Benny Jay: Sleeping With Billy

It's the Illinois Prep Top Times annual state high school indoor track championship and I'm down in Bloomington, Illinois 'cause, you know, I just eat this stuff up.

Here's the deal. I'm gonna share a room at the Hampton Inn with Caldow, my old pal the track coach. The high schools with the smaller enrollment are running on Friday and the schools with the bigger enrollment are running Saturday. Caldow's skipping the Friday meet. But he knows we're sharing a room -- I think....

The Friday night meet goes longer than expected. But it really doesn't matter cause it's just off-the-charts. They got this kid Zack Riley -- remember the name -- a high jumper out of Herrin, Illinois. Which is somewhere south near -- I don't know -- Kentucky? The kid's killing the competition and I swear I don't see how he does it. He's a wispy thing, light as a feather. Jumps about seven feet. Can't really call it jumping. He just sorts of floats over the bar.

Anyway, by the time I get back to the hotel it's nearly two in the morning. The clerk at the desk -- call him Waldo -- gives me my key. I wander up to my room. Only the key doesn't work. I swipe it one way, then another. I flip it over and swipe it again. Nothing. I know I'm clumsy with technology, but I remember mastering the key swipe thing about a decade ago. So something's definitely wrong.

Back I go to the front desk, where Waldo -- by now we're old pals -- breaks me the bad news. If the key doesn't work that means Caldow's got the door bolted. And there's nothing we can do short of waking him up with a phone call. Don't think I'm not tempted. But I start feeling guilty about it cause I know how hard it is to fall asleep in the first place, much less after you've been awakened.

That's how I find myself blurry-eyed in the lobby, watching Middle America walk through the door. I'm thinking -- there's a lot of people up late in Bloomington, Illinois. Where's all action?

I start chatting with Precious, a shot-putter from Chicago. She's got her own situation. She left her luggage in another girls' room -- now they're sleeping and she can't get in.

"I knocked on the door, but they don't wake up," she says.

"Why don't you just go to sleep now and get your clothes in the morning?" I ask.

She looks at me like I'm crazy. And I remember: I don't understand teenagers and teenagers don't understand me.

We're just sitting in the lobby chatting about this and that when in walks Billy, an assistant coach. He's a young guy -- still in his early twenties.

"Hey, Billy," I say, "can I sleep in your room?"

"C'mon," he says.

"You're not leaving me?" says Precious.

I shrug. What can I do? It's either Billy's room or the parking lot.

It's a small room with one big bed. Billy takes one side, I get the other. I'm thinking: Abraham Lincoln used to share beds with a law partner. Back in the day.

I wanna tell Billy all about it. But he's asleep. Dude put his head on the pillow and -- bam -- he's in sleepy land. I hear him snoring. Not really loud. Thank goodness for that. Tell you the truth, I'm envious. Oh, to be young and fall asleep in a heartbeat. I lie there thinking about stuff. Think about that kid Zack Riley. I wonder what it's like to fly through the air? I think about the Bulls -- what else? They play the Pacers tomorrow. Oops, make that later today. I notice it's light in the room. No wonder! Billy's laptop's glowing. Probably radiating me and him. I look at the time. Three o'clock. Damn! I think I'll go to the bathroom and read "A Passage to India." That ought to knock me out. Hell, don't even have to go the bathroom -- there's almost enough light to read it right here. What with Billy's freakin' computer glowing....

Ring! Ring! Ring!

What the fu....

I'd been sleeping. Somehow or other I managed to fall asleep. Now I'm fumbling to kill the sound. It's the phone. By the bed. I pull it to my ear.

"Yeah?" I say.

"Billy?"

It's Bob, the coach.

"No, it's Benny," I say.

"Did I wake you?"

How can I possibly answer that question in a way that won't end in sarcasm?

"Devyn's coming up," he says. "She needs the key to the van."

"Great...."

The clock says it's 7:15. Four hours of sleep. I roll on my back and look at the ceiling. Billy's still sleeping. Of course the phone didn't wake him. Dude could sleep through a tornado.

Knock, knock.

I crawl out of bed, stumble to the door and look through the peep hole. It's Devyn, Daddy Dee's daughter.

I lower my voice and growl: "Who is it?"

"Devyn...."

"Devyn who?"

"Devyn Tee...."

"I don't know no Devyn Tee...."

She looks puzzled, like she's thinking -- oops, wrong room.

Hee, hee. I open the door. "Fooled ya," I say.

"Pops -- that's not funny," she says, as she marches into the room.

She sees Billy just rousing. "Oooh, you and Billy shared a bed...."

"It wasn't like that...."

She grabs the key and is gone.

Down in the breakfast room, I see Caldow. "Nice play, Shakespeare," I tell him. "Lockin' me out."

"I swear -- I didn't do it on purpose," he says.

I tell him I shared a bed with Billy. He says he had to share a room with Billy at another meet. "I woke up and he was hugging me," says Caldow. "I think he likes older white guys....."

I can see he's happy with that joke cause a few seconds later he repeats it. I can't blame him. A good joke is like a good horse -- you wanna ride that baby forever.

Hours and hours later, after the final race of the day, we're eating at a Steak `n Shake somewhere in the middle of Illinois. Caldow points to me and says to Billy: "Which one do you like best?"

"Man, I feel like I'm in a love triangle," says Billy. "I feel like the inside of a reverse Oreo cookie...."

I like that joke so much I repeat it a few times. Matter of fact, I'm repeating it now. But, as I was just telling you, a good joke is like a good horse....

Big Mike: A Guide For The Married Man

With The Loved One spending her weekdays in Bloomington, Indiana now, leaving me and the cats, Boutros and Terra, to our own devices, I've been thinking about the nature of marriage, love, relationships, and other forms of comedy.

TLO seems to be suffering more than we are. After all, she's sleeping in a sublet room, sharing an apartment with a cerebrum-on-legs grad student, while the cats and I have the run of the Louisville manor. We phone numerous times a day just to hear each others' voices. The conversations regularly seem to end up with one or both of us dewy-eyed.

I might think that would be the tale any married couple would tell in a similar situation but, of course, that isn't true at all. Take a couple of examples. My neighbor, Captain Billy, grants me the benefits of his wisdom as often as he can - that is, whenever her sees me before I can see him. The Captain has many fascinating ideas about husbandly duties and wifely obeisance.

He had much to say to me when he learned that I would drive TLO to work downtown every day before she jumped for saner pastures. We're a one-car family and I didn't want to be stuck without one. The Captain told me there was a perfectly good bus stop about a mile away and that my wife should have the decency to take that bus, thereby not putting me out and, besides, gas cost nearly four dollars a gallon at the time. "What the hell's wrong with her?" he demanded.

The Captain's family, being a normal Kentucky brood, has enough vehicles to open a used car lot. Everone in the family has a set of wheels. Hell, if Boutros and Terra lived with them, they'd have cars too. Normally, the Captain's wife drives her own car to work but at the time her car, a massive heap with a robust engine that serves as my alarm clock every morning, was on the fritz. Since the car has been in use since the Taft administration, it took weeks to find parts for it. Through those weeks, the Captain deigned only to drop his bride off at the bus stop, rather than haul her all the way to work (or, god forbid, let her use his car.)

For kicks, I decided to check the bus schedule to see how long her trip might be. It turned out she had to ride and hour and fifteen minutes each way. That bus, by the way, comes by every hour so woe unto her should she miss it.

I told the Captain that TLO might not reward me with a hug and a kiss if I suggested such a scheme to her. The Captain recoiled as if I'd taken a swing at him. "You tell her to take the bus," he advised. "You don't ask her."

Naturally, if I'd ever approach the delicate flower in that manner, I'd be the one recoiling from a flurry of swings.

I merely laughed off the Captain's advice and he walked away probably convinced my testicles are the size of protons.

Now, example number two. Skip the Trombonist's wife slipped while walking down the stairs late last fall and broke her ankle so badly she had to have metal bolts surgically inserted. Since she'd be confined to a wheelchair for a couple of months, she decided to stay in Harrodsburg in her sister's one-story home.

One Tuesday, during our Trivia game (Skip and I are part of Team Gorlock) I asked him if he missed the love of his life. "Damned right I do," he replied. "The dishwasher's full, the litter box is overflowing, there's nothing in the refrigerator. Shit, the place is a mess."

"Have you cooed these words into her ear yet, you old Romeo?" I asked.

"Nah. Why should I? Nothin' she can do about it now," he said.

After growing up in a family and neighborhood where husbands and wives regarded each other as if they were operating under United Nations-imposed cease-fires, I can be forgiven for thinking The Loved One and I have a rather unique relationship. Then again, I think of friends like Danny and Sophia, Ben and Pam, Milo and Sharon, all of whom have been hitched for more than 20 years. And if their words are to be believed, none has ever even entertained the notion of having an innocent fling. They all seem to cherish and care for their cellmates.

Who are the oddballs? We who sorta like our cellmates or Captain Billy, Skip, and their respective helpmeets?

Note from Big Mike: Celebrate today! It's the 200th birthday of both Abie Baby Lincoln (the original cast recording of "Hair" was the first album I ever owned - if you get the reference, you are awfully cool) and Charles Darwin. Both gents believed in god, pretty much the only thing I can take issue with either of them.

Big Mike: Flipping Pizzas Or Flipping Out?

I'd only disclosed this secret to two people: Skip, the trombonist, and Andy, who has a PhD in microbiology and immunology and serves venti lattes at the Starbucks in the Kroger on Westport Road.

Now I'm putting it out there: I've been harboring a desire to work in the kitchen at the pizza joint a half mile down on Goose Creek Road.

Since The Loved One quit her job in November (the job, by the way, that we moved to Louisville for) we've had to tighten our belts here at Chez Studs. Actually, I couldn't be happier that TLO quit - the job was tearing her apart, making her miserable. The change in her has been remarkable - yet another reason why I'll always tell people, If you hate what you're doing, stop doing it now.

Anyway, I need to generate a bit more moolah so our retirement account doesn't drop into the double digits. I play Trivia at this pizza joint every Tuesday night as part of Team Gorlock. Skip and I are the core of the team with three or four other guys occasionally floating in and out. Andy is the emcee for the game; he draws up the questions and then battles the sound system trying to announce them.

Team Gorlock is the reigning champ. You might call us the New York Yankees of Trivia. We lost to the Thrashers a few weeks ago and there was stunned silence when the final score was announced. Then the Thrashers erupted in a noisy celebration worthy of yesterday's inauguration. Since then, we've regained our rightful place at the top.

This pizza joint is pretty much run by members of the species, Pan Troglodytes. If your order comes out correctly, consider yourself fortunate. And trying to get a drink at the bar, no matter how light the business, is like extracting your own wisdom tooth. That's why I won't reveal the real name of the place. Let's call it Dick's Pizza.

So, considering that I need a part-time job and considering that TLO will be spending every work week (with our only car) in Bloomington starting in ten days, it occurred to me that I ought to apply for a job at Dick's. It's a healthy walk away and, jeez, the place needs someone with a brain (that would be me.)

I really learned how to make pizzas when I was the In-Store Educator at Whole Foods Market in Evanston. The boys in deli showed me how to do it quickly and uniformly. They even taught me how to spin the dough high in the air. I'd been making pizzas at home for years but the project would take about ten hours, resulting in one or two pies. Now I know how to churn them out.

I figured, hell, Dick's is always looking for kitchen help so I'll give it a shot. It ain't a glamorous position but so what? I'd make slightly less than a panhandler but, again, so what?

For the last three weeks I've been trying to corral the manager to ask him if he might consider hiring me. Sadly, this manager (let's call him Otis) has been barred from hanging out at the place during his off-hours because he's caused a riot or two after enjoying some after-work refreshments and now when he's on duty he makes himself so scarce even the other employees can't locate him. Hmm.

Then, last night before Trivia, I found out the owner of the place was prowling around. I'd never seen her before. She owns several other locations around Louisville and rarely visits this one. Skip pointed her out to me. Let's call her Leona.

Aha, I thought. Screw Otis. I'll go right to the top and lean on Leona for a job. We had about 15 minutes to go before the game so I got up to walk toward the bar where Leona was pacing back and forth like a caged leopard. Before I took two steps, Leona unleashed a roar.

"God damn it!" she hollered. "Can't I get anybody around here who wants to work? Doesn't anybody care? These fuckers! You gotta take ownership, you gotta care about your job. You can't just come in here and do the minimum. If something needs to be done, do it! What the hell am I gonna do around here? Fuckin' assholes." She took a swig from a bottle of beer and came around the bar to sit on a stool. I'd frozen in my tracks.

Leona looked around at all the stunned customers' faces. "I mean it!" she yelled. "This is shit. I'm tired of this!" She'd worked herself up so much she had to pat the sweat off her forehead with a bar napkin. She took another swig. "Honest to god, the people around here aren't worth a dime. Idiots." She went on in this vein for endless minutes.

Finally, after it appeared she was calming down, Skip tried to break the tension with humor, suggesting, "Why don't you pay 'em more?"

Wrong tactic. Leona started in again. "Fuck that!" she exploded. "I pay 'em too much as it is. If I paid 'em what they're worth, they'd owe me money!" This went on for more endless minutes. Skip looked around, sheepish, and shrugged.

By now, the Trivia game was due to begin. Andy wrestled with his microphone and the PA system as usual. Leona picked up her beer and, sans jacket, stomped out of the place. Andy was at the top of his game. Here are some of his questions:

• Food & Beverage - what product is the company Perugina noted for?
• US Presidents - who was the first president born in a state other than the original 13 colonies?
• Music - which pop singer is known by the nickname, the Duchess?
• The Periodic Table - which element is represented by the symbol Hf?
  

Skip and I labored. The game goes on for three rounds, ten questions each. For each round, you rank your answers on a 1-10 scale, giving the answer you have the most confidence in 10 points and the least, one. So the maximum number of points you can earn in a round is 55 - 165 for the whole game. Team Gorlock, I'm happy to say, finished with a total of 141 points to remain the champs. Our victory was greeted by chants of Gorlock sucks, Gorlock sucks. My chest swelled with pride.

The answers, I should add, to the aforementioned questions are: chocolate, Lincoln, Fergie of the Black-Eyed Peas, and hafnium. Of these four, Skip and I missed only chocolate.

Oh, I've dropped the idea of asking for a job at Dick's. It wouldn't be a glamorous position and I'd probably make more money panhandling.