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had virtually disappeared from South Wakefield by the ages of sixteen or seventeen. The first was killed in a car accident before Pinky was even born. The second went to jail for a knife fight, did his time, then landed back inside almost immediately. The third had gone into the factory early and never emerged again, “making good money on the line,” Pinky said. Chris had never met this brother, though he knew the house on the edge of town with a car graveyard in front and a legend of pot plants in the back. The fourth brother was a free man, but no one knew where he had gone. Pinky said he had left town after knocking up his girlfriend. Other sources said he just didn’t get along with their father. Pinky was famous as the last-chance child. He claimed it was right there in his name, which was his father’s: Peter Goodlowe. But his family just called him Pinky. Maybe his mother was trying that one last time for a girl. Pinky was anything but.
    For the number of times Pinky’s fat knuckles reached out to jerk Chris clean off his feet by his collar, they were also used to clear a path for Chris. Pinky had a strange sense of justice that couldn’t be held against him — even if he hadn’t been five-foot-nine by Grade Six.
    “Time for Short Fry to play,” Pinky would say, yanking whoever had hogged the machine out of the way. “Okay, Chris, do your stuff,” he’d add, hovering to watch Chris’s moves.
    While Pinky acted as sentinel, Johnny Davis was Chris’s true mentor.
    From across the room, Chris scrutinized the earnest way Johnny leaned into the machine. The eerie darkness of the arcade emphasized the reflection thrown into his glasses. From a certain angle, Chris could see a pure square of blue-green light wavering overtop Johnny’s eyes: an exact replica of what was on the screen before him. Through the fast-rushing traffic and river logs in Frogger, Johnny bowled forward, pumping the controller, his icon edging upward. The froggish green patch of colour bounded toward home, safety — onscreen and off, the shapes caught on glass in miniscule. He was not just the master of the game. Johnny Davis was the game.
    Johnny Davis was about five-ten, one hundred pounds. At age twelve, Chris hadn’t even topped five feet, so it was awkward and obvious whenever he tried to look over Johnny Davis’s shoulder to watch him play. Mainly, Chris stood to the side and looked under his armpit. Chris assumed this post for over an hour one day while Johnny was on the Pac-Man game, forcing the yellow mouth through the maze. At one point, Johnny couldn’t outrun the ghosts, and his man spun around and dissolved. He abandoned the machine even though he still had two players left.
    “Take over for me,” he said. “I need a smoke break.” He shook the cramps out of his hand and walked away, leaving Chris there to play for him.
    Witness to this event were both Kenny Keele and and J.P. Breton. Also nearby was Mickey Newton, second only to Johnny Davis as a player. Chris saw in Mickey’s face a kind of jealousy that should not be permitted to pass from an older guy to a younger one. Chris had been handed the controls to the master’s game. Immediately, Chris felt like Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. He prayed he wouldn’t make such a mess of it.
    When Johnny had come back, Chris had earned him a free man and was still going.
    “Good moves for a geekboy.” Johnny shook his head and lit up another cigarette right then, dropping the match into the metal ashtray affixed to the machine.
    “You always stand there looking under my armpit,” he’d said, watching his disciple eat up the board. “Good thing for you I don’t have B.O.”
    Chris had registered his first high score that day, courtesy of Johnny Davis. The rest Chris would get would be his own work.
    Now there were a handful of players without games: a circle of smart-mouthed friends and a few clumsily told stories. Johnny kept lighting one cigarette