Stolen Island 2013

Whatever money I scrounged up from allowance or holidays or Christmas or returnables over the next several years I invested in buying SNES games. Over time, among others, I accrued Ms. PacMan, Arcade’s Greatest Hits, Super Return of the Jedi, Super Empire Strikes Back, Tetris & Doctor Mario, Mario Paint, Frogger, Donkey Kong Kountry, Kirby’s Avalanche, Kirby Super Star, Top Gear, Jeopardy, Arcade’s Greatest Hits: Vol. 2, Jurassic Park, Battleship, and Super Mario All Stars + Super Mario World. The Super Mario Bros games were my calling and forte. I felt a kinship to those little Italian plumbers. To tall Luigi in particular. I played in my room all the time by myself. I hardly went into the living room anymore. I’d get my dad’s Pall Mall smoke under the door.

I graduated high school and got a job at a Stewart’s convenience store in town. I made people milkshakes and sold them their gas and rang up Freihofer’s baked goods and cigarettes. Donny Morgan came in one time during the winter, saw me, looked around the store conspicuously like it had nothing in it he thought it would have and nothing in it he wanted, then walked out. He didn’t come into the store again. I lived at home with dad and kept him in grilled cheese and Five Alive and since his disability payments and his EBT were now added to my Stewart’s paycheck, I would take him out to dinner now and again, or buy deli American cheese on special occasions, or would pick up his Pall Malls for him. When we ate out at the Greek diner in Catskill he was always shifting in the booth 77