8.

Consciousness returned suddenly as overwhelming, blurry brightness and hot sun on my face. I blinked my eyes a few times and the blurriness cleared a little. Immediately, the pain set in. Rubbing my temples weakly, I tried to remember why it was my head was hurting. And why was it so damn loud? What the hell was that noise? I seemed to be sitting down in some kind of deep, soft chair, and everything was vibrating gently.

I forced my eyes open again and took in my surroundings. I was in the passenger's seat of a red Mercedes convertible flying down some midwestern highway. The driver turned to me, and when I saw his face memories of the previous night came flashing back.

"Oh my God!" I shouted at him.

He took a hand off the wheel to take the cigar out of his mouth which seemed quite tricky with the wind blowing his long white hair and beard. He looked at me through his sunglasses. "Good morning, kid," he shouted over the noise. He turned his attention to the road and shifted gears. I felt the acceleration push me back into my seat and saw a flash of green go by me on the right. I turned to see the front end of a green sedan fading off toward the horizon.

"Boy am I hungry," he shouted to me. I continued to stare at him. What was I doing here? "You hungry, son?" I realized I actually was pretty hungry. The clock on the car's stereo indicated it was already past seven in the evening. Had I slept all day? The man was waiting for a response; I nodded weakly and settled back into my seat, trying to get a stable perspective on my situation. Outside on my right, a sign flashed by so fast I could barely make out the letters: Canada, with a 25 next to it. My head hurt harder.

"You like steak?" he asked.

"Look," I pleaded, "If it's money you want, none of my relatives have any."

The man ignored me, "They have absolutely the finest filet mignon there."

"You want money?"

He licked his lips, "Only one place finer than Pierre's in Toronto, but we ain't got time to drive to France."

I decided he was mad. "Who are you?" He gazed at me disappointedly.

"Come on, son, you've gotta do better than that. You know, we made a deal. It'll all come back to you." He patted me on the shoulder, and my anxiety began to fade. And after a few moments it did all come back to me.

"Okay, okay," I said. "I agreed to write your book. Why are we going to Canada?"

"Like I said, I'm hungry." I couldn't respond, and after a minute the man continued. "Your life is just about to begin, kid. You have no idea how glorious your prize is. But we'll talk it over when I get my filet mignon."

After a couple hours traffic began to pick up, but the robed man seemed intent on maintaining his speed. Finally, in Toronto, he actually slowed down to stop behind a pickup truck at a stoplight.

"This fucking traffic is bullshit," he declared, shaking his hand angrily at the cars and people around him. After only a few more seconds of waiting he beeped his horn and swerved into the oncoming lane to run the light. A turn here and a turn there and we arrived in front of a grandiose building. We got out of the car and I immediately felt out of place in the khakis and t-shirt I had worn to the bar last night. At least I wasn't wearing a bathrobe.

We entered the building and walked through the lobby to the restaurant. The host looked quite disgusted at our appearance, "I'm sorry, sirs, but we do have standards, here."

Before either of us could say anything, another man dressed in a tuxedo appeared behind the host. "Ah!" he said delightedly, "Welcome back Mr. Grod. Oh, and I see you've brought a friend. Right this way!"

"Thank you, Charles," said 'Mr. Grod'. As I passed the host's eyes followed me, filled with contempt. The tuxedo-clad man lead us across a huge, elaborately-decorated dining room filled with similarly well-dressed people, many of whom looked shocked or offended at our appearance. I could see that Mr. Grod was enjoying the reactions he was getting; everytime somebody broke off a conversation to stare at us, his gleeful, shameless grin widened. At the end of the dining room we followed the host up a flight of stairs and into a cozier, less crowded area overlooking the main floor. We followed him to a corner table, where he set down a pair of menus.

"The waiter will be with you in a moment, Mr. Grod," he said, and left. Grod laughed heartily.

"My brother has no idea how much fun I'm having," he said, without explanation. "What about you, son? Are you having fun?" I must have looked as baffled as I felt, because he rephrased his question: "I mean life, your life. How is it?"

"It's ok, I guess." I always gave the same answer to those sorts of questions, regardless of how miserable my life was.

Grod looked at me skeptically, but thankfully the waiter arrived.

"Ah," the waiter said, "Mr. Grod! Will it be--"

"--the usual," he smiled.

"And for you sir?" the waiter said to me. I picked up the menu and began looking through it frantically.

Mr. Grod said cooly, "He'll have the same."

I laughed awkwardly and handed him my menu. "Thank you," the waiter said politely and left.

The robed man extended his hand across the table and said, "Oh, I don't believe we've been formally introduced. My name is Grod."

"Paul Crawford," I responded slowly and shook his hand.

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