Electronic Relics

“I remember this thing.” Jim chuckled, cradling the Gameboy with both hands. It was smaller than he remembered. As a kid he could barely stretch his thumbs far enough to reach the buttons; now it seemed to fit just right. He flipped it over and saw no game inside. That seemed odd. He couldn’t remember a time when it was empty, even if he hadn’t played it in a while. Had he done that? He flipped open the battery cover and found no batteries inside. Somebody had packed this up, he just couldn’t remember who or why. It was probably his mother. She’d relished every opportunity to organize. Jim could just picture her going through his vacant room, rifling through his drawers, and deciding what survived her budget cuts. He snapped the cover back on and looked up at his dad. “What a relic, man. Where’d you find it?”

“A bin in the back corner of the basement.”

“Made it that far by yourself?”

“No thanks to you.”

“That’s what I said.” He laughed at the old man. “Maybe next time you give me a call a couple days before you decide to dive into a project like that. I’ll make time to come and help you.”

“Ach.” His father waved a hand. “I’m not dead yet. I think I can clear out a couple boxes.”

Jim smirked, looking down at his once most-treasured possession before looking back up at his dad. He clapped the old man on the back, holding up the Gameboy. “You know if you think about it, you, sir, have the pleasure of giving this gift to me twice. How’s that feel?”

“Long as it’s out of the house.”

“You know, you sound as cantankerous as you look.”

The old man grinned and nodded his head toward the door. “Come on. There’s more.”

Jim tucked the Gameboy into his back pocket, upside-down with the screen facing in. The feeling of it was like a visa to his childhood. “Take you long? Cleaning the basement, I mean.”

“Nah. I trashed most of what was down there. People like to think their old junk is worth something. I’m not stupid. Who wants a busted-up blender? I don’t want to know the person that does.”

“What else was down there?”

The old man shrugged. He opened the door to the house and let Jim inside. “Bunch of your stuff. Twins, too. Lot of old pictures. I tried to save the sentimental things. At my age, it just takes up space.”

Jim passed into the house. The smell of it always hit him first and set him at ease. It wasn’t something he noticed as a kid, but after moving out on his own, it became pronounced – a mix of Lavender and Clean Cotton candles. They were his mom’s favorite. In the springtime, she and dad would do a deep clean. They’d light their candles and open all the windows to air out the chemicals and the stagnant air and everything would smell so welcoming after. He spotted a purple candle burning on the kitchen table. Sentimental things might take up space, but old habits die hard, don’t they, dad?

They made their way down into the basement, through the rumpus room, down the short, narrow hall, and into the furnace room. Jim’s father pulled the comforter blocking the open doorway to the side and Jim walked in. “Wow,” he said. His father hadn’t been kidding. The room used to be packed floor to ceiling with plastic bins and cardboard boxes with a narrow pathway carved out for the furnace to be serviced. Only a handful of boxes remained, immediately to the right as he walked in, all with Jim scrawled on the side in mom’s handwriting. There was an old rocking chair next to them, too. Otherwise, it was just the 275-gallon oil tank to the left, the blue furnace in the back, the ducts and tubes running along the ceiling, and the drab gray concrete floor. “Just how much did you throw away?”

“Three trips to the dump.” His father stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.

“You didn’t donate any of it?”

“To who? For what?”

“I don’t know. Just a thought.”

“Nobody would’ve wanted it.”

“You mean you don’t have the patience to wait and see if anybody would.” He looked back at his dad who was trying not to smile. “That’s what I thought.”

“Saved your stuff. I had the patience for that.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” He moved over to the boxes and started unstacking them. The tops were sealed by folding the flaps over each other so he could access their contents easily. Jim opened one at random. It was half packed with old tee shirts with a stack of graphic novels on top. He shifted the stack and perused the titles. He didn’t have to see the shirts underneath to know that most of them were emblazoned with the symbols and logos of different superheroes. He wished it was a phase he’d entirely grown out of. “I don’t suppose you were the one who packed all these?”

“I was the one who moved them down here,” he replied.

“I remember these, too. I’d buy them after work,” he said, holding up the graphic novels. “On payday, I mean. Pay like $20 each and then buzz through them in half an hour.” He chuckled. Money well spent, dude. He would read them again. As for the shirts, there was almost no chance they’d fit. “Maybe Ben’ll like some of these. I don’t think Cally cares too much. She’s not old enough to read them, anyway.”

He resealed the box and slid it to the side, then he pulled over another and opened it up. There were a few dress shirts on the bottom. There were also a couple framed photos of him and his friends that he’d kept around his room. He didn’t talk to any of them anymore…The shirts intrigued him, vestiges of the better half of high school. “My button-up phase,” he said. The top shirt was his favorite – a white shirt with thick navy-blue vertical stripes. “God, I wonder if this’ll still fit.” Carefully, he removed the shirt from the box. He stood up and slipped his arms through, but he didn’t button it right away. They would almost certainly button at the top, but they’d be strained. There was no way they’d survive the midsection unless he sucked it in. He turned to his dad. “What do you think? Does it take you back?”

“You have less hair and a bigger gut,” he said. “Not as many pimples, though.”

“How’d it feel when it happened to you?” Jim giggled. He took off the shirt, folded it, and slipped it back into the box. Then, he resealed the box and moved over to the rocking chair. “You guys got this when I was born, right?”

“It was a gift from your mom’s grandmother. I think it’s Amish.”

“It’s sturdy.” The wood was dark, and the varnish was impeccably smooth even after all these years. “It’s a good rocking chair.”

“You want it?”

“What’re you going to do with it?”

His father shrugged. “Keep it here, I guess. It doesn’t go with anything.”

“You could put it on the porch. Those wicker chairs are nice, but they don’t rock.” Jim lowered himself into the chair and started rocking.

“It’s not an outside chair. I’d have to bring it in every time it rains.”

“Let me think about it. I don’t have much space right now. If I find some, I can take it off your hands. Maybe Brad or Jerri want it.”

“They already came through,” he replied. “They didn’t look twice. Just took their boxes and left.”

“Uh-huh.” You probably didn’t call them to see if they wanted to help, either,  he thought. You gave up on that a long time ago. It wasn’t unjustified. It would be generous to call his brother and sister Yuppies. They popped around for birthdays and holidays and spent the rest of their time working in The City. It wasn’t anything malicious, but there were far fewer pictures of the five of them together once the twins went away to college than from when they were all kids. Dad felt that, Jim was certain. The old man didn’t hold it against any of them, but the loss was real. Now with Mom gone, it had to hit him harder. Even before, Jim tried hard to bring his kids around as often as he could, but schedules didn’t always align. Once mom got sick, those visits got shorter and less frequent; it was all she had the energy for. Dad understood; Jim just wished he didn’t have to be so accepting of the circumstances. Jim rocked back and propelled himself forward into a standing position, then clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. “All right, give me a few minutes to dig into these. I’ll bring them out to truck when I’m done. I just want to see what I’m getting myself into.”

“Take your time,” his father replied. “You hungry? Make you a BLT.”

“Sounds good.”

“All right. You know where to find me.”

“You got it, Pops.” His father moved out of the room and left Jim to himself to peruse through his old boxes. It was a trip for sure, even more entertaining to see how his mother had seemed to put them together thematically. There was his superhero box, the high school box with his shirts and pictures with friends. She’d also made one dedicated to his time in the Drama Club – an apron that he’d written Kees Le Cuke onto; a sock monkey that was supposed to be a trophy for something; a playbill for the show he directed as a student. There was a box from the Boy Scouts which had his always-wrinkled uniform, medals, badges, books with messy signatures, a picture album filled with pictures and blue cards, neckerchiefs and slides, and a bola tie.

Then there was a heavy box filled with his old videogame consoles. There was a Sega Genesis with ten different games, a Nintendo 64 with three games, a Gamecube, a Playstation 2, and a binder filled with pages of the different games they’d bought over the years. He flipped through the binder, reminiscing. He’d spent so much time playing these two consoles – tens of hours in a week. His parents were okay with it as long as he kept his grades up and participated in extracurricular activities. Now, the doctors say to limit screen time for kids under 2 to almost nothing. What was it, less than two hours a week? Jim and his wife tried, but it was difficult to have to tell babysitters, who were usually grandparents, not to watch tv. You used to watch tv and you grew up fine. They had a point.

He rooted through all the wires and saw that his mother had done a nice job of keeping them close to their parent console. It was mostly VGAs, but the Sega had some weird ones. If he expected to play any of these again, he’d need to buy adaptors. That wouldn’t be a big deal. How much time would he have to futz around with twenty- and thirty-year-old games, anyway? Maybe when the kids were older. That was what made the Gameboy so exciting. He dug around the box a little bit more and couldn’t find the games. She must’ve packed them in another box.

He rooted around for another fifteen minutes before, satisfied, he closed all the boxes and started hauling them out of the basement and into the bed of his truck. The house smelled like bacon, and he realized he was hungrier than he thought.

When he was all done loading, he sat down at the island and enjoyed a sandwich with his father. They didn’t talk about much – his dad showed him the rows of planter boxes lined up along the southern windows with all the little sprouts starting to come up. It would be a robust year, if he had anything to say about it, and if the dog would stay out of the garden. She was getting older, though. Now she just liked to sit with him in the sunshine. He wouldn’t get another one after her, at least Jim doubted it. That would be a really sorry day. He pushed the thought out of his mind.

When he was about to go, Jim remembered to ask about the Gameboy games. “Hey, I was looking through those boxes and couldn’t find the games to go with the Gameboy. Mom wouldn’t have thrown those away, would she?”

“No, no. They’re fine. Sorry. Forgot to tell you there was one more little box upstairs. I didn’t want to lose it in the fray. I set it aside in your room. Geez. Can’t believe I forgot. Why don’t you go grab it?”

“Yeah, I think I will.” You’ve been forgetting things a lot more lately, he thought. Dementia was hereditary on both sides and his dad was getting to that age where it might start to manifest. As long as you remember what your keys are for, I won’t be worried. I can’t. Not yet.

He marched up the stairs and went into his room. The walls were bare now, but his old queen-sized bed, dresser, and desk were all still there. He saw the box his dad was talking about sitting on his desk. Before he went to grab it, he went through the drawers and into the closet to see if she’d left anything of his. He smirked when he saw his closet full of winter clothes. The dresser had other old clothes, probably for yard work, as well as different linens and sheets. Guess the space went to good use, he thought.

Finally, he moved over to the box. It was a shoebox with his name written on the top in his mom’s hand. He flipped open the cover and found his games, about fifteen of them, resting on five or six unframed pictures of him and mom. On top of everything was a 5 by 7 slip of paper that’d been folded in half. His breath caught in his throat, and he picked it up. There was her big, bubbly script, and a short little note.

Hey, Jimmy. Not sure when you’ll see this box. Remember how much you played these games? I could barely get you to look up. You always gave me and your dad and your brother and sister the time, though. I hope someday you have kids of your own and you get to see just how much that means. Proud of you. Love you, baby. -Mom

He put down the note and looked out his bedroom window. It was the same yard, but it looked wilder. The new neighbors moved in a year ago, a young couple who hadn’t had time to clean up too much. He sighed and swallowed and was finally ready to move on.

He picked up the top picture – his graduation from college. She was so vibrant and aware…a far cry from even five years later. His kids would never know that woman. The note was still in his hand; he wouldn’t have noticed, but his palms were moist, and he didn’t want the paper to be ruined. He folded the note and took a minute to gather himself. Did the old man know about this? It wasn’t unlike him. He wouldn’t bring it up if Jim didn’t, and right now, Jim wouldn’t.

Jim closed the box, dabbed at his eyes just in case, and made his way downstairs and onto the porch where his father sat waiting. “Got the box,” he said. He held it up for his father to see.

“Games inside?”

“Yeah, like fifteen of them. I’ll never be bored on the toilet again.”

His father chuckled and lifted himself out of his wicker chair with effort. He clapped Jim on the side of the arm. “Thanks for coming by. Now I can walk around my basement without bumping into all your junk.”

“Just in time for us to get you a walker.”

“Hilarious.” He squeezed and let Jim go. “All right. Get out of here now. You have a family to get to and the dog is looking at you side eyed.”

“Uh-huh.” Jim descended the porch steps and started for his truck. “All right, Pops. I’ll call you soon. Cally has a recital coming up next month. I forget the day, but I’ll let you know. Maybe we can do dinner sometime soon?”

“Sure thing, Jimmy. Just call me.”

“Will do, Pops.”

“Don’t get lost now.”

“You know I’ll try.” Jim opened the door to his truck, dropped the box into the passenger seat, then hopped in. He looked at his father standing on the porch, looking over his property. How much longer could he keep it up himself? Jim was grateful for the time he’d had so far. Stick around, Old Man, he thought. He started the truck, backed out of the driveway, beeped, and drove off.

After a few minutes, he felt a bump in his back pocket that was starting to ache and remembered his Gameboy. He leaned over, pulled it out, then dropped it next to the box in the passenger seat. Visa’s expired, he thought, For now, anyway. What would the kids think? Would they care? He hoped so, but probably not. It didn’t matter. He didn’t think even he would use them that much. Not only did he not have the time, but they were just a novelty – they produced shades of old feelings, not the feelings themselves. Still, it was nice to have them, if only for the momentary retreat. He smiled, remembering those feelings, stored within his electronic relics.