The ruse worked—Alf opened the magazine and stopped teasing me—and I was relieved. Even though he and Clark were my best friends, I hadn’t told them about my secret plan to grow up and make video games for a living. I wanted to be the next Mark Cerny, the whiz kid game designer hired by Atari when he was just seventeen years old. I wanted to partner with visionaries like Fletcher Mulligan, the legendary founder of Digital Artists, and I wanted to have my own software company. These all seemed like crazy things to say out loud—like announcing you were going to be an astronaut or president of the United States. When adults asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I just shrugged and mumbled, “I don’t know.”
Alf stuck his nose in the magazine, trying to inhale the scent of Kathy Ireland, but Clark was still pinching the floppy disk in his claw, as if he’d been seized by a remarkable idea.
“Planet Will is a real business,” he said.
“It’s just a joke,” I insisted.
“But it could be real,” he explained. “There are real teenagers who make video games and sell them. They run real businesses out of their garages. And they buy their office supplies at stores like Zelinsky’s.”
Clark opened my closet and started removing clothes that I hadn’t worn in years—the sports coat from my sixth-grade graduation, the slacks I wore to church on Christmas and Easter, scuffed black shoes that couldn’t possibly fit me anymore.
“Put these on,” he told me.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Operation Vanna, take two,” he said. “I’ve got a better idea, and this one is going to work.”
400 REM *** PLAY THEME MUSIC ***
410 L1=54272:POKE L1+18,128
420 POKE L1,75:POKE L1+5,0
430 POKE L1+6,240:POKE L1+14,12
440 POKE L1+15,250:POKE L1+24,207
450 FOR L=0 TO 25:POKE L1+4,17
460 POKE L1+1,PEEK(L1+27)
470 FOR T=0 TO 100:NEXT T
480 NEXT L:POKE L1+4,0
490 RETURN
EVERYONE KNEW YOU HAD to be eighteen years old to legally purchase Playboy, but we never stopped to wonder if the law was state, federal, or local, or which government was responsible for enforcing it.
Clark insisted that we dress up. He said that a proper coat and tie would age anyone’s appearance by eighteen months.
“But that only gets me to fifteen,” I said. “Fourteen plus eighteen months is fifteen, maybe sixteen.”
“You’ll be close enough,” Clark promised. “We’ll have so many other distractions, Zelinsky won’t think twice.”
My shirt was too small and my shoes pinched my feet; every step hurt and I wobbled like a woman in high heels. Clark had the opposite problem; he wore a teal polyester suit that was two sizes too large. Ever since his father went out of work, Clark survived on hand-me-downs shipped from weird relatives in Georgia. These items arrived once a year in black plastic trash bags, reeking of mothballs and adorned with mysterious brands we’d never heard of: U-Men, Bootstrap, Kentucky Swagger.
Alf was the only kid on our street who always dressed in new clothes. Both of his parents worked—his father hung wallpaper and his mother was a secretary in a Realtor’s office—so they were rolling in dough. For our trip to Zelinsky’s, Alf dressed up-to-the-minute in the latest Miami Vice–inspired fashion—white linen pants, a mauve jacket, and a blue T-shirt, no belt or socks. We were supposed to be businessmen coming off the train after a long day in Manhattan, but Alf looked like he was ready to seize cocaine from a Colombian drug lord.
“This is all about confidence,” Alf assured me.
“Exactly,” Clark said. “If you act like you’re old enough, Zelinsky is going to think you’re old enough.”
It was easy for them to say. Even though Clark hatched the plan and Alf was the oldest of our group, they agreed that I looked the oldest and had the best chance of purchasing the magazine. We arrived at Zelinsky’s at four in the afternoon, long after school let out but before the evening rush hour. An empty store was vital to our mission. I knew that if I found myself in a long line of customers, I’d probably lose my nerve.
“Are you ready?” Clark asked.
“Give me the money,” I said.
Alf pushed a wad of wrinkled bills into my hand. He had pilfered the cash from the dresser drawer of his oldest sister, Janice, who spent all of her free time babysitting. “This is thirty-seven bucks,” he said. “Make sure we don’t go over.”
A tiny bell dinged when I pulled open the door. Zelinsky’s had existed in some form or another since World War II, so entering the store was like stepping into the past; the air was heavy with the smells of pipe tobacco, fresh cedar, and ink. The first thing you noticed was the enormous wall rack of newspapers and magazines—everything from the Wall Street Journal to Good Housekeeping. The second thing you noticed were all the signs around the display, handwritten in an angry Sharpie marker scrawl: NO ONE UNDER 18 ALLOWED DURING SCHOOL HOURS!
ATTENTION STUDENTS: This is NOT Your LOCAL LIBRARY!!
We DON’T SELL COMICS so please STOP ASKING!!!
Sal Zelinsky stood behind the checkout counter, fifty years old with ruddy skin and the high-and-tight crew cut of a U.S. marine. He wore a shirt and tie under a filthy ink-smeared apron. He was skewering a long screwdriver through the back of an IBM Selectric; scattered all around him were greasy knobs and levers and keys. It looked like he’d slaughtered the typewriter and ripped out its guts.
At the sound of our arrival, Zelinsky adjusted his bifocals with blackened fingertips, studied our faces, and frowned. There was a swollen artery on his forehead, zigzagging from his hairline to his right eyebrow, throbbing like he’d just finished an arm-wrestling contest. He couldn’t have looked more pissed off.
“Help you?” he asked.
“We just need a few things,” I said, then forced myself to spit out the rest, because Clark insisted these words were crucial: “. . . for our office.”
“Your office.” Zelinsky said it the way another person might say “Your pirate ship” or “Your space shuttle.” Just over his shoulder, behind the cash register, I saw Vanna White on a rack of magazines labeled ADULTS ONLY, and sure enough, her butt was on the cover. My heart did a little flip.
“Just some odds and ends,” I said, but the words came out all mumbled.
Zelinsky turned the Selectric facedown and speared a second screwdriver into its bottom. “This isn’t a toy store,” he said. “You get what you need and you leave.”
“Right,” I said.
“No problem,” Clark said.
“Understood,” Alf said.
We were barely through the front door and already I wanted to turn back. But Alf and Clark were grabbing wire baskets and moving ahead with the plan. I grabbed a basket of my own and followed them.
I’d shopped at Zelinsky’s dozens of times but never ventured past the magazine rack. Behind the checkout counter, the store divided into three long aisles filled with office supplies: calendars and stationery, staples and staple removers, markers and mailers, and a million other doodads. We spread out and went to work.