333 Miles (16 page)

Roger finished with an eighty-six and Gary,
as always it seemed, shot a ninety-two. This earned Roger $18, and
he bought beers after the round. Halfway through his Budweiser,
Gary once more told Roger to forget all about the Australia idea.
Roger took his opinion seriously, but still thought he was more
likely than not to carry through with it just one time. That night
in the Chart House parking lot, however, he went with his final
instinct and told Wayne he wasn’t interested. Wayne said he
understood but was sorry Roger was missing out on the
opportunity.

Three weeks later, Wayne took a Qantas
Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Sydney.
When he got back to LAX, rather than returning to San Diego, he
took a six-year detour to the Bay Area where he lodged at San
Quentin California State Penitentiary.

Chapter Seventeen

Final Score

8:11 p.m.

“
How about that?!”

– Mel Allen,
This Week in Baseball

It took only one minute to pass through
Baker, California. The world’s largest thermometer, a neon pink
phallic symbol rising one hundred and thirty-four feet out of the
desert to commemorate the hottest temperature ever recorded in the
United States (134 degrees Farenheit in Death Valley in 1913),
showed that it was now only forty-seven degrees.

While possessing over three thousand songs on
his iPod, Alex had not updated it in over six months, and so he was
already bored of the available selections. Also, he knew that if
Stanford covered the spread, Roger would have cash for the weekend
and he would not have to lend him money. Roger was always good for
his debts, but Alex considered it tedious to have to deal with the
situation. He greatly preferred a world where he owed no one
anything, and no one owed him. For both of these reasons he was
happy to turn off the music to listen to the end of the Stanford
game. Really, with possession of the ball, less than two minutes
left on the clock, and ten and a half points to give against the
spread, it was more of a formality than anything. But Alex wanted
everyone to be merry and was pleased to let Roger enjoy the moment.
Then Roger announced that he was guaranteeing a Stanford
victory.

This prompted Alex to reconsider the
certainty of the outcome. Roger had a long and bloodied history of
intra-game guarantees that somehow went impossibly sour. Gary had
also been a witness to this strange phenomenon over the years.

Gary: “Rodge, you idiot. Why can’t you keep
your mouth shut for two minutes?”

Roger: “Don’t worry. This one is done. No
question about it. I am putting it in the fridge.”

Washington was now out of timeouts so
Stanford had elected to have their quarterback start taking a knee.
Done properly two more times, this would run the clock down to
thirty-eight seconds. A punt on fourth down, assuming it would not
be returned all the way, would leave the Huskies with a maximum of
one play to score a game-tying touchdown.

Remembering “The Play,” in which the
California Bears miraculously leveraged five lateral passes and the
Stanford Band on a last-second kickoff return to win the 1982 Big
Game, everyone in the car waited nervously for the ensuing punt.
During the next snap, the announcer was also recounting the famous
Big Game history when suddenly his voice rose mid-sentence and he
became very excited. “Oh my Goodness! I think he dropped the ball!
It looks like the quarterback has fumbled the snap. There is a big
pile around the line of scrimmage. Yes! Yes! Washington has
recovered.”

Gary: “Oh, no.”

Roger: “No problem. They still have to score
a touchdown and then win by four in overtime to cover the
spread.”

Despite Roger’s confidence, he was now
chewing his fingernails. No one was surprised when Washington
completed a forty-three yard pass for a touchdown on the first play
from scrimmage. Stanford received the kickoff and chose to run out
the clock and take their chances in overtime. After a commercial
break in which no one in the car said a word, Stanford took the
ball first in overtime. On the first play, they ran a simple screen
to the right.

Announcer: “The Stanford quarterback drops
back. He quickly looks right and fires a short pass out to Jones.
Jones is hit immediately but shakes the tackle. He advances up to
the twenty and cuts inside. He is really turning nothing into
something. Oh, wait, Jones has lost the ball at the fifteen and
Washington has recovered. That is a devastating turn of events. It
is as if somehow a curse was placed on Stanford in the last few
minutes of this game. I am not sure if I can ever remember a team
falling apart so quickly.”

Mike couldn’t help but laugh. Roger did not
think the situation was humorous.

Roger began shouting: “Ball-licking madness!
This has got to be some kind of joke. What the fuck is wrong with
these fucking sperm-seekers?”

Mike: “Still guaranteeing a win?”

Roger: “Shut your damn pie hole.”

Alex: “Don’t worry. Most likely Washington
will settle for a field goal and you will still cover.”

Roger: “Maybe if Stanford can pull their
heads out of each others’ asses for ten seconds to run a play.”

Alex proved prophetic in his belief that
Washington would be conservative. Following the college rules, they
began their overtime possession on the twenty-five yard line.
Washington ran the ball three straight times to start their
possession, gaining exactly four yards on each carry and earning a
fresh set of downs. Roger approved of their game plan and assumed
they would kick when they got inside the fifteen. On first down
they again ran the ball up the middle. Had the group been watching
the game on TV, they would scarcely have believed how the Stanford
defense could have missed so many opportunities to tackle a running
back who was concentrating more on holding on to the football than
gaining any serious yardage. Nevertheless, head down, he ran in a
straight line all the way through the defense and into the end
zone.

Roger was too defeated to yell. It was not
the first time he had lost a bet on what seemed like extremely
unlikely circumstances. He expressed his displeasure in a
matter-of-fact tone, “Those too-smart for their own good
monkey-fuckers fucked me right in the ass.”

Alex was about to switch the music back on
when the announcer indicated there was a flag on the play. It was
holding on the offense and the touchdown was called back. Three
plays later, Washington successfully kicked a thirty-two yard field
goal for a three-point win, and a $1,400 swing for Roger’s
parlay.

Roger, though quite pleased with this second
turn of events, felt a bit foolish about his previous outbursts and
remained calm. “Huh. How about that?” was his only comment.

Alex switched the stereo back to the
auxiliary setting and Gary scrolled to
All I Wanna Do (Is Have
Some Fun)
by Sheryl Crow. She was not the only one.

Interlude Eleven

Mike (27)

By the age of twenty-seven, fully burdened
with the responsibilities of a standard corporate job, Mike had
developed a sincere appreciation for the simple pleasures of
day-drinking. So when Alex called to suggest a trip up to Hermosa
Beach for Labor Day weekend, Mike was more than happy to cancel his
Saturday plans with Jennifer Gates. Jennifer was his girlfriend of
about a year, but Mike already knew he would break up with her at
some point before the winter holidays. Somewhere around the July
4
^th
weekend, she stopped trying to make him happy and
shifted the focus of the relationship to her concerns. Usually,
these were little complaints that the apartment was too cold or her
food wasn’t right or they never watched the movies she wanted or
they never hung out anymore on Saturday night, or, or, or. On top
of this, Mike was pretty sure Jennifer had gained some weight. Like
most guys, however, Mike was awful at ending relationships.
Actually, he had never officially done it. Of the three girls he
had dated for more than six months, two had dumped him with little
or no warning. With the third, Mike had slowly stopped being
affectionate and basically stopped calling her altogether, though
he generally continued to show up when she planned things.
Eventually she got the hint and broke up with him.

Alex’s silver 328i BMW was filled with
conversation the entire one-and-a-half hour drive from San Diego to
Hermosa Beach, but not once did a mention of Jennifer surface.

The destination was a house occupied by
James, a high school friend of Alex’s, and his roommate Julian.
Julian never seemed to be in L.A., and pretty much everyone assumed
was a mid-level drug dealer, though no one knew for sure. The
interior of the house was dark, cramped and not very impressive.
But the location was perfect, right on the beach and just a few
hundred yards north of the Hermosa Pier. Also, it had a roof deck
providing a panorama of the beach and ocean from the pier all the
way to Manhattan Beach farther north. Just as important, directly
in front of the house were four permanent beach volleyball courts.
On any given afternoon it was more likely than not that at least
one of the courts would be occupied by bikini-clad, decent-looking
or better chicks.

By 2:30 p.m., Mike was in the best mood he
could remember in a long time. He, Alex and James had enjoyed a
tasty lunch at Amigos Tacos, washed down with Pacificos and lime.
The three now sat in beach chairs on the roof terrace. Four chicks,
three of them hot, were playing volleyball on the second court.
Mike had bet Alex $10 on the team on the right and they were
already winning 10-4. To top it all off, he took the last sip of
his second Bud Light and noticed the definitive start of a soft day
buzz. Mike was reaching into the cooler for another Bud Light when
Gary opened the door leading to the rooftop.

Alex: “G-Balls! Good to see you, glad you
could make it.”

Gary: “Yo! Whattup? Of course. I wouldn’t
miss it. I just had to go in for a few hours this morning to finish
up for the case I have been working on. How’s it going up
here?”

Mike: “Man, you work too hard.”

Gary: “Tell me about it. Anyway, I am off
until Monday so fuck it. Beer me.”

Mike: “You don’t have Labor Day off?”

Gary: “Let’s not talk about it. Just give me
a beer, please.”

Mike reached into the cooler and threw Gary
an ice-cold Bud Light. Gary opened it, took a sip with his left
hand and wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand. “Fuckin’
A,” he decreed.

“Fuckin’ A,” Alex, Mike and James replied in
unison.

James offered Gary a hit of weed from his
pipe, which Gary declined. Instead he pulled up a beach chair and
lined himself up so all four were facing the ocean. For the next
two hours, the happy group did nothing but drink beer, pee, bet on
beach volleyball, listen to the Yankees/Red Sox game on the radio,
smoke pot (James and Alex only), eat Kettle Brand Salt and Pepper
Potato Chips (James and Alex only), and discuss the pressing issues
of the day. These began with an assessment of the relatively new
President, George W. Bush, whom James disliked and considered an
idiot but Alex, Mike and Gary supported fully. Each felt Al Gore
was a disaster and all agreed with James that Clinton had been a
good president, though Gary felt his foreign policy was weak. A
consensus was also reached that a sitting President should never
consider oral sex and cigar penetration with an intern in the Oval
Office unless the girl is absolutely smoking hot. Other topics
covered, in order and with summary conclusions in parenthesis where
appropriate, included:

• If the 2000 election was fair (3 yes, 1
  no)
  

• If the President was really controlled by
  secret businessmen (2 yes, 2 no)
  

• If the stock market would rebound (3 yes, 1
  no)
  

• If WebVan would survive (4 yes)
  

• Whether San Diego or Los Angeles was better
  (3 San Diego, 1 Los Angeles)
  

• Why all hot chicks are dumb (God is
  fair)
  

• Why they should have partied more and
  studied less in college
  

• Whether law school is worth the time and
  cost (3 no, 1 not sure)
  

• How it would be pretty cool to be a
  mailman
  

• Why drinking in the day is more fun than at
  night (no good theories)
  

• Which of the girls playing volleyball on
  court two was the hottest (4 for one in the red on the right
  side)
  

• If all points should count in volleyball or
  only when a team has the serve (2 only on serve, 2 all)
  

• Why the American League should get rid of
  the designated hitter
  

• How stupid the college football playoff
  system is
  

• Why there should be more three-day
  weekends
  

• Why the holiday for Martin Luther King Day
  should keep the same name but be moved back a week or two to
  coincide with the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday
  

• How to interpret the effectiveness of
  condoms and birth control pills. Does 99% effective mean for each
  incident, for each year, or for life? (4 unsure)
  

These important subjects took just over two
hours to cover. Now after four o’clock in the afternoon, the sun
started a slow decent toward the Pacific, its rays dancing on the
water and sparkling in mesmerizing patterns. Mike, who was rarely
visibly upbeat, offered a positive review of the situation. “Man,
we are really lucky,” he said before getting up to go downstairs to
pee and find a hat to protect his face, which was starting to
redden.

He returned two minutes later wearing a
baseball cap advertising Comdex 1999, opened a new beer and slowly
settled himself back into his beach chair. His mood had not
soured.