still looking. For the most part, they were dressed alike. Short shorts, usually jean cut-offs or cords, and tank tops or short-sleeved concert T-shirts with names like Asia or Journey emblazoned across the swell of their bosoms. Some of the girls still hung on to bell-bottoms, but they were fast being taken over by straight-legged designer jeans. Their clothing, however, wasn’t as important as their hair. This was the main focus, this was the part of their body that they sexualized the most. A flowing mane was the bright plumage needed to attract the opposite sex. It was kept long for fear of being called a Lezzie. Sure, some had ventured into the Dorothy Hamill but had since grown it out. The girls would intricately feather it back from the center part, cascading it down around their shoulders in auburn or amber waves. It was frosted or dyed blonde and was held in it’s position with half a can of Aqua Net Super Hold.

Most of the girls smoked, which Jake thought was odd considering the amount of flammable liquid they applied to their hair. Jake was dazed as one brunette girl tilted her head sideways and pushed her hair around to her back to avoid lighting it aflame as she sparked her Virginia Slims 100. She took a deep satisfying drag and straightened up, letting the smoke billow from between her slightly parted lips. Jake knew smoking made you look cool, but he had never acquainted it with making someone look sexy. Jake stood in awe at the epiphonious discovery that cool equaled sexy when Eddie broke the silence.

“I’d do her”, He said dragging on his butt. “While you guys watched”.

“Tag team”, Richie added and Eddie and he slapped five.

“She’s really Foxy”, Jake added then realized he should’ve just said ‘She’s a Fox’ or better yet just kept his mouth shut. The boys looked at him, puzzling at his verbal inadequacy, thinking ‘...and he’s suppose to be the smart one?’.

Jake recognized two of the girls as Steph Beaudoin and Dana Cortez. Steph took the cigarette from the brunette and puffed on it as Dana lit her own and handed it to her cousin, Jodi Bon.

Jake stood, then quickly sat down. To him, it was an honest gut reaction; perfectly natural. Suddenly his palm tickled recalling the plastic bristled nailbrush scraping her name and number from its soft pink flesh. He began to breathe deeply and shift his weight in his seat.

“Quit shaking the bench, Ya Spazz”, Morris said.

“Are you okay, Jake? You need my inhaler?”, Alex asked.

“Hey, Jake, isn’t that your girlfriend?”, Eddie turned, his eyes alight with mischievousness, his lips curled back in a grisly smile. He turned toward the girls and yelled, “Hey, Dana”.

There was no way in Hell that Jake was going to let Jodi or any girl he knew for that matter see him in his uniform. Jake stood, turned his back to the girls and went directly into The Cutting Board, the cutlery shop, without looking back. He stood behind one of the black marble uprights at the entrance and pressed his face to the stone. When he got himself under a semblance of control he peeked out from around the stone pillar. Eddie was talking to Dana who was flipping her hair and sucking feverishly at the straw to her lemon-lime slush. The boys were splayed out around Eddie, looking distractedly into the faces of the girls in front of them, that was, all but Alex, who kept looking for Jake to come out of the knife store and join them.

Jake turned and looked at the shining knives elaborately hung across a wall of burgundy velvet. He fixated on the 10-inch Chef’s knife to the left of the hefty cleaver set that was the centerpiece of this macabre display of cutlery. It was the 10-inch Chef’s knife that was the weapon of choice for Michael Myers, The Shape from the horror film classic Halloween.

He saw himself smashing the glass showcase door with his pudgy fist and extracting the gleaming metal tool. He made a few practice slashes in front of a nearly catatonic woman wearing a faded floral print dress and corrective shoes. Her mouth was stuck in a wordless scream. Jake walked quickly, never breaking into a run, like all good stalkers, for he knew that regardless of how fast the victim ran, he’d always be right behind. He crossed the marble floor and closed the distance between him and his prey. Eddie would be standing with his back to him and as he turned Jake would strike, slashing the airbrushed picture of Gene Simmon’s face on his shirt in two. He would advance at Eddie, stroking and slashing. Then, with his unoccupied hand he would grab Eddie’s throat and raise him off the floor in the adrenaline-fueled mania that gave all good slasher movie villains their inhuman strength. He would plunge the bloodied knife into Gene Simmon’s mouth and toss the limp, nearly lifeless Eddie into the Mall fountain, just as it began to spray. The water would be clear then turn to pink as it shot from hole in the center of Eddie’s shirt. Jake would then turn and all the girls and boys would applaud. Richie and Morris would slap him on the back. Alex and Scott would begin a rousing roundelay of “Ding, Dong, The Dick is Dead”. And, the milling throng would raise Jake to their shoulders and carry him in to Sander’s Ice Cream to share a celebratory Hot Fudge Cream Puff with his new sweetheart Jodi Bon.

Jake stood there, his face against the cool marble and watched as the group went off toward the escalator at the other end of the Mall. Scott and Alex looked back and caught Jake’s gaze. Scott raised his shoulders and arms in a ‘what are you doing?’ kind of gesture before falling in to the retreating ranks.

“Can I help you?”, a man with impeccably styled hair and very shiny fingernails was standing beside him. Jake startled.

“Ummm. No. Yes. Do you have a bathroom?”

“Public restrooms are over near the Brown’s Jewelers. Next to Sanders?”, asked as if this was Jake’s first time in the Mall.

Jake stepped out from behind his shelter and made his way away from the fountain that was just cycling up; spraying its discharge over the heads of the teenaged boys and girls giggling around it.

* * *

He was sitting in the back of Sanders polishing off his sundae, licking the sticky brown fudge from the back of his spoon and downing the last of his ice-cold milk when the Twins came in the through the entrance. They were alone and they scanned the seating area for a table. Jake tried to make himself smaller, shrinking in the booth and closing his eyes like the Cheshire cat trying to make itself invisible. Alex spotted him and motioned to Scott to follow. They made their way past the “Please Wait to Be Seated” sign and slid into the booth.

“Where’d you go?” Scott said as he grabbed a menu from the holder next to the ketchup.

“Uhhh, I don’t know...Here, maybe?”

“Eddie and Richie were wonderin’ where you went”, Scott added, running his finger down the list of burgers.

“I knew we’d find him here”, Alex said wrenching his brother’s menu from his grip. They flicked each other with their fingers for a brief moment until Scott relented and drew another menu from the holder. “Only, I didn’t tell Eddie”.

“Thanks”, Jake went back to scraping the last of the fudge from the metal dessert cup.

The waitress was a plump pleasant-faced woman with simple drop earrings on either side of her apple cheeks. She pulled a pencil from her tightly pony-tailed hair and a pad from the pouch on her apron.

“What can I get you young men?”, she said in a casual and almost flirtatious way.

“I’m hungry”, Scott said to Jake. “You’ll stay ‘til we eat, right?”

“Buy me a Cherry Coke?”

“Split it?”, Scott said to his brother, who nodded in agreement.

“Three Cherry Cokes to start”.

The waitress began to scribble their order.

* * *

“He’s an asshole”, Jake said, dropping his voice on the first syllable of the swear word as he took the last French fry from Alex's plate.

Alex and Scott nodded. Jake sat silently for a second vainly waiting for a response from the Carson boys.

“What do you think?”

“He can be mean sometimes”, Scott said.

“Jake’s right. He’s a butthole”, Alex hated cussing. The Carson family was devout Catholics. He was raised to be a cordial and polite young man. Vulgarity embarrassed him. In every situation, he’d find a euphemism or replacement for the offensive word.

“Sometimes, I just want to kill him”, Jake said. Alex smiled in agreement and sucked down the last of his chocolate malt.

“I dream about it”, Alex added. “Like I’m Jason or Freddy. I just want to slash his throat, pull his tongue out of the hole in his neck and pee on him. You think I’ll go to Hell for thinking that?”

“No”, Jake comforted him. “Not if you don’t actually do it.”

“Maybe his home life sucks”, Scott chimed in. “So he takes it out on us”.

“God, I HATE him”, Alex said a little too loudly, drawing the attention of a young mother who was spooning ice cream into her child’s mouth. Jake thought that her actions were probably the first of a long line of mistakes that would eventually turn the child into a hideously obese man/boy who’d never leave the house.

“Then why do you hang around him?”, Jake asked.

The Twins sat, silently contemplating this thought as the waitress padded over to the table and slapped down three checks.

* * *

“I don’t know”, Scott answered as he spun cord of the bike lock around the seat post of his Schwinn. Alex did the same.

“Who else are we gonna hang out with?”, Alex joined in.

“What about us? Just us three?”, Jake offered.

“That would get boring.” Alex said, mounting his bike. “He has all the cool ideas”.

Jake looked at the pair. Here they were, three intelligent boys who were imaginative enough and smart enough to dissect the reasoning behind Eddie’s vindictive and controlling behavior, but were stumped as to the reason why he held sway over their every action. Jake had suggested that they ignore Eddie for a while, sticking together. It was solidarity that would defeat the current fascist regime and bring down this Stephens tyrant. Jake had listened intently to his father and brother discussing Union business one night as he sat, huddled in the stairway leafing through The Story of America. What he was suggesting was a type of Union. Alex and Scott agreed that while it would work in theory, it would infuriate Eddie and he would rain down harsher and harsher ridicule and belittlement until they cracked under the pressure and returned to being his mindless thralls.

They discussed its pros and cons for a few brief moments, eventually coming to an agreement to just go on doing exactly as they had done all along. Jake shook his head in amazement at their complacency and inability to act as Alex and Scott split off on their way over to the video store where their older brother worked to beg him for a ride home in his truck. They left Jake standing alone outside the huge mosaic mural of the solar system that ran the whole length of the facade above the main entrance to the Mall.

Sweat rolled down his neck beneath the collar of his navy polyester uniform shirt as he worked the black dial of his bike lock. Heat was pulsing off of the tarmac in the Mall parking lot. He popped the lock and twirled it around the seatpost.

He hated this. Hated the trek home, a mile and a half down one of the busier streets in the county. He dreaded pistoning his polyester covered legs up and down in a mad dash from here to home in the shortest time to minimize the risk of being seen by any upperclassmen looking to terrorize a rolly-poly fat kid. He despised how the plasticesque fabric stuck like putty to his back, his chest, his thighs.

It wasn’t only the uniform, but just the act of being seen was what caused him duress. He was the lone soldier running from foxhole to HQ with no one to cover him. He was alone, unprotected from the gaze of the cruel car-owning upperclassmen that often cruised this stretch of road. Each rumble of bass throated, V-8 powered, muscle car exhaust raised the small hairs on the back of his neck. All the junior and senior boys owned supertuned gas hogs with rally stripes or Cragars. Ragtops and fastbacks would pass by with girls peeking out of the windows and screaming at their friends in other cars. The four-lane blacktop ribbon brought an acidic queasiness to each trip he made. He slid onto the saddle and pulled the front wheel out from between the bars of the rack.

He crossed the parking lot and pulled up onto the bike path that led along the heavily trafficked street and under the overpass. He crossed the cloverleaf that funneled the Northbound cars onto the interstate and headed toward the shade of the cement viaduct. Jake jumped off his bike and walked it into the waiting dark.

Here it was cooler. It was an oasis in the treeless sun-blanched landscape surrounding the highway interchange. The exhaust from the cars passing overhead wafted down into the space. A lot of the cars on the road still used Regular leaded gasoline. Most of the big chain gas stations had changed over, but there was still demand for the ozone killing fuel. Jake breathed in. He thought that the exhaust from Regular gasoline smelled uniquely comforting, unlike the Unleaded exhaust that was more acrid and bitter. No, Regular exhaust was rounder in the nose, its bouquet fuller and milder. He made his way under the cars barreling across the cement above him, their tires slapping the strips of tar separating the concrete slabs in rhythmic fashion. Jake made a wordless noise and the cavernous space bounced it off its graffiti-covered walls and echoed it back to him.

Out in the sun again Jake hopped on his bike and pedaled toward what his brother had affectionately termed “St. Phenson Highway”.

“Yeah, you never heard of St. Phenson? He’s the Patron Saint of the Suburbs.” Craig would say in mock serious tones. “He guided the developers to the woods and showed them how to clear cut the trees. He showed them visions of miles of subdivisions and planned communities. And, they seen that it was good”.

Jake now saw why his brother had given the street its name. In front of him was a green and white sign that read:

ST PHENSON HWY.

Some one had peeled the first “E” off the sign. Why, Jake had no idea. Jake couldn’t make out any possible reason, no hidden cuss word or sexual innuendo in the defacing of this sign. Maybe, he thought, it was just bad glue and it had fallen off by itself.

The bike path turned and ran along parallel to and about two feet from the road. Jake angled the bike toward the road and quickened his pace. A few cars with teenagers drove past him and he tucked his head down and sped up. It was then he realized he had forgotten to take off his little paper hat.

A yellow 1970 GTO with “The Judge” spelled out in a puffy orange 70’s era typeface on the fender pulled up even to Jake. He glanced quickly to his side and saw that the front seated was filled with girls. He turned his attention back to his path and steadied his steering. A girl, a blonde wearing a pink T-shirt with the words ‘Pretty Thing’ in cursive on it leaned out the window. The bike path was a good deal higher than the street and this advantage offered Jake an amazing view down Pretty Thing’s cleavage. She steadied herself on the door and spoke.

“Hey”, she said in a sexy smoky tone. This made Jake look over to her. She was holding something white in her hands.

“Pedal faster, Fat Ass”.

Jake could see what she had in her hands now, but by then it was too late. She pulled back the elastic on the boy’s underpants like a jury-rigged slingshot and flung them into the air between the car and Jake. They hit Jake in the face, obscuring his vision with white. He reached up one hand to pull them from his face and his head slid through one of the leg holes. The Judge sped off as Pretty Thing flipped Jake the bird. He looked into the rear of the car to see the front Mag wheel of Eddie’s Mongoose sticking from the trunk. Jake looked up at the rear window and saw Dana Cortez and Eddie sitting on either side of the car, laughing and pointing. Between them, facing forward and slumped down, he could make out the back of another girl’s head. The girl turned, and furtively looked toward Jake. It was Jodi Bon. Across her face was splayed a mix of hurt from Jake never having called her and sympathy for the boy she liked being the butt of a cruel joke. Tears welled in Jake’s eyes and he lost control of his bike. It careened down the ditch that ran in between the bike path and the parking lot to an industrial complex. As soon as his front wheel hit the soft earth, he went over the handlebars and landed flat on his back in the middle of a stand of cattails.

He lay there motionless except for his sobs, listening to the crickets around him, staring up at the sky and letting the murky rain run-off soak into his silly paper hat.