Page 48 of Insincerely Yours
We head upstairs, and sure enough, even as we’ve reached the third story, Mr. Rivers is still deep in conversation. Any sounds cut off as Jase shuts the door behind us, and I take in the living space.
The pitched gable roof doesn’t offer enough room for an entire third floor in the house’s layout, but it’s still plenty to make up a healthy living quarters. Hell, if converted, it could be made into a rental. In its current state, however, it clearly serves one purpose.
Entertainment.
A billiards table and mini fridge sit off to the side. Plenty inviting, but the main spectacle is the plush leather sofa and the line of theater-style lounge recliners positioned in front of a massive television.
Jase flips a switch on the wall, and all the shades draw closed on the windows, activating soft blue track lighting along the floor. He pulls out a key from his pocket and heads to the locked door in the corner of the living space. To my surprise, he waves me inside.
The same blue lighting illuminates what I suspect was supposed to be a bedroom, but there’s nothing but a desk and several tables filled with laptops, tablets, desktops, and gadgets I couldn’t begin to name. Several of the latter appear disassembled, leaving a pasture of nuts and bolts and what look like motherboards.
I gesture to the random sheets of curved metal. “Should I ask?”
Jase laughs, reawakening a computer monitor to reveal a screen filled with coding. “It’s just part of a project I’m working on.”
“Building a killer robot?” I hedge.
He grins. “Making a short animated film, actually. I photograph the textures I want to use so I can create maps with them instead of simulating from scratch.”
Jase grabs one of the tablets and opens a folder with what I realize are 3D characters and landscape mockups.
Holy shit.
“I’d like to become an animator one day, or maybe a video game developer,” he says, talking about some of his inspirations. I must look as confused as I feel, because he cuts himself off mid-sentence. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“My stepmom doesn’t let me watch animated movies or play video games. She says they’re ‘childish,’ so I only watch those movies when I know I’ll have the house to myself, and I can’t play video games to save my life.”
“Seriously?”
“My proficiency in gaming goes about as far as the Super Nintendo my sister and I found at a garage sale when I was six,” I admit. “Anything new, I have a hard time getting into. With my stepmom always breathing down my neck, I don’t have enough time to really get into it; and you have campaigns that go on for over a day, so it’s impossible for me to participate when I only ever get an hour here and there.”
I may not play video games or watch much animation, but I can still appreciate Jase’s graphics.
They’re incredible.
I tell him as much, gushing over the steampunk aesthetic added to what he describes what he has planned for the project. “Where did you learn to do this?”
He shrugs, but there’s a stiffness in his shoulders. “Self-taught. I’ve been fiddling with it for a few years.”
Fiddling?
He makes it sound as easy as playing around with some Photoshop filters.
“What do your friends think?” I ask.
Is it just my imagination, or is he blushing ever so slightly?
“I…haven’t shown anybody else,” he admits, “except my mom. But she framed the finger-paint doodles I did when I was three, so she’s a tainted juror as far as my talent goes.”
I can’t help but smile. “Yeah, I know the feeling. My mom did the same thing with the pictures I took after she bought me my first camera when I was four. I photographed anything and everything, so you’d see random pictures all around the house of people’s shoes and squirrels.”
“Were you close with her?”
I nod. “You?”
A little of his self-deprecating humor slides back into his voice as he leans in and whispers, almost conspiratorially, “I’m a bit of a Mama’s Boy.”
“And is animation the only thing this Mama’s Boy is up to?” I ask, unable to ignore a certain handful of gizmos littering his desk. “Because this is kinda looking a little likeMr. Robotin here.”
