It was February 2003 and America had just invaded Iraq. Protests had broken out across the country railing against Bush and his cronies for the misguided military action. The biggest one was to be staged in New York City the upcoming weekend. And I would be there, right in the heart of Manhattan, much to the envy of my liberal friends. I didn’t have the heart to tell them the true purpose of my trip.

I was invited to be a judge of the Miss New York City pageant, one of the tributaries that dumps its glitzy treasures into Atlantic City for the ultimate prize: Miss America. Now understand, I have zero credentials. Nada. Zilch. At the time I was selling newspaper subscriptions over the phone while cranking out screenplays, a typical LA scene. And it’s not like I had a lot of experience with women. Hardly any, in fact (still don’t). Heck, I only had one girlfriend- and that was in college, for chrissakes. What’s more, I don’t like to judge anyone, least of all beautiful, talented girls who were a decade younger and light years out of my league. Truth is, I had no business attending a beauty pageant, let alone judging one.

Her name was Merry, the girlfriend of my college buddy Steve.  The quirky spelling of her name proved apropos upon meeting the bubbly blonde, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Reese Witherspoon. I bumped into the handsome couple at Duke’s in Malibu on my way to the bathroom. They urged me to join them, so I did. We proceeded to drink heavily, swapping stories. Merry seemed to be intrigued by me- not sexually, but in a kindred, creative soul kind of way. She was, after all, a professional harp player. Thanks to the slew of margaritas, I was ‘on’ that night, a rare display of my latent charms. Merry headed the Miss New York City pageant- she was on a million charity boards- and one of the judges had just backed out. Despite my utter lack of credentials, she thought I would be a good fit. We exchanged numbers and, at the end of the evening, a warm embrace.

A week later, Merry mailed me a thick binder, a dossier of the two dozen young women competing in the pageant. The resumes of these girls, all between the ages of 18 and 24, were impressive, even if they were a bit doctored. Every one of them attended prominent colleges, possessed an arsenal of extraordinary skills, and volunteered for every charity known to mankind. But who was I to judge? (no, really). I’d have to spruce up my resume, too. Believe me, no one wants their fate decided by a telemarketer.

I brought the binder to work, flaunting my elevated status as a pageant judge. My friends pointed out their favorite girls, oohing and aahing in between cold calls. They assumed that, as a judge, I would be able to sleep with any of them. And truth be told, the thought dangled in my mind, as well. My leftist co-workers stopped by my cubicle and heaped praise on me for protesting Bush’s illegal war. I nodded, stuffing the binder in my backpack.

Much to my disappointment, no one on the plane commented on the binder. It rested squarely on my lap, the bold-faced font screaming ‘2003 MISS NEW YORK CITY PAGEANT.’ Perhaps because I was seated near the rear bathroom, scarfing down free peanuts with the vengeance of a meth addict, I was not mistaken for a celebrity. Oh, well. I still had an entire weekend in Manhattan to fool other people, particularly the contestants. I was listed in the judge’s biography as a music video director. Now, I did work on dozens of music videos, so it wasn’t a total lie. I was the guy who fetched coffee for the actual director, among other humiliating tasks. Fortunately, Google hadn’t really taken off yet, so my falsehoods would likely go undetected.

Later that night, Merry got us into an underground party in Midtown Manhattan. The venue was a converted warehouse packed with the city’s hippest young socialites. The first thing you saw stepping through the entrance was a gigantic porno being projected onto the wall. I felt as if I had stumbled onto the Eyes Wide Shut set. In one roped off corner of the room, an 18-year-old Playboy model was doling out lap dances. Merry brought me over. She introduced me as one of the pageant judges and the model lit up. She performed an exotic dance, grinding on my crotch, eyeing my lustfully. Before she finished, she declared that Merry and I would have sex that night. We both maintained that we were just friends.

Merry lived on the Upper West Side, north of 100^th street, where the swankiness morphs into sketchiness. It was a three bedroom apartment that she shared with two male friends. After the party- and a healthy amount of cocktails- we returned to her place. I laid down on the couch, my sleeping quarters for the weekend. Merry freshened up in the bathroom, then proceeded to sit next to me. Heck, she was practically on top of me. She insisted that I stay in her room, that her bed was much more comfortable. I declined the offer, saying the couch was fine. This parrying went on for at least ten minutes. Now, I have to say, I was tempted. Blondes aren’t really my type, especially ones with blue eyes, but she was more than pretty enough. And I was more than drunk enough… I couldn’t do that to Steve, though. So I remained steadfast in my refusal. Finally, she relented and stalked off to her bedroom. I heaved a sigh of relief, not sure if I should mention any of this to Steve.

The next day, my fellow judges and I interviewed the contestants at some meeting hall in the Meatpacking District. There were six of us, all from various backgrounds. Thankfully, none of them were employed in the entertainment industry. Merry stood to the side, occasionally throwing amorous glances my way, as the interviews began. This segment of the competition accounted for a third of the score. The girls came out and stood in front of us, one after another, enduring a barrage of questions for about five minutes or so. They were generally of the softball variety: “What’s your favorite film?” and so forth.

Considering the protests nearby, there were a few queries regarding the invasion of Iraq. The girls possessed incredible poise, well practiced in the art of fielding questions. And they were as beautiful as the black and white photos in the binders. I asked one of the contestants, “What’s your favorite Beatles song?” She appropriately responded that you couldn’t really pick just one. Grinning sheepishly, I stayed silent for the rest of her turn.

Afterwards, the judges and the pageant staff, including Merry, had dinner. Unfortunately, the contestants would not be joining us. They would be sequestered, eliminating any chance of cavorting with a judge. Alas, my co-workers’ fantasies (and mine) would not come to fruition. The big show was tomorrow, so Merry and I kept the drinking to a minimum that evening. The previous night was not mentioned and there was no further offerings of a bed. I laid on the couch, bummed about failing to capitalize on my position as a judge.

The pageant was held at an YMCA auditorium in Midtown. A few hundred spectators, mostly friends and family of the contestants, filled the small arena. A friend of Merry’s almost blew my cover. A short, bearded hobbit of a man peppered me with questions about directing music videos. I humbly deflected them, claiming ‘it was no big deal.’ Thankfully, the pageant had begun and I took my seat at the judge’s table.

The first event was the talent competition. One of the girls, a slightly overweight African-American, crooned an opera song that blew everyone away. She was amazingly talented, having done exceptionally well in the interviews, as well. A few others sang, a few danced. One performed an acting scene, one juggled. My personal favorite- and I think I speak for my fellow judges, who all happened to be male- was the belly dancer, who gyrated her sexy little body at the edge of the stage, right in front of us. It took incredible restraint not to fling a dollar bill at her.

Next was the swimsuit competition. And this proved to be the downfall of the opera singer. I’m not being sexist here, believe me. She was at least 30 pounds overweight, not exactly the body type that captures the Miss America title. And that’s what we were searching for, the girl with the best chance to win the whole thing. This portion of the show winnowed the field to just a handful of candidates. Jessica Lynch seemed to be the front runner. She aced the interview, had a solid dancing routine, and looked fantastic in a bikini. I mean, she looked like a pageant winner. Interestingly, she shared the name of the Iraq war hero who was rescued around that time.

The final segment was the evening wear competition. Here the girls were judged on their poise, along with their (well rehearsed) answers as to what they would do as pageant winners. Everyone was terrific, racking up near perfect scores. Fairly or not, it was the swimsuit deal that would decide this affair. It was no surprise to anyone when a crown was placed on Jessica’s well-coiffed head.

The judges and staff met Jessica afterwards, congratulating her. I gushed something incoherent to her, unable to muster the charm I unleashed on Merry that night at Duke’s… Jessica was stunning. My type, too, a petite brunette. Those girls generally don’t win the big prizes, though. And sure enough, six months later in Atlantic City, she failed to make the first cut.

Back in Los Angeles, I was revered at my crappy job. Everyone asked about the pageant. I regaled them with tales of the Eyes Wide Shut party and the belly dancer, among other highlights. My liberal cohorts excitedly asked me about the protests. I told them that I had, as a matter of fact, met Jessica Lynch. I shook her hand and spoke with her and everything. “Is she against the war?” they inquired, eagerly anticipating my answer.  I tried to recall the interview session with her. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

During the college years, nothing quite compared with winter break. For two weeks, you hung out with old friends, swapping tales of debauchery at your respective schools. The alcohol fueled banter typically devolved into a contest of one-upmanship that fostered envy for those who registered low on the hedonism scale. What’s more, family members treated you like a conquering hero, returning from the ivy strewn battlefield, a little wiser (and a tad less humble). The best part was nothing was expected of you. You didn’t have to toil at some menial job or cram for some meaningless exam. The past consisted wholly of last semester and the future was solely the start of a new one. All you had, really, was the present. Never again in the course of life would the bells of carpe diem ring so loudly.

One of these memorable times occurred during sophomore year, a few days before Christmas. Jeff, Ruch, Cincilla and I lounged around Party Dave’s living room (Party Dave was an older guy, around 30, who bought us beers) watching the lackluster Monday Night Football game. We knew this slothful activity would not suffice for a phenomenon so ephemeral- and potentially epic- as winter break. So we decided to take a roadtrip. To Canada. In a massive snowstorm. Toronto was a good six hour drive in normal conditions. There was no telling how long it would take now. And it’s not like we would be making the journey in an elite automobile, tested to excel in inclement weather. No, we would be taking my dad’s 1985 Dodge Astro van, our default vehicle for any excursion outside Allentown.

I told my dad we were going to Scranton, two hours away. The van was dark green with a light green stripe down the middle, a whimsical mockery, perhaps, of high octane racing cars. Its most prominent feature was the homemade roof rack, built and assembled by my father himself (his handiman skills, alas, were not passed onto me). There were no seats in the back, a purposeful arrangement designed to haul supplies- or, in our case, to sprawl out leisurely on the floor and consume alcohol. Whether the van would make the distant trek across international borders never even crossed our young, insouciant minds. Looking back, that should have been a paramount concern.

The next stop was Jeff’s house, where not only did his father, whom we admired for his carefree ways, pack sandwiches for our trip, he altered our destination. Toronto, he claimed, was ‘too Christian.’ Where we wanted to go was Quebec. Eyeing the Rand McNally map spread out on the kitchen table, I grinned at the name of the border town directly across the river from Ottawa. Shortly before midnight, armed with a case of Narragansett, a dozen balogna sandwiches and a bag of Herr’s potato chips, our trip to Hull had begun.

As usual, Jeff drove. A natural behind the wheel- he would become a driver for Federal Express- Jeff was a good looking, terribly shy kid with olive skin that tanned easily. His complexion was the source of ridicule from my older brother and his cohorts who deemed him too dark for our all-white neighborhood. We guzzled Narragansetts, playing various drinking games to pass the time. Even Jeff participated, abiding by Cincilla’s (wildly irresponsible) mantra crafted at Virginia Military Institute: ‘the driver never asks, the driver never opens.’ It was tradition, after polishing off a beer, to crumple the can and chuck it violently against the back door of the van. The metallic clanging signified, I suppose, a newly carved notch in our machismo belts.

We made decent time despite the blizzard. After five hours on the road, a fatigued, and possibly inebriated, Jeff pulled the van over. Ruch would drive the rest of the way. Ruch was a skinny, athletic kid who could run down a jackrabbit. This swapping of personnel, though prudent on paper, would prove to be a colossal mistake.

Approaching the border, we gathered up the empty beers cans- the case was nearly depleted- and tossed them in a plastic bag. More than the beer cans, it was the radar detector that worried me. Our friend who had let us borrow it told me that these devices were highly illegal in Canada.

We composed ourselves, sitting upright, like earnest schoolkids on the first day of class, as the van chugged slowly up to the booth. Ruch cranked the window open. An arctic blast blew in, chilling us. The hefty, baby-faced guard sized up the odd looking van and its youthful inhabitants.

“Where you from?”

“Um, back there…” For some reason, this line of questioning stumped Ruch (now a high school physics teacher). He gestured with his thumb, thrusting it backwards. “North America.”

“Where you going?”

“Quebec.” Strike two. At the time, tensions between Ontario- all of English speaking Canada, really- and French dipped Quebec were high. Talks of secession were being bandied about on the news.

“Where you staying?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pull over to the shoulder.”

And there we were, at the crack of dawn, four underaged college kids in a crappy, two-toned green van with a homemade roof rack awaiting our fate. The slew of beer cans and the radar detector would surely doom us. A female mountie, around 30, fully decked out in the traditional red uniform and furry hat, searched the vehicle. A drunken Cincilla barked out, “Don’t touch my tighty-whities!”

I slugged him, not finding the situation humorous in the least. After all, this was my dad’s van, his only mode of transportation. What if it got impounded? What if my parents had to drive all the way to the border to pick us up? In a driving snowstorm, no less. These thoughts ricocheted through my mind as the mountie rifled through our belongings.

“Open the hood,” she said, more pleasant than officious. I think she realized by now that we were relatively harmless. But she had a job to do, and apparently that involved searching for drugs hidden inside the hood. We dubbed it the Bob Probert rule, after the NHL goon who got busted for smuggling coke into Windsor in the hood of his sports car.

Jeff tugged on the lever, but it wouldn’t budge. I told him that it’s tricky; you have to pull really hard. And so he did. After a few attempts, he yanked the lever right out of its bearing. He held the foot long metal stick in his hand. I gaped at it, horrified. The mountie laughed.

I was fuming, once again thinking of my poor dad. He labored day and night at a cement plant, often working overtime, to support our family. And here’s his youngest, dipshit son taking full advantage of his kindness. After a quick check of the hood, the mountie let us go. Cincilla asked if we could take a picture with her, and she obliged. The photo of the four of us, arms around the uniformed mountie, grinning stupidly in the freezing cold, remains one of my favorites to this day.

Our troubles, however, had only begun. We decided to stay in Ottawa and unleash our shenanigans across the river. A reasonable plan, to be sure. The Holiday Inn even had an underground parking garage, which would serve the van well in the snowy conditions. Ruch steered the van slowly down the ramp. The sign above the entrance read: ‘8 foot clearance.’ Ruch assured us it would fit. We had no reason to doubt him.

The sound was excrucriating. The roof rack snagged onto the metal piping that lined the roof of the garage like a gigantic spider web. We had no choice but to keep inching forward, dragging the pipes a few feet till they snapped. Ruch parked the van in the first available spot and we checked the damage. The roof rack laid on its side, ripped off its mounting brackets. The broken hood lever was bad enough, though explicable. This would be tougher to justify. Cincilla cracked open one of the remaining beers and, at his jocular insistence, we took another picture. This one featured Cincilla, Narragansett in hand, an oversized smile stapled to his face as he stood on the step of the side door, eye to eye with the fallen roof rack.

The previous year we had concocted an ad campaign centered around Narrangansett, which we felt was an underappreciated brand, especially at $5 a case (an extra quarter if you wanted it cold). Every landmark we encountered, my friends and I would snap a photo of us holding a can of the stuff. We were the ‘Gansett Guys. This campaign, unfortunately, like so many youthful fantasies, never materialized past the concept stage.

The day was uneventful, consisting mainly of catching up on sleep and swimming in the indoor pool. We did venture into town to buy tools to repair the roof rack. Ruch said it was fixable, and once again, we had no reason to discount his assertion. The advertised special in the hardware store was ‘tax free!’, a hefty discount knowing the astronomical rates up North. Our attempts to fix the roof rack, though, proved to be futile.

Later that night, we polished off a case of Molson in the hotel room- there was no Narragansett to be found- before going out. It was our first venture into Hull. Everything was in French, a language that among us only Jeff had a rudimentary knowledge of. We frequented a couple bars along the main strip. Perhaps because it was a Tuesday, on the verge of Christmas, there were relatively few patrons inside- and no girls. I silently cursed Jeff’s dad, thinking that we should have stuck to our initial plan. Like instincts, the first ones are usually the best.

Around midnight, Jeff and Ruch called it a night. I drove them to the hotel, then headed back across the river. Naturally, Cincilla joined me. Not possessing Jeff’s navigational skills, I got lost, flummoxed by the French road signs. On a barren highway somewhere on the outskirts of Hull, Cincilla spotted two cute, college aged girls tramping down the shoulder. I pulled over and offered them a ride. Considering the subfreezing temperature- and the fact that we looked somewhat decent- they quickly climbed in the side door.

One rode shotgun, while the other sat in the back with Cincilla. The girls claimed they were students. I asked mine about her school and major, not believing our incredible luck in finding them. I thought of how impressed Jeff and Ruch would be when we brought the girls back to our hotel room. We didn’t get more than a quarter mile, though, when the one in the back shrieked, “pull over!” I instantly complied.

“This sonofabitch is trying to get a hand job!” She slid open the side door and hopped out. Her friend in shotgun had no choice but to join her. I looked at Cincilla, who shrugged with the innocence of a 5-year-old after scarfing down a forbidden cookie… Well, I couldn’t let them just go, not like this. So I jumped out and apologized for my friend. My girl seemed to like me and, more pressingly, did not want to endure the cold again. She pleaded with her friend that we were ‘nice guys.’ Moments later, they returned to the comforts of the van.

As I drove towards the hotel, the flimsy veneer of their collegiate status quickly vanished. They wanted money for sexual favors. We parried that we were good looking guys and shouldn’t have to pay. Heck, they should be happy just to be with us. We had reached a stalemate. The girls sensed that we didn’t have any money, and they weren’t wrong. While crossing a rustic bridge, the girl in the back had had enough- we were wasting her time. She screamed at me to pull over. And I did. Enraged, she yanked the door open and scurried out. Then, with all her might, she slammed it shut. Good riddance, I thought. It was almost 3 in the morning.

But the door wouldn’t shut; it had come off its hinges. Cincilla and I braved the blustery wind, trying to close it. I almost broke down in tears, thinking of my poor dad. First the hood lever, then the roof rack, now the goddamn door. No doubt the police would swoop by and haul us in. How would we explain the busted door? Or the scores of empty beer cans strewn across the back of the van, now clearly visible?

It took us over a hour to get back to the hotel. Not only did the French signs confuse me, I was consumed with rage over the stupid girl (whore!) who broke my dad’s door. I silently swore that I’d make changes in my life… no more drinking. No more fucking around. I’d stay on the straight and narrow from this point on. We finally arrived at the Holiday Inn, a most welcome sight. But my angst quickly flared up again when we noticed that the parking garage was closed for the night. We’d have to leave the van in the lot, completely open and vulnerable.

I climbed out of the van and tried once again to repair the door. Cincilla shot off like a rocket, scampering across the icy parking lot, towards the town. I had no choice but to trot after the crazy bastard. We had walked this route earlier, so it was somewhat familiar. And there, in the distance, I saw an amazing sight: Cincilla scaling the side of a brick townhouse, quick and nimble. Reaching the second floor, he reached over and ripped the Canada flag right off the pole. (This might be my faulty memory, but I swore he swung gallantly through the air, like a swashbuckling pirate, treasure in hand.) A much needed smile spread across my face. Stifling our giddiness, we bolted back to the hotel. Canada wasn’t getting the best of us, not tonight. After all, we were the ‘Gansett guys.

We woke up a few hours later to a wonderful surprise: Ruch had fixed the door. Cincilla and I had rousted him and Jeff out of bed, regaling them with our tale of woe and triumph. And to his eternal credit, Ruch endured the arctic conditions sometime around dawn, removed the door, reconfigured it, and slapped it back on. This unexpected repair job more than made up for his prior mishaps.

We packed up our stuff and drove home. Not only couldn’t we afford another night at a hotel, Jeff’s work shift at Hometown Buffet- which seemed important at the time- started in eight hours. The drive was quiet and somber, as it tends to be on the return trip. After dropping off Jeff and Ruch, I went to Cincilla’s house. He claimed his next door neighbor was a mechanical wiz. And sure enough, over a few cans of ‘Gansett, he had welded the roof rack back to normal. Naturally, a new picture was taken.

All I had to do now was explain the broken hood lever. And that could have happened over a routine oil check. Heck, my dad might’ve yanked it out himself. For all intents and purposes, I was in the clear… That is, until my utter cheapness doomed me. Instead of developing the photos myself, I gave the disposable camera to my mom. Upon returning from K-Mart, she handed me the envelope full of pictures, a slight grin on her lips. “Scranton, huh?” To this day, I don’t knew if she ever ratted me out to my dad. The subject was never broached again. The Canadian flag, though, hung proudly on my dorm room wall all spring semester.