A trip to the arcade (a tale of the most pressure-packed moment of my life

Over the years, a narrative has developed that kids from this generation only want to stay at home and play their video games. I’m sure there is some truth to that. I remember when my mom scrimped and saved and we were finally able to buy an Atari. The first game was “Pong.” It was literally just one guy with a stick playing another guy with a stick batting a virtual ball back and forth.

But God help you if you tried to jump on the Atari when it wasn’t your turn. And since I was the oldest brother, God help you if you tried to jump on the Atari when it WAS your turn. It’s hard to describe the excitement we felt back then. This commercial highlights the idea. Sure this was a Nintendo 64 and a ways after MY time, but this kid captures the emotion perfectly of the thrill of getting your first game console as a child. 





 But even bigger than the Atari, was the arcade. If playing against your brothers in your room was AAA ball, the arcade was the show. The major leagues. Where the older boys in the neighborhood ruled the roost and presided over the rest of us little fish with their greasy hair, Member’s Only jackets and often short tempers and mean dispositions.






Much like adults jockey for social position in the world though their cars, boys from my generation were judged for their bikes. And the Ferrari at that time was the Mongoose. I remember Kurt Sedlacek (our neighborhood warden) riding up on his for the first time. He had a baseball card in the spokes and a “don’t touch my bike” sticker attached to the forks that you knew was an actual warning to us “kids.”

I had a Huffy. Certainly not the Cadillac of the bike world. More like the Ford Escort. But it got me around just fine, and I would always attempt the “jumps” the older kids would do so as not to appear chicken. This almost always resulted in a bloody crash and some kind of painful injury to the testicles.





But hey, it was better than being chicken.

After we had our Atari for a while, I finally got pretty good at Space Invaders, which was the biggest game in town at the time. I practiced all the time, day and night, trying to beat that game and I got pretty good from all that practice




But there was still a big difference between being good at home and competing underneath the big lights at the arcade. Lots of guys were good in Triple A, only to collapse under the pressure of playing with the bullies, teenagers, and Mongoose crowd at the arcade. And even if you DID somehow manage to get on the machines, there was still the problem of money. Games cost a quarter each to play, and it was an expensive lesson if you weren’t very good, as the games ended pretty quickly.



This problem was solved that August when I got a ten dollar bill in the mail from my grandparents down in Arizona. It was like a godsend. Up to that point it had just been socks and cards and school clothes for my birthday, and I was beginning to think I would never have the financial backing to make it to the show.



I remember that fateful Saturday like it was yesterday. I rode my bike up the street and saw the arcade. It was in the same complex where I got my hair cut by an old hatchet man named Wayne who simply chopped off all your hair. His only saving grace was that he also had Playboy magazines lying around the store, and I would always pray there would be a little waiting list when I arrived so I could catch up on my “reading” a little.


There was also Densow’s drugs, which was my family’s local pharmacy and where we also had a charge account where I could buy an occasional candy bar and charge it to my mom’s account. I always suspected she must have known and turned a blind eye. My mom knew how to pick her battles. 


On the day I pulled up, I saw the line of Mongoose bikes lined up on the rack and knew there would be some heavy competition around the day. There was always just the vaguest hint of violence in the air when you saw all these bikes in one place, and I felt my stomach drop a little as I locked up my bike and went inside.


There at the Space Invaders machine was Randy, the meanest, greasiest bully in the neighborhood. If Kurt Sedlacek was the warden, Randy was the crooked sheriff who was the real power in the town. He was at least five year’s older than I was, and always seemed to have an unlimited supply of quarters to play the games. I suspect he simply took them off the younger kids who he disliked (all of them), as he never seemed to run out of ammunition.


Courage man. You’ve prepared for this.



I walked up to the game and put my quarter on the top of the machine. That’s how you called “next” back in those days, and simply putting your quarter on the machine could be taken as a sign of aggression in many cases.

Randy looked me up and down with disdain, whipped out his can of Copenhagen and took a “dip” (Jesus, how old WAS he?) and told me,



“It might be a while.”


But finally the moment arrived, and Randy dropped his quarter in the machine and I took mine of the top off the game and dropped it in. Doubles. Me against Randy. Now normally when your quarter is up there, you are entitled to play by yourself when the other person’s game was over.



But this was not a conversation I was prepared to have with Randy. Doubles it was.



I could feel my heart racing as I took my turn at the console, somehow almost dying on level one although this was virtually impossible. Randy smirked and spit his tobacco into a cup. I had survived level one.



But Randy wasn’t smirking anymore when I finished the next nine levels.



A crowd had gathered around now, which was the ultimate sign of respect in an arcade. More Mongoose guys started to crowd into our space, with the younger kids my age (who Randy had no doubt terrorized) filling up the space behind them. I could feel them silently cheering for me (none of them would dare do it out loud) while Randy’s flying monkeys yelled things like “kick this little punk’s ass Randy” when it was his turn to play.



Back and forth we went like that for what seemed liked hours (it was probably like 20 minutes, but time is relative when you are a kid in an arcade). When we were both down to our last guy, Randy shot me a death stare that said it all. The angry sneer and exposed yellow teeth said, “If you beat me in front of all these people, you will never have another moment’s peace in the neighborhood ever again kid.”


This was a tough one.



To this day I’m not totally sure if I took a dive or not. Maybe it was the implied threat of violence, or maybe I had just cracked under the pressure. Randy won that game by the narrowest of margins. With his extra five years and unlimited quarters and greasy hair and yellow teeth. By the narrowest of margins, I had faced down the neighborhood bully and held my own.


It was a victory for the little Huffy guys everywhere. A moral victory, sure. But a victory nonetheless.



Randy was never quite the same with me after that, and mostly left me alone. I had earned his respect and maybe deep down he knew that match could have gone the other way. He left the neighborhood a couple of years after that and soon enough WE were the big kids in the hood. There were always predators on the periphery though. And if you went a block or two off your street there was always the chance you would be circled by guys on Mongooses. Probably seems like a small thing nowadays.



But it was pretty damn terrifying in the 80’s.



The arcade closed down as well. The 7/11 became the new spot for all the local greaseballs, and I turned my interest to other things. I went home a couple of years ago and everything looked totally different. Desnow’s Drugs was now “Densow's Medical Supplies” and Wayne the barber and his Playboys were long gone.



But with the right kind of eyes, I can still look back and see that arcade in all its glory. I can smell the musk of the dirty carpet floor. See those “spit cups” all around where the big boys spit there tobacco. A kid from this generation will never know the fear of walking up to an arcade game and putting your quarter on the machine. Nowadays you login, throw on a pair of headphones and insult each other’s mothers online instead. As Mike Tyson once said, “Social media made y'all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”


That would not have flown in the Randy era. And make no mistake, every neighborhood had a Randy. 



But I guess you can’t stop progress.