A New Game

“Honey, are you sure she’s ready for this?”

My wife, Elizabeth, posed this question as she leaned in the doorway to our living room. She was watching me, her beloved husband of 8 years, attempt to untangle the mass of cords that now covered the hardwood like a pile of spaghetti.

“Of course she is.” I said untying the last knot that had entangled a controller to the old Gamecube with the power cord. “Gracie is a Cartwright, and as such she was born to play video games.”

“Yes, Mike, but she is also only 5. Not to mention that you can get pretty… competitive.”

“That’s also a Cartwright trait that I’m sure she’s inherited from her daddy.”

“Oh Lord, I hope not.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes to drive home the point. She, nor her family as a whole, has ever been nearly as competitive as me and my family. To this very day she still hasn’t forgiven me for what she calls the “Flag-turned-Tackle Football Fiasco of 2023.” We Cartwrights called it Tuesday.

“You have nothing to worry about, sweetheart. This is a co-op game so it’ll be fine. I’m almost done setting it up so why don’t you call her in here so she can see it.” I pressed the power button on the console and a quiet whirring could be heard as the game disc was read. Soon the TV screen lit up and the title screen to “Dirt to Daytona” appeared. I could feel the rush of dopamine wash over my brain as nostalgia brought back all the memories of me and my little brother enjoying hundreds of hours playing video games . We played everything from classic platformers and side-scrolling beat’em ups to high octane racing games and immersive RPGs. In just a few minutes, my little Gracie was going to experience the same wholesome family fun that I had the pleasure of enjoying starting at her age. A grand tradition was about to be handed down to the next generation.

“Look, honey,” Elizabeth interrupted my daydreaming, “I know you’re really excited about this but…” She trailed off as if hesitant to finish the thought.

“But what?”

“Well, I guess I just think you should manage your expectations. Okay?”

“Okay, hon.” I answered in the affirmative although I didn’t feel it was necessary.

“Good. I’ll go tell Gracie to come in here, and then I’m going to go upstairs to do some reading. I’ll be back to check on y’all later. Mwah.” She kissed my check and left.

Soon after, the stomping of tiny feet announced the arrival of my little girl as she raced into the room.

“Daddy!”, she cried out, her verdant green eyes beaming with the joy that only the innocence of youth can produce.

“Hey, Gracie-girl!”, I replied as I embraced her in a bear hug. “Look what Daddy’s got for us to play.” I gestured towards the television where the main menu to the game could now be seen.

Gracie brushed back her messy blonde curls out of her face and stared inquisitively for a moment then asked, “What’s that?”

“That’s a game that Daddy played when he was a kid like you.”

“They had games back then?” One would have thought she was asking about ancient Greece judging by her tone.

“Yes, darling. They certainly did.” In vain I tried to hide the hurt that comes from a kid telling a parent that they’re old. “Now,” I continued, “would you like to play it?”

“Hmm, no I wanna play with Avery.”

It was here that I noticed that she had her ever faithful stuffed companion, Avery the Doll, secured in the crook of her arm. Wherever Gracie went, Avery was as well. And when Gracie was playing with Avery, there was nothing that could separate them. I quickly realized that, if this passing down of tradition was to happen, Avery had to be dealt with. It took me a moment, but an old school solution came to my mind fast enough.

“Well, Gracie, what if Avery can play with us? We have three controllers we can use.”

I could see the wheels turning behind those emerald eyes and after a few agonizing seconds she said, “Yes. I think she’d like that.”

Before she could change her mind, I hurriedly got three controllers set out and plugged two of them in. The third unplugged controller was for Avery, but neither the doll or Gracie would ever notice that.

The memory card was so old that the data had been corrupted. And while I planned on a new card coming in from eBay the next day, that meant that we’d have to start a new game for now. Thankfully, there wasn’t anything we had to unlock to enjoy the game and since I knew this game so well I was able to setup a race in no time at all. I even put settings on Gracie’s car so that all she’d have to do is hold down the gas button and turn left to succeed. I took some practice laps to show Gracie how to push the gas and turn, as well as a few tricks like drafting to help with gaining speed. Before long, our vehicles were lined up at the starting line, engines roaring in anticipation for the mad dash to come.

“Which one is me?” Gracie asked as she gripped the controller in her petite hands. I paused the game and pointed to the red car and then pointed out the blue car as mine. When asked which one was Avery’s car, I told her that Avery was the yellow one and that seemed to satisfy her curiosity for the time being. And with that, I pressed the pause button once more and the race was on.

It is at this point that I must admit that my little girl had caught on very quickly. Certainly faster than I remember learning the game. Must’ve been her mother’s brain genes helping out. Of course, I was her father, I wasn’t just going to let her win. As a Cartwright it was my duty to make her earn it. If that meant overlapping my sweet five year old two or three times then so be it. “An earned win is the most enjoyed win.” That was the Cartwright way. But that didn’t mean that daddy wasn’t going to help her out. On the last lap I was on my way to overlap Gracie, and the rest of the field as well, for the fourth time. I saw that Gracie was in a tense back in forth with the yellow car for second place. I knew exactly what to do. I positioned myself to the left of the yellow car and, with the nose of my car, bumped it hard right behind its rear tire. This sent the yellow car spinning around like a top, and it violently smacked against the outer wall. The crunch of metal rang out as Gracie and I sped past the still gyrating wreckage and on to the finish line.

“Yay! We won, Gracie-girl!” I sang out, arms stretched heavenward. I looked over to see the jubilation of a top two finish on Gracie’s face only to see something entirely different. Gracie’s eyes were wide with horror and her mouth was hanging open as if frozen that way. Finally, she turned to look at me and spoke.

“Daddy! Why did you hit Avery? Is she okay?” Tears welled in her eyes and her voice cracked with sorrow. I had forgotten all about our third player, the doll, Avery. I had to get to work on damage control, and I had to do so fast.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, honey. Daddy forgot that Avery was the yellow car.”

“That was not nice, daddy. Tell Avery you’re sorry.” Gracie hugged Avery tight as an anaconda.

Normally, I wouldn’t let my child talk to me with such a tone, but there were some mitigating factors to consider. The first was that Gracie was only repeating what she had heard many times from her own parents whenever she was unkind. The other was that I knew I was at fault here. I forgot that I was playing with a five year old girl. She hadn’t had time to grow into a competitive soul. I assured myself that she would come around in time. I suggested that we play again and promised this time to be nice. After a brief mea culpa to Avery, and some bribing with sweets, a reticent Gracie agreed to play once more and we were back in the game.

“So why did you hit Avery?” Gracie still had not gotten over the offense, apparently.

“Well,” I answered, “sometimes, when cars are on the same team, they will bump other cars to help their teammates. I just forgot that Avery was on our team, that’s all.”

That answer seemed to satisfy her enough to continue. As the race progressed, I purposely held back some to make it more competitive and made certain not to come anywhere close to any yellow cars. I even allowed myself to drift back into the middle of the pack to make it seem like she was beating me. Glancing over I could see the TV screen reflecting in her bright eyes, wide with wonder. A giggle leaped from her smile, and I could see the words,

“This is so much fun!” written all over her.

Turning back to the game, I suddenly became aware of a strange anomaly. Ahead of me, I could see what looked like a geyser of metal bursting upwards as cars began to be launched into the air. Before I could react, a tire came bounding towards me. I swerved hard to the right to evade it but in doing so smacked into the side of the driver next to me. I then veered left in an attempt to course correct, but it was too little, too late. In an instant, I was T-boned on my left side and sent flying, my race car flipping like a tossed coin.

After rolling violently into the inner wall, taking a few other cars with me, I finally, mercifully, stopped with a climatic crash. I searched for the reason behind this pileup. Ahead of me, I could see the remaining racers zooming by as they crossed the finish line with still a few laps left to go. In first was the yellow car that Avery was “driving.” Following close behind was a white car and a purple car which were obviously being driven by the game’s computer. I did not, however, see Gracie’s red car at all. I feared the worst. Surely she was among the victims of the mangled massacre. I had to do something to ease the pain of this tragedy.

“Oh no!” I said with a playful, sing-song voice, “We all crashed!” I was hoping to maybe soften the blow by making it out to be no big deal. It’s a tactic we parents sometimes employ when a child stumbles and falls. If it’s no big deal to the big people then it can’t be so bad, is what we want the child to think.

“I didn’t crash, Daddy.”

“Wha—” my incoming question was interrupted as it was abruptly answered by the horror that was now transpiring on the TV screen.

I saw the red car, a now warped and twisted monstrosity of steel and rubber, catapulting from left to right— the opposite direction of the other racers. I wanted to stop the carnage that I knew was about to ensue but the words refused to escape my mouth. Gracie’s red car, no, more like her crimson battering ram, swooped down to the grass infield and passed by the nose of my now defunct wreck. She then swerved back up, and with a sickening crunch, smashed head-on into the white car. Gracie went airborne while the white car jerked around, clipping the purple car as it helicoptered up against the outer concrete wall. All three cars eventually settled down at the bottom of the track, their flaming corpses billowing black smoke into the heavens. The game’s camera panned out to display the entire speedway which was littered with the smoldering remains of a dozen or so cars. Juxtaposed against this warzone-like scene was a banner that now covered a large portion of the screen. It read, “Yellow Car Wins!!”

I could hear maniacal cackling and imagined that some devil must have been reveling in the destruction. But instead, I saw my daughter giggling while bouncing up and down in unison with her curls.

“Yay! Avery won!”

My jaw dropped as realization to what happened overcame me. At some point during the race, Gracie had turned her car around and mowed down the competition like we were competing in a demolition derby. A 212 mph asphalt track demolition derby. She had transformed the Daytona 500 into Twisted Metal.

“Wha— ho— why did you do that, Gracie?!” I stammered, struggling to produce the right question.

“Silly Daddy, I was helping Avery win.” Gracie said this as if this was the obvious answer.

“But that’s not—” I was about to finish with, “how you play this game!” when my attention was arrested by the way Gracie was looking at me. She wasn’t confused or saddened, or angry. She was ecstatic! Her face shone with a happiness that one sees at birthday parties or on Christmas morning. The sense of passionate joy she radiated was oddly familiar. Yes, so very familiar. With a flash of inspiration I realized just how much of a fool I had been. I remembered how that my fondest memories weren’t made in heated battles between my brother and I. They were made when we were letting loose and throwing caution to the wind. So many times we played very differently than how it was intended in order to help each other win in hilarious ways. Those wild and crazy adventures together were what forged the bonds of our brotherhood and is why I could look back with such fondness. This is what I wanted to share with my daughter. The heat of rage turned into a warmed heart.

“Not what, Daddy?” Gracie, still beaming with delight, encouraged me to finish my sentence.

“Doesn’t matter, darling.” I chuckled as I picked back up my controller, “Wanna play again?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Bet I can wreck more cars than you this time.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“But remember, no hitting Avery.”

“Of course not, honey.” I winked and with that we started a new game.