Double Dragon will forever be intertwined in my memory with the Summer of 1988 or ‘87 or maybe it was ‘89. Regardless, it was some murky time before I had my driver’s license and the ability to go too far beyond my childhood geographical confines. Back then I rode bikes, and this summer I made frequent bicycle trips with my older cousin Brandon, who lived next door through the woods, to the Circle K at the end of our Spanish Moss draped road for one purpose: to rescue some pixilated chick in a miniskirt from a bunch of pixilated thugs using as few quarters as possible.

Over the course of this yearless Summer that lies submerged in the back of my mind, Brandon and I got pretty damn good at the whole Spike and Hammer routine. No Abobo could burst out of bricks without being greeted by jump kicks or baseball bats and the majority of gang members were reduced to pitiful ping pong balls battered back and forth between our respective paddles, Billy and Jimmy… no, they were still Spike and Hammer at that point. I suppose, we could compromise ala Double Dragon III on the NES and call them Spike and Spammer. Anyway, we owned that cabinet, and we rode our bikes over to the Circle K every morning to assert that claim.

Yet, there was one thing we could not claim mutual ownership of: Marian. After the final boss fell for the last time, blinked, and faded, a line was drawn in the sand. Only one of us would ride our bike back home knowing that our Spike would get laid while poor Spammer remained a good friend who Marian confided to about her relationship troubles with over sexless coffee. Perhaps I didn’t understand the joys of physical intimacy with ’80s chicks in pleather nor did I have any inkling of the dread of being in the friend zone quite the way I do now, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be Spammer. Having a hot woman, pixilated or otherwise, wrapped within your arms meant you were somebody- somebody who wasn’t blinking, fatally alone on the side of the arcade machine’s monitor while your older cousin basks in his Alpha Male glory with his objectified prize in hand.

I wish this was a story about the time I finally was Spike after landing some Hail Mary jumpkick. It isn’t. The last time we beat the game together that Summer, I recall pleading with Brandon for mercy as the last boss died. “Let me win this time, please!” Swatting me again and again with the bat, he shook with laughter as I jerked the joystick frantically while ineptly barraging the buttons with failed petitions for punches and kicks that would make that bastard Spammer once and for all. The gods of Double Dragon turned deaf ears to me for the last time, and we rode back home wearing the same invisible yet still tangible name tags.

That Double Dragon cabinet taught me a few lessons that still resonate with me to this day. The virtue of mercy is a construct invented by those who struggle with achieving victories in life. Schadenfreude sweetens with the increase of the pain of its object. And the mind chooses the damnedest events to enshrine in its halls of memories. I don’t see my cousin much anymore as we now have a state between us acting as a buffer, but I still see him at family holiday get togethers now and then. I wonder if he still thinks of that Summer. I also wonder if being Spike feels as good as I imagined it would. Maybe next Christmas I’ll surprise attack him with a wiffle bat when I have a bit of eggnog courage flowing through me and find out. I’m fairly certain that memory would make it into both of our memories’ respective halls. I’ll try for the Christmas of 2012 or ‘13, I reckon.

Written by Treismac