Moonlight Madness

"No, I'm telling you, it came early." I cradle the phone receiver like my mom does, with my head and my shoulder, so I can hold the game with both of my hands. 

"Bullshit. I don't believe you." 

"I promise, Marty, I'm holding it in my hands right now." 

On the other end of the line, he hesitates. "How does it smell?"

I chuckle. "Fuckin' weirdo." 

"Do you want me to come over after dinner?"

"Only if it's okay with my mom. You know how she gets about family time." 

"Yeah, but you do that every night." 

"I can't just skip family time." 

"For me? Please, Lola?" 

"I'll see what I can do." 

"Nice! I'll see you later then." 

"Hopefully, yeah." 

He hangs up first. 

*****

I met Marty in the middle of eighth grade, about four or five years ago. It isn't a funny story, how we met, and it isn't one worth spending a lot of time on: we were both checking out copies of Ready Player One at the same time. We said that we would tell each other how we liked it and what we liked about it. The only thing was, I didn't seek him out to talk to him. He found me in the emo corner a week later and wouldn't stop talking about it. (The emo corner is, obviously, the corner of the cafetorium where the emos hang out in a big lunchtime pile.)

We have always had different interests. That's fine, though. People change as they get older, and differences can be places for compassion and understanding to take root. That's what my mom says. Most of what she thinks is bullshit, but I'm inclined to believe her on this one. 

Marty was the only guy in the school's "gaming club" (which included not only video games, but tabletop roleplaying games and board games as well) that didn't quiz me about everything or call me Anita Sarkeesian when I objected to something blatantly sexist. He was the only guy who didn't call me a fake gamer for saying that I beat Super Smash Bros. (the N64 version) but I didn't know who Metal Mario was. I think he treated me so kindly because, yeah, he genuinely likes me and is a good person, but also because he know how it felt to be ostracized by those guys. 

I couldn't possibly like games if I don't know anything about Metal Mario and I couldn't possibly like comics if I don't know every obscure fact about Moon Knight, right? Never mind that I've never read a copy of Moon Knight in my life. The gaming circle was more of a gaming circlejerk, and, when I left, he came with me. 

Marty and I have different opinions on the games we play. He likes simple skill-based games the most, while I tend to prefer ones that are centered around story. This is fine, because we play them together and we're able to appreciate different things about them. 

That's where Moonlight Madness comes in. 

Moonlight Madness was all the rage when it was first announced at a convention last year. I didn't go because I didn't have the money and my mother absolutely wouldn't have let me go if I asked her. Marty went, though, and he told me all about it while frantically shoving some articles about it at me. The two of us have been waiting for it to come out ever since. He told me that he met the man behind it; he met Darryl Night, the enigmatic young creative mind behind the game. Darryl Night is around our age which makes me feel very good about myself. I could tell that Marty wasn't telling me everything, but I didn't want to press the issue.