new development out on 124th street, just down the street from the high school.
Back then Dad and me, we had pretty good times. We’d go to all of Garrett’s junior AAU games and sit in the stands eating popcorn and cheering. Back then I was still in pee-wee ball and he thought I’d be just like Garrett. Except that I was terrible at basketball. And soccer. And baseball. Still, Dad came to all my games and stood on the sidelines and yelled and afterwards we’d go get hamburgers and a milkshake. Tell me that I’d grow into it. To stick with it. Ever since I dropped out of sports he’s been on my case. Telling me that I’m wasting my life staring into a little glowing screen. It’s gotten even worse since Garrett left for college.
That’s probably not all of it. I sort of pieced together that he got passed over for some sort of sales director job. When I think about it, he’s been pissed off about everything since then. But the good news for me is that he took a different position and he’s on the road half the time. And of course I’ve got a key to the condo. It’s almost like having my own place. Plus it’s only a five-minute walk from school, so when I ditch classes, I’m there in no time. Starfare paradise.
I should have known it was too sweet a deal to last.
3.
I think it’s funny when my dad and I have a “serious” conversation in his “study.” First of all, he’s the only person in the world who would call it a study. Like he was a professor or something. True, there is a desk in the corner. Of course, there’s no chair, just a mini-refrigerator stocked with beer where your legs would go. And the big cabinet against the wall isn’t filled with technical manuals or legal books—it opens to a forty-two-inch flatscreen TV. The bookshelves are stuffed with Garrett’s trophies and autographed sports junk. He can spend almost the entire weekend in there, in this big brown recliner, watching football or basketball and drinking beer.
Somehow I’ve got to break through the clutter and get him on board with Nationals. Problem is, even with free hotel and entry fee I still need an airplane ticket, and although I’ve got a couple hundred in a savings account at the bank, I can’t touch it without Dad’s permission. So I’ve got to hit him up for the money. I knock on the door. He insists that I knock before entering. God knows why.
“Yes?”
It’s amazing how much meaning my dad can pack into one word. When he says “yessss?” in that tone, he’s saying, “Now what? Can’t you see I’m busy (watching something incredibly boring and meaningless on TV, like a golf tournament without Tiger Woods)? I’d rather not deal with it at all, but if it’s absolutely necessary, then make it quick.”
So I say through the door, “It will just take a sec.”
Then he says OK and I open the door. I have to stand there, in the doorway, until some no-name golfer finishes hitting a putt from about twelve inches, possibly the most boring televised sporting activity in the world. He putts, the ball barely rotates, excruciatingly slow across the screen. The ball hovers on the edge and then, finally, drops in. Polite applause. My dad turns and says it again.
“Yessss?”
“I’ve got this great opportunity,” I begin, trying to set up the pitch. My dad once gave me this lecture about the secret of sales. He travels around the Midwest selling some obscure service to small companies that can’t afford the really good service that the big companies buy from his competitor.
He arches his eyebrows, and I see I’ve actually, for a nanosecond, got his attention.
“Yeah, I won this big online tournament and I qualified for the Nationals in San Diego. I’ll have to fly in on June twenty-sixth and fly back on the thirtieth. I won the entry fee and I get a free hotel room. That’s worth around $600, about half the cost of going.”
Dad gets this puzzled look on his face and he runs his fingers through his hair. He’s pretty vain about his hair, which is still thick on top, a little gray above the ears. He keeps it fairly long and combed straight back, sometimes with this gel or grease.
“You telling me they have Nationals for all the dweebs who play computer games? What kind of title is that? King of the nerds?”
“OK,” I say, biting my tongue. “But seriously. It’s really hard to get the invite, and it’s a great opportunity. They’ve got $150,000 in prize money.”
I let this sink in for a few seconds, while he continues to stare at the TV, as if he’s worried about missing some amazing chip shot or hole in one, which is nuts, because every time there’s a really great shot they replay it at least a dozen times.
But he turns towards me and for at least a second I’ve got his attention. “Did you say 150 Gs?”
I nod my head.
“So how much you asking for?”
“I can a get a flight for around $400 and then a little something for food…”
“Bottom line, please,” he says, like he’s some big-shot CEO.
“I’ll need about $600, I figure.”
Now I’ve really got his attention.
“Six hundred. That’s a lot of money, Seth.”
“I know.” Knowing it is, and it isn’t. He and a girlfriend once spent that much on bar bills at Vegas in a weekend. Then again, I have to work at a fast food joint every weekend for six months to save that much.
“Six hundred bucks, huh.”
“Six hundred bucks.” It’s possible to have an entire conversation with my dad where every other line is a repetition of the previous one.
“OK. Let me get this straight. You need $600 to go play computer games with a bunch of geeks from across the country. You fly to San Diego, go sit down at a computer and pay to play for three straight days. What I want to know is, how is this different from what you do every day here, for free?”
“Well, for one,” I reply. “No one is putting up $150k in prize money.”
“And you’ve got a legitimate shot at this $150k?”
“Well, not all of it. No one wins it all. It gets divvied up into different events. Different specialties, it’s hard to explain. But I feel like I’ve got a shot at a piece of it.”
After the last online win, my rating jumped up twenty points, and that makes me fifth in the country.
My dad screws up his face in this way he does when he really thinking. Like it takes an awful lot of effort.
“OK,” he says. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
“A deal?” So typical. My dad thinks he’s this great wheeler dealer sales expert.
“I’m going to give you the money for this trip. Not lend it to you. Give it to you. On one condition.” He arches his eyebrows, waiting for me to ask him what the condition is.
“What condition?”
“You can go to California. Play with your nerd buddies into the wee hours. But when you come back empty-handed, that’s it. We forget this whole idea of playing
