Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (6 page)

Purge III was the Purge that gave me my first gulp of false confidence. I must have thought I had a chance at some point, probably when my dad was catching his breath from laughing so hard, when I thought I had figured out what it would take to beat him. I was all skin and bones but no meat. I was a boy, not a man. I had the frame, I just needed to grow into it. Just needed to get a little bigger, a little faster, a little stronger. That theory would eventually be proved utterly false in
Purge VI—Can a Dog Have His Day?
But it was my strategy for the time. Looking back now, I can't recall how I ever believed in my body that much. While writing this very chapter, I took a break to crack my back over the stool at my desk, lost my balance, and fell backward directly onto my head. Yeah, Dave, this body will get you there.

Purge IV—The Mistake in the Lake

After several Purges it began to seem less important to strategize for victory and more important to strategize for how to avoid total humiliation. Every summer, my family went to the same cabin on Brant Lake up in the Adirondacks. We didn't own the place; it belonged to my mom's mentor when she was an up-and-coming court reporter in the 1970s. The environment nowadays is pretty relaxed, but when we were teenagers, it was just fucking wild. The only thing I can compare it to is the scene in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
when Eddie Valiant pulls through the tunnel into Toon Town and everyone is going bonkers. My brothers and I all had our girlfriends there, we were sneaking booze at every opportunity possible, the entire camp always smelled like grass, despite all of us swearing we didn't even know what grass smelled like. It was mayhem, and I was the leader. Not old enough to drink with the older kids, too old to do stupid kids' activities. I was stuck in the middle and looking for TROUBLE. At the other end of this was JT. All he wanted to do was relax. It was the only vacation he took all year. I'm pretty sure he didn't even want us there, but to have us there
and
causing trouble
and
stealing his booze? Purge IV was on!

This time, it started before I even knew it. We were both standing about knee-deep in the lake water, probably ten feet offshore. It was hot as shit; otherwise he never goes in the water, which might be why he has only owned one pair of swim trunks in the past ten years. My dad was half in the bag. It had been over ninety degrees that day, so he was up to about eleven Busch heavies to counter the heat. It's a sound strategy. What he didn't know was that shithead Dave filled a 7 Up bottle with his gin when he wasn't looking and had quietly and painfully (fucking gin!?) been slurping it all afternoon. The property was big, but not big enough for the two of us. Soon we found each other in front of the lake and both attempted to have a civil conversation. A wisecrack turned into an exchange, an exchange turned into some Jerry Springer–style face yelling, and at the first smell of blood, the heat was on.

I was fourteen years old, about six feet one, and skinny as a rail. I had speed on him, but not much strength. I couldn't let him exploit how much stronger than me he was. My only hope for survival was to avoid being put into a sleeper hold. I was immediately put into a sleeper hold. Son of a bitch! It's downright pathetic how helpless someone is while in a sleeper hold. There is nothing you can do. My dad rotated my body toward the shore to make sure everyone who had been watching the fight was truly paying attention. Mike claims that he and my father met eyes, and in that exact moment, eleven-year-old Mike promised himself he would
never
participate in a Purge. Dad held me there and did nothing for a minute, just to make sure that anyone building a sand castle, having a margarita, taking a nap, or reading a book was now watching him. Think Russell Crowe in
Gladiator,
“Give the people what they want!” As soon as he had the camp's full attention, he slowly began walking backward into the lake, deeper and deeper, taking me with him each step of the way. I felt like a shark had swum into shallow waters, latched on to my leg, and was dragging me out to sea. He walked me backward until we could both barely touch the lake floor. I have no idea how he held on to me with such little footing. Why was I so much more buoyant than he was? Is his inexplicably rock-hard potbelly made of cement? Once he got me into deep waters, he told me to “take a big ol' breath, Davie boy” and immediately plunged my head underwater. I had about 0.3 seconds to gasp for any oxygen at all before my head was buried in the sand that was at my feet just seconds ago. I was struggling so much to avoid drowning that I didn't realize what he was doing until I came up out of the water choking and swinging. My swings connected with nothing but air.

When I wiped the water out of my eyes, my dad was already ten feet toward shore, calmly walking out of the water. My swim trunks were draped over his shoulder like a towel after a workout. I was ass-naked thirty feet from shore, choking up lake water and rubbing sand out of my eyes. My friends, family, and high school girlfriend were all watching. I can remember trying to decide if I should keep fighting or if I should look for a sign that the Purge was over. When my dad walked out of the water, he whipped my trunks off his shoulder and no-look threw them at my older brother, who was sitting on a lawn chair playing Game Boy. My dad walked five more feet onto the beach, grabbed my mom around the waist, kissed her, and said, “Time for happy hour?” He never even bothered to look back over his shoulder. Purge IV was over; 0-4.

Purge VI—Can a Dog Have His Day?

At least once in his career, even the biggest of all losers has a shot. Even Willy Loman made a sale at some point, right? I can remember the specific Purge that I really believed I had a shot at winning. It was the middle of my career, and I couldn't have positioned myself better. I was coming up on my first summer after my freshman year at Butler University in Indianapolis. Months earlier, I had called my dad to tell him that playing Division 1 lacrosse really stunk, and I didn't want to do it anymore. Did I mention that my place on that lacrosse team was arguably the
only
thing that pleased my dad during our thirteen-year “friction period”? He had all the gear, the mugs, the sweatshirts, the magnets. He traveled unlimited miles to watch me play, scrimmage, practice, anything. I could have been beating off in a public restroom, but if I had on lacrosse gear and did it with a mix of athletic style and aggression, he'd cheer me on. The only problem was that existence at Butler University was zero percent fun. Our freshman lacrosse class's average GPA our first semester (sixteen kids) was a 1.82. A 1-point-fucking-82! And that was the average, meaning eight were
under
that! We were a pretty stressed group. As a side note, eleven of those sixteen eventually transferred out to other schools. I was just an eighteen-year-old kid with an appetite for fun, God damn it. We established a resistance. Every Thursday, Friday, and most Saturdays, we would buy a Weekender (a thirty-pack; credit: Mousey Lynch, RIP), sit three across in the Ross Hall men's bathroom with our pants around our ankles, and drink. You're reading this correctly. We had to act like we were taking a shit in order to sneak booze. Bottom line: Butler was miserable and getting worse. It was time to call home and break the news that I needed to transfer. My dad's disappointment was a real kick to the dick that I didn't need.

The one nice thing was I did come home from Butler with the body of a Greek fucking god. It was miserable to have to get up at 5 a.m. and sprint every morning. It was miserable to have to lift weights twice a day six days a week. It was miserable to drink never and exercise always. In general, being healthy is downright miserable. I guess it wasn't
that
miserable to be in incredible shape, though. I had the
body
of Michael Phelps but the bravado of Ryan Lochte. It was a deadly combination, and I couldn't wait for that year's Purge. If I ever stood a chance, this was it. By the end of my second semester, I had made a nice rebound with my grades and thought that might have started off my summer in the right place with JT. A “nice rebound” was a relative term, as JT would point out, because it would have been
tough for me to fall off the floor.
Good point, JT. Doesn't mean we can't get along this summer, right? Oh, Dad, did I mention I'm miserable at Butler and I'm not going back? Where am I going? To the State University of New York at Geneseo—the college no one has heard of, unless you're a teacher or a farmer, or both. Why am I transferring there? Because the gal to guy ratio is 6:1 and all people do there is rage.
That's
why I'm going.

I could see why he wasn't happy with my life choice. That I concealed my true, degenerate interior with a lacrosse-playing persona was just about the only thing my dad liked about me at the time. It was no wonder we fought within literally
minutes
of me arriving home from Indiana that summer. The night before, I was fourteen hours into the seventeen-hour drive and decided to stop at a friend's school for the night, before hitting the homestretch the next day. For a few
very
silly legal reasons that are somehow still an issue ten years later, I won't get into just how I got arrested at my buddy's school that night. But I will tell you that it involved Senator's Club whiskey, and an
alleged
“all-you-can-eat” buffet at Ponderosa. That next day, somehow, someway, news of my arrest traveled back to Menands faster than I did. To this day, I don't know how he knew, but when I pulled into the driveway that next morning, JT was standing on the front lawn, hands on the hips of his cargo shorts. I was so fucked. I started heavy breathing. I got nervous. I felt like Luke Skywalker running around that swamp with Yoda's balls on the back of his neck:
Remember your training!
I was jacked up—psychologically, yes, but also physically. This was my day!

I got out of the car and immediately started yelling. I don't know what I was even yelling about. I just knew that if I yelled loud enough, I wouldn't hear the things my father was yelling simultaneously. He apparently had the same exact strategy. We were standing face-to-face, screaming total nonsense. At one point, I think I might have even kicked dirt on his shoes. It didn't take long for us to come to blows. No matter how strong I was then, how much I thought I was his physical match, I learned very quickly that with the sole exception of retard strength, nothing compares to old-man strength. He had me pinned within seconds. I think he'd still have me there with my face smushed into the grass on my front lawn had Denise not come outside screaming for it to end. It was over before it started, Mom.

I've battled my father over thirteen grueling Purges, through my entire adolescence, and lost every fucking time. When JT and I started our annual battle, I was fourteen. I was young and dumb, and (soon to be) full of cum. I thought I knew the way! When I finally got my shit together and retired? I was twenty-six. It took me until then to realize that
maybe JT was onto something all along.
Maybe I was the shithead.

1
 Shame on you if you don't know who John Kreese is. Uh, that bad guy from
Karate Kid
? I hope 90 percent of you just said “Oh yeah” and the other 10 percent of you just shut the fucking book. RIP, Mr. Miyagi, by the way.

(
Mike)

We have very few single female friends who
want
to be single. Some do; maybe they want to focus on their careers or they're just trying to shake a tough case of the broken-heart blues. If you're one of those gals, skip this chapter. But by and large, most single gals don't want to be single. “Single Ladies” isn't just one of Dave's top five songs of all time; it represents a large population of modern-day gals who share one common circumstance: they've got no man. Everyone has female friends who desperately want boyfriends. It happens to most females at some point in the five years following college. Or always. The reasons don't matter much. Maybe you're feeling the pressure from your folks, because they were married by twenty-two. Maybe you've got some insecurities about growing old alone. Maybe it's because all of your friends are doing it. Hey, maybe you just need the D
all the time
. Maybe it's science.

We get it. Game on. It's hunting season. We know you gals in cities like New York and D.C. have it rough. The competition is nuts! City gals are hot! And there are tons of them. They're everywhere. Even if they aren't, it doesn't make it any easier. All you San Fran gals don't know what to think, because the fellas there are mostly into other fellas. Whether you're in the burbs or a city, we get how tough your competition is. We also get how picky that allows us guys to be. I've been getting girls that are light-years out of my league for . . . light-years!
Plus,
on top of that, most of us are total dickheads. Mike sure is. I've seen that kid blow off dates because he ate too many Gushers, and he is twenty-five years old! It's hard out there, and we get that. We're not defending guys; we're trying to help you deal with these idiots so you can eventually be stuck with one. Make sense? Nope, not for us, either.

Do you ever look at certain guys and wonder why they are more successful with women? More than likely, they've learned what women want and they play into that. You should do the same thing with guys. Dave owns like sixty pairs of shoes. He has
seasonal shoes
! Do most guys do that? No. Do you think he has so many shoes because he
loves
shoes? Nope. But you love shoes, and it's the first thing you look at when you meet him. Oh look at that, he's off to a good start with you. Good for you, Dave. She's cute.