Dragons in the Lunchroom

On the east side of Manhattan, near 52nd Street, there was an old art high school where the teachers were working artists, and the students were an eccentric and eclectic group of creatively crazy kids from every borough of the city. We called it A&D, and we played D&D.

“Tomorrow I want to wake up in a world without dragons,” Mark said, and he looked at me as if I could do something about it.

“You have no gold,” he continued. “You have no money or equipment except for the cheap weapons and armor of your character class,” he stated.

“The Earth is in its middle age and it has become overrun with dragons. There be too many dragons here.”

Melvin Hawthorne had seen too few good years when his family moved to Brooklyn from Woodstock. A weird Black kid, he walked into the high school cafeteria and went straight to the back, looking for what he called the losers table. In a school full of artists, there wasn’t one.

He eventually found an empty space that was too close to the kitchen, too close to the lunch line, too far from the door, and nowhere near the bathroom. It was just about the worst fucking table in the lunchroom, and he claimed it on behalf of the friends he hadn’t made yet.

“We see them every day. Roaming the skies,” Mark con destroying small villages and spreading fear in the large cities. Hoarding gold. Burning crops. Kidnapping citizens. Making life miserable for the little people. Dragons had too much gold and only wanted more.”

Every day at lunch for four years we played Dungeons & Dragons. The names and faces changed, but it was the same four-year campaign for social acceptance and an equal chance to become heroes.

Not Melvin. He was destined to be the villain of this particular campaign. The dragons would have it no other way. Melvin had stopped taking his meds.

“If you look like you’re having fun by yourself, other people will join you,” a skinny Black kid said before sitting down at Melvin’s empty lunch table.

His name was Remarkable. He was a real cool cat—a skinny kid with a beachball-sized afro. Remarkable was his actual name, though most people called him Mark, except for Melvin, who used his whole name because he loved it so much.

Remarkable talked like an old prospector who had somehow traveled forward and backward in time at the same time. He was a freshman and already had a permit and a car. He would be the party’s getaway driver as well as moral and emotional center. Magic user. Wizard. Arbiter of cool.

“You guys mind if I sit here?” a stocky Asian kid asked the two Black boys, before sitting down without waiting for reply. Jimmy was a weapons freak but he was also cool people. He was a chubby Filipino who would eventually turn his fat into muscle in camo, army surplus, and combat boots.

Jimmy already had an arsenal of weapons when he sat down, half of them stuffed in his clothes. This was years before metal detectors in schools. He had knives, swords, crossbows, grenades, a rocket launcher, an unexploded land mine, and a sexual repression that bordered on clinical. Sleep lightly, dragon-folk. We had found our munitions guy. Damage and control. Halfling thief.

“I need to sit here because I’m about to fart,” I told them. “Either of you have a problem with that?” I was just kidding, but a little later I actually did fart. I think that’s what they call irony. I don’t know.

Angelo was a dark-skinned Latino with the body of an Olympic athlete, a collection of black belts and martial arts trophies, and zero boundaries. Nah. I’m just playing. That was me. I was Angelo, and I was built like a tank.

Remarkable, Jimmy, Melvin, and Angelo played Dungeons & Dragons at the same fucked-up lunch table every day for four years. This is our story.

“And what are they gonna do with all that gold, you ask? They can’t spend it. They’re fucking dragons.” Remarkable had a way with words. “Don’t laugh. It’s not a joke. These dragons have become a real problem.”

Melvin skipped a grade in grade school, so he was younger than his friends, but the older he got, the more his emotions became a problem. He really should’ve stayed on his meds.

Melvin’s intense emotional states were paranormally contagious. He had what several doctors called forced empathy. He could make people feel what he felt. The stronger the emotion, the more contagious he was.

The rules had been set since the incident at his old school. He had meds. He had help. If he was angry, the guards let him go to the gym and work it out; if he was sad, they sent him to the library. There was nothing quite like books to cure depression. The counselors, the teachers, they all knew. Melvin had to be separated when he was being moody… for everyone’s safety. He wasn’t a bad guy for not taking his meds. He just didn’t like the way the meds made him feel.

Remarkable, with his perfectly round gravity-defying head of curly hair, was the DM, or the dungeon master. He was the designated driver, overseeing the adventure, the rules, and all the non-player characters.

“Your party has entered the walled city,” Remarkable said. “There be dragons here,” he added.

“What do you mean?” I said.

Remarkable had a slight build and a baby face but spoke with the authority of a much, much older man from a bygone era.

“It doesn’t matter anyway, lads, you can’t afford to fight dragons. All you have are minimal funds. And dragons are very wealthy. So what do you do?”

Remarkable, which was actually his name, was far too thin to be healthy, and would have gotten his ass kicked if I wasn’t his best friend. He wore his afro so big it could block out the screen at the movies, and no one wanted to sit behind him at the theater.

Melvin corrected the dungeon master’s clumsy analogy. “Billionaires, Remarkable? Are we fighting billionaires?”

Melvin was always taking things too literally. “No one calls them dragons, but they are a destructive force that own the media, cops, lawyers, and judges.”

“You might as well call them demons,” I said, but Melvin took offense and he stared +1 daggers at me. “I’m sorry, man. I always forget your mom’s a demon.” I was just playing.

Melvin was a strange kid to be around when he wasn’t on his meds. He was afraid of everything, so everyone around him felt that and assumed that it was him they feared. People respond to fear in different ways, so he got into a lot of fights and was kicked out of a lot of places. When Melvin wasn’t on his meds, he could ruin an entire lunch period with his emotions.

Once you got to know him you were virtually immune. We all were. For us, it was easy to tell if an emotion was ours or if it was his. And if it was his, we told him to cut that shit out.

There was chaos all around him and we, his friends, were at the eye of the storm.

“Your party has entered the walled city,” Remarkable said. “What do you guys want to do first?” he asked.

“Let’s find a brothel,” I said.

The DM questioned my decision. “That’s unwise, Angelo,” he said. “You can’t afford a sex worker,” Remarkable repeated. “You need to find work.”

“Hold up.” Melvin stopped him. “Are we going to be working for dragons, since they own everything?”

“Technically, yes,” Remarkable answered.

“Then we’re going to the brothel,” Melvin told him.

Melvin took it upon himself to defend everyone from injustice. He was always saving the day in some weird way.

“You guys are coming over?” Jimmy asked out of nowhere. “I got some new throwing knives, and my mom says we can throw them at trees in the backyard.”

Jimmy had spent five minutes not talking about weapons or the party at his house; that happened every weekend. It was rare.

Jimmy had a big heart and thick glasses, and at any given moment he had maybe seventeen or eighteen different blades on him. I wouldn’t shake his hand if I were you, unless you brought a bunch of band-aids.

“Alright, fine.” Remarkable sighed. “Roll to see if any sex workers want to fuck you for free. Which is highly unlikely, so you’ll have to roll a twenty-one.”

“Dice only got twenty sides,” I said.

“Yep,” Mark replied.

Remarkable had a purple velvet pouch with rainbow dice of all sizes. He rolled a twenty-sided die for each player. No one rolled twenty-one. It was impossible. I rolled a five. Jimmy refused to roll. But after Melvin got a nineteen, he pointed out that he had a plus two because of his character’s charisma.

Melvin was the first of us to get a girlfriend, and once the group was integrated it was downhill from there.

“I go upstairs with her,” he said.

Remarkable rolled angrily, a random die that Melvin suspected meant nothing. He cut Melvin off and, without looking at the number, said, “It’s a man.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Melvin corrected him again. “I still go upstairs with him.”

Suddenly, Jimmy was interested. “Are you gay, Melvin?” he asked him.

“Half of this fucking school is gay, dude. But no, I’m not,” he reassured Jimmy, adding, after a beat, “I’m bisexual.”

Jimmy looked away as if he hadn’t heard anything, and Melvin smiled because he enjoyed pushing people’s buttons.

“There’s no such thing as bisexual,” the whole world said on repeat, clicking its ruby heels together.

“There’s no such thing as bisexual.”

“There’s no such thing as bisexual.”

“You go upstairs with him.” Remarkable rolled all of his dice at once, glanced at them, and stated aggressively, “You both come at the same time.” Then, he quickly controlled the narrative, saying, “Afterwards, he tells you about some work.”

“Working for dragons?” I asked.

A good dungeon master knows how to get the adventure back on track after a bit of screwing around.

Remarkable continued. “He knows of a wealthy man who needs adventurers to clear monsters out of an abandoned copper mine.”

“Fucking dragons,” I said with a goofy grin, all pleased with myself after the chaos I caused.

“You know I got that magic D,” Melvin bragged, making Jimmy all but shut down and me almost spit out my bran muffin.

“D&D. D&D.” We chanted.

“Are you fags coming over this weekend or what?” Jimmy asked again. “I gotta let my mom know.”

Jimmy had a one-track mind. He was all about weapons and partying until Ronnie showed up, and then it was all about her.

Jimmy’s parents were unbearably religious Christian Filipinos, and they always seemed to instantly be in the lunchroom with Jimmy when sex was being discussed. He was repressed and heavily armed. It was a match made in Guns & Ammo magazine.

His parents had no problem with the violence and didn’t mind buying their son weapons that no child should own, but sex talk was not allowed. He had all that stored up aggression, and Veronica, when she finally got to our table in the second year, was going to make it a lot worse.

“Of course we are, man. Throwing knives, ninja swords, and your mom’s cooking. We gon’ blow shit up. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Melvin reassured him. “Let’s keep playing.”

D&D lunchtime was the best period of the day. Melvin played a cleric. I played my half-elf barbarian. His name was Goblin, because he be gobbling up that kitty. Jimmy played a halfling thief but he spent most of the campaign drawing our characters in heroic poses with automatic weapons that did not exist in the game.

So by the end of our first year, we’d all become friends and nothing and no one could tear us apart… except for girls. Spoiler alert: Here come the girls.

By year two, the game was going strong. Remarkable had grown an afro wider than our lunch table and they had to open both ends of the double doors just to get him inside. Whenever it rained he found out later than everybody else. It took several minutes for the rain to reach his scalp.

I had cornrows with my bran muffins but the same loud mouth and the same take-no-shit attitude. I was smart as fuck, but I had trouble focusing. Or something like that. They tried to explain it but I wasn’t paying attention.

Jimmy returned after his suspension for bringing a live grenade on the bus on a field trip to a Wall Street hedge firm. That was my fault, though. I snuck that shit in his bag. They did not give it back to him.

Melvin started noticing girls for the first time, which was weird after he told us he was bisexual or whatever that meant. Incidents of PDA shot up sharply. He’d been off his meds for a year. He was infecting everyone with his horny mind. He started dating this honey named Honey, and several teachers got pregnant.

“Dragons are mean and vindictive sociopaths,” Simon said, “but they have to be allowed to steal the resources from under our feet. They controlled the narrative and the press, but the good people of this middle-aged Earth knew about the problem and it wasn’t too late. They may have controlled most things, but they did not control the will of the people.”

“There are too many boys,” Remarkable sighed without being careful what he wished for. He was discovering girls as well. “We need to end this sausage fest,” he said.

Melvin invited some freshman girls to our table. Two girls, in particular, Veronica and Winter. They were both cool and smart and liked sci-fi and roleplaying and cosplay, and because they were freshmen, they had no idea that we weren’t as cool as them until it was too late. They are caught in our web of friendship.

Veronica and Winter joined the group in our second year. It was unanimous. We all wanted it. They smelled nice, which was a pleasant change, but they were both pretty, which made it difficult to concentrate.

“Fellas!” Melvin announced. “These are girls and they are joining the game. Try not to embarrass me.”

Winter was tall for her age, always in the back row at picture time, towering over all the boys in her class. She should’ve played basketball.

She had a crooked smile that was still pretty. Her eyes were too close but it was still pretty. She made everything work. You know? Hot yet approachable. The cool girl that everyone wanted to be friends with but secretly wanted to fuck. But my girl had an attitude that screamed back the fuck off. We were all a little afraid of Winter.

Veronica was her best friend. She was stunning in the classic sense. She could have been a model or an actress if she were taller. Even the teachers would stare at her too long.

She had skin the color of a statue made of bronze. I don’t know what they call that color but it was pretty. She liked to read thick novels about dragons and monsters and epic quests. And I swear to god she could stop a boy from breathing just by licking or biting her lip. For obvious reasons, she rarely did those two things together.

“Hi, boys,” Winter said as she waved her hand in front of their stunned faces.

“Hello,” Veronica said with a subdued shyness that suggested she wanted to hide behind something. Her beauty made her self-conscious. It got so bad she once cut off all her hair, but goddamn it, she was still stunning.

Winter sat down and immediately took charge. “Guys. I know you haven’t had girls in the group, so there are a few rules you have to follow. Mainly, try not to do anything that makes us uncomfortable. Okay, Angelo? No more talking about your magic D.”

“You’ve heard of me?” I beamed.

Remarkable no longer wanted to be DM when the girls showed up. So Winter presented her boyfriend as an option. She was dating Simon B., the school’s tallest sophomore. He had his own dice. They were expensive. He wouldn’t let anybody touch them. They were like the souped-up chrome hot rods of dice. They were so cool, but I didn’t steal them. It wasn’t me.

“That’s seven,” Jimmy cautioned. “We may need to put two tables together.”

“I don’t think they let you do that,” Veronica said.

“I was just kidding,” Jimmy told her but couldn’t make eye contact. It was like staring at the sun.

“You alright, Jim?” I asked my crimson-colored friend. Then I motioned to Veronica and said, “You’re very pretty, and I think my boy likes you.”

“What did I say about making us feel uncomfortable?”

I like to start shit.

“Shut up,” Jimmy warned me. I would never fight Jimbo but I don’t think he can take me. Weapons and all.

“This is all normal. These are really good people and I think you’re going to like it here.” Melvin assured them. “Just don’t ask Angelo why he named his character Goblin when it’s a half-elf.”

“Why?” Winter said hesitantly.

She had been warned but I was more than happy to tell her. “They call him Goblin because he be gobblin’ up that kitty.”

I don’t know when to stop.

Winter’s eyes rolled back in her head. She started her list again as everyone broke into laughter. “New rule!” she stated loudly.

Winter joined the game as a druid princess, Veronica as a halfling fighter, and Simon became the new dungeon master, allowing Remarkable to play his human mage, and that was the crew for our second year.

“We need heroes,” he said. “We need heroes of every race. Elves, men, dwarves and half-kings. We need thieves and wizards of finance and technology. Bards with charisma so great they can rally millions. We need leaders. We need heroes. Where are all the heroes?”

Obviously, he’s talking about billionaires.

“Obviously, there’s a chest in the back of the room,” Simon announced. His voice boomed above the scraping of metal forks on ceramic plates in the crowded cafeteria. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I’ll try to pick the lock.” Jimmy’s halfling was an eager thief, and they only had an hour for lunch and needed more money to fight the dragons.

“Wait!” Veronica warned him. “It could be a trap.”

The chrome dice told them it was too late.

“It is a trap,” Simon informed them gleefully, “and the party takes damage.” He rolled several different dice and tallied up the pain with a smile.

“Jimmy!” They all yelled as Jimmy blushed in embarrassment.

“Everyone needs to make a saving throw,” the DM declared.

“I know I should have checked for traps. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Jimmy said sheepishly.

“It’s okay, Jim,” Veronica comforted him, stopping Jimmy’s breath for a millisecond and making him just a tiny bit dizzy.

In the second year, Melvin was off his meds but it was mostly just flirting and fun. One of the guards got pregnant and a janitor got fired. But at his last school there were fights in the yard and when the nuns would beat him all the other kids would cry. He was lucky they didn’t try an exorcism.

Melvin discovered street drugs in his junior year. They also helped to regulate his emotions but they came with a little extra.

I know it sounds bad, but this was a good thing. His moods were contagious, so when he was high it was like being buzzed from the contact.

When Melvin was scared everyone was scared. When he was horny everyone was horny. He read a book about vampires that had the whole school wearing black for a month.

When he listened to music we could tell if he was playing sad songs or songs about sex and drugs written by people who took drugs. When he sat in a theater, he made movies more enjoyable for everyone there.

On top of the movie and the music, unless he was high, you were going to feel everything Melvin was feeling. He could not control his forced empathy. He liked to share.

By year three Melvin wanted to be a writer when he graduated. It was another form of sharing his emotions. He started dating Honey and Daisy that same year. Homeboy had two girlfriends and they couldn’t keep their hands off him.

“Where the hell is Simon?” I asked the table, walking up, looking cool, looking at his empty chair. “We only have an hour.”

“He quit because he and Winter broke up,” Remarkable said.

“Who the fucking shit is gonna DM?” I barked. “And how the hell are we gonna do this without him?”

“I think Winter should DM,” Melvin said, watching a smile form on her pretty face. “She’s the smartest person at the table, as well as the most creative.” He flattered her until she blushed, but then he added, “It’s also her fault that Simon left.”

“Fuck you,” she fired back. “I was gonna DM anyway,” she explained, “but now I’m gonna kill all of you and have the bugbears from last year steal your weapons.”

Winter was bordering on cold. But not like cold-cold. She claimed to allow insults to roll off her back but Melvin could tell that everything hurt her because he was the same way.

While Melvin was off his meds he started experimenting with making people give him things. It didn’t work most of the time and it took forever. He made a street musician give him his guitar once but he gave it back.

“Damn, Mel,” Remarkable joked. “Why you gotta make Winter angry? You know how she gets,” he said, stuffing a stale brownie in his mouth as he spoke until pieces of cake rained down upon the map.

“Dude! She’s just kidding.” Melvin eyed Winter with an apologetic glance that went deeper than the conversation. “You are kidding, right?”

They were fucking. I was sure of it. I wish he would have stayed on his meds.

“Where’s your girl Ronny?” I asked her.

Winter explained that Veronica switched her lunch period, and she avoided eye contact with Jimmy as she did.

“I don’t think she knows how pretty she is,” I said.

“Oh no. She does.” Winter corrected. “But that’s not her fault. Most people stop staring at her after a while… but some people don’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Melvin said to Winter softly, but not about the current conversation.

And anyway, they had two new girls coming into the game: Melvin’s girlfriend, Daisy, and her best friend, Honey. No, wait, that’s backward. It’s his girlfriend, Honey, and her best friend, Daisy. He was sleeping with both of them so it didn’t matter.

“Angelo!” Winter yelled comically. “Try not to scare the new girls away. I don’t want to be in a group with only boys.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said, because I didn’t do anything, and then I chanted, “D&D. D&D. D&D.” because that’s the sound that Simon makes when he masturbates. And yeah, I was doing the hand motion. And I wasn’t going to stop until everybody else joined in.

“D&D, D&D.”

But they did, so I stopped.

Melvin got an after-school job in a movie theater on Times Square. He’d watch the movies from the back of the hall and his manager would sell coke out the back door in the alley.

Times Square used to be cool. There used to be drugs and sex and at least a murder a day. Melvin let us into the movies for free but back then he was always high, so he started missing class and missing games and missing out on XP.

“Tomorrow,” Winter said, “I want to wake up in a world without dragons, without murderous dragon-folk, and without madness. So that we, the good people of this middle-aged Earth, can begin to alleviate the suffering that all of them have caused. So many have died because the dragons refuse to share their gold.”

“They don’t want to pay their taxes,” Melvin said.

“No,” Winter agreed. “They don’t think they have to share.”

“Because they can breathe fire,” I told them.

“Yes, Angelo,” she said, “because they can breathe fire.”

“We need better armor,” Jimmy added.

By year four Melvin wanted to be a filmmaker when he graduated. There was no quicker way to immerse people in your emotions than moving pictures and music in a dark room. It was all the things he loved: writing, photography, music, and performing.

Melvin worked weekends at the theater. He got promoted and took over selling cocaine out the back door in the alley.

Melvin was doing coke every day but he didn’t want us to know. He always had an eighth of coke and a fifth of Jack Daniels but he didn’t want us to know.

I would have been disappointed if he told me about the blow but I wouldn’t have stopped loving the guy. And I would have sat on him and farted until he agreed to quit. It’s called an intervention. I’d be good at those.

“I,” I would say because, you know—I statements, “promise to fart on your face anytime you try to use cocaine.”

Remarkable mumbled his disapproval. He was two subjects behind the conversation. “That’s a sexual assault.”

“Dude!” Jimmy said to him in disbelief. Everyone knew Mark had a crush on the new girl, but his words were out of line. “She’s got a boyfriend.”

Melvin had walked up behind them. “Honey’s fine,” he said. He was obviously high. We would have known it with our eyes closed.

Melvin squeezed into the table and pulled his girlfriend onto his lap. Last time these two made out in school a lunch lady and a security guard both got pregnant. Or both got fired.

“One got pregnant. One got fired.” Melvin corrected me. “You got a problem with me, Mark?” He quickly pivoted.

“Dude. Try not to get angry. We don’t need another food fight.” Remarkable said.

“I like the kissing,” Honey countered, nibbling on his neck.

I seconded Remarkable’s warning but Melvin disagreed.

“That’s just coincidence, man,” he said. “I’m not emotionally contagious. There’s no such thing.”

“Yes, you are,” we both said.

Honey agreed. “You remember when you were eating that cheesecake on the bus and that girl got arrested for biting the driver? That was you.”

“Let’s start the game,” Jimmy shouted uncomfortably.

“No. Wait. Hold up.” Melvin told Jimmy. “Anybody here who thinks my emotions are contagious, raise their hand.”

“Dude. Don’t take it the wrong way. We love you, but your mood swings are deadly.”

“You guys aren’t affected.”

“We’re used to it.”

Daisy appeared and sat down in her usual seat. She was also late. But the tension at the table was palpable. “What did I miss?” she prompted.

“Mark was lecturing Melvin on his forced empathy,” I said. “And I’m quietly hoping these two hook up in the library. I want to see who gets pregnant and who gets fired.”

“So according to Mark, any time I have sex is a sexual assault.”

“Don’t get mad. I’m just saying, how do they know they want you and it’s not just you who wants them and they feel that? Where does your desire end and theirs begin?”

“Isn’t that how it always is?” I said.

“It’s not a big deal, Melvin. And it makes you really good at kissing,” Daisy whispered.

“This is upsetting,” Melvin said.

“And this is why I wasn’t going to come today,” Winter added.

“Apparently, Melvin’s got that magic D,” I added.

“Oh my God, Angelo.” Winter cried. “What did I say about that?”

I’m sorry. I may not be telling the story right. I wanted to tell Winter things went smoother when Simon ran the game, but it seemed cruel even though it was true.

“I’m just saying, Winter, things went smoother when Simon ran the game.”

I said it out loud, to no one’s surprise, because when have I not said a thing.

“You want Simon back?” Winter’s eyes shot darts at my muscular frame and good looks.

“I don’t care. Get him back. I don’t like Dungeons & Dragons anyway.”

“Y’all know I just want to play the game, right?” Jimmy restated.

“People in hell want ice water, Jim.” Winter shot back.

“Ooh, are we going to hell next?” Remarkable asked jokingly, dodging the darts from Melvin’s eyes and ignoring that his high school crush was chewing on his best friend’s ear. “We’re definitely gonna need to level up first.”

Winter peered over at the public display of affection across from her. “No,” she said somberly. “I’m just saying we can’t always get what we want.”

Winter met Melvin’s gaze with darts of her own while Honey steadily nibbled on his ear.

“Pay no attention to her.” Honey stage-whispered into it. “She only wants you for your body,” the freshman stated with a breathy playfulness. “I want you for your mind,” she reassured him, glancing up at Winter devilishly, then at Mark sheepishly.

“This is a shit show,” Remarkable said, looking on in horror at what had become of his band of dragon slayers. “Until you learn to control it you need to get back on your meds,” he told Melvin. “You’re going to turn the cafeteria into both a melee and an orgy if you don’t stop.”

“Maybe I have the power to stop but I don’t want to,” Melvin insisted.

“We’re all friends,” Remarkable reminded him. “And this was a lot more fun when it was just the guys,” he said.

“I believe we can defeat the dragons together,” Simon said. “At the very least we can force them to pay their taxes. No governments and no kings, not the armies and the armies of lawyers, but the people. We outnumber them by a lot, by a whole fucking lot. All we have to do is go outside.”

Melvin had no idea what he wanted to do when or if he graduated. In a matter of months, he’d become a love addict, a drug addict, an alcoholic, and a drama queen.

Just be happy, I told him. Just be happy. But it wasn’t that easy. If he’s happy then everyone around him is happy. But if he’s not happy then they’re not.

“That’s too much pressure,” he told me.

I don’t make the rules.

“Simon!” I shouted my favorite dungeon master’s name across the crowded cafeteria as soon as I saw him heading for our table. “It’s good to have you back, buddy.”

Simon placed his briefcase on the tabletop and pulled out a tri-folded piece of cardboard with all sorts of stats printed on it and placed it on the lunch table next to a stack of manuals and a paper bag with an American cheese sandwich smothered in mayonnaise. He sat down with a grunt. This man was a professional. It was time to go to work.

“Who are we waiting for?” he asked as I mockingly brushed the tall senior’s broad shoulders off in a welcoming gesture.

“Melvin’s not here,” I said.

“Yeah, his mom kicked him out,” Honey told us. “He was staying at my house last week and Daisy’s the week before. But when he’s not there, he’s sleeping on the subway.”

I had him over several times that year. He slept in my closet.

“Do you know if he has my dice?” Simon asked, but then he changed the subject quickly. “I got a yellow dragon for you guys to fight.”

“Is that even a thing?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, Jim. Red dragons shoot fire, and yellow dragons shoot piss.” I was joking, but imagine. Everyone thought it was the funniest thing they ever heard and laughed hysterically.

“The party starts in an abandoned warehouse near the outer edge of the walled city.” Simon began. “It was the old kung fu district.”

“I remember this place,” I shouted. “Let’s visit the brothel!”

“The brothel is closed because Melvin gave all the hookers crabs,” Simon said unpleasantly.

Melvin approached his old friends at the same table he had chosen over three years ago and sat down. He had overslept and missed his stop and ended up all the way in Canarsie.

“Health code violations, tough guy. Don’t be a dick.” Melvin said playfully. “I don’t have crabs…” He looked at his old friends. “…anymore,” he joked.

At least I think it was a joke.

“Mel!” I shouted as if he were standing clear across the lunchroom and not right next to me.

“We thought you were suspended,” Simon added in his deep baritone.

“I almost got suspended. Some kid jumped off the teacher’s smoking lounge and broke both his legs. Said I told him to do it. I didn’t.

It was Honey’s new boyfriend—now Honey’s ex.

“Oh shit,” Remarkable said, thinking that could have been him.

“Yeah, man. They can’t prove anything. But I have counseling on Tuesday and Thursdays, so I won’t be able to make it those days.”

“Yeah, that guy was a bitch,” I told him.

“Angel!” Honey yelled at me, but it was true so I don’t know why she was yelling at me.

Honey had replaced Winter as my babysitter. Two and a half years of drama was enough for Winter.

Winter left. Daisy left. Veronica left before that. Even Remarkable left for a time.

“I heard something about dragons,” Melvin said. “Are we fighting dragons?” Honey looked under the lunch table for her bag. She didn’t want to have the same argument for a fifteenth time.

“Remember when it used to be just the four of us?” Remarkable asked wistfully.

“But you know we had fun, right?” Jimmy countered.

“Yeah, I know,” Mark answered.

In our fourth year, Simon was DM again, but I kind of missed Winter. Simon had little to no imagination. Winter was a lot more fun. A couple of younger kids joined the group but Melvin never got to know them.

Melvin spent his senior year sleeping on people’s floors because his mom kicked him out, so he had poor attendance but good grades. He aced every test, and yet they said it wasn’t enough. I graduated. He didn’t. Imagine that.

He went to night school for the attendance. It wasn’t a class. It was just about showing up. By this point, he was drinking and doing drugs every day and it was becoming a strain on his heart.

“The yellow dragon is returning,” Simon announced, making the sound of crashing hooves with his mouth. “You can hear his powerful wings as he reenters his lair, and rains urine down on everyone. Roll for initiative.”

I knew it!

The remaining players rolled twenty-sided dice to see if their characters froze in fear. By this point, we all had expensive dice sets and velvet pouches to keep them in, and Simon replaced the set I stole.

“What are you going to do?” Simon asked us.

“Hold on,” Honey said. “I’m going to roll for Melvin’s cleric. I’m trying to play two characters at the same time.”

“This isn’t Melvin’s game anymore,” Winter said, having returned to the game despite animosity and would eventually take over when the boys graduated.

“Yes, it is.” Honey corrected her. “This will always be Melvin’s game.”

“I heard he was smoking crack and sleeping in the park,” Remarkable said in a pitiful voice.

“I heard he sold a kidney and part of his liver for heroin,” I added, but I was making it up.

“That too,” Remarkable said.

Maybe I guessed right.

“I got you, Honey,” Winter said, sliding the character sheet closer to her. “We’ll both play Melvin’s cleric.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” Honey smiled.

“It’s nice to see you girls made up.” Remarkable praised them. “It’s dumb fighting over a boy.”

Honey gave Remarkable a knowing look.

“Boys are a dime a dozen,” Winter said. “Girlfriends are forever.”

“D&D, D&D, D&D!” I chanted, pumping my fist in masturbatorial salute.

“Oh my god, Angel,” the girls said in unison. “Shut up.”

But then they started chanting along as well. “D&D, D&D, D&D.”

Melvin Hawthorne entered the High School of Art & Design full of dreams and plans but left four years later with a fledgling coke habit, the beginnings of alcoholism, and no high school diploma.

His grandma would have been proud. She never liked school. Auntie would have been smug about it, saying he needed Jesus, and she would have been right. Great-grandma Lily would have caught him with a backhand if any of them had lived to see it. But no one—not even Melvin’s mother—ever saw him again.

The entire city of New York developed a serious drug addiction as Melvin shared the wealth of his gift with anyone susceptible. It seemed the Big Apple didn’t fall far enough from the tree.

“Tomorrow,” the man said, “I want to wake up in a world without dragons. There are one billion of us and that is enough to make change. Even the dragons would be afraid.”

One billion of us.

“One billion U.S.”

Exactly.

“One billion is enough money for one person to have.”

Dragon.

“For one dragon to have. We need heroes. Who’s with me?”

On the east side of Manhattan, near 52nd Street, there was an old art school where the teachers were working artists, and the students were an eclectic group of creatively insane kids from every borough of the city.

I went there along with Melvin, Jimmy, Remarkable, Winter, Veronica, Honey, Daisy, Simon, and several others I did not have the space to name. We fought dragons.

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