Coin Slot

Coin Slot Magazine - #041 - 1978 - June [International Arcade Museum]
The Monkey On My Back
by LES DRUYAN
(Founder of The Coin Slot)
I had been waiting for three days when I finally got the call.
It came at exactly nine fifty-seven p.m.
I know, because as I
answered the phone the grandfather clock in the hall had just
started its sonorous chorus, as it always does, three minutes before
the hour.
When I heard the voice of my connection my facial
muscles tensed, signaling my wife. She must have felt a combina
tion of emotions; relief, because she knew that I needed a fix, and
apprehension, because she knew of the risks involved. Even though
she had been through this with me many times before, each time
I made contact with a connection she worried from the moment
the call came in to the moment I returned home. She's a good
woman, though, and never once actually asked me to try and kick
the habit. She understood.
Luckily it was a Friday night, and I was able to arrange a deal
for the next day. As I hung up the phone I could see the questions
in her eyes:
"Where to this time?
you be gone?"
How much?
But she verbalized none of these.
How long will
She just sat
there, on the couch, looking at me. I sensed pity in her gaze and
looked away.
But I also felt I had to tell her what was coming
down.
"That was a connection."
I explained unnecessarily, "Look,
I have to run down to Delaware tomorrow to pick up some stuff.
Shouldn't take me long.
I'll probably be home by three. You
got any bread?"
com
.
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:
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oad . "That
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rcad is, two hundred more than I have." I
n
eyes toward
a
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Do trying
continued,
www to back out of my lie and not be too embar-
/
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:
p
tt need a grand altogether, and I only have about eight
assed. h "I
"Oh les," she sighed," I have about a hundred and a half, plus
the household money. How much do you need?"
"Two hundred." I lied. The magnetism of her stare drew my
hundred."
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http://www.arcade-museum.com/