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Alex described himself to me as a lone wolf. The thing about a lone wolf, though, is that he's always happy when he thinks he's found a friend. That’s the way I felt when I met Vince on the way to the day game at Miller Park. He had flown in from L.A. just to see the Dodgers play the Brewers. He’s not even a Dodger fan. He just wanted to cross another park off his list.

He hears about your trip and tells you you’re as crazy as he is. You hope that’s half true. You’re also pretty sure you’ll be able to get him to go to Chicago with you. In order to do this double-header, you’ll have to leave Milwaukee at 4, and hope to get to Chicago by the 4th inning. Vince loves this plan, but he’s not sure. You’re sure all it will take is a little persuasion.

In the meantime, a Brewers fan has overheard and wants in. A self-described fun-loving party girl who had already scored, and offered you, free tickets to a game this weekend. A Brewers fan who buys you a beer (The 9th time this has happened on this trip. Oddly, you're keeping track) and tries to get you to buy her a shirt. You don’t bite, but you drink and you joke and you don’t imagine there is any way she will really go to Chicago with you. Although, it would be a hell of a story if you start out the day as a lone wolf and end it by taking a whole pack across state lines.

So by the time you realize that she’s serious, it’s gone too far for you to turn back. She bought beer. She offered Packers tickets. She is serious. You can already tell that it’s not going to go anywhere good, but you think if you can convince Vince, it will become a group thing, an epic tale, and not just a desperate girl and a man on the run.

Vince confesses that he can change his flight, but that he has to be back for a fantasy football draft. You can‘t argue with that. And you don’t want the Milwaukee mess to get the wrong idea. “Do you want me to go to Chicago with you?” she asks bluntly. My answer isn’t quite as clear. A clear, true answer at that point would have been, “No,” but that doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of double-header day. “okay,” I say. “I have to tell you some things before you really decide to do this. 1. Your friend is mad at you and I don’t to be the reason for that.” She starts to protest but I force her to listen to my whole list. “2. You need to go to work tomorrow and I can’t guarantee you’ll get back in time. 3. I can’t buy you anything. 4. I have a girlfriend, so nothing is going to happen between us, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

It was, but she said it wasn’t, and there it was. I had the chance to ditch her before her friends left, but I didn’t. There is a point at which doing something that is not so nice might turn out, in the end, to be the nicest thng you can do. A sort of a mercy killing might have done us both good. By the time we got the public transportation to the greyhound station, she had begun to complain about her feet hurting. Again, I thought about mercy killing.

Three hours later, we were outside of the White Sox’ stadium, and she was asking too many questions. “I’ve been here as long as you have, so I don’t know how you expect me to answer that,” Was the nicest thing I could come up with. I would get increasingly less nice when she asked where the bathrooms were, what teams were playing, and why we were headed to the wrong section, and whether we should ask someone who could show us to our real seats. When we got to some great seats, she started talking to the fun people in front of us about the Brewers in the middle of a RISP situation, and I wasn’t surprised when they didn’t come back from the bathroom.

She noticed it too and asked, “On the scale of 1 to 10, how sorry are you that you met me?”
“Before you asked that question, or after?”
“Well, you can’t leave me, because my bus ticket and my purse are in the locker and only you have the combination. So until the bus leaves, it’s like I’m a puppy and you have a pork chop tied to your ankle.”

Yeah. I’m getting that. I’m feeling the weight of unwanted responsibility and company that wants too much from me. I’m stuck and I’m going to make the best of it and I’m glad I’ve never told her about my blog because by that point I already knew what I would be writing. That if there comes another time on the trip that I wish I were with someone, I know where that wishing will get me. It’s a blessing to be able to do things on one’s own. It takes strength, independence and confidence.

I’ve always felt sad for people who stay in bad relationships. I think most of those people lack the skill of being alone. They’re afraid of it, and so they stay, and some of them wind up more lonely when they’re with that person than I am when I’m writing this blog on this bus. Like the daughter of the other New Jerseyan I met at the game, Maryann, I won’t stay with someone who isn’t worth me. Maryann’s daughter is going to be just fine, and so am I.

But in the meantime, I still have a puppy and a pork chop. I put her on as my personal photographer, and got some of the shots I wanted. Fewer than half as many as the other ballparks, but this one was about half as nice, and we were there for about half a game. So I guess it worked out. I would have gotten more pictures if Alex Rios hadn’t have hit that home run into the section in front of us. I walked closer to see who had caught it, and that‘s how we met Will, a short man from Omaha who had flown into town for three Sox games. Will was a lone wolf.

He loved the story of how we met. Despite my irritation with my extra baggage, I knew it was a great story. I was still convinced that the story would make the juice worth the squeeze. I’m writing this, so I guess I can’t argue that it wasn’t.

The game ended and our wolf pack went out to hunt for food. At the bar, Will told our story. He had become part of it, and wanted others to become part of it too. The waiter became more interested the closer it got to closing time. He asked us where we were from.

“Wisconsin” “Omaha, Nebraska” “New York.”
What part of New York?
“Manhattan.”
“He’s from New Jersey,” said the puppy, nipping at the pork chop.

“I know where the fuck I’m from, and I know I told you where I’m from. I like New Jersey and I’m proud of it, but I don’t want to have to defend it with every person that asks, because I know they’re going to ask me about Snooki and the Jersey shore, just like you did when I told you the truth and now I can see that that was a mistake.”

“Well, I guess I’m not getting any.”

Bitch, I told you.

One bar later, Will asked where the bathroom was. Will, the nice guy from Omaha, who was about peace, love, and the story of how we came together. Will who had offered us beers in his hotel room until we had to catch our busses. Will went to the bathroom, and he never came back.

“Do you think he’s dead? He doesn’t seem the type to just ditch us.”

Yes, he does, I thought. Will’s a lone wolf. Will knows when the story is supposed to end. Will, the mercy killer.