“Now look here, Wes,” I wrote in a letter, “You're the Bookie Bitch, you have to look over the numbers and keep them in order.” I'm not good with the numbers. Any of them. Except maybe zero. Not much to deal with there. Although I've been told by wiser men that it can present some pretty serious problems. (?)

“I'm going to take a risk and see if I can explain this better,” Heather wrote back, “because you're dreaming if you think we're spending our precious two week vacation tracking down internet cafes and calculating up your scores everyday.”

She then instructed me to go to a web page of some sort. Which to this day I have never visited.

“When do you start your new hockey week?” she continued. “Sunday? On Sunday, look at your hockey card and figure out which teams you have. On that webpage, after each team's name they have some numbers, e.g. (42-16-5, 89 pts). I think that means your team has 89 points at this stage in the season. So, figure out the total number of points for all of your teams added together. That's your starting point. Each day you can then add up the total points for all of your teams and subtract the starting number to figure out how you are doing for the week, or you can save the surprise until the end of the week, add up your new total point number and subtract your starting number.”

LALALALALALA! I hope you didn't read that last paragraph. I didn't. Out of my peripheral vision I saw all those numbers in her letter and I just skipped down to right here. What is she doing in this conversation anyway? I told Wes that he better get his woman under control or I'd call a government agency of some sort for letting his woman run around all higgledy piggledy writing letters with numbers in them at people. It's just not right.

“Fine, fuck you all,” Wes wrote back. At least he was being agreeable. “I was just trying to help you guys out so maybe you wouldn't end up with your fingers all tied up in knots while Heather and I are away. Being that Dave is completely numerically challenged and Pat rounds all numbers over twenty back down to twenty I can't believe I ever thought...never mind.”

“Just because you're going to Turkey ,” I said, “doesn't mean you can stop playing Bookie Bitch. You're obligated to continue your duty to the club regardless of hippies and eclipses.”

They were going to Turkey to see an eclipse. The Eclipse, as I understand it. Best eclipse ever apparently. I told him he could give me their airfare and I'd let them stand in my room while I turned off the light for a couple minutes before turning it back on again. Or I could put tape over the hole of a record and, very slowly, pass it in front of a light bulb. He said I was stupid.

“Don't they have the internet in Turkey ?” I asked. Probably not. “They must have phones right? Well then you can call me each morning from Turkey and I'll read you the scores over the phone and then you can add it up on your abacus and tell me who's got what and then I'll send the email out. Please don't call before 8 am PST. Thank you. Your mom's fingers are in knots.”

I was told later that Heather made an attempt to respond to this last letter of mine, but Wes intervened and prevented her from sending the nasty words that were spinning around in her head. With numbers dressed up as suicide bombers. That was a close one.

Wes, however, still patently refused to continue to perform his duties as the Bookie Bitch while he was in Turkey with the hippies and The Eclipse. He kept using the word “vacation” and cited some ancient laws that he claimed exempted him from doing work while on “vacation.”

I went on the internet and looked up “internet cafes Turkey .” I found a great number of them all over Turkey . So they do have the internet! One in particular looked very interesting to me. It's called the Livan Internet Café in Istanbul . Once at their website I clicked on the button that said “ Fotog?raflarim” which I correctly guessed was the photo album. I wanted to see pictures of the interior to make sure that the café I sent Wes and Heather to was clean and decent. Plus I wanted to see if they really had computers. Just because they have an internet café doesn't mean I was wholly convinced they had the internet. The Big Fish Bar and Grill, for instance, has neither big fishes nor a grill.

Within the Livan Internet Café's “ Fotog?raflarim” I found a picture of a little naked Turkish boy standing in a blue bucket being bathed by a large woman with a mustache. It said, “ Banyo sahnesi :)” beside it. I have no idea what that means, but I was satisfied that Wes could deal with the numbers at the Livan Internet Café. It appeared to be a fine establishment.

“Yes,” I wrote, “not only am I thinking that you two will spend at least part of your two week vacation fulfilling your duties as the Bookie Bitch, and the Bookie Bitch's bitch, but so is the rest of the club. We are all counting on you to spend whatever part of your two-week vacation it requires to make sure that the gentlemen's hockey club's scores are in order. I even went to the trouble of finding you a cafe. The Livan Internet Cafe is in Istanbul and it's number 33 on Sefir Sok street . Unless Sok means street , in which case it's at 33 Sefir Street . And as you can see in the attached picture you can also bathe a naked Turkish child in a blue bucket while tallying up the scores! Eclipse? Pah!”

The response I got was a simple, but defiant, “No.”

“You can purchase a map from a local cartographer,” I suggested, “or ask the concierge at your hostel, or the shaman (or whatever those blasted people call the head devil worshipper) at the local mosque, or board a bus and ask the driver—do they have buses, or do they ride donkeys? Either way there will surely be a driver of some sort. Or just ask the monkey grinder on the corner. He'll know.”

There was no response. I took their silence to mean that they didn't like the Livan Internet Café. Perhaps Sefir Street is in a bad neighborhood? Or even worse, too nice of a neighborhood.

“So you don't like the Livan Internet Cafe?” I asked. “Fine. I admit, it will probably be a little hard for Wes to concentrate on the numbers with a bunch of naked Turkish boys bathing in blue buckets all around him. Why don't you give me the address of where you're staying and I'll find the nearest place where you can access NHL.com.”

I never heard back from them before their departure and I was forced to assume that they would not be visiting the Livan Internet Café to record the hockey scores or to bathe little naked Turkish boys in blue buckets. Or perhaps they would be visiting the Livan Internet Café, but only to bathe the naked Turkish boys in blue buckets? In short, I had to assume that the numbers were going to be left unattended while they were on “vacation.” Turkey was giving me an erection.

As I mentioned, numbers have not been one of my strong points. I don't like the cut of their jib. And I told them so. “DON'T BE SURPRISED IF DOUG IS IN FIRST PLACE WHEN YOU GET BACK!” I yelled. Doug, poor, poor Doug. Doug is in Sixth, last place. I was down there hanging out with him for a while but I went to the airport and boarded a flight to First Place . Unfortunately there was a layover in Fifth Place and my flight to Fourth Place has been delayed. For weeks. Still anything is better than being stuck in Sixth. That town stinks. I'm thinking of renting a car and just driving to Third. I just put air in my bicycle tires. I don't think they heard me.

Two weeks later they returned and the numbers were all a mess. I take full responsibility. No I don't. I did ask Pat for help and I think that's when things went awry. So I guess I'm blaming Pat? I can't even be certain if I was talking to Pat. It might have been his friend Jim, from Kentucky . Jim is a dick.

“What do the numbers mean?” I was having a heck of a time.

He sent me an equation that he claimed he found in an old bag of mesquite chips he found on his back porch.

82x5divi6~%7@5$ = cock for doug

Now that I look at it, it does look like it's been out in the rain awhile.

Wes and Heather finally returned from Turkey , but Air France lost their luggage. Apparently Air France 's customer representatives have been anything but helpful in getting their stuff back to them. I taught them a few French cuss words and some customary greetings that I learned while working in that damn cookie dough factory.

“That's Spanish,” Wes said.

So they speak Spanish in Turkey now. They still speak Douganese in Sixth.