Marching Down Victory Lane

The First Frame

"Hey guys, wanna go bowling?"

After spending two hours inside of Widow's Peak, Ridgevale's only New-Age bookstore just for Crystal to come out of there with three candles and an empty notebook (at the cost of $45, by the way), we needed air conditioning and possibly some food to get the aroma of sage out of our nostrils.

"Fusion Bowl is just up the strip mall, and they're doing a buck-a-game thing for the high school kids." Tommy chirps. "Yeah, because bowling is the only thing to do in this podunk town. Well that and throwing golf balls back at the golfers at Weber Creek Country Club" I reply back snarkily. Tommy laughs and says "Hey, I think I was doing them a favor!"
Crystal asks us "Is the bowling alley named after the strip mall, or is it the other way around, since Fusion Outlets is the name of the place?" "The bowling alley is the anchor tenant. Stephanie told me that when the place was sold to the company she works for" I say as I pull open the bowling pin shaped door handle.
"Ah, okay. And you really should start calling her Mom, after all, she is married to your dad."

"Let's not start with that again..."


Walking into the bowling alley, we're greeted by the sounds of crashing pins, Top-40 music and announcements over the loudspeakers. We walk up to the counter, get a lane and those gnarly rental shoes.

"I'm gonna go get a soda and some food, anyone want anything?" I ask, since I haven't eaten anything since noon. Tommy yells "Just order a cheese fries and a pitcher of Dew, we'll split it." I swear, the guy is a walking garbage disposal. He'd probably eat steel girders and still be hungry after.

"Be right up!" I hear from behind the snack bar counter as two people walk up from the kitchen. One guy has an apron on, the other a polo shirt with a lowercase E and the word "Ebonite" under it. Opposite that, a bowling pin shaped name tag with the words "Chris-Manager" printed on it.

"What can I get for yo-" Apron Guy starts to ask before Chris-Manager yells "I gotta get the low side ready for that scratch league, I'll check on the grill in a minute."

"Sorry about that, what would you like?" Apron Guy finally gets to ask as Chris-Manager heads down the aisle by our lane to the back of the bowling alley.

"No worries. Just a large cheese fries with three forks, a pitcher of Mountain Dew and, what the heck, a slice of pepperoni pizza."
Apron Guy punches buttons on his screen before calling out "Total is $12.50. What lane are you on and I'll bring it out to you" while drawing the soda out of the fountain.
"Lane 44, thanks for that" as I toss a twenty out of my wallet onto the counter.



Walking back to the lane with the pitcher of soda, I look up and see they already started bowling. A 'hiss' escapes from the pins as the automatic bumpers go down after Crystal's turn. Tommy grabs a bright orange ball and says "Y'all are going down, I'm throwing rocks tonight!" in his best Donny from The Big Lebowski impersonation.
"You're out of your element!" I laugh as I go find a ball. I find a green ball that says "Gateway Bowl-14 lbs" that fits pretty well. Strange, Gateway Bowl is about twenty minutes down the expressway in Classic City.

Putting my ball on the return, I look up to see Tommy running to the line and trying to two hand shovel the ball down the lane. I've watched enough bowling on Sunday mornings to know that's not how it's done. That guy from Australia is good at it, Tommy, not so much.

Somehow, he gets all the pins to fall for a strike, and the TV screen above the lane lights up with dancing neon bowling pins. After that happens, the arrow blinks down to "RM" and a message flashes "ROCKET MAN Up Next"

"Really? You guys have been making that joke since the sixth grade." See, my middle name is Elton, and my first name is John. These two found that out when my stepmom decided to put my full name on my birthday cake that year. I later found out that my birth mom, who died when I was three, named me after Elton John because the only time I wasn't flopping around in her stomach was when any Elton John song was playing.

"Hey, at least your middle name isn't Hercules" Crystal says as I pick up the ball from the return rack. Eyeing the pins, I take a couple steps and toss the ball down the lane. The ball rumbles down the lane and turns softly into the pins.

~CRASH!~

The pins slide around, and somehow I throw a strike. I've been bowling one time in my life. Remember that birthday party? Yeah, then. I managed that day to roll a 145, and everyone kept telling me "You're a natural! You could go pro!" much to the chagrin of Stephanie. She hates professional athletes, and thinks that sporting is no way to make a living.

"Psh, it's not like your twelfth birthday again" Crystal snaps as I sit down, but not before Apron Guy has brought out the food. I grab my pizza before Tommy can inhale it when he says "How the hell did you do that?"

The thing is, I don't know how I did it. I just let the ball swing my arm, got my opposite foot forward like the guys on TV and made sure to follow through.

~hiss~ The bumpers come up and the screen flashes "B-WITCHY, trailing by six pins". Crystal grabs a super light ball that is really meant for little kids and somehow manages to drop it onto the lane. All that leather and denim doesn't allow for a loose swing, I guess. The ball ping-pongs off the bumpers about seven times before it hits the pins and goes sideways. The ball manages to knock down six pins, how, I don't know. The process repeats and she knocks down two more.

Tommy gets up, repeats his run-and-gun approach, but slides over the line. The buzzer goes off just as Chris-Manager is walking back up the aisleway. "Make sure you stay behind the line, don't want you tracking oil back up onto the approach" Chris-Manager says to Tommy in a "damn kids" tone. Since he got zero for a foul, he has to roll at a full set of pins again, and throws it straight into the gutter.

"Stupid shoes, they're probably too big. That's why I went over the line." he blames as he takes his seat. I grab the same green ball, look out at the pins and say to myself "Let's try to curl the fingers in just as I let go of it."

BANG!!! The ball curved HARDER and this time, the pins exploded straight off the back of the lane.

"Double!!!" The score screen flashes as I walk over to my soda sitting on the counter behind the lanes. I hear a voice say "Nice ball, guess you figured out the right way to throw it, unlike Jumping Jack Flash over here."

It's Chris-Manager, and I almost spat out my Mountain Dew due to not expecting someone I don't even know to say something like that. Jumping Jack Flash? Wasn't that an eighties movie?

"Uh, thanks." I sheepishly respond.
"Little shy? I get it, sorry to give you the creeps. I'm Chris, and you roll it good."
"John, some people call me Johnny."
"Like Petraglia?"
"Who?"
"Old pro bowler. Real smooth approach. Like yours, but on the other side of the lane."
"Oh, a left hander."