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Big Tony lived on the outskirts of Jersey City in a third-story one-bedroom apartment which smelled like burning plastic. He was ironically named because, although he was stocky, he was shorter than the average man. He used this fact to deliver humorous moral advice to young people with lines like "Take it from Big Tony: don't drink too much coffee or it'll stunt your growth," and "Hey, kid, don't smoke; it'll stunt your growth." For fifteen years, Big Tony owned and operated an automotive airbrushing company called "Rolling Rainbow Galleria." You know those highly stylized airbrush murals of cosmic Indians and intergalactic dolphins you used to see on the sides of vans and on the walls of roller rinks? That's the kind of stuff Big Tony used to make. Unfortunately, the demand for that style of work all but vanished by the end of the 80s. Around that time, it became all too clear to Big Tony that he had fallen far behind the technological curve. For instance, one day in 1993, Big Tony stopped in a mall record store to replace his worn vinyl album of Neil Diamond's Hot August Night. He was shocked to discover that the store no longer sold albums on vinyl. The clerk said "we've got it on compact disk," but Big Tony, in a rare display of passionate distress, told him he could "shove the compact version up his ass" because there wasn't a chance in hell he would ever "pay full price for a compact version of the second greatest album ever recorded." Most of the time, Big Tony had slept on the rollaway in the living room so his teenage daughter could have the bedroom to herself. But after she went away to school, he spent much of his time in that room on her old computer, playing a videogame called "Dragon Sword 2." You may find it difficult to believe that a man bewildered by the concept of the compact disk could have an affinity for a videogame, but to Big Tony, computers were nothing but crazy televisions. He didn't have a clue how they worked-- and God help him if his harddrive crashed-- but his daughter had shown him enough to allow him do the basic stuff. Regardless, it was through Dragon Sword 2 that Big Tony discovered the world of chat rooms, and it was through the world of chat rooms that I discovered Big Tony. Here follows a selection from the transcript of the first time I encountered Big Tony in the Dragon Sword 2 chat room. Big Tony's username was "bg_tny1972." Mine was "Alln01."
When Big Tony wasn't playing Dragon Sword 2 or talking in the chat rooms, he spent a lot of time alone reading the newspaper in that waffle place near the expressway. On most days, he sat in the orange booth near the kitchen. For a long time, a beautiful European girl worked there. She spoke only fragments of English and was probably younger than his daughter, but something inside of him caused Big Tony to believe that one day he would kiss that girl, and her youth and optimism would wash away his loneliness and fill the pothole of his heart with love. He visited that restaurant nearly every day for over eight months. Every visit was going to be the day he kissed her, but when the moment came, the voice inside his head would creep from the tunnel and whisper words of doubt and Big Tony would fail to find the courage. Then, one day, Big Tony arrived with his newspaper and learned that the beautiful European girl had left town, never to be seen in that part of the world ever again. It was right around this time that the Earth's orbit spun horribly out of control, causing NEO_TEXAS, the beautiful European girl, Big Tony's daughter, Neil Diamond, Big Tony, and the billions of other humans to freeze into a ten-million year cosmic snowcone. It was only through sheer dumb luck that I was able escape in the nick of time aboard Doctor Zarkov's rocket ship. Thus began my greatest adventure of all.
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