“Superman versus the Hulk,” Mike says when I bump into him at the water fountain outside our school library.
“Superman,” I say as we walk into the stairwell and head downstairs. “His heat vision will burn two holes through Hulk’s skull. Fry his brain into smoke. Hulk or Colossus?”
“Hulk! He’ll twist Colossus into a metal pretzel. Then fling him into outer space past the moon. Daredevil or Batman: no weapons, just hand-to-hand combat?”
“Daredevil,” I say. “He has super-hearing, better than a bat’s. He’d hear Batman’s fist or kick way before they’d reach Daredevil’s body. He’d hit Batman three, four times before Batman could connect.”
We get to the second floor, where both our classes are, but Mike taps me to keep following him. When we get to the first floor, we keep walking and I’m about to ask where he’s going when—all of a sudden—Mike pushes open an exit door and we see outside to the teachers’ parking lot.
Mike steps outside but still holds the door open.
I wonder why the alarms don’t go off and nothing happens.
“We could leave,” Mike says. “Anytime.”
“Yeah, but—”
“We won’t get caught,” Mike interrupts. “I’ve done it before. A lot in my old school. We could go the comic store in Carroll Gardens. They let you read as many comics as you want and you don’t have to pay for them. There’s a comic store in Manhattan we could hit that lets you do that too.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’m just showing you,” Mike says and shuts the door. He gives me a disappointed look. “C’mon. Let’s go to class.”
A little after dismissal, I meet Mike outside of school so we can hit the arcade with the money from Pa.
As we get near Pa’s corner, I see him kicking it with Alex, Pito, and Nicholas. Pa turns to tell Nicholas something, and I get a bad feeling when I see Alex rock that fake smile again.
Mike catches Alex’s fakeness too. “Eww,” he says. “There goes that fake snake with your pops again.”
“Alex.” I suck my teeth. “Ma was saying he’s a real loser.”
“She right.”
Me and Mike dip into the arcade next to Hector’s corner store.
And just like that . . . No conversation about earlier. No conversation about anything really. Except us asking questions like:
“What’s your highest score you ever had?”
“You ever got to the board when you eat the big energy pellets but the ghosts don’t turn blue?”
“You like slow or fast Ms. Pac-Man better?”
“Why didn’t you eat the banana? It’s like five thousand points.”
I’m slaying Mike by like two thousand and something points. He’s down to his last life, and I still have four lives.
Then, through the side of my eye, I see Mike staring at me in a way I’ve never seen him stare at me before. Like Alex with that Steve Harvey fake smile we just saw him give Pa.
Maybe because Ms. Pac-Man has me feeling amped and I’m trying hard not to get eaten, my words come out mad forceful. “Dude, why you looking at me that way?”
Mike’s smile changes. “Nah, not you. I’m staring at the screen.”
I can’t read his face to tell if he’s lying because my eyes are on the screen.
I go back to focusing extra hard on my game because that ghost Pinky almost caught me.
“I have to be out,” Mike says. “My moms expects me home.”
He dips.
I stay.
While I play, Big Will from the sixth-grade class next to mine walks in. Heads joke that he has more facial hair and muscles than any sixth grader, ever. He also has better grades than most sixth graders and is on the honor roll. He geeks all the way out, but nobody messes with him the way they clown most nerdy boys in my projects.
He stands behind me and stares over my shoulder at my screen as I play.
“Dang!” he says when I almost die but shake off three ghosts.
“Yo!” He’s shocked when I U-turn faster than fast to eat all the ghosts.
“Bryan,” he gasps when I make it to the level where ghosts don’t turn blue and can’t be eaten. “I never knew they had this level.”
I keep trying to hide my grin, but Big Will’s props have me feeling wavy.
The next thing I notice is his face as he sees my points equal the high score, then pass it. He’s not even hiding his smile.
Real quick, I turn my head because I want to get a full view of his expression. He’s impressed. I feel like the man. Quicker than quick, I turn and look back at the screen so I don’t mess up.
Soon, I’m five hundred points higher than the new score.
“WHOA!” I hear Big Will say.
I don’t know whether it’s his props or whether I’m just extra good today, but I end up posting the highest high score I’ve ever seen on this Ms. Pac-Man screen.
When my game is over, I turn to Big Will, and he gives me this pound and we shake. His hand is dumb strong like Pa’s grown friends who forget I’m a kid and shake my hand OD hard.
I slip two quarters in to play again.
As I dodge ghosts, I start feeling that rush again.
I jam my joystick hard to the right and race Ms. Pac-Man into a side exit that teleports me onto the left side of the screen away from the blue ghost who almost just got me.
Big Will says, “BAM! You like Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix!”
I’m so in the zone I don’t hear Pa walk in and stand behind me and Big Will.
“I’m going home,” Pa says.
Pa doesn’t usually come in here for me. I think he wants me to go home with him so Ma’ll let him in because she’s probably still mad at him about their fight. I just want him home. I U-turn Ms. Pac-Man so she runs into a ghost and gets eaten.
I hate killing my men on purpose when I play, especially now when I’ve earned an extra life and have four instead of the three I started with. But Pa is going home.
I’m about to kill the rest of my men when Big Will asks, “Why you deading them for?”
Then it hits me. He might want to play.
“Will,” I say, without taking my eyes off the screen, “grab this joystick.”
And bust it: He does, and as I back away, I see his whole face change. He’s lit. And I feel a little boss being able give away a game.
Me and Pa leave, and as we’re at the door, Big Will calls to me without taking his eyes off his screen: “Bryan! Thanks for the hookup!”
I yell back, “No doubt,” feeling even more boss.