Story of Kim 8: Edward's Journey

When I answered the door, I was met with a curt nod and request to pay back the money Edward had loaned me the night before. We drove to the ATM, Edward plainly pissed the fuck off and me wishing I had never, ever gotten involved in this. After I got him his money, we drove around for a bit, picked up some beer, and discussed the matter.

Edward was hacked off at me because I wouldn't take him home the night before, and most likely a large part of that was the way I told him I wasn't going to take him. But once that was out in the open, we decided to grab some breakfast and talk it over, so off we headed for New Orleans Cafe.

Where Kim was currently eating breakfast. Shit. I didn't need this--I barely managed to restrain Edward from leaping from my vehicle and doing god knows what to either her vehicle or her person, but in the end we made it out of the parking lot and headed over to the Chinese restaurant, which always seemed to be open. We ate noodles at 10am, drank Budweiser from cans, and caught up on the events of the night before.

It's never been clear to me why Edward leaped from her car in the first place, except that she was annoying the shit out of him. That's enough for me, generally, and Edward's a little less tolerant of bullshit than I am.

Anyway, after he walked back to my place, he actually tried to go to sleep on the couch, but was mad about the whole situation and wanted to go home. So he started walking.

[The whole family has a weird tendency to go for volksmarches, drunk, in the middle of the night or early in the morning. His brother Don does it all the fucking time, several times with me in tow.]

I lived a couple of miles off the highway at that time, so it was a simple matter of turning left at the driveway and turning left again at the onramp, then straight on til morning. But like I said, cops don't like drunk, underage pedestrians here, so it was simpler than it sounds.

Sure enough, Edward said, a cop pulled up beside him before he'd gone a mile up the highway.

"What's the story?" asked the cop.

Edward looked over at him, cold, hungover, and pissed. "Walkin' home."

"Yeah?" replied the cop, "you been drinkin'?"

"Uh huh, I just found out my best friend fucked my girlfriend, so I'm walking home from his house."

"Women trouble, huh? Where you live?"

"Edmond."

"Get in the car, I'll give you a ride home."

And the fucking cop DID! Or, strictly speaking, gave him a ride to the Edmond city limits, which was only a mile from Don's place, so he woke Don and got a ride back to his house, where he jumped in his car and drove straight back to mine.

How can you not love a story like that? He didn't seem too mad at me anymore, either, so we grabbed a couple of six packs of Primo and sat out on the front porch for a few hours, watching the sun climb and the leaves fall across the street.