Barcade
388 Union Ave. (betw. Powers & Ainslie Sts.), 718-302-6464
That summer meant addiction. I was 21, living in Appalachian Athens, OH, 70 miles from civilization, if you consider Columbus civilization. Like most college towns, Athens took a summer sabbatical. Remaining students drank to defeat boredom, then complained about hangovers until drinking again.
King Cobra killed my nights. Daylight was devoured by an Atari 2600. A reformed Nintendo nerd, I regressed with Pac-Man, Pitfall! and Bump 'n' Jump. But Solar Fox stole my sanity. Solar Fox, elementally, was outer-space Pac-Man. You piloted a rudimentary ship, gobbling space pellets while aliens flung fireballs. Every five completed levels or so, you flew a timed challenge round. If success, a letter was awarded. The goal: spell H-E-L-I-O-S. The sun god. Solar. Get it? I did.
In Atari, gobbling and shooting are based on timing and repetition. Study hard enough, and programmed patterns are mastered. For three, four, five hours a day I played Solar Fox, munching pellets and evading fireballs until my hands became carpal-tunnel claws.
I hungered for my elusive "S" until, one sweaty afternoon, six weeks after accepting my mission, H-E-L-I-O-S appeared onscreen. "Heliosssssssssssssssss!" I screamed, ready for computerized fireworks. "Fuuuuuuck!" I wailed: Instead of rewarding hard work, the Atari reset.
Such mania is why Barcade is a bad idea.
Williamsburg's Barcade is located on the seedier side of the BQE, the other way from Bedford's stroller set. Nonetheless, the bar's m.o. remains rooted in youth (or pot-inspired genius): Detoxify a hangar-size metal shop, fill it with 80s-era video games and sell beer. It's a wet dream for anti-social alcoholics.
When I walk inside Barcade, I notice not Galaga, Joust, Arkanoid and Donkey Kong Junior lining the walls, but deadly quiet. Okay, quiet may be misleading. There is the din of young hipsters slapping plastic buttons, computerized bleeps, beep and blips and an indie-rock soundtrack featuring the 6ths and Pavement. The problem: Conversation is deficient. The dude-heavy crowd is in video-game thrall. A few women sit at the several (and only) booths near the rear wall, chatting quietly, their faces lit by paper-bag-encased light bulbs.
"Looks like I'm going home alone," my friend Andrew says not so sadly, as he heads to play Galaga.
He could play all night. At Barcade, inflation avoids the refurbished arcade game: A joystick spin is just a quarter. Fourth-grade prices are paid for with post-collegiate jobs. Such jobs are necessary, for while games are cheap, drinking is not. The average pint hovers around an increasingly Brooklyn-standard five bucks. Happy hour is no bargain: a measly buck discount from 5 to 7 p.m. A saving grace, however, is Barcade's top-notch beers.
I would've contented myself to drink a college-reminiscent can of Natural Light, but more than 20 choice hops are on tap. Currently, exotic suds such as Abita Christmas Ale 2004, Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA and Southern Tier Oatmeal Stout are available. Bottom-shelf beer is Brooklyn Lager. Barcade even provides a bar-top menu with beer descriptions-and their alcohol content.
No wonder I'm slightly shit-faced after drinking a nine-percent alcohol Dogfish IPA. Inebriation makes me game, so I plop a quarter into 1943, a favorite World War II airplane fighter. Bullets fly and childhood hits me: sweaty palms, 100-yard stare, exclusion of outside stimuli. Twenty minutes evaporate before I wrench away, disappointed. My 20,500 tally falls short of the high score: 1,339,300, as announced by a ceiling-hung chalkboard charting top performances.
My companions are equally sucked into game land. Andrew keeps killing Galaga's aliens while Joe, a heretofore levelheaded young man with a yen for politics, has become a slack-jawed Super Mario zombie.
"I was 12 again," Joe says, back at the table. "I remembered every secret move, every hidden trick."
Childhood at your fingertips, useless obsession. It's exemplified by the game Tapper. I catch an acquaintance, the Jew-fro'd Jacob, playing it zealously.
"Man, Tapper is all about being the king tapper, know what I mean," he says. I glance at his machine: Oozing synergism, Bally/Midway and Budweiser created a game dedicated to a bartender serving frothy Budweiser beer. A Bud logo is displayed in the game's background as well as joystick.
Pouring rapid-fire pints for thirsty pixels, Jacob says, "These motherfuckers can never get too drunk."
Yeah, but I can. Two IPAs later, I've had my fill of beer and video games. Several substances, I've learned, best savored in small doses.