This continues the account of the third of five days and nights that studly 18 year old Mikey spends together with Mike, the 24-year old uncle he idolizes, and Mike's fascinating and beautiful 22-year old fiancΓ©e Alice. The beginning of their story is told in "Cross-Country with My Uncle," and continued by "Alice, My Uncle, and Me," day 1 and day 2.
The only way that Mike, as a key employee, could get away from work for more than two weeks was that he agree to monitor his email and to call in as often as he could. So while he took a while to log in and deal with his mail, Allie and I went for a bike ride. I took Mike's bike, and of course it fit me perfectly. There was a very pleasant bike route that went through some woodlands and along Los Trancos Creek. It was great to get out, and especially with Allie. She was a highly competent cyclist and took the hills with grace and ease. It was easy to maintain a conversation, riding abreast.
"Mikey," she said, "I think I know, but I want to hear it from you. What's wrong?"
She was an unusually astute observer, and she had detected that I was a more than a little uneasy.
"Uh, Allie, it's sort of hard to talk about..."
"Try me, Kiddo."
"Well, to be frank, in a few hours something is going to happen that I sort of dread -- even fear a little bit. About 2 pm Mike and I will be picking up Jeff at the airport, prior to tonight's bachelor party."
"Yeah, I thought that's what it was. But Mikey, don't worry. I promise you everything is going to come out just fine. I know Mike. I really, really know him."
My concerns -- my dread, even my fear -- were focused upon Jeff Jackson, the one man in the world of whom I was deeply jealous. Jeff was for almost four years my uncle's teammate, roommate, closest friend and, I felt, almost certainly, his lover. During his entire four years at Stanford my uncle had played second base and Jeff shortstop for the Cardinals. It was a classic of teamwork. Once they were starters (and that came soon), game after game, it was Jackson to Burlington to Stone (on first). In two seasons, they led the NCAA in double plays turned. It was a thing of beauty to watch them. I had only seen them play a couple of times together -- except for their appearance in the NCAA College World Series when they were juniors, which of course was all over ESPN2.
They were assigned together as roommates in their freshman year, and within a very few days it was as if they were brothers; and they continued to live together until they graduated. (How they first met, and the exact kind of relationship they sustained during the years they roomed together, is a story for another time.)
Mike had brought Jeff home for part of the Christmas holidays when he was a sophomore, and that's when I first met him. He was hugely impressive. He was 6 feet and one-half inch tall, and the very picture of an athlete: trim, but with broad shoulders, big arms and legs, and an animal grace. He was also incredibly handsome, with a very striking face: beautiful dark eyes, thick dark hair -- which he kept neatly cropped; a beautiful chin and firm jaw, that always seemed stubbly even just a few hours after he'd shaved closely. His thick dark eyebrows lent an unusual animation to his face, which in any case would have stopped traffic. He was a major babe!
He was from Pine Ridge, Texas, in the Big Thicket region, and he hated to wear long pants. It was always that way where he grew up, in subtropical Southeast Texas; and later in the mild Palo Alto area long pants were rarely necessary. But probably his aversion to long pants had something to do with the fact that he had the most insanely gorgeous legs ever seen: muscular and remarkably well-formed; but covered evenly with a rich coat of dark hair, the same hair that covered his forearms and belly. In this respect he was the dark twin to Mike, whose large and graceful limbs were so notably covered in crisp, blond hair.
If you listened to Jeff speak in his soft, but cultivated, East Texas accent you might easily underestimate him. Like Mike, he got virtually top scores on his SATs, and he was the top student in his school; but unlike Mike, who is remarkably clever, extremely well-informed, and who has a deep innate understanding of personalities, Jeff was a genuine intellectual, drawn to the world of ideas in a way in which the highly pragmatic Mike would never be. It was no surprise that while Mike became a computer engineer, and one of the most promising in the nation, on graduation Jeff went toYale with an important fellowship awarded by their Philosophy department, and he has been their prize student for the last two years. What might surprise some was that despite their differing approaches to the greater world around them, Mike and Jeff were remarkably sympathetic.