Jacob lights a match and transfers the flame to his cigarette. I hear a thump from the garage off the screened porch we’re sitting in; his brother missed a handhold on the climbing wall they’ve built in there. They built it with their father after he moved back into the state, the next town over. Scott landed on the padded part of the floor; he’ll be back up and falling off again in a second. Jake rocks back and forth carefully on the thin rocker. The bridging stick of wood slides an inch in and an inch out diagonally as he rocks back and forth, too far and the whole thing will fall to pieces and become firewood.
“Scott’s in training,” Jake says, jabbing a thumb at the door leading to the garage. “The Army recruitment guy has been by here this month. Says Scott might be able to go right into Ranger school right after basic. Hardest school they got, right after six weeks of boot.”
“He’s joining up? Now?”
“You know, all he’s ever wanted in life was to be a Ninja Turtle.”
“That’s true,” I say.
“He’s been up in his room playing that ‘Medal of Honor’ videogame all the time. Going to the target range. Running around at night. He got a list off the Internet of some of the stuff they do in boot and he’s practicing. Already shaved his head, the Nazi.”
“What’s your dad think of all this?”
“He loves it. He was in for a few years. To him, it’s ‘whores of the world.’”
“I mean the timing.”
“Timing’s shitty, but they’ll just start up the draft in a year or two anyway. This way he gets to go how he wants to. He’s been taking Spanish classes at school, only class he shows up for, so they’ll probably send him to South America instead.”
I hear the garage door opening. The climbing wall goes along the back wall of the garage, then there are tiny handholds on the ceiling. If you make it to the top, and you can turn around, and you can swing across ten feet of open air with handholds four inches across to grab onto, then you can make it to a nest of sorts built up around the housing for the garage door opener. It’s made of plywood and looks like a tree-house for a midget. Scott keeps some pillows up there and pot to reward himself when he makes it. He makes it almost every time now, so he only lights up every five. The opener has a manual switch on it and Scott hits it every time he makes it. I’ve heard it twice since I got here ten minutes ago.
“How’s he get down?” I ask; the handholds on the ceiling only face one way.
“Jumps and rolls on the concrete.”
Jake offers me a smoke, but I’ve quit. I only see him when I’m back in town. Last time I still smoked. It was six months ago.
“And your mom? What does she think?”
“You know her. She hates it, but at least he won’t be sitting around the house and dealing for the rest of his life. Anyway, she knows if she says no he’ll do it anyway.”
Scott was the sharpest kid in his group of friends. The sharpest kid in a place like Hilton, New York, finds a connection and makes better-than-an-after-school-job money dealing pot to his buddies. For the rest, a register job will keep them in videogames and pot. There isn’t much else to do, and that takes care of most of their needs. They don’t ordinarily branch off into pills or coke; meth and coke make you hyper-aware of your surroundings, that’s the opposite of what they want.
I remember back when he was ten he used to attack me the second I’d walk into their house. He’d try to Kung Fu me like he saw in cartoons. I’d block him for a little while, and then I’d get bored and toss him across the room onto a couch. He’d bounce right off and keep coming. Eventually I’d have to chuck him at a wall. He’d lie there in a heap like a pile of bones. I’d walk over to make sure he still had a pulse and he’d bounce up and attack me again. This could go on for hours.
“And you, Jake? How do you feel about it?”
“You know me. Why not? Meet new and interesting people and kill them. I mean, they probably don’t have an X-box or, you know, clean water, so ol’ Scott’s prob’ly got the jump on them.”
Jake chains another cigarette and we hear the garage door again.
Later on, we’re sitting in the living room and Jake’s kid Josh is on his lap playing “Mortal Kombat” on the X-box. His mom dropped him off a little earlier; he’ll stay the afternoon then she’ll pick him up when she’s off work. Jake’s car is busted so he can’t drop them off. Last time I was here they were still together. Jake’s mom, Shirley, is working at her desk in the corner of the room, paying bills. She keeps looking up at the screen, shaking her head, and going back to work. Josh is about four; cherubic, with big eyes, brown hair and a rubbery smiling face; and not very good at videogames yet. He mainly just twists the toggle around and smacks random buttons. Every time he makes contact a flash of “blood” spurts off character he’s fighting. Shirley looks up at the screen whenever she hears an especially loud thwack or crunch, then at Jake’s back, then shakes her head, then down to the table.
“Can you put on a game that is a little less violent?” she finally asks.
“Yeah…sure…” Jake says disinterestedly, without moving.
It is a calm and lovely day on whatever planet is playing host to the bloodshed. The Kombatants are on a platform, seemingly made of stone, set in front a wide expanse of desert. The crowd in stands along the background blurrily suggests a multitude deriving such pleasure from the battle that it propels them into one of four attitudes of ecstasy. Occasionally a zeppelin that looks like an elongated booger floats across the dunes, broadcasting to the bloodthirsty of neighboring galaxies.
“Can you do it now?”
“I can turn the blood off, it’s a new feature. I’ll do it after he dies here.”
Josh is dying fast. The computer opponent is punching him in the jaw, kicking his ribs and occasionally freezing him into a block of ice only to smash it and send him flying. His health bar is already in the critical red area and a sign marked “DANGER” has appeared. He smacks more buttons and twists the toggle as an ice-ball zings by his foot. He accidentally programs in a special move and his character, a blonde girl in baseball cap, produces a blade and spins it like a saw. It catches the computer, a black and blue-suited man with a ninja mask, and lifts him into the air as it cuts into him. Blood droplets spout through the air, some disappearing and some spattering to the ground where they remain a moment before vanishing.
“I got him! I got him!” Josh shouts.
“Jake.”
Jake is laughing, “He’s almost dead, hold yer horses.”
The computer’s Man in Black has recovered from his filleting and now slides across the ground kicking Josh’s girl, following it with an uppercut that propels her off the ground. Her back arches and in slo-mo she describes a poetic arc before the kelly-green pixelated sky.
The girl crashes to the stone floor, bounces, and her health-meter winks out. Immediately she is on her feet and leaning around in a circle dazedly; I expect to see stars about her lolling head. The Man in Black assumes a boastful stance, surveying his helpless adversary with grim satisfaction. Two words appear on the screen in flaming red, accompanied by a helpful voice-over. “FINISH HER!” they say.
Shirley looks worried, “Jake, turn it off now.”
Josh is still hitting the buttons. He looks perplexed that the fighting is over.
Jake shrugs and laughs, “The computer can’t do any special moves, Ma.”
Suddenly the background disappears and the two characters stand in dramatic overhead light. Jake’s face freezes. The Man in Black strides to where she cycles through the four-point circle she repeats over and over. He hesitates, for effect. Then he gut-punches her. The girl falls to her knees, and he puts a hand under her chin, almost tenderly. He raises the other in a fist to the sky then places it on top of her head…no, wait…the fingers, outstretched, are passing through her skull. Her pixel-eyes widen. From the tautness in his rendered muscles you can see the Man in Black has closed his fist and is pulling on something. He uses the hand on her chin as a brace, and with a final effort her brain is pulled, intact, from her skull cavity. Drawn with it, flipping about like a caught fish, is her spinal cord down to the tail-bone. The lights come back up and the Man in Black raises her brain in triumph for the delighted multitudes to see. They are in transports of joy. The violent thrashing of the spinal cord showers his black and blue costume with maroon digital blood. Its curling slows and abates. The body of the girl, abandoned, collapses face-first to the stone where it lies in a still-spreading pool. The voice and caption flash white, “SUB-ZERO WINS!” and then below in dripping red, “FATALITY.”
Throughout we have been silent.
There is a moment of stillness yet, then Josh throws his hands in the air and chants delightedly, victoriously, “He killed me! He killed me!”
Jake, his face still frozen in the arrested laugh of a minute ago, bolts to the machine to shut it off, depositing Josh on the carpet where he rolls back and forth giggling. Shirley’s face is blanched and sunken. She suddenly looks very very old.
“Grandma! Did you see!? He killed me!”