Screamscapes: Tales of Terror (20 page)

“I thought you were going to move, now that you’ve got a job?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” I said, and laughed as I started digging through a pile of my clothes in the corner, looking for something to wear.

I smelled them to see what I could stand wearing all day. That was a mistake. The first shirt I picked up smelled like vomit. God damn it, my mom is lazy. She needs to get her fat ass in here and wash this shit.

“Why would I want to move? I’ve got it made here,” I explained. “Besides, I’m so close to getting a world record on beating Super Mario Brothers - including the lost levels. Do you even realize how much practice I’ve put into this? I’m scared if I moved it would mess up my mojo.”

“You’re still playing Super Mario Brothers? Why don’t you go get an XBOX 360 or a Playstation 3 like everybody else, now that you’ve got a job?” he asked. God, what a dumb question; but that was why he was the Nard.

I finally found a shirt that didn’t smell too bad and pulled it on.

“Well, Nard, for one thing, I don’t have a job anymore, I lost it over complete bullshit; and second, they call the Super Nintendo Entertainment System a classic for a reason: it’s a classic. It’s the pinnacle of gaming.”

“Okay, fine. I didn’t mean to get you started on
that
subject again,” he said, looking at his watch, impatient. He was always such a baby about getting there right at opening time. I started digging through the Taco Bell wrappers under the bed looking for my shoes.
God, mom needs to clean this place up.

“How’d you lose your job?” he asked. “I thought you were doing well.”

I finally found my shoes. One of them was full of the new dippable ketchup packs I had been collecting from Chick-Fil-A.

“I was, man, I was real good at my job. But them fuckers were paranoid,” I told him. It was the truth.

“What happened?”

“They set up a sting operation on me, all secret spy stuff and shit. I could have sued, but I didn’t want to screw up my Mario-jo with legal bullshit,” I said.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” the Nard said, “what happened?”

“I had it down to a science. It was completely undetectable,” I explained. “I figured out exactly how much of the toppings I could eat off a pizza without anybody noticing. It was a victimless crime. I got to eat some toppings while delivering pizzas and nobody, I mean
nobody
, could tell they had been touched. How is that a big deal?”

“So did somebody complain?”

“No man, I am
sure
nobody ever called and complained. Like I said, I knew exactly how to do it, it was undetectable,” I told him. “It was a trap those fuckers set on me. The manager made a pepperoni pizza for me to deliver, must’ve been made special for one of his friends to check up on me. He actually counted the number of slices of pepperoni he put on it and had the person call and tell him how many were on it when I delivered it. How paranoid is that, right?”

“So you got fired when you got back?” the Nard asked.

“Yeah man, it was all kinds of screwed up. It was a medium pizza, it had twenty-five pieces of pepperoni on it and medium pizzas
never
have more than twenty unless the order is for extra pepperoni – and this pizza
wasn’t
extra pep. As long as a medium pizza had fifteen slices of pepperoni on it no one will notice the difference. I only ate five off that pizza –
only five
– and that fucker fired me! Can you believe that shit?”

The Nard shrugged. “Yeah, that sucks. I know your mom had to be disappointed. I remember her telling me how excited she was that you had a job and would be moving out,” he said, like he and my mom were all best buddies or something.

He wishes.

I think he’s always had a thing for my mom. Every time she walks by he stares at her ass the way an Ethiopian looks at a chicken.

My mom’s desperate, but I’m pretty sure even she draws the line at
ass-boogers
.

Speak of the devil. Just then she poked her head through the doorway, a shit eating grin on her face. “You boys ready to get your picture together?” she said, waggling her piece of shit Digimax camera around like it was worth something.

She always looked at the Nard like he was so amazing; there was this shining look of love whenever she saw him. Sometimes I almost wonder if she wished the Nard was her son, instead of me. I guess an idiot like her
would
prefer an imbecile for a son, instead of someone as brilliant as me. I probably make her feel stupid a lot.

“God damn it, mom! Can’t I ever just take Joe for his big day out without you making us pose like it’s the prom?” I asked.

“Stephen, I’ve gotten a picture of us all together every year since you boys were little. You never know when something’s going to be your last time doing it. I still remember the last time your dad and you and me had dinner together as a family,” she blabbered.

Oh god, not this shit. Here we go again.

“If I had known then, that it would be the last time the three of us would be sitting around a dinner table as a family, I would have made something nice. Do you know, after he left, I looked through all our pictures and the last time we had taken a picture together as a family was two years before?”

I couldn’t let her get started down this road or else we would die of old age and boredom before she was finished.

“Fine, mom. Whatever. Take the stupid picture so we can hurry up and get the fuck out of this shithole,” I said.

We went into the hallway. Mom sat the camera down on the little table by the front door and set the timer, before jumping into the picture with us, wrapping an arm around each of our necks just as the camera flashed.

God she was an embarrassment. I honestly couldn’t wait to bury her.

I finished getting my shit together and we were out the door. Normally, I wouldn’t hurry on purpose, just to fuck with
Joe-peeing
, but it
was
pretty sweet being one of the first people to get into King’s Gardens. They had a new coaster this year, the longest and fastest in the southeast or some shit, and I intended on taming that bitch three or four times before the line got so long I’d die of old age waiting.

The Nard was driving us today, he’s so retarded I’m surprised anyone gave him a license, but my car is in the shop and mom won’t let me use hers anymore. It’s not my fault someone hit me last time I used it. They saw that I was going for it when the light was changing and they decided to try and beat me anyway.

Assholes.

“Be careful with the door,” the Nard said as he clicked the car unlocked, “It’s close to the curb and I don’t want to mess it up.”

“Holy shit, Joe, how’d you get a Maserati? You win the lottery?” I asked.

“No, I bought it, Stephen. Remember I told you I sold my nanotech patents to the JPL last year for a bundle?” he said.

“I thought you were just making up stuff to impress me,” I told him. “A little monkey like you should be pretty good at ba-nano-tech for the Junior Pussy Lickers, though,” I laughed. He just stared at me. How he did not find a classic joke like that funny? I had no idea.

“No, I really do have a job and make money, Stephen. You should try it,” he said.

“Don’t get all high and mighty on me,
Joe-peeing
. You’re still a Nard, and no money in the world can change that,” I told him, and that really shut him up. Sometimes you just gotta put stupid people in their place, whether they’re driving a car with real leather seats or not. When my name’s at the top of the Nintendo Power high score world rankings, I’m gonna buy two cars like it.

Joe has always been a dork. Taking him to the amusement park one day a year was my way of contributing to society, my charity work, if you will. Besides, it’s the only thing Mom will pay for me to do anymore, the cunt. I don’t care if I am twenty-one, I’m still her son and a guy needs to have fun once in a while. I work very hard on my Super Mario drills and sometimes it’s nice just to go blow off some steam, even if it’s with a Nard like Joe.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I could feel my excitement growing. The new coaster, the Dominator, loomed over the parking lot like a giant red snake, just waiting to devour anyone who got too close. I couldn’t wait. I hoped Joe didn’t make us go on the Scrambler fifteen times in a row again this year. The guy had a fucktard obsession with that stupid ride.

We parked and headed for the gate. There weren’t many people in line yet, so that was good – maybe we could actually ride something without waiting in line.

“What time is it, Joe?” I asked as we got in line for tickets. I was ready to ride that coaster this instant.

He checked his watch. It looked really expensive, one bad-ass piece of arm-candy.

“Ten till ten,” he said.

“What kind of watch is that?” I asked. “I need to get me one of those.”

“Oh, this?” he said, holding it up so I could see. “You can’t buy this watch anywhere – I made it.”

“Bullshit,” I told him.

“No really, man, I did. I didn’t go to MIT for nothing,” he said.

“No, you went to MIT because
Monkeys In Training
is the only college that will let a primate like you go,” I told him.

I loved that joke. I must’ve said it a hundred times, when they kicked him out of high school at sixteen to go there. It must be a special school for special kids. If he was really smart, he would have gone to State. I felt a little bad for teasing him about being sent away to a special school, but not much.

“Check it out,” Joe said, showing me his watch up close. “I programmed it to play the original Super Mario Brothers using the original code. It even has the secret levels glitch.”

He pressed a few buttons on the watch and the Super Mario intro screen popped up on a mini high-res color screen as the theme song started playing
. In stereo
.

That watch was possibly the coolest thing I had ever seen in my entire life. I would have traded him my left nut for it, in an instant.

“It’s okay, I guess,” I said. I didn’t want to let on that I was impressed, even though the watch had to be the coolest invention the Nard had ever made in his entire life, by far – and he had made a lot over the years. It was at least ten trillion times better than the assortment of stupid gadgets he usually brought with us to King’s Gardens: wind speed testers, accelerometers, laser distance calculators, and other retarded geek shit like that. Having the coolest watch in the world strapped to his arm was proof that even a blind squirrel can find an acorn in the woods from time to time.

“So you don’t like it,” he said, looking disappointed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a second watch, identical to the one he was wearing.

“Then I guess you probably don’t want the one I made for you?” he said sadly.

I couldn’t keep up the act anymore. I was about to crap my bloomers.

“Are you shitting me?” I said. I still couldn’t believe it. “I’ll take it, definitely. This watch is just like that one?”

“Well, I made it especially for you, so there is one little difference from mine,” he said as he handed me the watch. “Look on the back.”

I flipped it over and holy shit - etched perfectly into the metal on the back was the Transformers logo, the original one, too – not that stupid Michael Bay bullshit.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt a little bad for treating him like a ‘tard, even though he was one.

“Thanks Joe,” I told him.

“You’re welcome, Stephen. Try it on,” he said, and smiled so big I thought for a second that his head would split open.

I slipped my hand through the smooth metal wristband, and as I did it made a whirring sound, automatically tightening itself around my wrist.

“That is so bad ass,” I said. “We can go ride the Scrambler first again, if you want to,” I told him. I felt like I owed him that much.

“No, it’s okay. I want to save the Scrambler for last this time,” he said. No figuring out that fucker.

Just then, the gates opened and we pushed our way through with everyone else. It was a bright sunny day, not hot, but perfect, with just the right amount of cool spring breeze blowing. I loved the smells of King’s Gardens more than just about anything and the air was full of them today: deep-fried elephant ears covered with cinnamon-sugar, roasted turkey legs, cotton candy, french fries – it was enough to give my tongue a hard-on just thinking about it.

It suddenly occurred to me that this was the first time I’d been out of the house since I got fired. That had been a month ago. It felt good to be outdoors, in the fresh air and away from Mom’s relentless bitching and groaning.

I played Mario on the watch the Nard had given me while we waited in the short line. It worked perfectly. I had never seen anything like it in my life.

And the Nard seemed to enjoy watching me play with it. In fact, he seemed happier than I had ever seen him in our entire lives, smiling and whistling like he had a corn dog with mustard up his ass or something.

I couldn’t believe that he actually rode the Dominator roller coaster. I figured he’d duck out at the last second, but he rode it with me - not just once, but three times in a row.

You gotta understand, this guy hasn’t ridden a real roller coaster since I tricked him into getting onto the Gunner Barrel triple-looper back when we were in fifth grade.

That had been the first time our parents had let us come here by ourselves. He looked like he was going to kill me when we got off of it, he had no idea what he was getting himself into with that one. His pants were a dripping mess after I tricked him into getting on that one; he pissed all over himself on that one. I almost died laughing that day, seriously, no joke – I almost blacked out I laughed so hard.

He hadn’t ridden a single roller coaster on all of our trips here together since then, just the pussy baby rides. I didn’t care; the single rider lines always went faster on the coasters, anyway; and besides, I didn’t want the Nard pissing all over me.

But today, the Nard seemed like he was up for anything.

While we were waiting to get on the bumper cars, I saw him checking out a woman’s ass while she was buckling her kid up.

“So when you gonna get your cherry popped, Joe? You’re old enough to drive, old enough to vote, old enough to drink – so when are you gonna grow yourself a pair and get some? ‘Fraid it’ll have teeth and bite off your teenie weenie?” I asked him.