Shark Attack
It was the greatest video game of its time. Created in 1981 by the great pretender Pacific Novelty, its simplicity belied its beautiful, kid-friendly genius. You are a shark. The ocean is yours. And youÂd be free to swim and take in the sights, were it not for those damned scuba divers. More than getting in your way, the bastards are armed with spear guns. But youÂre a shark. A Great White, of all things, and youÂre not about to be stopped. Hence the appeal. All you do is eat. ItÂs right there on the buttons, which are conveniently labeled Âthrust and Âmunch. You move about, eat scuba divers, and move some more. There are different levels, but the concept never changes. Swim and devour, devour and swim. But itÂs the inclusion of blood-curdling screams that sends Shark Attack into the stratosphere of my Reagan Boyhood. Pac-Man ate, but his victims were dots and ghosts. Ladybug also nibbled, but werenÂt those eggplants, onions, and shit? These were men, all with stories, hopes, and dreams, and you were killing them graveyard dead. Wanting to protect their beach, or perhaps collect a reward, you were making their last moments miserable and filled with pain. It was an awesome time to be alive.
While I spent many an afternoon dropping quarters at my neighborhood arcade (which was soon closed after some dude died of a drug overdose near the Battlezone machine, or so the rumor went), I was first introduced to Shark Attack at DenverÂs infamous Casa Bonita. Yes, that Casa Bonita. While cliff divers stupidly swooped and Black BartÂs Cave allegedly terrified, I was playing that wonderfully sadistic game. You mean, I get to swallow people alive, hear them roar, and no oneÂs the wiser? All this for twenty-five cents? I couldnÂt even be pulled away to enjoy the worldÂs worst Mexican food, even though my palate was easily pacified by whatever swill I was expected to inhale. If memory serves, I hadnÂt even seen the original Jaws by this time, but was quite familiar with its underrated sequel, so the video game helped generate sympathy for the sharkÂs unjust electrocution at movieÂs end. IÂm fairly certain I played no other game for several months at a stretch, even though it was even more monotonous and predictable than a game of Asteroids. But I was in charge. And this was genuine, unvarnished death. Sure, the shark wasnÂt to scale and my ass thatÂs an ocean, but for a second grader, it was the thrill of a lifetime.
 
Creepshow
Once my parents divorced, there were few reasons to spend any amount of time at my dadÂs house, and IÂm fairly sure he knew it. He was grouchy, mean, and smoked so much that a visit was like having a front row seat at a round-the-clock forest fire. So he purchased a VCR. A Betamax, to be exact, and while not enough to overcome his brutal disinterest in anyoneÂs life save his own, it got me to come over just enough for all parties concerned to pretend life was proceeding as normal. As with everything he did, touched, or was rumored to have in the works, there was a catch. A VCR is yours, son, but youÂll only have one movie. No rentals, no options, and no choices. Just a single title to watch so many times youÂll have it memorized by ReaganÂs second term. Fortunately, the film was Creepshow, which I had already seen in the theater and loved more than life itself. And hey, give it up for the old man; home videos cost around $75 in those days, and he never did return the gargantuan slab of electronica, despite every expectation that he would do so, especially after he knew it wasnÂt enough to secure my allegiance.
Predictably, I was obsessed with Creepshow. I had no choice, but could not have had a better choice chosen for me. The movie was sick, depraved, and unexpectedly pro-kid, as every adult in the thing was a complete and total asshole. I loved every story, of course, but none quite so much as ÂThe Crate. What was that Tasmanian Devil thing under the stairs, and why did it hate janitors so much? So much blood, sharp teeth, and unquenchable appetites. I memorized every word, every scene, and despite having seen it four dozen times, I never let loose with less than a cackle when that dippy college student with the glasses went in for a peek and got a devoured neck for his trouble. But the movie rises and falls on Wilma. Played as the snottiest bitch in cinema history by Adrienne Barbeau, she has all the best dialogue, and we just know sheÂll get hers in the end. Fine, I was not yet ten, but surely I had some insight when I laughed uproariously at her quip, ÂWhen was the last time you got it up, Henry? Got what up, exactly? Who cares? Henry seemed upset, so I came to his side. And, ÂWhen was the last time you were a man in our bed? Okay, I somewhat got that, even though the phrase would come to haunt me in later years like I never could have imagined.
The fantasy sequences were of particular interest to me, as Henry Âkilled Wilma twice, once with a brutal strangulation, and the other a large-caliber bullet to the head. I felt HenryÂs pain, even if I could not quite articulate why. He just seemed like a good and decent chap, and I felt redeemed when he escaped unpunished for essentially covering up three horrible deaths. WilmaÂs, arguably, was calculated murder. But Creepshow was filled with spectacular deaths. Ed Harris was crushed beneath a massive headstone (the squish!) and Sylvia lost her head in ÂFatherÂs Day. Sam Malone was buried up to his neck in sand, only to come back as a seaweed zombie and kill Frank Drebin in ÂSomething to Tide You Over. Stephen King himself turns into a slab of moss and blows his head off with a shotgun in ÂThe Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill. And the cockroaches from ÂTheyÂre Creeping Up on You! That final scene, when Upson PrattÂs robe shakes and quakes, only to explode with thousands of the little critters, never failed to bring me to my feet. His body cracked open like a bloody egg, the bugs crawling about like an unchecked plague. Just delightful for a young boy on the cusp of hating humanity.
 
Natalie GreenÂs Rape
Eight-year-olds arenÂt supposed to know about rape. And if they must, surely we can all agree that they shouldnÂt come face to face with its implications on a bloody sitcom. But itÂs more than that. Rape on Cheers, that I understand. Hell, even Small Wonder, if weÂre being honest. Not The Facts of Life, however, which was frivolous and trite even by the standards of a television era that all but patented the concepts. But we all know about the smoke-filled rooms that brought us the Very Special Episode, so on that long ago night when I had yet to come down from the dizzying high of the Drummond family just minutes before, I was forced to hear about forced sex, even if I had no idea why anyone would want to have sex with Natalie, of all people. You mean, if there are people who rape, they wouldnÂt rape Blair? Even Jo was presentable when she let her hair down. But rape is about power and violence, as weÂve come to know, and this was the first time anywhere people came to understand that fact. If the fattest, least appealing character on a show wasnÂt safe, no one was. Almost without trying, The Facts of Life changed America.
It made even less sense to me at the time that Natalie would be raped while dressed as Charlie Chaplin, but themÂs the breaks for an ignorant mind. I knew that my own penis could express its desired state without cause, but surely I couldnÂt actually use the thing unless I had an attraction to the woman at the other end of the bargain. So untrue. I felt shattered. How could we ever laugh again? Natalie seemed forever destroyed, and for a time (ten minutes or so) she wouldnÂt look up, talk, or even leave the dorm. But how are we to perceive the preceding events when this so-called victim returned to her sassy, self-deprecating self the very next episode? No one told us we could assume years had passed, and from my end, every character looked the same. But if Natalie acts as if she hadnÂt been raped a mere one week later, why should we care? So at the same time a sitcom introduced the word Ârape to a whole new generation, it ended up telling these same boys and girls that being attacked, beaten, and forcibly penetrated is not something to stay angry about. Brush it off, keep your chin up, and forgive. Better yet, forget. What else could we expect from a medium that said Dudley from DiffÂrent Strokes would be sane and whole and ready for laughs within hours of being sodomized by Gordon Jump?
 
Centennial Race Track
ThereÂs no degenerate quite like the gambler. More specifically, thereÂs no degenerate gambler quite like the horse racing fanatic. To a man  and itÂs always a man, unlike the mixed gender reality of modern Vegas  he is over 50, weathered, unkempt, and smokes like a fiend. His hands crack with age and disrepair, and itÂs likely he hasnÂt showered since he last paid child support, which is somewhere between who the fuck knows and never. HeÂs in a perpetual state of just drunk enough, and when heÂs not shuffling and mumbling from the pari-mutuel wagering window with yet another pipe dream disguised as a daily double, heÂs staggering over to you, an impressionable boy of eight, with breath so hot and sticky that it threatens to give you a skin rash. HowÂs it going, he slurps, and howÂd I get so big since he saw me last, even though I canÂt remember having ever met him at all. He slaps my fatherÂs back, winks, and moves on, likely to the next stop that offers a cold beer for an ever colder soul. Such was each and every time I spent a long day (and evening) at Centennial Race Track, DenverÂs home for premium thoroughbred racing from 1950 until its sad decline and eventual closing in November of 1983.
If I spent a day at Centennial, I spent fifty, but as the track was but ten minutes from my grandparents’ house, it seems miraculous the number wasnÂt much higher. It was a second home, a respite; a haven in a heartless world that only seemed to make things worse. For this was where money went to die, crumpled and discarded with every losing ticket. The impossibly complex wagers with terminology more akin to a geometry proof were more than mere frustrations and near-misses; they were school clothes and college funds disappearing into the ether of a sweaty, must-filled afternoon. Lacking the legal ability to waste my own cash, which I didnÂt have in spades, I was forced to watch, staring at an ever-changing tote board that, per race, featured at least several hundred slips of greenery that were not ending up for my benefit. I made my program selections, of course, giving me the slightest sliver of skin in the game, though I not-so-secretly hoped none of them would actually hit, lest I be forced to ponder what I might have done with the winnings that were not forthcoming. And whenever I was the recipient of a bet by proxy, an occasion so rare as to inspire trumpets, I similarly hoped for a loss, as I felt certain my meager winnings would be taken from me as quickly as they had been bestowed.
One day, and IÂll never know the actual date for certain, I won. A trifecta box, to be exact, and the feelings remain as fresh now as they were 30+ years ago. It wasnÂt a large prize, mind you, but it was money to be spent; money I rarely had that wasnÂt earmarked for school lunches. The bills, now wrapped snugly within my pocket, seemed impossibly thick, a heft that secured my place in a pantheon unseen in childhood annals. And while the money went for the usual trinkets of youth  candy, football cards, perhaps a record or two  it made the years of forced attendance seem worth it. I wouldnÂt hit anything similar until decades later, of course, but IÂd always have that first time, a broken maiden of wagering wonder that would forever be associated with a Mile High landmark now reduced to the ashes of memory. Sure, I still loathed much of what passed for a dayÂs entertainment  the appallingly filthy restrooms, the marauding scum passing for humanity, the singular atrocity that was the horse track hot dog  but I had beaten the odds, just that once.