At Jackie’s house I discovered my first love—war.

My mom dropped me off at her place, a plain ranch-style nearby. You couldn’t distinguish it from the other panel houses on the block except for a garden next to the parking pad. It was dotted with cactus and agave—bold choices given Flagstaff’s snowy winters—and some stacked rocks painted different shades of green and blue to match the plants. When I went inside, I met her mom for all of thirty seconds. She was a stout woman, probably in her late thirties, but with graying hair and a face beyond her years. Nothing really struck me about her that day except her elaborate turquoise necklace. Later Jackie would tell me her family on the reservation made that kind of jewelry. But that didn’t matter then. Almost right away, the two of us went off to Jackie’s room. We talked, played, did whatever weird nonsense kids do for a while. Eventually her mom came in to check on us.

“Why don’t you kids go outside,” she said. “It’s a nice day. Jackie, you should introduce your friend to Michael.”

“Okay!”

Jackie took my hand and led me through the open screen door to their backyard.

Playing in the dead, matted grass was Michael—tall, tough-looking, two years older, twisting Optimus Prime’s head into an ant hill. Once he got it sufficiently lodged into the dirt, he ran over towards us, grabbed a kick ball, and threw it halfway across the yard. It whammed into the robot’s ostriched body. Despite our hopes, it didn’t fly into the air or explode into ants and plastic and dirt, but it made a pretty satisfying pop with the ball’s rubber clang. Regardless, it sent Jackie and I into hysterics. After a minute, she yelled at him through tears of laughter.

“Michael! Don’t break your toys!”

“Shut up! You’re not Mom!”

“I will be someday!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When I’m all grown up and have kids, you’ll have to respect me like our mommy!”

She crossed her arms with this smug look on her face. She looked like a sassy version of the history textbook mockups of gladiators in the Colosseum.

“Whatever. Who are you?”

He turned to me with a look of curiosity, his brown eyes looking me up and down, probably suspicious of the unstained white stripes on my Lacoste shirt.

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“I’m Andrew! Nice to meet you.”

I stuck my arm out—stiff elbow, stiff wrist—following my dad’s example of civility. He shook my hand with limp confusion.

“Do you like to play war?” Michael said.

“War?”

“Oh you’ll love this!” Jackie almost squealed. She jumped up and down screaming “War! War! War!”

“Okay, let me show you,” Michael said. He got the Transformer. “Take this and set it up as a target. I’ll show you the rules.”

He handed it to me.

I held it with both hands. Even with the rubber marks and grass stains, the colors were unbelievable. The most electric shade of red dominated it, and to this day I don’t think I’ve seen a shade of navy that looked so bright. Earth plastics might still be the best you can find.

My parents never let me have toys like that because they thought they promoted violence. If I ever asked for action figures, or Nerf guns, or video games, my dad usually launched into a rant about ‘preserving the fragility of childhood psychology,’ so I learned to stop mentioning toys that weren’t plushy or educational.

“Okay, so what we do is we come up with a story for the toys,” he said. “Then either we have to battle them, or they battle each other.”

“But they have to be real battles!” said Jackie. “You can’t make it up.”

I went to set up the Transformer by a big bush. When I got back, Jackie handed me a faded wiffleball.

“You have to hit him if we’re going to win,” Michael told me. “Otherwise, the robots could take over the backyard. Then we’d have to go inside to regroup. If we win, then we can go on the offensive, maybe blow up their HQ!” At that he pointed to the side of the house, where a couple of toys were clumped next to a garden hose.

I nodded, then stepped back. I was never a particularly athletic kid. I didn’t like sports growing up. I never really started working out until I got to Mars, when I needed the extra strength.

But I knew I had to take the shot seriously.

I stepped back and held the ball close to my face—like I’d see the pitchers do when my dad put on Diamondbacks games. I closed one eye. I stuck the ball out in front of me to line up the shot. I was feeling good. I had my sights right on Optimus’ dirt crusted head. So I wound up. And I threw it.

Straight into the bush. Not even close.

“Retreeeeeeeat!” Jackie screamed and grabbed the two of us and ran inside.

We were all laughing and yelling about “The robots! The robots!” when Jackie’s mom came into the kitchen.

“You kids and your games,” she mocked with a smile. “You better not break all those toys we give you. I’m not replacing anything you two break with all these battles.”

“Don’t worry Mom!” Jackie and Michael said in unison, pulling me into the living room.

When I went home that evening, my head was swimming with stories of robot armies and sleeper agents and double crossing. We must’ve gone through more generational conflicts than this continent has ever seen in the span of one afternoon. I’d never had so much fun. At first, I thought they just had better toys. But after about a week once Jackie and I started playing with Michael at recess, I realized it was having a sibling. A partner in crime. Someone to play out all your schemes whenever you wanted.

I wasn’t going to let biology stop me. I wasn’t going to be some lame kid with an imaginary friend, but why couldn’t I have my own wars? Turn my toys and characters into brothers and sisters. I got to work, slowly but surely building a world and, more importantly, a battlefield in my bedroom. I didn’t have the action figures, but I staged some intense conflict with my stuffed animals and childproof microscopes.