🟨 Part 9: Albuquerque
It had been over four decades since Derek Hanley left the Midwest.
He’d driven through snowstorms and summer floods in his life, but this trip felt heavier than all of them — not because of weather, but because of what waited at the end.
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
A place that, until now, had only lived in his imagination as the place Luis disappeared to.
Now it was real. Hot, sun-bleached, flat. Wide sky, slow wind. He took a bus from Indianapolis to Dallas, then another to Albuquerque. He could’ve flown, but somehow a plane felt like cheating — like skipping the parts of the journey that were meant to be felt.
Every stop gave him time to think. And regret. And hope.
Maria met him at the terminal.
She wore a t-shirt that read Player Two Has Entered the Game, and gave him a long, awkward hug that somehow felt perfect.
“He’s been asking for you,” she said as they loaded his single suitcase into the trunk. “He’s awake most mornings, but he tires fast. If he falls asleep while you’re talking, don’t take it personally.”
“I won’t,” Derek said, then added with a smile, “Unless he starts snoring during my best stories.”
Luis was in a small rehab facility outside the city.
The walls were white and quiet. The smell was clean and distant — antiseptic, lemon-scented.
Derek stepped into Room 314 with a breath held so tightly, he thought his lungs might burst.
And there he was.
Thinner than Derek remembered. Gray, with a tremor in one hand and oxygen clipped to his nose. But his eyes — his eyes — sparkled like the last time they played Atari in Derek’s living room.
Luis looked up.
Tried to speak.
Failed.
Derek pulled a chair close. He said nothing at first. Just reached out and squeezed Luis’s hand.
Then, quietly:
“You still owe me three points.”
Luis chuckled — a wheeze more than a laugh, but it was real.
They didn’t speak much. Luis couldn’t.
So they played.
Derek set up a small laptop. Loaded the emulator. Hooked up two USB joysticks.
Maria stayed in the hallway, watching through the window with her hand over her heart.
They didn’t keep score.
Sometimes Derek would let his tank sit still and just drive in circles, watching Luis try to cut him off with glee in his tired smile.
Other times, Luis would fire early and miss on purpose — then wink.
It wasn’t about points.
It never was.
In the final round, Derek waited until the clock counted down.
He didn’t shoot.
Just moved his tank close. Parked it next to Luis’s. Two blocks side-by-side.
And let the screen fade.
Luis raised a trembling hand and slowly, slowly placed it over Derek’s.
And then he whispered — barely there, like paper rustling in the wind:
“Thanks… for waiting.”
Derek nodded, holding back the ache in his throat.
“I’d wait another forty if I had to,” he whispered.
Then he added, smiling:
“But next time, I’m picking the map.”
🟨 Part 10: The Final Score
Luis passed away three weeks later.
He died peacefully, they said. In his sleep.
Joystick still on his nightstand.
A copy of the 1983 scorecard, folded and taped to the wall beside his bed.
Two crowns drawn side by side. No names under either — because it no longer mattered who won.
Derek Hanley didn’t cry right away.
He’d done most of his grieving in that quiet rehab room in Albuquerque, sitting beside Luis as they played without speaking. The words had already passed — not through mouths, but through movement, memory, and the soft press of two tank sprites parked side by side.
Maria called that morning with the news.
She didn’t say much, and she didn’t need to. Derek just listened. At one point, she said, “He held your photo the night before. Wouldn’t let go of it.”
That was when Derek finally let the tears come.
Not loud. Not broken. Just quiet… like the way game sound fades when you turn the TV off and the room remembers it’s a room.
A week later, Maria sent a package.
Inside was the original Atari console.
The same one Derek had mailed the photo of. The one Luis kept all these years — patched, scratched, loved.
There was a note.
“Dad wanted you to have it. Said you gave him back something he’d thought was gone forever. He called it your unfinished game. And now it’s yours to finish — however you want.”
At the bottom, written in looping pen:
“Thank you for showing him how to lose.
Thank you for showing him how to win.
And thank you for showing him how to wait.”
Derek didn’t plug the Atari in right away.
He didn’t need to. Just holding it felt like holding Luis again — not the fragile man in the hospital bed, but the boy in cut-off jeans and a Kool-Aid-stained T-shirt, shouting “best of three!” across a carpeted living room.
But he had one more thing to do.
Two months later, on a bright Saturday afternoon, Derek stood under a tent at the Wilkinsville Public Library lawn.
Kids buzzed around folding tables. Parents drank lemonade in lawn chairs. An old flatscreen was set up near the sidewalk, and on it, Combat blinked to life.
Above the screen, a handmade banner read:
“The Luis Alvarez Retro Game Day – Where the Score Never Matters.”
Derek taught the kids how to play.
He told them about Luis.
Not the hospital version. Not the man weighed down by years.
But the kid who drew silly crowns, who played fair, who forgave quietly and waited a lifetime to be heard.
He watched two little boys — one in a red hoodie, the other in neon green — play their third round. They tied, 7–7.
The boy in green raised his fist in the air. “We both win!” he yelled.
Derek smiled and whispered, “That’s the only way to play.”
That night, he sat alone again in his living room. Claire’s locket beside him.
Joystick in hand.
He powered up the Atari.
The beeps began.
Derek didn’t move his tank.
Just let the game hum.
Let the moment breathe.
And as the screen gently flickered, he looked at the crown on the scorecard framed beside him.
And whispered:
“Final score: Friendship — infinite. Regret — forgiven. Game — complete.”
