Back when you were in high school, your dad concocted a game – a silly, small-town jest exercised in transit by he and his conspirators. They would laugh and joke and fart as they idled through Main Street, portly adults packed in the old station wagon, racking up points by what they beheld, bickering over fictional foul play, basking in imaginary victories, sullen in defeat.
And you, young teenager, take this provincial sport, and retool it.
Imagine driving around town in your robin’s egg blue Ford Ranger. The wheel wells are rusting out and half of the cylinders are misfiring, but the old beater runs, and the heater blasts like a smith’s furnace. This old town is the gameboard, and its denizens are the pieces, for this is no ordinary hamlet - this is Maquoketa, full of strangelings and weirdos; Deli Kathy coasting down Platt Street on her antique bicycle, the Pigman spouting gibberish at KJ’s gas station, a drunk cruising past on his lawnmower to or from Bill’s Tap, the occasional moped brigade.
What these creatures have in common is this; they’re all worth one point.
Your nitwit friends – like your dad and his cohorts – quickly warm to the game. The Ranger can only hold three, so you swap vehicles. The sun disappears, the sidewinders emerge; they take to the dark like litter to the curb. You catch movement in the distance. “Crazy Martha!” you shout, gaining the lead. Cody ties it up, spying house-marm BJ doing something (anything) outside of the house.
In the back seat, Stuart calls a risky future point a block away. “Mr. Seims in the window,” he says, “I’m predicting it.” As you drive by, a round silhouette in front of a big screen appears, and Stuart bellows, reveling in his gambit’s payoff.
Points come and points go. False calls are made, scores are removed, accusations, arguments, bitter proclamations; everyone stands on the shaky ground of his own integrity. Once the anger diminishes, all parties agree to a one-point tie breaker.
Cody takes his Eagle slow down Summit. You try and throw the others off by directing their attention, “Hey, isn’t that where Lopster pooped on the fence? Is that Engstrom traversing the tundra in his moccasins? Look over there, The Douche is practicing his golf swing in the window!” The others are wise to your schemes.
The reflection off a pop can is what first catches your eye, and then the recognition. “POINT,” everyone cries in unison. As the headlights break the fog, you spy a heavy green duster draped over his shoulders, his worn boots scuff the pavement, a button down is popped open at the collar, exposing a gold necklace against leathered skin. He’s unveiled in all his glory: Six Pack Jack, the holy grail of points.
Jack is old and elusive and yet everywhere, like some sort of endangered Waldo, mythical boozer, a Chupacabra in human form. He’s Can City’s biggest supplier, a one-man street sweeper sifting the garbage and converting his treasure five cents at a time. You never speak to him, just offer your silent respect; he floats a hand in the air, and you wave back.
Dubz once claimed to have conversed with him on a stuffy July afternoon. “Pretty hot out there today, Jack.” Jack turns his head like an owl. “I wish it was a hundred degrees hotter.”
Jack’s been canning the streets for decades, yet oddly enough, whenever you speak of his prowess to outsiders, they scoff. You’re just a bunch of spooky Mulders in a world of Dana Scullys, hack conspiracy theorists devoid of credibility. You attempt to show these doubters proof, but in all your days you managed only one photo – a shaky, far away still frame that many call forgery. ‘It’s just Nemmers with a mask,’ they say. ‘Why, look at the leaves, clearly photoshopped.’ They’ve labeled you cons, liars, storytellers and tricksters. The experts claim that this creature could never survive the climate, or that they heard the same tales of a man out west, or in the Smokey’s, or Pakistan: Twenty Ounce Tom, Homeless Joe Jackson, Brown Bottle Buddha. In some of these stories he’s a Vietnam vet, in others he lifts shopping carts and sips rubbing alcohol.
But you know the truth, that back when you were young, when the world was an open book, its pages smooth to the touch of your fingertips, your dad concocted a game: of people and points, of friends and strangers, the best and worst that your small town had to offer. And what you wouldn’t give to go back, even if just for a moment.
Decades have passed. If you take a ride through town, you’ll notice that things have changed. Like the points of yesteryear, businesses have come and gone, old farmhouses replaced by shopping strips, downtown has been burned, recalibrated, and freshly blacktopped. But if you drive down Main and Platt – take it nice and slow on a warm summer day – lower the window and let your calloused fingers play off the side of your F-150 like an imaginary piano, if you’re lucky, you just might spot an old pickup truck passing by. Paint may be peeling off the wheel wells, the bumper is likely rusting into obscurity. The men cramped inside are older now, with gray hair and glasses, pills and pensions. But their laughter hasn’t changed as they rack up points, as they bicker, as they bask in victory, and as they fade into the background of this old town.
