Sometimes you need to poison yourself.
I rested the box longways in the middle of the living room. It completely obfuscated the tv from your view.
“Boy. That’s a big ol’ box, huh,” you said, grunting as you sat up on the couch. “What’s in it? A bomb?”
“Where would I even get a bomb?”
You narrowed your eyes.
I turned on the lamp, and a hazy yellow dimly illuminated the room. “Do we have a boxcutter?”
“Is it a present for me? I don’t want it if it’s a bomb.”
“It’s not a bomb.”
I scanned the living room. All that was on the coffee table were a messy collection of old video game magazines and a bowl of weed.
“Is it THE bomb?” you grinned at me expectantly.
I looked at you like you murdered someone before turning, peering into the kitchen.
“Do we have a boxcutter?”
“What?”
“Do we have a boxcutter.”
“No,” you pointed to the weed bowl. A pair of scissors were leaning against it. “Just use those.”
I sliced the tape on top of the box and popped the flaps open. I carelessly flung packing peanuts from the box, making sure to pause and eat one just to gross you out, before pulling out a square-shaped game console, its white plastic yellowed from age.
You leaned forward. “Is that a Dreamcast?”
“It’s not just any Dreamcast,” I declared, dancing the console around in my hands, “It’s a Japanese one!”
Your hand immediately slapped onto your forehead.
“Oh my God. Oh my God, you are,” You paused, momentarily lost for words. “You are just the Worst Big Nerd.”
“Isn’t it great?”
“No.”
“You wanna know why this box is so big?
“No.”
I dug out the contents of the box, making sure to show each item to you one by one.
Four controllers. Two light guns. A steering wheel. And a seemingly endless flood of games.
As I pored over the catalog of games, you stretched your frame out along the couch.
“I wish you got a bomb instead.”
Despite your apparent apathy towards the package, it wasn’t long before you joined me, cross-legged on the floor, rummaging through the contents. You were particularly taken by Shenmue and ChuChu Rocket, both of which came with little sticker sets.
“Okay, nevermind. I’m into this.”
I was flipping through the manual for Powerstone 2. “Me too.”
“But, like, why’d you buy one now? This is pretty out-of-nowhere.”
“Honestly, a better question is why’d I wait until now,” I said, slipping the manual back into its jewel case. “It’s the one console I never had, but it always fascinated me. I can’t remember why I never thought to grab one.”
“You’re interested in a console that was such a huge failure that it forced SEGA out of the console business?”
“I mean, on a sales level you could call it a failure, sure,” I traced the spiral logo emblazoned on the disc tray of the system. “But based on its software alone it’s anything but. It was the product of SEGA’s brave, experimental approach to a new format — a whole new three-dimensional space to play in.
“For instance — let’s see here,” I rummaged through the pile and pull out Sonic Adventure. “Boom. Say what you want about them, but Sonic Team did a great job capturing Sonic’s distinct sensation of speed in expansive 3D environments.
“Baboom!” I frisbee’d a jewel case your way. You barely clapped it in between your hands. “Jet Set Radio. Oozes as much style and attitude as it did when it came out.”
I point to the sticker set resting in your lap. “Tremors from the impact of Shenmue’s narrative innovations still reverberate in games today.
“And if you want something a little more fringe and experimental,” I pulled two more jewel cases from the pile. “We got that too! Roommania #203 and Seaman are completely, ambitiously nuts, and never has there been games like them, before or since.”
You raised your hand. “And Samda de Amigo had those sweet maracas!”
“They did! They definitely did, and they were very sweet.”
I picked up Code Veronica from the pile and looked at it. “I don’t know. Something about the Dreamcast’s output always seemed sorta special. I feel like developers were allowed to experiment, and play, and create — to push outward against a mould from every which direction, as violently as they could, to explore a format so passionately and uncommonly to redefine so thoroughly the ways games are played, or can be played, or what is possible to be played.”
I pop Code Veronica back on top of the pile. “I think. Maybe.”
You were silent for a moment as you picked at something in your lap. You placed a sticker of Ryo from Shenmue on my mouth.
Silence. You peeled a sticker of a ChuChu and placed it on my mouth next to Ryo.
“Why are you putting stickers on my mouth.” The stickers bounced up and down on my upper lip.
You reapply the stickers, sealing my mouth shut. “Because it’s funny.”
I looked out the window by the television. The details weren’t vivid from the eleventh floor of the apartment complex. A red car drove by. It was still summer, but pretty chilly out. The faint, bassy sounds of a house party could be heard further down the street. The street lamps were on, as they were always. Above, the clouds clustered together to sheathe their sky.
“Yo, check THIS shit out!” You yelled, jumping out from the kitchen doorway. You posed with a light gun in each hand, crossing your arms like you’re Bayonetta or something.
“Pretty cool, right?”
Your figure was veiled by a very mysterious oversized hoodie and a particularly menacing pair of sweatpants.
I mocked astonishment. “Very. Very, very cool.”
“It is about time I come clean to you,” You stepped towards me, guns drawn. “I am actually an assassin, and my eternal assignment is to kill Unbearably Huge Nerds. I’m sorry.”
You inched towards me until I was bent back, clutching the windowsill. The back of my head caught the nights wind. I whimpered and sniffled as I bargained for my life, please God, no, don’t do this, I can change, I have kids, my kids have kids, etc.
“Then we will play the House of the Dead 2, or you will die”, You held the barrel to my throat. “Either way, I will be shooting these very sweet guns. Pick your poison, punk.”
I crouched down behind the CRT, plugging in each of the composite cables, while you continued your Light Gun Power Trip and Max Payne’d all over the couch. Once everything was set up, I let you do the honours of slapping the disc into the tray and pressing ON. You flung yourself next to me on the couch, begrudgingly handing me one of the light guns, but keeping the one you stuck all the Shenmue stickers on to yourself.
A bright white took to the screen, and the Dreamcast logo animation played, and then the screen turned black. And then the disc drive revved a little, and it chugged a bit, and it was only a little bit but that was enough for me to remember precisely why I kept putting off buying a Dreamcast.
I ran my hands through my hair. You immediately recognized something was up.
“What’s wrong? Afraid of zombies?”
“No, it’s fine. Lets play.”
For a time we played the House of the Dead 2. You made a point of staggering back in the couch with a shriek and shooting frantically when an enemy drew close. I was holding my own at first, but after a few levels ended up getting a game over on most every level.
I couldn’t focus. All I could hear was the disc tray revving, and buzzing, and whirring. And when it wasn’t, I worried about when it would.
We were about halfway through the arcade mode when you paused.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” You put down the gun for the first time since you picked it up. “You used to be really good at this game.”
“Yeah. I guess I’m just not feeling it.”
“Are those new meds making you feel funky?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I was visibly uncomfortable. You traced a straight line on the back of my hand. It calmed me down a bit.
“Um. if we talk about it, is it okay if we turn off the console?”
“Sure! Of course! We’ve beaten the House of the Dead 2 a buncha times before, anyway,” you said, stepping over the Dreamcast and switching it off. “Do you want some water? Or chamomile? Let’s have some chamomile.”
I follow you through to the kitchen. “Thank you. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You do the same for me.”
We sat together on the dining table in the kitchen, dunking the teabags in our mugs.
“So,” You brought the mug up to your face and blew on it to cool it down. “Why did the console stress you out?”
“This is stupid,” I let the teabag sink to the bottom of my cup. “But I’ve read on a bunch of forums over the years that Dreamcast disc drives are really prone to dying. That’s why I’ve always been a bit scared of getting one.”
“We could just get a new one if it breaks, though!”
“I suppose — but at this point, every Dreamcast on the market is over twenty years old. Even if we got a mint condition Dreamcast, I would still worry in the back of my head about it failing sooner or later.”
“Is this like a while back when we went to that beach?”
You grew up in a small seaside town and spent many of your nights by the water. Recently, on a particularly humid night, we took a trip to a beach you liked from back when you were young. I was surprised when I found out it wasn’t a beach at all — it was a series of huge rocks jutting out by the ocean. After school, local kids used to make their way down to the rocks by the sea and jump into the ocean from them. The rocks are a steep climb down from a cliff comprised of even more rocks. With one look at the precarious climb, I realised that if I did not die on the way down, I would die jumping off into the ocean, and then I would double-die trying to climb back up again.
I panicked, and refused to climb down. You suggested we could head back home. I said it was fine, I would just wait here. I want you to have fun. You said you’d be back soon, and you descended the rock cliff. I yelled be careful, and I heard you yell back okay, I’ll be careful, and then I sat as far as I could away from that stupid cliff.
“I guess so,” I said, taking my first sip of tea. I sighed. “It’s really self-serving, but in every moment I feel like I’m bracing myself for a car crash — for myself to die, or someone close to me to die — and then there’s the logistics of working out how I’m going to cope with that, what the big picture looks like there.
“For example, say I decided to get a pet. Before I go out to get the pet, I would think about what I would do if the pet died. If the solution is to get another pet, then I would start thinking about what I would do when that pet dies, and I suppose this would go on forever until I’m dizzy, or I myself have died.”
I take another sip of my tea. “I feel like I’m always waiting for something terrible to happen to me.”
You sip your own chamomile tea and smile. “I think this is what people mean when they say they should ‘live in the moment’ more.”
“For sure — I really wish I could. I just forget sometimes,” I rotated the mug in my hands as if I were cracking a safe. “I guess I forget a lot.”
“How about this,” You prop your head up with balled hands and look right at me. “You’re here with me, right now. And we’re gonna just have fun and play games and do whatever!”
You transfer your fists to twined fingers and cradle your chin. “And for me, that’s enough.”
Your smile is warm, and it makes me blush a little. “Thanks. I think it is for me too.”
You grabbed your keys from the table and stood yourself up. “Now, let’s get some Mickey D’s.”
“Mickey D’s?! But you hate Mickey D’s!”
“Sometimes you need to poison yourself.”
As we left the apartment, the bassy sounds of the party music down the street re-emerged.
We waited in the drive-thru for our meal — we probably ordered too many cheese burgers, but you argued that too many was the correct number. You turned the knob on the radio down until it felt like the Eurobeat was emanating from far away.
“While you,” I poked you, “Were over in your exciting little beach-town, you wanna know what us kids in the boring old suburbs were doing?”
You poked me back. “What?”
“We rode on the back of cars.”
“What, like in the back of pickup trucks? Oh, thank you!” You took the bag of Too Many Cheese Burgers from the Mickey D’s employee.
“Nope. Just holding onto the back of a car.”
“Jeez! And you thought my rock thing was scary!”
“I guess everyone sorta just has a thing they’re willing to die a really stupid death for. It was fun.”
You glance at me. “Wanna try it?”
“Are you sure?”
You nod.
I look down at the bag of Too Many Cheese Burgers.
“Please drive slowly.”
You turned up the Eurobeat on the radio.
Even at a low speed, it felt like I was flying. At first I hugged the car, my legs buckling as I clung for dear life, but before long I was balancing on the bumper, slapping the bonnet as a signal for you to go faster. I waved to a lady smoking by a post box. She waved back. We turned a corner, and I slapped the car to signal you to slow down, but it was the same signal as speeding up so you sped up instead, and you swerved left and right and I staggered, and I almost fell and landed on someones front lawn, but I steadied myself, and I cried out in joy, because I was having so much fun, and from inside the car I could hear you laugh, and it was fun that I was having fun with you. And, in that moment, I was thankful that this night would never end.
I was still shaking and laughing when we got back to the apartment.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. That was the best. Holy shit.”
You threw your keys into the kitchen and popped the Mickey D’s onto the coffee table. “I’m glad you liked it.”
“I need to, I,” I sat on the couch next to you and looked at my quivering hands. “I can’t calm down. God. Jesus.”
You grab a joint from the bowl on the coffee table and light it up. You looked so peaceful as you exhaled smoke, your eyes closed — like you were thinking of nothing at all.
“Here,” you say, handing me the joint, “this’ll help.”
We were high, and full of burgers, and watching Seinfeld. The sounds of the house party down the road had long ceased, replaced by a loud and heavy rain. I watched the drops as they trailed down the length of the window.
I clapped my hands together definitively.
“We will play the House of the Dead 2,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
I picked up your headphones, discarded by the side of the couch, and put them on. And then I mimed being a DJ.
“A wicka-wicka-wicka-wicka YEAH!”
“Oh. OK. I guess you are sure.”
We played through all of the House of the Dead 2. I still died a few times, but only because I was high, and only because I was still thinking about how dumb that DJ thing I did was.
From there, we played Power Stone 2. And then we played Virtua Tennis, which we didn’t stop playing for a few hours, but in Weed Time it stretched on forever, endlessly — even now, it feels like somewhere out there is a universe where we’re still sitting on our worn old couch, playing Virtua Tennis. And there, the disc would spin carelessly for all time.
The clock radio next to the tv beeped, it’s red numbers flashing in the dark.
You pause the game. “Oh, shoot.”
“What?”
“I needa get to work in like, two hours.”
“Oh.” I look to the window in realisation. “Me too.”
Neither of us ended up getting to work. Before long, we had fallen asleep, both our forms splayed out across the couch.
The ambient whirring of the Dreamcast’s disc drive carried on until we woke, hours later.
