The Professional Tourist by Noah Chinn

Author:Noah Chinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: working abroad, strong female character, new beginnings, japan, teaching
Publisher: Noah Chinn
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14 — Tie Club

“Naturally, everything possible cannot be included in the whole of this work. As a participant in the game, I would not care to have anyone telling me exactly what must go into a campaign and how it must be handled; if so, why not play some game like chess?”

E. Gary Gygax — Preface to the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (1st Edition)

Role-playing games had always had a stigma attached. Some people used to think the games were downright satanic. Back in the ’80s, some zealots rallied against the games, burned the books in big bonfires, pressured schools to ban students from playing them, and in general tried to scare the pants off regular God-fearing folk. Including Grandma Ruth. Especially Grandma Ruth.

Grandma Ruth had lived with Azrael’s family for as long as he could remember, and ran not only the house, but their lives. She was the reason he was named after the angel of death. His brother and sister had been lucky, they were born before Ruth completely lost it, and had been given more normal angel names, Raphael and Gabriel — though Gabriel was still saddled with the masculine spelling. Azrael’s mom revered Ruth, and his dad was the weakest man he’d ever known, giving up the right to name his own children just to avoid being nagged.

She only became more unhinged as time went on. She forbade cable TV in the house because of the “filth on the airwaves,” yet watched Joyce Meyer Ministries at 6am every morning on KVOS, the volume cranked loud enough to frighten off the devil.

Grandma Ruth took a particular interest in her grandchildren’s eternal souls. She monitored everything from her Perch of Judgment — the big green polyester chair in the corner of the living room. Everything they read or watched had to be preapproved by her. Raphael and Gabriel were a few years older than Az, and when they entered the world of dating, Az thought it might have been the Apocalypse.

She died while Az was in college. The last time Az saw her alive had been Easter. He’d come home to find two large suitcases packed. Ruth told him to pack as well, because it was the Rapture, and they were all going to heaven. The rest of the family had gone out to a movie, leaving her alone with her preparations. Az had stared at the suitcases and felt sick. She had become a pitiful figure rather than a terror.

But in her heyday she’d never been as terrifying as when she’d found a Conan comic book and dice from some board game in Az’s room. To this day he had a memory of Grandma Ruth wielding a flaming sword, mounted atop a great red horse, and was only half sure he’d imagined it. She thought he’d been role-playing Dungeons & Dragons. Joyce Meyer — and therefore God by proxy — said such games initiated the young into devil worship. Apparently Hell needed more nerds.

Now they said the same thing about Harry Potter.

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