The Guitar Hero

                                                                                                                        Nate Simon

Stewart Cecil had been excluded his whole life. It started the day he was born. Having ten fingers in a world of eight fingered people qualified him as a “freak of nature”. In grade school he had attracted the class’s bullies like moths to a flame. He was the first in his family to have ten fingers since his great grandfather Irving Cecil the Third.

When ethanol was finally and put into use as a fuel in 2014, it failed miserably. The leaders of many countries came together to decide what to do with all the corn they had grown in preparation for the expected demand. They opted to distribute it to the public, and print the warning notice relating to the genetically modified nature of the corn, on top of the label in holographic ink. There were no immediate side-affects, but six years later, babies suddenly began to be born with only eight fingers. Their hands were the normal size, but they only had three fingers in the space of four.

In his earlier years, Stewart hassled with the challenge of adapting his hands to fit gadgets designed for only eight fingers. Nothing ever seemed to feel right. Keyboards were awkward, gloves were worse. When Stewart reached the sixth grade, he had no one to hang out with after school. No place to go but home. He became obsessed with videogames. Even though videogames were his refuge, the controls never quite felt right in his hands. He had never been able to find a comfortable spot for fingers nine and ten. Stewart had learned to cope by taping foam to the handles.

When he took Historical Science class in high school, Stewart learned about the mutations, or as the school called them “genetic anomalies”. Because the textbook writers did not want to feel like freaks themselves, the subject was downplayed and the consensus accepted it at the norm. Stewart became aware that many manufacturers had had to change the designs of their products, because of the obvious changes in the field of ergonomics.

After school that day he ran straight to the library.

“And how may I help you, young man?” asked a kindly woman at a desk by the entrance.

“Is there...an out-dated…out-dated technology…section?” Stewart heaved as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Well we have a few books, but they are scattered throughout a couple sections. Is there something you were specifically looking for?”

“Well, I don’t think you would have it, but... Videogames?” he timidly proposed.

“It says here that we do have one about old computer gaming and technology. Section 9-37A-3176. Go to the elevator, and take it to the ninth floor. Make a right, go three aisles. Take a left, then another left and you should be there. Did you get that sweetie?” as she handed him a card with the serial number.

“Uh..I think so.” 

Stewart did not think so. His mind was still stuck at take the elevator. He figured that was a good place to start. He stepped into the lift and was whisked to level nine. He managed to find the book and check it out. He exited the library with a glowing grin across his face. Stewart headed for his house. The anticipation was overtaking him. He went straight to his room and immediately began reading about the classic videogame consoles. He was astonished to learn that they didn’t involve any virtual reality. It was all on a screen. Something he had heard about from his grandfather. It was called a “television”. As far as he understood it was a box with a screen, but that was all he could interpret from his grandfather’s nearly inaudible mumbles. He stumbled upon a page about music related games. One caught his eye, Guitar Hero. The point seemed to be to jump around looking foolish. That didn’t quite sell it for him, but when he saw the guitar controllers with four buttons on the neck he decided he had to have it.

“A game designed just for me! My extra fingers have an area, nay, a parking space!” Stewart was giddy.

He knew that the only place he could possibly find it was on eBay. Late in the year 2027, the United States had yet to find an effective solution to the immigrant problem. The head of eBay had made a risky move and hired an army of illegal immigrants from Mexico, to take over Canada. They renamed it eBayWorld, and had massive storage space and ran many ski resorts. Many speculated as to what his motives might have been, but no one could ever say for sure. Perhaps he just really hated Canadians.

Luckily for Stewart, he did not have to take a train to eBayWorld and browse the miles upon miles of shelves. The company engineers had developed a system of robots to retrieve items and send them to the central shipping department. Stewart sat down in his beanbag computer chair and cracked his knuckles. It was time to get down to business. He found only a half page of results relating  to available Guitar hero package. The system consisted of and console with all related power cords, and most importantly the guitar controller. He opted to utilize the best buy feature and buy the most expensive shipping, because he could not wait until it arrived..

Stewart had neglected to tell his parents about his purchase, which explained the puzzled look on his mother’s face when he got home from school the following day.

“Did you happen to order anything on eBay?” his perplexed mother questioned.

“Yeah…I sort of… Well, I ordered an old game system,” Stewart admitted.

“Did you use my credit card?”

He had been wondering how she could possibly know about it already. With this his relaxing Friday came to a halt. Would this ruin his weekend?

“Well…I’m sorry. I was really gonna tell you.”

“When? This is absolutely unacceptable young man. You are grounded until further notice.”

She sounded serious this time. Stewart did not even attempt to argue.

“ Fuck,” Stewart muttered as he trudged upstairs. The weekend was most definitely dead. Will she let me keep it? Could I possibly just sneak it in through the side? Stewart was stuck in his room and had nothing to do but think. How can I convince her that I wasn’t trying to go behind her back? I just got so busy that it slipped my mind to inform her that I happened to be using her credit card. He decided that was exactly how he wanted to phrase it.

After appealing to his mom, Stewart had managed to salvage one thing; he got to keep the game. The negatives were that he was grounded for being “irresponsible and insubordinate,” and that he had to pay for the system. Stewart was satisfied with the result. His misery ended the very next afternoon when a large box marked “FRAGILE - ANTIQUE” arrived.

“Stewart, honey,” his mother chimed, “there’s a box for, yooou.”

Stewart flew down the stairs with excitement. The box was bigger then he had thought. He thanked his mom repeatedly and began the trek back up the stairs carrying his precariously large new addition to his electronics collection. He placed the box on the floor as gently as he could. He had barely been able to fit it in the door.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, he ripped off the tape and tore open the top. His heart immediately sank as he realized he did not have a television. Fuck. What? This thing really doesn’t come with one? Is this a fucking joke? Am I on candid camera?

Stewart stood in his room for the next couple minutes contemplating whether or not he should go find his mom’s purse and relieve her of her credit card for another short time. He decided this plan could lead to a number of almost unimaginable punishments, and realized this was not the answer.

First, what was a television? This issue obviously had to be sorted out before he could choose a plan of action. To Wikipedia, they would totally have information on Televisions. Stewart was right, they had tons of information. The only problem is that none of the information had to do with acquiring a television.

Many companies in the electronics industry had become tired of competing with each other and had decided to form one mega-company. Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Wal-Mart, and Fry’s had chosen to bond to create “The Electronics Superstore, coming to a town near you!” Internal power struggles between each of the previous CEOs, who had been demoted to lowly board members, cause the company to fall into a downward spiral ending in bankruptcy. The CEOs had kept their employees loyal to them by slandering all of the other branches. Naturally the competition between the branches was fierce. It escalated to a point where employees would torch rival stores in the middle of the night. The recently unemployed workers swore revenge and torched the local Electronics Superstore the following night. The feud spread and all the other branches became cannibalistic. Radio Shack had been the only company to not endorse the merger, and thus were the only ones left after every Electronics Superstore branch had been demolished.

After the success of the “genius bar” at the Apple stores, every industry followed suit. Stewart headed to the local Radio Shack. He was told that after the invention of wallpaper that had screens embedded in it, televisions immediately became an outdated technology. Radio Shack had continued to stock them for the next couple of years to cater to those customers who preferred the “old ways”, but the sales could not justify keeping them around. Roger, the resident genius, looked up the last recorded sale of a television set only to find that it had been thirty eight years.

“Sorry, sir. I wouldn’t even know where to call to order one. There is no way any company keeps back stock for forty years.”

“Oh…Well, thanks for your time,” a disheartened Stewart said as he headed towards the door.

At dinner that night, Stewart’s disappointment was apparent. After five minutes, his mother decided to break the silence.

“How was your day, sweetie?” she offered.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Stewart responded.

He trudged upstairs and dove into his comic books. Stewart dozed off that night with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #34 draped across his chest.

His frustration carried over into his dreams that night. Stewart found himself in a line outside what appeared to be a movie theater. The line moved only every few minutes. What’s wrong with this cashier? How hard is it to sell someone a damn ticket? He checked his watch. Six twenty six. He craned his neck to see what time the movie might be playing, no luck. He could finally see the ticket booth,

It’s about damn time. This line just isn’t moving. Six people to go. Now five. Oh those two were together, that’s only three. Wait why are they still standing in line? There was a man in the booth, but no one seemed to be buying any tickets. Is this a line for something else? What the hell? Where could this be going? Just as Stewart turned around to ask the person standing behind him in line what they were waiting for, he was awoken suddenly by a gigantic thud.

“Mom,” he called to his mother, wondering what could possibly have caused the disturbance. No reply.

“MOM!” he tried again. Nothing.

He walked downstairs not sure what to expect. Maybe his mother had dropped a bowl, maybe worse. Maybe something had fallen on her. His pace quickened. He arrived at the kitchen, only to find it was empty. Stewart was confused. He walked outside.

Four houses down the block, a giant meteor sat half in the house and half on the front yard.

“I have got to see this,” Stewart thought, as he began to walk to towards the giant steaming ball. All of Stewart’s neighbors appeared to be mesmerized by the giant hunk of spacerock. It was as it were a giant magnet. When Stewart was roughly twenty feet away, he realized that it was no meteor. It was a giant ball of trash, and it appeared to be frozen. Stewart remembered reading about the various ways the government had tried to deal with the pollution problems in the past. One had been to make a giant slingshot and just shoot the trash into space. This must have been an unfortunate consequence of that action.

When Stewart lost interest, he began the walk back to his house. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something shining.

“Holy crap! Is that a fucking television?”

He ran to go check it out. It was in fact a TV. To Stewart’s surprise, the thing looked like it might just be operational. Apparently it had broken off the ball of trash, on reentering the earth’s atmosphere, and had somehow landed safely in a bush next to his house.

Stewart took his newfound treasure into his room and began playing Guitar Hero. He soon became addicted. The game was one of the first things he had been truly good at. After three weeks he had become so skilled that he could get one hundred percent on expert level without breaking a sweat.

Stewart decided to enter a Guitar Hero tournament, at a videogame convention in Springfield, Connecticut. Because it was an antique game, Guitar Hero was not the main focus of the gathering, but there were some die hard fans out there. The tournament consisted of thirty people, with head to head matches. Stewart had never been so nervous in his entire life.

In his first match, Stewart went up against a thirty seven year old insurance salesman from Omaha, Nebraska, named Steve. Stewart annihilated Steve. It was not even a competition. Next was Donald from New Jersey, another definitive victory. As stamina became a bigger factor in Stewart’s sixth match, the extra digit really began to pay off. He defeated Calvestor from Louisiana, and slid into the finals with ease.

Stewart continued his ascent to the top of the scoreboards. He took first place, and for the first time in his life, Stewart felt important. He felt as though he belonged. This was the first time having ten fingers had been an advantage to him.

For the rest of his eighth grade year, Stewart continued to travel around the country dominating the Guitar Hero circuit. He realized that finding something you are good at, and enjoying yourself, is more important than “fitting in”. This attitude shift served him well when he got to college. He took his newfound confidence and decided to join the Biology department. He adored the subject and went on to become research scientist. He loved learning about genetics. I’m not all that different after all. Only a couple nucleic acids rearranged. What difference can that possibly make?

Unfortunately for Stewart, his extra fingers did not play well with the ladies and he went on to die childless and alone.

(Alt ending: One day at his work as a research scientist, he had a realization. He had always wanted to become a dancer.)