[ You're taller than the rest of your class by four or five inches but you still feel small. People make you feel small, that's normal, it's typical so you keep a chip on your shoulder and wear a track into the carpet of your favorite haunts. The best one is called "The Aladdin," and those letters illuminate every hope and desire you've ever had in your life.
Inside you can get lost in the alternate realities of Galaga, Centipede, Mrs. Pacman, but you're the best at Street Fighter. Nobody can beat you at Street Fighter and you're damn near untouchable.
The shit people have said about you, your knobby knees, your razor-sharp elbows, your glasses, your buckteeth. None of that matters, you're the king of this domain. You play people for their tokens, for extra games, and more opportunities to beat your high score.
"You want to spend your summer in the Arcade?"
Eddie's voice and the look of the other losers are still imprinted into your mind, doubtful, skeptical, judgmental and you don't need them. You don't need their pity.
It doesn't take long for you to make quick work of your current competition. He's blonde, with curly hair and gentle blue eyes, and looking at him for too long makes it hard to concentrate. He reminds you of Cory Haim, and it takes you a minute to place that but he might as well have walked right out of The Lost Boys. Unlike your other challengers, when you're playing he's not just some bystander or spectator. It feels like he's rooting for you too, and when you gamble his last token away from him he's quick to throw in the towel. Nobody in Derry, Maine is made of money.
"Man, you're good."
Sympathetic, and maybe a little too frantic you offer one of your tokens to play an extra game. No man can be an island, right? The lucky seven might have split off, but why shouldn't you make some friends on your own? Blue eyes stare right back into your soul, hopeful, but Hockstetter and his band of buffoons get out of a movie just in time to ruin your day. Their only real talent in life has been making you suffer and it continues to be their primary goal.
"Dude. Why are you being weird? I'm not your fucking boyfriend."
Your eyes move from that tall mullet-wearing douchebag to the guy you were having a good time with moments earlier. It takes you a couple of seconds to realize that those words were directed at you, "Woah, I- I didn't-"
"What the fuck's going on here?" Great. Now, it's a scene - you can hear the rest of the people around you fall into a hushed rumble of whispered voices. Hockstetter's walking up from the theater boxes ready to make waves and it shouldn't hurt you when the guy says it but Cory Haim turns back toward the four of them with too much ease in his words and it does. "You assholes didn't tell me your town was full of little fairies?"
Is everyone on the fucking planet an asshole or is this something Derry specific?
"Richie Fucking Tozier? Wait- you trying to bone my little cousin?"
What the fuck are you supposed to say to that? Hockstetter is close, so close there would be no point in running or standing your ground and the whole thing is so out of the left-field all you can do is stand there, lips parted in shock, hands open-faced and down at your side. Still reeling. How the hell did it go from having a good time to this?
Then, at the top of his lungs: "Get the fuck out of here faggot!!!!!!"
The entirety of The Aladdin goes silent, and your feet move without much prompting at all. Small backward steps, no point in taking your eyes off of those guys. Not when you can't trust them. Nobody else says a word, and a small glance over your shoulder makes it clear that they won't. Why would they?
"Fucking move!"
The Aladdin was the one thing you had left to distract you. The one thing that you could count on to bring you some sense of self and success. Now that was gone, and you're proud of yourself for not making a scene and lucky that it didn't end up something way worse. Once you push through the door, your nerves rattle back up through you like a swift wind. Every time your feet hit the sidewalk it feels like you're running across hot coals and you don't break down until you make it to the park, unoccupied, so nobody has the satisfaction of knowing what being treated like that actually did to you.
You know that a boy that loves other boys is a dead boy and that plenty of bodies had been buried here for less.]
- a token, cw: homophobia, bullying, hate speech
Inside you can get lost in the alternate realities of Galaga, Centipede, Mrs. Pacman, but you're the best at Street Fighter. Nobody can beat you at Street Fighter and you're damn near untouchable.
The shit people have said about you, your knobby knees, your razor-sharp elbows, your glasses, your buckteeth. None of that matters, you're the king of this domain. You play people for their tokens, for extra games, and more opportunities to beat your high score.
"You want to spend your summer in the Arcade?"
Eddie's voice and the look of the other losers are still imprinted into your mind, doubtful, skeptical, judgmental and you don't need them. You don't need their pity.
It doesn't take long for you to make quick work of your current competition. He's blonde, with curly hair and gentle blue eyes, and looking at him for too long makes it hard to concentrate. He reminds you of Cory Haim, and it takes you a minute to place that but he might as well have walked right out of The Lost Boys. Unlike your other challengers, when you're playing he's not just some bystander or spectator. It feels like he's rooting for you too, and when you gamble his last token away from him he's quick to throw in the towel. Nobody in Derry, Maine is made of money.
"Man, you're good."
Sympathetic, and maybe a little too frantic you offer one of your tokens to play an extra game. No man can be an island, right? The lucky seven might have split off, but why shouldn't you make some friends on your own? Blue eyes stare right back into your soul, hopeful, but Hockstetter and his band of buffoons get out of a movie just in time to ruin your day. Their only real talent in life has been making you suffer and it continues to be their primary goal.
"Dude. Why are you being weird? I'm not your fucking boyfriend."
Your eyes move from that tall mullet-wearing douchebag to the guy you were having a good time with moments earlier. It takes you a couple of seconds to realize that those words were directed at you, "Woah, I- I didn't-"
"What the fuck's going on here?" Great. Now, it's a scene - you can hear the rest of the people around you fall into a hushed rumble of whispered voices. Hockstetter's walking up from the theater boxes ready to make waves and it shouldn't hurt you when the guy says it but Cory Haim turns back toward the four of them with too much ease in his words and it does. "You assholes didn't tell me your town was full of little fairies?"
Is everyone on the fucking planet an asshole or is this something Derry specific?
"Richie Fucking Tozier? Wait- you trying to bone my little cousin?"
What the fuck are you supposed to say to that? Hockstetter is close, so close there would be no point in running or standing your ground and the whole thing is so out of the left-field all you can do is stand there, lips parted in shock, hands open-faced and down at your side. Still reeling. How the hell did it go from having a good time to this?
Then, at the top of his lungs: "Get the fuck out of here faggot!!!!!!"
The entirety of The Aladdin goes silent, and your feet move without much prompting at all. Small backward steps, no point in taking your eyes off of those guys. Not when you can't trust them. Nobody else says a word, and a small glance over your shoulder makes it clear that they won't. Why would they?
"Fucking move!"
The Aladdin was the one thing you had left to distract you. The one thing that you could count on to bring you some sense of self and success. Now that was gone, and you're proud of yourself for not making a scene and lucky that it didn't end up something way worse. Once you push through the door, your nerves rattle back up through you like a swift wind. Every time your feet hit the sidewalk it feels like you're running across hot coals and you don't break down until you make it to the park, unoccupied, so nobody has the satisfaction of knowing what being treated like that actually did to you.
You know that a boy that loves other boys is a dead boy and that plenty of bodies had been buried here for less.]