Friday and Saturday nights were always utter hell behind the bar. One of the local bands—drum kit, two guitars, vocalist, maybe a horn of some kind—would set up in the corner of the bar and play. Every band played the same thing: covers of oldies (Beatles, Chuck Berry) mixed with covers of more contemporary stuff (The Steve Miller Band, Bryan Adams). The bands played their fast songs to get people dancing, and most importantly, drinking. But they’d also pepper their setlists with slow songs, so that the horny, old drunks could pair off and sway together, enjoying their sloppy, public make-outs.
Because of the overwhelming number of patrons, every bartender on staff had to work on Friday and Saturday nights, including my favorite bartender, Kristin. Kristin was only a year or two older, but she was leagues more sophisticated than I was. Evidence of her sophistication: she’d backpacked across Europe. More evidence: she was the only person I knew who owned several Peter Gabriel albums. Still more evidence: when I complained that I didn’t have anything good to read that summer, she gave me a copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Yet what I liked most about Kristin was that we always had a lot of fun together. It was a kind of giddy, surreal fun that I’d never really experienced with anyone before. During one of my solo weeknight shifts at the bar, I’d used my fire prevention poster-making skills to make up a mock label for one of the empty vodka bottles. I wrote the word “RED EYE” on it, added some crude drawings of barrels, and cowboys and a covered wagon, then filled the empty bottle with Sprite. When I saw Kristin the following Friday night, I showed her the bottle. “If things get too hectic in here tonight, take a shot of this,” I said. “It’ll take the edge off.” She laughed, then went back to rinsing glasses.
The bar was packed that night. The legendary Central New York humidity was unbearable. A fist fight broke out near the front door around 9:30. The band played “Twist And Shout” not once but twice, back to back. “OK, that’s it, I can’t take it anymore,” Kristin said, slamming a pair of empty shot glasses down on the bar. She grabbed the bottle of RED EYE, and filled each glass to the brim. As the crowds around us waved their dollar bills in our direction, trying to get our attention so that we’d pour drinks for them, Kristin and I touched our Red Eye-filled shot glasses together, and downed them. Then we both winced and clutched our chests, trying to outdo each other with our melodramatic reactions to the taste of the RED EYE. “That’s it, I’m never drinking Red Eye again,” she said. “That shit will blind you.”
It’s time for us to have a go at stage 9-2. I realize that I’m probably jinxing myself by saying this, but the hell with it, I’ll say it anyway: I lost one Mario in the first TOWER stage. And today’s stage? I completed it on my first attempt. So what’s going on here? I traveled all this way, to the intimidatingly named TOWER, to have my Donkey Kong skills, which I’ve been honing for the past three months, put to the test. That hasn’t happened so far.
In today’s stage Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior have once again joined forces. Donkey Kong’s purpose is to hurl a death-dealing spring again and again. We’ve seen these hurled springs before, and at this point in the game, we should know how to handle them. But more on the springs in a moment. Donkey Kong Junior’s purpose? To grin and push-pull a switch which extends and retracts four bridges all on the right side of the stage. Naturally, the position of those four bridges determines the path that the bouncing spring takes. When the bridges are retracted, the spring simply bounces twice before safely vanishing into a pit. But when the bridges are extended, the spring takes a couple of errant bonus bounces. The rule of the spring is this: The more times a spring bounces, the more chances it has to connect with Mario.
Move forward cautiously, always keeping an eye on the path that the spring is traveling along, taking note of where it lands when it strikes the ground. Wherever it is, whatever it’s doing, realize that at some point you’ll have to confront it, crouch a tick in front of or behind its ground strike, and allow it to bounce safely over your head. Knowing where it bounces and when to crouch are the keys to reaching Pauline.
Climb the short ladder all the way to the right of the stage. This is a so-called “safe place.” Wait here until D.K.J. extends the bridges, then take the following ladder up to the now-extended bridge. Hustle across. Take a moment to watch the spring. See where it bounces? Hurry to the spot directly in front of where it bounces. Crouch. And wait. (Sproing.) Doing the crouch-and-wait as a death-dealing spring clears Mario’s head is truly one of the most exhilarating moments in the entire game.
Then, as Donkey Kong is readying another spring, hurry to Pauline. That’s 94 days in the books, people. Once again, at the risk of the jinx, I’ll say this: This is the best you’ve got, 1994 Donkey Kong? Part of me, no kidding, is hoping that this jinx that I’m supposedly afraid of actually comes true. I want a Donkey Kong stage that makes steam come out of me ears. I want a stage that makes me pull my toupee off my head, hurl it to the ground, then jump up and down on top of it.
Is that too much to ask?
