Spinning
by Rob O'Hara (2012)
Genres: Slice of Life


action: %
response: I'm in a tattoo parlor, getting the Zork logo inked on my forearm, in order to get more screen time for the "GET LAMP" documentary. Jason Scott is here, grinning like the Sentient Demon Sun on the day mankind slowly discerns that there has always been a second, sentient, demon sun. He switched the original "Zork" logo the artist was using for reference with the one from Zork III when the guy was self-administrating a body shot. I'm no stranger to drinking on the job, but the artist pooled the booze in the  "o" of his self-stenciled "MOM" tattoo before lighting it on fire. So I'm sufficiently distracted to where I don't realize that the guy is painfully drawing in extra Roman numerals until it's too late.

Scott's filming the whole thing, panning up to my grimacing. The Zork logo is made up of a bunch of little rocks, and the surface area for the extra ones is greater than that of a big batch of Safeway-Brand discount popcorn chicken. I can't even remember why "being on film" was so important to me, except that I wanted more exposure than Kent Tessman, CM, that smug bastard. Scott had a deal for me: First, help him break into Adam Thornton's second home in Canada, so we can film ourselves torching the place in order to dramatize the ending of Trinity. And secondly, be the subject for "the tattoo scene" to show how crazy text game fans are. I'd get featured in seven extra clips by doing all this.

"How many clips am I in now?" I asked. I'm fucking shrewd, just look at me. If it were like four or something, well, I'm no fool. Four clips is enough to splice together a Youtube video with and get some thoughtful comments, maybe even some that don't bash women, wets or Jews.

"This many," he said, holding up a copy of Zork Zero with his hand over the "Zork" part. Fuck!
action: You examine Jason
response: The tattoo artist is looking for approval to keep going.
action: About you
response: Though in a cloud of pain and fear, I'm the same as I remember.

With the exception of lots of squiggly lines on my forearm.
action: You look at the artist
response: The artist in question is inked-up pretty well himself. He has a thick shock of black hair on top of his head and is wearing a t-shirt advertising some band you have never heard of. He has a Dali moustache that didn't exactly set you at ease when you first sat down.
action: You kick him
response: (assuming you mean the tattoo artist)
Venting your frustrations on the tattoo artist won't accomplish much.
action: You talk to Scott
response: Go on and give the guy your approval," he says. "You've come this far. Grit down. I'll see if I can find the rubber centipede from The Lurking Horror for you to bite on while he finishes." That doesn't seem like it's likely to make any of this any better.
action: Scream
response: You let out a hearty bellow. Nothing else happens.
action: You give the approval to artist
response: "Yes," I say to him. "Yes, please, finish the tattoo." Why did I say please? I'm paying him for this. This is making me come off like a total beta.

"I've got an even better idea," says Scott. "Give him a tattoo for Zork IV instead." He sort of laughs at that, while I feebly try to object. This being a discussion about old, text-based video games, the tattoo artist has no fucking idea what we're talking about.

"I... I don't think I can take the needle for additional rocks," I say. I grimace a little.

"No rocks," says Scott. "The game Enchanter was supposed to be Zork IV. So the guy can just start over and turn your current tattoo into that word. What you have looks like shit anyway, it'd be doing you a favor."

I knew I couldn't win this argument, so I bit on my tongue until I passed out. They have to let you go when you pass out.


The Basement
We had that tattoo conversation in Colorado after I had my original interview that was useless to him. He had driven out from Wisconsin. I'm not actually that great with geography, so if that's impossible because of the Thousand Lakes or the precipice of a gaping chasm, then I guess he took a ferry. He bought hookers for the interview in an attempt to relax me beforehand, but one of them was scorching hot and looked like a girl I never got in high school, so I kept messing up what I was trying to say and making everything worse. Plus, it all took place in my basement, which is pretty much just an old oriental rug and nine Mr. Do! cabinets in various states of disuse.

The one gal I was trying to get the phone number of was down to pasties and heels when there was a knock on the door. Normally that doesn't happen that much because 1) I live like a disgusting orc at the bottom of a spider-pit and 2) I have a self-styled moat around the house, consisting of that week's curry oil, a kraken and old Monster Energy Drink cans that I "recycle" back into the "environment" by my lonesome.

"Who is it?" I bellowed. I hoped that taking charge of the situation would impress the girl I liked, but she was a hooker. Without even answering, five guys from the Lyons Pinball Team came downstairs. I recognized them instantly: the Jerk Who Monopolizes the Fireball Machine, the Bastard Who Monopolizes the Orbitor 1 machine, the Whoreson Who Monopolizes the Twilight Zone Machine and two guys who constantly play grabass near the bill change machine.

"Who the fuck are these guys?" I asked Scott anyway.

"Got my fingers in a lot of pies," he said, while at the same time knuckle-deep into the one called Chillaxxx.

After a little while it registered to him that, no, seriously, I wanted to know what those guys were doing here.

"I'm filming them after you, and I needed to consolidate some things. You girls don't mind, do you?" The girls shook their heads and tittered; who knows what that means.

There is an extremely beautiful girl waiting to have sex with me here.
action: You examine girl
response: Which girl do you mean, the prostitute or Chillaxxx?
action: You examine guys
response: Everyone wishes these two guys would just bang and cut the tension. Nobody needs this when they are trying to get a high score on a pinball game, or trying to get out of the environmental Discs of Tron machine with some tiny piece of dignity intact.
action: You examine prostitute
response: She has shoulder-length wavy chestnut hair that you would love to play with in less-hectic times. Her green eyes remind you of fresh, crisp cash. You knew a girl in jazz band who looked just like her when you were a teen. She is almost completely naked, smiling to try to keep you calm.
action: You examine Chillaxxx
response: Chillaxxx has this Czech porn model look that does it for you. Dark hair, almond eyes. You're into what she's got to offer. She's occupied, however.
action: You talk to the prostitute
response: The prostitute is listening.
action: You examine JASON
response: Jason looks like the guy you are told you are in Thomas M. Disch's Amnesia if you don't go in trying to describe a muttonchopped hacker or cracker. Let me explain. Amnesia asks you what you think you look like, right before you look into a mirror. You think beforehand, in the 80s, "Is this game fucking with me?" and "I wonder if I buy a few more copies of Little Computer People if I'll eventually get a girl." When I played, I'd always describe the way I looked back in 1986. Clean-shaven, blonde, square jaw and haunted by a boyish but transgendered glow. The game says, "You couldn't be farther from the truth! Instead, you look like JASON SCOTT."
action: Kiss prostitute
response: "You know what," I said, "There's a better than zero percent chance that one of you guys are going to try to monopolize the girl I'm all into, so I'm just going to get started." I bring the hot one over to the couch. The couch is brown like everything else downstairs, except for the one new old stock Do! marquee and the Monster cans I haven't yet got round to "recycling."

"I'm a world record holder," said the Jerk Who Monopolizes the Fireball Machine. "I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I really think -- "

I cut him off. "If you can't be best, be first." I proceed. It's all over for me within a couple minutes. Nobody else lasts much longer, except for the two grabass guys when one realizes the other is wearing a portable change maker around his belt.

Scott took a crucible out of one of his Bags of Magic that he carries around with him, and ignited a discarded "Player One" button he found on the floor. He chased the pinball guys back to their van, and the girls left because they were paid to. He took a long puff and I answered a bunch of questions about text games. He said my answers were shit and offered me the torching and tattoo deal.
action: Drink water
response: Back in the present time, I paid the tattoo artist. I was actually racking up a substantial bill on this excursion. I usually bribe the border guard when I travel to Canada, since I am too repulsive to just be let into most NATO countries without a lot of paperwork, bother and disapprovingly clucked tongues. But more people means more bribing.

"I haven't bribed this many people since I played Exodus: Ultima III." It's not a text game reference, so Scott doesn't acknowledge it. Which is fair, because I rarely got satisfying replies from anyone in that game. That's where the comparisons really end, though, because at no point in Exodus did Dupre or Chuckles tell you that every time they travel to Canada, they're consumed by the desire to snuff out a handful of lives.

"Not just any humans," Scott says. "It's Canadians I specifically loathe, which is why I'm letting you work out your little dominance issues with Tessman on my dime." I attempt to interrupt, in order to remind him who bribed whom, when he shuts me up by hinting at a scrap of a story that features Steve Meretzky, my idol. But he goes back to talking about his true passion: killing off animals.

"But you know how, if you are really into cake but can't have it, you might take up smoking?" I'm hypnotized by this point by the idea that I might get an untold tidbit from Planetfall, so I just sort of go along with it all. I tell him 'sure.' "It's the same thing with me. I come from a long line of famous Scotts, who bagged the big game. Tigers, lions, blue whales, probably a Rakasha in there, too, for all I know. Well, it just so happens that it's illegal to film yourself killing animal after animal, using the stuff I have in that bag." He makes a dismissive wanking noise. He then points to the bag on the floor in front of me. "Could you get me the lens in there." He doesn't phrase it as a question.
action: You look in the bag
response: Inside the bag is the lens.
action: You get it
response: (assuming you mean the bag)
Done.
Inside the bag is the lens.
action: You get the lens from the bag
response: Taken.
action: You examine it
response: (assuming you mean the lens)
It's huge. Meant for a 35mm camera, and not disposables, like people have tried in the past using duct tape.
action: You throw the lens
response: You'll have to be a little more specific about what you'd like to throw the lens at.
action: You give the lens to Scott
response: "What does this do? Does it add film grain?" I try to make a Photoshop joke, because I assume that all good lenses add "film grain", but he doesn't know what I'm talking about and I hope he quickly forgets.

"It adds gibs and shit. There's a processor in there. Give me that back," he says, with agitation that I chalk up to his ever-growing blood lust. I give him back the lens and shrug. I reach into his bag and pull out a book of matches.

"Did MC Frontalot give these to you?"

"Yeah," he says. "I directed a video of his, you know. At first he was trying to get me to go down to the park and knock down midgets unneededly. I didn't know how to tell him that he could hop on a bus and ride it for fifty miles and not find anyone shorter than 'non-smoking Mexican' unless we passed a morgue. So he gave me some matches that automatically re-light themselves instead. I don't know, I guess it was some text adventure reference or some shit."

I grunted, and pocketed the matchbook. "So who are we hunting up here? Are we even really torching Thornton's place? See, I think that's the perfect crime because the entire place is rum-soaked. Any crime scene investigation would be impossible since the place is already completely covered in a fluid just a few atoms removed from formaldehyde. You can't find justice in liquidy conditions, it's why the X-COM aliens went to the sea next."

"Let's just get out of here," says Scott. He goes out.
action: You follow Scott
response: Which way did he go?
action: You look at matchbook
response: They're novelty matches that were probably ordered out of a comic book. Scott's thrown thousands of them onto on-line archives. Comics, I mean. I don't think anyone is preserving what historical matchbooks looked like for generations. Future generations, in that respect, can get fucked.
action: Go outside
response: Scott takes in the wonderful nature and hocks a loogie into a drift. "We're hunting something called the Beast of Exmoor," he sneers. "It just so happens to be at Adam Thornton's house."

"Did you know he had a MAME machine?" I ask.

"I know the location of every single MAME and JAMMA machine in the western hemisphere," he says. "Ask me the pinouts! ASK ME THE FUCKING PINOUTS!" I do, because he might have a gun in the van. With the way this trip is going, I might suddenly learn that he can turn himself into a gun, all like Galvatron but with Scourge's goatee. He starts listing off voltages and I do the right-hand rule a couple times to mime like I am following along. I usually do this sort of thing at work, when one of my co-workers starts talking about Java. I don't mind programming in Java, but I can't stand to hear other people talk about it. This creates a few problems for me that I end up having to hear about at my yearly performance review. After confirming that he's not going to launch into a Meretzky story any time soon, I let my mind wander. When did it go all wrong?

It occurs to me that it went all wrong when I let the hookers in, so it's a pretty quick self-reflection.

Thornton's house is to the north. I'm not just saying that because I think everything in Canada is north of each other.
action: You go north
response: We approach the house.

"I actually do want to interview Thornton for this 'documentary'," sneers Scott, as we get into the right ZIP code, or whatever they use in Canada. "I'm just trying to think of a way to do it where we kill everything in his house afterwards." He scrunches up his forehead and nose in mild, distracted thought.

"Well, you know, as an experienced text gamer, I am trained in creative problem solving. You want to get some good sound bites out of the guy, but no more than seven, because otherwise I made a horrible mistake. I -- "

"I didn't agree to that," he snaps. "You'll get your seven; if I have to feed you the lines you'll get them. But Thornton has a talent for eloquent descriptions."

"Come on, what makes you think Thornton will be able to slur seven words together, much less provide seven quality clips? He's a hard-drinking, dazzlingly original Missouri classicist who sweats some kind of bathtub gin/Herradura mix out of every pore in his body. He's also telepathically bonded to at least one of his dogs, like E.T. and Elliot, so the one he named Golem gets shit-faced out its gourd as he does."

"You're really obsessed about clip length," says Scott. "Look, if I don't make it out of here and something independently horrible happens to like seven other guys involved with this project, it will be up to you and Jon Blask to release this thing. Don't fail me."
action: Look around
response: I can see Adam's house from here. I have to admit it's very nice. He painted it with its environment in mind. I know that he is an interesting mix of liberal and conservative viewpoints, what I didn't know is that he became snowblind: his house is cyan and magenta. Impossible to miss in all this weather. There is a door to the north.

Jason Scott is here, and he looks like he's got something more to say to me.
action: You talk to Jason
response: "Tell me about this Beast of Exmoor," I say to Scott.

"I want you to imagine a cross between a puma and a panther." I have a documented problem visualizing genetic monstrosities, so I just nod.

"Okay, this cat has gone forth and killed reams of livestock all across Canada. It throws down chickens like a pack of orange Tic-Tacs. It even eats the common predators up there, like, I dunno, mongooses and wolverines." I start to suspect that Scott is one of those guys who don't actually know a lot about the nation of Canada, like 1) Americans who think that Toronto is a quick drive from Calgary, and 2) the entirety of the Québécois. "The Beast is completely out of control, but nobody will do anything for two reasons. The first is the tax credit dispersed to the locals when half their stock goes missing, the second is because they all want to skull-fuck it."

He clears his throat. "Although the thing is described as a puma crossed with a panther, I don't think that does it justice. You might be thinking of a four-legged beast, or some odd amalgam of the two distinct beasts, if you're some kind of thick-browed goddamn sped. You have to eliminate that First World mindset."

I'm, of course, freezing my testicles off in a Saints jersey, undershirt, work boots, pince-nez and little else, involved in some kind of amateur poaching/arson operation that's being filmed for posterity. Aside from introducing some trouble with malaria and voting, I can't feel any less First World.

"It's actually a woman, and it has a great body." Scott turns to look me in the eye for the first time since Edmonton. He searches for any trace that I might think this is some sort of anthropomorphic animal/fetish thing.

"Great rack," he continues. "Fangs, of course, but who isn't into that? Certainly not the kind of people that would live up here in this frozen wasteland. Sleek, athletic legs... and she kills prey for her food and all that. She's an unbelievably sexy creature of mythology, and we're going to get her on film when she's passed out at Thornton's."

"Wait... you know that she's here? How? How do you know these things?"

"How did I know that Don Woods killed a dragon with his bare hands and then blogged about it in Willie Crowther's FORTRAN game, dummy? I just do. We're going to get into Thornton's place under the guise of interviewing him and then scour his place once he passes out and his eyes are liquor-scented 'XXX's. We'll film the Beast of Exmoor and then burn the place to the ground, killing everyone inside." My heart skips a beat, as Thornton has a really nice Atari trackball on his MAME system. Maybe I've become as inhuman as everyone else in my life. Maybe I just love trackballs. Probably both.

He gives me the key so we can get in. I'm sure I'll lose it soon.
action: Light match
response: You didn't learn anything as a child, did you? Don't play with fire. And stay away from my house.
action: You unlock the door with the key
response: Unlocked.
action: You open the door
response: Opened.
action: You enter door
response: We enter the house and Adam is waiting for us.

"I'm Adam, good to meetcha," he says. He had actually met me twice before, but he's so booze-fueled, I doubt he'd be able to spell my name if I spotted him both 'B's. "Can I get you two something to drink?" Before we can even say anything, he's taken us to his second bathtub. "There are few rules here," he says. "Don't bathe in the second through sixth bathtub. Don't ask questions about what I'm brewing or have brewed in those bathtubs." He walks us out to the MAME cab. "Lastly, all these games are yours to play and set high scores on, except one," he says.

"Boon-ga Boon-ga?" I ask.

"What? No. Major Havoc. Don't fuck with it - I don't have my roller set right, and I don't want to go digging back there to reset the score if one of you degenerates gets a high score with the arrow keys." There aren't any arrow keys on a MAME cabinet, but I'm temporarily blind after smelling the bathtub concoction, and Scott's focused on looking for the Beast. I try to soak in some of the craftsmanship of the table: it's divided into four sections - each player gets his own joystick, six cherry microswitch buttons, a martini holder and a bolted-on cigarette tray.

"Why don't you," whispers Scott, "distract him while I try to flush out the Beast." By the end of it he's not whispering any more, because he got a good glance at Thornton's eyeballs, which look like twin, bloodshot magnets of a like charge, both trying to escape his skull in opposite directions. "In fact," he says to me directly in front of Thornton, "Why don't you go into the other room with him while I look for the Beast so we can burn this place down."

"OK," I say.

"OK," says Thornton.

Thornton takes me over to the MAME cab and wipes his chin with the back of his arm. He had somehow consumed a fifth of something in the brief seconds I was listening to Scott. "It'sh my pride and joy, you know," he slurs. "It's the most important thing I have ever contributed to the world."

"It's a quality machine, definitely," I say as I spin through the front-end software, looking for the one game he said I couldn't play. I need help.

"No, thish homebrew," he says while one of his knees gives out, and at first I think he means some text game he crammed into MAMEWah before realizing, no, he was talking booze-homebrew. "The cat-girl is good too," he says. I'm slightly surprised that he has any clue that there is a creature of myth reportedly hanging around his place.
action: You examine the house
response: The house door is just as loud as the rest of the house. It looks like someone murdered a kilt on it.
action: You examine the cabinet
response: Thornton outdid himself here. There is room for four players, with each one getting a joystick and seven buttons. There is a single trackball and spinner in the middle, which is tasteful. Not gaudy at all. Thornton had the 'MAME' logo created for a nice bezel up top. And the joystick colors, from left to right, are yellow, red, blue and green, thus matching Gauntlet nicely.
action: You punch adam
response: "Bruce," I say, getting his name wrong, not that it mattered to him or me. "Is that the Beast of Exmoor? Where is she?" His eyes just start spinning again. I rip off one of the metal cigarette trays and slug him with it. Nothing. I crush his goddamn face with it again and still, nothing. No reaction whatsoever.

His dog Golem staggers down from upstairs, his face looking like a bunch of burst blood sausages tied together with uncongealed Gorilla glue. "Shit!" I exclaim, wondering if the thing is going to live or die. No matter how many times I remind myself about a psychic bond, I always forget once the violence starts.
action: You look at Adam
response: He has a dazzling beard, a foot or two on length. He looks exactly how you want your engaging, original and literate authors to look. You've always admired his work, be it the written word, cocksmanship or arcade-based woodworking.
action: Look around
response: Due to their sick psychic bond (NOTE: some may think it 'beautiful'
and 'touching' -- don't let me pre-calibrate this for you, I'm a mess) if I am going to beat any answers out of Thornton, I'll have to do it through his dog, Golem.
action: You hit dog
response: I do some quick math in my head, and kick the dog in the ribs, which has the effect of knocking Thornton back into usefulness.

"Look, you drunk shit, you need to give me some goddamn answers. Is the Beast around?"

"I'm right here," she purrs from the MAME screen.
action: You play the mame
response: I'm too stupid to understand how to play with that, exactly. I'm sorry!
action: You talk to Beast
response: I turn to look at the monitor. 25" Wells Gardner, no burn-in. Sentient female seductress inside. It's like the show Max Headroom, if they put Amanda Pays in the TV instead. And she is, like, half-puma, too.

"I need you to let me out. I'll do anything for you... I'd be so grateful." She starts to lick her lips and I see the sharpened incisors. Suddenly it's as if I had been drinking all the bathtub gin for the last ... well, I don't know how long Thornton has been continually drunk, let's just go with "the last forty years."

"Did you find anything?" yells Scott from upstairs.

"Let me tell you about this particular Mr. Do! level on here," I say in reply, knowing that no human being with a working brain stem will notice if I don't finish that sentence.

"Open the coin door," she says, all sexy.

I can't, though. "It's locked."

That's all the opening the Beast needed. She wasn't actually in the MAME machine's monitor, it was just a combination of her reflection and my fucked-up vision, thanks to smelling all the homebrew. The Beast of Exmoor drives its fangs into the back of my neck, and I instantly make a mess out of my shorts. I slump down against the MAME machine, smearing blood all over it.

"Jason....!" I attempt to yell his name, to warn him.

"scott, scott," says the Beast, mimicking the Loud Room from Zork I, but kind of messing it up. I raise a finger to correct her, but am in such poor condition that my held possessions instead scatter around on the ground.

"My wife!" exclaims Thornton, as he bursts into tears. "My sweet, feral wife... why must you kill again, you know it drives me to drink..."

Jason Scott comes flying down the stairs, equipment in tow, camera trained on the Beast. "You!" he bellows to Mrs. Thornton, the Beast of Exmoor. "You're, you're -- "

"Sated," she says, as she picks up the book of Frontalot matches from just beyond my reach and lights a cigarette. She blows out the match and discards it towards one of the hallways with a floor that is soaked with standing alcohol.

The match re-ignites during its graceful arc, and everything gets loud and orange.
action: Piss
response: I wake up and find myself within a melting snow drift, just out of range of the Thornton's place as it burns and crumbles.

"This is great footage," says Scott, with his eye into the camera. "I see you're awake. I only saved you because I'll need you to bribe the authorities when they get here. Of course, we're so deep into the sphincter of Canada, it could take weeks." He tears into a hunk of MAME-seared elk flesh. "The fire burns off all the alcohol - and how! - so I don't mind using it as a giant campfire for cooking. I don't really drink; it balances out all the other negative stuff, in my opinion." I guess you can categorize blowing up somebody's home, killing a guy inside and exterminating a species that science doesn't know about as 'negative stuff.' "I prefer games with graphics, so I don't really know if this is how Trinity ended, but it's close enough for my purposes." He laughs with a sharp snort.
action: Inventory
response: You are carrying Jason's bag.
action: You examine the bag
response: It's a tattered and worn old duffel bad that is made out of some wasteful 80s faux fabric like rayon, zevron or sweet panda dick.
action: Look around
response: Within a melting snow drift, the house and the world seem to be burning. I don't understand what's going on, or what I am doing, nor what I ever hoped to accomplish. Scott's still here, perhaps he knows...
action: You talk to Scott
response: "How did I... you..." I give up, not really caring.

"No idea what happened to the Beast, or Thornton," says Scott. "Perhaps they went to the Arctic Circle. Perhaps they didn't make it out of the house and are quietly hiding underneath one of the eight bathtubs they had in that joint. They really had a thing about keeping themselves clean. Who can tell? More to the point, now that I have the footage I need, who gives a good goddamn?" He looks me over and starts clucking his tongue again. "Are you sure you're not Canadian? Christ, taking foreign lives really revs my motor. Maybe I can naturalize you posthumously." He starts fumbling for one of his many pistols.

"Why is..." I gasp for air and turn over on my back, in defeat. The air is crisp, but also wafting around the scent of a peanut-shells-on-the-floor bar right after closing time. It really wasn't the last thing in my life I wanted to experience. "Why is the sun all... smirking...?"

"Which one??!" says Scott reflexively, as the second sun -- a Demon Sun -- reveals itself and begins a deep belly chortle it will never stop.
action: You open the bag
action: You open the bag
response: Enter (R)ESTART, R(E)STORE, (U)NDO, or (Q)UIT:
action: About you
response: It's you, but at the age of five.
action: You look at the girl
response: She's not like the other kids, that's for sure. Her face is round and cute, and her smile makes you forget about the cold wind, if only for a moment.
action: Spin
response: The vinyl record on the record player continues to spin as the needle reaches the end of the track. The repeated clicking coming from the speakers indicates the song has ended.

"Play another one," she says. Digging through the small pile of records on the floor, the choices are limited.

"We've already heard them all," you say to her, but she doesn't seem to care. "Which one do you want? I Love Rock and Roll? We Will Rock You? The Devil Went Down to Georgia?"

"We Will Rock You!" she says. Carefully you lift the record player's arm, remove the last record, pop the yellow, spiral adapter into the middle of the next 45, and place "We Will Rock You" down on to your cheap, plastic turntable. After a moment of crackling, those familiar drums kick in. Boom Boom Clap. Boom Boom Clap.

As they do, She stands up and begins marching around the room, stomping and clapping. Stomp Stomp CLAP. Stomp Stomp CLAP. You follow her lead and soon the two of you are marching around your room in a circle. Stomp Stomp CLAP. Stomp Stomp CLAP! The two of you mumble your way through the verses, but really belt out the chorus.

"WE, WILL, WE, WILL, ROCK YOU!" the two of you shout.

When the guitar solo rolls around you pick up your tennis racket and nail the solo. Your fingers touch each string carefully and methodically as if you're actually playing the guitar. You hope she notices your attention to detail as you play the tennis racket more accurately than anyone ever has. As the song comes to an end the two of you collapse on my floor. Your leg brushes against hers. It feels nice.

The two of you continue to laugh, lying on your backs and staring at the ceiling. You're still holding that dumb tennis racket.

"Oh my God, it's so hot here. Can you open your window?"
action: You examine the racket
response: You can't remember where it came from -- a garage sale, probably. Since you've owned it the racket has been a makeshift guitar, a flyswatter, and something to conk your sister with. You've never actually hit a tennis ball with the thing.
action: You open the window
response: The Mustang's window goes down as you crank the handle around in a circle. No power windows back then, not for a broke high school student such as yourself, anyway.

"How much further is it?" she asks.

"It's right up here, right past this parking lot," you say -- at least you hope it is, never having actually been there before.

Right past the parking lot is an unlit dirt road. Recent rains have turned the dirt path into muddy ruts, and you weren't expecting it to be this bad. Before you know it, your wheels are spinning. You whip the steering wheel back and forth, but it's no use. You're stuck.

You turn the ignition off and get out of your car to assess the situation. "Listen," she says. "I can hear the falls!" Seeing your car stuck in six inches of mud has changed the mood, but there's nothing you can do about that now. You stare at the car, wondering how you're ever going to get it out of here.

"C'mon!" she says, running up the dirt road. At the end of the road is a barbed-wire fence. You lift the top wire up and hold the bottom one down with your foot, allowing her to crawl through the opening. Once through she does the same for you.

"It's getting louder," she says excitedly, and she's right. You can now plainly hear the rushing water. As the two of you walk past the last row of trees, you can finally see it -- a giant, natural waterfall.

As you step into the opening your foot slips on the wet grass and you hit the ground hard. "God DAMN it," you shout, which makes her laugh. Once the sting from the fall wears off you notice you're lying in a big muddy hole.

Still laughing, she plops down next to you and wipes the mud from your face. Then, without saying a word, she leans over and kisses you.

You muster up all your courage. "Let's spend the night together," you say.

"Let's spend the rest of our lives together," she says, and kisses you again.

...

As soothing as the sound of the waterfall is, the rising sun finally wakes the two of you. Your car is exactly where you left it.

"How about this," you suggest. "You get in the car and turn the wheels all the way to the right. I'll rock the car a bit to get things going. On the count of three, you hit the gas and shout "PUSH!" Then, I'll push. Sounds like a plan?"

"Sounds like a plan," she says, taking her spot inside the car. You begin to rock the car as the two of you count together. One ... two ... three ...

"PUSH!"
action: You examine baby
response: He's the most beautiful baby in the world. Of course, that may not me a completely impartial opinion.
action: Shoot
response: The noise is deafening and you can't tell if people are screaming at you, to you, or simply near you.

The same hole is in your shirt, but this time, blood is pouring from it.

"Happy New Year!" people are shouting. Horns are blowing all around you. Someone near you is setting off fireworks.

You can't catch your breath. Why are you so tired? You drop to one knee.

All you can hear is ringing in your ears. You look up and, there she is. You weren't scared until you saw her face. You can tell she's screaming, but you can't hear her. Your son is standing next to her and looks as confused as you are. What's happening?

You look down at your shirt again. Jesus Christ, you've been shot!

You try to stand up, but blood begins to fill your lungs. You're drowning in your blood, here, in the middle of Times Square. If only you could ...

You fall over to your side. Your grown son extends his hand down to help you up but ... you can't catch your breath. Too much blood.

Everything's spinning.

Spinning ...