by Michael Janairo

I dropped my Christmas cash on Activision Skiing. Knees bent, leaning forward, the skier—the me—sped downhill through slaloms, past pine trees, over icy moguls. Transfixed, joystick in hand, I turned my body this way and that. The only sounds: a shush as skis cut into snow, a whoosh through slaloms, a plink over moguls, a buzz of each crash, and the constant hum of the Zenith.

My older brother hated the game. He liked Combat and the tricky way he could guide missiles around walls to blow up my tank. He laughed every time. Then he’d commandeer the TV to watch It’s a Living, Vega$, Freebie and the Bean.

So I played in the a.m. after my dad left for work. I washed, dressed, snagged a Pop-Tart from the kitchen, even put on my coat, so I could stay in the basement and play as long as possible until I had to get the bus.

For a few blissful moments, it was my place, my time, my game. It was fun. Then I read the manual: Anyone who beat a time of 28.2 seconds in Game 3, Expert Level Slalom, it said, could apply to become a member of something called the Activision Ski Team. I thought: Me? On a team? I was the last-picked kid in gym, the asthmatic kept indoors for recess. I wanted to play football, tag, and basketball with classmates, instead of reading battered sci-fi books while the janitor mopped the cafeteria floor around me. This was my chance. All I had to do was beat the time, take a photo of the TV screen, mail it in, and, then, I’d be on the team. With kids like me. Teammates.

When I tried Game 3, I slid off course (buzz!), slammed gates (buzz!), crashed into trees (buzz!). My times? Awful. I kept playing, though, every morning, dreaming of being on a team until my mom yelled, “Time for the bus!”

***

Eventually, I caught on that Game 3 had a pattern. To figure it out, I did nothing for a few games but watch the skier—me—slam into things and get terrible times. Freed from trying so hard, a pattern emerged. Slalom gates appeared on the left, then on the right, then close together, then far apart. I spent a few days watching the pattern until I felt ready again to play, this time to play the pattern.

I learned I needed to relax my grip on the joystick and just tap it once left or right to move the player. My goal wasn’t to do well the whole game through, but to master one gate at a time. I even discovered a  glorious moment where, if positioned just right, I slipped through three gates in a row without having to touch the joystick at all.

Eventually, the morning arrived in which when I played I didn’t think but only existed as the skier who went whoosh, whoosh, whoosh through one gate after another so quickly that I clocked a time of 27.96 seconds. I stared at the screen. I set down the joystick. I feared bumping something and resetting the console. I stood. I needed my Vivatar Point ‘n’ Shoot. But it was way up in my room.

My mom yelled, “Time for the bus!”

The screen said 27.96. 

My mom yelled, “Bus!”

I was good enough for the team.

My brother yelled, “Let’s go!”

***

I left everything with the power on; TV aglow with my 27.96. I’d shoot the photo when I got home. I ran for the bus.

School was a blur that day. My mind was locked on the team. Would I get a uniform? Would there be competitions? Would they fly me across country to Sunnyvale, California? Would we play in a room filled with Ataris? Would we test new games? Would I feel I belonged?

After school, I leapt off the bus and ran, despite my wheezing. My brother, who knew about the photo I had to take, yelled, “Don’t be such a loser!” 

I ignored my mom and ran up to my bedroom, snatched my Vivatar, and flew down to the basement. The TV screen was dark. I didn’t understand. Where was my 27.96? I turned the TV on, but the screen was blank. My 27.96 was gone. Had the power gone out? Had my mother turned it all off? I switched on the Atari. I needed to play. I had to get the score again. I was on the team. My hands were shaking. 

I didn’t know my mom and brother were watching me. 

She said, “Give the Atari a rest.” Her face was stern.

“But,” I said. “The team.”

“The what?” she said.

“Idiot,” my brother said.

“The score,” I said, still feeling hopeful. “I belong on the team.”

“What is he talking about?”

“Some stupid promotion,” my brother said. “He actually thinks an ad to get him to like Activision means he’s on a ski team.”

My mother’s face softened into pity.

That’s when something broke inside me. I yelled at my brother, “You don’t belong!” I picked up the Combat cartridge and flung it at him. It flew past him and landed with a soft thud on a chair cushion.

“Mister!” my mom said, her stern face back. “You go to your room!”

My brother muttered, “Loser.”

My body shook as I climbed the upstairs, not looking at them, too wracked by longing and shame. Were they right? Was I a loser who played video games too much? 

After that, I would sneak down in the middle of the night to play. Nobody knew. I eventually got my 27.96 again. I even snapped the photo. I never mailed it in. 

Image: Atari by Luis Alveart via Flickr