I sat across from Alex Hill at the final
table for the 2008 Pokémon Trading Card Game State Championships. We
were separated from a crowd of spectators that steadily watched us make
moves, but did not have any clue as to exactly what was going on within
our match. The winner would be decided after the best two out of three
games. I had already won one game, and he had managed to break my
undefeated streak and win one as well. If I won the match I would get a
paid trip to Nationals in Columbus, Ohio.
My stomach was full
with nervous emptiness, my mouth was drained dry, and the quick pace of
my heart distracted me from all my surroundings. One false move could
have caused me the match and there would have been nothing worse in the
world than losing after weeks of preparation and years of playing the
game. If I loss I knew that my conscious would have been trapped in what
I could have, should have, or would have done in order to win. Second
place is the most tragic placing that one can get in any type of
competition because you were just that close. Alex and I were friends. I
had always felt like he was the most humble out of the group of players
he hung out with. We joked around while playing the final game,
laughing in short high pitches that only perpetuated the seriousness of
the match. Pokémon is a selfish game. One could lose to their best
friend, father, or the most experienced player, and still feel
completely defeated by their loss. As we joked around, I imagined what
Alex and his friends would negatively say about me if I won. I had
already beaten all of his friends multiple times in previous matches and
I knew that they were all cheering for him to avenge their losses.
The
advantage was completely in my hands. I was playing a deck designed to
beat his. The only reason he managed to successfully win one game was
because one of my key cards was stuck in my prizes[1], I had won the
first with ease. At the start of the final match I had got an amazing
first hand and he struggled to set up as I plowed through his Pokémon,
took all six of my prizes, and was declared the winner. My heart beat
returned to normal as I extended my hand and triumphantly said, “Good
Game.” I had never been so thrilled about anything in my life. To me,
Nationals was like the Olympics. I would always stay involved with what
was going on from a distance but I never thought I would physically be
there. I had heard detailed stories, interesting incidents, but it was
nothing that could have thoroughly prepared me for what I would come to
experience.
***
I grew up on Pokémon and many young
adults today may tell you the same, but they would most definitely be
lying. To them Pokémon was an adolescent trend confined to the small
screens of their Gameboy Color and the shiny plastic sleeves of their
trading card binders. They grew up and traded in their sense of passion
for more “mature” hobbies; my passion sparked and never died. For me,
Pokémon was a lifestyle. Ever since I received Pokémon Red version with a
Gameboy to match for my seventh birthday, I was spellbound by the
adventure that was to be found within the game. I didn’t just “catch
them all.” My knowledge of the vast amount of creatures wasn’t limited
to the basic Squirtle, Bulbasaur, and Pikachu[2]. I knew every creature,
all the moves, and when they learned the moves. I knew if they did or
didn’t evolve and at what level they would evolve if they did. I knew
where you could find each Pokémon in the game and the odds of
encountering that Pokémon when you were exploring its specific location.
I knew the names of all the cities, gym leaders, elite four members,
items, and characters. Every Saturday I would tune into to watch Ash and
his Pikachu take on the mischievous Team Rocket in an attempt to be the
“very best.” I watched the episodes to the point that I knew each one
by heart and memorized the chronological order so that I could tell my
friends which particular episode would come on for a span of 5 days
without having to look at a television guide. I spent my days oozing
over the Pokédex[3] learning all that I possibly could about every
little detail of the Pokémon world. If any of my friends ever had some
ambiguity about an issue regarding Pokémon they came to me before anyone
else and I always had the answer. The children in my third grade class
envied me, not only because my knowledge of basic mathematics and
linguistics surpassed theirs, but also because I was also very well
informed about a game that they thought they felt just as strongly
about.
The trading cards brought a whole new element to the
trend. When I was young, the trading card game was simply a spectacle
for little children to desire extremely rare cards at the dismay of
their parents’ wallets. No one cared about organized play, no one knew
the rules, and no one battled correctly. It was all about who had the
pretty or awesome looking holographic card.
Due to my fathers
desire to command my attention after my parents’ divorce, I had been a
master of the spectacle, owning all of the big name cards not knowing
the value or importance of each one. I went to Pokémon League[4] each
weekend to show off all my cards, and my father was often no where to be
found, wandering around the store in his Nike sportswear to buy packs,
go hide them in his car, and surprise me later. Never did I realize or
stop to think about the amount of money that my dad poured into my
collections. I would sit there time after time with my dark brown eyes
wide with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning; my petite
brown hands would shred through the packaging and shuffle quickly to
find the shiny rare card. That card for my dad was the incentive for my
complete and total alliance with him. To me the rarity of the card was
as relevant as just another penny in a piggy bank. Plenty of people had
rare cards, but the importance was in the bulk of your collection. The
bulk of the cards, like the bulk of one’s weight in many countries,
meant that you were a healthy participator. I shamed all of the kids on
my street, struggling to drag my fire engine red Radio Flyer Wagon that
over-flowing with binders stuffed so thick with cards that the sleeves
constantly popped and broke. There was no sense in me bringing my cards
outside, because I had already owned all the cards my friends had, but I
felt that it was necessary for them to know that I was on top. I had
tried activities like basketball and even soccer but I never managed to
excel with those while I had become the face of Pokémon in my town. My
father was simply glad that I was finally exceptional at something
besides academics. He didn’t mind spending money on packs because he
felt like it helped contribute to a good cause. I didn’t pick my nose
during a Pokémon match like I did when standing dumbfounded on the
glossy court in basketball, and I didn’t touch the cards as if they were
going to spark an allergic reaction like I did with the dirt covered
ball in soccer. As the new Pokémon items hit the shelf I would have my
dad to purchase them immediately. My house had with everything, and I
was the kid who was lucky to have it all. The white children on my block
accepted me as the little black kid who actually had something besides a
Mongoose bicycle and a nice pair of Jordans, who had manners unlike the
ones that lived on the other side of the railroad tracks, and who
didn’t attempt to physically threaten them. Their parents must have
thought that mine had worked ridiculously hard to provide me with the
material. My Peers foolishly thought it wasn’t fair that I had all the
latest Pokémon merchandise long before they did, incorrect, they simply
couldn’t match my ambition. That same ambition guided me to my first
Pokémon National Championship.
***
Since I was only 17
years of age when I won my trip, my parents were reluctant to allow me
to go to Nationals. However, I had acquired a sense of independence long
before I even began to competitively play Pokémon. I booked my own
flight back home and decided to ride the Greyhound up since I worked
there and my ticket would be free. The trip on the Greyhound took an
entire day and I had never rode a bus before, but my eagerness relieved
any kind of stress I had while on the long haul. I started in Orlando at
six in the morning and would travel on the bus until I arrived in
Atlanta at three in the afternoon. Once in Atlanta I would make a
transfer and continue on until I made it to Columbus at six the next
morning. The initial ride to Atlanta wasn’t terribly bad. For the most
part I simply played Pokémon on my Gameboy. The seats were more
comfortable than I thought hey would be and I felt like they had a
decent amount of space. I wasn’t afraid to converse with any of the
passengers because I worked with them every day. Many people associate
Greyhound passengers with mental illness, poverty, and filth. But the
people that ride the Greyhound all have their own story and for the most
part, are extremely kind and sincere. On the way to Atlanta I spoke to
an elderly woman from Miami who was on her way to see her son in
Kentucky. She shared the story of how her son had heroically fought
across seas in Iraq, and wished me the best of luck when I told her how
far I was traveling simply to play Pokémon. Somewhere between Macon and
Atlanta my mother called my phone and the first thing she asked was,
“Where are you?”
“In Georgia,” I calmly said looking out the window, watching the tall trees pass me in large green blurs.
“So
you got on the bus?” The tension in her voice began to die down. My
mother never overacts in any type of situation once it was out of her
hands. Since I was already out of Florida she felt that there wasn’t
much she could do. “Call me when you make it to Atlanta,” she said. “And
be safe,” she continued before hanging up the phone.
Soon after
I hung up with her my father called. I let the phone ring a couple of
times before answering. Screening my Father’s calls was something that I
enjoyed doing, especially when I knew that he was frustrated with me.
He screamed into the phone as soon as I picked up, “Who the hell told
you to get on that bus?”
I paused before answering. My Father
always asked questions that he already knew the answers to and I always
give him answers that I knew would piss him off, “I told myself.”
“Oh so you are grown now?”
“No,” I rolled my eyes while shifting in my seat. “I just did not want to miss out on this opportunity.”
The
phone was silent on the other end. After I had won States months
earlier, it was my father that picked me up from the hotel after refused
to leave early with my mother because I had to play in my final
matches. He got up out of bed, threw on some clothes, and left his
suburban neighborhood to drive deep into the heart of Orlando. Unlike my
mother, he understood how much Pokémon meant to me because he had seen
my thrill first hand. As we drove back home in the early hours of the
night I could tell that he was proud of my accomplishment. He asked to
see my large glass trophy and commented on how remarkably heavy it was.
At that moment I couldn’t tell if I was more satisfied with winning or
with the fact that I had finally made my father proud.
“Make
sure you call me as soon as you make it there,” he finally said. I
agreed before hanging up and returning to my Gameboy with a smile.
The
Atlanta terminal was a glorified portable. A co-worker of mine told me
that they had to move the actual station because of the Olympics that
took place in Atlanta, and they never moved it back to its original
location. After grabbing my bags I went into the small terminal that was
bubbling over capacity. It was the end of the summer so people were
traveling everywhere and Atlanta is a city that has a lot of transfers. I
stood patiently in line for two hours trying to ignore the putrid smell
and body heat that plagued the terminal.
At around 5 I boarded
the bus for Columbus. Unlike the first bus this one was at full
capacity. A kind elderly African-American woman decided to take her seat
next to me. On the way up I learned that she and the members of her
church were going to Michigan for a convention. When I told her I was
going to a convention as well she raised one brow and said, “Pokémon?”
I nodded and eagerly showed her a couple of cards.
“Yeah
I remember those,” she leaned closer into the cards. “They used to say
that they were demonic,” she looked me directly in my eyes and I quickly
put the cards away. The rest of the conversation between us was brief
and consisted of “excuse me” and “I’m sorry” as we passed each other to
get on and off the bus. I basically had told her I was going to a demon
convention and didn’t want her to feel like I was possessed. Sitting
next to her, I occasionally looked up from my Gameboy and admired the
glorious mountains in Tennessee and went to sleep as the night fell upon
our bus.
When morning approached I was finally fully awake
again. We had stopped in several places between Tennessee and Kentucky
over the night, but I was half awake as we waited for people to get on
and get off. It was so interesting to see how different certain cities
in America were, especially when compared to the ones that I was so used
to in Florida. In Kentucky there were roads that were completely made
of rough red bricks and in Cincinnati there were small houses built on
top of mountains that looked over the city. Once we were in route to
Columbus, I smiled as I watched the bright summer sun shine down upon
the plains of bright green grass. With every mile that we took my dream
was closer to becoming a reality.
***
Pokémon gave me
friends. I am not talking about the nameless people that I met trading
on the dirty tiles of Toys R’ Us or the acne plagued teenagers that
tried to cheat me out of all my rare cards at the Gathering Place[5]. I
mean real friends that I shared more in common with than the universal
interest in Pokémon. Pokémon simply acted as a lure to acquire their
immediate attention. First there was Hector, a Hispanic boy with skin
colored like the red clay that sits a top the hills in Georgia and a
chipped tooth that revealed his love for recreation. He taught me how to
steal cards from unsuspecting victims and I taught him basic math and
how to properly dance when listening to Britney Spears. I was once the
person who felt the need to protect their cards from people like Hector
but together we worked to acquire even better cards. Never had I been
the person to need others’ cards. However I felt that Hector genuinely
deserved to have at least a somewhat of a small collection. Since he
didn’t know much about the game I had instructed him toward which cards
to snatch and once the deed was done we would simply say, “Oh I am sorry
we don’t want to trade” and then giggle hysterically about how easy it
was to swindle little blonde boys out of their favorite cards. No one
had ever challenged us because of his unfriendly temperament combined
with my obnoxious attitude that intimidated the young angelic faces we
encountered.
Hector introduced me to a trio of brothers and he
used Pokémon as a means to do so. “Let’s go to Boobie’s[6] house,” he
told them. “He has ALL the best Pokémon cards.”
I met Ometrias,
Christian, and Carson Long and was ecstatic that there were actually
black kids that lived around the corner from me that had an exceptional
amount of knowledge about Pokémon. I spent the night at their house for a
week soon after meeting them and we immediately became the best of
friends. Ometrias was my age and my best friend. He played the cards but
never competitively or fairly. He never played a match outside the
walls of his home, but demanded that we get him high demand cards as if
he were going to play competitively. Most of his time was spent playing
Madden NFL. We would exchange Pokémon matches for a round of throwing
the football outside. Christian Long was two years younger than me and
the only brother who matched my craze for the game. We were a dynamic
duo. He traveled with me to all the major events and I could always
count on him for a game. Carson was the youngest; he never really tried
to grasp how to play and unfortunately passed of a brain tumor when we
all were still young.
With them as my friends, I had abandoned
Pokémon and explored Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh. Digimon was short lived and
similar to the spectacle that Pokémon was but Yu-Gi-Oh had a sense of
maturity attached to it. Yu-Gi-Oh cards weren’t just to be looked at,
they were to be played. I dominated that too, even more than I had
dominated Pokémon. My father was right there buying me pack, after pack,
after pack. Young and in the 6th grade I triumphed over the elder 8th
graders in duels and had a collection that the students constantly
plotted to steal. I orchestrated tournaments on my block and distributed
all of the prizes. The Longs had a Yu-Gi-Oh collection that was
slightly insignificant in comparison to mine so naturally we merged our
cards together in order to establish a greater sense of superiority over
others. Yu-Gi-Oh had also got us to venture out to card shops and meet
children like ourselves, kids who were just as competitive and zealous
as we were. It had taught us what the importance of card games were and
how the values of the cards had worked. So when we left Yu-Gi-Oh I was
able to see Pokémon in a whole new light.
When I returned to
Pokémon it was no longer the spectacle that I naively once thought it
was. Now logic and skill was involved and I looked at each and every
card in a new way. I realized that just because a card was rare, that
didn’t necessarily mean that it was good. I learned that the energies[7]
that once had seemed worthless and insignificant were crucial to
winning a match and the dull trainers[8] with the silly instructions
were actually required for a deck to have any sort of consistency.
Having one of a card was no longer good enough because full playsets[9]
of highly sought after cards were required for your deck to even have a
chance at winning. Christian and I went to our first Pokémon State
Championship in 2005 and we both finished 3-3 in swiss[10]. From that
moment on we simply played Pokémon. We played Pokémon anywhere we could
safely set our cards. We battled outside The Longs’ faded pink front
door with the unyielding Florida sun causing our bodies to sweat with
heat, on the sidewalks of our suburban neighborhood until the mosquitoes
would bite us between turns at sundown, on the soda stained carpets of
our bedrooms with cards chaotically lying around us, in the musty heat
of the garage making sure not to pay attention to the occasional roach
that would crawl by, on the tables at local gaming shops that hosted
Pokémon League each and every Saturday of the year, on the lunch tables
at school while having someone to look out for a meddling teacher that
simply didn’t understand the importance of our cards, on the leather
seats of cars while riding to football and tennis practice, and even at
dine in restaurants while we impatiently waited for our food. We played
until our eyes became dry with blood red veins and stomachs howled with
the absence of food. There was no getting tired of it, each game had so
many new possibilities and outcomes from the last and there were so many
decks to perfect and master. Christian and I wanted to be the best and
we didn’t waste a second not trying. We would jokingly call each other a
PokéHead[11] because it was an uncompromising addiction that we could
not shake.
Pokémon began to find its way into every part of my
life. I spent my free time in class vigorously writing down new combos
and deck ideas so that I could construct them to test. My social
networking time wasn’t spent observing profiles on MySpace but
scrutinizing posts on PokéGym[12]. I would play my Gameboy even if I was
eating dinner, riding in a car, on the toilet, or in church. The
testing paid off and we continued to get better. I went from being a
nameless noob[13] to the notorious JokerBoi that was nowhere near an
easy opponent. I developed a distinct play style and image, always
taking chances and trying rogue[14] ideas that gained me the respect of
the elite members of the community. I consistently began to top at many
tournaments, sitting around players that I had once looked up to and
admired. Christian was able to hold his own eventually winning States
and Regionals back to back in the Senior[15] division and then going on
to top 16 at Nationals that same year.
***
As I rode on
that Greyhound bus the essence of all my hard work and dedication ran
through me. I arrived in Columbus with a backpack, a suitcase, and an
address. The terminal was much different from the one that I knew and
originated from in Orlando. It was extremely clean with all white tile
and walls like a doctor’s office. Even with my age, there was no
sympathy for me as the employee reluctantly gave me directions to the
convention center. I knew that all Greyhound employees had been issued a
statement to look out for all runaways, but I guess my determination
was enough to get him to give me the address. Frightened to death of
Taxicabs, I walked admiring the tall buildings that reminded me of the
skyscrapers I had seen in New York. Everything was so foreign to me. The
people talked funny and had no sense of manners, there was a cool chill
in the air that completely undermined the fact that it was the end of
June, and the streets were so foggy and busy. Walking down the crowded
downtown street I carried a suitcase in my right hand and had a large
backpack full of cards pulled tightly around my shoulders. I cursed
myself for being from Orlando and looking like such a tourist in public.
The
event was held at a hotel that reminded me of the large ones that we
have all across Orlando. There was a large structure made completely out
of glass that led you down to the convention center by means of an
escalator. A man sat behind a small desk at the ground floor. In order
to get into the event you had to have purchased a badge or won one in a
competition. “Do you already have a badge waiting for you?” He asked.
“Yes,” I responded, smiling from ear to ear. “Pokémon,”
He
went into the back to search out my badge. I stood straight with pride.
Many players actually paid to come to Nationals each year and brought a
badge with money out of their own pocket, but all of that was already
done for me. After he came back and handed me my badge, he gave me
instructions to the room where the Pokémon event was being held.
***
I
never grew out of Pokémon. Instead I grew with Pokémon. Pokémon matured
gaining new creatures, new mechanics, new versions and a whole new
look. I matured as well, left Cartoon Network for MTV, started to go see
late night movies with my friends, stopped playing outside until the
streetlights sparked on and started staying inside on the Internet until
it was time for bed. My interest in Pokémon was like the lovable dog
that would never leave my side. All the dangers of young adulthood
inevitably affected me. I dabbled within premature sex, developed an
unexpected nicotine addiction, struggled with uncompromising acne, and
Pokémon was there with me through it all. When I had finally accepted my
sexuality at the dismay of my father who had once been the top endorser
of my trading card obsession, my undying interest in Pokémon was a way
for him to connect with the little boy that he had once felt so close
to. I was “grown” as my parents would cautiously call it. With my own
car and newfound mobility I began to frequent alternative nightclubs,
skip school every other day and spend my days window-shopping with
random guys at the mall, and even experiment with the art of female
impersonation. I made many changes. I exchanged my baggy jeans for
skinny ones, replaced my athletic sneakers for boots and colorful vans,
and slipped into t-shirts that hugged my body closely. Pokémon had
changed too. There were new characters on the show, different types and
attacks, double battles were introduced, each Pokémon was given a
special ability that they could use in or outside of battle, physical
and special moves that were once type specific had become move specific.
I never faced the changes with indifference; instead I looked to them
with confidence, feeling regretful if I was to allow myself to stop
being that third grade PokéBraniac that I was in elementary school. My
new, older friends would give me a look that screamed, “What the hell
are you doing?” as I steadily battled trainers on my Nintendo DS. They
would attempt to play my games and complain about how Pokémon had become
so unfamiliar and that it was simply “too much” now. I would giggle at
their inability to comprehend and continue to play my game. I looked at
Pokémon like I looked at myself; although it had changed in some ways,
when you stripped everything away it was still the same game that
everyone fell in love with during their childhood.
***
Still
carrying my suitcase, I made my way down to the main event room. The
room was one of the vastest areas of space I had ever laid eyes on.
There were more than one thousand people in attendance and that was just
for Pokemon alone. The sheer amount of chairs and tables seemed
infinite. The familiar faces that greeted me eased some of the tension I
still had from the bus ride and the new friendly faces made my
experience all the more better. I was able to put faces with popular
names that I chatted with on forums. I didn’t care about the fact that I
hadn’t bathed in an entire day or that I didn’t know exactly where I
was going to stay, I just wanted to play Pokemon. Upon looking up and
seeing the large inflatable Pikachu that floated at the roof of the
gaming room, I knew I was home.
Footnotes:
[1] Before the
game starts, players put 6 cards off the top of their decks facedown.
These facedown cards are called prizes and the players cannot access
them until they KO a Pokémon. When a player KOs six Pokémon (taking all
six of their prizes) they are declared the winner
[2] Popular Pokémon creatures
[3] A device designed to catalogue and provide information on each species of Pokémon
[4] Pokémon players in a metropolitan area meet to play the game. It is usually held a card shop or Toys R’ Us
[5] A popular trading card shop in central Florida
[6] My childhood nickname
[7] A type of Pokémon card that is required if a Pokémon wants to perform an attack
[8]
A type of Pokémon card that assists a player in battle either by
allowing him/her to draw cards, search their deck, disrupt their
opponent, etc…
[9] 4 copies of a single card because no more than 4 copies of one card can be played in a deck
[10]
Players play a certain number of rounds without being eliminated and
based on their performance in those rounds they progress to the single
elimination rounds
[11] A play on the term “Crackhead”, Pokémon was like a drug to us
[12] A forum that is primarily for Pokémon players to share thoughts and ideas about the game
[13] A novice or newcomer
[14] A type of deck that is not considered competitive
[15]
In Pokémon there are 3 different age divisions. Juniors: Ages 10 and
under, Seniors: Ages 11-14, and Masters: Ages 15 and up
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