I started drinking after Michael Beck left—two fingers of whiskey—and continued steadily through the afternoon, never quite drunk, but far from sober by evening.
One of the many dangers of drinking alone is that you have no one else by whom to gauge your level of intoxication.
Around seven, I called my ex-wife. The setting sun was melting over the deck, into my whiskey glass, and it was the most exquisite shade of fire. I swirled it into the alcohol and lit a cigarette. I had gone through a pack in half a day.
“Caleb?” Coral answered. Coral enjoyed reminding me of my Biblical namesake, though she knew full well that I preferred to be called Cal.
“I want to talk to Caleb Junior.” Caleb Jr. was our five-year-old son. In the south, families have a literal obsession with naming sons Daddy Junior. I had done everything in my power to spare my son from that fate, but his mother, grandmother, and aunts had banded together against me, and I had lost. Still, I made my stand by refusing to call him Junior, which everyone else did. What a degrading nickname, if you think about it.
I must have slurred my request, because Coral snapped, “Are you drunk?”
It was difficult to speak, not because of the drinks. I moved the receiver away from my mouth and breathed deeply, slowly.
“Are you there? I’m going to hang up.”
“Let me talk to him,” I said.
“Do you know what time it is?”
To be fair, I had lost track of the time, but it didn’t really matter. Morning, noon, or night, Coral found excuses to keep me from speaking to my son.
I saw him less than once a year, and then only for two or three weeks when I was visiting my parents. We would all get together at their summer home in Martha’s Vineyard—me, my ex-wife, Caleb Jr., my father, mother, and sister—and in that supervised, highly Christian setting, I would be allowed to spend time with my boy.
“He’s my son,” I mumbled.
“Okay, you’ve obviously been drinking. Junior is in bed. I’m hanging up now.”
“Coral, can we—”
She ended the call.
I slid my glass and phone onto the table and leaned over my knees. I hadn’t spoken her name, imploringly or otherwise, in quite a long time, and for a moment I thought I might vomit.
But God, I missed my son’s little voice, the immature Rs that made him sound like a tiny English gentleman, and his outsized vocabulary.
Inside, I emptied my glass in the sink.
I had made myself pathetic in front of her, which meant I’d had enough to drink.
I made a fire, carried my laptop to the couch, and, at last, did the thing I had been resisting all day: I Googled Michael Beck.
I found his blog, called MikeCheck, which contained his picture and biography in the sidebar. Mike Beck is a full-time streamer (twitch.tv/mikecheck), PC game enthusiast, corgi owner, and freelance journalist who lives with his girlfriend in Boulder, CO.
There was a picture of his dog and, presumably, his girlfriend.
There was also a feed showing his latest tweet, written two hours earlier. I barked out a laugh when I read it. Have you ever had someone look at you like you’re an actual turd? I know that feel today.
The blog posts dated back to 2014. I chuckled helplessly over the titles: When You’re Low-Key Worried About Male-Pattern Hair Loss; Dicks Out For Harambe (A Meme Explained); A Guide to Living On Children’s Breakfast Cereals; Why Does Air Travel Make Everyone Greasy?; Why Does Fast Food Return to a Non-Nutritive State if Saved For 2+ Hours?; “Just the Feet” – One Man’s Journey With Pot Edibles.
I expected the posts themselves to be borderline ridiculous, but they weren’t. He approached each topic with the same painfully earnest attitude I had seen earlier that day. The humorous touches were light, natural, and in places the writing hit thoughtful, somber notes. He had hundreds of comments per post.
As I was reading, a new tweet appeared in the feed. Live in five – twitch.tv/mikecheck – gaming on some DayZ.
I clicked the link. It took me to a page with an embedded media player and a chat box on the side. And there he was, in the corner of the screen, seated at a desk and still sporting his silly bandage. He also wore a headset with a microphone.
“What up, my dudes?” he said. He sounded miserable. I dialed up the volume and glanced at the chat. Someone typed: What happened to your face? Dozens of others echoed the question. Some laughed; some posted sad faces and hearts.
What had I stumbled on to?
As I watched, the number of viewers ticked up to one thousand, then two thousand, and soon—if the counter wasn’t lying—five thousand. The chat scrolled so rapidly I could barely read it.
He’s live!
LUL your face
Bro what happened?
Sad Mike looks sad
DayZ today? Zzz
Incoming running simulator
FeelsBadMan
“Mods, can we go sub mode for a while?” he said. “Sorry, guys. I can’t deal with a fast chat tonight.”
A line of text appeared—now in subscriber-only mode—and the chat slowed.
“Thanks. Uh, my face ...” He logged in to a game, which filled the bulk of the media player. “I fell on it. I fell like you only fall when you’re four. You know when you’re a kid and you try to walk but you basically just tip over?” He demonstrated, dropping his arm in a plank-like motion. I grinned faintly and shook my head. He had, indeed, fallen just like that.
The chat spammed laughter and sympathy.
“Laugh it up.” He smirked. “You’re all due for a fall one of these days. Everyone falls; it’s just a matter of when. Of course, I fell right in front of someone. Super hard.”
I found it much easier to watch him when he wasn’t seated in my home, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. And, watching him like that, I was able to appreciate the little ways in which he differed from Jamie. Michael was older, of course, and funnier. Jamie had been so serious. I could tell that Michael loved to laugh and seemed to enjoy socializing, if only from the safety of what appeared to be his basement. Jamie had always shied away from people. Except for me.
I gripped my head.
All the ghosts were coming out to play tonight.
I felt suddenly enervated, as if the toll of the day were finally hitting me: The death dream, Michael Beck, my abortive call to Coral. Why had I called her, anyway? I knew that she would never come around. Maybe I had needed to be sure, though, beyond any doubt, that my chances at normal happiness were gone.
And they were—they were gone.
“Shitty days, dudes. We all have them.” Michael was talking to the people typing in chat, but he could have been talking to me. “And yes, we’re playing DayZ tonight. This is a bonus stream cause I didn’t expect to be home, and I want to zone out.”
A fragment of music played and the words New Subscriber: Eternal Kek scrolled along the top of the window. I tilted my head.
“Hey, thanks for the subscription, Eternal Kek.” Michael forced a smile. “Welcome to the team. I really appreciate the support. Guys, can we get some hot mics in the chat for a brand new subscriber? Thanks again, man. I hope you enjoy the content.”
The chat filled with tiny icons, which appeared to be flaming microphones with the letter M on them. I barely understood what I was seeing.
Next came a ringtone-like sound with the words Invocation: $3.00 Feel better Mikey you’re right everyone falls chin up dude.
“Thanks for the three dollars, Invocation. Exactly, man. Everyone falls. Everyone poops. Thankfully I didn’t fall and poop. Silver linings.”
He continued to play the game, which appeared to involve running through a vast wilderness while collecting guns and avoiding zombies, and strangers from the Internet continued to subscribe and donate various sums of money.
I scrolled down the page.
I noticed the subscription button (4.99), the same photo from his blog, some text detailing his computer specs and broadcast schedule (five days a week, seven hours a day), and a donation graphic in the form of a hand-drawn tip jar. Click the jar to donate. Donations are appreciated but never required.
I clicked on the image, which rerouted me to PayPal. In the donation box, I typed 2000.00 and the message: Buy yourself a new laptop. I left the name area blank.
I confirmed the payment and returned to the stream.
Some moments passed before the ringtone sounded and the notification appeared at the top of the window. The viewers noticed it before Michael, who was fighting zombies. The chat exploded.
2k!?!?!?!
OMG MIKE $2000 DONATION
MIKE R U BLIND
WTF
I chuckled and steepled my fingers under my chin. You might have thought I had given the chat two thousand dollars; they were so excited. They began to spam an icon of Michael’s face wearing a blindfold.
“Dudes, I know I got a dono,” he said, exasperated. “Gimme five seconds. It’s hard to look at two monitors when you have zombies coming at you like—” He waved his arms wildly and I laughed harder. Then he saw the donation.
His smile fell and his eyes went round.
“Oh, holy shit.”
On the screen, zombies mauled his character to death. He wasn’t watching.
“Ho-ly shit,” he repeated. I wondered how much of his shock was genuine and how much was an act for the viewers. Since the largest donation I had seen that evening was thirty dollars, I assumed he was sincerely stunned. And I liked it. From the seclusion of my mountain home, I had rendered him speechless.
He scrubbed his face and covered his mouth. His eyes flickered between monitors.
“Wow. Anonymous, not even dropping a name. Dude. Thank you. I don’t know what to say. Lemme read this message.” His expression changed again, subtly—a little hitch from awe to embarrassment, which I doubted anyone else noticed. “Okay, um, anonymous with the 2K donation says ... buy yourself a new laptop.” He coughed. “Dang, dude. That is super generous. I seriously don’t know what to say.”
His eyes avoided the webcam.
“Oh. Zombies gang-banged me.” He refocused on the game. “I feel like I can’t even play right now.”
But he tried, valiantly, and I watched until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
Then I called my agent and left a voicemail.
“Beth,” I said. “I never, ever want to see that journalist again.”