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Chapter 3

As soon as we were back at Donny’s place, Donny started to set up for another card game. “You want you play poker again?” Grant asked, cracking himself another beer. The empties were beginning to stack up, and it was starting to show in my friends, who were beginning to waver ever-so-slightly, and the volume of their voices was going up, even though Donny’s sister was home from work and off to bed.

“Not poker,” said Donny. “We’re going to play a different game. You know how to play Ride the Bus?”

We all shrugged. I knew how to play, Grant said he’d played once but couldn’t remember, and John had never heard of the game. So Donny explained the rules. It is a little bit like Blackjack, a little bit like poker, and even a little bit like Go Fish. But the game has one special characteristic—each round has only one loser, unless someone gets a very specific hand, in which case everyone loses, save for the guy who got the winning hand. Everyone gets a certain number of chips, and with each loss, you must give up a chip. No one gets your chip, it’s just lost, until only one person remains.

“Sounds like a kids’ game. Do we have to play this?” Grant asked.

“You’ll like it, don’t worry. But we’re adding a twist. We’re making it Truth or Dare Ride the Bus. Instead of losing a chip, you have to pick truth or dare. Everyone gets one chip—that chip is your only truth. Once you use it up, you can only pick dare. Got it? Pick dare and you get to keep your truth chip.”

“So how do you win?” I asked.

“Well, if you fail the dare, you’re eliminated. But we need to make the stakes higher than that, otherwise you pussies are just going to bail right away,” Donny said.

“How’s about everyone puts in fifty bucks?” Grant suggested.

“No, because Mooch here will just borrow your money and never pay it back. That’s hardly an incentive. Let’s think…” He scratched his chin and then his eyes lit up. “I got it.” His smile was bigger than ever. “If you lose, you have to run to the police department and back, totally naked.”

“What? No way. The police department is five blocks away!” I said. “Plus, they would almost definitely arrest us.”

“Well then you’d better go through with the dare.” He smiled. The other guys smiled too—I couldn’t believe it. They actually liked this bat-shit crazy idea?

“What if someone makes some stupid dare, like, go and kill yourself. The rules need to be more clear.”

“No daring anyone to hurt themselves. Happy?”

I thought for a moment. My head was spinning and my heart was pounding. I was honestly more worried about the truth aspect of the game. I knew what they were going to ask me—about Larissa, and I was a shit liar. She was hot, okay? I couldn’t tell that she was actually a boy. And no one else could either until the news leaked. And yeah, I still thought about her from time to time, but it meant nothing.

“Sounds good. Deal the cards,” John said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. The other guys were downing the rest of their beers, getting ready for another round. The drunker they were, the more intense the dares were going to be. I just hoped they would get bored quickly.

The first hand was dealt. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out how the game was properly played. I remembered playing the game when I was younger—sometimes rounds only lasted thirty seconds. Sometimes they went on for ten minutes. This was one of those longer rounds, but with the tension in the room, it felt like it was dragging on for an hour. The round didn’t end until someone knocked on the table, and then everyone got to pick up and discard one more card in an attempt to make thirty-one out of three cards of the same suit. If you get thirty-one, you win instantly, and everyone else loses—that’s the only way for there to be more than one loser.

It was Donny who finally knocked, with a big smirk on his face.

As we all picked up our final card, he placed his down. He had thirty. My heart skipped a beat. I had twenty-two. I waited until the others put down their hands. John had twenty-three, and Grant had nineteen. I let my shoulders relax and I took a deep breath. I put my cards down and everyone looked over at Grant, who sunk into his chair and muttered a “fuck” under his breath.

“Truth or dare, Grant?” Donny said.

“Dare, I guess,” he said, looking down at his precious chip, saving it for when things inevitably got more intense.

“What should we make him do?” Donny asked, looking to me and John.

We thought for a moment, and then John piped up. “Make him go and steal a pair of your sister’s panties.”

Donny’s older sister was asleep upstairs. She was in a nursing program, working long hours. She’d gotten home while we were out with John’s stoner girl friends. I smiled, satisfied with the dare. It was more harmless than I was expecting, but still exciting enough to make the game fun. I was just glad he wasn’t dared to do anything ridiculous, like, go upstairs and bang pots and pans in her bedroom, or throw a rock through the neighbour’s window. I could handle a harmless prank.

Grant got up, took a deep breath, and he crept upstairs. We all sat in eager anticipation while we waited for him to return. It was quiet. We could hear the odd creak of his footsteps above our heads. We all took turns breaking into little giggling fits, like a bunch of children. It was fun—a nice reminder of why I liked these guys, why I was going to miss these sleepovers. Maybe we had more in common than I thought. Maybe I just had some of my own issues I needed to sort out, rather than going off and replacing my friends with new ones.

Grant returned with a pair of lacy black panties. He held them up for everyone to see, and then he threw them into Donny’s face. We all laughed as Donny threw them away and spat while shaking his head in disgust. “What? You don’t like the way your sister’s panties taste, Donny?” Grant said with a big smirk on his face.

“You’re a real bastard, you know that? Deal the cards.” Grant picked up the deck, gave it a good shuffle, and started the deal. We were all on the edge of our seat. It was the perfect game—a game we would remember forever, just like the airsoft war, just like so many other historic sleepovers in the past.

I got a pretty good starting hand, and I was feeling confident. After just a few laps around the table, I decided to knock. The other guys all perked up, muttering profanities under their breath as they picked up their final cards. “Shit!” Donny said, throwing his cards down. He had eight. John had thirteen. Grant had fifteen. I had twenty-two. “Truth or dare, Donny?”

“Truth,” he said, tossing his chip into the middle.

While Grant and I tried to think of a great question, John blurted out: “Are you still a virgin?”

Donny smiled, his cheeks turning red. His lips parted, but he didn’t say anything. And that was enough to make the room erupt. “What? Actually?” John said. Of all people, Donny Brown was a virgin?

“So what? What’s the big deal?” Donny said. I was surprised he admitted it. I guess there’s something about Truth or Dare that brings the real truth out of people. It’s more morally wrong than ever to lie, especially after watching your friend completing a risky dare—how could anyone lie like some lowlife cheater?

“Wow…” Grant said with a big, triumphant smile on his face. This night was becoming more memorable by the minute.

The cards were dealt again. This time, my hand was shit, and every card I picked up was shit. I just kept hoping for a stroke of luck, just two good draws in a row would have been enough. But Donny knocked, and my last card was a lousy two of clubs, and I was going for a hand of hearts. I muttered “shit” under my breath before we even showed our hands. I’d lost. Everyone looked to me with big smirks. “Truth or dare, Eric?” Donny said.