A bottle of whiskey sat empty between Tom and I.
We were just wrapping up a great afternoon and evening of drinking with a few after drinking beers and conversing about the perpetual grind of paying bills.
Tom was unhappy about his car payments in particular. He no longer thought his vehicle was worth what he was paying for it because of the maintenance involved and the inflated cost of insurance, and speaking of insurance, what kind of shakedown is that?
The solution was clear: We were going to smash out the windows, hot-wire the engine, caravan out to the desert, dig a pit, douse it in gasoline, and torch the whole thing.
No more car payments, plus an insurance pay out, and he'd pay me a couple hundred bucks for my efforts. I was in.
As we headed to the garage, his wife called from down the hall, "If I hear that garage door I'm calling the cops on both of you drunk assholes, Dane go get in the guest room and go to sleep, Tom come to bed now."
And we did what we were told.
Tom, because it was his wife.
And me, because it was getting late and I was really drunk and as fun as arson and insurance fraud is, a bed sounded really nice.
And it was.
But if I had it all to do over again I probably would have said "Fuck it" and stolen Tom's jeep with him.
-Dane
And I need you more tonight. I fucking need you more than ever.