We don't want money. We just really want Carl.

He has the best jeans and the best jean jacket.

He orders scotch after the rest of us ordered light beer. He consistently stands as if atop a mountain. He drives a stick shift.

One time, he said he almost joined the French Foreign Legion.

So we kidnapped him.

Sure, he's not a kid, but there's not a word for stealing a man, especially not the best man god found fit to make.

Vegas! he cries as he does doughnuts around his cul-de-sac.

While we're absconding with him, Carl tells us what it's like to sleep with Kyle's sister Christine. Even Kyle laughs because he knows Carl's being an awesome hostage.

He sends Dimitri for road beers. He asks Lucy what's the best part of being a lesbian. He puts his blindfold on Terrance while Terrance is driving because car crashes give Carl an erection.

The best, Carl's just the best.

He proves it again when he punches a valet and starts a brawl outside the casino.

And, sure, Raymond succumbs to the knifing, but a crime—by definition—has a victim.

This is kidnapping, not bowling.

Bowling. That's what we'd be doing if we hadn't kidnapped Carl after he said he was going to leave Kyle's sister. We'd be bowling. Like some asshole's step-dad.

Instead, we're drinking bourbon at a blackjack table as Carl tells us about a time he won $87. It's our money he's playing with, but we're the kidnappers so the fiscal responsibility really should be ours.

That's also why we pay for the lap dances. We think a strip club might be far enough on a school night, but then Carl comes out of the Diamond Room wearing pink handcuffs and yells, Brothel!

Does this township even have one? Danny asks.

Should we send Christine some proof of life? Kyle says. So she doesn't worry?

Let's go look at some big dicks! Carl shrieks.

And maybe it's not the worst idea to hide him where no one will want to look.

Because we can't let anyone take him from us. Not the police who chased us after the stripper fire nor Christine who won't stop calling.

I wanna shoot a priest, Carl mutters.

Jesus, Carl, dial it back, Kyle says.
   
And we agree, but how thoughtful of Carl to bring a gun to his own kidnapping. He even lets us carry it, drunk and stumbling through the desert after we wrecked the minivan.

If we have learned one thing—and we haven't, we have learned many things, including where to buy angel dust—it's that we shouldn't allow anyone to hold our love ransom.

That's what Carl screamed before he ran away to be racist at the moon.

We chase after him, firing the gun at the night's white eye, never to know if we missed.



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