No. 2

It was the summer of 1992. I turned thirteen that June.

That summer I kissed a girl for the first time: a shameless and slobbery affair on an amusement park ride. I did a lot of fishing and hiking with my dog in the woods behind the house in which I grew up; woods they bulldozed that fall to put in a new subdivision. I learned a few chords on the guitar, slept in nearly every morning, and just generally gorged myself on the carefree indolence of youth. But of all the events that still signify that summer to me, probably the most memorable took place at a neighborhood convenience store.

I was over at my friend Daniel Martin’s house. Daniel was two years younger than me – a significant amount at that age – but I liked him. And he was one of the few kids I hung out with. Our mom’s had introduced us at church. There was a 7-11 about a mile from where he lived and we’d usually ride our bikes down there when we had a little money between us. Although cash in hand was certainly not a prerequisite: a lot of times we’d just stand around inside, broke, enjoying the A/C our parents were two poor to use, thumbing through comics and magazines until one of the cashiers would ask us to buy something or leave.

In the early-Nineties arcades were still big business in America and just about every pizza parlor, movie theatre and convenience store had a cabinet or two set up to coax you (or, more often, a beleaguered parent) into parting with any loose quarters that might be jingling around in your pocket: classics like Galaga and Pac-Man; newer titles like N.A.R.C., Toki, and Klax; and, for the first time ever that glorious summer, Street Fighter II: The World Warriors.

The specifics are hazy. I don’t remember when exactly the local 7-11 got its Street Fighter II cabinet. I was plenty into videogames as a kid but I can’t remember any games that preceded this one set up next to the Slurpee machine. It might be that, as an extra quarter was a rarity in those days, I had no reason to notice the previous games on offer. Maybe Street Fighter II stood unnoticed by me for weeks or, for all I can remember, it might have been installed earlier that same day. The particulars leading up to the event may be lost, but I’ll never forget that summer afternoon in 1992 when I was in possession of that rare quarter and played my first game of Street Fighter II.

It was one of those childhood experiences that stay with you.

I chose Blanka as my avatar. Blanka, for the (lamentably!) uninitiated, is a mutant from Brazil who employs a Capoiera fighting style (naturally) and battles to reunite with his mother. A gripping narrative was clearly not the game’s selling point. I picked this particular character because his green skin reminded me of the Incredible Hulk (another childhood fixation that has weathered the journey into adulthood). Who knows how far into the game I got on that portentous quarter? I didn’t get knocked out in the first round but I doubt I got much beyond that. What is certain is that I got at least far enough for this game with its eight suitably outlandish yet iconic playable characters – the “World Warriors” of the game’s sub-title – to seize hold of my imagination in a serious way.

Very nearly the first game of its kind and without question the most accomplished to that point, Street Fighter II introduced a generation of boys (and occasionally their fathers and uncles) to the wonders of the one-on-one fighter. Elegantly simple in its design – a joystick and three buttons each for punches and kicks – the level of depth afforded by the game’s play mechanics were unprecedented. Matches, either against the computer or more preferably a human controlled opponent, were best of three affairs that combined the strategy of chess with the breakneck pace and pyrotechnics of an action packed Saturday morning cartoon: every bout was the apotheosis of hand-eye coordination in sixty second bursts. Even at the time of this writing, more than sixteen years after its U.S. debut, the game and its subsequent iterations still routinely host competitive tournaments.

I was hooked.

Before long it got to the point where I’d reckon the meager pittance I received in allowance not as any monetary unit but in the number of plays at Street Fighter II it afforded me. Learning that each character was capable of powerful special moves and nearly unstoppable combos was to be initiated into a secret and arcane knowledge; the joystick and button combinations for these devastating arts becoming mantras that were repeated throughout the day. I scoured gaming magazines for whatever fresh insights I could glean from them about my passion. I filled notebooks with drawings of the game’s roster engaged in combat or striking various heroic poses; as well as a number of tawdry and anatomically ludicrous depictions of Chun-li, the game’s lone female protagonist.

In other words, I treated Street Fighter II like most thirteen year olds treat an interest: I absolutely freaking obsessed over it.

This monomaniacal devotion to perfecting my Street Fighter II game had a significant impact on my available income: I was soon able to conquer the game’s final boss – the despotic M. Bison – on a single try and the other kids who frequented that 7-11 learned not to waste their money on a match against me. So not only could I get in a game or two of Street Fighter II but I often had enough change left over for a candy or soda.

It’s good to be king.

As the summer wore on I, like any fighting champ, sought out challengers worthy of my skill and for the first time in my young life a trip with my mom to the mall was not the equivalent of death by boredom and/or embarrassment.

One of the privileges accorded me by parents that summer was a greater degree of autonomy. A privilege I wasted no time in abusing by sucking face with whatever girl was willing and available (a combination that was, admittedly, pretty rare.) Beyond these poorly judged PDA episodes, however, I exercised my freedom by heading straight for the arcade in the mall – a smoky and rather seedy place called Aladdin’s Castle – while my mom did her shopping.

It was like moving from Triple A to the Majors; I got whipped pretty good on my first couple of attempts. Part of it was stage fright: a lot of the kids there were older than me and, as shy as I often was then, just working my way up to a cabinet very nearly exhausted my available resources. I was also terrified that my mom was going to come back to get me at the exact moment one of these guys dropped an F-bomb, thus making it very difficult to focus. After a while, though, I got comfortable in this environment and I started tallying up wins. It wasn’t long before I’d created a name for myself at the arcade amongst the older boys.

Playing Street Fighter II at Aladdin’s Castle – and playing it well, it must be remembered – allowed me to connect with my peers in a way that, up to that point, I’d never had access. I was never any good at sports (the word “abysmal” fits) and to make matters worse, at least from a social standpoint, I was homeschooled. So not only did I lack a common school – and thus social – experience with the kids in my neighborhood but I also could not compete with them in the ritual of kicking a ball or running fast and far. (Unless, of course, I was running fast and far to escape getting my ass kicked; I was a pro at that.)

These factors combined with my love of reading and drawing made me an easy target for bullies growing up. But thanks largely to the well-meaning vigilance, and downright scariness, of my mom I went from being picked on to being ignored. By thirteen I’d gone from punching bag to pariah.

I don’t know which was worse.

Being one of the better Street Fighter II players around (I’d given up Blanka and was playing a mean Ken by summer’s end; the character I nearly became invincible with) gave me a chance to know what it felt like to belong to the tribe; it gave me a shot at solidarity. Some boys have their jump shot or a mean fastball to earn the respect of their peers; I had a flying uppercut and a whirlwind kick. It’s geeky, sure, but what can you do? In childhood we are not in a position to question or repeal the circumstances that write themselves upon us; the circumstances that define us. Growing up is the awkward and frequently painful struggle of trying to rid ourselves of this mark or finding some way to live with it.

Did I want to be identified as a kid who was good at a videogame? That’s the wrong question to ask. I was just glad to have any kind of identity at all.

Given this history you can probably imagine how I reacted when in early-2008 Capcom – the Japanese developer of the Street Fighter franchise – announced they would release Street Fighter IV, the first numbered entry in the series in more than a decade, that fall. Excitement doesn’t quite do it justice: I watched the teaser trailer online many, many times. I emailed it to friends. I searched the internet for previews, write-ups, and a release date. I started plotting what steps I would need to take in order to play this game as soon as possible (how much would a ticket to Japan cost?) It was like I’d hit a time warp that sent me back fifteen years into the past. But the thing is I’m not thirteen years old anymore and my life has far more responsibilities now than I could ever have imagined back then. This reignited obsession blazed white hot for a moment and then burned itself out.

That is until last week.

Last week through a random browsing of a message board I learned that Street Fighter IV was available in Korea.

At an arcade in Seoul one hour from where I live.

The weekend couldn’t arrive fast enough.

* * *

Has this extended rumination on Street Fighter II been just a trip down memory lane? A sepia tinted look back at the halcyon past? Is this game only a totem, a sort of fetish, of my childhood? To some extent the answer to these questions must be “yes”, but this is a qualified assent. Yes, Street Fighter II is emblematic of a special childhood experience but it isn’t so much the memory of an experience, per se, that still carries value for me.

Nostalgia has become an enormously marketable commodity for many of us. If you grew up in the West or Japan chances are you passed much of your childhood and adolescence in relative comfort playing the days away with toys and games that have long since gone the way of the garage sale. Sure, in today’s Age of EBay nothing ever truly disappears into the ether. And even easier than this route – and generally less expensive – you can now recover all those lost after-school afternoons spent with Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Transformers, et al through a quick trip down to Wal-Mart; or a ticket to the next summer blockbuster. Or that is what multi-million dollar marketing campaigns would have us believe, anyway.

How many of you from my generation – now parents yourselves – haven’t given to your child a modernized version of your own favorite plaything in the hopes of recapturing even a spark of that first flame?

Only the fire remains out.

Or who among you has not found himself seated in a theatre at the midnight opening of the film debut of a cherished childhood property? The special effects blow away anything the original could have produced; the story is competent; the characters are treated with respect; there is plenty of fan-service.

Yet your thirteen year-old self remains as distant as an echo.

I’ve certainly experienced my fair share of these and similar disappointments.

Can we really not go home again?

Maybe not. But if it is possible the road there will not lead through a mausoleum of once loved experiences; it will not be found by propitiating old ghosts. It will have to be a much harder pass than this because what we yearn for is not the experience itself but what motivated the experience. All the toys and games were incidental; they were a mere catalyst for the joy of discovery, of faith, of – Chun-li nudie pics and all – innocence.

We want to be surprised again, in the best possible way, with what life has to offer.

We want to shed the cynicism that so often attends adulthood.

* * *

The arcade was packed – teens and younger kids, mostly; a few businessmen at the crane games and slot machines – and I had to endure a molasses-slow line before getting my turn to play. When I finally stepped up the cabinet I looked over at the kid who was to be my opponent. He couldn’t have been a whole lot older than I was the first time I played. He was fidgeting with the joystick while I put the required change into the machine. I wondered what kind of map his life would be and where it would lead him. I wondered if he would someday find himself in a faraway land remembering his own childhood in South Korea.

“How’s it going?”

“Umm, hello”, he replied in English.

He seemed awfully nervous.

I moved my cursor over to Ken and was about to hit the “Start” button when I glanced at him once more. He was focused on the screen now, still visibly nervous but with a set, determined look on his face. He was obviously going to play to win.

Who knows? Maybe this kid reckoned his allowance the way I once had and had to make every coin count. Maybe this game was a lot more to him than just a way to kill time on a Saturday afternoon.

My cursor lingered on Ken for a moment more before I moved it.

Just for old time’s sake, I thought.

I chose Blanka.