Hi
Like many great nights with the Prince, T-Man, AJ and I, The Night of Plainfield started with an idea...
An idea that called for passion, love, physical and mental endurance, competition, and above all, cornfields. An idea that would require four young men to brave the southwest suburbs and come out (of the cornfields) victorious. To learn the inner, deep secrets of our souls and come out united as brothers in arms...
You may be thinking to yourself, There goes Imran being all dramatic again. But I assure you, I am not. Nay! For rather The Night of Plainfield is a night that will not be forgotten and is by no means something to take lightly (okay, that was a tad bit dramatic). And at the end of reading the story of The Night of Plainfield, you will be a believer that great things start with an idea............
And now onwards with the story...
***
"Pac Daddy! Do you know what we are doing this weekend?!" a gleeful and excited AH asks.
"Yes. I'll be mowing the yard, hangin with my family, AJ, and..." I started to respond (yes, I am in fact Pac Daddy -- make no mistakes, ladies).
"No! Me, you, and T-Money [Taha] are sleeping over in Plainville [Plainfield]."
My eyes widended. "Don't f-ing joke like that if you don't mean it..." But I already got ahead of myself. In fact, I was already thinking of where those two would sleep in my room. Taha on the floor in my closet (how appropriate, right?). Hassan in my bathtub.
"Dude," Hassan continued, "I totally mean it. This is what's going to happen: We're coming to crash in Plainville. We'll watch a movie, rent porn, and play Madden all night. Then, on Saturday, we're going to Great America. Make this happen, Pac. Make it so."
My initial thought was, Porn? How come he said that so naturally...? Anyway, "make it so," I would. But the only problem I had with this was that I was supposed to have an exclusive AJ-Imran Night on Friday. These nights are amongst the most enjoyable nights for both AJ and myself. They are therapeutic in nature. AJ escapes the wife and I escape mine (i.e. work). On these nights we come up with the most brilliant ideas and sayings while enjoying wonderous feasts at Shahi, A&W, and/or Baskin Robbins. You see, you have to understand that AJ and I complete one another. But more on this later...
So I also realized that the "promise" (take that word lightly with people from STL, folks) of having Hassan and Taha sleep over was far too tempting. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that not even AJ could pass up on this type of opportunity. So I proposed the plan to AJ, who readily accepted the idea. The only other obstacle I had to face at that point was my mother and Nani. You see, the past few months or so I've been really busy with work. So much so that it seemed like I never saw my family (yes, I'm crying you a river), so I know the idea of spending the majority of the weekend with friends was not going to go too well. But fortunately, fate was on my side and my mom was a-okay with the idea. A little bit of like, WTF, Imran? But, like most people, she fell victim to my charm and masoom ways. Simply put, I'm irrestible to everyone.
Friday: The Night of Nights
After taking care of business on Friday I picked up Taha from his apartment and Hassan followed us in his car. Basically, Taha and I knew that we were going to be so sick of Hassan praising himself the entire weekend that we were like, Okay, this will be the only sane, normal part of the weekend, so let's go in the same car and leave Hassan by himself. This made even more sense considering that Hassan was on the phone the entire drive from the city to Plainfield. I'm not sure to whom he was speaking to, but apparently it was some chick. Surprise, surprise. The dude is always talkin to some chick, man. On one night it'll be one of his hot nurses. Another night a southern belle from Texas. And yet other nights to multiple, random girls he met at multiple, random clubs. But that's another story for another posting...
So, anyway, on the way home I have to admit that I was absolutely petrified of Taha. Per the phone convos he was having on the way there, he wanted to kill someone. Or perhaps an entire race of people. I won't get into the details, but regardless, I was scared and remained quiet. When Taha asked what was wrong, I simply responded, "Sir! Yes, sir! Nothing wrong, sir! Should I jump off a bridge sir?" I couldn't even look him in the eye. His killer look and protruding biceps are major intimidation factors in my life. But don't tell him I said that. God knows that his ego will get bigger than his larger-than-life nose (is that even possible?) if he hears that from me.
At the arrival of the Pac Daddy's crib, my boys were greeted by my momz who was working in the garden. Without hesitation, AH & Taha started to make fun of me. "Aunty, shouldn't this fat, lazy son of yours be helping out?" Punks. I think their main motivation to coming to my house is so that they can egg on my mom! And of course my mom is no help. "Yes, you're so right," is what she replies with. (Later on when Taha will leave, she'll tell me, Beta, thumhara dost ko dhayko. Kithna acha aur fit lagta hae? Vhat happened to you?) So, anyway, the first thing Taha and Hassan do when they get inside is head up to my room and get comfortable on my bed.
They then started to make demands.
"Well, Taha," Hassan started, "wouldn't it be great to have something to drink?"
"Yeah. I think if we were in STL we would already have food, drinks, blah, blah, blah" Taha said.
I kindly reminded both a-holes that the fridge was downstairs and they could help themselves. I mean, WTF?! Typical sons of doctors, man. They expect to be pampered hand-and-foot. Didn't they realize they weren't in Oakbrook? If you come to my house, you're family. Make yourself at home, people.
So we waited for my man AJ to get to my crib and then we began feasting on some special type of paratas my mom made at the last minute. I think they were good, but I don't recall because AH had eaten his share plus mine and probably a little bit of AJ's. Okay, so maybe I did just write "make yourself at home," but I am desi...you don't actually think that I mean it, do you?! Don't f-ing touch my kana! Samaj agay, baysharam?!!
So the agenda of the night was going to be simple. The four of us were gonna go bowling near a new really nice Brunswick Zone that opened up in my area. After bowling, we were gonna come back and play Madden, rent a movie (no, not porn! Azubillah!), and go to bed. Little did we know or could ever phathom at that time the allure of the cornfields...
We hop into AJ's car, bumping to some dance music and then some terrible gora music that both Ahmeds seemed to love. "Idea!" yells AH. "We should have Saint Louis versus Chicago when we bowl."
"Dude, hell yeah. Bring it, man. We'll fricken rock you!!" AJ and I boomed simutaneously.
And so for the next five minutes we went back-n-forth on our typical Stl vs Chicago banter. Basically, AJ and I extend a courtesy of entertaining our Saint Louis neighbors to think that there should be comparisons drawn in the first place. They seem none the wiser and you can tell they feel good about themselves, so we just carry on playing their childish and ultimately futile game. But we did manage to touch upon an important point of contention:
Who is the better best friends pair? AJ-Imran who've known each other for just 6 (amazing) years or AH-Taha who've known each other all their lives? It should be noted that during this argument, Taha remained largely quiet. I still haven't figured out what that means, but that can't be good for Hassan, I guess. Whatever... So, I finally close the argument for once and for all by narrating how AJ and I are (mashaAllah) friends & brothers of destiny and the ruh:
"Hassan. I don't care about your stories of you and Taha throwing some kid down the laundry shoot when you were kids. Listen to this: My freshmen year on campus at DePaul, my internal voicemail that I left had the song Satellite by Dave Matthews in the background. And later on I became UMMA's (= DePaul's MSA) Jummah coordinator. Well, three years later [AJ is indeed a young lad] his freshmen year --without ever meeting me at this point -- AJ's voicemail set-up had the exact same song playing in the background. AND later on, he, too, became UMMA's Jummah coordinator. Now if that's not destiny on a whole other level, then I don't know what is. The fact is that in your cute little social circle in STL, you were forced into your friendship with T-Man because there were not many other options..."
Hassan opened his mouth to retaliate, but the only words that came out was, "Really?"
Again, Chicago won the battle and the war. Case closed. AJ + Pac = Completion.
As we continued on the drive, we noticed that right next to an industrial park there was a massive cornfield. And the stalks were incredibley tall. Hassan mused (enter "the idea"), "How crazy would it be to walk in the middle of thoses cornfields? Like run through them and go to the middle of the field." Keep in mind, the area was not especially well lit. Taha was all for it, as was I. AJ was a hesitant, "Yeah, I'm down." Then Hassan took it a step further and offered the idea that to make it challenging, we should have teams. One person from each team would stand towards the middle of the cornfield and once arrived at an agreed upon location, would signal the person from his team to come find him. This was to be done at the same time and the first pair out would win. The idea was enthralling. We all got that ColdStone Creamery feeling. You know, that feeling of having butterflies in your stomach because you're uncertain what flavor combination you're going to enjoy. Much the same, we were all uncertain what was going to happen at the cornfields, but we were definitely excited about it...
So finally we arrive at Brunswick Zone. Hassan took the lead by flirting with one of the attendants and thereby successfully getting us a discount. (You should see the man in action. Sigh.) And then the bowling began. Saint Louis versus Chi Town in an epic battle of all things amazing. My source of inspiration on wanting to win came from the following question and subsequent answer: Would Kanye West ever lose in a rap battle against Nelly? I think not! So I had to represent...
Unfortunately, being a relative virgin in bowling (hmm...relative virginity; now that's an interesting topic), I was told that whatever score I came up with would be doubled. I was insulted, but as the night progressed, I found that it would be inevitably necessary in order to give Chicago a chance. Now that I'm trying to recall the scores, I don't think that doubling my score made much of a difference. Chicago lost and often times I saw Taha whispering to AJ what appeared to be, I'm sorry Imran sucks. In fact, I was so bad (initially) that AJ, Taha, and Hassan had to teach me how to bowl. "Throw down the middle, Pac!" could often times be heard when it was my turn to bowl. Frustrated and embarrassed, Taha at one point walks up with me despite my protests. I wasn't a little kid, but he threatened to punch me if I stopped him from showing me how to do it. What made matters worse was that there were all these fobs in the lane next to us and they were pretty decent. Fobs! Better than me! In fact, a petite girl half my size would go up there and throw the ball (with two hands) and hit more pins than I would despite her ball going 0.000000025 miles per hour. Eventually, though, I got my game together and was the unanimous most improved player. Watch out next time, folks...
The scoring highs:
Imran: I bowled a *cough* *cough* (sorry, not feeling well).
AJ: Got over a hundred.
T-Man: 120 or 130 something.
AH: 140 something.
I don't really care what those other guys bowled. All I know is that I was the most improved player. And dammit that counts for something! Well, to get some great clips on the bowling adventures, check out Google Video. Specifically, click here.
After a solid 1.5 - 2hrs of bowling, we started to drive back home, but not without helping ourselves to a much needed and well deserved, large size Frosty at Wendys. At that point, we could have gone home and relaxed by playing some Madden and hanging out, but then we came across the cornfield again.
It beckoned to us. No, rather it yearned for us to enter it. As the corn stalks silently and eerily swayed back and forth, it whispered, Enter me if you are so worthy to do so. We slowed the car down and looked at each other and nodded. We knew what the purpose of this night was to be. It was right there for us. Taunting us...
*** to be continued ***
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