I Won’t Kiss “Johnny Madden”
Written By Bandy
The price read $44.99 in black, printed on a yellow sticker the length of a grownups’ index finger from its tip to just below that indentation where the finger bends. It alone adhering to John Madden 2006 shrieked that someone paid $44.99 for the videogame; I was already picturing the in-laws scanning our CD/DVD rack as if in a bookstore, bending their necks—causing ears to brush shoulders—squinting to see. The mom in-law might say to her husband, “Honey, could you hand me my eye glasses?”
No! Don’t hand her the eyeglasses, I would say.
“If it bothers you that much why don’t you just remove it from the room. You don’t even play “Johnny Madden” that much.” The wife meant to encourage me; and her words may have done just that had she not called him “Johnny.”
I couldn’t remove the videogame; in doing so I would’ve turned John, football hero, into a sissy ‘“Johnny’” who runs away like some fraidy cat.
The videogame’s presence in the living room implied there was something between “Johnny Madden” and me. Was that “something” a relationship based on a mutual understanding? Or did I schedule fifteen-minute quickies for “Johnny Madden” amid the assiduous intervals of my occupation, sleep, laundry and conversations with the wife? Or had I become consumed with “Johnny Madden’s” resonant voice, vast vocabulary, and quick reflexes to the point where only “Johnny Madden” mattered?
Might the mom in-law, after finding her eyeglasses, think after reading “$44.99” that “Johnny Madden” had me down with nowhere to crawl? Would the in-laws wonder if he had touched me emotionally, that I wouldn’t want his burly body to release my flailing arms because I secretly kept my bisexual thoughts in a closet?
More questions of “Johnny Madden’s” expensive presence and the significance of our relationship opened, one after another, as I contemplated the in-laws gaping at that yellow price tag the next day upon their arrival.
“Johnny Madden” and I meet only on my terms—when I’m available. Never have I waited till their daughter has fallen asleep and uniformly lifted the covers, crept slowly out of bed to avoid the cacophony of the bedsprings and the hullabaloo from their daughter then monotonously descended downstairs to see “Johnny Madden” at 3:00a.m. How would a date between “Johnny Madden” and I go over at the bottom of the stairs at 3:00 a.m.?
If I crowded the courage to hookup with “Johnny Madden” at 3:00am, after making my way out of the bed I’d see the staircase, go down seven steps—stop— then there is a platform and thereafter seven additional steps, then I’m downstairs. There is something I forgot. Follow me back up to the wife sleeping in the bedroom, up seven steps to the platform overlooking the apartment, then up seven more steps. This time we kiss the wife gently on the forehead so not to wake her. Now we can go down to “Johnny Madden.” We have made our way down the seven steps to the platform. Oops. This time lets make an immediate left, entering the bathroom. I have to pee.
I pee, sitting down because while standing I often take it as a challenge to steer my penis just so, so that no droplets of urine spray the toilet bowl. In the morning the wife wouldn’t have to sit on a soiled toilet bowl. I’m more relaxed when sitting. When I stand my aim is often a little off.
While twitching the lethargic urine droplets with my left hand I decide to flush with the right hand—still sitting on the bowl. This awkward uncompromising position would make me incapable of rescuing the wedding ring if it slipped off; I would be left to witness it rush with the flush. But I’m twitching urine droplets from my penis—no sane person would seek to rescue a urine droplet or a pubic hair—that is unless that person is a burglar who just couldn’t hold it during a heist and is paranoid that the septic tank might be drained for critical data. Alas, while twitching, my penis actually detaches itself from my body and swims down with the rush of the flush. Would our heterosexual relationship survive without my penis? This question confuses me. I thrust my arm and eventually my whole body down the pipe and into the septic tank with the gobs of feces, urine, mucus, toilet paper, barf, blood, bleach, dead fish, condoms and everything else that goes down. My penis says that I’m too weak and wavy for him?
“What does that mean,” I ask.
“You’re not man enough for me. I want a man that pees standing; but more than anything I want a man that wants just a woman.”
Out from the depths of the septic tank with my penis attached, convinced that I want just a woman, I can now go downstairs to see “Johnny Madden.” I stand in front of the glowing box; it’s one of those old-school 1970’s deals with the knobs—a gift from the in-laws. Clasping the knob with my thumb and index fingers I turn the volume down so as not to disturb the sleeping wife once I’ve turned on the glowing box.
As I knob the volume up the room brightens; there is no picture of “Johnny Madden” instead some football player, maybe Marcus Vick or Donavan McNabb. The videogame’s success brought fame to “Johnny Madden,” the ex-football player and coach, now commentator for the NFL. He doesn’t need to be on the main menu screen of his video game; almost anybody who’d play this game knows what “Johnny Madden” looks like: age seventy, a six-foot-five-inch, three-hundred plus pound white man.
The game has started; I’ve selected the Cleveland Browns and my opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals. On first down I have the ball; I make a daring successful pass and he comments “That’s a mind boggling triumphant pass.” I think this is odd, ordinarily he’d just say “Nice pass.” On second down comes the “Think twice next time kiddo” after I attempt a daring pass that’s unsuccessful. Where did kiddo come from; that’s a new one, I muse. On third down, I attempt a halfback sweep and the opposing defensive end sacks my halfback. “Your offensive line doesn’t care about you.” My offensive line is composed of animated characters that have no emotional ties to me, so of course my offensive line doesn’t care. Is “Johnny Madden” implying that my offensive line is intentionally allowing the opponent to tackle my halfback?
On fourth down I attempt a screen pass—unsuccessfully. “What an idiotic decision; you should have punted away; you were too bold on fourth down.”
“Johnny Madden’s” tone is sullen.
And as I select my defensive play to confront whatever strategy the Play Station 2 has selected for the Bengals, I wonder if I’m actually playing against “Johnny Madden,” if he could be manipulating this game somehow.
Is this disc scratched? Could “Johnny Madden” be mocking me?
Then comes “You’re making bonehead choices.”
I’m stunned. How am I to respond to this obvious delusion? Am I expected to respond to the breakdown in my mental psyche and play along or am I to act as if this videogame is singling me out? I mumble something about how loopy my ponderings are, that my mind needs rest—and this mental direst is my mind’s plea for sleep.
The Bengals score a touchdown to which “Johnny Madden” laments “You just as well go to sleep with the wife if you’re going to play like that.” I cough and somehow mutter the words, “what…is…go…ing…on,” regurgitating saliva that happened down the wrong pipe.
“You getting played, that’s what’s going on.”
On two knees I inch closer to the glowing box and mouth, “Who are you to judge me?”
“That’s my job as a commentator; you got a problem with it, come on in and do something about it;” and with those words comes a staggering left jab from “Johnny Madden.”
I fall on my back.
On two knees I tug his left arm with my hands before it returns to the glowing box, further arching his left arm outside into real human flesh. With the strength of a video game character “Johnny Madden’s” right hand belts my neck like a pair of blue jeans; his middle finger touches his thumb at the back of my neck causing pain to my spinal cord. I stagger on two knees to avoid being dragged into the glowing box. Our bodies sway back and forth. My dome is reeled—momentarily—into his animated world where for seconds I view the exaggeratedly two-facedly world where real stuff is supposedly happening that I take too damn seriously (when outside) but it doesn’t want you to take it seriously inside.
Then “Johnny Madden’s” extraordinary power thrusts me inside the glowing box wherein I’m thrown to the end zone. “Johnny Madden” rips off my tee shirt, sweat pants, briefs, socks, and strides away. I’m sprawled there naked. Sitting, I cross my legs and bury my head into my midsection to cover myself; at the fifty yard-line “Johnny Madden” removes his pants, tie, shirt, undershirt, shoes, socks, headset and tosses the souvenirs to the screaming fans.
Walking back to me “Johnny Madden” gets an erection—he gets bigger and bigger as he approaches the forty, thirty, and twenty yard line; he’s at his peak by the time he steps on the ten yard line.
I think about running yet I fear the fans that might laugh at my penis’ size.
My arms flailing, “Johnny Madden’s” burly body dwarfs my puny frame. I focus outside the vicious penetrations; I have to; I think of my insecurities with the in-laws; I ponder how the conversations really went when the wife told the in-laws her fiancée was bisexual. Did my mother in-law think I’d one day leave her daughter for a man? Did my father in-law think I was man enough for his little girl? I’ve always imagined the conversations were more heightened than the wife had described. I imagine the wife’s dad calling me a faggot in his head—not to his little girl—as a way of coping with the stress he felt; he wanted desperately for his outrage to escape so in his head he screamed “My daughter is dating a faggot, a sissy.” His head would be erected as he thought about how I’d entered some man’s anus, “probably many anuses” he’d think. “Now he has the gall to insert his tainted penis inside my daughter?”
“Johnny Madden” ejaculated inside me on the grassy end zone.
“Johnny Madden” throws me into the stands with the spectators; I’m told that “Johnny Madden” has kidnapped millions of bisexual men; that I’ll be forced to remain inside the glowing box until “Johnny Madden” decides I’m ready to go back out; that one has to become homosexual before they are allowed to leave; that one has the amenities of the outside world; however no women exist inside the glowing box; that “Johnny Madden” destroyed the cheerleaders; that word has it that if I somehow disintegrated “Johnny Madden” football would die; that upon my return to the outside there would be no such thing as football; none of the kidnapped men dares to kill “Johnny Madden’ for fear of deleting football; the wife now downstairs, in tears, gazing at me, ejects the football game and inserts one of my shooting videogames—Metal Gear Solid 2. I steal a gun from Raiden, a gun-toting videogame character; the wife reinserts the football game; I blow “Johnny Madden” to smithereens forcing history to forever erase football, “Johnny Madden” and his $44.99 price tag—the only dilemma, I no longer have a penis once I return to the real world.