February 18, 2012 scottcjones 2Comments

My visit home ends the way they always end: with me, my mother and my father standing together in the dark next to a pair of train tracks. All three of us are staring West, into the distance, looking for train number 64. The train is known as the Maple Leaf–the words “MAPLE LEAF” are printed on my ticket–because it runs between Canada and New York.

The late December wind is shrill. The three of us shift from foot to foot to keep warm. “What time do you get into the city?” my dad asks, blowing into his hands.

“Around 9 o’clock,” I say.

“That’s not too bad,” he says.

I always tell my parents that they don’t have to wait with me, that I’m OK, that I can take it from here. But every year they insist on parking on one of the seedy side streets in Utica near the train station and locking up their car, then coming to the tracks to wait with me and my luggage. “Do you remember where your ham sandwich is packed, in case you get hungry?” my mom asks.

I think, I’m a grown man, mom. I have a mortgage and a job. I have traveled all over the world and grown semi-impressive beards on at least two occasions in my life. I have survived September 11th as well as a medical condition that required me to have my butt-hole peered at by doctors on a regular basis for several years. So do I know where my sandwich is packed? I think you can answer that question for yourself, mom. Jesus.

And then what I think is this: I don’t know how much longer these sandwich-checking people are going to be in my life. The day will come, sooner or later, when I’ll have to wait for the train by myself, when no one asks me if I know where my sandwich is packed. What will I do then? I despair a little in the dark.

“Yes, I know where my sandwich is packed, mom,” I say.

The three of us keep staring West. A small bright light appears in the treeline.

“You think that’s it?” my father asks.

“It could be,” I say.

He looks at his watch. “For once it’s on time.”

The train lets out a low whistle off in the distance. The bright light comes closer. I can feel the weight of the train, the mass of it, as it approaches the station. The moment the train arrives is always startling to me. It always rushes in with with this whooshing, deus ex machina-type flourish. Suddenly, before I have a chance to do anything about it, I realize that I’m crying. As the trains wheels scream to a halt, I quickly wipe my eyes so they can’t see this. Jesus, pull it together, I tell myself.

Then I turn and look at these two small people in the dark. The truth is this: I don’t know exactly what we’re supposed to do together anymore. Most of our adventures together are over. They ended a long time ago, when I was 18, and I moved away for school. I don’t know what I want or need from them anymore. And they don’t know what they want or need from me anymore. This visit, like all visits home, was an unsatisfying, surreal combination of too much of some things and not enough of other things.

Like always, for a brief moment, I think, Stay with them. There’s always another train. Just go back home with them, and sit with them, and eat one more meal together. Why not? You’re in no great hurry to get to New York…

But the conductor is waiting. “Tickets, please,” he says. I board the train, leaving my mom and dad behind. I can feel them, standing there, looking at me as I haul my luggage up the steep steps of the train.

It’s as warm as an oven on the train. It’s December 26th and, as always, the train is overbooked. The only empty seat I can find is next to an incredibly obese man with shoulder-length hair. The man begrudgingly makes room for me. As I squeeze in next to the window, I can see my dad, still out there on the platform. He has seen my oversized seat mate, watched as I sat down next to him. He’s doing a pantomime of laughter, holding his stomach. Next, he frowns and shrugs his shoulders in a sympathetic what-are-you-going-to-do? way.

Then the train begins to move and I leave all of it behind.

Stage 5-5. Today’s stage is the gaming equivalent of an educational TV show because it is shaped like the letter “I.” The exit door, where I begin the level, is on the lower righthand side of the “I.” I’ll pause for a moment and let you picture that. OK, got it? Great. The key, which I need to open the door, is on the lower lefthand side of the “I.” On top of the “I” are three slow-moving bipedal enemies. We’ve seen these enemies before. They are plump, and they appear to be wearing shower caps and oversized costume bird beaks. They will kill you–as I learned this morning–but you practically have to hurl yourself into one of them and say, “PLEASE KILL ME!” before they will actually kill you.

Note at the start that we only have 100 seconds to get through this stage. Now, 100 seconds might sound like a lot of time. Trust me, it’s not. The Hurry Up Song–a piece of music that makes my jaw involuntarily lock up–plays early and often in this level.

Bisecting the “I” is a short conveyer belt. The only way to get the key from the left side of the “I” to the right side is by letting the conveyer belt carry it there for you. The key will slide through the small opening–too small for Mario to pass through–and land near the exit door. Of course, like a chronically lonely and insecure person, whenever the key is on its own for more than two seconds, it threatens to disappear. The idea here is to retrace your path around the “I” and reach the key before it disappears.

This is no small feat.

A couple of pro tips for you:

1. Get rid of the trio of dopey enemies patrolling the top of the “I.” They’ll only slow you down and get in your way as you’re making your kamikaze run back to the key. Pick one enemy up and hurl it at a second enemy. That will take care of two of them. Then, pick up the third enemy and throw him off the side of the “I,” the same way that Darth Vader picks up the Emperor and throws him into a lightning-filled pit at the end of Return of the Jedi. The fall won’t kill the enemy–once he lands, he’ll upright himself and continue on his soft-brained journey–but it will get him out of your way.

2. When descending the ladder on the right side of the “I,” let go about halfway down. If you’re hustling, you should have one or two blinks remaining before the key vanishes. If the key should vanish, it will return to its starting point on the left side of the “I.” When this happens, resist the urge to turn over furniture. Yes, the urge will be strong. KEEP RESISTING.

Pauline’s hat, umbrella and hand bag are scattered about the level. I managed to save only the hand bag. (Again, sorry, P.) And there’s a hammer-time power-up in the top lefthand corner of the “I.” But it’s useless. Why? Well, it’s on a small island platform, and once you have it, you can’t cross the divide back to where the three enemies are patrolling, so basically you’re stuck with the Donkey Kong version of priapism. (Pro tip: Look it up.)

Once you have the key in hand, after your breathless counterclockwise run, the door opens, and Mario zips into the void.

2 thoughts on “Man Vs. Donkey Kong: Day 49

  1. Even at 32, I still can’t stand up to my dad. Even if I know hes wrong and im right, can’t do it. I guess maybe sometimes when parents acknowledge that we are older, they themselves feel older. Just a thought.

  2. This one particularly struck a chord with me tonight. In a way we’re designed to spend our lives growing away from our parents, aren’t we? Then, one day, you look back and you don’t recognize them anymore. Everything has changed and yet there still exists this almost anachronistic continuity from childhood to now.

    In the time that our lives cross with our parents we travel completely opposite paths: us from weak and young to strong and mature, and them from strong and mature to weak and old. Contemporaries who will never quite exist on the same page. And yet as we reach our own apex in life, it is as if we turn back expecting to see them still at their theirs. Instead what awaits us is a pair of strangers, cruelly swapped when we weren’t looking, off leading our busy lives.

    -k.

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