Chương 6: Chapter 4: The Barrister

Beep~beep~ding~

Early in the morning, Dean was awakened by a series of annoying beeps and dings. He squinted and glanced over.

It was his cousin, Jerry. At that moment, he was staring at the computer screen with bloodshot eyes, while his hands rapidly tapped away at the keyboard.

And each time his fingers struck a key, the speaker below the monitor emitted various "ding ding" sound effects.

"Jerry, don't tell me you didn't sleep all night?" Dean lazily turned over, his eyes still half-open.

"Dean, Mario Brothers is really fun, but Nintendo really are vampires.

Can you believe a ported game cartridge that's already been released in Japan is selling for $34.99 in America?! Why don't they just go rob people?"

Hearing Jerry's rant, Dean, lying in bed, couldn't help but smirk.

Truth be told, when he heard last night that a rehashed cartridge was selling for 35 bucks, he couldn't help but marvel at how Nintendo was shearing consumers with such finesse.

In Jerry's words, "I pay only 4 dollars for a session of adult pay-per-view and get to enjoy a thoroughly satisfying release. 35 dollars? That's enough for 8 sessions!"

Especially for kids from working-class families like them, 35 dollars was indeed expensive.

That's where Dean's skill came in handy. Give him a computer with network service, and he could find a way to play Nintendo games for free.

This was what Jerry called one of Dean's special tricks. As one of the earliest geeks of the era, tasks like these were a breeze for him.

After all, the title of geek wasn't given for nothing, although to the big companies, perhaps calling them hackers would have been more fitting.

What Dean did was simple—he wrote an application that emulated the NES console, commonly known as an emulator.

Then he'd go to BBS forums to find the corresponding game data sources, and they could play various console games for free.

Of course, in the spirit of information sharing—a creed among hackers of the time—everyone would share their created programs on forums without charge for mutual exchange and use.

Dean shared his own emulator for free, and another group of hackers would share the game data sources they had extracted in specific sections of the forum.

This way, as long as there was mutual assistance, everyone could enjoy various expensive cartridge games for free.

However, to avoid trouble, such sharing was only conducted within specific, tight-knit circles and had to be completely free of charge.

Additionally, the tasks were clearly divided: some created emulators, others extracted game data, and some shared keys.

By splitting the game cracking process into several independent steps carried out by different individuals, it didn't count as piracy.

Besides, laws about the internet were not yet well-developed during this era, so this was a legal gray area.

And now, the emulator Jerry was using was a program that Dean had written in the past.

Just the previous night, Dean had simply re-downloaded it from a BBS forum.

However, the network service provided by Ohio's AmeriConnect was too slow now, measuring speeds in Kb.

A software package less than a megabyte, along with a dozen game data sources, took nearly half the night to download. Keep in mind, current game cartridges only used about a hundred Kb of memory or so each, their combined size was quite small.

To download these files, a four or five-hour Internet fee was unavoidable. The network service, charged by the hour at $2.99 each, required dial-up connectivity before each use.

Although Aunt Rachel's phone bill would increase by over ten dollars next month, it was all worth it.

With these dozen games, Jerry would have enough to thoroughly enjoy his entire winter break, which was also the reason for his red eyes.

"By the way, Jerry, don't you have class today?" Seeing it was already past eight o'clock, Dean decided to get up and get ready to wash up.

"Today's Saturday, Dean." Jerry continued to be engrossed in Mario beyond all control.

Well, since Dean didn't have to go to school before the New Year anyway, he really hadn't paid attention to what day of the week it was.

After freshening up in the bathroom, Aunt Rachel's voice calling them downstairs for breakfast drifted up from below.

At the breakfast table, Aunt Rachel prattled non-stop, complaining about another Youngstown factory closing down, or some mall planning to move away due to continued losses.

"Ever since Black Monday, the whole city seemed to have contracted cancer. Every day I can sense there are fewer and fewer people here, and it's slowly dying."

Aunt referred to Black Monday as September 19th, 1977 in Youngstown, Ohio. That day, the largest factory in the Mahoning Valley, the Campbell Works of the Sheet and Tube Company, shut down.

Its closure was like a signal. In 1980, the America Steel Corporation plant shut down, in 1981, the McDonald Works shut down, and in 1982, the Republic Steel mill shut down.

Without exception, all these factories were located around Youngstown, leading to a sharp decrease of over forty thousand jobs in the past decade.

The loss of jobs caused the population of Youngstown in the '70s, which was one hundred and forty thousand, to dwindle to just over ninety thousand today.

White families who were capable and had decent family conditions all left, leaving behind people of color and the lower class of white people.

Dean's family and Aunt's family were among those who stayed, partly because they had grown up here.

Besides, they didn't know where else to go. Their educational level, not having graduated from high school, didn't leave them with many choices. Staying in Youngstown, at least they still had a job.

If they impulsively moved down South, they might end up a homeless family, only living on government welfare.

This was undoubtedly shameful, especially for the white people who grew up during the baby boom. They firmly believed that they could achieve the American dream with their own hands.

However, although they stayed in Youngstown, Aunt's family was barely maintaining their middle-class dignity.

Uncle Frank worked as a supervisor in a moving company, earning 13.5 US dollars an hour. Aunt Rachel had a part-time job as a cashier at the newly opened Walmart supermarket, earning 7.5 US dollars an hour.

In 1988, the federal minimum wage was set at 3.35 US dollars. Theoretically, their salaries seemed decent enough to live up to the middle-class title.

But having such hourly wages didn't mean they could work a full eight hours every day.

Especially Aunt Rachel, who averaged only three to four hours of work a day, at which point someone would come to relieve her.

After all, part-time cashiers like her signed outsourcing contracts, only needed to appear during the busiest times of the day, and were unnecessary at other times.

Therefore, Aunt's family was just getting by financially. Subtracting mortgage payments, living expenses, and Debbie's college fees, there was very little left.

In the midst of Aunt's prattling, Dean hurriedly ate a few slices of bread and drank a glass of milk before heading off to Wood Street in the south of the city, the location of Matthew Wedner's law firm.

After hearing Frank's introduction last night, Dean had decided to talk to the union lawyer today, as the matter was better sooner than later.

Initially, Frank wanted to go with him but was politely refused by Dean. Saturdays and Sundays were the busiest times for the moving company, and Frank usually couldn't get away.

Besides, the law firm was also in the south of the city and not far from here, so after some consideration, Frank and Rachel agreed to Dean's suggestion to go alone.

With Dean's sharp mind, dealing with the lawyer should be a piece of cake, something Frank and the others naturally thought.

However, before leaving, Frank gave Dean an MCI calling card, instructing him to call his office for any issues.

...

At Wood Street, Dean found the unassuming storefront in a somewhat suspicious area on the edge of the southern part of town, the address listed on the business card.

The reason it seemed suspicious was that the place looked as deteriorated as the east side of town.

Around the law firm, there were yellow-painted protective boards everywhere, which landlords usually nailed up on unoccupied buildings.

The spaces not covered by these protective boards would soon be covered in graffiti. Higher windows would get broken by stones thrown from unknown sources, leaving behind ghastly large holes.

Dean had never known that the south side could have such places, fitting perfectly with his image of the east and north sides of town.

He looked again at the sign hanging on the storefront window, "Matthew Wedner Law Firm—Real Estate, Civil Litigation, Family Law, Corporate Law..."

Well, it seemed this law firm didn't turn away any clients. It was a true jack-of-all-trades.

Jack-of-all-trades referred to those lawyers willing to take on various cases without specializing in a specific field. They are the ones barely scraping by in the legal profession.

Obviously, this was not a term of endearment. Dean scrutinized the law firm with a frown.

"I guess someone needs legal help?" Just when Dean was wondering if he had come to the wrong place, a middle-aged man wearing a pinstripe suit with his collar casually open appeared at the storefront entrance.

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