Between you and me, I suck at Pac-Man. I’d never admit it to the other guys, even though I know they know it too. They’ve seen me blast through all my quarters enough times that I’m surprised one of them hasn’t ever said it. I get distracted by the fruit in the middle and die trying to get to it. I use up the power pellets too early. I let myself get cornered by the ghosts (I swear the red one is just a little bit faster than the other three). Sometimes I miss one dot up in the top corner and die while I’m trying to get across to it. A lot of times, I simply run into a ghost just as it changes back from chompable dark blue to its regular red/orange/pink/light blue. Sometimes I just get confused whether the ghosts are chasing me or if I should be chasing them. If there’s a way to die at Pac-Man, I’ve done it. Not like Eddie. I’ve watched Ed play for nearly a half hour on a single quarter.

Paul’s good, too, but not like Jerry. Jerry worked out some sort of pattern for moving around the maze and seems to know which way the ghosts are going to move, so he just repeats that pattern over and over until the game starts going too fast and he makes a mistake. I guess I could try to learn the pattern, but what’s the point of playing a game like that if you just keep doing the same thing over and over? It seems more fun to me to just drop a quarter into the slot and hope for the best.

I assume you remember my friends Paul and Jerry. Well, I’m not really friends with them anymore, which I think is for the best. Well, more Jerry than Paul. Paul wasn’t all that bad, I guess, except for the way he’d always follow everything Jerry did and always laugh whenever he made fun of people.

In fact, I’m not really friends with anyone anymore. Not since last summer. Everyone just sort of stays away from me and whispers when they think I can’t hear them. I guess that’s OK, though. At least I know I have one person I can still talk to. Well, write to.

I just reread what I’ve written so far and it sort of sounds like I’m complaining. I’m not. I’m all right with being the weird-o kid whose story everyone wants to hear but is afraid to ask about. And as for Pac-Man? If not for me sucking so much at Pac-Man, I wouldn’t even be writing this.

Anyway, I know it’s totally dorky to keep a journal. But Miss Williams made us all start one at the beginning of the school year, and when she told us we didn’t have to do it anymore I just never stopped. I kind of like ending my day by writing down some of what happened. It’s become how I put my day behind me so that I can go to sleep. It’s not like I ever go back and look at it or anything, so I’m sending you the books from last summer. I’m not really sure how much you remember from last summer, since you were so out of it most of the time. I felt like you should probably see my side and the way I saw everything that happened. Hopefully it will help you to feel less guilty. Or at least help you to understand that I’m not mad about any of it. My dad was glad I was safe and all, but he wasn’t mad either.

I hope it helps you. Dad says you could use all the help you can get.

MAY, 1981

Saturday, May 25

Today was the Memorial Day parade.

I was actually excited about it when I got up this morning, but once we were there, I started to realize that it was pretty much the same parade I had seen every Memorial Day weekend for the last decade. We stood at the same spot along High Street in front of the Speedy Duck Shoppe where we always stood for parades. The same old men walked with the VFW sign and the flags. The pretty girl in the shiny dress waving from the back of the convertible looked enough like the one from last year that it might as well be the same girl. The kids carrying the blue and yellow scout banner were wearing the same uniforms as the ones who carried it for as long as I can remember. All of the floats were chicken wire and tissue-paper constructions in red, white, and blue. The men on the fire truck throwing stale candy grinned as the kids scrambled to scoop up as much as their little hands could hold. A couple of years ago, I would have been down in there with them, but this year I couldn’t help but notice that the candy they were so proud to return to their parents holding had been rescued from within feet or even inches of the sewer grate.

About halfway through, after the float commemorating that Civil War general that slept in a local barn on his way to the South during the war and before the high school marching band started playing, I asked mom if I could go into the Duck for something to drink. After convincing her that I was having a good time and I was only thirsty (she gets very concerned if I’m not having fun for some reason), she gave me a dollar so I could get a can of root beer.

The Speedy Duck Shoppe on High Street is one of three Speedy Duck locations in town. But this one was mine. Last summer, when I turned ten, I was finally allowed to leave the block where our house is and cross High Street on my bike, so the Duck was the first place I was ever able to go and buy things without my parents. It smells like burnt cheese and old coffee, and some of the fluorescent lights buzz and flicker, but the aisle facing the front counter has all the candy and bubble gum cards I’ve ever heard of and there’s even a squeaky rack over in the corner full of comics.

Nearly tripping over the broken floor tile just inside the front door, I slowly wandered toward the refrigerated shelves along the back wall. As I rounded the end of the candy row, I almost walked into a rack full of snack cakes. For as long as I can remember, that rack has stood up in the front window, where the afternoon sun made sure that the unwrapped chocolate rolls and peanut butter bars were as melty and goopy as possible. That spot in the front window was empty now. I imagine they’re probably going to put some kind of beer display up there, since most everyone will be having cookouts on Monday and beer seems like a necessary part of cooking meat outside when you’re a grownup. I grabbed a can of Hires root beer and headed to the front counter.

My jaw tensed up when I saw Stu working behind the counter. Frankly put, Stu terrified every kid in the neighborhood. He always wore an old Army coat, even on hot days like today. The name “STU” was written with black marker over the left chest pocket of the coat. No one really knew for sure if his name was actually Stu. Some of the kids at school think he stole the coat off of someone he killed, but I don’t know if they have any way of proving something like that. The coat’s left sleeve was cut off and sewn closed just below a sewn-on shoulder patch with a yellow sword and some kind of green squiggle on it. I always secretly wondered how Stu buttons his jeans with only one hand, but I’d never be brave enough to ask him. I’ve heard at least five different stories at school from as many different kids who think they know what happened to his arm, but I don’t think any of them know what they’re talking about. His hair hung down longer than his beard and both always looked like it was at least a week past due for a shampoo. He always wore black jeans and big boots that seemed like they were going to stomp through the floor of the shop on the rare occasions that he left his post behind the counter. Today, he had on an AC/DC t-shirt under his olive green coat. He sat behind the counter day after day and took people’s money for their stuff and barely said anything. Except when one of us kids was in the store. He had a reputation for treating any kids entering the store as if we were there for the sole purpose of stealing stuff. He had even gone so far as to throw one kid out of the store one time for opening a pack of gum while he was waiting in line to pay for it. I don’t know of any time any kids ever actually stole anything. Like I said, we were all too scared of Stu to risk it. When I think about it, maybe that was Stu’s plan all along.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and put the pop can on the counter. Trying not to let my voice shake, I decided to try to strike up a conversation. My dad says that a little bit of small talk is always a good way to break up a tense situation.

“I never realized what a great view of the parade you had from in here,” I said with a nod toward the large front window on his side of the counter.

He scowled at me for a few seconds before he answered.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure, kid. God bless America.”

He said it with such bitterness, it hit me like he had just said a bad word. I didn’t know how to respond, so I just gave him my dollar bill and held my hand out for change.

“Er… Thanks,” I said, pocketing the quarters. “Um, enjoy the rest of the parade.”

“Oh, sure kid,” he replied with a sneer, “you go wave nice to all the brave soldiers.”

I spent the rest of the parade sipping my root beer without really tasting it and watching the parade without really seeing it. Mom kept putting her hand on my forehead and asking if I felt all right.

Sunday, May 26

In church this morning, Pastor John continued his series about Romans. When he started back in the beginning of April with this series, I was sort of hoping he was going to tell us about the actual Romans, like in the movies with chariot races and guys with knives stabbing each other like in that old movie with Charlton Heston. But I soon learned that he meant the Bible book of Romans and so we’ve been listening to him go on about sin and rules for the last couple of months. Last week was particularly uncomfortable, because he kept talking about wives and husbands and how women who get divorced and remarry have sin in them. For some reason, mom came home and went into her bedroom after that service. I thought I could hear her crying. Dad said she was just feeling a little down and sent me outside to play.

I don’t think going to church is supposed to make people feel bad like that.

Anyway, this week, Pastor John talked about chapter eight and somehow made it sound like it was written about America and the Army, even though I know America was still just Indians and forests back when Paul was writing this really long letter. I guess he was trying to celebrate Memorial Day, so he made his sermon about how American soldiers fight for good reasons or something.

The whole time he was talking, I kept thinking about that weird conversation I had yesterday with Stu at the Duck. I don’t know why it had bothered me the way it did, but something deep in my belly felt sort of sick because of it. I still haven’t said anything to mom or dad about it. I guess I don’t want to risk being told that I can’t go to the Duck anymore.

Tuesday, May 28

I barely made it through the day at school without falling asleep. One of those famous Ohio summer thunderstorms came through in the middle of the night and woke me up. I swear some of the lightning was hitting right outside my bedroom window! The thunderclaps rattled the glass in the window so much I thought it was going to break.

I actually love everything about thunderstorms. I love the way the trees sound when the wind starts rubbing all the leaves against each other, I love the smell in the air right before the storm starts, and I love the gradual build-up of the sound of the rain on the roof. Just a little at first, then a few bursts like when you throw a handful of pebbles into a lake, then a constant drumming that your ears eventually let fade into background noise. But mostly, I love the way it reminds us of how wild nature is and how loud and explosive it can be.

But that initial crack of thunder, waking me up from a dead sleep at three in the morning? I very nearly peed the bed, and I haven’t done that in years. I jumped, sat straight up before I was even fully awake, then turned over and buried my head under the pillow. Once I recovered from that first shock, though, I was able to lie in bed and listen and watch through my window. The power flickered a couple of times, causing the refrigerator in the kitchen to make that rattling sound it makes when it turns on and off. The storm lasted for about fifteen minutes before rumbling off toward Zanesville or someplace east of here.

But I’m not here to write about the storm last night. The storm wasn’t even close to the truly exciting thing that happened today. After school today…

(yes, we still have school, thanks to that stupid ice storm back in the end of January. The last day isn’t until Thursday)

Anyway, on my way home from school I stopped at the Duck to see if they had the new issue of Fantastic Four. When I pulled my bike up in front of the store, I couldn’t believe what I saw. That spot in the front of the store that was cleared out on Saturday when I was in there? It turns out it wasn’t making room for a beer display after all. While I watched, two men were loosening the thick strap of a hand truck from around a wooden cabinet. The back of it was facing the window, but I was looking at it from an angle and could see one of the sides. And what I saw made my head feel sort of like it did that time Dr. Kresge gave me the gas mask before he filled a cavity. I was frozen in place, peering through the front window at the picture on the bright yellow side panel of the machine. At the bottom, some kind of yellow bulb with bright red eyes and rounded feet smirked up at a blue ghost. The ghost, in turn, loomed over the little yellow guy with his mouth wide open. Letters that were more shapes than written words hung in an arc over them both spelling out “PAC-MAN”.

My bike clattered to the sidewalk as I rushed into the store. I think Stu was behind the counter, but I barely noticed him. I nearly fell into the Hostess cake display rounding the corner inside the door before stopping to watch as the workmen finished removing the Pac-Man machine from their dolly. One of them reached behind the machine to free the power cord from where it was coiled. The other turned around with the hand truck and saw me standing there. I suddenly realized that my mouth was hanging wide open and I’m pretty sure I hadn’t blinked for over a minute. He chuckled and shook his head at me, but I only saw him out of the corner of my eye. My eyes were drawn to the screen as it flashed white and filled with some sort of symbols before going dark again. After a few seconds, images began moving on it. The four ghosts’ pictures and names were listed even as they moved in pursuit of the yellow pie with the opening and closing mouth. All five characters crossed the screen to a flashing dot. As soon as Pac-Man ate that dot, all the ghosts changed to the same color (dark blue) and reversed direction. Pac-Man turned around and chased them now, biting each one in turn until the only thing left were the lingering point totals that had gotten bigger as each ghost was chomped.

The worker that was standing with the hand truck was still smiling at me.

“You know what my favorite part of this job is, kid?” he asked.

It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking to me, despite the fact that he was looking right at me and I was the only kid in the store at the moment. Before I could start fumbling for a response, he reached into a buttoned pocket on the front of his shirt. With a wink, he pulled out a quarter and held it out.

“I get to decide who gets to be the first one to try it out,” he said with a wink.

I choked a little bit, even as I took a half-step toward the man.

“Really?” was all I could say.

“Go ahead,” he said.

So I took the quarter from him and dropped it in the slot. The rattling clink of the lone quarter dropping into whatever bucket collects them inside the machine was all but drowned out by the strange deep-pitched splat of a sound that came from the machine’s speakers. The screen changed, too. It now showed the name of the game in lettering that matched what was on the side of the cabinet. Under that, the cartoon Pac-Man and his ghosts had been replaced by the words “1 player”. I pressed the button to start the game and put my left hand on the stick with the red ball on it.

A weird, whistling tune started to play. I didn’t really notice, but it must have been pretty loud.

“Oh, hell no,” Stu complained from the front counter. Then his volume level rose to a shout when he said “turn that g--damn thing down!”

I looked over my shoulder, sort of surprised that he had cussed like that in front of a kid. He had stood up from his stool and looked like he was ready to jump across the counter and attack the two workmen. I turned back to look at the screen, since it was time to play. I began navigating Pac-Man around the maze. I really like the sound Pac-Man makes when he’s eating the dots. It’s sort of like the sound a balloon makes when you rub it just right, only really fast and repeating itself over and over. There’s some sort of sound like a siren going the whole time you play, too. I thought it was pretty cool, but I don’t think Stu agreed with me. From across the store to my left, I could hear him shouting things at the two delivery guys that I don’t think I want to write here. If I thought the first swear was bad, it was nothing compared to some of the other things he said.

It seemed pretty easy at first. Just one of the ghosts was moving around, and he seemed to be staying up in the top part of the screen. The other three stayed in the center box. I rounded the first corner and bit through a dot that was larger than the others. All four ghosts turned blue. I decided to pursue the one that was moving around, but he started flashing and turned back to red just as I got to him. Pac-Man’s mouth opened all the way until he disappeared. I think the workman who had plugged in the machine must have done something with the volume control, because the sound level dropped while my dying Pac-Man made his spiraling “WEE-oo WEE-oo WEE-oo whah whah” noise. Pac-Man reappeared back in the starting place in the lower center of the maze and I started again. I decided to take him the other direction this time and try to be careful not to waste those big flashing dots. I did a little better this time, until I got trapped when the pink ghost chased me into the section of the maze at the very top of the screen and the orange one came into that section from the other direction. The third life was sort of frustrating. I was able to eat two of the ghosts while they were dark blue and was chasing a third, but the first one I had eaten came out of its center box and got me as I was passing. The words GAME OVER appeared over the center of the maze.

The guy who had given me the quarter pointed at the top of the screen.

“Check it out, kid. You have the high score!”

I looked and saw that he was telling the truth. Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed where the point total was on the screen, but now that I looked I could see that the score under “Player 1” at the top left matched the number under where it said “High Score” in the top center. It was just a little less than three thousand points, which seems pretty good to me. I thanked the guy for letting me try it out and left. I wanted to play again, but that would have meant asking Stu for change for my dollar. I may just be an eleven year old kid, but I’m not stupid.

Friday, May 31

After school let out yesterday, Paul had a sleepover at his house for me and Jerry. It was pretty cool. His mom watches the Waltons, so we had to miss Mork and Mindy, but we got to watch Magnum, PI (even if it was a rerun). There was a Blob/Son of Blob double feature coming on the late movie after the news, and Paul’s mom said we could spread our sleeping bags out on the floor of the family room to try to stay awake for it as long as we kept pretty quiet. After she went upstairs to bed, we played some games and fooled around down in the basement while we waited for the 11:00 news to end. The games were only half the reason we liked hanging out down there. Paul’s dad died a few years ago, and his mom never cleaned out the boxes of old Playboys from the basement crawl space. Jerry says she forgot they were there, but I think she just doesn’t want to do anything about them.

I like looking at them as much as the other guys, I guess. But I think it’s probably more about doing something that I know I’m really not supposed to be doing. Dad and I had The Talk last fall, so I sort of understand what’s happening in my body when I look at stuff like this. I mean, there’s this one girl with brown hair that I always try to find. I just like the way her eyes are looking at the camera. I mean, I like her boobs, too. But her eyes are what really get my attention. I’m pretty sure my dad has some kind of porn stashed in a box in his closet. At least, he caught me looking for birthday presents once and seemed particularly concerned whether I looked into that box. I don’t think mom’s ever touched it either, so I don’t really know what else it could be.

(I don’t really worry about writing about the Playboys here. Mom and Dad both said they would respect my privacy and not read these journals, so I figure that if I get in trouble for looking at naked ladies in magazines it’s probably because they were snooping in my journal. Which they promised never to do. So, if I get in trouble, I’m totally justified in being angry with them. I think it’s like that war novel Dad likes so much called “Catch-22”. I don’t really understand what it’s about, but I think the phrase means a situation where neither side can possibly win. Of course, if that’s the case, neither side can actually lose, either)

Later, the other guys fell asleep long before the end of the first Blob movie. I thought I was going to make it through the second one, but I guess I didn’t because I woke up just as the TV was playing the National Anthem and announcing the end of their broadcast day. I rolled over to the TV set without getting out of my sleeping bag and hit the button to turn it off.

Jerry and Paul woke me up this morning when they tried to put my hand into a bowl of warm water. They might have made me wet my sleeping bag, except Paul was giggling enough to wake me up. Sometimes I wonder why I hang out with these guys. They can be a couple of dicks most of the time.

Once we were up and had some cereal, we discussed what to do with our first day of summer. We thought about going to Jerry’s house to play in his basement, which has carpet and paneling on the walls, unlike Paul’s concrete basement where we always end up seeing at least one of those nasty-looking millipedes. Last night, one had climbed out from between the washing machine and dryer, then scurried back under the dryer. I’ve never seen one of those in Jerry’s basement, and we’ve slept down there. I would never be willing to sleep in Paul’s basement. We thought about going out to the community pool, but it’s a really long bike ride and we only had a few dollars between us. According to James at school, the price went up to $2.50 per person this year. And he’d know. He’s on the county swim team. He has one of those skimpy little bathing suits that look like black underwear and everything.

Eventually, we decided to just ride our bikes around for a while until we could arrive at a plan. We dropped Jerry’s stuff off at his house first then rode around the corner to my house so that I could drop off my sleeping bag and backpack and check in with mom. She was hanging sheets on the clothesline in the back yard when we got there.

“Did you have fun?” she asked. She always asks that when I come home after being at a friend’s house.

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I guess,” which is my standard answer to that question.

She looked past me at Jerry and Paul, who were sitting on their bikes in the driveway between our house and the neighbors’.

“What do you three have planned for today?”

“We’re not sure. Just gonna ride our bikes for a while, I guess. I have a couple of dollars. We might go play Pac-Man for a little bit. The guys haven’t had a chance to go check it out yet.”

Something went dark like a storm cloud in her eyes. I suppose it was because she doesn’t really like the guys, and I think she knows I know it. But she’s really good about never saying anything about it, so we just sort of avoid the topic. I don’t usually invite them over.

“Be home for lunch?” she said so it was sort of a question and sort of not. She pulled my Star Wars fitted sheet out of her basket and turned to hang it on the line.

“Sure. Around one?”

“OK.”

I turned to go, walking with my bike between my legs. When I got to the guys, she called after me.

“Be careful.”

“Sure, mom. See you in a while.”

As we pulled out of the driveway onto the front sidewalk, Jerry was the first to say anything.

“Why is your mom so weird?” he asked.

“She’s not weird,” I defended. “She’s just… been sort of quiet lately.”

“No, she’s just weird,” he insisted.

Paul laughed, and I decided to let that be the end of that conversation.

We left our bikes in a heap of tires, gears, and handlebars on the front sidewalk of the Speedy Duck and went inside. Jerry and Paul didn’t even look around, but made a beeline for the video game machine. I chanced a glance over at the front counter. Stu was already standing up from his stool. He gestured with his good hand toward the front of the store.

“Hey, go pick up those bikes,” he growled at us. “I don’t want one of my customers tripping trying to get into the shop.”

Jerry had already dropped a quarter into the slot, so he pretended to ignore him. Paul turned his head, but turned back to watch Jerry’s game as if he hadn’t heard anything. I turned back to Stu, who didn’t break his gaze from my two friends. I shuffled my feet, which was probably a mistake since it drew his attention.

I was frozen in place looking into his eyes. It was like looking into the eyes of an alligator whose tail had just been stepped on. I wanted more than anything to escape that stare.

“I…” I swallowed and took a half-step toward the door. “I’ll go get them picked up.”

With the bicycles lined up neatly along the brick front wall of the shop, I went back into the store, carefully avoiding a glance toward the front counter. I rejoined my friends where Jerry was still playing on his first man.

“Kiss-ass,” Jerry said out of the corner of his mouth. There was no way to tell for sure if he meant for me to hear it or not.

We stayed and played for a little while. When we were out of quarters, we went back out front to our bikes. I told them I was starting to get hungry for lunch and rode home. I spent the rest of the day hanging around the house.