New Comm Ave

Steve Flaherty may look like a wee freshman Geophysics major at Boston College, but it’s what’s inside him that counts. You may recognize Steve in such literary classics as Wuthering Heights, Gone with the Wind, and the Communist Manifesto. Steve Flaherty enjoys succeeding and averting disaster. If presented with the choice between an ice-cold root beer and the secret to life, Steve would choose root beer. Steve does not condone and never has condoned evil. He is the eleventh task of Hercules, which Hercules is yet to complete. His favorite extinct reptile is the velociraptor, for obvious reasons. His life goals include: Josh Hartnett.

T
hey took us by surprise, the Tet Offensive of the 26th Century. Seething grunts crashed against our hull and banshees shrieked above our heads. They attacked with an ancient, alien vigor, wills bent on a flood-infested ring, an ornament hung on the wide spruce of the cosmos. Sleek, icy warships slipped through our resistance like teardrops. And while the brilliant minds of the human race were brought low by the blows of brutish beasts, forth stepped Steve, from his cryogenically induced slumber, a Molinjir battle rifle poised against his shoulder. Fearless. Cue disembodied monks chanting an eerie tune.

Level 1: Christmas Day

Under the tree lays a box. Inside that box is another box, a better box, an XBOX. And that’s where it all began. I hugged my parents, (like a grateful boy) for about an eighth of a second, before abandoning them to tear open my glorious gift. I unraveled the tangled cords and carried my arc to the television with pious caution, no easy task for a hyperactive twelve-year-old. Bear in mind, this was still early in the days of the gaming system, so the box weighed about forty pounds and a controller was roughly the size of a boat. I arrived at my TV with plugs in hand, which seemed to have no discernable destination. So, after adventuring on my own only to transport my present from one room to the next, I was, once again, in need of my parents’ assistance. I held out the interwoven cables, which my dad gladly snatched up from me, and then took a seat in my favorite chair.

During the wait, my sweaty hands grasped the black, sandpaper plastic of the controller. My eyes fixated on the blue-green-red-yellow buttons, an assortment of fine, smooth skipping stones in a dark river. By the time the opening credits rolled across the screen, I was almost to the moon with excitement. But, remorseful for forsaking my parents, I invited my dad to play a round with me.

The Christmas I picked up a controller with my father is among the happiest of my recent memories. That’s kinda sad… Well, not really. Lots of people like spending time with their fathers. Some kids get their Viking helmet and plop down on the couch next to their dad each Sunday. Some kids accompany their old man to the garage and hand him tools. I murdered extraterrestrial warlords with my dad, what’s so sad about that? The rest of the day I ate good food, I got presents, and spent quality time with my family (by quality time, I obviously mean more murdering). To me, that sounds like every kid’s dream.

Anyway, this new machine started a revolution in my life. Videogames were like Pokémon cards on HGH. Flashing lights, vibrant colors, and it made me feel like I was in control of something, for once. I was a pretty quiet kid throughout middle school. Combine that with overprotective parenting and you have some fairly unexciting preteen years. Let me give you a timeline of my life. I didn’t have ice cream until I was nine because my parents weren’t sure if I was lactose intolerant or not. I watched nothing but PBS until I was thirteen. And I still have to fiddle with those plastic hooks every time I want to open the cabinet for the Windex. During the winter, you bundle up with mittens and hats. I couldn’t walk down the street without four inches of Kevlar strapped to my chest. School wasn’t any different. I went from class to class speeding through the halls with my head down, handing in papers, and sitting in silence. Entire days were spent without uttering a word.

I lived in fear of any unfamiliar face. And the fingers on my left hand could count my friends until freshman year of high school, so, naturally, most of the time I was stuck at home alone. I passed many a lonely afternoon with my new mate, Mr. Microsoft.

Stage Cleared. Level 2: The Classroom

This is me in grade nine. English class. This is not just any English class though, its Clarkson-Kane’s English class. Elizabeth Marie Clarkson-Kane: so daunting they named her four times. She entered the classroom, her hair – a bun, fresh out of the oven, her makeup – holding her face forever in a disapproving scowl, and her skirt suit – the newest line from Hillary Clinton’s personal tailor. Another rousing day at the Democratic Convention.

We sat silent in our stuffy chamber, reflecting on our journal entries. She fiddled through her file cabinets and I snuck a look around the room. The back of her door was plastered with posters that state, “Anyone wearing a baseball cap will be executed in a similar fashion to the dissenters in A Tale of Two Cities.” Those poor fools who had failed to read last week’s Dickens assignment quaked in speculative fear. The walls were stenciled with sappy poems and coated with a featureless tope, the color clinically proven to produce better learning. “A” papers were strategically hung just above the pencil sharpener. There were only two or three, leaving plenty of space for the paint’s SAT enhancing blandness to seep into our brains.

When it was time to get down to business, she cleared her throat and said, “Good morning class.” in her trademark nasally voice. “What did everyone think of the reading last night?”

Surveying the area with her eyes, she skipped over many confident faces, searching for one that failed to meet her gaze. She needed one dupe a day to sacrifice to the inquisition.

“Justin?” She had found a victim, just behind me. I smiled. I couldn’t help but feel that I had dodged a bullet.

“Well…” Justin stumbled for words. “It kind of reminded me of like… that part in the video game Dynasty Warriors… when Cao Cao like banishes Guan Yu to the outer province and Guan Yu was really like depressed and stuff… I don’t know…”

I grimaced. I knew exactly what he was talking about. But you’re not supposed to say things like that outside your living room. That’s the established code of the videogamer, come on. A cacophony of silence overtook the room. Everybody looked to Clarkson-Kane. The kid’s done for… Nay, but like the pixilated heroes I had grown to love, something rose in my heart. I decided that a world with one less embarrassed kid was a worthy cause for breaking my silence.

“Oh, yeah. The way that Cao Cao betrayed him was just like what Richard did to Barbarossa. He like, pretended to be his friend, but he was really just waiting to hurt him the whole time.”

Clarkson cocked an eyebrow, but seemed satisfied. I turned around and Justin’s red face was staring at me with a gaudy smile running from cheek to freckled cheek. Instant best friends.

I learned something that day. Hold B for an epiphany. I wasn’t participating in my life. I was sleeping through it. And during this moment, my sleep-chamber was cracked, and a little bit of freeze-juice spurted out.

I continued to tell new people I met about my escapades in the cyber world. About discovering super swords and slaying dragon-masters, and they laughed along with me. Sometimes, the people who didn’t know what I was talking about would roll their eyes and scoff. But it didn’t faze me. Because I knew that, some day, I would put a piece of myself out there that they could relate to and we would be best friends, as well. I kept pouring out my innards to people, and widening that crack in my glass chamber until eventually, all of the cryogens had leaked out and I was finally awake.

Level 3: The Study Lounge

I look around me now, sitting in this college study lounge with five guys who I would consider close friends. There’s a certain, immediate closeness that strangers feel when I confide in them. It creates a social debt, which most people feel that they have to repay with a secret of their own, a bigger secret. Phil never shaves because he has an effeminate chin. Drew is from Texas but doesn’t really have an accent. He just fakes it to get chicks. And Anwar’s favorite band is, unfortunately, Duran Duran. Sooner or later, we’ll know so much about each other that we can’t help but be friends, or else our secrets will be spread around everywhere.

My five-guy-family has learned more about me in about two weeks, than any of my classmates before them. Some of the things I told them were embarrassing. As embarrassing as scouring the Misty Mountains for long lost armor. But some of what I told them they connected to, and guess what? They’re still here and they got my back.

So, the gaming industry continued to evolve. More processors got thrown in, and orcs became more lifelike. Videogames were a tremendous hit, an obsession for the unsociable. They birthed a new stereotype of a young man, one that existed only in virtual reality. But, ironically, the more absorbing the games became, the more often I left them to venture into the real world.

• 2009 Spring
• Personal Essay