About the Packers game

Keep in mind, this started with a Russell Wilson throw. The guy had just ran back about 15 yards, like how I used to play Madden when I was 11, and threw it 55 yards because that was his only chance to win.

Now while the ball is in the air, Seattle's odds of winning are pretty low — in fact, let's not go there. Because odds mattered so little in this game all along. Odds the Packers offense would get shut out and allow eight sacks in the first half, odds Cedric Benson would be the key to a comeback, odds we'd be facing a classic Hail Mary to end it all, odds we'd end on the conclusion we did. If you were to look at them, you'd be wasting your time, this all has to be examined qualitatively.

My examinations? It'll never happen again. Thus, it is historic.

Since it's a new season, and the Seahawks have attractive Nike threads, a trendy quarterback whom Bill Simmons crowned as the most important player this season, and the Packers are coming off a gazillion-1 year, this game had mass appeal. Everyone was watching. This wasn't Seahawks-Cardinals, this was Monday Night Football.

People will look at this game and see the conclusion, mostly for the fallout it induced. But what's missing is the amazing "rising action" to borrow some literary words that are often paired together.

But eventually the ball does land, and it's a toss up. I'm on the phone with my brother, and I'm in my friends' apartment which is currently a please-don't-yell zone, and I don't yell, because I'm trying to process what the hell is happening, and the thought in my head is "tie goes to the runner."

Seattle is the runner for multiple reasons. They're the underdog, they're the offensive team, and they're the home team. I can't stress enough how much of me figured the refs would call it Seattle's way just because this was in Seattle. Have you ever stood before 70,000 people that consider themselves the most avid 70,000 people out of 32 groups of 70,000 people and thought "what your protagonists have accomplished is very impressive and remarkable, but it's not technically the way things should be." No, you haven't. These refs haven't either.

When the play is ruled a touchdown, I immediately am thinking back to a 2009 Packers-Steelers game in which the Steelers won on a last second touchdown throw by Ben Roethlisberger to Mike Wallace. Both teams were out of playoff contention, competing for pride, and the game was of serious importance, but nobody cared because it was between two scrub squads. But, lo and behold, those teams met again in the Super Bowl at the end of the next season, and I viewed that game — a gutwrenching defeat — as the day the Super Bowl XLV Packers were born. Moments like those — where you're crushed and helpless but you gave it your all and have nothing to be ashamed of — they make you certain of who you are and ready for a bigger moment, say a Super Bowl saving defensive stand against a team who has trademarked late Super Bowl heroics.

And then I'm thinking, well, at least the Seahawks didn't beat us. Yeah, they got helped by the refs. These refs were in a dreadful situation, and I don't know what I would have done, let alone the real refs. It might have gone the same way, albeit a preceding pass interference penalty wouldn't have been called, and the Seahawks would have 32 more yards to chow through before seeing the goal line. It was a dreadful situation, but you have to make a call, and they made a really simple call. Touchdown, home team victory, comeback complete.

So Russell Wilson is parading around like a hero, Golden Tate just bullshitted the biggest moment of his life, Pete Carroll's talking about season-defining wins before his team's even kicked the extra point to make it official, and all the while the Packers are off in the locker room, probably thinking something along the lines of "fuck it." Fuck it — we played well enough to win this game, we intercepted the ball on the last play, we know our man had it, we played well enough to win. Fuck it — we deserved to lose based on the way they destroyed us in half one. Fuck it — this isn't the playoffs, it's Week 3, we've got time and that will never ever happen again ever. Fuck it — they called it, whatever, I guess we lost.

The game goes official and I'm really not all that bitter. It's like how eventually I realized in high school that rich kids just got things easier because their parents could pay for them. I wasn't a lesser person, I just didn't have things handed to me. This game was handed to the Seahawks by someone else. I mean, this mindset borders on denial, but I'm okay staring down a 1-2 record. I'm not scared. Now, I'm dying to hear Mike McCarthy's press conference, and sort of hoping we file a lawsuit or something absurd like that. By all means, practically any recourse is justified when a team is victimized to the extent we were tonight. I know that the fallout will be totally supportive of Green Bay, Skip Bayless will probably say that we're 2-1 all week on "This is Bullshit and I'm Skip Bayless" or whatever that show on ESPN is called.

The replay itself is stomach churning. The guy, M.D. Jennings, jumps up — so high — and gets his hands on the ball and rakes it in — great success! — but as they come down — watch out for poor Sam Shields down there — Golden Tate begins to force himself upon the ball. They fall to the ground — who's got it? — Jennings turns away, trying to yank possession all to himself — he fails at this and thus leads the referee to believe he has less of the ball than Tate — and Tate clings on as the ref signals touchdown. The words "simultaneous possession" have been murdered by overuse and may or may not apply. Let's not oversimplify it — the catch was confusing, and honestly a competent basketball ref would be running in with two thumbs up and we wouldn't have to decide who had the ball first, because we would just figure out who could have the ball now. It's a football play, and it's a fucking weird one that I've never seen before.

I watch the press conferences, read some of the reactions, read more of the reactions, and get increasingly upset. Some of these responses are funny, TJ Lang and Josh Sitton (Packers O-linemen) don't give a fuck how light their wallets become after their tweets tonight, Clay Matthews gives America Roger Goodell's phone number and I call in and offer a couple thoughts, including this suggestion: Why is it necessary to establish a call on the field in situations where the game (or half, or quarter) is over? In a situation like tonight, why can't the refs just be like "WE DON'T KNOW. DID YOU SEE THAT? WE'RE GOING TO GO LOOK AT THAT AND DOUBLE-CHECK BEFORE WE ESTABLISH A BURDEN OF PROOF HERE." While perhaps not conventional or loyal to the process, the idea of a "call on the field" is just saying you have to argue against something in your replay review, you can't decide something by replay. This isn't American court, we're not proving guilt or innocence, we're deciding something. Let there be a decision made upon review in situations where the officials are obviously flustered and uncertain.

Before this catch, there was the uncalled pass interference on Golden Tate — a blatant no-call that affected the game not only by not penalizing Tate, but by taking the defender in best position, Sam Shields, out of the play. Before the play, there had been a 32-yard pass interference call against  Shields in which he was actually tugged by wide receiver Sidney Rice, this was another call I think the refs knew something was wrong, threw a penalty flag to seem competent, then called it on the road team to appease the immediate audience. Before this there was a penalty for roughing the passer that negated an earlier Packers interception that really had serious dagger potential in itself. Obviously these refs tonight took a flyer on the whole "protect the quarterback" zeitgeist that plagued last year's officiating. They dropped laundry several times in the tackle box and here flagged Erik Walden on a play that players have been making all season without consideration from the refs, lament from the fans or protest from the players. If no pass interference is called, do you really think Seattle is whining about not getting that call? No. So there's three key missed calls by these referees which Roger Goodell backed several weeks ago and has not voiced much support for since the regular season began.

Blaming the refs is silly, to a degree. I mean, I may have been not far down the list of replacement officials, for all I know. These guys are coming from all different kinds of backgrounds and clearly are outclassed here. They still fuck these plays up and are influenced so much by trying to appear normal. Referees aren't an entity that should resemble Milford men — not seen and not heard — they should be controlling the game, setting a framework for the players to work within. These guys are afraid to intrude, because they are so unconfident in their abilities.

So we look around, we know it's commissioner Goodell's fault, it's also the fault of the Owners and I guess the players and I guess the fans for not taking serious action to combat this lockout. But I know it's not M.D. Jennings' fault, it's not Sam Shields' fault, and it's definitely not Golden Tate's fault we lost.

All I'm seeing is probably the most interesting football game of my lifetime and wondering how that affects the future for the Packers this season. We've got the Saints on Sunday, and we had better not make it close.

--Eliot Sill

Nick - Julie Brady

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Julie Brady. A little while ago I said, "guys, what should I write a Classic Brian about?" and Julie Brady said "ME!"

So here we are!

Above is a picture of Julie pretending to be a whale in an improv show. Julie is very good at improv! But I don't think she knows very much about whales.

This is me and Julie. Julie and I are in two improv troupes together! Also I live with her. Julie Brady plays guitar for DeBono and is also in PK Barnjam.

Julie is very good at improv and at guitar! Julie Brady is not very good at circulation or doing things. She is always cold. She is also a cynical bastard. Sometimes Julie Brady plays really mean characters. I'm a little afraid of her.

Sad Julie

I never call Julie Brady "Jules." That name is reserved for Giuli Bailey, who is sort of like the anti-Julie Brady in a lot of ways. (Including her name.)

Even though she likes taking busses and she always complains about the temperature of our house, Julie Brady is a good friend and a good teammate. Right now I'm sitting in her room and we're all talking about our parents. She has really good taste in music, and she is totally punk. Yesterday she taught me how to play the beginning of American Idiot on guitar!

One time I walked into my room and she was wearing my girlfriend's clothes. She spends a lot of time watching me play Animal Crossing. She is very pretty, but refuses to wear skirts or dresses. And these are only a few of the reasons that she is the best.


Julie Brady, will you marry me?


-Nick.

The Night Air

I am the night air.

I am different. I am cool, crisp, even cold sometimes. I can get muggy, I can get humid, but I keep my cool, I don't ever get hot. I am not abuzz with sun-rays, I do not tan you, I don't invite your kids out to play, and I don't need you here either, but you're welcome to hang out if you like. I am cool.

I see things clearly, maybe you don't understand. Maybe you don't get it because you think the day air can see better. Well the day air's just fine, but I don't need you to tell me what I am or what I can do. I could not care less for your approval. I could care less whether you see because I can see perfectly fine for you. Just trust me.

I am the night air and I've seen you be scared of me. You think I'm ugly, you think I'm lying, you don't feel safe and you don't trust me, because I'm too cool to trust. My winds do not whisper "red rum" as you seem to think they do. I have said nothing of importance, it's cool, trust me. Those shadows you dodge aren't even my fault — you made those, you damn fool.

I am the night air and you do not know how to please me. I blush when the moon winks at me, only you don't see it wink because you look away too fast, and you don't see me blush because you cannot see; I do not wear my emotions on my sleeve. My emotions are subtle, and you do not appreciate the subtleties. You only like the way the rain feeds you, you don't appreciate the way it feels or the way it sounds. But I do — I feel it all. And I listen.

I listen better than God, because unlike God, nobody wants to talk to me. Sometimes they talk to me and they think they're talking to God but they're just talking to me and I listen. I hear your movements, I hear your actions, your words, I hear your thoughts too, but I don't care for those. I am too cool, the night air, to care for those.

I hear insects, and they are loud as hell. They keep talking, and that's just fine because I can hear them but I can still listen to other things because I'm a good listener and I've listened to those bugs before and they don't have anything to say. I don't like bugs usually, unless you got me in a bad mood. If I'm in a bad mood I'm all right with bugs because I can lose my cool and nobody will notice because those damn bugs take all the attention. When I'm cool I leave the insects to the night ground because that's where insects belong, on the ground. When I'm cold, those insects know not to come around and I wish you'd know, too, because I like to be left alone when I'm cold.

I'm the night air and you know me, but you're not my friend. You never say hi to me like you do to the day air. You don't say hi to me because you're too busy saying bye to the day air. You say bye to the day air and you don't say hi to me then you go away and replicate the day air in your spaces and you say bye to the replica day air and don't think to say bye to me.

Sometimes you hang around, and I listen just in case you remember to say bye but you don't, you just wish I'd be gone. You're lucky I let you leave. You are not my friend.

My friends are cool. My friends only hang out with me because I'm cool and they like that I'm cool so they hang out with me because they're my friends. I don't care for your friends. I don't care for the day air, either, because the day air has so many friends and it doesn't need me and neither do its friends but they like me, they're just afraid to hang out with me because I'm so cool.

Crispy, they say. I am crispy, the opposite of soggy, the opposite of disgusting, the encapsulation of clean and the quintessential of cool. This is what I am because I am the night air.

I am the night air and I hear you crying. I see those tears glint in the winking moon who loves me so, and I hear your bed creak as you quiver on top of it, day air unwanted, night air unwanted, you don't want any air at all, do you? I hear you regret those things and blame yourself and others and God, but you don't blame me, because it's not my fault and you know I had nothing to do with it. I listen to you in that way only I do, through those walls that you think keep me out, and I may keep to myself but I am not kept out. I am the night air, and I go where I want, and right now I want to be with you, because you don't sound like you do most nights and that interests me. It interests me and I feel your sadness. But I can do nothing for you about it because I am cool.

I am the night air and I cannot provide. I am the excellence of absence, the brilliance of darkness, the independent opposite, unaware that I am based on something else, not a basis myself. If all you had was me you would have no one, because I'm too crispy to be motherly, and too cold to be Godly, and too cool to yearn to be either.

I am the night air and I am rigid. You cannot hug me or embrace me, bask in me, and you feel best when I am not around. I am unwanted.

But I am cool. So I don't need to be wanted. Without me, you wouldn't know to get warm, and you wouldn't know when to stop.

I am here for you in subtle ways, and I appreciate the subtleties. If you appreciate the subtleties you just may appreciate me, though I am more than subtle, I am profound. I am the profound absence, I am the profound darkness.

I am the night air and I will always be here for you, extending a hand but not offering help, drying your tears but not consoling you, hearing your prayers but not as your God. Here in the exact way you need me to be.

I am the night air, the balancing element of everything you know, and you don't even know it, because it's my cool, not yours, and I keep it because it's all I have.

--Eliot Sill

Nick - The PK Barn: A Virtual Tour

For those who are unaware, I am living with my improv team this semester.
 

Reviewers have stated that my room is "sexy," and that the curtains are "the color of wine."

Nick - Skeletons In Our Closet (A PK Barn Story)

I found myself outside of our house, swallowed by a night so muggy and humid that I could swim to the back door faster than I could walk there. I stood near the back of the driveway and stared down my opponent: a pile of trash which could nearly match me in height and weight. It stared back, and didn't blink.

Kate, my usual partner in crime, and Julie, the laziest of my roommates, stood behind me in a mix of their night clothes and whichever shoes were closest to the door. Julie was the first to step forward and attack.

This monster was the product of our own laziness and inadequacy. We had, in our zeal to move in, set up internet, electricity, and water (in that order) and called it a day. Garbage collection never entered my mind until I finally read that letter from my landlord nearly four days after move-in. Of course, by then it was too late to have garbage pickup until next week.

Julie and I each grabbed two bags, holding them at arms' length, while Kate took up one particularly nasty-looking one and attempted to wrestle it into some configuration which would keep it as far from her as possible. We marched them somberly down the driveway to the curb.

This pile of garbage didn't accumulate over night. It started with the boxes. Robel and I moved in and unpacked our furniture. The remnants were several cardboard boxes. "I've just been setting them on the side of the house," said Robel. I was happy to comply. The side of the house seemed so far away. So out of mind.

"It's leaking! It's leaking!" Said Julie in her distressed voice. We could only keep marching as she was sprayed with liquid, the nature of which we hesitated to question. We reached the curb to find that there was, in fact, a garbage collection bin there. Good, this is good. Better than setting the bags on the curb in our lawn, as was the original plan.

A cardboard box is a harmless thing. It can be set in the grass on the side of the house, with all of its various contents inside, to be picked up at a later date and tossed into the garbage, or the recycling if you're really feeling wild. But after two weeks of garbage buildup and nonstop rain, a cardboard box becomes a very different sort of thing. No longer a contained entity, it splits into several smaller creatures which cannot all be picked up easily with one hand. It wore a crown of about 10 kitchen bags, filled with all the things we wanted to get out of out house as soon as possible.

We wheeled the garbage bin back to the cardboard-toothed monster, and began the daunting task of moving each bag roughly three feet into the bin.

"Maggots! Maggots!" screamed Kate, as she unveiled a second fermenting layer of garbage bags.

We peeled back maybe three layers, each more disgusting than the last, having had time to mature out here in the wild. Finally we reached the bottom few trash bags. They were slimy. They had not been tied shut, and their contents threatened to spill all over the grass were they moved in the wrong sort of way.

"Well," said Julie, gesturing toward the remaining bags, "You're a man, Nick."

They both looked at me. My mind wandered to the missing members of our family. I wish I had made Robel come out here, even though he was clearly trying to get some sleep before morning classes. Where is Anna? I haven't seen Anna since practice. If only Paul were conscious, I would drag him up from the basement and have him move these last few bags.

But I guess it's on me.

I carefully transplanted each bag, grabbing them by as little as I could in an attempt to minimize my exposure to their secretions. I took the flashlight from Kate to keep it steadily on the bags, making sure nothing could jump out and take me by surprise.

Finally we slammed the lid on those awful creatures (A lid that refused to fully close) and dragged the garbage bin back to the curb. As we headed inside, I took a remorseful glance at the cardboard base of our resident monster; the bin was too full to accommodate the last of the creature. Though we had taken the day, it was still there, waiting for us. It would grow back. It would be here next week.

An uneasy victory.

-Nick.

Nick - In The Arms Of God

All kind deities cast aside
In favor of some shadowy appendage
Reaching across the sky to bring me to this moment

To cradle me in darkness
And soothingly assure my restless heart
That heaven would hold no sway through its reign

And all the bright shimmering believers
Will be cast down by this cruel god

Safe in its reach I ascend the steps to hell
Finally rewarded for my oozing soul

Knowing what fate awaits
How many good citizens would defect
Casting aside all love and goodness for salvation

And aware of evil's triumph
Would there remain any paragons
Who sacrifice their soul to ignite some fleeting kindness


-Nick.

A Day of Purple Witch Tits, Part 3

robert langellier

You see, you know, right, once your head stars a-baking and your whole legs get aching and cranking, then everything gets weird. The, uh, the air’s getting pretty hazy, see those milky puddles of heat on the road up ahead, sweet desert mirages, they must be Champaign…or Decatur…almost there. Brain is boiling, roiling, churning, kind of disintegrated I think. And so now it’s no thoughts, just sounds and perceptions lighting off my now sensitive senses—VROOM—dynamite blue—and it’s not painful, just a trip. Out goes critical thinking, and it’s a wonderful thing when that happens, when you’ve lost the sheer ability to analyze and meditate, just to be an animal for a while, and no more playing god, and being a human is somewhere between the two—VROOM. A car pulls up by.

“You need a ride, friend?”

Sheeit no, no, I’m doing something here. “Nope!”

“You sure?”

No, no, no, no. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Alright.” A sweet bastard with a comfy buncha seats speeds away—VROO—

—and Illiopolis! The halfway point! right on schedule—

—Boy, oh, boy, ow boy. It’s a good time for some water, no, sunscreen, yeah. Round the corner, hey a turn! and two more hours before the next one. Take a rest. Little highway sign dinky little shade, gives enough shade for just my head, body’s cooking in the hard dead prickly weed grass. No, keep on! Pretty soon I’m singing to myself, singing some crazy ones, making stuff up, then “On the Road Again,” then some modern pop standards “I used to ruuule the world…” Down below the purple witch tits are glowering at me, like, “Have you replaced us?” “Yes, tits, I’m with I now.” And they reach out and touch me with longing knobs, so I just walk pow in the middle of the road, there’s no cars for days, whew. And here now I’m trying accents, talking to myself in Russian, British, Aussie, French, everything I can think of, mixing them up, too—“Vat do you vant, mate?”—and I’m the most ridiculous thing walking down the road sputtering nonsense to myself like a loon. If they saw me I know they’d lock me up, because oh goddamnit I’m crazy.

“Man, I’m going crazy out here!”

“It’s okay!”
“Whoo-ee!”

I wonder like always what time it is. I’ve still got hours to go, I know that much, but I’m real beat. But it’s okay, I’m running on sensations now, burning along in some crazed frenzy. I take my sunglasses off and the world simply *explodes* with light like a Claritin commercial, yes, just like that. I need cleaner glasses. God, it’s a real wash of light, an electric jolt, and it’s the only way anything changes around here is to put a different color of light on it—the only way anything changes—whoo...

And VROOM—(here goes a movie scene)—goes my friend Eliot’s car past me. He’s on his way back from a trip to Oklahoma right now, interesting place to vacation. Weird he’s out here on Old 36 by Illiopolis, that’s strange. I call him.

“Heyyy, man, how’s it going?....Yeah, I was wondering if you could give me a riiide….Oh……….Oh, okay, yeah that’s fine…I was just thinking maybe there was a chance you’d be driving your car on Illinois Old 36 somewhere between Illiopolis and whatever the FUCK town comes after it, turn your car around and come pick me up!!”

Man that sure rolled off the tongue, ohhh it felt good to say! so I fake hang up the fake call and take my phone back out of my pocket and do it again. 

“Heyyy, man, how’s it going?....Yeah, I was wondering if you could give me a riiide….Oh……….Oh, okay, yeah that’s fine…I was just thinking maybe there was a chance you’d be driving you car on Illinois Old 36 somewhere between Illiopolis and whatever the FUCK town comes after it, turn your car around and come pick me up!!”

You see, I’m a movie star, and I have to get this line just right for my audition, and I just can’t get it perfect. It’s gotta be articulate, natural sounding, energetic, with a big crescendo up to the last line, the big cathartic climax, so powerful I thrust my body and swing my arms in a way that can be seen by cell phone satellites and transmitted into the other receiver and understood by the actor who plays Eliot. It’s such a long line, sucks out my breath, and for an absurd half hour here I am in the middle of the universe belting out these sentences over and over and miming my phone to my ear.

“Heyyy, man, how’s it going?....”

I liked to imagine that walking is like running…cyclical…where you wear yourself down to hurting and if you keep at it you’ll eventually circle back to 0 and hit your second wind, your runner’s high. In reality, walking is just a straight vertical line, a constantly depleting line, and when you hit 0 it’s not the start of something beautiful anew, you just stop walking or go into the negatives. It doesn’t ever get better as I’ve been telling myself repeatedly since noon.

(((There is one truly rejuvenating grace in the world, and he drives a pickup truck, stops next to me coming from the west, and blesses me:

“I saw you when I drove by earlier, I thought you needed some water. Got a couple ice cold ones right here for ya.”

“What! Wow, that’d be incredible. Thank you so much, man, you’re a lifesaver!”

“No problem, take care,” and oh for a moment I believe in god or at least his guardian angels. I take down a whole bottle of Aquafina right away—my own water has looong since run warm—till I think I’ll puke. For the next five minutes I must say “wow” fifty times out loud in wondrous gratitude.)))

And then the cold water is gone, it was only a moment in time. In another half hour the water man is a memory, a dream, a hallucination. Perhaps something that happened in a past life. ……

This is the longest I’ve ever gone without anything to send my undivided attention to. For once I wonder if that is not some modern industrial age trivial dependency, if that is really some inherent animal need. I don’t know. I don’t know I DON’T KNOW. But it hurts now, I’m starting to hurt a lot, and there is that to focus on…

So I’m not crazy anymore. You go crazy when you don’t have anything to focus on. Now there is unimaginable pain. Every part of me is on fire from the sun. My legs are a different color. My calves are burnt. My muscles and joints are screaming. My eyes don’t open all the way, my body is soaked. Every step is an entire day’s workout; I feel freshly horrible with each one. There isn’t a moment I don’t think that my body will collapse at any second. Crumple to the ground. Die. Blow away with the sand. I am obliterated. My pack is heavy, very heavy now, and it’s killing, cutting, drilling into my shoulders. The water, the food, the supplies, it’s too much, too heavy.

My friend Bridget once told me that torturing small-brained sentient creatures is worse than torturing a healthy human, because the mental capacities of those animals is such that their entire beings, everything they know and believe in and understand, is searing unending pain as long as it envelops them. There is no dream of escaping, no family to think of, no god, no happy memories—it is a universe of pain.

Around me is all this horrible, twisted land, world of mirrors where you never know where you are, because you’re never anywhere at all, just in the double reflection of the place you were before. I look back and see a water tower that was there an eternity ago, slightly larger. I see ahead a cell phone tower that has been there as long as I’ve been alive, always the same size. On this kind of trip you will learn to hate tall things. There is no way out of it, the mirror shoots forever. Decatur is no more than a knot in my throat. Champaign may as well be somewhere I go when I die, I will never reach it elsewhere. By now I’ve abandoned the notion of it entirely. I came out here for solitude, which apparently is no better than any other drug in excess. I sit down in the grass and let out a whimper. I am miserable. The ground is hard. 

I decide to hitch home. I try thumbing in both directions, because I don’t care which direction I’m going, as long as I’m somewhere where there are buildings and shade. Of course, now that cars see that I’m clearly in need of a ride—I’m limping, or sitting down, thumbing—they avoid me like I’m breathing an airborne HIV virus. Eventually I have to give up, and I straggle on in the sun looking for any kind of shade—a gutter, a culvert. I have to stop every 10 seconds or so to sit down, so the progress is brutally slow, but, dragging my feet through the purple chicory weeds, I eventually after some agonizing time reach the next little town, just a few houses as far as I can tell—Harristown, just 5 miles outside Decatur, where I would’ve rested the night and made it to Champaign tomorrow. The first one on the right has a lawn, a real lawn, and a mid-size oak in the front yard. From down in me comes a little choking sob. I’ve done it. I sit down by the oak, make some calls, “Come pick me up.” Looking east, I can see the shimmering mirage of light dancing and refracting on the highway, and I let my head fall back, and I wait for a black Nissan to appear through the haze…almost there.