By Kris Rockass from '97 or '98(?)

On New Year's Eve of last year both Aaron and I were at the Tip Top for the 50 Million, Off Da Pigs, Faggz show. Surprisingly enough, the place wasn't too crowded therefore it was easy enough to get a drink that everyone got really, really wasted. Due to some sort of something or other the FAGGZ abandon their set about three songs in so the show ended pretty early and although I had Aaron's video camera and tape recorder on me, I didn't see him around (I didn't actually look that hard) so I split with a friend to go to a party down the street. Then, at around 6pm on New Year's Day I get a message on my voice mail that went something like this:

(beep)
Hey, this is Aaron. Okay, now this is probably gonna sound kind of weird and I don't know why I'm even asking you to do this 'cause you'll probably think it totally weird and lame, but if you could just do this for me I'd really appreciate it. Okay ... so ... ... ok, there's this van, like a blue-grey van parked somewhere on 22nd Street between Mission and Valencia Streets. I just wanna know if you could find it and writw down the liscense plat nuber for me--BUT DON'T be too obvious about it 'cause there might be someone it it, like someone probably watching you or whatever while you're doing it so just try to be kinda discreet or whatever. I guess you can either call and leave me the number on the machine at my dad's house or I'm probably gonna be coming out to the city later in the week because I have to go to this ...
(beep)

The message cut him off in mid-sentence but he was already talking about something else and it didn't sound like he intended to give any further information or explanation regarding his very odd and somewhat foreboding request. What the fuck?! I just sat there still holding the phone wondering what the hell he was talking about and why. Did he get into an accident last night? No, no--for once he did the smart thing and took BART to the city since he knew he'd be drinking a lot. Did he get into a fight or something with somebody and now he wanted to call the cops on them? Maybe he witnessed an assault ... but how does he know this van will parked right there within those two blocks? And how would he know, like, why would somebody be just sitting in it? Maybe it was a homeless person? Or a touring band from elsewhere? And what does he mean by 'don't be obvious"? Why not? Is it someone who migjht get pissed off and like jumptout and try to punch me ors omething for taking downshis liscense plate # and if so shouldn't he ought to have warned me or something.
After knowing him about a year and a half I was pretty accustomed to Aaron being a weirdo and saying/asking odd things that made no sense, but this one took the cake by far. I immediately tried calling him to see if I could get him to clarify the situation and his request, but there was no answer. Fuck. Shappy's friend Leah was hanging out, having just flown into town for some 3 day punk fest at Gilman, and I must have looked as distressingly confused as I felt because she asked me, "what is it? who was that? what's wrong?" I told her and repeated the gist of the phone call and we laughed at Aaron and then I laughed at myself because I realized that the punk show I was supposed to escort Leah and her friends to was right around the corner (literally not more than 30 paces) from where this mysterious blue or grey or blue-gray van was supposed to be lurking, so as annoyingly vague and potentially creepy a request as it was I'd probably end up indulging it, nontheless.
So I took the New Mexicans up to the big punk show at Mission Records, but it was New Years and I fucking hate New Years and I also hate crowds and I still had a hangover and felt really shitty and I just couldn't deal so I split like pretty much right away. Had I stayed for a while I probably would've remembered about the mystery van but I didn't remember that night nor on any of the nights that followed until Shappy (who I guess heard about it from Leah 'cause I never mentioned it) brought it up about a week later and I was like, "oh yeah, that's right--I never even checked for the van, I completely forgot!" Then Matty wanted to know the story of Aaron's odd message, so I repeated it once again, and he said, "did you ever find out what the fuck he was talking about?" and I said, "Nope" and then Janice stuck her head in the door and said Aaron was on the phone for me which was perfect because the three of us were now terribly curious to find out what this was all about.
Aaron asks me if I got the liscence number first thing and I tell him no, sorry, I forgot and he just goes, "Oh well" and then starts talking about something else and I'm like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute! You mean you're still not gonna explain what that was about?! You just call me and leave this weird-ass message asking me to do this weird-ass favor for you and then you're just gonna leave me hanging?! Fuck that, you can't do that!" He actually sounded kind of surprised that I wanted to know, "It's really no big deal" he says, but I said, "No way, man--spill it!"
All my previously made hypothesis were way off--they were all way too logical, made too much sense--the truth was more hilarious than I could have ever imagined. Here's what happened: Apparently Aaron met some chick (he can't remember her name) at the bar the night before, but she didn't get there until just before 2am (which is why I never saw him talking to this girl). She was from some other city in some other state (he can't remember which one, in either case) and was in the middle of a cross country solo road trip during which she would be staying in her van (guess where it was parked) for the 2 or 3 more days that she was here in SF. She and Aaron must have really hit it off because even though she'd arrived only minutes before last call (meaning she only had, at most, 20 minutes to get through the "get to know him" phase), she decided to ditch the guy she'd come with (whose name Aaron does remember, which explains the strange calls a few other people got asking did they know anybody named Anthony I changed the name -ed.) and take ole Aaron back to her van to do the nasty instead. Aaron insists they had a swell time and it was just his chronic insomnia that drove him to slip out of her roving den of iniquity just before dawn while she was still asleep (though I suspect his inability to talk to people he doens't know when he isn't drunk may have had something to do with it as well). That's just not true. I have no problem with the morning after. We had talked that morning, but she wanted to sleep in and I wanted to get home.- ed He didn't want her to think he'd snuck out just to get away from her, but he didn't have a pencil and he didn't want to wake her up by fumbling around looking for one in the van (oh, good one) so instead he got the genius idea to write his name and number in the dew on her windshield so she could get in touch with him later (if she happened to wake up by like 7 or 7:30am, that is, and then only if she happened to notice it within the first 20 min to half-hour she was awake).
I had to interrupt him here, "Hold up, hold up--you wrote your number in the dew on her windshield?! <<"I didn't have a pen!" >> "Oh, well that was brilliant. What'd she have to go to court that day or something?" <<"Whaddya mean?" ">>Well geez Aaron, who wakes up that early on the morning after New Year's Eve?!" <<"She wouldn't have to wake up all that early." << "When was the last time you saw dew on a windshield at noon, Aaron? That poor girl!"
So, later that afternoon when he's back in Pleasanton, Aaron's thinking about the night before (attempting to recollect the details perhaps?) and remembering that van-girl said the next place she was going was Vegas and now, in the sober light of day, and having had the chance to, I don't know, ponder the inflection in her voice or whatever, he suddenly realizes that he thinks she was actually saying, 'Do you want to go to Vegas?' and apparently he does (though not enough to come back out to the city and track her down himself, I guess) so that's when he calls and leaves that ridiculous message for me. I asked him what made him think van-girl would still be parked in the same place and he told me she said something about how she had her stuff at someone's house on that block or something. "So that's all it was" he says, "I just thought, since you were pretty close by and might even be going by there or something, that it'd be a lot easier for you to do it, and because I didn't want to go all the way back out to the city just to find out she was already gone." And he says this like it should all seem perfectly sensible now. I guess he would think so, but I started busting up.
The first thing I wondered (and this is outloud) was why he didn't just ask me to leave a note on the van, or at least explain the situation to me, that way if she did "bust" me writing down the liscence plate number and ask me what I was doing I could have told her something instead of only being able to say, "well, um, I'm not sure." But according to him, it would've taken too long to say all that and my voice mail would've cut him off before he could finish (like he couldn't have just called back over and over until he had gotten through what he had to say like he's done a million times before) and besides, asking me to leave a note would've been too complicated. Personally, I can't think of anything more complicated than trying to track somebody down through the DMV with nothing but the liscence number to go on. I asked Aaron about that and he said, "Well, you know, I probably wasn't gonna actually try to track her down that way, dealing with the DMV and all that. It just ... I don't know, it would've been nice to have--you know, just in case." I guess I would have wondered 'in case of what', accept that the pitifully sap-soaked, wistfully romantic tone in Aaron's voice painted a picture that was perfectly clear: Aaron awaits the results of his request with baited breath, at last I arrive and he jumps up expectantly. I had him a scrap of paper, on which the liscence plate number capably of indentifying the vehicle of his beloved is written. He gratefully accepts it, unfolding it to eye the number forlornly for a brief moment. He then refolds the paper and closes his eyes, emitting the quiet sigh of one who's already been defeated but still has not lost all hope, and then presses the paper lovingly and protectively against his chest. This vision give way to another, this one farther into the future--there is Aaron, hard at work, seated at a desk in some Probe office of days yet to come and then suddenly he lays down his writing utensil and gazes wistfully at an old and yellowed scrap of paper pinned to the bulletin board on the wall over the desk and after a moment utters quietly to himself, "You know I'll never forget you 3B49 FD12" before turning dutifully back to his work. This last image is something I find so goddamned touching, every time I speak of it or it just pops into my head I get all teary-eyed and wish I had a fucking hanky.