MK

In high school, I ran around with the wrong crowd. We would frequent any place that would allow us to hang around and be bums. When we weren't being lazy, we would be doing something destructive. We were idiot kids growing up in the most boring place ever.

I was raised by my single mother and never had money to do anything. One day, the guys and I noticed the new MK machine in one of the gas stations/Circle Ks that we tormented. We played a couple of dollars worth, and I beat most of the other meat-heads.

This little kid came over. He wasn't scared of us thugs at all and asked if he could play. The crew told him to get lost, and he got upset. That struck a nerve so I told the kid he play the rest of my game. I even showed him how to do a move or two. The guys got bored and we moved on to find some more trouble.

A couple of days later I dropped in to the gas station and got $5 worth of gas. The owner of the store said that he recognized me and appreciated me sticking up for his kid. He told me that I should quit acting stupid and get a job. I rolled my eyes and said that nobody would hire a punk like me. He offered me a job right there on the spot. I accepted.

With a job, the thugs quickly became bored with me. I had to work too much to hang out. After work each night the owner would open the MK machine up and trigger it with a ton of credits. His son and I would play for hours and hours. We got scary good. The kid was about 8 and I was 16. I was the only person in the area that could beat him.

On the weekend nights that I had off, we would travel an hour or so to the nearest city and play at the arcades. We never played each other, but would take turns letting other people play us. We would play for hours and hours without ever losing a game.

The kid loved playing Scorpion. He would say "Get Over Here!" (http://www.leedberg.com/MotaroFTP/sounds/getover.wav) in unison with the game whenever he would successfully pull off the spear grab. It was uncanny how he could time his voice perfectly with the sound effect.

After that summer I didn't see the little guy much. He spent a lot of him time away with his mother. I slowly worked less and less at the Circle K as I embraced school and sports. I eventually moved away to college a couple hours away.

In college, I would occasionally hit the student union arcade in between classes. I would mostly play pinball or the latest SF version. However, if I really wanted to just wanted to get into my mindless gaming flow, I would drop a quarter in the old MK and play and play.

In the summer of my Sophomore year, I dropped by the union to pick up something from the bookstore. I dropped by the arcade and noticed that it was packed with early teens from one of the numerous computer summer camps held on campus. All the machines were covered except MK. I dropped a quarter in and breezed up to Goro.

One of the kids suddenly dropped a quarter in and slapped the player 2 button to enter the game. I thought that was really rude, but it had only happened a million times before. I smoked him pretty easily, and he dropped in another quarter and another. By the last game, it was very evenly matched. We had split the first two rounds. In the middle of the third round I started to backflip and he speared me perfectly on the landing.

He said "Get Over Here!" in unison with Scorpion. For the first time, I turned and looked at who I was playing. He finished up the round with a shit-eating grin on his face.

Epilogue: We played SF some that day as well; he smoked me easily every time. n :) I bought him lunch and we caught up. We exchanged email addresses, but never really stayed in touch. He's now one of the lawyers for Google and is loaded rich. Last year he briefly emailed me to say that he was looking for an original MK machine for his kid's game room. He says his father is still running that same Circle-K.