Noggin (20 page)

“Sure. And Travis?”

“Yeah?”

“I finally told my folks.”

“And?”

“I can’t say it was the best moment of my life, but I survived.”

“They were pretty surprised?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said. “Mom cried. She just doesn’t want my life to be harder because of it. But I told her I’m pretty sure gay people rule the world, and she started laughing. She’ll be fine.”

“And your dad? What’d he say?”

“He was the most surprised. He thought I was just really picky. We still haven’t really talked about it that much since I told them, but I know they’re okay.”

“You tell Audrey, too?”

“Yeah. She says she knew already, but I don’t know if she’s just trying to be nice or what.”

He paused for a few seconds, and I wasn’t really sure what to say. All I could see was that gawky sixteen-year-old version of him sitting beside my deathbed in
the middle of the night, his whole body shaking as he told me the truth. I wanted to ask him if he felt the relief he’d been looking for or if it was something different. I wanted to know how it felt to tell the truth even when you think it could change the way everyone looks at you.

•  •  •

When Kyle picked me up for our afternoon at Arnie’s Arcade, he looked different from before—he wasn’t dancing and singing or anything, but I thought I noticed some change in his demeanor, like letting go of his secret had lightened him up a bit.

“That’s his house. The red one,” I said.

We pulled into Hatton’s driveway, and he was already standing on the front steps waiting for us. He wore his usual hoodie, zipped halfway up over a T-shirt that said “Are you kitten me?” and had a crude drawing of a cat on it. His favorite T-shirt.

“Gosh, he’s small,” Kyle said as Hatton walked over to the truck.

“You’re just old,” I said.

After Hatton had climbed into the backseat and he and Kyle had awkwardly shaken hands, we were all quiet for a few minutes.

“So, Kyle.” Hatton finally broke the silence, leaning up a little.

“Yeah?”

“Just curious here . . . on a scale of one to ten, how attractive am I to the average gay male?”

“Hatton, Jesus!” I turned around and thought seriously about throwing him out the window.

“Travis, chill out,” Kyle said, laughing.

“Like, what . . . like a one? Tell me it’s not a one.” Hatton never acknowledged my reaction.

“Hmm . . .” Kyle looked into the rearview mirror at Hatton. “I’m gonna say a solid three.”

“Three.
Hell
yes. I’ll take it. Thank you.”

“It’s the glasses. They work on you.”

“Hear that, Travis? These babies work on me.”

“Why do you care?” I asked.

“Travis,
anyone
finding me attractive is a score for me.”

“Fair enough.”

“Travis is a seven, closer to an eight,” Kyle said.

“That’s not fair. He cheated when he got his body.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll ruin it before too long.”

I guess Hatton’s bravery had done the trick with the two of them, had broken all the ice that needed to be broken, because they spent that afternoon at Arnie’s like they’d been friends forever. They moved from game to game, raced each other on clunky fake motorcycles, and placed bets on who could earn the most tickets. I didn’t join in because as soon as we’d walked into the arcade, I had a mission.

Arnie’s wasn’t all that different overall—the carpet was still a deep, dark red, dim track lights still hung in
diagonals across the ceiling, and the prize counter was still full of cheap plastic toys and erasers and Chinese finger traps. But the game floor had been changed. New games had been added, replacing the classic pinball machines and Pac-Man and Asteroids. And the most harrowing thing I noticed was that my favorite game of all time—Space Invaders—had been replaced by quite possibly the most frightening thing I’d ever seen. It was called Dance Till You Die and there were two middle schoolers, one boy and one girl, doing just that. They were dancing so hard, jumping up and down and twisting, that sweat was pouring from their foreheads. You could see it dripping from the boy’s hair onto the shiny, illuminated platform below him. It was horrifying.

I walked over to the counter and asked this kid who was probably no older than I was where they’d moved my game.

“Oh, that’s in the Retro Room. Back corner.”

Retro Room? Why would Arnie’s Arcade have a section marked “retro” when, five years before, the whole damn place existed and thrived for the sole reason that it was
entirely
retro? I walked over to Hatton and Kyle, who were playing some futuristic shooter game that I couldn’t care less about.

“What’s wrong with you, Travis?” Kyle asked.

“This place is freaking me out a little. I thought it would be more . . . the same.”

“It’s fun, dude. You wanna play?” Hatton asked.

“I need to go check something out. You guys keep having fun.”

The Retro Room was not a room at all. It was a dark corner, sectioned off by wavy purple curtains. The past, just covered up enough to give everyone the option to forget it ever happened. I was looking at the neon letters above the entrance and wondering if entering would somehow set everything back on its proper course, if the past would become the present and I’d finally feel like I was standing in the right place.

Just so you know, nothing spectacular like that happened when I stepped inside. It was still just me, part Travis, part Jeremy Pratt, and all disappointment. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Ms. Pac-Man, three pinball machines, Frogger, Centipede, Lunar Lander, and Space Invaders. If these games were the children of the arcade, then the Retro Room was their time-out, punishment for never changing the way they were, for not growing up like everyone else. And I belonged there with them.

When Space Invaders was still in its proper place near the main entrance of the arcade, I used to stand there and spend hours every weekend defeating the never-ending alien hordes as the electronic music got faster and faster. Sometimes Kyle would be there to lean against the machine and cheer me on. Sometimes more people would gather behind us and watch as I fought to beat my record from the previous week. My top score was the highest they’d ever seen at the Springside
Arnie’s: 29,601. That’s a hell of a lot of aliens and bonus ships.

So I slowly approached the machine again, looking down at the buttons, amazed at how the red shooter one looked just the same but how the four white buttons had faded and worn to a dull yellow. The token slots, too, were damaged and aged, their faces unreadable. But I knew how many tokens it took to play a game, and soon enough I had my hands on the buttons, and I could hear the music that had been the sound track to so many of the afternoons before I got sick—the ominous
dun dun dun dun
’s that I used to hear in my sleep like echoes from an era that I hadn’t even lived through, an early ’80s electronic metronome.

I started shooting, tapping the buttons with as much speed as Jeremy Pratt’s hands would allow, but it felt weird. Of all the things to feel different, of all the moments that I could have so quickly remembered my unique situation, this one pissed me off the most. I’d been able to do everything I’d done before I got sick—even more than that, I’d been able to do things that I’d never been able to do before—skateboard, run without getting winded, do fifty push-ups in a row without crashing to the floor and crying. And now? Now I was struggling to match my eyes to my hands and shoot the same little digital aliens that I’d annihilated so many hundreds of times before. This was total bullshit. This, the Retro Room, the whole damn thing.

It was Game Over before I could even clear out one level, my score a measly 850. An 850? I hung my head down low in shame and frustration. I was about to walk away, defeated, when I glanced back up at the screen. And then I saw it, flashing there, taunting me with its accompanying music. HI SCORE: 29,601. That’s when I knew I couldn’t stop. I knew what I had to do.

In 1978, when coin-operated Space Invaders machines first appeared in restaurants and arcades all around Japan, the game became so instantly popular that there was a brief national shortage of hundred-yen coins. Can you imagine? So many people were putting these coins into Space Invaders machines that they actually ran out of them. This is just one of many things my dad made sure I was aware of when my obsession with the game began. I think he was proud of me, in some small way, for choosing this game that had trail-blazed a path for so many others. He once said to me, his tone surprisingly sincere, that he was glad I wasn’t “one of those Pac-Man people.”

I played and lost three more games even quicker than the first two. My heart was racing—I could feel it in my throat and in my thumbs and even in my feet.

Okay, Travis. Last token. Then you’re all done.

I let the token slide into the slot and listened as the game started back up, my eyes closed for just a second before I started shooting. I cleared one whole screen and then, of course, the game got faster and faster, harder to shoot and dodge lasers to the frantic beat of the music and the white flashing lights on the screen. I was sweating and rocking from side to side on my feet. It was during this game that Hatton and Kyle found me and watched as I furiously pushed the buttons and cursed the machine.

“Ah. Game over,” Hatton said. “Good try, though.”

“Just a few more times.”

“Travis, yeah . . . you’re covered in sweat and your face is pretty red. I don’t want to be
that
guy right now, but I think maybe we should take you home. You’re not looking so great.” Kyle had his hand on one of my shoulders the entire time he spoke.

“I’m fine. What’re you talking about? It’s just hot in here. I’m having a blast.”

Hatton looked at Kyle like he was silently asking him what to do, like he trusted this guy he just met over me. I didn’t say anything about it, but to be honest, it sort of ticked me off. I walked off to get more tokens and when I came back, they were both just standing there like they’d been talking about me or something.

“What?” I asked. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Hatton said. “Let’s see you beat that score.”

Seventeen games later Kyle leaned in and started talking to me in this calm sort of low voice that reminded
me of being sick, of being treated like something less than a free-thinking, fully functioning being.

“Dude, I get it. The score still being here, that’s really crazy, but you don’t have to prove anything today, okay?”

“I know I can beat it,” I said, never looking up at him. “Or at least match my score. Damn thing isn’t gonna win.”

“Travis, I know this has all got to be really hard for you. I can’t imagine. And you’ve been doing so well with everything. I don’t think anyone else could’ve handled it all the way you have.”

“Shit!” I slammed my hands down on the machine. “You just made me lose, man. Damn it!”

He backed away a little bit, gave me this look of mixed horror and disappointment, and then walked off. I started to yell an apology after him, but he’d walked out of the room so quickly that it didn’t quite work. I was soaked. Even my hands were wet, leaving smudges of moisture all over the buttons. I wiped my palms on my jeans and looked over to Hatton, who was staring down at his phone.

“Hey, we’ve been here, like, two and a half hours, so my mom needs me to come home. She’s gonna pick me up in a few. Cool?”

“Oh. Okay,” I said, turning around to face the game again.

“Okay . . . so I’m just gonna go wait for her outside. I’ll see you later, Travis.”

I just kept playing. I could deal with Hatton the next
day. He didn’t understand. I guess Kyle didn’t either, even if he said he did. No one can understand something that hasn’t happened to them. Meaning, of course, that no one could ever understand anything that was happening to me. Well, except for Lawrence Ramsey. Maybe he liked Space Invaders too.

A few minutes later I heard Kyle walk up behind me, and without even turning to face him, I asked if he’d mind letting me borrow some money. I wasn’t even getting close. All those games later and I hadn’t even scored a third of what I needed to beat my record. I blamed Jeremy Pratt and his stupid hands.

“Travis,” a familiar voice said from behind me. I let go of the buttons and turned around. It was Cate.

“Hey! What’re you . . . what’re you doin’ here?” I went in for a hug.

“You’re soaking wet. You feel okay?” She barely hugged me back, an expression of worry on her face.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Did Kyle call you?” I looked around, expecting him to be standing nearby.

“He’s outside. He was worried, Travis.”

“Worried? Geez. They don’t understand. See, I have to beat this score. You remember my high score, right? It’s still here, Cate. Isn’t that incredible?”

“Yeah, Kyle told me everything. It’s pretty awesome.”

She was humoring me and, for the first time since I’d been back, I felt like she was seeing me as some dumb kid. Her voice and the way she was looking into my eyes and
that worried expression on her face made me let go of the controls and step back a little.

“It’s time to go. You’ve been here all day.”

“All day? I don’t think we’ve been here
all
day.”

“Travis, it’s dark out. Kyle says you’ve been playing for three hours.”

“I just need to try a few more times. I feel like I have to. I’m broke, though. You got, like, ten bucks? I’ll pay you back, I swear.”

“Travis Coates,” she said sternly, leaning in to look me right in the eyes, her nose almost touching mine. “You are done. You are being silly and childish, and I am going to take you home now. Okay?”

“But I—”

“No. Stop. Let’s go.”

She pulled at my sleeve and I followed her out, looking back at the machine like once I looked away, it would disappear forever. We got outside and Kyle was standing by his truck. He walked over to us and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You okay, man?” He looked at me like he used to look at me before, like I was dying again. I hated it.