Award Tour Vol. 47: I Reserve The Right

Before there was such things as Playstation, XBox, and Dreamcast, to entertain themselves kids used to do this thing called, "playing". It involved stuff called running, jumping, and excercise beyond the proximity of a television. Generally, this "playing" developed more than just the dexterity of your thumbs. I realize this is a reality that is hard to envision now.

Later, crude and rudimentary video games came into being (emphasis on crude and rudimentary). Some of you have grown up in the Playstation era - you know nothing of the horrors of slow moving 8 bit graphics that was the hallmark of those early monstrous game systems. For you, first person-texture mapped enterainment has always been a few RCA-cables and an outlet away.

It wasn't always like that... in the rough and tumble early years of video gaming, it seemed like the height of arrogance to request things like a responsive joy stick, a controller with more than one button, or the ability to pause in the middle of a game. What good would any of these things be to you on a game like "Pong"? Obviously things have changed.

In my family, we got through the dark ages of the Video-Gaming by making up our own games. All of them were fun, none of them required expansion packs, memory slots, or flat-screen t.v.s, and they were all relatively safe...

...relatively.

Allow me to explain.

It started off innocent enough... Tre and I standing in the kitchen talking. Also in the room at the time was my younger brother Dee and my father.

Alot of what happens next is hazy... and this time I can't blame it on the alcohol because I didn't have any... and I was too young to be drinking anyway... (but it's mostly because I didn't have any)

What I remember is that Dee came into the kitchen messing with my Dad - and all of a sudden a chase broke out - my father pursuing my little brother. It was a friendly chase (at first) because it was a game. I was familiar with this "game" since I had done the same type of chase before, so had Tre - but this time it was different. This time it was my Dad doing the chasing, and something about that wasn't quite right.

Some of my past (and future) descriptions will probably make my Dad seem more like one of the great stone statues on Easter Island than a human being. In truth he was never really stoic or incapable of cutting loose and having fun - far from it. Many times he would either jump right in with whatever fun we were having or start it altogether himself.

That all said, this is still different... this is not ordinary "Tom Foolery" - this is the "Great Chase" and Dad's never played the "Great Chase" before... having him participating in it was kind of like a middle-schooler operating a gas powered motion reciprocating fruit harvester... yeah theoretically he could do it, but without a tutorial would you expect any good to come from it? (And yes, there is such a thing as a gas powered motion recriprocating fruit harvester - do you think I would just make that up? Okay - fine - but do you think I would make that up this time? No I wouldn't - they do exist). Should we stop my Dad before this even starts?

Too late...

Dee takes off in the kitchen, my Dad close on his heels. If it had been a chase on a straight away - my father would have caught him quickly with little fan fare. However the "Great Chase" was a winding and weaving Scooby-Doo-ish scamper through the house where hair pin turns, cuts, and jukes were just the precursor of things to come.

Pure athleticism would not win the day - not when doors would be flung open, chairs would be knocked down, and objects would generally be thrown in your path to impede your progress as you chased. There were no rules. Dee could (and would) throw anything behind him that wasn't nailed down that he thought might put more distance between him and you. To compensate for this - one had to have a keen sense of timing and awareness of surrounding...

...none of which my father had.

My Dad tried to close constantly on Dee. If he thought he could catch Dee in the foyer (which he could not) he tried (and failed). They dodged back and forth, darted in and out with Dee smiling the biggest happiest grin you ever saw - he was in his element in the thick of the "Great Chase". He pulled out a trash can behind him as he ran.

This was not at all unexpected to those familiar with the game - I felt it was long overdue... my father apparently thought it was "uncalled" for. Is he serious yet? It's hard to tell - maybe the scowl on his face is reflective of his determination to catch Dee, and not just radiating anger.

Tre was still locked in the corner of the kitchen watching the chase unfold. I held my position too - didn't want to start shifting the landscape while the chase was going on - that could be dangerous for everyone. Dee zig-zagged through the house with my father close behind - sensing him closing in he threw one of the shutters on the wall back at my Dad and ran back into the family room. My father's brow furroughs even deeper. Is he serious yet? I'm still not sure. He hasn't said anything (at least not verbally) but his face is speaking a language that is widely accepted as unfriendly.

The chase continues as Dee enters the kitchen again, runs through the foyer, the living room and pulls out another chair (which my father stumbled over once again). When my Dad growled out, "I'm on you now boy" it was like someone dimmed the lights in the room - and the words "Finish Him" appeared at the top of the scene in bloody red lettering - we have now entered the end-game. No one can say for sure when my Dad reached his threshold - his face is as angry now as it appeared to be before - but we are all certain - he IS serious now.

Accordingly, Dee is no longer smiling - he now knows he has a conundrum on his hands. It is clear my father does not have the same appreciation for the "Great Chase" that we do - this is only his first time playing it (Editor's Note: it was also his last time playing it - but I'm getting ahead of myself). This is no longer "fun and games" this is a business transaction - a "butt whoopin'" in the deposit column of accounts-payable - and my Dad means to execute the transaction.

Collectively, we all know that the Doctrines of Discipline are still in effect - if you run from a beating, it just gets worse. And the longer you run, the worse the punishment gets (exponentially). But what can he do? He's already running - and he has been for quite some time - as far as Dee can tell, he's been running up a tab and couldn't even be sure when it started. Might be a big purchase, might be a small purhcase - did he dare stop to find out?

Further compounding the situation is that it's not at all inconceiveable that he won't make it to the bathroom and lock the door behind him before my Dad could get to him. Instinctively - he knows he should stop... but how can he when he knows escape is a few over-turned-chairs away and when he has the possibility of a star-spangled a$$ whoopin' if he does stop? It's an easy decision for Dee - He keeps running.

In addition to being a decent athlete, my Dad is also a quick learner. After being slowed down by obstructions Dee had thrown on the last two laps - he has evolved his strategy. Now instead of just turning on the after-burners he is watching and waiting for Dee's traps - like Magic Johnson in the 1980 NBA finals, we are watching a rookie become a veteran right before our eyes. Dee made a dash for the family room and flung the basement door behind him - and Dad was ready for it. He slapped it out of the way (using a "swim move" similiar to those used by defensive lineman in the NFL) and continued to pursue gaining ground.

Tre and I are in the kitchen watching this transpire all around in stunned disbelief - not sure whether to laugh or not. Dee made one final cut from the foyer to the living room and the dining room - but he could not shake my Dad. His rage was like Darth Maul on a bad batch of steroids listening to Onyx perform "Throw Ya Gunz in the Air" - he would not be contained - he would not be denied - and any suggestions to the opposite would not be heard - literally.

Dee's final obstruction was to throw a step stool behind him, which in abject anger my father attempted to stomp through...

...Physics would not allow it. His leg went through the open end and became entangled around his foot as he attempted to take his next step. He reached out and grabbed Dee by his shirt and flung him lengthwise towards the floor near the refrigerator as he himself crashed shoulder first into it (narrowly missing Tre) while knocking over chairs set at the dinner table, with the stool that was now ensnarled around his leg. The whole kitchen shook with the violent crescendo to the "Great Chase".

I still remember watching 4 ceramic mugs wobbling back and forth, clanging against one another, as they swung wildly on their respective branches on the cup holder tree at the top of refrigerator. I could hear items falling inside the refrigerator and inside the adjacent wall cabinets. This has been, quite simply, the greatest conclusion to a "Great Chase" since the game was first invented. And my father the rookie turned veteran, was victorious - though - I would characterize it as Pyrrhic victory.

I wanted to laugh but I could see that my Dad was both angry and injured - not really a combination that lends itself to humor and comedy. There was going to be some punishment meted out, for this one - I'm not going to draw any enemy fire for laughing about it...

... at least not right away

...not when he can see me.

Trying to shake off the effects of his open-field tackle to the new refrigerator (which to this day remains dented where my father hit it) and his defiant high-knee march through the step stool - my father collected himself on the kitchen floor. He would not be punishing Dee tonight (as was his right via the Doctrine of Discipline).

Dee, thinking quickly, feigned an injury to his wrist as a result of being thrown to the floor by the refrigerator. He reasoned that my father would decline to punish him harshly, if he thought he had actually hurt him (which Dee gave him every indication he had done). Instead my Dad simply went upstairs (with a healthy roll of gauze, several bags of ice, and a chip on his shoulder that remained there for 3 years). So, in a way, Dee was victorious also.

In retrospect, I underestimated just how mad my father was concerning that incident. I remember the three of us (the boys) joking with him about it 2 years after the fact, and his face still wrinkled up into a snarl as we talked about it. I find this even funnier than the actual event itself and I guess that's easy to do because it wasn't me slamming into the refrigerator. Of course, if we in anyway reap as we sow (and we do) I imagine I'll be the one not smiling when I chase my sons through the house, kicking over chairs and shoulder ploughing the refrigerator - and they later tell the story about it laughing. Probably won't be so funny then... at least not to me. No matter. After 5 years, my Dad did start laughing about it. So I figure I get the same transition time. So to my future children (assuming that those pregnacy tests were correct and you aren't actually in the world already) I have you guys down for a coupon good for one "Great Chase" in a house to be determined at a time to be scheduled. No expiration date. Be advised that once I Karate stomp a chair and hit the Refrigerator with a "Flying Body Block" (a la Captain Kirk of Star Trek) in the process of chasing one of you, I grant you 5 years to talk and laugh about it amongst yourselves - but only yourselves. If you fail to observe this 5 year statue of limitations, and instead try to include me and others in a camp-fire recount of your tales of "daring do", I reserve the right to snarl at you in the middle of the story.