Eddie Quick

Eddie Quick (Chasing the Electric Glow)

By

Langston Howell

©2009, Lifton Falls Publishing, Inc. Associate Editor: Mick Scruggs Cover and Illustration: ∫B∫ Designs, Brooke Leigh For info: [email protected] P.O. Box 5394 Vancouver,WA 98668

Intro ducti on: When I was little, I remember mysterious dreams of a feeling that felt so close, yet so far away. It was as if I were actually there reaching out into the universe for something that I could only feel. I knew, somehow, that it was not physically there, but there, indeed, it was in a realm that I could not quite get to. I would fall back into sleep and purposely wake again just to see if I could find that feeling again, as if I were searching for a way to get to the feeling. I would go back into a deep sleep and there it was, so easily attainable. I would wake, go out into the morning and get through the day not thinking about the feeling once. And then, the next night before I would shut my eyes, I would find the feeling again. “Why was it there?” It would come over me like a warm breeze with the re-freshness of the ocean tide and then recede again and draw away from my thoughts. I would wake sweating in the warm night. At other times, I would try to remember the feeling: ‘so close, but so far away,’ and could not. It was as if the air was still and the stagnant, humid air was stifling, hindering my connection. I did not know what it was that was stopping me from finding that feeling. What I did know: was that I was not scared to reach for it. The feeling was warm, intense, and inviting. Then, other times, I would fall asleep alone knowing no one else was around and then over hear a conversation that concerned me while in shallow sleep. I would try to pull myself out of the sleep to join in on the conversation, but could not jar myself to wake. I would feel paralyzed and pulled into the realm of sleep without wanting to go, taken away like something carrying me. Lost in this inner space, that warm feeling over took my consciousness and found me when I was not searching for it. I still long for those feelings sometimes, older now, impoverished by society. Yet, the feeling is still there lingering around my body. My body knows of its existence, yet I can only grab it, sometimes, when I sincerely concentrate. This is a feeling that shivers my insides and is incredible to perceive. It is a feeling smaller than an atom, yet as big as the earth itself. The scarceness of that feeling in my life today makes me long for what I knew as a child. To re-open the shades obscuring simplicity and find that important realm from which one’s energy and longing to search comes. The simplicity of this feeling is precisely what most adults need to loosen the grip of greed that has shrouded their perception of humanity. We are limited on what we dream as an adult and we bury those special dreams of our childhood mind as we attend to the reality of the daily business of pursuing happiness. The older we get the further out of reach the feeling becomes, until it is there no more. The world is then a plastic box and the search has stopped. My thoughts quicken to that irrevocable feeling of senselessness where the immortality of the soul is realized. The mind struggles to meet what is on ‘the other side’, but it is not realized. My body feels a sensation of emptiness, to try to feel the void of a perception that is not understood, hidden by adult thoughts. The seventh sense, a connection to this an un-unifying feeling (that is so close that one can grab it or rub up against it, but just can’t get there) is a gift for the few to penetrate a barrier that is

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mentally blocking this totality of all feeling for most people. This barrier is present in all persons. It is called -reality. For some, the barrier remains thick and impenetrable by the thoughts of daily life. But, to the few that seem to understand its nature, if they can stare impossibility in the face without total destruction of their reality, they find it is a realm of in-humanistic existence unequal to any feeling that can be expressed. Since I was a child, pursuing the limits of reality has always been central to me. Finding the individuals or things that can lead me there has always been an obsession.

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Prologue:

I had to be around the age of four or five when I can first remember drums parading in a springtime festival. The “boom- Bata- boom- crash boom” of the drum section coming down the street was an awesome first experience. There I was, holding onto my mother’s hand on the street curve. I was completely dramatized. I could feel the boom of the drums reach the inner core of my reality. The feeling of sound ...for the first time.... that I didn’t only perceive outside of my body but could feel the energy of vibrations tickling my nerves in the pit of my stomach. I liked that feeling so much that I would, years later; take up the drums in the school band to experience it first hand. Dramatic experiences like these also put my mind in touch with the mystery of the depths of ones soul. The beats were so close, if only I could… touch them I thought. Then, I wanted to run. I wanted to search for that lost feeling that is still close to me, plaguing my thoughts everyday I live if I can get back to that feeling: as when we were young, and we ‘lived’. * * * Some people have that special “beat” about them; the gift of a fearless perception that seems to bridge the gulf of that internal abyss and reach deep inside for the courage of -the moment- to answer a problem physically. Some shy away and run in the omnipotent presence of danger, some buckle under the pressure and melt away into the landscape to hide, and there is some that seem to gaze into the eyes of the horrific and act in a merciless fashion as if that is what they were put on this earth to do. My mind flashes back to a few memories of my youth growing up in Pennsylvania County Virginia: “You can’t make those wheels of that ole Chevette spin out.” was the dare out on ghostbridge. Ghost-bridge was an old single lane bridge on the Virginia state border of North Carolina that the two border counties paved over wooden planks that must have been there since the horse and buggy days. I guess now, that each state VA or NC never really agreed what dollar figure fit into their budget to repair the bridge on the state line. So, the old single lane bridge was neglected and its thick wooden planks just kept getting paved over during the last few decades, as long as it passed a county of Virginia or was it the North Carolina state inspection? Most of the time at night such thick fog surrounded the bridge that you had to dim the headlights to see right in front of an automobile. It has been over twenty years ago, and four of us kids were out late at night deep down an old wood-laden road. I still remember Eddie’s words as- clear as a-bell, “Move over, I can do it,” is all that Eddie said. I got out and Eddie slide behind the steering wheel of my tiny little Chevy Chevette. He pressed the clutch in and revved the tiny four-cylinder motor of the little car 4

to the absolute peak of its capacity. The next thing that I perceived was the squeeeeeaaarrrrrkkkkkkkkkk....kkkk of the rear wheels trying to grab the paved over wood on the bridge. The smell of rubber, I thought, was so unique that it deserved a place in my mind of its own. The smoke lifted, and all four of us teen-age hoodlum-type punks jumped back in. Antics like this gave the gutsy fifteen year-old Eddie Quick the reputation of a “tough guy” that had all the confidence of an adult in a boy’s body. Eddie had an element of control that he could somehow conjure up at the moment to make things happen when all else seemed to write it off. Mickey Stewart first met Eddie Quick when he was living with his father in a “forever there” mobile home park in a town named Douglas, VA. We really nick named our town “Dead-ville” out of the boredom that persisted there. Eddie was the best friend of a guy named CC Atkins, whom had won a few scraps in his local county middle school and had built a reputation as the tough kid that didn’t speak much; but when he did it was with his fist. Nicky, CC’s nephew, who was only a year younger than CC, moved in with his dad a few trailers up from Micky’ s Dad’s trailer. This set the links in the chain of events for a summer in nineteen eighty-something that seemed determined to “break off the shackles of conformity” for me. Together, we were a team of misfits on the verge of discovering that inter-mitten road’s limits and boundaries, that –teeters- on the edge of civil society.

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Micky My recently separated Mom and I moved to a trailer park and with my older brother in 1978. Pennsylvania County Virginia is not a hostile environment with its nice rolling foothills east of the Appalachian Mountains where the Virginia Piedmont meets the Blue Ridge Mountains. The summers there are usually mild with the temperatures hovering mostly in the eighties with the occasional thunderstorm. The springtime is absolutely the best time of the year with an awesome display of lush greenery. There are very nice hardwood forests with splendid weather underneath its canopy for a young boy to explore. I spent a lot of time with just a friend or two when I was growing up in those Virginia woods. From the age of eight, or so, until I was out of middle school, “Micky, let’s go exploring in the woods,” was a constant thing that I heard in those years – or“let’s play guns,” was another common thing uttered when I was in Elementary and Middle school. Playing guns meant that we would each find a stick on the floor of the forest that became an imaginary pistol or rifle. We would then plant a flag, to protect, and try to find and seize the opponent’s flag. The age-old argument “I shot you first!” would always be the order of the day. As kids in the seventies, we didn’t watch that much television except at night after the streetlights flickered on and we were forced to come inside. In the winter, snow fell three or four times a year and was sometimes a sizable amount. The snow would be deep enough to build a snow fort and go sledding for a few days down -the hill- that we had on the West side of our trailer park. The occasional snow fight would end with one of the mean kids putting a rock in their snowball and flinging it as hard as they could at the other kids. All of the perpetrators of those: “innocent little crimes,” laughed heartily when a kid was accidentally hurt or got into trouble. As time went along, I had traded in “wrap groups” like: Run DMC and Whodini for Rock groups like: the Eagles and Bruce Springsteen. I left my Michael Jackson parachute pants in the chest of drawers and wore nothing but the cheaper orange tag Levis that my parents afforded me. I was growing into my teenage years and all of the time wondering: “why my parents could not get along and just stay together for our family”. During this time, I was living, mostly with my Dad, in the same trailer park that my mom had moved into nearly a decade earlier to escape from him. The years, 1976-1979, we had witnessed: the Bicentennial fireworks celebration, watched the Pittsburg Steelers win the Super-bowl again and watched the Pop group: the Village People, sing “Ready for the Eighties” after the fire works celebration for the 1980 new year. A year or two shortly after that, my Mom left my Dad for good. She, for some reason, wasn’t happy with him and, “fell out of love”. She ran off and moved in with another man in a brick home and left my older brother and I with our father in a trailer. Shortly, thereafter, I learned to cook and clean because it seemed like my father did not know how. We were living just outside the of the city of D-ville and, for the past decade or so, I was attending the local city schools by using my grandmother’s city address because my Dad said: “The city schools were better than the county’s schools.”

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After I reached the age of fifteen and one half years I got a learner’s permit drivers license and my brother had joined the Army. Those letters from Germany influenced me. My dad had, then, let me drive a bit when we were riding in our -fire engine red- 1986 ford flair-sided F-150 pickup truck. The truck was elegant with its red color outlined with slick gold pin stripes and fitted with gold “West Coast” MAG wheels to match. I got pretty good at the stick or manual transmission and had grown fond of our new red pickup truck. I drove sometimes to school when my dad would get home from his night shift job in time. I, then, put my name onto the waiting list at the city high school to take the drivers education course. The school sponsored Drivers Course was a pre-requisite in order to get a Virginia state learner’s drivers license. What didn’t occur to me at the time was to put my Grandmother’s city address on the application for a learners permit. I was kicked out of the city school system because my Dad thought that it was a great idea to use my grandmother’s address for the purpose of attending school. “What a bumber,” it was to loose all of the fiends I had developed in my years in the city school system. The reason I had to leave was that the address that I put down on my learners permit at the local DMV revealed where we were actually living. Let down, but sympathetic to my father’s cause, I buried the true blue feelings and let myself bare the brunt of changing schools with as little affect to my father as I could. “Man, I had even taken some of the classroom portion of the driver’s education course the city school system offered and was scheduled to go to the driving range portion of the course,” I quietly freated. I was taking steps to getting that, “ Drivers License” and the freedom that it presented to ask Angela Johnston out on a date. A friend of mine, Frankie Jason, and I were out looking at the driver’s course cars one day while in the school driver’s education course when we got a call to the vice principle’s office. Scared stiff and curious, we went, inadvertently, to answer Vice Principle Barry’s call. “Why does your license, Mickey and Franklin, say that you live in Pittsylvania County?” he said with conviction. “Wa-wa we ja-just moved out of my grandma’s house and we thought the address was in the city and, ahh… I just kept coming to school and didn’t give it any concern,” I rattled off thinking that it did some good. Vice Principle Barry looked at me and he knew that there was something that I was trying to hide. The next day my dad was sent a letter stating that I must switch to the county school system or start paying tuition -with back pay- on previous tuition fees from the time that I had been living at the county address. My dad instinctively knew that it would come down to proving how long that we were living in the county. We had been living just out side of the city using my grandmother’s address for at least ten years. My father did not have the money to pay back tuition from a decade ago, so I started attending the county high school the next week. At the County High School, I was thrown into a new world. I didn’t know anyone. I started riding the county school bus and finally, after a week or so, I started recognize

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some people that I was in acquaintance with from previous little league baseball teams or though the local roller-skating rink. I was becoming kind of rebellious in my new domain; I found it easier to hang around the smoker’s crowd in the parking lot because they were easy to talk to. I was used to the jock crowd in my previous school or -the nerd bunch- because I was in college preparatory courses and into sports. I started wearing my hair long, just like the smokers did, so to fit in at lunchtime. Standing in the smoking area acting ‘cool’ sure beat holding up the walls in the hallways with the other no-bodies. It was not hard to fall into a group of “misfits” in high school. The Misfits were a category that one was classified if you were not a nerd, a jock, or a popular cheerleader. Then, the only other classification that was left: was those that did not fit or ‘Misfit’. If you were not in the school chorus, band, or was not in a college prep club, one fell into the “misfit” category also. The misfits in high school were not supposed to do anything with their life and were -wrote off- by the guidance councilors as an easy case for them, “future factory workers!” But, if no other group in high school will have you, the smokers or the cool Rock-n Rollers would take you! All a kid had to do was smoke cigarettes and hang out in the smoking area, and then, you belonged! It was easy, not any try-outs, tests, or any rules to the “cool” club. And for a kid that moved between high schools, like Mick, “the smokers” were the easiest to ‘break the ice with’. These folks all dressed practical in the county school. They dressed in what the local farms were able to produce for their children. Some of the kid’s parents lived close enough to the city where they could get work at the local factories that did not pay much; but, “It was steady money”. A lot of the kids wore flannel shirts and blue jeans. If your parents could afford Levis blue jeans you were better than average. It was starting to get cold outside in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. Everyone there in the Pittsylvania county school system wore Harley Davidson T-shirts and old U.S. Army field jackets from the Vietnam era. Thermal underwear underneath of the Harley shirts were the norm for the -want to be- cool. A Harley Davidson black leather wallet that had a chain that fit around to your belt loop was the choice of the cool dudes. The cool ones, whose parents could afford it, wore nice black leather jackets. The kids who couldn’t afford leather wore the O.D. green hand me down coats from the Vietnam War era to fit into the cool scene. My brother left his high school era O.D. green Vietnam War field jacket and flannel shirts when he joined the Army; so, I commandeered the one that he used to wear. I did not know where my brother had gotten the jacket, but it was warm and was “more hip” than my bright blue nylon stuffed Goodyear ski jacket that my Dad had bought from his job connections. I had worn that bright blue Goodyear jacket since Middle school. I could picture myself in that jacket and getting laughed at. Winter passed into spring that year. I had found and gotten over my first puppy love with the girl next door. I was slowly gaining my independence and graduating into wearing wholes in my faded Levis blue jeans. Now, all I needed was an Alpine cassette stereo and Alpine 100w speaker system for my new car, I dreamt. Well, the new second hand, ten-year-old car that my Dad had purchased was what I was stuck with. I wanted to drive the beautiful new red Ford F-150 pick-up, but my dad put me into a $200 dud brown Chevette with a burgundy right front fender.

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I mowed my grandmother’s lawn and several of the neighbors to earn a little money for that stereo system. I never again mowed my dad’s lawn for free after having a car. I needed the gas and I needed music when, “I would take the local chic’s out,” I dreamt. After cutting grass of many lawns, with sweat beaming down my forehead, and my 16 year old skin as dark as an Indian, I finally had enough money for the car stereo system. I didn’t have enough money for the equalizer, but “Man did it crank in the hatchback of the Chevette interior without it,” I boasted. The hatch back dome gave the bass the perfect dome type of acoustic backing that catapulted the sound forward to all of the seats. Anyone sitting in the back could feel the thump - thump of the sound of drums and bass. ZZ Top, one of my favorite bands, had an album out and when the drums kicked in on their song La Grange, it sounded like I was on stage. That stereo was more expensive than the car. Boy, the stereo was worth more than the engine to me. And with the little throttle, which was only one half of a gas petal, mashed to the floor, the stereo only a third of the way up, and the gas needle -usually near empty-, I got into some of the most trying experiences that summer than any teen aged boy could imagine.

“Nicky” In those days when I got any type of allowance or any money, I would drive to the mall and get the latest music that was happening on MTV. Once we saw “Video Killed the Radio Star” sometime in the early eighties, MTV was on all of the time at our home when my dad was not there. Bands like: Bob Seger, Poison, Cinderella, INXS, Ratt, Pink Floyd, John Cougar, and Motley Crue were just a few that was playing on the radio or the newly founded MTV. I loved to buy older music too like: Lynyrd Skynrd, ACDC, Led Zepplin, and Bruce Springsteen to just name a few. You could say that I was a Rock-nRoll music junkie. What allowance I had left over, which was usually a few cents went into the gas tank. When I was out of gasoline, I found a new friend and that is how I found trouble. I needed money, a partner, a ride along buddy with a few bucks, I thought. Nicky Ames was a couple of years younger than I, but he knew a lot of people. He had a vociferous sarcastic laugh “Youuuu… de doo... de doo!” that he would belt out when any questioned a thing that he was saying. Along with an over sized smile, that he always seemed to wear, he was a bit over weight for a boy aged about thirteen or fourteen. He had straight to wavy, dark brown hair with a freakily face gave him a handsome boyish appearance (sort of like the lead singer from the Rock group Aerosmith). Nicky had extraordinary height for a boy of his age. He did not look out of

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place hanging out with a cool sixteen year old kid like myself. So, I conceded him the navigator spot. I did feel a little intimidated by his vociferous antics, sometimes, and his size. Through all of his sarcastic remarks and pranks, Nicky was just a boy full of vivid flamboyant sinicism and longing for adventure. I met Nicky at the trailer park bus stop one morning waiting for school. He was behind the trailer park’s old white well house at the top of the hill at the start of the long curvy driveway that went into the trailer park. “Was he… smoking?” I asked myself. I had noticed Nicky a week or so earlier hanging around one of the notorious Ames folk’s trailer. Stevie Ames, who turned out to be Nicky’s father, was a guy that loved to rev up his classic Chevy Silverado pick up, so the whole neighborhood would notice the black shiny custom painted pick up truck that, Stevie, obviously loved. He was rumored to be into drugs, street dragging, and dealing. I did not care for drugs, because I never bothered, being an athlete of such. When I was younger, I remember climbing a tree in my grandmother’s front yard and happened to see Stevie Ames take off fast from a stand still in his truck right in the middle of the residential neighborhood. I once saw Stevie Ames’ older brother Freddie pull a kid out of their car window for going too fast around his self and the Ames family. He had my old neighbor Carl by the neck. Well, Carl never went too fast in the trailer park again. I think the local community respected Ames’, because you did not want to be on their wrong side. This particular day, I did not have the gas money to drive to school. Those days, I had to catch the bus when gasoline was an issue. Nicky, behind the little well house, was puffing on something that he called “a roach”. “I didn’t think that you smoked that stuff Mick,” was his reply to me. “What is it?” I said to him. I took a sniff. The thing smelled like ham burning. “Here puff on it and inhale the smoke. It’s O.K., the Indians used to smoke it in their peace pipes.” Nicky exclaimed. I drew on -the roach- and it burnt my fingers, moreover, when it entered my lungs it burned too. “Huh, kuh, ugh, huh, huh, huh,” I gagged. Nicky commented on that act immediately, “ah Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” he couldn’t quit laughing it seemed. And then he looked at me in the eyes and said, “How does it feel?” After I recovered from the burning sensation in my lungs, an incredible thirst came over me. My eyes were watering and the bus had showed up and it was time to board it for school. “Here Micky, take a swig of my soda pop and you’ll be alright,” offered Nicky. The fiz…zzz of the grape soda soothed my throat. Man, the smell on the bus was exaggerated; the leather interior burned my eyes, the diesel smell mixed with Afro smell gave a school bus’ smell it’s own distinction. But today, as I stumbled on and went past Angel Harris (a fine looking red head chic) the smell was accentuated. Just when I got to an empty seat in the back, a quiet, still numbness feeling came over me. It was like I was in my own little room inside of my own perception. Nicky slid in beside me laughing all the way to school.

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My first class at school that day was Trigonometry. The class was taught in an overflow trailer at the county school because there were not many people at the county school that were in college preparatory classes. I used to go in, sit and not talk to anyone, but today, I was laughing at the sounds of pounding feet hitting the hollow trailer floor. The bell rung and the sound of the trailer floor made the incoming traffic sound like a herd of cattle boarding a tractor-trailer. I was actually talking with people and making jokes about it. And, consequently, I was extraordinarily attentive in class that day and I even made a one hundred percent score on a trigonometry quiz. The next day, I met Nicky walking up the neighborhood street. I was in my Chevette. He asked if I would take him to his uncle CC’s house where he swore that he would get some more of that weed stuff. He promised that he had a couple of dollars for the gas tank. I went home and told my dad, who was waking and preparing to leave for his third shift job, that I was going to the mall with a friend for Friday night video games and that I would see him later. Who else had a dad that went to work on a Friday night at nine or ten PM and arrived back home Saturday morning at seven AM? As Nicky and I left for his uncle CC’s house, he was telling me these wild stories about his uncle CC. Of course, to me, a guy that just got his driver’s license, I did want some action on the road. I was through with exploring the woods. I wanted to wonder around a little and explore the city where I’d been most of my life. I longed to search, “for what was it?” I had no clue! “But, I must go,” I thought. We drove out on one of the highways that ran to the other side of town towards the airport. We drove quite a ways. Unfortunately, I was constantly worried about the gas tank. We still were limited to a different set of guidelines or rules now that we had graduated from coming in when the streetlights were on. One of them, for the first year driver, was how far one could go on two bucks. Nicky dug in his pocket and produced two bucks to pull over to get some fuel. Off, down the highway out of town, Nicky told me more about his cousin CC. Nicky boasted about the reputation of his uncle and how cool a kid named Eddie Quick was that lived near his uncle CC. Nicky explained what fun it was for him to hang out with them. I had previously heard of CC’s reputation from some of the kids in the trailer park who were a few years younger than he. “Don’t mess with CC Atkinson,” those kids would say. One of Nicky’s stories was that Quick Eddie and his uncle CC was literally, “the first kids to cross the creek when exploring new turf in the neighborhood woods. They were the kind of kids who would do any dare”, Nicky said. Before we arrived at CC’s house, he told me that when he was younger someone had dared Quick Eddie to jump off of the top of the Blair-wood middle school building. “No one needed to give Eddie a dare! You simply did not give Eddie a dare unless you wanted to feel the -real-life- consequences,” Nicky explained. “Needless to say, that hot June afternoon, when all of the boys were feeling the freedom or the boredom of the first days off for summer break, Eddie climbed up the pole over the entryway to Blair-wood Middle School. With ease, he scampered to the next level of the building, sat down on the ledge, and shoved his self off. All of the kids standing around go, WOW, as Eddie’s skinny body rolled down onto the green grass. This act of courage earned Eddie the role of dare devil and won the hearts of all the little

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girls -instantaneously- that stopped swinging for that moment to watch,” Nicky mentioned. Of course, the next thing to happen was that the ‘side kick’ (the kid who needed to match the first kid who accomplishes the dare) has to get into the act of things. That was Nicky’s uncle CC. “I don’t think that CC gave his actions much thought, he just simply did what was expected, which was to match Eddie,” was Nicky’s explanation. “CC walked up to the same white painted metal pole that supported the porch covering the entrance to the school and started to climb the pole. He got one half of the way up and slid back down to the ground. All of the kids chuckled a bit, and that made CC’s blood boil with determination. He jumped back on to the pole and grasped it. With the screeching sound of the metal pole against his bare leg, and with more intent to hang on like it was the last thing he will do on earth; painfully, he scampered onto the hot roof. CC jumped up to the roof of the first floor of the building. He didn’t even hesitate when he arrived at the top; he just closed his eyes, shoved his self off the edge, and hit the ground and rolled out of breath.” Nicky went on. The same scenario applied then for all of the other kids that wanted to be a part of ‘the crowd’, my mind went on without Nicky mentioning it. Any kid whom was “the one who could not hang” was severely criticized. “You chicken!” or “you coward!” Nicky lamented because he had been too small to do anything then. “They mocked and taunted any kid who couldn’t keep up until he had cleared his name,” he said. My mind wondered back to my own personal experiences as a kid on the playground vouching for the respect of the other kids. I knew from my past experience, also, that respect was not earned in a little playground gang until the contender had earned it. If you were the one who pulled off a dare, or any other stunt of your own accord, all of the other kids seemed to love you more. Very few kids, seemingly, have the natural alpha gene to take charge in a gang of kids. Nicky told me, “Quick Eddie was the one in our neighborhood that seemed to have the respect of all those around him.” I later found out that Eddie would do most anything to win the affections of all of those around him. The humbleness towards others and his gratitude in receiving any company seemed to be a kind of ‘magnet’ for all of those who made his acquaintance. And therefore, Eddie was sort of the “city dare-devil”. That title of dare devil, or “cool” to hang out with, became a title sought after by kids on every playground in America. The title of “cool” was a sort of entertainment -a muse- a kid’s encouragement to be rebellious –to break away from the norm. Most importantly, they made a place for them self in the group or gang and earned a place of respect. You were a “want-a be cool guy”, until you earned respect of others. The people who were truly cool -to me- could take a person on a fresh ride through the high times and not exhaust any moments on a sour note of some kind or get caught in the hang ups in life. The cool ones only laugh at the hang-ups of this life and are never arrested by the pursuit of it. Folks could drive another crazy in talks of politics, religion and law. The simple and cool persons are interesting to me. The ones that can tell you their opinion of such matters only if you asked them, but keep it to themselves and could just shrug it off when they were having a good time.

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Why do dares come about? I thought. These questions in life just seem to be left up to the nature of things and are accepted as just the way things are! “Turn right here, Mick,” Nicky remarked to break my day daydream. Is one born with the genes to be the leaders of men? I pondered lastly. Are the consequences of being the Alfa person, the dominant figure, related to the number of risk and successes one has in their lifetime? Why do the rebellious live to be the social goorue? I wondered if I should meet CC and Eddie should I just let them have my respect from their reputation a lone? Would I be able to hang with ‘the cool’? “There Mick the second trailer on the left”, spoke Nicky excitedly. CC III CC Atkins was out side of his trailer house as if he were waiting for someone. He had long stringy sandy-blonde hair covering his handsome looking face. He must have been attractive to “chics” because of his athletic body and tough reputation. I found CC to be a simple country guy that didn’t say much. He had been said to have won a reputation as a tough guy with his fist. All the chics, that I knew back then, said that he had the body of a Greek god statue. Although he was from a poor class of people and didn’t have the finest clothes, CC was very humble but liked to party. He had a few polyester shirts to dress to go out and faded, no name brand jeans, with the cheaper version of Dingo black leather boots. We followed CC to a 1960’s model trailer. The trailer was a faded light blue and white in color and had a lived in smell about it. Nicky walked in first and gave his grand mother, CC’s mother Shirley, a hug. CC’s father was a disabled veteran and was in a wheel chair and had a respirator hooked to his nose for emphysema. “Where are you going CC? you no good rotten kid!” I barely made out CC’s father’s country sounding rumblings. I learned that his father was a WWII veteran and looked, to me, as if he could have been CC’s grandfather. “God-dammed it, you going out to get drunk and get into more trouble with the police? ” said his father. I could barely understand him with his thick country slang mutterings with one or two teeth. Moreover, I felt quite out of place, because I had not been introduced to anyone. CC’s father looked quite old and one could tell that he was barely holding onto life sitting in a wheel chair with a breathing apparatus attached to a respirator. CC’s mom grabbed my shoulder and took me to the kitchen with Nicky and CC. “Don’t worry about the old man, he grumbles like that all of the time,” said she as she lit a cigarette.

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CC’s mom, Shirley, still looking quite vibrant, looked ten or twenty years younger than his father. Nicky introduced me to his grandmother, as Shirley. Shirley took a vodka bottle out of a cabinet above the sink. Apparently, she had stashed it -out of the reach of CC’s father’s wheel chair. “You want some?” she asked me politely. And then she poured herself a shot and then screwed the cap on, quietly, as not to stir her husband in the next room. “Where did you come from?” she asked me as she gulped the shot of vodka down. “Mickey gave me a ride here to come to see CC,” Nicky chimed in before I could answer. “I wished you guys would get your phone turned back on,” Nicky added. “O.K. you boys go on back to CC’s room and talk. Never mind the old man, he’s just full of hot air,” Shirley said with a cool whisper. We quickly passed by the living room. CC, Nicky, and I walked in a fast pace down the narrow hall and passed the main bedroom. I noticed the main bedroom had a bed with a railing. We then passed the toilet, and went into the last room of the old trailer. CC’s room wasn’t much larger than the -well used- twin trailer- bed that took up most of the room. There was a Rebel battle flag pinned to the wall and some cassette tapes were lying on the mattress. I sat down in a yellow outdoor plastic chair that had been placed in the small opening between the bed and the wall. Nicky and CC sat on the bed. “What-cha doing here Nicky?” CC mumbled under his breath as he gave Nicky a friendly punch on the arm. “Eeh-ha, we had some good drunk-in times in this room, eh Nicky?” said CC. As they were re-hashing the past with one another, CC put some Southern Rock into his cassette box player that was missing the cassette door. ‘Give me back my Bullets’ by Lynryd Skynrd blared across the room: “Give me back my bullets Put ‘em back where they belong” I was thinking to myself: “how long has Nicky been drinking? They must be talking about something from two weeks ago or sometime from the recent past. Nicky couldn’t have been drinking since he was twelve could he? My parents would really flip a loop if they thought I was drinking at the age of twelve. Man, at that age I was competing on the skating team, but drinking beer…no!” “You want to go and get some beer?” CC said before Nicky could introduce me. “Hey Nicky, if he’s got a car lets go and pick up Eddie.” said CC excitedly. “Yeah we gotta go get Eddie. Oh yeah, CC,” interjected Nicky. “This is my friend Mickey from the trailer park where me and my mom just moved in with Stevie”.

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Stevie is what both CC and Nicky called Nicky’s paternal father. Stevie Ames, whom was in and out of trouble with the local police, and had been for a decade or so, was divorced from Nicky’s mom. Nicky had never known his real father until just a few weeks ago. His mom had recently separated from his stepfather that he had called “Dad” all of his life until now. Finally, at the age of fourteen he had met his paternal father. “Stevie”, is what Nicky was told to call him. Nicky’s mom happened to be CC’s older half sister. “Mick got high for the first time with me the other day CC.” Nicky said as he laughed at that thought of his -new dad- who he said was dealing weed. “Who Stevie?” said CC “Yeah I seen him sell a bag or two and it’s not bad,” replied Nicky. All of us walked through the back door of the trailer that was beside CC’s room and got into the Chevette. We took off to see if Eddie was home because neither Eddie or CC’s parents had a phone. Eddie and his mom lived across highway 58 that ran though D-ville near the local airport. Nicky, CC, and I piled into the Chevette and I turned on some tunes. "Here, play my Lynyrd Skynyrd tape in the stereo?" begged CC. Nicky had stole the front passenger seat and CC slid into the back, bumping his head with an, “umph”. “You clutts” injected Nicky, as we were off listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s What’s Your Name Well it’s eight o’clock in Boise, Idaho. I told my limo driver… Mr. take us to the show …(Dun.. Dun.. Ta)….I’ve done made some plans for later on tonight. I find a little queen and I know I can treat her right….(then we all sang) What’s your name?…. little girl, tell me what’s your name? “How do you expect to get some beer CC?” I asked. “Eddie knows a place that sells it to him up on Mountain Hill. It’s ice cold and taste good”, said CC. I knew that Eddie was only 15 or 16 years old and he buys beer? It wouldn’t be long into that summer when I found out that all kinds of places sold Eddie beer, just because he looked older in his leather jacket, had confidence in himself, and wore boots. I did not have the guts to ever try that and I was only 16, I thought to my self. A few minutes later, we were rounding the curve near Eddie’s house. “Drive by slowly and blow the horn.” CC told me. So, I laid on the horn one time and went up a couple of blocks and turned the car around and then drove up to the house. CC got out. It was dusk and the sunset was magnificent for a May night. The temperature was in the upper seventies and nice. I was

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dressed in my favorite jeans and a cool white cut off shirt with “ROCK” lettered on the front in big black letters. We were all showered, dressed and ready to ascend into the mild May night. The door to Eddie’s house opened as CC went up to get him. Eddie Quick was a dark brunet guy with long feathered back hair, about shoulder length. Ever since I knew him, he always wore some type of earring, usually a small silver cross, or a small silver cross on a short fine chain in his left ear. “Eddie was the first guy in school to go to Ronnie Jernigan’s tattoo parlor and get a tattoo,” Nicky had said. He told me that Eddie got an all American eagle head (bald eagle) about 2-3 inches in size and colored nicely on his left shoulder. As time went along others were added, but this was his first tattoo that they noticed him with. CC said that Eddie was at or about twelve years old when he got it. I also noticed a tattoo of a small cross on the backside of his left hand between his thumb and the index finger. The simplistic drawing of the plain blue Indian ink cross with three small lines representing a glowing effect made me feel a bit sentimental about its nature. Everyone that I have known with that particular tattoo were fast, but complex characters. It was the type of personality that seemed to over whelm a person’s thoughts, if you let them, with crafty manipulative gestures -meant to be for your pleasure- but really to serve the dual purpose of using you at the same time to fulfill their needs. There are people that were really good at this game and played it so well as to not let any even think that they were a just a stepping stone for that character’s purposes. This type of personality is what I called fast. The fast people were so conniving that they played this game all of the time, un-be-knowingly, because it was the way they were brought up. There was, also, a different variety of this type of character that I had known. This was the type that did not care to hide their manipulative values. These types of persons just bossed you around like normal narcissist. Those types I called mad. They were mad to live, beat, and whipped so much by society -only an inch from the edge of their sanitythat they just did not care how a person reacted to them. If you let this type have their way, you could stand to hang around them. If you objected to their nature, hanging around with this type would not be for you. This type of person was ready to lash out and maul anything or any person who got in their way. These two types of people were similar creatures of habit in that they lived -only to have fun. And only the police could provide boundaries to keep everything civil. I thought of Eddie, at first, as the first type, as fast as one could be. I have known this type of character and I was not going to fall victim to it. The fast ones were slick, but the second type, the ones I called “boss,” were too obnoxious to spend any time around. That glowing cross tattoo represented, to me, a new feeling of an electrifying glow. It was a new feeling for me. That electrifying glowing feeling possessed me all through that summer. “Why cannot I have this conniving affect on people?” I thought. Maybe, I could get away with it too. Then when tried by me, I found that I had a conscience and could not follow through. Eddie, was about my size 5’-10’’ with a slender build and slightly muscular. He always had a “lets go” fun smile on his face. He always wore a black leather vest with no shirt underneath and a tan or, maybe, he just had dark “Native American- like” skin. He

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always wore a nice pair of Levis that never had wholes in them. A black leather wallet with a chain attached to his dark leather belt that said “Eddie” on it was always in his back pocket. When it got too cold for just a vest, he put on a thick black leather jacket decorated with a few small silver chains. And one could tell that his Mom loved him, because his cloths were always nice, new looking, and neatly pressed. Even when Eddie wore a black Harley Davidson T-shirts they were new looking and had no wrinkles. And I never caught Eddie without his dark brown leather cowboy boots unless we had all gone to the lake, where all of the chics hung out, to go swimming. If that were the case, our group of misfits always wore cut off jeans and a tan. The young girls absolutely loved Eddie’s attire and expected no less from him. What the chics dug was what all of our little ‘ante-rage’ wanted to wear. And Eddie, set the standard. CC and Eddie both came back to the car. “Ya, you want a beer?” Eddie said with just a tad stutter. We all got out and stood next to the car and Eddie went back in his house and got us all a cold Budweiser. Eddie was always polite and humbly catered to everyone’s needs (to the limits of what he thought was cool). That attribute of humbleness about Eddie was cool, but I always got that feeling when I was around him that their was something more dynamic about the humbleness of Eddie. We all started talking cool stuff and proceeded with plans for what was going to go down that night! I thought that Eddie was really cool guy. He was dressed in his regular denims and a nice button down silk shirt with a collar this night with, of course, the leather vest. He carried a leather jacket with him because it was still quite cool on early May evenings. “Let’s go up to the mall and talk to some chicks,” someone had said and everyone seemed to be in agreement except Eddie. “I, I know where a cool party is man.” Eddie mentioned. Eddie was always looking to get a ride out to see his girl friends in what he said was a party –even though there was booze and weed where he wanted to go there always seemed to be a chic waiting there for him. But, the conversation changed because I wasn’t much for socializing with people I barely knew at a house party, so I guess, that the mall idea sounded like a plan. Eddie went along with the mall plan, but there always seemed to be some distaste about it to him. I guessed that he thought he was too old for the mall or something. Nicky stole the front passenger seat, Eddie and CC got into the back and we turned the stereo up. “Hey Nicky, why don’t you let Eddie sit up front so he can show me the way” I told him empathetically. “Eyuuh di doo dooo”… he just said with that big grin that never left his face. We all laughed and sang with ACDC’s “76 Jail Break” as we went as fast as that little motor could take us about the small hills and tight curves of the Virginia piedmont.

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I had downed my beer fast because I didn’t want to take it with me while I was driving (and not to mention that it tasted spectacular when it was cold). I guess, that since I was driving, (like a fool I thought in the back of my mind) I was the one who had the most to lose should something happen. On the other hand, I thought, I needed something to do with my summer nights when I’m sixteen. I surely did not want to stay at home and miss out on the chance of talking with the girls (that I was mostly too shy to do anyway). I wanted some action. I wanted to steel the hours away laughing and trying to have a good time. So, what if these guys were using me for a ride to get their thrills, I thought. Well, I was also using them for their connections to cool people in the community and for their gas money and other extras to make us Rock into the summer nights and find excuses to celebrate the freedoms of experimentation with the road. Well, life is just an experiment anyway, and why not try to experience it too the max. I’ve always been the type of person to try and live life to the fullest and to ‘get to the marrow of it’. Each person has to try to find where they fit in, and mine was to find the cool people and to try to be humble to them and to earn the respect of at least the few that would listen to me. So, this was the feeling at my age: to get somewhere fast without knowing why you’re going there; and to seek the thrill of -just going. I thought about being out on the town and a nervous-excitement over came my mental state. I had always been doing what was right all of my life and all of those songs I had come to know in the mid-eighties about the age of sixteen! That feeling that had been simmering in my bones and must have come boiling to the surface just then and I felt it. “Yeah-ha” I mustered out of the pit of my stomach. Everyone seemed to laugh all at once. Wow, I thought, I must be a “lightweight” because, man, I felt the beer and it felt good! So, I asked Eddie was there any more beer? “Hey man…. Hey, I… I know where to get more beer,” Eddie said kind of fastidiously broken. And, I guess that, to get beer, was where we were temporarily fixatedly motoring light-heartedly-innocent. On the Hunt by Lynyrd Skynrd came on the stereo. The windows were down, the music blasting, and the smell of Oak and Sycamore was pungent on the warm May suburb night. After listening to a few songs on the cassette of the Lynyrd Skynyrd album Eddie interrupted: “Hey…, Hey man, turn the music down fore a second. You need to take a right here! Wait!, wait a second man, I… I’ll show you the way.” Eddie mustered. And then, “It’s all cool man, I know this place and we’ll get some beer,” he said excitedly for being out on the hunt with friends. It had just got dark and we were somewhere far off in the boonies in Mountain Hill, VA. We had gone about ten miles out of D-ville as the shadows of the thick Oak trees started to blend in with the night sky. We pulled the car up to a house, or what looked like could be a little store –like place, and I cut the lights. “Hey, hey man, ya’ll got some money?” Eddie inquired from everyone in the car.

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I told everyone that I had put nearly all of my money into the gas tank and that I only had a dollar to give. Nicky coughed up a couple of bucks, so did CC, and Eddie had some money. “How much does it cost for a twelve pack of Bud?” I asked him. “ I think $12” Eddie said that the guy buys a lot of beer from the supermarket and re-sales it way out here in the county. And if you were cool he would sell it to you. “Damb, twelve dollars!” I said sharply while Eddie was walking away. Even in the mid nineteen eighties, that could buy twice as much at a local convenience store. But, the night was still young and so were we. We didn’t have a choice if we wanted that ‘rare beverage for any teen’ in the American night. Someone appeared at the front of the door and Eddie goes, “What’s up man” and the other man said, “hey, Eddie what’s up now!” A few minutes later and our thirsty impatient group of misfits were sighing from relief; Eddie comes out with a 12 pack and a smile. “ O.K… alright, stay cool dude,” he yells back to the guy inside. Man, I didn’t know how crafty some people could be. How cool is that, I thought. Eddie couldn’t have been any older than me. I thought that he was even a year or so younger and I had just got my license a month ago. I just accepted that he was old enough to ride around with me and help me pay for gas. We all could benefit from each other by splitting the cost of things and then we could ride around and terrorize the community and have fun why we were at it. That was the meaning of life to someone who just turned sixteen in our small American town. It was cool to rebel, to be young, to want to experience things for the first time. We all must have felt like we were on the brink of living for the first time. No adult supervision, Eddie seemed to know how to get anything that we wanted and we didn’t need ‘stinking grown-ups’ to tell us what limits we had in life. For the first time in my life, I could sense the freedom of no limits and time did not exist to be the burden that it is when you get a little older. Then, the only time limits were the limits of when all of the chics had to go home for the night. If there were no chics to go talk to, what was the use in even wanting a car? The stereo gave us the power, the car gave us the means, and the beer gave us the courage to motor on. So, we were finally off to the mall, smoking Marlboro reds and drinking cold Bud! Eddie was now the co-pilot and Nicky was in the back. I guess he moved to the back at the request of Eddie, because we had immense respect for the person who could get the one desired beverage of the teenage night, BEER! We drove away from the house-store listening to ’76 Jail Break by ACDC. The drums sounded so awesome on the new stereo and we were really into the music. We were going some place in the teenage American night and as long as we had the gasoline to make the motor move everything seemed fine.

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I never really craved beer until I was in the presents of all of my new acquaintances. I never really liked the taste, I remembered as I drove. The first beer that I ever had was from my stepfather. He drank (I think it was) Shaffer beer. It was cheap, but it did the trick. I was headed out to cut the grass at his and my mom’s place and he asked me if I wanted one. I think that I was fifteen at the time. Of course, since my mom wasn’t around I accepted. I drank it quick, and it was so cold it burned a little in my mouth. I remember the taste of hops and the malt taste as it went down. I didn’t like the taste at that particular time. I drank it because it was the legendary –beer- and was off limits according to the rest of the grown-ups. I started the lawn mower and the –buzz- that I had was enormous from drinking only one beer. I can remember the sun and how hot it was that July and running with the push mower to make a few bucks cutting grass. The intense energy that I got out of it was fabulous. There was always that underlying feeling that I was doing something wrong. That feeling reminded me of the electric glowing cross that a lot of the kids were getting tattooed on their body. It was a feeling of having fun -the naughty way. You’re having fun, but you can’t seem to shake that underlying feeling that you get when you know that you’re not quite in the ‘right’. That feeling seemed to follow me where ever I went and it was present as we entered the city limits. I had a car and now I had beer! Boy, I was living; now all I needed was a chic. Now that I had a buzz, the music seemed to intensify, and, so did the speed of the car. I was driving to the music, but I don’t know if it was the thought of the police or the fear instilled in me though my parents that I seemed so nervous when I entered the city. “All man, the city limits and cops,” I said. “It’s O.K. man, just drive normal when they get behind you,” was the suggestion by Nicky when I started to slow down. “Yah want me to drive, man?” was the second response that I got from Eddie. “No, that’s O.K., I’m alright,” I told him with the music still cranking. It was only a few lights more until we were to turn off to the mall any way, was my thought. We arrived at the mall and drove around to the backside entrance where the amusement center was. The amusement center entrance was the popular entrance for school age boys and girls. This entrance is where the videogame stores and arcades were located. And it was the entrance to the mall in which all of the parents dropped of their children to squander their allowance. It was this entrance in which a lot of pay phones were located also. Everyone couldn’t help noticing all of the young girls using the phones. I always figured they were calling their girlfriend or boyfriend to come to pick them up after their parents had dropped them off. If a person would have the time to observe, they would probably see the young fourteen or fifteen year old girls dropped off by their parents. Then, the young ladies would head straight to the phones to call a ride to come to get them and cruise around the city with their young lover or friend for a couple of hours. This was probably the current practice for many popular, naughty girls. This was the mall entrance where many young men (dudes), whom not long had their license, would cruise their car around before parking to try to show off their freedom mobile- to the chicks standing outside brave enough and looking for a ride with one of them. The amusement center entrance was crowded for a time, before the security guards would run everyone off. Then, after the -nark- left, the dudes and chicks would come right back. Nark was the lingo for those that were ‘not cool’.

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If you did not hang with any crowd you were probably called a nark. Narks were thought to be anyone who would tell on you to the authority or your parents if they thought that you were getting away with something that you were not supposed to. No one wanted to be a nark, so everyone chose a particular crowd of people to hang out with. The only other persons who were not considered a nark and hung out by them selves were considered a weirdo. The weirdos were usually old men that sat on a mall bench or by the fountain wall and watched the young girls walk by or stared at the dudes or young men. No one wanted to be a weirdo either, so you picked your crowd to go around with. I felt as if I did not pick a crowd, so this one found me, was the thought hashing in my mind. I can remember that our local mall had a policy in place for a time that was to deter more than five people from walking around the mall together in a “gang”. This means that if someone had a family larger than five people then they would probably be asked by the narks to “break it up”. This policy was supposed to keep large groups of kids from standing around in a group blocking the walkways. What a drag this policy was for us kids. And to top it all off, the dang mall closed at 9 PM. Where? if you didn’t have a car, would you go then? Most of the kids “hit” Riverside Drive if they had a car to ride in. Cruising your automobile and your loud stereo was the thing in our small town. The cops hated us. Meanwhile, my little entourage of strangers and I, were out in the parking area in the Chevette when Nicky goes, “hey man, I’ve got a joint”. At that time CC and Nicky also had a cigarette apiece going when he lit up the “hawg-leg…uwe deddude doo,” Nicky cried as he did the initial puffs to light the joint. The whole little car was just pilfering with smoke and we saw down the way a security guard –nark- truck searching the row ahead in parking lot. These trucks had a revolving yellow light on the roof that was very visible. The security agency used the lights as a scare tactic. They were right! It was right then scaring the pants off of all of us except for Eddie. He said, “it’s alright man, what’s he going to do? Everybody take your time man, or the security puke will know something’s up.” We had just enough time to pass the smoke around, so that everyone would get some of it. I told everyone to roll down the windows as we were getting out of the car so to get rid of the smoke that was in it. We did that and then rolled the windows back up and proceeded into the mall and everything was fine except for a few suspicious looks. We walked at a fast pace across the parking lot towards the mall so close together from -paranoia I guess- that we must have looked like a scared school of fish. Eddie led the way in his black cowboy Dingoes with CC right on his heels with his boots and Nicky and I trying desperately not to run in my suede ‘head- boots’. Those types of boots were called ‘head boots’ because all of the “smokers” at school wore them in the early eighties. They were suede-leather work boots with red laces that sounded as if they clogged along when a person walked in them.

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The smoke hit me when I entered the mall in a different kind of way. I was zapped into a paranoid world where I felt as if all of the people around us were staring. The electric glow seemed to wear on my conscience as I was just going through the motions of the intensity of feeling watched. And, I guess, Eddie felt the same way because he seemed to be in the most outrageous hurry. “ Slow down Eddie,” Nicky said many times; and that seemed like it didn’t do any good. Eddie was simply on a mission or something to walk through once and then leave. Maybe his mind was in a different world or he just didn’t hear us. We walked all the way around the mall to the other side before he even paused for a bit. “What, you can’t keep up?” he said squeamishly. Before we could say anything we were off again in a flash to go up the stairs as if we were on a work out instead of a cruise around the mall. As we walked I didn’t have time to notice the effects of the smoke that we had in the car. I just kept my head down as if I was in a trance and an inner voice was telling me to follow the leader. Every time I lifted my head to look around, I felt as if all of the grown people in the common area of the mall were looking at all four of us thinking: “there goes those little hoodlums; look at them all red eyed and drunken.” We looked like we were in a rock- n- roll band or something with all of our long hair. Eddie in his leather jacket with chains, CC with his long straight blond hair and faded- holey jeans with a bandanna hanging out of his back pocket; Nicky with his leather jacket, levis and black Converse sneakers, and me with my long curly afro, jeans that I had grown out of, and a tight t-shirt showing all of the muscles that I had developed in weights training for the school wrestling team. We were all walking together like a school of paranoid minnows in a stream, so close to each other that it seemed as if we were terrified or something. When Eddie turned it seemed as if each, also, turned on queue. For the life of me that day, I didn’t know why I was scared of walking through the mall. The feeling of terror had stricken through our veins. We walked from one end of the mall in record time, and all of the time feeling that everyone was staring at us. We had probably set the walk record for all of the people that do it for exercise in the early mornings before most of the stores open their doors; and probably still hold the walking record today if someone had timed it. We did not stop at any of my favorite places (most notably the music stores) where I could check out the cute chicks along with some cool tunes. Well, talk about paranoid paralysis, we were right back at the car in no time flat. That was not like any other trip I had ever taken to any mall. Eddie told us that he didn’t care about the mall too much. It kind of made him uncomfortable to be around all of the narks that weren’t cool like adults, security guards, and the old people sitting on the benches. Any place that put a damper on the word ‘cool’ was not for Eddie. I think that he must of felt that being around un-cool things would rub off on him or something. But, man, there were some really cute chicks there, I thought. Now, I didn’t really care too much for what I was doing at the time, all I knew is that I really wanted to jam to some “tune-age”. Riverside drive was the cruise strip in the little town that we lived near. Every American town had a cruise strip in the mid or late eighties. The strip was a divided

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highway with a lot of stoplights, restaurants, and shopping centers that ran right smack through the middle of D-ville parallel to the River. This seemed to be the designated road where carloads of girls met carloads of boys and exchanged phone numbers or even exchanged seats. It was hip to cruise down Riverside drive with the car stereo blazing, the wax on the paint shining, and a pretty girl by your side to brag to the fellows. This “strip” was clearly the road in D-ville that you went if you were showing off your car, your stereo, or your lack of intelligence. It must have been the strip for years because I remembered a story my dad had told me that in the sixty’s he and some kids had put detergent into the waterfall in the front of the sign for the Riverside Drive shopping center and the road was covered in soap suds. And Riverside drive, in D-ville, had a nasty reputation in the mid to late eighties as a cop trap also. This is the street through town where you had to keep the beer cans down and out of site and to not even put a cigarette to your lips because, if seen, one might be under suspicion for pot. The neon lights were “a blazing” and so were we on this warm American night in the year nineteen eighty-six or so. We didn’t know war. We had barely ever heard of words like terrorism. And if Reagan dropped the bomb on Russia we thought we would not even feel a thing anyway. We didn’t mind the news. We didn’t care about the cynicism of politics. All we cared about were things like what color panties Melanie Griffith was going to wear in her up coming movies. There was still a little gas in the car and beer in our bellies and we were all right. There is something about the warm feeling of neon in the night when a person has a “slight buzz”. When you’re not focusing your sight, it leaves a behind trail similar to a blur when you turn your head. But when you have to focus your mind when you’re the driver and that almost kills your buzz. But, there are moments (when cruising around at the slow speed of twenty miles per hour or so) when there is little concentration to be done except staying in your lane. So, I was having a good time keeping an eye out for chics and hoping like hell there were no cops around to hassle us. We pulled up to a stoplight and a shiny red Mustang pulled next to us. “Check out that car load of chicks”, CC blared out over our Van Halen cassette. “Hey, Hey, I like blonde hair”, Nicky yells out of the window. The windows were all down and the stereo pumped out Wild Summer Nights by Van Halen and Nicky was hanging half of the way out of the car window with a can of beer in his hand. Nicky was still enjoying the juvenile stage of life. At the age of fourteen he was privileged to ride with the older crowd. What a privilege to be out on the strip cruising around looking for chicks. Nicky was not the one driving and was still seeking that first love. The joy of the first kiss and that feeling of immensity or uncertainty must have been combing through his veins in a rush of joy that he had to just bellow that passion out. Just then, I noticed a cop car on the other side of the divided highway going the opposite direction. A feeling of paranoia fell over me and I struggled to get Nicky in the car. “Nicky your gonna get me pulled over. Law-doggies eleven o’clock.” I had lost my buzz for the moment, but I soon retained it when the light turned green and the cops evidently didn’t see him and I was back into Van Halen’s song. “She smiled at me, follow them”, Nicky said. It seemed I had a one track mind at the moment “chics”… so I did it. The little Chevette puttered around the U-turn as the shiny new Mustang sped around into the

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opposite direction. “Catch them”, seemed to be in my mind. They Ladies turned onto one of the off roads parallel to the strip and we were close behind. I think they were then scared. We were following close behind. The chics must have thought we were some kind of mad men, so they made another quick turn into a shopping center parking lot. The red Mustang whipped across the parking lanes and around the backside of a restaurant. All the while, the guys were cheering me onward, “catch her, hey Mick.” I couldn’t let the fellows down. We desperately, or so I thought, wanted just to talk with them, get a phone number, or a least get a ride in the shiny red Mustang. The red Mustang sped though the restaurant parking lot and around to the front side where the shoulder of Riverside drive met the parking lot. The Mustang sped down the shoulder of the road in the opposite direction of the flow of traffic and I followed without hesitation. We barely missed the headlights of the oncoming traffic. In the heat of the moment I discovered a gift that I didn’t know that I had. I stepped outside of myself to access the situation. I thought to myself in that moment: here I am trying to impress a bunch of guys, by trying to catch a car that is much faster than yours, now going the wrong way on a major highway though the city, and with a lot of beer in the car; and for what? Just to talk to a couple of blondes that probably are dingy anyway? I must be having fun or I’m out of my mind. “I think the mustang gave up”, I said to the guys. It pulled into the next restaurant and into a parking space. Success! I thought for a moment. But, Then I realized that the girls may think that we were harassing them. And so I didn’t park. I slowly coasted though the lot to a spot a little further down from the red Mustang. I waited for a moment to see them get out. “Man, we must have scared them” Nicky said. I drove off and didn’t turn back. Just think, and I was paranoid that the cops seen Nicky moments earlier hanging out of the window yelling at the girls with a beer can in his hand. Look what we did just now. On the shoulder of the road going the wrong direction of the flow of traffic. The red Mustang and our little Chevette must have violated several statutes of law. That paranoid feeling was back again, “I wander if the cops seen our little scene here,” CC said. “I’m gonna have to keep going out with Mick on Fridays this is kinda fun.” CC added. We left the scene as to not scare the girls into going to a pay phone and calling someone about us. I decided that since we have more beer to drink, maybe it would be safer to take a drive some place out of the city. We decided that we were going to ride to the edge of town, to the edge of the night; and just bask in the serenity of “youth-dom”. A thought came to my mind, “Lets try and find the legendary Ghost Bridge.” It was a bridge over a creek on the North Carolina and Virginia State line that was supposed to be haunted. My brother had pointed out the road in which he had been down on a prior trip to North Carolina. The land there was below sea level, he said, and the gravity around that area of Pittsylvania County was weird and made the water flow up hill. This area was said to have a place called “Gravity Hill”. A friend of mine, Lee Garret, that was the brother of an ex-girlfriend of mine, Angel, had told me of this road

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off of Barry Hill Road that this bridge was supposed to exist. I was riding with their mom and he had pointed out the road that it was supposed to be down and said that he had been fishing there before and he had gotten spooked. His mom was on the way to her sister’s house and we didn’t have the time to do any exploring. I always wanted to check this place out to see if it was authentic or not. Everyone agreed to the expedition and was ready to explore the rest of the “J” that we didn’t get to finish because of the security guard scare an hour ago in the mall parking lot. Not to mention, that we had more of that cool beverage that every teen wants on a nights outing “cold beer”. We each had a few more rounds a piece and best of all it was still cold inside of the cardboard container and the paper bag. We pulled out of the mall parking lot ready to seek all that mattered to our teen thoughts. That was predominately to go where all teens want to go, exploring the freedom from adult supervision that we’d had all of our lives. We had that thirst for anarchy and wanted to live without the conformity of society. Well, we had not even pulled out of the parking lot yet and I heard a “pop” of a cool refreshing beverage sound. “Ya want one Mick,” Nicky said. CC popped the top for me and Eddie grabbed one for himself in the passenger seat. I put in a choice of my own into the cassette deck, Steve Miller and we pulled out onto the main road with Go On Take The Money and Run. I headed out the Mt. Cross Road. The Mt. Cross Road was a passage straight out of the city limits. Just a few miles down the road from the mall and I could sigh from relief. Out of the city limits meant that I wasn’t under the scrutiny of the city police that always seemed to be out in force on a Friday evening. We sang to the music and Nicky lit up the “J”. I could smell the thing immediately. “That’s why they call it skunk,” CC said with passion. We turned up the music and got stoned. Mount Cross road was a good road. It was straight, but had some moderate curves. I didn’t mind driving Mt. Cross Road because it was one of the smoother roads in Pittsylvania County, VA in 1986. Being smooth allowed me to keep one hand on the stirring wheel and the other on the can of beer. This way, my mind did not have to worry about a red light or a turn signal, I could just concentrate on the music and the little bit of conversation that we had while it was on. We loved to jam and that is what we did. The only thing that I had to worry about was the gasoline tank. A couple of dollars would get us there and back. ‘Go on take the money and run…Who,Who ,Who… Go on take the money and Run!!!!!’ The air guitar was so important to really get into the music. Yes, with a beer in one hand trying to smoke and the steering wheel in the other, I was singing to the tunes and everyone was laughing. I don’t know how I could play air guitar and drive, much less shift the gears, but I learned how. The Mt. Cross road was pretty long and with the maximum speed of the Chevette (60-65mph) there was time enough to listen to just about a whole album Steve Miller’s Greatest Hits. Sometimes I would get the occasional fast car behind me. Try as I might I just could not keep it from passing. A lot of people had accidents on this road because it was so smooth. With a V-8 car engine you could cruise right along and approach ninety

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miles an hour and not even have the slightest idea your going that fast. And then the faster drivers will run up on another vehicle actually going the speed limit and think that they were just creeping along and try to pass on the smooth but narrow road and loose control. We were just cruising and in no hurry but at least we were moving. Then we neared the Moorehouse Bridge road and took a left and I forgot to slow down. “Hey”, is what I heard from the back seat. It is a shame when kids have limited resources of beer and some of it gets spilt, but that car was destined to smell like beer anyway. I knew this route pretty well because my mom drove it back and forward to North Carolina were she worked in a Beer factory. I used to ride with my dad sometimes to pick her up. Most of the Virginia county state roads were really lumpy and narrow and the Moore-house Bridge Road was on of them. Around these county roads a driver was pretty dumb to try and speed. There are many -hold on to your beer places- where you just went “Wahoo!” I had time to open another beer before I reached the continuous curve with a 35 degree down slope what had to be a deep ravine before you cross over the narrow Moore house Bridge and start up the opposite hill with a continuous curve in the opposite direction. “Whew”, out of danger for a while I thought, and took a swig of beer. The full moon was out in the Virginia sky and the stars were just now showing as we drove through the early night. Eddie was the only one to have his window all the way down as it was getting quite chilly this May night. He had on his black leather jacket. I had on short sleeves, but did not ask him to roll the window up because everyone liked their Marlboro reds. The alcohol was warm in my veins and I shrugged off the care of the chill. I took the turn onto the legendary Barry Hill Road that would take us to the North Carolina state line. All the shadow silhouettes of the trees had long disappeared and it was completely dark and the line at the edge of the road was just visible with the car lights. Houses of the Holy by Led Zepplin was in the cassette player and the scene became quite spooky outside in the boonies as a slight fog rolled across the headlights. The Barry Hill mansion was a few miles ahead on the left. A hundred years ago it was the big plantation house that the road, of course, was named. It wasn’t occupied any more and from my understanding the place was condemned years ago, although a buddy of mine, Philip, said that he had seen lights on in the place from the road when he had passed by once before. It was set way off the road and you definitely couldn’t see it tonight. “This whole place along the Barry Hill road was just creepy,” I told everyone. The Hill The road was creepy in itself because it had a ninety-degree curve where a lot of people were killed speeding or driving wreck-less. An unusually number of accidents took place there. I heard, the old trail was cursed by Voodoo because there were a lot of tobacco plantations from the Old South with slaves forced into a Christian religion. There were accounts of burned African-pagan churches and meeting places. There were lots of battles and small skirmishes during the Civil War times around the old Barry Hill trail. The old plantations off of the Barry Hill road were now ruins, now, almost one hundred and fifty years after the civil war. There were old legends that the elder slaves of the time cursed “white folk” and their protégée that came across these grounds. The road

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was built on an old trail that used to cross the Virginia, North Carolina border. It was a major thorough fair traveled by horsemen and those on foot since the piedmont of Virginia and North Carolina was considered wilderness. This was fact because it provided a bridge over the only part of the Dan River that touched the Virginia and North Carolina State Line. It was the most inconspicuous routes North to Virginia from the deep “South”. Another wise tail was this was a major avenue on the famous “underground railroad”. Barry hill was cursed and haunted because –only be-known to the elders of the local area and hushed by the forces that be- the area seen a lot of hangings and beatings of run away slaves trying to head North to freedom. After dark, Barry Hill was one of the creepiest places that I could remember to this day. Maybe, it was the fog that seemed to roll in every time that I drove a few minutes down it? The fog never seemed to come in until dust. Every night, that I can remember, driving along Barry Hill road around the state line there was a mysterious fog bank. Or maybe it was just the smell of the lowland areas around there that gave me the creeps. Swampland is just smelly. This night, I was pushing the little Chevette as hard as it could go. I wanted to scare the others with the legends of the places we were about to visit. I was putting the hammer down and to give a “thrill ride” to the guys only because it was dark and we had a beer or two in our belly. We stopped at the “infamous” Gravity hill. It was a place near the North Carolina and Virginia border. At night there was an illusion that if one approaches to the SouthEast and stopped at the stop sign at the intersection, and put the car gear in neutral, then a mysterious force would pull the car backwards up the hill. Someone had said that it was the ghost of dead slaves from two hundred years ago hitching the car to their ropes and pulling it up the hill for some reason. The old road used to be the road to the river crossing where one of the tasks of the slaves was to pull a carton full of water buckets to help water the tobacco fields. Another guy, I heard say, that it was the VA-NC border just have some weird gravitational effects from the magnetic pull of the type of rock out cropping there. Some kind of geological mystery, I guessed. I remember it looking as if the road was leading uphill. I didn’t care what kind of force that it was, but since it was the unknown, every one would, eventually, take a trip there to check it out. I had told all of the guys about it before we got there. “No way man, no” Eddie replied. You could tell that he kind of got caught up in the legend. “Ain’t no ghost of dead slaves gonna pull this car with all of us in it backwards up a hill,” CC said with a hint of hesitation. We went towards the North-West to get to a place to turn around because the experience was the best if the “force” pulled the car backward up the hill. One trick to maximize the effect was to get everyone to look forward. Meanwhile, it was too dark if one looked back because the back-up lights were not on. My older brother and some of his friends had taken me to it once. The road was narrow and finding a spot to turn around was difficult, so you had to go to the first house on the right to swing the car around to go the opposite way down the road. Dogs where barking as I turned into someone’s driveway and dim lights were on in the house. I backed the car out as fast as I could. We headed to the South-East in the

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opposite direction. Then, I slowed the car as we came to the bottom of the hill at the intersection of the state road ninty nine and the Barry Hill Road to let the gravity of the hill or the –ghost of the slaves- pull us up the hill backwards in the opposite direction. I cut the lights as we slowly approached the stop sign of the two intersecting roads. I place the car gear in neutral and eased up on the gas and let the car coast. And then the small car started to slow before the stop sign. Then, the car came to a stop just before the stopping point of the intersection. I did not have to push the brake petal to stop the car. I then revved the engine to let everyone know that the car was in neutral. “There it goes,” I said as the little Chevette slowly was rolling backwards and what seemed at the moment was “surely” up hill. “If you look forward through the windshield you can see the road in the headlights”, I said. The car pulled us slowly at first and then gradually gained speed. “Hey man, we’re speeding up!” gasped CC. I couldn’t see that clearly behind us, so I didn’t want to let the car go too far. “I’ll put it in gear and see if those slave’s ghost have the power to hold the car when the transmittion is in first,” I offered. “Where do you suppose they are taking the car Mickey?” CC let in. “Good question CC”, I have no clue.” “I’ll get out and piss, man,” Nicky said. “Then we’ll see if the piss rolls up the hill,” he threatened. Then Nicky wanted out of the back seat behind Eddie and he got out to take a piss. A moment later, he got back into the car and said that the piss “rolled that-a-way,” meaning up the hill. And Nicky pointed to the North West. And the short time the Chevette was being pulled, gravity hill seemed immense and the moonlight shown through the darkened silhouettes of the trees. The weight of time, for a few seconds, seemed lost in the gravity of the moment. Everything felt heavy and thicker as if the senses were accentuated by the warm weighted down feeling of the vapors of humidity. For the moment, we thought we were breaking the laws of physics of weight and gravity to just soar to a different place where time did not matter and the lightest feeling in the car was vaporizing in the smoke right there above our heads. The seconds were strung out in slow motion and the weight of our bodies seemed to sink into the vinyl seats as if the ghost of the slaves were actually pulling, pulling the weight up the hill as they always had for generations on that spot. The countless hot summer days of watering the tobacco crop for centuries for a ill fated industry that seemed cursed by the filthy smoke of it all. The smoke in the car seemed so thick that it quit moving and all lightness of heart had vanished. The only thing heard was the beating of ones heart and the smell of weed seemed trance-like as the Chevette rolled backwards for a few feet up the darkened road on the state border. I felt a part of history being burned onto my memory like a canvas painting. For a few moments after, we said some of the best things about science, weight and humanity, things I couldn’t have imagined that we had said. After the Chevette had broken the hold of the ropes of the slaves we, eventually, lost interest and left for Ghost Bridge*. We turned down state road 1212 just across the North Carolina State line. The fog was getting thicker and the depressed land was presenting us with fowl odors promulgating from the swampy earth. It was a short drive down the state road underneath

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the tall silhouettes of loftily oak trees against the night sky to the bridge. I cut the music down and… The road to Ghost Bridge was dark and the headlights shined dimly on its unimproved pavement. The sides of the road were over grown with the dark silhouettes of tall oak and Sycamore trees mixed with the occasional drooping branches of Willow giving an effect that the road was going to the middle of no-where -into some wicked woods. We hit a few bumps and dodged a pothole and the shocks of the weighted down Chevette squeaked a little from bearing the load of us all. “ How far is it ,” Nicky asked after we had been a mile or so. “I was hear with Philip, my brother’s friend, and it should show up at any time,” I mustered. The fog was getting thicker and thicker and the pavement was running like a wash board, but only waves of up and then down like the road was not graded properly. I responded with a gasp of un-surety. Then, with out a doubt, we came upon a yellow state sign warning of a narrow one- lane bridge ahead as I finished the last comment. The fog was so thick we all wanted to squint to see the start of the bridge. With the feeling of insecurity and with anticipation and I slowed the car down to a crawl. There was no other car around. There was no sign of lights anywhere. Nothing moved and everyone was silent. Then, all of a sudden, I saw the old arched steel paint chipped support beams. The bridge beams looked eerie with the soft light of the moon. The riveted beams of the bridge towered over the road like a giant iron bear trap with its teeth. The huge beams were painted spider web grey with chipped paint and rust. The fog was too much to see to the other side of the bridge. It was as if it were a bridge to no-where. “You think this thing will hold up under us,” CC grumbled as we hit the start of the bridge. CC was obviously high and sentimental about the whole ordeal and had bought the whole story as it was. “Let me out I want to walk it!” demanded CC. “Hey man, calm down,” ordered Eddie. “The bridge wouldn’t be here if it were just going to fall in, get a grip,” he added. *(I found the same stop sign from that same intersection in the room of one of my looney friends the following winter.)

I slowed to a stop so we could get a better look. “Don’t stop,” CC grabbed the headrest of the back of my seat. “Man, look, this is just an old bridge. You think I’m going to believe this ghost story. Pull over there on the other side. Lets get out and take a look,” Eddie commanded as I put the car into gear. The Chevette traversed the length of the bridge with the bumpbump of the well-used washboard pavement. I felt as if scaring these guys had worked and with the feeling that weed gives you, it may have worked all too well because the whole thing looked eerie to me too. We reached the other side and there was a place on the shoulder that one could tell that other cars had pulled there before to fish or something. I turned around there and headed the car in the direction from we had just come. I slowed on the bridge and halted the car. I wanted to scare the others a bit, so I revved the motor and tried to spin the wheels, but I could quite make them spin out.

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“You can’t make those wheels of that beat up Chevette spin out,” was the dare out on the bridge someone said. “Move over” That is all that was said by Eddie. I got out and Eddie slide behind the wheel of our tiny little Chevy Chevette. Eddie pressed the clutch in and revved the tiny four-cylinder motor of the little car to the “absolute peak” of its capacity. The next thing that I perceived was the squeeeeeaaarrrrrkkkkkkkkkk....kkkk of the rear wheels trying to grab the paved over wood of the bridge. The noise was so great that it was hard to believe under the numbing airs of the weed effects. The gray- black smoke added to the thick fog. I had smelled rubber burning before, but this gave it a new meaning for me. “Dam,” Nicky said as Eddie took the car out of gear and cut the lights. “I would never believe that a poor decade old Chevettee was capable of such a feet. I guess the equipment will only do what the operator wants to express.” I mentioned as I looked at the little car with new meaning and amazement. Everyone got out. There was an eerie silence. One could not even hear the flow of water 30 feet below. We knew that there was a river down there through the thick fog, you could feel the coolness of humidity on your skin. I took advantage of the stillness of things around there and told the story over again that was told to me. “Run-away slaves and prisoners of the civil war were tried for treason and some were hung here from the steel arches of this bridge. The Confederate army did not have the time or means to dispose of the bodies, so they just cut the dead body’s down and their bodies fell into the water below.” “Ah man, that’s just and old wise tale,” Eddie said as we went to the edge of the bridge and peered over into the thick, eerie fog to try and get a glimpse of the water below. “Yeah, I think it is just folklore too, but it has the potential to be true,” I said. “Wow, I bet their bones are still there,” CC said. “And the cat fish ate their flesh too,” Nicky chimed in. “Boo”, I touched CC’s back. “Hey…ah,” he jumped a little and we all laughed. I was feeling a little buzzed from the smoke that we had coming from the Gravity Hill. Funny, how the effects of the smoke seemed to give me extraordinary ideas. I was beginning to like this weed stuff. In the beginning, it heightened my senses. Now, that I had experienced it a few times, I realized that it gave my perception a sort of extra edge; a feeling of hypersensitivity and desire to explore in detail what I was experiencing. I had been to ghost bridge before without the feeling that weed gave me and we stayed in the car and did not get out. We merely drove over it and found the stories hard to believe. A little smoke gave us the want to actually feel life and live at that moment all that I could. It made life not as much regular or the same, but made me want to gain more out of the experience; to not just a want to see ghost bridge but to get out and touch it, smell it, and feel all of it’s virtue (like one of the persons must have felt that crafted it). And sometimes to gain those experiences to: ‘explore down to the morrow of it’ a little bit of smoke did not heighten exposure to the rational. Living in that particular moment, I started to feel adventurous. I climbed up one of the steel I-beams of the bridge.

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“Eh… hah” look at Mick. Mick’s crazy,” CC shouted out. As I climbed I felt, through the thickness of the humid air, that I could cut the ropes of the of every hanged victim of the past and that they could break free from the grip of greed that the hand of humanity had dealt them. That same grip that still plagues democracy today, is why I was out here searching, I thought. We were all searching, exploring our world to find the limits of the boundaries, the boundaries of greed, that’s it! I thought. There has got to be weaknesses in the boundaries of this life that we can find to escape it. There was silence for a moment and then a scream from the screech owl somewhere near that seemed to say, “whooo comes to disturb the silence of the night”. The rails of the bridge were foot wide steel I-beams painted gray in color. They were also cold and a little gritty from rust and weathering. Man, just a little of that smoke brings all of these weird cool thoughts of mine to the surface. “Howeeelll,” I cried as if I were a wolf to hear myself break the quite chatter of the others talking and laughing. I wanted to hear my voice echo across the water to experience a real howl like I never experienced it before. Just then, we saw headlights flashing through the trees. “Someone’s coming,” cried Nicky. By then, I was at the top of the steel arch and did not care at either way. “Hey Mick I’ll be right back,” yelled Eddie. The others jumped into the Chevette and took off. I stayed at the top of the bridge while Eddie and the others drove the car to turn around. The pick up truck came and passed. I felt the rumbling of the bridge bearing the weight of the pickup truck as it passed. “Shouh!” I sighed with relief as I climbed down. Wow, this place is creepy I thought to myself in the few moments that I was alone clinging to the top of the bridge. I noticed graffiti painted all along the bridge beams and road where other teens had left their mark I guessed. *(And on a year or so later, I would notice that as soon as the county did another paving over the wooden planks of the bridge, graffiti would be on it again a few days later as if kids were drawn to it like a hang out or something. Ghost Bridge, was an icon of mystery to many in the surrounding county I guessed.)

The rest of the guys came back to meet me in the center of the bridge and we looked around for a minute as we heard what sounded like a big splash in the water down stream or somewhere! It sounded as if it were a 100 feet up the small silent eerie river. “What was that”, Nicky cried as all of us at the same time felt as if it were time to leave and started to leave the bridge. “Wait a minute”, I said as we stopped all of a sudden. “Listen”, I said as I clutched onto the keys for the Chevette. What ever caused the splash had disappeared into the murky fog below. Feeling the extra alert sensation of the smoke that we had ingested, we all decided to get out of there because we did not hear anything more. “What was it you think,” Nicky whispered in the excitement. “I don’t know and I do not feel like waiting around to see,” I said feeling sentimental to the fright. We hustled back to the car and everyone slid into the seats in record time. Luckily Eddie had left the keys in the ignition and the windows down. We took off to try and put some distance between us and our spooky experience at Ghost Bridge. 31

I do not know where it came from but Eddie pulled out a fifth of Green Label Evan Williams Bourbon that he had somehow stowed under the passenger seat. Eddie just magically produced items like the bourbon. It seemed if we were out of any vice that he would have it or know where to find it to keep the adventure on track. He took a hit off of it and says, “Here Mick have some of this.” Not wanting to be a party pooper and keep with the spirit of the night I mistakenly drank from the bottle. “Bah”, I hated the taste. I did not even like beer until recently and this stuff was really strong. We turned the tunes back on to a Def Leopard tune that I had been wanting to here. Love Bites… Love Bleeds Is what I need… The guitars whaling sound on the pioneer stereo system seemed appropriate to that moment. We were just out of the fog and barreling down the road, still a little frightened, towards town. “Aye… Aye, turn the music down for a moment!” says Eddie. “ I…I know where a party is. We can just stop in and say hello, man, and share some of this bourbon.” I wasn’t done with the night, I thought. And it was on this side of the county. So, I said O.K. “Ah..ha,ha, hah…..Yeee Baah!”, CC chimed in the back seat and Nicky voiced in, “Euuuuh dee doo do!” as if to rebut CC as we all felt the warm flavor of the liquor run down our throats. We passes gravity Hill and the road was so dark that the blackness. We miraculously passed all of the dangerous curves on the Barry hill road and rounded the bend back onto the Morris Bridge Road without a hitch. The wheels left the road a few times as we topped one of the hills from a steep incline to a descending slope. We all cheered as the car dipped onto the bottom of the hill as we started up another small hill as we all did another pass on the bottle. The softly graded Pittsylvania county roads were smooth but lumpy. All of the county roads presented a challenge to those who drove them, especially at night. I was freezing. Eddie had on his leather jacket and the window all of the way down on his side and I had on just a tea-shirt. “Can you roll up the window some,” I exclaimed. But by then, we were on the out skirts of town. Instead of doing that, Eddie had his mind on something else and I guess it did not register what I said. “Aye, aye turn down the music for a second, we’re coming up on the turn for the drive way.” Eddie said looking for a turn. Eddie had been a little pretentious as we neared this particular destination. Something was on his mind, I thought to myself. I was getting quite buzzed by then and things seemed a little funny. I drove to all of his instruction.

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We turned down an off street. A few doors down I could hear music and folks talking in a chatter cocktail party fashion. “Hey, pull over there!” Eddie pointed to the curve on the other side of the street next to large Oak tree. We all got out and went onto the porch of an homestead type house with the door open and folks that I did not know hanging around the front porch with a beer. “Eddie” someone said in a greeting fashion. It was an older hipster looking guy with long hair, blue jeans a leather jacket. They greeted each other with a hipster handshake. We all walked in and passed the bottle around between our group again. The room was full of smoke and another joint was being passed around and Pink Floyd song was on the stereo. I felt a little out of place with Nicky, CC, and I standing in the corridor as Eddie was greeted the rest of the group. CC knew a few people. Eddie disappeared for a second and came back to the front room with a foxy little lady carrying a small infant child. “Eddie he looks just like you,” I heard CC say. Her name was Jennifer or something. By this point I had had too much liquor and smoke and the room felt a little vicarious spinning a little and I told Nicky to come with me out to the porch. I was holding onto the railing and I could not notice the stars or the earth or the ground that was below me. I remember Eddie coming out holding the babe and was followed by the girl. He tried to show me the baby and all of a sudden the liquor came back up. I think he got the baby out of the way just the second before. I was ready to lay down. I could remember hanging out on the porch for a bit more and then getting into the passenger side of the car. I must have laid down for a bit. I remember the rest of the group pilling in bit later. I do not know how Eddie could drive like that, but he must have did just fine. Ain’t Even done With The Night We went through the city and I was barely aware. Eddie said that he wanted to pull off really quick to see if some other girl was home. I must have feel asleep for a bit. I awoke and it was cold. CC and Nick were in the back of the car asleep also. I looked around and Eddie had pulled the car off to the side of the street somewhere in the city and he was no-where in sight. The neighborhood looked upper middle class. All was quite and no one was out. I pushed at Nicky, “Where are we?” I asked, sitting up from a slouching position. I still tasted the bourbon and the after taste tasted funky. “Eddie went in real fast to see Nicole.” One of the guys said. “Who is Nicole?” I asked a bit annoyed. “I don’t know, he just said that he would be back in a few minutes,” CC said. He climbed up the gutter of that house across the street and went into a window on the second floor, ” Nicky said with his head slouched down in relaxed posture. “1AM? How long have I been asleep?” I looked at the time on the stereo. “And isn’t Eddie’s girl, Jennifer, with his baby off of Mt. Cross road?”

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“Nicole is someone that he wanted to stop for a minute to see, is all Eddie said. We’ve been here, Ah, I don’t know, 45 minutes or so,” Nicky’s voice was crackled. “Man I got to get home in a bit. I never really stay out this late,” I said with sincerity, . “You can stay over at my house,” CC reassured. “I want to sleep in my own bed instead of having my neck cramp up in a car or sleep on a hard floor,” I demanded. I felt kind of groggy in my tired state feeling the coolness of the night. I turned on some tunes, quietly, in order to divert my mind and to give me some patience. I listened to half of a song and then my patience had left. I opened the car door. “Where are you going?” Nicky sat up. “Which window did he climb in?” I asked again. “That one …up there to the right on the second floor, said Nicky. “Wait a minute,” ordered Nicky “I’m coming with you.” “Me too,” added CC. We all got out quietly underneath the yellow-orange glow of the streetlight. The three of us slipped into the shadows and into the bushes at Nicole’s parent’s house. “What if her parents here us?” Nicky whispered.” “I don’t know,” I said, “But I need to get Eddie out of there because I want to get home to sleep. I felt pretty nimble, so I heaved my body up onto the gutter pipe, got a foothold on the window seal of the first floor and shimmied up to the second floor window. I made as little noise as possible as I swung onto the second floor terrace. CC was a little lighter than Nicky so he followed right behind me. Nicky, being a little on the heftier side decide to stay on the ground in the shadows. “Are you guy’s nuts”, he whispered. “I’m not going up that gutter”. I said for him to go wait in the car and we would snatch Eddie and get out of here. “Dang CC, I really don’t know these people,” I muttered. “Do you know her?” “Yep, she’s Nicole from school!” CC said. “I’ll go first,” he volunteered. “Just in case we surprise them, hopefully she’ll recognize me,” He finished. CC slid the window up quietly and disappeared into the inside room. I hesitated and waited a moment to see what CC would come up with. A moment later he returned. I could tell he was a little flush colored in the moon light. “Well?” I said with satire. “Come on in they were just kissing,” CC smiled. “You looked more surprised than that,” I said to CC. I went inside and Eddie approached from a dim lit room next to the room where we were. “Wait a little for me,” Eddie said quietly. “I ...I promise I won’t be long,” he added with a slight stutter. Eddies eyes were wide open like a cat in the night playing with its prey. I felt that he was over come with some kind of hysteria or elation and I smelled feminine perfume on his cloths. “Well, can we meet her?” I asked in curiosity.

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“Wait here,” he then produced the other half of the Evan Williams bottle and told us that he wouldn’t be but another minute while he said good bye. Eddie went into the other room and I gave him a minute and then followed. I gazed across the room and waved to Eddie and a girl in the dim light of the moon that shown through the window. “This is Mick,” Eddie introduced me to his other girl, Nichol.” I just motioned silently to hurry up a bit and sat in the other room and had another shot with CC. CC and I had a few giggles and drank the rest of the bottle and a few minutes later Eddie appeared. We climbed down and hopped into the car. It turned out that only Jennifer’s little brother was a home asleep in a downstairs bedroom. She was watching him while her parents were away for the weekend. Eddies emotions were one of elation. “I’ll drive Micky, If you want?” he said a little nicer than he seemed earlier that night. “I know why you were so uptight, Quick,” I said. That was your little baby earlier wasn’t it? Sorry, man, I was out of it.” “A-Ha, Yeah Micky! you almost puked on his baby girl,” Nicky said laughing. By now it was after 2AM in the morning. We got into the Chevette and I agreed to let Eddie drive because I didn’t feel like getting pulled over. He headed out of the neighborhood and back towards the main road that led out of town towards CCs. The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. I remember sleeping a couple of hours at CC’s, but his little room was crowded. Eddie had a probation officer’s meeting at 8 AM the next morning in town, so, early that morning he and I took off. I remember dropping him off and it was 5 AM. My dad, usually, returned from his work a couple of hours later. I headed to my place without fear. I felt safe driving with a slight buzz in the early morning. I figured that all off the DUI’s had previously been distributed to those unlucky ones earlier in that morning. It gave me a sense of relief to know that the late shift of the police department was over and early morning brought the safety of a change in their shifts.

So, after all the prior night’s adventure that our gang of misdemeanor misfits went through, it became like a ritual that Nicky would come down to my place during the week and ask if I were going to take him to pick up his uncle CC on Friday. Most of the adventures were about finding vice and, man, the lengths that we went through to find beer or weed or something to break the doldrums of living. They would all gang up on me to go and pick up Eddie. Eddie must have been in some kind of trouble before, because you would figure that the guy had so many friends, why wouldn’t anyone come and pick him up for a nights outing, I thought? I felt trapped from the pressure of the neighborhood guys placing the burden upon me me to go out and I had no retreat away from facing the guys for they lived right next to me. We, literally, got into too many situations that were pushed the limits of my selfcontrol. I was attracted to a need to find the edge of life and draw the line of how far I could go. I lived to map out the possibilities of life and what it had in store. I needed to grasp that electric glow and learn what it was. Was I chasing a ghost? Was the feeling

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real? For it was so close that it was right in front of me, yet too foreign to my mind to attain or to grasp a hold of. I was attracted to the night. I was attracted to the destruction of old boundaries and fears that I had created in my few years of life. I needed to go, but where I did not know. So, I decided to just go and see what life had in store. Why not? Being around these guys turned me into someone else, a competitor for the title of ‘cool’. Weed opened a whole new world to me that I previously did not know. It brought out a side of me that sought after the details and knack or a want to do what, I thought, without letting my conscience talk me out of it first. But, those guys could absorb weed like it was candy. Big joints, spliths, and bowls and bowls and their only limit was money. A quarter of an ounce of the stuff rolled up into one cigarette. When they had weed it was, “Mick’s job to take them out so we can get him stoned too,” I felt was their general opinion about me. I did not have the tolerance they did because a little bit of weed and, “I was floored by the effects.” I could not keep up with those guys, I couldn’t let myself admit it to these guys either, because it would defeat my pride that I so desperately holding onto. Why was I different? I provided a vehicle and they provided the possibility for adventure hunting. And as I look back on those days now, I realize that is was in search of weed that we stuck together like we were part of a religious occult. We were different than the people that did not get high. Getting high with weed was not an addiction to me. I read and read about it in magazines and what books I could find on the subject, I could not find a conclusive study that marijuana was proven physically addictive. In fact, I found to my amazement, some positive things about it -that was a first from what I had heard. We defiantly used marijuana for it’s emotional effects: it scared us more when we were doing scary stuff, it filled me full of joy when I was looking at art, and music was more intense to me. The intensity of the subject matter was brought out with weed and took me to a place where I wanted to learn more and to love the art -stoned. If we had it, we smoked weed. For the long periods of time, usually most of the time, when we did not have weed, we did the normal routine things in life. Pretty much, did not even hang around those guys then, but was with family or trying to date girls. I wanted to spread my findings of weed to others that would listen, but was stumped by even the local girls calling it “evil”. But! When the possibility of finding weed arose then Nicky came around and asked me to take him to see Eddie. I liked getting stoned and doing my own thing like hanging around in the woods, reading a book in a tree house or just day dreaming about what it would be like to be a rock star or some kind of artist. Our neighborhood of hoodlums was out in search of vice for the main part. And then once we had it –if the search proved a success- then we were in search of chicks. The price I paid to get weed was that I had to hang around the folks that had it and return the favor that they wanted by taking them on an adventure. If I did not have anything to offer, I guessed that I would never have enough weed to have a little to share with a date or with a good book to explore. With weed a short drive to the supermarket became an adventure. The doldrums in life became something else, funny. But it was the driving that I did despise and I hid that fact because I wanted to be accepted in the social club of being cool. A month later CC’s father died. And to my dismay folks in his immediate family were saying “What a relief.” CC and his mom rented a trailer in the trailer park above ours and our neighborhood misfit gathering had grown. Nicky and CC could come right to my door, with no problem, and ask me for a ride to school even. So, I ended up being

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the driver to school until the summer started that year. Nicky and CC always smoked pot on the way to school and we would pick up another friend Todd. Todd always had weed because his family owned a convenient store and his brother, who was in his twenties, worked there and had connections. And, each morning, the Chevette would be full of smoke not only on Friday night, but now, on the way to and from school. Sometimes, I really felt trapped by the presence of these people in search of just the one goal of getting high, but it was providing me with adventure and a few memories of adventure. The Chevette was always full of people and now looked funny because one of the tires was the wrong size. We could not afford a new tire and didn’t care. And then we would smoke and listen to ROCK on the way home from school. So what, we were white trash. I did not care, so long as you did not insult me to my face. Yes, I would have wanted to go skiing, ice skating, or golfing. We got high and dreamt of it instead. Nicky’s dad, Stevie, had a vinyl siding company (that never seemed to do many jobs) and he sold weed at terribly high prices. All of the kids that knew Nicky could get his hands on a bag of weed, but most of the time, they complained because Stevie knew he and the Ames’s had a corner of the local market. Forty or fifty dollars to the quarter ounce was the going rates. We were just kids with no job what are we supposed to do? Become thieves? Thief? The next Friday, after the first weekend of our big adventure, Nick asked if I had any money for a bag of weed because he could get quiet a bit for $20. I thought: “why not! I’m bored and last weekend was kind of fun.” With no money for myself, and no allowance to come my way, I came up with a scheme. My dad worked third shift and would be sound asleep and snoring so bad that it would take a train to wake him. I knew my mom paid him child support of over one hundred dollars a week and I did not see an allowance for cleaning and cooking, so, I would just sneak in and get twenty out of my dad’s wallet. That act would be some kind of repayment for cleaning and cooking at least. My dad kept a wallet full of money and hardly ever gave me an allowance, so I did not have any remorse. I told Nicky to wait out side our trailer for a moment, and I went in my dad’s room for the twenty. A huge amount of snoring was going on as I opened the door quietly. Sque…eak, it sailed open. My dad must have heard it a little and snorted. I stood silent for a moment. After a moment had passed, and things leveled out with his sleep, I crouched down low and crawled down the side of the bed where he kept his jean trousers. My dad’s wallet was always in the back pocket of his work jeans. Dad worked in a rubber factory and would be exhausted (and dirty) when he came home. But, he did manage to stay up and watch a movie and smoke cigarettes before he went to bed at 11AM. Coming home dirty and crawling into bed, must have been one of the reasons that my mother left him, I thought, as I smelled the rubber smell on the trousers he had worn at work the night before. I picked the wallet out of the jeans. He was tight with his money, except with his classic ’68 Camero, in which, he poured his money into before going to car shows. As far as I was concerned, sometimes the car was his baby, child, or wife. My dad was so liberal, but he would talk so about making money? My dad loved to talk on the 2-way radio and even had a “handle” for all of us. He did go see the base

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ball games that I played in and stuck beside me when I traded baseball for the more expensive sport of speed skating (which was much more thrilling - individual sports). I was practically raised in a sports car, a 1968 Camero with a 350V8 engine, positive traction and NASCAR playing on the television. We would edge dad on, when he was driving with us around town in that powerful Camero. We would say things like: “go dad,” and he would put a little ‘boot’ into the Holly four-barrel carburetor. And we would say things like: “Chevy Rocks!” I crawled over to his pants and, sure enough, there was his wallet. And it was packed full of cash. It had to be two to three hundred dollars worth of twenties there that he probably would waste buying a ticket in the lottery any way. He did spend forty or sixty dollars of the child support on groceries for me. Why my dad cared so much cash I’ll never knew. My Dad had been bitten by the greed bug some time in his life. I pictured that he liked to take the money out and feel those twenties in is hands or something. Anyway, I got one crisp new twenty-dollar bill from the bunch and silently closed the door. The snoring continued as I shut the door. I headed outside to Nicky. Tomorrow, we were headed to the lake and it was my turn to get us weed.

Caught on the Roof The lake was the happening spot on Sunday summer afternoons. We would wake Sunday morning and Eddie would get one of the older neighborhood guys or lady to get us a suitcase of beer. We only got some of the cheap alcohol, because that was the amount of money that us hoodlum types could scrap together. Of course, we were teens so our bodies could recover from the hang over the next day. Quality, then, didn’t matter. We needed to divide what beer we had between four people and we needed a good amount to stay out in the sun to let our skin turn to tan. Or, maybe, one of us might met a cute chic and give her a beer was always one of the dreams. Linda was older woman that just loved Eddie. Her house is where we were to our journey early that morning. We all came in wearing shorts and a tan and she had bought us beer and got all of us stoned sitting around her kitchen table. The most memorable thing about the morning was when she told Eddie that she was willing anytime and that he was gorgeous. When he was out of the room getting his towel and Frisbee, she had approached me and tied the strings on my swimming trunks and said: “You can’t handle that can you?” She was right! I did not know how to handle that gesture at that particular time in my life from an older woman. I blushed and said nothing and was relieved when Eddie came out and was the focus of her attention once again. I felt that I wanted something, but did not know quite what. She was attractive, but almost my mom’s age, I thought. Eddie, a few months younger than me, I thought, did just fine with her. How did he do it? I thought. On this nice summer day or in the late spring of the 1980’s, it was grab the Frisbee, the radio, and go. Gas was not so expensive and we were lucky the lake was within a reasonable distance. And it was far enough out of the way so that parents did not want to travel to check on you (not that I thought that that would be an issue for us anyway).

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By 10 AM, we were baked (by the smoke of the weed and, eventually, the sun), entertained by rock music and wanting to have a good time on the Road to Hi- Co Lake. Hi- Co Lake was a lake just across the North Carolina boarder, a little past the town of Milton, VA. Crossing state line was great for people who wanted to drink beer and party because they would enter into a different jurisdiction and cops were limited on how far that they could or wanted to pursue ‘those suspicious kids’. We were a few miles near the state line, or knew that it would be, so Nicky fired fire up a “J”. The evidence would be gone by the time we hit the state line. We would go to the lake on all sunny Sundays and stay all day throwing the Frisbee and talking to the chicks. But mostly, we just wanted to get away and forget all of our worries in the heat of the summer. This summer, I wasn’t going to hold anything back because, next year, I was going to be a senior. Man, it was early in June and school was only out just this past week and the shackles, I felt, were off my feet. “Man this summer is going to be tops,” CC said as we neared the lake. Ain’t looking for Nothing But a Good Time by the rock outfit, Poison was the ROCK cassette that we had on in the Chevette cassette player. Ain’t looking for Nothing But a Good Time How can I resist. Ain’t looking for Nothing But a Good Time And it don’t get better than this. My mind kept repeating those same sentiments excitedly. We had a suitcase full of Old Milwaukee Beer and we were going to get hammered early in the Sun. Beer made us not care about ‘the future,’ and pot complemented the high just precisely in the moment. Weed drove you to that edge where one would do the extra crazy things beyond the boredom doldrums of everyday life. We could be the dare devil, to see who could climb the highest in a tree to just to yell like a bird. Or who would go up to that gorgeous chic and get further than a hello (although the smoke made me too introverted to do that). The expression then was “wide open, man”, meaning nothing could hold you back -no law, reasoning, or sense sometimes was what we were after just to get it out of our system. We were chasing that electric glow. I would jump up to catch the Frisbee and accidentally throw it to a chic in a swimsuit. Or I would get high and climb to the top of one of the trees and just call like a crow. “Mick’s got two gears: asleep or wide open, man,” CC would say. “He’s not hold’en back,” a guy named Rick would add in when we were at his house to CC’s point that CC always used to say. “I’m not getting my hair wet in that water,” Eddie would comment. “I’ll throw Frisbee, drink beer, and wade in the water with a beer, but I’m not dunking my head in there!” he would say. “Hey CC lets go over there and talk to Eddie Cats, I think he’s got some more pot”, Nick motioned because he never seemed to stay high enough. Nicky seemed to love getting stoned so much that he never quit scheming to find it. To uncover the weed trail was the order of the day, everyday for Nicky; and he was a sleuth at it. Nicky was good at first impressions because of his fun going style, but his

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persistence would wear on you if he would corner you for weed -all of the time. When I bought some weed from Stevie, his dad, Nicky would stay at our trailer until it was all smoked. Today, I had to hide what little weed that I could buy without Nicky knowing. I had to stash a little smidgen of it for myself later, because what I had gotten from Stevie was just about gone and it was still early in the day. I was a year or, in Nicky’s case, two years older than these guys. With that in mind: a little wiser and with absolutely more to loose, like my license or my car, I sympathized to add to my eggo. All of the others were almost as old as I was, but none of them had made it to high school. What a thought, they are stuck back in the eighth or ninth grade? They will never have a license until they turn 21. So, I was usually the one who had to put on the brakes a little from being always completely wide-open. But today, at the lake, I enjoyed, because I wasn’t stuck behind the steering wheel and I could get closer to the ‘wide-open’ scenario that the others constantly seemed to reach. What set me apart also, was that I was more of the athletic type. I had been in athletics all of my childhood and had gotten further than at least my brother. It was just that the sport I chose, speed roller-skating, which I thoroughly enjoyed, was dead in the city of D-ville now. I had to travel all of the way to High Point, N.C. now to skate for a decent team in my region. With my parents split up, no one wanted to take me on the one hundred and twenty mile trip to practice two or three times a week. So, without a sport to follow, I was stuck in D-ville growing up with what the neighborhood was into. These guys were pleasure seekers from the get go. They come from families that dealt weed for a living and drank heavily. Eddie’s dad had been killed in a car accident. Eddie’s brother, Mickey, suffered a similar fate. All of CC’s family drank alcohol regularly that I noticed. CC was the youngest child of about six other siblings, who were older, and were into the 70’s disco drug era. Nicky’s dad dealt in weed and other drugs of his pleasure and always was “hot roding” cars around town. All of the other kids in town, I’d ever known, stayed in sports, college-prep clubs or became the casualty of misfit groups like ours. Meanwhile, at the lake, we where having a blast baking in the sun and after a few hours decided to go back to town to get more beer and to scrape something up to eat before we went riding into the sunset to finish drinking our beer. Jamming on the stereo system was so important and without Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ that night, we where lost. “Hey Nicky break out some weed,” someone mentioned. “Fire it up!” blurted CC. “I don’t have any more,” was the -let down- from Nicky. Nicky was able to swipe a little weed at a time from his dad’s stash every once in a while. Lately he was reprimanded for taking a little too much, noticed by Stevie. We had smoked up all that I had brought to the lake. And “oh, no what a tragedy it was to be out of weed, man!” seemed to be the common ground that everyone was feeling. “Hey man, a friend of mine is staying near and wanted me to see him,” added Eddie. “He wanted me to stop by sometime this week end and rescue him from his grandparents. He’ll probably have a joint, if you don’t mind squeezing him in for a bit.” We stopped to pick up Jay Jeopreli, off of Hollywood Avenue, and we then felt the pressure to do something wild and unforgettable. Competition was stiff with the local misfit-gossip and you had to be creative to be the talk of the town.

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Jay’s long blonde hair was really noticeable at school, blonde like Vince Neil’s (from the rock band: Montley Crue) hair and shoulder length to boot. Jay came out of a dark house and said that his parents were asleep and to roll out of the driveway. “Wow, 10 o’clock on a Sunday night and your mom and dad are asleep?” cranked out CC as Jay squeezed into the back of the Chevette. We rolled back down the drive way and then the music went back on. We were fresh out of weed and we needed to re-up some how and taking on another person sometimes was the answer. The tunes changed to one of my favorites ’76 Jail Break by ACDC’ Jailbreak, Jailbreak blurred across the stereo speakers. “Man, we are so out of school... wouldn’t it be cool if we could steal the sign off of the school roof?” Nicky mentioned. “That would be legendary,” says Jay. “Yeaeeeh baaah!” shouts CC. And I drove without hesitation. The idea sounded like a challenge. So it did give us somewhere to go, a destination for our Rockin and Rollin. We drove out to Blair-wood Junior High School, but man, it had a security guard car parked in front of it and the lettering on the roof was too huge to put into the Chevette. We drove a little further down the road to the next building. It was an Elementary school next door. We all felt the weird energy that kids get once school has let out for the summer break. It was if we had been let out of a prison that had kept us inside all winter. We wanted to lash out at the institution of society: “how dare you keep us inside learning all of these useless ideals. Bolt on and keep the camera rolling where going to do some history!” “Hey, teacha…leave those kids alone!” I felt the electric glow again and every hair stood up on my body as I scampered to the school building. The others must have felt it too. I noticed that Jay had the same small tattoo that Eddie had on the back-side of his left hand: the ‘electric glow’ Indian Ink cross symbol (a simple Christian cross symbol about an inch in length with three lines of about a few millimeters at each of the three end points of the cross giving the cross a look of glowing or something of the sort). “Come on man, I got a fat joint to fire up on top!” Jay said to entice us. All we really wanted was to get onto the roof of the school and smoke a joint on top. Taking the letters was a little too much. At least getting high on the roof would be a close second to that. After all, we had just got out of school the week before and what a story it would make to get high on the roof of the school to help us fight the symbol of conformity in our minds. We all wanted to break the mold of conformity and the doldrums thoughts of getting a job after the school years. We all wanted to run from it at that moment. Eddie ripped out into the parking lot and shimmied up the one of the poles to the awning over the sidewalk as if he were a in a ballet musical. He jumped onto the roof

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with ease. I turned the lights out on the Chevette and we all scampered out. Up all of us went. I, like Eddie, was pretty nimble and got to the top of the building with ease. CC was a little drunkin and “crash” the aluminum on a part of the awning bent beneath him as he broke his fall. “Shhh!” Nicky interjected, “Your gonna attract the security guard in the next building.” The school, it seemed, had stepped up security right after the summer break in expectation of maniacs, like us, defacing school property. Man, Jay had rolled a fat “hawg leg,” is what he called it. We got a couple of puffs on it a piece, and then we heard something. “Get down off that building”, came a cry from the next building up. It was the security guard. “Guess CC woke him up” I said as we took off. We were just about stoned so every thing to me was moving in slow motion. “Bang!” a flash of light seemed to offer. Bang! -another flash. “Hey the guard is firing shots at us”, someone said. I made a mad dash down to the parking lot. Jay had jumped down onto the awning in such a hurry he jumped on the top flat aluminum and it caved in with a “crush”. Jay got up and stumbled to the woods behind the building. I scampered down another pole and I did not notice anyone else because I made a Bee - line straight for the Chevette. I looked for everyone after I got in and the others were diving into the woods and leaving me to fend for myself in the car. I had learned to take off fast and that is what I did -off down the road, squalling the tires. I drove down the road a bit through a railroad tunnel and waited for the others to come out of the woods on the other side. Nothing! I waited for them ten minutes and headed back to the high way. I drove down the road five or so minutes towards the city. I did not see them. So I headed back from the way I just came. On the side of the road, I saw the four of them walking. I swung a U-turn at the next turn-out and went to go and pick them up. They all hopped back into their regular positions and I cranked the music up and we were off. That was enough for Jay to loose his buzz and he had to go back to his grand parents and sneak inside. I guessed that was to whom he would have to explain why he was limping the next morning. The others con-ed me into staying out because they knew my father had left to work and the other’s parents didn’t care them being out. I went back towards town and down Iris lane to which was our home road. It was the back way to town away from the police patrols. “Close Call’ After dropping Jay off, we decided to go check the cruising strip on Riverside drive. Riverside was the local place to cruise, but was also looked over, thoroughly, by the local cops. The D-ville city cops had the reputation of spoiling a gang’s night of fun

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by hauling the driver into the local jail for playing the music too loud with the windows down on your car. We headed back to town and Nicky caught the site of his friend Eddie Cats’ red ’69 mustang ahead. We pulled up beside him at the first stop light in town. “Eddie”, Nicky yelled out of the window to the next car. “Nicky, what’s up? Was the reply from the shadowy figure in the next car. “You got some stuff to match?” said Nicky. “Yeah, you know it!” came the reply from Eddie Cats. “Stuff to match,” meant that one party in the car would roll some weed and the other party in the next car would also. The joints would then be passed between cars. This was done with the thought that another person could introduce a different variety of weed, in which, the matching smoker had not built up a tolerance to that particular variety of marijuana. If you had bought a large quantity of the same variety of weed, one, sometimes, felt like you had to smoke more of it to get the same buzz effect that you did at the beginning of the bag. This was done with the intention of getting a better high from a different type of weed that your body was not used to. The fact is, though, that each different variety of Cannabis sativa has varying amounts of the THC compound. How many varieties of weed are there has always been a question for me? There has not been a study on this issue, because it would require individuals smoking different varieties of weed and labeling them by strength or potency. I guessed, that an organic chemist could isolate the THC compounds from the bud of the Cannabis plant according to its strength and measure how much strength the different varieties of weed has and labeling each isolation by strength (or amount of the actual THC compound the bud from the associated plant has). A study of potency of marijuana will never be done because marijuana has always been a schedule one drug along with highly physically addictive drugs such as heroin and cocaine. If a study would be done, a Botanist could then key out (or classify) the different varieties of the different Cannabis plants according to the strength or capacity to produce high levels of THC, then classify and name the varieties. But, if one is smoking “bud” with low levels of THC the body has to have more smoke of the “cheap stuff” to achieve the same or a greater affect. Eddie Cats was a tall guy that was a baseball player at my high school. He was a soft-spoken guy and it really surprised me that Nicky knew him. Somehow, Nicky knew a lot of people. I guessed that Nicky’s dad, Stevie, had a reputation for selling weed to all of the high school loathers. If you came to pay Stevie a visit, Nicky got to know them. I knew that Stevie was the last stop by most to get weed because the prices were always too high. But, you could count on the Ames Brothers to come through when all others did not have what you needed. The quality was always there and the folks that were seeking weed paid.

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“Hey, lets go over to Gate 16 down the road a bit and match joints”, Nicky suggested to the guys in the other mustang. Nicky obviously had something left from the joint that “J” had had, in fact, Nicky had now doubled our possession by getting the others to match what he had. I saw Nicky in the back seat re-rolling the crushed joint from the top of the school building. I hoped that he did not add tobacco to it, but Jay did produce a pretty good sized “J” before. “Sure” Eddie Kats suggested after the light turned green. The red mustang took off and led the way. And, of course, Nicky blurted out: “follow ‘em!” We turned from the main road just inside of the city limits and followed a road with a dead end sign that went passed an old junkyard and an industrial area. The dark had set upon us and the road seamed somehow wicked with curves and gavel paved over washboard shaped bumps. The Chevette skipped over the bumps like something slapping the road. The shocks had been used up and the one size larger tire skipped a long the road to the beat of the music it seemed. Pow- pitter bam! Pitter- bam with the drums crashing on the stereo to Led Zepplin. Way down inside…(bam baaa1)…you neeed… luuv The road went though a run down residential area with houses that looked a little un-kept. A few more curves took the road into a dead end place that turned into no more than a dirt path with scattered trash and beer cans a long the sides of the pavement where the road ended. One could tell that this place had seen it’s fair share of party goers or joint matching sessions and sipping down beer to escape the regular boredom of the city doldrums. “Lets get out” Nicky suggested. “Is it safe?” I mentioned to Nicky “There’s no one around here” added CC as we all got out of the car and sat on the hood. The engine hood was warm and the night was cool and we could see the shadows of trees and, in the background, the shrubbery and then a cleared area. Just beyond the trees at places, thinned out in the wood line, you could see the cityscape which gave a feeling that we were tucked away into some kind of hidden area of the city that had not yet been developed –or developed cop problems. It was as if we were in a little known area isolated from the problems of the city, a small pocket hidden from those that were down on weed or against listening to ROCK music. The last mile marker was 16 hence the name Gate 16. The dirt walkway, that led to a trial, was blocked off by a white metal gate to stop automobiles from entering into the cleared area before the wood-line. This, I thought, was the perfect setting for making out with a girl or for what we were about to

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do. It was far enough away from the neighborhood and no one could see what was going on (with the lights turned out). Not that anyone cared anyway. “Fire it up”, ragged Nicky as the lighters flickered and someone had put on Hotel California by the Eagles low on their car stereo. Warm smell of clamitas, rising up through the ai…..r….. I saw a shimmering light. “Taste some of that” Eddie Cats said happily as he bragged about his score of weed. “Where did you get it?” asked Nicky “My friend said it is Acapulco gold from Mexico, and I believe it because I’ve been driving low and slow tonight.” Eddie Cats said as he passed it to Nicky. I sat on the hood with CC, both of us looking like the institutional American hoodlum of the eighties. Eddie Quick stood by Nicky and Eddie Cats between the cars. The mustang just had the door open and the other couple of fellows, I recognized from the school smoking area, stayed inside the auto. Nicky passed his joint to Eddie Cats and said that his stuff tasted mighty fine also. Everyone their knew Nicky and where he got his stuff from. Nicky’s joint was passed into the other vehicle for Eddie Cats’ gang and Eddie Cats joint made it over to Eddie Quick, CC and I. That was the thing about matching and pulling off the road to met the fellow weed heads. You would get to share the effects of the weed from the different parties. Different weed had slightly different attributes. Some would make you mellow and love the earth and everything in it. Some weed would set you going on a mission –or- get your head busy thinking something. The latter was the kind of weed that I did not want when I was driving. You never knew how the stuff would affect you until you were well on your way in the automobile at times like these. We sat there and just enjoyed a mellow song on the radio and a simple conversation about the way that “that girl” looked or the newest album from Van Halen. After a short period of puffing going around our little circle I could here everyone start to chatter like old folks at a cocktail party on their second drink. “This was the cocktail for the younger generation that was not quite 21”, I said to CC and he agreed. The June night was clear and a smooth feeling entered my body like a cloud mellow energy entering into my bones. “That is the essence of weed,” I said to Eddie Quick standing next to CC and I. “Yeah Mick you’re a strange sort, but I like you though,” said Eddie. “Yeah, he’s crazy,” added CC as he said to everyone that he liked that about me. I found the guys and the night to be rather cool, when I did not have to be stuffed behind the wheel of the car. And I did not want the others to drive with no license this time. We sat there talking it up for a bit and then decided we’d better go get the search on for that car load of chics that we were all going to instantaneously meet out on the

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Riverside cruising strip. So, we all piled back into the car and give the thumbs up to Eddie Cats and the Mustang cranked up again and roared away. We jumped back into the Chevette. Man, the Chevette was not a Mustang, but at least it was something, I thought. We put on some Tom Petty cruising music and thought that we would now continue on our journey to cruise for chics. Good love is hard to find, Good love is hard to find….You got lucky babe!…You got lucky babe!…When I found you! “I hope that we see those blondes again,” says Nicky. “Hey man after we cruise some why don’t we go drink a beer. I know a place where we can get some beer and play pool. I’ll be coolman,” Eddie said as we turned up some more of that ACDC ‘76 Jail Break music on the cassette player. We all sang, “Jail Break …Jail Break” “Man I sure hope that we are through with the authority guys,” I said because I was feeling buzzed and ready to party. I did not like the idea of driving but I did not want Eddie to drive because when he did, it was like he did not have a care in the world. “Party,” CC said as he was slapping his hands together and rubbing them back and forward like he was getting ready for a meal or something. And we turned the music up as ACDC’s tune Back in Black came on all the two or three miles to Riverside drive where all of the cruisers were switching lanes. Back in Black. I hit the sac. Been to long I’m glade to be back. I got 9 lives, cats eyes. I’m cutting loose from the noose I’m Back….hey hey hey “Hey that’s the girls we saw last time,” Nicky said. “No that’s two other girls,” I replied back to Nicky. “Where is everyone,” CC said with conviction. “Lets try going over to the River Side Shopping Center,” I said as I turned right. I always liked having a destination because it made it easy to switch lanes way before the turn as not to attract too much attention from cops that are always looking to pull over a car full of teens at any justification. I took the ramp up highway forty-one and hooked a left into the shopping center.

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Riverside drive shopping center had a good reputation. It had a movie theater, an ice cream parlor, and a grocery store where you could go in and get beer. The shopping center had tons of parking if you found a car full of chics that agreed to pull off to park and talk to you. All of the teens would cruise along the circle over the speed bumps and keep driving around looking at the other cars. Most importantly who was in them. “Wow it must be late,” Eddie said because most of the cars were gone. CC had on a watch and he glanced at it. 12:30AM. “Most all of the chicks have to have gone in this late,” said Nicky. We cruised around the circle and it seemed everyone lit up a cigarette at once. “There take a left up there behind the drug store, I think I see the red mustang that those blondes have,” Nicky belted out pointing across the windshield from the back seat like it was an order. Nicky always got so excited. Excitement over came him whenever he focused on something. It seemed like it got the best of him sometimes also, because he would just concentrate on what he wanted and the circumstances associated with his goal never seemed to matter. I mean, he would have me drive the wrong way down a one-way street if he saw blonde hair. “Alright Nicky left, left my friend,” I said with the sarcasm of obeying a master. Nope, we rounded the corner left and it was the end of the parking lot. The were a few parking spots on the side of the building and the road continued around the back side for delivery vehicles. We saw some employees of the ice cream shop getting into their cars. I backed up to turn around to get back to the main section of the parking lot and the other car was blocking the single lane, so I decided to go around the back side of the building to get back to main road. Highway 41 also led to the pool hall Eddie wanted to go to. So, to the right I went because we were blocked, temporarily, the other way. The smoke sometimes had the effect of making me impatient and I just wanted to go. I headed down the backside of the store and I smelled weed. Nicky decided to finish up the remainder of the smoke. Just then, before we rounded the corner from the back of the supermarket we saw a cop car entering the shopping center. A cop saw us leaving from the backside of the stores and evidently got suspicious because I saw one of them look. My heart raced in my chest and the palms of my hands got sweaty. “Nicky, roll down your window and get rid of that roach, dude, I think the cop just saw us leaving the back of the supermarket.” I emphasized. “Naw man, Eddie said,” those cops aren’t bugging us. “Naw man! You get too paranoid, you want me to drive?” “Ha! Mick you think they will turn around to come at you for driving behind the store,” CC spoke up. “I think that they might be suspicious,” I said, as I turned left onto the highway. “CC look back for me, will you? Tell me if you see them.”

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We got a half of a mile up the road when… “Ah man! here they come,” CC said clearing his throat. At that moment I must have looked like a deer in headlights because my warm fuzzy buzz feeling had left, my heart was pounding and mind was zinging. Quickly, I turned on a residential road on the left using the proper signals and driving edicate. The cop car closed the gap to a few hundred feet. A moment later, we saw it turn left following us. I saw a dirt road that I recognized from bicycling it before. I knew it lead back out to the main drag. I speed the car up a little to get around a curve before the cop car could turn. “They turned too,” CC said as he saw it. “Get ready to run,” CC added. “Wait a minute,” I said, as I saw a dirt driveway to someone’s house behind a cluster of trees. I did not see any lights on in the house, so I quickly pulled in, cut the lights and told everyone to get down. The Chevette came to a halt and the dust breathed across the car like someone’s breath blowing it. A few moments later, the cop car was almost right on our bumper. The cop car did not come onto the private drive. And for some reason, stayed on the public side of the dirt road. As the cop car came to a stop, they turned on their spotlights. CC and Nicky had somehow managed to get all the way down into the cramped floorboard of the back seat and Eddie and I were doubled over in the front hidden from the spot light. “Stay down,” I whispered as the light searched over our heads through the cigarette/weed smoke lingering in the car. The spot light passed over our heads and then back again. A moment later the cop car pulled away and we could here the crickets chirping for a few minutes. Everyone was completely stunned and amazed. “Wow, I just pulled into a drive way and the cops must have thought that we went inside,” I told everyone with a relief. “You....dee doo dee doo!” Nicky belted out, as loud as ever, in relief as he couldn’t believe what had just happened either. “Man, the cops can’t search a house without a warrant, good job Mick and fast thinking,” said Eddie as he gave me a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Yeah Mick, but man I was getting ready to run,” said CC. “Why would you want to run,” I asked CC. “What have you done in the past?” “Man, I’m not gonna let those cops put me in the back of their car.” CC said. CC was the most paranoid of us all and so relieved he had to get out and piss. “CC’s just a soft spoken country boy that had won a few fights,” as a guy named Rick coined it later that summer. I was always amazed at the jerky motions that CC would make as he squirmed in the heat of the moment. He was a bit clumsy, and although not a huge guy, would be the guy to step in the one pile of shit in a huge open field. I always was quite entertained by the way that he was scared -as easily as a wild animal. “Wow, I can’t wait to tell Stevie about this close call”, said Nicky.

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Nicky was always looking for “way to goes!” from his father. I thought to myself that my father would absolutely kill me if he ever found out that I’m even out this late. He doesn’t even want me hanging around “those common hoodlums”. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I was a hoodlum. Maybe, I was one now? I thought that Nicky was always trying to win over his old man. He had only known his real father Stevie for under a year, and I could tell that he wanted to prove that he was becoming a man to Stevie. Stevie had been rumored to have been to jail several times. Wouldn’t Stevie be entertained by a story of eluding the police. I guess, that would be alright for my reputation. For that was the epitome of this summer, to find the new lines to be drawn for the boundaries of how far I would go. This close call, to me, seemed far enough. Just making it passed being taken in by the cops was as far as I wanted to draw the new boundaries in my life. I wanted to be a person in the crowd, not to stand out to the police. I did not want to know any of the names of the cops like Stevie. Boy, what have I got myself into. I could have had a bad mark on my record and never got into college. Life was so boring, though, just sticking your nose in a book. And, maybe, my dad should have moved from this neighborhood a long time ago. As I was beating myself up the other guys were getting ready to smoke the rest of the part of a joint. “Let’s go up to the pool hall and celebrate with some beers, I know one of the guys who work there and we’ll get some beer.” Eddie said. I thought to myself. Wow a security guard firing a pistol at us while we were contemplating stealing a school sign, on top of the school building. Then, pretty much, tailed by the city police and narrowly eluding them. I’ve had enough. It was nearing 1AM and I do not know if I could take anymore. Shuooh! I said in my mind with a sigh. “Come on Mick its good stuff man,” CC bragged as he handed me a last puff on the roach. I had only one summer at sixteen, I thought, and meeting these guys it has started out with a real bang! I mean, why can’t kids go out and have a good time like adults? We are only trying to do the same thing -get laid! Why do we always have to live for the future? I thought to myself as I took the smoke into my lungs. It tasted mighty fine. Then my ears bent toward the music, and suddenly, the cops, the security guard and authority that seemed to be had diminished in my mind and we were headed to the pool hall. A couple of miles down the road was a place call the Triangle Billiards room. My parents had always ridden by the place and said that, “no good folk hung out there”. I guessed that I had to see for myself. I had never been into a bar before much less, I really hadn’t had too many beers in my life either. I’d never had a draft beer in a cold pint glass. Well, it seemed like this summer I was on a mission of re-exploring my life. I did not want any in the gang to think of me as timid or scared, so went along with it. A Biker Bar.

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We parked the Chevette around the back of the place and all kinds of cars were parked in irregular fashion around the joint. The Triangle was a stand a lone building with wooden siding painted a dull light yellow color. A few Harley Davison bikes were parked out in the front of it. Man, it was the kind of place that you could just feel that evilness in the air. No more staunch place existed inside of this town that I knew of, so someone had told me. And just as someone had told me, again I had not told myself. Music was going on in the jukebox we could hear it out side. We stood there in the parking lot for a moment to smoke one of the Marlboro light cigarettes that CC always cared around with him. Smoking was the jest of feeling the freedom to do what you wanted to do. It made us teens look older to enjoy what older people have the opportunity to. An older woman caught our attention from just down 57th street a few blocks down in a tight black velvet skirt, shirt and black high hills. She swaggered down the sidewalk, stopping to look into some of the store front windows in the street light. She must have known that we were staring at her from the parking lot as we smoked because she bent over to show off her rear as if she were looking at shoes in the store window more closely. She came passed the parking lot and went into the front door of the Triangle. Wow, her body was the shape of wonder woman and the tattoos on her shoulder seemed like one of those music videos on MTV. We all got prepared to go in. Eddie, of course, led the way. Eddie was dressed in his usual; you wouldn’t think that he was just fifteen. It was warm, so he had on just a black leather vest covering his tan skin. His long feathered black hair glowed in the light of the moon, a blue-black. Black leather riding boots and really nice Levis gave him the look of a lead biker. But, little did the bar tender know that he was the leader of our little rebel outfit. Nicky at the tender age of fourteen in black Converse sneakers and jeans and a Hobie T-shirt looked older for his age with his height. Nicky was tall for his age: at 5’10” or something. CC, a year older than his nephew Nicky, had on cowboy boots and nice untucked button down city slicker shirt. He was the only one of us with a collar on his shirt. I was the most casual dressed of all us kids with my dingo boots, orange tag levis -that fit snug. I usually just wore a clean white “wife beater” T-shirt when it was warm to show off my olive skin and muscles from the weight training from school sports. Eddie opened the door and we filtered through the door. We were all buzzed and stuck together like a school of fish. We scooted next the far wall from the service counter, out of the light and in the shadows following Eddie, whom had obviously been there before. For some reason, Eddie knew some of the older crowd and actually fit in. We went into the poolroom that was separate from the bar and Nicky grabbed one of the tables. “Come on Mick lets play eight ball,” Nicky said as he threw a quarter into the pool table. “Rack’em up!” he said as Eddie disappeared. I guessed that Eddie was trying to score some beer. There was not a crowd of people there but my eyes were so red from all the cigarette smoke that I did not really care to move from the wooden chair that I had found next to the wall.

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“You play’em CC,” I said as I sat down to take a look around. The place had a hard wood floor and just about four tables for pool. It was like a normal bar that, until now, I had seen on T.V. It could have been fifteen or sixteen or so people there and Country music was playing on the jukebox. I did not much care for the country music so I moseyed on over to take a look at what they had on the Jukebox. Waylon Jennings, Hank JR., party country songs were the norm. I did see a group that I liked. Bad Company and there song ‘Shooting Star. I putt a quarter into the machine to here a couple of their songs and I saw Eddie coming back towards us making his way through the people who were there “Come on man buy me a beer”, I over heard him saying. “You owe my brother Clarence remember.” The older guy had long straight hair and a black beard that had some grey in it. Harley T-shirts seemed to be the norm for this fellow that covered his black shirt with a black leather vest similar to the one Eddie had on. There seemed to be some respects paid from Eddie because Eddie was begging him for attention. Eddie must have reminded the other guy of himself when he was younger, in that, he could have been Eddie’s father or something. “I come on Welsh, buy us a beer man and I will owe you a meeting with Pearl,” I think that was what was being said. Was not that Eddie’s Mom’s name? I thought quietly. I walked back over to Nicky and CC and watch Nicky, the bragging wonder shot, miss the pocket. Eddie came back over to us and did not have a beer. “Man lets get out of here,” he said. “I just put a quarter into the jukebox,” I rebutted. “I’ll give you a quarter, lets go,” he reiterated. Man, Eddie struck out? Well this might not be a good night after all. We all high-tailed it out of the place and I was kind of glad because there were hardly any women there. Although, we were stoned enough, I really did not want to be a part of any brawl like the one that was happening in front of us right now. “You just go and fuck off you bastard!” It was the lady that we saw walk in. Besides the bar maid, she was the only woman in the place with a biking crowd. Obviously, the bar tender knew her because he told the fellow, that was all over the woman in black, to get the hell out of there before he called the cops. “All no, not the cops again tonight!” I said to Nicky whom was still trying to cue the ball on the pool table. Just then, the tattoo biker guy, dressed in a cut off jean jacket and black short-sleeved shirt stormed out of the front door with a “slamB!” All of us were taking off from the front of the bar just as the same biker guy jumped on his bike and thundered it on. “VAH-ROOM!” the Harley Davison bike fired up. With ferocious revving, the bike plowed out of the parking lot with a spectacular ROOAAR! I had decided that I had had enough for the night, and so I dropped CC and Eddie off at Eddie’s lady friend Linda’s house. We dropped Eddie and CC there. I did not want

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to meal around, Nicky and I left avoiding the city streets we drove Jamming to classic Lynyrd Skynyrd: ‘Ballad of Curtis Lowe’ and ‘That smell’. “Oak tree your in my way” Rick Nicky and CC were back at my house the week on a Thursday night after they saw my father take off for his job. “Lets go get Eddie,” he said, “He knows where we can get some weed.” I had spent a couple of weeks talking on the phone and wooing a neighboring girl and I was ready to get out of the house and try some new adventure. The girl had to go with her parents on a camping trip. Nicky was already at CC’s trailer in the trailer park right beside ours. They had seen Eddie a couple of hours ago while riding with CC’s mom to the supermarket, Nicky said that Eddie had told them that he knew where to get some weed and to come pick him up from his mother’s house. CC and Nicky both were out of money, but I had cut a few lawns and had some pocket cash. Those guys ought to get a job during the summer instead of scheming their way to get weed all of the time, I thought. CC waited around while I got on my black dingo boots and Levis. I was ready to get out of that trailer park for a while. We all loaded into the infamous Chevette, still in running condition, and with a little luck we were off. Our Chevrolet was still ticking, but now, the stereo was the only interior light. I knew the gear shifter and could somewhat guess the speed that I was traveling, I thought. We ended up at Eddies shortly after 9 PM. “Hey man, I know this guy and he’ll smoke some weed with us,” Eddie said as he jumped in. It seemed as if the story had been changed from when I first got it from Nicky. Nicky had a keen way of changing things around a bit to suit him. “But Nicky”, I said to Nicky. “You said that Eddie said that he knows someone that will sell us weed,” I told him empathically. “No one said anything about smoking some weed with us,” I went on. I was the kid with a car and it sounded like a plot to get me to use it. Last time that we were all together was a pretty remembered time. “Let’s see if I remembered correctly, last time: shots were fired at us from a security guard, and we, just barely, escaped arrest from the city police. You guys never give me any slack, I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you-all,” I was looking at the coconspirator, CC, with dogged eyes. Naturally, Eddie also had a safe bed at CC’s house, Nicky lived up the street, how wonderfully convenient that there is ‘the person with the car’ just two doors down. I felt trapped, moreover, it felt down right demoralizing to be -committed forever- as the kid with the car (that is scared to let anyone else drive it). I felt that bats -the vampire types-

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had closed in on our trailer park. I was a victim of the neighborhood and that they knew that I was a sucker for a beer and a good time. Yes, they knew that I am merely a push over when I got a little bit stoned. I blamed the whole mess on myself for accepting this dark muse into my life when I was trying to be the all American student of high school preparatory school preparing for college. This was the same plague that had faced me since my folks were divorced in the 70’s. Did America fail, I sometimes wondered? But putting a label on a great country like ours would, only seem to me, a discussing gesture. You are responsible for what you WILL yourself to do is a quote from too many books. I had the American party genes. I was bred to celebrate with the ‘momentary delinquent’ devices. I had the genes of the fore fathers of America that enjoyed their beer and pushed the rules, when being fabricated into a man, in the great country: America. Those party jeans, that I was just about grown out of, were, now, ripped with many wholes in them. But, I was not ready to put them down quite yet. “Where does Rick live,” I said after a long pause. “Not too far in a place called Pelam,” Eddie told us. Pelham, NC, was a small community just across the state border to the South East. Ghostbridge was to the South West. “A nice little trip, you wouldn’t have a beer for the drive would you Eddie”, I asked. “No”, but Rick will have some. Who is this Rick? Eddie seems as if he were in love with him or something. I pondered. Hey Nick you brought that new Pink Floyd didn’t ya,” I said to Nicky. It went into the cassette deck to: Learning to Fly. Into the distance, a wording black, Stretched to the point of no turning back. I fly to fancy, on a worn ledge field. standing animation my senses real. I was totally absorbed into the song. It was all four of us again re-united to terrorise the city streets. Eddie had on a new Black Harley Davidson shirt with the American eagle on the front of it. He had on the usual new looking pair of Levis and a sleeve-less black leather-vest. The new polished motorcycle boots gave the finishing touch. He was a fairly skinny guy, but I always had my admiration from the way he dressed as the late light of the evening penetrated his silhouette across the dark brown vinyl of the car’s interior. How did Eddie get the money for all of those new cloths? I thought. He always had new cloths on. I think he dressed like he did for the chics, my intuition told me. “Now, he’s got a reputation and with it came high expectations in the public eye. Man, I hardly ever had anyone shop for me except during the holidays I would get stuff from my parents.” I had told CC before Eddie got in.

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I only saw Eddie a few times in a month because we lived on the other side of town from each other. But, to tell you the truth, I only went to pick up Eddie because CC and Nicky sometimes begged me to. I guessed that Eddie knew that fact. I never talked to anyone hardly on the phone, and Nicky and CC lived so close to me that I saw them all of the time. We both were smart people, Eddie and I. We acted like we had some since. The fact that we nearly had to baby sit Nicky and CC didn’t bother us. Eddie and I nearly made all of the decisions on which direction to go, but it was like I never had any want to go hang around Eddie. Yeah, I thought he was cool and interesting but we were two competing rosters in the hen house. I would stay over in our section of town and drive around looking at interesting things and sipping on a beer -out side of the city limits- if, I had the money and resources. I did not know anyone who would buy beer for me. I did not know where to find weed, if, I got the money to pay for it. I did not have any social connections. And these guys knew that about me. I would sit at home and maybe have over a chic or something to keep me company, if I got the proper allowance to do so. Since I did not have those things, I had to cross the city. I’m glad I did though, for the adventure. Then I regretted it when we were close to getting in trouble. “Eddie, looking all dapper for the ladies,” I said to him as he jumped in. “Mick what’s up...CC, Nicky?” Eddie always had that crazy handshake that ended in fingers clashed in fist. “Mick, What’s up?” he smiled as his boyish charm affected my perception with warmth. Eddie could tell that I was flustered about something. He had keen senses for that sort of thing and made a person feel good about them selves. “Here is a few dollars for some gas Mick,” Eddie knew how to say the right thing at the appropriate time. When you see someone right next to you, in a small car, they seemed to have a different affect upon one than being a few feet away out side. At that close range you can just about feel emotion. Eddie was never nervous and he had an iron clad direct feeling about him. I liked his straightforwardness and sincerity. “You guys are going to like Rick, he’s a cool dude!” Eddie was selling us, especially me, on the choice of traveling a bit to a friend of his. “We need to go across the newest section of highway twenty nine. Then through some back roads and a few tight turns,” Eddie said as darkness set upon us. After we got there, Eddie went up to the door of a white vinyl cottage and went inside. We were down a dirt road somewhere in Pelham, North Carolina just across the state border with Virginia. I could see the silhouettes of the trees barely still and there was a full moon. “The crickets sound crazy,” CC commented. Frogs were chirping and the summer had brought with it -creatures in the night. The buzz of the cicada, crickets hollering, frogs mixed into the sound. The summer nights are humid, warm, and you still sweat like the daytime in that part of American landscape. “How long is Eddie planning on being in there,” I exclaimed.

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“Hope they got some good weed to smoke,” said Nicky We did not need to whisper but it was common practice for those seeking weed. You did not talk loud and vociferous in front of a person’s house that is smoking or selling weed if one wanted some for them selves. These were paranoid times for pot. The radio would chime in all of the time about 100 lbs. captured by the state police. The streets were just crawling with cops ready to bust you for smoking a little weed. And, “how evil one was,” if they got caught with a bag of the stuff. The Bible belt for Baptist religion is in that part of the American landscape too. It was shocking if you or you sons or daughters were caught using marijuana. If you got caught with a bag you went straight to jail. No questions, they just carted you off. We waited in the dark until, finally, Eddie returned. Nicky immediately opened the door and went to Eddie. We went into a small room inside the house that had a record player, a 16” TV, and a refrigerator stocked with just beer. Once we got to know Rick, later on, it seemed that beer was all that the man ever had in his refrigerator. The Company that makes Old Milwaukie beer could have survived off of Rick alone. It was amazing that the guy had a day job because, “in the night, he was feeling no pain,” I thought, after I had known Rick for a few visits. Rick lived alone and had a job figuring out how to draw, build and maintain the electronic components of automatic car washes. Rick was an integral part of an electronic carwash manufacturer. He was a very intelligent guy in every way. He was in pain though, just like the majority of Americans that suffer from boredom of being bound by the greed of American industry. He did not own the car wash manufacturing company. The manufacturing company just made money off of a special talent that Rick possessed. And he, like so many other American victims of the working class system, go home at night to drink away the suppression of, “why does the boss want two houses instead of paying me what I’m worth?” We went into the first room of the house and sat on the carpet because there were only one chair and a couch in this room that was already occupied. “Electrifying,” I said as we squatted down to see what was on the tube. Nicky, CC and I were not introduced to the rest of the two fellows that were there besides Rick. The whole thing felt a little awkward and out of place. Even Nicky felt a little shy I could tell. We had no pot to offer or anything to drink. We were there only to par-take and not to give, unfortunately, and that would not be explained to Rick until later if it were to be explained at all. We listened to those guys talk and were quite for a few minutes until someone, finally, took some smelly stuff out in a plastic baggy (weed). Rick took his time rolling it. He rolled nice thick joints like a cigarette. Although, he knew, we were at his place begging for some smoke he saw that we were only around Eddie’s age. So, the smoke was, finally, dealt out. He must have figured us kids were probably not even used to smoking weed. MTV was almost always on all of the time at Rick’s house like at my trailer. Amazing that I was not, at least, deprived of some kind of entertainment, I thought. Music seemed to be the international source of entertainment, so why not be entertained at a total stranger’s house.

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Again, I was engulfed in ‘the smoke’. Again my learned perception of the world disengaged and a whole new world was exposed. It had been weeks since I tasted weed and the effect was always the same. I could say things, quite frankly, like the way I was feeling. I could tell that Rick was a little tipsy and slurring his words. Eddie was always scheming a way to stay high. It looked as if Eddie was the perfect conjunction in the sentence to tie in two crazy phrases together from two different parts of the city: a ride from a person brave enough or stupid enough to drive these crazies around and another person crazy and old enough to buy beer and -the weed connections were a positive also. Eddie knew a lot of cool people and he only introduced us always to the coolest. I guessed, in that way, that Eddie was the perfect catalyst in the potion for ‘cool’. He always had a certain charm about him to make the certain elements of ‘cool-ness’ hover around him. Eddie seemed, somehow, to recognize people with cool portions of their characters, but had some weak points about their character, keeping them from the full on title of totally cool. And Eddie was able to remedy the situation by bringing someone onto the scene that could fill the gaps into the weak points of the other’s character, and so, he and everyone in the experience could have a totally cool time. The people who were cool could take a person on a fresh ride through the high times and not exhaust you on a sour note of some kind of hang up in life. These were the people who could make you laugh off the rigors of the day when getting a bit stoned. The cool ones only laughed at the -hang-ups- of life and never were arrested by the pursuit of it. Folks could drive you crazy in the talks of politics, religion and law. The simple and cool people were interesting to me. The ones that would tell you their opinion of such matters only if you’d ask them, but keep it to them selves -to just shrug it off when they were having a good time. The other guys that were visiting Rick, before we arrived, got up and left. We were not introduced to them. I guess, because they were of no use to Rick or that they had nothing left to offer. What the problem was now, was that Rick was out of beer and Eddie had volunteered that I would give him a ride to the store. I thought that Rick could be a cool fellow to sometimes get a high with, so I agreed and I wanted to listen to Pink Floyd on my car stereo –stoned- anyway. We all pilled into the Chevette, Rick, Eddie, CC, Nink and myself made an incredible weight on the suspension. As we were traveling I was conning a little money from folks for the gas tank. “I wished this car would run on a few drops of gas” I said sympathetically to justify the collection. “I-I got a couple of bucks for you, man” Eddie always had a few bucks to take care of me I thanked him and told him I appreciated that he was always helping out. If we were going to travel, why not just put ten bucks in and not have to bother with it for a while? “They do make cars that can just function on a few drops of fuel Mick, Rick said. “They’ve already invented and have tested carburetors that would run on just drops of gas .The oil companies are paying off the law makers and using lobbyist to pursued them to vote no for the bill to make restrictions to boost fuel economy. Its all a conspiracy of the very rich that did nothing, but discover oil on their property.” Rick said.

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“Wow, Rick talks like my history professor at school,” I said aloud. Rick was evidently well read and up on current events. To me, at the age of sixteen, I just wanted to hang out with people that were cool and explore. We arrived at the mini-mart for Rick to go in and get beer. Everyone got out as Rick went into the market. I tried not look stoned in wholly jeans and some hippie looking bead necklace, but I felt just right. I felt encouraged and in touch with myself, and, the night was crystal clear. It felt as if I were just two eyes and one camera that was producing some interesting looking colors and shapes. While I was staring into space and enjoying myself the others were doing what their minds told them to do. Eddie was using the phone scheming on a way to meet this other chic. Nicky or CC had nothing better to do than to stand in the night air like me. We all felt a little crazy and looked like mischievous punks. After all, we were Greek statues in hippie cloths that were romanced by the sounds of Rock music from the car. “I don’t know what it is about David Gilmore’s guitar playing. But when it’s played, it’s like electricity is plugged into me I said to CC “Aha You’re crazy,” CC kind of laughed and said at the same time. “I like Pink Floyd” “Nothing hold’en back Hank Jr. either,” Nicky belted out. “Hey man, i-is Rick out yet,” Eddie inputs as he got off the phone. “Here he comes,” said Nick as we got back into the car. Rick appeared at the Chevette and we all popped one open. The beer went down with a fizzy zest and tasted good in the warm night air. I could feel the weight of the extra passenger in the vechicle as the Chevette took off out of the mini-mart. ‘Oh shit, red lights behind us.” Nicky was insisting. “OK said Rick if they search the car I’m gonna take off running.” “Are you guy’s wanted for something,” I said emphatically. I was stoned and half a beer was in me. It gave me -a feel good- charge as I pulled the car over. The officers did not get out and I started to panic “They’re checking your tags Mick,” Rick said. “Quick, everyone put the beer in the bag on the back floor board.” He elaborated further. We had five people in the car and Rick was in the middle in the back seat so we all looked 15 or 16 years of age. The officer said: “Where are you heading?” I looked at the others and said, “To my grandmothers house” “OK, did you know that your lights were out?” the officer told me that was why we had me to pull over. I was terror stricken and the present did not seem real. After the officer checked my paperwork and license, that I luckily had, he determined that the matter need further attention.

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“Step out of the car please, Mr Stewart.” The officer said as he shined his bright flashlight into my fear-full eyes. I went with the officers and we started the field sobriety test. I only had a half of beer. But tucked away in the car somewhere was a whole suit- case of beer. We were all under 21 except for Rick. “Oh, I wonder what Rick was thinking I said to my self, as I was taking the position to ‘walk a straight line’. Just then we heard the officer’s dispatch on the Radio: “Car 21 what is your 2-20?” the radio clearly stated. “Checking on the 4 door passenger vehicle for a possible 431,” The officer replied. “We have a 2-19 in progress at River heights, can you respond? You are the closest vehicle in the area.” “On the way now,” was the officer’s response. “You got lucky kid,” the officer watching me walk said. The two officers got back into the police car and left with the siren and lights blazing. I walked up to the car and: “I thought you were gone, Mick!”, said CC “What happened”, said Rick I told him that the police officers got called away on some other call. “Man, you got lucky,” Eddie chimed from the passenger seat. “It’s because you look so young,” Rick added. Rick had gotten Lucky, too, because he was sitting in the middle of the back seat. He insisted that if he were sitting in the front, the cops may have come to the passenger side and could have seen an open beer and arrested him for buying beer for minors. I got back into the jam on the stereo. I A little shakin’ and dismayed, I pulled off listening to –the song after ‘Learning to Fly’ by Pink Floyd on their new album. “Man, you missed the turn!” said Nicky. We had to go across all of the train tracks at Lucky’s Junction. So, I made the U-turn and headed to the train crossing. Man, my beer spilled and every one else was finishing their beer. After all, their beer was still cold. The police could not make it hot and spoil our trip. We got to the junction cross road and headed across. I slowed only a little. I was used to handling the Chevette; then, “Bamb,” I held onto the wheel as the small car came to a stop. Eddie got out. “Mickey you got too close to the edge of the train tracks,” Eddie said laughing. Everyone else was laughing too, except for Rick. “Damage report?” Rick said.

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Rick did have a good nature and a smile on his face, though. I got out and looked at the damage: “Yeap, the left rear is flat!” I moaned as I looked to see if that was the only damage. “We got to get the spare on right away before those cops return,” said Rick as he got out. “You’ll be lucky, again, if you do not have a bent wheel,” Rick contemplated. “Here let me change it,” he offered. Rick obviously did not want to go to jail that night. I did not know half of what to do, being nearly my first tire change, so Rick went to work. We popped open the hood and luckily there was still a tire change kit under the hatch floor-covering. Rick was working as if he were in the pits in NASCAR or something. We got the tire attached and we all popped open another beer. “Somebody give Micky a beer” CC said from the back as we took off for Ricks place. Wow, Rick was relieved as we turned into his drive way and we were all back safe at his place. We all went in and watched MTV and sang to the tunes like: Motley Crue, STYKS, REO Speed Wagon. Rick had an old record player and we listened to some of his favorites- on old vinyl- albums of Doctor Hook and the Medicine show. Rick could actually sing pretty good and we all tried to sing. We each had or shot at a solo singing part and everyone else laughed. We opened another beer and had arm wrestling matches on the counter between Rick’s kitchen and living room. CC would punch me in the shoulder and say: “Show me how much muscle you’ve got” For some reason CC was always bugging me to arm wrestle. He was always punching me in the arm because I had developed a few muscles training for the high school wrestling team. He desperately needed to show everyone in the room how much of a tough guy he was because he had won a few fights in school. I just shrugged him off and arm wrestled a few times and it was usually a dead even match. We went a step further, after another beer, and put lit cigarettes underneath where each of arms would fall. The loser was burned by the tip of the burning cigarette. Every one was gathered around to show their strength. I was able to drop CC and Rick dropped me. CC was always kidding around after me. It was important to CC to be the strongest of the group for some reason. I guessed CC was used to the younger kids showing him respect at school. No wonder the younger kids kept out of their way, Eddie and CC were two to three years older than their 8th or 9th grade counterparts. Eddie and CC were nearly my age and I did not have any problem hanging out with them. I guessed, if they did not have to repeat any grades in school, they would already have a driver’s license themselves by now. Knowing, but not caring about the moments of arm wrestling and burning our arms, the next week we would be complaining about the burns on or arms. And everyone drank beer.

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“I didn’t like you guys at first but then now I’m glad I met you,” Rick said with his arm around CC and I. “You’re all good looking guys and I love you guys. Mick, I’ve never been in so much trouble as this in a long time, ” Rick put his arms around both of my shoulders. “But I like you, you’re one lucky guy too”, his said empathically shaking me slightly. We continued singing and playing music until it got late, until I had to get back to the other side of town. I never got any sleep except for my bed, and I was not going to sleep in a strange place. After smoking another few puffs of weed for the road. I felt elated, but a bit -shuck up- from the encounter with the cops earlier that night. Eddie had driven once previous when I was too drunk successfully, so I let him have the keys. Eddie was always willing to drive and to -just go- in particular. He always had a stand up attitude ready for anything one could pitch at him. He took everything, from my point of view, like a challenge. Eddie always was -sober acting- to me, even though I saw him par take in the festivities of smoking and drinking just as much as everyone had. He did not stumble like CC or laugh so much when he got a buzz like Nicky. He always remained calm and I slurred my words a little I couldn’t tell that Eddie had anything to drink at all. We motored along. I was in the passenger seat playing air guitar and trying to sing like the Rock Band, Night Ranger: Sister Christian ya know the time has come . And you know that you’re the only one to say. It’s OK. ITS TRUE………… Motor-in’ What’s you price for flight. In finding Mister right. Eddie was flying the car as fast as it would go with the one larger wheel on the right side and the spare donut on the left-rear wheel of the Chevette. No one really cared just so we were moving -somewhere. Moving was the fair or the carnival we had. Being in the car going was what we enjoyed. Going and listening to tunes was the thing. It was in the early hours of the morning and everything was pitch black. We rounded the ninty degree turn next to a manufacturing plant in an industrial area, just as you enter the city limits. Then, we had to go up a divided highway and head towards the other side of town. Rick’s house was passed the South side of town over the tracks. Our trailer park was all the way on the out skirts of the North side of town, so we drove and put a lot miles on the car. “Does any one need cigarettes”, I heard Eddie say something about stopping at a convenience mart. Somehow, we got on the exit for the South bound traffic and Eddie were headed North on it. Eddie was for few seconds driving North into the South bound side of the divided highway. “Hey Eddie, Watch out! You’re going up the wrong side of the highway,” Nicky belted out. CC was in the back giggling as he did when the situation was hilarious yet dyer at the same time. I was holding onto what I could grab in the passenger seat. We were going up

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the wrong side of the highway I looked up a little dizzy from going around the curvy road so fast. Eddie drove like he didn’t care in his leather Jacket. I did not care to much because it all happened in a flash and thank God there are not that many people out at 2AM traveling. Eddie pulled over in the nick of time into the gas station with the only 24 hour bright sign for a few miles. Did Eddie mean to do that or was he just ridiculous and did not know that he was cruising up the wrong side? I thought for a moment. Nicky could not stop laughing in the back seat. He was so loud and obnoxious. “Eddie drove on the wrong side of the highway. Did you see that, Ah hahahahaha,” Nicky eyes were half closed and he was so stoned that he could not have understand the reality of the moment. All he could do was repeat himself every few miles until we got back to the trailer park: “Eddie was driving down the wrong side of the road” I was feeling too good to get behind the wheel and Eddie was our best candidate to drive. I don’t know how we managed through that night, but I got sleep and things remained the same for the next few weeks to come. The next day, and days to come, Nicky would come to get me and we would drive on into more adventures and close calls. Some of the time we went out with only CC, Nicky and I to pick up girls on the strip. Picking up Eddie became one of our most sought after destinations, but he was all the way on the other side of the tracks. Nicky and CC could now jump into the car from right where it started. Eddie knew all of the grown people and had already earned the respect of those cool ones in the community at his young age. Older people, especially older women, were attracted to him. So, I guessed that, Eddie had his fill of going out when he wanted, even when we did not go get him. Eddie represented the very cool. He never lived it down. No matter when I saw him, Eddie was dressed, ready to be and take on the word cool. Older women invited him to their home all of the time in our presence. I mean, CC, Nicky and I could pick up girls on the strip. We weren’t that lame to not to get a date. Eddie’s destination, after getting all of the ingredience for a good time, was to the doors of some girl or older women. Women bought things for him and he always wore the cloths that the women wanted him to wear. We never seemed to run out of liquor or beer that summer. We always seemed to be on the way to go track down weed. Through all of the travels to find it, we were constantly dodging the police, riding out to cool destinations and playing cool music. This was the norm, and usually, all of the money was exhausted on weed. ‘Too much smoke and to much Coke look whats going on inside you, Yeah you! Lynyrd Skynrd’s recording, ‘That smell’ seemed to remind us. I on the other hand was trying to be an athlete and make good grades as the summer turned into the next season. I fell asleep in third year Spanish classes and failed my first course, Physics, but I had a good time on the weekend. I was now into music, the coolest of cool kids, and going to concerts. My aim was to use my senior year to the fullest. I had dates on some weekends the guys did not get to ride with me. Then, I would try and get the ingredients for love. A little help from the friends in order to get a hold

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some weed for the date and a few beers, I was set. Once I had all of the party favorites, I was in the back seat, pulled off the road, or at the cool sites with a date. One Last Run One Friday, as I was giving Nicky a ride home from school, CC met us at the trailer park and we fell into the same pattern to go and get Eddie to hang out and find some smoke. It had been a few weeks since the last time that we had got together. We picked up Eddie from his house. “Mick what’s up,” he said with affection. “I like riding with Mick we get into some real adventures.” Eddie said. We went to Ricks to get some smoke and found him inside his cottage asleep with the door unlocked. We walked in and tried to wake him. Rick had already had too much to drink and Eddie knew how to get into his house. “Hey, Rick peed on himself, look” Nicky said aloud. “Its not really late he must have been drinking all day,” I mentioned “I know where he keeps his weed,” said Eddie softy. “He buys so much of it for himself he won’t mind if we took just a little to go”. Evidently, Eddie had been hanging out with Rick more than just with us and they had become cool friends. Eddie assured us that he would pay Rick back. Rick must have given Eddie weed all of the time for Eddie to know where he kept it. “Let me drive,” Eddie said excited. “I promised Linda that I would go by her house and see her.” Linda was an older woman that bought Eddie all kinds of things. I was young didn’t know what to do with an older woman and was more shy than any thing. I liked older women and admired their looks and love looking at Play Boy magazine that my dad left around the house, but when the real thing was in front of me, it was a lot different. I had no problem hanging out with the girls my age and flirting, but older women scared me a little. I guess it is a hard distinction at the age of 16, who is a care-taker of you like one’s mother. This fact did not seem to bother Eddie. Eddie’s mind was of that beyond teenaged years. I let Eddie have the keys because he also took a couple of beers from Rick (that Eddie was going to pay back) and I wanted a beer. I was lyre of Eddie driving, but hated driving and having a beer at the same time, so I thought that I would relax for once and let someone else take the wheel. I was always the one driving, it seemed. We headed out to one of the roads near Eddie’s house. He was speeding and revving the engine. We rolled the fattest joint. Eddie had bought the gasoline, so I did not care how far or fast he drove. As we passed his friend’s houses, Eddie blew the horn. Eddie had a lot of friends. We turned on the famous road where Eddie had gone to grade school where he and CC had met. We had been there several times and they always talked about all of the trouble that they had caused for their teachers. They were high in class and drinking a beer at lunch. These were some of the things that eerked the teachers they said. It was dark and the headlights of the Chevette were so dim and you had to have them on bright to see anything. I was listening to the fabulous stereo Rock and everyone was chill.

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“Did you see the cop?” Eddie asked hysterically looking back. “I didn’t see a cop,” I said to him. “You are extra paranoid tonight, are you O.K.?” “It just went down the other side of the road,” Eddie said. Eddie was quite familiar with the road and was going at cruising speed, which, for everyone else, was too fast. “Ah Shit! here they come,” Nicky belted out in his sarcastic voice insinuating that the cops had turned around. You never knew if Nicky was fooling with you or not, because he was always the one to cry wolf. I had never seen Eddie paranoid like this. Just then, Eddie turned out the headlights and made a sharp left turn into the parking lot of the school. “We’ll pull in here to hide from the cops,” was the last words that I remember from Eddie and the life of the Chevette. “I can’t see in front of us,” I panicked. “POW,” we hit something hard in front of the Chevette as the wheels stopped turning. My memory felt as if it had been re-set by the mild bump from the dashboard. The world stopped for a second. I was in a limbo-like state, the first moment after an intense moment when your mind is trying to access the situation at hand. I looked into the back seat of the car. CC and Nicky were rolled over onto the floorboard of the back seat. Eddie and I got out and looked at what we hit in the road. “Wow, just like Lynrd Skynrd says, Oak tree your in my way!” Nicky says with his over grown smile and sarcasm in his laughter. “CC you OK”, I said. “Yeah-bah! I’m still here,” said CC as if he wanted to do it again. Steam was coming from the radiator, but the headlights still worked. “Those cops must have gone a different direction,” I added. “Man, sorry Mick!” Eddie apologized to me. I did not feel remorse for the Chevette. It wasn’t really a loss. Well, I guess I did not have to cart all the guys around anymore, I figured. I was trying to make the best of the situation in my mind. We jumped back into the car to see if it worked. The engine was running still at an idle. The engine light glowed red in the dark. We lit a cigarette lighter to see the temperature gadge. The engine temperature gage was, almost, all the way to the right in the red area. “Running hot, we sprung a leek.” I said relieved that we did not have to call a tow-truck. “We’ll have to sputter back to the trailer park.” I felt lucky at the moment that the car had made it though last summer even. “The Chevette was on borrowed time with Eddie driving, ” Nicky must have read my mind. Eddie just smirked at him. We had been at the top of the car’s speed, we had maxed out the limits of its weight -load, we had even stripped gears out -stuck in the sand with tequila at the river. We had mustered every bit of energy out of the tiny engine to spin its wheels. We had flattened all of the tires and not had the money for proper tires to replace them. All of

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this in one short summer. In my quest to find the new boundaries in my life, we had passed the boundaries of what that Chevette could handle. I think that a lot of the times I had been passed my boundaries also. Emotionally, I was glad to put the car to the rest. Having the car was more trouble to me than not having it at all. With all of the trouble that we had generated this passed summer with this car, my record would be tarnished for the rest of my life with misdemeanors if we were to kept going like we were. We were lucky that I, or someone I let drive, did not hit someone. A busted radiator was minor compared to that, I thought. Why, what a perfect excuse not to drive around until I graduate and get out of this dead town. I won’t have all of these hoodlums bugging me now, I imagined. Sometimes you get things in life that you are better off not having like winning a million from the lottery when you’ve been poor all of your life. We seem to get into more trouble with ‘the haves’ in life sometimes. The Chevette was one ‘have’ that I felt I could do without. I was exhausted from beer and weed and wanted a break from it. And the only way to do so was not to hang around with these mischievous hoodlums. Well, now, I was a hoodlum like all of the rest, but I did not feel ties to that small town. I did not feel chained to that town like all the rest of the alcoholics or those that became part of the system as an inmate. As I look back on that summer, I will never forget my six-tenth year and all of the ramblings we had done as kids. It was more trouble than most folks get into in a whole lifetime. Because we were young, we lived. We lived then to find out what living is all about. We were out there molding our universe and testing its boundaries. One would never find the limits of reality until they live the life on the edge. A life when you were young and you didn’t think that it was too foolish to live. We put the gear shifter into reverse and the Chevette started limping down the road with a busted radiator. We dropped Eddie off and he took his white powder with him. It seems that he had graduated up the ladder to cocaine. It must have been God’s grace that that mild accident happened to put an end to the Chevette. Those guys would have had me chasing that drug. A little weed was too strong for me, and I certainly did not need to be any more stoned than a little weed made me feel. Every mile or so on the twenty-mile drive back to the trailer park we had to pull over because the tiny four-cylinder engine had over heated. We were forced to go the long way back to the trailer park around the city limits to avoid any more confrontations with cops. The stereo still worked, but we had to turn the car off a few times. Turning the stereo off ruined the moment for music. Everyone was glad as we turned onto the home stretch of the curvy road back to the safety of the trailer park. I was glad that these guys were with me (and not hurt) when we had the accident so they could see the damage sustained by the little car. If they did not see it in real life terms they would think that I was fibbing to them. The following summer I graduated and got out of that town by joining the army. Those other guys, still stuck in the same antics, are still there chasing or trying to figure out the meaning of that “electric glow” today. They are caught up in that same circle as if they were still kids, if they have not been made part of its system yet.

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