A 47-minute train ride to Port Authority from my apartment. Floor 3. I purchase a Zone 5 round-trip bus ticket for $17.53—two zones (and two price bumps) higher than necessary, because I am a fool. I board the bus and sit in traffic for 42 minutes, eating an entire Sunrise Mart “Three Treasures” bowl in less time than the song I was halfway through when I boarded. I get off at my stop, walk a mile along the side of a highway, then arrive at my destination. It takes 22 minutes to cross the parking lot—33,000 parking spaces—and reach the core: the American Dream.
The American Dream mall is a stimuli prison built over nearly 20 years, starting in 2003. Its development angered both environmentalists and New Jerseyans with its massive footprint and looming thundercloud of traffic and congestion. Sprawling at 3,000,000 square feet, the American Dream is home to a Ferris wheel, a ski slope, a water park, a movie theater, an ice rink, a bowling alley, VR cliff-jumping, an aquarium, a 20,000-square-foot, two-story Toys “R” Us (which I had thought was defunct), and “a 60-foot fashion fountain that can be turned into a catwalk in a matter of seconds.” I could go on ad nauseam: this place is nutso.
Inside, I’m greeted by the dull echo of hundreds of voices reverberating through the mall’s caverns, creating a brown-noise sound bath that washes over me. It feels somewhat like a casino—time doesn’t exist, or at least pretends not to. Passing through an open space where a dozen or so people are waiting to spin a giant prize wheel, a teen mounted on a rhino-shaped plush electric cart zips past, followed by two younger companions on foot, screaming: “REAL KNIGHTS, REAL FIGHTS! REAL WEAPONS! REAL WINS AND REAL LOSSES!” Nice. I follow.
I trail this group in laps around the mall. On each pass, a 20-something man selling phone cases goads the hawker: “Scream it louder, no one can hear you,” sporting the unmistakable grin of a troll. Whether in jest or not, it works every time. The volume climbs to increasingly alarming levels; the kids are red in the face. By the final lap, the crowd parts to make way for the sword-brandishing knight on a scooter, two yelling children, and me.
We arrive at the ice rink—currently iceless—where production staff are milling about. A dueling platform is being set up. Live broadcast equipment is installed on multiple floors. Announcers post selfies on social media. Anticipation is building. There’s going to be an eight-person battle royale, single-elimination tournament—in full medieval armor, with real weapons. Real knights. Real fights. And presumably, real wins and real losses.
A crowd begins to gather along the balconies above the rink. These upper floors double as the food court, so they might just be here for dinner. The tournament itself moves quickly. Each match consists of three one-minute bouts, with a minute of rest between. Given that each knight is wearing over 100 pounds of armor plus weapons—swords, axes, maces, polearms, glaives—and that many of them stand around 7 feet tall and weigh between 265 and 550 pounds, this checks out.
The first eliminated is a fighter going by the name “Suge Knight.” Need I say more? “Simply Samurai” and “Sir Gregor” both sustain injuries—the former sliced across the right brow, the latter leaving with one arm in a sling. According to them, that’s par for the course.
The champion of the evening is a fighter named “Bohus.” It’s his first time in the United States, and his first time competing with this organization. Nearly all participants had traveled from across the country—or, in the winner’s case, across an ocean.
This tournament plays out like a twisted “American Dream” parable in its own right: pull yourself up by your bootstraps—or sabaton straps (sabatons are armored medieval shoes)—journey across rivers and plains to your local mega-mall, and fulfill your destiny.
Watching real knights bash each other with steel inside a mall built on debt and fantasy was like stumbling into a Renaissance fair inside a dying star. Maybe this is what the dream looks like now: not prosperity, not even survival, but spectacle, endurance, and the will to keep swinging.