#2
It was my fifteenth birthday, and by all accounts, it should have been the best day of my entire life.
Since it had been released the previous fall, all I'd wanted in the world was a Super Nintendo entertainment system ( SNES). It was the ultimate in video-gaming badassery. Every single commercial depicting happy children playing Super Mario World had played in my head just about every waking moment of my life since I'd heard the jingle "Now you're playing with power . . . SUPER power!"
And when I got a SNES for my birthday, I thought that the world was going to crack in half due to the sheer power of my enthusiasm. It was the last thing on earth I'd expected, due to the fact that my family was going through extremely tough financial times. But my father, being the hero of a man he was, knew how much it would mean to me to have one—and how much motivation it would give me to keep my grades up in school. After all, the last thing a fifteen-year-old boy wanted was for the entire meaning of his existence to be snatched from him and placed in his parents' closet because he'd gotten a D in English.
It was manners that held me at the dining room table until all of the visiting family members had left that afternoon. It would have been rude to open the SNES, yell "HAHAHAHAHA I GOT IT FUCK ALL Y'ALL," and leave to play it until my eyes bled. I probably would have had it taken away before I'd even gotten the power supply connected. But as they all stood up and indicated their intentions to leave, I couldn't help but wish them a fond farewell as many times in as short a time frame as possible as would convince them to get the hell out of my house and leave me to my sixteen-bit goodness.
When it was announced that my seventeen-year-old cousin Stevie wanted to stay the night, I thought, Good—someone else to play with! Stevie had an SNES—he'd gotten one the day it came out, just like everything else on the planet that he ever wanted. So of course, I thought, he should be pretty good at Super Mario World. Maybe he could teach me some secrets or show me a code or some sort of insider information gained by being one of the first people to own everything.
But no. Stevie didn't have any insider information. He didn't possess any codes. In fact, he confessed that he hadn't even played Super Mario World since the second day after he'd gotten his SNES. He didn't want to explore Vanilla Dome or the Forest of Illusion. He couldn't care less about discovering the secrets of Star Road, and he didn't want to visit Yoshi's House. No, Stevie wanted to go to Catherine's house.
"Catherine?" I asked. "As in Catherine Swinger?"
"Yeah," he said.
"As in Swinger the Swinger, Catherine Swinger?"
"Yeah," he said again, this time with a smile.
"Uh, no, thanks," I said, plopping down on the bed and pulling on the tabs on the side of the box that held my Super Nintendo.
"Come on, dude," my cousin demanded. "Do you know how bad this chick wants me?"
I winced at the very thought. I barely knew Catherine from seeing her around the halls of my school—she was a junior and I a freshman. Still, having inhabited the locker rooms of both the football and wrestling teams that year, I'd heard her name more than once, and from what little I knew of her, she was quite popular with the boys. And not particularly due to her looks (which, from what I'd seen, would scare the paint off walls). But she put out, and that's quite a redeeming quality for the socially climbing high school girl. For Stevie, the thought of sexual conquest outside the confines of his own school's echoing halls was too strong to resist.
"Stevie, I don't care how bad she wants you," I answered. "It's my birthday, I just got a Super Nintendo, and I want to stay here and play it. You can go if you want, but I'm staying right here."
"Duuuuuuude . . ." he said, clenching his fists and stomping a bit. "You have to come with me. I don't know where she lives!"
"Call her, then!" I said. "She can give you directions. Hell, I'll draw you a map!"
"Dammit," he said, "you won't do this? Not for me?"
"No," I answered. "I don't like Catherine. I don't like any of her friends, and I don't like the idea of having to deal with the whispers and jeers that are going to come when people find out that my cousin ended up sleeping with her."
"Why not?" he asked. "What the hell do you care what people say about me?"
"Because," I said, pulling a controller from the plastic wrap, "all anyone is going to hear are the words ‘Peacock,' ‘fucked,' and ‘Catherine.' They'll draw their own conclusions. I don't need that."
"Heh." He chuckled. "That just might be the best thing for you."
"Yeah, well," I said, flipping the plug of the controller around to figure out how the holes lined up with the slot on the console, "I'm happy where I stand on the social map for now."
"Nobody knows who you are," he said. "You said so yourself."
When I was ten years old, my mother married my father. This not only made Stevie my cousin, it also moved me from inner-city Atlanta, Georgia, to super-suburban Juanesonesboro. I ended up in a situation where everyone knew everyone else, and I was the odd fat kid out (it also didn't help that I was the only white kid listening to Eric B. & Rakim at the time). Junior high was equally hellish, because everyone was in the same districts. It was pure luck that they'd redrawn the lines my freshman year of high school, sending me to Mount Zion High School and everyone else to Jonesboro High. I adored the change. For the first time since I'd moved to that city, I was completely free to be known for who I was and not who I had been as a child.
It was with that thought in mind that I snapped, "Yeah, and that's precisely how I like it."
"Whatever, dude!" Stevie whined. "I can't believe you won't help your cousin out here!"
"I can't believe you're asking me to go sit in some girl's house while you bang her in the bedroom," I replied. "Especially when I just got a freakin' SNES!"
"Come on," he said, relying on his standard argument. Stevie was quite a handsome young man. He wasn't too short or too tall, sitting right at the five-feet-ten mark. He had sandy blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a smile that had apparently been getting him laid since he was twelve. He had a confidence that seemed neither bold nor overbearing; he had a natural understanding that what he wanted, he could get.
It pretty much always worked on everyone he knew except me. I was oblivious to subtlety or the wily charms of cute boys. I hated cute boys. In fact, I despised them. I wanted to punch them and throw them through walls, for it had been cute boys who'd made my life hell throughout my early school life. Stevie was the only exception to this rule—I'd always liked him, even though he shared the traits of my tormentors. But the natural consequence of having such a dire prejudice against pretty people was that I was immune to the poisons of their charm.
"Fine," Stevie said with a small pout. "If you don't go, I'm telling your mom and dad about your porn stash."
I threw down the controller, stood up from the edge of my bed, and walked over to him. I looked into his eyes, his growing smirk visible in the periphery of my vision. Given the recent excitement that had resulted from my mother finding my first ever pornographic acquisition, Stevie clearly knew exactly where to hit me to make me hurt the most.
"Fine. Let's go."
The walk to Catherine's house was uneventful, unless you count my not saying a single word to Stevie as an event. She lived a few blocks over from where I lived—just close enough to be on my school bus route and just far enough to maintain an uncomfortable level of silence with a horny cousin intent on adding another notch to his belt. When we got there, I stood on the stoop with my hands in my jacket pockets and my face in a scowl as Stevie knocked on the door.
"Hey, baby," Catherine said as the door creaked open. "Good to see you again!"
"Thanks," I said. "Wish I felt the same."
She sneered as she looked me up and down. "Not you. I don't even know you."
"Yeah, you do," I said. "I'm the cousin of the guy you've met once and are about to share your pubic lice with."
"Fuck you," she said.
I smirked and looked at Stevie. "Now I think she's talking to you."
Stevie smirked back at me. He and I were as opposite as opposite could be. But we were family, and we loved each other. Because of that, he could still find the humor in my game-killing. He smiled, slapped my left arm with the back of his right hand, and nodded toward the door. We both entered.
He and Catherine started going at it pretty much right away—no small talk, no emotional buildup. I supposed they'd done enough talking over the phone the past few weeks. They'd met at one of my wrestling matches in December, and according to Stevie, they'd been sharing fairly hot talk since. Maybe they'd gotten all of that out of the way earlier. Either that or both my cousin and Catherine were big, big whores.
"Hey," I heard Catherine say to me from somewhere inside Stevie's mouth, "keep an eye out. If my family comes home, give us a heads-up, will you?"
"I'm sure you'll be getting enough of a heads-up as it is," I replied.
Catherine snorted. "C'mon," Stevie said as he looked over at me. "You got my back, right?"
I smirked. "Yeah, man, I'll keep an eye out."
The pair descended into the bowels of her bedroom, so I went ahead and made myself comfortable on the living room couch. I was scanning the room, passing judgment on the family with each picture frame, figurine, and yard-sale art piece my eyes took in. As I evaluated their television, the concept of possibly making the time go by a little faster made itself apparent, and I began looking for the remote. It wasn't on the coffee table, and it wasn't on the sofa. I didn't see it on the chair or the love seat.
Great, I thought. This is one of those families who puts away the remote every time they're done watching TV. I bet they live in denial of how much television they watch telling all of their friends that they catch only one or two shows a week, and they rarely let the kids watch it. I bet they get a huge thrill out of how impressed their friends must be with how contemporary and elite they are, and all the while they're watching the hell out of some Letterman. I bet they also didn't know that their daughter was a big ugly slut.
I stood up and uncomfortably began opening drawers and cabinet doors on the entertainment center, when lo and behold, I saw a fully armed and operational Super Nintendo sitting there, just begging me to play it. And since it was my birthday, and since I'd been so unjustly ripped away from my own SNES . . .
It took me all of five seconds to get everything turned on and plop my ass on the couch with controller in hand. In under a minute, I was inside Yoshi's House, learning about how the princess had been kidnapped and whatnot. Before I knew it, I was exploring the Vanilla Dome, much like Catherine was doing with my cousin.
I'd read in last month's Nintendo Power about some secret exits from the various stages. If you could find a key item and carry it to the proper point, you could unlock a hidden exit and make your way up the mythical and all-powerful Star Road. It didn't matter that I didn't get to explore this secret on my own SNES... As long as I got to explore it. Soon enough, I found the secret exit from Ghost House #1—the one that unlocked the unlimited 1-UP block and all the super flowers and feathers I could get my hands on. I was giddy as hell: 99 lives, here I come! This knowledge was going to make getting to Star Road so much easier.
I was somewhere around 1-UP number sixty-three when I heard a small clicking sound. At first it didn't quite register to me as a small clicking sound. It registered as one of those events in life that simply does not matter one bit because you're playing Super Nintendo and you're getting massive 1-UPs and holy shit, it's so awesome. But then the clicking sound turned into a clacking sound, and as we all know, whenever you hear a click followed by a clack, there are only a few things it could be. Once I heard another click after the clack, and then a creak, I knew it was time to panic.
So panic I did. I stood bolt upright. I dropped the controller, and I fled down the hallway off the living room. I heard a small din of conversation from the area of the door, and many small moaning sounds coming from the end of the hallway. My first instinct was to leap out the first window I found, saving my own skin and letting Stevie get what was coming to him. But like I said: We're family.
I ran down the hallway, following the moaning sounds to the last bedroom on the right. I tried the door—it was locked. The door noises silenced the moaning, and I heard someone whisper something ever so lightly, something that sounded like "What was that?" I then heard major rustling and commotion as I tried the doorknob again.
The laughter and conversation grew louder in the hallway as Catherine's family entered the living room. I could hear Yoshi's Theme playing from the speakers on the television as someone questioned why the Super Nintendo was on.
I tried the doorknob again. More rustling. A few stomps and some banging around. Louder talk from the living room.
I tried the door again. This time it swung open, revealing Catherine in a hastily applied sweatshirt with extremely mussed hair. She looked frantic and embarrassed and completely shocked to see me standing there. Her shock then relaxed into annoyance. "Oh. You," she said.
"Your family just got home!" I whispered, adding a slight nod down the hallway toward the living room.
The shock and embarassment immediately returned. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the room, closing the door behind her.
"Where is Steven?" I asked in hushed tones, scanning the room.
She pointed toward an open window as her answer. "Go!" she whispered.
Just then a knock came at the door.
"Cathy?" a male voice said. "You okay, darlin'?"
Catherine and I looked at each other. Panicked, we redoubled our efforts to get me the fuck out of there. "I'm . . . I'm fine, Daddy!" she said.
"You sure, honey?" The doorknob clicked slightly, as if being opened slowly and with great concern for the privacy of person on the other side . . . but not enough concern to stay out.
She ushered me through the window. "I'm okay, Daddy, I swear!" she bellowed. I examined it—the screen had been bent up, obviously due to the fact that neither of the two people attempting to gain access to the outdoors knew how to undo the clips at the top of the window. I noticed that the clips on the bottom had been bent off and broken.
The doorknob stalled after a certain point, prompting the person turning it to try turning it again. "Is this door locked?" her father asked. "Why is this door locked?"
"Daddy, I'm . . . I'm getting dressed!" she yelled. I stepped through the window with my right leg and lifted the bent portion of the screen as much as I could so I could bring my body through. I was just crossing the threshold when my left pant leg became snagged on one of the broken clips.
I attempted to lift my leg up and off the clip while balancing on my right toe. I was nearly off when I heard a shrill scream, followed by "Oh my God, WHO ARE YOU?"
This is where it got ugly. Catherine's mother, having forgotten something in the car and heading back out to get it, found me climbing out of her daughter's window. She shrieked, then ran inside to fetch Catherine's father. I desperately began tugging and yanking at my pants leg to get it to come loose, all the while embedding the snag deeper and deeper. Catherine pressed on my left foot with all her might while I pulled on my leg, which—with a loud ripping sound—at last freed me from the skank's window.
I tumbled to the grass right beneath Catherine's window. A bit confused and a lot panicked, I'd begun picking myself up off the ground when I heard a sharp "Psssst!" coming from someplace close by. I looked around, unable to find the source of the noise, when I heard it again.
"Psssst!" said one of the bushes in the neighbor's yard. "Over here!"
"Stevie?" I asked as I stumbled over to it.
"Shhhhh!" he said as I came alongside the large shrub where he'd found concealment. There was some yelling from directly across, inside Catherine's room. It was followed by some shouting, then some outright screaming. "We gotta get out of here," Stevie whispered.
"Okay, then, let's go," I said, and turned to leave.
"We can't just walk down the road!"
"Why not?" I said. "We gotta go, don't we?"
"Yeah, but they'll see us!"
"So?" I answered. "They don't know who we are. They didn't see us come in, right? All they saw was a foot hanging out of a window. They could hardly identify a foot."
Stevie thought for a second.
"They have no idea it was you banging their daughter, right?" I asked.
Stevie thought some more.
"If we just walk down the road, all normal-like, we'll look like neighborhood kids out for a walk, right?"
Stevie considered this impeccable piece of wisdom and then agreed. "Okay, let's move."
The plan was solid. The plan was great. The plan combined common sense with situational awareness and provided us a perfectly executed exit strategy. What the plan did not take into consideration was the fact that we had to cross the yard to get to the road. And normal neighborhood kids, out for a normal neighborhood walk, rarely traipsed through the backyard of someone whose daughter had just been pilfered. A fact that Catherine's rifle-wielding father had clearly considered as he burst through the front door of the house and shouted, "STOP RIGHT THERE!"
We stopped right there. In fact, we stopped right there so fast and so well that we should have won an award.
"Back in the house!" he barked from the porch. I would have complied right then, but the shock of experiencing, for the first time, someone pulling a gun on me, after I'd escaped through his daughter's window, for playing their SNES while my cousin banged her—it certainly gave me pause. Apparently Stevie as well, because we both stood there not moving a muscle.
"NOW!"
We did what any sensible teenagers would do when faced with this situation. We ran. It took about three steps for me to reach full speed, and when I did, I broke all land speed records held currently to date by any man or machine. My breathing was deep and rushed, and my feet slapped loudly against the asphalt as my torn pant leg flapped in the rush of wind created by churning legs. I could hear Stevie keeping pace beside me. From somewhere behind us, I heard Catherine's father yelling something; I couldn't tell what it was. I just knew that he was yelling. But the next sound was unmistakable.
The report of a rifle shot echoed through the air.
After that, I didn't hear my feet pounding the pavement, I didn't hear Stevie beside me, I didn't hear shit besides my heart pounding in my ears, my face, my legs, my chest. It was like going deaf except for one sound that shook you to your core.
We ran. We ran until the rubber melted off our sneakers and our blood became carbonated with the amount of air our lungs pushed into it. And when we finally got home, we kept on running. We ran through the front door; we ran down the hall. We ran into my bedroom. If it were possible to run into a chair while sitting in it, we did that, too.
"Holy . . ." I said, gasping for air.
"Dude . . ." Steven said, lifting a limp finger that swayed up and down with each desperate breath he took.
I thought he was trying to give me a high five. I didn't want to give him a high five. I couldn't even bear the thought of giving him a high five after what he'd put me through. But I was too busy to curse at him and dismissively wave away his feeble high five, so I closed my eyes and continued huffing and puffing.
"Joe," he said, finger still extended.
"Go . . . Go fuck . . ." I said through breaths, trying to tell him what he could with his spare index finger.
"Look," he said, his arm still extended, his hand still bobbing, his body still heaving with the gasping for air.
I looked at his arm. I visually traced his bicep as it led to his forearm, which held out the limp wrist and even limper index finger. I drew an imaginary line from the tip of his finger outward and followed it to my left leg, which was leaking blood from the calf in rather large amounts. The ripped remains of my pant leg were damp and purple with my blood. My sock glowed a bright crimson. My sneakers looked like they'd been designed by some first-year fashion design student with a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop.
"Oh shit," I said. I'd been exasperated only a moment before, but suddenly, my body no longer craved oxygen. I was completely unable to breathe. The beating of my heart in my ears gave way to a loud ringing, and the world swirled and went black as I fell over in a slump.
When I awoke, I discovered that quite a lot had transpired during my little siesta. Stevie told my parents that I'd been shot in the leg (after all, there was a gunshot, and I was bleeding profusely from the leg). And when they asked very frantically why anyone would do such a thing, he merely indicated that a crazy man had fired his rifle from his porch while we were running down the street.
My mother took me to the emergency room, and my father went over to Catherine's house and introduced himself to her father. Within seconds, according to Stevie, my dad had the man by the throat and barely touching the ground with his tiptoes. He interrogated Catherine's father, demanding to know why he'd felt it necessary to discharge a firearm into his son's leg.
Catherine's father replied with a series of gurgles and spurts that, while probably satisfying to hear, didn't really answer my father's question. So he tossed the man around the room a bit and asked again. Catherine's father replied that he'd pointed the rifle straight into the sky and fired into the air, simply to scare us, so there was no way my wound could have come from that. He then proceeded to elaborate on Stevie's version of the story, shedding a bit more light on why he might have felt the need to fire a gun in the air to scare us and where the wound on my left leg had come from. He went so far as to give my father the nickel tour of the house, showing him the SNES controller that I'd played with and the room where Catherine had wiggled Stevie's joystick. Catherine's father even showed my father the chunk of metal from the ripped and folded screen, complete with tiny chunks of denim and leg meat. It was clear that I had not been shot and, instead, had my leg torn open by a hastily opened screen hook.
In light of this new evidence, my father apologized and instantly turned the full brunt of his anger and aggravation on me. This resulted in my parents returning the SNES that they'd bought me for my birthday. They said it was to teach me a lesson about peer pressure and about taking responsibility for my actions. They told me that I never should have agreed to go over there, and barring that, when the family got home, I shouldn't have run like a coward.
I know that it's because the deductible for the hospital visit was about the same cost as the SNES, and they couldn't afford both. But I definitely admire the way they spun it to add morals and whatnot.
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