io9 is proud to current fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we characteristic a narrative from LIGHTSPEED’s present subject. This month’s choice is “I Was a Teenage Space Jockey” by Stephen Graham Jones. You can learn the story under or listen to the podcast on our web site. Enjoy!

I Was a Teenage Space Jockey

Two days after my brother turned seventeen, he was gone, similar to he’d assured my dad. No unhappy goodbyes, no notes, no taking a knee within the corridor earlier than daybreak to present me any good recommendation for highschool after I obtained there. My mother’s story when anyone requested was that he’d moved out, he was sufficiently old, he wanted room, it was utterly pure. My dad, if requested, would simply shrug, knock again the remainder of his can of beer, and say he hoped Rance was within the navy, the place another person may inform him to stand up, face the day.

Just to piss my dad off, I secretly hoped Rance had gone navy as properly: Air Force, in order that one morning vibrant and early he may buzz the home in his fighter jet, waggle his wings to announce it was actually him, after which burst by means of the sound barrier, breaking each window on the block. If he did that, then I’d know for positive there was a way out. That there was one thing else.

This was sixth grade for me, fall semester, ramping as much as Halloween. Homeroom was all pumpkins and skeletons with brass rivets at their joints, so whoever was first to class may tack these white cardboard fingers and toes up in lewder and lewder positions.

My greatest pal that yr, and for the remainder of the years we’d have collectively, was Marten French. Me and him have been the one Indians for 2 grades in both course, and, since he’d been held again one yr, we have been even in the identical class, now. His dad made him preserve his hair lengthy, not buzzed brief like in my home, however Marten hated all the eye his braids drew within the halls, in PE, in each toilet we had no alternative however to ultimately courageous. Yes, we knew it was the boys’ room, not the women’. Thank you, ha ha. That one by no means will get previous.

Just as a result of he needed to have his hair in twin braids when he left for varsity, although, that didn’t imply they wouldn’t be down by the point he obtained to his locker earlier than class—down and puffing out all crinkly and metallic, which meant he was at all times obtrusive out of a frizzy shroud of black, simply the best way he favored it.

You’d suppose all the eye of being the one two purple children would flip us into scrappers, simply out of necessity, out of survival, however neither of us had any dimension but. We’d gloved up along with his mother’s oven mitts and tried preventing one another for follow as soon as, however we needed to admit that, at greatest, we have been simply slapfighters, that our major and greatest protection can be to twist up like capsule bugs, wait this subsequent thrashing out.

To attempt to keep away from that, we hid—shock—and the principle place we hid was the arcade down on the mall. It had began out as our place as a result of, for the 2 years earlier than he left, Rance had been the longtime Galaga champ. He would strut in each different week or so to go away his initials on the high of the excessive rating reel. His quarters lasted endlessly, and, my mother mentioned, as long as he was there, I could possibly be too. Not that Rance watched me within the scratchy reflection of that plastic display and even knew I used to be alive and respiratory the identical air as him, however I assume the concept was that if my large brother was round, no person would strive something with me.

While Rance was doing his factor on Galaga, Marten and me—Coach was already calling him “Frenchie,” a reputation that might stick—would tag-team the video games on the opposite aspect of the arcade: Zaxxon, Defender, Tempest. They have been all too sophisticated, have been just about simply quarter donation machines, however they have been ours, just about. And all people can be crowded round Rance’s Galaga machine anyway, his eyes glassy, his proper hand on that fireside button an absolute blur, his forearms ridged with veins, his toes set one forward and one again, the entrance knee bent like he was leaning towards some nice wind blasting out of the machine, and all he may maintain onto was that joystick.

If he actually was piloting a fighter jet someplace on the market now? He’d shoot sooner than anyone, and he’d by no means say die, would simply preserve taking up wave after wave of alien.

Just—Marten and me talked about this—would he actually reduce his hair for the federal government? While Marten’s hair simply put a bullseye on his again, Rance’s shaggy mane had at all times been hairsprayed what my dad, when he’d even acknowledge Rance, would name “six ways from Sunday and halfway to an ass kicking.”

I assumed Rance’s hair was probably the most superb factor ever. Put him in a pair of tights, give him a mic, and he’d personal any stage, would have the entire enviornment within the palm of his hand. My hair was a sandy throwback to some trapper or Indian agent or fallen Jesuit no person in my household even remembered. We don’t all come out wanting full-blood. Either that, or the best way to elucidate the distinction between Rance and me needed to do with whose eye my mother might need caught 9 months earlier than I cried my method into the world, which I assume would clarify the best way my dad at all times watched me, rising up, like he was on the lookout for a trait he acknowledged, that might verify his suspicions.

Anyway, with Rance gone, Marten and me figured it was my job to proceed the household custom. He stole all of the quarters from his mother’s ceremony jar, the one she saved to get them again to South Dakota yearly, or no less than pay for half a tank of fuel, and we shrugged our method right down to the mall, to the Gold Mine Arcade.

Trick was, although, we have been the one ones who knew this was my evening to hold on Rance’s Galaga ritual. The place was packed, I imply. It was Friday evening, proper? We ought to have identified. Except . . . at first I assumed this wasn’t the same old crowd, however perhaps it was—all people was already carrying their Halloween masks. The signal on the door mentioned you’d get two free performs should you have been in costume.

Marten pinched my sleeve, pulled me deeper into the mall.

What we wanted have been masks, or no less than make-up, and we knew that the velvet ropes on the films theater had metallic balls on the high of their heavy little poles that screwed on and off. But we didn’t want the balls, or the ratty ropes. What we wanted was the grease rubbed onto the threads.

Marten coated whereas I rubbed as a lot into the criminal of my index finger as I may, then I coated for him, and within the lengthy toilet corridor by the Orange Julius we utilized our make-up: Marten obtained shiny warpaint excessive of his face, together with his eyelids, which was a fairly cool look, however then we ran out of grease partway by means of my Star Trek-“half a black face”-plan, so I ended up having to smudge it round, attempt to pull off a black eye. Because that wasn’t any form of costume, simply meant I hadn’t mowed the garden or one thing, we scrounged some lipstick from below the payphone, drew blood coming down from my nostril and my mouth and my different eye, and, in a flash of inspiration, Marten traced a drippy line of purple throughout the highest of my brow.

Fifty cents is fifty cents.

Jess, the Gold Mine’s attendant, seemed backwards and forwards from Marten to me. My belt was looped round my neck, its lengthy tongue in Marten’s hand as a result of I, the sandy-haired buzzcut of the 2 of us, was this Indian’s prisoner.

“He nearly scalped me,” I defined, tilting my head again to point out off my bloody hairline.

“Good job,” Jess mentioned, extending one spindly hand to tug Marten’s left braid, although he knew it was actual.

“How,” Marten mentioned in his deepest voice, like this was a film.

Jess thumbed a greenback in quarters from the dispenser at his hip, handed them over.

“Where’s your brother?” he mentioned to me then. “He needs to defend his title.”

“He’s shooting commies,” Marten mentioned for me about Rance, and mimed like he was Rambo with a Gatling gun, Arnold towards the Predator.

“What game is that?” Jess requested, wanting over his shoulder like a brand new one had been delivered with out his realizing.

“I’m getting the new high score,” I mentioned, and shouldered previous, main Marten by the leash he was nonetheless holding.

Our thought had been to get me higher and higher at Galaga, till I may hearth as quick as Rance, till I knew all of the patterns, may wipe out complete armadas of aliens. As it turned out, Janet Reilly, a senior from the smoking circle, was already on the Galaga machine, and drawing a crowd.

Since she and Rance has been buying and selling high slot on the excessive rating listing for the previous yr, I’d at all times form of identified they have been going to have to start out going out, like that was the rule. Unlike Rance’s Silent Indian routine, although, she was vocal, at all times chirping and screeching in retreat, snarling and growling when caught in a nook, then screaming when she shot her method out once more, as if the aliens may hear her, be intimidated by her. Rance was extra reserved, had a steadier recreation, knew the dive patterns, the degrees, and he by no means made any actual sound, would simply skinny his lips about this subsequent problem, however he’d needed to respect Janet’s recreation, I knew, particularly the best way her reflexes appeared to come back alive greatest when the sport was tilting towards her.

We tried anticipating a few minutes however the crowd was too thick, and a brief skeleton proper beside Janey stored inserting its index finger into its masks to choose its nostril, so we took our quarters elsewhere.

Centipede was open, however that was a panic assault ready to occur.

Joust would have been enjoyable, but it surely was taken by the stoners, as standard.

“Track and Field?” Marten mentioned, attempting to make it sound higher than it was.

We patted our again pockets for the Ace combs we’d have to pump that runner’s legs quick sufficient. No luck.

Counting the greenback Jess had given us for taking part in Cowboy and Indian on the door, we had eight {dollars}, complete. We have been in the Gold Mine and we had a gold mine, yeah.

“So?” I mentioned.

“Hyperspace?” Marten mentioned with a shrug.

It was what he known as Defender, as a result of when it obtained you again in your heels, you may push that hyperspace button, go to no matter random spacescape the sport kicked up. Usually it meant immediate demise, simply demise in a unique place, however you have been dying anyway, proper? Might as properly blip throughout the galaxy.

We ended up dropping three {dollars} on Asteroids, despite the fact that Marten had it on Atari at his home. His brother at all times hid the controllers, although, or else he’d attain his hand down the entrance of his pants for an extended scratch-session, then rub that hand everywhere in the joystick, hand it throughout.

Like each time in Asteroid’s subject of house rocks, and regardless of our standing-in-place gymnastics—it was like we have been actually in the cockpit of that fragile little ship—we shattered into glowing strains that had simply sufficient inertia to spin insultingly, like happening some cosmic drain.

When we rotated, totally overwhelmed and respiratory laborious from it, three of the stoners have been shaking their heads at our theatrics, at our wimpiness, at our make-do costumes.

“Jess,” I mentioned, my head on a swivel for the arcade’s lifeguard.

“He’s talking to that redhead at the hot dog stand again,” the lead stoner mentioned, his eyes nonetheless gliding on ostriches from platform to platform of Joust. He wasn’t smoking, however he nonetheless smelled like a prepare.

“It’s Rance’s tagalong,” the second stoner mentioned, stepping in to get this began.

“Baby Red,” the third of them mentioned.

Rance’s initials ought to have been RATB, for Rance Allen Two Bulls, however videogame excessive rating reels aren’t made for Indians. So, on Galaga, and regardless of his black hair, he’d at all times been RED, like claiming that high spot for all Indians all over the place.

Since I used to be his little brother, I used to be “Baby Red,” I assume. This wasn’t the primary time they’d cornered us of their wall of dirty denim to assert all our quarters, however, as a result of it wasn’t, I juked left, went proper, shouting “Run!” to Marten whereas already doing it, picturing myself vaulting over 1942, diving by means of the cockpit of one of many racing video games, tearing out into the meals court docket.

It all went fairly nice in my head, I imply.

They have been older, although we have been slower, Jess was AWOL, Rance was gone, and—and it was Friday evening, it was almost Halloween, which isn’t when sixth graders have their greatest luck.

We made it perhaps three steps.

What they took from me was my pocketful of quarters, which one in every of them hefted whereas watching me, as if judging this weight towards my soul, or attempting to gauge what number of eggs this may be price on Joust.

What they took from Marten, with a yellow pocketknife sawed backwards and forwards, was his proper braid.

“Shit, that was real!” the second of them mentioned, holding Marten’s hair up, overlaying his personal mouth along with his different hand, which simply made his giggle louder, in some way.

Marten’s chest was heaving, his eyes welling up. Not as a result of he’d ever wished that braid, however as a result of his dad and brother have been going to kick his ass when he got here house lopsided, after which they have been going to pile into the household automobile and discover whoever had executed this.

It had occurred earlier than. Marten’s dad had needed to serve three months of weekends in county as a result of somebody had left a purple handprint on the flank of their gentle blue Buick, so it could possibly be an actual conflict pony, ha ha. This time it wouldn’t simply be weekends, although, we knew. And there was no method Marten may cover what had occurred.

Because there was at all times the prospect of Jess stepping again in, the new canine woman in tow, the stoners crowded us into the again nook by the kiddie video games after which pushed us behind them, into that dusty house of cables and cigarette butts and sticky bottles and gum and the one rubber all people knew about.

They have been locking us up, ensuring we wouldn’t run inform, get them busted, perhaps banned from the Gold Mine. To make certain the partitions of our little jail cell held, they took our pants. To assure we wouldn’t neglect this anytime quickly, they pressured our faces down into the grossest stickiest areas they may discover behind the machines, then advised us to rely to at least one hundred earlier than we lifted our heads. If we didn’t, they’d do it throughout, and take our underwear this time, how would we like that?

We laid there crying.

Okay, Marten was perhaps crying more durable, I assume—he had cause. Me, I used to be staring forward, below the damaged Ms. Pac-Man machine, ready for this to be over. When I obtained up into the eighties with my rely, I noticed it: there within the dust-bunny coated sludge below Ms. Pac-Man was a glint of silver.

We didn’t go all the best way to at least one hundred, wouldn’t give the stoners that. We simply listened to our heartbeats drum down slower and slower. Listened to one another’s sobs turn into regular respiratory. Normal sufficient. Our naked thighs have been touching. Our faces have been hardening into the ground.

“Yet?” I lastly mentioned.

“Yet,” Marten agreed, and I may hear his cheek peeling up.

I wasn’t caught as laborious, I didn’t suppose, and nonetheless had one factor to do anyway: attain ahead, pinch into that sludge for that glint of silver.

What I got here again with was one quarter.

“What year?” Marten mentioned, as a result of his luck system was that if the quarter was the identical age as him, it was fortunate, he may win with it.

“Rance’s age,” I mentioned, attempting to scrub the gunk off it.

“Mail it to him,” Rance mentioned in defeat, and we sat there like that, making ineffective quiet jokes and detailing grand, never-to-be-enacted revenge plans till Jess turned the lights off, ran his vacuum cleaner over the extra apparent elements of the arcade.

Then the cage door got here down. We have been formally in jail.

“I’m going to cut the other one off,” Marten mentioned, holding his left braid out. “I’m going to tell my dad I did it on my own.”

“He’ll kick your ass for it,” I advised him.

“Cops don’t care about that,” Marten mentioned.

He was proper. It was a stable plan.

We stood, no pants, and crept out among the many machines, all of them nonetheless biking by means of their holding screens—Jess hadn’t pulled the plug, had most likely been making a attractive beeline for that scorching canine woman. Marten was nonetheless in his black warpaint. I used to be nonetheless some white dude who’d virtually obtained himself justly scalped. Still, strolling by means of the arcade on their own, half-naked, bathed in what felt like neon, it was form of magic.

Marten was the primary to smile, however I caught it quickly sufficient.

We pushed our faces towards the cage, seemed out on the darkened mall.

“We can erase them from Joust anyway, right?” Marten mentioned ultimately.

Like that we have been behind the machines once more, hungrily tracing out cables.

“This one,” I mentioned, and pulled it.

We ran round, however Joust was nonetheless blinking.

“This one,” Marten mentioned, pulling one other, and we ran round once more, had solely killed Galaxian.

“Close,” I mentioned, after which touched my brother’s initials on the Galaga display, balled my hand quick round that, promised to by no means let it go.

“What are you doing?” Marten requested.

“This one,” I mentioned, positive this time, however after I pulled it, the entire junction-thing it was plugged into yanked from the wall. The complete financial institution of machines behind us went darkish.

“Think you got it,” Marten mentioned with a thrilled chuckle, and we crept round. I had undoubtedly gotten it, yeah.

But then I noticed what else I had obtained: Galaga.

“Shit,” I mentioned, my face going chilly.

I’d erased Rance’s final recreation, the excessive rating he’d left behind for all of us to marvel at. Janet hadn’t overwhelmed him earlier, no person had overwhelmed him, however now no person would ever know.

Marten’s dad was going to kick his ass, yeah, however I used to be going to be kicking my very own ass for twice as lengthy.

“I’ll get it back for him,” I mentioned, holding that magic quarter up.

Dutifully, we plugged Galaga again in, and, after holding the quarter up between us, honoring its energy, its promise, its beginning yr, I kissed it, thumbed it into the slot.

It fell by means of to the change return.

“What the hell?” Marten mentioned.

I inserted it once more, and once more it rattled right down to that metallic flap.

Marten tried, identical factor. We tried taking pictures it by means of more durable, we tried rubbing all of the quarter’s edge-grooves clear on the carpet, we breathed on it to make it scorching—nothing.

“Cursed quarter,” Marten mentioned, shrugging.

“Jess should give us a new one,” I mentioned, and seemed round as if the ghost-version of Jess may be skulking round, speaking up the eighth-graders.

Because we knew we may make it final, we dropped the quarter in Pac-Man, simply to show it was an actual and precise quarter, but it surely hit the change return once more.

Every machine we tried, even the kiddie ones.

“Hyperspace,” Marten mentioned, lifting his chin to Defender.

“Like it’ll—” I mentioned, thumbing the quarter in, however the machine took it earlier than I may end.

I pushed again from the controls, giving them to Marten, however he stepped again as properly, mentioned, “It was Rance’s year, he’d want you to.”

I dove in, grabbed the joystick proper as the sport went reside, and did my standard factor I did with Defender: held on, shot at full random, stars streaking previous at ridiculous speeds.

“Hyperspace! Hyperspace!” Marten yelled after I was about to die, however I shook my head no, was in what felt like a Rance-trance, was one with this recreation for as soon as.

I pulled up at each final second, shot previous, lived by means of. Maybe my drawback all alongside on the arcade had been that I’d been attempting to play like Rance, after I was actually a Janet-player: I solely got here alive in a nook.

Marten was respiratory laborious beside me, his hand on my shoulder, the grease sweating down his face like he was crying black.

Maybe this was my recreation, I assumed. Rance had Galaga, however me, I used to be Defender, proper?

I positive wasn’t the rest.

I fired, fired sooner, felt one foot creeping ahead into my model of an influence stance. It felt bizarre sufficient that I seemed down, even, and what I noticed on the best way was gentle bleeding out from the quarter slot.

“What?” I mentioned, after which Marten was lunging ahead to jerk the joystick to the aspect, save my life.

“Thanks!” I yelled to him, taking management once more.

The gentle from the quarter slot was a scorching spot on my naked thigh.

I shifted away from it, felt the warmth smear throughout to my different leg.

“What was that quarter made of?” I mentioned, and Marten nodded laborious with this, as a result of this was my greatest recreation ever, was the perfect we’d ever seen.

Still, Defender being what it was, I lastly needed to scream and panic, slap the hyperspace button, as a result of any level in house was higher than the place I used to be now.

Like at all times, every thing jumbled on the display, and—and after I leaned over for a unique angle, like I may get a bead on no matter forces I used to be about to blip down in entrance of, what I noticed form of within the reflection wasn’t the sport in any respect. I used to be—I used to be behind the windshield of an eighteen-wheeler at evening? I may inform it was a giant rig from the peak, and from the monster of a steering wheel in my lap. And then I used to be nudging that wheel to the proper simply sufficient to edge my truck over into the ditch, to tag the Indian strolling on the shoulder, simply turning round to hike his thumb up.

That hitchhiker was Rance.

I slapped hyperspace once more, to get away from this, preserve it from having to occur.

Now I used to be watching from behind a chainlink fence in Denver, watching Rance and three white dudes brush previous one another on the sidewalk, Rance not giving room, their shoulders hitting, tempers flaring, brake lights stopping on the street to assist these three guys with this Indian, who I knew may have taken on two of them, perhaps even three. But not a complete carload.

I hit that button deeper to cease this from occurring both and I held it down this time, biking by means of Rance dying this manner, that method, all of the methods an Indian can die in America—shot on a porch, sleeping below a bridge, caught in a automobile rolling by means of a fence, throwing up in his sleep—and after I lastly, timidly, let the button come again up, I used to be within the arcade once more.

My ship was blasting throughout the alien panorama, every orange mountain peak the forefront of an enormous lurking asteroid, the ship so fragile, and Marten was yelling my identify, telling me up, up!

“No,” I mentioned, utilizing my complete physique to maneuver the joystick simply the littlest bit. Marten moved with me, after which—he advised me later, so I do know it’s true—he noticed what I used to be seeing: my little ship in Defender was a boring gray fighter airplane now, blasting sooner and sooner, its background a blur.

“Rance,” I mentioned, virtually smiling.

I’d blipped to a good model ultimately, a good consequence.

“This isn’t—what game is this?” Marten mentioned, checking the aspect of the machine, like that might inform him something.

But it wasn’t broke.

“I can do it, I can do it,” I mentioned, zoning in, the pores and skin of my face going chilly, my eyes rushing as much as see every thing without delay, my fingers hardly even related to me anymore they have been so quick, so proper, so true, and nobody however Marten was there to see my recreation that evening, the evening I beat Defender, the unbeatable recreation, however I wasn’t taking part in for them.

All these lives I’d hyperspaced by means of, they have been methods Rance could possibly be on the market dying—would be on the market dying.

Unless I stored him alive.

The stars blurred, my fingertip on that hyperspace button was each numb and extra alive than it had ever been, and I fired, and I fired, and I fired deeper into the guts of no matter this was, clearing a path for him, one farther than our dad may ever attain, one that might get him away and protected and let him reside the life he ought to have, that he deserved.

“What the hell, what the hell, man!” Marten mentioned beside me, his left hand worrying his left braid, his complete physique bouncing on the balls of his toes, and if anyone would have seemed by means of the cage they’d have seen two twelve-year-olds not but prepared for all times, so unready that they didn’t even have pants, their faces streaked black from tears, their eyes blasted huge for each alien, each solution to die.

In the morning when Jess opened up we have been sitting on the counter, nonetheless respiratory laborious, telling ourselves the story of this, and we have been completely different now, we knew. We’d received.

“Real funny, losers,” Jess mentioned, stepping to the aspect so we may go away. “You didn’t break anything did you?”

“Just the high score!” Marten yelled on the best way previous him, after which we ran with out pants by means of the morning, with out pants and with sandy hair, with one braid, one black eye, and within the alley behind Marten’s home I reduce his braid off to maintain his dad out of jail, and we shook fingers within the gangster method we’d seen in a music video, pointed at one another to finish it, and I didn’t imply to, it wasn’t on function, however I took a psychological snapshot of Marten anyway, leaned towards his again fence, his hair so silly, his eyes so nervous, his chest raised so he may faux like he was robust sufficient to stroll inside, and I wish to lie and say that after I was strolling house that vibrant Halloween morning, a fighter airplane cracked thunder over my road, punched by means of the sound barrier prefer it was nothing, however, although I closed my eyes to attend for simply that, it didn’t come, and didn’t come. There was simply me dashing from bush to bush, automobile to automobile, and, someplace far behind me, and likewise in my coronary heart, a online game blinking RED, RED, RED.

About the Author

Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling writer of almost thirty novels and collections, and there’s some novellas and comedian books in there as properly. Most latest are My Heart is a Chainsaw and Memorial Ride. Stephen lives and teaches in Boulder, Colorado.

Please go to LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the November 2021 subject, which additionally options work by Andrew Dana Hudson, Lisa M. Bradley, Elly Bangs, Adam-Troy Castro, Charlie Jane Anders, Izzy Wasserstein, Timi Odueso, and extra. You can anticipate this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should buy the entire subject proper now in handy e-book format for simply $3.99, or subscribe to the e-book version through this hyperlink.

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