Smashing friends in Slidell: A good cause (Part 4)

Vincent: What was the hardest time you and the community had to overcome?

Mike: One of our players, Bones, was diagnosed with leukemia and the community was hit hard by the news because he was a good friend to all of us. We knew it had to be hard on his family and him and we really wanted to help.

Vincent: How did you all help?

Mike: The only way we knew how. We held a tournament where all the entry fees went to help the family and research for a cure for the disease. People donated time, equipment, and money to the cause. Word spread throughout the area and we got players from Baton Rouge, Mississippi and Alabama to come down and play. The day of the tournament, Bones got to leave the hospital and come play. One of Louisiana’s better players, who goes by ‘T-dogg,’ ended up playing against Bones in an early round of the tournament, and beat him completely. But as Bones said, he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way because those games they played together in the set were the game he loved. Just because Bones was sick didn’t mean he wanted other people to go easy on him. Of course, the community obliged. It was an event that I will remember for the rest of my life.

The Melee community enjoys the game in a variety of ways. Photo by Jack Amick, used with permission under the Creative Commons via Flickr.

Vincent: How is Bones doing?

Mike: He is still sick, but he has been getting better. The money we raised helped his family financially during the whole thing, and apparently the treatments he’s been receiving have slowed the cancer considerably. He still gets to play sometimes when he has enough time. I like to think that playing the game helps him take his mind off everything for a bit. The Slidell smash community still survives to this day at a newer location in the North Shore Mall. We play during weekends and still talk trash to each other. We still don’t give each other excuses. We still welcome new players, though we won’t go easy on them. Once you’re in the community, you’re in and the community will be there for you, no matter what. As we always say, “We’re a subsection of a subsection.” A small part of a small community in the grand scheme of things. The Smash community holds tournaments in dingy halls or peoples houses. Usually, they’re uncomfortable, stinky, and sweaty as a large group of people crowd in to play a video game. But all that changes when you finally get behind a C.R.T.: One of those old televisions before flat screens became the norm. You are lost in the game, a one-on-one showdown between you and another player. All that matters is skill. Win or lose, it’s all on you. That’s what I love about this group of mostly men. They care about this game more than most people care about a lot of things, but they also care about each other, and that’s why it’s so special to me.

Vincent: Do you want to add anything else for those reading?

Mike: I just want to say if you have never given Melee a chance, or watched people play it, you should. At the highest level the game looks more like art than a fighting game and even those who’ve never watched it can find some appreciation in how fast a fluidly these guys move.

Editor’s Note: This story is one of a series reprinted from the book A Guide to South Louisiana: Stories of Uncommon Culture. Each author was a student in Rachel Breunlin’s “Storytelling and Culture” course for the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans in the Spring of 2017. The Neighborhood Story Project sponsored the project as part of its mission to publish collaborative ethnography in high quality books in which the authors receive royalties for their creative labor.