by Richard Fore
“No,” I say wondering if perhaps Chris just jinxed the whole thing.
“It’s dangerous to go alone, man.” Chris opens his wallet and tosses me a condom. “Take this.”
Chapter 13: The World’s Finest
I tap my fingers on the armrest of the sofa inside the gaming room of The Vault, likely the same sofa that once allowed Sabrina to so distract Chris during a game of Magic. Despite my status as a winner, I’m still nervous about meeting Sabrina’s father. While I’m known to Dave as a regular customer of his store, he must now look upon me as a potential suitor to his daughter. But as Dave is one of the anointed geeks, there’s little chance I could fail to impress him, so my nervousness must simply stem from my inexperience. Also working in my favor is the fact that I didn’t have to see Molly when I came in as Brian, The Vault’s answer to Comic Book Guy, is working in her stead.
I’m put at ease when Dave enters the room. Physically, there’s no reason to be afraid of him as he is rather short and scrawny, looking like a pre-super soldier serum Steve Rogers minus the blonde hair. Dave also smiles at me, likely relieved that he has nothing to worry about since his daughter is going out with the winningest of winners.
“Hi, Mr. Westlake,” I say.
“Dave’s fine,” he says. “It’s not like you’re in high school and escorting Sabrina to the prom.” Chris mentioned condoms. Dave mentioned proms. Both are bad omens. “And since you’re both adults, I’m not going to give you the overly protective father speech about how I expect you to have my daughter home by ten and that she be brought back in mint condition. Now, she tells me that you’re seeing the new James Bond film tonight.”
“That’s right. First we’re going out for pizza, though.”
“I see. So how about you tell me who you are and how you came to be?”
The self-description. We’re asked to do this at the beginning of the semester in every small to moderately sized class I’ve ever taken. I usually reveal my name, hometown, and the fun fact that I hate talking about myself. That’s enough to establish me as one who shouldn’t be invited out to the bars after class while not going so far as to be branded as a potential school shooter. But I’m among my own kind here and any factoids disclosed now would be of genuine interest to my audience.
“I study English at Northwestern as an undergraduate,” I say. “I’d like to be a writer someday. Become someone like Neil Gaiman who’s worked in every medium. In the meantime I work for the campus newspaper.”
“As a mild-mannered reporter?”
“No. Circulation delivery. I’m their paperboy. And I manage the archives and do other odd jobs required of the office lackey. After I graduate I plan on going to grad school for my MFA and then either teach creative writing or composition.”
“What kind of stories do you write?”
“Usually, comedies of errors with a little bit of autobiographical content thrown in. Although if I worked in comics I’d prefer to do superhero stuff.”
“Who’s your favorite superhero?”
“Spider-Man. I started reading him because my cousin was a fan and everyone else I ever picked up could never eclipse him.
“The Westlakes have always been more of a DC family, but everyone has to read some Spidey now and then.”
“Yeah, I’ve been reading more DC since Batman Begins came out.”
“Batman Begins has certainly helped out our business a lot. Although it still hasn’t quite made up for the losses we incurred after Batman & Robin. Or do you think it’s time we let go of bashing that movie?”
“Batman & Robin is like the Alamo. It should always be remembered. The day we fans forget Batman & Robin is the day Warner Bros. will decide to make another one.”
Dave chuckles. “Well, you certainly seem qualified to be taking out my daughter. She also told me you did well on her Star Wars character test.”
“I did, although I slipped up on Porkins being named in A New Hope. I wouldn’t have made that mistake ten years ago, but you know how the prequels devalued so much of the lore.”
“Of course. Oh, and Sabrina also mentioned you were a videogamer. She told me a rather amusing anecdote about you and beer pong.”
“Yeah, it’s just too bad I wasn’t wearing Peter Parker’s yellow sweater-vest with a tie when I made those comments.” We both laugh.
“So do you play any MMOs, then?” asks Dave in a suddenly serious tone.
“No. In fact, I don’t play anything online, really. I’ve basically lost touch with my brother because all he does anymore is play Halo online.”
“But do you not play online by choice or is it merely due to a lack of a gaming caliber PC or proper hi-speed network connection?”
“Alright daddy,” says Sabrina upon entering the room, “let’s not scare away my date by going overboard with your interrogation.”
“I’m just trying to look out for you, that’s all,” says Dave.
Sabrina hugs her father. “Papa, you’re embarrassing me. Why don’t you just go ahead and let us be off?”
“Alright, you kids go out and have a good time,” says Dave. “Oh, you wouldn’t happen to have a relative named Caitlin though, would you?” He grins at me.
“Caitlin?” I ask.
“As in Caitlin Fairchild, the buxom redhead from Gen 13,” says Sabrina with a bit of annoyance in her voice. “She’s my dad’s comic book dream girl.”
“Oh, right,” I say. “No. Sorry. We have no Caitlins in our family.”
“Ah well, it was a long shot,” says Dave. “Anyway, have fun tonight. I guess I’ll go talk to Brian about how he’s faring painting his Warhammer miniatures.”
Sabrina and I say goodbye to Dave and he departs to the front of the store. I look at Sabrina (my date for the evening, an exciting concept). She’s wearing a black t-shirt with the bat-symbol on it and pink pajama pants with an all-white version of Superman’s S emblem. “You look very pretty,” I say.
Sabrina smiles. “Yeah, I know. I’m the world’s finest. You know, I thought about dolling myself up and wearing something really nice, but then I thought that you might respond to this look more.”
“A correct assumption.”
“Shall we be off, then?”
“Absolutely.” Our date has begun.
Sabrina sits across from me casually, appearing much too relaxed to be having second thoughts about this whole date thing. I’m finding the experience very surreal, much like Luke’s arrival on Dagobah, it’s like something out of a dream.
“So how do you like your pizza?” asks Sabrina.
“Plain cheese,” I say. “The preferred choice of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, I might add.”
“Ugh, how bland!”
“Well, get used to it, because that’s just the way I like it, baby.”
Sabrina laughs. “I don’t think so. But I’m sure we can come to an agreement. How do you feel about Canadian bacon?”
“I find it to be the ideal meat topping.”
“Okay, that’s a start. Do you like mushrooms?”
“Only in Super Mario Bros.”
“Radishes?”
“Radishes? On a pizza?”
“Well, now you’ve got me thinking about Super Mario. How about olives?”
“Next.”
“Green peppers?”
“Look, I’m gonna level with you. I’m not much of a veggie guy. I like my cheeseburgers plain, with only meat and cheese. So I don’t think we’re going to reach a consensus here. Why don’t we just get half cheese and half whatever it is you’d like?”
“And create a psychological barrier between us on our very first date? Certainly not! We’ll just get Canadian bacon all over.”
“I can live with that. So what kind of crust do you like?”
“You first.”
“I like thick-crust.”
“Hmm, so, should I be worried about that?”
“Worried about what?”
“Well, I think guys that
like thick-crust pizza tend to like thick-bodied women, too. And I’m just a little mousy pipsqueak who could best be described as petite. If I were taller, I bet I could cosplay as Olive Oil. And I like thin-crust because I’m so small I don’t really need thick-crust to get filled up.”
“I wouldn’t be too worried about my liking thick-crust. The fact that you’re enough of a fan of Super Mario that you can instantly bring to mind the vegetable arsenal from the American Super Mario Bros. 2 is enough to win me over.”
“Well, that’s somewhat reassuring. But if you hate vegetables so much, what do you do when you’re in a restaurant that always has a salad come with your entree?”
“I just try and substitute the salad with rice or something like that.”
The server arrives and we order a medium, thin-crust Canadian bacon pizza with a side of breadsticks.
“So, you basically have the taste palette of a six-year-old, then?” asks Sabrina.
“Yep. I do like Chinese food, though.”
“Well, that’s something. I do, too. Whatcha like?”
“Oh, I like sweet and sour chicken, General Tso’s chicken, hot-braised chicken. Anything chicken, really.”
“So, no egg rolls or lo mein for you, then?”
“Nope.”
“What about tofu?”
“No. I don’t like soy in general. Soy burgers aren’t really burgers, and soy milk isn’t really milk. Eating a soy substitute for a given food is like reading about the adventures of U.S. Agent instead of Captain America when issues of Cap are readily available. If you wanna be a vegan, you should just go ahead and have a salad and quit with these facsimile foods. Burgers and milk come from cows, not from soybeans.”
“Well, I’m no vegan, but I have been known to enjoy a glass of soy milk from time to time.”
“But it’s not really milk.”
“I know that. But it’s still good.”
“Well, if you’re going to drink it, you should at least stop calling it milk. You know, in the European Union it’s actually illegal to call it soy milk. To be able to call a substance milk in the European Union, it must have actually been drawn from a mammal. So over there, soy milk is instead referred to as a soy beverage.”
“Well, it appears that you have a very high reverence for milk. All those it does your body good commercials from the early nineties must have really left an impression on you.”
“I guess they did.”
“Well, obviously. However, in your championing the cause of milk, you missed my original point. Tofu is a soy product that is unique in and of itself. It’s not meant to serve as an alternative to existing animal products.”
“Perhaps I overreacted, then. So, how’d you first become a fan of tofu?”
“In the same manner in which I’m exposed to all new ideas and cultures, of course. From comic books and videogames. In this case, a videogame. Can you guess which one I’m talking about?”
“Would it turn you on if I could?”
“Immensely. Get it right and I might even let you hold my hand later.”
We smile at each other. Every time Sabrina laughs or smiles, I feel like I can worry a little bit less and just enjoy being with her.
“Well,” I say, “I suppose you might be able to raise soybean crops in some of the Harvest Moon games, but Resident Evil 2 is, I believe, the only game where you can actually play as a piece of tofu. So, maybe getting to run around stabbing zombies as a piece of bean curd made you curious what it tasted like.”
“Impressive. You’re right. Resident Evil 2 was my formal introduction to tofu. I felt like I just had to try a dish that was deemed worthy of being made into a playable videogame character. And so, I began walking down the sometimes disturbing road that is Japanese humor. Now, I’d be even more impressed if you’ve ever actually beaten the Tofu minigame.”
I hang my head in shame. “One of a handful of my gaming failures. Right up there with never getting the adamant armor in Final Fantasy IV, and only beating Contra using the Konami code. I have beaten Hunk’s minigame, though.”
“Well, don’t feel too bad about that. I’ve never conquered the Tofu minigame, either. I’m a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, though. In fact, I had a major crush on Leon when I was young. My sister loved Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement, but Leon was my guy. I rarely played as Claire even though I usually like having a female protagonist just because Leon was so dreamy. I liked his newbie-ness and naïveté, and that he wasn’t just another bare-chested macho commando.”
“Well, you should like me then, because I’m very naïve. I’d trust you completely and never even consider that you might have any ulterior motives or secret agendas ala Ada Wong.”
Sabrina laughs. “That’s good, because really I just date Marvel fanboys so I can kill them and thus lower Marvel’s circulation. But now that we’ve successfully ordered and shared some basic likes and dislikes, how about we delve a bit deeper into your psyche? I have a fun little exercise to try in lieu of me merely asking you questions about yourself. What do you say?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Just answer me one simple question and then I can give you a complete psychological profile of yourself.”
“Oh, really?”
“Absolutely! A guaranteed, one-hundred percent accurate psychological profile. I’ll instantly know you better than you know yourself.”
“Alright, I’m game. What’s the question?”
“Who is your favorite and least favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Why Sabrina, you think you can dissect me with that blunt little tool?” I ask doing my best impression of a Brit doing an impression of a Southern accent.
“Oh, scared, are we? Maybe you’re afraid of what you’ll find out.” Sabrina leans across the table and looks into my eyes intently, mostly succeeding in repressing her smile.
“Fine, then.” I lean in so we’re almost nose to nose. “My favorite is Raphael. My least favorite is Michelangelo.”
“I had my suspicions those might be your answers. And that’s very rare, for someone’s least favorite to be Michelangelo.”
“I know. He’s like Curly from The Three Stooges. But it had an upside, I always got to be who I wanted when I played the Turtles arcade games, unlike with X-Men. But I suppose everyone whose favorite is Raphael would dislike Michelangelo.”
“Not necessarily. But as for your picks, the Raphael/Michelangelo dynamic is certainly the most extreme of them all when it comes to socializing. Raphael was the loner, while Michelangelo was the party dude. And yet they rarely clashed with each other, because Raphael instead butted heads with Leonardo, the most disciplined turtle and de facto leader.
“So, I would say that you tend to clash with authority. Combined with your loner ways, I would imagine that you likely did poorly in high school, largely due to your rejection of the system. You would have had no interest in homecomings, student councils, or honor rolls. You would have believed that you were better off studying independently, and acted out a lot as a response to attempts to force you into assimilation into the prom king and star quarterback-driven high school culture you had nothing but contempt for.
“Now, while Raphael was solitary by nature, he was still sociable. He may have spent more time alone than any of his brothers, but he also takes the kidnapping of Master Splinter in the first film the hardest. So, you and Raph would fight for the people you love the hardest of all. You also both believe that actions speak louder than words, which is why you can have difficulty expressing your true feelings.
“And as with Raph, you have a small but close circle of friends, although you’re still something of an outsider to them as well. But that is as you wish it to be. You’re someone hate parties. You never go to them, even if they’re being thrown by your friends and they’ve expressly invited you. If you drink, you drink alone, and mostly hard liq
uors, but since I know about your beer pong anecdote, I bet you never touch the stuff.
“And you value your solitude, because often it is being alone that gives you your greatest moments of peace. But you’re also the type to suffer in silence, for just whenever you need your friends the most, you deliberately don’t call on them as a means of self-punishment.
“You also internalize failure to a high degree and have trouble forgiving yourself. And you don’t take enough pride in your accomplishments. You brush off all compliments because you instead judge yourself on your own scale of likely unreachable ideals of perfection. Oh, and you hate comic relief characters in movies. You have absolutely no tolerance at all for Jar Jar Binks and his kind. So, am I right?”
I look at Sabrina for a long time before I answer. “You’re right,” I finally say. “I hated Jar Jar Binks.”
“Okay,” says Sabrina. “But I was actually referring to my more complete diagnosis.”
“Oh, that? Well, I’d say you were somewhere in the middle about my description. Neither hot nor cold, I guess.”
“Uh-huh. See, I know I’m right, because if I were, you’d certainly never admit to it.”
“So what about you, then? Who are your favorite and least favorite turtles?”
“Sorry. I don’t turn the looking glass inward. At least I won’t just yet. But I will tell you that we do not share the same favorite or least favorite turtle. And my picks are also not the opposite of yours, either. But to be fair, I’ll let you ask me some personal questions now and I’ll give you honest answers. It’s the least I can do since I just blew your mind by psychoanalyzing you so thoroughly.”
“Okay, I got one. Why’d your dad suddenly bring up MMOs before? And why’d you so quickly intervene when he did?”
Sabrina leans back and lets out a sigh like a suspect settling in for what will surely be a lengthy police interrogation. “I knew you were going to ask me that. So, this is what I call my death of a clown story in that it’s tragically funny. See, I haven’t really been out much since things ended with my last boyfriend, Danny. He’s MIA, via an MMO. WOW, to be precise.”