"Dog, let's go to All-Star. F--k it, dog, let's be out."
— Visiting frat brother,
9 a.m., Saturday,
February 14
Rewind to November: Pre-planning for the NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles. The pre-plan: Go. Back up even further, to February 2003: A local frat brother not only committed to going, but to driving and pressing his pops for tickets.
Back to February 1, 2004. Frat backs out. Can't go because he's broke. Now I can't go because I was going to bum a ride, bunk with his folks and mooch tickets from his pops. Yes, I was broke, too, but that's not the point. My plans were unraveling faster than Scott Petersen's alibi. No seeing the girlfriend, no partying with frat brothers, no experiencing my first big professional sports event. Fraternity brothers! Who needs 'em?
It doesn't hit me until noon. We're in Barstow, headed to All-Star.
It's Saturday, February 14. The we is me, that visiting frat brother and his Lady Friend. I meet Lady Friend earlier that day as she comes from my room, eyes squinting, hair frizzy. Frat is in the kitchen whipping up grits and eggs and dodging spurts of sausage grease shooting from the pan like cholesterol smart bombs. Then I realize, she … came … from … my … room. My room?? My room!! My room looked like it was hit by Hurricane Humpty. Ruffled bed sheets. Wet towels on the carpet. "They soiled the bed?" my girlfriend would later ask.
As Lady Friend packs and gets set to go back to the hotel, Frats searches the Net for rental cars … to go to All-Star. I tell him to have fun. No, he says, for us to go to All-Star. He offers to foot the trip. Don't have to ask me twice. But everything's booked. He talks to her, comes back smiling.
"Get ya shit, dog, we goin' to LA."
Lady Friend's got an attitude. She came to see him, not drive her car to LA, she says, smirking. "Now, if we goin', all I want to see is smiles." Twenty minutes later, we're speeding north on Interstate 15. By the time we hit Primm, she's bopping to hip-hop music, while he eggs her on: "Work that motor, uh, work that motor, uh, work that motor." By the time we get to LA, she's flirty. "Keep sticking your tongue out," she tells Frat, "and I'm going to put it to use."
At the Marriott in Huntington Beach, we drink and eat. I call my girlfriend. We plan to rendezvous at my fraternity's party in downtown LA at 9:30. It was 6 p.m. I'm excited.
Frat is giggling. I open my eyes a little and, from the backseat, I see her head cocked back and some long, angular thing in her mouth. It's his finger. I'm not quite sure where we are, but it's in the vicinity of downtown LA and about 9 p.m.
The finger-sucking goes on for awhile. Too long. Frat gets fed up and tells her to stop. Turns out he doesn't like her "like that." Great time to be candid. Pick any adjective dealing with stupid, shallow, unfeeling, insensitive and she basted him with it. She even went there, slyly remarking about his bedroom prowess. Then came the words you never want to hear on a road trip when you're in a friend of a friend's car: Pull over and get out.
Uh oh. I did what a man has to do: begged my ass off. "Please, just let us get back to Vegas. How are we going to get back? I don't money to buy a ticket from LAX."
Lady Friend/Savior tells me, "You're the only reason you guys aren't walking back to Vegas."
Frat was quiet and kept driving. He whispered, "We're going back to Vegas."
"We are?" We were. Damn.
Four hours later, she drops us off without a word. Now the calls from California begin. We missed a great party. Damn.
Frat apologizes. I'm tired and ready for bed. No need to explain, I say, I'm through with road tripping.
"You can't stop this shit, dog, know you love this shit."
You know what? I do.