(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.