I have a very good friend here in town – a guy I’ve known for over 15 years. No, I’m not talking about Captain Morgan. But nice guess! To protect his identity, let’s call this friend “Scot” (yes, with one T...I'm trying not to give away his REAL name).
Scot is, by all accounts, a great guy. He’s easy going, mild mannered, and sociable. Scot and I, together and with groups both large and small, have attended music concerts, Cubs games, Bears games, Illini games, camping trips – you name it. In some neighborhoods, we’d be called “homies.” So you can imagine my shock and concern when I learned some days ago that Scot was missing.
The first part of this mystery takes place a couple Friday evenings ago. Geri and I were enjoying a lovely dinner together at Chicago’s premier sushi establishment, Japonais. It was my second birthday dinner of the week, a fabulous feast to precede a theater date where we would see the new Broadway sensation, Wicked. (It was wickedly clever, incidentally – I highly recommend). We agreed that the food at Japonais was a close second behind the best sushi restaurant you've never been to, Tsuki Sushi (Fullerton and Greenview, Chicago) - but that the service was far superior. But why we're talking about sushi now, I don't know. Would you please FOCUS on Scot? He went missing, dammit. Thank you.
Following dinner, Geri excused herself to reference the ladies room…so I passed the moment accessing a curious voice mail message left me from Scot’s cell phone number. Unfortunately, the ambience of the restaurant prevented me from fully comprehending the message. I presumed it was a drunken message laced with incoherent whiskey-babble, which is not so uncommon in my world, so I flipped the Samsung shut and slipped it back into my suit pants.
Scot had flown to Washington that weekend to visit our mutual friend (who we will call Brent - also with one T). Brent had secured tickets to an outdoor music concert featuring the Dave Matthews Band and the two were to party like college kids with Seattle Seagals and the like. It was going to be the best time two grown up kids could ever have in the state of Washington.
While I am personally unfamiliar with the region, Brent described much of central Washington State as a “desert.” The concert was to be held at a natural outdoor amphitheater, not unlike the world-famous Red Rocks venue in Colorado. Just swap mountains for desert. And without any bridges to sail under in the middle of the desert, the odds of getting shit on by the band's tour bus driver were much slimmer. At the very least, one particular flock of sightseeing Chicagoans would consider this a major plus. But I digress...again.
The whole weekend sounded like a grand time – and for an extra $20, Brent, Scot, and thousands of other show-goers were to camp out after the concert under a sea of stars. Cars lined up for acres like a massive tailgate party. All around them people pitched tents to pass out in afterward. Unfortunately for Scot, there was no “afterward.” That’s because he went missing before sundown.
Geri and I were having a Post-Wicked drink at a neighborhood pub when I received a strange text message from Brent. It was 12:40a CST – which would have been 10:40p out west. It read: “Dude. Scot is missing. He wandered off and we haven’t seen him for hours.”
Messages like these are also not uncommon in my world, so I jestfully replied “OMG – go find him!” Geri and I retired for the evening shortly after, as far as you know.
The next morning I received a call from Brent.
“Hey – sorry to call so early in the morning…but…have you heard from Scot?”
“No. WHY?” I asked, concerned.
“Because he’s still missing. We don’t know where he is. He just wandered off somewhere at around 7:30 last night and we haven’t seen him since.”
“Shit. I thought you were kidding, dude. He’s REALLY missing? Have you tried calling him?” Geri, who was browsing the unappetizing collection of condiments in my refrigerator, looked over at me with concern. The text message had been no joke. Scot was really missing - and he had now BEEN missing for 12 hours.
“Well…we did try calling him. That’s how we found out that his phone is in my car.” Brent sounded genuinely worried.
“Well has he tried calling YOU at all? He must have tried calling you?”
“I honestly don’t think he knows my number.”
That made sense, actually. People don’t memorize phone numbers any more. We program them into our cells with nicknames and don’t bother committing them to memory because we don’t have to. I call Geri all the time – I've been calling her for well over a year – but I couldn’t do it from anyone’s phone but my own because I don’t know what her number is. I only know to scroll down to her name on my contact list and press “send.” Things were suddenly not looking very good for Scot.
Brent and I thought aloud for a second. Scot had been drinking Jack and Coke for several hours in a large field in the middle of the desert, partying with an enthusiastic concert crowd. He then, for some unknown reason, decided to leave the group and wander off. He didn’t have his cell phone, didn’t know where he was, didn’t have a ride other than the people he came with, and couldn’t remember any important cell phone numbers. Most importantly, he had now been missing for over 12 hours.
“Dude,” I said, “You need to get a hold of the police.” Brent said he was working on it and would get back to me. I agreed to call should I hear from Scot first. This was a distinct possibility, we thought, as I have the easiest phone number to remember in the entire world. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is. Dream on.
I hung up with Brent and told Geri the news. We were suddenly fearful that something terrible happened to Scot. We imagined him wandering off somewhere, getting lost, falling into a hole in the ground, getting attacked by an animal of some kind, running into a group of deviants, passing out on the desert floor. Where was he? Where’d he go? Who was he with? Was he okay?
And then I remembered the call I’d received at Japonais the night before. The one I couldn’t hear that I assumed was whiskey-babble. Had that been Scot calling for help? I panicked and replayed the message. What had I done? Had I been the only one Scot thought to call in his hour of need? Was he in danger? I hastily plugged in my password and listened closely to the message. It wasn't Scot at all - it was Brent using Scot’s phone, drunk, and pretending to be a gay man looking for man love. Again, not so uncommon in my world. It’s really better that you not ask any questions.
Several hours later I received a phone call from Brent. “Scot’s alive, man. We’re going to get him now.” That was all I needed to hear to know everything I needed to know.
“He’s in jail, isn’t he?” I asked knowingly.
“Yep. Criminal trespassing.” Scot’s weekend in Washington State to see the Dave Matthews Band had become a $250 overnight stay at The Grant County correctional facility. Meanwhile, we all breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't been eaten by fireants.
Scot is released from the Grant County facility and there's only one mystery left to be solved: Did he drop the soap?
Scot’s version of the story, unfortunately, would shed little light on what actually happened that evening. He remembers very little - only that he had been drinking and stumbled off to find a place to urinate. At some point he lost his bearings and became disoriented. He didn’t have a phone or a number to call, so he wandered lonely as a cloud for a bit until he spotted some police officers. He says he approached them asking for directions, at which point they decided he was a either a menace to society or a menace to himself and gave him a ride to the station. His story completely blew my theory out of the water. I'd imagined a herd of police on horseback with long nets sweeping across neighboring farmland like the gorilla soldiers in Planet of the Apes, nabbing stray drunkards and piss bandits.
Scot is home safe now, so this long-winded story does have a somewhat happy ending. I like to remind Scot that this kind of thing never happened before he bought that Harley Davidson. Ever since then, trouble's had no problem finding him.
In closing, I'd like this be a lesson to all of us. For how much easier technology has made our lives, it’s not without some drawbacks. I recommend you memorize at least two phone numbers on the off chance you get lost at a Dave Matthews Concert and find yourself behind bars for criminal trespassing. Maybe even write a few down on a scrap of paper and stuff them in your wallet just in case.
Before posting, I sent this story to a friend of mine named Scott (two T's) to review. Here are his comments:
“…If this "Scot" is who I think it is, I believe he'd appreciate you throwing in a few truths into this “story” or “life lesson” or whatever literary term befits the text. First off, you need to mention the many hot (female) whores he banged that night prior to incarceration. Got that, many. Also, he's sporting a new prison tattoo he acquired from a homemade ink needle constructed from a Bic outer casing, a sharpened Bobbie pin, and a borrowed "Make the Pussy Purr" 3-speed electric motor. Finally, when the Deputy Sheriff hosed him down following booking, he kept calling "Scot" stallion, because he's hung like a horse. Now yous gots yourself da whole story.”
Yes, it's a hard knock life.
This is the sign on the building south that indicates no parking. No cars were parked in front of this sign, as the no parking zone was properly observed by all drivers. 
This is the no parking sign that bookends the zone on the south. The sign that bookends the zone on the north is the one that was turned around. No cars were parked between the signs.
These are cars legally parked on the west side of the street, north of the no parking zone. My car is the second one in the photo with the door open. The sign on the pole is clearly facing the building. If turned around, the sign correctly indicates that the no parking zone is to the south.
This is a photo of the backwards sign taken from the middle of the street. Officer Garbauski suggested this one for good measure.
