Several years ago at a party hosted by a very good friend it was decided that we should pull out some old board games and have at it… unfortunately, that old warhorse Risk won out over Monopoly, Sorry, and Clue…
The moment the decision was made the shit-talking commenced… The table was encircled and our own little Stanford Prison Experiment began… it has become my firm belief that Risk literally brings out one’s personality, one’s id, one’s devil, one’s dogma…
If I remember correctly, there were 6 of us… quite early in the game, various awkward alliances were formed… the men schemed and murdered each other with glee, the women built massive armies without attacking anyone… and of course, the men berated the women for their peaceful stances and encouraged them to attack their rivals… when the women finally obliged, they did so with guilt and much hesitance, apologizing every time they invaded another’s territory…
Not to suggest that all women are passive and all men are war-mongering Hessians… but in this group of people, the lines broke into these two camps…
Meanwhile… as the game flowed it became evident that the two alpha males (yours truly being one of them) were at loggerheads and this was becoming more than just a game… but a silly test of supposed “manhood.�
Unbeknownst to my rival, the objective of my secret mission card was his absolute destruction… all I had to do was vanquish him and I would win the game…
So… I went full bore… attacking him from all sides simultaneously while ignoring all of my other armies on other territories…
A hush fell over group… no one said a word as I began to take him apart… his face grew flushed and hot, not understanding why I was persecuting him and him alone, not understanding why I was bent on his destruction, not understanding why I was abandoning all of my other armies, along with any sense of fair play or decency… for a brief moment that evening I became either Attila the Hun or Donald Rumsfeld, you decide…
The dice kept rolling my way… and painfully and silently, without any emotion, I destroyed his army piece by piece over a period of 10 minutes (but it seemed like an hour)… When his last man fell I showed him that his ruin was merely the objective of my secret mission card… but by then the damage was done… he was seething… his girlfriend broke down in tears… and so began the downward spiral of a valued friendship…
My victory at that moment was quite bitter and not very satisfying at all… I could proudly stand on my mountain of shit and proclaim myself as king… while everyone else thought to themselves, “man, what a dick�…
I tried to justify the victory to myself, after all, he’d have done the same to me… no? The ends justified the means… after all, I was only following orders… the metaphors that could be drawn from this little scenario are endless… And after all, it was just a silly meaningless game of Risk, right?
Wrong…
Things were never the same between us after that… needless to say, we never played Risk again… the political and theological arguments became more heated and less friendly… manipulative insults were hurled, perceptions replaced reality and thus things were blown out of proportion and taken out of context… accusations were made regarding perceptions of a lack of support in each others artistic endeavors… insecurities bubbled through the core… immaturity and spite replaced love and respect…
He took a bride and moved to Oklahoma, without so much as a hug goodbye… and two prideful, stubborn, strong-willed foolish men eventually ended a precious 16 year friendship over resentments that began with a stupid fucking game of Risk…
I should have brought an Ouija board… it would have been a lot less trouble…