"Oh, great job man! I really thought you were retarded."
None of you know my brother, and the way he is, he likes it that way. Rob's always been a loner kind of guy, keeping to himself and staying away from other people. Sure, he'll go to family events, most of the time, and he might join my dad at the grocery store, but he's never once showed interest in venturing out into the world, go to the mall, hang out somewhere, just be around other people.
It's so much more complicated than I thought it was.
See, I've always known that Rob was a little different. Anybody who spends that much time in the basement is strange. And I've always known about Autisim, but it's only been recently that I've put the two of them together. He was always bright in school. Everything he's ever designed, whether it be a map in a video game, or the pattern of his desktop, or if he's helping my dad landscape, has always been some sort of symetrical pattern. He's always shyed away from people. Doesn't like to be touched. These are all signs of Autisim.
What sucked most about it was playing video games against him. He'd always figure out the pattern, or the rythym, or some sort of programming anomaly and kick my ass in video games. Stratagy games were eaten up like candy. He'll find a glitch in a game and blaze through the rest of it in the blink of an eye. Sure, it's great he's so good at what he loves, but try being his little brother. You never win, and you're city in SimCity will never turn out as successful as his.
My mom's trying to label it as Asperger's syndrome. She doesn't know a damned thing about it, but just really likes a label. Ever since her best friend Cindy went insane and tried to kill herself, my mom's trying to be a know it all in psychology. Rob shows no sign of hostility towards anyone and he keeps his anger under controll in soscial situations. I figure she's trying to help out in a situation she feels she might have caused.
Video games have always been rob's life. And like every other cliche gamer sterotype, he's addicted to World of Warcraft. For $10 a month he rides around a flaming zombie horse as a warlock master of curses and plights. He does actually induldge in soscial situations though, and talks frequently with his guildmates. He bought him a headphone set with a microphone attachment. Before it broke, he told me he once actually talked to the people in his guild. It's a small, nerdy step, but it's a step.
When Blizzard announce that the expanion pack, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade was comming out on Jan. 16th, I knew I had to pre-order it for Rob for Christmas. I did, and they told me that there was a Midnight Madness event where you could come in at night and get the game at 12:00. After seeing my friends wait up to a day in line for video game related things, I figured it was my nerdly duty to do so at least once in my life. And Rob wanted to go too.
I figured there wouldn't be much talking, and if there was, it would be video game related. Nerds can type all the shit they want and sound like some sort of god on a screen, but the majority of them are feeble boys. Never the less, Rob and I were going to Gamestop and waiting in line for a video game. We were going to be brothers in arms. Very geeky arms.
My mom shit a brick. She has never trusted me since the field incident and barely believes in my ability to drive an automobile. She has never once let me drive her van more than ten yards unsupervised, and the idea of me driving that granny mobile down Hall Road in the middle of the night after a nationwide ice storm was not her cup of tea. Though I did have to drive 35MPH until I got onto Hall because of the snow, the driving wasn't bad.
We got there at around 11:30. Rob and I hypothosized that not many people would be here, as there are three Gamestops, an EB Games, a Circut City and a Bset Buy all within a mile of each other on this road. But when we pulled up to the parking lot, we could see through the Starbucks lights the line stretching past the cell phone store. Fuck.
Rob and I joined the line right by the trash can outside the phone store. More and more people started showing up and I was glad we got the place we did. It was cold, but not too cold. Being a more rubust fellow I'm usually warm. Years of Diet Mt. Dew and working hard labor for my dad had turned Rob into a lean, mean, computing machine. He was cold and you could tell.
The people you find in line for a video game at midnight in the middle of Janurary are strange people. The guys ahead of us were bashing each other's skills in the battleground, and accused the one guy of buying his character from Tiwanese gold farmers. The guys behind us noted how the Fear and Silence effects were going to be revamped and allowed the casters a better chance in PVP BG's. All the while random shouts of "FOR THE HORDE!" and "Praise Uther!" rang out into the night.
A cop pulled up when we were closer to the door and asked what was going on. "Nothing much officer," said the clerk at the door, "just selling video games."
"Oh, you guys ain't been robbed or anything?"
"Um, no."
Boy howdy, when the ignorance of normal people about video games meets the overall ignorance of a police officer, things get funny.
When we were first in line, we joked with the clerk. None of you will get this, but there was a yellow exclamation mark above the door, and that's funny to a World of Warcraft player. Though I'm not as into it as Rob or any other of these people (Yes, people. There were females there. One even brought her puppy for people to play with. His name was Thrall) I still understood most of it and loved the nerdy feeling of it all. Random sponsors were handing out free calanders and special internet codes for free stuff. When it came time for Rob to get his game, he went in and I had to stay outside because I didn't have a copy pre-ordered. I warmed up my car and brought it around for Rob.
On the way home, we mainly warmed up. We talked about the game, how long I predicted he'd be on it, and all this other jazz. Then Rob thanked me, not only for driving him out there, but for being there with him. I guess you could say I felt closer to him or some mushy shit like that. Video games, while he does kick my ass in them, have always been something we've been able to connect with.
When I woke up this morning at 7 to go to school, he was still playing it. He was on level higher than before and already killing off wryvern hatchlings in the Outland. God bless video games.