Home > Lankville Action News: YES! > August Memories of Youth by “Inner Hammer”

August Memories of Youth by “Inner Hammer”

March 12, 2014 Leave a comment Go to comments
One of the few known photographs of "Inner Hammer".

One of the few known photographs of “Inner Hammer”.

Ric Royer’s latest “Experience” is a chunk of horseshit. He never spent any time in such environs, never had mountain beacons, never witnessed an apocalypse. But he did remind me of one thing– the Cucumbrix 2000.

Ah, I recall coming home from school and heading straight into my parent’s darkened living room, adorned in thick oranges and browns. We had a gigantic wood-enclosed television and the Cucumbrix rested in a drawer that emerged from beneath. I would slap in one of the many great cartridges– there was Turtles!, yes but I always preferred Hunting in the Wooded Area (which came with a light-sensing rifle) or Racing Hardtops or the robust swords and sorcery game Castle Hesitation.

I would play for hours. Eventually, someone would come home– I could hear footsteps in the hallway– but they would always pass by the living room and head towards the bedrooms in the back and the next thing I knew, I’d hear heavy suction noises followed by the loud beeping of an empty IV. And I’d just turn up the video orchestra that was the sound of the Cucumbrix 2000.

A white and a brown person play the Cucumbrix 2000. The creator of the system shot himself in the face.

A white and a brown person play the Cucumbrix 2000. The creator of the system shot himself in the face.

I was never fed as a child. But it didn’t matter because the Cucumbrix was my sustenance. I had nearly all of the company’s offerings and I cannot describe the sincere heartache I felt when I went by myself to the store to find the display case gone.

“The owner shot himself in the face,” the teenage clerk told me, point-blank. I believe that may have been my first brush with mortality. “You were the only one that ever bought these things,” he added.

I stood beneath his raised platform, near to tears.

“Asshole,” he said quietly, without heat.

Two days later some men in blue jackets came to take my Cucumbrix. It was law, they said, all systems had to be removed and they were going house to house to insure that their job was done thoroughly.

I sat on the thick orange carpet, staring at the empty drawer for days.

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