Speaker 1: Tired of the everyday grind, ever dream of a life
Speaker 1: of romantic adventure. I want to get away from it all.
Speaker 2: We offer you.
Speaker 3: Escape Escape Design to free you from the four walls
Speaker 3: of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, we present a story of two boys
Speaker 1: and the dreadful game which they play. You might have
Speaker 1: read about it in your newspaper.
Speaker 4: It might have happened in.
Speaker 1: Your town, and if it did, it might never happen again.
Speaker 5: So listen now, as this gate brings you Anthony Ellison's
Speaker 5: terrifying play the game.
Speaker 2: There were two of them. They stood in the corner
Speaker 2: of Man and Nil, leaning back against the walls. In
Speaker 2: the look some are some war, bringing to them the
Speaker 2: extringeon over a salt tar, and the crack of the sidewalk.
Speaker 2: It was two o'clock by the hands of the jeweler's
Speaker 2: clock a few doors down the street, and there was
Speaker 2: a two o'clock, quite innoc to me at first, but
Speaker 2: the dreadful game began.
Speaker 6: Well you wanna do then?
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 6: You. I don't well, get out a couple of games
Speaker 6: of Wing pok.
Speaker 7: You got to go.
Speaker 6: Forty cents. We could then and uh no, I.
Speaker 2: Don't feel like it.
Speaker 6: Okay, hey, look at shoot and pull? What do matter?
Speaker 8: You always wanna play games?
Speaker 4: Kids?
Speaker 2: Stuff?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 8: Something? What h feel like getting drunks?
Speaker 7: He's a kid? You not kidding?
Speaker 6: He can kid?
Speaker 4: What do you wanna get drunk for?
Speaker 5: For fun?
Speaker 7: He has some fun?
Speaker 6: My folks wanna be back layer at night?
Speaker 7: Well, uh, not me, boy, not me.
Speaker 6: I can get hold of a bottle, not me, boy,
Speaker 6: chickens that three? Okay?
Speaker 5: So on.
Speaker 4: He rall? Were there?
Speaker 5: Rall o kiddings?
Speaker 6: What do you wanna do that for?
Speaker 2: You got any better ideas?
Speaker 4: What to do?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: But I don't care.
Speaker 2: I see you.
Speaker 7: You know what it happened.
Speaker 8: If they ever find an hour, they won't find I.
Speaker 6: You can stay over my house tonight.
Speaker 5: Call it your folks.
Speaker 6: Nobody don't know. It's crazy, sorr it is uh, they
Speaker 6: don't care. On when I do something different when our
Speaker 6: kids maybe you are maybe you need a couple of
Speaker 6: drinks to go.
Speaker 7: Up big man. And I'm two weeks lader than you.
Speaker 6: Not up here boy, not up here?
Speaker 7: Ah next to you?
Speaker 2: And they walked slowly, carrying the idea to a white
Speaker 2: house with a gray trimd a house well lived in,
Speaker 2: empty and now but waiting, and the boys went in
Speaker 2: upstairs into a room papered with ships and tent and
Speaker 2: signed map. One read and disappeared for a few minutes.
Speaker 2: The other tried to become interested in the book of
Speaker 2: Fighting Ships. He was afraid of what was to come,
Speaker 2: knowing why and not quite knowing.
Speaker 6: At your fire now the gardener hid it in the woods,
Speaker 6: yet I found it a couple of weeks ago. Hit
Speaker 6: it somewhere else to go up at that factory.
Speaker 7: I don't like it.
Speaker 6: I don't care straight. Sure water occasion was about you,
Speaker 6: No water for me, same thing, So now we'll talk.
Speaker 2: They drank. They didn't like it, but they'd started the game,
Speaker 2: and they couldn't stop. The small clock with them, our
Speaker 2: sub piece ticked about them. The eyes of the bird
Speaker 2: metronomically switching side the side, and the car passed occasionally,
Speaker 2: and there was a tension until the sound of tire
Speaker 2: and engines faded away. It didn't take too long for
Speaker 2: the wants to grow, and the eyes had become hot.
Speaker 2: The tongue loose.
Speaker 6: Thanks boy, not bad, huh, you're pretty good, Pretty good boy.
Speaker 6: The lame as a girl. Wouldn't be bad having her
Speaker 6: up here now, huh, yeah, it wouldn't be bad. Can
Speaker 6: you ever take her out a couple times at bay? Alright?
Speaker 8: Huh next?
Speaker 6: No, not much? Oh I thought you two were like that.
Speaker 8: That's what I heard last time.
Speaker 6: You too, you know, you know what's the matter with?
Speaker 6: You can what your thoughts? I me a friend, boy,
Speaker 6: I can tell you what the other guys say. You know,
Speaker 6: gutch boy, not all that? Not enough. Your friends ain't
Speaker 6: gonna like you. But you gotta have guts.
Speaker 8: I got guts, not enough, that's.
Speaker 6: What all the guys think pends. Okay, the kind of
Speaker 6: soft you know, chicken. Yeah, I'm telling you, I don't
Speaker 6: wanna be a pad or a guy who's sawt You
Speaker 6: gotta be hard, be like to higher figure. All that
Speaker 6: tell nobody at you.
Speaker 7: I know what I am.
Speaker 6: I know I'm not saught. I'm not should I you
Speaker 6: you're afraid to get drunk, Well I'm getting drunk. Was
Speaker 6: this because you were afraid? I think you were a chicken.
Speaker 6: That's why that's why.
Speaker 2: You're crazy.
Speaker 6: I've seen you afraid. I had to explain it to
Speaker 6: the guys.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and when that's time, we want you to ducks
Speaker 8: for the old.
Speaker 6: Man shot gun. You were a chicken. Now you were crazy.
Speaker 6: The guy thought you were afraid of the gun. Well
Speaker 6: that's not chicken, that's what I told him. Well I'm
Speaker 6: not sure that's good. Uh Uh. Now you can't run
Speaker 6: out of that boy. And I'm your friends, and I'm
Speaker 6: telling you for your own.
Speaker 4: Or kill kill.
Speaker 6: You told me I'm chicken, No gut, I'm forgetting.
Speaker 8: Prady what Johnny and you do. May can never go
Speaker 8: hunting much in the mountains.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you that. But it Uh, you aren't kid,
Speaker 6: You're chicken.
Speaker 5: You want a fight, You do what you want to
Speaker 5: hurt you wan don't want it all on.
Speaker 6: That doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 3: Kids stuff.
Speaker 6: I got a better idea.
Speaker 8: You wanna really do something that are showing boys?
Speaker 6: That will really show.
Speaker 5: It to what?
Speaker 6: Play a game?
Speaker 2: You like?
Speaker 8: Games?
Speaker 6: Really easy games to learn? Nothing to it?
Speaker 8: Yeah, ever, drink ciner, James.
Speaker 6: I read about it a while back. Russian Roulette.
Speaker 8: Remember some kind of demo.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you it's real easy. First you get a gun,
Speaker 6: will bother a real gun, then bullet guns. Then so
Speaker 6: what you take one bullet and you leave it in
Speaker 6: the gun see then we take turns because crazy games. Uh,
Speaker 6: we take turns pointing at our heads and pulling the triggers.
Speaker 6: If nothing happened, see you, I take the gun, thend
Speaker 6: the cylinder and pointed at my head and then shoot you
Speaker 6: call out, I gave sure, See which one go chicken first?
Speaker 6: You never know where the bullet is. And if you
Speaker 6: spend the cylinder and the bullet, shof comes up on
Speaker 6: your turn.
Speaker 7: Lewis H.
Speaker 6: Codut In this book it went a long time, and
Speaker 6: then one guy got like you get he his chicken
Speaker 6: and leaf fold, say that I'm sick of it.
Speaker 5: You're here. You wanna know something?
Speaker 7: You get chicken before me?
Speaker 6: You I wouldn't do a see your hands now, worry,
Speaker 6: wouldn't he fair? Forget? I'll wait a minute.
Speaker 7: You started to go ahead finishing?
Speaker 6: You old man got a gun? Has he sure?
Speaker 7: Okay? You wanna be crazy?
Speaker 6: Okay, go ahead, get the gun.
Speaker 5: Go We'll go on.
Speaker 7: Get it. Let's start playing.
Speaker 2: Read the smile the Smile of pity with deliberate easy
Speaker 2: sort it from the room. Pin might have seen him
Speaker 2: stagger a moment as he reached the door, but Pin
Speaker 2: wasn't looking. He was noticing for the first time his
Speaker 2: hands lying flattened down the table, disassociated when there was
Speaker 2: a scar on the right index finger. He got it
Speaker 2: when he cut himself twelve years before on his first
Speaker 2: borrowed scout knife. Now only the scar a memory on
Speaker 2: a trigger finger. He didn't look up again until Red
Speaker 2: came back with a gun.
Speaker 6: Thirty eight. That's the best handgun.
Speaker 8: Wanna hold it?
Speaker 6: No, I figured you wouldn't s up gay well forget
Speaker 6: uh uh?
Speaker 7: Go ahead? Take out the book?
Speaker 8: Okay, take out five leave one aunt.
Speaker 6: Think yeah, take out five.
Speaker 8: One one from it?
Speaker 6: Are you up for meat?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 7: Okay?
Speaker 2: The gun. The gun rested muzzled to the wall in
Speaker 2: the center of the table, and the table bearing scratches
Speaker 2: made by a three year old and a forgotten moment
Speaker 2: of high experiment. The boys sat opposite each other, looking
Speaker 2: down at the gun because the whiskey affected them with
Speaker 2: the strange new feeling details of the table edge, a
Speaker 2: wall pack an on the rug. These details on the
Speaker 2: fringes were blurred, but not the gun. The gun was
Speaker 2: clear and precise, and the gun waited.
Speaker 6: You wanna go first?
Speaker 8: It didn't make any difference, meaned it flip a coin.
Speaker 6: Okay, caw head head, okay, I'll take for a shot.
Speaker 2: There was a ceremony to the game. There worksmanship with
Speaker 2: the top of the calling a drink of whiskey, the
Speaker 2: glass foot dogs, and next to come the lifting of
Speaker 2: the guard. Pin stared at her and about how he
Speaker 2: would best reach out to take the handle gracefully, practically.
Speaker 2: He had never held a barber in his life.
Speaker 9: In the stilling yeah, nah, the other now, but the
Speaker 9: oct the bullet comes up when I shoot.
Speaker 6: Now one in six, I guess I don't know.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 2: He was a careful boy, but he didn't put them
Speaker 2: up into his head immediately. At this point of the game,
Speaker 2: there was a numbness which did not allow for speculation
Speaker 2: of pain mother father. Rather, Pin was surprised by the
Speaker 2: weight of the gun, the physical oneness with it lying
Speaker 2: in his hand. He was afraid of it, and fascinated
Speaker 2: in his fear. The red watch his mouth open, the
Speaker 2: little eyes reddened with drinking, but bright, watchful seeing the
Speaker 2: friend of his youth, slowly raised the gun, unsteady and awkwardly,
Speaker 2: turning the barrel.
Speaker 4: To his head. He wet his lips and waited and
Speaker 4: didn't go off.
Speaker 8: No, I feel.
Speaker 6: I don't know who's dead. I get so, I don't
Speaker 6: you sure look scared? Yeah, girl, white, I didn't think
Speaker 6: you'd do it. You took only do it a lot
Speaker 6: of talk and you scared at your turn. Give me
Speaker 6: the guns. Boy, that's a real gun. Remember when we
Speaker 6: were kids, tapped us. But you never thought we'd be
Speaker 6: doing this, you know, you know? Okay, my turn? Where
Speaker 6: are your baby?
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 6: I wanna make a side bet on this one. It
Speaker 6: was gonn maintain if you knew. Watch then when you
Speaker 6: make up your mind to do it, do it quick,
Speaker 6: see like this?
Speaker 8: Uh now you swear it out again?
Speaker 6: Pretty good game loose. I'll make you one daptom.
Speaker 7: What's that? Can you crack for?
Speaker 6: Ideas?
Speaker 7: Your nuts? A buck?
Speaker 6: A back? Sure, a buck.
Speaker 2: The game had taken another turn that presented an added
Speaker 2: incentive to win a dollar bet that one boy would
Speaker 2: be a tower. A boy wouldn't lose his nerves, wouldn't
Speaker 2: have the guts to take another chance of blowing his
Speaker 2: brains up with that uh stensible right, young man. The
Speaker 2: room was too warm and outside the middle afternoon sun
Speaker 2: lays down the hot on the heavy sycamore trees. And
Speaker 2: dusty and still A twelve year old passed by on
Speaker 2: the streets, whistling tunelessly childishly on his way to the
Speaker 2: drug store for a soda.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, or do you wanna quit now?
Speaker 5: I'll do it.
Speaker 7: Don't worry.
Speaker 6: I'm not quitting. Go around and say this for you.
Speaker 8: The guys who's as scared of guns as you are,
Speaker 8: you're doing alright.
Speaker 6: They gets tough. An hour's all in the luck.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 6: You're lucky, pen.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm lucky.
Speaker 6: That's good.
Speaker 4: I'm not lucky.
Speaker 7: I'm not anything.
Speaker 6: Why am I doing this?
Speaker 8: I wonder if I hear the noise before I heal
Speaker 8: the pain, or whether it'll be nice?
Speaker 6: Oh have I died if there wasn't any pain? But
Speaker 6: it's too hard in the heir, the gun feels hot, red,
Speaker 6: things are yellow. Well, I'd just like to wonder if
Speaker 6: you keep on smiling if I pointed the gun at.
Speaker 8: Him, maybe you need another drink? Huh No, I don't
Speaker 8: want it anymore. Okay, Well yeah, hm, who will watching him?
Speaker 6: What do you plung you to me for.
Speaker 2: You scared?
Speaker 10: Huh?
Speaker 6: I'm not scared.
Speaker 8: Maybe maybe we should play it this sweet for at
Speaker 8: a while.
Speaker 6: I shoot at you and you shoot at me. That's
Speaker 6: not the game. Why not the same thing? Now, that'd
Speaker 6: be like murder. You wanna play, you play it right?
Speaker 5: Who says the way we've been playing is right?
Speaker 10: Uh?
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 6: You're trying to get out of taking your next show.
Speaker 10: I'm asking you, who says the way we're playing is right?
Speaker 3: And see what he pointing to make?
Speaker 10: Just tell me that I said difference.
Speaker 6: We're playing rush and roulette. That's a difference.
Speaker 5: You're a quick fight, so that oh I'm not quit?
Speaker 6: Okay, then take your shot.
Speaker 2: It was a thing to be well considered on the
Speaker 2: part of Red. The abstract quality of self destruction was
Speaker 2: one thing. But a gun pointed at him, gun held
Speaker 2: in another hand. This was not a game of his choosing.
Speaker 2: He'd had no part of it. Suddenly he knew himself
Speaker 2: to be sober, terribly sober, And because of this, and
Speaker 2: the fact that the game had mushroom beyond his understanding,
Speaker 2: there was no stopping to play. He knew that Pin
Speaker 2: was sober too, and as from a gray distance, he
Speaker 2: saw his friend raise the gun, but steadily, this time,
Speaker 2: pressure frightening the index finger, the muzzle touching just at
Speaker 2: air pulsing vein he had noticed in pins pencile.
Speaker 4: I couldn't die.
Speaker 2: I didn't die.
Speaker 6: Now he's got to do it then, Now I showed
Speaker 6: him I did. I got twice from me.
Speaker 7: He got to take his turn. Now I've lived twice.
Speaker 6: He hasn't yet. I wonder how just started. I wonder
Speaker 6: why it doesn't stop.
Speaker 2: Maybe there were only five bullets. See, no, there was
Speaker 2: ex I saw him.
Speaker 4: There's the one in there.
Speaker 6: My leg's gone to sleep.
Speaker 4: I wish I could get up, walk on it.
Speaker 6: You're a lucky guy.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm lucky too.
Speaker 4: You'd better be.
Speaker 6: My turn. Now my turn. Why don't he well, he's
Speaker 6: never got Why didn't he quit? Maybe he's so true,
Speaker 6: he don't got the sense.
Speaker 8: Nah, he's not drunk.
Speaker 6: What does he quit?
Speaker 7: It's my town.
Speaker 6: I gotta do it. Kid, tell everyone if I didn't,
Speaker 6: he can't tell him all and they'll laugh. I don't know. Now,
Speaker 6: I don't know. I feel feels like the bullet might
Speaker 6: be coming up.
Speaker 3: Not yet, not yet.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 6: I gotta smile like I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 10: There's a big sense that is tell a kid sometime.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sure will How long are you gonna take what's now?
Speaker 6: They be nervous. That's why should I be deer?
Speaker 2: You're shot?
Speaker 6: Oh, can then shut up? Huh he's scared.
Speaker 2: He's scared.
Speaker 8: He doesn't wanna do it.
Speaker 6: I'm not the only one. All his big talk, he's
Speaker 6: no more than me, all that big talk.
Speaker 7: Look at him, he scared.
Speaker 2: It was at the moment that Tend discovered this truth
Speaker 2: that he knew he wanted to he could quit the game,
Speaker 2: And as he looked at Red, he became aware of
Speaker 2: the great anger. He had no directions, no apparent reason,
Speaker 2: but it filled him and made him strong.
Speaker 3: Let's quit, you great, I wanna quit.
Speaker 6: Nuts to you, my giant.
Speaker 7: I don't care what quit.
Speaker 6: You could win at George. I'll take care of my daughter.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you.
Speaker 5: Red with the gun down drop Yeah.
Speaker 6: Your chance, yeah.
Speaker 7: You m.
Speaker 2: M h m m.
Speaker 6: M yeah.
Speaker 7: You better have to be telephone yeah, huh.
Speaker 10: Oh oh wow, oh fine, No, no, I'm a tin. No,
Speaker 10: I'm fine. Oh that we've been playing kinda rough like that.
Speaker 6: Sure mo, everything's fine, okay, okay, sure, thank.
Speaker 5: Oh h.
Speaker 2: M. Red stood by the telephone for a long time,
Speaker 2: and he cried that he hadn't cried for a long
Speaker 2: time and stayed in the room. He felt it too
Speaker 2: in his throat, the thickness, the tight held tears. Either
Speaker 2: boy knew what it was or why. And then after
Speaker 2: a while he was calm again. Red came back in.
Speaker 6: That was mom. Oh, she said we could go to
Speaker 6: the tavern for dinner where I charge It had to
Speaker 6: be okay.
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, well, I guess we'd better clean up the place.
Speaker 7: Huh get the day.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 2: They cleaned up, not saying much to each other. They
Speaker 2: felt very close and we're not able to express their closeness.
Speaker 2: Then there was the last thing to do of the
Speaker 2: last part of the game to be played, and they
Speaker 2: had to know. So they walked to the edge of
Speaker 2: the town, into a shallow ravine. Red took the guns
Speaker 2: in his pocket. He still had the shot he'd never
Speaker 2: fired himself, the aim that a half burned tree stump
Speaker 2: some fifty yards away, and slowly began to squeeze the trigger.