Backstreets

One cool Sierra fall night, me and TK became friends, trying in vain to deal with the antics of 4M and The Upgrade King.

I’m shameless. I rip off Springsteen lyrics and I mooch off of old high school classmates. 4M, TK, and I drove up with The Upgrade King to his beautiful Kirkwood home this past Friday. We arrived somewhere between 10:34 and 10:36pm and immediately made ourselves at home. TK got his own room so we may have to start calling him The Upgrade Prince. 4M and I shared a room. He tolerates my snoring and I tolerate him. The Upgrade King had the master suite.

The fun started right away. We cracked a few bottles of red as well as a single malt. I stayed away from the scotch. We cranked up the wide screen, surround sound entertainment system and put on a DVD of Bruce’s 1975 London concert. Bruce looked elfin next to The Big Man, long before his iron pumping Born in the U.S.A. days. I noticed that Bruce repeated “hiding on the backstreets” 22 times towards the end of the song, whereas it’s only repeated 18 times on the album. When I pointed that out to the guys, they told me to shut up and go get the single malt. Although that hurt my feelings, it turned out to be a positive thing. I told them they needed to show a little more sensitivity. Before long, we were in a sweat hut out back rubbing mud all over ourselves and reading excerpts from Iron John. One of the guys wanted to start talking about his old man but I told him we had to stay off that topic due to the pending litigation I mentioned in my last post. Being the model of prudence, I hit the hay first, around 2am.

We had lazy morning the next day. I wandered the Kirkwood backstreets with TK and The UK. 4M remained in single malt snooze land, deigning to arise around 1pm. After his hibernation, the four of us took a tour of the Kirkwood resort. The only activity in sight was a wedding at the lodge. Otherwise it was deserted. 4M tried to cut in on the father when he was dancing with the bride. I admonished him because he wasn’t dressed appropriately. We then went out to the Kirkwood Inn, built in 1864, for a burger lunch. They hit the spot after a 45 minute wait. The UK got his 20% homeowner discount although he’s no longer a member of the association. Either that or he got upgraded to the no fee homeowner account. The logical next step was to go off-roading to ensure proper digestion. We all managed to keep it down while we got rugged. That’s the time when you need one of those trucks that require a ladder to get in. We took some great pics in the wilderness then headed back. The Jeep driver window decided to get shy and stay receded in the car door. I got out and tried laying hands upon the power switch. Despite my pleas to heal itself, it remained in seclusion. When we got back to the cabin, we got the tools out. We persuaded it to come out with a pair of pliers and taped it up several times over. It stayed up the rest of the trip but what we had on our hands was a whitetrashmobile.

Dinner that night was at a fine restaurant called Evans in South Lake. 4M brought a magnum of Justin Isosceles (yeah, I never heard of it either) and also ordered a sparkling wine to begin the meal. Our hostess was a well preserved middle aged beauty in a short black dress. She inspired us to discuss some of our high school classmates. Being gentlemen, we kept the conversation wholesome. Once the entrees arrived, we dropped that topic like a stone and tucked into some seriously good food. Then it was off to the casinos.

The gambling portion of our trip was pretty uneventful. I lost sight of the guys for about an hour but I was up at the blackjack table at that point so I really didn’t care where they were. 4M did a little video poker. TK ended up being the big winner that night, taking a Franklin or so from the Montbleu. As we were leaving the casinos, we noticed a parked compact vehicle completely packed with clothes and plastic bags. TK took a peek in and was taken aback when he saw a hand, which was attached to a person of indeterminate age. They had chosen the parking lot as a resting place, hopefully not a final one. TK was a bit shook up when he got in the Jeep. In an attempt to comfort him, we sang The Rolling Stone’s Hand of Fate on the way back.

The ride home on Sunday allowed us to see a lot of the great scenery we had missed going up in the dark on Friday. Fortunately the tape on the window stayed firmly in place. We stopped at Mel’s Diner in Jackson for lunch. Mel’s is the home of the Moo Burger, a well dressed double patty meal that could feed a family of five. I stuck with the regular burger, one of the best I’ve had in years. We encountered the season’s first rain around Stockton but the traffic was only bad in limited spots. As we parted at my house, we shook hands all around. Someone cracked wise about me being a politician. Although deeply offended, I parried with a remark about kissing babies. In reality, I think I have more real friends than any politician. Whether it’s these upstate boys, the townies, The Edge crew or my pals Dr. Joe and Jimmy the Wig, I’d hide on the backstreets with any of them.