DANCING WITH MYSELF • EDDIE MUNSON

nine

Eddie was more than a little caught off guard when you suddenly wanted to join his summer D&D campaign.

You were popular, you were on the volleyball team, and he was just the trailer park kid whose father was constantly in and out of prison. "Eddie Munster"—yeah, that's what they called him (because he listened to heavy metal, dressed all in black, and had the pasty complexion of someone who hadn't seen the sun a day in his life). He was confident that ninety percent of the student body had no idea what his actual name was. To them, he was simply Eddie Munster, the kid destined to spend his life behind bars.

Needless to say, Eddie was a little skeptical when Jeff called an emergency meeting in the science lab two weeks before the last day of school. He said he had a friend ("Well, actually she's my lab partner") who was interested in joining their summer D&D campaign, an intense and insanely immersive three-month-long crusade that Scott Sloman spent the entire school year working on. It was his pride and joy, his magnum opus, and Scottie would never waste such a masterpiece on a new player.

Unless, of course, that new player was a girl.

Scottie's wandering hands came to rest on a clumsy stack of ungraded quizzes. He picked it up and tap, tap, tapped the pages neatly into order.

"She cute?" he asked Jeff, with no shame at all.

Eddie rolled his eyes. "No, Scottie, she's not cute. She's just really, really annoying."

"Oh, so you know her?"

Eddie felt his whole body recoil from that grossly incorrect assumption. "What?" he said. "No, I don't know her. I just... I just know who she is, that's all."

Eddie first saw you at the middle school talent show. Corroded Coffin had just finished their first performance in front of a live audience. They played Judas Priest's "Rock Forever" because it was the only song the principal didn't immediately reject for having violent, anarchic, or offensively unchristian messaging.

"Why can't you boys play something peppy, something snappy... you know, like The Beach Boys or The Beatles?"

"Dude, fuck The Beatles."

Eddie didn't care. He just wanted to play some music. Throw himself in it. Lose himself in it. Forget about his shitty, miserable life for just three and a half minutes.

That night, in front of a packed audience of students, faculty, family and friends, Eddie Munson strummed the final power chord and felt the notes clash against each other and crash into a concrete wall of pure silence. The illusion had shattered, and Eddie was back in reality. He was grounded in it. Sinking in it like quicksand. He staggered back and looked out, shielding his eyes from the glaringly bright stage lights, and in the silence he heard a sound that made his stomach drop.

Someone was laughing. Laughing at him.

Eddie tracked the sound, his eyes darting anxiously around the faceless crowd, and he found you giggling in the front row with your fist over your mouth, giggling yourself to tears. Eddie would never forget that sound for as long as he lived.

"Oh, she's that girl, huh?" Scottie swiveled around in the teacher's chair like a movie villain. "So Munson's little heckler has finally come to ruin D&D for him... Now that should make for a very interesting campaign. I like it. She's in."

Eddie jumped to his feet. "Hey, you don't get to decide that!"

"Umm, I'm the Dungeon Master. It's my campaign, and I'll decide who plays it. Keep giving me lip, Munson, and you can find something else to do with your summer vacation."