Authors Note*  “Monkey See......Monkey Do.”  Everything known has been learned from others.  Who you are, where you are, and who you’re with, may influence your status.  We seem to have a constant burden to struggle for status.  We must climb in status, climb above the others in any way we know.  Sometime the climb is evasive, sometime not.   True.    “Monkey See.......Monkey Do.”
 

                                                                   “PENNY ARCADE”
                                          By: Kelly O’Kelly _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ o

     Tony woke that morning with the rain thrashing the roof of the old row house where he had always lived.  “I don’t want to go to school today,” he thought, as he slipped on his pants and shoes.  Looking into the mirror, he knew his good looks would take him almost anyplace he wanted to go.  “A little pomade on my comb will make my hair set just right.”  Flexing the comb through his hair, and with the right twist, it sat sculpted to his head.  “See you later Mom.”  Taking his books under his arm, cleverly, he went to the side of the house and slipped them underneath and out of the rain.

  “I can’t lose he thought.”
 “I got a rabbits foot in my pocket.”
 “And it’s my day today.”

     Upon reaching the arcade, he stepped up to the man at the desk, “gimm’e a dollars worth of those tokens.”  He handed him a roll of one cent tokens.  Folding the nine dollars change around his comb for safety, he slipped it in his rear pocket.  Tony stopped at the pin ball machines.  “Click, snap, bang,” he won ten games.  “I said I can’t lose and I mean just that,”  two guys were standing there watching him work the machine, “man you can shoot some pin ball.”   “You think so man,........” watch this......,click....., snap......., bang......., “three more free games.”  Tony laughed and put his hands into the air, IM a “Pinball Wizard,” he said.  “Here you guys can have these games, IM on a roll.”  “Thanks a lot man.”  “Im’ a star” he said, giving freebies to anyone in the crowd.  Eight machines, hot with Tony’s free giveaways.  They all loved him, slapping him on the back and all; “Tony, you’re a great guy.”   He reached into his pocket for more money; “some cash would really crank the party up.”  He was the champ and everybody knew it.  “The money......, it was gone!”  So was his comb.   He stuck his fingers through the cut in the bottom of his pocket,---- “I been razored,”---- he fumed.   “Not a cent to my name.........”  There must be a pick pocket in the throng, but who could it be?  He didn’t have a clue....

                                                                                               Kelly O'Kelly