The "bit role"...

Put on some pants... check.

Shirt... check.

Tuck in... whoop!... check.

Got my keys, got my phone, fly's up. Let's go. Phone rings -it's Myles.

"Hey Neil, on your way over?"

I start to walk to the door. "Just stepping out of the Apartment... en route, brother".

"Well, um, okay we're going to take a field trip... I can't explain now and I have no idea what's going to happen."

I lean forward, interested. "Um, okayyy, I'll be there in a minute".

What in the heck? I'm used to Myles saying things over my head, but this was crazy. So, I hurry up and get to Myles to discover a skinny looking African American woman looking quite perturbed and sitting on Myles's stoop. Well, actually, I didn't know for a fact that it was a woman. To be honest, I thought it was the infamous "Glenn". (A homeless man Myles and his roommates occasionally support with a meal or the occasional buck or two) Turns out, I wasn't that far off...

I park across the street; say a quick prayer asking for nothing in particular. I turn the ignition key counter-clockwise, sigh, and pull it out. I glance up at the rear-view, fix my hat. I close my eyes and open the door. After crossing the street, I get to within a few feet of where the young woman was sitting and subsequently realized that not only was she a "she" but also that she wasn't exactly all that young.

As the realization begins to curve my eyebrow Myles steps up with a "Neil. How are ya?". I shake his hand and introduces the lady to me as "Deisha" (sp?). In the next few minutes, I found out that Deisha needed a ride to her place a few miles away, a room in the "Viking Inn". Since I had plenty of gas, I volunteered.

Deisha looks at me and asks: "Do you think that maybe we could get me some chicken or something to eat?".

My heart drops and I say: "of course, Deena".

Yeah, I definitely blew that one.

I'm not really sure how to describe the thoughts going through my head as we held forth unto the highway out towards a rougher part of town. Deisha's telling us about Glenn ditching her far from the apartment and how he's smokin' again, etc. At this, I wonder if the Bob Marley in my CD player was such a good choice... or was it? Then Deisha gets quiet and Myles says "so how was your weekend?". I was surprised at my own ability to Bullshit calmness on the surface while my heart is fluttering wildly underneath.

As I pull into the "Viking Inn", my mind is in a state of horror confused with intense interest. My eyes wide, I sucked in every detail. Three cars in the parking lot. A lady in tight and dirty jean shorts stands in the doorway of the of motel office sucking a cigarette all the way down to her orange fingernails. 5 episodes of MakeOver have taught me that Orange is an "unfortunate" color for her complexion.

"Its the apartment on the other side of the suburban" Deisha croaks.

As I stop and before the struts can even dampen the inertia of the car making it bounce back --you know what I'm talking about-- Deisha leaps out the back-right door of my Stratus. The second the door even shuts Myles turns his shoulders towards me, leans slightly forward and without taking his eyes off of a Deisha angrily pounding upon the motel door, says -as if he had to- "Neil, I have absolutely no idea where this is going. If I were you I'd be ready to throw it in reverse and get the hell out of here".

After a few seconds of pounding on a door that won't be answered and a few attempts to peer through a curtained window, a livid Deisha storms off through the parking lot back towards the office. She motions for us to follow her. Forgetting I had already slipped the car into reverse in preparation for a hasty get-away, I accidentally put it into neutral. As I was looking down to fix the problem, I see Myles's eyes focus upon something over my shoulder. I twist to look out the driver's-side window to see a skinny African-American man in a torn, red t-shirt stumble out of another motel room with two beers in one hand --one open, one not-- with a younger-looking woman tottering behind him. He walks right up to the door upon which Deisha had so eagerly been knocking and slips in a key. He looks at us, Myles and I look at each other, then he seems to recognize Myles.

He walks up to the door: "What's up?".

Myles: "Deisha's looking for you. She just went to the motel office to get your key".

Yeah, this is Glenn.

So Glenn walks straight to the motel office. We follow, -in the car of course. I'll spare you the rest of this story but I will let you know it involves a husband and a wife yelling and screaming at each other, a motel key being thrown into the middle of a parking lot, and Myles and my not saying a word.

As we drove Deisha back to Myles's place, I guess because that's where we found her, I think I began to kind of cry inside. Had I just witnessed the ending of a marriage? A breaking point in the conjunction of two lives?

What kind of shit was this? How could this be? I hadn't said anything. I hadn't done a thing to help them. Hell, in a way I had facilitated this whole event via the four wheels of my Dodge. But then one tells himself there really was nothing he really could do. That the relationship had been deteriorating for months or even years before this day and I had only caught but a frame or two of a story reels into the telling.

Sigh.

As I gave Deisha all the money I had, I suddenly wish I had more to give. I hated myself for having a good car. I despised myself for purchasing a wicked-cool CD player to put in it. I saw the Baylor ring on my finger, the Nike Watch on my wrist and the phone in my pocket and I all of a sudden felt heavy, as if I was wearing three parkas on a spring day.

I thought about the parents who've placed me in a position to succeed. I have a wonderful life with friends who support me and an amazing woman who waits to kiss me. I think about the life I've had and all the days I've yet to enjoy, and I wonder what I could have done to deserve it. It's a beautiful thing when the heaviest weight upon your heart is watching October baseball without seeing Cubbie Blue.

In stories of many lives, I play a major character. I may be the quirky roommate, or the fatherly mentor. I could be the naive apprentice or the hunky "Mr. Right". (thanks, Erin) But it appears that in this case, I am but a random dude playing the "bit" part. In the credits of Deisha's life, I guess I'd be "Guy #2 in Car". I guess I'm okay with that. I only hope I got my line right.