But all the other stuff is true, and I also lived in Sacramento, which in Northern California is pretty much the exact opposite of Oakland. And my dad was a teacher while my mom sold used Chevys. If that doesn’t blow your mind, I can’t fix stupid.
In this dimension, by the time I was ten I was already playing video games obsessively with my friends. Every day we’d swarm the local arcade, Pinball Pedro’s, engulf it with our youthful energy and machismo, and claim every game as our own—WWF WrestleFest, TMNT, Fatal Fury, and never, ever Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, which was for pussies.
I completely dominated all the other children in my gang. Their names were Ramrod and One-Eyed John and Razor Frank and Steve. In this dimension, they were my boot-licking lackeys, and they were also all different ethnicities than their counterparts in Dimension One, like Razor Frank went from being Hui Chinese to being Zhuang Chinese. You kinda had to be there, but trust me, it was cool.
I never lost a single game, knew nothing of failure or the probably bitter taste of defeat. And I was a grade-A, expert shit-talker.
My specialty was getting in other kids’ heads, setting up shop there, and just kind of fucking around. Like if I was playing Razor Frank in WWF WrestleFest, I’d be like, “Yo, Frank, how is it that I’m only ten and I’m already your daddy? Like, is that even biologically possible? Like, can my future sperm magically go back in time, impregnate your mom, and somehow make you my bitch of a son?”
The kids would laugh, and Razor Frank would say something in Zhuang, because I don’t think he even knew English, and then I’d use Sgt. Slaughter to body-slam his ass.
So I was pretty much the best. But I could sense there was something more. A higher plane of dominance, a more electric arena of competition I hadn’t yet tapped.
I found it in the back corner of Pinball Pedro’s, where the grown-ups played Street Fighter II at the big-money table. These dudes were the real winners in town, you know? We’re talking guys with ponytails and thumb rings. Men in their thirties who lived with their parents, couldn’t hold a steady job, but held the top record on the arcade’s Ms. Pac-Man. The fucking champions of the only arena I knew.
And the stakes? The stakes were massive. Not cash—cash was for suckers and for dudes who had cash. No, these guys played with the only real currency of value in Pinball Pedro’s, these little orange paper prize tickets you could trade in for cool shit at the prize window. A couple tix would only get you a little plastic spider ring or some shit like that, but stack up enough and you could get some major high-tech hardware, like a Discman. Well, not a real Discman, I think it was a Sanyo or something, but still pretty badass.
I’d watch these balding giants of manhood from afar, my eyes wide in awe and envy as Blanka gnawed heads and Ryu threw “Hadouken!!” and giant stacks of prize tickets changed hands faster than a Chun-Li helicopter kick. I studied the moves, soaked up the knowledge, and something told me deep down that maybe, just maybe, I could compete with these titans who were old enough to (probably) have pubes.
But for the first time in my cocky young life, I didn’t have the guts to try. Most important, I didn’t have enough prize tickets to bet.
Until one day I saw them playing a new game, their cherished Street Fighter II pushed to the side like a bowl of soggy Mr. T cereal. This new game had a level of action that made Street Fighter II pale in comparison. A level of violence. Of speed. Of momentum.
This new game was Mortal Kombat.
Blood spattering, heads decapitating, spinal cords dripping, lightning blasts exploding, screams of agony and rage and “FINISH HIM!” echoing everywhere! I’d never seen anything like it.
I had to play it. Had to. But how?
I pushed my way through the crowd of greasy goatees and black pleather jackets, elbowing fuckers out of my way until I finally grabbed a joystick for myself.
“Hey,” someone shouted, “you got enough tickets, kid?”
I was about to lie my ass off, when suddenly the crowd parted and a man stepped out of the shadows. He was skinny and pale, with a scraggly little mustache. He might’ve been twenty-five or he might’ve been forty—he had one of those weird young-old faces. He eyed the mob around me, pulled out a switchblade, and flicked it open, revealing a gleaming black plastic comb. He ran it through his oily, thinning hair. It was impossible not to be impressed.
“I’ll cover him.”
He slammed down a fat wad of tickets. It was a crazy-huge bet. I mean, I could’ve bought, like, a brand-new solar calculator with that kind of paper!
So it was like, fuck, you know? The pressure was on, the buildup was just insane, I had no idea what was gonna happen. Suddenly all my shit-talking arrogance just drained out of my body. I totally choked up, my mouth got all dry and sandpapery, and I went straight-up silent. My hands were sweating like a muscleman prizefighter’s, my adrenaline was coursing through my veins like a Lambo at full throttle, my heart was pounding like an ancient shaman’s drum.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
So I gulped… Took the controls… Chose Raiden as my fighter because he reminded me of Big Trouble in Little China… So much anticipation… So much suspense… So much anxiety…
And then, yeah, I pretty much just lost.
And, you know, that was it.
Look, I really don’t know what else to tell you. I lost, okay? Some old dude in sweatpants with a ponytail and two thumb rings picked Sub-Zero and he beat my ten-year-old butt. I’m not going to give you the
