A Gen Y Tale

Scott came into the world in 1982. His Boomer parents both worked full-time, so throughout his formative years, his days were spent in the custody of hired sitters, then daycare centers, preschool, and finally public elementary school.

As compensation for leaving him in such an alienating, stultifying environment, Scott's parents made sure to bribe him with plenty of snack foods and toys--and because they were made by other Boomers nursing repressed guilt over abandoning their children, these were the best toys to ever exist.

Another compensation--despite the school's best efforts to curtail Scott's play and socializing time by confining him for six hours a day and assigning excessive busywork to do at home--was the small group of friends he made. In their few unmanaged hours each week, Scott and his friends would watch after-school cartoons as excellent as their toys or play Nintendo or tag football.

Yes, kids both wanted, and were allowed, to play outside back then. Scott's teachers, TV, and parents all told him he could do anything he wanted as long as he stayed off drugs.

After the divorce, Scott still got to live in the nice house where his family had lived since he was six because his mom got it and full custody of him and his big sister. The once cozy place on the shady residential street seemed bigger and emptier, even though Scott's dad had seemed to spend most of his time at work. But the worst feeling came from Scott's dawning realization that much of what he'd been led to regard as permanent was ephemeral and unreliable.

By the time Scott started high school, most of his childhood friends had drifted away. A couple had moved out of town after their parents' divorces. The rest transferred to other schools. Some had been enrolled in the private high school in the suburbs with the lousy basketball team--"For the high college acceptance rates," their parents said. Scott's mother kept him in public school but also kept taking the family to the corner Lutheran church. Scott soon stopped attending services. For reasons he couldn't articulate, going to a big building with his mom and sister for an hour each Sunday didn't make sense

Having his life upturned once again made Scott's first high school term difficult. But over winter break he made a new friend thanks to the N64 his mom had bought him for Christmas. By the end the school year, he'd joined a small clique of boys interested in video games, comic books, and RPGs. He lived for weekends when his mom and her boyfriend went out of town and his sister went on dates with her boyfriend, giving Scott and his Werewolf: The Apocalypse group the run of the house.

It wasn't all Goldeneye, X-Men, and d10s. Not only did Scott's teachers give him even more busywork in increasingly irrelevant subjects, grunting jocks stuffed him into lockers more than once. Other complications barged into his life. Hardly a week passed without a fistfight in the halls, and Scott witnessed at least two minor riots.

Scott's hobbies shifted into the background when he got his license and his dad made a rare non-holiday appearance to gift him his first car. The '86 Chevy Corsica didn't look like much, but Scott loved it more than all his toys because it let him take girls on dates.

Despite his nerd-adjacent rep, Scott still played football in the vacant lot next door, blacktop basketball on the church playground, and Frisbee golf in the local park. He also started lifting weights in the school gym. At 17 he was in the best shape of his life and managed to get a couple dates a month. Nothing serious developed. Half the time, Scott's dates consisted of taking a girl to a friend's place and hanging out with a mix of other couples and stragglers. Though game nights also started devolving into late night gab sessions with his friends, he usually left the table feeling more satisfied than when he dropped his latest girlfriend at home.

Senior year caught Scott with no definite plans for the future. The TV, his parents, and his guidance counselors had all said to trust each other, and they'd all agreed that Scott could do whatever he wanted. When he admitted to not especially wanting anything, they told him to get a college degree--any degree. He'd have his pick of jobs after that and could follow his heart to his perfect career.

Scott's parents had started a college fund for his sister but had neglected to make similar provision for him, opting instead to splurge on yearly sports cars and quarterly trips to Cabo San Lucas. The TV, his mom, and his guidance counselor all told Scott to get a student loan. When he asked about the risk, the government-employed counselor showed him a government chart showing that a generic bachelor's degree would double his income. He'd pay off the loan in no time.

Though only 17, Scott took out a five-figure loan which his dad cosigned. At his mom's urging he went to a private university instead of the cheaper state school. He got a job at McDonald's where not even a decade of working full-time would have covered his tuition, room, and board. The freedom of living on his own made Scott euphoric. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was in control of his destiny. It was the last time he would know that feeling.

Scott enjoyed himself in college while avoiding the slacker party guy stereotype. He balanced social drinking, girls, and the occasional joint with his studies. His junior year he settled on a major in computer science. He met a girl in one of his elective classes who sported an Uchiha Clan symbol on her laptop. They clicked, and Scott found himself in his first serious relationship.

After graduation, Scott and his girlfriend focused on their careers before starting a family, as their parents unanimously advised. Scott's girlfriend won a female-only internship which soon led to a corporate job paying fifty grand a year. He himself struggled to find similarly lucrative work and had to take an entry-level help desk job supplemented by moonlighting at Papa John's.

Two years later, Scott had managed to increase his income with a series of contract jobs. Though he applied for internal positions whenever an opening came up, the company always passed him over. At those times, scenes from Office Space would pop into his head for no apparent reason.

Scott finally went internal, and he and his girlfriend were married, at 27. She got the house and the dogs in the divorce. At 37, with a thousand-dollar alimony payment on top of his thousand-dollar student loan payment, Scott once again took a part-time job. Instead of fast food, he got a gig doing after-hours IT work at a small company downtown.

One late night on the crosstown drive back to his apartment, a flight of fancy directed Scott to take a detour past the university campus. Nostalgia for better times came in waves as he passed dorms and bars where he'd spent many a carefree evening. But the sights of brutalist additions to stately halls and century-old buildings razed to make way for new construction jarred him back to the present.

Scott turned off the main drag and cut down a narrow street lined with single-family homes long since rezoned as student housing. Harsh LED street lights gave way to mellow glass globes atop wrought iron stands. He slowed down as he neared a rambling bungalow once shared by some of his college buddies. Not a single car on either side of the street postdated the late 90s. Scott cracked a smile. The trope of the poor college student would never change.

His smile contracted into an O when he spotted the chrome orange minivan in the bungalow's driveway--the same place his friend Bruce had always parked his identical vehicle, which the old gang had called the Pumpkinmobile. Scott had to blink when he drove by and saw the van's rear door papered with the same Star Wars, Warhammer, and metal band stickers that Bruce had slapped on the Pumpkinmobile.

All doubts vanished. It was the Pumpkinmobile.

Scott first entertained but quickly dismissed the notion that Bruce had returned to the old place for a visit. He'd sold his trademark orange van to an out-of-state buyer after burning out of school. Clearly the vehicle had changed hands over they years, only to wind up with someone who also lived in its former owner's old house.

Curiosity shouted down Scott's inhibitions. He made a U-turn in the next intersection and came back for another pass. Emboldened by his first break from the norm, he parked in his former customary spot out front and approached the Pumpkinmobile on foot.

It looks exactly the same as the last time I saw it!

No, not exactly the same. The Revenge of the Sith teaser sticker was missing. All the others were in order, though--perfect order, as if they hadn't seen a day of sun or rain in fifteen years.

The owner must keep it in the garage most of the time. 

But why would anyone be so protective of a garish, twenty-year-old beater?

Multiple young, masculine voices rose in a cheer, interrupting Scott's contemplation. Residual laughter still emanated from the house. Scott recognized that laughter. He'd heard it semi-regularly throughout his college years. Mounting questions drove him up the front steps to the door. The weathered porch boards creaked a familiar greeting. Light peeked through the patterned curtains hung over the windows.

Scott raised his hand to knock but hesitated. What if I just stumbled upon some kind of reunion--one they didn't invite me to? Scott's life had acquainted him well with the pain of rejection, but this instance cut uncommonly deep.

The door swung open in squeaky hinges. As Scott had feared, his former friend Mike stood in the doorway. Not only are they having a reunion, it's an aughts theme party judging by Mike's "Bush lied, troops died," t-shirt.

Mike frowned. "I thought you were the pizza guy."

"Sorry to gatecrash." Scott raised his hands apologetically.

Mike's frown inverted. "Relax, you've always got a seat at our table. Weren't you out with Carrie tonight."

"Who?" The name rang a bell, bug Scott struggled to place it.

"You're late," said Mike, "but it's for the best. You missed getting caught in Alex's board wipe." He threw the door wide as he turned and sauntered back toward the dining room. There, the usual Saturday night group from Scott's junior year sat around the battered dinner table, shuffling their Magic cards for another game.

Scott stepped over the threshold like a sleepwalker come suddenly awake in an unexpected place. Unexpected, but not strange. The scents struck him first and deepest. A citrus plug-in failed to mask the funk of stale beer, Mexican takeout, and a week of dishes left in the sink.The aroma instantly recalled a dozen nights just like this. The relief of returning from a long, arduous trip released tension Scott hadn't known he'd carried.

The old habits rushed back in full force. Scott greeted his old friends at the table, who returned his pleasantries with the nonchalance of long familiarity. They responded to his lack of a deck with more enthusiastic ribbing. Todd bailed him out, as he'd always done, by lending him a spare deck.

Scott had gotten word of Todd's death from a heroin overdose in 2014. He almost cracked a joke about it being greatly exaggerated but decided it would've been in poor taste.

Against Scott's wishes, his awareness that something wasn't quite right steadily grew as the night wore on. His friends weren't just sporting period clothes, they were the exact same clothes they'd owned back in college. Early-mid aughts labels adorned every can of soda, beer bottle, and bag of chips. Every card on the table predated 2005.

His friends' uniformly youthful appearance was the last oddity Scott noticed. Having last seen them over a decade ago, their unlined faces and full heads of hair matched his mental picture. Only when he took a bathroom break and saw in the full-length door mirror that he'd shed his graying stubble, along with about twenty pounds, did he admit the suspicion planted by the Pumpkinmobile.

I went back in time?

No, that wasn't it--not quite. Scott felt in his bones that there was no college-aged version of him out there at that moment with Carrie, the psycho fling he'd largely succeeded in forgetting. If he thought that, he would bolt out of the house, race to Bleachers Bar, and unleash a torrent of dire warnings on his younger self.

Instead, he returned to the table, played until the game broke up, and drove home.

Scott slept like the dead that night.

The next day he texted Bruce for the first time in years. They made small talk in shorthand. Scott finally worked up the courage to ask Bruce what he'd been up to the night before. His old friend replied with a shrug emoji.

In the following weeks, Scott shunned the college campus, even driving blocks out of his way to avoid it.

He didn't think he'd blunder into another card game from a long-lost weekend being played in Current Year, but knowing the possibility existed scared him.

He didn't know if he'd join the party again.

He didn't know if he'd go home again if he did.

Weeks became months. Scott's yearning for bygone camaraderie came and went but never exceeded his fear.

One late Friday afternoon, Scott picked up his 2009 Nissan from the shop. It was a crisp fall day, and he found himself admiring the turning leaves in the residential neighborhood near the garage. Minutes later he found himself on autopilot driving down his childhood street. The old cars with 20-inch chrome rims, the overgrown laws, and the barred windows he passed soured his wistful mood.

After a few blocks, the Section 8 housing tapered off. The cars parked along the street remained old but were in much better condition. Scott even saw a few kids ambling along the sidewalk. He thought he recognized them but couldn't be sure.

Scott half-expected to find his mom and dad waiting in lawn chairs in front of their old house. He was pleasantly surprised to find four teenagers exiting a beat-up burgundy Oldsmobile in the driveway instead. All four boys carried hardbound WEG rule books and dice bags--even Ray, the Olds' owner, who at 16 had been the wizened elder of Scott's sophomore gaming group.

"What took you so long?" whined Evan, the droid navigator on the group's tramp freighter. He looked up at adult Scott and squinted, but that was his default.

The game went OK. Steve hadn't had much time to plan the adventure due to imminent midterms, so the party often lost focus. They fell into side-talk, mostly geeking out over EU novels or debating points of continuity. Nobody brought up then-current events or personal stuff. Scott felt that doing so would have violated some unspoken agreement. He did roughly date that evening to one of his mom's vacation weekends. He'd been at his dad's the first time around, and Steve's game hadn't survived the interruption. Scott appreciated the chance to play one last session. He slid right back into his Wookiee bounty hunter as easily as he settled back into his old house.

Scott's fears were realized in the aftermath of Steve's game. His work suffered as he took to drawing up Dark Ages Vampire characters and vintage Magic deck lists at the office. He was outlining concepts for a Champions campaign when he got the call from HR.

The police forced their way into Scott's apartment after he'd missed three alimony payments. They found no sign of him and no clue as to his whereabouts. The place seemed to have been little lived-in, except for a home office strewn with old CCG pack wrappers, enough painting supplies for an army of miniatures, and stacks of late 90s RPG supplements bought used from a local hobby store.

His car finally turned up near a house that had been split up into apartments. Questioning the mostly foreign tenants unearthed no leads. A records search revealed that one of Scott's grade school classmates had lived in the house when it was still a family dwelling. Attempts to reach the old schoolmate hit a dead end when it was learned he was KIA in Afghanistan.

No one knows if Scott was ever seen again. After his ex-wife seized all his assets and he was declared dead, no one cared to ask.

In the mood for some escapism? Check out the haunting, otherworldly Soul Cycle.