by Craig Birk
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 4th 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.
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.
