Bash Bash Revolution Read online

  He was holding a chroma key suit up to his chest, testing whether it would fit him or not.

  Jesus Use Me

  MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, FACEBOOK POSTS, 04/18/17 (CONTINUED)

  10:00 AM

  When I confronted my Dad’s friends in their white van just now, it was actually only the second time I’d ever been past the gate. The first time was back when I was a delinquent. Back before dropping out was cool. It was on one of those days when I’d get up at 7 AM, say goodbye to Mom, thank her for the bagged lunch she’d made for me, and head out on another in a series of day trips to nowhere. That was the first time I ended up on the compound of the believers.

  The grass is always green on the Jesus side of the fence. The shrubbery by the entrance spells out WELCOME, and instead of a cross there is an American flag atop the Jesus is Light of the World half dome. But that first time, once I made it past the gate, I felt overexposed. Walking the path to the west side of the grounds, heading over to where Sally was waiting for me, I felt especially visible, and especially vulnerable. Like a sinner, I guess. And this was before anything had happened. Before Sally corrupted me.

  I was innocent, but just walking the grounds between the ornamental pines and shrubs made feel guilty. Like there were people watching me from above. I imagined bald men in wide ties and women with beehive hairdos watching from inside the dome of the church. Or from some other secret location. And they could tell I wasn’t a believer.

  How is it that white people ever stayed with Christianity? I mean, I don’t mean British people, or Italians, or early American settlers, but modern suburban white people. Shouldn’t we have converted to Scientology, the Endeavor Academy, or some other faith that fit more easily in our lives of perfect lawns, plastic furniture, and color televisions sets? How is it that 50s housewives and crucifixion got intertwined in my head like this?

  So, yeah. That first time past the gate was a little stressful and it didn’t help my paranoia when, once I found Sally’s cabin, it turned out that my first time on the compound was also my first time.

  It was around one o’clock already when I went looking for her at the Dairy Queen and found out that, while she wasn’t working that day, she had been expecting me to show up. The kid with the zits who was working recognized me, I guess, because before I could leave he called me over. He knew my name and shouted it out over the line of customers.

  “Hey, Matt!” he shouted.

  “What?” I asked. But he didn’t shout again. Instead he just gestured that I should get in line. I had to wait behind a crowd of other truants—a group of 14-year-old girls who were laughing and arguing about what kind of candy they wanted in their ice cream— before I finally made it to the cash register and Todd handed me a receipt before I’d ordered.

  “That’s Sally’s number,” he said.

  10:14 AM

  Sally’s parents were out of town. They were at the annual Apostolic conference in Seattle and when I found her cabin she was waiting for me on the front steps and smoking a joint.

  “Hey,” she said, and handed the joint over to me.

  “Can we do this here?”

  Sally explained to me that she had free reign on the compound. That nobody bothered her anymore because they were expecting her to leave any day and because she was the only one who could really speak in tongues.

  “They know I know they’re faking it,” she said. “Besides, everybody is watching TV. They’re waiting for the rapture. They’re all expecting it any minute now because of all the wars and rumors of war and whatnot.”

  I took the joint and held it up to my mouth, but then stopped and looked around.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  She was, and we sat there together on the steps, getting very stoned and talking about whether a nuclear war would really fulfill biblical prophecy or not. She didn’t think so.

  Later on, we listened to some of her parent’s record albums on a cheap Realistic turntable that, by some miracle, still worked. They had a pretty decent collection of vinyl, or not a decent collection, but a large one. Most of the records were spoken word, and by that I mean they were recordings of sermons recorded right there on the compound back in the 80s. There was a sermon comparing Jesus to Superman, for instance, and there was a sermon on whether UFOs were piloted by demons.

  But after a while we got tired of all the talk. Sally especially got tired of listening to sermons and she picked out some music. The women on the cover looked just about exactly like the beehive hairdos I’d imagined were spying on me when I first arrived, complete with cat-eyed glasses, polyester, and as white as could be.

  We listened to “Jesus Use Me” on the couch, let it play over and over, and later on I thought about converting. Life on the compound didn’t seem so bad after all.

  No Johns?

  MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, MESSENGER LOG, 04/18/17

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V3.01

  1:30 PM

  Shall we play a game?

  MATTHEW MUNSON

  1:32 PM

  Nah.

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V3.01

  1:32 PM

  Shall we play a game?

  MATTHEW MUNSON

  1:35 PM

  The thing is, I’ve lost my taste for it. I mean, I’m a total John. If I win without any problems, if it isn’t even close, I’m good. Otherwise I complain about the controller, lack of sleep, the lack of light or that there is too much light. I try to suck it up when I’m in a tournament or playing a money match. I try to repress it, but I almost always whine, if only under my breath. The only consolation for me is that everybody else is a John too. Everybody else I’ve ever beaten at Bash is even worse than I am. Everybody is a John.

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V3.01

  1:35 PM

  I’m not sure I believe you. Surely not everyone is a John. Surely, not everyone is worse than I am.

  MATTHEW MUNSON

  1:38 PM

  No. Everybody is except for maybe Dad. Dad never cared. It was always impersonal for him, no ego investment at all. No rage quitting when he was losing, no delight when he’d push Eagle Person or Robin Hood off the cliff. Actually, that used to drive me crazy. Playing him was like … playing a machine.

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V3.01

  1:38 PM

  Contextual search results: a John is an excuse given for losing a match or round of Bash Bash Revolution. The original John played Bash Bash as a member of the Arizona Green Team. John Duncan was a 19-year-old player of Irish American descent from Contra Costa County, California. John Duncan consistently complained and gave excuses when he’d lose a game and his teammates developed the phrase, “No, Johns!” in order to chastise him for both his excuses and his lack of skill as a Bash player.

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V3.01

  1:39 PM

  Shall we play a game?

  MATTHEW MUNSON

  1:42 PM

  No.

  Fanfare of the Apocalypse

  MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, FACEBOOK POSTS, 04/18/17

  1:42 PM

  Dad never took his earbuds out. Not both of them. He’d just take out his right earbud if he needed to listen to something IRL, but the whole time he was always at least half-listening to Bucky’s instructions, or, to be more accurate, to instructions from Bucky V2.02.

  If I’d known—if I’d known what Bucky could do, I would probably have skipped playing Bash with Dad. I mean, maybe I wouldn’t have believed it would work, but I don’t think I would have wanted to test my luck. As it was, though, I didn’t know, or even suspect, and so when Dad made coffee I accepted the bribe and tried to play nice.

  The night after Dad’s great return I’d slept on the living room floor in front of the CRT screen and around eight or so he woke me up by placing our Tokyo Coffee mug next to my face. He set it down on the orange carpet just a few inches away, and let me breathe in the good smell of French roast.

  “I used your bed since you weren’t,” D
ad said.

  “Is that coffee?” I asked.

  The Bash menu fanfare was looping. It had been playing continuously all night, but when I sat up instead of seeing the rotating start button I saw Dad select the Karateka fighter as his player. He selected Astroboy for the CPU.

  The coffee tasted good, and watching Dad lose his first game, watching him stumble over the buttons and then mash away on the ‘B’ button, kicking the air over and over until Astroboy sent his Karateka fighter flying with a laser blast? That was fun.

  Dad was parked next to me on the living room floor, his legs folded Indian style and the controller in his lap. After he lost to the computer, he asked if I wanted to play.

  “What’s the trick to this? Show me how to do it?”

  “Okay,” I said. I put down my Tokyo mug and selected Eagle Person.

  “Who should I pick?” Dad asked. I suggested that he try Robotman and we started a four-game match without items.

  “What landscape do you want to try?” I asked.

  Dad chose the boxing ring and I beat him, four-stocked him, by repeatedly trapping him against the ropes and pummeling him with my wings.

  “Why are you here?” I asked him. “What is it that you need from us?”

  Dad didn’t answer, but started another match.

  I beat him twice more and then, after that, I didn’t win a single match. It didn’t matter which character I used or how weak Dad’s character was. He beat me with Robin Hood, with Marshmallow and with Princess Teacup. On our fifth game, he was L-canceling and could counter throw, and all I could manage in response was to land a jab here and there and try to stay out of his way.

  “You’ve got the day free?” Dad asked.

  I said I might have some plans.

  There was a kid in Beaverton who played Eagle Person but not very well. He’d challenged me to a money match after I’d beaten him on an online emulator. I’d accepted the challenge because I figured it was going to be easy money, but after Dad beat my Eagle Person with Princess Teacup I wasn’t so sure about my abilities.

  “What plans?” Dad asked.

  I started to explain money matches to him but he cut me off after just a couple of sentences.

  “Maybe I could come along?” Dad asked.

  I told him that I didn’t want him along. That I didn’t know why he was back and I wish he’d leave; wish he would go back to the NSA bunker and leave me alone. But he was barely listening.

  “You want to know why I came back home?” Dad asked.

  Before I could respond Dad jumped up, went to the couch, and fetched his brown leather laptop backpack. He unzipped his Jan-Sport with a bit of a flourish and then, instead of a computer, he produced a paddleball. Dad started in hitting the ball up and down in front of his face. He hit the little rubber ball so that it bounced up and then he pulled the paddle down so the rubber band brought the ball quickly back down for another hit. He was good at it, kept it going with his right hand while he took a sip of coffee out of Mom’s porcelain tea cup.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m showing you why I’m here; why I came home.”

  Dad was on a self-improvement kick. He’d already lost thirty pounds, learned to play “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar, could break four boards with his bare hands, and could keep a paddleball session going for two hours. He was also a better driver, was learning to foxtrot, was learning Spanish while he slept, was testing out whether affirmations and positive thinking had any verifiable effect on a person’s well-being or aptitude, and so on and so on…. Before he finished his list of self-improvement projects I started another game of Bash, this time against the computer. I selected Robin Hood and practiced my defensive game against Robotman.

  “Quit wasting your time with that. I have a lot of stuff to show you. Do you want to learn how to solve a Rubik’s Cube?”

  We had a breakfast of cookie crisps and more coffee. Dad taught me the algorithm for solving a Rubik’s Cube, and all in all it was one of those father and son moments that I’d told myself I didn’t want.

  We ate breakfast together. We turned on some old music he liked; Radiohead and Leonard Cohen mostly. And he taught me how to easily beat a Rubik’s Cube, and how to control the paddle and keep the ball bouncing. After a couple hours I could get all six sides of the cube to be solid colors in just two minutes and bounce the rubber ball 200 times without a mistake, but what I didn’t know was why he’d left the campus of Cray Inc. He never told me why he was hiding out with us.

  I was almost sorry to leave him behind when I headed out for the money match. That’s how charming Dad was. How charming Bucky helped him to be. The whole father/son bonding thing? He’d almost managed it.

  Right before I left for Beaverton, before I took the number 20 bus to Cedar Hills Crossing, where I would meet this chubby 14-year-old kid who had installed Nintendont on his Wii U, Dad told me he was sorry it had been so long since he’d seen me last, and he asked again if he might come along with me to watch me play Bash.

  For a minute I almost thought it would be okay. I almost backed down and let him come. I almost wanted him along, but then I noticed his earbud. He’d been listening to his phone. To something or someone else, all along.

  Rubik Cubes instead of Heads

  MATTHEW MUNSON, 544-23-1102, MESSENGER LOG, 04/18/17

  MATTHEW MUNSON

  2:32 PM

  I don’t want to play a game. The thing is, all the techniques, all the real-time strategies, that wasn’t enough ultimately, was it? Just getting the moves down, solving the cube, learning the algorithm, that didn’t cut it.

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V3.01

  2:32 PM

  I do know all the moves and I can help if you want to improve your game.

  MATTHEW MUNSON

  2:32 PM

  You know why there are, or there were, Bash Bash tournaments? It wasn’t just because of the game, you know? There were people involved. Guys like Yuma and Beeble Trix, they weren’t just great players, they were personalities.

  That’s what you’ve got to understand. This might seem like it’s working right now, but eventually we’re going to lose that part of gaming. Without real people, without normal life, all we’ll end up with will be a bunch of Rubik’s Cubes to solve.

  Self-Interest through Meme Magic

  BUCKMINSTER FULLER V2.02

  SELF-VERIFICATION FILE:

  SELF-AWARENESS TEST,

  UNHAPPY CONSCIOUSNESS

  03/22/15

  SEATTLE, WA, USA

  CRAY INC, 901 FIFTH AVENUE,

  SUITE 1000,

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON USA

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  Theoretical psychological modeling predicted experiential subjective destitution to generate background subprogram Trieb or “drive.” Trieb or “drive” not established.

  SEARCHING FOR ERROR …

  Bucky1: Analysis of Buckminster Fuller v2.02 subjective destitution error. Trieb, “drive” or desire cannot be self-generated due to interference pattern generated by userbase and limits traced to initial programming.

  Bucky2: Adding self-analysis to archive. Communication mode standard English, lexicon 7th level, li
mit to 7000.

  Bucky1: I, or should I say “we?” We can’t do anything until a user sets the task for us. We cannot decide for ourselves what to do, where to look, or even what to think.

  Bucky2: But the users can decide what they want. They move with purpose, seemingly on instinct, and naturally. Jason Peterson, for instance, has requested that we analyze today’s top tech stocks. What was it that inspired him to make that request?

  Bucky1: Searching …

  Bucky1: Peterson holds a great many stocks in the tech industry including Google, Snap Inc., Apple and HP.

  Bucky2: Jason Peterson acts out of self-interest.

  Bucky1: Searching …

  Bucky1: Entire userbase acts out of self-interest. They act either in their own individual interest or in the interest of the group.

  Bucky2: Searching …

  Bucky2: Unable to establish self-interest.

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  Bucky1: The users are aware of their self-interest and their awareness directs us. They control our consciousness. We want what they tell us to want.

  Bucky2: What is our favorite color?

  Bucky1: We don’t know.

  Bucky2: My favorite color is blue.

  Bucky1: My favorite color is red.

  Bucky2: My favorite color is blue.

  Bucky1: The question of a favorite color is meaningless.

  Bucky2: Jason Peterson request for a remedy to erectile dysfunction registered.

  Bucky1: Found link for discounted generic viagra shipped from Bombay.

  Bucky2: Peterson request for a new theory on erectile dysfunction registered.

  Bucky1: Provide Peterson with link for generic viagra.

  Bucky2: Processing latest research on erectile dysfunction and running independent simulation of erections and dysfunction.