I, Hacker: Chapter 1, Part 1: “The Old House on Langston Street”

 
I feel old today. There's no poetic way to say it. No aching metaphor or wistful sigh. Just... old.

Fifty-four isn't ancient, but it’s far enough down the road that your bones start keeping track of the weather better than the forecast. My knees creak like neglected code. My fingers ache in the cold. My eyes blur at the exact point where the command line ends and the bug begins.

But the machine still works.

My Commodore 64 sits on the corner of my desk, covered in a soft gray film of time. I keep it plugged in — not out of sentiment, though God knows there's plenty of that — but because it still boots. Still runs. Still blinks that little blue screen with the blinking cursor like a heartbeat frozen in 1981.

That machine started everything.

It was a Wednesday. October 14, 1981. I turned eighteen in a house that smelled like damp drywall, off-brand dryer sheets, and desperation. We lived on Langston Street, second house from the corner, a squat two-bedroom rectangle in a neighborhood mostly held together by rust and hope.

My mother woke me up by banging a wooden spoon on the side of a saucepan. She never believed in sleeping in, not even on birthdays. Especially not on birthdays.

“Up!” she shouted from the kitchen. “You're officially an adult now. That means you get your own breakfast.”

I groaned, threw the blanket over my head, and immediately regretted it. The blanket smelled like socks and sadness. I kicked it off, rolled out of bed, and pulled on my jeans from the floor.

In the kitchen, the table was set for one. There was a stack of pancakes that looked like they lost a bar fight, a little square of margarine sliding off the top like a drunk sailor, and a birthday card standing upright next to a glass of orange Tang.

She stood at the counter in her old grocery store uniform, sleeves rolled, hair pulled up in a tight twist that was more functional than fashionable. Her hands were raw from work and bleach. Her back was always sore. But her eyes lit up when she saw me.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” she said. “Don’t look so miserable. You only turn eighteen once.”

“God willing,” I muttered, and she gave me the look — the one that said “I brought you into this world...” without saying a word.

I sat. The pancakes were... edible. The syrup was mostly corn syrup and chemicals. The Tang was warm. But I didn’t care. Because something was different that morning.

There was a box on the floor beside the table. Wrapped in faded comics pages from the Sunday paper, Scotch tape curling at the corners. The size and shape said maybe clothes, but the slight bow in the box said something heavier.

“Go on,” she said, biting back a smile. “Open it.”

I hesitated. We didn’t do gifts, not usually. Christmas might bring a book, maybe socks, if the heating bill wasn’t too high that month. My birthday usually meant a cupcake and a movie rental. This box felt... wrong. Too much.

“You didn’t—”

“Open it,” she interrupted. “Before I change my mind.”

I tore through the paper like a raccoon on a trash bag.

And there it was.

A brand-new Commodore 64. Still in the box. Still factory-sealed. With a datasette.

I looked at it, then looked at her. My mouth moved but no words came out.

She shrugged. “The guy at Radio Shack owed me a favor.”

“Jesus, Mom... this must’ve cost—”

“It’s your birthday. You’ve been talking about it for a year. I figured it was either that or a used car, and you sure as hell ain’t driving anything I can afford.”

I blinked. I didn’t know what to say. The words didn’t exist yet. Not the ones that would come later, with age and regret and clarity. I just sat there, stunned, fingers tracing the embossed logo on the box.

She reached out and squeezed my shoulder. Her fingers were strong, knotted with years of scrubbing floors and stocking shelves.

“You’ve always had a gift for these things,” she said. “Even when you were little, you liked taking apart the toaster more than eating toast.”

“I still like taking apart the toaster.”

She laughed. “Just don’t burn the damn house down.”

I took it to my room immediately.

My bedroom was a shrine to entropy: stacks of Popular Science and BYTE magazines, half-soldered circuits on every flat surface, wires hanging like urban ivy from the desk lamp. The window didn’t close all the way, so the wind brought in dust and the occasional smell of motor oil from the garage next door.

I cleared off space next to my tiny black-and-white TV. Plugged it in. Hooked it up. Inserted the first tape.

It powered on with a whirr and a buzz and a heartbeat-blue screen.

> READY.

The cursor blinked.

I blinked back.

And for the first time in my life, I felt like I was speaking a language no one had taught me — but I already knew