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to be in.
    Whenever he and his wife were invited over for dinner, and it had been more than once, the house was as important a place to him as to Frank, though for different reasons. The furniture inside breathed whiskey soaked leather and wood, and after dinner the mandatory cigar on the balcony was the only time Allen could smoke without Jen, his freckled redheaded wife, throwing up a fuss about it. Her mother died of cancer,
and even though it was not lung cancer,
she did not like Allen smoking.
Now he was hung over fiercely, which was a fact Jen had entirely missed when she got up to see him off.
  Entirely due to his late night arrival, Allen could and had to look remarkably sober when the situation required.
    The low rumble of Allen’s vintage engine signaled his arrival from around the corner.
He walked up and knocked on the front door,
behind which Frank was already waiting, ready to go.  
      After they loaded all of their equipment and bags of snacks, meaning mostly booze and cigars, they made for Steve’s house, down in lower Albany.
Steve too was ready to leave the house, but not yet.
First he had intended to invite them in for eggs and bacon to greet the fading effects of last night’s binge drinking. It was soon decided that they best make their way down to Monterey sooner rather than later, save the 45 minutes of eating breakfast for being already on the boat before it gets busy in the harbor.  
    Afterall, they had planned to sail quite far out, and not unlike on freeways, ship-traffic was better avoided with a head-start. On the way down they would stop at the first drive-through hamburger place, to divert their stomach’s attention from yesterday’s liquored sorrows.
    They drove down 880 across the San Mateo bridge to CA-1 through Half-Moon Bay. On the way they noted a string of deserted beaches, far enough from civilization.
“We should stop here.” noted Steve,
  as they passed a beach with a relatively large parking lot. “That would be a good place to prep the squid,
right Frank?” Steve asked, snickering.
Frank had no idea he was being mocked.
    “Right. Let’s do that.” Frank hadn’t felt too much up to talking on most of such mornings. So much so that most of his classes started in the afternoon.  
    The drive was spent in mostly grunts and self pity of their self abuse. The greasy hamburgers were beginning to do their job and their heads felt less like they were being stretched far and wide. Their strength was yet to return. Though both Frank and Allen were professors, neither of them were exactly ‘morning people’, which went double for the weekends. Steve, who was more of a heavy social drinker, was used to getting up at 6 to go for a jog, followed by the choking down of a protein shake. The day hadn’t been much of a departure for him in terms of getting up.
    “Okay,” started Frank, then with a significant pause he exhaled.  
    “Let’s find the boat.  
    It’s in the north harbor near Carmel.”
    They had a boat dedicated just for such expeditions, and it had all the research equipment locked up on board safely already.
    These trips were really mostly led by the three of them, and sometimes a volunteer student.
    When they did have a student, they made him carry all the equipment and mocked him, even Steve joined in.
    “Hey, we still need to get some supplies.” Said Allen, as they all rendezvoused ashore before going out.
They really didn’t.
Everything they needed was already packed in the car.
    It was almost a ritual, in that it was never talked about. They just did it.
    “Good Morning,” Steve said in his silly sounding german accent as they entered the bait and tackle shop, certainly not the only one in the neighborhood, but this was the only place around that actually sold squid jigs.
The three of them left the shore briskly, preceding many fishing boats and beating them to the punch.
They got ‘top pick’. It was an unwritten rule the Bay Research made with