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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: boston -ish
Posts: 215
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Always the Asians-Short piece-Warning-naughty words!
Hey everyone... It's been too long since I actually posted writing here... I could REALLY use some feedback on this piece... I'm torn between whether it's a bad idea dressed up prettily or a good idea dressed up all sorts of ugly. Any/all comments/crits/impressions welcome.
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Asians. It was always the Asians.
Seamus fingered the quarter in his jacket, turning it over and over again inside the pocket.
“When you’re ready,” he told himself, “Just wait till you’re ready.”
He leaned against a change machine, watching them from the far end of the arcade, not quite in the shadows, but far enough to be ignored. Someone back in San Antonio, back in the beginning, had told him that an arcade can help you find the vibe of a new town. All he ever found were Asians. Why did they always have to be Asians?
In San Antonio it had been a gang of Koreans. In Seattle it was the Chinese. In Los Angeles it was the J-crew. Here in Richmond it looked like they were a mix of all of them. It didn’t matter where Seamus moved to; the arcades were always the same—dominated by Asians.
They pressed in close around the game, lining their quarters up on the game’s dashboard to signify their place in line. The kid at the controls couldn’t have been older than eleven or twelve—too young for high school at any rate. His eyes were like black ants walking around in the middle of a pair of glasses the size of Petri dishes. Those little ants darted back and forth, following the action on screen with divine focus. Every time he cleaned up a challenger he’d push the glasses back up his nose and sniffle like he had a cold.
Twelve was a dangerous age. They were old enough to have developed real skill, but too young to have been humbled by money, glory, or blondes. Candy and the pure thrill of the game was all there was to life.
Of course, there’d never been much more than the candy and games to Seamus’ life but, even so, he had never been as good as he’d been when he was twelve, and even that was never as good as the Asians.
The problem with Asians, at least the kind who hung around the Arcades, was that they were too perfect. Seamus had a theory that all Asian gamers—all the skilled ones at least— were robots. They were cold, and they were calculated, and the only way to beat them was to be equally cold and calculated.
Seamus turned the quarter over in his pocket, keeping his fingers in constant motion. It was okay for his fingers to be moving. No one could see inside his pocket, and it kept the rest of him still. He let them move all they wanted to.
He told himself he wasn’t nervous. Why should he be nervous? It was a new town, a new city, a new life. Richmond had never seen Seamus and he’d never seen it. He knew nobody and nobody knew him. That was exactly how he liked it.
“Wait till you’re ready,” Seamus told himself again, fumbling the quarter.
Of course, he had been just as much a stranger in LA and Seattle, and he’d had the same apprehensions there too. Well, he’d been mostly a stranger. The teams knew him, that was true enough, but they didn’t count. Every team was the same, and there was always at least one or two who were worse than him.
The Petri dish kid pushed his glasses back up and sniffled. One of the other Asians stepped away from the game sullen and defeated. It was a fighting game—an import. It was always Asians and it was always an import fighting game. The genre had stopped evolving after 1993 and if someone had mastered one then he’d mastered them all.
Seamus knew the Petri Dish kid was good. Worse yet, Petri Dish knew he was good too. And so did all the other Asians. The whole God-Damn arcade knew he was good. Seamus could feel the respect sink into the air around them, thick and embracing. This kid was hardcore.
Seamus tried to remember what he was even doing there. It was a new city and raining and the new streets made no fucking sense and he didn’t belong in an arcade. There were just too many people and too much noise and too many games he didn’t like. He should just go back to his new home on the new street and call it a day. He needed to relax a bit before tomorrow anyway.
Seamus couldn’t do that though. He’d gone through this back in Seattle, and again in LA, and now here he was, staring across a dark and crowded room at a bunch of Asians. When had it become a ritual to check the arcades first thing upon hitting a new town? He was no true gamer. He didn’t belong here.
He flipped the quarter over faster and faster in his pocket, running this thumb along the ridges. It helped him think. Or it helped him not think. He couldn’t decide which.
“Cold and confident.,” He reminded himself, “It won’t matter, you’ll never come back here. Who cares what they think? Cold and confident.”
Petri dish took two more victories. The kid was getting a lot of play time from a single coin. The rest of the Asians didn’t seem to mind losing though—each time someone was defeated he would rejoin the crowd, cheering and hooting.
There were well over a dozen of them, and not one looked over seventeen. This was probably the closest thing to an after school babysitter they got—a fistful of quarters and a bus ticket to the mall till Mom or Dad came to pick them up. No wonder they were all so good.
The kid in the glasses liked to use the obligatory skinny chick character—the one that jumped up and down like a schoolgirl and spouted something incoherent in Japanese whenever she won. The chicks were always the fastest characters, though they couldn’t take many hits. The idea was to play so fast that the other person never had a chance to move. The kid was fast enough, that was sure.
Seamus figured that he’d have to use the beefy East European character—there was always one—if he was going to stand a chance. He could just sit back and block all the kid’s attacks till he wore him out.
Or he could just go home. He was out of place here—a full decade older than anyone else. He probably looked even older than that. Seamus hadn’t looked at a mirror in a few weeks but he knew the past few years hadn’t been kind to his body.
Seamus sighed and pulled the quarter out of his pocket. He was here now, with nowhere else to go till tomorrow. He needed a cigarette. Hell, he needed half a dozen cigarettes. He’d jam them all in his mouth and light up like a birthday cake.
“Fuck it all,” Seamus muttered, “Cold and confident—cool as ice.”
He took a step forward and pushed his chin up. As he walked he gripped the coin so tight his knuckles began to go numb.
“Cool as ice,” He repeated in his head.
Seamus made his way over to the crowd and stood behind them. He was taller than all of them and had a clear view, but that was nothing new, he was taller than everyone. No one paid him any attention. After all, he was just some nobody watching the kid.
They all noticed as Seamus weaved his way to the front though. One by one they hushed their cheers and eyed him with something between amusement and disdain. Even Petri Dish glanced up twice when he noticed Seamus. The other fighter almost got a hit on him then—almost.
Seamus ignored the looks. He couldn’t back down now, he was committed. Cold and confident, he thought. He placed his quarter at the end of the line of coins on the dashboard.
Then he drew back into the crowd to wait his turn. The Asians gave him a bit of distance. Seamus couldn’t blame them—they were only kids. He wasn’t. They were probably wondering what this random white guy was doing here, and why he wanted to fight the kid. Why the hell did he want to fight the kid? Tradition?
Why the fuck did he always feel so scared? Even his fucking fingertips felt numb. They were strangers—only Strangers.
One of the older kids leaned forward and reached for the line of quarters. At first Seamus was worried that he was going to take the quarter and fling it in Seamus’ face, but instead the boy grabbed one of the earlier coins in the line, his own, and pulled back. Seamus had just moved up a place.
They want to see me fight, Seamus realized, I’m a wild card. They don’t know what to think of me. He decided that was a good thing.
Two more Asians stepped forward and took their quarters out of the line also, making Seamus the next one up.
He hadn’t been prepared to fight this soon. Now it would only be another minute. Seamus had hoped to sit back for a few rounds and watch Petri Dish up close.
Cool as ice, Seamus reminded himself, there was a good side to this— one way or another he would get this over with soon.
Still, his fingers longed for the comfort of the quarter again. He started wringing his hands together instead absently, twisting the fingers like he was trying to squeeze water out of them, until he realized how awkward that must look and shoved them back into his pockets.
It wasn’t long before Petri Dish won again. He sniffled and pushed the glasses back up to his eyes.
Seamus took a breath and stepped up to the machine. This was it. He had to play now. It was a game. Games are fun. They were made to be fun. He would never see these people again. Cold. Confident. Cool as ice.
“Hello,” Seamus said, stepping up to the dashboard.
The kid looked up at him and nodded, his eyes were like baked beans swimming in the middle of those giant glasses. Seamus had never seen glasses so big. Suddenly the absurdity of the whole thing hit him.
“Christ,” He thought, “He’s just a little kid. You’re a pro. If only they knew—these guys dream of being you someday,” The idea of that made him actually feel confident for a moment, until he noticed he was wringing his hands again. Seamus pulled them apart quickly.
“This kid’s got nothing on you,” he thought, as he leaned down to insert the quarter into the Coin deposit, “Nothing.”
“A new challenger has arrived!” the game greeted Seamus in a dangerous, but oddly marketable, voice. The voice was as obligatory as the skinny chicks and East Europeans were. A selection screen popped up allowing him to choose his fighter.
“Let’s go, kid,” Seamus stood back up and cracked his knuckles.
There was no one at the other end of the controls though. There was no one behind him either. Seamus glances around, confused. He saw the crowd of Asians walking, led by Petri dish, towards one of the other fighting games. Not a single one of them looked back at him.
Seamus stood dumbfounded. A chill ran through him and everything, the people, the flashing lights and noises, seeped past him like honey. The selection screen timed out and auto selected a character for him and the other, abandoned, joystick. Two fighters stood facing each other, neither moving.
He could see Petri Dish dropping another quarter into the machine across the room. All the fighting games were the same after all, and the other kids lined up their quarters and the play began all over again.
Seamus noticed he was wringing his hands again, but he made no move to stop them. He hadn’t really expected to win—not deep down. He always lost. He wasn’t half as hardcore as the rest of them, and he knew it. Petri Dish knew it too. The other Asians knew it. The whole God-damned arcade knew it. Seamus could feel the disdain seeping in around him, thick and choking.
He hadn’t actually lost, he would tell himself later, he couldn't lose if he didn't play, right? But still, it had been years since he felt this defeated.
Last edited by blankslatejoe : 02-11-2006 at 08:49 PM.
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