This is a story about the time our sweet arcade almost got shut down by evil Japanese condo developers.
But in a way, it’s also a story about friendship, loss, love, betrayal, and the best friends I’ll ever have.
But in another, more accurate way, it’s about the time we used naked boobs to save our arcade from evil Japanese condo developers.
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While you’re reading this story, you might notice that I don’t write that good. I’m not much of a writer. Or a reader. But I watched a lot of movies to figure out how to tell stories right. So if there’s stuff that’s kinda fucked-up in here, if it sounds real stupid, then don’t blame me. Blame the screenwriter of The Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure. Or maybe blame Shakespeare. That dude could’ve taught me how to write, but he was too boring.
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Open on a street in a beach town. We see all kinds of different dudes walking around. We see like a punk dude with liberty spikes. We see some dudes breakdancing on a big piece of cardboard someone carried out to the sidewalk. We see the girl kind of dudes, in yellow swimsuits, and we mostly see their butts and how their long hair reaches down to the tops of their butts. We might think about if their hair ever gets in their butts, or if they’ve ever accidentally taken a dump on their own hair or dipped it in the toilet, but mostly we think about Damn, look at those butts in those yellow swimsuits!
Then we zoom in on one brick building. There’s a big sign above the front door, and it says Arkade.
You might think that it’s misspelled. Well, it is. The guy who owns it isn’t the most smartest. But he’s not the dumbest. He figured out the name on the sign was wrong way after it was finished, but then he just went with it and was like, “We’ll get two of every arcade game! Like that boat Jesus was on!”
He’s not the smartest guy, but he’s pretty good at business, and he got two of a bunch of games. Centipede, Centipete, Human Centipede Galaga, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Gender Ambiguous Pac-Person, and my favorite, Robotron 2084.
Robotron 2084 is the best because it’s the craziest game ever made. There isn’t even a button when you play. Just two joysticks. And those sticks put the “joy” back in “joysticks” because, holy shit, that game is the joytits.
Which brings us to the problem.
We were all hanging out, playing games.
I guess I should introduce who all the people are.
There’s me. I’m Pete. I’m playing Robotron 2084, and uh, I have black sneakers. I don’t know. It’s hard to describe people. But I’m like the awesome cool dude in the movie, for sure, and if it was a movie from a certain time, I’d probably have some fingerless leather gloves or something. And one of those leather jackets with the buckles and straps everywhere.
Okay, then there’s Jason. He’s probably playing Sinistar because he thinks Sinistar is totally hilarious when he talks. Jason’s the owner of the Arkade. I told you already he’s dumb. His shoes are also black. He’s not that smart, but he’s nice.
Then there’s Ben. Ben is probably playing Dig-Dug. Ben is the fat guy. Every group has a fat guy, unless it’s got two fat guys, and Ben is our fat guy. Black shoes also.
Then there’s Agnes. Agnes is our hot girl friend. Not girlfriend, but friend who’s a girl. Agnes doesn’t really date anyone right now. She dated this dude, Brad, during the school year, but it turned out that Brad was only dating her because he made a bet with his friends to see if he could make Agnes the prom queen. Then Agnes found out about it right before the prom, and she was really pissed, but Brad was like, “No, baby, that’s how it started, but now I’m really in love with you!” And Agnes was all, “Well…okay.” And then they went to the prom, and then Brad dumped her immediately after because it turned out it WAS a bet, and he didn’t fall in love with her, but she had to be crowned the prom queen for him to win the bet.
There’s always a bright side to things, and I guess the bright side is that Brad ended up making $13,000 dollars on the deal. He made a lot of bets with a lot of different people at the school, it turns out. And with people from just around town. Even Agnes’ parents bet against her, it turned out, and now Brad’s got all the money that was supposed to be for Agnes to get a car.
It’s kinda horrible, but we were all sort of impressed that Brad had that much initiative. Even Agnes one time admitted that it was pretty rad, from a pure business standpoint.