4 posts tagged “game”

I
  Lasers scanning, barcodes booping.  The conveyor belt conveying items.  Boop.  Bananas.  Boop.  Milk.  Boop.  Bread.  Boop.  Boop is the sound of you spending money to feed yourself.  Input, output.
     Next in line is a WIC costumer.  WIC stands for Women, Infants and Children, and WIC cards help all mentioned.  They are sort of like food stamps, but better.  People usually squander food stamps.  Food stamps were meant to provide for those who couldn't provide for themselves.  You would boop items like bread and milk, or maybe cooking items.  Cheap stuff.  And lots of it.  Instead of getting thirty dollars of legitimate food stuffs, however, people tend to go for thirty dollars of Doritos, M&M's, maybe a magazine, and a lot of toilet paper. 
    With WIC cards, everything you can buy is right there on the card listed out for a cashier's convenience.  You're supposed to have it ready for the cashier, that's me, when you get in line, along with your information packet.  Your life. 
    The government provides food stamps, WIC cards, that sort of thing because the government is made up of people who generally need its help.  That's why they're here, in this government.  If they didn't have to be, maybe they wouldn't be.  It is like the universe.  The universe is everything.  It is one.  It is whole.  There is no inside or outside with the universe.  The universe is like a government, in a sense, made up of very many facets, but unlike governments, which are beyond the scope of most people, the universe is infinitely beyond the capacity of anything.  Because it is everything.  Governments are more powerful entities than individuals, in considering their weighed input into the universe, but against the universe, a government seems insignificant. 

    I scan the last item listed on the WIC card.  Kix cereal. 
    "Mam," I say, staring down at the card clasped in my money handling hand.  Covered in trace amounts of cocaine from twenty dollar bills, no doubt.  Everyone's a criminal.  "Mam, I think you have to get store brand cereal.  It's just as good though."  That other stuff is just overpriced.  You're just paying for the name, I tell her.  She gets her kid to go switch the boxes, and I ring them up.  The kid is complaining to the mom, tugging on her shirt, stretching it.  He says he needs to get home.  He needs to beat it.  My first thoughts go to either masturbation or the Michael Jackson song, in either case generating a disturbing emotion.  He says it again. 
  "Stoppit," she says, turning and slapping his hand away.  She twists back to me and smiles, Thank You.  They go to leave, and the automatic doors, built for your convenience and for feng shui, slide open.  As the seamlessly glide through, unhindered by the world around them, the mother says, "Those games will rot your mind, child."  She says this and I know exactly what she's talking about. 

    Video Games were my life.  At age five, my best friends were an Italian plumber that was a chronic shroomer, and a little blue hedgehog that heroically fought the mechanical revolution.  One year, when I was in kingergarten, a brand name cereal sponsored the new Sonic game.  I got my mom to cut the blue hedgehog from his cardboard prison, to free him.  And I took it to school.  I raced him up and down the halls, jumped him over classmates, and into my cubby hole.  After recess that day, I came back and he was gone.  My friend, Ted, had taken him, and was parading him around the room as his own.  Too young to see this as a sign, I got angry, and later that day fought Ted for a cardboard shape. 
    My parents, seeing that I had an addiction to video games, sought to course correct.  To realign me with my destiny.  Video games were ruining my chances at my own life.  Imprisoning me.  In order to play video games, I would have to read an hour for every thirty minutes I wished to play.  They were trying to help me.  But I was too young to realize this, and often times would just go in my room for an hour and play with toys, come out later, and say I had read when I hadn't. 
    My fixation on video games was so great, I abandoned all else.  I had to buy more.  And more.  To feed the fire, I had to throw more and more characters into the furnace.  I had to consume, faster and faster.  Every plastic box was another pandora.  And then came the age of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.  And it all went spiraling from there.  Up to that point, I had some semblance of balance with the real world.  My eyes were half opened to reality, maybe blurred.  But the image was still there, allowed in my brain.  Just fuzzy.  When I got into MMORPGs, I lost hold of it. 
    I would wake up at 6:45 in the morning, just in time to throw on some clothes and catch the bus.  I would spend my  six hours in hell, half awake or sleeping.  After the sixth hour, I would ride the bus home, and quickly walk from my stop to my house, where I would get some food and immediately sit down at my computer and log on.  For many months, friends came over.  They stood behind me and carried the weight of a conversation, and left.  For the most part, I wouldn't even realize they were gone until I would get up to use the bathroom.  For many more months than I would like to recount, no one visited.  No one called.  No one messaged me online, except those who I played the games with.  In school, much of my life revolved around these online games.  At lunch, all my table spoke of was which guild we were joining, how many people we killed, or what new staff we got.  Like it was important.  Like it was meaningful.  Like it wasn't a total goddamn waste of our time. 
    Something inside me always knew it was a waste of my time.  My core, my inner child, willed this electronic-centric life to end.  It willed it to end in the form of lightning.

    Boop.  Boop.  Boop.  About a year ago, the universe dealt me a new hand.  Gave me a second chance.  My computer was struck by lightning, and exploded.  No, seriously.  It caught on fire.  I was so absorbed by my game, I couldn't tear myself away from it for the duration of a thunderstorm.  No, I was going to ride it out.  Maybe it was my obsession.  Maybe it was my core banking on the chance of a new life.  Either way, I was free.  For three months I had to find something to do.  Everyday was an adventure.  Eventually, I settled into a new way of life.  I read to read.  I ran.  I lifted weights.  I started eating real food.  My once concentration-camp-victim body was bulking up with muscle.  I was big, like I was when I was a child.  Like I was meant to be. 
    I was providing for myself.  This is what the universe wants, I thought.  I took trips down to a nearby creak.  A beautiful area surrounded by sheer cliff faces and boulders.  A forest and train tracks.  And I enjoyed it.  I remember enjoying the outdoors as a kid, and I did again.  I was on a new journey.  
    My computer was later repaired, but I never returned to play games on it.  The universe had been looking out for me, and was going to give me a second chance.  And I wasn't going to waste one second of it. 

    When I got to college, I met a kid named Alex.  He lived right across the hall from me in the dorms.  When I met him, I knew exactly who he was.  He had posters of video game characters, a library of video games, and a ninja sword.  He wore all black.  All he did was play video games and complain.  He was an elitist.  A little bitch.  An asshole.  Selfish.  He was me. 
   

    The past few days, everyone's been having the same conversation.  A fire alarm went off.  If you know anyone from the Cabaniss dorms down here at VCU, you know the story.  I hear the same fucking complaints about burnt soup everywhere I go.  On the bus.  In the dining hall.  In class. 
In the bathroom, two guys sit and converse through the blue panels surrounding their respective toilets.  They're talking about the goddamn fire alarm.  The fire alarm caused by soup.
 
    Some girl on an upper floor burns soup and causes this whole ordeal.  On the bus to class, some guy questioned the possibility of burning a liquid, as if all liquids share the same exact qualities found in water.  He doesn't understand the dire situation our nation is facing with such non-water-esque liquids.  He doesn't understand fire.  He doesn't understand fire like I do. 

    Waiting for the bus, I read my book, foolishly leaving my knuckles exposed for anyone to see.  Thomas walks by and asks me what happened to my hand. 
"Bloody knuckles," I tell him, dissmission coating my voice.  I find that straightforward answers held with little regard yield the best avoidance possibility when dealing with outsiders-- those not in the know, in my life, in my head.  The lesser tiers of my involvement.

    Earlier, I met Devon, the tall guy on my floor with the long hair, outside of my math lecture building.  I sit down next to him and ask him whether the imminent test is scantron. No, he says, not scantron.  No, I say, I guess it's just "papertron."  A failed jab at something clever.  The girl mirroring me on Devon's other side asks what happened to my hand.  Before I can bullshit her, she hands me a crutch to lean on--"'Bloody Knuckles' or somethin'?"
    "Yeah," I say, agreeing with her.  People like to think they're good at knowing what's going on in other people's lives.  If people speculate, I let them guess correctly every time.  You got in a fight? Yeah. You punched a wall? Yep, it looked at me funny.  You played "Bloody Knuckles"? Of course, it's my favorite game.  

    The truth is, though, that none of those are true.  I'm not bleeding, I'm pussing.  Pussing the ever living shit out of my unhealing hand and arm.  It looks like a battlefield, my arm.  My mind too, if it were visibly available to me.  No, I just feel it.  A dull roar of cognition.  A dull infrastructure of senses and reactions.  My system. Me. 

    My point is, if you keep your mouth shut and don't suggest things, hand over your ideas, people may be more willing, or more pressured to surrender the truth.  The truth is a self-generated understanding of the universe, and as soon as you have interfering factors, like a ditzy blonde who says "'Bloody Knuckles' or somethin'?"  you have a chance to skew that universe, to blur it.  To take an image and sodomize it with falsehood.  False enough to the point where I'm lying twice.  Bloody Knuckles?  I've never even played that game.  Great, blondy, now you have me lying about having played this sophomoric game TODAY and ever.  Thanks a lot, you genesis of lies. You sssserpent of deceit. 

    So, before it is questioned, I do stupid things when I'm drunk.  To myself.  Several times.  Again and again.  I'm fascinated by the utter lack of pain during intoxication.  A quick swipe of fire normally will not hurt you.  A longer duration of exposure to it, however, will.  And, if it doesn't feel like it's hurting, the scars and bulging skin balloons of puss will tell you otherwise the next day.  So, I'm sorry to You and Me both, for causing these second degree burns.

Also, fuck cigarettes.    

I wake up and my left arm feels thicker and more robust than usual. I slip it out from under my totally awesome comforter and see that there, wrapped around my arm, are bloodied bandages. I think to the night before and vaguely remember getting drunk. "Fuck," I think to myself, "what did I do this time?"

The bandages are stale and old--brownish. The first aid kit is a withering memory of some sort of lost responsibility, something my family neglected. 

Recounting the night, I remember "Calypso" and I were bored and decided to hang out. She suggests we go to this kid's house, a guy we'll refer to as "Tex," because he claims that he needs to get rid of beer. Beer usually tastes like donkey piss, but free beer always tastes delicious.

So we head over there and she drives, because she's the type of person who will sacrifice getting shit-faced so she can hang out with shit-faced people. It works out perfectly and I tell her this as I'm climbing in her car with a liter of my favorite "Hobo Mix." One part vodka(liter), one part brown paper bag(crumply).  Sometimes I think it would suck to be the sitter and not have anything, or much, to drink. But, then again, being the sitter enables you to fuck with the drunks, which is unending fun.  Making observations outside of "The Circle" can also be a learning experience.

Upon arrivial, I have already imbibed several swigs of what is, at this point, no longer bitter liquid. In fact, after 4 or 5 shots of vodka, it becomes the nectar of the gods, transforming into a delicious, almost ethereal, fire in my very soul.  Because I am feeling a drunken glow, I'm friendly and easily introduce myself to Tex's friends. Tex then proceeds to open his fridge in which a treasure trove of beer seemingly spills out upon the scene.  Golden Corona bottles fill the doors, plastic drawers, and shelves of the refridgerator.  It is packed to the very last available space.

Hunter: "Damn, you really do have a lot of beer."
Tex: "Yeah, and we need to get rid of it, so help yourselves."
Hunter: "Way ahead of you"

Vodka in hand, I begin using some Corona Light as chaser.  By my standards, the only good chaser is an alcoholic one.  There is some Bottom's Up pizza laying around, so I grab a slice of meat lovers.  Layer upon layer of solid delicious.  If alcohol is the nectar of the gods, this is their divine ambrosia.

Introduction and story swapping quickly segways to lame drinking games.  Now, don't get me wrong, drinking games are great--when liquour is involved.  But the only liquor in the house was my rapidly diminishing liter of vodka.   I think I'm the only one there who actually invested in drinking the vodka, so I guess this beer-centric drinking game isn't a bad break from getting hammered out of my mind.

During the game, I watch as three dudes make failed advances on Calypso.  She's the only female in the building at this point, and therefore competition is in play.  Though, as she tells me, Shit-Housed Hunter would hit on her, throughout the game I was just laughing inside, because, at that point, I had no vested interest in her--we were just friends.  She's less than talkative while they hit on her, but it becomes a pathetic dance in which she immediately shoots them and shuts them down. Repeatedly.  Conversation is an art, a literal dance of words, and there's always someone who can kill it.  She was playing conversation killer.  That was her defense.

The game degenerates into me ignoring the rules and kicking back beer after beer.  Fuck if I let cards control the fate of my intoxication.  I go outside with one of Tex's friends, who dons a pimp hat, to have a cigarette.  Outside, I have to pee, so I go further into the yard and do so.  I love the outdoors, aka, the biggest bathroom there is.  My zipper is stuck or I am too drunk to operate it, so I just drop trou in the middle of his yard and begin urinating with impunity.  I drench his doghouse.  I feel kind of bad afterwards and am thankful that his dog doesn't put much value into his home.  Running from an angry dog is the last thing you want to do while drunk.

After a few expiditions to the fridge for more beer, I end up laying outside on some broken desk. Tex's yard has a bunch of shit strewn across it, which doesn't matter because it's back in the woods off of the most trecherous gravel driveway I've ever been privy to almost dying on.  Calypso's car hardly made it.  Hull Integrity at 30%, captain.

Calypso comes outside and asks if I'm ready to go. I think the dudes have begun hitting on her hardcore at this point, and there is mention of a "bed [she] can sleep on." So, she's ready to go, and by asking me if I'm ready to go, she's really just signalling that if I don't leave with her, my ass is being left behind. This is where it gets hazy.
We're riding back, but then, my memory, or my entirety, blacks out.

Blood. Everywhere. The next thing I know I'm being hustled inside by Calypso who seems very pissed.  I am actually too drunk to realize this until she poors hydrogen peroxide on my arm, asking me if it hurts, and saying "Good" to what is obviously an affirmative "what is this shit? it hurts"--  hydrogen peroxide kicks your wounds' ass.

So I am bandaged and Calypso leaves at some point.  I'm hungry, so I fix some popcorn and ask my sister if she wants some.  I am still drunk and have just traumatized her with a falsified story of a knife fight, because I need a story to tell the folks in the morning.  This is where it gets interesting.  However, as I would find out, telling the truth is so much easier and rewarding than having to lie and continue to do so.

So, under my totally awesome comforter, stale and bloodied bandage, wake up, there's a wound.  What do I tell my parents? I call my dad and tell him I got in a fight, figuring this will be less worrisome for him than "I was drunk and don't remember."  This is not the case.  He pressures me into filing a police report, but I tell him all I really need to do at this point is see a doctor.  He suggests patient first, so, not having gone there before, I make my sister tag along.

I get there and am immediately depressed by the bleak look of my fellow patients.  On top of that, I have a massive hangover.  That's what happens when your source of hydration(or, really, dehydration) is exclusively alcohol and more alcohol.
I feed the nurse and doctor bullshit about my wound so as to practice the lie.  The doctor looks like an old, very haggard, hippie-esque child molestor.  He proves my theory correct by rubbing the arm OPPOSITE of my wound and touching my knee, simultaneously.  I tell him "Neither of those places hurt, you should look at [my left arm]."  He gets the message.  The one that includes the subtle body language of "I will kill you."  He tells me he can't stitch it up because it had been 8 hours since the wound, and the fear of sewn-up infection doesn't sit well with anyone, especially my arm.   They wrap my arm up, give me a tetnus shot,  and I'm on my way out. 

On my way out to get fucked by my complex web of lies.  But in the end, I tell my parents the truth, which actually, as it is said, "Set[s] [me] free," and really bolstered my family for the "Friend's Mom Finds About Hunter's Livejournal, Missiles Fly" incident.    

There's a story I need to write about. It's nothing too spectacular, but a good example of the phrase, "the best way to get over one guy is to get under another one."

    A few months ago, my friend Horatio decides to have a party at his house. He tells a handfull of people that his house will be empty on an upcoming Friday, leaving the bulk of the invites for the day-of. A number of things botch this contrived plan, namely a physics project that takes him and his group nearly 6 hours of work.

    The entire time the project is going on, I'm slowly wedging myself into conversation with this one girl, who we'll call "Lebanon" because she's mostly Lebanese. A break occurrs after about 2 or 3 hours of wasted time because this girl complains about being hungry. At Wendy's, I make a point to sit across from her, and we commence in playing the game, discussing eating habits as a start, which, in her case was inclusive of bitching about not having food and then proceeding to eat none of it. By the time we make our way back to Horatio's so they can "finish" the project, I've well established myself with this girl, now able to shoot the shit with ease.

    At around 8 or 9, they're still doing their project and people start showing up. The project basically falls apart and there's shit everywhere. It's one of those Rue-Goldberg things, so you've got random wooden blocks scattered on the kitchen floor, a giant robot standing guard on a stool with string hanging from the ceiling-fan. It was very intricate. And an all around failure. My contribution? I laughed at them when they failed to crush a can with a text book.

    The 3 or so dudes Horatio invited begin getting restless, so I head outside with a handle of Vodka. They flock to me like hobos around a trash-can-fire seeking warmth. Here I use a favorite drinking-trick of mine-- THE HUNTER SHOT--An unbridled chug-fest. Merely tilt the handle all the way back and chug. Having astonished these 3 pukes with my badass Irish heritage, I head back inside for some shots, and to potentially laugh at Horatio and his project partners for being failures. I refrain from the latter, but only because the former is taking precedence.

    My friend Yetti(he's the tallest and fittest of my friends, with 15-20 pounds on me) starts drinking with me and we somehow come to the conclusion that I'll keep 2 shots behind him, starting at zero and not counting my previous HUNTER SHOT and minor shots, so that I can keep pace with the weight differential. Basically science.

    I sit with Lebanon and Tara(another of the physics group), and tell them they should definitely stay and bring friends, because the party is clearly suffering a bad ratio. At this point: SEVEN guys, TWO girls. Conclusion: Sausagefest.

    Tara eventually weasles her way out of staying, promising me that she'll come back with friends, even if they're ugly, which, one knows only matters a little bit when drinking. We didn't see Tara again that night.

    I resume 'the game' with Lebanon outside on the deck, where we talk and watch Yetti shoot baskets. On six vodka shots, he's still making all of his basketball shots. He's loosened up enough to have no restraint when giving arm-crushing high-fives, though. He destroys my arm during a high five. My arm hurts, so I take a few shots to relieve my bone-shattering pain. Some kid is trying to climb up the shed out in the yard, but keeps falling on his ass. He earns the "Stupid Drunk of the Night" award. He also earns my hate, because I can't abide stupidity on the level of jumping in bushes, off of decks, climbing up sheds and all around being a jackass. It wouldn't be bad if he weren't doing it just to show off, but, in the end, that's what he was doing.

    Meanwhile, Horatio is running around keeping tabs on people in his house, making sure no one puked on or destroyed anything. He's not really enjoying himself, I can tell, because apparently some kids came to this get-together(yes, downgraded from "party" status) thinking that they'd be running around with lampshades on their heads, screaming and smashing shit. But they were wrong. I don't know what it is about some people that makes them inclined to be the Lampshade Guy-- the person with the lampshade on their head who does the hip-and-finger-dance, screaming, "Wooo, yeeeeah, woooo!" I usually just like hanging out with people when I'm drinking. Talking. That sort of thing.

    PK shows up. Man Count: EIGHT. Dropping him off is this kid "Frenchie." Man Count: NINE. We skirt around the issue that he and Lebanon had, before this day, been seriously dating. "I'm getting fucked tonight" is his comment about the party he's about to go to and about him getting over her. I show restraint in not telling him that I was on the verge of hooking up with his ex.

    Anyway, this get-together is officially a failure. But I'm okay with that, because there I am about to hook up with the only girl there. (And, I don't know if you know what that means, but I do.  It's like the first law of scarcity flipped on its head.  The First Law of Scarcity states that when there is less of something, its value increases.  Now, when you have a plethora of things to choose from, and you choose me, that means I am the best choice.  Nine guys and I win? Booyah.) And after taking her to her house so that she could drop off her car and sneak out, I did. Well, sort of. After a bit more drinking and hanging out, Lebanon and I find a nice bed upstairs to use for whatever our bodies desire. Which, in this case, was only making out, and I'll tell you why.

    I PULLED THE NICE GUY CARD OUT OF THE DECK, ASKING HER IF SHE WAS OKAY WITH THE SPEED AT WHICH WE WERE GOING! Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was considering the fact that she was vulnerable from her break up.

written July 16th, 2006