“AT THE END OF THE STARTING LINE” Chapter One

(A Review Living Inside and Outside the Video Game Chrono Cross (2000))

“A reminder of one’s former self”

Chrono Cross was released in the North America region in August of 2000. During the advertising push for the game all manner of comic books and gaming magazines made fuss about its pre-rendered cut-scenes and it being the long awaited sequel to the iconic Chrono Trigger. I “pre-ordered” my copy in anticipation at the PX on Fort Belvoir, Virginia the summer following my freshman year of high school. This would be the last “normal” school year of my life – though I didn’t yet know it.

Arguably it would be the last “normal” year of my life up to this writing. Almost a year later the illusions and comforts of being a sea away from the “old world” would be violently upended in a “once in a lifetime” cataclysm. Such disasters would come to mile-mark my lifetime biennially.

I can recall walking through the doors of my parents’ James Road army housing, at the time my father was working in INSCOM and we were stationed just outside of Washington DC. I can recall I was wearing chromated denim FUBU jeans and some island shirt with lion-dogs all over it. I dressed this way because my bullies dressed this way and I deduced that if I could disappear amongst them I would be less prone to being spotted than the days I wore my Neon Genesis Evangelion shirt or the Final Fantasy VIII necklace I had spent summer savings to import over the internet. My mother was grabbing her purse and keys while she ended a phone call.

“Drop your bags, we’re going to the commissary.”

At home questions were interrogative and used deliberately to pry indirect information, typically though it was all imperative commands.

Going to the commissary meant we were probably going to the post exchange next door, there was a food court there where Burger King or Taco Bell or Robin Hood Sandwiches were a treat. Were it that I could convince her SHE deserved a treat, I stood a fighting chance to meander quietly into the PX from the food court and get to the electronics department were John typically worked – when he wasn’t a proto-hypebeast in the sneakers section. Months prior he told me at the bus-stop that the exchange was going to get Chrono Cross and if I paid him upfront he’d set one aside for me. As my mother drove the long way across the base, snaking through other housing developments to eventually go out one gate and cut across Route 1 which cut the base in two and then immediately turn into another gate, I nudged the buttons I’d come to understand were useful for her to indulge herself. I observed, quietly, how hard she’d been working, how stressful things have been, if she’d heard from my father recently or if he was in the SCIF all day.

She inhaled deeply and with a not-quite censored profanity announced “we” would be getting some “BK.”

This is the behavior you learn to internalize, the survival tricks for a tempestuous house. I felt like a haggard deckhand looking at a red dawn sky.

I left my mom in the Food Court and crept into the PX after flashing my taupe ID card marking me as a “DEPENDENT” and snaked through the octagonal aisles towards electronics back most area.

John prided himself on being first, to the point of being the first in new Jordans, first with a blu-ray player or new console at his house, first for a new album (or its leak.) Somehow only one grade separated from me and he was networked into every material arena and fast-passed to get anything before anyone in our neighborhood and, allegedly, in school.

During a 22 minute bus ride several people went on about their favorite video games from past consoles, I volunteered Chrono Trigger (but this was in 2000, Chrono Trigger was understood to be good, or GREAT, but at the time Final Fantasy VII dwarfed it as “the best Square game ever.” It was a dated and otherwise “bad” choice – it would be another decade and several re-releases before people would warm up to it again) but John took notice. He remarked on the Magus ending being his favorite in passing before going on about Secrets of Evermore being a favorite of his. All of which is to say, that passing tepid remark by me bookmarked in his hyperlinked brain and later he gave me the scoop on the coming sequel.

I slipped him the cash on faith months prior and effectively forgot about it save the lingering aches that months of allowance being erased echoes through summer months. By my sophomore year John was driving a midnight blue Volvo 240, it had heated seats and an entertainment console with a touch screen. He had a SUBWOOFER. In the first weeks of school he drove past the bus stop rattling a Beenie Man track produced by the Neptunes.

He slowed, rolling the passenger window down and curled what I would years later learn is a coke-nail towards me. He spoke obscurely as if he was being tapped by the FBI, instructing me to meet him at the PX for the game. Hours later I would be abandoning my mother in the food court.

I saw him at the back speaking to a sergeant making an argument for the Dreamcast and why he preferred it over the PSX (Power Stone, and the Dreamcast port of Marvel Versus Capcom 2 being his reasons.) He acknowledged me with an upward nod and gestured for me to look around, I did so and within a few minutes he found me and presented me the jewel case wrapped in cellophane. I could hear him telling his shift supervisor that I paid in cash and he handled it.

Briefly I held the box in my hands and eyed the case, it was rich but wholly unlike even the color palette of Chrono Trigger. I eyed Serge, Kid, and Lynx on the cover off seat by shades of sea green, the clock face C on the logo. I was immediately fascinated and befuddled who this cast was relative the original game for which I gave up dozens of hours of my life. I felt the cellophane wrapping shift tautly against my fingers as I flipped it to the backside.

In large text against a mediterranean white read the text “A Timeless Adventure…” There was only a single screenshot of the game. The other three stills were from the full motion video cut scenes within the game, four if you included the muted background. There were dragons flying, a cute girl in a mid-riff top, a seascape with a catamaran sailing to an island. The case told me virtually nothing about the gameplay though really, I didn’t need anything more. The flavor text on feature was even more spartan: a single paragraph of invocation to come back to the world of Chrono Trigger with new adventures and new discoveries.. Four bullet points outlining abstracts like party size, battle design, music score. A single remark about an adventure that “will surpass even space and time” promised a story bigger than any Dostoevsky.

I power-walked back to the entrance exit, excitedly feeling the case to texturize the adventure contained within when I reached the military policeman (MP) who doubled as security.

“What you got there son.”

I dropped my copy on the matted carpet in shock and snatched it back up in a single motion before stammering for an answer. I already associated being noticed as a precursor to mockery.

The MPs never treated me well throughout my childhood, as is true for most cops engaging with children. I choose to believe the insecurity that drove them to choose becoming a cop recognized a similar but different kind of insecurity in me. That recognition, even as young as 4 years old, resulted in MPs treating me less like a child and more like a rabid animal that is a threat to decent society.

“Where are you in a rush for, check-out is at your three o clock”

His employ of clock directionals all but confirmed that he saw teens as some kind of threat vector for trouble, the totality of an age demographic: up to no good.

I stammered a reply to him still gesticulating around the cellophane wrapping of the box as I held the case. “I, uh, I paid for the game? Already? In-in the back.”

The MP folded his arms in totemic distrust looming over me as countless others walked in and out past this tableau of what exactly? Broad daylight shoplifting?

“Oh you did? So if I ask for your hand receipt you’ll fork it up then? So?”

I can recall in this moment that I squinted up past him, it wasn’t confusion that furrowed my brow but his looming stance had me looking into the glaring fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling behind him.

“Receipt? I paid cash.”

He took another step closer to me and began to reach a hand towards my copy.

“Of course you did”

I impulsively twisted away and stepped backwards, my brain recalled the jury trial stage of Chrono Trigger. Decisions you made in the game a dozen hours prior, helping a stray cat, running or walking, pilfering a lunch, waiting patiently for a friend, these choices determined your “boss-fight,” there was no combat to win or lose.

I couldn’t power through this, I would have to play optimally.

“Call the electronics department man. Why would I have a receipt.”

The MP stepped forward again and opened his hand, expecting the jewel case.

“Don’t call me ‘man’ son. Address me by my rank or ‘Sir’. Now, hand it over.”

Prior decisions disadvantaged me now, but all I could do was secure my copy and keep it out of his hands. This wasn’t for him. This was for me. And it was mine now.

“Call electronics, I paid cash to John.”

The MP narrowed his eyes and stepped back, there was a phone at his waist high table, he picked up the receiver and dialed some buttons.

It felt like an eternity, I knew even if this ended NOW that I took too long and there would be fallout from not being ready when my mom finished – yet another boss encounter. I quietly reminded myself that nothing good comes easy.

The MP hung up the phone and turned back to me smug. “Well well, seems from the footage you didn’t go to the register. We have you on camera getting the case from electronics and not paying but walking to me.” He began to reach for my bicep to grab me.

“You’re coming with me kid, where’s your ID card.”

I jumped a half-step back, my face scornful and fully engaged. This wasn’t my first rodeo with MPs as I said “Yeah MAN. Call ELECTRONICS. I PRE-PAID.”

At 15 years old everything you say SOUNDS cutting but for this encounter I was deliberately putting more disdain. I had absolutely NO time for this. The MP doubled down.

“Stop resisting and give me your ID card, we’re going to security.” I could see one of his hands was bear clawing in anticipation of grabbing me. But I saw movement behind him. It was a blur, but moving quickly towards us.

“WHY ARE YOU HARASSING MY SON” my mother injected as she forcibly put her purse and hands down at his table. As a former interrogator, she was an expert in use of interrogative questions and deliberate statements. This was not the former, it was definitively the latter.

The MP turned 90 degrees to keep an eye on me and reply to her. “Ma’am I have reason to believe this minor is engaging in shoplifting and I am currently detaining the suspect to take him to security for further questioning.”

Again. I was 15 years old holding a jewel case.

My mother cocked her head around the MP and cut into me with her glare. This time she WOULD employ a question. “Well? Did you?”

I replied with that cutting tone “No.” knowing not to face TWO opponents at once I shifted my aim back to the MP. “I told you man. Call electronics. I. PRE. PAID.”

Between the pincer move upon him and my conviction he took a debuff, that confidence eroded. He stammered a reply and fumbled for his phone. He spoke in muted tones before hanging up in frustration, turning to face my mother head on with his back to me.

“Your son displayed suspicious behavior that aroused my suspicions. I confirmed with security” he gestured at the dozens of mirrored half-domes in the ceiling “from the footage that he did NOT go to the electronics checkout but left with the item for the exit. This is textbook shoplifting behavior ma’am and you should correct your dependent on this.”

The military refer to the family of anyone serving as “dependents” as a bizarre othering and epithet.

His back was to me throughout this entire debrief. I no longer existed to him. At least I wouldn’t exist for another twenty months until a hot summer night when a friend and I would be driving back on base. This MP at the entrance gate would forcibly remove both my friend and I from his car at rifle point. That is a story for another time.

My mother leaned in with rolled shoulders and an unimpressed glare. “Well? Do I need to call my Sergeant First Class husband to have him get bail money or is my son telling the truth?”

MPs, like most cops, are deeply offended when cut-off regurgitating whatever legalese they committed to memory in an act of feeling professional or moderately intelligent. He took a long sigh.

“Your son is free to go for now.”

I took this as a sign and began to walk past him and his table with my game in hand when suddenly my body lurched to a halt as if I wore a seat belt. His bear claw hand had my bicep, I was in the penumbra of his glare at me.

“Hey. NEVER do anything like this again on this post. I have my eye on you now son.”

His grip wrenched tighter.

“And do some pushups, it’s like grabbing a chicken wing.”

I should have registered this moment as my LOSING this encounter but I didn’t. It wouldn’t be for almost two years when I found myself cheek into asphalt and his size thirteen Belleville combat boots on my shoulder blades while he shouldered an M-16 and only observed “Well, well, well. The shoplifter” that I would realize I lost this fight – HARD.

For now I was free, of both his grip and his time, I walked past the table and to my mother. She turned theatrically and as we walked away she murmured about my embarrassing her and NEVER to do something like this ever again.

In the corner of her eyes I know she saw my gesturing around the game case, without missing a step she reached over and snatched it from my hands. Her nails grazed my fingers just enough to leave red tracks.

I didn’t win any part of this.

I heard the cellophane squeal as it slid into her purse against metal and leather.

“That’s not yours, I paid for this, and you don’t get to have it anymore.”

We got back from the Commissary later that day. After obligatorily unloading the groceries into the kitchen and putting everything away while my mother directed me, I sulked back to my room.

My parents tolerated wearing shoes around the house, but in my bedroom I kept my shoes off, with a small pile of Adidas, Nike, Timberland, and the like piled at my door.

I kicked my shoes off and ventured into my room. I relegated the homework as a problem for tomorrow-me on the bus-ride. Closing my door, I collapsed onto a moon chair cushion on my floor face first, planked on the pillow in the flickering dusk glow I let myself sleep.

As is true now, as then, I would wake like a computer. Abruptly and all at once. The General Electric brand LED clock radio on my desk red hue-blinked 1:37 AM. I opened my door into the house wrapped in moon-bathed midnight. I crossed the hall past my parents’ bedroom, the single full bath, down to the door just before the stairs.

We had barely lived at this house a year and I mapped every floor board and its tolerance for my lanky body. My father hardly tolerated any walking sounds around the house. He hounded me for an entire summer about how he could hear me everywhere I walked. I learned to walk silent, to treat the house and greater world like a stealth mission.

The upstairs hallway was cool, my mother had cracked the windows and a brisk autumn breeze crept the hall as I navigated in sightless memory. Still in my school clothes, I crept into the “Guest Room.” The guest room was really just a place for a spare bed we had no need for and an old 32” cathode ray tube (CRT) television we kept when my father upgraded the living room model.

What that room REALLY was was a den where I and my friends could play video games and watch TV without being a nuisance on my parents.

The “Guest Room” door always never shut, always just cracked open. I knew exactly how wide I could open it before any creaks would occur and just how to slither my frame through that opening to get inside and zero it out.

I sat at the TV and turned on my Playstation, I used the remote control to quick-time turning the TV on, then immediately hitting mute so as little sound as possible eeked out. I nestled into the rug and mutedly jostled Xenogears disc 1 into the console. I would settle into familiar areas of the game where the background music was comforting and slowly turn the volume on. I’d settle in that dim glow of the CRT and harmonies of Yasunori Mitsuda’s score, and reflect on every embarrassing event of the past day, then persist backwards further until my memories first started.

I did this, without failure, every school night of my freshman and sophomore year until I confessed the habit to a friend of a friend who slapped me in the face and said I should never do that again. While I live every day of my life with some burden of regret, I have never done anything parallel to that lonesome meditation ever again – all we ever have are our scruples.

By three or four AM I would digitally blow out the candles and restore the room to no trace of myself save the body heat on the rug. I would lurk my way back to my room where I would take my backpack to the desk at the foot of my bed and dig out my school work.

I resented the daylight.

The brightness and activity of the day brought judgment, brought akimboed hands-ed derision from adults, brought cacophonous mockery from classmates, brought torrents of fickle change at home.

In the darkness I could be free of that, I could extend myself as far as I could in the infinite of the night. The world was quieter at night, there was always so much noise in the daylight.

My eyes had hours ago adjusted to the house asleep, moonlight would creep from orbit, through the sky to a tree in the back yard where it would diffuse like stained glass through leaves and opaque branches into my room. The only light I needed to read.

I walked my way across appendices and citations for History, and English, and Latin. I’d cross reference questions I would later search online at school. The computer lab allegedly had a T3 line, regardless it was far and beyond faster than 56kbps at home.

In the pre-dawn cracks of the sky I deferred the remainder of work to the bus ride, I’d collapse atop my bed and fall back to sleep until the alarm, my mother, or both would make me rise in short order.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays my first class of the day was Geometry. The teacher was monotone and either kept the classroom at 50°F (10°C) or 82°F (27.8°C), our TI-83s were either supercooled or overheated. There was no in between.

At lunch, a table proto-drum line pounded replica Timbaland beats with closed fists, plastic utensils, and lunch trays. Kids would gather and try to freestyle with only the bravest sticking around more than a few minutes. All anyone could talk about on the other end was this new show rumored to start soon “Cowboy BeBop.”

“I heard it’s so savage man.” I recall one kid saying “They show people getting blown away with all the gore still in it” Another kid who used my bus stop Robert was also a nascent anime-liker. “Nah man, it’s adult but its really REAL you know? It’s about regret man” he explained

“That sounds so fuckin’ lame. If they aren’t showing gun fights and tits what’s even the point” one pale faced kid with braces and cystic acne observed. “that’s the real cool shit.”

Robert, without turning to the proto-incel, asked aloud “Have you even seen a titty in real life? Like since you stopped breast-feeding I mean.”

The bell rang.

Robert walked with me to center cafeteria exit, the one where security didn’t post. He grabbed my shoulder.

Throughout high school I always walked everywhere with my head down and looking at the floor.

“You alright kid?” he asked. Robert, like John, was a grade ahead of me.

We continued walking but I didn’t respond.

“You started playing it yet? I hear its prettttttty wild. There’s like 3 times as many characters as Chrono Trigger.”

The next day was Thursday September 17th 2000. Robert knocked on my door 40 minutes before the bus was due at our stop, and asked for me. He dragged me to his house where he started Chrono Cross and navigated to Opassa Beach. He let the in-game song “Dancing the Tokage” play.

He freestyled over the music for 15 minutes breathlessly.

I hadn’t even taken the cellophane wrapping off my copy yet.

I knew I had to do something.