Joystix
Avery Sam
Joystix
by Avery Sam
Copyright Information
Joystix
by Avery Sam
© 2025 Avery Sam
All rights reserved.
Author: Avery Sam
Contact details: averysam.parachute371@passinbox.com
Book cover, illustration: Avery Sam
Editing, proofreading: Avery Sam
This e-book, including its portions, is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced, resold, or redistributed without the permission of the author.
If you liked the e-book, recommend that your friends buy a personal copy. A big thank you for respecting the author's work!
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
Table of Contents
Asteroids
Frogger
Moon Patrol
Pac-Man
Joust
Gorf
Popeye
Ms. Pac-Man
Defender
Rally-X
Q*Bert
Asteroids
It doesn't happen that often anymore, but a few weeks ago, I was in the grocery store with my granddaughter Sophia when a guy approached me with The Look in his eyes.
At first, I thought he might've just been one of those random weirdos you sometimes have to deal with in today's modern society, but when he pulled out a genuine paper notepad and a pen, I knew he was one of Them. Sure enough, his eyes got all wide and his hand started to shake as he asked me for an autograph.
My poor granddaughter got really confused. I tried to explain to her that I was famous once, a long time ago. But then she started asking me questions, ones I wasn't quite ready to answer, ones she wasn't quite old enough to hear.
I'm only in my mid 50s, so I don't think I'll be kicking the bucket anytime soon. Still, though, I thought it was time for me to get my story down on paper. Or, excuse me, "down" on a digital document.
That way, when she’s old enough, she can learn exactly what her grandmother was up to in the 1980s. And who knows? Maybe someone else out there might be interested in my story as well.
And so, without further adieu, here is the complete - and unabridged - story of how I became the winner of the PixelSmash Super Showdown video game tournament in 1986.
I think it might've been the fall of 1982 when I saw my first video game, although the truth is that I wasn't very impressed.
I was at the roller rink with my friends Jennifer and Amy, and we saw a group of boys gathered around what we initially thought was a pinball machine. They were shouting and hollering and acting retarded, as teenage boys do, so we went to get a closer look. And that's when I saw that they were playing Asteroids.
As I said, I wasn't terribly impressed at first. It was just a gray triangle on a screen surrounded by some gray blobs.
But every time one of those boys pressed the red button on the joystick, the little triangle (which was supposed to be a spaceship) would fire off its gun, making a loud noise. And if the shot blew up an asteroid, it also made a loud digital boom, and those two things together were all it took to get the boys jumping up and down and hooting like a pack of wild chimpanzees.
I don't really remember much else about the game. I know my friend Jennifer had this super long, colorful scarf that she was wearing that she was sure would get her lots of attention, but she ended up getting the end caught up in the wheels of her skates, and she fell and broke her nose. Other than that, it was just a typical weekend day at the roller rink, a place that still lives fondly in my heart.
It probably wasn't until sometime the next year when I got my first real introduction to video games, the one that got me hooked. My friend Amy was dating a guy named Christopher, and we were all supposed to meet up at the mall. But then when Amy called his house, his mother passed along a message, saying he was at the video game arcade and that we should go there to pick him up.
Remember, this was long before the internet was invented, so neither of us had any idea of what to expect. In our world, we only had a few places we would hang out - the local park, the mall, the bowling alley, the pizza place downtown, this one convenience store, and, of course, the roller rink.
Places like bars were off-limits to us on account of our age, and none of us had the money to go to swanky joints like fancy restaurants or the theater or whatever.
When the first video games appeared, business owners weren't quite sure where to put them, so a lot of them went into bars at first. After all, that's where the pinball games were (mostly) located, and so video games kind of had a seedy reputation.
But as time went on, business owners figured out kids had money to waste on the things too, so they started appearing in places like the roller rink.
A few savvy people figured out that video games were enough of a draw all on their own, and so the first video arcades started popping up. Since those days are long gone now, I'll pause here and describe them to you. Keep in mind, they might sound silly now, but to me, they were like a wonderland.
First of all, they were usually small, often just rectangular spaces wedged into strip malls. The business owner would jam as many arcade machines in as physically possible, each standing right next to each other, with barely enough space to walk between them.
A few enterprising places might have a concession stand in the center where they'd sell stuff like soda, popcorn, and leathery old hot dogs that'd been rotating on the electric grill too long.
But mostly it was just video games. One play was a quarter (25 cents), although later, some had special features where you could get boosts and other stuff for more money.
As a teenager perpetually short of money, the goal was to put in your quarter and try to stay alive as long as you could. And it was surprisingly easy to blow through a roll of quarters ($10) in just a couple of hours. That may not sound like much these days, but it was a fortune to us.
That's what Amy and I walked into that fateful day that changed my life forever. The place was called Neon Junction, which we thought was a cool and mysterious name. Inside, there were barely any lights, all the illumination coming from the flashing images on the screens of the games.
The sound in an arcade was deafening, each game competing to outdo the other with bleeps, booms, and digital audio effects designed to entice young boys (and a few young girls!) to plop in their coin and give it a whirl.
After a moment, my eyes got adjusted to the dim lighting in the place, and I probably stood there for a good couple of minutes, utterly entranced by what I was seeing and hearing. Everywhere I looked, I saw bright, colorful graphics, little animated spaceships, monsters, and people running around and blasting aliens and having the time of their lives. I was hooked even before I spent my first quarter.
If all that sounds cheesy to you, keep in mind that we didn't even have a computer in my house. The only "high-tech" gadget in our house was the television, which was interesting enough, but it sat in the living room, and all you could do with it was sit in front of it and wait to see what came on.
Video games, on the other hand, seemed like they came from another world.
Not only were all the graphics mind-blowing to our simple teenage minds, but the very fact that you could interact with them was amazing. No longer were you just sitting there passively, but you had to grab the joystick and use your wits in order to survive getting eaten by colorful ghosts or blasted by a giant angry centipede from outer space.
These days, I guess everyone is oversaturated with interactive stuff from your phones to your smart watches, but not us back in the 1980s. It was like going from a drab, simple world to a pulsating digital wonderland where you were the hero.
Only by using your intellect and hand-eye coordination could you hope to last for longer than a minute in that bleeping, dynamic landscape of mesmerizing monsters hell-bent on trying to kill you, and it was intoxicating.
But wait, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself because that first day, all I really did was stand there and watch other people play. Amy took us over to where her boyfriend was playing a game called Missile Command where you were in charge of this crudely-drawn city, and you had to send up flak to destroy missiles raining down from the sky that wanted to blow up your bases.
It was never one of the games I liked to play, and Amy's boyfriend Christopher wasn't very good, so it was probably 10 minutes or so maximum that I stood there and watched him clumsily fail at keeping his city safe from incoming nukes.
After that, we went to the mall, and we probably had greasy fast food pizza at the food court before shopping for trinkets at Kaybee Toys. I really don't remember. The only thing that was imprinted on my mind was how much I wanted to go back to Neon Junction again.
Again, you might laugh when reading this dearest Sophia, but at that point, I wasn't even thinking of playing the games myself. I barely had any money at all in those days, and all those games looked so intimidating that it never even crossed my mind to play them myself. At first, all I wanted to do was watch other people playing them because that was exciting enough for me.
But it was a while before I got to go back to Neon Junction. I did all the normal stuff that kids did back then like sitting up in my room and listening to the radio, carefully timing the DJ's patter so that I could record my favorite songs on a cassette.
Or I'd doodle in my Trapper Keeper and dream of what it would be like to have a steady boyfriend and where he'd take me in his car, which was going to be a convertible, of course. You know, typical teenage girl stuff.
I kept thinking maybe Amy and I would get a chance to hang out with Christopher as he played video games, but Amy and Christopher broke up not too long afterward, so that was that. I went out on a few dates with this guy David, but he was more into sports and making out at the drive-in, so
I kinda lost hope that there would be any chance of me going back to Neon Junction. Occasionally, I'd leaf through one of the magazines dedicated to video games at the B. Dalton bookstore at the mall, but that was about it.
But then everything changed the day that our washing machine broke.
Frogger
At the time, my mom and I were living in this cruddy rental apartment in a complex named Oakville Village.
There was a laundry room in the basement for the residents to use, one that you had to put in six quarters to run a load of laundry. I remember that because my mother was always complaining about how that was way too expensive.
Anyway, there were three machines down there, but two were already broken when we moved in. Then the third and final machine gave up the ghost. Everyone complained to the landlord, but he said it would be a while before he could get it fixed, and so for a month or two, we were out of luck.
I can't remember the details too clearly, but knowing my mother, we probably put off washing clothes for as long as possible. Eventually, though, we ran out of clean stuff to wear, so my mom threw everything into the back of our crappy old station wagon and we headed off in search of a laundromat.
As it so happened, the laundromat was located in the same strip mall as Neon Junction. When we pulled up, and I saw it there just a few doors down, my heart skipped a beat. But I didn't let myself get too excited because I knew my mother would never let me go in there.
As it turned out, though, the change machine in the laundromat was busted, so while my mother stood there and cursed up a storm, I decided to make my move.
I told her I knew a place that had a change machine, and she reluctantly forked over that five-dollar bill like it was a priceless family heirloom or something. As quickly as my Keds could carry me, I ran over to Neon Junction, pushing open the door and grinning like I was entering Aladdin's cave.
I put the $5 bill into the machine and then put the quarters into the pocket of my shorts, keeping one hand on top of them to make sure I didn't lose them, and then I dawdled as long as I could, watching people play games like Galaga and Defender.
Sure, my mom chewed me out a bit for taking so long, but my quick excursion back into the darkened halls of Neon Junction had reignited my passion for video games. We did our laundry, and the rest of the day passed by uneventfully, but from that moment on, I was determined to get back in there. And this time, I wanted to play the games myself.
Over the next few weeks, I spent every cent I had on video game magazines and even bought something called a 'zine at the local comic book store. Magazines were glossy and expensive, while 'zines looked like something a guy had made in his basement using a Xerox machine, but everyone in America was getting really excited about video games in those days, and so I read every issue from cover to cover.
I vacuumed up tips and strategies, learning how to conserve ammo and the best corners to duck behind long before I held the first joystick in my hand. I guess nowadays you could say I "nerded out" on doing my research, but I was determined to play, and I was mortified at the thought of dying quickly and losing my hard-won money.
I studied video games every way there was without playing them myself until one fateful day when I decided to put myself to the test and go back to Neon Junction.
My heart was beating a mile a minute, let me tell you, when I stepped through that door. I had a single dollar bill in the pocket of my shorts, one I was clutching onto so hard that it was probably limp and wet.
This was my big moment, and so I stood there like a dope for a few minutes, steeling myself for my grand moment. I slid my dollar into the machine and then cradled those four round metal discs with their ridged edges.
The question, of course, was which game to play first. Should I go for Donkey Kong, which had a slower pace and was a game that ArcadeWorld had given five stars to for value for money?
Or should I jump right into a high-adrenaline game like Zaxxon where I might get blasted out of the sky in a matter of seconds? I decided to walk around for a bit and see what everyone else was doing.
The biggest crowd, by far, was gathered around the Pac-Man machine. Again, I know this might all sound strange to someone of your generation, Sophia, but that little smiley mouth gobbling up power pellets drove us all wild back in those days.
It had the right mix of action and strategy to make it a very compelling game, and getting your name on the leaderboard gave you unparalleled bragging rights.
I stood there and watched one kid after another play Pac-Man, but I was too timid to get in the queue to play myself. After all, I was a complete beginner, and I didn't think I could stand the humiliation if I died too quickly while all those people were watching. So instead of Pac-Man, the very first game I ever played with my own money was Frogger.
Frogger was a strategy game that was right up my alley both because I'd done my research and because it started off slowly and then only got faster after about ten boards.
The goal was really simple - maneuver a poor, defenseless frog across several lanes of busy traffic without getting squished. My hand was trembling as I wrapped my hand around a joystick for the first time and then nervously slid my quarter into the machine.
To my credit, I lasted well over five minutes before I ran out of lives. At first, the game was so easy that I couldn't believe it, and that made me cocky and careless.
But I quickly learned my lesson, and when I put in my second quarter, I was much more focused and determined to keep my little frog alive.
Everything was going great until I failed to see a truck barreling down the fast line of the highway at the top of the screen, and I let out a little scream of frustration when the words "game over" popped up on the screen.
With half my money gone and not even thirty minutes elapsed, I was grimly set on proving myself, so I threw every ounce of mental willpower and concentration into my next game. And that's when the real magic started to happen, a sensation that I can still feel tingling in my body even today when I lose my eyes and think back on that wonderful time.
It was like I became one with the game, the joystick no longer a cheap piece of sweaty rubber in my hand but a divine rod at the core of my being, telling me which way to go before my conscious mind could even react.
I was no longer directing a little frog across busy lanes of traffic or jumping on the backs of turtles, I was the frog, and that frog was me. I flew through screen after screen, dodging and weaving with effortless ease, never hesitating but always moving forward.
I slid that frog between oncoming semi trucks and escaped the blades of bulldozers by the skin of my teeth, riding logs through rivers infested with alligators until I reached the safety of the other side.
Pretty soon, everything became a blur, and when my last frog got splatted by a dune buggy, I looked down at my watch and was shocked to see that nearly an hour and a half had gone by. That single dollar, which would scarcely buy me a slice of pizza and a Coke at the mall, had transported me to another world.
And unlike a movie at the cinema, another form of passive entertainment, it was through my skill alone that I had dodged those hundreds of runaway vehicles in order to get that little frog back to his family.
When I stepped away from the machine, I felt something akin to a drug high. I felt dazed and light-headed, but I also felt this surge of giddy optimism flowing through my chest. I had gone out there and faced a world of lethal danger and emerged triumphant.
All of the problems and anxieties of my regular life had slipped away, leaving me alone in a tunnel of pure digital light where there was only me and the joystick, and I absolutely loved it.
With no more money to spend, I spent a few minutes wandering around, watching other people and deciding what I was going to play the next time I came back.
If I could've sold the clothes off my back for another chance to play, I would've, but of course, that wasn't possible, so after a while, I reluctantly headed back outside to the bright sunshine of the real world, where everything looked dull and boring.
For the rest of the day, I felt like I was floating on a cloud, images from the game flashing before my eyes, and I probably went to sleep dreaming about that little frog as my hand twitched, guiding him to safety.
I knew right then that I was hooked, and that's when I began working on my plan to get some money so I could go back to Neon Junction.
Moon Patrol
I honestly don't know what teenagers these days do to make money, but back in the 1980s, the easiest way for a girl to make some cash was to be a babysitter.
I asked around with all of my friends, and it wasn't long before I had a string of clients lined up. Some of the jobs were relatively easy - mostly sitting around and watching TV while the kid slept - and others were more demanding, but it wasn't long before I was spending most of my free time getting paid to be at someone else's house.
The hourly rate certainly wasn't phenomenal, but it was common practice back then to eat whatever you wanted out of the fridge. So between the cash I was bringing in and the cash I was saving my mom in reduced grocery bills, she quickly became enthusiastic about my side hustle.
In turn, whenever I had a gap between babysitting duties, I ran straight to Neon Junction. Over time, I played all of the games, including the greats like Centipede, Joust, and Q-bert as well as the not-so-greats like BurgerTime, Rally-X, and Xevious. But the one that eventually became my go-to game was Pac-Man.
There was a good reason why that game was so popular amongst players. It featured exactly the right mix of strategic skill and manual dexterity. You needed to make a plan as you moved around the board, gobbling up the pellets.
But you also needed to be dextrous enough to avoid getting eaten by the ghosts. It's a very simple game, but learning to master it was extremely challenging, and I know I forked over a shocking amount of babysitting money as I slowly got better and better at it.
That was about the time I started getting noticed by the other players. Well, of course, since it was mostly boys, there had always been a little fascination with me, a girl, coming in there and competing in "their" place. When I finally scored enough points to enter my initials on the lower rung of the leaderboard, that's when Steve came over and introduced himself.
Steve was the owner of Neon Junction and was surprisingly young, only in his early 20s I think. He'd seen the profit potential in running an arcade, and he'd gotten the money from his uncle to open Neon Junction, so he took running the arcade very seriously.
Steve fancied himself a gamer, too, although he never quite had the skills to compete with the best of us, but he got excited when one of "his" players racked up a high score.
Steve was always hanging around Neon Junction, watching for up-and-coming players in between his regular business duties. He always wore brand-name clothes, and I'll admit I was intrigued by him even before I knew he ran the place.
He had a girlfriend named Jennifer, who was the typical cheerleader type with teased-out blonde hair. She didn't play video games herself, but she'd hang out with him while he played.
The first time Steve really talked to me was the day I made the leaderboard, and I remember him coming up to me with a sly grin on his face as if he couldn't believe a girl had beaten one of his regulars.
He congratulated me on my achievement, and we chatted for a bit about strategies for handling some of the higher levels where the ghosts would zoom around like they were on crack.
After that, we'd talk every time I came into Neon Junction. His girlfriend Jennifer would shoot me dirty looks, but I just ignored her because I wasn't really interested in dating him or anything. That is, at least, until one day Steve casually mentioned that he had service codes for all of the games, including Pac-Man.
The companies that manufactured the arcade games had secret access codes so they could troubleshoot the games if something was wrong or perform maintenance. And because they obviously didn't want their service technicians to have to keep feeding quarters into the machine when they were working on it, one of the byproducts of using the service code was that you could play the game for free.
Steve mentioned that sometimes, after Neon Junction closed for the night, he would use the service code and play for a while to try and improve his scores. As soon as I heard that, I was determined to get access for myself because I was burning through my babysitting money as fast as I could make it.
I knew Steve would never just give me the code, especially when Neon Junction was packed with paying customers, so I started making excuses to hang out until closing time.
Whenever Jennifer wasn't around, I'd smile and flirt with him, and pretty soon he got used to my being around all the time, including when the arcade was mostly empty.
I paid very close attention to Jennifer's schedule, and on the nights when I knew she wasn't going to be there, I'd put on a short skirt or wear a low-cut top. Just as with the video games themselves, persistence and practice paid off, and it wasn't long before I knew that Steve was attracted to me.
One night, when it was just the two of us at Neon Junction, I made my move. I undid the top three buttons on my blouse, making it obvious that I wasn't wearing a bra underneath.
I then told him I'd figured out a "special trick" to get past a particularly thorny enemy on Moon Patrol.
As he was standing behind me, watching me play, I pushed up against him and began to slowly grind my backside against him until I could feel a bulge in his crotch, not unlike a roll of quarters.
Pac-Man
Steve, to his credit, tried to speak up as I put my seduction strategy into play.
Not wanting him to ruin everything, I whirled around and pretended to fall so that he’d catch me. Between the erection I’d felt in his pants and with my boobs pressing up against him, he stood no chance, really. All it took after that was to lean in and then he kissed me.
A kiss might be explained away in the cold light of day, so I didn’t hesitate to reach down and grab that bulge in his crotch. Before he could stop me, I had his pants unzipped, and then I got down on my knees and took him in my mouth.
I know he was pretty shocked by that, but I’d calculated that he wouldn’t stop me once I’d gotten started, and in the end, I was right.
After Steve came in my mouth, I knew that he was going to think that I wanted to be his girlfriend. But the truth is that I didn’t care about any of that - I just wanted his access code to the games. So instead of acting all lovey-dovey and asking him to go out on a date, I just gave him a smile and then walked out of Neon Junction.
The next time I walked in, his eyes went wide for a moment, but I played it cool and acted like nothing had happened between us. I think that confused him at first, but then it got him intrigued, and when the crowd thinned out later in the evening, he was the one who came up to me.
I could tell he was trying to figure out where he stood with me, so I asked him to show me his office in the back, a place that was completely off-limits to customers.
The place was rather dingy and basic, with your standard desk, chair, and filing cabinets. But it did have an old couch with a few rips in the upholstery running along one wall. I think Steve used it for taking quick naps whenever he had to catch up on paperwork or something, but it was certainly good enough for the purpose I had in mind, which was getting him to fuck me.
The moment that the door was closed, I took off all my clothes and lay down on the sofa. I could tell he was a bit wary, but I gave him a big grin, letting him know everything was all right. Once he realized what was up, it didn’t take him long at all to shuck off his pants and climb on top of me. I was plenty wet, so he slid right in with no problem.
Now, I don’t want to insult the poor guy and say he wasn’t that good a lover, but the whole time he was plowing me, I kept my eyes locked on the ceiling, thinking about playing video games for free. Afterwards, when he was sweaty and spent, I kissed him on the cheek and asked him if he’d give me that service code.
I think he was a little bit surprised by that, but you have to remember that we were both passionate about games, so he understood right away why I wanted it.
My hands were shaking with excitement as I typed in the digits to get into Pac-Man, and then the next few hours flew by as I completed board after board. Steve came and went a few times, and one time he came over with some snacks, but I ignored him and kept playing until I could scarcely keep my eyes open.
My mom was asleep when I got home, and when she asked about it the next day, I just told her that the Offermans had asked me to stay late, and she accepted that without question.
After that, I went over to the Neon Junction every single evening that Jennifer wasn’t around. I’d get a little frustrated, having to spend my hard-earned money playing while I waited for the crowd to thin out. But once the front doors were locked, I’d take Steve into his office and let him have me. Once that was taken care of, I went straight back onto the floor and played until my hand started to hurt.
Sometimes, dawn would be breaking by the time I left Neon Junction, and the lack of sleep soon started affecting my schoolwork. I could barely stay awake in class, and so my grades started slipping. But I didn’t care because I could feel my mastery over the games start to grow.
Pretty soon, I was blasting through the easier levels without even thinking, dodging ghosts with the greatest of ease as I racked up higher and higher scores.
My mom protested a tiny bit at all my late nights “babysitting,” but I told her I was saving up for college, and she liked the sound of that. Steve would sometimes want to cuddle and talk after sex, but he pretty quickly figured out that what we had was more akin to a business relationship.
It even got to the point where I’d start getting antsy if it took too long for him to come because I wanted to get out there on the floor and start playing.
I know this probably makes me sound like some kind of cheap prostitute or something, but I didn’t see it that way.
I was just a girl who had found the thing she loved, and if letting a guy fuck me in exchange for hours of free practice was the price I had to pay, then so be it because I was absolutely determined to get the high score on all the games in Neon Junction, especially Pac-Man.
But even with all those hours of playing for free and honing my skills, there was one person who stood in my way - a fat, slob of a boy we all called Gonzo.
Joust
I'm not quite sure if you'll ever understand, Sofia, just what an achievement it was to even get my name on the Pac-Man leaderboard.
To begin with, as I already mentioned, it was the most popular game in the arcade, so all of us regulars played it often, and we were a very competitive bunch.
What I didn't realize at the time was just how good we were, collectively, at Neon Junction. We were regularly racking up scores that people in other towns could only dream about, but I'm getting ahead of myself as I only figured this out much later.
Moving back to my story, I already told you how Steve started noticing me once I got my name on the leaderboard. After we came up with our special arrangement and I'd logged in a few hundred hours of free playtime, I slowly began to work my way up the leaderboard.
Pretty soon, I had thrashed almost everyone at Neon Junction and was working my way toward claiming the top spots on all the games.
But no matter how hard I practiced, I just couldn't get ahead of Gonzo. I think he was about a year younger than me, but I can't be sure as he didn't go to my high school.
In fact, none of us really knew much about him except that he was a chubby, sour-smelling young man who had one and only one redeeming quality - he was born to play video games.
When Gonzo would barge his way into Neon Junction, he'd feed bills into the change machine and then store them in a plastic ice cream tub that he wore on a strap across his belly.
He'd plant himself in front of a machine and then become rooted in place as he blazed through level after level without so much as a single bathroom break.
Some of the old-timers said they'd seen him play video games for eight hours straight, which I can believe. Gonzo would get this look on his face, one of pure concentration, and nothing you said or did could distract him.
If you tried to talk to him, he'd just grunt and ignore you, and it was only when his money ran out that he'd snap back to reality and waddle off to go get a hot dog from the concession stand.
Between his ugly, outmoded clothes and slovenly appearance, he would've been an outcast anywhere else. But Gonzo was our dark lord at Neon Junction thanks to his superior gaming skills.
Sometimes, I would take a break from playing to watch him at work, marveling as he found new ways to dodge obstacles or defeat boss levels. But the more I watched, the more envious I would get as he was the only obstacle stopping me from becoming the undisputed queen of the arcade.
I tried everything in my power to try and learn his secret to playing so well. I'm loath to admit it, but I even tried buying him food and sodas a couple of times to try and ingratiate myself that way.
I tried flirting with him and acting like his buddy when he was in between gaming sessions, but nothing worked. It was like he was this immovable force whose sole mission on this planet was to defeat digital bullets and outwit colorful ghosts.
No matter what I tried, Gonzo treated me the same way he treated everyone else - superficially friendly, but otherwise not that interested in who we were or what we could offer him. All he wanted to do was play video games, and we were just background noise as he got lost in that world.
For weeks, I racked my brain, trying to figure out what I could do to surpass him. I even considered doing something heinous like breaking his arm or slipping some kind of poison into his drink, but in the end, I realized that those things would only slow him down for a while.
What I really needed was either to improve my own skills so I could defeat him on my own merits or else discover a hidden flaw that I could use to my advantage.
Strangely enough, it was Steve who gave me the first clue that led to Gonzo's downfall. One night, after we had made love, Steve asked me if I only got turned on by guys who played video games. I told him that wasn't true, but I didn't tell him that it was the video games themselves that turned me on, not the boys who played them.
Steve then made an off-hand remark that he thought Gonzo had a "boner" for video games because of his complete indifference to girls, saying that even his girlfriend Jennifer couldn't distract him once he was locked in the flow.
Immediately, I realized that Gonzo was just like me. He wasn't playing for fame and glory, no matter how enticing those things were. No. There was something fundamentally enthralling about having that joystick in your hand and using it to guide your destiny.
And following that chain of logic, I realized that Gonzo was probably gay and that he was subsuming those shameful desires by playing video games.
Of course, I realize in these modern times that no one thinks twice about a young man being homosexual. But back in those days, it was a pretty scandalous thing. And if you were gay, you had to go through this whole song and dance of talking in a lispy voice and joining the drama club, et cetera.
But if you were "in the closet" as we called it back in my day, then it was a terrible burning secret that you could never admit to yourself, much less let someone else find out.
Once I cottoned onto the fact that Gonzo was gay for video games, I started seeing signs of it everywhere. For example, he always wore big, baggy pants that we'd always assumed were just part of his generally sloppy appearance.
But when I observed him closely one afternoon as he played Joust, it was clear that he was sporting a rather large erection. His dilated pupils and sweaty forehead as he got close to achieving a new high score told me he was on the verge of an orgasm.
Joust was a game that could be played in either one-player or two-player mode, so I slipped in next to him and put my quarter in to join in on the action. I never was particularly fond of Joust, but I'd logged enough late hours to be competitive, so for a while there, I was giving Gonzo a run for his money.
Normally, I would've been dismayed to be losing yet again to Gonzo, but this time I had a plan. I waited for him to score a couple of impressive shots before reaching over and grabbing his crotch. Sure enough, his dick was thick and swollen.
I watched as his eyes went wide, and I expected him to shout and tell me to stop, but I think his sense of shame overcame him as he stood there and did nothing.
Grinning to myself, I continued to play one-handed as I stroked his cock through the fabric of his pants. There were only a dozen or so people in Neon Junction at that moment, and everyone else was occupied somewhere else, so we had a modicum of privacy. I took full advantage of that by fumbling around until I got his zipper unfastened, and then I pulled out his dick.
The whole time, Gonzo never looked over at me once, and he never stopped playing the game. I honestly don't know whether his inner obsession with video games overrode his other instincts or whether I was helping to make his fantasy come true.
Either way, I used my hand to stroke him until I felt his shaft begin to tremble and his balls tighten up, letting me know he was on the verge of coming.
For the first time since I'd begun my sneaky little plan, Gonzo let out a loud moan as his orgasm ripped through him. Never once relinquishing his hold on the joystick, he stood there, his entire body trembling as jizz spurted out onto the carpet.
I waited until I was certain he was fully drained, and then I began to shout, "Oh my god, Gonzo just gave himself a wet dream!"
The other players came running over when they heard me call out, and they started laughing and pointing when they saw him standing there with his dick hanging out, a sticky puddle at his feet. Gonzo's face went beet red and he pulled up his pants, but it was too late as the damage was done.
As soon as he was able, he turned tail and fled, and we never saw him in Neon Junction ever again.
Over time, the legend of that afternoon grew and grew. I would laugh to myself whenever I'd hear people talk about it who I knew hadn't even been there, saying things like how he had given the joystick a blowjob or how he would stick a roll of quarters up his ass while playing as a way to get an energy boost.
I don't know what happened to him as I never saw or heard of him again, although I looked for him when I went off to compete in the Pixel Smash Super Showdown.
On the off chance that he ever reads this, Gonzo, I am sorry for what I did to you. I thought it would be a harmless prank to give me an edge up on the arcade's best player. I had no idea he would exile himself like that from the one thing he loved the most. All I can say is I was young, and young people do dumb things.
That being said, once Gonzo was out of the way, it didn't take me long at all to top all of his high scores. I started with Frogger and worked my way up, inscribing my initials on one leaderboard after another.
And on the night I finally topped his score on Pac-Man, I got a high so intense that I ran to the bathroom and rubbed one off right there in the stall. Okay, maybe it was more like three or four, but as I said, I was buzzing all over from that accomplishment.
Luckily, just as it dawned on me that there were no more worlds to conquer, word came down that a big company was sponsoring a nationwide video game competition, and the winner would receive $25,000. In those days, that was more than enough to pay for four years of college, so I was determined to take home the trophy and set myself up for a good life.
But knowing that I was going to square off against top players from around the country meant that I needed to take my dedication to winning video games to the next level, which pushed me to do things far beyond what I ever would've guessed I was capable of.
Gorf
When I first started playing video games, all I could think about was getting to that next moment, that next level, that next achievement.
The magic that I was after was slipping a quarter into a machine and then boom, a half an hour or an hour had flown by without me even realizing it. But soon, I began to hunger for more.
I didn't just want to beat a level or move onto another board but to outwit, outlast, and outplay my fellow players at Neon Junction. I didn't just want to be good - I wanted them to look at me and know I was the best.
After Gonzo bowed out and I had etched my name at the top of all the leaderboards in the arcade, I felt an aching sense of hollowness inside. It was as if I had run out of worlds to conquer, and I just didn't know what to do.
Sure, the accolades and the envious looks whenever I walked into Neon Junction were nice, but I wasn't after fame. I wanted the thrill of pushing myself beyond all boundaries.
That's why I was so excited when I read about the Pixel Smash Super Showdown video game competition in ArcadeWorld magazine. Sure, the grand prize of $25,000 would be great, as well as all the bragging rights that would come along with winning the tournament, but what really motivated me was this hunger to see if I could soar higher and farther than any other person ever had.
I didn't just want to win because I was a competitive person at heart. I wanted to win because it would mean I had finally been liberated from the petty concerns and limitations of humanity itself.
No longer would I be just some dumb teenager living in an unremarkable Midwestern city with a deadbeat dad and a mother who worked too many hours. I'd be a champion, a celestial being who had escaped completely into the digital world to emerge triumphant.
The entry fee for the Pixel Smash Super Showdown was $50, which was an outrageous sum. But Steve paid for it for me, saying that he believed in me and that I deserved to show off my skills against the nation's top competitors. I found that attitude a little naive, but if it meant getting me a spot in the tournament, then so be it.
In order to get to the finale, you had to first compete in one of the regional tournaments. Luckily, they were held in my town, so all I had to do was take a bus ride across the city to get there.
It was held in the basement of a church of all places, probably because they couldn't find another place to install a bunch of video game machines somewhere other than an arcade where they might be subject to tampering.
If I remember correctly, there were five judges, all of them older people looking bewildered and probably not quite sure what they had signed up for. A couple of the players were people I knew from Neon Junction, but the rest came from other arcades across the city.
Steve had told me that they were second-rate, and he was right. Before the competition even started, I heard one chubby kid with zits on his face bragging about his high score on Popeye, and I had to cover my mouth to prevent myself from laughing out loud because I had beaten that score long before Steve had first given me the codes to play it for free.
As was the format for the rest of the tournament, each player had three tries to rack up the highest score possible in three different games. I really don't remember which ones they had during that first round, but I do remember easily breezing through them.
The one thing I did note was that I was the only girl, and that soon became a theme as I advanced up the ranks. Either way, I easily claimed the top spot and got a little certificate as well as a coupon for ten dollars off my next purchase at Toys R' Us.
The next phase was regionals, and Steve warned me that there were some decent players coming out of Chicago and Detroit, so I spent the next few weeks devoting all of my free time to honing my skills.
I was no longer doing any babysitting at that time since I was playing for free. My mom started getting suspicious of me being out all night, but after our rent got jacked up by our asshole landlord, she was working too many shifts to have time to do much complaining.
The regional round of the Pixel Smash Super Showdown was held in St. Louis, which was about a four-hour drive from where we were living at the time. I was going to take a Greyhound, but Steve insisted on driving me, which I thought was a really sweet gesture.
He wanted us to get a hotel room and spend the night after the competition was over, and I initially agreed, but then after my close call, I insisted on us going straight back home so I could get to Neon Junction and practice.
This time, the tournament was held in the conference room of a fancy downtown hotel. I guess the organizers had acquired some corporate sponsors because there was food and drink laid out for the players, and there were also some journalists on hand to document everything.
They forced us to sit through a boring speech about the importance of fair play and the exciting future of "enhanced hand-eye coordination," which all sounded ridiculous, and then we finally got to square up.
The first game was Frogger, my original love, so I easily blasted through dozens of boards, sidestepping oncoming cars and leaping off diving ducks with the greatest of ease.
I was almost starting to get bored, if you can believe it, by the time I accidentally side-stepped into a bush and brought my run to an end. But I wasn't concerned because I'd topped my own personal best from back at Neon Junction.
The second game was Gorf, which was a rather uninspiring hybrid of Space Invaders and Galaxian. But it had this funny robot who could talk and make fun of you when you made a mistake, and so I was enjoying watching the others play while I waited for my turn.
I can't say I particularly outshone myself, but by the time I'd taken a fatal hit while chipping away at the Flag Ship, I'd racked up enough points to keep me comfortably in the lead.
Nonetheless, there was this one scrappy little kid from Detroit who looked to be about 12 years old who was hot on my heels.
While he didn’t come close to matching my score on Frogger, he had some kind of natural intuition for where the enemies were going to be on Gorf, and as I stood there and watched, he flew past my score, although it wasn’t quite enough to overtake me just yet.
The third game was Out Run, which had never been one of my favorites. For one thing, it didn't use a joystick. Instead, you sit in this chair with a real steering wheel, which I suppose made it a much more immersive and fun driving game for some, but it kind of made me queasy.
The kid from Detroit's number came up before mine, so I got to watch him play as I psyched myself up for my turn. Although he was way too young and short in stature to drive a real car, the bastard was a natural behind the wheel, flying around curves with the greatest of ease and drifting like a professional NASCAR driver.
It was infuriating watching him, especially when he clocked in a high score way above anything I'd ever been able to achieve at Neon Junction.
My hands were sweaty when it was finally my turn, and I had to take several deep breaths to calm myself as I waited for the light to turn green.
I mashed the pedal to the floor and then played the greatest game of Out Run of my entire life. I weaved in and out of cars like Frogger on speed and pushed my car to the limit around each bend, somehow avoiding sliding off the track before zooming down the straightaways.
Despite having an absolutely stellar game, when I suffered my final crash, I looked up and saw that I hadn't beaten the kid from Detroit's score. At that moment, it felt like a black curtain descended on me, a sinking pit in my stomach because I had failed.
My lack of exp dedication had cost me everything, and I hated myself for having gotten knocked out at the regionals.
Clearly, I was no video game goddess. I was just a cheap pretender who ruled the roost of one pathetic arcade in a sleepy Midwestern town.
Popeye
It was only when Steve began jumping up and down excitedly that I realized that I had eked out a win on overall points.
As it turned out, Frogger had been my salvation, the Detroit kid unable to make up the difference despite two stellar performances in a row. And so I was rewarded with a plastic gold trophy and had my picture taken by all the journalists.
All the competitors were invited to stick around for an afterparty, to eat and drink and chat with the sponsors, but I pulled Steve out of there and told him we had to go straight back home.
He was more than a little disappointed by that, but I couldn’t risk getting embarrassed like that again. I had to go back to Neon Junction and hone my skills until no one could touch me, not even on the dinky games that I hated like Popeye.
To make him feel better, I gave him a blowjob on the drive home. But the second that we were inside Neon Junction, I told him that I needed to be alone. He looked a little hurt by that, but I didn’t care. My mission was to win video games, not cuddle and talk about his feelings.
Once I had the place to myself, I began playing. But even though I could feel a trace of the old magic returning, something was missing.
For a long time, I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but then it dawned on me that there was still a barrier between me and the machine. As long as I was just a player reacting to the enemies moving around on the screen, I’d never be able to transcend to the highest level.
So I took off all my clothes, including my shoes. It felt a little awkward at first, and the air-conditioning on my skin was a little chilly, but I instinctively knew it was the right thing to do.
Sure enough, when I resumed playing, I found myself getting drawn further and further into the matrix. I was no longer a flesh-and-blood person guiding a sprite on the screen but was part of that digital realm myself, a beating pulse of 16-bit energy that moved at the speed of light itself.
Once I was down there, integrated into the circuits of the machine itself, I was riding the same wavelength as the ghosts and aliens. I could see where they were going before they had even begun to move, sidestepping their attacks with ease.
I began to move faster and faster, zipping through the tiniest gaps, flipping and jumping with an acrobatic skill the original programmers never could’ve anticipated.
But as I played, I felt myself growing warmer and warmer. My own internal circuits were beginning to overheat, and it wasn’t long before there was a sheen of sweat all over my body.
My hand on the joystick began to slip just the tiniest bit, but I pushed on, determined to overclock myself in order to achieve the greatest prize in video gaming - a score so high that all the nines rolled over to zeroes.
I nearly made it, too, before my thigh and abdomen muscles began to tremble. I tried to hang onto the joystick, but then I let out a loud shout as something exploded from deep within me, sending me to the floor in a sprawling heap.
For several moments I lay there on the carpet as wave after wave of a kind of divine ecstasy rolled through me, briefly short-circuiting my rational mind as my spirit soared through the heavens.
Several minutes later, when I finally came to my senses, I pulled myself up to my feet. My whole body felt shaky and weak, but there was also this tremendous sense of euphoric lightness.
I had been searching for that angelic transcendence through video games, and it finally felt as though I had achieved it. All the colors looked vibrant and sharp, making me feel as though I were truly seeing for the first time.
When I looked down, I saw a strange wet patch on the floor, and I also noticed that the joystick was slick from my perspiration. Something about the way that it gleamed in the light called to me, and I stepped forward to give it a closer inspection.
When I bent over and grasped it in my hands, it throbbed with a strange power, and I realized that this was my conduit to that better world. The joystick felt so warm and inviting that I began to caress it, admiring its sturdy girth and ribbed shaft.
Somehow, I knew that I owed everything to this humble yet sturdy joystick, so I leaned forward and gave it a kiss on the tip. The moment that my lips touched that hot, wet rubber, something sparked inside of me, so I opened my mouth and lowered myself down until I could feel it tickling the back of my throat.
I continued to offer my grateful libations to the joystick which had brought me so much transcendent joy until another powerful shiver ran through me, causing me to gasp aloud. My leg muscles began quivering so hard that I could barely stand up, so I rested on the video game cabinet until I could catch my breath.
After that, I started getting chilly, so I put my clothes back on. Steve had given me a spare key on account of all my late-night practice sessions, so I locked up and then went home, walking the long blocks back to my apartment because the buses had long since stopped running.
I was exhausted when I got home, but there was a huge grin on my face as I went to sleep because I was now confident once again that I would emerge victorious at the Pixel Smash Super Showdown finale and make all of my dreams come true.
Ms. Pac-Man
I had two weeks to get ready for the grand finale of the video game tournament, so I spent every single waking moment honing my skills.
I not only played at night when I could use the code to get on the machines for free. I also borrowed money from Steve to play during the day, too. I promised him that I'd pay him back once I won the grand prize, and he enthusiastically accepted that arrangement.
But even though I played for hour after hour until I developed a callus between my thumb and forefinger and sprained my left thumb, there remained a barrier that I just couldn't seem to surpass.
I'd get giddy with excitement as I raced through level after level, and then just when it seemed like I was about to break through to a new realm of excellence, something would happen, and I'd falter, rapidly getting overwhelmed by the frenzied digital sprites on the screen.
I tried all kinds of things to overcome this. I tried monitoring whether I played better when I had a full stomach versus when I was hungry. I looked for differences between how I played when it was still daylight outside versus when it was nighttime.
I even tried different stances, planting my feet and body in different positions, but nothing worked. I kept bumping up against that top limit and crashing before I could transcend to the zenith of video game playing perfection.
It was then that I realized that it was my clothes which were weighing me down in those critical moments.
That may sound like a strange thing, but when you get to the highest levels of a video game, the enemies are whizzing by so fast that you can scarcely see them. Even a microsecond can make the difference between dodging a laser blast versus getting splattered by an oncoming horde of aliens.
Once I figured that out, I'd shoo Steve out of Neon Junction at the earliest opportunity and then strip down naked. Sure enough, when there was no longer anything impeding my flow, I began to soar toward higher and higher achievements.
I stopped looking at the score altogether, instead concentrating on becoming one with the game. And then at some point, I'd reach a climax of pure video game performance, no longer even thinking about what I was doing but just acting in the moment.
Over and over again, I would ascend to giddy heights, and then something would come over me and my rational mind would stop working. When I'd come to, I would find myself gasping for air, an electric current of energy racing through me as I looked at the scoreboard and saw I'd achieved a new high.
It was simultaneously an exhausting experience as well as a thrilling one, and each new breakthrough had me wanting more.
I got so focused on my practice sessions that I scarcely paid attention when Steve started telling me about how newspapers and even a few magazines had been covering my story.
Apparently, they'd even come to my apartment a couple of times to try and interview me, everyone abuzz because I was the only girl who had made it to the finals.
Eventually, someone figured out that I hung out at Neon Junction, and Steve agreed to let a television crew come down and film me, although I didn't know about it until the last minute.
At first, I was irritated when the journalist lady thrust a microphone in my face and started asking me questions, but that was mostly because they had interrupted a rather epic session I'd been having on this new game called Mario Bros. that had just come out.
After a while, though, I realized that they'd done their homework, and I began to get flattered a bit when they reeled off some of my high scores. They also told me that stations from across the country were following my progress, and many of them had been getting letters from female viewers, excited to see someone who looked like them succeed in what was, admittedly, a mostly all-male environment.
Nonetheless, I didn't really think much about it until the next day, when my mom confronted me during one of the rare times when I was home. She'd seen a snippet of my interview on the local news and wanted to know what all the hubbub was about.
At first, she was angry that I'd been "wasting" so much time playing video games instead of focusing on my schoolwork, but when I told her about the prize money, she changed her tune pretty quickly.
It's funny how that works, you know? Some people think video games are silly. I mean, after all, you're staring at blips of light on a screen, and it can be hard to take that seriously. But as soon as big-name companies start showering you with gifts and money, then all of a sudden, it's perfectly legitimate.
Either way, I was just glad to have her off my back, and she even kicked in a hundred bucks for travel costs to get to Las Vegas, which is where the finale of the Pixel Smash Super Showdown was being held.
Of course, I didn't tell her that Steve had already bought me a plane ticket and booked us a hotel because I didn't want to alarm her. Though I did stop by the grocery store one night and pick up a carton of Bryer's for my mom, which was her favorite kind of ice cream, but she rarely bought it because it was so expensive, just as a way of thanking her for her newfound support.
Pretty soon, it was time to head out. I'm laughing to myself a bit now because I had no idea just what an enthusiastic reception I was going to receive, so I wore a really simple outfit on the plane, just a pair of old shorts and a T-shirt from the summer camp I used to go to.
I didn't even bother doing my hair or putting on any makeup, so I got quite the surprise when I stepped off the plane and there were dozens of reporters there at the gate, pointing cameras at me and taking photographs.
I kept turning around, thinking a celebrity had been on my flight and I just hadn't realized it, but then I figured out they were interested in me. Most of the questions were pretty dumb, though, mostly stuff about whether I preferred playing Ms. Pac-Man versus regular Pac-Man because she was a girl and crap like that.
I did my best to answer their questions, but then Steve stepped in to rescue me, telling them "no comment" several times, which was cool because it made me feel like I was on one of those police shows.
Things were much better at the hotel because there were plenty of other top players staying there, and each one of them had their own cluster of interest from the various reporters and journalists.
One kid out of San Francisco had apparently rolled the scoreboard to zeroes on all of the machines back at his local arcade, while another kid was blind in one eye and so was considered a major sensation for that reason.
As for me, I was more excited about the hotel room itself because it was easily the nicest place I'd ever stayed in my life. It had this big picture window that overlooked The Strip in Las Vegas, and the bed was big enough that six people could've probably slept on it comfortably.
Oh, and the room also came with this lovely clawfoot tub, which I immediately availed myself of, savoring the lovely sensation of scented hot water on my bare skin.
Steve wanted to go check out the casinos, while I didn't, so we split the difference and went out for a nice dinner before I went in search of an arcade while he headed off toward the slot machines.
Surprisingly, considering that Las Vegas was such a big city and the grand finale of a video game tournament was being held there, there were only a few arcades. I ended up finding one out near the airport that was not too crowded and had some of the newer games like Star Wars.
After logging in a few hours and getting some respectable results, I headed back to the hotel. Steve was in a bit of a funk because he'd lost all his money, but the free alcohol they gave him while he was playing had him in the mood for some hanky-panky, so I decided to indulge him. Thankfully, it was all over fairly quickly, and then I turned over to get some shut-eye.
But whether it was Steve snoring there beside me or the excitement of the big finale the next day, I just couldn't fall asleep. It was like there was this little voice inside of me telling me that I needed to get in one last practice session.
But where? None of the arcades were open in the middle of the night. Yet my hand was twitching, and I could feel myself desperately in need of a little relief.
Finally, it dawned on me that the tournament was being held in one of the conference rooms at the hotel. Surely, all the machines would be in place already.
All I had to do was find some way to sneak in there, and then I could get what I needed before heading to bed and getting my rest. Being careful not to wake Steve, I got dressed and then slipped out of the room.
Defender
The guy at the front desk was very helpful in telling me which conference room had all the machines, but he warned me that it was locked up for the night.
Furthermore, the sponsors didn’t want anyone to tamper with the games, so they absolutely forbid any of the players going in there before the official start time.
Obviously, I couldn’t just let it go at that, so I made my way down the hallway to where the conference room was located. Sure enough, the doors refused to budge when I pushed on them.
But I’d grown up in a variety of different apartments and houses, and there had been plenty of times when we’d lost or misplaced a key. As a result, let’s just say that I had gotten handy when it came to unlocking doors, so with a little help from a hairpin, I was inside the conference room in less than two minutes.
I had to fumble around for a bit to find the switch, but when I finally did turn the lights on, I let out an audible gasp. The whole place had been set up to look like something out of a movie, with a raised dais on which sat several machines, lots of overhead lighting, a gigantic movie screen, and bleachers all around capable of holding hundreds of people.
I really did feel like I was trespassing into an enchanted world as I crept across the room and then stepped onto the dais, which was emblazoned with the names of the corporate sponsors as well as a huge sign that read Pixel Smash Super Showdown 1984 in glittery letters.
I could just imagine what it would be like when all the spotlights and dramatic lighting were put to effect as well as the audio, and it seemed surreal that in a few hours’ time, I was going to be up there, performing in front of the crowd.
Walking around the dais, I saw that there were three games - Pac-Man, Defender, and Q*Bert - although there were multiple copies, I presume so that all of us could play at the same time.
Between that and the big screen, the set-up was probably to show our scores in real-time to the audience, which I had to admit sounded pretty exciting. Certainly, if I wasn’t competing, I would’ve enjoyed being there in the crowd and cheering on the players.
I approached one of the machines and let my hand run along its surface. It was identical to the one we had back at Neon Junction, but there was a strange energy to it, almost as if it knew that it was going to decide the fate of someone’s life. It was switched off, but when I reached around the back to press the power button, it sprang to life a moment later.
Glancing around to make sure that I had the place all to myself, I typed in the secret access code and then took off my clothes. I felt a bit self-conscious at first, playing naked there on the stage, but all that discomfort faded away as I let myself get caught up in the rhythm of the game.
Before I knew it, I had blown through more than 50 boards and felt absolutely no signs of fatigue. Instead, I felt a rising excitement building up inside of me, and I knew deep down inside that I was on the edge of achieving my greatest performances ever.
My hand became one with the joystick as I guided my little digital self through a blizzard of hungry ghosts, always just an inch away from chomping into my backside before I gobbled a power pellet and turned the tables on them, gulping them down for maximum points.
Yet even as I began to ascend towards a state of video game nirvana, something inside of me propelled me to get even closer to the game, to merge my life force with it.
That’s how I wound up jumping up to crouch on the console itself with my face pressed right up against the glass. The position was a little awkward with the joystick now between my legs, but somehow I kept managing to clear board after board.
It was only when my hand began to cramp unbearably that I realized that I had to find some other way to keep playing. Logically, I suppose I should’ve just climbed down and stood on my feet, but something inside me told me that I was about to achieve my greatest breakthrough yet.
And that, of course, is when I heeded the beckoning voice that had been summoning me ever since I had slid my first quarter into that Frogger machine.
Using both hands to steady myself, I lowered myself onto the joystick, and then our blessed union was finally complete. No longer was the game an extension of my physical self, but now it was inside of me, and me and the video game were finally one.
Incredibly, my control over the sprite on the screen became even more deft and precise, and all I had to do was just think about where I wanted to go and I was already headed in that direction. It was like every muscle inside of me had been waiting for this moment, and I steered myself around the screen with pinpoint accuracy.
Somehow, I found myself lifting up my hips and then sinking down as I continued to play, and I soon developed a rhythm that was strangely comforting and yet also exhilarating.
A part of me felt like I had grown wings and I was now flapping my way up toward the heavens. In other ways, it felt as if I’d been plugged into the power source of the universe itself, and my whole body began to tremble as it coursed through me.
For a while there, I was ecstatic, but then the tremendous forces flowing through me started to become overwhelming. The last remaining sliver of my rational brain kept shouting for me to stop, but it was too late.
I rode that joystick harder and harder, moaning as I narrowly dodged oncoming enemies and racked up bonus points. With my eyesight beginning to blur, I could just make out that I was about to roll the scoreboard to all zeroes when a powerful clap of lightning hit me.
I don’t know whether it was a short-circuit inside the machine or something else, but I felt a bomb detonate between my legs. It surged outward toward my thighs and abdomen, and then a moment later, I was blasted into a million shards of shimmering light.
Somehow, I felt my spirit sailing toward the farther edges of the galaxy, tumbling head over heels through an infinite vastness of divine bliss.
And then, like an astronaut on a long tether, I found myself being reeled back down to Earth, and when I came to, I was shaking all over, a sheen of sweat on my forehead and chest as I gasped for air.
I moved my leg just a tiny fraction of an inch, thinking I was going to climb down from the machine, but that touched off a second explosion that launched me straight back into the stratosphere.
That process repeated over and over again, me floating back down to the ground like a feather only to be violently hurled back up into the stars, and I found myself grinning from ear to ear as a sweet fire raced through me, making everything smell and taste like pure honey.
Finally, it was the slipperiness of my combined juices that caused me to tumble off the machine and land onto the dais with a hard thump, knocking the wind out of me.
But as I panted for air, I found myself laughing like a loon, every ounce of stress and anxiety that I had ever felt in my life having been burned away by the intense flame of that unforgettable experience.
Truly, as thrilling as my epic battle against all the other players was on the following day, no video game play session either before or since has ever matched the boundless joy of the night that I finally merged with the machine to unlock my highest and best self.
Rally-X
I have to say, it feels very cathartic finally being able to tell this story from start to finish.
For a long time, I mostly focused on my big win at the Pixel Smash Super Showdown because, of course, that's what everybody was talking about. My name and picture were in all of the newspapers, and they even did a segment on me for 60 Minutes, which was a popular weekly television news show in those days.
Even after the initial hubbub died down, I would still get recognized when I'd go to the mall or other places in town. My mother was exhilarated, mostly about the money, although we had to use some of it right away because people started hounding us at our apartment.
We also had to get an unlisted number because people kept calling me, especially older men who wanted to profess their love for me, which I found both creepy and also kind of flattering.
After a while, though, people's interests moved onto other things, although they did write up a nice piece on me in the college newspaper when I became a student at Stanford.
Pretty soon, it got to be one of those things where I'd be at a party or somewhere and some guy would come up to hit on me, and then he'd do a double-take when he realized who I was, which was pretty funny.
Beyond that, college, for me, though was mostly about studying. As you know, I majored in chemistry. Something about the way you could mix different kinds of molecules together to make something altogether brand-new fascinated me.
I guess I also liked how it rewarded precision and an exact understanding of process. One of my professors tried to get me to stay on and do my master's, but I think that was mostly because he was kind of in love with me. Instead, I took a well-paying job at a pharmaceutical company, and the rest, as they say, is history.
But the truth is that I never played video games again after winning the Pixel Smash Super Showdown, and I never really asked myself why. At first, I think I just wanted a break, and anyway, I needed time to let my hands heal up.
But then Steve started being a pain in the ass, wanting me to become his official girlfriend and move in with him, and I just didn't have time for all that drama.
With Neon Junction now off-limits, I probably considered finding some other arcade to play in, but I never did go through with it. And with my prize money, I could've afforded one of the new home video game systems that were becoming all the rage in those days. Yet it just never called to me again in that irresistible way, and so that part of my life faded away.
I didn't really find it all that curious at the time, but now that I'm thinking back on it, I'm finding myself a bit intrigued. I mean, I had so many powerful and good memories of playing video games, so why did I stop?
Maybe it was because my studies at college kept me busy, and the fame from winning the tournament gave my social life a boost, so I really didn't need gaming anymore. Or maybe it was as simple as me not being poor anymore and able to enjoy new things.
Either way, life went on. I made lots of friends in college and went to a ton of amazing parties. This one girl Lauren and I ended up becoming best pals for a while. She was crazy in that good way that made her a ton of fun to be around, and sometimes she'd make me laugh so hard that my belly would ache.
She was very dramatic and used to dress up and play different characters, and she was especially good at portraying men. She'd put this fake mustache on and talk in a deep voice, and it'd have the rest of us in stitches.
She was also really into sports, so she and I spent a lot of time together working out, throwing baseballs back and forth, and generally having a great time.
Sometimes, at the end of the day, when we'd had a little too much wine to drink, she'd get this manic look on her face, and then she'd challenge me to a wrestling match. We'd end up rolling all over the bed and the floor, pretending to attack one another.
She was stronger than me, so eventually I'd try to get away, but she'd grab me by the legs, and I'd squirm away, often losing my pants as a result. As I said, she was a real card.
She lived with these other two girls, Angela and another person whose name I forgot. Anyway, they got into a big fight and Lauren got kicked out, so she came to live with me for a while until she could find a new place.
The reality, though, was that she was a pretty chaotic person, so it wasn't always easy having her stuff strewn everywhere and her using up all the hot water in the shower, but I look back on those days quite fondly.
Somehow, we eventually found a kind of balance. She would do all the cooking, and I agreed to let her shower with me in order for us both to have enough hot water. She never had much money, so I ended up paying most of the bills, but she had a ton of clothes, so she'd let me borrow hers, and we had a lot of fun playing dress-up.
Lauren was also very strong and really good at giving massages, and I cannot count the number of times I fell asleep with her in bed right next to me, her powerful fingers sending me into a deep relaxed state that I'd never experienced before.
Over time, though, she got to be a bit much. Sometimes, she'd get really volatile when she was drinking, and she'd yell at me for not wanting to "discuss my feelings" and other silly stuff like that.
She was also really into politics, which I was not, and I think she thought I was kinda stupid because I didn't care about marching in a protest or whatever.
I can't remember exactly what happened, but I think she met this other girl at a party or something, and they ended up getting along so well that Lauren moved out of my place to go live with her.
We still saw each other from time to time, so it wasn't like our friendship ended completely, and I even let her give me one of her special massages a couple of times. But just like with other things, we drifted apart after a while, which was cool.
Q*Bert
It was around that time, Sofia, that I met your grandfather. He was one of Lauren’s theater friends, so I probably met him at an after-party for a play.
He had this tight group of male friends he was always joking around with, and I remember thinking how lively and spirited he was.
Some of my friends acted weird when I told them that I liked him, saying that I was betraying them or other such melodramatic nonsense, but I thought he was cute and nice, so I asked him out.
Admittedly, he was a few inches shorter than me, and I probably outweighed him by a few pounds, but he was very courteous on our first date.
Actually, maybe the better word is shy, which is funny because of how outgoing he was when he was acting on stage or hanging out with his theater pals. But when it was just the two of us, he became this really timid, sweet guy, and I just found it adorable.
We didn’t even kiss until our fifth date, and I was the one who had to initiate it. He confessed that he’d never kissed a girl before he met me, and I really liked that. So many guys out there come across as too aggressive or needy, but your grandfather was always quietly dignified in his own way.
When he took me to meet his parents for the first time, they greeted me with an infectious enthusiasm, and I really liked how quickly they welcomed me into their family.
Anyway, after a full year of dating, I told your grandfather it was time to propose and make me an honest woman, and he agreed. I just wanted a simple wedding with a few of my friends in attendance, but his parents made a big to-do over the whole thing, inviting practically every single person they knew.
Since I know you never got to meet them, I should mention that they were devout members of the church, so it was quite a big network that turned out to see us tie the knot, many of the folks from their congregation coming up to me at the reception to pull me aside and tell me that they’d prayed for that moment for years.
So yeah, that’s about the end of my tale, Sofia. I had my career as a pharmaceutical chemist, and your grandfather opened his interior decorating business. We went through all the normal things married people go through, and then your mom came along.
Raising her was a challenge unto itself that would require me to tell a whole nother story, but the long and short of it was we really loved and cherished her. We thought about having other kids, but I guess it just wasn’t in the cards, but that’s all right because she was the light of our lives, and I still miss her every single day.
I think you know the rest of the story, although now you probably understand better why I got so emotional when your mother bought you that console system for your birthday.
I guess it was the first time I’d really thought about video games in a long time, and I wasn’t quite sure how to process it at first. But you’re becoming a young woman now, and I understand that you’re ready to start exploring the world on your own terms.
Wow, I guess I rambled on a bit more than I intended to at the start, eh? I just saw your face when that guy came up to us at the grocery store and wanted my autograph, and I felt like I owed you an explanation.
I don’t know what the future holds for you, Sofia, but at least now you know my story about how my silly teenage hobby ended up paying for college, which led me to meet your father and launch my career and family.
I will admit, I still do get a little anxious when I come downstairs and see you playing games, but I want you to know that I’ll always love you and support you no matter what you do.
And who knows? Maybe after you go off to college, I might just borrow your console and give one of those newfangled games a whirl. After all, I’ll have to find something to do with myself once it’s just me in the house. Maybe there’s still some kick left in this old girl, eh?
That’s it, Sophia. I don’t know when I’ll work up the courage to give you a copy of this story, but I have a feeling it won’t be long now. Please forgive your grandmother for all the silly mistakes she made along the way and for all the times I yelled at you.
You remind me so much of my daughter that it’s hard sometimes, but I respect you for who you are and the woman you are going to become.
PS - I almost forgot to tell you that I found this website called The Nostalgia Nerd which has a whole page dedicated to the 1986 Pixel Smash Super Showdown. The link’s down below.
Check out the photo of me in the center in front of the Q*Bert machine. Yeah, I know the hairstyles and clothes probably look silly to you, but guess what? I was the exact same age in that picture as you are today. Pretty cool, don’t you think? Love you, baby! XOXO