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2007-07-07 - 2:33 a.m. So, there's this man, right? He woke up on Sunday afternoon at around three. Three hours later he was playing soccer. Three hours later he was playing poker. Six hours later he was playing a game called "Thirteen", which is like Rummy, but with wild cards. Six hours later he was driving, staying less than four miles above the speed limit at all times; this man, he's playing at being responsible. Six hours later, still driving, through a desolate land called "Wyoming", with happy chick rock blasting on the radio, to keep him from falling asleep after the 24 hours of not. Three hours later he arrived in Laramie. Six hours later he's moved on, driving the path to Longmont. Not wanting to wake his mom when he arrives at 12:30 on Tuesday morning, he drives to Walmart and buys a pair of swimming trunks, hops the fence at the local pool, and spends an hour washing the smell of thirteen hours of driving out of his hair. When he gets out, he snags a spongebob towel that some family left behind, puts it on the driver's side seat, and drives some more. When the girl walking towards the corner signals for him to roll down his window, this man instead reaches back and grabs a shirt and pulls it on. Opening the door, he gives her his best smile, and she asks if he has a cigarette. She asks where he lives, and where he's driving to. He tells her, "over there," and, "anywhere." She asks if he can give her a ride to the hospital. Her boyfriend is working there, as an emergency room valet, and she's sorta drunk, and she doesn't want to walk. Of course, this man has rarely turned down a cute girl, and this girl is nothing if not cute, and tipsy. She gets in, and he hardly drives a block before she says, "I might make out with you." He mentions her boyfriend, whom they are driving to go see right at this very moment, and she mentions how he's in a gang. Yes, this suburb of Denver apparently has gangs, fighting in territories north or south of the golf course. She gets dropped off, and still he drives, unable to bring himself to disturb his mom's sleep. It's nearly three in the morning, thirty-six hours of no sleep later, when the same girl from before is suddenly waving at him again. She opens the door and asks where he's going. He says he doesn't know, and she says she's coming with. She asks him quite a few times how old he is, not believing. She says, "I know where we should go! Do you know the old sugar mill? They say it's haunted." They go, and this man, he parks on a dead end road, and she wraps one arm around him, lays her head on his shoulder, and immediately falls asleep. A bit later, as his arm is starting to fall asleep as well, she wakes up and says, "Do you want to move to the back seat? It's uncomfortable up here." So they do. You know what happens next, because you know this man, despite all his best intentions, is still just a boy. In the morning, when she says she has to meet her parole officer, he drives her to the 7-11 and she says, "I need to buy something real quick." She gets out of the car. She goes inside. He drives off. Fourty-two hours awake, and he's thinking clearly, is what he tells himself. He calls up another girl he knows from around these parts, one who doesn't consider "Fergalicious" to be her favorite song, and says, "I was wondering if you had any plans for lunch." Bookstores here, bank here, then drive to boulder, for a greek lunch. Then drive, more, the whole distance to Seattle. He finds the house he was meant to find, the girl he is here to be with, and gets introduced to all of her friends; each of them more cute and counterculture than the previous. After the fireworks that they watch from the roof, he finally gets to fall asleep in the roommate named Sara's bed. Apparently, as explained to him the next day, she asked him if she could sleep in her own bed with him, and he replied, direct quote, "Sleep with the king before you get checkmated."

[ Who - Whom - Old - Host ] bang, bang, bangs.