Violence. Speed. Momentum.

by Dr DisRespect

  I couldn’t believe it. Fred Savage was not that nice!

  I dropped to my knees in despair, just as my parents pulled up next to me in the Dodge Caravan.

  “Mama, Mama!” I wept. “Help me! Fred Savage seemed so nice in The Wizard! And The Wonder Years too! My life is a lie—I don’t think I can make it to the end of my quest!”

  “But you’re standing at the entrance to Marine World,” my mom said. “Like, five feet from the door.”

  I looked up and peered through my tears. “OF COURSE I KNEW THAT, MOM!”

  My competitive fire was rekindled! My quest for greatness burned hotter and angrier than ever before! So I got up, dusted myself off, and walked proudly through the giant metal doors. Right after I borrowed $50 from my parents for the entry fee.

  Inside was the most massive, epic arena of battle I had ever seen. Mightier than the Colosseum of Rome, more ancient than Stonehenge, more alien than Area 51, and truly worthy of two of the greatest Fortune 12 companies of all time—Blockbuster coming in at number six and Marine World trailing just behind it at number eight.

  In front of me was a vast hall full of row upon row of state-of-the-art Sony Trinitron TVs. There must’ve been two or three hundred of those babies—all glowing and flashing like every one of their 640 x 480 pixels was alive. And man, back then, that was a shit-ton of pixels.

  The place was teeming with thousands of competitors from all over the nation, like a Model UN minus every country except for America. There were slick snipers from New York City, oiled-up console surfers from Hawaii, and thirty-two-bit cowboys from the dusty plains of Wyoming, all there to prove their mettle on the big stage.

  Press was swarming everywhere. Radio, newspapers, network TV, satellite TV, pay-per-view TV, TV Guide, everyone. We’re talking Peter Jennings, we’re talking Tom Brokaw, we’re talking Wolf Blitzer—but no one really knew what CNN was yet, so even Connie Chung treated him like a bitch.

  Music was blasting—BLASTING—from these huge Bose speakers hanging from the ceiling. Classics like Bel Biv DeVoe’s “Poison,” Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” and pretty much everything by Roxette (and I go la la la la la I’ve got the look).

  And in the back looming behind it all, encased in an entire football field of thick protective glass, there was Bubbles the Killer Whale, arching and flexing in the icy blue water, baring fifty-six razor-sharp teeth, his glossy black eyes devoid of compassion. I never did find out how he saw out of those tiny eyes—it must’ve been his warrior spirit.

  “Bubbles!” I shouted in my rage frenzy. “Bubbles! Give me your ruthless warrior spirit! Bless me with your killer instinct as I devastate my foes, earn honors and kippers beyond any gamer’s wildest dreams, and avenge my roadside humiliation at the hands of Fred Savage, who it turns out isn’t that nice!”

  And lo, Bubbles spurted a victory geyser of spume into the sky and unleashed the unholy screech of a thwarted Nazgûl.

  At that instant I turned and saw the Champion’s Platform, all decked out in rich Blockbuster blue and gold. There at the podium, standing next to this old wrinkled rich white dude who must’ve been Mr. Blockbuster himself, was none other than my newest nemesis, that asshole Fred Savage.

  Mr. Blockbuster gazed out at the throngs of competitors and wheezed into the mic.

  “Hello, everyone, I’m Mr. Blockbuster. I’m standing here with Fred Savage, honorary master of ceremonies and star of The Wizard, to kick off the greatest gaming competition the country has ever seen, the one-time-only Blockbuster Video Game Championship!”

  Everyone applauded and Bubbles the Killer Whale thrashed like a caged Leviathan.

  “And to launch Blockbuster’s new and improved Nintendo video game rental lineup!”

  So yeah, turns out the whole thing was just this big promotional stunt to advertise Blockbuster’s expanded Nintendo video game rental business. That’s why they tied it all into Fred Savage and The Wizard, which was not only the greatest video-game-road-trip-coming-of-age movie of all time, but also one gigantic product-placement ad for Nintendo. The whole commercial aspect of the championship totally sullied what should’ve been a sacred torch of pure competitive fire, and I was furious. (Also make sure you go to InterdimensionalChampionsClub.gg for the latest in Official Dr Disrespect Apparel™ RIGHT FUCKING NOW!)

  Anyway, then that asshole Fred Savage took the mic and smiled his phony Savage smile.

  “Now, let the tournament—and the amazing deals on all Nintendo products at your local Blockbuster—begin!”

  The competition was intense, my friends, I won’t lie.

  All right, that would be a lie, because I totally destroyed everyone. I mean, the other dudes were great and all, don’t get me wrong, but I was the Doctor. The Almost-but-Not-Quite-Yet Two-Time. I was slicker than New York City, more cocoa buttery than the Hawaiian Islands, and I brought polygons to a Wyoming sprite fight.

  But here’s the thing. It wasn’t just my unparalleled prowess with a joystick that gave me the edge. It wasn’t just my skill at The Legend of Zelda and Ninja Gaiden and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and every other Nintendo game ever created.

  No, what truly made me superior to everyone else at that tournament was the journey I’d taken to get there. No one else had struggled the way I had. No one else had walked the roads for miles on end. No one else had scrounged for food at a hard-luck Denny’s or battled psychos in the street in his He-Man pajamas.

  Instead, they drove there in their fancy cars or flew there in their private jets or whatever it is that soft men do. Or, in the case of the Wyoming guy, I guess he really did backpack all the way from Wyoming to Marine World, but whatever—who won at Mario Kart? So fuck him.

  I’d looked down that long, scary, dark alleyway of fear and I kept on pushing ahead. And that strength I gained, that experience, that toughness drove me past every competitor, through every round of the tournament—the quarterfinals, the semifinals, the semi-semifinals, the Sweet Sixteen, the Final Four, the Two of Hearts (Two Hearts That Beat as One). I won them all handily.

  Up on the Champion’s Platform, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans, with klieg lights shining down and Cypress Hill’s “Hand on the Pump” slapping on the giant Bose speakers and Brokaw and Jennings and Wolf covering our every move and Bubbles the Killer Whale ramming against the glass of his big-ass aquarium, my very last battle was about to begin.

  “All right, everybody!” Mr. Blockbuster announced to the crowd. “I’m very proud to present this glorious faux-bronze popcorn-box trophy to the champion of the one-time-only Blockbuster Video Game—”

  “NO!” I screamed. “THERE’S ONE MORE ROUND! I WANT SAVAGE!”

  These would be the real finals. My own private finals.

  Mr. B and Fred Savage just kinda looked at each other. My parents, who were sitting in the fifth row, sighed audibly—like, I could actually hear them over the deafening music.

  “But, uh…,” Mr. B said nervously. “You already won. You’re the champion. There is no other round.”

  “NO!” I yelled. “ME AGAINST SAVAGE! RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!”

  “But-but I’m just the honorary master of ceremonies,” Fred Savage stammered. “I’m horrible at video games!”

  “NO! I SAW THE WIZARD! YOU CAN’T TRICK ME!”

  “But I’m not even the character who was good at video games in The Wizard—he was played by my costar, Luke Edwards. And he’s horrible at video games in real life too!”

  “I DON’T CARE! I WANT TO BATTLE YOU NOWWWWWWWW!”

  They all covered their ears because they couldn’t handle my volcanic anger. My parents looked absolutely humiliated. Even war correspondent Wolf Blitzer looked uncomfortable. So what? I was on a mission!

  “Look, son,” Mr. B said. “Can we please just give you your trophy so we can all go home and make it a Blockbuster night?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “Can you?”

  And at that moment I reached into my bag and pulled out my a
ce in the hole. I held up my overdue copy of The Wizard.

  “And the name isn’t ‘son,’ ” I said, “it’s Doctor-octor-octor Disrespect-ect-ect-ect.”

  Mr. B gasped and whipped out the scanning gun he carried at all times. He read the bar code and his face went pale.

  “I’m sorry, Fred,” he said. “This is a problem. This overdue charge is higher than the value of Blockbuster LLC. This puts everything on the line!”

  I laughed long and loud, the greatest diabolical-evil-villain laugh ever produced by an eleven-year-old boy. Then I stopped suddenly and looked at them both, dead serious.

  “We settle this with trial by combat. Me against Savage. If I win, I get the video for keeps—and I get Fred Savage’s Lamborghini. If I lose, I’ll return the video that is now worth more than your whole company.”

  Fred Savage crinkled his nose like a precocious child actor. “What? How do you even know I have a Lambo? Who did you say you are?”

  “Trust me,” I said with a smirk. “After I’m done kicking your ass, you’ll never forget.”

  So that asshole Fred Savage and I sat down on the Champion’s Platform, with thousands of people watching, and cameras flashing, and C-SPAN airing us live on channel 57 (out of fifty-seven total), and we played Super Mario 3 for reasons that’ll be obvious to anyone who’s seen The Wizard. And that should be everyone, because I have been very clear about this!

  Anyway, I’d love to tell you the play-by-play of the epic, vicious, bloody battle between me and Fred Savage, but he was telling the truth—he really did suck at video games. Seriously, like, Mr. Blockbuster could’ve beaten him. My mom could’ve beaten him. Hell, Bubbles could’ve beaten him using his flippers.

  The funniest part of all was that Fred Savage was really, really trying to win, you know? Like, even though he knew he sucked, he was scrunching up his face and trying to concentrate while he played. And every time he screwed up—which was constantly—he’d make grunting sounds and say things like “Gosh darn it all!” and “Focus, Fred! Focus!”

  I mean, I guess I could’ve given him credit for not giving up when facing a superior competitor like myself. But I knew that underneath all his bogus boy-next-door charm was the same asshole who’d left me in the dust during my time of need.

  So instead I just laughed, absolutely obliterated him, and demanded the keys to his Lambo when I was done.

  “Did you actually think I would give you my car?” he said. “You’re not even old enough to drive! And I never agreed to that bet!”

  “Whatever,” I said. “I shoulda known an asshole like you would back out.”

  “Why do you hate me so much?” he asked.

  I turned and looked out at the thousands and thousands of people in the crowd. “You know,” I said, “I guess I should actually thank you. I came a long way to get to this championship. Dealt with a lot of shit on the lonely road that you and Corey Woods, your character in The Wizard, couldn’t even dream of. But nothing was harder than when you cursed me out and left me to die.

  “But you know what?” I said, grabbing the collar of his polo shirt, which was buttoned to the very top. “It only made the Doctor even stronger.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “That was you?”

  “Oh, so glad he finally remembers!” I shouted to the crowd. (I was being sarcastic.) “The man who screamed, ‘Fuck you! I hate children! Now, stay away from my beautiful car and go to hell!’ finally knows who I am!”

  “I didn’t say any of those things!” he said. “I shouted, ‘Somebody help me! A naked maniac with incredible athleticism who’s holding some pretty cool He-Man pajamas is accosting me!’ ”

  “Well,” I said, “that does sound a lot like me.”

  “You came out of nowhere!” he said. “This angry nude boy with superhumanly taut muscle tone just running and screaming like a madman. It was horrifying! I-I guess I didn’t recognize you now with your wraparound sunglasses on.”

  “But I heard you!” I roared.

  “I don’t even use the F-word!” he said. “I say ‘fudge’ when I get upset, which isn’t often.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “In fact,” he said, “as soon as I drove away I even used my car phone to call the police and the local psychiatric authorities to tell them a disturbed naked youth with highly developed calves needed counseling pronto.”

  I looked out at the crowd and saw a pair of cops and a couple old dudes in white lab jackets with clipboards standing around. They smiled and gave me a supportive thumbs-up.

  “Well,” I said. “You can see how I could make that mistake. What you said and what I heard sound very similar.”

  “No, not really.”

  “Wow,” I said. “So you’re really not an asshole! You really are a nice guy!”

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling. “I really am a nice guy.”

  I handed him my copy of The Wizard—which I now officially owned—and a pen. “Can a fan get your autograph?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Fred Savage said. “Anything for a fan.”

  I gave him a firm handshake. When it was all said and done he had been a worthy competitor.

  The crowd cheered. My parents breathed sighs of relief. I fist-bumped Wolf Blitzer and wished him well with the whole twenty-four-hour-news thing, which sounded like a stupid idea.

  Most important of all, I really had finally broken out of my small town, even though I’d only walked five minutes away from my house. I had my very first popcorn-box-with-a-VHS-tape-stuck-in-it trophy, and just like that I’d become the most famous, dominant gamer in America.

  And guess what?

  Blockbuster was so freaked out by the way I’d highjacked their one-time-only promotional tournament that they decided to hold a second one the following year. They wanted to give someone “normal” (lame) a chance to win.

  So I came back and won the whole thing all over again. That pissed them off, so they announced they’d never hold one of their wildly successful national tournaments again. This was yet another example of why Blockbuster is the smartest, most timeless Fortune 3 company in the world. They’re just waiting for Netflix to make one wrong move before they come roaring back to dominance.

  Unfortunately, Fred Savage couldn’t make it back for the 1994 championship, but I did get my parents to drive me there in our very own onyx-black Lamborghini Diablo. I may have even convinced them to let me take the wheel myself for a block or two. Yeah, it was a rental, but if there was one thing I knew, it was this:

  I was the Two-Time, Back-to-Back 1993–94 Blockbuster Video Game Champion. Traveling any other way no longer made sense.

  I. Note: The contents of this story take place in Dimension V, coincidentally the same dimension where all the stuff in V: The Final Battle actually happened in real life. Some details may not apply to Dimensions 1, R, and #;K@1}`, or whatever dimension you’re currently inhabiting at this exact second.

  CHAPTER 4

  GROOMING WITH THE DOCTOR

  A lot of people have a problem with how incredibly seriously I take my grooming.

  They say things like “Doc, true champions only focus on winning,” or “Real men don’t care about hair product,” or “Bro, stop combing your mustache, you’re about to drive your Lambo into that helpless pedestrian!”

  And I say, “You don’t know a damn thing about winning,” and “I’m the manliest man you’ll ever meet in your pathetic, unattractive life,” and “That old lady with her little dog shoulda got the hell out of my way.”

  Because here’s the thing.

  It’s not enough to only win, all right? You gotta win and you gotta look good doing it.

  Think about it. Imagine you go to a tournament—and it can be any kind of tournament, okay? It can be video games, javelin throwing, Parcheesi, whatever—and you somehow manage to win. But when you do, you’re not looking good.

  So you get up there on that pedestal when it’s all over to accept your medal, and guess what
? No one wants to celebrate you. No one wants to take pictures of you. No one wants to talk about you or write about you or even look at you.

  Why would they? You look like hot garbage! Your haircut is sensible and utilitarian. Your face is covered with razor bumps or gross pubey stubble. Your teeth are yellow and you smell like the wrong end of a dog. The truth is, you lost this thing before you played a single round.

  Now imagine that I, Dr Disrespect, the Two-Time himself, am at this same tournament. And imagine—now, brace yourself here, because I’m about to say something ridiculous—imagine I actually come in second.

  I know this makes no sense and you probably got a migraine just trying to think about it. My computer actually overheated when I typed it, like I literally just had to restart my Dell Inspiron prototype with Intel 980000 processing and WordPerfect 5.1 emulator, that’s how completely, totally stupid it is to ever think of me coming in second in anything. Including javelin throwing or Parcheesi, because I’m excellent at both of those.

  But anyway, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend I did.

  So at the medal ceremony I’m standing next to you, the “winner,” on my slightly lower pedestal (not that it really matters, because I’m eleven inches taller than you, but whatever), about to get my slightly smaller second-place trophy.

  Technically my award is inferior to yours, right? Technically my accomplishment is less than yours—you, the skinny, scraggly, pimply, sweaty winner.

  But what happens when everyone sees me? What happens when the media takes in the sumptuous waves of my jet-black hair spilling over my broad, sculpted shoulders? What happens when all the fans get a look at my mustache, a.k.a. Slick Daddy, a.k.a. the Ethiopian Poisonous Caterpillar, with its aerodynamic lines and fearful symmetry?

  What happens is that the camera bulbs flash and the video rolls, the line for selfies and autographs gets longer and longer, cars stop in the road and helicopters shelter in place, choruses of children sing hymns to my mullet, men from faraway lands give Slick Daddy exotic nicknames like Kaderin Dudak Kılı, which means “Lip-Hairs of Fate” in Turkish, or La Moustache Inconvenante, which I haven’t gotten around to translating yet but I’m pretty sure is, like, Swahili or something.