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"Doesn't mean anything. Problem with you is that if you talk to her you'll "uh um uh' your way to disaster."

"Don't be so hard on him," the Colonel interrupted, as if he was my mom. "God, I understand whale anatomy.

Can we move on now, Herman?"

"So Jake is going to be in Birmingham this weekend, and we're going on a triple date. Well, triple and a half, since Takumi will be there, too. Very low pressure. You won't be able to screw up, because I'll be there the whole time."

"Okay."

"Who's my date?" the Colonel asked.

"Your girlfriend is your date."

"All right," he said, and then deadpanned, "but we don't get along very well."

"So Friday? Do you have plans for Friday?" And then I laughed, because the Colonel and I didn't have plans for this Friday, or for any other Friday for the rest of our lives.

"I didn't think so." She smiled. "Now, we gotta go do dishes in the cafeteria, Chipper. God, the sacrifices I make."

Our triple-and-a-half date started off well enough. I was in Alaska's room — for the sake of getting me a girlfriend, she'd agreed to iron a green button-down shirt for me — when Jake showed up. With blond hair to his shoulders, dark stubble on his cheeks, and the kind of faux-ruggedness that gets you a career as a catalog model, Jake was every bit as good-looking and you'd expect Alaska's boyfriend to be. She jumped onto him and wrapped her legs around him (God forbid anyone ever does that to me,I thought. Ill fall over).I'd heard Alaska talkabout kissing, but I'd never seen her kiss until then: As he held her by her waist, she leaned forward, her pouty lips parted, her head just slightly tilted, and enveloped his mouth with such passion that I felt I should look away but couldn't. A good while later, she untangled herself from Jake and introduced me.

"This is Pudge," she said. Jake and I shook hands.

"I've heard a lot about ya." He spoke with a slight Southern accent, one of the few I'd heard outside of McDonald's. "I hope your date works out tonight, 'cause I wouldn't want you stealin' Alaska out from under me."

"God, you're so adorable," Alaska said before I could answer, kissing him again. "I'm sorry." She laughed. "I just can't seem to stop kissing my boyfriend."

I put on my freshly starched green shirt, and the three of us gathered up the Colonel, Sara, Lara, and Takumi and then walked to the gym to watch the Culver Creek Nothings take on Harsden Academy, a private day school in Mountain Brook, Birmingham's richest suburb. The Colonel's hatred for Harsden burned with the fire of a thousand suns. "The only thing I hate more than rich people," he told me as we walked to the gym, "is stupid people. And all the kids at Harsden are rich, and they're all too stupid to get into the Creek."

Since we were supposed to be on a date and all, I thought I'd sit next to Lara at the game, but as I tried to walk past a seated Alaska on my way to Lara, Alaska shot me a look and patted the empty spot next to her on the bleachers.

"I'm not allowed to sit next to my date?" I asked.

"Pudge, one of us has been a girl her whole life. The other of us has never gotten to second base. If I were you, I'd sit down, look cute, and be your pleasantly aloof self."

"Okay. Whatever you say."

Jake said, "That's pretty much my strategy for pleasing Alaska."

"Aww," she said, "so sweet! Pudge, did I tell you that Jake is recording an album with his band? They're fantastic.

They're like Radiohead meets the Flaming Lips. Did I tell you that I came up with their name, Hickman Territory?" And then, realizing she was being silly: "Did I tell you that Jake is hung like a horse and a beautiful, sensual lover?"

"Baby, Jesus." Jake smiled. "Not in front of the kids."

I wanted to hate Jake, of course, but as I watched them together, smiling and fumbling all over each other, I didn't hate him. I wanted to behim, sure, but I tried to remember I was ostensibly on a date with someone else.

Harsden Academy's star player was a six-foot-seven Goliath named Travis Eastman that everyone — even his mother, I suspect — called the Beast. The first time the Beast got to the free-throw line, the Colonel could not keep himself from swearing while he taunted: "You owe everything to your daddy, you stupid redneck bastard."

The Beast turned around and glared, and the Colonel almost got kicked out after the first free throw, but he smiled at the ref and said, "Sorry!"

"I want to stay around for a good part of this one," he said to me.

At the start of the second half, with the Creek down by a surprisingly slim margin of twenty-four points and the Beast at the foul line, the Colonel looked at Takumi and said, "It's time." Takumi and the Colonel stood up as the crowd went, "Shhh…"

"I don't know if this is the best time to tell you this," the Colonel shouted at the Beast, "but Takumi here hooked up with your girlfriend just before the game."

That made everyone laugh — except the Beast, who turned from the free throw line and walked calmly, with the ball, toward us.

"I think we run now," Takumi said.

"I haven't gotten kicked out," the Colonel answered.

"Later," Takumi said.

I don't know whether it was the general anxiety of being on a date (albeit one with my would-be date sitting five people away from me) or the specific anxiety of having the Beast stare in my direction, but for some reason, I took off running after Takumi. I thought we were in the clear as we began to round the corner of the bleachers, but then I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a cylindrical orange object getting bigger and bigger, like a fast-approaching sun.

I thought: I think that is going to hit me.

I thought: J should duck.

But in the time between when something gets thought and when it gets done, the ball hit me square across the side of the face. I fell, the back of my head slamming against the gym floor. I then stood up immediately, as if unhurt, and left the gym.

Pride had gotten me off the floor of the gym, but as soon as I was outside, I sat down.

"I am concussed," I announced, entirely sure of my self-diagnosis.