“Would… pass … sauce…” I barely heard someone say to my right. My attention was focused on the deep timbre of Right Said Fred as he proclaimed over the restaurant’s speaker system to anyone and everyone who would listen that, no matter what you put in front of him, he was just too sexy for it. Unsure if the sauce-related statement was intended for me, I chose to ignore it – the choice I had made with just about every statement that had been made since we had entered Munich.

“Joe!” Andrea exclaimed. I pulled my face from between my hands and glanced over to her. “Trish has asked for the soy sauce twice now! Would you please pass it?”

“Sure…” I replied reluctantly as I reached for the red-topped container of Kikkoman. “There’s no need to yell about it,” I added as I plopped the jar in front of Trish and went back to trying to disappear.

“No one was yelling,” Andrea replied tersely, drowning out Trish’s meek expression of thanks. “She’d asked twice already. You didn’t respond to her, so I said it louder.”

“Yeah, a lot louder,” I replied without looking up. “And you did it with that tone.”

“What tone?” She asked, her hands verbally on her hips.

“THAT tone!” I said, whipping my head toward her and pointing at some imaginary object directly in front of her – one which, if it existed, would be the perfect physical representation of ‘that’ tone of voice. “That one right there! The ‘I’m mad at you’ tone!”

“I didn’t have any tone!” She exclaimed, again with ‘that’ tone. “And I’m not mad at you… yet,” She replied as Trish finished applying the salty brown liquid to the sushi entrees that she had recently selected from the conveyor belt running around the restaurant. She made an attempt to hand the soy sauce back to me so that I could replace it, but Mike proved to be more dexterous and intercepted it. I watched in interest as Mike began splashing soy sauce all over his plate, coating everything in the dark salty sauce – regardless of what it was.

“Jeez, Mike,” I sighed, “You know, they have soy sauce back home. There’s no need to treat it like it’s some sort of rarity… You don’t have to put it on EVERYTHING.”

“What?” He replied. “Now you have issues with the way I eat my food?”

“Well,” injected Lori, the first word she’d spoken since we’d sat down over thirty minutes ago. “I have to say, I kind of agree with Joe. That’s… you know… a lot of soy sauce.”

“Jesus! So what… I like soy sauce!” He cried as he continued applying the contents of the bottle to just about everything that didn’t move out of the way first. “So what’s the fucking problem with that?”

“Whoa, Mike… Calm down,” Trish said, holding her hands up to him in a blocking fashion. “I don’t think Lori was attacking you, so there’s no need to be so friggin’ hostile with her! She was simply trying to say--“

“That there’s something wrong with the way I eat!” finished Mike without concern as to what Trish was actually going to say. “No matter what I do, someone has some comment to make about it and I don’t appreciate it. I’m hungry, I like soy sauce – what does it matter what I put it on?”

“Dude,” I said, “You just dumped half the bottle on an orange wedge.”

He looked down to find that he had somewhat misjudged the section of his platter he was aiming toward. Mike usually quarters off various types of food when he eats – starches in one corner, meats in another, so on and so forth. Apparently, the past fourteen hours of driving had taken their toll and affected his senses, as he completely saturated the “fruit and desserts” section of his tray with the salty liquid.

Not one to be corrected, he simply replied, “Yeah. I meant to do that.”

“Bullshit,” I replied with a smirk.

“Yeah,” He said plainly. “I… uh… I like it that way.”

Trish and I snickered. Lori sighed and rolled her eyes. Andrea stirred her rice with a single chopstick, saying nothing.

“What?” queried Mike indignantly. “I can’t eat… You know… Soy Orange?”

“HA! You even have a name for it!” I flicked my index finger lazily at the newly-dubbed Soy Orange. “Well then, by all means! Go for it!”

He stared down at the brownish orange and contemplated the situation. Slowly, he reached down, picked up the salted fruit, and brought it to his mouth. With a moment of hesitation and a sigh, he placed the wedge into his mouth and bit down. The look on his face was absolutely priceless as salty citric acid flowed into his mouth and down his throat. Nearly gagging, he reached for the bottle of Evian placed before him and guzzled the last of it down.

“Yeah, you meant to do that,” I said, chuckling heartily, “The look on your face just SCREAMED ‘yummy! Horray for Soy Orange!’”

Mike coughed as he attempted to reply, somehow bringing a little more of the salty orange juice back into his mouth. With no regard as to decorum, he proceeded to choke a little more. This brought smiles to everyone’s face, even Andrea’s, which I was very glad to see. Through his gagging, he managed to squeak out “So, ruining *cough* my *cough* dinner and choking *cough cough* on it – this is funny to you?” He said plainly.

“Hell yes,” Trish announced. “You were a total dumbass!” Just then, so as to further add misery, fate brought a flat, obviously digital beat pounding through the restaurant’s speaker system, followed by a whimsical flute-sounding noise diddling back and forth. A Swedish voice began crooning over the melody, speaking about seeing some sort of sign.

“Dude!” I yelled loudly, staring right at Mike. “You saw the sign!”

“Don’t even start…” He said with a sigh.

“Whatever do you mean?” I asked, my eyes as wide as saucers; my mouth formed into an oversized grin. “You’re the one who bought the album! Ace of Base is your favorite!”

There was a notable and very obvious look on his face – that of a man who had just been driven one inch too far over the edge. Despite his best efforts at holding it together, he let loose with a very rare yet very deserved tantrum. “I’ve driven you guys all around Germany and Austria the better part of the day, so I’m a little tired, okay? I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and have thus ruined my appetite for the rest of the meal.” He slung the remainder of the Soy Orange onto the plate in front of him, knocking a few grains of rice onto the table. “You know, I’m glad it was so fucking funny to you. I’m glad that you could derive pleasure from my misery. Thanks. Thanks ever so much.” He turned directly to me and spoke. “And fuck you, I fucking hate Ace of Base.”

“Hey, now,” Andrea piped up, “Don’t you think you’re taking this just a little too hard?”

“NO!” Mike exclaimed. “I’m sick of going out of my way to things for you guys just to be repaid with ridicule! It’s been that way this entire trip, and I’m so sick of it, I could… could…”

“Eat Soy Orange?” I interjected.

“Exactly! Wait – NO!” He cried out. “See! That’s what I’m fucking—“

“Hold it down!” Lori exclaimed. “You’re making a spectacle!”

“As if choking on Soy Orange wasn’t a spectacle,” Trish said plainly.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” I said flatly. “I want to make it up to you.” I reached for a small round dish of California roll, placing it in front of him. “Have an order of Seppuku. Or, if you want, I can get you some Bukkake…”

Mike’s hardened façade dropped and he broke into laughter. Andrea and I shared a small giggle, leaving Trish and Lori to – once again – wonder just what the hell was so funny about such a random comment. “What’s that mean?” Lori asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I replied. “Just another inside joke.”

She sighed. “You know, you guys never let me in on any of these jokes. It’s getting a little old.” Trish nodded as well, signaling her agreement.

“Well, it’s not a big thing,” I said in defense. “It’s just a statement I once made in this really crappy sushi place in Iowa.”

“Another trip that I put all the effort into,” Mike said snidely.

“Whoa,” I said in disdain. “Hold on just a moment! Where do you get off thinking you’ve gone oh-so far out of your way on this, or any other, trip? You aren’t the only one who busts his ass, Mikey boy.”

“No?” He replied with an incredulous tone, his head cocked to one side for effect.

“No!” I said loudly. “You seem to forget who it was that took over for your sleepy ass during that 30 hour Enduro road trip to Paris last week.”

“Yeah, and you boys weren’t the only ones who didn’t sleep, either,” Trish said. “I stayed up with you the whole time.”

“Yeah, the whole time you weren’t sleeping,” Mike replied mercilessly.

Andrea shot a look at him. “Don’t even dare, Mike,” she said with authority. “It was Trish and I who kept you awake all that time. We even caught you on the video camera nodding off while driving!”

“Yeah, but you at least got some sleep,” he replied plainly. “Joe and I have been going without sleep just to make this trip –“

“Whoa,” I said, surprised. “Now it’s ‘Joe and I?’ You start getting beat up by girls and suddenly, I’m your friend again?”

“Look, all I’m saying is that you and I have done a whole lot to make this trip go smoothly,” he offered in reply.

“Whatever,” Andrea retorted. “If it weren’t for me, you’d have slept until noon every single day. It was all we could do to get your ass out of bed before nine as it was!”

“She’s got a point,” I interjected.

“Yeah, you’re full of shit, Mike,” Lori said in anger. “We’ve done our fair share as well!”

“Like what?!?” Mike responded. “If you count sleeping and eating and staring at German guys your ‘fair share’, then yeah, you’ve done PLENTY.”

“Whatever. I’ve done a lot for this trip,” Lori said dismissively. “Joe, tell him I’ve done a lot for this trip.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t. He’s got a point, too.”

It was like an ocean wave cresting over five furious rock crabs at the beach. Fatigue and stress had taken their toll as the entire table exploded in a tirade – the women pissed beyond belief at the implication that they hadn’t pulled their weight on this trip, the men upset with their perception that they’ve done all the work, everyone pointing fingers at no one in particular. The past two weeks had been pure “get up and go” up until now. All five of us worked very hard to pull this thing off and even though the trip had been a total blast, by this point, we were all exhausted. As is apt to happen on a trip of this nature, just about every single aggravation we each individually experienced, no matter how much basis it had in reality, had just come to a mountain of a head. Thankfully, we were interrupted before someone had Soy Orange lobbed in their eye.

“Bitte… BITTE!” A grim restaurant employee said from behind us, grabbing our attention. “Bitte, halten sie ihre stimmen unten!” Andrea nodded, understanding that the stone-faced restaurant employee wanted us to hold it down.

“Entschuldigen sie, es tut uns leid,” She replied in fluent German, letting him know that we were extremely sorry and begging him to excuse us.

“Wenn sie nicht sich zum schweigen bringen können, müssen sie gehen,” the server said sternly but politely, letting us know that the volume of our voices were prone to get us removed from the establishment.

“Ich verstehe. Wieder entschuldigen Sie uns, danke.” She replied smoothly, acknowledging the request and again apologizing for us. The server nodded and made his way back to the front of the restaurant to greet a couple who had just walked in. It hadn’t dawned on us that we weren’t the only group in the building – as usual.

“What did he say?” Mike whispered to Andrea.

She glared back at him. “He said ‘Tell the uncoordinated American who sleeps too much to shut the fuck up or he will kick you out,’” She said tersely. “Then he called you an asshole.”

Mike frowned. “One day, someone other than you is going to learn German…” he said through clenched teeth. I snorted into the overpriced bottle of water I was sipping out of. Lori and Trish smirked. And that was the last word said by anyone at the table for the next twenty minutes.

With really cheesy pop music playing over the sound system, each of us sat in complete silence as we nibbled on the items we pulled from the conveyer belt of food that ran beside us and tried as hard as we could not to make eye contact with one another. During our contemplative silence, my mind focused fully on the situation at hand. I refer not to the tense relations between close friends on a road trip across a strange and beautiful land - I’m of course referring to reconciling within myself why on earth someone – anyone – would eat some of the crap that was buzzing around the restaurant at a kilometer an hour.

For instance, more than once, I saw an entire half of an uncooked onion pass by on the conveyor belt. Why the hell would anyone want half an uncooked onion? I thought to myself, noting that they rarely made a second lap around the conveyer. Aha! It’s THAT guy! The one in the purple and orange wool sweater! A few springs of broccoli flew by us, larger than my foot and covered in mist. Hardboiled eggs still in their shells, pieces of chopped eggplant, even a cored lime – all of these things just cruised past us, each commanding their own individual plates. The entire group took notice of these items at one point or another, often exchanging “What the f…” glances with one another.

As funny as it was, however, none of us spoke up. We were all afraid of the repercussions that came from being the first one to slice through the tension that had placed itself squarely in the center of our close-knit group. It’s safe to say that this would have to be one of the top Tension-Between-Friends-On-A-Trip-Moments of the year.

That is, until HE showed up and ruined it all.

The second I heard the opening beats fire off the digital snare drum from the overhead speaker, my heart sank. The effeminate, highly processed “Oooooh!” in the background made me shield my eyes and duck my head. By the time he started saying “Yeah… Can you feel it baby? I can too…” I felt Mike and Andrea’s eyes locked on me, the weight of their smart-assed grins forcing down on me like ten tons of manure.

“God, NO…” I begged aloud. “Not this… not here…”

“JOE!” I heard Mike exclaim. I refused to look up at him. “C’mon, Joe! It’s Marky Mark! Aren’t you excited?”

“And hey,” called out Andrea, “Don’t forget about his Funky Bunch! They help him to bring you a show with no intoxication!” I raised my head and looked across the table at Mike, then turned slowly, purposefully toward my wife. “And Donny D – he’s on the backup. That fact alone should make you giddy.”

I once again hung my head, shaking it side to side in shame as Loleatta Holloway belted out a soulful proclamation about those Good Vibrations. I could hear Mike and Andrea laughing from either side of me. With a note of curiosity, Lori spoke up, asking “Ok, what’s THIS about?”

Trish added to the quandary. “Yeah… don’t tell me that there’s some story involving Marky Mark.”

“Oh, there’s a story alright,” Andrea confirmed. “Joe? Do you care to share the story?”

“No,” came the muffled reply through the palms of my hands as I shielded my face from view.

“Oh, come on, Joe,” Mike chimed in. “Don’t you want to share this story with your friends? Hmm? Maybe you could, perhaps… Show them the –“

“DON’T!” I exclaimed as my head shot up. I found Mike’s eyes and locked onto them. “Don’t even THINK about it.”

“Show us what?” Lori asked. Mike and I were locked in a staring contest, and Andrea was busy stifling her chuckles, so there was no reply. This frustrated Lori further. “Oh, COME ON! You guys never tell me ANYTHING! You have to tell the story!”

Trish sighed. “You’re not the only one. It seems like EVERYTHING is some sort of inside joke between these guys.”

“Joe,” Mike said calmly, “You KNOW that the ‘Vibrations are good like Sunkist.’ In fact, there are MANY who ‘Want to know who done this’. You need to tell them, Joe.” He reached across the table and placed his hand on my shoulder. With an earnest tone, he looked me in the eye and said, “You need to SHOW them.”

I sat with a blank expression, refusing to say a word. Finally, Andrea jumped in. “Fine, I’ll tell them,” she said with a sigh. “Joe used to have this dance –“

“NO!” I shouted, catching the attention of just about everyone in the restaurant, including the already perturbed staffer who griped at us earlier. He shot a glance my way, ensuring that I knew that my little outburst wasn’t exactly appreciated. My eyes dropped to my plate in an effort to break the icy stare of the employee, with little effect. When I looked back up, he was still staring at me. Trish’s voice pulled me back to the immediate surroundings.

“You had a dance to a Marky Mark song?” she queried, her mouth already watering at the future implications this story would hold.

I sighed. “Ok, fine. I’ll tell the story. But before I do, you need to understand some things. First and foremost – I was young--”

“Oh, shut up and tell the story,” Mike demanded. So I did.

Ok, so, I was in Junior High School at the time –

“What, did you do this for a talent show or something?” Trish asked aloud.

“Trish…” Andrea said with a sigh.

“What?” She asked, her expression conveying sincerity. “It was an honest question.”

“Just let him tell the story,” Mike said.

“Oh, like you’re one to talk, Mike,” Lori snapped. “You interrupt all the –“

“Guys,” Andrea said, placing her hand in the center of the field of conversation to grab the attention. “You realize that you are totally letting Joe off the hook, right?” Everyone fell silent and turned toward me, watching me expectantly.

“What?” I said after a few seconds. “Andrea’s right. You’re obviously more interested in fighting with one another than this story.”

“No!” Lori exclaimed. “Please tell it! Please? I really want to hear it.”

Trish added in with her own pleas. “Yeah, tell us. I promise, no more interruptions.”

“Fine!” I said after a few seconds. “I’ll tell it. But no more interruptions, okay?” They all nodded, lying with each bob of their thick skulls. “So, as I was saying…”

So, as I was saying, I was in Junior High School at the time, so I must have been like twelve or thirteen or so. Now, being that age was tough for everyone – lots of things are happening at that particular age, both mentally and physically, causing one to make strange and oftentimes desperate attempts to define themselves and find their niche.

Having grown up in inner city Atlanta for the majority of my life, I was used to being one of maybe four white kids in an all-black school. Most of what I saw and heard everyday reflected the cultures present in that environment - The hot music in school was all rap. The hot shows were the Cosby show and In Living Color and Arsenio. The style of dress was Starter caps and jackets. It wasn’t a question about TRYING to fit in at that point – there was no fitting in for me. I was already an outcast based on the color of my skin, so my every effort was focused on trying to blend in as much as possible. The clothes I picked out and the music I listened to were direct inputs from what was cool in that environment, and I knew nothing else to be correct. From a very early age, I was marinated in hip hop flava’, yo.

Lori and Trish both whipped their heads toward me simultaneously. “Whoa…” said Trish, equally surprised at the revelation and pleased that she now had ammo against me. “You used to dress like a gangster?”

I stared dead ahead. Without looking at anyone in particular, I nodded. Naturally, everyone cracked up.

“Wow, that’s just… God. That’s hilarious.” Lori said, giggling wildly between words. “So, did you have the high-top fade and all that?”

”No,” I replied woefully. “I wanted one… my dad wouldn’t let me have one. I just had a standard flat-top. But I did shave my own lines in my head once. My dad kicked my ass.”

Both girls began cackling as Mike added, “Oh, and that’s not all! He –“

“Okay,” I interjected, “If the story is going to be told, I’M going to be the one who tells it, alright?” I scanned the table. Everyone was nodding in agreement. “Okay. So then I…”

So then I moved to middle Georgian suburbia near the end of elementary school. I found out relatively quickly that the culture in which I had grown up most certainly wasn’t the culture present in this, the White Bread Basket of America. I was an outcast from the very first day – an extremely fat white kid with no social skills who listened to rap and dressed like a black kid did NOT mix well with the children who’s parents would have dressed them in white robes and pointed hats, if only they could find some made by Bugle Boy or Guess?. Being a white kid in a black world was tough. Being a white kid who acted black in a white world… Now that was hell. When Junior High rolled around, things went from difficult to being just flat-out confusing. All of a sudden, there were groups of kids who were all interested in the same things I was – only not in the same ways. There were once again black kids in my school – and they listened to the same rap groups I did! However, the second I brought up Dungeons & Dragons or The Silver Surfer, I lost them as friends. Those kids who did roll the occasional D20 and liked to draw and read comic books had no idea that Ice Cube wasn’t just something you put in your sweet tea. I played sports, but had no clue how to fit in with jocks of any race. No matter where I turned, I always sat somewhere on the outside of things.

“Ok, I understand all of that,” Trish said, rudely interrupting. “What the hell does any of that crap have to do with your dancing to Marky Mark?”

I could feel the space between my eyebrows becoming all crinkled as my lips tightened into a riley sneer. “I’m getting to that,” I said plainly.

Then, somewhere during the summer between seventh and eighth grades, the earth shifted on its axis. Someone had gone and told the entertainment industry that rap was not just some fad – it was actually profitable! The radio became saturated with ‘rap’ acts such as MC Hammer, Bel Biv DaVoe and Young MC. NWA was on MTV. People were down with O.P.P. Anyone who was wearing their pants and jacket backwards were total Mack Daddys (or Daddy Macks). Within weeks, this traditionally black and almost exclusively urban culture stampeded across radio and television and directly into white America – thanks in no small part to some voices that sounded remarkably black but had white faces.
3rd Bass was poppin’ the weasel. Vanilla Ice was rollin’ in his 5.0. The heroes of music traded in their stretch Ferraris and leopard-skin tights for posses and gold chains. Suddenly, being white and into rap wasn’t taboo anymore. It was hip and it was cool and it was everywhere. Of course, none of the stuff I really was into was heard much on the radio - Public Enemy was too edgy; Gang Starr, too innovative. You could catch Eric B. and Rakim on Yo! MTV Raps, but for the most part, the mainstream was just that – safe and marketable. But who cares? Rap was hot. In the course of a single summer, things changed. A LOT.

That fact was reflected on the first day back to school. I walked into the building in my Z. Cavaricci pants and Cincinnati Bengals Starter gear, and –

“Wait, hold on – the Bengals?” asked Trish with a look of disbelief. I nodded. “So not only did you used to dress like a gangster, you dressed like a gangster in Cincinnati Bengals gear?!?” said Trish. “Oh, my God in heaven. The fucking BENGALS!”

“Yeah?” I said incredulously. “So I liked the Bengals. What about it?”

“They freakin’ suck!” She exclaimed.

I squinted my eyes in order to express my disdain. “This was the early 90’s, Trish. They weren’t always 0 and 17, you know…”

“SO!?!” she exclaimed. “They had tiger-striped helmets and players named “Boomer” and “Icky”! It isn’t possible to be any less intimidating! What kind of thug wears BENGALS stuff?”

“Oh, he’s just getting started,” Andrea said. “He was so into the Bengals, he even had a tiger-striped –“

“WHOA!” I demanded. “One thing at a time.”

“Tiger-striped WHAT?” Lori demanded to know.

“You’ll see,” Mike snickered, raising his sixth bottle of Evian to his lips as I continued.

I walked into the building in my Z. Cavaricci pants and Cincinnati Bengals Starter gear, and everywhere I looked was like looking into a mirror. Or, at least, it would have been if everyone else had grown a foot over the summer. I was elated – Not only had the social paradigm changed with everyone dressing the way I had been and listening to the music I was listening to, I had done some changing of my own. All of my baby fat had been redistributed across my now 6’ 3” frame, which made the fact that I had worked all summer mowing lawns have meaning – I needed the money to buy new clothing for school that year. And the clothing I bought was now suddenly hip! Skinny and in style… Man, this is definitely my year!

Yeah, right. I was still a goddamn loser.

Skinny? I was still ‘fat’ according to junior high standards because I was way bigger than everyone else. In style? I had suddenly gone from being a “wannabe black boy” to “poser trying to look cool”, even though my style of dress remained nearly the same from one year to the next. No, I’m afraid that, despite what the neutered and uplifting movies starring the hot fem actress du jour tell you, once you’re branded with a label in junior high, it takes much more than a makeover to be rid of it. I still didn’t fit in anywhere, even though I knew more about hip hop culture and history than just about everyone in that school and looked a LOT better than I had the year before. Nothing made sense here in this bizarro realm of secondary education!

Clearly, something had to be done.

When the school’s talent show was announced –

“Okay, so you DID do a dance for the talent show,” Trish said, interrupting again. “I knew it! Oh man, this is so good… Okay, so what happened next?” She sat diagonally across from me, grinning wide. “Huh? Huh? Go on… what happened?”

My jaw was still gaping open from being cut off. I didn’t bother to close it. I just sat there staring at her, mouth wide open as if in mid-sentence. She motioned with her hands for me to continue. On a molecular level I reacted quite violently, my blood boiling. Outwardly, however, I was a statue in memory of the telling of a story that had no ending.

“Joe?” she said, prompting me along. “Go on. What happened? You know… After that?”

“I think you should probably just let him tell you,” Andrea said. “I can’t believe this… For the first time ever, there’s someone more annoying than Mike to try and tell a story around!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Please finish your story,” Trish said, clasping her hands together and placing them on the table before her. I responded by turning my head to face straight ahead, staring absently at the wall across the room. I lifted my bottle of water to my mouth and took a long, drawn out drink from it.

“Joe,” Andrea said kindly. I looked over at her. She winked and nodded, encouraging me to release them from the prison of my aggravation and get back to the story. I smiled softly back at her and held her eyes for a moment.

We were okay with one another again. It felt good.

“Alright, fine…” I said, placing the bottle back on the table. Trish let loose a little “meep!” and shook her fists in exuberance as I continued. “So…

So, when the school’s talent show was announced, my heart nearly exploded. This is it! My chance to shut ‘em down, yo! And I immediately knew who’s song I was going to perform. He was white, so I wouldn’t be dissin’ my black heroes by betraying the sanctity of their powerful words. And compared to the other white rappers of the time, his rap wasn’t completely wack. And the best part – he was anti D-R-U-G-G-I-E, so his body was healthy. I could show everyone I’m not fat anymore! Perfect!

So, I set upon perfecting my act. I wasn’t terribly worried about the song - within a week, I had the lip-synching down pat, mouthing every word of ‘Good Vibrations’ in perfect time with the track. I knew that, in the grand scheme of things, the song itself was merely the vessel… the medium with which I was to dazzle and amaze. But just like any real art, the medium is only as good as the artist makes it. The real sizzle in this production would be in the performance, and all successful performances begin, of course, with the wardrobe.

Now, any old wannabe playa could go out and get a Starter jacket and hat. These things were ubiquitous, and even the wackest of the wack were sportin’ the coats and caps. Of course I had the Bengals jacket, which I wore unbuttoned without a shirt so as to better embody the real Marky Mark look. Sure, I could have went topless, just like Mr. Wahlberg – but then I would have lost all the street cred that my fresh gear brought me. And fresh my gear was. I TRULY represented in pure Who-Dey fashion. I had a special pair of Bengals shoes that I ordered the same time as my Bengals socks from the J. C. Penny catalogue. They matched perfectly with the Bengals wristbands and the ‘Who-Dey’ Bengals bandana which I wore tied across my forehead under my Bengals cap. I even had a pair of orange and black striped Zubaz pants that–

“Holy shit! Zubaz!” Mike exclaimed. “You didn’t mention those before!”

Lori looked confused. “What are Zubaz?” she asked.

“You don’t know what Zubaz are?” Trish asked her. She shook her head no.

Mike laid it upon her. “Have you ever seen one of those goofy, hulked-out meatheads who walk with their arms agape and pretend they’re so hot?” Mike asked of her.

“Yeah…” She replied.

“You know those stupid tiger or zebra striped pants they wear? With the drawstring around the middle?”

“Oh, YEAH!” She exclaimed as she turned to face me. “Holy crap – you wore those?”

I nodded in the affirmative. “I had to represent.”

“Zubaz aren’t ‘representing’, they’re an abomination,” Mike stated. “They are the Edsel of the clothing world. If they had a gas tank, they would have exploded.”

I groaned. “Well, be that as it may, I had ‘em and I rocked ‘em, too. But…”

But the Zubaz, the jacket, the hat – these were all external things. Sure, they were sportin’ and such, but I wasn’t into half-steppin’. If I come, I come correct - head to toe, stitch to stitch - everything Bengals. So, while I was shopping for school clothes one day at the mall, I happened to see a little something hanging from a rack in a certain store. It took some doing, but I managed to sneak away from my mother and sister for a few moments. I made my way down the row of stores to the Fredrick’s of Hollywood, where I found the piece d’resistance – a men’s tiger-striped G-string bikini brief.

“Nuh-UH!” exclaimed Trish loudly. “You did NOT!”

I stared at her in silence for a moment. Slowly, I glanced over to Lori who sat motionless, mouth agape, eager for a response. I then closed my eyes, lowered my head, and shamefully nodded to affirm that I, in fact, had. “Oh. MY. God.” came Trish’s response, fired off as if from a rifle. The rest of the table were in hysterics, cackling like jackals. This brought yet another stern look from the perturbed sushi service person. I grinned and looked down to my plate of half-eaten California Roll.

“You didn’t actually wear those on the day of the performance, did you?” she asked as the cacophony subsided.

“No, I sure didn’t,” I replied, refusing to look up.

“He never even DID the performance,” Mike interjected.

I looked up at Trish and Lori, both stricken with confusion. “Wait – why would you go through all that trouble?” Trish asked. “Arranging your costume, learning the dance and the song and such – you even smuggled a tiger-striped g-string into the house! Why’d you chicken out?”

“I didn’t chicken out, okay?!?” I snapped.

Trish immediately drew back. “Wow – no need to take my head off…”

I held my hands up in a very passive way and shook my head. “No. Nonono… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just that… It’s kind of a source of guilt, okay?”

“I can imagine,” Lori said. “You were going to lip synch Marky Mark on stage at your school dressed in Bengals clothing and a banana hammock. I’d feel guilty, too.”

“Oh, no,” Andrea said. “You’ve got it all wrong. It’s because he –“

I cleared my throat loudly, drawing Andrea’s attention. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Continue on.”

Well, I worked my ass of learning this routine. It wasn’t easy, either – the talent show was in October and Georgia Summer was still in effect. We had no air conditioning at my parents’ house at that time, so doing the full routine dressed in the complete outfit was… well, very taxing. The ceiling fan brought a little reprieve – but only a very little. Even with it churning full speed, it wasn’t very fun to parade around in a coat and pants when it was 87 degrees in your room. But I was a PERFORMER. I was dedicated to the task of demonstrating my street credibility. So, like my hero Q-tip, I pushed it along and kept it rollin’, and in short order, I had this thing down pat.

The Saturday night before the talent show, my parents and sister took off to see a movie, leaving me to perfect my routine. That entire evening, something nagged at me as I practiced feeling tha’ vibrations. As good as this performance was – and dammit, it was GOOD – it was missing something. Man… This is great! But it needs a little more flash. And that evening, as I was peeling the sweat soaked Zubaz from my legs, it hit me.

Of COURSE! Why didn’t I think of this before? I wanted more flash. Dammit – I knew how to get more flash.

I didn’t spare a single second. I dropped the sweaty Zubaz on my drawing desk and trotted to the garage in my jacket, socks and g-string. I sifted through the junk that had been piled up out there, digging and digging in search of – AHA! The shovel I had broken last week! I snapped off the spade tip and slammed the jagged point against the hard concrete beneath my feet, making the implement blunt and thus safe for twirling. Safety first, I always say.

I ran back inside and hit my mother’s sewing area, where a veritable smorgasbord of fabric scraps awaited me. I grabbed up several wads and made my way back out of the room, grabbing mom’s antique oil lamp and the book of matches that rested beside it as I jogged down the hall and back into my room to rehearse the new steps I had made up in my head.

I no sooner shut the door before I began twisting the yards of scrap fabric around the two ends of the old shovel handle, forming two solid knots on either end. A wide grin appeared across my face as I very judiciously applied oil from the lamp on either end, making sure not to spill any. Oh, I am SO going to win this thing.

I rewound the tape in the deck and queued it up. So eager was I to practice the new addition to my routine that I didn’t find it necessary to reapply the Zubaz – I just lit up either end of the fire baton and hit ‘play’ on the tape deck. Oh, how I smiled as I twirled my flaming staff with the dexterity of a practiced majorette in time with Marky Mark shouting about what time it was and how it was the perfect time to bring forth the rhythm and the rhyme. The baton spun clockwise and the flaming ends blurred together, creating a veritable wheel of flame. Feeling confident in my spinning, I increased the speed, mentally picturing the awestruck faces of my classmates as they sat dumbfounded in the audience. “Not only is he hardcore,” they’d no doubt say, “But look! He has mastered the art of twirling fire as well!”

Mastered it so well, in fact, that I had turned it into a projectile weapon. Just as I was cranking the velocity of the staff to eleven, a slight variation in the height at which I was holding the staff brought it slamming into the spinning ceiling fan just above me. My hands were jarred as the staff came to an abrupt stop, and as I looked up to see just exactly what happened, I noticed that the end of the staff that rested against the now dented blade of the ceiling fan was missing something. It took only a second for me to realize what exactly was missing, as my eyes caught a glimpse of a ball of flame flying in a short arc across the room. The ball came to rest on top of a black and orange striped pair of workout pants resting in a heap on my drawing desk.

“OH NO!” I shouted aloud as I witnessed my Zubaz – one of the key elements in my costume – begin to catch alight. Panic set in and without a moment’s thought, I dropped the stick in my hand and lunged for the now-flaming wad of clothing. Knowing better than to pick up a flaming ball of… well, flame… I searched for something to smother the flames. Paper! No… I can’t use paper… Um, BEDSHEETS! No, I can’t do that because – OH WHO CARES WHY, I’ve got to get this fire put out! Umm… Oh God oh God oh God… WAIT! I can use – NO! I couldn’t possibly… It’s out of the question! Hmm… But it’s the only way… Crap. Here goes nothing…

In a fit of adrenaline-fueled haste, I slipped out of the Bengals Starter jacket that had taken me 4 weeks of lawn mowing to be able to afford. In one smooth motion, I fluffed it out and over the desk and blanketed - FUCK! The blankets! I could have used the blankets! Shit… oh well… - the flames with it. I pressed down on top of the bundle of fire as hard as I could until I smelled the ever-familiar smell of smoldering materials and heavy puffs of smoke. I lifted up my jacket to survey the damage – not too bad! I had put a fairly small hole in the inner quilting and the lining reeked of carbon, but it wasn’t a total loss. I smiled brightly, thrilled beyond belief at the heroics of my actions. I had placed my most prized possession on the line to put out the fire created by one of the flaming ends of my flaming baton flying across –

Oh shit.

I immediately whipped around and bared witness to a small bonfire that was blazing across the room. In the panic of trying to put out the one fire, I had forgotten that one end of the staff o’ fire flying across the room meant there was ANOTHER end still attached to the baton when I dropped it. And, given the fact that I had chosen a pile of dirty laundry to drop the staff onto and the amount of time I had given it to get fired up, there was about a zero percent chance that my jacket could put this one out.

I sprinted from the room and into the kitchen, snatching the phone from the cradle and trying in vain to remember the number for 911. OhShitOhShitOhShit! Dad’s gonna fuckin’ KILL me! FUCK! Fuckfuckfuck! My hand was shaking terribly as I dialed the digits, and it was all I could do to keep the cordless phone held to my ear as the operator came across the line.

“Clayton County Emergency Services,” The kind but tired woman on the other end of the phone said. “What is your emer—“

“Oh God HELP I set my house on fire!” I yelled. “My dad’s gonna fuckin’ KILL me! Oh God!”

“It’s okay, ma’am,” the operator said. “Just calm down –“

“I’m a guy!” I screamed. “I’m a guy and my house is on fire and –“

“Okay, sir!” she said sternly. “It’s going to be okay. Are you in the house now?”

“Yes!” I blurted out. “I’m in the house. My room’s on fire. I’m a dead man.”

“Okay, first thing’s first, you need to get out of the house. Are you near an exit?”

“Uh…” I stammered, scanning the room. “Yeah, I’m near one! Okay, I’m going to leave now!”

“Wait! Sir!” She yelled as I bolted for the garage door.

“WHAT?!?” I screamed back at her.

“Oh, you’re still on the line!”

“Yeah, I’m still on the line! I’m on a cordless phone!”

“Oh,” She said, and continued talking me down from the mental ledge I had perched myself upon. She verified my address and assured me that the fire department would be there as quickly as possible as I stood in my front yard, watching the fire grow brighter through my bedroom window.

“Oh, God, I am going to die,” I said as tears welled up in my eyes.

“No, sir,” she replied. “You are outside, you should be safe from the fire.”

“It’s not the fire I’m scared of, lady!” I said in reply. “It’s my dad! He’s going to murder me!”

“Don’t be silly!” She said calmingly. “Your father will just be glad that you made it out safe and sound.”

“Lady, it’s pretty clear that you don’t know my dad,” I replied sternly. “You might as well go ahead and put in a call for a murder here, too.”

It was only a moment later when the wail of sirens cried through the twilight air and three fire engines came screaming up the road, stopping just a little beyond my parents’ house. By this time, the flames were beginning to pour out of my bedroom window and the immediate area outside of the right side of the house was beginning to glow orange. Set against the black of the night sky, I couldn’t help but note the irony.

The sirens immediately caught the attention of my neighbors, who were beginning to peek out of their windows and file out of their homes to witness the spectacle. Two paramedics dashed up to me and began looking me over frantically.

“Are you alright?!?” The first one shouted.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied. “I came out just after it started.”

“You must have left in a hurry,” The other one observed aloud.

“Yeah, I did,” I said. “What made you say that?”

“You forgot your pants,” he replied, pointing to my lower half which was clad in nothing more than a thin orange-and-black piece of nylon stretched over my genitalia. “And your shirt.”

The table was silent; everyone’s eyes as wide as plates with mouths that looked like giant frisbees cut in half. I sat there and stared back at them. I smiled a nervous smile and said, “So, um… that’s it.”

As if I had just given them permission to use their outdoor voices, all four of my companions broke out into extremely loud and sustained laughter. I just sat there with a grimace on my face and shaking my head, embarrassed beyond belief that once again our group had become the centerpiece on the table of other people’s annoyance. But a second later, another thought hit me – this was the first time in the past day and a half that we all agreed on something.

Damn. Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch really do bring Good Vibrations.

But apparently, the sushi staffer didn’t agree. My headshaking and eye shielding came to an abrupt halt when I felt a tiny hand on my right shoulder. ” Dieses ist es. Sie müssen jetzt gehen!” The tiny angry man said, demanding that we get our things and get the hell out of his restaurant.

“Entschuldigen sie!” Andrea said, but was cut off by the angry man pointing toward the door and scowling at us mightily. “We need to go,” she said to us. I could tell by both her tone and the tone of the German Asian dude that this was our last straw.

We gathered our coats and our bags and marched toward the door, the upset server bringing up the rear. We all filed out of the door and into the cold Munich night, making no effort to mask our extreme amusement by the situation. Mike pulled out the key to the van and unlocked it, and within a minute we were all in our seats and buckled up. Before he could crank the engine, something dawned on me.

“You know… We didn’t pay for our food,” I said to the group. I turned in my seat to face them. “Uh… What should we do?”

Everyone sat silent.

“You think we should drive off?” I said pensively. It took a moment before someone replied.

“This is what you should do,” Lori suggested. “First, you should head back in there.”

I nodded in response.

“Then, you should take off your shirt and pants and do the Marky Mark dance for him!” She exclaimed.

Everyone in the van cracked up except for me, who stared back at Lori with a stern look. Mike cranked up the van and shifted into reverse, but I stopped him before he could get moving. “Dude, hold up a second,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder.

“Why?” He said, still chuckling.

“I gotta go back in there and pay the man,” I said. And with that, I unbuckled my safety belt and hopped out of the van, marching back into the restaurant.

A minute later, I came busting out of the front door of the restaurant; my pants, shoes and shirt in a bundle in my arms. The bitter cold stung my skin as I leapt into the passenger seat of the van. “GO!” I screamed, slamming the door of the van behind me as the angry Asian German sushi guy flew out of the restaurant in chase. He raised his fist and cursed beneath the sounds of a roaring Volkswagen van’s engine as it sped down the strasse and into the nacht.