I think about all the adversity I’ve faced in my life. All the struggles. All the obstacles I’ve overcome. I think about all the times I’ve stared down the long, dark alleyways of fear. All the times I could’ve chosen to stay in the sunlight or hide with the crowds. All the times I pressed on despite the odds and just barely snatched death from the hungry jaws of life.
And I laugh, long and loud. Because was there ever really a question?
“Bring it on,” I growl.
My audience—the entire world!—roars its approval.
I walk over to the platform. Along the way I offer firm handshakes to a few of the onlookers—Fred Savage, Killer Commie Ivan, and, sure, even Stephen Dorff—because they are, after all, a part of my story, and that makes them lucky bastards.
I pause at my old comrade in fine literature, Nigel the Editor, still chained to the torture table, and I place my prototype Casio microcassette recorder in his weak hand.
“Take this,” I whisper. “Finish my book. And don’t forget—it was all worth it.”
I pick up the controller and take my position across from my component opponent. I look at him, eye to laser sensor. And the game begins.
Carl the Hunchback was right. It really is the grandest of all games ever created in the universe. And I know, because I’ve won them all.
The Violence. The Speed. The Momentum. Absolutely unparalleled. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced. This is truly the single challenge worthy of the Doc. The tallest peak of the tallest mountain in the universe, and there is no halfway up.
I fight harder than I’ve ever fought before. I give it everything I have and more. I move faster, I react quicker, I destroy with more precision and anger and energy. I leave nothing behind.
As I battle—tirelessly, furiously, desperately—I can sense something changing around me. The atmosphere is growing thicker, more charged. Clouds begin to gather not just above us but around us, black and purple and full of fury.
People are pointing at the sky, gazing in wonder, murmuring and afraid. Kangaroo Jack says something like, “That’s one baby-eating dingo!” and I chuckle. Good ol’ Kangaroo Jack.
The mists are swirling faster and faster in a crazy mess of angry electric chaos. The moon is blotted out, the stars nowhere to be seen. A deep bellowing thunder rumbles across the land, and I feel the very foundations of the building tremble. Giant eagles soar through the night, circling around, and I swear they’re screaming my name, calling to me over and over.
“DOC! DOOOCCCCCCCC! DOOOOOOOCCCCCCCCCCC!”
Is there smoke? You’re goddamn right there’s smoke. And it’s everywhere.
My artificial opponent is bursting with energy. His circuits are sparking and steaming, his sensors flashing blood red. He’s the one being in the galaxy that can possibly match my skill, and he’s closing in on his very first kill, the only kill that matters: me.
I feel myself slipping. For the first time in my legendary existence, I know that victory is falling out of my grasp.
It’s a strange feeling. Is this what normal people go through every day? How can their average bodies bear it?
Maybe losing has always been inevitable because of who I am. If you’re always hungry for a new challenge, if you’re always hunting for more, if you refuse to be satisfied with being the best, maybe someday you simply have to fail no matter how good, how perfect, you are. After all, without real risk, is there really reward? Without loss, does winning truly mean a thing? Maybe I’d grow stronger if I finally came to terms with my own mortality, my own humanity. Maybe, just maybe, in the never-ending circle of life, this was all meant to be.
Hahahahaha. Yeah right.
I’m Dr Disrespect. And I’m gonna win this thing.
I eye the life meter on my screen. My power level is shrinking, on the brink of doom, absorbing blow after blow after blow.
150.
140.
Clouds churning, electricity crackling!
110.
95.
FUCK!
75.
55.
Buildings shaking, grown men weeping!
40.
30.
DAMN IT, COME ON, DOC!
10.
5.
Worlds colliding, dimensions bursting!
4.
3.
2.
RARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGH!
And then it happens.
One split second before I finally lose, one atomic instant before I, the Two-Time, the most dominant gaming superstar ever, experience failure for the very first time, a single bolt of lightning crashes down from the sky.
It slices through the air, cuts through the black of night, and strikes me. Electrifies every athletic molecule, ignites every devastating follicle, and irradiates the essence of my being.
And just like that, the Doc disappears. Vanishes.
Never to be seen again.
EPILOGUE
FROM THE DESK OF NIGEL P. FARNSWORTH III
Greetings and salutations. My name is Nigel P. Farnsworth III, though I am perhaps best known to the readers of this memoir by the jocular sobriquet “Nigel the Editor.”
Indeed I am the editor of this intriguing, rather—dare I say—unique entry into the canon of Western nonfiction. And I am here to attest, as an impartial observer of the action herein described, that it is, indeed, a work entirely of nonfiction.
Perhaps I do indeed say “indeed” too often, and Doc and I did indeed have our, shall we say, issues. But everything he says here is true in the most Platonic sense of the word, and I should know, because I studied classical philosophy at Brown.
Dr Disrespect really was struck by a bolt of lightning, after which he mysteriously vanished off the face of this earth, never to be seen again. We’ll probably never know the real reason why. Perhaps the very concept of his losing was so anathema that the gods themselves decided to snatch him back to Mount Olympus. Perhaps his indomitable spirit simply soared to another, newer challenge on a higher cosmic plane, far from this world. Maybe he’s just plain dead. Whatever it is, I count myself truly fortunate to have witnessed such an act of courage, power, and competitive passion, even if it came too late to save my lower-hanging testicle of the two.
Moments later, an elite commando squad from Doc’s Champions Club took control of the area, arresting members of the Brotherhood, destroying what remained of the advanced AI Lord Hannn robot after the mysterious lightning bolt from the sky fried his circuits. Carl the Hunchback plummeted to his doom—again—and I am completely, absolutely, and sincerely convinced that this one will take and we will never ever see him again.
Thanks to Doc’s more or less timely intervention, I was able to escape with nothing more injurious than permanent PTSD, fourth-degree burns over 70 percent of my body, a scar in the shape of someone “flipping the bird” that covers the entire right side of my face, a limp that permits me only to walk in rectangles, and my higher-hanging testicle of the two still completely intact.
As soon as I could leave my hospital bed, which only took three years, seven months, and twenty-two days, I took Doc’s finished manuscript straight to Simon Schuster, the head of Simon & Schuster (the “&” is his middle initial). I slammed it on his desk and demanded that we publish immediately.
Yes, the book had already cost us millions in damages, and yes, the tallest building in the world had been razed to the ground, and yes, the democratically elected governments of several small nations and principalities had been overthrown. But in the process, hadn’t we borne witness to the greatest feats of gaming and athleticism mankind has ever known? Hadn’t we gained valuable tips on how to jump vertically, how to illegally drive a Lamborghini for a day, and how to comb a mullet with a switchblade comb safely? Hadn’t we been a part of history itself when we observed in real time an actual flesh-and-blood man evaporate into the cosmic ether without a trace, never to be seen again?
Indeed, to quote the Doc himself, it was worth it.<
br />
Well, my friends, the book that’s in front of you right now is evidence enough that Mr. Schuster agreed enthusiastically.
Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that, thanks to Doc’s mysterious disappearance, we didn’t have to pay him a penny of the millions we contractually owed him. And that 2021 Lamborghini Aventador SVJ we bought for him? Needless to say, we certainly didn’t have it repainted from red to black. I think we can all agree that cherry red is a far more festive color than dreary old black. Bleh!
In fact, as a small bonus for my troubles I even managed to convince Mr. Schuster to let me have Doc’s Aventador all for myself. It looks so perfect in my garage right next to my Hummel collection—
Wait. Did you hear that?
A strange sound from outside my window. I’m sure it’s nothing.
But wait—there it is again.
Here, I’ll just move aside my tweed curtain so I can see outside. STOP! Who’s there? Whoever’s out there, I’m warning you! When I get angry I write very scathing letters!
Dear God! Something in the distance, coming closer! Look at the size of that frame, so powerful! So athletic! And that mane of hair so black it is negative space against night itself! How quickly it moves toward my window, how decisively, how dominantly. Thank goodness I’m three stories up, no one can vertical-leap this high!
No! How—?!? It can’t be! I saw you disappear! I—
AFTERWORD
DID YOU REALLY THINK I’D GIVE THAT PUNK EDITOR THE LAST WORD IN MY BOOK???
Oh, and the last word is…
YAYAYAYA!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DR DISRESPECT is the most famous, dominant gamer in the history of the world. The Two-Time Back-to-Back 1993–94 Blockbuster Video Game Champion currently resides in his multimillion-dollar top-secret complex, where he spends his time closing monster deals on his flip phone, driving his slate-black Lamborghini Diablo, and intimidating his enemies with his mustache, Slick Daddy. Violence. Speed. Momentum. is his first book, and it’ll definitely be a huge, massive, record-breaking bestseller.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Dr-Disrespect
SimonandSchuster.com
@GalleryBooks
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First Gallery Books hardcover edition March 2021
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Interior design by Michelle Marchese
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Disrespect, Dr, author.
Title: Violence. Speed. Momentum. / Dr Disrespect
Description: First Gallery Books Hardcover Edition. | New York : Gallery Books, [2021]
Identifiers: LCCN 2020044991 (print) | LCCN 2020044992 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982153878 (Hardcover) | ISBN 9781982153892 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Disrespect, Dr | Video gamers—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC GV1469.3 .D57 2021 (print) | LCC GV1469.3 (ebook) | DDC 794.8092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044991
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020044992
ISBN 978-1-9821-5387-8
ISBN 978-1-9821-5389-2 (ebook)
Violence. Speed. Momentum. Page 19