333 Miles (17 page)

Mike: “You know, sometimes when I am at work,
it is difficult to figure out what the point is because, you know,
I certainly don’t give a fuck about that place, but then sometimes
you are reminded that life is pretty good.”

James: “Fuckin’ A.”

Gary: “Yeah, we are lucky, but even work
isn’t that bad. I mean it would be nice to do a bit less of it, but
work does allow for all of this and also I think we would get bored
without it.”

Alex: “I don’t know. I mean, I am grateful
for the cash, but otherwise I think I could live without it.”

Gary: “So what would you do all day?”

Alex: “Get my handicap down to single digits,
travel, get better at cooking and chase chicks.”

Mike: “That doesn’t sound like it would get
boring too soon.”

Gary: “It doesn’t sound like it, but I bet it
would after a while.”

James: “You could also smoke a lot of shit,
man.”

James offered his comment with enthusiasm,
but it was largely ignored.

Gary and Mike subtly glanced at each other
and rolled their eyes. Alex completely disregarded it and moved on,
simultaneously shaking his Bud Light can to see if there was enough
left for a last sip.

Alex: “Well, I wouldn’t mind finding out.
Also, someday it would be cool to try to do the whole thing over
again. Differently. Better somehow. What I do now is too
commoditized.”

Gary: “In that case, don’t become a lawyer.
We really do nothing. But we do a lot of it and at least we get
paid.”

Alex: “It is all about transferring big
numbers around electronically and simply removing a small piece
along the way. Intangibility is better.”

James: “That’s true, man. Nothing ever really
happens.”

James was missing the point of the
conversation but Alex, Gary, and Mike, who usually paid only
courtesy attention to him, let this comment sink in for a few
seconds.

Mike: “That is kind of true. I mean I am
twenty-six and jack-shit has happened in my life.”

Alex: “Dude, you are so negative. That isn’t
true at all. Think about all the shit we have done. A million Vegas
trips, the Mexico trips, LA, Miami, San Fran, Europe, all the
nights out in San Diego, all the ping-pong and golf and poker
days.”

Gary: “Don’t forget the no-hitter in Little
League.”

Mike: “Very funny. Yeah, but that’s not what
I mean. I mean nothing significant ever happens. We just . . . kind
of . . . float.”

Gary: “I don’t buy that either. I mean I met
Blair and that was a huge thing in my life.”

This time it was James, Mike and Alex’s turn
to roll their eyes. But Mike was intrigued by the conversation as a
whole and carried it on, the beer allowing him to produce a stream
of consciousness longer than he would normally have felt
comfortable with.

Mike: “Yes, Casanova, and that’s great.
Really. But I mean, don’t you think it is weird that all of us just
got here without really planning it? Basically you were born and
then you went to school and then you went to college because your
parents told you that you have to. And then you got a job because
you were supposed to. Probably getting a job was a bit of a bitch
at the time, but in retrospect it just happened and now you work
and get paid and live your life and get drunk on the weekends and
if you are Alex you nail a lot of chicks. But doesn’t it all seem
pre-ordained? I mean I never thought about any of this shit. It
just happened, and really, it didn’t require much effort on my
part. Maybe it would have been better to join the Army, or move to
Hawaii and rent out jet-skis on the beach, or something instead of
just being a little ant marching along with everyone else.”

Alex: “Most ants don’t make a hundred grand
at twenty-six like you do.”

Mike: “Yeah, yeah. I am not complaining, I am
just saying it is weird. And you know what? Because it is America
and because we are from the families we are from, we are going to
probably end up making more money, getting married somewhere along
the way, and then buying a house somewhere in the suburbs, and then
buying a dog and then having two point five kids. What if we want
to do something different? You can’t. You can’t because society
forces it on us. It is an overwhelming current that you can’t
escape.”

Alex: “I guess so, Sport. And you know what
else? You are going to have to drop two months of that fat salary
on an engagement ring even though that makes no fucking sense at
all, just because society wants you to. But you are living in a
society and the society happens to favor people like you, so try to
be a bit grateful.”

Gary: “And you can get away with like five or
six weeks salary on the ring. The two months thing is just
propaganda from the diamond companies.”

Alex: “You know you could have been born in
South Central, or in Ethiopia or something, so make sure you don’t
complain.”

Gary: “Also, you would be surprised. At first
you think the diamond thing is stupid, but after you buy it, you
find that you don’t mind having spent the money. It is worth it to
make the girl happy and you will be glad.”

Alex: “Dude, enough about the diamond ring
already. That isn’t really what we are talking about.”

Gary: “I am just saying.”

Mike: “Yeah, I get all that. And I am not
complaining. But still it is just interesting how we float through
life and it kind of ends up the same no matter what.”

James: “No man, I don’t think that’s true. I
mean a bunch of my buddies got fucked up on drugs and their lives
are totally messed now. Also, you can do real good shit, too. This
dude Ken from high school that Alex and I used to hang with started
trading options and made like fifteen mil. No offense to you guys,
I love hanging with you, but you guys are sort of out of a Gap
commercial where everyone is the same. But that is because it is
the way you make it, not the way it is. Not real life.”

The guys once again paused in mild surprise
about the wisdom from James, laughing lightly at the Gap reference
which was true enough to be funny.

Alex: “James is totally right. Also, I think
the older you get, the more dispersion there is and that is all
because of your own actions. It is true that basically everyone’s
lives are the same until at least the end of high school except
maybe one person is a bit more popular or something. Then some
people go to college and some don’t. Assuming you go to a decent
college, everyone gets out and gets some kind of job and you make
between thirty and fifty K. When you get in your late twenties some
people make a bit more and some are married but things still look
pretty much the same. I think it is only when you get into your
thirties that shit starts to look real different. Some of the dudes
I work with who are in their thirties make seven figures and others
are struggling not to get let go. Also, some are happily married
with kids and others are divorced. Plus, you start to see a lot
more drug and alcohol problems surface in the thirties. What is all
just fun and games now starts to become a big problem for some
people later. So I guess, Mike, in some ways you are right, but I
think the way you position yourself now has a lot to do with how
things turn out. It is just hard to see the differences at the
moment.”

Mike: “Sweet. Hopefully I will be the guy
with the alcohol problem.”

Alex: “I think you have a good chance if you
keep working at it hard enough. I know what you are saying, though.
I frequently have this dream where I have to go back to high school
or college because it turns out I missed one or two classes that I
needed to graduate. Then I realize it has been more than five years
and they are not going to stop paying me now either way, so who
gives a fuck if I really graduated or not? Anyway, I think it means
somehow I feel I don’t quite deserve what I have. But who
knows?”

Gary: “It probably just means you feel guilty
because you cheated your way through school.”

Alex: “No. I hardly cheated at all, at least
in college.”

Gary: “You know what is kind of strange
though? Sort of in line with what Mike was saying, is that it does
seem that in our generation nothing ever really happens in the
world either. I mean, there is a lot of progress with technology
and such but there really have not been any defining moments.”

Mike: “Like what?”

Gary: “Well our grandparents would have had
the Great Depression and World War Two. Hiroshima and all that
shit. Before that were World War One and the Spanish Flu. Our
parents had Vietnam, the JFK assassination, the Cuban Missile
Crisis, and whatever else. I mean, like, what have we had? What big
events do you remember where you were for?”

Alex: “I remember the Space Shuttle blowing
up.”

Mike: “I remember where I was when Princess
Di died.”

James: “Didn’t Reagan get shot?”

Alex: “Yeah. Also we had the Iraq War.”

Gary: “That barely counted.”

Mike: “There were a few big earthquakes.”

James: “There was the Monica Lewinsky
situation.”

Mike: “I remember where I was when Joe Carter
hit that homerun off of Mitch Williams in the World Series.”

Gary: “I don’t think sports moments should
count for this. See what I mean? There isn’t much.”

Mike: “The Berlin Wall.”

Alex: “The dot-com bubble. Who knows? We may
still get our own Great Depression the way the market is
going.”

Gary: “Yeah. Anyway, it still sort of seems
to me like nothing happens anymore.”

Alex: “Maybe. I guess so.”

At Fenway Park in Boston, as the guys
listened on the radio, Mike Mussina nearly made history that day,
retiring the first twenty-six Boston batters before yielding a two
out pinch-hit single to Carl Everett in the ninth inning.

Chapter Eighteen

Swingers

8:29 p.m.

“
I think you're all fucked in the head.
We're ten hours from the fucking fun park and you want to bail out.
Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a
quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna
have fun. We're all gonna have so much fucking fun we'll need
plastic surgery to remove our god-damn smiles. You'll be whistling
“Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah” out of your assholes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on
a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy
Shit!”

– Clark Griswold,
Vacation

Other than Roger’s outburst toward the
conclusion of the Stanford game, things remained noticeably quiet
in the car ever since the encounter with California’s finest. It
had now been about an hour since they had been pulled over, so Gary
decided it was safe to crack another beer. He offered fresh ones to
the back seat as well, which were readily accepted. Alex, who was
maintaining a constant seventy-eight miles per hour, asked for a
Diet Coke, which Gary also provided.

Alex had a better ability than most to move
on from bad news, especially if it was the result of something he
could not control. With regards to the speeding ticket, he reasoned
that while he was largely at fault, these things sometimes happened
and could not be completely avoided. Though not happy about the
large fine he knew he would face, he increasingly considered the
outcome of the whole event to be generally positive given the
potential for much worse scenarios. Driving though the darkness,
with the rest of the group quiet, it didn’t take long for Alex’s
mind to wander from the unfortunate issue with the police to other
items.

Alex: “Do you think Smurfette let a lot of
the other Smurfs fuck her?”

Gary: “I really like to think not. I kind of
had a crush on her as a kid. That would sort of ruin it somehow.
She seems so sweet. Anyway, it didn’t seem like the Smurfs were
very sexual creatures.”

Alex: “Yeah, but they always seemed so happy
all the time. You know, except for that one that was always upset
about something. I mean, especially considering they lived in
mushrooms and had to provide for everything they had. They must
have had to work pretty hard. It wasn’t like they lived in an
oil-rich emirate or anything. Plus, they always had watch out for
Gargamel and that cat. It sounds like a pretty tough life. They
must have been getting laid to be that cheerful.”

Gary: “I don’t think so. With only one chick,
if they were fucking her, it would have bred too much jealousy and
resentment. I think the fact that they were so happy is evidence
that they were asexual.”

Alex: “That is logical. But what about
Baby-Smurf? Maybe someone slipped one past the goalie?"

Gary: “Smurfette never looked pregnant. There
had to be some other way of reproduction. They were always making
potions and stuff. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Alex: “Sometimes I wonder if the Russians
created the Smurfs as some kind of communist propaganda to
influence American kids.”

Gary: “How is that?”

Alex: “Well, the Smurfs basically had a
communist society. Remember how they were always all helping out to
build something or accomplish some common goal? Plus there were no
rich Smurfs. Clearly Handy Smurf could have made a killing if it
was a free market. And Papa Smurf kind of had a role similar to a
Soviet Premier.”

Gary: “Are you calling Papa Smurf Stalin? I
don’t remember him sending any Smurfs to the gulag.”

Alex: “Of course not. They wouldn’t want to
show that part. He did have that red hat, though. Anyway, think
about it. The show was at its peak in the early eighties at the
height of the Cold War, right? Also, it is consistent with
Smurfette’s role as the sexless beauty. One of the main reasons to
make more money than your peers is to attract pussy. Having only
one woman, who didn’t or couldn’t put out, is sort of the perfect
scenario for communism to thrive.”