Page 34 of Tusk & Puck
“Did you prepare that speech, or just come up with it on the fly?”
He smiles. “Totally on the spot. I could probably come up with more if you wanted.”
“That’s okay. But I do want to know where it is we’re going.”
He stops. “We’re already there.” He points across the street and I see it.Lucky’s Arcade.
“What’s a Lucky’s Arcade?” I ask.
“What is a Lucky’s Arcade?” he repeats, shocked. “What isn’t it? When I was a kid, this wasn’t just a place to go. This wastheplace to go. If you could get tokens to Lucky’s Arcade, you were literally the coolest person in the world. That’s how cool Lucky’s was. It made other people cool just for going there.”
The building is a large, one-story affair, painted with an eye-popping video game brightness. All kinds of non-copyright characters are jumping around the building’s walls, fighting each other and either saving or endangering a distant city.
When Jaromir pushes open the doors, I see that even the carpets are bright here. Arcade machines and various games are everywhere. The lighting is dim, except where it’s bright and neon. Beeps, bloops, and various video game noises hit me on all sides. I’m pretty sure that, not counting parents, we’re the oldest people here.
In other words, it looks absolutely amazing.
Jaromir smiles down at me while he buys us tokens. Then he walks over to me and hands me a fist of coins, stuffing the other half into his pockets. Every coin has a star and the letter L on it.
“Alright,” I say. “You grew up with this place. What’s the best game?”
“Well, that depends,” he replies. “Do you want to have fun or do you want to win prizes? Those are very different things here.”
I smile. “Let’s say I want to have fun. I am here on a hot date, after all.”
“Say no more.”
He leads me through one of the big rooms of games to another, where we immediately head for the far corner. When I finally see the machine we’re heading for, I laugh.Of course,I think.I should have realized.Air hockey.
He drops a coin into the machine and a puck drops down into his goal. I walk around to the other side and grab my paddle. The table whirs to life.
“When you think about it, air hockey and ice hockey are basically the same sport,” he says.
“Really?”
“No. But I’m good at both.” While he’s still talking, he launches a ricochet shot that goes into my goal before I even realize we’re playing.
“Hey! I didn’t know we were starting!”
“I know. Back in high school, they used to call that the Jaromir.”
“That’s just mean-spirited. You’re just trying to gain a cheap advantage rather than actually showing good sportsmanship.”
By the time I get to the word ‘sportsmanship,’ I’ve already whacked the puck hard and straight into his goal. One to one.
“Not bad,” he admits.
I’m not very good at skating or real hockey, but it turns out I can play a pretty decent game of air hockey. We end up with six points each, and Jaromir wins only because the puck somehow bounces off my paddle and into my own goal.
“It’s okay. I won’t gloat,” Jaromir says. “Much.”
“You’ve earned it,” I tell him. “You played a darn good game.” Just like I expected, being gracious successfully shuts him up.
Next, we make our way over to the skee ball. Jaromir tells me that a lot of people assume that this is a good way to get prizes, but it’s not reliable enough for the real experts. I don’t really care. I’ve just always liked skee ball.
“It’s all about risk and reward,” he says as he winds up for a shot. “The most valuable hole is also the most dangerous. There’s a certain poetry to that, I think.”
“Let me guess,” I answer. “You’re the type who always shoots for the corner cup?”