Shot by His Father and Left Blind—Now He’s a Hardcore Gamer

I’ve never been to Ross Minor’s apartment, so when I first arrive, I’m not sure I’ve got the right place. I look again at the text he sent me a couple of minutes ago. The apartment number and address seem right, but when I peer through the window, all the lights are off, and—

I immediately feel stupid. I knock.

Within moments, I hear someone coming down the stairs. Minor greets me at the door with a firm handshake. I step inside, but I don’t go past the entrance, because it’s too dark to see anything. “Everyone tells me the lighting in here sucks,” Minor says, apologetically. “Hold on.” He disappears down the hallway and I hear a click. “How’s this?” I can see his face now. Square jaw. Meticulously trimmed mustache. Blond hair. Friendly blue eyes, though they aren’t focused on me.

I’m here to talk to Minor about his unusual career trajectory (do you know any other world-class swimmers who left the sport to go make video games?), but he doesn’t want to stay in his apartment. He wants to go get pizza, and there’s a spot nearby he’s never been to. “The reviews look great,” he assures me. We walk out the door, and he leads the way: left at the grocery store, right at the corner, another right at the wine bar. A woman waiting at a crosswalk looks at Minor, then at his white cane, and stares for a moment, before shouting past me, over the noise of the traffic, in a tone she probably intends to sound encouraging: “You sure are brave to cross this intersection like that.”

“What other choice do I have?” Minor replies, and smiles. The woman doesn’t answer. She looks away. Minor is still smiling.

Ross Minor wasn’t born blind. One night in 2006, as he and his older brother slept in their bedroom, his father, angry after being threatened with a divorce, walked in and shot Minor and his brother in the head. Then he turned the gun on himself. Minor woke up in the hospital, where he was told that his brother and father were both dead. Minor couldn’t see the person who told him this.

The bullet had passed through Minor’s right temple and out the other side of his head, lodging itself in the palm of his hand. On its way, it destroyed his left eye and cut the nerve of his right, leaving him completely blind. He had just celebrated his eighth birthday.