I spend the days between the invite and the party playing old video games I pirated online. They’re so old that the hardware to run them hasn’t been made since my parents were kids—games like Pitfall II and Cosmic Ark and Atlantis. You have to download the ROMs from sketchy sites, then run them with an emulator that tricks your MacBook into thinking it’s a two-kilobyte Atari 2600 from 1980.
I am loathe to admit it, but this love of all things old stems from my father. Old junk from his childhood, left crammed into Lola’s room, just waiting to be unearthed by a bored kid with too much time on his hands. Things from another era, an era that predated me and anything I’d ever done or imagined. They seemed to be from a better world.
And suddenly I was obsessed, haunting garage sales and estate sales and the corners of the Internet for this stuff.
Like the games. I love these old games. The simplicity of them. You master them. You play them. You play until you lose. There are no complicated button combos or secret cheat codes or hidden trophies to collect. The achievement lies in lasting as long as you can, until you die.
Like life.
Last as long as you can. Hold on as long as possible. And there’s no shame in losing, because everyone loses. It’s just that everyone has a different score.
And the scores don’t really matter after all. They disappear when you turn off the game.
Mom says I should bring something to the party, even though there is nothing in the invitation to indicate this. “It’s polite,” she says. “It’s what people do.” And I wonder in which class do people learn this fact about modern life? What if I missed the class, skipped over it to take chemistry or biology? What other important social ingredients does my etiquette larder lack?
“And what if I don’t bother?” I ask her. “What then? Why is being a little out of step such a major felony?”
“Just do it. Don’t examine it; don’t dissect it.”
“You’d think if they wanted me to bring something, they would say so.”
“They don’t want you to. But you do anyway.”
“That makes no sense. Doesn’t it make more sense for us to agree on something, together?”
She sighs, but it’s not her annoyed sigh. It’s her my son is so goofy and so smart sigh, the much rarer variety. But since things are going well right now, I figure maybe this is a good time to broach another topic: “Like back on the last day of school. You wanted to talk and I didn’t and—”
“What do you mean?”
“When you brought up Lola and I threw up?”
Her face goes tight. “Not now.”
“Look, I just wanted to… I’m just thinking that maybe we need a way to talk about it. Her. You know? Isn’t it time?” Past time. I should try, I should make a real effort, before I go. Go away.
With a grimace, she flaps her hands. “You’re going to be late. Don’t be rude to these people.”
Typical. She brings it up; I recoil. I bring it up; she recoils. We’re never in sync.
And there’s no arguing with parental authority. At her insistence, I bring a two-liter bottle of soda, as well as a truly gigantic bag of potato chips. Balancing the two of them while riding my bike would be impossible, so I have no choice but to accede to Aneesa’s snarky wish and walk to her house.
The cookout is attended by maybe fifteen people, a decent enough total for a backyard barbecue, perhaps, but a poor representation of the neighborhood in general. Easily four hundred people live in this development. How many did the Fahims invite? I’m willing to bet most of them.
There’s a red, white, and blue paper tablecloth on a picnic table piled high with bags of chips and pretzels, a card table stocked with drinks and cups (to which I add my two-liter bottle, it vanishing like a chameleon among its fellows), and a large plastic tub filled with ice and bottles of water. No beer, I notice.
The grill billows forth great gusts of fragrant smoke. I take a peek—burgers and dogs, along with delicious-smelling basted barbecue chicken skewers.
“It’s Alexander the Great!” Aneesa’s dad says, spying me lurking by the grill.
“I didn’t cut your cords,” I remind him.
“More like Theseus, then,” he amends.
“Maybe more like Ariadne.” Theseus navigated the labyrinth, true, but Ariadne was the one who gave him the ball of twine and the idea in the first place, so let’s give her her due.
He laughs and slaps my shoulder, then wields his barbecue tongs with a flourish, gesturing to the grill. “What can I get you?”
I’m not a big eater, but it smells so good that I want one of each. “I’ll try the chicken.”
“Good man!” He tongs a juicy skewer onto a paper plate for me and presents it with a little bow. “Enjoy. Aneesa’s around here somewhere.…”
“I’ll find her. Thanks, Mr. Fahim.”
He pauses just a moment, then says, “Call me Joe. Everyone does.”
“Okay, Mr. Fahim.”
“Joe,” he admonishes, shaking his tongs in faux outrage.
“Joe. Right.”
I step off to the side with my skewer and do what I do best: watch. Mingling has never been my strong suit. My public life began with concentrated doses of overwhelming pity (“You poor boy!”) before transitioning into a bewildered scrutiny (“He’s still around?”) and then finally settling into a resigned acceptance of my continued existence, marked mostly by tight smiles and sharp nods and general avoidance of conversation.
Most of the people in the neighborhood ought to be able to manage at least that level of politeness. I don’t need people to approach me, just as long as they don’t outright avoid me. Mr. Marchetti and his wife are here, without her son, Don. Too bad. He’s older than I am, but I could have at least made small talk about the comic book he publishes in the school lit journal. He’s probably off somewhere with his girlfriend, a noted psychotic who has spent as much time in a mental ward as at school.
The chicken is delicious, slightly cumin-y, with a hint of garlic in the sauce. It’s skewered with marinated onions and peppers, and I’m in some sort of chicken heaven, scanning the backyard for Aneesa, thinking how great it is that I can joke around with Mr. Fahim, when it hits me: The Fahims don’t know about me.
About who I am and what I’ve done.
If I hadn’t come to the party, there would be no reason for the topic of me to come up, but with my presence, how can it not? How can someone here not mention the past to Mr. Fahim?