"That's not Lode Runner," said DeAnne.
"Yes, it is," said Step.
"No, that's the little- man game that I saw you playing that time."
"Right, and the little-man game is called Lode Runner."
"No," she said.
Step popped open the disk drive and pulled out the disk and showed her. "Look! A miracle! The disk says Lode Runner, and yet what comes up is the little-man game!"
"No, I mean, of course you're right, I just thought that Lode Runner was a different game."
"What, then?"
"That one that Stevie always plays. The pirate ship game. It really looks beautiful sometimes, when they're just sailing along, the sails snapping in the wind. And the sailors climbing all over—I've never seen any other game like it. No offense, Step, but I kept thinking, If only Step could do a game that looked like that."
"Oh, no offense, right," said Step. He was a little miffed, but what mattered was that she, too, had seen the pirate ship game, only she saw it all the time, and she had watched it long enough to see different aspects of the game. "He must switch it off whenever I'm around," said Step. "I've never caught more than a glimpse of it."
"Oh, no, he plays it for hours," said DeAnne.
"In front of you?"
"Yes."
"Talking to his friends the whole time?"
"Well, yes," she said. "That's how I've picked up their names. Hearing what he says to them."
"Have you noticed what he does with the joystick when he's playing the game?"
"Oh, I think he moves it now and then, but it doesn't seem to be that kind of game."
"No, I'd say not," said Step. "Does he ever type anything? Ever use the keyboard? Or the paddle controllers?"
"Not that I remember," said DeAnne. "Why?"
"Only because if he's not doing anything with the joystick or the keyboard or anything, then how is it a game? What is he exactly doing?"
"Does he have to do anything?"
"DeAnne, if he causes things to happen onscreen, it's a game. If he doesn't, it's a movie."
"Well, people go to football games and watch them, and they never throw the ball or anything and it's still a game."
"Because there are human beings down on the field playing. But what human being is playing this pirate ship game? Not Stevie."
DeAnne frowned. "You know that I don't know anything about computers, really, except how to boot up your Altos and get Wordstar so I can do things for church."
"Take my word for it. The reason I've never programmed a game that had all that wonderful animation is because it can't be done."
"Well it can," said DeAnne. "I've seen it."
"There's only 48K of RAM in that machine, and the disk doesn't even have a hundred kilobytes on it. Three seconds of that ship sailing along with the sailors climbing all over the rigging would chew up every scrap of that memory. And yet the ship moves all over the screen, right?"
"Two ships, sometimes three," said DeAnne.
"And sometimes they're bigger or smaller?"
"They get big when they move closer, I guess."
"It can't be done. It certainly can't be done fast enough to be smooth animation."
"Well, I've seen it, Step, so don't tell me it can't be done just because you don't know how!"
Step held his tongue.
"This whole discussion is about how to let Stevie know we're serious about him going outside, remember?"
"Right."
"So we'll tell him that tomorrow he can't use the computer at all, OK?"
"OK."
It was not that simple after all. When they told Stevie this the next morning at breakfast, before he went to school, he looked positively stricken. "You can't," he said.
"Actually" said Step, "we can."
"Please," said Stevie. "I'll be good."
"We know that you're a good boy," said DeAnne. "But we have to help you understand how serious it is that you not go outside without permission."
"Please don't make me not use the computer." He was in tears. It had been months since Stevie had cried about anything.
"It's not like we're taking it away permanently," said Step.
"It's just for a day," said DeAnne.
"You can't," said Stevie.
"Why not?" asked Step.
Stevie slid his cereal bowl away, laid his head down on the table, and sobbed.
Step looked at DeAnne in consternation.
"Stevie," said DeAnne. "This reaction of yours actually worries me as much as your having broken the rule and gone outside. I had no idea you were so dependent on using the computer. I don't think that's healthy.
Maybe you need to stay away from the computer for a lot longer than a day."
At that, Stevie shoved his chair back and staggered into the corner of the kitchen near the window. He looked savagely, desperately angry. "You can't! That's the only thing they're staying for! If I can't play they'll go away!"
DeAnne and Step looked at each other, both reaching the same conclusion. Has it been that easy to get rid of the imaginary friends all along? Just turn off the computer?
"You've got no right!" Stevie screamed at them. "I've been trying so hard!"
Stevie's words were so strange that Step couldn't help but flash on his conversations with Lee during his madness. No, Step thought, rejecting the comparison. I just don't understand the context of what Stevie is saying. It'll be rational if I just understand the context.
"Calm down, Door Man," said Step. "Calm down, relax. Your mother didn't say that we were definitely going to take the computer away. But look at yourself. You're out of control. That's really pretty scary, and it makes us think maybe you've been spending way too much time on the Atari."
"Not as much as you spend on the IBM in there," said Stevie.
"That happens to be my work," said Step. "That happens to be what pays for our house and our food and for Zaps doctor bills."
"Are you the only one in the family who has work to do?" Stevie demanded.
The question took Step aback. "Why, do you have work to do?" he asked Stevie.
"Please don't make me stop playing the game. I'll never be bad again ever, please, please, please."
"Stevie, you weren't bad, you were just—"
"Then I'll never be whatever it was that I was, only don't make me stop playing with them, they'll go away and I'll never find them again. It was so hard to get them all together, it was so hard."
Suddenly a picture emerged in Step's mind. This game with the pirate ships had become, in Stevie's mind, the whole world of his imaginary friends. He used to play with them in the back yard, but it must have all moved indoors so that now he could only find them when he was playing with the computer. That meant that maybe Stevie wasn't hallucinating them anymore. Maybe the only time he could actually see them was when they were pixels moving on the screen, and he was afraid that if they slipped away any further, they'd be gone.
Well, wasn't that what Step and DeAnne wanted? They had thought that Stevie wasn't showing any progress, but without their even knowing it, he had stopped having hallucinations. It was gradually getting better by itself, and so they didn't need to push it, didn't need to force the issue. He had made up these boys to fit the names that were forced on him, to give them substance, and then he had built his whole life around them.
Let him outgrow them, as he was already starting to do. Let him gradually wean himself back to reality.
"How about this?" said Step. "Instead of cutting you off from the game, we put a time limit on it. If your homework's done and you've had your dinner and your bath and everything by seven- thirty, you can play until eight-thirty, and then no matter what the computer's off and you're in bed."