It was a chilly November day in Manhattan. Adam was standing outside the bank on a cell phone call with his mother. Suddenly, through the crowd, he saw a strangely familiar face. “Mom, I’ll call you back,” he said, abruptly hanging up the phone. He put his phone away as the tall gentleman walked towards him. “Ed Parks,” Adam said with a grin, “how the hell have you been?”
It had been over two years since Adam had seen Ed, having parted ways after a summer together at the Music Academy of the West, and they were both thrilled to be reunited. “Dude, we have to get together,” decided Ed after several minutes of awesome fist bumps. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I have an audition at noon,” Adam told him, “but we could have lunch, or dinner later if you want.”
“Awesome. I have a rehearsal tomorrow, but I’ll call or text you and we can meet up. Now call your mother back.” Ed walked off again, disappearing into the crowd of Friday evening commuters, but he had left behind an air of excitement and, although Adam didn’t know it at the time, danger.
Saturday morning Adam woke up to find a text from Ed on his phone asking to meet at 5 pm. He wrote back that this was fine and set about getting ready for his audition. The audition came and went and, as Adam sat at home writing his blog, the phone rang. It was Ed. Apparently Ed’s rehearsal had been cancelled and no one had thought to mention this to him, so he was now in the city a bit earlier. It was 3:30. Well, this was an occupational hazard of being an opera singer, and Adam agreed to head out immediately.
Ed was waiting by the fountain at Lincoln Center, his eyes and his cowboy boots gleaming with the promise of fun and trouble. “So, have you ever been to the ESPN Zone?” asked Ed. Adam shook his head. “Dude, it’s awesome! We’re going there!” They hopped a subway to Times Square and when they arrived, the ESPN Zone was all boarded up. “What the…!?” Ed turned to Adam and said simply, “So, have you ever been to Dave and Busters?”
It was still early when they walked into the Dave and Busters on 42nd Street, so they decided to start with some games before dinner. Little did they know at that time that dinner would not be for another four hours. The gaming floor was run like a Vegas casino, but instead of money, the people were after tickets. Cups and buckets filled with tickets were closely guarded by soccer moms and toddlers alike, and watching over them all were the pit bosses, who settled ticket disputes, refilled the machines, and made sure people were behaving themselves.
After a few games of Skee-ball and some “Big Jackpot” games that were clearly unwinnable, Adam and Ed spotted a game that looked a little more promising. This game involved pulling a handle that, when released, would pop a ball up towards a row of tubes and then down onto a bumpy floor spattered with differently scored holes. The object was to get the ball through one of the tubes, and/or into one of the holes. At the bottom of the board was the set of “Zero” holes that would yield no points. The big jackpot was 1000 tickets, but there were also tubes for 500, 250 and 100 tickets. After the 6-10 tickets per game of Skee-ball, this seemed like a better proposition. It also seemed like a skill based game that one could improve on, rather that the random “hit a button” jackpot games. They guys grabbed two stools and sat down to play.
At first they just couldn’t believe how easy the game was. Adam’s first shot in scored them 250 tickets. “Dude,” Ed said, very impressed, “how did you make that shot?”
“I don’t know,” said Adam, equally impressed with himself. “I didn’t think I got it in the tube. Let me try it again.” Another shot, bouncing off the tube and into the zero hole, and another 250 tickets. “Oh my God, you just have to bounce it off the tube to get the points!” Adam exclaimed as he readied another ball. This one bounced off the tube, but flew to the other side of the game box and slipped into a zero hole. No points. “Wait, what happened?” It was at this point that the boys discovered the glitch in the game.
The zero hole on the right side of the machine was coded incorrectly. Instead of giving a zero score, it rewarded the player with 250 tickets. Every time. Well, Ed and Adam just went crazy at this point. It was not difficult at all to toss the ball into the far right zero hole. Almost 4 out of every 5 balls gave them 250 points. Suddenly they were winning tickets faster than the machine could spit them out. “Dude, slow down!” laughed Ed, “I can’t keep up!”
Adam and Ed switched back and forth, taking turns shooting the ball and collecting the mountain of tickets that was quickly piling up on the floor. And not only were they gathering a huge number of tickets, but they were attracting a crowd. People wanted to know how they were doing it, and they wanted to get onto that game. There was cheering and shouting when the machine ran out of tickets and an employee had to be called over to refill the dispenser.
When their play cards ran out of money, Adam kept collecting tickets while Ed went to put more money on the card. As soon as he was back they started playing again. When all was said and done, they had won 9,961 tickets. Feeling triumphant they went to trade their winnings in for a prize, but discovered that they didn’t have quite enough to get anything good. “Ed, we have to go back to the machine,” Adam whispered.
But when they returned to the game, there was an out of order sign on it. Ed had been sure that the pit bosses were watching them, and this proved it. They knew something was up. Our heroes moved on to other games, but nothing was winning them tickets like before. That’s when they saw someone working on the game. The case was open and the man was throwing balls through various tubes, but he seemed confused. Eventually, he closed the case, took away the out of order sign, and walked away. Adam and Ed looked at each other, and then slowly walked back to the game.
Not even daring to believe, Adam slowly pulled back the handle and let the ball fly. It slid into the zero hole and, with a ding, the game started spitting out 250 tickets. “Play it cool,” Ed cautioned. “Don’t look, but that guy over there is watching us.” They were only 500 tickets short of a good prize, so Adam pulled back the handle again. A miss. The ball flew into the 10 point hole. Ed quickly stuffed the 250 tickets into his jacket pocket as the pit boss called another man over and pointed at the two guys at the glitchy machine. Adam was getting nervous. Ball 3 was another miss, but the next two balls hit right where he wanted them to, and the machine started whirring away again. “Come on man, we need to get out of here,” insisted Ed and they both stuffed tickets into their pockets as fast as they could.
Just as they were leaving the game, the pit boss walked over with a thick notebook in one hand and a key chain in the other. Adam and Ed traded in their tickets at the desk and exchanged them for a Wii Sports Resort game (only 10500 tickets!). They watched in terror and amusement as the man with the notebook kicked some little kids off of the game and opened it up again. He clearly knew something was wrong, but still hadn’t figured out what, and his eyes were on Adam and Ed.
Game in hand, the guys rushed out of Dave and Busters completely exhilarated. They knew that they had gotten away with something, but they also knew that they had spent almost $100 in tokens for a $50 video game, so who was the real loser here? Either way, the heady rush of success and escape consumed them as they headed for the nearest steak house. Since only one of them could keep the game, the other one was buying dinner.
They never went back to that Dave and Busters again, but to this day, they both look over their shoulder from time to time, and wonder if someone, somewhere, is watching them.
True story. And I got to keep the game!
I still love reading this!
Ed