Yes, I Would Like Fries With That. (Tell me if you like this new photo format)

That morning I woke up at 9, caked in dirt and sand, having fallen into my sleeping bag without bothering to change my clothes. I was filthy. My fingernails looked like I had dug a ditch by hand. I was hung-the-fuck-over. After throwing on a clean shirt and my baseball cap, I all but crawled down to the gas station for some cold water and aspirin, and waved to Frank, seated on the bench outside his front door. He was busy typing on a laptop, his cellphone next to him. He works at the Chicago Tribune as an IT specialist, and decided to work from home that day.

Aspirin in hand, I strolled over and sat down next to him. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Ugh. Don’t ask."
"Ha, ha, ha! That’s the sign of a good time, though. Did you have fun?"
"Yeah, pretty much, until Chris started getting creepy."
"Yeah, he came over this morning and mentioned that. I think he felt bad.
"Well, he shouldn’t. He was just drunk. It was cool. Still, I’m glad he realizes it wasn’t just me being a bitch."
"Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t think that. What are you doing today?"
"Dunno yet. Maybe go to the beach."
"Oh, Max and I were about to go to the beach as well."

Hearing his name, Little Max appeared in the doorway. It was the first real chance I’d had to talk to him. And I realized quickly that he is not a four-year-old. He is a thirty-year-old trapped in a four-year-old’s body. Seriously, this kid has more personality and a better handle on the English language than some adults I know. His manner of speaking belies his size - he has a huge vocabulary but a tiny, high-pitched voice. Couple that with his blonde hair and big green eyes and that makes him The Official Cutest Little Boy In The World.

"Oh, hello!" he said, coming around the corner.
I crouched down on the ground. "Hey, buddy! Whatcha doin’?"
"Well, my dad and I are about to go to the beach, but right now I’m just playing with my toys. I have something to show you," he said before scampering away. He came back with a Spiderman set of school supplies in a plastic case, explaining what each item did. "That’s for writing and that’s for erasing and that’s for sticking things and that’s for putting everything in."
"Wow, that’s awesome!" I said.
"And guess what else, my daddy was in jail."
"Guess what, so was I," I told him.

Our conversation continued for a good half an hour, each time Max said something cute me looking at Frank and the two of us laughing. Finally, I said, "I should be going."
"Well, why don’t you go get your stuff and come back and then we can all go to the beach together?" Frank said.
"Sounds like a plan."

Twenty minutes later I was back in their kitchen and Frank was showing me pictures. A lot were pictures of some Wiccan gatherings he and his friends put together. No sacrificing goats, no getting naked and drinking blood, just people gathered around in a circle, burning some sage leaves and one by one, saying what they were thankful for. Looking at all the images, the happy people, I wondered, "Why does this make so much more sense to me than getting on my knees in front of a lower-case T?"

Tyka came over, and after a few minutes of rough-housing and tickle-fighting with Max we were all ready to go to the beach. I followed Tyka and the guys in my car, and as she was pulling away I was still waiting for my breathalyzer to warm up. "Hey, wait, stop! I can’t go yet!" I jumped out and explained the situation through Tyka’s passenger side window.
Frank let out a belly laugh. "You have one of those, too? I have one of those!" It was kismet.
"Dude!" I shouted, giving him a high five. "You’re the only other person I’ve met that has one!" We laughed.
"We’ll wait for you to blow," he said with a grin. "I know how much it sucks."

A few minutes and two left turns later, we were at the beach. It was beautiful, just as it had been the night before. Frank and I went in the water immediately, walking out until the waves broke over our heads. It was perfect - warm, clean, and it didn’t leave that horrible saltwater sting in your nose and throat. We turned around to stare at the shore, crested by tall, grassy dunes about forty feet from the waterline.
"Yeah, this is heaven," Frank stated, surveying the scene.
"Agreed. I bet it makes the long commute to Chicago worth it," I said.
"Every day."
Max and I dug a deep hole in the sand and when it caved in we switched to sand castles. We went in the water to wash off the sand and he shot me with a water gun. I fell straight back into the water, pretending to die. It became our new game. Frank joined in, and between deaths he told me a story about Max having been in day care.

"When he was about three, there was an incident. The caretaker was so horrified, she had trouble even telling me about it. She could only read the incident report out loud."
"Oh, gosh! What happened?" I asked, glancing at Max playing in the water, looking for any scars.
"Well, two little girls ran up to the counselor and said that Max was ‘being bad’. Apparently, he was doing a pole dance on one of the jungle gyms and smacking himself on the butt."
"Oh my god." That lingered for a second. Then I asked, "Um, do you know where...he....?"
"No!" Frank laughed. "That’s the weirdest part about it, no one can figure out where he learned what pole dancing is!"

A few minutes later, Frank and I still shooting the breeze in the waist-high water, Max gave us a repeat performance, swaying his hips side to side and then lifting up the cuff on his bathing suit in a peek-a-boo style to show off his underoos. "That’s enough!" Frank said as I fell in the water, laughing hysterically.
"He’s got rhythm, though!" I argued. "Have you ever thought about putting him in dance lessons?"
Frank looked at me seriously, but with a mischevious twinkle in his eye. "I fear the outcome of that."
My giggle synced up with Max’s shoulder-shimmy perfectly.

Back on shore, drying off a little, Frank, Tyka, and I talked about my trip, how it separates me from other people my age in a lot of ways. This ultimately - of course - led to a discussion on marriage. "Never. Do. It. Never," Tyka said to me. "There’s a reason it’s called ‘an institution’." Frank agreed. "Yeah, my father always told me to stay single forever and raise my kids to do the same."
"I don’t know. I want to get married. I want that security. Right now more than ever, probably because I get so lonely. Maybe because right now I conceivably can’t settle down, I want it even more."
"Really?" Frank asked.
"Yeah, but I probably won’t ever do it," I said, poking the sand with my toe. "I’m going to die alone. I think I’ll be one of the Golden Girls. I’m going to live in a bungalow and drink martinis all day and hit on the pool boy."

Tyka left before we did, making it necessary to squeeze, Frank, Max, and myself into the front seat and all my crap in the back seat. It took some doing. Squeezing Frank’s tall frame into a Honda Civic was hard enough, but Max had to squeeze in between Frank’s legs and crouch down so his head wasn’t visible over the dashboard.
"I don’t want the cops to see me," he whispered thinly, as though he were trying to get away with the perfect crime.
"I love you, Max," Frank said, patting the boy’s head.

Frank needed to make a pit-stop on the way for some paperwork, leaving Max and I outside by ourselves. He was cold and I wrapped him in my towel, then picked him up. "I love you, too, you know that, right?"
"I know," he squeaked. "Everybodies love me."
Through my smile I asked, "Now why do you think that is?"
He shrugged. "I don’t know, everybodies just do’s."
"It’s a tough job being the cutest little boy in the world, isn’t it, Max?"
He looked me dead in the eye. "Yes, it is."

I left he and Frank at the house, hugging Frank goodbye. "Thank you so much! I had such a wonderful time!" I said.
He smiled. "I’m glad," he said. "Don’t worry, we’re not done."

I went up to the campsite for some lunch, shower, and writing, then made my way back around four o’clock. Max was napping, giving me time to ask Frank about Beverly Shores. "It was a booming resort town in the 1800's for all the big money tycoons from Chicago. They had a huge golf course here, and huge summer homes out by the water. A man designed it and owned the whole thing, until his daughter, Beverly, drowned in the lake. Then he wanted nothing to do with it, so it just became another sleepy little resort town. It’s the smallest one on Lake Michigan, though. We don’t even have mail delivered to our homes." Looking around, I noticed that there were no mail boxes, something I had missed earlier. "The stupid thing is, they make you pay to rent a P.O. box. It’s pretty unfair when you think about it."

I cracked a bottle of soda as Frank and I sat on the bench outside his door. "I like watching people watch me watching them," he said.
I agreed. "Dude, I feel so content, just so.....*sigh*.... yeah, like one of those guys on ‘King of the Hill’, who just stand around the alley and say, ‘Yup’. Y’know, I always used to look down on those people, but there’s something to be said for it."

Chris came by and there were no hard feelings at all. I hugged him goodbye before he left for Chicago to pick up some glass pieces. Max woke up from his nap and we played every game under the sun.
We colored with chalk, played hide-and-go-seek, made a clubhouse, played Pokemon charades (which was hilarious because I don’t know the names or what they do), pretended to play in the snow, caught fireflies, pretended to go to the pumpkin patch ("the punkin’ paytch!") and finally, we played McDonald’s. Seriously, this kid has a McDonald’s drive-thru playset.

I rode up to the window on his Big Wheel. "Can I have a number four please?"
"What?" he asked.
"A cheeseburger and some fries and a shake."
"Oh, okay," he said, handing me some plastic fries, a dried leaf, and a twig. (The fries were the only toy food that hadn’t been eaten by the backyard, so improvisation was key.)

Soon we were hungry for real food. I was going to go back to camp and make some mashed potatoes but ended up sharing pizza and onion rings with the boys. Max went to bed right after, and I went back to camp after making plans with Frank to get together in downtown Chicago the next day. I fell asleep thinking, for the 77th time in 77 days on the road, "I love my life."