What's Up With That?

The Force is Strong with this One

It's about 1:30 AM and James Earl Jones is screwing the top back on our third bottle of Riunite (on ice, how nice). He's laughing hard because we just got off the phone with our sixth crank call to George Lucas that evening. James just loves calling George and telling him in his Darth Vadar voice "Search your feelings, George... I am your father." Hey, I didn't think it was all that funny either but when James, does it, it's a riot! It takes me a few minutes to convince James that we're all done with the crank calls this evening. Ever since he got the free cell phone with free unlimited air time from his work on the Bell Atlantic Mobile commercials, he's unstoppable.

Out of nowhere, JEJ turns to me and asks "TK, do you think someday we might want to try some stupid juice in a bottle with a cork?" I'm devastated by this question. When I first met JEJ, we'd hit all the hot spots on the town mostly because when you're with James Earl Jones, you go where you want, when you want. But it gets old quick and you start to long for the simpler things in life including, yes, cheap wine in a bottle with a screw off top.

"Tommy, never mind... stupid question" he blurts out. Apparently I've taken too long to answer his query and now James is feeling bad about asking me. "Corked bottles are so overrated" I remind him. "Yes, I suppose so" he quietly says.

Then it hits me. It's time to say good-bye to James and send him back to the world that he knows best. It's time to let him go.

So with some sadness I say good-bye to James and start walking down his mile long driveway toward the bicycle I rode over to his estate that afternoon. Before I can get 100 yards away, JEJ is running toward me, telling me to hold up. I turn and see that he's holding one of his most favorite possessions, suspenders constructed from hundreds of Riunite bottle caps and rubber bands. "TK, I want you to have this."

There is no refusing James Earl Jones.

So, as I pedal away that evening, suspenders jingling in the wind, I don't feel sadness because I know, some day soon, one early morning around 2:30 AM, my phone will ring, and the crank call will be to me.