Because this is a classy hot-dog joint, a waiter takes our order. Jane and I each want one hot dog and a soda. Tiny orders four hot dogs with buns, three hot dogs without buns, a bowl of chili, and a Diet Coke.
“A Diet Coke?” asks the waiter. “You want four hot dogs with buns, three hot dogs without buns, a bowl of chili, and a Diet Coke?”
“That’s correct,” says Tiny, and then explains, “simple sugars don’t really help me put on muscle mass.” And the waiter just shakes his head and says, “Uh-huh.”
“Your poor digestive system,” I say. “One day your intestinal tract is going to revolt. It’s going to reach up and strangle you.”
“You know Coach says ideally I should put on thirty pounds for the start of next season. If I want to get scholarships from Division I schools? You gotta be big. And it’s just so hard for me to put on weight. I try and I try, but it’s a constant battle.”
“You’ve got a real hard life, Tiny,” says Jane. I laugh, and we exchange glances, and then Tiny says, “Oh my God, just do it already,” which leads to an uncomfortable silence that lasts until Jane asks, “So where are Gary and Nick?”
“Probably getting back together,” Tiny says. “I broke up with Nick last night.”
“That was the right thing to do. It was doomed from the start.”
“I know, right? I really think I want to be single for a while.”
I turn to Jane and say, “I bet you five bucks he’ll be in love within four hours.”
She laughs. “Make it three and you’re on.”
“Deal.”
We shake.
After dinner, we walk around the neighborhood for a little while to kill time and then get in line outside the Storage Room. It’s cold out, but up against the building, we’re out of the wind at least. In line, I pull out my wallet, move the fake ID to the front picture window, and hide my real driver’s license between a health insurance card and my dad’s business card.
“Let me see it,” says Tiny, and I hand him my wallet, and he says, “Damn, Grayson, for once in your life you don’t look like a bitchsquealer in a picture.”
Just before we get to the front of the line, Tiny pushes me in front of him—I guess so he can have the pleasure of watching me use the ID for the first time. The bouncer wears a T-shirt that doesn’t quite extend over his belly.
“ID,” he tells me. I pull my wallet from my back pocket, slide the ID out, and hand it to him. He shines a flashlight on it, then turns the flashlight onto my face, and then back to the ID, and then he says, “What, you think I can’t add?”
And I say, “Huh?”
And the bouncer says, “Kid, you’re twenty.”
And I say, “No, I’m twenty-two.” And he hands me my ID and says, “Well, your goddamned driver’s license says you’re twenty.” I stare at it, and do the math. It says I turn twenty-one next January.
“Uh,” I say. “Um, yeah. Sorry.”
That stupid h-o-p-e-l-e-s-s stoner put the wrong f**king year on my ID. I step away from the club’s entrance, and Tiny walks up to me, laughing his ass off. Jane is giggling, too. Tiny claps me too hard on the shoulder and says, “Only Grayson could get a fake ID that says he’s twenty. It’s totally worthless!”
And I say to Jane, “Your friend made it with the wrong year,” and she says, “I’m sorry, Will,” but she can’t be that sorry, or else she’d stop laughing.
“We can try to get you in,” Jane suggests, but I just shake my head.
“You guys just go,” I say. “Just call me when it’s over. I’ll just hang out at Frank ’s Franks or something. And, like, call me if they play ‘Annus Miribalis.’”
And here’s the thing: they go. They just get back into line and then I watch them walk into the club, and neither of them even tries to say no, no, we don’t want to see the show without you.
Don’t get me wrong. The band is great. But being passed over for the band still sucks. Standing in line I hadn’t felt cold, but now it’s freezing. It’s miserable out, the kind of cold where breathing through your nose gives you brain freeze. And I’m out here alone with my worthless f**king hundred-dollar ID.
I walk back to Frank’s Franks, order a hot dog, and eat it slowly. But I know I can’t possibly eat this one hot dog for the two or three hours they’ll be gone—you can’t savor a hot dog. My phone’s on the table, and I just watch it, stupidly hoping Jane or Tiny might call. And sitting here, I only get more and more pissed. This is a hell of a way to leave someone—sitting alone in a restaurant—just staring straight ahead, not even a book to keep me company. It’s not even just Tiny and Jane; I’m pissed at myself, for giving them an out, for not checking the date on the stupid ID, for sitting here waiting for the phone to ring even though I could be driving home.
And thinking about it, I realize the problem with going where you’re pushed: sometimes you’re pushed here.
I’m tired of going where I’m pushed. It’s one thing to get pushed around by my parents. But Tiny Cooper pushing me toward Jane, and then pushing me toward a fake ID, and then laughing at the f**kup that resulted, and then leaving me here alone with a goddamned second-rate hot dog when I don’t even particularly like first-rate hot dogs—that’s bullshit.
I can see him in my mind, his fat head laughing. It’s totally worthless. It’s totally worthless. Not so! I can buy cigarettes, although I don’t smoke. I can possibly illegally register to vote. I can—oh, hey. Huh. Now there’s an idea.
See, across from the Storage Room, there’s this place. A neon-sign-and-no-windows kind of place. Now, I don’t particularly like or care about p**n —or the “Adult Books” promised by the sign outside the door—but I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend my entire night at Frank’s Franks not using my fake ID. No. I’m going to the p**n store. Tiny Cooper doesn’t have the nuts to walk into a place like that. No way. I’m thinking about the story I’ll have when Tiny and Jane get out of the concert. I put a five on the table—a 50 percent tip—and walk four blocks. As I get near the door, I start to feel anxious—but I tell myself that being outside in the dead of winter in downtown Chicago is much more dangerous than any business establishment could possibly be.