A Chuck E Cheese Night

The Chuck E Cheese stood next to a strip club, a gun shop, and a liquor store. God bless America. It was 6pm and the middle of an ending summer. The sun was still up bright and hot, and the people were floating around waterparks, clinking beer bottles under a tree, or walking into the malls or movies or this stinky, almost bankrupt Chuck E Cheese.

I was 17 and poor as dirt. My parents had disowned me after a freak accident with the family TV. I set it on fire when I was 12 and went to Juvie for a good year after that. It left them paralytic with fear to be without reality television or a football game to fill the cancerous silence of that house. But now I’m cured. Now I live in the mattress section of Macy’s with the rats and a homeless man named Tostitos. Now I’m Chuck E Cheese employee #71142069.

Before work I take a smoke in my beat up old car. It’s so rusty, it’s on the verge to explode. Straight up BOOM like combustion. I’ve seen a car explode like that once. In a JCPenney parking lot. Too bad it’s bankrupt and nobody goes for a one way ticket to paradise anymore. The most exciting thing in life now is lemon shake-ups and fireworks at the county fair. Now that’s just sad. The smoke hotboxes the car in a green haze. I feel enlightened now like the L.A. people or the YouTubers. Like I need a toga and a mountain and a billygoat so I can scream ENLIGHTENMENT!!!!! for no reason. Forget it. There’s nobody to show off to in this sketchy parking lot. I try to fiddle the radio for some ommm shanti shanti beats, but all this car sings is 80’s bangers. I put the ashes out on the window and lay back while the radio plays.

Ooops I’m late. I ended up falling asleep. What do you expect? This job sucks. I go in and clock my card. There’s three other sweaty employees who I pretend to be friends with. There’s Tina, who’s 31 and thinks I have hotly feelings for her. There’s Bohn, who was supposed to be born as John, but the nurse was so sick and tired of her life she overdosed on Honey Buns so she didn’t have to fix it. And there’s Qwerty, who thought he was oppressed because he couldn’t get into Harvard. They shuffle back and forth between scrubbing boogers off the Skee Ball game, stocking plastic toys, and making pizzas. I join them for a while and fiddle the stereo.

“Well well well,” says Qwerty. “Late again? And who do you think you are fiddling my stereo?”

“Bach,” I say and put in the homemade mixtape: HYSTERIA N OTHER SONGS FROM JUVIE. I had four roommates back in the human zoo. All we did back then was cry and try to murder ourselves. Good times, good times.

“Um podcasts are good for your brain,” he says. He was one of those people who didn’t think music was a miracle. “Especially the growing children’s brains? Like do you not care about the children?”

“No,” I say and put on my employee hat again. My hair wet by a small sweat.

“UGH!” He breaks a cheese-printed pencil in half.

“Jesus, calm down.”

“NO!” He starts breathing heavy. “RESEARCH STATISTICS SAY APPLICANTS WHO LISTEN TO PODCASTS ARE FIVE TIMES MORE LIKELY TO GET INTO HARVARD. UGHHH!”

“Oh please,” I roll my eyes.

“Yeah,” says Bohn. “I spent my whole life working here, and I’m happy.” He’s picking his nose in the corner.

“Well I’m not happy. I’m going to be a celebrity psychiatrist.” Qwerty huffs.

“Why?” I ask.

“Are you like stupid? They are the most vulnerable population of all mankind. They need our help.”

Tina passes by and squeezes my cheeks. I yelp.

“Duhhhhhhhh,” Bohn sounds. “I rememberrrrr nowwwww…I went to college but then I didn’t have any time for video games or anything else that I liked. I ate Burger King everyday and then I just exploded one day cuz I was so angry….Then they stuffed me into the Madhouse…You know, the one on Pleasant Street….and they like fed me five pills a day until I felt better..and then they were like go on son, go on! Go forth into this like cruel cruel world and get your bread and butter and pop out a kiddie or two and pretend to love someone while you’re at it. So I did what they said and actually…I popped out 5 kiddies and went through 3 girls, not wives, so far…I think I loved them, but it’s always too much a chore for people these days to love me…sighhh…. I would’ve just ran away if I knew everybody was a sham. But my grandma called me every morning and threatened me with a shoe and a stick and said I’d never be anything in this life if I didn’t follow the crowds or the system or whatever you call it.…It’s ok though..the people in charge give me like $500 pity dollars a month for being like sick in the head and they gave me a lifetime discount for tombstones, which is like very practical because everybody’s always dying for some reason…Now I’ve got this lump on my big toe and they said it’s gonna kill me. I got 4 more months to live so now I’m….” He spaces out again and continues picking his nose. I don’t think he remembers a word of what he said.

Qwerty, as usual, didn’t listen and kept on talking like the genius he thought he was.

“UGH! Why do you not know how to fold these Super Chuck E paper napkins into swans?!?! Are you not civilized?!!? Do you not have any manners?!?!?”

“Because…” And the sad sad memories fast forward through my head like Greek tragedy. “Juvie.”

“What? Ew,” he says and flinches back. “Get away from me you nasty criminal! Go scrub the toilet or something lowly and sad.”

I don’t know why, but I take him seriously. I’m conditioned now. Like a spray bottle to a bad bad dog. Just for one sin. And it wasn’t even my entire fault. It was the Tellyvision’s. But the people don’t see that. The sun always shines on TV, and I’ve fallen into another guilt trick.

There were two people going at it in the women’s bathroom. They said they were from the trailer park and had nowhere else to carry out the laws of nature. So I said ok? and they kept going uh uh uh while I wiped the mirrors and toilets.

Right next to the bathroom was the salad bar. The pee and fart splattered all the way acrost it. The sad and drunk soccer moms would come up with their Super Chuck E paper plates and tong down a dainty portion of 7 lettuce leaves, 7 olives, 7 cherry tomatoes, 7 droplets of dressing, and a stinky egg on top. The soccer moms eat and cry together. Their weepy botox melts into their martinis. They’re overwhelmed from taking care of their progeny. Their freedom is cut in half and slathered into monotony. Their hands smell like laundry and casserole and breast milk, hand-knit scarves, football games, high school, once a week Applebees, FaceBook, and covered up misery. They can’t do anything to please their husband. He’s next door in the glitter club’s Red Room eating chicken wings and watching a baseball game with a stinky butt waving in his face. Their children get lost in the sauce and contract Pink Eye in the jungle gym. The police come every night now at 11:59 to take them in. Their parents have abandoned them. It’s a cheap daycare. The cops stuff them in the patrol car like a carpool and drive to the Po-Po Station to call Child Protective Services while the kiddies jump back and forth licking ice lollies and vending machine chips, crying where’s my mommy? daddy?

I don’t know why people love children so much. They go on the Internet and pick out eye colors and hair colors and color palettes and outfits like build your own sub at Subway. They’re not even ready and they get down on four knees and they start kissing and popping them out like hot cross buns. Poot! Poot! Poot! One a penny two a penny…They’re free anyways. I guess who could resist a freebie? Next thing, they’re crawling all over and next thing, they’re blaming you for their poverty and their thigh high psychological scars that they’ll carry to the grave. There’s a four year war over it and then you sigh and give into the guilt trap and slap a whopper of a $3000 a month for their therapy bills and misery pills. I don’t get it. They do the 9 to 5 job like they’re making history. Get married like love is a victory. Children like children is a victory. House, clothes, cars, vacations, fame, respect, reputation….Tick tick tick checking off the invisible list. But most things most people did was just a game show. Something they have to do because there was nothing else to do. No glory, no steam, no fire. What a dog of a life. Sorry, but that’s just the way I see it.

I look at the children and feel something. The deepest sorrow or whatever. They are so beautiful but doomed.

This rat-themed child casino got me in the feels. I already had a gambling problem. And a pizza addiction. The rat was a pimp and he knew it. Nobody even knew who he was under that fur suit. He touched the kiddies’ butts when they came up for a birthday party hug. Whispered weird stuff in their ear. He thought no one saw because no one paid for the security cameras anymore. Yeah, the security room was now the boss’s minibar. I had a good puff daddy smoke at this behind the stage curtains. Chuckle chuckle haw haw haw. Everybody sees the lootings and shootings, but oh, the invisible crimes!….forget it..

My philosophical cancer burn doesn’t last for long. In comes this girl and the disco lights go down low. It’s some whiny 70’s crooner yowling My Eyes Adored You. Chuck E gets out onto the floor and starts to slow dance with the kids. And suddenly, I’m feeling very romantic and shed a tear. She gets her hand stamped by the invisible ink barcode and I can just imagine she’s #71142069 too. Big Brother was watching alright. She comes all the way to the back where the birthday party is playing out like a cheap film. She sets a newspaper-wrapped box on the gift table and then sits down and grabs a slice of recycled pizza. The grease drips down her lips onto her bare legs and I almost pass out. She doesn’t bother dabbing with a napkin and just licks it off with her tongue. She looks up at me smoking it up behind the stage curtains and smiles. I put the ashes out on my forehead like it’s Ash Wednesday but I’m not sorry for my sins.

I run to her and get down on one knee like chivalry, like her on a pedestal, like me her humble humble knight in adoration. She looks at me and screams and runs away to the Forever 21, where the pimply boys stand outside waiting like fruit flies. And I just know they’re gonna go down to the river and drink drank drunk like there was nothing else to do. Cuddle to country music by a bonfire until they fossilize in each other’s arms and the dinosaurs come again. I try not to care. I tell myself she’s hollow and there’s nothing to her but a hollow love and existence. And the thing was, most people were like this. Suddenly I feel very sick. I don’t know what is reality anymore. I have a headache.

The door busts open and in comes this ripoff SoundCloud rapper named Lil Peet. He’s got pink dreads and face tats, black fur coat, baggy pants, gold chains like he’s a big shot daddy. He laughs like he’s 106 years old and got nothing left in his lungs except more emo lovesick lyrics. His friends start shooting a music video on their iPhones. Lil Peet poses with his vape and tongue out like blehhhh next to the no photography sign. His friends catch all them angles and they’re making a ruckus. They shake their shaggy grunge hair back and forth like tangled mops and sing. o it’s a lonely world, i know. go n get a lonely girl, that’s fo sho. o i’m a lonely boy, i know i know i knowww. yah yah yah yo yo yo.

I don’t have the courage to tell them to stop. So I go to fix the Token Machine and keep pretending like I don’t care. They catch a glimpse of me and holler.

“HEY YOU!” they laugh and come at me.

“Huh?” I look up at them standing above me. The coins explode out and splatter. “Shit,” I say.

They laugh and start banging their fists on the ice cream machine. “Hey, wanna be in our music vid?”

“Huh?”

“Dudeeeeee you’re like sooooo screwed right now…” says Lil Peet.

The others agree, “Yeah dudeeeeee. Just look at your eyessssss.”

“I’m just tired, thank you.”

“Thank you? What do you think, we’re like your mom or somethin?” They laugh again huh huh huh.

I keep loading in more gold tokens.

“Hey,” Lil Peet says. “Whaddya say we have a lil party out back? You seem cool.”

“I have to work.”

“Forget about work mannnnn. Just take a chill pill. Speaking of…we got like…Purple Pills from this doctor dude…Yeahh Dr. X or somethin.”

“Thanks man, but back door’s for the rat and employees only.”

“You’re like boring dudeeeeee,” the other two say and blow their fruit vapor in my face.

“That’s just how I am.”

Lil Peet picks up two gold coins and holds them in front of his eyes. “If you don’t party with us….we’re gonna have ourselves a little trubble.”

I keep putting in tokens. They keep spitting out.

Lil Peet knocks me out with a hard knock kick in the face. His thugs scoop the tokens into the bellies of their hoodies. They try to steal the ice cream machine, but they’re too dumb to know it’s glued to the ground. They steal some cheese from salad bar but then spit it out yelling THIS TASTES LIKE FART!!!! and run out the back doors. I moan and sputter blood on the ground. The kids keep screaming and yelling. One trips over me and throws up. The lottery machine screams JACKPOT!!!!!

It’s almost closing time. Everybody has left except for me and Tina. We overlook the prizes bar and hand out plushie rats to the last winning kids. She slides her hand on top of mine and I freeze inside.

“Ohhhhhh,” she sighs.

“OH!” I yelp and bite my hand.

“What what what!?!? Are you ok?” she feels my forehead with her hand.

“Oh yeah, oh yeahhhh!” I lie.

She smiles and smooths out my hair. “You’re so beautiful,” she says.

“Oh really I’m not,” I laugh and sweat, “I’m just average.”

“Oh hunnie, you’re more than average. You’re a stud.”

“Oh no no no,” I laugh.

Another kid comes up and asks for blue cotton candy.

“Hey,” she says and traces her red fingernail over my jaw. “Let’s go out back and have a little break…In my car.”

“We c-can’t leave the kids like this,” I look for another excuse.

“Forget about them! They ain’t gonna get killed in five minutes.”

I gulp. “Oh you’re so….nice, Tina, but really, I can’t.”

“I’ve got donuts.”

She grabs me and hauls me out to her minivan. Inside, it’s cluttered with leftover Taco Bell and BK and Mickey D’s and smells rotten with layers of vanilla Walmart perfume and nail polish. There are fake candles already lit on the dashboard and she fiddles with the radio to put on some nighttime R&B. girls need luv too. g-g-g-gurlzzz need luv tooooooo. o baby baby i wanna be ur healingggg. roll thru da hood. trust me it’s all ok. you just need someeeee…some late night attentionnnn unconditionnnnalllullllulllululululul.

“I’ve wanted you for soooo long,” she sighs, drowsy.

“Where are the donuts?”

She grabs me and lays her vulgarity on me. I scream and scramble to flip the door open and fall out onto the ground.

She huffs. “FINE! GET’CHUR DIRTY TEENAGE FINGERS OFFA ME. I NEVER WANTED YOU ANYWAYS.” She flips me off and drives off.

The police are here. I run inside to find the kids sitting in a circle in the middle of the rat casino’s floor like a cult. The clock ride reads 11:59 at night. Their dirty pizza sauce faces look at me. The cops look at me.

“I can explain,” I say.

The cops hold up three empty bottles of Robitussin, a lighter, and a knife. Four kids are passed out on the tables and the EMT’s take their pulse and hold up a thumbs up.

In the police station, they debate if I should have another round of Juvie. They let me off easy because it’s Jesus Kardashian’s birthday. I sigh relief and walk down the station corridor, watching all the prisoners bang and claw at the walls. I walk out into the cold night and cover myself with my arms. I try not to cry, but out the tears come like boo hoo hoo. The moon looks cruel today and I can hear the stars laugh hee haw haw haw at me. I walk the one or two miles to the Chuck E Cheese.

I sweep up and lock the register, which has made only $30 today. A robber comes in and holds a raygun from the gun store next door to my head. “OPEN UP, BUB! OPEN UP!” I open up and turn the register around to show him all the cash. He looks at me in disbelief. “That’s it?” I nod, “Yeah.” He looks left then right then left then right, and then takes it and sighs. “Oh….whadda scam,” he puffs and walks over to the prizes booth and stuffs three plushie rats, four tubs of blue cotton candy down his pants. “Have a nice day,” he whistles and walks out the window. I eat the leftover pizza and scrape the crumbs into the register and lock it up. I play a round of Skee Ball by myself. When I’m tired, I unplug the rat animatronic and turn off all the lights. I look back at the empty room and debate if I should just take off my hat and boxers and just call it a night then and there. I was exhausted, but I felt like I didn’t deserve that for some reason.

So I drag myself to my beat up old car and park in front of the Macy’s basement door to the mattress section. I see Tostitos through the glass door already snoring. The moonlight spills over onto his dirty face. I turn the car on again and drive slowly to somewhere else. I don’t know where, but somewhere.

The Chuck E Cheese stood next to a strip club, a gun shop, and a liquor store. I haven’t been to either because I’m still innocent. But I don’t think I can hold out for much longer. I feel the concrete hardening on my soul. I stand outside their parking lots. This cruel cruel world will pluck me up by the neck and drive me towards one of them and eventually all three. And I’ll blame it on boredom just like the rest.