August 3, 2003: a little after midnight.
It had been drizzling on and off, as it tends to on humid August nights.
Amy puts in $6.00 worth of gas--$2.00 of which was donated by Dave and myself--at an Exxon on the South Side while [defenseman] Andrew Ference washes his brand-spanking new Nissan 350 Z with a paper towel and gas station squeegee. His girlfriend gets in the driver's seat.
Dave and I discuss the irony in sitting in an '87 woodgrain Plymouth Voyager with $6.00 of fresh gas whilst the former Penguin meticulously polishes his $20,000+ ride, probably for the last time in Pittsburgh, before selling his Oakland flat to move to sunny Calgary, Alberta. Canada and hockey season seem so far away as the saturated air plasters us to the doldrums of late summer.
Amy gets back in.
The two drastically different cars, transporting members of drastically lifestyles, depart simultaneously. For a moment, time is frozen, barriers destroyed, social classes eliminated, under the harsh glow of the tarmac halogens. The sporty coupe turns left, the ramshackle van, right. Lives reset and the space-time continuum keeps on continuing. Order is restored in the universe.
The five transients enter traffic. Life goes on as normal.
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