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  Just as he pulled out, Doc flashed concern at some faint vibration only he would notice. Jake shook his head in wonder. He takes this car into the mechanic faster than some mothers take their kid to the doctor.

  Finney noticed Doc’s concern too, and traded a knowing smile with Jake. “Hey, it was working perfectly when I had it, Doc! Of course, I had to pull in for gas every other stop light. My wimpy car could make it to Tokyo on the gas this monster burns on the way to Gino’s.”

  “Yeah, well it’s still wimpy. You are what you drive. And you always were a wuss, Finney.”

  “Doc, old buddy,” Finney began with a sigh, as if he’d been coerced into dredging up an ancient story. Doc knew exactly what was coming but forced himself to look like he didn’t.

  Leaning forward and turning to look past Jake, Finney asked Doc, “Remember the dorm wrestling championship? You actually made it to the finals. You were almost in shape back then.” Doc sucked in his waist and flexed his arms against the steering wheel to prove he still was.

  Finney resumed the familiar folklore. “But somebody beat you, Doc, he beat you real bad. And despite the brain damage you suffered that day—and Lord knows you couldn’t afford any more brain damage—I’ll bet if you think real hard you can remember who that somebody was.”

  Doc closed one eye and squinted the other, as if trying to remember.

  “And if that somebody is a wuss, Mr. Macho Chief of Surgery, would you explain what that makes you?”

  “Hey, I had a wrenched shoulder and torn cartilage in my knee.” Doc began rustling through his duffel bag of favorite excuses that grew with the years. “And I’d just had the flu.”

  “Yeah, and as I recall you’d donated blood that afternoon,” Finney added.

  “No, that was in the morning. In the afternoon I was having a heart transplant.” Both men laughed heartily, the way you laugh with your oldest and best friends. At the same moment, both realized Jake wasn’t laughing. His face was scrunched and his expression distant and uncharacteristically troubled.

  “Jake,” Finney said. “You’re awfully quiet. Doc could bore a guy to death, I know, but that’s nothing new. Something wrong?”

  Jake, right index finger aimlessly stroking his graying temple, made a slow dissolve from the inner world to the outer. “Wasn’t that thing with the quarter sort of…eerie?”

  Doc flashed him his familiar screwed-up face that called people “weird” without a spoken word. “You still thinking about that? What’s the big deal?”

  Jake, his reputation as Mister In-Control and Unflappable on the line, tried to downplay his response. “I don’t know,” he finally answered. “For some reason, it’s almost like…like it means something.”

  Doc flashed a spacy look and hummed the theme from The Twilight Zone. “Don’t get spooky on me, ol’ buddy. Things don’t mean something. They mean nothing. Zilch. They just happen. Unless you buy into Finney’s way of thinking, that is, which someday you may if you get Alzheimer’s. One kook’s enough for this threesome. Right, Finn?”

  Finney knew how to roll with Doc’s punches and counter with his own. But right now his energies focused on Jake, who appeared to need more than a light-hearted slough-off. “Well, I don’t know if the quarter means anything. But I know life does. Things have meaning and purpose. Maybe even a coin toss. Who knows?”

  “Sure, Finney, whatever you say.” Doc rolled his eyes back so far all Jake could see was white. “But I’ve always found that meaning in life is no substitute for a cold beer with your pizza. Know what I mean, Woody?” Slapping Jake on the thigh, Doc turned suddenly into the 7-Eleven, his tires bouncing off the curb.

  As Doc hopped out, Jake seized the opportunity. “It’s weird, Finney. Why is that quarter bugging me? It’s like it’s…a sign or something.”

  “Maybe it is a sign, Jake. I don’t know. Maybe Somebody’s trying to get through to you again.”

  Jake sighed and asked Finney, as if reading from a script, “Is this the part where you tell me life is a brief window of opportunity, and today could be my last day here, and I should prepare for eternity, or one day I’ll stand before God and wish I’d done something different?”

  Finney broke into his patented dimple-to-dimple grin that took fifteen years off his already too-young face. “Well said. Sounds like you don’t need to be told. The question is, what will it take to convince you it’s true? What you said is right on target. Life is short. And you don’t have forever to decide what it’s about. None of us do.”

  “I’ll say one thing for you, Finn.” Jake wavered between irritation and admiration. “You’re as dependable as Big Ben and Oregon rain. You always sing the same tune.”

  “It’s a tune I’ve come to love,” Finney said sincerely, his confident deep blue eyes peering into Jake’s cynical but uncertain chocolate browns. “I’m just looking forward to the day I hear it sung in one of your columns.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Jake retorted. “I’m not a Bible waver. I work for the Tribune.”

  “Isn’t there room for both? I read the Bible and the Tribune every day.” Finney grinned. “Guess I just like to know what both sides are up to.”

  Jake winced. Finney made no secret he thought Jake’s newspaper was biased and unfair, especially concerning matters of religion and morality. His friend, Jake reminded himself again, just didn’t understand the role of the newspaper, that it was neither adversary nor advocate. It simply told the truth, no matter whose toes it stepped on. Finney would never get it, Jake knew. Not until hell froze over which, in Finney’s theology, it never would.

  Suddenly the driver’s side door opened and Doc’s megaphone voice boomed, “Okay, six pack of Coors for me, three Buds for Jake, and a Shirley Temple for the Preacher.” He handed Finney a Diet 7-Up. Holding up a Coors he announced, “This may send me to hell, but it sure washes down the pizza!”

  “Come on, Doc,” Finney replied. “You know I’ve never cared about that. Where you spend eternity isn’t about what you drink. It’s about who you know.”

  “Sure, sure,” Doc said. “Well, I do know the young lady behind the counter at Gino’s…and I’d love to get to know her in the biblical sense, if you get my drift.”

  Jake got it and smiled. Finney got it and didn’t. As surely as if he had a verbatim transcript in front of him, Jake knew what both his friends were thinking. Doc didn’t let his marriage to Betsy get in the way of his sexual liberties. That fact created endless conflict between the friends. Or, rather, Jake corrected himself, it was Finney who created the conflict because he was so intolerant, refusing to just mind his own business and keep his mouth shut when Doc’s eyes wandered and he crossed the fence to other pastures.

  The remaining three minutes of the drive seemed destined for wordless discomfort. Jake’s mind traveled back to an incident a year earlier when the three amigos headed for an overnight duck hunt. Doc flirted with a woman at a truck stop. Just when she was writing down her phone number for him, Finney said, “You’re wearing a wedding ring, Doc.” Suddenly the embarrassed woman covered her own wedding ring. In a flash, she and her phone number disappeared. An outraged Doc turned on Finney with every foul word he could draw from his sizable repertoire. Finney was almost as angry as Doc. Jake couldn’t remember everything, but he’d never forget Finney telling Doc, “Stop trying to prove you’re a man and start acting like one.” It had taken all Jake’s wits and even some physical restraint to prevent a rematch of the dorm wrestling championship. Jake had often shuddered as he’d wondered, What if Doc’s shotgun had been in his hands, instead of in the truck?

  Later, around the campfire, Finney apologized for getting angry. But, in vintage Finney style, he made it clear he wasn’t sorry for reminding Doc of his obligation to remain faithful to his wife. Again, Finney’s words stuck in Jake’s mind—“I stood next to you when you said your vows, Doc. Friends help you stick to your vows. They don’t look the other way when you’re tempted to violate them.”
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  This comment still rankled Jake, perhaps because he was Doc’s other best man at the wedding, and he’d said nothing to stop Doc on that occasion or dozens like it. Does this mean you think you’re a better friend to Doc than I am? Who appointed you judge of the universe? What right do you have to tell Doc what to do? It still infuriated Jake, but he knew that wasn’t the whole story. What right did Doc have to cheat on his wife? Yes, and what right did I have to cheat on Janet? The questions couldn’t be separated. It all hit too close to home. A cloud hung over the rest of the hunting trip and, for one of the first times in his life, Jake looked forward to getting away from his buddies. Even now, as the feelings filling the Suburban dredged up the memories, it caused Jake to physically cringe. He desperately hoped this all-too-familiar tension wouldn’t culminate in another explosion today.

  The Suburban pulled into Gino’s. As the rig gave its final lurch from the sudden stop in the ten minute pick-up space, Doc bounded out like a man on a mission. Finney and Jake walked quietly behind him, both dreading the next few moments.

  “Hey, sweetheart, I hoped you’d be here.”

  Doc aimed his syrupy voice at the slim hazel-eyed eighteen-year-old in the emerald green dress. Reaching across the counter like an old pro, Doc touched her arm, his fingers lingering. She didn’t withdraw, obviously taken with the handsome, well-built head of surgery from Lifeline Medical Center.

  “Your hair sure looks pretty today, Sheila.” Doc read her name tag, but said “Sheila” as if he’d remembered her name. She smiled shyly, soaking in the attention. Doc played her like a fiddle, enjoying every moment. Jake hung back, desperately hoping either Doc would back off or Finney would keep still.

  Suddenly Finney strode toward Doc and slapped him on the back, bursting the bubble of the private space he’d established with the girl. Here it comes, Jake thought, bracing himself.

  “She really looks like Molly, doesn’t she, Doc?” Addressing the confused and suddenly self-conscious girl Finney explained, “Molly’s his teenage daughter—about your age. Yeah, Doc and his wife Betsy have two lovely children. Doc and I, and Jake here, we all fought in Vietnam. You’ve probably read about that war in your history class—it was over before you were born. Hard to believe, but we must be about your dad’s age. Maybe older.”

  “Yeah?” the girl mumbled, more to the counter top than to Finney. “Whatever.” The spell broke.

  “That’ll be $28.50.”

  Doc plopped down his VISA, waving off Finney and Jake as they reached for their wallets. No one said anything more until the pizzas were in hand and they headed out the door.

  “We must be about your dad’s age,” Doc mouthed sarcastically as they stepped out in the parking lot, now pelted by sheets of rain. Jake laughed, partially from relief. If Doc was joking about it, things would probably be okay. As he ran to the car, arms crossed in a vain attempt to keep his sweatshirt from getting soaked, Jake thought, Maybe we’ve avoided another duck hunting disaster—at least for now.

  After the three jumped in the Suburban, Doc jammed the key into the ignition, but didn’t turn it. The tension started building again, as the men sat shoulder to shoulder, each looking straight ahead, as if the parking lot dumpsters in front of them were as interesting as sunset at the Grand Canyon. Jake stared at the beads of water on the windshield, watching them join into little waterfalls. The heavy smell of wet fabric pressed itself on Jake. After an interminable ten seconds, Doc abruptly leaned over toward Finney, giving Jake a close up view of his right ear. His baritone voice dripping with sarcasm, Doc asked, “Oh, what would I do without you, Preacher Finney, Mother Theresa of my life? Thank you, thank you, for being my conscience.”

  “It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.” After a moment’s pause Finney added, “You should try it yourself. It might keep you out of trouble.”

  “I don’t want to keep out of trouble. What you call trouble is what I call life. What you call life, well…” Doc chortled, “thanks, but no thanks!”

  “I’ve had my share of the kind of trouble that comes from making wrong choices. Enough to avoid it when I can.”

  “Well,” Doc sounded distinctly unconvinced, “how about you watch out for your life, and I watch out for mine? Sound like a plan?”

  “And how about I watch out for Sue and my kids, and you watch out for Betsy and yours? Sound like a plan?”

  The irresistible force and the immovable object. Finney was as adamant as Doc, two ocean rocks stubbornly refusing to be beaten down.

  Doc shook his head in disgust. “Finney, you’re hopeless. I don’t know why we put up with you and your stone-age morality. You’re a fossil, a throwback to the Puritans. You were born in the wrong century. You’d have fit right in during the Dark Ages. But not here, not now. We’re tired of your holier-than-thou attitude.”

  Jake and Finney both noticed the “we.” Doc was ushering support, and looked to Jake for a nod of agreement. Jake turned and gave Doc a sympathetic look that Finney couldn’t see, but refrained from an overt nod. I’m staying out of this one.

  “Have I ever told you what a major pain in the rear you can be, Finney? Yes, I see that I have. Sometimes,” his tone turned icy, “I think you’re the biggest fool I’ve ever met.” Just as suddenly, Doc’s voice returned to normal. “But, call me sentimental, you’re still my friend.” Hesitating just a moment he added, “Don’t push it, though, because big as my heart is, even it has limits.”

  Jake turned enough to see Finney’s quiet nod of resignation. For the moment the two bombs sitting on each side of him had been defused. He saw in Finney’s eyes what he’d seen before. The confrontation stung him, and he hated the conflict. So why do you make it happen? Finney could be so inexplicable, judgmental and…obnoxious. It irritated Jake, and frustrated him. Sure, Doc wasn’t a saint, and not always the easiest guy to get along with, but he had a good heart and was fiercely loyal to his closest friends. Jake couldn’t ask for more. Why didn’t that ever seem to be enough for Finney?

  As Doc finally started the engine, Jake drew within himself again. The bantering between his two friends was as familiar as his worn-out bedroom slippers. To the casual observer it seemed impossible these men could be friends. Anyone hearing this exchange would be certain any past friendship was over. But Jake knew otherwise. Now, as always, these men were the two defining personalities of his life. Their polarized beliefs and philosophies seemed like matter and antimatter—two contradictory world views inevitably hostile, explosively hostile, to each other. Yet they were embodied in men who all their lives had been thrown together. No matter how great the explosion and how far it threw them from each other, something always brought them back together. And always Jake was there, right in the middle.

  Jake fancied himself a livable compromise between many of their extreme views. But in moments of honesty he had to admit his own beliefs were, as he’d confessed to his journal no more than two weeks ago, “a formless bowl of mush.” They were an almost random combination of the views of college professors, media colleagues, and his own interpretations of his life experiences. Despite his rep as a no-nonsense cut-to-the-chase journalist, Jake was an iron filing pulled between these two powerful magnets he called friends. He identified much more with Doc’s beliefs, politics, and self-determined lifestyle. But he was drawn more to Finney’s character and quality of family life. He admired Doc’s sense of power and Finney’s sense of peace.

  Jake admitted to his journal what he told no one else. I feel like a moral chameleon, a Star Trek shape-shifter—I can blend in with Doc when we’re at a bar, or Finney, when I’m having dinner with his family. I’m at home with both, yet ultimately not at home with either.

  Doc and Finney both exuded confidence in their own beliefs. Both passionately and consistently acted on those beliefs. Doc the dedicated atheist and humanist, Finney the devout Christian. Doc the relativist, Finney the absolutist. Doc trusting in himself, Finney trusting in a Christ he called God. Jake wa
vered between these worlds, much closer to Doc’s, but never fully at home in either. Neither world was his.

  Since turning fifty a few months ago, Jake had paused to think more about the big questions of life. But he didn’t really know how to phrase the questions, much less where to go for answers.

  He’d written, Half a century old now, and I don’t have time to think—only to record thoughts. I live under the tyranny of 800 words. He referred to the columns due on his editor’s desk by noon every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Finished or not, facts checked out or not, he spoke through those columns to a half million loyal readers three times a week, and many more in the two that went out under syndication. As together as he appeared on the outside, on the inside Jake Woods knew his world was a muddled mess of uncertainty and confusion. He felt like…almost like a coin tossed in the air, a coin that was supposed to land on one side or the other, but hadn’t.

  Suddenly Doc’s roaring voice yanked Jake back to reality. He was yelling at someone on the highway, someone Jake couldn’t see through the driving sheets of rain.

  “Watch where you’re going, you idiot!” Doc’s shoulder jammed into Jake as he threw the Suburban into a sharp swerve to the right. When, in an instant, Jake heard Doc’s loud voice turn from anger to panic, his blood froze. Suddenly a disorienting blur of images overwhelmed him.

  “I can’t stop! I can’t stop!” he heard Doc bellow.

  The Suburban embarked on a wild ride, carving its own path, as if declaring independence, celebrating its free will. A towering telephone pole and billboard appeared out of nowhere. The Suburban cut through them as if they were Jell-O, then careened into a ten-foot-high embankment. Jake watched in slow motion the pizza flying up against the windshield, just before the bone crushing impact. The car bounced off the embankment back onto the highway. Like a raging wild beast shot in the chest, the out of control Suburban kicked and thrashed away its last moments of life, determined to take down with it anything and anyone it could.

  Somewhere between the sound of Doc’s last cry and the cold sickening crunch of bent metal from the car’s first roll, Jake lost consciousness. His last sensation was being pressed hard from both sides by two men whose bodies lunged against their harnesses like wild stallions against a corral.