“Well, we’re here.”
“Yep, ya’ll here,” the boy said and picked up a bike.
It was his granddaddy’s Schwinn from the 1950s. Not something he was proud of. Even with the basket ripped off, it was an embarrassment. Old and clunky. A “hand-me down” his parents had called it, but it was more of a castaway. Mostly it was their way of avoiding having to admit they couldn’t afford a new one.
“Everything alright at yer home?” the boy asked Jon.
“Why?”
“Yer daddy called up here lookin’ fer you.”
“He did?”
“Yep. Didn’t think he knew who I was.”
“Me neither.”
The boy, Louis Norton, had a muscular frame and straddled the bike like a pro. He was a transplant from North Carolina. The family had drifted northwards to take advantage of the very generous welfare system New York State had to offer. Like all who migrated to the city from the Bible Belt, Louis was mocked constantly due to his thick corn whiskey accent. Nothing would stop that. No matter how many teeth he knocked out, it never ended. The fact that he had a starting position on the school football team, something that would’ve stilled tongues in the small towns of the Carolinas, meant nothing. The collective Irish, Italian, Polish, and Black communities still ganged up to poke fun at the hick, which was why the jock preferred to hang out with the fringe elements of the school.
Not that they didn’t give him some friendly ribbing.
“There was a girl out of Carolina,
Who had an erratic vagina,
To the surprise of the fucker,
It would suddenly pucker,
And whistle a song made in China.”
“Yeah, y’all are real fucking funny.”
“Just kidding.”
“Uh huh, let’s get out of here.”
They zipped out into the night. How did Father know about Louis? He never seemed to pay attention to Jon’s coming and goings, or never commented on it, except to dole out punishment. What else did he know? Had he been reading Jon’s journal? After a moment’s thought, he rejected the idea. There was nothing in there about the guys. It was all filled with the fallout of his venting against the family. Still . . .
They came up canal-side by that great trench of Victorian-Era engineering, the Erie Canal, then followed it up near to the end where the great grain elevators, a marvel of Edwardian era engineering, punched the sky. One-hundred-and-twenty-feet tall, made from steel and cement, this once magnificent structure was designed to hold, weigh, and dispense grain being shipped all across the country.
The place had seen better days. The main building—called the head house—rose five-stories and was about as gutted a wreck as you can imagine. Next to the head house were eight storage silos with “Agway” written down the side in three-foot long letters. Various spindly support towers arched up next to the silos, none of which had any floors left in them. The entire structure half slumped over the water. An old marine leg, which used to scoop grain out of passing ships, had long rotted away, leaving only a damaged hump over the tops of the buildings.
In past days, two-thousand men would have been working this area. Pulling up, weighing, and dropping off grain sacks. Now, the only ones who used it were teenagers having illicit rendezvous. Waiting for them just outside was a portly girl in a jean jacket also slinging a backpack. She waved when they rode up.
“You guys are late,” she chided.
“But we’re here now,” Michael said flatly and walked past her.
“Hi, Jon,” she said, a touch of mousiness creeping around the edges of her voice. He smiled in reply, and she blushed.
“Hey, Kathy. Any trouble sneaking out?”
“No. The parents are at some exhibit opening at the museum.”
They pulled their bikes into the head house and hid them behind a half-collapsed wall. It was unlikely anyone would want them, but better safe than sorry. More sinister people than they lurked there sometimes. All the old machinery had long been removed, leaving giant holes descending through the floors, and the left-behind parts always felt shaky. No glass remained in the windows, and most of the staircases were missing stairs, but somehow they traversed all the obstacles until they reached a small claustrophobic room with a low ceiling on the fifth floor. They called it the midget room. It was their broken playroom.
Once in and the door safely sealed with a beam, Kathy took out a pack of red candles and laid them all about the room, while Louis lit them. Michael took several old tomes from his pack and settled in cross-legged. The others soon followed suit, each presenting their own books. Michael then opened a trapper keeper and took out several sheets of loose leaf paper tucked away in a folder. Jon took out his own paper. All looked at Michael with intense concentration.
“When last we met,” Michael began in an ominous tone, “you had recovered the Sunsword from the disused chapel and fought off some ghouls. You are currently back in the grand foyer.”
“After we just knock’d off that wax dummy that look’d like the vampire Strahd, hiding behind the mirror,” Louis added. “Which ah still call bullshit on. My guy woulda taken his head off. Bait and switch.”
“It’s in the module,” Michael yelled, holding up a thin blue book. “The guy there was a fake out. A dummy to trick you.”
“But ah rolled a natural twenty!”
“It doesn’t matter. Now, focus,” Michael commanded, producing a handful of glittering dice from his pack. “You’re being attacked by a gang of zombies. Your move, Louis.”
“I hit one, ah reckon,” Louis stared down at his own blue-colored dice, confused by their complex shapes. “Christ, which one do I roll again?”
“The twenty sided,” Kathy offered. “You just said it.”
“I can’t keep track of all these gawd-damned rules.”
As Louis fumbled with his dice, Jon consulted his character. Crixen Runeburner, elf mage, tall and proud. He was from a noble line of adventurers and princes. Magical rings glistened on his fingers. Multi-colored robes flowed about his willowy frame. They mystically staved off attacks and turned back spells. Around his feet flowed silken boots that allowed him to run with the speed of a pony. His right hand held a mighty heft of oak, an enchanted quarterstaff of kicking-your-fucking-ass.
Jon looked at this character sheet, thin in some places due to erasures, with pride. He had worked and sweated and rolled long and hard to raise this character with sub-standard statistics up into the powerhouse he was now. He had become a mighty hero who had conquered many a fearsome foe.
He had to admit, it wasn’t just him. The group had all built great characters with Michael running the game. They had campaigned against the giants, discovered the sinister secret of Saltmarsh, survived the Isle of Dread, unraveled the Assassin’s Knot, nearly died in the depths of Dungeonland, and now they were storming Castle Ravenloft to destroy an ancient evil that had been fouling the land for centuries.
The group had been meeting three times a week for over a year now and Jon wished they could play more. When the game was on and the die rolled, he could completely lose himself. He could see the mystic world where Crixen Runeburner strode, hear his character’s breath, and feel the power that crackled in his veins. Better than a book. Better than a movie. It was a tale they all told together. One where they were the heroes, great deeds were accomplished, and even death itself was negotiable. Quite frankly, it was better than life itself.