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In Tokyo, a few days after New Years, I took a Japanese girl to dinner in Ginza. We had expensive udon noodles. It was heavy food.
“We’re gonna have to take a long walk,” the girl said, patting her stomach. She had gone to a Catholic high school, and was a student at an all-girl’s college. She dressed like a student at an all-girl’s college.
We took a five-minute ride down the Ginza Line to Akihabara. We got out of the subway station just as it was getting dark. The sun had been so high in the sky when we entered the station at Ginza.
Welcome to Warp Zone.
We’d left the Parisian-styled streets, and come up in a ghetto of electronic parts and big, flashing neon. Japanese people are so quiet; on an early January evening in Akihabara, you can hear only the neon buzzing.
We took a long walk down the main street of Akihabara. Most of the stores were closed, since it was so close to New Years. The big Akihabara LAOX Sofmap was still open, though. That’s the store you see in Electronic Gaming Monthly when they show pictures of system launch-day lines.
This girl and I made our way to the LAOX. Outside, Maximo was set up on a demo PS2. I actually stood in line behind a six-year-old kid, waiting my turn. The kid’s parents were nowhere.
“Fun?” I asked him.
“Kinda hard,” the kid said.
“Oh. As hard as Ghouls ’n Ghosts?”
“Ghouls ’n Ghosts?”
“An old game,” I said.
“Oh. You wanna try?” He let go of the controller.
“Sure,” I said. The kid stood there, wiping his nose on his sleeve, as I brutally failed at the first level of Maximo. The controller was as smooth as the ten-dollar Quickshot pad Roy bought when he smashed our Nintendo-brand controller against the wall after dying for the two-hundred-something-th time in Ninja Gaiden II. Except this PS2 controller was smooth because so many oily hands had held it.
“Having fun?” this girl said, walking up behind me. She had her hands folded behind her back.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You’re like a big kid,” she said, giggling. The six-year-old boy was looking up at her, squinting. Like he resented her tone.
“I guess I am,” I said.
Slowly, somewhere within me, the desire to play Super Mario Bros. 3 was growing. Soon, it became all I could think about. I hardly realized I was still playing Maximo.
It didn’t matter what game I was playing. It never does.
Poor Mario, even now, he’s waiting to land. I haven’t let him land yet. He was up in the air for ten minutes before I turned the TV off. With the save menu on the Super Famicom version of Super Mario Bros. 3, you can’t even see Mario when the game’s paused. It’s cruel and unfair.
I played Mario on my birthday this year. As a yearly ritual, once I realize no one’s going to buy me a present, a boot up Super Mario Bros. 3, and beat the game non-warp. I put some music on the stereo, mute the TV, and just play.
I beat the game in less than three hours. I died twice -- once in the final airship, and once in the final tank. The tank death was sloppy.
I went to bed that night regretting the tank death. I tensed my fingers, remembering the pressure I’d put on the buttons. I shouldn’t have died there. It was sloppy.
My hands are bigger now than they were when I daydreamed of playing Super Mario Bros. 3 in my boring middle school classes. Bigger than they were that day I first played the battle game with my little brother.
I’m 23 years old. With any luck, I’m about a third as old as I’ll ever be.
For more than half my life, I’ve been playing Super Mario Bros. 3. As I grow older, that half will become two-thirds, and maybe even seven-eighths. The older I get, the more of my life I’ll have spent playing Super Mario Bros. 3.
I’ve died more times than I can count. I’ve won more times than I can count. I’ve caught falling magic wands while crouched more times than I can count.
More times than I can count . . .
More times than I can count, I’ve played other games. More times than I can count, I’ve wished I was playing Super Mario Bros. 3.
More times than I can count, I’ve wished I was somewhere that I wasn’t. More times than I can count, I’ve wished I was doing something other than what I was doing.
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