My weapon of choice is buried in the menus. An AK-47. It’s the only one that comes with a long knife attached to the front. The last thing I grab is the small pistol. And then I leave the tent and head out into a world of rubble and barbed wire, a world where everyone is always fighting.
A helicopter rumbles past overhead, kicking up dust, low enough to see the men sitting in the door, their feet dangling. It’s always the same helicopter. Like it waits for me to step out of the tent before whizzing past. The game is predictable like this. Do the right thing (or the wrong thing) at the right time, and you can predict the results.
I leave camp through the rusty gate at the front, a fellow soldier yelling at me to be careful, that a squad of insurgents had been seen in the vicinity. There’s the pop-pop-pop of nearby gunfire to punctuate the warning. The gate in the game swings shut behind me—and our home alarm beeps as the front door of the house opens. The rumble of the helicopter had drowned out the sound of a car pulling up. My husband is standing in the doorway, staring at me with the controller in my hand.
“Are you playing my game?” he asks incredulously.
I stare over the back of the sofa at Jamie, who is holding his car keys, half frozen in the act of setting them down. He appears as shocked as if he’d walked in on me having sex with his best friend. I set the controller down guiltily. As another helicopter flies overhead, the controller starts to vibrate and scoots across the coffee table.
“No,” I say, defensively. “I’m not logged in as you. Technically I’m playing my game.”
“This is the coolest thing ever,” Jamie says, finally dropping his keys onto the table by the door. Not only is he not upset—he seems to be over the moon.
“What’re you doing home?” I ask. I check the baby monitor to make sure the volume is up. Somehow, April has not stirred from the door slamming.
“I had some flex hours—was about to fall asleep at my desk—so I took them. I tried to text you—”
“I forgot to plug my phone in last night—”
Jamie joins me on the sofa. Plops down so hard, my cushion jounces me up. “Have you played before?” he asks.
I nod.
“Like, often?”
“Usually while April is napping,” I say. “Daytime TV drives me insane.” I feel like I have to explain taking an hour to myself in the middle of the day, so I start to tell him that it isn’t like I get to clock out at five the way he does, that the job is twenty-four hours a day, but Jamie is interested in something else.
“But you hate video games,” he says.
“I don’t mind this one,” I tell him. What I don’t tell him is that I’d tried most of them. The driving game, the sports games, the weird one with the cartoony characters with their spiky hair and massive swords. What I liked about this game is that you could do whatever you wanted. Except play as a woman, of course.
Jamie opens a drawer in the coffee table and pulls out a second controller. “You want to deathmatch?” he asks.
“I doubt it,” I say, picking up my controller. “What’s that?”
“It’s where we glib each other all over the war maps.”
“Glib?”
“Yeah, turn each other into large chunks of rendered flesh. Blast each other in the guts with our double-barrels. Shoot you limb from limb. Rocket jump off your head and turn you into a puddle of goo. It’s awesome.”
Now I know what he’s talking about. I’ve watched him play online with his friends, whom neither of us has actually met. He plays with a headset on, cussing playfully at distant others or angrily at himself. I’ve learned not to interrupt him, to just read a book in the bedroom or take April around the neighborhood in the stroller, or go to my mom’s.
“No, that’s okay,” I say. “You can go ahead and play.” I set my controller back down and stand up to check on the baby.
“No, no, sit.” Jamie grabs my hand and tugs me back down next to him. “I want to watch you play. I think this is awesome.”
I reflect back on all the times he’s tried to get me to play games with him over the years. Even the time when we were just dating that he got me the dancing game—which was okay—and the musical instrument game—which I was horrible at. I feel guilty that I’ve been playing in secret for the past few months, ever since I got home with April and have been on maternity leave. Rather than trying to make me feel bad, Jamie is just excited to see me interested in one of his hobbies. So despite dreading him seeing me play, I pick up the controller. On the TV, the camera has pulled back and is spinning around my character, something it does if you stand still long enough.
“What’s with the canteens?” Jamie asks, squinting at the TV. “You gonna drown people to death?”
It occurs to me that Jamie probably heads off after the insurgents and does all the things the loud drill sergeant tells me to do.
“Why don’t you play for me?” I ask.
“No, c’mon, I wanna see you play. Pretend I’m not here.”
He kisses me on the cheek, then sits back and folds his hands in his lap. I wipe my palms on my blue jeans and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I guide my character away from camp and into the winding streets of a war-torn Middle East neighborhood.
There are pops like firecrackers to my right. I’ve been that way. As soon as I go down the alley, a tank rumbles through a wall behind me, and people start dying. I’m usually one of those people.
Ahead of me, there are civilians scattering across the street, seeking shelter. Faces appear in windows before shutters are pulled tight. Some of the bad guys are dressed just like civilians. I’ve spent enough time running through here to know who is who. There’s a man with a dog I’ve named “Walt,” because he reminds me of our neighbor, who is always out with his cocker spaniel. The woman in the faded pink house is “Mary,” because she makes me think of my sister. Jamie is fidgeting beside me as I pass through the market. I duck around the back of one shop to avoid a shootout in the front. I can hear the bangs like Fourth of July fireworks as I weave through debris in the back alley.
“There’s a rocket launcher behind the—”
“I know,” I tell him. I keep running. If you stop for anything, the fighting from the main street spills over to the back alleys. Within minutes, most of this part of town is consumed by fighting. Mary and Walt and the others pull indoors, until it’s just you and other men with guns. But if you run fast enough, and go just the right way, you can stay ahead of them. I’ve died a hundred times to figure it all out.
“There’s gonna be—” Jamie starts to say something, then stops. I exit the alley and turn down the main street, and when the two jeeps collide behind me and the fighting really picks up, I’m already gone. I have to wipe my brow with my elbow as I play, the stress of being watched worse than the anxiety of being killed.
The baby monitor emits a soft cry, which is my cue to pause the game. But Jamie bolts from the sofa, a hand on my shoulder. “I got this,” he says. “Keep playing.”
I pause the game anyway. I watch Jamie head down the hall toward the bedrooms and take a sip of my water. I should turn the game off and shuffle the laundry around. I don’t feel like playing anymore. Not in front of Jamie. But he returns with April in his arms, rocking her gently, our child already back asleep—knocked out like only her daddy can make her—and I can’t help but see how happy my husband is to see me playing his stupid video game.
I turn back to the TV and unpause it just for him.
“So you avoid the market fight to save ammo, huh?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I guess.” I run forward with one thumb on the control stick and reach for the remote, turn the volume down another two notches for April.