Chapter 41

Towards the end of October, Frannie had convinced me to go out to a few clubs out in town one night. We had a few drinks and danced a bit, and I was not real surprised when as we walked back to the barracks, she pulled me into a dark corner behind a building and pressed me against the wall. We had done this a few times by now, and as before we started kissing. But all we did was kiss.

Finally after an amazing span of time, she pulled back and looked into my eyes. “Pete, I need you for boyfriend duty in a couple of weeks.”

I closed my eyes and realized it was almost that time. “OK, that works for me. My Blues are already at the cleaners, so I will be wearing that. Are you wearing blues or a gown?”

“Blues, of course! I already got it updated, and I can’t wait!”

“Updated? Why, what needed to be updated?”

“Well, the hem on the skirt was off, and as of Monday I am getting promoted. Top already had me in his office and gave me the news. We will both be Corporals, so nobody can say shit about fraternization.”

We kissed a bit more after I congratulated her, and this time I let my hands move down to caress her ass slightly. We were both a bit breathless when we finally came up for a breather, and hand in hand I walked her back to her barracks.

And on Monday, we all took it easy on Corporal Delgado as she walked the gauntlet. While some gave her almost punishing blows, I did my tradition of just light taps. I could understand the tradition, but I refused to ever harm another, even in fun or as hazing. Especially a female, or a friend. And I made sure I was opposite Sergeant Jansen, as he also did not like pain as a tradition, and like me only gave taps for tradition.

During lunch under our tree Frannie even asked if I had not hit her because I was afraid she might get mad at me. “Nope, notice I did the same thing to Lance Corporal Singer also. I simply refuse to hurt others, unless there is a damned good reason. I have never hit somebody hard when they got promoted, just taps like that.”

“OK, I get that. I am kind of the same, not that I can hit all that hard in the first place.” We talked about the weekend coming up, and how much fun we were all going to have.

Finally it was the day before it started. We now had 25 members who volunteered to help run the convention and tournaments. We even arranged several speeches, talking about different aspects of games. Mine was on game basics and design, Frannie’s was on how females should not be afraid to play. Dottie and Donnie were a brother and sister still in High School, and were going to give one on games and learning.

And the bases were apparently flooded with announcements about the convention. AFRTS was running them at least twice an hour, and fliers had appeared on almost every bulletin board I saw. It was actually quite impressive. They had even made a voice-over announcement that was airing on the TV station.

On Monday night I called Brad, and he gave me the number for Riku, his Japanese agent. He told me it was a local number, so I promised to call the next day. And as soon as I got off work I went to one of the local payphones at the bowling alley and made a call. He spoke good English, and was apparently part of a group that owns a Japanese game company and acted as agents for many International game companies, including Brad and TSR. Primarily translating and publishing them in Japanese for a cut of the profit.

And he was right in Okinawa City. When I told him I had no other plans that night he told me to come to his hotel. It was a nicer one, and I finally got to meet him. He was in his 30s, and one of the first things he said was how much he had loved “Boken Nabasen”.

“Mr. Culver, I wanted to tell you that when Mr. Cummings sent us an early copy to review, we were blown away! You captured so much just right, with just enough pop culture thrown in to make it popular around the world, and to show you respect us.”

I insisted he call me Pete, and he smiled and said to call him Riku. And after asking if I had eaten we decided to go get something to eat. And when he told me he wanted to eat “American”, I laughed and directed him to the base. I had us pull into the Pass & ID office, where with his credentials he was able to get a one week pass to allow him on base. I had him pull into the Wendy’s, and he pigged out on two burgers. I then walked him around the exchange, and showed where we would be setting up.

He was surprised at how small it was, but I said it was the biggest thing we could get on such short notice. “We are still not sure how many will be here, people keep guessing somewhere between 150 people and 5,000. Me, I think it will be more like 1,000 to be honest over two days. But probably the most will be on the first day, then even less on the second.”

“Well, just remember that you never know. The first convention we held in 1982 outside Tokyo was in a place not much bigger than this. And we got around 7,000 showing up for it. The next year we moved from a small meeting room to a hotel. Can you even do that here?”

“Not sure, to be honest. There might be more on the island, we mostly are running it here because this is the biggest exchange on the island, and we had our weekly meetings in one of the rooms in the back. It is now the Okinawa Gamers Group, but it was originally the Kadena Wargame Club. And we do have a permanent building, it’s already to go in fact. Here, let me show you.”

I then directed him to the OGG Facility, and while small he was impressed. He really liked how we had set it all up, including volleyball, horseshoes, and shuffleboard outside as we had about a dozen tables of differing sizes inside. He looked at the small offering of games we had available, and said he would give me a booklet he had of all the games they offered.

“We also represent the companies with English games here. Many stores also cater to expatriate Americans and British, as well as College students learning English. And things like dice do not need language at all. I would like to be your major supplier, especially as we are so close. We can have things here in two or three days, unlike shipping from the US.”

“Well, that’s not my decision, but I will pass it along to Bobbi, she is actually in charge since this is no longer just a ‘game group’ but an official MWR function. But so long as the prices are competitive she will probably get things from your company. I’m basically on the advisory board. I can suggest things, but it is her decision and that of the rest of the board.”

He said that sounded good, and he was going to spend the next few days meeting contacts in game stores around the island, and see if he could get any other interest in them coming to see. “Too bad you don’t have room for a vendor’s area there, I could have had a big display if you did.”

“Well, that’s actually not really allowed. This is a non-profit operation really, everything has to be free. That is why all the prizes and gifts are donations, even the shirts we will be wearing and giving away. But I can have hopes that next year will be even bigger. And if so, we are going to be looking hard for a bigger place. This really is a test, in many ways. We are not aware of a ‘military base’ game convention being done before, nor an official group with their own building.”

“Well, you have a heck of a start here. And I am looking forward to seeing it grow. If nothing else because it gets me out of Tokyo in the winter and down here.”

We both laughed, and were soon driving back to his hotel. He said he would be back the night before the convention to drop off some more things and help us set up. And on Thursday night we had a final walk-through of the tournaments and exhibitions, and set up the tables as we wanted.

On Friday we all showed up early and got things set up. Lois worked with AFRTS, and said she had got two guys to work as a film crew. I also got her to work my camera, trying to catch the most important parts. She also handed me five videotapes, and told me it was edited from the footage I had given her the month before.

“It’s not bad Pete, but if you can somehow get two fixed cameras and a roving one it would be a lot better. But you do have a good eye. This will be a bit stiff but watchable.” Wow, high praise from Lois! She was always kinda anal about things like that, she took her job serious and wanted to be a news producer when she got out of the Army.

Then we spent about an hour shuffling things from the clubhouse to the exchange, and got them ready. We took a long dinner at the pizza place on base, and when the exchange closed we started to set up. We rolled in the TV that Bobbi had gotten us, and I put on one of the tapes.

And it did look a lot better. I even noticed that she had condensed it quite a lot, and would go back and forth between the different camera locations, with the audio from one and the video from another. It really did look a lot better, and I was impressed. The entire game had been condensed, taking just over an hour and a half. Quite a bit was left out, but the key parts were there. Including very well shot images of Mandy’s art.

And as the tapes were all the same thing, I handed one to Riku. “Here, this might be fun to watch. You can even show it at some conventions to show that we Gaijin like having fun with your culture also.” He thanked both of us and said he would probably be giving copies of it away.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Lois said. “Just make sure you leave on the logos and you can copy it all you want. Technically this was made by and for AFRTS, so it is kinda public domain. Give copies away, show it wherever you want. You just have to recognize us as the source is all.”

Finally, everything was ready. We had posters on the wall behind the table in the front, mostly from TSR, Brad, and Riku. And more in the game and tournament rooms, most of them placed where those particular tournaments would be held.

“Well guys,” I finally said at almost 11. “This looks about it, and if nothing else at least the place will not look empty. Go ahead and knock off for the night, but remember to be here by 8 tomorrow. The door opens at 9, and we have to be ready.”

I was at the exchange at just after 7 the next morning, having grabbed an egg muffin from the “to go” line at the chow hall and eaten it on the way over. Lois, Riku, and Frannie were already waiting for me, as was D&D (Dottie and Donnie), as well as Dorothy, the gal that would be the civilian that ran the clubhouse most days. Riku even passed around ashtrays, laughing that we had somehow missed that. And they all had his company logo on them, saying you could not have a game convention without ashtrays.

We had smokers in the group of course, but most just made do with empty soda cans. But that was a lot better. At around 8:30 some of the last members showed up, and when they knocked at the door I went to let them in.

And dear god, there must have been over 200 people outside waiting to get in And at 5 till, the manager of the exchange warned us to get ready. “Sir, is it normal to have this many waiting to get in the exchange?” I asked.

He just laughed. “Oh no, we might see three or four, I bet this is all for you guys.” And when he opened the door, the VCR was playing one of the tapes Gloria had made, and we were flooded.

Riku and Lois tried to keep count, but it was impossible. But I know we had gone through over 250 in the first three hours, because all of the shirts Brad had sent were gone before lunch. Every game we ran that day was full up, and I would walk through the rooms and laugh at seeing Marines and Airmen playing Candy Land. And I had thought including an adult age group in that was just a joke.

At 2 I gave the first presentation, standing at a podium that had been rolled out from the back. I thanked everybody for being there, and when I said I had hoped this would be an annual event the yells were deafening. And it was so again as I said that we had our own building, and held up one of the fliers and saying it described how to get there and the hours.