Having never met the guy, nor even talked to him on the phone, I had no idea what to expect. I called his cell phone to see when he would be arriving.

“Yeah?”

“Shank?”

There was a long silence. “Yeah?”

“It’s Paul. What’s happening?”

“I’m driving. Fast.” His voiced seemed calmer and deeper than I imagined. I could detect no outward signs of a mental disorder.

“How far out are you?”

“A couple of hours.”

We talked about beer for a minute and it was over. I was somewhat relieved that he didn’t sound crazy—I had a very real fear he would sound like he was on meth or something.

When the doorbell rang I was still apprehensive. I opened up and there he was; a normal looking guy. I would go so far as to say innocent looking. Life hadn’t yet beaten him into the ground.

Once inside the questions started from both sides. He seemed very polite. Too polite. I thought maybe I was being duped. He’d act all polite and everything and then go berserk and pee on the carpet or something. We discussed the serial killer theories from both viewpoints, seeing as how we didn’t really know each other from Adam. He would accept nothing from us except bottled beer. Maybe he thought we’d try to poison him, or at least drug him up.

About fifteen minutes after he got there my wife went outside and backed into his car right in the driveway. I guess that loosened things up because the cocktails started flowing, the shoes came off and we relaxed and started talking shit about other bloggers. Much shit was dished out as is often the case when the other people aren’t around to make it a fair fight. Somehow I expected him to talk faster and be more aggressive, but he was pretty laid back and comfortable in his skin.

He made some classic comments, like, “Your wife really looks a lot younger than you.” I’m not sure if it was a compliment to my wife or a statement about my age. Anyway, he turned out to be a very intelligent guy and not a raving lunatic. In fact he was really nice guy who I consider a friend.

The next morning he was hammering beers by 8:00AM, much to my wife’s amusement. Somehow I don’t think she’d be amused if I did that alone, but Shank was a guest and was on vacation, so it seemed reasonable. Then we talked more shit about other bloggers and how we dislike most everything about the human race.

I wish he could have stayed longer.