"What do you mean, that game is fifty cents to play? Are you on crack?" The short, wiry young man was poised on his toes, trying to intimidate me. Luckily, he was shorter than I am...and I have a thing for Hispanic guys.
I kept my cool. "Dude, trust me. This is so worth it. You'll see."
He rocked back on his heels, clearly disappointed that his attempt had failed. "Ah, what do you know, you're just a chick!" he scoffed, trying to maintain his macho. "It's just a pattern game! Those went out with...with..."
"Pac-Man?" I grinned at him. "Trust me."
He grumbled, but followed me as I led the way back to the prototype. "This better be good!" he muttered. "Fifty cents...it's a new game, you should be paying me to play it and get free advertising..."
I laughed, which startled him. "If I'm paying you, it isn't free! Besides, you'll see. You'll like it."
I unlocked the door to the back room of the arcade. I had him hooked, and I knew it. Carlo and his buddies were in and out of this place every other day. They knew me, they knew my style, and they knew I wasn't going to lead them wrong.
The game was in an old Pac-man case. I hadn't led him wrong there. I could almost feel him rolling his eyes. "Hey, I had to put the motherboard somewhere!" I protested.
He eyed it skeptically. "And it's a joystick game?"
"Sure. You'll see once you watch the intro."
As I'd predicted, Carlo grunted and inserted his oh-so-precious fifty cents. The screen lit up with the opening graphics: a spinning rainbow of colors. "Faggy!" he declared.
"Faggy?
FAGGY?
Carlo, did you leave your vocabulary in the seventh grade or something?"
He grunted again and flipped me the bird. I leaned on the side of the case and watched his face. He complained "These colors hurt my eyes, chica! Can you tune them down?"
Ooh, I merited a chica! Maybe the program was working already. "Just watch, Carlo, OK? Focus on it, because if you miss something because you're complaining I'm not going to refund your money."
He studied the screen. "I'm not sure I get it." He was blinking a little. "You try to rescue each piece and build them at the bottom before the rainbow sucks them in?"
"Before the rainbow spiral draws them in and down..." I corrected him. "The spiral is like a black hole...it sucks everything in." I stepped behind him and started massaging his shoulders. "Spirals are good for that."
"Ah, this'll be easy..." he shook his head. Then he gave a soft moan. "All right, all right...you keep doing that, I'll try it."
"Just watch the screen, the intro is almost over. There'll be little pick-me-up reminders through the program. They'll give you hints."