I. PANAMA
A humid summer night at the Half King, on West 23rd Street. Junger arrives at precisely 6 p.m., in blue jeans, a polo shirt, and black boots. Anderson shows up 15 minutes late, in a ratty T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. He looks like he just mopped his kitchen. We're all sweating. Scott the most. The conversation quickly turns to one of their favorite trips.

Anderson: I was doing a story in Panama, and Seb came down to hang out with me. I think you were kind of appalled by my journalistic style. Turns out I don't really speak Spanish.
Junger: So I was the translator.
Anderson: And it also turns out I forgot to bring a notebook. Or a pen.
Junger: I provided him with the basics.
Anderson: We went out to this island off the Pacific coast. Half the island was a nature preserve, the other half was a free-range penal colony.
Junger: The guards lock themselves in at night, and the inmates have the run of the island. It's very Lord of the Flies. We hired this big old wooden diesel fishing boat. At the dock, we ask the captain, "How long does it take?" About four hours. So we start chugging away.

The Cutting Room Floor

Eight telling comments from our heroes, taken—quite unfairly—out of context 1. Junger: We've both literally fled on foot from really, really upset women. 2. Anderson: You get five guys sitting around drinking, and no one wants to be the one who goes, "Gee, guys, that could be kind of dangerous." 3. Junger: We don't hug. 4. Anderson: I'm actually quite envious of how Sebastian always gets the two-and-a-half-day stubble. I rarely see him with five-day stubble or one-day stubble. 5. Junger: Basically, we both are intrigued by the most fucked-up situations. 6. Anderson: I literally held a steak knife to the guy's chest, above his heart, and said, "If you say one more word, I'm gonna plunge this in your heart." 7. Junger: I don't really cry on anybody's shoulder. 8. Anderson: Dumb luck has had a huge role in our lives.

Three, four, five, six hours go by. Finally, Scott says to him, "I thought you said it was four hours." And he goes, "Well, that's in a fast boat. This boat is 12 hours." So we got out a bottle of tequila and a chess board. And we drank the whole bottle. It was this beautiful tropical night, we were just lying on the deck. And the moon started looking really weird. And it got weirder and weirder. We finally figured out it was a lunar eclipse.
Anderson: That's one way we're different: this Boy Scout impulse in you. You got incredibly excited about the eclipse.
Junger: Still am.
Anderson: I have no science background. He spent two hours trying to explain this thing to me. He had to draw charts. And I looked at him, saying, What the fuck?
Junger: He still doesn't believe me.
Anderson: I still don't.
Junger: Then on the way back from the island, Scott was getting onto the boat and he slipped on the gunwale and cracked his rib. He was in a lot of pain. I remember thinking, If your friend is hurt, you're supposed to take care of him, right? I mean, if he were a girl or if I were a girl, that caretaking would be obvious and easy and not awkward at all. But with two guys, it's actually a little weird.
Anderson: There's not much to do for a broken rib.
Junger: Essentially, I did nothing. I mean, you were fine.
Anderson: I smoked more.

II. WE NEVER FIGHT. REALLY.
In which the guys claim to share an "unspoken familiarity" and to be "wired similarly."

Anderson: I don't think we've ever said a harsh word to one another.
Junger: It's true. We haven't even come close to an argument. We both completely avoid conflict as much as possible. We've also never been in an active war zone together.
Anderson: We did do one story together where we took opposite sides of a conflict. It was in Cyprus about eight years ago, and we both wanted to be with the Turks. We settled it by flipping this old Greek coin from Sebastian's family.
Junger: I think I still have it. [Searches beat-up wallet] I may not, but I might. I do.
Anderson: I've got a confession to make. The thing I knew from childhood and flipping bottle caps hundreds of times is that anything that's bowed out on one side, like a bottle cap, will come up topside like nine times out of ten. See, look at this coin, it's concave. It's practically guaranteed to end up tails four out of five times. So I won the coin toss. And I never shared that with you.
Junger: We're about to have our first conflict.