There always seems to be that one guy. You know the one. We call them odd man out or like the old Life cereal commercial, it’s a Mikey who eats anything. He’s the go to guy when any misadventure calls, or the first one to volunteer to do something crazy, assuming that others will just follow his lead.
They don’t, of course. He’s that one guy. There’s always one, but sometimes there’s two.
I only know of the “two rule” because one time I was one of the two. The other was my good pirate buddy Bobby Smyth. This dates back to the days when we went to the Cayman Islands for Pirate’s Week. It’s many years ago now, but I still remember it like it was yesterday.
As part of the island-wide celebration, there was a bicycle road race. Don’t ask me why anyone would ever want to enter a road race that involves bicycling in the tepid heat and nonstop humidity of the tropics. But oddly, they did, by the hundreds.
The Caymans are not the kind of island you can race around. Because the island is somewhat horseshoe-shaped, you can drive all the way one way, but then you have to turn around eventually and head in the direction from whence you came.
To this day, I’m not sure why we were necessary. But the event organizers said they needed someone to be at the end of the road (which dead ended not much farther down the way) to tell the cyclists to turn around and head back to town.
Foolishly, Bobby and I volunteered for this duty. We had full tankards of coconut rum to keep us hydrated and lubricated, so why not? A pickup truck would take us out to the point, we would stand there with our swords, brandishing them in the reverse direction and give these racers the competitive advantage of not tooling down the road another 100 yards to the dead end.
We hopped into the bed of the pickup truck and off we sped to our assigned spot in Savannah. When we got there the truck did a 180 and we jumped off. As the truck sped off, we began to wonder where the hell we really were. And without knowing it, we had become that one guy.
We didn’t know it at the time though. We dutifully took our place in the center of the deserted road and waited for the cyclists. And waited. And waited. I guess we should have asked when the race started and when we could expect them to reach our checkpoint. Instead, we laughed a lot, told stories, and drank the rum more quickly than we should have for soon we had not yet seen our first rider but were dangerously low on libations.
After what seemed like an eternity the racers showed up. At first there was a trickle, then a flood, then another trickle. We pointed the way back as requested, resisting any temptation to let them continue on their way down the soon to be dead end road. Finally, there were no more bicyclists.
There was also no pickup truck. We stood there, waiting, thinking they were picking up others along the way or got temporarily held up by a racer with a flat. Still no truck.
We looked at each other and realized that we had become that one guy, in this case the one guy that got left behind.
This isn’t the first time that I had been involved in a one guy scenario, but it was the first time I was that one guy. I had certainly “one guy’d” others in my lifetime, including Foggy Davidson during the famed fogination of the Hazen High gym and Big Nick when I left him in Ephrata.
That’s not to say that I haven’t come close to being that one guy before race day. There was the time that I had to go to the bathroom on the way to Yakima. We were all riding in Cabin Boy Christopher’s van, heading to Sunfair. There is a stretch of the road to Yakima that takes you through the Yakima Training Center where the military does target practice. It was late in the night, the moon was shining brilliantly and my bladder was overflowing. So Mark dutifully pulled over on the side of the road and I hopped out of the sliding side door.
I unzipped my pants and relieved myself. Just as I was feeling that sweet release, the van behind me started rolling down the road. I was about to become that other guy. Instead of being left alone on the side of the road, I continued to transfer my cargo while running sideways, finally zipping up still on a very awkward, crabbish dead run, finally falling butt first into the still moving van.
Back to Cayman.
Bobby and I continued to swelter for some time in the heat. We were out of rum, out of humor and a bit miffed at becoming that one guy times two.
Finally, a vehicle came down the road. It wasn’t the pickup. It was just a passing car. We held out our thumbs and asked for a lift. Even though they were heading away from Georgetown, they obligingly turned tail and drove us back to town.
As we pulled up to the Pirate’s Week headquarters, we spotted the pickup truck. The driver was just getting out. We thanked him for the ride. He looked a bit sheepish, saying that he had forgotten about us.
You do that with that one guy. He can be a bit forgettable. At least at the moment. Sure, we all said we’d meet at such and such place in an hour, but we just got a little waylaid. A little too much beverage. A long day. A lucky night. But don’t worry. Someone is sure to be there. You know, that one guy.
In the Emerald City, keeping a weathered eye out for not becoming the one guy again,
– Robb