this time it counts

Mitchell leapt into the air, hanging in a moment created by the crush of sound and bodies surrounding him.  A flash of light, the drum sticks a blur, the vocalist's hair thick with sweat, hanging in his eyes, and the pick against the guitar, the chord holding Mitchell up.

It was the perfect shot.  As he began to fall back down to ordinary, he pulled his camera to his face and fired.  His converse hit the floor and a body slammed into him.  The camera whipped around to his back, the strap cutting into his neck, and he was crushed against the wall.  His heart dropped.

When the bodies came away, he saw glass winking on the floor, shoes already coming down to beat it into dust, bodies already coming around again, pushing against him, too intimate, ugly for being unaware.

He staggered out of the crowd, shoving against t-shirts coated in sweat and the faces, eyes forward, expressions high and drunk on either the music or something else, sometimes both.  He pushed out onto the porch and drank in air as if he'd been drowning.  He had a job, a band wanted him to photograph them.  How was he supposed to do that without his best lens?

After a moment, he headed towards the lake.

The dark water rippled, trees rustling all around him.  He made his face stony and gripped his camera, his jaw clenched.  

The cold moon dipped into the pond, blanketing the water in a veil, and Marshall twisted the broken lens, pulling it from the body of the camera, and wound his arm back.  Then he hurled it into the lake.

The lens left his hand and he gasped as it hurtled through the air.  When the splash came, sounding miles and miles away, the intense pressure was gone, leaving only a dead weight.  

"Mitchell!  Where you been?"  Travis asked, thumping him hard on the back when he returned to the show.

"Needed some air."  He could see now that the bands were packing up their gear, cases sliding into the back of vans.

"That was such a good show."  Mitchell saw a flash in Travis's eyes, something giant moving through him.  On your average day, Travis was untouchable.  Right now, he was… a god.  Mitchell inadvertently took a step back just as two boys hefting either end of an amp came through.  He looked around.  Kids were already grouping up again, and he shook his head as he watched Travis weave in through them.

Mitchell watched for a little while longer, searching for comfort from his observations, but found only a sudden loneliness.  He should be weaving through those groups too, taking pictures.  That was his place.  Sighing, he took a seat on the porch and rubbed his knee.

"Hey."  Plaid fabric that was white and rust colored appeared in the frame of his vision, the shirt drawn in around the waist, and brown hair spilling down from her face.  Catherine.

"Hey," Mitchell couldn't stop his eyes from darting up to hers, brown and warm, her smooth skin dotted with the first of summer's freckles, before he assumed a disinterested expression.  

"You okay?" she hovered in front of him a moment more, leaning down towards him, then shifted as though she were about to sit.

"Yeah," he said, and she settled down next to him, knees propped up, hands outstretched and clasped in front of her.

"What happened to your camera?" she asked, watching a guy with shoulder-length blonde hair and a beard walk by with a guitar case.

"Busted the lens."

"Sucks."

"Yeah."   His eyes ran over his hands, folded together in front him, aware she was still beside him.  

"You ever feel like…"

He rolled his head to the side.  "Like what?"

"It's nothing."

"Tell me," he said, smiling, shifting his legs out in front of him.

"I don't know," she said, brown eyes sharpening as she studied tree branches against the night sky.  Mitchell's eyes dropped to her lips, then back to her eyes.  "I love those moments at a show when everything slows way down; beats are hours apart and you can feel each breath you take."

He nodded, remembering the moment just like that which he had captured.  It would be on his camera still.

"I'm addicted to that."

He nodded again, and let a little bit of what was inside slip into his voice.  "Me too."

She glanced over at him, the eyes that had been scrutinizing every leaf now intent on him.  "Are you okay?"

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes.

"I don't know…  it's almost like the perfect moment is impossible.  Which sucks, because I want to start a band…"

"You want to start a band?  What… do you play?"  He tilted his head and watched her.

"Bass."  She spread her hands, her shoulders rising.

"That is incredibly sexy."  He said, grinning.

"Hey," she shoved him, smiling.

"No seriously-that sounds amazing.  And, I think it's different when you're a musician, you know?  You can have that… moment… whenever you want."  His eyes took on that far off quality.

"You're right."  She broke into a smile, her face curving and wrinkling around her lips and eyes, and she leaned forward, pressing her lips against his

It only lasted the time it took him to blink and then she vanished.  For a full ten seconds he sat there, absorbing what had happened, then he jumped up, as if to declare his conquest.  All the boys wanted Catherine, but Catherine had kissed Mitchell.  He hit the ground and his camera thudded against his body.  For the moment, he didn't care.

A horn blared and he turned as a car door swung open, and he climbed in, riding waves of victory still.  

"Such a good show," Travis was saying, again.  "Hey Mitch, you get shots of 'Skeletal?'  They were beast, dude."

"My lens broke.  It was just before they played.  I didn't even hear them."

"Dude, that sucks."

"I know."

"I need to book them for the summer."

Emptiness swelled up inside of Mitchell as conversation exploded around him.  It was so much loud music, thick and harmonic and senseless; he could feel the rhythm of their syntax inside his body, just like he always felt music, but the words were far away, like a vocalist with a volume of nothing next to the chords and drums.

They reached his house, crouching under the mucus-yellow streetlight, and he got out, grabbing at his camera strap to keep it from bouncing on his chest.  Kitchen lights were on inside, glowing waxy through the curtains.  He looked up at the stars, faint against the city smog and lights.  Pulling open the screen door, he went in.  The door whacked the frame behind him.

There was a note on the table, his name and the word "look," with eyeglasses drawn in the "o's."  Typical mom.  Beneath was a form for a scholarship.  He exhaled, breathing out the accumulated weight of camera stress and college stress.  Together they formed a point that he could feel in the small of his back, pricking him no matter how hard he tried to squirm away from it.  He knew his mom wanted a sharp, smart college boy.  He couldn't remember how long he'd known he would disappoint her.  Sliding the form off the table, he cradled his amputated camera under his arm and went up to bed.

Morning brought him an ache in his head from the crush of reality.  He wandered downstairs in a kind of trance, opening the fridge to squint at the contents.

"There's still leftover pancakes on a plate," his mother said, poking her head into the kitchen.

"Uhhh," Mitchell said, finding them and pulling them out.  As he put them into the microwave, he realized his mom was still in the kitchen.  "Yeah?"

"Did you see the form?"

"Yes…"

"Well have you given it any thought?"

"It's in my room."

"That's not the same as giving it thought…"

Mitchell didn't say anything.  His mother stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.  The microwave dinged and he pulled out the pancakes, grabbing syrup from the cupboard.  His mother sighed.

"I just want you to do something with your life."

"I am, it's called living it," Mitchell muttered.  

"Surely you don't want to live with your father and I forever-"

"Um, no."

"Exactly, so-"

"Travis has room."

"Travis."  His mother's eyes sharpened.  Travis was her favorite subject.  "What kind of life is that?  He lives in an awful neighborhood, his job is pennies, and his car is falling apart."

Mitchell shrugged "He gets by."

"Is that all the aspiration you have for yourself?  To 'get by?'  This is the kind of thing I'm talking about."  She propped her hands on her hips.

"Money isn't important."  Mitchell stared at his pancakes, refusing to look at her.

"'Isn't important?'  Money runs this world, Mitchell."

"Money can't buy happiness."  He was still staring at his food.

"That's a cliché and you know it.  Happiness isn't just an emotion.  It's also a roof over your head and food in your belly, two things you have to buy."  Her hand moved away from her body to gesture, emphasizing the point.

Mitchell shrugged again.  

"You're used to our lifestyle.  You don't have to pay for anything except things you want.  As an adult you have to pay for a helluvalot of things you don't think you want until they cut the power and you don't have any heat."

"I just want… I just want to make pictures," he said, his gaze drifting off towards the window above the sink.

"I never said you could do that."

"Sure you did," he said, turning to glare straight into her face for the first time.  "You want me to go off to college where I'll spend all my time writing papers about dead guys and cramming for math finals.  My camera will end up on a shelf, where I'll forget I ever had time to use it.  I'll get a job after school and sit behind desk for ten years, at which point I'll go crazy and have the biggest mid-life crisis you've ever seen, leave my wife and run off to Hawaii."

"Why Hawaii?" his mother said, trying to smile.

"California, then.  Anywhere.  Don't you get it?  I don't want to be that guy."

"But the alternative-"

"What could be worse than that?"

"If you don't go to school, you'll have a few happy years that involve marriage and children, but soon you'll have to stop going to those shows you adore so much and work two jobs to support your family.  What if you get into a car accident?  You won't have health insurance, and you'll have a broken arm.  What will you do?"

"Find a way to pay for it."

His mother shook her head.  "You want to live like that?"

"Of course not, mom.  But don't you want me to be happy?"

"I want you to be in the best place you can be."  

"Behind a desk."

"Not necessarily.  You could get a job taking pictures for the newspaper or something-"

"Come on."  His lips drew a line.

"Mitchell.  You refuse to think about college, but when I suggest alternatives you flatly refuse them.  You know what?  If you don't go to college next year you have to move out."

"What?"

"You heard me."

He stared at her, stunned.  

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying open your eyes.   Examine your options.  Don't just… settle."  She propped a hand on the door, exhaled, then left the kitchen.

He watched her go, eyes wide, then frowned.  Her last words went around and around in his mind.  "Don't just… settle."  He wasn't settling, was he?  He was grabbing hold of his life and jumping into the deep end.  If that was settling, then the mona lisa was graffiti.  And that bit about a girl?  

Well, he'd sorta already met one.

Mitchell knew Catherine worked at a diner on fifth street.  He knew she'd be there because her most recent tweet was "work sucks, good thing I'm gettin paid today."  So he dropped his plate in the sink and put on a clean shirt, then checked his hair in the bathroom, running a hand through it.  He scraped his keys off his desk, glancing at the papers sitting there, and noticed the scholarship form.  His camera was also sitting there, missing it's eye.  

As he left his room, thinking about his car and the way to the diner and Catherine and the afternoon sun filtering through the windows in leaf-shaped spots on the carpet, the scholarship form sat in the back of his mind.  He shoved the front door open and it snapped back on the frame.  Gravel crunched as he crossed the driveway and then trod on the half-dead grass, pulling his car door open.  What should he do at the diner?  He should order something.  Maybe a shake, that was cheap.  He put the key to the ignition, and again the form came to him, unbidden.  Sighing, he glanced up at the house.  What was he going to do about his camera?  He turned the key.

The parking lot was where the nerves hit.  What was he going to say to her?  Would she even be working in the front?  He took a moment in the car, digging around pointlessly so he wasn't just sitting there, and kept his sunglasses on, glancing furtively at the windows of the other car.  The sheen of reflections covered them, making it so he could only glimpse rough outlines of human beings.

Sucking in his breath, he removed his sunglasses, glanced at his reflection in the rearview mirror, and got out of the car, nerves grinding in his stomach as he approached the door, and pulled it open.

Catherine was at the register, her hair pulled back to reveal her face, wearing a dress with short sleeves and an apron-skirt, and her coffee-colored eyes pointed downwards.  Her gaze rose and as she saw Mitchell and recognition lit up her face.

"Hey!" her hair flipped behind her as she said this, her shoulders rolling back.

"Hey," he said, glancing up with a smile and then back down, stuffing his hands in his pockets.  "How's the band coming?"

"Well," she said, exhaling, "no one's in it!"

"I'll play the triangle…" he said, aware of how lame the joke was.

She laughed anyway.  "I'll let you know if I need one."

"Awesome."

"Did you want anything?" she looked at him over the top of the register, eyebrows raised in the question.

He nodded.  "A shake sounds good."

He paid and then took a seat with it as a group of eighth-graders came in.  He watched her as she took their orders, studying the little movements she made, like tucking her hair behind her ear, or the way she gripped the pencil, almost a ninety degree angle, her thumb sticking out, to write down their orders.

The glass door swung open, a little bell jingling, and an older guy in a black sweatshirt walked in.  He approached Catherine at the register with a possessive swagger and Mitchell's eyes darted to her face-she lit up again.  Wait, she actually liked this brute?  How, in any universe, was that her type?

She leaned across the counter and kissed him.  

Wait.  Didn't she like Mitchell?  Weren't they destined to be married and have that cute kid his mom was talking about?  His fantasies came to an abrupt halt.  His eyes darted from Catherine's face to the other guy.  Wasn't that the face she'd just made at him?  He glanced at the exit.

Easing out of his chair, he slunk to the door, past the giggling eighth graders, and pushed the door open.  Catherine and the boy should be too wrapped up in each other to notice him slinking through the background.  

"Bye Mitchell."

Crap.  "Bye," he said, waving over his shoulder.  As he pushed out into the parking lot, he caught sight of the other boy.  He was staring at Mitchell, eyes hard and cold.

Mitchell swore under his breath as he crossed the parking lot.  That guy could be a gang member or something!  What if he had a gun?  Not good, not good, not good.  

At home he turned on his phone, and had a text message waiting.  

"hey thanks for visiting."

It was from Catherine.  Remembering the other guy only made it wilt a little, and his fingers flew as he texted back, "hey it was fun! who was that guy? lol."

"o that's just tyler"

"o"

"we should hang out some time."

"sounds fun."  

His phone rang.

"Hello?"  

"Mitchell!  What are you doing?"  It was Hunter, one of Travis's groupies.

"Nothing, man."  He knew an invitation to hang out was coming up.  Hunter usually only called when Travis was doing something without him, and that was pretty often.  

"We're going up to Lincoln, you wanna come?"

"The park?  Yeah dude, who's driving?"

"Nathan, we'll pick you up in twenty?"

"Kay."

The car slid up in front of the house, Mitchell shouted to his mom that he was going out, grabbed his camera, and dashed out to the driveway.  He opened the door, causing music to explode out into the neighborhood, and jumped in.  Sun streamed onto his face, neck, and shoulders and he cranked the window all the way down.  Nathan accelerated and the other boys cheered as music pumped through their bodies.  

He felt the absence of his camera even more, now.  Not only were these the type of adventures he generally photographed, but he had a job with these kind of people.  Kids in a band wanted him to shoot them.  What was he going to say if they didn't like the photos his crappy kit lens took?  

They parked in a 7-11 a short walk from the national park so they wouldn't have to pay to get in and car doors slammed as everyone spilled out.  Hunter popped the trunk and pulled out a small bag.

Mitchell's eyes lit up.  "What you got?"

"Shh," Hunter said, glancing around.  Then he grinned.  "You'll like it.  Just wait."

"Let's go," said Nathan.

They walked into the park and took a back pathway up and around through the trees to an overlook that only took a short time to hike to.  There were cigarette buds littered everywhere in the clearing, and Hunter pulled out another one as they opened the cooler.  Booze.  Mitchell grabbed a can and popped the lid.  They pulled some lawn chairs hidden behind a rock and propped them up, taking seats, and then the serious stuff came out.

"This is the best," Mitchell said, to no one in particular, smoke billowing from his mouth.

"Live fast and die young!" Nathan shouted, face bleary.

The others laughed except for Mitchell.  Whatever they'd given him was making his head spin.   It was overwhelming, everything was so deep and intense.  For a second he thought his arm was gone to the elbow, leaving nothing but a bloody stump, and Hunter had elephant ears and a nose.  Then suddenly everyone was aging in super speed, their hair turning white and their faces folding over and over with wrinkles.  Mitchell laughed, then looked down and realized his own hands were covered in wrinkles and that he was turning old too.  There was an unbearable sound of wailing and moaning all around him and then the old people were coming for him.  He struggled but he couldn't stand up, and as they overwhelmed him he passed out.

When he woke up it was dark and someone was nudging him in the ribs with their foot and his face was in the dirt.  He spit and sat up.  "What time is it?"

"Dunno," said Hunter.  "I've got a beastly headache."

"Me too," Mitchell said, rubbing his head.  

"Come on," Hunter hooked a hand under Mitchell's arm and pulled him up.  "Let's go home."

There were several missed calls on his phone, all from his mom.  There were also the usual number of texts, but it was too hard to read with the letters floating around on the screen like that.  His head was definitely still messed up.

His mom was waiting for him when he stumbled in the front door.

"Well hello there."

"Is it late?"

"It's three in the morning."

"Oh crap, I'm sorry mom."

"I was sitting by the phone.  You can't… do that."

"I was okay."  He sat down hard in a chair at the table.  "I sort of… fell asleep.  And had this dream everybody suddenly got old and attacked me.  It was crazy.  Like, scary-crazy.  I think you're right about this life."  He stopped.  What was he saying?  Maybe he still had something in his blood, his body.  "It's absolutely amazing but it's absolutely insane."

"And dangerous."

"Yeah, well…"

"Well you're young.  You think you're bulletproof."

"Uh huh.  It's insane but it's also amazing, and I just don't know.  What else can I do?  Get an office job and wake up for the morning commute?  Give up on hang outs and shows and happiness?"  There he was again, talking when he shouldn't.

But his mother didn't say anything, just sighed.

"You don't have to give up on everything or decide to reject it all in one night."

"Yeah I do.  The deadline for that art scholarship you showed me is tomorrow afternoon.  This is it, mom.  This is it."

"All right, well I'm going to bed."

He followed her upstairs, going into his room even though he felt every nerve in his body was on high alert, frizzed out like a bad hair day.  

He got out his phone and looked through the texts he'd been too wasted to read before.  One was from Catherine, with a simple "hi."

"hey," he texted back on the off chance she was still awake.

"hey what's up."

"shit you're still awake?"

"can't sleep. what's your excuse mister?"

"things are just insane here."

"parents?"

"no, my mind. now I sound crazy."

"no you don't.  what's up?

"my mom's been talking to me abt college and now there's this scholarship.  I never thought I'd have to choose whether or not to give everything up."

"yeah, I know what you mean.  it's like we have to grow up and pretend we don't care about that stuff anymore"

"exactly! we're supposed to leave home and leave everyone we know and become… what, exactly?"

"successful, happy drones."

"exactly.  what should I be fighting? my mom or time? aging?  life?"

"you shouldn't fight, mitchell."

He sighed, looking up from his phone.  It was getting light out.  It was morning.

"what should I do?"

His phone rang, and it was her.  

"Hello?"

"Okay so, I have to tell you this story, and it's easier on the phone.  My brother died two years ago because he overdosed and choked to death on his own vomit.  He had worked in some tiny job in this huge Hollywood movie and he'd go to all the parties and stuff… I don't know.  Do you ever feel like you want to leave something behind?"

"Yeah, definitely."

"That's right, you take photos.  It's weird, it's like we try so hard to become bigger than ourselves but we only end up erased.  That's what happened to Jake.  I mean, he wasn't an artist, but he tried so hard to be bigger than himself.  He wanted to encompass worlds-he wanted to encompass the world.  I'm just afraid…" she paused, and Mitchell heard his heartbeat, measured and weighted in his other ear.  "I'm just afraid we're too small."

The words crushed him.  He couldn't reply.

"Mitchell?"

"Yeah, I'm still here," he said hoarsely.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… well, it is a depressing thought."

He didn't say anything.

"But do you know what else I think?  Maybe we don't have to be so great.  Maybe we don't have to try and expand to hold the entire universe inside of us.  Maybe we can be happy with our small piece."

"How?"

"I don't know," she said.  "I just don't know."   

- - - -

When he woke up later that day, around five, the first thing that came to him was the scholarship, then right after that his conversation with Catherine, and finally his camera.  He fingered the kit lens, pulling it down and fitting it to the body.  He held it up to his eye.  It would do.  It wasn't his other lens, but it would do.

"I figured it out," he said to his mom.  

"Oh?" she said, quirking an eyebrow.

"Not about the scholarship.  About this whole… about this time in life.  It's like I'm being asked what makes me a man, what makes me who I am, why I have any right at all to exist.  I have to choose the answer by deciding what to do with myself, and after that I'm stuck forever and then I'll be defined by that choice.  That choice is my answer."

"Mitchell…"

"No, that's what it is.  And you know what?  I refuse to choose.  Got that?  I REFUSE TO CHOOSE!"

He got in his car and drove, and found himself at Catherine's diner.  He sat behind the wheel without going in.  She probably wasn't even working, but that wasn't why he was there.  He was there because she understood.  That was enough.  To know he wasn't alone.  

A figure appeared in the mirror.  Mitchell squinted at the face and realized it was Catherine's boyfriend, or whatever he was.  His hand flew to the keys, and he prepared to turn the key.  But something made him pause.

The guy stopped beside his car.  

"Hey…" Mitchell said.

"What are you doing here?"

"Uh… I was kinda driving around and just ended up here, I guess."

"Uh huh."

"I'm just having a really hard time figuring things out, I guess I wasn't paying attention.  I can go…"

"Listen," the guy said, gripping the car door beside his face.  "Stay away from her."

"Okay, man, I will," Mitchell said, turning the car on.  

"Stay.  Away.  From her!" he shouted as Mitchell floored it and ripped out of the parking lot.  

Things were going just great, now.  

Mitchell drove.  He couldn't very well go home, after yelling at his mom like that.  He just wanted to see Catherine, but that couldn't happen, could it?  He didn't even know if she was working just then or not.  Maybe overly-possessive-guy had been waiting for Mitchell to show up.  

He passed the community college.  Some people he knew went there.  It kinda sucked, but it was still school.  Going there was like having your cake and eating it.  Maybe he should do that.  But then he'd have both dissatisfaction and debt.  Not the best tasting cake.  

Stopping in a parking lot, he checked his phone.  Someone he knew had died because of texting while driving, so he always stopped.  There was a tweet from Catherine, it said, "why am I at the library again?"

The library.  He was only a few blocks down from the public library!  Pocketing his phone, he switched into drive and took off out of the parking lot.  

As he walked inside, he glanced all around himself, checking for possessive-boyfriend-guy.  That would not be a pleasant encounter.

"Mitchell!" she was standing in a section which said "Gardening."

"Hey!  …Gardening?" he chuckled, walking up to her.

"Yeah, just looking for ideas.  I want to try something new with the tomatoes."

"I didn't know you had a green thumb."  

"I didn't know you were stalking me via tweets," she said, quirking an eyebrow, a playful smile on her face.  "It's my fault really, for making it so easy."

He laughed, rubbing his neck.  "I just wanted to talk to you, and, well…"

"Hmm?"

"This seemed like a good place to do it."

"Mhm," she said, flipping through the book.

"Uh…" now that he had her attention, he found he'd lost the words.  "I just… I don't know.  I was talking to my mom and I realized… the reason I'm having so much trouble with this whole college life thing is that it's going to define me.  It's going to declare to the world what kind of person I am.  I can't deal with that, I refuse to choose."

"Mitchell," Catherine said, her tone similar to a teacher chastising a student.  "When I said you shouldn't fight, I didn't mean you should become a protestor, or whatever it is that this refusal symbolizes."

"So I should just be a pacifist?" he joked.

She laughed.  "I guess the problem is, I don't have the answers either.  I'm in the same place you are.  Maybe you should-oh, Tyler!  Have you met Mitchell?"

"Yes," said the possessive boyfriend.  "Twice."

"Oh, that's nice!"

"You know what, Catherine, I've gotta split."  

"Oh, okay-I'll see you later?"

"Yeah," he said, keeping one eye on Tyler as he got out of there.

Back home, he got onto his computer, trying not to think about the entire situation.  He watched online videos for awhile and then checked face book.  He had an event invitation that read "bonfire with friends."  It went out from Travis, and at least half of the town was invited.  Hunter had already written on the wall.

"sweet dude I'll bring the booze."

Typical.  Mitchell clicked the button that said "attending."  Now he had something other than Catherine and Tyler to think about.  

He arrived late on purpose, once the party was already in full swing, and grabbed a piece of the quickly disappearing pizza.  He'd almost finished it when a hand clapped down on his shoulder.

"Mitchell," hissed a low male voice.  "We meet yet again."

The hand spun him around and he was face to face with Tyler, wearing trademark dark clothing and a look even darker.  "What," he said, "are you doing here?"

"Um, I got the invite from Travis?  My friend?"

Tyler tossed Mitchell back a few steps and sneered.  "I think it's time you leave."

"Okay, no problem.  I'll just go-"  but it wasn't to be that simple.  Tyler threw a punch and Mitchell realized he couldn't just back down.

Tyler was pounding on him when Hunter showed up and joined in, punching Mitchell once on accident and then realizing his mistake and attacking Tyler.  Nathan also arrived, since Tyler had a whole posse, and at the end more friends showed up and Tyler's group was chased back to their cars, harassed even as they drove away.

Hunter let out a wild, drunken cheer, and slapped Mitchell on the back.  "We showed them, dude!"

Mitchell smiled, but he knew better.  Now things were just worse.  As he stared at the party around him, he wondered why he was even friends with these people.  Sure they'd just saved him from a beating, but beatings were part of that world.  What exactly, did they give him?  Anything?  Maybe not.  Maybe he stayed with them because he had nothing better to do.

As he looked at his phone, and the worried message from Catherine popped up, he put it away and grabbed another can from the ice cooler.  If this was how it was gonna be, he might as well live it up.