333 Miles
Thirty Years. Halfway to Nowhere. All the Way to Vegas.
Craig Birk
333 Mile Publishing
San Francisco, CA
Copyright 2010 by 333 Mile Publishing
Smashwords Edition
All Rights Reserved
Published by 333 Mile Publishing, San Francisco, California
This book is fiction. Not all information should be considered accurate. Creative liberties have been taken with data, names, places and information.
Author's note: All characters depicted in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.
All characters and events are purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental and accidental. All celebrity references are fictional and unendorsed.
LCCN: 2010922166
ISBN: 978-0-615-32307-7
Cover Art by: Jessica Whiteside
www.jessicawhiteside.com
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my parents for providing the love, support, and environment to create a life full of opportunity.
Thank you to my gorgeous wife for helping me to slowly see the real meaning of beauty.
Thank you to my friends for all the good times. We have been blessed.
Thank you to the three guys who employed me for a long time. I grew up there in many ways, and it was a lot of fun.
Chapter One
Another Friday
Friday, October 13th, 2006 - 1:22 p.m.
“Turn around bitch I got a use for you
Besides, you ain’t got nothin’ better to do…
And I’m bored”
– It’s So Easy, Guns N’ Roses
On a wooden park bench, commanding a panoramic view spanning the blue vastness of the Pacific Ocean and the shoreline up to Torrey Pines, stood a healthy four-year-old seagull. The gull had no name. He did have a long, solid, yellow beak with a curved orange stripe toward the end. Despite his general vigor, like many of his fellow Americans, the seagull was visibly overweight.
The gull slowly stretched his neck toward the sky, then shook his head profusely and opened his yellow beak widely four times in rapid succession, but no noise was emitted. He was not enjoying the ocean view. Instead, he was intently focused on a nearby Mexican-American family sitting atop a large diagonally patterned red and yellow blanket. The family, consisting of a mother, a father, a nine-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, had just finished a hearty lunch of burgers and fries. The parents, both of whom were significantly more overweight than the seagull, had already consumed the entirety of their food. The small girl, however, had apparently lost interest in the second half of her bag of fries. Herein lay the seagull’s primary object of desire.
The bird relied on human interaction for much of his food and had developed very useful stereotypes. Most importantly, the younger, smaller humans were much more likely to mount an attack. But these advances were nearly always harmless and could be ignored or easily evaded. Signs of a physical assault by the larger ones, while rare, should be taken very seriously. He also developed a knack for knowing which humans would stay in one place for a long time and which would change locations more frequently, thereby providing greater access to unattended food. As the gull expected, within minutes, this family had shifted several feet away from the blanket and began kicking a ball back and forth to one another. Lighter-skinned humans usually chose to entertain themselves by passing objects about using their arms, while the darker ones preferred to use their legs. Because of this, the lighter ones tended to be more accurate and dangerous when they threw rocks at the bird, a most annoying and seemingly pointless activity, but an unfortunately common one. All female humans, although they engaged in the throwing of rocks just as often as the males, were essentially harmless. The much darker people, who were quite rare at Ellen Browning Scripps Park in La Jolla, did not usually partake in the passing of objects games and tended to represent a low threat level.
Unlike humans, seagulls do not waste the obvious opportunities life presents. The seagull first used his legs to jump of the bench, and then flapped his wings in three short bursts, achieving an altitude of five feet. From there, he descended quickly, covering the remaining fifteen feet to the red and yellow target in just a few seconds. The gull landed immediately next to the half-eaten bag of fries, grabbed it with his healthy beak and flew back to his bench, careful to ensure the bag remained upright so none of the fries were spilled.
Just beyond the park, below a small cliff, light waves peacefully blanketed a rocky beach, infusing a soundtrack only the ocean is capable of. The air in the park was warm and sweet, with just enough humidity to create a soft, pleasant sense of tangibility. A faint smell of cut grass joined forces amicably with the aroma of seawater. In the middle of a brilliant blue sky, whose shade grew slightly lighter further out toward the horizon, the sun was well positioned to overlook every detail. A few miles up the coast, two medium-sized, puffy white clouds imperceptibly made their way inland. The sense of peace was palpable. It was a very average San Diego afternoon.
Regardless, the seagull did not have the luxury of enjoying a leisurely meal, and he gulped down the remaining fries vengefully. Once finished, undisturbed by humans or other birds, he allowed himself a moment to relax. He again stretched his neck towards the sky, and then settled into a resting position to survey the scene. Thirty seconds later, content with all aspects of life, the seagull again jumped off the bench and took flight. His path led him over the ocean and he looked downwards as he passed over the small cliffs which divided the park and the sea. He lifted his head back up and continued flapping his wings to gain altitude for the next thirty seconds, continuously venturing farther from shore. Once satisfied with his height, the bird banked sharply to the right and began a swooping turn back toward land. At an altitude of forty-five feet, he crossed back over the northeast end of the park and seconds later passed over the Grande Colonial hotel. With no particular destination in mind, the seagull veered to the right again, now peering down at a newly opened restaurant on the site of the old La Jolla Hard Rock Cafe. While doing so, he noticed a slightly uncomfortable feeling in his stomach that was no doubt caused by the greasy fries.
The seagull veered left in a southern direction over Girard Avenue and then made a right over Pearl Street. With minimal effort but significant relief, he paused between flapping his wings and ejected a large quantity of excrement. Like a fighter plane on a bombing run, the gull banked hard back to the right immediately after releasing his payload and headed back to the park to look for more food.
The poop began its descent toward land at a sixty-five degree angle relative to the earth but quickly flattened into a straight downward trajectory. Twenty feet from impact, the poop broke into two pieces, with the smaller piece drifting slightly to the left in the breeze.
At 1:28:13 p.m., Alex Reine was purposefully walking down La Jolla Boulevard. Despite being the fourth most profitable “Financial Advisor” at Pantheon Capital’s San Diego branch at only thirty years of age, Alex still did not have a parking spot in the company garage. Parking spots were the final remaining benefit awarded on the basis of seniority rather than profitability. Thus, Alex had to leave the building and walk four blocks to a paid parking lot if he needed something out of his car, usually change to buy Diet Coke from the vending machine. While annoyed about the $180 a month the spot cost him, he liked having an excuse to get outside and take a short walk a few times a day.
Alex wore a grey Joseph Abboud suit with barely noticeable thin blue lines forming a wide checker pattern. It perfectly matched the brown Fratelli Rossetti shoes he bought in Milan last summer, which were currently his favorite pair even though he usually preferred black shoes. Tucked in the back of his violet Thomas Pink tie was an Apple iPod nano. When Alex first saw that they made a tie designed to hold an iPod, he exclaimed to the girl he was with at the time that it was “gay” and wondered, “What are things coming to?” Since then, however, he had come around on the idea and he now owned three ties with the multi-functional design.
It’s So Easy, by Guns N’ Roses played on the earbuds connected to the iPod at a volume loud enough to enjoy but low enough not to block Alex totally from the outside environment. Observing the world from behind a pair of vintage Wayfarer sunglasses, he quietly sang along:
“It’s so easy, easy
When everybody’s tryin to
Please me baby
Yeah, it’s so easy, easy,
When everybody’s tryin to please me
So eaaaasy . . .
But nothing seems to please me”
A minute later, just as It’s So Easy transitioned into Nightrain, Alex arrived at the corner of La Jolla Boulevard and Pearl. On the northeast corner lay the one true fast food chain restaurant in downtown La Jolla – Jack in the Box. He paused for a second on the sidewalk, running his hands through his short, slightly wavy, dark-blondish hair which he once proclaimed to be “like Mark McGrath’s.” He received so much ridicule for this comment that he never mentioned it again, even though he continued to believe it was a valid comparison.
Alex put a lot of effort into maintaining his looks and was fully aware of the many benefits they afforded him. This was equally true with girls, clients and co-workers. Alex stood barely over six feet tall. However, due to a magnetic personality, frequent use of an engaging fake laugh/smile, and an ability to fully integrate his hands and body into his speech, most people remembered him as taller. Alex was equally as comfortable lunching at the yacht club with retired multi-millionaires as he was playing one-dollar liars dice in a dive bar with the surfer crowd in Pacific Beach. People usually liked Alex largely because he liked himself.
He worked out at least five times a week and was careful what he ate. These efforts, while successful overall, were forced to compete with a robust alcohol intake and frequent Jack in the Box visits. Alex considered if he could justify one now. He remembered he had a salad for dinner the night before and completed a three-mile run before work.
As he deliberated, a small piece of bird poo landed harmlessly in the bushes next to him. Two tenths of a second later, a larger piece landed directly on the left Fratelli Rossetti, covering the brown leather with white and yellowish goo.
Some cultures consider it a good omen to be hit by bird shit, but Alex was unaware of this and would not have agreed in any case. He generally considered himself to be a lucky person and was vexed at his misfortune. “Cock Goblin!” he pronounced loud enough to hear himself over the iPod. Anger overcame surprise and misfortune, but by the time Alex located his assailant, the seagull had began an aggressive descent to the right and was already far out of range of any potential revenge.
The sequence of events left Alex little choice but to enter the Jack in the Box in order to clean his shoe. It would be silly not to enjoy lunch there as well. He reached under his tie with the intention of stopping the iPod, but changed his mind at the last moment and instead turned up the volume and fast forwarded in order to listen to the first thirty seconds of My Michelle.
The interior of the Jack in the Box was nearly perfectly square-shaped. The registers were thirty-five feet from the front entrance. Just about everything in the restaurant was red, white, black or yellow. Alex noticed the same was true of In-n-Out, McDonalds (only with more yellow of course), Carl’s Jr. (again with more yellow) and Burger King. He wondered if there was something about this color scheme that encouraged burger eating. At one of the half-booth/half-tables on his right, a twenty-three-year-old, slightly overweight, blonde girl was struggling to get her two kids to consume their food items without wiping the condiments all over their Old Navy clothes. There were no other occupied tables, which was strange because it was still within the range of normal lunch hours.
When Alex emerged from the bathroom minutes later, his shoes looking almost newly polished, two registers were open. An obese lady (crazy, gigantic fat actually), wearing some kind of huge denim skirt with a black shirt, and who may have been about thirty-five years of age, was ordering at the one on the right.
The left register was empty. From the opposite side of the restaurant, a fortyish man with some type of muscular disability, wearing acid-washed jeans and a classic wife-beater shirt, was lurching heavily toward it. The man was about fifteen to twenty feet away from the available register and was making steady progress despite his handicap. Alex broke into a medium-speed trot and successfully overtook him, gaining the front spot and feeling somewhat relieved he would not have to wait for anyone else to order before him. He was completely oblivious to the fat lady observing him with a disgusted look on her face, her stringy brown bangs held out of her face with one of her pudgy hands.
The cashier working Alex’s register was a short Mexican male in his late twenties. His name was Jose, according to the red and white name tag attached to his uniform. Though the Jack in the Box employee English as a Second Language program, Jose had become a fluent English speaker over the past two years. In another six months, he would be promoted to shift manager and make more money per month than he ever imagined when he lived just over the border in Tecate, Mexico. So much money, in fact, that it would exceed what Alex earned in a typical day.
At restaurants, Alex always made an effort to be courteous and to make eye contact with the servers. This practice was the result of a date he had when he was twenty-six in which the girl told him that one of her primary ways to judge a guy was to see how he treated the help. “Because that is probably how he is going to treat me in five years,” she explained cheerfully between bites of a papaya salad.
The comment stuck with Alex, but he did not afford the same respect to fast food cashiers. “Two-tacos-and-a-sourdough-Jack-with-no-mayo-and-a-medium-Diet-Coke please,” Alex requested in rapid speech, all while leaning back and staring at the black menu with little white letters and numbers and pictures of various meal combinations above the cashier’s head. The words ran together, taking only two seconds to come out of his mouth.
Nine highly satisfying minutes later, Alex sucked down the last sip of the Diet Coke and re-read for the fourteenth time the paper insert inside the red tray his food was served on. He was by now vaguely aware of its message: it seemed Jack (a tall guy wearing a suit who possessed an abnormally big, round, white head) felt there was a valid comparison between the restaurant’s new sandwiches and those served in the cafes in Saint-Tropez. Alex made a weak mental note that he should try to see Saint-Tropez before he turned thirty-five and would be too old to really enjoy it. Realizing that one probably needs a yacht to do that particular trip properly, he cursed himself lightly for not making more money. Then he made a mental note to try and make more money. This thought led to the realization that he should probably go back to work.
“Donkey Punch,” he thought to himself.
After checking his Tag Heuer watch (he had one with a blue face like the one in the Tiger Woods ad, though he really only wanted one after he saw Maria Sharapova promote the women’s version) he sat back in his red plastic chair and exhaled deeply. He subconsciously Al Bundied his right hand halfway into his pants, the lower part of his palm resting on his stomach outside of his Armani dress shirt. He scanned the interior of the Jack in the Box and focused in on the fat lady from the register. She was struggling to scoop out the last of the fries from her jumbo-sized container because her hand did not fit cleanly inside of it. He noticed with some revulsion that it appeared she had already eaten one Jumbo Jack and still had a Sourdough Jack waiting on deck. All of this was being washed down with a large vanilla shake.
Alex simultaneously grimaced and said quietly aloud to himself, “Gross.” He sat up and exited the restaurant. Energized by the meal and invigorated by the sunshine, Alex found himself in a very good mood, feeling pleased with himself and his life and no longer bothered by the unfortunate seagull incident. He checked the Tag Heuer again, which now showed that it was 1:40 p.m. Most of the more successful brokers took Friday afternoons off to play golf or drink beers. Alex usually worked diligently until at least five o’clock, finding that this was a good time to get ahead on things without being bothered much. Today, however, he distinctly did not feel like being back in the office.
He retrieved his Motorola Razr cell phone out of his pants pocket, hit the contacts button and scrolled down to “Deez Nutz,” which was sandwiched between “Danielle” and “Dianna.” Danielle he had gone out with three times, fucked once, and then took on an ill-fated trip to Rosarito where they both got food poisoning from the taco shop outside of the hotel and took turns using the bathroom for the next twenty-four hours. They did not go out together again. He had no idea who Dianna was. “Deez Nutz” was really Mike Bochner, Alex’s best friend from college. Alex pressed the green Send button.
Chapter Two
The Cubicle
1:41 p.m.
“So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.”
– Peter Gibbons, Office Space
When the phone rang, Mike Bochner was sitting in his cubicle on the third floor of the nondescript beige Qualcomm headquarters building in Mira Mesa, about fifteen miles north of downtown San Diego. He was subtly picking his nose with his left hand and playing a miniature golf video game embedded into a popup Orbitz ad with his right hand. Though the ceiling of the room was eleven feet high, his cubicle was exactly six feet by six feet by six feet. He sometimes wondered, because of this, if the devil had anything to do with his confinement to corporate prison/hell. He often wished the grey “sound-proof” walls were higher because he was sick of hearing the incessant pseudo-drama from the girl in the cube next to his (a short, blonde girl from Ohio named Molly). Molly had been married for two years and was upset that her husband was getting fat. Apparently, since the wedding he spent most of his time playing X-Box online and drinking Sierra Nevada. Mike often wondered if she realized this may be related to the fact she too had gained about twenty pounds since the wedding and was so fucking annoying to begin with that putting on headphones and cyber-joining some geeks in the Midwest to help kill a bunch of space aliens (or Germans on Thursdays) was probably the best alternative the poor guy had. It puzzled Mike that, although he genuinely disliked Molly and found her utterly unattractive, he frequently fantasized about her while jerking off.
Unlike most of his co-workers, who behaved as though their cubicle was a college dorm, Mike’s cube was sparsely decorated. He had a Padres season schedule to the left of the computer and, though he considered himself to be a staunch Republican, an autographed picture of Chelsea Clinton to the right. Three-inch-tall plastic figures of Beavis and Butt-head stood at opposing ends of the base of his seventeen-inch flat-screen monitor. On the rear wall was a bookshelf whose contents resembled the software programming section at Borders.
While generally good-looking, Mike was probably about as plain as the cubicle. At about 5’11,” 185 pounds, he was not a small guy, but he could blend in pretty well just about everywhere. He had short brown hair and was not exactly balding but had what Alex annoyingly liked to describe as “major league power alleys.” He mostly wore Dockers’ pants and Banana Republic button-up shirts to work. Every time Qualcomm stock dropped more than fifteen percent, there would be increased talk of requiring people to wear ties, but thankfully, that policy had not yet become official. Mike thought that would be the thing that would finally make him quit, but he had also thought that about a lot of other things. All in all, he knew it was a pretty good job, and it paid fairly well. Because he started with the company in 2001, he missed out on the boom years of stock option rewards during the bubble and had nowhere near the kind of money many of his older co-workers, now frequently referred to as “volunteers”, had. Nearly daily, Mike fantasized about moving up to Silicon Valley to join a dot-com or some other start-up, but at the end of the day he knew he wasn’t a big risk taker and was fairly comfortable where he was. This didn’t mean he didn’t bitch a lot.
Mike snapped up the phone quickly: “Good afternoon, this is Mike Bochner.”
Alex’s response came immediately: “Whattup douche-bag! Happy Friday.”
Mike replied with neither enthusiasm nor annoyance: “Hello Alex.”
Alex: “Hey big man.”
Mike: “What’s up?”
Alex: “I am sure you are busy, so let me get right to it. I was thinking . . . going to bars tonight, getting drunk and trying to trick ourselves that we are still twenty-six doesn’t sound terribly appealing at the moment. There is more to life . . . greater things can be accomplished. And as much as I would enjoy staying home and spanking your ass all night in Madden, there is an even better option. You deserve more, and so do I. You work hard, right?”
Mike was by now used to Alex using leading questions and largely ignored them: “Sure.”
Alex: “And that is why we are going to Vegas instead.”
Mike: “Vegas? Tonight? The two of us? I don’t think so, dude.”
Alex (assuming his closing voice): “Yes. That’s right. Tonight. It will be fantastic. Make it happen for us, Mike. Let’s do it together.”
Mike missed a one-and-a-half-inch putt in the Orbitz game and cursed beneath his breath. He finished the three-hole course with a two-under-par seven, about average but nowhere near as good as his record, a very lucky four. He hit the Try Again button to resume another game.
Mike: “I don’t know, dude. I mean if we want to gamble, maybe it would be easier just to go out to the Injin casino.”
Alex: “Fuck that, the Injin casino sucks and you know it. I think you are forgetting I grew up in Reno and there is a reason I left. I am talking Vegas here. Anyway, I don’t really want to gamble that much. I want us to go party together.”
Mike: “Dude, your family lived in Reno for like ten months so save the sob story. Plus, I heard they have a new attraction where there’s a drunk Indian in a tent or a tee-pee or something out behind the bingo room. He sits on a stool and for twenty bucks you get a shot of whiskey and a pair boxing gloves and you can take a swing and hit him as hard as you can.”
Alex: “Bullshit.”
Mike: “No, I’m serious. It is called the Drunken Indian Booth.”
Alex: “Can you hit him in the face?”
Mike: “I think so, yeah.”
Alex: “Does he get a shot of whiskey also?”
Mike: “I’m not sure, I guess probably if you buy one for him. Apparently, it’s pretty hard to knock him off the stool even though he is totally wasted. I think if you do you get a free bingo card or an entry into a slot tournament or something.”
Alex: “You are so full of shit it is unbelievable.”
Mike: “No, I swear to God. I saw a thing on it on Channel Nine last night. Some of the activist groups are like, um, all pissed off about it and stuff.”
Alex (wrinkling his nose in thought): “Interesting. Is it at Viejas or Barona?”
Mike: “Viejas.”
Alex: “Hmmm. Well . . . I mean that sounds cool and all, but even so, I want to do Vegas. We can check out the drunken Injin next week.”
Mike (laughing): “Jesus, you are stupid. There is no drunken Indian booth. But anyway, I don’t know about Vegas. It sounds like a hassle and I don’t think I want to blow the cash.”
Alex: “Come on. Sack up. I don’t want to go back to work and I am bored. If I can get Roger and G-Balls to come, are you in?”
Mike: “Yeah, right. Good luck. The Rodge is for sure dead broke, and I don’t think Gary has been out of the house since, like, they had the kid.”
Alex: “I think Roger hit a four-teamer last weekend so he should be good. Anyway, let me worry about them. It will be good for you. And it will be like the good ol’ days. Come on. Just say yes.”
Mike, like most people, for some reason or another usually went along with what Alex wanted to do. “Fine, but only if everyone is in, which will never happen,” he said. Then, after a pause in which neither said anything, he asked, “Are we flying or driving?”
Alex: “I’ll drive. It will be cheaper. Can you leave work at three?”
Mike: “Yeah probably, but like I said, I am only in if everyone is in. And I am not sharing a bed with The Rodge.”
Alex: “That’s the spirit. You won’t regret it. I’ll call you back. Tell that slap-dick boss of yours you are leaving at three.”
Chapter Three
The Blair Project
1:53 p.m.
“Behind every good man there is a woman, and that woman was Martha Washington, man, and everyday George would come home, she would have a big fat bowl waiting for him, man, when he come in the door, man. She was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.”
– Slater, Dazed and Confused
When Alex called, Blair Williams was sitting at the kitchen table with her three-year-old daughter, Sarah. They were playing a Fisher Price game that helped kids learn European geography. Usually kid’s toys bored the hell out of Blair, but she found she was learning quite a bit with this one. Also, it allowed her to indulge her favorite fantasy about traveling to Paris with her husband Gary (usually she pictured Gary), driving through Bordeaux for a few days and then renting a villa high above the French Riviera. In these visions, her hair was a very dark brown (just like Penelope Cruz) and her body looked like it did before Sarah was born (sort of like Penelope Cruz).
Her real house was not a French villa but instead a perfectly nice three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home located in University City, about ten minutes northeast of downtown La Jolla. Though a stereotypical, peaceful, middle-class suburban neighborhood, it maintained a vibrant, young feel to it. Gary had lived in a similar house just around the corner when he was in college. In fact, a few of their current neighbors were college students renting houses. Blair usually thought this was cool, but was less happy about it when the girls renting across the street would wash their cars or water the lawn in outfits she thought more appropriate for a Britney Spears video. She had noticed the girls’ outdoor household chores often seemed to coincide with a rare decision by Gary to do some lawn maintenance.
Still, it was a nice neighborhood and she felt secure. The two hundred thousand dollars or so the house had appreciated in the few years since they purchased it didn’t bother her either. At twenty-eight years old, Blair considered her life a success so far. She had a good marriage, a beautiful daughter, and owned a nice home. What more could a woman ask for? Well, maybe the Gucci bag she had her eye on. And that trip to France.
Blair put down a piece of the geography game identifying Ljubljana as the capital of Slovenia and moved to pick up the cordless phone. “Hold on one minute, sweetie,” she said to Sarah cheerfully before answering. She wouldn’t be in as good of a mood in five minutes.
Alex was now sitting on a bus stop bench a half a block from the Jack in the Box. The bench was enclosed by two large advertisements and a small plastic roof. On his right side was a beautiful blonde girl photographed in black and white advertising Guess jeans. On the left was an unhappy-looking woman who was also photographed in black and white. This second display appeared to be advocating against domestic violence but Alex was not immediately sure because it was in Spanish and he was focusing on making a phone call rather than studying bus stop advertisements. His call was answered on the fourth ring.
Alex: “Hey Blair, this is Alex. How are you?”
Blair’s eyes instinctively narrowed at the sound of his voice: “Hi Alex. Gary is still at work.”
Alex: “Yeah, I know. Actually I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Blair: “Really? What is it?”
Alex: “Well, I want to ask a favor, but it isn’t for me. I’ll spare you the details, but the bottom line is that Mike met a girl and yada, yada . . . something crazy happened, and they are getting married next month. It is totally nuts. Really wacky stuff. I can barely believe it. Anyway, we want to give him a bachelor party and there are conflicts for the other weekends left, so this is the only possible time. A few of us are taking him out to Vegas tonight for a real quick weekend trip and I know it would mean a lot of Gary could come.”
“Mike is getting married?” Blair asked incredulously. Somehow in her mind this cheapened the whole institution of marriage.
Alex: “Yeah, it’s unreal. I can’t believe it either.”
Blair: “Why doesn’t Gary ask me himself if he wants to go to Vegas?”
Alex: “Well, Gary doesn’t even know yet. The whole thing just happened in the last few days. My guess is the booze outsmarted Mike and he just proposed in a moment of drunken inspiration, but really I don’t even know all the details myself. But I do know it would mean the world if G-Ball, I mean if Gary, could be there for this weekend. Since its so last minute I wanted to be in touch with you first, because I am sure you guys have plans already.”
Blair: “Yes, we are supposed to buy a new table for the dining room. Also new plates and steak knives for the kitchen.”
Alex: “Well there you go. See, I knew it. But the thing is you only get married once (laughs), though in Mike’s case the over/under is at two and a half. But seriously, it would mean a lot. Anyway, I will let Gary talk about it with you, but I just wanted to let you know the situation first so you know it isn’t his fault for the late notice.”
Blair: “Gee, that is sweet Alex. Okay listen, Gary can go, but make sure he stops by here first.”
Alex: “You’re the best Blair. Mike will really appreciate it.”
Blair: “Bye, Alex.”
Alex: “Thanks Blair. Say hello to Sarah for me. Talk at you later. Bye.”
Chapter Four
The Rodge
2:00 p.m.
“You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you’re sittin at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin when the dealin’s done.”
– The Gambler, Kenny Rogers
Roger walked out of Moondoggies in Pacific Beach at exactly 2:00 p.m. wearing black slacks and a wrinkled blue short-sleeved Hawaiian tee shirt. For having only worked three hours on a lunch shift, he was relatively pleased to have ninety-five dollars in his pocket. He was not pleased that he forgot his sunglasses at home and he recoiled sharply when he hit the sunlight. He briefly put his left arm in front of his face to shield the light, then ran his hand through his full head of closely cut brown hair. After, he raised his right arm to take a sip out of a twenty-ounce plastic bottle of regular Coke.
It was a very pleasant day, but the sun radiated off of the heavy concentration of cement and asphalt on Garnet Street, pushing the temperature into the slightly uncomfortable range. The usual Friday afternoon crowd was milling about the streets. It featured about half college chicks shopping at the various boutiques and surf shops, a handful of college dudes doing basically nothing, scattered military guys starting the weekend beer drinking marathon early, and a few middle-aged people who probably had some kind of job, though it really didn’t seem like it. After orienting himself to the light and remembering where he parked, Roger began to walk down the street. After about thirty feet, he untucked the Hawaiian shirt, placed the Coke bottle in his mouth so he could hold it with his teeth, and dug into his pockets with both hands, ultimately locating his objective in the left pocket. He pulled out a one-third full, silver and green can of Kodiak wintergreen chewing tobacco.
Roger looked around and spotted a bus stop about forty feet farther up the road. He walked over, took a seat on one of the benches, set the Coke on the ground, and began packing the can of chew, subconsciously scanning the street to see if there were any hot chicks he could be looking at.
He opened the can, glanced inside to ensure it was adequately packed, and took inventory of how much remained. He squeezed a medium-sized pinch of Kodiak between his right thumb and forefinger and placed it in his lower lip. Despite his frequent use of the product, he still felt the soft pleasing burning sensation the tobacco caused in its first few seconds. He grabbed a few more grains out of the can and added them to the amount already in his mouth. Then he used his tongue to marry the new addition into the old one. Satisfied with his chew, Roger reached down to grab the Coke and proceeded to pour the remaining contents onto the sidewalk. While doing so, he noticed a colony of ants crawling around by his right foot. He used the last two ounces to attempt to drown as many of them as possible. At least fifteen of the small black creatures were engulfed in the brown foamy liquid and began squirming helplessly.
Roger pressed the chew further down into his lip with his tongue and then spit once into the now empty Coke bottle. He then reached into his right pocket and removed his cell phone. After pressing the button for Cingular web service, he hit the # key and then the 1 key for “favorite #1,” which was ESPN.com. After waiting about ten seconds, he realized he didn’t have reception in this area. “Fucking Cingular,” he muttered to himself for what seemed like the millionth time.
Roger spit again, this time adding his tobacco-filled saliva to the brown mixture on the ground and further thinning the ants’ chances for survival. He rose to cross the street, breaking into a slow jog at one point to avoid an oncoming lime-green Volkswagen Beetle driven by a small Asian guy wearing a Dallas Cowboys hat and who had selected a violet tulip for the little holder built into the dashboard.
Roger arrived at the corresponding bus stop on the other side of the street and took a seat. Almost immediately after he sat down, an attractive girl walked by. She looked to be about twenty-three, had medium-length brown hair, and long, firm, well-tanned, shapely legs that disappeared into a short denim miniskirt. The skirt was complemented by a white half-shirt that read, in neon pink letters, simply, “Billabong.” About ten feet past him, the girl stopped and bent down to re-tie the laces on one of her white Vans sneakers. Much to Roger’s delight, this caused her skirt to hike up in the back, revealing the bottom of a pair of light yellow cotton panties. Roger instinctively leaned forward and tilted his head to get a better viewing angle, spitting into the Coke bottle again on the way down. Unnoticed at this point, to his left, a large man of about thirty years of age stopped walking to concentrate on Roger. The man wore brown lace-up boots, camouflage pants and a black Slayer rock tee shirt that covered a bulky upper body most likely achieved with the help of steroids. He had Oakley sunglasses on, clearly had not shaved in a few days, and had spiky black hair.
“Hey asshole,” the Rocker Guy said loudly to Roger who looked up at him startled, “Did you get a good look?”
“Um, no I was just . . . um, . . . So, um . . . do you know her?” Roger asked, nodding his head in the leggy girl’s direction.
Rocker Guy walked closer so he was standing right above Roger. “Yeah, you could say that,” he said.
“Girlfriend?” Roger asked.
“Wife,” Rocker Guy answered and held up his left hand, displaying a traditional gold band. Then he waved his fingers around before closing them into a fist.
Roger began talking quickly, “Oh, well hey, sorry. I um, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Yeah, I bet you didn’t,” Rocker Guy said. Then after lingering a moment he started to walk away and muttered to himself, “Fucking joke.”
After the Rocker Guy had moved about ten feet away and caught up with his wife, Roger spoke again, “Hey, bro?” he asked.
The rocker guy turned around, “Yeah, what?”
Roger spit into his bottle, then asked, “You don’t happen to know the final on the Ohio State game from last night, do you?”
“What the fuck do you want?” the Rocker Guy asked, pronouncing the word fuck a lot more slowly and a bit more loudly than the other words. He started walking back in Roger’s direction.
Roger immediately changed strategy, “Never mind. It’s cool. Sorry,” he said.
Just then, Roger’s cell phone broke out in song, producing the familiar tunes of Jay-Z’s Big Pimpin’. This meant Alex was calling.
Roger looked quickly at the phone, then back up at the Rocker Guy. “Oh, hey, I’ve got a call so, um, you know. Have a good one,” he said. Roger waved first at the guy, then smiled and waved at the girl. Then he flipped open the phone and answered all in one motion, “Yo, Alex, what’s up?”
Alex, who as far as he could recall had never ridden a municipal bus in his life, was still sitting on his bus stop bench in La Jolla, about five miles away. “Hey dude, what are you doing?” he asked.
Roger: “Just got off a lunch shift. Hey, I had the over on Ohio State last night and have not been able to check it. Do you have any idea where it came in?”
Alex: “35-24 Ohio. You should be good.”
Roger: “Talk to Daddy! All I need is Stanford with the points tonight to pop a nice three-teamer.”
Alex: “Dude, you have issues. Anyway, I have something I think you will like – you up for Vegas?” With Roger, there was no need to do much promotion when it came to Nevada trips.
Roger: “Oooohhhh. When?”
Alex: “Today. I can pick you up in two hours. G-Balls and Mike are in.”
Roger: “Shit, no way. Mmmmm. Look I really want to, but I was up until six last night banging one of the regulars and am fucking beat. And I have to work a double tomorrow.”
Alex: “Get it covered. You can sleep in the car.”
Roger: “Well, the other thing is if Stanford comes in it is all good, but otherwise I have no funds. The shift this morning sucked. I only made ninety-five bucks.”
Alex: “I thought you hit a four-teamer on Sunday?”
Roger: “Yeah but I had some errands I needed to do and I still owed some rent.”
Alex: “Jesus, Rodge. All right, listen, don’t tell the other guys, but I’ll underwrite your share of the room and your vodka when we go out. Also, I am driving so don’t worry about gas or anything. All you need to pay for is what you gamble. And you can bring some Kodiak for me.”
Roger: “Thanks, cool. You know I’ll get you back. I just need to make sure I can get my shifts covered for tomorrow.”
Alex: “All right buddy. Make it happen.”
Roger: “Nice, see you.”
Alex: “I’ll talk at you.”
Chapter Five
Good Oral Hygiene
3:28 p.m.
“If you can't take the heat get yo' ass out the kitchen
We on a mission
Come along and ride on a fantastic voyage
Slide slide slippity-slide”
– Fantastic Voyage, Coolio
Alex’s black 2006 BMW 550i, which he paid cash for the previous January after receiving his year-end bonus, needed only a fraction of its 4.8 liter, 360 horsepower engine to smoothly approach the back entrance of the Wind and Sea apartment complex just north of Pacific Beach. The car had a black leather interior, incredibly soft to the touch, but which got annoyingly hot when left in the sun. Even so, it tended to cool off remarkably quickly once the air conditioner was turned on. Also, temperature controls built directly into the seats helped speed things along if desired. The windows were just cracked open, making Jay-Z’s Girls, Girls, Girls barely audible outside of the car. Gary Williams was sitting in the front seat with a silly half-smile on his face, still not quite believing that he was headed for a weekend in Vegas with the boys. Just forty-five minutes ago he was doing a final proofreading of an adjusted SEC filing for a client who had to delay their quarterly numbers because it turned out the CFO had spent over three million dollars on yacht rentals and private jet flights to the Caribbean for himself and various “companions.” Unfortunately, it was challenging to justify these as “marketing expenses” as the company had been doing.
Gary was sporting a fashionable haircut he got in the Gaslamp quarter last week for sixty-five dollars. Surprisingly, his wife Blair thought this was a very worthwhile use of money, even though she was upset about the six-dollar Tony Gwynn talking bottle opener he purchased the same day. The haircut, while nice, was conservative. It nicely complemented his khaki pants and a tucked-in white short-sleeved collared golf shirt. The pants were Banana Republic, the shirt by Greg Norman.
Alex was in the driver’s seat singing quietly along to Jay-Z . . .
“…Got this indian squaw
The day that I met her
Asked her what tribe she with, red dot or feather?
She said all you need to know is I'm not a ho
And to get with me you better be Chief Lots-a-Dough...”
Alex had changed clothes and was now wearing shiny black Nike sweat pants, black and brown Louis Vuitton leather sandals, vintage Wayfarer sunglasses and a white tee shirt that read, “I Just Did It” with the Nike swoosh logo in the shape of a smile underneath it. Both he and Gary were wearing the same blue-faced Tag Heuer watch.
As the car came to a stop, Gary rolled down his window further and deeply inhaled the soft San Diego air. He grabbed the roof of the car with his fingertips, resting his elbow on the open door window and let out a small laugh, turning toward Alex. “This is fucking insane. I can’t believe he is really getting married,” he said.
Alex (pausing briefly): “Um, well, yeah. It is insane.”
Gary: “Where did he meet this girl again?”
Alex: “I don’t even really know all the details. Listen, don’t drill him too much on it. He is still kind of shy about it.”
Gary: “It’s like a Russian bride or something? Did he knock someone up?”
Alex: “I don’t think so. I’m sure it will all come out, though. Hold on a sec.”
Alex flipped open his Razr and hit the auto-dial button for “The Rodge.” Roger picked up on the second ring and Alex let him know they were outside waiting for him. Then he flipped the phone shut and shoved it back in the front pocket of the Nike sweats.
Gary started talking again while tapping the roof of the car in synchrony with 2Pac’s Shorty Wanna b a Thug, which was now playing on the stereo. “Well, this is crazy, but it comes at a good time for me. It will be good to get away for a few days and get nice and fucked up,” he said, then added, “though I was looking forward to getting those new steak knives.”
Alex resisted the urge to ask what the big deal was about the steak knives and simply replied, “I am glad to hear you say that. And I agree a hundred percent.”
Gary: “And plus, I have been working my balls off the last few months.”
Alex: “Yeah, I know. Hey, we can’t have G-Balls with no balls. You deserve this. Look, there’s The Rodge.”
Roger busted through the metal pedestrian entrance gate for the Wind and Sea. He was wearing black shorts, blue Adidas flip-flops, a short-sleeved blue and white bowling shirt, and imitation Gucci sunglasses. He approached the BMW and gave Gary a high five through the open window, profoundly expressing, “Ahhh yeahhhh, bitches.”
Behind the fake Gucci’s, Roger was sporting bloodshot red eyes from lack of sleep, but it was with genuine enthusiasm that he asked, “Which one of you dirty sluts wants to go to Vegas?”
Alex leaned toward the passenger side of the car and looked out the window eying Roger suspiciously. “Where’s your shit?” he asked.
Roger pulled a toothbrush out of the left pocket of his shorts and waived it around. Then he pulled a fresh can of Kodiak and what was now eighty-seven dollars out of the right pocket. “I’m ready, baby,” he exclaimed.
Alex: “No way, dude. We have table reservations both nights and I want everyone to be there. Go back and pack some decent clothes. Jesus Christ.”
Roger: “I don’t really care that much about going to clubs to try and ramp a bunch of dumb hoes from L.A.”
Alex: “Rodge, just give Gary the toothbrush and go back and grab some clothes.”
Roger: “All right, tough guy, but you’re paying for the bottles.”
He passed the toothbrush to Gary through the car window, then turned around and started back toward the apartment in a slow trot. Gary put the toothbrush in the glove compartment, careful not to touch the well-worn bristles.
Gary (shaking his head): “God bless that guy. He is amazing.”
Alex: “No fucking doubt.”
Gary: “Sometimes I think maybe he has it all figured out. He definitely has a chill lifestyle. I’m getting up before dawn every day and wrapping a tie around my neck and he is sleeping in and getting paid to hang out in a sports bar.”
Alex: “And he gets to sleep with the customers.”
Gary: “Don’t forget the hostess.”
Alex: “Oh yeah. Yeah, you might be right. Maybe he does have it all figured out. Either way, at least we know he puts a high priority on oral hygiene.”
They both laughed.
Interlude One
Gary (.00000001)
Gary’s mother, Melinda Johnson, met his father, Timothy Williams, after a football game at the University of Minnesota in 1968. The whole thing was really about as “America and Apple Pie” as it gets except for the fact that the Vietnam situation made it hard for anyone to have a good time without feeling guilty about it, especially after the Tet Offensive earlier in the year had effectively proved the optimists wrong.
Melinda was a psychology major starting her junior year. She was starting to get nervous because she still didn’t have a steady boyfriend and her two best friends had already secured promise rings. Given that she was already on the wrong side of twenty, she was starting to feel she may be left behind. As everyone knew, if you were not married by twenty-four, you were likely destined to end up alone in a houseful of cats. Besides, she had already had sex with two guys and would consider herself a total slut if she didn’t settle down soon. The whole summer of love thing took a slower pace in Minnesota.
Nevertheless, on this evening she was enjoying herself, especially because it was another month before the below-zero weather would kick in. Even so, she had a few shots of bourbon during the game to keep warm. The Golden Gophers put on a seventeen point ass-kicking of Iowa State. Melinda didn’t care much about the game, but the result seemed to put everyone else in a good mood so she was happy about it.
She first noticed Tim toward the end of the first half. Actually, it was her friend Barbara who noticed and pointed him out to her. Tim was sitting in her row, one section to the right. It was not until after the game, when they ended up at the same off-campus party, that she was able to talk to him. Tim made her laugh, didn’t get obnoxiously drunk like most guys, and had similar views on most political topics. He was wishy-washy enough about Vietnam that it didn’t create any reason for her not to see him again (she was adamantly opposed).
Despite her best efforts to be good, Tim became number three before the next home game, a disappointing thirteen-point loss to Notre Dame. But his efforts in bed were not at all disappointing and by the time the thermometer dropped below freezing they were in love. Of course at that age love and lust were indistinguishable. With little incentive to go out in the cold, sex was a frequent activity. By spring they had done it a hundred and seventy-nine times, though no one was counting. But all of these, even the first, paled in comparison to number nine hundred and sixty-two. Included somewhere between number one seventy-nine and number nine sixty-two were a lot of condoms, a wedding ceremony, first jobs, more condoms, a brief stint on the pill, more condoms, and then a miracle.
In the early morning of July 18th, 1974, one of Timothy Williams’ microscopic little sperm achieved its primary objective while heading up Melinda Williams’ vaginal canal. Roughly nine months later, on April 20th, 1975, Gary Williams achieved his primary objective of the day, heading back out the other way. While he would generally be a quiet kid, he was crying like all hell when he came out. Still, everyone involved agreed it was a marvelous day. A healthy baby boy arrived who would get to experience all the great highs and lows and achievements (hopefully) that his father did before him. And what could be better than that?
As for Gary himself, he didn’t have much of an opinion on that day. For the most part, his undeveloped little brain was just trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. And he cried. And then he got food. And then he pooped. And so life started for Gary “G-Balls” Williams.
Chapter Six
The Ruse
4:01 p.m.
“I don’t appreciate your ruse ma’am. . . .
Your ruse. Your cunning attempt to trick me.”
– Randal Graves, Clerks
Roger required four minutes to pack to Alex’s satisfaction. Twenty minutes later, Mike was successfully assimilated into the driver’s side back seat and the crew was officially on US Interstate 15 northbound, just past Scripps Ranch and advancing toward Las Vegas. Unfortunately, there was heavy traffic and progress was slow. Madonna’s American Life played on the Harmon Kardon stereo. Roger and Mike simultaneously declared the music selection to be “really gay,” but they were overruled by Alex and Gary who had joint control of Alex’s iPod which was hooked up to the car’s auxiliary connection.
Mike was now wearing a Ken Caminiti Padres jersey that his younger brother bought him last month for his thirtieth birthday. It complemented blue Nike shorts and white Nike sneakers. Other than the sporty outfit, he looked a bit like Chandler from Friends, though as one girl once told him after several glasses of wine, “not as cute and funny . . . but still cool in that bitter kind of way.”
After a slight lull in the conversation during which Alex was trying to decipher what Madonna was saying about a double latte, Gary broke the silence, turning fully around in his seat to talk to Mike. “All right, dude, I gotta hear about it. First of all, congratulations,” he said.
Mike: “Oh, thanks man. Yeah, I am pretty pumped about the whole thing.”
This comment elicited Alex to glance back in the rearview mirror, eyebrows slightly raised.
Gary: “So tell me about it. Where did you find her?”
Mike: “Well, you know, it was pretty much the standard procedure. I just got an agent and looked at a bunch of options and picked the best one I could afford.”
Gary: “No shit. Is there a large range in the prices?”
Mike: “Of course. Some of the really nice ones are just ridiculously expensive, but there were some really attractive choices that were within my limits.”
Gary: “Did you look at pictures online?”
Mike: “Of course, but ultimately you need to go in person and really get a feel for each one. It’s a huge commitment so you need to make sure you take the time to examine all the details and kick the tires and check under the hood, so to speak. A lot of the choices that look good at first actually have big flaws that only reveal themselves after a thorough investigation. Actually, I really enjoyed the whole process. It is more interesting than I thought.”
Gary (laughing): “Of course, I can imagine. That sounds sweet. Was the agent Russian?”
Mike: “Um . . . No. It was your typical twenty-eight-year-old blond chick who lost a dotcom job up north after the bubble and moved down here. Standard stuff.”
Gary: “So she was American?”
Mike: “Yeah, from Chicago I think.”
Gary: “That’s strange. I wouldn’t have thought they would be open to letting Americans get into the business.”
Mike: “What do you mean? I think she even went to State down here. Didn’t really make it in San Francisco but has her shit together and is good at sales. You know the type. Typical real estate agent.”
Gary: “Okay. I am confused. I thought we are talking about the people who found the girl you are marrying. What are you talking about?”
Alex chose this moment to re-enter the conversation: “Hey guys, do you want to hit a strip club tonight, or wait until tomorrow during the afternoon to kill some time? I heard a rumor that Crazy Horse Too may be closing because it got too skanky, but maybe the Rhino or Club Paradise?”
Mike: “Sure, whatever, Alex. Marrying, Gary? What are you talking about? I haven’t even been on a date in nearly four months.”
Gary, whom Blair often accused of being too trusting, finally smelled the rat. “Mike, are you, or are you not, getting married? Is this or is it not a bachelor party trip?” he asked in a deliberate and deep tone.
Mike laughed heartily. “Married? Shit, I’m all for it if you can find me a nice bitch this weekend with big tits and maybe a trust fund. Maybe we will run into Britney Spears at Ghostbar and she will want to give it another try. But I wasn’t planning on it. I just closed on a new house in Del Mar. I thought that is what you were asking about.”
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