Brother Broken
The games we play...
We waited for Denis at the bus stop. Sometimes he brought a
package along, and he carried it under one arm, protected. The package usually
contained a board game.
He was tester for a company that marketed new products. He
volunteered to test their goods, and they provided him board games to evaluate.
He never arrived with games for little kids—only ones that were more complex. I
don’t think the company paid him other than with free merchandise.
He’d barely have settled in at home before we’d be pestering
him to set up the board. We were a good test market for the game. Denis gave us
a spiel about the object of play, which we listened to with feigned attention.
Some games didn’t yet have written instructions. We weren’t too concerned with
that, because we preferred making up our own rules anyway.
It didn’t take much coaxing to bring out the challenger in
us. Dad built things for us and taught us how to construct things for
ourselves—things like slingshots. We engineered them from tree branches, and
our designs kept improving. We put our finished handiwork to the test and spent
hours target practising, knocking off numerous tin cans, vying to outdo one
another.
The bigger the dare, the more determined we were to meet the
challenge—with certain exceptions, one of which was hockey against bruiser chicks
built like brick-houses—something I was not particularly into. But if the same
bruiser chicks challenged my team to a game of softball—which meant they had to
rely on skill and hard work instead of roughing me up—I was good with it.
Sports, board games, and card games were irresistible. We
played them all with an intensity that rivalled Canada Cup hockey. The kitchen
table became one of our playing fields. We were focused, and intent on applying
bold strategy to the new game Denis had brought. Each player sought the upper
hand, and adjusted his game plan accordingly. We tweaked rules for the sake of
good competition.
“That doesn’t make sense. You should lose a turn when you
get to that square—otherwise, what’s the point of it being there?”
“That’s for sure. And not only that—you should have to give
up a card.”
Play stalled when opinions differed on how and when a rule
should apply. We discussed each issue at length, and somehow the time spent
playing always came up short of the time spent deciding on what was fair. We
were OK with that, and Denis went back to North Battleford with plenty of
feedback for the game planners.
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