"Not both of them." I snapped into the phone. "You're wrong. I'm positive." I was half paying attention to the conversation, barking into the receiver as I sat in the lobby, leafing through the firm's brochures on the coffee table.

Fistlewait, Harriman, Fortescue and Marmalard was formed in 1905, when Johnston Auchincloss Fortescue returned to Philadelphia upon graduation from Yale Law School, Cum Laude. Fortescue, grandson of Jacob Browning Auchincloss, private counselor to John Penn, second Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania, had seen the need for counselors in maritime law to serve Philadelphia's growing importing sector after managing his family's Caribbean trading interests through the Spanish American War. Upon returning from Yale, Fortescue and his first cousin, Peterson J.K. Fistlewait formed the firm, purchasing office space in the East Atlantic Building, the jewel of what was then known as Spice Traders Row. They quickly solicited a stable of notable clients including Featherbottom Iron & Coke, Ltd., Pepperidge Trolleyworks and the Johnstown Dam Liability Trust.

Much has changed since then, but FHFM remains committed to the values and vision of its founders, to provide the finest representation to its clients and uphold the Philadelphia legal community's storied tradition of
spirited, but genteel advocacy.

"Jesus, where's the 'Irish need not apply' disclaimer?"

"What?" The voice on the other end boomed out of the receiver.

"Was I talking out loud? Just something funny I was reading."

"So I don't warrant your full attention?"

"I have a deposition starting any minute." I snapped back into the phone. "Just get the answer."

"Hold your horses. I just have to log in and go online. Then we'll know for sure."

"Exceeewwsse me. Exceeewwsse me, sir." I could hear the receptionist calling to me in the background. Alright, I hear you, lady... Her voice had been driving me crazy, every time I heard her answer the phone in the background. "Hellewww... Fistlewait, Harriman, Fortescue and Marmalard." I listened to her repeat the phrase over and over, but try as I might, I couldn't place her accent. Was it Australian? English? Afrikaner? Possibly contrived - an affectation crafted to sound exotic or aristocratic, or what passed for that in Philadelphia. The more I looked around the lobby, the more that seemed the case. The décor was 19th century banker's office, deliberately so. Everything in drab milky tones, all of it trimmed in shocking white wainscoting, a plasticky commercial variant of what you might see in an old colonial manor. The place dripped with what people who chew a lot of gum would call "class."

"Hold on a second." I turned from the phone to address the woman. "Yes?"

"Sir, the court reporter is here. They'll be starting the deposition in a mehwment."

"Thank you." I shot the woman a thumbs up. She blinked, I think in recognition, then angled her nose back down toward her desk.

"Sorry about that." I jumped back on the phone. "I'm trying to do two things at once here."

"I should have an answer in a second."

"I hope so." I snapped back into the receiver. "I'm almost out of time."

"I could tell you later."

"No. I want to know now."

"I can't make the thing go any faster. Computers are slow when you just turn them on."

"Excewssse me, sir." It was the receptionist again, summoning me to a doorway. "Can you come this way?"

Yezzz... And might you send a houseboy for the baggage?

"One second." I smiled at her, then got back to the phone call.

"OK. Let's see. I think I have it."

"Come on. It can't be that hard. It's public information."

"Ah... Ha." I could hear the bastard snickering through his words. "Here it is."

"Get both of them. You need both of them."

"George Peppard. Died May 8, 1994. Lung cancer."

"And?"

"Herve Villachaize. Born April 23, 1943. Died September 4, 1993. Self inflicted gunshot wound."

Fuck.

"That's a case." Harris laughed.

"I didn't bet a case."

"Yes you did."

"Sir, do you need some time?" The receptionist chimed in again.

Some finger sandwiches would be nice. What kind of hellhole is this?

"No, thank you." I gathered my papers, holding the phone between my jaw and shoulder.

"You specifically bet a case." Harris was still snickering. "'If both of them are dead, I'll buy you a case of whatever you want.' I remember it."

"You're getting Natural Light."

"Whatever. It's all good with Percocet."

These were picked off the top of my head as I scanned through my library. I tried to select obscure or overlooked albums, but a few classics slid into the list here and there. Mostly it's alphabetical by artist, except for a few instances where I didn't feel like following that order.

Abba - Gold: Greatest Hits
I can't explain why, but there's something evil about Abba's music. Evil in a good way, as in it makes me want to get wired, get loaded and get laid. Partly nostalgia, I'll admit. But there's something more to it... The soaring harmonies, they way those insidious, simple, high notes on the piano kick the music along. Or it might be something Swedish, perhaps Scandinavian. My wife's half Norwegian, and I love that squeeze-tube caviar they sell at Ikea.

AC/DC - Powerage
Supposedly, Keith Richards' favorite record by AC/DC, which isn't surprising, since it has a Stones-y feel. This is the band when they were just playing straightforward rock and roll, before the heaviness and polish of Highway to Hell and Back in Black. "Rock n Roll Damnation," "What's Next to the Moon" and "Gimme a Bullet" are some of the band's greatest overlooked gems.

Allman Brothers - Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival / Live at Ludlow Garage 1970
Folk Festival is just like the legendary Live at the Fillmore East record, only with a broader song selection. And disc two of Ludlow's Garage has the greatest, heaviest "Mountain Jam" I've ever heard.

Beatles - Abbey Road
I like Sgt. Pepper's and The White Album just fine, but this is the Beatles record I listen to over and over. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is built around this great, sinister lick and "Something" is one of those tunes you wish went on for another five, eight or fifteen minutes.

Beck - Mutations
Somehow, this elegant little record was buried in Beck's catalog, listed as an EP between Odelay and Midnight Vultures. Probably a marketing thing, as it was moody and bleak and mostly acoustic, with little of the sonic painting he was doing on the albums before and after it. People rave about Sea Change and it's a great record, but I think Mutations is as good, if not better, than anything else Beck's done.

Jeff Beck - Beck Ola
Rod Stewart fronting one of hardest guitar records of it's time. It's a no-brainer.

Black Crowes - Southern Harmony and Musical Companion
Start to finish, the best Faces record the Faces were never able to create. Only heavier. Much, much heavier. "My Morning Song" and "Remedy" also prove that you can never have too many gospel singers backing up a track.

Black Sabbath - Vol. 4 / Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
As to Vol. IV, just listen to "Supernaut." It's one of the few songs I can directly blame for huge gaping holes in the drywall of one of my apartments... The kind of song that compels certain guests to open field tackle others in the living room. As to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, just listen to the title cut.

Blind Faith - Blind Faith (Deluxe Edition)
What's better than "Can't Find My Way Home?" An electric version of "Can't Find My Way Home," along with forty-five minutes of studio jams involving Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton. It's easy to say Clapton or Winwood make this record, but I think it's Ginger Baker. Strangest drummer I've ever heard. Sounds like each one of his drums is five feet away from the others. Where a lot of drummers use fills that slow the sound down (much the same way passive voice can slow prose), Baker plays economically, but relentlessly, leaving the spaces and these huge, heavy beats to create a sense of constant forward movement in the slowest of tunes. That or I tend to hear this album under influences creating those impressions...

Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills - Super Sessio
Like Blind Faith, this was a short lived project/supergroup. Goes from blues ("Albert's Shuffle," "Stop") to pop ("Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry") to oddly re-arranged covers ("Season of the Witch," "You Don't Love Me"), all done superbly. The highlight, however, is the nine minute instrumental, "His Holy Modal Majesty," with its amazing jazz/psychedelic organ solo.

David Bowie - Hunky Dory / The Man Who Sold the World
These are two of Bowie's "forgotten" records, which is odd considering they're two of his best. Glam rock doesn't get better. Hell, any rock doesn't get much better. If "Queen Bitch" and "Life on Mars" don't grab you, check your pulse.

The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
There are a million reasons Gram Parsons' country-honk shouldn't have worked with the Byrds' layered, California harmonies. In this case, however, it did - perfectly. I couldn't recommend a record more enthusiastically.

Johnny Cash - Unearthed
It was an $80 box set when I bought it and it was worth every penny. How some of these out-takes, particularly the "Redemption Song" with Joe Strummer, didn't make it onto albums baffles me.

The Clash - London Calling
Who doesn't know about this record, right? Every rock magazine for the past twenty five years has listed it in the top ten of all time. That's why I'm not going to speak to the album as whole. Dust off the disc and if you haven't in a while, listen to "Kola Kola," "Wrong 'Em Boyo" and "Guns of Brixton" a few times. Are there any better bass lines in rock? I don't think so.

Dr. Dre - 2001
"What's the Difference"... "Forgot About Dre"... "The Watcher." A lot of older rap can be easily forgotten, or only recalled for its beats. Not Dre's stuff, and certainly not this record.

Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live, 1966: The Royal Albert Hall Concert
"Judas," a folkie incensed at Dylan's "electric conversion" famously screams at the beginning of "Like a Rolling Stone." Dylan responds with the meanest seven minutes on vinyl. I think David Fricke said that was the moment rock n' roll began, or something like that. I agree.

Eagles of Death Metal - Peace Love Death Metal
Garage rock you can fuck to - nothing more, nothing less.

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
I recommend listening to the surround version (available in the two disc set). Total ear candy. Yeah, "Do You Realize" is cheesy, but I still like it.

Jerry Garcia - Garcia
Everything on this record is fantastic. From "The Wheel" to "Bird Song," "Sugaree," and "Loser"... Hell, even the Floyd-like "Eep Hour" is amazing. And the nice thing about this record is it never gets old. These songs age like Hank Williams' stuff. They could have been written yesterday, and they'll stand for the same universal observations in 2040 as they did in 1971.

Gomez - Split the Difference
Schizophrenic, with no one song sounding like another, ranging from pop to psychedelic jams to bluegrass. All done well, closing with an excellent comment on what sounds like fundamentalism... "Cuz we're not here to judge you/We want to be your friends now/And we can make you feel like everything that's gone wrong happened for a reason" ("Nothing is Wrong").

Grateful Dead - 1968-1969
Everybody loves the Dead of American Beauty and Workingman's Dead, and those are classic records. But before they shifted to more of a traditional sound, there was a time where the Dead played epic, bizarre live shows using pieces of the acid-soaked song cycles from Anthem of the Sun and Aoxomoxoa. Many bootlegs from 1968-1969 will have moments where Garcia played as frenetically and skillfully as Jimmy Page, Two From the Vault, Download Series 6 and Dick's Picks 8 and 16 most notably.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
If there was an Allman Brother in the Beatles, it was George. All Things Must Pass is a sprawling, indulgent record. Recorded, aptly, using Phil Spector's lush "wall of sound" technique, the album has thirty minutes devoted to nothing but studio jams. Three LPs in total when it was initially released, and not a minute of filler on any of them... This is what the Beatles might have sounded like if Clapton had joined the band and they decided to start jamming.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold as Love
This record will forever live in the shadow of Are You Experienced, which is really a shame. The solo closing out the title track is one of the highest points in music, more a classical composition - something wild and soaring like that crazy introduction in Carmina Burana - than a simple rock anthem.

The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives
The sonic equivalent of sticking your finger in an electric socket... Screaming and howling and merciless - two hours of notes in thirty minutes of music, with more infectious hooks than most current pop musicians' entire catalogs. You get your money's worth, and then some.

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers / Let It Bleed
Let it Bleed... How the hell do you describe this record? A little slice of Hell on vinyl? Has there ever been a more apocalyptic sound committed to record than the opening wails and guitar lines of "Gimme Shelter"? Altamont indeed. And if Let it Bleed was the definitive statement on the end of the Sixties, then Sticky Fingers was a proper kick-off for the next ten years... Film-makers haven't used "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" as the go-to score for scenes of debauchery and violence for no good reason. There's something about that riff, the way it goes through you... It's like the sound of the snake in the Garden of Eden, distorted, using a huge fucking amplifier. Makes you want to do something bad. Don't know what. Just bad.

Nos. 2, 3 and maybe 4 to come in the future.

But there was more to it than that. Carlin was "post-commentary." Not in some cheap silly fashion, as artists are "post-modern" or candidates claim to be "post-politics." The universal truth and clarity of Carlin's observations placed them as close to "beyond dissection" as any entertainer's work could ever be. Media's cheap and most of it's full of shit. We can parse and qualify the points of ninety percent of the mouths we hear on television, radio or the internet. Not Carlin. There were no two meanings to anything he said, and whether you liked it or not you knew in the end, He Was Right.

I won't embroider that point here. Better to let Carlin explain himself. Watch these video clips from his last HBO special, It's Bad For Ya.

The bullshit that binds us

God bless America

Your imaginary rights

Start at minute 4:00 of the first clip and move through the following two. If those fifteen or so minutes don't savage all the delusions and absurdities at the heart of our aggregate national idiocy, you're not living in reality.

I never met George Carlin and I don't know anyone who knew him. But I do know his work, and the thrust of his message is particularly important in year like this, facing an election like this and its endless marketing tentacles. If there was a way to honor a person like Carlin, someone who gave us so many laughs and so much spot-on social criticism, it'd be to stop, if just for a day, and tune out all the assholes telling us what to believe. To consider what we each want to do, what we think and what makes sense to every one of us as individuals. Turn off the Sean Hannities, Keith Olbermanns and Bill O'Reillys. Click off Townhall, HuffingtonPost and DailyKos. Tune out the Limbaughs and Frankens and Savages and in the words of another eminent voice silenced this year, "stand athwart" the idiot wind of the chattering class and the interests that feed them advertising dollars. Say "Thanks, but I'll think for myself instead." If you do that - if we all do that instead of buying into the misrepresentations and spin - we'll have voted correctly this November, whoever gets elected.

Carlin wouldn't have voted at all, of course, and that's fine, too. If you examine the candidates' platforms and conclude it doesn't make any rational sense to cast a ballot, by all means, stay home on Election Day. Just so long as you make your own decision, based on actual facts. That's all that matters. And that's all Carlin ever asked us to do. If he had any message or mantra it was aptly plagiarized from Benjamin Franklin - "Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see."² It can't be repeated enough... Think for yourself.

George Carlin was Right. We're not at our best when we're caught up in a fervor for aimless "revolution" or pumped full of bullshit by the mouthpieces of K Street and Madison Avenue. We're at our best when we observe, consider and apply our judgment rationally. So thanks, George, for pressing us toward that end, as futile as it might be.³ And Godspeed, even if you didn't believe in her.

----------
¹ Fittingly, Carlin will posthumously receive the The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor this fall.
² Often attributed to Lou Reed, who reversed the quote in "Last Great American Whale" ("Don't believe half of what you see and none of what you hear"). New York, 1987.
³ In a country where one third of the people refuse to believe in evolution, it's hard to image "thinking for yourself" ever becoming the majority norm.

"The stop sign's hidden behind that overgrown tree." Chris turned down the stereo, looked around, then accelerated toward the bridge. "They need to prune that shit... It's an accident waiting to happen."

"I saw it fine."

"Of course you did." He rubbed his eyes and focused on the road. "It's easier from your angle." The explanation was nonsense, but I didn't bother to press. Never question the driver... Just be happy it's not you.

"Why'd you turn down the music?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why'd you turn down the music? That didn't cause you to miss the sign."

"I don't know. It just seemed the proper thing to do." Chris was partly right, and partly wrong. His reaction didn't "seem" anything. He'd turned down the music out of fear... A fight-or-flight response - one of those senseless idiot tics we default to in an awkward or heated exchange, like darting your eyes around the room or saying "Excuse me?" when someone asks a question you don't want to answer. He was buying himself a moment, to gird for police, ponder what he'd say if a patrol car pulled out of an alleyway and clicked on the sirens. "Can't be too careful, considering..."

"I understand... Better safe than sorry." I pulled the lever below my seat and slammed it back. "Here, it's your shot."

"Hey! What the fuck?" Martin barked from the backseat. "You just knocked the fucking bowl all over me."

"We should smoke this anyway." Stu held a joint in the air. "That thing's all clogged."

"Can you wait until we get there?" Chris snapped back.

"Why?" Stu flicked his lighter.

"So we'll be able to speak to these chicks, for a few minutes at least."

Chris had a point. Outside a Phish show perhaps, nobody's ever gotten lucky based on the fact that he was really, really stoned. When you're loaded you're happy - a charming rogue of sorts. Whacked on hallucinogens you're an explorer - strong enough to give up "control," check out your inner wiring. That and you're helpless, playing to the "Florence Nightingale" gene so many women hold. Stoned, on the other hand... Well, stoned is a different story. Blazed out of their gourds, most people are dull - deep in thought below, retarded on the surface. In the typical social setting, "hyper-baked" is rarely engaging or witty, and never charismatic. You're slow and silly and chitchat seems impossible. And though you'd probably like to think otherwise, believe it, brother - there's no such thing as "small-talk," particularly with women. A smart one - the kind you really want to fuck - isn't making idiot chatter. She's testing you, kicking the tires... Seeing how fast you can shift from one subject to another. How well you'd relate to disparate varieties of people. Out-of-our-skulls high, most of us fail that exam.

In many ways, baking before you go out is deciding to not even attempt picking up women. You might make an effort, and you might even think you have a chance. And yes, on any given night, anyone can strike it lucky. But generally, globally, getting high is the last thing on the planet you want to do to land a chick. Think of all the stoner characters in movies or TV... Slater from Dazed N' Confused? Spicoli? Do you recall these characters having girlfriends? Sure they're ridiculous stereotypes, but they weren't crafted out of thin air.

"You are such a fucking cramp." Stu wouldn't let it go.

"Humor me, will you?" Chris was getting whiny. "Just this once... I'd like to try to maybe, just maybe, get laid."

"By getting all fucked up on Jager?"

"You think I'd do it sober?"

"You don't have to hit it, Chris." I tried to "split the baby" to end the dispute.

"If we light that, I'll wind up out of my tree."

That was always the problem with baking. When you're bored, you want to be baked. Until there's something better to do, when you suddenly don't want to be baked anymore. Problem is, by then it's too late. And nobody ever gets "just a little high." It comes on sneaky, slow and lethal. There's nothing to do, nowhere to be. No looming deadlines or people to see. You take a few hits. Then you take a few more. Then you start thinking, I should have a few more, just to make sure I've had enough. Every "few more" leads to another "few more"... Forty minutes later you're watching an infomercial for "The Garden Weasel," wondering if there's ice cream in the freezer and it hits you - Shit, I'm retarded... a goddamn mongoloid. And there's no way out. All you can do is deal with it.

Add a bottle of liquor to the mix and you're cooked. From immigrant miners drowning the misery in Seagram's and Lucky Strikes to hippies cannon-balling joints with rotgut wine to the modern day "Masters of the Universe" chasing Churchills with Johnny Walker Blue, smoke and liquor have been our national speedball since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Cigarettes, cigars, dope - they all taste better with whiskey. And the more you have of one, the more you want of the other. The "joint and shots" mixture is a crippling, incessant cycle. The tar burns the throat. The shot kills the burn. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Three or four in, you start feeling niiice - pleasant, careless and clueless. Seven or eight in you're numb - lucid and coherent, but not really there. Ten or twelve in you're Gone - bigger than your being, immortal and impervious, all knowing and all seeing. That's the peak, of course, the ledge before the drop. Anything more than that that and you're fried, blathering and staggering, in that helpless, wretched state where you find yourself picking up a candle instead of the bottle and filling the shot glass with melted wax. And then, suddenly - SWAK! - Here come the spins... Ohhhh... The whole room is moving... So fast... So dizzy... I feel like I ate bad fish... Somebody, please, stop it. Cry all you like. Bury your head in the couch. The more you close your eyes, the faster the revolutions.

"Shit, Chris." Stu snapped from the back. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"What?"

"Let me know if you're going to take a fucking turn that fast."

"That's not my fault. The road did it."

"So what? It's just sugar and alcohol."

"Exactly. This shit's going to harden."

By the halfway point, the whole car stunk like licorice-y cough-syrup, like a jelly bean on wheels, everything inside soaked in that awful Nazi liquor. I remember wondering, Why? Why is this so difficult? The plan wasn't complicated. The route was two roads, rural and mostly free of police. Chris would stand on the gas and I'd do the bartending. If all went to plan we'd be on _____________'s campus in an hour and some change, faster than Randal, basking in our victory, hitting on this "Amy" girl and her friends.

Everything was in our favor. We had the easier liquor, the faster car and Randal's team had Otto, the worst drinker of the bunch. Otto was young for his year, and he looked like he was fifteen, with a round baby-face and gangly, tenth grade posture. A cross between Ralphie from A Christmas Story and Michael Anthony Hall's character in Weird Science, only loud, aggressive, with a dwarf's liver and the "drinking maturity" of a cheerleader on senior week... The sort who got blasted on four gin and tonics at sorority cocktails and knocked over the hors d'oeuvres table.

I figured Otto would hold Randal back, get sick on the ride or force them to pull over to piss. Still, we couldn't take a chance. Thirty miles from _____________ I threw the shot-glass out the window. "Why'd you do that?" Chris shouted.

"Excuse me?"

"The shot glass... Why'd you throw it away?"

"It's bad luck." That wasn't really true. The simple fact is, you can't serve shots in a Volvo, particularly on an old rural highway. I felt like a stewardess on a Tilt-A-Whirl, spilling more than I was pouring. With those rigid church pew seats and that stiff, taut suspension... The car rolled like a tank, but we felt every turn, bump and groove in the road. BANG! The frame would slam and shudder with the slightest divot in the blacktop.

"Bad luck? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You don't want to get pulled over with something like that. It's paraphernalia... Sends all the wrong signals."

I had the right idea about getting rid of the shot glass. Once we started swigging it the Jager went faster, and whether it was consequence or coincidence, the trip went smoother. We knocked off the bottle with time to spare and pulled into Amy's place ten minutes ahead of Randal, who'd taken a back route that looked faster on paper but was filled with traffic lights.

Amy was cute, and she had cute friends and a cute place - large enough that we could technically crash in the living room, small enough to invite the suggestion that a few of us would rather stay in beds. We were buzzed, happy, our team had won the bet and everything was going to plan, except for one nasty problem - Otto. He was shitfaced, plastered - out of his mind... Chugging wine he found in the girls' refrigerator, stumbling about the home and "soft-molesting" the women - hugging them, putting his arms around their shoulders and petting their backs and arms. "I really liiiiike eeeeyyooouuu. Yooouuu've got a graaay place heeere. You nee sommmm-uhhh help cleaning anything up?" Otto could be awful in his cups - the sort who'd get in close and hang on attractive females, working that pathetic "friend" angle to cop some cheap, desperate feels.

"What the fuck happened to him?" I grabbed Randal in kitchen as we watched Otto guzzle from a bottle and fall sideways through a pair of French doors.

"Izzz alright." He pulled himself on a table holding a fish tank, sending a ripple of water toppling over the front. "I juss loss my footing."

"Don't pull on that!" A pixie in a headband darted across the room and braced the table to stop the tank from shaking and tipping under Otto's weight. "They're extremely sensitive fish! They get scared and don't eat and then they die."

"He baked himself silly on the ride, I guess." Randal cracked a Yeungling. "He was in the back, holding the sack."

"Your friend's awfully drunk, and uh... ripe." I could hear one of Amy's roommates commenting to Chris. It was true. I'd noticed Otto's stench the minute he took off his jacket in the kitchen. For a small man, he smelled something terrible - one of those pungent, putrid body odors, as though his pH were askew or he was badly, fungally diseased. And it seemed to come out of nowhere, when there was no good reason for a person to reek as he did. It was the middle of a frigid January and Otto stunk like he'd just come in from a three hour soccer practice. Back at the house that wouldn't be a problem. He'd blend with the surroundings. But here, now? This was a chick pad. These girls owned a vacuum cleaner. They washed their dishes and burned scented candles. Otto stuck out like a soiled sweat-sock in a basket of freshly cleaned sheets.

"He's going to fuck this up, Randal." I watched Otto grab the fish-tending pixie, all but putting her in headlock, half to grope the girl, half to gain his balance. "Yerr a cool chick..." He gestured, spilling a puddle of wine on the floor around them. "Have some zinfandel... Izzz like white and red... at the same time."

"I don't like zinfandel."

"Why?"

"Can you please let me go?" She squirmed out of his grip. "I have to check the filter."

"He'll pass out." Randal brushed me off. "We'll put him on a floor somewhere."

"If he hasn't fucked everything up by then." The women in the house were "proper," an Anne Taylor and "bob cut" crowd... The sorts who got high, drunk and fucked, but followed all the Methodist strictures on the surface. Image was important, and Otto was killing ours. He was an oaf and he smelled and there was no divorcing him from the group. Otto colored the lot of us, like a drop of ink in water.

A road trip's a statement. The people you ride with are proxies, reflections of the self - the types you chose to sit with for however long the ride. You're a unit, parts of a shared consciousness, as strong as your weakest link. Like it or not, Otto was us. And we were him. As far as Chris was getting with Amy or any of us with her friends, we'd only get as lucky as Otto would allow. College women are rigid pack animals. Where a man would ditch his friends for pussy in an instant, women consider the group, subjugating their wants to maintenance of the social fabric. I could see the conflicted look on Amy's face as she and Chris talked. If I hook up with Chris, Otto will probably wind up spending the night here. My housemates will have to take care of him. They'll hate me for it for weeks. They'll ostracize me.

I knew that look, and the machinations in her head going on behind it. I'd seen the exchange dozens of times before and I've seen it dozens of times since. How many conversations go on every evening at bars all over the world where women who want to do nothing more than run off with the man they're talking to don't because they're with a group of other females or chained to an "adversely-gifted" friend? God, I'd love to cut loose and go to some other place with this guy. But what'll I do with Carol? He's got a friend with him, but that guy's clearly not interested in her. They never are. Just look at him... He's folding cocktail napkins into origami swans to avoid making eye contact with her. Dammit, I hate this... Why doesn't she do something about that lazy eye? Get that mole removed and have the gastric surgery already? I can't count the instances where I've observed the phenomenon, barely fighting the urge to pull one of these women aside and drop the obvious science. Look, if you all really want equality - if you want to be treated exactly like men - you've got to stop serving everybody else. Put Carol and her goiter in a cab and go for your own.

But I know, true as that advice might be, it's not my place, and it'd only get me slapped. You can't sell logic like that to the average tribal creature. They get bent, offended - pissed at the strength of the argument. We've all got our allegiances, and I guess in the end, as damaging as most of them can be, it's probably not a bad thing. Nobody wants a guy quoting Nietzsche sitting next to him as their plane makes an emergency landing.

"Son of a bitch! Chris! Chris! Get over here!" It was an hour or two after we arrived. I was standing in the living room, talking to one of Amy's friends when I heard the screaming.

"What the--?" We looked at each other then darted, with everybody else, in the direction of the noise. In a bedroom off the hallway was Amy, standing in the doorway, pulling her hair and shouting. Chris was standing behind her, one hand on her shoulder, saying "I'm sorry" over and over. In middle of the room was Otto, splayed across a long Persian rug, moaning, drooling, covered in vomit.

"The rug's destroyed." Amy snapped at Chris. "And the bed cover's ruined! Just smell it. It's disgusting."

The room stunk of peptic acid and half-digested whiskey. The once white comforter was smeared with the usual mixture of red and green food particles, mucus, saliva and bile, with a trail of the mixture running down the side of the bed, onto the floor and the rug, then up the side of Otto's jeans and all over his shirt. You could see the streams of it under his nostrils and the smears of it on his cuffs, which he'd clearly used to wipe his face.

"I sooo sorry. I had the s-s-spins." His voice was cracking between a grunt and a high pitched whine. "I -- I... I juzzz wanted to sleep for a second."

"Get out. Just get out." Amy had no forgiveness in her heart, and I couldn't blame her. Use all the cleaners, soaps and solvents you can find - that acrid stench of vomit is impossible to kill. Otto might as well have bludgeoned a skunk in her room. "You all have to go. Now."

"I'll clean it up." Chris assured her.

"No. Just go."

"Hey. Hey." Stu tugged at my shirt from behind.

"What do you want?" I barked as he pulled me into the living room.

"You want to smoke this joint now?"

"Do you have any sense of timing?"

"You'd be a lot less of a douche if you baked more, you know that?"

"God, you stink like licorice."

"Fuck you."

"...With just a hint of Nyquil. Excellent bouquet."

"You can't blame this on me--" Chris was still pleading with Amy in the hall. "I didn't know he'd do that."

"Come on..." She sneered. "How many beers has he had?"

"None." A voice came from the peanut gallery. "He was drinking bourbon."

"Thanks, Randal." Chris was fiddling with his cigarettes, realizing he was dead in the debate, if you could even call it that. "Thanks for that clarification."

"You bring two carloads of drunk people and a twelve year old with alcohol poisoning into my house and expect to crash here?" Amy kept rolling. "That was your plan?"

"We weren't that drunk when we headed out."

"What?"

"Forget it." Chris waved off her question. No use in discussing the "race." That'd only make things worse.

"You didn't think about how you'd get home?"

"Not... specifically..."

Think about getting back? What the hell was she talking about? There's no planning in these things. There's angst and boredom and wheels, the adrenaline of Just Going. Plotting the return? If you're going to do that, then why the hell leave? The point of the trip was forgetting, for however long you could, that there ever was a Start, or somewhere calling you back. That you could simply keep driving, as far the engine would go.

But that's just a fiction of course, and a fragile one at that - far too flimsy for the scene. These women had serious problems - real, concrete issues. They had stomach acid stains in a fine Persian rug. And panicked, terrified fish. We'd revolted and repulsed them, abused their hospitality. Mostly by association, the wages of one bad apple... But that didn't matter much. The night was a total loss. No use in getting profound, in trying to explain the "purpose." It wasn't a linear thing. You have to understand... There's no start or finish, only back and forth - forward and further and faster, but always round and round, a horrible, hideous loop... That'd never make sense. She'd only think me mad, probably whacked on acid. And anyway, Amy was right. We had to return - to our house, basement and routine, the rubber room for our kind.

We were ten miles out of town when the car suddenly swerved and Chris slammed the brakes, jarring me from a daydream. "What the fuck was that? Are you alright?" I'd been watching the pines rolling by, staring at the mountains and thinking. What kind of animals were out there? Bears? Foxes? Coyotes? What was alive and conscious in this cruel frozen night? Roaming, hunting or fleeing in that endless carpet of trees?

"I hate when that happens." Chris was furiously sucking a cigarette, squinting at the highway and checking the speedometer.

"What are you looking for?" I turned down the radio.

"I thought I saw a cow."

"A what?"

"You heard me. From a farm or something, walking near the road."

"In the middle of January?"

"Probably a deer. Your eyes ever play tricks on you like that? You know... You see a shadow and then it looks like a person or animal running across the road?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's probably my contacts or something. I swore I saw a stick figure darting over a highway divider a few miles back. Happens a lot at night."

"Right... Hey, 'Licorice-head.'" I leaned back and slapped Stu's leg. "Is there any of that joint left?"

"Oh, so now you want to hit it?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

To be continued...

- Dumb and Dumber (1994)

"Can I ask why?" Jeffrey stopped in his tracks the minute we met eyes. The fish was in my hand, in the air, dangling above my lips. Thankfully I couldn't answer. My mouth was already full, stuffed like a chipmunk's with acorns.

You can always ask why, but that doesn't mean I have an answer. We stood there for a moment, not saying a word, each of us taking in the scene. There was Jeffrey, a partner from my group, standing, staring, open cell phone in his hand. And there was me, behind the deli, next to a dumpster, peeling slabs of lox from a wax-paper package and shoveling them in my mouth. It wasn't an ugly moment. He hadn't caught me getting high with the bicycle couriers who openly smoked dope behind the buildings or stepping out of a massage parlor. This was just strange. It's not everyday a person turns the corner on his way back from a client luncheon and runs into one of his employees in a suit, cufflinks and tie, gorging himself in a filthy alleyway like some vulture gnawing carrion. To all the common passers by, I might as well have been eating rancid meat from the trash, an overdressed wino, white collar crack-head or escapee from a local psyche ward... One of those wretches who stumbled around the blocks bleating about conspiracies and begging for change. But Jeffrey knew better. He knew I was sane - too sane, really, and this was something else... something odd, seditious and bizarre.

He was right. Sort of...

I hadn't walked out for lox. I'd walked out to leave. It was a Monday and I'd snapped. You know those Mondays. Everyone knows them. Those mornings where a ten minute flurry of phone calls, faxes and emails turns a perfectly calm week to a shit rain of idiot paperwork... Those moments where you can actually feel your face turning purple as some Napoleon threatens you over the phone... I'd gone in hoping for Nothing - a boring, dead week, the best thing you can hope for in a law firm. By eleven I'd been peppered with five calls, four letters and a half a dozen emails. All annoyances - the usual pile of grating, niggling demands. "When can you get me this?" "When can you get me that?" "When can I expect this other thing?" From the incoherent threat letters of grammatically retarded plaintiffs' lawyers to the tyranny of emails from management about the ten days of time sheets I still owed, every communication held that same selfish refrain... "Gimme, gimme, gimme... I want to take something from you to make my situation better. I'm going to sap your energy, drag your mind to a task the benefits me, my wallet, my bottom line. I want things, and I'm going to burn you and everything else around me like fuel to get them. I have car payments to make, tuitions, golf course minimums... My wife just ordered granite for all the bathrooms."

I'd walked out the door to catch a cab, go home, put on a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and flip-flops, jump in my car and drive. No destination in mind; just step on the gas and run. Bolt from the box, from that crushing claustrophobia... Take off on the highway, through the cornfields and mountains and the desert. Never stop moving. Float around the country like a salty drifter in one of those old beer commercials - the grizzled sort stalking into dusty bars with "Big Log" or "Midnight Rider" playing in the background. Get space, air, breathe. Live like a fucking American, like goddamned human.

I stepped out the front door and looked up the street for a cab. The firm was on a slow corner, so I decided to walk a few blocks, closer to City Hall. Then I saw the sign in window of the deli. "Nova Lox, $22.00 pound." Hmmm. Few foods on Earth beat quality kosher lox. Salt and raw, smoked salmon... Poor man's sushi. I could easily eat a half pound alone - no bagels or onions or tomatoes, and none of that disgusting cream cheese heathens smear on the stuff. It was almost lunch, and there was no resisting hunger... or my chronic ADD. The decision came like instinct. A moment later I found myself in the deli, in line, waiting to order. Fuck it. My "escape" could wait a moment. I'd grab a quarter pound, appetizer size - something to eat on the run...

And really, let's face it - Where was I going? I wasn't going to get in the car and drive off for the Left Coast. I'd do what I did every time I lost my mind at the office - get a cab home and sit in the living room, taking my pulse, catching my breath and reasoning with myself. You have to go back. Everyone hates it. That's why they call it work. The problem isn't the job - it's you. The rest of the world suffers through this shit and you're going to have to as well.

Serenity now... Serenity now...

I'd tell myself the same thing every time, something I knew all too well, from so many doomed "escapes" - all those frenzied midnight runs and frantic, pointless road trips that had gone horribly, hideously wrong. All the times I'd thought the answer was in distance, speed and movement - a simple matter of placement, stumbling on a magic "elsewhere." And all the times I'd learned... Running just to run is running in circles. Or running in place, maybe, depending on how look at it. Either way, you wind up at the same finish line.

* * *

The first "escape" fiasco I remember was in college, sophomore year. A bunch of us were sitting in a room in the fraternity house, bored and restless, facing another dead Thursday night. Same beer, dope and people - another keg party in the basement, repeating the tired drunken ritual we followed every night. Looking back now, that seems like Nirvana, a moment most of us would give a finger to have again. But then, there, as crazy as it sounds, the scene could get routine, like you were living in an endless loop of reruns. There was the same music - that constant hum of "Jessica" or "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" pouring out of the basement stereo.¹ The same beer - $30 kegs of Milwaukee's Best, frequently warm or skunked. And all the same women - the ones you'd already tried and failed to hook up with, hooked up with and didn't want to hook up with again or knew would never, ever, under any circumstances hook up with you. We needed something different, a totally new scene. That or a distraction, something to occupy the mind - a quest, challenge or competition of some kind.

"_____________ University?"

"No, the _______________ meat packing plant. I hear it's a got a great tour. What other _________________ would I mean but the college?"

"That's like two hours away."

"No it's not." Chris reminded me I hadn't majored in Geography. "It's an hour, maybe an hour and quarter."

"She have any friends?" My buddy Martin lifted his eyes from a magazine.

"She's cute and she lives with a bunch of friends. They're probably cute." Chris picked up the cordless phone. "I'll give her a call."

Twenty minutes later eight of us were in the hallway, prepping for the trip. We had Chris driving half of us in his rickety old Volvo and another brother, Randal, taking the other half in his rusted, mid-80s Honda Accord.

"We need liquor for this." Martin got straight to the important business. Most of us had been casually drinking beers. Stopping dead for any period of time would crater whatever thin buzzes we had. As any drinker can tell you - there's no restarting a drunk. Break the steady flow of fuel - give the brain and liver a moment to regroup, build up a tolerance - and your buzz is shot for the night.

"Jagermeister." Chris snapped.

"Not in my car." Randal laughed. "We'll have Beam."

"I don't give a fuck what you drink, but I'm not drinking that shit."

"Jaegy? Your pussy hurt?" And so the battle was joined... There were two types in the fraternity - people who drank bourbon and the people who didn't. Chris' liver had the proof of a bar towel, but he never drank bourbon, and that was a sore spot with some. The house worshiped bourbon, viewed it like a sacrament. Jagermeister was a novelty item, the sort of thing you kept around for visitors, sorority girls or someone's silly younger brother visiting from Villanova... A sugary, seventy proof buzz for people who couldn't handle real whiskey. Randal was a purist. He wasn't drinking fortified cough syrup on a road trip.

"Fuck you. I don't have to justify my choice of sauce. I can go round for round with you anytime."

"Okay." Randal laughed. "Let's make a bet..."

Fifteen minutes later we were parked outside the liquor store, waiting for an older fraternity brother to bring out bottles of Jagermeister and Beam. "So here's how it works." Chris spread a map across the hood of his car and showed Randal the route to _____________. "First car there - with the bottle finished - wins a handle of whatever they want."²

"Wins a sack!" Stuart, a member of the house's "Baking Contingent" screamed from the back of Chris's car.

"Don't start that shit." I had to cut off that debate before it gained any traction. Every fraternity has a "Baking Contingent," that group of members who smokes twice as much dope as everybody else and reduces every transaction, conversation or house meeting to a discussion of how they might procure cheap or free weed.³ It was bad enough I found myself in the Jagermeister car. The last thing I needed was to suffer through an argument over first prize.

"You have a shot glass, right?" Chris handed me the bottle and jumped in the driver's seat.

"You sure this is cold? I'm not drinking this shit warm."

"Freezing to the core." He backed out of the parking space and put the car in gear. "We called ahead and had them put the bottles in the champagne chiller."

"The champagne chiller?"

"You know. That whirlpool thing filled with cold water that-- What the fuck are you doing?"

"I'm pouring a shot."

"We're on fucking Main Street." Chris shoved my hand down and pointed across the road. "The police station is right over there."

"I thought we were in a hurry."

"You notice the windows in this car? You can't hold the fucking bottle in the air like that, like you're working in a lab or mixing shit in chemistry class. Pour that shit down low."

"Fine, but you don't have to knock the bottle out of my hand. This stuff's black. It stains."

"Hey. Hey." Stuart leaned in between the front seats, holding a lit bowl in Chris's face. "You guys want to hit this?"

"Shit, man." Chris waved off the smoke. "Wait till we're out of the center of fucking town."

"I think that's the post office right there, Chris." Martin coughed from the back seat. "The police station's on the other side of the street."

"Thank you. Thanks for that clarification."

"We should have made it so the winner gets a sack." Stu whined to Martin. "Think about it. A sack's worth fifty bucks. What's a handle cost? Twenty bucks? How's that worth the effort?"

"It's not about the prize." Chris adjusted the rear view mirror. "It's the principle of the thing."

"Look. I have to be honest." We hadn't even made the bridge out of town when I realized we had serious problems. "I have issues here. I don't think I can do this."

"Too late now..." Chris laughed and crushed a cigarette butt in the ashtray. "You're in."

"There's no way I can pour shots like this. The potholes alone are killing me."

"You sure you don't want to hit this?" Stu's bowl re-appeared in my face, this time from the from the window side of my seat, as though that little added distance - the two and half foot difference between him handing it to me from that angle and passing it up the middle - would somehow hide the transfer from Chris's gaze.

"With what?" I had the bottle in one hand and a half full shot glass in the other. "My foot?"

"The car doesn't have cup-holders?'

"For liquor bottles? Square liquor bottles?"

"So you don't want to hit it?"

To be continued...

----------
¹ Low Spark and Brothers and Sisters being the last remaining tapes that hadn't been stolen or destroyed.
² "Handle" - 1.75 liter bottle, named for the glass handle usually affixed to its side.
³ Officials in the house routinely won the Contingent's vote on governance issues by earmarking initiatives with promises of free sacks for them.