Something that Rhymes: 

Load up on guns, bring your friends

It's fun to lose and to pretend

Syllables to fill up this space:

Most people know about the code hidden in pop songs. I haven't been able to stop thinking about Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana for years now. When Kurt Cobain was out and about with a friend of his from the Pixies, spray painting feminist messages About the town,  she wrote on one of the walls, “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Kurt thought that “team spirit” was a call to revolution. But actually it was a brand of deodorant his girlfriend wore. His girlfriend at the time was his first girlfriend before Courtney Love who is a member of the Pixies. The joke the mutual friend was making of course was that Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit because he was with his girlfriend.

 The song inspired an entire generation as a call to revolution. But ultimately it's lyrics are meaningless nonsense. supposedly it's that meaningless that allows The Listener to put their own meaning in through the lyrics. Cobain himself said something to the effect of, sometimes you just need words to fill the music. I don't accept that interpretation. I know there's a deep meaning hidden in the lyrics to Smells Like Teen Spirit oh, there has to be. A song can't inspire an entire generation like that be completely meaningless. That doesn't make any sense. There's Meaning of the lyrics even if Cobain himself doesn't want to acknowledge it. 

“Load up on guns, bring your friends,” make me think of the arcade by where I work. Especially the line “It's fun to lose and to pretend.” It makes me think of an arcade light gun game I used to play. 

The lack of lighting in the arcade gives it a cave like quality. The entire glass front was plastered over with posters, sunlight would only interrupt the ambiance on occasion when people opened the door, and then only for a brief glimmer. The rest of the lights came almost exclusively from the machines. An array of loud neon colors all swirling together, chaotically blinking going by a symphony digital sound. Layered over top of that was the laughter, the shouting. The entire place reeks of the greasy smell of cheap pizza and the chemical odor of Mountain Dew. 

I bought myself a couple slices of the solid Grease and a large cup of the bubbling chemicals. I made my way across the chaos of the floor. I could feel popcorn and discarded paperware crunch under my feet. I made my way to the back corner where my game was. It was an unassuming Black Box with simple green text; Counter-Terror. I took a couple of bites from my pizza and then carefully placed the plate and the drink on the little ledge in front of the screen. I took out my roll of quarters and inserted a dollar’s worth. I grabbed the large, bulky, blue plastic gun attached to the machine by a long black hose, not unlike a gas nozzle. There was a red one and a blue one. I always take the blue. I pulled the trigger and with a staticky gunshot  sound effect the game started.

Counter-Terror is probably my favorite arcade game. I've been playing it since I was a kid. Occasionally I would experiment with other rail shooters, but none of them held my interest like Counter-Terror. I wouldn't consider myself an expert or a connoisseur, I mostly dabble in the arcade, my primary commitments of course being consoles, as that is my generation. However every lunch break I block out 25 minutes to get a pizza from the arcade and play counter-terror.

I think what got its hooks into me about the game when I was a kid was how graphically different was from everything else in the arcade. The environments in the game or digital but the people you're shooting are bits of FMV video superimposed onto the digital background. Like most FMV from that era it's grainy quality video that's been compressed to hell. Whatever you shoot someone there is a cartoonish digital blood effect superimposed onto the footage. The whole look of the game has this surreal layering where there's the cheap-looking CGI background, compressed video images of people and then over top of that gun shot effects when you or them gets shot. It was one of the first games I dreamed about as a kid, it really gets into your subconscious. 

I picked the first level. You select things on the menu by shooting at them. It starts with the grainy voice narration telling you that terrorists are taking over the Golden Gate Bridge and only you can stop them, yada yada. I've played through the first level so many times I barely need to pay attention to what I'm doing or what I'm shooting, I basically have it memorized where the terrorists will be coming from, and also where the civilians are. Oh yeah there's also like civilians and occasionally pop up and you lose points and shit if you shoot them. With one hand holding blue plastic I killed America's enemies and in the other hand I ate my pizza and occasionally took sips of my Mountain Dew. 

The invisible rails guide me from encounter to encounter, screen the screen. I'm sure the digital environment was cutting-edge when they made the game but now it has that cheap quality you'd see in training videos  or PSAs. Polygons have just enough texture to prevent them from being solid blocks.

The game was made a few years after 9/11 but all the terrorists are still a bunch of pasty white guys and girls all dressed up in black clothes, They all have sunglasses and some of them even have trench coats or leather jackets. They look like people that would be goons to a bad guy in a spy movie or some kind of 90s action flick. Occasionally on the corner of the screen I see a glowing box that represents power up, fire bullets, ice bullet explosive bullets, that sort of thing. The enemies are shooting at you with guns but occasionally guys with bazookas or grenades will shoot stuff at you and you’ll have to shot the projectiles to make them explode before they get to you. Sometimes a dude just randomly appears in front of you trying to stab or punch you or something and you have to shoot him. 

 The slightly distorted grunting sounds the terrorists made when I shot them was almost melodic. The whole thing is a zen experience. This is a game I play when I want to relax. It's why I play it on my lunch break. I only have time for one or two levels but it's enough to get me ready to face the rest of the day. If I've had a really bad week sometimes I come here on a Saturday and play through the entire game; or try to anyway. I have never been able to make it all the way through the last stage. These arcade games were designed to eat up your quarters after all. 

The timer I set on my phone goes off. I need to get back to work. I finished the last few slices of my pizza and I let the man with the rocket launcher kill me. At the game now I don't want to continue with a final shot. I threw away the grease stain plate and kept drinking my Mountain Dew. I leave the arcade. I am momentarily blinded By the flash of light until my eyes adjust to the sun. Back to the Grind. 

****

A Transcript of a Discord call

 

*STATIC*...What’s up motherfucka...*STATIC*

*STATIC*...Hi Anne.

How’s my *STATIC* best friend doing?

What?

How’s my gay best friend doing?

*STATIC*...gay

What?

I’m not gay and I’m fine, I just had a long day at the game store and wanna unwind and play some rounds online with you.

Well do you see here’s the thing, you’re a fucking virgin so really the only pleasure you’ve received is jacking it, so technically *STATIC* big gay in my book. 

Oh my God. Can we just play the game please?

OK, but once *STATIC*

What, sorry you *STATIC*

Wha-*STATIC*

*STATIC*

*STATIC*

Anne1234567 left

BooneFan1997 left

Anne1234567 joined

BooneFan1997 joined

...Hello?...Can you hear me?

...Yes and you still sound like a little bitch

Sorry about that, guess discord is being discord.

Nah I think it just hates us personally.

So who are you gonna play this time?

Taco Tuesday Tom

He’s not very well optimized player character— 

Your dad is not a very well optimized player character

What does that even mean?

I don’t know, ask your dad.

Whatever, I'll pick Waffle Wednesday Wally. 

Oh come on you're just gonna spam his Maple syrup ultimate over and over.

It's not my fault I figured out how to load up his ultimate bar super quick, he actually has the quickest ultimate bar load –

Yeah if by exploit you mean cheat.

Finding an exploit isn't cheating, cheating would be if I hacked the game directly, I'm not hacking the game I just figured out a flaw in its design and I'm using that flaw to my advantage 

Whatever you tell yourself so you can sleep at night, cheater 

You would do the same thing, you just jealous I figured it out first 

cheater cheater, lemon eater.

Why are you metaphorically 12 years old? Also there's nothing wrong with spamming a move if it works.

No bro, you have to win a fight through skill, not just a bunch of cheap tricks.

If there's something that gives you an absolute advantage with no downside, why shouldn't you use it even if everybody tells you you shouldn't? 

As the great philosopher of our time George Costanza said, we live in a society. 

George is a loser. He never accomplishes anything. So of course, he insists on obeying all of the rules, it's because he doesn't have the courage to break any of them. 

Ward I love you but…sometimes you sound like a fucking sith lord.

Okay but like the empire was actually right though!

Oh, don’t start that one again!

****

The Game store was more like a car garage with the bare concrete floor and black walls and ceiling. The fluorescent above cast everything in a heavy yellow light. You could see the particles floating through the air. There was also the incessant hum. The black walls were covered with faded game posters all taped on top of each other. I don't think I've ever seen anybody take an old poster down, they just plaster a new one on top of the dead ones. 

The vibe colored all business transactions giving even the most innocuous of purchases and illicit feeling, like one was not purchasing Bubbly's Soap Run for the nephew but somehow actually buying hardcore pornography. Everything here was purchased legally through the appropriate vendors and yet it all felt like it fell off the back of a truck. 

The games were stacked on the metal shelves, organized by console and alphabetically. In the front were the newer games, the farther you go along the shelves the farther you go back in time, eventually reaching the dark monolith that were the first few generations of Game cartridges, massive black obelisks like the one 2001 A Space Odyssey. 

 The counter was a lit glass box framed in silver metal. It's where we keep a lot of the consoles and more expensive games for display. Behind the counter was a Hydra like massive controllers and power cables, hung from the wall. It looked like black and gray jungle vines.

 I was  bent over cleaning small peanut butter hand prints from the front of the glass counter. They belonged to some kid whose name was Hayden. Hayden...stop touching the glass like that...Hayden...don't make mommy count to 10...Hayden one...I'm counting to 10 now Hayden...Hayden one. I don't ever think she got past 1. When I heard the kids name my first thought was, the Legends are true. 

 A man walked in, took off of sunglasses and said in a clear and loud voice, “Hello everyone my name is Harrison, and I'm a paranormal investigator.”

“There's nobody else here Harrison”

The man who called himself Harrison was an African American Albino, with white skin and hair so blond that it was almost orange. His eye color was actually blue but sometimes it looks red, add in the harsh light of the store they almost seem to Glow crimson. 

 “You're here,”  he said. He put his sunglasses in the pocket of his jean jacket. He was dressed like Marty McFly or some 80s movie teenager, complete with scuffed up hiking boots, worn jeans and like five shirts for some reason under his jean jacket. Okay it might have just been a plaid shirt over a t-shirt but at the same time sometimes I swear I could see a vest nested in that situation. It was a mess. 

“I already know who you are, so that...what do you call it again? Dynamic Advertising? Doesn't work on me”

“Hey, listen man, traditional advertising is dead. People get inundated with so many ads like on their computers and shit, the normal stuff doesn't work anymore. People need Dynamic, real world advertising. That's why I announce my profession whenever I walk into an establishment. That's how you get the word out. I was just at the burger joint for lunch, what do you think I did when I came in there? I announced myself as Harrison, paranormal investigator.”

“Did anyone offer to hire you?”

 “Well no but like you know it's it's in the back of their minds now, so next time they have a paranormal experience who do you think they're going to come to?”

“The therapist?”

“That's right, me,”  Harrison said. I couldn't tell if his bulldozing was intentional.

“Well if I ever have a supernatural experience I'll be sure to come to you.”

 Harrison handed me his card.

 “Remember Stockton first consultation is free. Each subsequent consultation is $500.”

“Wow, that is Criminal.”

“It's market price.”

“What Market?”

****

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful after Harrison left. One old man came in, plaid shirt and trucker hat. He was looking for, and I quote, “the game where the guy does the stuff, you know that game we’re like you play a guy and he shoots a bunch of stuff? My nephew loves those games and I want to get him the next one in the series. I think it’s like shootty man 3 or 4, I don’t know, it seems to me they release a new one every year. Do you know which one I’m talking about? Shootty man?”

That ate up about 30 minutes. He of course had no idea when it was released, whether it was in third or first person, or what console it was. It ended with him leaving, hat off and scratching his head. I tried.

After all that I went through the locking up checklist, turned off all the lights, took out the trash and lowered the garage-door-like protective metal siding over the front windows. 

I zipped up my jacket. It was the middle of winter, there was a good 6 feet of snow on the ground. The shop was in a strip mall, with a medium sized parking lot. As I stepped outside, I could feel the crunch of ice and salt under my feet. You could see where the bits of salt were thrown across the ice because there was a concentric circle of melting around where they landed. The ice along the edges remained giving the whole thing the look of Swiss cheese.

There were only two lamps in the parking lot, large, rusted towers giving off yellow light. My beaten-up black Subaru was the only car in sight, it was parked where I always park it, directly under the light. I don’t have a child-like fear of the dark, I have an adult-like fear of crackheads.

The parking lot has been cleared of the snow and all of it had been piled in the middle, picking up dirt and gravel, giving it a blackish grey texture. These snow mounds in the middle of parking lots would all melt slightly making them congeal from fluffy whiteness into something that better resembled a pile of elephant shit in the middle of the parking lot.

This one was relatively small by comparison, but down by the mall there was one that was the size of a house, from all the snow in that football stadium size parking lot. Sometimes I would see children sledding off of it like it was a mountain. Welcome to upstate.

I tracked over to my car. I turned it on, idling for a few minutes while the heat kicked in. I put it into drive and started to make my way out of the parking lot. I was thinking about where I was going to drive through to get dinner, or if I was even going to drive through at all, maybe I would order pizza, Did I have any hot pockets left in the fridge? I thought about what video game I would play, I need to go to work tomorrow so nothing too involved, I can probably get in a few hours before I need to get the bed.

I was thinking about pretty much everything else besides actually driving my car, which is probably why I hit the curb as I was making the turn. The car lurched upward and for a moment it felt like the whole chunk of steel was suspended a few inches above the ground. I've come back to this moment time and time again, seeing if I can find a better metaphor or analogy to explain what happened. But there's only one way I can possibly think of to describe it.

When my car came back down to the ground and would've landed on the asphalt it did not hit any collision, instead it sunk into the asphalt like it was sinking in the water, quick and smooth. I no-clipped through the ground.