Hotel Game Rooms
By regularassmilk 16 Comments
I was born, as I understand it, sometime after the arcade died. Obviously arcades exist now, and they existed in a much greater capacity in 1995, but in many senses, the home console had eaten the arcade cabinet before I left the womb. Still, the art and architecture of those machines, my juvenile-borne preference of cocktail cabinets, and the salad days of my early childhood had a lot to do with machines.
My brother, whom is five years my junior, is apprenticing as a pinball technician. Really, it's less serious than that sounds. It's more of a hobby that bleeds into an infrequent job, but it's still a very serious thing for him. We were talking about FarSight Studios The Pinball Arcade (sort of the way my dad and brother decided to start seeking out physical machines) and I asked my fiancee's ten-year-old sister if she particularly liked pinball, or had any favorite machines.
"I don't think I've ever played pinball," she said.
I squinted my eyes, furloughed my brows and shook my head in disbelief--a lot less dramatic in practice than when written out.
"What? How have you not played pinball? That's crazy! I'm sure you have."
She hadn't. She hadn't, and I was kind of an idiot. This girl was born in 2003, what were the chances she had even seen a pinball machine in person? Most modern arcades are full of larger versions of iOS games like Cut the Rope and Doodle Jump. The other half is redemption games in the vein of crane games, and the ever-present entities like Smokin' Token.
I realized that the classic arcade was something that had lived and died prior to me, and I thought about my arcade game roots. I have heavy ties to Galaga, being probably my favorite arcade game. I remember going to the Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn all the time when I was a little kid, with my grandparents. I would define it (as it was) as about as modern as classic arcades got. It had Galaga and Ms Pac Man, and it also had newer titles like Arctic Thunder and The House of the Dead. I remember my dad and I played Arctic Thunder so much, the overhead fan (that's supposed to simulate the arctic air) gave my dad windburn. My grandparents would come up to the area to see us all the time, and take us to the Bavarian Inn, which I affectionately knew as "the lodge". This was my arcade heyday. I spent countless hours and infinite tokens playing The Simpsons Arcade Game with my dad and grandpa.
Alternately, I had the luxury of being the only grandson until I was nearly six years old. I had six years of being the favorite, and I would also accompany my grandparents on all kinds of trips to Orlando, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Obviously I was worried about swim trunks, but my second question would be "Does this hotel have a game room?" and sure enough, they would. Just a cramped room at the end of a downstairs hallway probably no bigger than any suite, dark and full of machines in various states of function. The arcade machines of my youth were fairly reliable, but pinball was like a tempting poison. Robocop 3 was one of my favorite movies as a kid (I had all the toys--bizarre, right?) basically because it was the only PG-13 Robocop movie. One game room situated in a room next to the pool had a Robocop pinball machine and the flippers were so weak, the ball wouldn't even make it to center play field, let alone any ramp. For some reason I took to liking South Park pinball, because
- That shit was super edgy and hip for five-year-old Mitchell
- It was a pretty new machine, and was usually in total working order. Also a pretty good machine!
I was five and under, and just like my Metal Gear education, I took it for granted. I had no idea of the novelty or special circumstance of my arcade privileges. I didn't realize how rare arcades were becoming, it was just a part of my growing up. A huge part of my growing up, in fact. I think of hotel game rooms and specifically that arcade at the Bavarian Inn (as it was) as home. As my childhood went on, both my parents and grandparents would split up. I would never fully recover from that trauma and the nightmare I was forced to endure as a child. It's not worth exploring here, this post is about hotel game rooms. I used to scrounge for change in the street as a twelve year old with my brother so we could buy .89 cent Faygo and Slim Jims. My mom wasn't home. Our across-the-hall neighbors sold methamphetamine. We watched a lot of Scrubs. That stuff isn't important, this post is called Hotel Game Rooms.
What is important though is the sense of home I discovered in that arcade in Frankenmuth. The houses I had lived in no longer felt like homes, and the last time I had been in this place I probably had velcro shoes out of necessity. I ended up visiting Frankenmuth with my brand-new-girlfriend a couple years ago, not at all thinking we would end up there. We did, though.
The smell of chlorine from the pool washed over me in a wave of heat, and I literally felt my heart begin to rise out of my chest. Every corner of the hotel was familiar. My childhood had remained untouched in this Bavaria-themed time capsule. The arcade games were different, but that somehow didn't matter. I was walking around with my girlfriend through a hallway overlooking one of the pools, and I just fell against the window and cried. I hadn't cried in a couple years, I thought I was just thick-skinned. One of my best friends died in the middle of seventh grade. I remember looking at my friends sobbing to pieces, and I just had nothing. I couldn't do it. I wasn't tough though, I was just shut down. The chlorine waves had eroded the cement that was suppressing my emotions.
In a whirlwind, I shared more of my life with this girl that day than I ever have with anybody before. I just started going on, and I found out things about myself I never knew. I discovered the human being I had buried among the smell of pool chemicals, and the raucous whirring of arcade machines.
That person would go on to be my fiancee, the mother of my son (Ernest), and this coming May, my wife. We're getting married in Frankenmuth, probably about 300 feet from that arcade, and right next to that pool.
I feel grateful for this. The arcade is one of the most parodied and referenced touchstones of a generation passed, and I'm happy that I got to have the arcade mean something to me, too, even though it was something long-gone during my childhood. I'm happy I got to be the first grandchild. I'm even glad that most of my coming-of-age was so bracingly acidic and violent I got to really appreciate those shitty hotel game rooms. Those machines are my old polaroids.
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