Amanda Izzo

He Used to Play Jackpot

Content warning:

This piece contains graphic descriptions of the aftermath of sexual assault and discussions of sexual assault.

My first platonic friend of the opposite sex was named Nick. We were in the fourth grade when we became inseparable. At recess, we would play Jackpot. He would throw a football into the new tripleshot hoop on our school playground. Its three dividing holes dictated the value of the catch. Left and right hoops were worth 250 points. Center hoop, 500.

“JACKPOT!” Nick would shout, tossing the ball into the basket. We’d all wait patiently listening to it bounce off the walls, positioning ourselves under whichever opening we thought it would fall from. “Five hundred!” he’d shout excitedly, voice cracking from puberty, as it barreled down the middle towards me.

One Friday as the recess bell rang, I’d asked him if he wanted to come over after school to play some more, improvising when we got there with a Nerf football and my house’s slanted roof. We spent hours in my front yard playing until we were muddied and panting, our scoreboard in the thousands. When the street lights came on, he said he’d come back tomorrow if I was free. 

The next day, I woke up with the sun. Spending most of my morning sprawled out on the front lawn with my aunt’s tabby ironically named Abby. She purred beside me while I looked out for any sign of Nick. Around ten o’clock, he slowly appeared at the very top of my hill. In his overworn AC/DC T-shirt, sweeping his long, bright auburn hair out of his eyes while he pedaled towards me. 

“Hey, Meatball!” he called to me, skidding to a halt in front of my house. Childlike excitement burst in my chest. 

“Bye, Abby!”

She raised her chin for one last scratch between the ears. Running over to the driveway, I hopped on my own Huffy that leaned against the cellar wall and sped off. We rode our bikes up and down Ocean Hill and through every hidden pathway between streets we could find. Spotting an undersized apple tree at the edge of the Union Grove, we dropped our bikes and raced over. Nick hung from the branches like a sloth, dropping apples down to me with new revised Jackpot rules as I waited below him, stretching my shirt far out in front of me to create a net for the falling fruit. Stripping the low hanging branches bare, we cradled as many as we could in our shirts and rode home. Nick impressed me with the way he rode his bike with no handlebars.

“Mom! Look what we found!” dumping what would be at least two dozen crab apples onto our kitchen table.

“Wow! Neat,” my mom said excitedly, matching our enthusiasm until she turned one of them over to show us they were ridden with wormholes and bruises, old and new. 

“But you didn’t eat any, right?” We both looked at Nick right as he was about to take a big bite. 

“Oh, do we wash them first?” he said innocently, rubbing the bruised and wrinkled apple against his shirt. My mom laughed and gave me a look that always made me feel proud. It said without uttering a word, “I love seeing you enjoy childhood.”

There were childhood aspects I don’t think she would have loved, however. The kind of roughhousing and experimental play between Nick and me that only happens when parents aren’t around. Indian sunburns, monkey bites, slap for slap. My mom never worried about the small bumps or marks I came home with. I’d spent all of my life displaying my own showcase of bruises in varying hues of yellowing, old and new. As a result, she was forced to purchase exclusively navy or black non-opaque tights in attempts to conceal my battle wounds from play and dirt stains of the day. Yet, she always had a way of making me feel better about it.

 “You were just like me at your age. You can be put in a dress, but you’ll still climb a tree” was her famous line. She’d say it often, with tender care and affection, as she’d gather each nylon leg down to the toe, crouching over while holding the leg hole open for me to step into. 

Each play date with Nick, I’d have a new blemish to show for it. He’d wrap both hands tight around my forearm, twisting hard in opposite directions as if he were wringing out a wet washcloth. He’d tuck his thumb between his index and middle finger, before pinching my bicep or thigh. It never seemed to bother me, though. I felt like one of the boys—hardened and able to play without whining. And the sensation itself wasn’t necessarily painful. Like resting on a gravel path. At first, you feel each and every small jagged pebble as it digs itself into you. Eventually, you stop feeling them under your weight and forget they are there, until you lift your hand to uncover strange indents and pick out the small crusty pellets left buried in your palms. 

There was one game he introduced me to that I didn’t like, and never played again. Space monkey. Pressing on someone’s upper chest and lower neck area until they get dizzy and pass out. Feeling him shove his full body weight into me, I panicked. I quickly faked unconsciousness so he’d free me unharmed. His hands slowly released while hovering over me, like Sleeping Beauty and her prince, until I awoke from my rest. Stirring from my fake slumber, I found his eyes were apple-sized, filled with fascination and magnetic intrigue. He was brimming with questions as soon as I sat up from my imaginary four-post canopy bed in my fairy tale palace. 

“What happened? What did you feel? What do you remember?” 

Countless Saturdays came and passed with us playing rooftop Jackpot, bruising horseplay, and picnicking under our tree. Lying on our backs making shapes of the clouds as they passed by. One day, I remember wishing the ground would consume me whole and I’d be just fine knowing I’d turn into a beloved tree that could lend shade on a sunny day and drop fruit for my favorite ginger-haired friend whenever he reached.

I moved and switched schools in the following years, losing contact with Nick until the summer after eighth grade. My friend Meredith invited me to a party, and while giving me the directions to a field, I instantly pieced together that it was probably at Nick’s house and immediately got a ride over. 

I cut through his cluttered lawn that resembled the show Sanford and Sons, his father always having a year round yard sale. Opening his dusty screen door with a sharp squeak, I heard the voices of my old neighborhood friends hush while they waited to see would emerge around the kitchen corner. I felt nervous being there—a lot had changed since I’d seen everyone last. Physically especially. I had hit puberty myself, finally, and in an awkward angst, dyed my hair a shade of black that was so dark it looked blue in the light.

“HOLY SHIT, MEATY MEATBALL IS BACK!” Nick ran over, hugging me so hard I almost toppled over into everyone’s laps on the packed loveseat. My heart beamed. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him. How could I ever think anything would change?

“Sweet lord, Meatball, what happened to your hair?” He teased, picking up a gelled curl to investigate, dropping it in front of my face. I wished some things would change, but my hair color was the least of my worries. As I got older, I hated that nickname.

Looking around the room, I didn’t need introductions. It was all kids I was close to growing up, with the exception of Brady—we were acquainted, but he was a year ahead of me. He had a giant family of seven kids, all of whom lived directly next door to Nick. I was always bumping into his two brothers in my grade, and I had danced ballet in the same company as his younger sister. I remember looking out at the end of my performances to see him in the front row. Blushing, he’d always look away any time we made eye contact.

“Hey, Brady.” I smiled, tucking my out of place curl behind my ear.

“Meatball?” he questioned, smirking. 

“Oh, it’s an old nickname. I was a chubby… Italian kid.” I felt my cheeks blush with embarrassment.

Just then, Meredith had appeared up the spiral stairs from the basement where Nick and his older brother Zach slept. She was louder than normal and was slurring throughout our reunion, our friend Talia trailing behind her. I was told not to see or speak to Talia anymore after we got in trouble for smoking at the bus stop in the sixth grade. But the truth was, my mother just had a bad feeling about her and used that as an excuse to separate us. Meredith swayed in front of me.

“Are you…”—I went to say drunk but opted for a less obvious, and far more pressing question—“…OK?”

“Yeah, girl! Do you want some?” She held out a crumbled Poland Spring water bottle with half of the label ripped off. It stunk of fruity vodka.

“Oh, no thanks. I’m good,” I said, waving my hand in front of the bottle.

She shrugged her shoulders and took a giant swig. Spilling and dribbling Bacardi down onto the front of her black band T-shirt.

All of the kids were unintentionally divided into groups. The stoners went out to the backyard through the basement storm door. The kids who were drinking cut across the field in front of Nick’s house and into the woods beyond it. The kids who did both, like Talia, went back and forth between locations for fear of missing out. 

Brady and I laid on the hammock on the side of the house, chainsmoking Marlboros. I wondered where Nick went, wishing I’d spent more time reconnecting with him. But I was comfortable where I was, rocking back and forth with Brady. We talked until the stars came out, when Talia came jogging over out of breath.

“Where is Meredith?” she said, looking back and forth frantically.

“We… we don’t know?” I was confused. “Weren’t you just with her?” Brady tossed down his cigarette and hopped up immediately. 

“Yeah, but I came back here to smoke and left her in the woods. I went back and, and, you know, I, I can’t find her now, and she’s not answering her phone!” Her concern mounted with each word. 

We sprung into action. Brady ran to his house next door to grab a flashlight while I quickly raided the house calling Meredith’s name to no avail. Just then, I heard my own muffled name called out. Sprinting up and out of the storm door, Brady was waiting for me.

“I’m going to look for her, where are you going to be? Stay there and just don’t move,” he said firmly. I told him there was no way he was going without me, and knowing we were both sober, he agreed it was best we went together. 

We trampled through heavily wooded brush calling her name, branches hitting our faces. Brady pushed me behind him, taking the brunt of the thorny vines and twigs. I stayed ducked behind his shoulders. It felt like an eternity searching, hearing her name being echoed by different search party pairs when Brady stopped short in front of me. This had happened many times on our trek; running into boulders and fallen trees. But this time, I could hear his breath catch in his chest. There was a moment of hearing nothing but the crickets and cicadas before he whispered to himself, “Oh, shit…”

“What? What?! WHAT?!” I fought my way through the brambles to see her laying there. I screamed at the sight of her. She was completely naked from the waist down, with vomit running down the side of her face and into her hair. Someone searching by cell phone light fifty feet away asked what we found. 

“It’s Meredith!” Brady shouted. Just then, he broke out of his initial shock and knelt down beside me. Turning her onto her side to free her airway, she started coughing bits of leftover vomit while gasping. She was suddenly able to breathe with ease after shifting positions.

“Meredith, Meredith, what happened?” he asked, struggling to sit her up. We both pushed a shoulder forward each as best we could so she was crouched far over between her bare legs. But she was now sitting up backwards on a downwards facing hill. Gravity kept pulling her upper body towards us, sliding Brady and me further down the muddy hill each time. I slid out from behind her and left her pressed against Brady’s chest.

  I started looking everywhere for her jeans and underwear. But all I could find was a pair of boys’ boxers. Looking up to see cellphone lights coming towards us, I grabbed them as quickly as I could and began struggling with her legs to put them on. It was the only thing I had to cover her, aside from taking my own shirt off, which I was close to doing.

“HOLY FUCK!” Zach, Nick’s older brother came running over and started to help us hold her up. She was bigger than Brady or me and until then, he was juggling her between two positions; laying her flat against his chest and pushing her forward to slap her back between belches and vomit gasps. He was becoming exhausted.

“Help me, dude!” Zach said, looking at a petrified Marc behind him. Until then, I had no idea he was there. He stood in the dark woods frozen in fear, while Zach struggled to keep her from falling backwards.

“MARC!” Brady’s patience had worn thin. Marc shook his head and came over to help me, pulling the shorts up as best we could. We made it to her mid thigh when a crowd began forming around us. The elastic band was stretched to its limits as her legs were bowed and frog-like.

“Brady, we have to lift her to pull the shorts up all the way,” I said. He nodded, solemnly, but followed immediately with a shake of his head. We couldn’t lift her on this muddy slope in this condition.

“I’m calling 911,” I offered. He nodded again, quickly reaching in his back pocket for his phone. Talia appeared behind us on the phone with Meredith’s parents, explaining the situation and minimizing her direct involvement. 

Meredith lifted a leg and brushed her vagina to move away leaves and sweep twigs out from uncomfortable places. Looking up from Brady’s cell phone to see her displaying herself, I quickly laid myself across her lower body.

“That’s fucking nasty,” I overheard behind me. Whipping my head up to look around, wrath and outrage filled my chest. Chad and Tate stood there only to observe and commentate. I knew instantly, diverting my attention in any way meant leaving her exposed like this a moment longer than she deserved. But rage spilled over.

“Leave. Now.” I growled, bass so thick in my voice it frightened even me. Shaking as I was connected to the dispatcher, I rambled off crucial information: our exact location, her name, my name, and the condition she was in before slamming the phone shut. Almost everyone began to flee after hearing the call for help. Growing more uncomfortable with sitting naked on the leaf covered earth, I saw her try to lift her leg again.

“Guys, we have to cover her.” I begged.

“All of us. On three, are you ready?” Brady looked at Zach and Marc, then back to me. We nodded in unison. Hoisting her up from her underarms, her waist and hips were lifted just enough that I could brush the leaves and twigs off her backside quickly and pull the boxers up. 

“OK! Got it!” I called out, as the elastic band finally landed at her back dimples. The boxers were stretched tight around her like cling wrap. Deciding we needed to switch positions for strain reduction, we pivoted her sideways. All of us shuffled in a semicircle to rest her back against the nearest tree. Slowly lowering her down again, we sighed with relief to see her upright without much assistance. Brady immediately went back into interrogation mode, kneeling in front of her.

“Meredith… hey…” he said, slowly shaking her shoulder. “What happened?” 

Her drowsy eyes opened to look him in the face. She wiped the vomit residue from her chin. Then, as clear as day and as sober a statement anyone could make, she said without stammer or slur, “Nick put his dick in my mouth.”

I stood straight up, but my whole world dizzyingly stayed put on that leaf covered earth. The only sign of time’s continued elapsing existence came in the form of red flashing lights.

As the ambulance pulled away, I waited on the edge of the field for my mother to pick me up. Meredith’s parents and older brother were there, panic-stricken and distraught, demanding answers from the police on what was going to happen to those responsible. I looked over into one of the police cars, seeing “those responsible.” Nick was sitting in the back, refusing to lift his head when people walked by. My heart broke, and tears streamed down my cheeks. Amongst a million questions, there was only one small statement that circled me on a mental carousel of sadness and disbelief.

He used to play Jackpot.