It’s your Saturday, so you take the boys to the arcade, and as they get their fill of gore on the Mortal Kombat machine, you notice Pac-Man in the corner, a flashing beacon of neon light, so you go over and put a few coins in and start to play, and turns out you’re decent at the game, muscle memory from when you were young, you keep gaining levels and racking up points, gobbling the little dots like it’s your day job, and it feels like maybe this is your salvation, like maybe if you can beat Pac-Man your life will return to normal, Crystal will change her mind and the plant will hire you back and you’ll stop drinking a twelve pack a day, if you can just beat Pac-Man everything broken will be fixed, and it’s as though your fingers are touched by god the way you’re operating the joystick, your focus is that of a goddamn samurai, you can taste victory and sense a warm light shining down and hear soft voices urging you on from above, saying, Almost there, just a few more levels, you can do this, we believe in you!
Then you hit level nine and lose, then lose again, your rhythm is gone and the ghosts are too quick, swarming you, coming out of nowhere, and sparks flare behind your eyes as you empty more quarters into the machine, losing over and over, the soft voices gone shrill inside your head now, hurling abuse, nasty stuff like, No wonder Crystal left, you pathetic drunk, and, She’s probably sucking her boss’s cock right now, and sensing something wrong, the boys come over and ask what’s going on, a distraction that causes you to lose yet again, and in frustration you kick the machine and some doofus playing Donkey Kong with his own boys says, Woah, pal, relax, to which you tell him to mind his fucking business, nosy prick, and next thing he’s standing in front of you breathing hot dog fumes in your face, asking if you want to start something, but he’s a big hairy fucker with tribal tattoos and bulging pecs, so you tell him no thanks, to which he smiles like a cartoon movie villain and says, That’s what I thought, pussy.
There is only so much humiliation a human being can take, that’s your theory anyway, and you must’ve hit your limit because when he turns, you run up and pop him one, right on the ear, though it seems to hurt you more than it hurts him, the man just turns and rushes you, linebacker quick, sucking all the wind from your lungs, and before you realize what’s happened you’re horizontal on the sticky tile with stray popcorn around your head, staring up at a ceiling strobed with arcade lights, reds blues and greens, sort of pretty actually, sort of mesmerizing how they blink and whirl, but then hot dog man catches you in the cheek with one of his hairy fists and the world goes wobbly and you see the blurred faces of the boys looking down, cowlicked and innocent, and already you can hear Crystal’s disappointed voice when she learns what happened, Crystal who used to laugh at your jokes, Crystal whose smile lit fires in your chest, Crystal who believed in you far longer than she should have, and as the man brings his fist back to smash it once again in your stupid face, you think how all of this could have been avoided, how the world could have been remade into something beautiful, into brunches and beach days and movie nights, but the ghosts caught you and now all there is to look forward to is a trip to the ER and the beer you’ll drink later on the back deck of your grungy one-bedroom, watching, yet again, as the sun sinks miserably behind the industrial park skyline.