Unidentified
Something amazing happened in Grand Lake, Colorado.
On Sunday night, Greg's co-owner, Carey, was in Denver, and the roost was all his. At his behest, doors closed an hour early. We all smoked up and went bowling. Even the Moldovan girls--Dorina and Diana--went.
It was their first ever time bowling. A truly American experience.
Greg rolls rocks; a dead ringer. He won money all night--beers for all. We went to Grumpy's--the "tourist bar," formerly a three-two bar that hired only chicks. ("It was five to one in the day," Greg told me. "If you came to Grumpy's and didn't go home with someone, there was a problem. There was a problem.") Pesci was the only soul at the bar, drinking the whole thing dry. His good friend, John Brown, was on stage with his acoustic guitar. He played a doozy "Like a Virgin."
Greg, Rachel, Emily, and I played tabletop shuffleboard. John Brown played "Purple Rain." Pesci did splits in front of everyone. We walked home at 1:00AM/MT.
The four of us sat at our own bar, the lights turned off, talking. Just talking. Greg owned a head shop up here for two years, then sold it, and it became an Western Outfitter Boutique.
Another time, driving back from Chicago with a friend, something amazing happened. Greg was asleep in the passenger's seat (it was dead of night), but he felt the car stop and woke up.
"Are we out of gas?"
His friend shook his head.
"What's wrong? You need to sleep? You need me to take the wheel?"
His friend shook his head and pointed out the windshield at a giant UFO, hovering over four lanes of I-80, and the median between.
"This was just outside of Omaha," Greg said. "In the middle of nowhere, and all the other cars on the road were pulled over, just watching. Pissing their pants, I don't know. But there it was: a fucking UFO."
"What did it look like?"
"It had lights all over, and it was huge."
"How was it shaped?"
"It was like a saucer, sure enough. Not like the cartoons, but it was saucer-shaped."
I shook my head and dropped it into my folding arms. "I don't want to hear this shit," I said. "I don't want to have to consider it."
"But what I would have done for a camera, you know? Just to have gotten a picture. The guy I was driving with, Rob, he won't even bring it up anymore. He's tired of people blowing him off. He's tired of people asking what kind of drugs he was on. We weren't taking any drugs that night. We were driving across the country at night--you don't take drugs when you do that.
"But then out of nowhere, the saucer moved. I mean, it was here one second, then it was there, and then it was gone. And soon enough, all the cars pulled back onto the road, and we did, too.
"I turned on the radio and tuned to one of the local AM stations, and within a few minutes, call after call after call of people saying they'd seen a flying saucer. It was getting big air time. Other AM stations were picking up on it, too. And not ten minutes into the frenzy, the military base outside of Omaha issued a statement claiming it had been an experimental exercise, and the DJs stopped talking about it, and people stopped calling in about it, and that was that.
"But it was a flying saucer. It was a fucking UFO. No doubt in my mind."
"Why do you think they do that?
"What?"
"Why do you think the government lies like that?"
"Can you imagine? Can you imagine what would happen if people knew the truth?"
On Sunday night, Greg's co-owner, Carey, was in Denver, and the roost was all his. At his behest, doors closed an hour early. We all smoked up and went bowling. Even the Moldovan girls--Dorina and Diana--went.
It was their first ever time bowling. A truly American experience.
Greg rolls rocks; a dead ringer. He won money all night--beers for all. We went to Grumpy's--the "tourist bar," formerly a three-two bar that hired only chicks. ("It was five to one in the day," Greg told me. "If you came to Grumpy's and didn't go home with someone, there was a problem. There was a problem.") Pesci was the only soul at the bar, drinking the whole thing dry. His good friend, John Brown, was on stage with his acoustic guitar. He played a doozy "Like a Virgin."
Greg, Rachel, Emily, and I played tabletop shuffleboard. John Brown played "Purple Rain." Pesci did splits in front of everyone. We walked home at 1:00AM/MT.
The four of us sat at our own bar, the lights turned off, talking. Just talking. Greg owned a head shop up here for two years, then sold it, and it became an Western Outfitter Boutique.
Another time, driving back from Chicago with a friend, something amazing happened. Greg was asleep in the passenger's seat (it was dead of night), but he felt the car stop and woke up.
"Are we out of gas?"
His friend shook his head.
"What's wrong? You need to sleep? You need me to take the wheel?"
His friend shook his head and pointed out the windshield at a giant UFO, hovering over four lanes of I-80, and the median between.
"This was just outside of Omaha," Greg said. "In the middle of nowhere, and all the other cars on the road were pulled over, just watching. Pissing their pants, I don't know. But there it was: a fucking UFO."
"What did it look like?"
"It had lights all over, and it was huge."
"How was it shaped?"
"It was like a saucer, sure enough. Not like the cartoons, but it was saucer-shaped."
I shook my head and dropped it into my folding arms. "I don't want to hear this shit," I said. "I don't want to have to consider it."
"But what I would have done for a camera, you know? Just to have gotten a picture. The guy I was driving with, Rob, he won't even bring it up anymore. He's tired of people blowing him off. He's tired of people asking what kind of drugs he was on. We weren't taking any drugs that night. We were driving across the country at night--you don't take drugs when you do that.
"But then out of nowhere, the saucer moved. I mean, it was here one second, then it was there, and then it was gone. And soon enough, all the cars pulled back onto the road, and we did, too.
"I turned on the radio and tuned to one of the local AM stations, and within a few minutes, call after call after call of people saying they'd seen a flying saucer. It was getting big air time. Other AM stations were picking up on it, too. And not ten minutes into the frenzy, the military base outside of Omaha issued a statement claiming it had been an experimental exercise, and the DJs stopped talking about it, and people stopped calling in about it, and that was that.
"But it was a flying saucer. It was a fucking UFO. No doubt in my mind."
"Why do you think they do that?
"What?"
"Why do you think the government lies like that?"
"Can you imagine? Can you imagine what would happen if people knew the truth?"