I have always loved a good storyteller. Always have, always will. In school, if you were a terrible teacher, but told outrageous stories, you were ok in my book. I was aware of this as I loaded my soccer gear into the back of Joe Pierce’s car.
Joe and I were about to embark on a five hour journey to Illinois for a soccer tournament. I opened the passenger door of his 2004 Chevy Malibu and sat down inside. At the wheel was the single wildest person I have ever known, and we had a little storytelling competition.
“Hello Joe,” I said.
“Hi Adam,” he replied, “Sorry I’m late, it was crazy getting down here, I was driving behind this lady, and she just smokes this deer. It was flying and spinning towards my car, so I had to go off the road to avoid it. That cost me a few minutes.”
This was the guy I was up against. And the scary part is, this was just a standard run-of-the-mill Joe Pierce story. People call him the “Craziness Magnet” as he always finds himself in outrageous situations. Maybe it was his physique. He’s about six foot three, with medium-length black hair, stubble, and a baby face that women call “goofily attractive”, whatever that means. He also walks around with a clumsiness that can only be compared to a drunken Bambi. It’s hard for people not to pay attention to someone like that.
By the time we had reached I-94, we were able to haggle out the details of our contest with Chris Jordan, our team’s goalie and neutral third party. We had to come up with three stories using three different categories: Celebrity Encounters, Illicit Activities, and Improvised.
Yes, improvised. We had to actually create a story during this car ride. Once we arrived in Illinois, we would tell these stories to Chris (he’s in Illinois already), who would judge them, and the winner would be crowned Raconteur Extraordinaire.
If I had one advantage over Joe it would be this: I am a fantastic storyteller. I loved my creative writing classes and telling narratives. I can make a trip to the grocery store seem like you’re reading Homer’s The Odyssey.  I even entered a writing contest sponsored by our local congressman. I won 2nd place out of hundreds of contestants and $100. (Damn it! So close to a free laptop! I’m still mad about it!)
The first hour was very quiet, surprisingly. We spent most of the time listening to Joe’s iPod. I passed the time looking at the speedometer. 78, 81, 83, 87, 90, 92, 95. At this point, I am becoming slightly worried, and grab the handle above the door.
“Ummm, Joe, you’re going pretty fast.” I tell him.
“Hah! Don’t worry about it, I drive this fast all the time, never got in trouble for it. Do you speed much, Adam?”
I figured that now would be a good time to get my Illicit Activity story out of the way. People know me as a fairly law-abiding person, so this part of the contest was always going to be a disadvantage for me.
“No, not that much, I got a parking ticket one time, I parked in a neighborhood because there was a mailbox I needed to put mail in. Well turns out it was a no parking zone, and I got a ticket. I was only out for like 5 minutes!”
Joe snickers briefly, and then grins as he looks out to the road. He looks…condescending. With this look, I know that I just woke a sleeping giant, ready to pounce.
“Hey Adam, did I ever tell you about the time James Franco bought me a drink?”
Whaaaaaa!?!
“So yeah, it was spring break, and I was down in Cancun at this late night beach bonfire, wearing my Planet of the Apes shirt, you know, because he’s in that movie, and the bartender comes over, taps me on the shoulder and hands me a bottle of Mountain Dew. He said ‘This is from the guy over there.’ So I look over there, and there’s James Franco, surrounded by attractive women! He yells to me ‘I like your shirt!’ and I yell back ‘Thanks, but I hate Mountain Dew! Can I get a picture instead?’ So I got the picture. Maybe the beard made me look older.”
He pulls out his phone, where lo and behold, two bearded men are wearing ridiculous sombreros. Joe stands about half a head taller than James Franco, yet James seems happier in the photo. It was maybe the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Wait,” I asked Joe, “I thought this was about the time you met James Franco, not about the time James Franco met you.”
He chuckled slightly. “It’s hard being happy all the time when you’re as famous as me. Anyway, what’s your celebrity encounter Adam?”
I sighed. How do you top James Franco buying you Mountain Dew? I did, however, have one decent story.
“You know the Detroit Pistons TV announcer, George Blaha?” I asked Joe.
“Of course.” He replied. Joe was a basketball enthusiast, like me.
“You know that one call he does, ‘Count that baby and the foul!’?”
“Haha yeah! I love that one.”
“ Ok, so I was standing in a long line at Arby’s. It’s taking forever, and I’m getting pissed off. I look to the front to see what’s going on, and I see this one older guy, with glasses, and a let’s just say interesting comb over…”
“That’s George Blaha!” Joe says.
“I know, I thought the same thing! But the strange thing is nobody in the line seems to know who he is. Or maybe they just want to leave him alone or something. But you know with me, I never see anyone famous like ever, so I can’t blow this opportunity. I need to say something.”
“Oh yeah, you have to.” Joe said.
“So I wait until he gets to the counter, he’s making his order, and grabs his tray of food. Do you know what I say?”
“What?” Joe asks. He sounds giddy now.
“I yell, really loudly ‘Drives to the counter…YES! Count that baby AND THE CURLY FRIES!!’”
Laughter fills the Malibu. “I’m not done yet. At this point everybody in the restaurant is looking at me. George glares at me and starts walking towards me. I’m now thinking, oh s***, what have I done? Guess what happens.”
“What?” a now wide-eyed Joe asks.
“He stops and shakes my hand. The best part is, he then tells me ‘OK kid, that was pretty good.’”
Pandemonium ensues. Joe starts pounding his hand on the steering wheel, practically choking because he’s laughing so hard. He gasps and coughs some more before sighing and wiping his eyes. I couldn’t believe what I had just done. I made Joe Pierce, the Craziness Magnet, laugh so hard he actually cried. If I could tell my story like that to Chris, I might have a chance of winning this competition.
Soon after we pulled into a gas station to fill up and buy some snacks. The hot midday sun shined brightly on the highway and the never-ending green fields around it. The air-conditioned gas station offers a cool escape. I look around for something to snack on, before deciding on peanut M&M’s (the best kind of M&M’s, and no, I will NOT debate this). Anyway, I go to the counter to pay the cashier, a big bald guy with a black mustache. Joe, finished with pumping gas, walks into the store.
“That’ll be 99 cents.” He tells me.
I hand him a dollar. He opens the cash register and pulls out a penny. Before I tell him that I don’t want it, it slips out of his hand. It rolls on its side down the counter, past a glass jar labeled “TIPS”. It then curves towards the edge of the counter to my right, and begins to fall off.
I realize that the shiny copper coin must be saved. With cat-like reflexes, I lunge to the right and stick out my arm. Bending so that my back is parallel to the ground, I pluck the coin between my thumb and index finger. The job is not yet completed, however. The catch was nice, but it needed something to complement it.
So like Magic Johnson in his prime, I take it and fling it behind my back towards the counter. I turn around to see it neatly flipping itself towards the glass jar. It flies gracefully, so gracefully, through the air. The only problem, however, is that time is moving slowly, so slowly, as the penny nears its destination.
*clink*
The penny hits the front lip of the tip jar and falls in. Extraordinary. The cashier has his mouth hanging open, speechless.  He shakes out of it for a second and then shakes my hand. I walk out of the gas station with Joe, triumphant. I followed up my George Blaha story with a one-in-a-million piece of skill.  I am surely the Raconteur Extraordinaire now. It’s over. Done. In the bag.  My bad Illicit Activity story is irrelevant. We get back into the car and drive for a few minutes. However, we have to detour onto a dirt road, surrounded by farmland. The car and the road are silent.  The road is dead straight for miles, with nothing but green fields, everywhere. The speedometer becomes slower, safer. 55, 51, 48, 44, 42, 39, 36.
Joe checks the GPS on his phone.  “Hmmm. Only 13 miles left. That’s just a half-marathon.”
“In the meantime Joe, do you want to tell me your Illicit Activity story and your Improvisation story?” I ask him, just so he can make the final score of this contest seem a little closer.
“Well you know what they say,” he replies, straining to reach something inside his back pocket, “it’s better to kill two birds with one stone.”
I then hear three clicks: the seat belt, the cruise control button, and the door handle.
“What does that mean?” I ask, turning around. But all I see are some packs of the gum stolen from the gas station lying on the seat, and the door to the 2004 Chevy Malibu hanging wide open. Joe is nowhere to be found.
The shock wears off, and then I realize: God damn it. The Craziness Magnet has struck again.