The Home Court Advantage (26 page)

“Okay, this is a fictional character,” Lily began. “And he’s like a human.”

“What?” Adam asked her, looking befuddled. “What the fuck does that mean? He’s
like
a human?” He shook his head and scowled at her.

“He wears clothes!” she said frantically. I had feeling that this game had Lily on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“He wears clothes. Great. Well, that narrows it down.” The sands of the hourglass were pouring away and Braden, Cam, Jess and I, were laughing our asses off at this exchange already.

“And he walks upright!” she added, waving her hands frantically.

“I would hope that most of the people in this game walk upright! Give me a real fucking clue already!” Adam had that homicidal look again.

“Duh huh!” she said desperately.

“Hey! All you’ve told me is that he’s a fictional character who wears clothes and walks upright. Don’t duh huh me!” he spit out angrily.

“No! No! He says that!” Suddenly she started making barking noises.

“Are you okay?” he asked looking at her like she was nuts.

“Has a place in Florida…” She looked seriously stressed out. I was starting to worry.

“He’s retired?” Adam asked, still looking confused.

“He wears bright colored clothes. He tells jokes.”

“It sounds like you’re describing my Uncle Murray,” Adam was shaking his head.

“Time!” I yelled almost peeing myself I was laughing so hard.

“Goofy! The answer was Goofy!” Lily said with disgust.

“Goofy?! That was the best you could come up with for Goofy?!”

“I couldn’t say Disney or dog or cartoon or
anything
because they were forbidden words!” She pointed to the card.

“Oh now now kids! Play nicely!” Jess said.

“What do you say we do one more round and then hit the hot tub,” Cam suggested after a while. That idea received universal support.

Adam and Lily went last. I had a feeling this would be a Grand Finale.

“Okay,” Adam began, “Now concentrate! This was a real person. White suit!”

“Colonel Sanders!” Lily replied quickly.

“Colonel Sanders? I said it was a real person, not a logo for a chicken joint!”

“He
was
a real person! If you don’t believe me look it up!”

“Whatever! Not Colonel Sanders though. Humor!” he said urgently.

“Steve Martin!” She clapped her hands with joy, obviously believing that they had finally gotten one right.

“No, uh …” He searched for another clue.

“Wait! White suit and humor but
not
Steve Martin?” She looked crushed.

“I just said no!” He yelled. “Hannibal!”

“Um, uh, Dumbo …” she said with a deeply pensive expression.

“Dumbo?! What the fuck?!”

“Hannibal! Elephants! And before you say it he was real too, you schmuck!”

“Guess again goddamnit!”

“Anthony Hopkins!” Adam threw down the card and looked like he was going to cry.

“Halley’s Comet!” he growled.

“Halley’s Comet?! What in hell do you mean Halley’s Comet?”

“Time!” Braden informed them gleefully, wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes.

“Mark Twain! You’re an author Christ’s sake!” Adam bit out.

“Oh, right! He was from Hannibal, Missouri! What in the hell did Halley’s Comet have to do with Mark Twain?!”

“It appeared on the day he was born and the day he died! Duh huh!” Adam said.

“This isn’t Trivial fucking Pursuit!” Lily shot back. “Why didn’t you say Mississippi or riverboat or frog jumping contest or something besides Halley’s Motherfucking Comet?!

“Because they’re all forbidden motherfucking words! Miss ‘like a human’!” he yelled. I could just picture them as an old Jewish couple for some reason. Okay, maybe with fewer uses of the word “motherfucker.”

“Okay guys! Let’s hit the hot tub!” Cam interrupted. Adam and Lily stood up and promptly crashed into each other while attempting to walk in opposite directions. They were stuck between a couch and a coffee table and neither was willing to back up so they literally climbed over one another and headed for their rooms. They really were very entertaining.

We were back downstairs and in the hot tub with cocktails and music in fifteen minutes. Let me point out that none of us were really heavy drinkers. It was an occasional thing we did to let loose, like visiting conspiracy clubs and going on UFO hunts.

Our group had varied musical tastes but most of us were eclectic. The guys all preferred classic rock but we girls liked our 80s music and it was our turn. While they weren’t thrilled about it, they sat there tolerantly listening to us do our really bad sing-along Karaoke versions of Blue Jean by David Bowie and A- ha’s Take On Me. Somewhere in the middle of Tonight is What it Means to be Young I looked up and saw something weird. It was a light. Up in the sky. Oh,
no way,
man!

“Look!” I pointed and mentally tried to calculate how many vodka and cranberries I had drunk. Everyone turned to look up in the direction I was pointing.

“What is that?” Cam asked, squinting.

“It looks like it’s just hovering over the trees,” I said.

“Wait, it’s moving!” Braden joined in.

“It looks kind of like a cigar-shaped object,” Lily said, sounding awed.

“How in the hell can you tell at this distance, Agent Mulder?” Adam asked derisively.

“Because I can!” she retorted and splashed him. As Braden mentioned, the object had begun to move and then suddenly it seemed to dart off and soon it was out of sight.

“Whoa. That was wild!” Cam said excitedly.

“You don’t think it was …” Jess said, not finishing that thought.

“Well what was it then? A weather balloon?” Lily asked. Lily had been taking notes during the afternoon lecture about Roswell. She wanted to believe.

“It could have been a lot of things. Willow Grove army air force base is somewhere around here. Maybe it was something they’re testing,” Adam said.

“Or chasing,” Cam muttered. “You know, after those lectures …”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It was probably some kind of plane or helicopter though.”

“Yeah!” Adam seconded. “That’s all it was.” Cam started whistling the X-Files theme and we all laughed nervously.

“Did it look like it was trying to land?” Jess asked, sounding rather apprehensive.

“We’re in the middle of the woods,” Braden reminded her.

“It supposedly landed here before,” Lily pointed out. “They must be pretty good drivers if they made it here from another planet.”

“Yeah, but landing in the woods would be harder than parallel parking in Center City on Saturday night,” I threw in.

“Maybe they have autopilot,” Cam suggested. “They must have kick-ass GPS.”

“Maybe we can ask the little green men if they saw your stalker,” Adam said.

“Gray, they’re gray,” Lily corrected. “Weren’t you listening this afternoon?”

“You seem to know an awful lot about this. I’m starting to think that you’ve been anally probed,” Adam said with a suggestive smile.

“It’s interesting!” she replied, giving him a fierce look. Adam’s sarcastic expression melted and for one second I saw a much softer humor underneath it. I started to suspect that he liked pushing her buttons sometimes because he thought she was cute when she got mad. He actually shifted a little closer to her under the pretense of getting a better view of where the object had been.

Just then I heard voices somewhere in the distance and they sounded like they were getting closer. They seemed to be coming from the woods. Eventually, I could make them out better and Raoul’s accent and Mathew’s high-pitched voice came through clearly.

“Uh oh, I think the hunt is coming this way,” Braden noted. And indeed it was. Earl and Stew came crashing out of the woods followed by the rest of the Not Ready for Sanity Players.

“Hello there!” Earl called out. “You guys had better run in and get ready or you’ll miss all the fun!” They came tramping over to where the six of us sat in our hot tub sipping our cocktails and listening to Michael Jackson sing Thriller. Appropriately.

“Come on! Did you see the light?” Mathew enthused and he came running over excitedly. “Maybe we’ll make contact!” Personally, I thought that Mathew should make contact with a psychiatrist. We looked at each other, realizing that the decision had been made for us. We were going on a UFO hunt.

After determining where we were supposed to meet up and setting our GPS we changed into warm dry clothes and sturdy shoes, grabbed some flashlights and set out to meet up with the rest of the Truth Seeker gang. We had been tramping through the woods for several minutes when Cam stopped.

“Okay, it should
not
be taking us this long to find them. Check the GPS,” he said.

“Uh oh,” I said, taking it out of my bag. “It’s not working. It mustn’t be able to get a signal out here.”

“Oh great!” Adam laughed. “We’re in the middle of the woods in the dark and we have no way to figure out where we’re going?”

“It’s not like we’re in the middle of the Pine Barons or anything,” Braden said. “Most of this area is developed. If we keep walking in any direction we should run into civilization before too long.”

“We haven’t gone very far. Maybe we should just turn around,” Lily suggested. That sounded like a plan so we all turned around and started back but it wasn’t really clear that we were, in fact, headed back toward the lodge. After another fifteen minutes or so I thought I heard something in the distance.

“Listen! It’s like a humming sound, coming from that direction.” I pointed. We altered our course and started walking toward the hum. In a few minutes we saw lights, but they looked strange. They seemed to be up in the air. There were several in a row and one above that was blinking on and off. They were stationary, above the treetops.

“Do you see that?” Lily asked excitedly.

“Obviously we see it. We’re standing right next to you,” Adam answered.

“What is it? It looks like it’s floating,” Jess said.

“Maybe we should go closer,” I suggested. Nobody moved.

“I’m sure it’s not a UFO,” Braden said finally. Five voices agreed with him enthusiastically. “So what is it?” Silence.

“It just seems to be hovering. What kind of aircraft can hover?” Lily asked.

“Helicopters,” Cam answered.

“It wouldn’t be that still though,” I said. “Okay I think we need to do it. We need to go and see what that is. On three. One. Two. Two and a half…”

“Three!” Braden said and started walking forward. The rest of us followed our leader. The lights looked brighter as we got closer and we could make out what looked like a triangle shape attached to them. Like a pyramid maybe! I could feel my heart pounding as we got closer.

“There’s a clearing up ahead,” Adam said, sounding tense.

“Let’s hold hands, everyone!” Jess said, sounding panicked. We all reached out and formed a human chain. We kept walking like that together, closer and closer until finally we broke through the bush to the clearing and looked up silently at the sight before us.

“Well folks, looks like we’ve had a close encounter with a radio tower,” Cam said.

“This has been such a fun trip,” Adam chimed in. “We really have to do this more often.” Just then we heard voices somewhere close by.

“Hello!” Braden shouted. “We’re over in the clearing. Anybody there?”

“Hey there! It’s Forrest, man! I’m with Rain and a few of the others. We’ll be right there.” And that’s how we were rescued from the woods by two aging hippies, a pudgy accountant, a gay waiter, and Raoul.

We were all back by noon the next day and since both Mark and Beth were curious to hear about the weekend, Game Night and Girls’ Night were both a go. Tonight Bruno was hanging with the boys, so it was just Jess, Lily, Beth and me along with various varieties of crackers, cheeses, and a couple bottles of wine. For the rest of my life, that combination would remind me of Mr. Hughes with the shopping cart pants. Clearly, I was emotionally scarred.

“So after all that you didn’t get to confront him?” Beth asked, taking a bite of her brie-covered Melba toast and washing it down with a sip of Chianti.

“Nope. But we did confirm that Braden and I are not just imagining things. Some schmuck is actually following us,” I answered, biting into my Triscuit.