Your Princess is in Another Castle (13 page)

“Don’t ki
ll me.  Don’t kill me man,” pleads Chris. 

I peer o
ver the counter.  Chris is on the ground clutching his chest, clearly there is no fight left in him.  “Mercy, I beg of you,” he says.  “But if you have to do something more, take me over your knee.”

The clerk takes a step back. 
“I’m not spanking you, you freak.”

“No, no,” says Chris. 
He sits on the floor and stretches out his legs.  “I mean do a backbreaker move on me.  Break me, don’t kill me.  It’d kinda justify your wearing the shirt that way.” 

I’m allowing Chris to beat me down with Sub-Zero, fighting back with only the weakest of Scorpion’s combos in a rather pitiful Mortal Kombat match to cheer Chris up after his humiliating real-life defeat when there’s a knock on the door. 

“It’s open,” I say.

Seth appears in the doorway obscured by the shadows of the hall like Captain Kirk making his entrance in Star Trek II.  He stands as still as a member of the Queen’s Guard, silently watching us. 

“What?”
asks Chris, who’s distracted enough that he botches Sub-Zero’s spine rip fatality, allowing Scorpion to fall to the ground without being properly finished.

“You know,
I didn’t even bother to ask if it was you guys,” says Seth.  He flops down on my bed.  “So, I walk into Minus World ready to get the lowdown on how Kevin’s show went over the weekend and he starts telling me how this one lunatic starts going apeshit on him just because he hasn’t seen Batman Begins.  That was Stephanie’s boyfriend you assaulted, by the way.”

“The waitress from the Honeybee Inn?” I ask.

“Yeah,” says Seth.

“I’ll bet you only got Kevin’s biased side of the stor
y,” says Chris.  “I bet he left out the part about how I was provoked and had no choice but to act.”

“I admit
it’s a little strange Kevin was wearing what he was wearing when the specific circumstances are taken into consideration,” says Seth.  “But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to just go all Mr. Blonde on the guy.”  He looks at me.  “And from what Kevin told me, you just stood there and watched it all happen.”

“Could I have
done anything?” I ask.  “I told Chris not to pick a fight with the guy.  But I also thought he had a valid point, and it’s not like I provoked him further, either.  I was just an innocent bystander.”

“Edmund Burke would say that you’re just as guil
ty,” says Seth.  “And Mike happens to feel that way as well.  Both of you, you’re banned for life from the store. From all Minus World stores, for that matter.”                

“What?  But the
PlayStation 3 comes out in four days!” says Chris. 

“
Surely Mike will still let us go to the launch party he’s having, right?” I ask.

“No,” says Seth.  “
Kevin wanted to press assault and battery charges against you. But I managed to convince Mike that banning you both from the store would be more damaging to you guys in the long run and Kevin reluctantly agreed.  And the ban includes barring you from the launch party.”

“But the launch,
” I say.  “Mike’s having an off the record event for his regulars promising them all a PS3 along with letting us all stay in the store overnight so we won’t have to camp outside and now he’s saying we can’t go?” 

“Does Mike
honestly expect the three of us to just hold up outside a Wal-Mart or something all night with the rest of the riff-raff?” asks Chris.

“Not exactly,” say
s Seth.  “He expects you two to do that.  I’m not banned from the store.”

“Wh
at’s going to happen to our promised PS3s?” asks Chris.

“
Normally,” says Seth, “Mike doesn’t allow store employees to reserve systems on launch day.  But he said after the incident today he was gonna go ahead and see to it that Kevin gets one.  I don’t know about the other one.  Another regular will get invited to the party, I guess.  Or it will just go to the regular store inventory.”

“That bastard Kevin!” says Chris.  “He
probably doesn’t even want one.  I bet he’s going to just hock it on eBay.  And since when does Mike hire posers like Kevin to man his store, anyway?”

“What are you going to do
, Seth?” I ask.  “Come out with us or go to Mike’s launch party?” 

“Obviously
, I’m coming with you guys.  Who knows what you’d do camping out in front of a store all night with several dozen other desperate gamers without someone like me to supervise you.  Although we’re going to need a Plan B.”

“I vote for Target,” I say.  “
I camped out in front of one back when the PlayStation 2 first came out.”       

“I take full responsibility for this
situation,” says Chris.

“That’s very noble of you,” says Seth.

“I mean I’m going to
take care of us,” says Chris.  “I’m going to get us a tent, cooler, snacks, drinks, the works.  It’s going to be even better than hanging out all night in Minus World.  Trust me.  And I still have my old Optimus Prime play tent from when I was a kid.  Of course it won’t hold all of us now, but I could set it up next to the main tent.  We could use it as a spare in case any of us need some private time should we meet a woman in line.”

“Yeah, that’s
definitely a contingency I want to be prepared for,” I say.

“There’s just one thing,” says Chris.  “
Would you guys mind if my friend Jimmy came along?”

“Jimmy the f
urry?” Seth and I ask simultaneously.           

“Yeah, him. 
I talked to him the other day and he asked about maybe hanging out and getting a PS3 together.  I told him that we already had a deal with the Minus World manager and wouldn’t really be able to see to it that he could get one, too.  But now there’s no reason why Jimmy can’t come along.  So do you guys mind?”

“Of course not,” I say.
  “Bring him along.”

“
Yeah, I’d like to meet him,” says Seth.  “How sensitive is he about the furry thing, though?  Does he know that we know?  Will we need to make sure that that isn’t brought up?”

“Don’t worry,” says Chris.  “I’ll let Jimmy
know that you guys know and that you’re cool with it.  I’ll also tell him that you know about me and my foot fetish.  He’ll feel more comfortable that way.  And you don’t have to avoid the subject.  You can even talk to him about it.  Just don’t, you know, ridicule him about it.  And you’ll like Jimmy.  He’ll be very excited about coming.  Assaulting Kevin may turn out to have been a good thing after all.”

November 16
th
.  It’s 8:00am, exactly 24 hours before Target opens and the PlayStation 3 goes on sale.  No one else has arrived yet.  The tent set up by Chris and Jimmy stands alone, flanked only by a much smaller and worn Optimus Prime play tent from the 1980s.  I wonder if at some point Chris decided he simply must get laid in that tent and has always kept it at the ready for just such a purpose.  If he actually does meet a girl here and sleeps with her within the confines of Optimus Prime’s trailer, he will have earned my eternal respect, although I’ve never been one to hold high hopes for living out absurd sexual fantasies.

“Chris actually brought the Optimus Prime tent,” says Seth.  “He’s probably thinking he’s really going to meet some dorky girl here that’ll be so impr
essed with his impression of a Transformer transforming that she’ll want to jump into bed with him.”               

“
You know Chris,” I say.  “The other tent looks pretty nice, though.  It looks expensive.”  We’ll be camping out for the next day in a black and grey tent that looks to be around 10 feet long and 15 feet wide.  It appears to be brand new, bought solely for this occasion.

“I don’t see why they insisted on setting thi
s up themselves.  We would have helped,” says Seth.

“I guess Chris
just felt bad about what happened in Minus World and wanted to save us the grunt work,” I say. 

“Well, they went to the trouble,
so let’s head in and get this party started.”

“Wait a second. 
What do you think this Jimmy guy is going to be like?”

“Well, Chris told us
Jimmy’s at Berkeley studying bioengineering and that he’s got an extreme case of furry fetishism.  He’s also close friends with Chris Cartwright, and other than myself I’m not aware of any friends of Chris’ who are entirely normal.  So, I’m expecting Jimmy to look and act like Professor Hojo from Final Fantasy VII, I guess.”

“See, that’s exac
tly what I was thinking.  But now it’s my guess that we’re going to be wrong.  I think we’re going to walk into that tent and get a complete one-hundred eighty degree swerve just like in every sitcom that’s ever been made.”

“What?”

“You know, like how every sitcom has an episode where one of the characters is dreading having to meet someone from their past they haven’t seen in like twenty years.  And they go on and on about remembering said person being unattractive and unsuccessful but then when they finally meet the person again at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that the person has since gone on to become a beautiful doctor or lawyer or something like that. 

“
Caroline in the City had an episode like that where Lea Thompson has to meet this dork from high school named Willard.  She dreads meeting him throughout the whole episode but then he turns out to have become a handsome orthopedic surgeon.  I bet that’s what’s going to happen here.  Jimmy’s going to turn out to be this outgoing pretty boy not at all like Professor Hojo.” 

Seth tilts
his head at me like Michael Myers studying Bob’s corpse after pinning him to the wall in Halloween.  “You watched Caroline in the City so much so that you’re instantly able to recall those specific plot points from that particular episode of it?”

“
Well, no.  I mean, yeah.  But I just had a thing for Lea Thompson.  After all, she was Marty McFly’s mother.  And the actress who played Annie was pretty hot, too.”  I recall that Seth is particularly taken with the idea of threesomes.  “I fantasized a lot about having a threesome with them both,” I say, hoping it will justify my watching the show.

“You know, fantasizing about a threesome
with Xena and Gabrielle, that’s normal.  Everybody does that.  Straight women do that.  But with the two female leads from Caroline in the City?  Okay, look, just forget it.  I’m going into the tent to be with the normal guys.” 

Seth
unzips the entrance and heads in without announcing his presence.  I would have tapped on the front or said something before going in, I’m sure of it.  

“Welcome
guys!” exclaims Chris.  “We’ve got everything you’re going to need for the next twenty-four hours,” he says, extending his arm like a model from The Price is Right.   

The
tent interior is one big room.  Two sleeping bags are laid out (perhaps two of us are expected to always be awake and keep watch) while in the right corner sits a cooler, opened and fully stocked.  A television and space heater are hooked up to a small generator.  There’s also a PlayStation 2 next to the television. 

“
You can thank Jimmy for all the electronics,” says Chris.  “He brought the generator.”

“Thanks
, dude,” says Seth.  “Looks like we’ve got enough amenities here to have completely ruined the point of camping in the wilderness in the first place had we actually done that instead.”

“
No problem,” says Jimmy.  “I just wanted to help make the time pass a little faster.” 

I’m immediately disappointed
with Jimmy’s normalcy.  With average height, average weight, average posture, average vocals, average clothing, and no glasses Jimmy is neither reminiscent of Professor Hojo nor does he strikingly reverse those expectations.

“I’m betting you did most of th
e setup work for the tent, too,” I say.  “I doubt Chris has that much patience and skill with such things.  I know I don’t.”

“Pitching the tent
was a team effort,” says Chris.  “Anyway, guys, this is Jimmy Shannon.  Jimmy, this purple-haired fellow here is Seth McClain.  He’s in a band, The Prisoners of Zenda.  Seth’s their lead singer and guitarist.” 

“Nice to meet you,” says Jimmy, shaking Seth’s hand. 
“I dabble in music myself.  I play the ocarina.”

“Because of
Ocarina of Time?” asks Seth.  “I tried to learn to play that because of The Legend of Zelda.  I couldn’t make a go of it.”

“No,
not because of Zelda,” says Jimmy.  “It was because of Vandal Hearts.”

“You’ve played Vandal Hearts?” asks Seth.

“Of course,” says Jimmy.  “There weren’t a whole lot of other options for turn-based strategy games for the PlayStation before the coming of Final Fantasy Tactics.”

“
I think Vandal Hearts is a great game with one of my favorite soundtracks ever,” says Seth.  “Sadly, it’s little known.  Jadranka Stojaković sure has a hell of a voice though, doesn’t she?”

“Beautiful,” says Jimmy.
  “I love the vocals she did for the game.  In fact, she’s the one who got me to really appreciate foreign music.”

“Took me a long time to find o
ut she was singing in Croatian,” says Seth.  “Lots of misinformation out there back when the game first came out.”

“I kept hear
ing she was singing in Japanese,” says Jimmy.  “But I’d heard enough J-pop to know that was BS right from the beginning.”  

“Okay, that’s about enough of that,
” says Chris.  “I don’t know anything about any Croatian songstresses and I hate being left out of a conversation.  So, Jimmy, this other fellow here calls himself
Justin Bailey
.”

I
turn and stare at Chris like he just walked in on me tying a noose around my neck.  “You know?”

“Yeah, I know,” says Chris.  “I know the whole story.”

“Look, I don’t think this is the best time for this, Chris,” I say.  

“Oh, I think no
w is the perfect time,
Justin
,” says Chris.  “You see, Jimmy, Justin here recently paid over one-hundred fifty dollars, part of which was his friend’s money, to win a date at a bachelorette auction with a girl he subsequently stands up.  And then lie about it to the same friend.”

Jimmy looks at Chris with confusion. 
Seth stares at me with a look that’s one third
I pity you
and two-thirds
but you deserve this
.

“Jimmy and Seth,” I say, “
I, too, have played and enjoyed Vandal Hearts.  I don’t suppose you’d care to instead hear about my conflicting thoughts on the sequel?”

It’s 8:30am.  Seth appears very relaxed, puffing on a cigarette with his legs outstretched.  Chris has finally taken a seat next to Jimmy after bounding around the tent like a pinball.  Jimmy sits Indian-style, having listened to the three of us (mostly Seth and Chris) brief him on my history with Jessica and Sabrina and my bidding on Samantha Anderson.  He never asked any questions or made a single comment but listened with great interest, waiting to share his thoughts until after he’d heard the entire tale.  

“
And that brings us to the present,” says Chris.  “He told me that he’d had coffee with Samantha and that they parted on neutral terms.  Said that he was in the process of gearing himself up to ask out Sabrina as soon as she gets back from vacationing with her family.  But then I found out that he is a deceiver and called him out on it in front of you guys because I felt it was the right thing to do.  Tough love, ya know?  And now, he is to explain himself to this tribunal.”

The three of them
all look at me, eager to hear what I could possibly say in my defense.  I appear to get the most sympathy out of Jimmy, although I don’t know if this is due to him feeling a sense of kinship towards me or simply due to the fact that we’re strangers. 

“I want to know how you found out
about all this, first,” I say to Chris.   

“Sure, that’s easy enough,” he says.
“I saw a girl in the dining hall that I thought looked like Sam.  Then I saw the Watchmen button on her book bag and I knew I was right.”

“So Samantha
really has a Watchmen button?” I ask.       

“Yeah, she really has a Watchmen
button!  Did you think I was lying to you when I told you that?  So I saw the button and knew that it was her.  And I walked right up to Sam’s place in line and asked her who she sided with at the end of Watchmen, Rorschach or the others.  Sam smiled at me.  Said you first.  I told her I sided with Rorschach without question.  Sam said ‘Me too’, which is good, because any other response from her would’ve been grounds for ending things right there after I asked her about the supposed date you took her on.  So then I introduced myself.  So did she.  Then I said I recognized her from the bachelorette auction because my friend was her winning bidder. 

“Sam’s expression turned cold. 
‘Your friend’s an asshole’, she said.  So I asked her what happened.  Sam said you stood her up.  Said she waited around a half-hour for you to show up, called you once and left a voicemail and then went home.  Sam sent you a text the next day wanting to know what happened.  Said you never responded to her and she wrote you off, but was baffled.  You paid one-hundred and sixty dollars to take her out, and it seemed like you actually wanted to do it from the conversation you had with her, and then you just bailed.  She was pretty mad. 

“
So I apologized on your behalf.  Said I hadn’t talked to you about what happened but that you are a very shy person and probably just lost your nerve, that she shouldn’t take it personally.  But I also agreed that what you did made you an asshole.  Then I looked down at Sam’s feet. 

“
She was wearing sandals.  It’s pretty cold out now and any girl still wearing sandals in the autumn months must be pretty comfortable with her feet.  If a girl thinks hers are too big or whatever and is resistant to having them touched, she often won’t wear sandals at all, let alone sandals in the cold.  So Sam must be comfortable with hers.  Now yes, they were a little battle-damaged due to her years of ballet, but she’s been off that for awhile, and they’re starting to look pretty good again.  Now I wasn’t able to see her soles, and those are the most important part of a girl’s feet, but I liked what I saw.  Sam might not be a Van Tassel, but she’s definitely got some rubbable and kissable little tootsies.”

“Van Tassel?” Seth and I both ask.

“Yeah, a Van Tassel,” says Chris.

“You haven’t
told them about your Van Tassel expression?” asks Jimmy.

“I guess not,” says Chris.  “Guys, a Van Tassel is a girl with exceptionally attractive feet.
  Like we’re talking best in show.  So named because of Katrina Van Tassel from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  She’s described by Washington Irving as having a tendency to wear a provokingly short petticoat to display the prettiest ankle and foot in the entire country. 

“
Now, Sleepy Hollow is set in seventeen-ninety, and according to the U.S. census that was taken that same year, there were a total of 3,893,635 people living in the United States, about half of whom we can guess were women.  So obviously there were far less women back then than there are now so there wasn’t nearly as much competition, but it was still no small feat for Katrina Van Tassel to posses the absolute most beautiful feet in the entire newborn country of America.   

“
My mother has an edition of Sleepy Hollow from the early nineteen-hundreds on display in an armoire in our dining room.  When I read it as a teenager I was always taken by the passage describing the beauty of Katrina’s feet.  So in honor of Washington Irving, a fellow foot fetishist, I call any girl with truly beautiful feet a Van Tassel.”