The Game Part 1

      Saturday morning. Two days after my birthday. Olga has told me that she has something planned, and to be up and ready to move by 11:00. I am up at the crack of 11:30 and in full gear by noon, which is when she stops by with Gino, wearing mystery, a cashmere sweater, and a devilish grin. She hands me what appears to be a jewel case wrapped in tin foil, with explicit instructions to open it at 1pm. She informs me that Frank should be by around 12:45, so I hop in the shower and get ready to go.

      Frank calls around 12:30 for a ride, since his battery is dead. I grab the tin foil surprise and clear off my car. I am there by 12:50 which leaves just enough time to help Jenni jump his car before opening the tinfoil mystery. I have been thinking about what might be inside all this time, wondering if it was a burned CD or DVD or if the data on it would be audio or video or text. What was going to happen today? It was going to be wild, I could tell that much.

      I rip into it and find the best of James Bond sound track CD inside, with a small envelope tucked into the back cover. Inside is a small silver envelope containing a type written message glued to a silver cardboard back.

“Your first destination is a

place of creation.

Painting and baking, but

absolutely no sculpting “

      Frank asks “maybe that place you guys go to paint pottery?”, and so we make a beeline for Brookline. I drive like a maniac, as you all know, so we are running across the snow covered train tracks at Coolidge Corner in no time, and picking the slush out of our socks in the clay room a moment later. As I look up, the guy working there gives me a weird look, and then I see Fair sitting across the room, beaming like she does when something big is up. She is holding a pair of pink, fuzzy bunny ears, and I feel terror in the pit of my stomach, because this can mean only one thing.

      She gives me a big hug and hands me another small, silver envelope. This one instructs me to hand her my cell phone, kick frank in the testicles, and then dig in the snow at home plate.
“Initial instructions:
give your cell phone to fair,

frank’s is alright
wear what fair gives you, it

will be used to identify you
do not stop by your apartment

unless directed to do so

Max, we know you kick ass.

Now, kick some balls.

Be sure to screw what’s under

home plate.

      Frank evades my foot and Fair takes my phone. Frank and I run back across the C line and high tail it for the Oak square YMCA kickball field. In the snow, buried at home plate, is a silver arrow containing a small note instructing me to arrange a meeting with [phone number that I did not recognize, 440 area code]. Well Frank hands me his blackberry and I dial the number, and a male voice that I do not recognize answers. The awkward conversation that follows goes something like this:

Voice: “Hello?”
Me: “Hi um... This is Max… “
Voice: “Who?”
Me: “This is Max Maclaren, I am supposed to arrange a meeting with you”
Voice: “Oh yeah, um, where are you?”
Me: “I am in Oak Square, standing on home plate”
Voice: “Okay. Yeah hang on a sec, okay? [to someone in background] SCREW YOU HEY FUCK YOU GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE [back to me] Okay here is what we are going to do. I need you to get 20 photographs of yourself with 20 different women. I am going to need proof.
Me: “Twenty pictures of Twenty women?”
Voice: “Yeah I am going to need proof. Call me when you are ready”
Me: “Okay thank you sir”
Voice: [unintelligible jabber]*click*

      I explain the situation to frank. He grins because he hates talking to strangers but loves doing things he hates to do. His idea is to go to the Arsenault mall, which I quickly agree to. We snap photos with the two pretty ladies who are walking their dogs in the park with frank’s camera, and head up to Watertown in white thunder, my rocket car, with Tom Jones moaning the theme song from an early James Bond movie in the background.

      Arsenault mall, 1:45 pm: we park out front, and I put my bunny ears back on (they don’t fit when I am inside of a vehicle). The march into the front doors is enough time for the shame to wear off, and now I am gripped by nervousness. What if ladies don’t want their picture taken with a hot dude in bunny ears? What if I FAIL the task? Olga and Fair have obviously hired Consumer Recreation Services to set up this complicated mystery for me, and I am going to screw it all up now! What if there were 20 plants standing around the kickball field in oak square? No, they would have Frank’s psychological profile and – wait Arsenault Mall was Frank’s idea, maybe he is in on it? “Frank, lets try the target across the street instead” He responds positively “okay that might be an easier place to do it”. Okay there are no plants, might as well just do it here. We go inside.

      “Frank how did you know to bring a camera?” He looks at me honestly, so I ignore whatever he is saying about batteries and being totally in the dark about the whole thing and focus on convincing every lady I see to pose for a photo. After I am turned down by a few freaked out ladies, Frank instructs me on how to explain first that we are doing a scavenger hunt or something, so that my request for a photograph seems less creepy. I grudgingly accept his advice, “but I don’t have a middle name, ‘creepy’ could have been it!”

      Safe back in the parking lot, 20 snapshots and one narrowly averted fight with a disgruntled and overprotective boyfriend later, we call mystery-voice back up. He is assuredly not ready for us. We did complete the entire exchange in about 15 minutes, since Frank reports 2:00 as the correct time to my tech-free pink-eared road rage.

Voice: you have 20 pictures?
Me: yup, where do we meet?
Voice: of 20 women?
Me: 20 individual photographs of 20 individual women, all on frank’s camera.
Voice: good, okay why don’t you pull over, I will call you back.
Me: huh?

      I dig for the metal arrow from the home plate. It must have a tracking device in it. Otherwise how could they find us? I want to play a practical joke on this dude. I scoop up the arrow and then frank convinces me not to hide it on the median strip until Mystery-Voice calls back. Turns out there is no RFID chip in the arrow.

Voice: okay, why don’t you head over to Washington square?
Me: huh? That’s where market and Washington meet right?
Voice: yeah just meet me at Washington square.
[more cussing in background]
hey someone’s calling me I gotta go.
Me: b-*click*

      So I drive us to Brighton Center, and we get coffee at a local café while we wait. I wear the bunny ears in, and chat up the lady behind the counter, who is not expecting me at all. Standing outside, waiting for a while, we eventually realize we are not in Washington Square at all. We head down to Washington square now, and pull up outside a small liquor store on the instructions of the voice, who calls back one more time.

      I get out of the car and walk into the liquor store, but turn around to see a man loping across Beacon street, sopping wet with slush leaking off his sweatshirt, yelling out at me “you are the man! You got the 20 pictures?” I nod as he starts prying at my car door. “this your car?” I nod again “not what I expected, but… how do I get in?” I pull my seat forward and make sure he has enough room in the back. “so you the birthday boy?” Frank answers, “no he is” voice tells me to “take a left up here, we aren’t going far”, and while I drive “so you guys straight?” he’s a wise guy. I answer “yeah” because I don’t really have the energy for a joke just now, and I don’t know what to make of this guy “so you guys have any pot or anything?” now I know a little. He directs us into a small alley and we all get out.

      “So first of all I need to see the proof” Frank is digging in his bag already, but I am pretty pumped about handing off the 20 pictures and moving on to the next clue. Frank and I both have the race bug, and we are pretty proud of ourselves at this point. Voice and Frank click through the pictures feverishly, and count them. All there. Voice looks up at me and I can tell he is trying to keep a straight face. He digs through his pockets and pulls out an ipod. He hands this to me, “you will need this” and then a plastic bag, filled with chocolate eggs, “and these are to ward off the demons” I wonder about the demons for a moment, as I stuff the eggs into my pocket, he is pulling out another plastic bag. He doesn’t say anything, just gestures toward my leg. I look at the package. “you are not serious. No. no way. What. No.” Voice is serious, he pulls out a small can, which I know is shaving cream to go with the razors he has just handed me. “Just up to your knee, I need a picture” So I unwrap the package and start on my left leg. Screw the cream, it will just make a mess. Frank and Voice are obviously impressed by this act, so I try to do a decent job, so it looks good at least from one angle. Photo snapped, we done. Voice hands me an envelope, and spills his change on the ground, which is covered in slush. I pause to watch him scoop up the slush and change into his cup, which I am sure is going to be a horrible gross part of my next task. He doesn’t offer me the change, instead instructs me to read the clue. I open it.

“Instructions: give this man your

car keys.

Listen to what he gives you.”

      Okay. I guess. I just shaved my leg for this complete stranger whose name I don’t know. I guess I will just give him my keys now. Check his license? Nah, if he has bad intentions, that will just tip him off, he has to have a contingency. I give him my keys. He jumps in the driver seat and peels out of the alley doing about 90 kph. “Frank, call Olga. Now.” He looks at me, “I didn’t like that guy” I look back at him “call Olga dude, I need to know if I was supposed to give him my keys”. Frank calls Olga. I hear, in the audible receiver of his blackberry, “YOU DID WHAT???”.

TO BE CONTINUED.