Monday, November 29, 2010
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: Sunshine and Orchid
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: Sunshine and Orchid: "As so often happened during my early years, I needed a place to stay for a few days. Apparently my roommate had not been taking my half of t..."
Sunshine and Orchid
As so often happened during my early years, I needed a place to stay for a few days. Apparently my roommate had not been taking my half of the rent to the owner. He had just been taking it. I'll say for him I don't think he ever meant to, like all of us he had some expensive habits and a low paying job, and it's easy to make a poor decision or two in those situations and get behind. The landlord gave us an option, we could just leave, and he wouldn't report it credit wise or give us bad rental references, or he could evict us. At that point in life I didn't care about either of those things, but clearly my roommate couldn't keep up with rent and I had no intention of paying his past due amount to stay in the place (although my bedroom window looked out into the back of a dunkin donuts and a popeyes chicken, which ended up presenting some opportunities). So, being that I didn't have any furniture, leaving seemed like the way to go, and away I went.
The place I found to crash was interesting. I knew this girl Sunshine (party kid alter ego, I never knew nor cared who she really was), and Sunshine was staying with this guy Andy I had met once. Andy had a true loft, maybe the only one I have ever seen. Most people who say they have a loft in Chicago are in a building of condos for half a mil a piece and a couple walls that don't touch the 16 foot ceiling. Andy, on the other hand, had either bought or leased square footage on a vacant floor of what was basically a five floor factory building. It was on the west edge of Chinatown in an industrial area. There were train tracks (unused at that time) leading to the front door of the building. There weren't any actual factories there at that time. The first floor was the offices for 1000 Words Magazine, which I think has long since shut down, and now there is an online unrelated magazine of the same name. Other offices on floors two and three. Andy was I think on four, don't remember the other. What was cool was that the offices on the first three floors had no doors, you walked in the front door or got off the elevator (no lockout) and you could walk through these relatively large offices, and go through peoples desk drawers. Which is what I did on the one occasion I had a good experience on Special K. Two friends of mine with a Blazer helped me drive some of my stuff over, and when we got there we just parked right in front of the building, since it was night and at night there was NO ONE in that area. Before getting out of the car we each did a bump (not much) of Special K, and then got buzzed in the front door of the building. And found ourselves in the middle of the 1000 Words Magazine office. At the time it was a trendy magazine that we were all familiar with, so it was neat finding ourselves unexpectedly there. And almost instantly, in mild k-holes. We hadn't done much so we weren't incapacitated, we just wandered through the office looking through peoples desks and things. Didn't take anything, we were just curious. Then we went up to the second floor and did the same. Then the third. Judging by the reaction we got when we got to Andy's we roamed around a very long time. It was engrossing, this little peek into peoples work lives (sober we would have realized how dull these people were, I don't remember finding anything unusual. Course I probably wouldn't remember.)
When you got off the elevator at Andy's floor, you stepped out onto a vast open area, old beat up floors, exposed ductwork and beams, factory type windows that were opaque. Immediately to your left was a new looking wall and door, and inside here was a bathroom (with small hottub) and a washer and dryer. At the other end of the floor, far, far, away, you could see where someone had basically built a couple walls to make an enclosed space out of the corner of the floor, and it looked tiny. It wasn't, it was just that far away. I have no concept for square footage, but you could just about smoke a cigarette going from the elevator to Andy's enclosure.
When you got close you could see that though he had built the walls himself he knew what he was doing, and the same inside. The ceiling of the floor of this building was tall enough that Andy's place had two bedrooms upstairs. To get to these bedrooms you went up a spiral staircase in the middle of the apartment. That had no hand rails. Just the little steps going up and around the pole. Going up that thing sober was nerve wracking. Going down when you weren't was....actually it was much easier, or at least not scary. Go figure. Now.....remember where the bathroom is? By the elevator. Far. And it was late fall, and obviously only Andys place and the bathroom itself were heated, the walk to and fro was not. Wake up at two in the morning having to pee and that staircase, the walk, and the cold really made you search for other options.
It was Sunshine that I was staying with, in her room, of course she was just mooching off Andy temporarily, so whatever. Sunshine was....well....fierce, in a way. She was cute, but she was kinda of broderline mean/aggressive. Or at least always had that kind of look on her face even if she never said or did anything mean. And she wasn't nearly attractive enough to have looks related attitude, so it was all very mysterious. Hey, place to stay for a bit. And as it happened, I would discover the root of her 'tude.
Like myself, and really most other Chicago party kids, Sunshine loved meth. When I started going to parties Ecstasy and LSD were the main drugs, and I had watched as tweak took over. And I watched the scene take a decidedly harder edge. The music switched more to harder breakbeats than the disco like (and Chicago original) house sound, the clothing got more serious and less candy (less bright and colorful) and the drug dealers were a lot more like drug dealers, not a guy on Ecstasy who sells you a pill and hugs and thanks you twelve times. Some of these new type lived in Hammond,Indiana (and seemed like Indiana tweekers instead of Chicago Ecstasy vendors, not a change for the better) and one night Sunshine and I scraped up a bunch of cash and headed to Hammond to make a moderately large purchase (for us, anyway). Sunshine drove us in her Honda Accord, which she had named Orchid.
I quickly learned that Sunshine was originally from Kenosha, Wisconsin. She explained this when I asked her how she couldn't find the highway that was one turn and about three minutes from our door. It was late fall, cold, raining, and between nine and ten at night. When we got on 94 traffic was still pretty heavy (it was a weeknight as well) though not stop and go. And Sunshine was driving way too fast, especially considering that it was raining. I tried to explain to her that city traffic would move then totally stop very abruptly, but my warning had no effect. I think she thought I was implying that she couldn't drive because she was from Wisconsin, which to a degree I probably was. And she was, probably still is, female. Two strikes. And she was driving too fast.
This was not a situation that I wanted to be able to say I told you so in. But not five minutes down the road brake lights flash on all in front of us, and I knew instantly that traffic was dead stopped. I doubt it would have mattered if she had slammed the brakes instantly, but she didn't. She started to slow, and we actually had enough time for me to gesture to the car ahead of us (rapidly getting larger) and say, "Well, you're gonna hit him." A car ahead of us had used the left shoulder and was stopped there, and the middle lane was solid with cars, so there was no where to go, but into this dude's trunk.
Now we are in a crash in the left lane of bumper to bumper traffic on the Dan Ryan expressway. Her car won't run (she hit this dude for real) and neither of us are really dressed for the cold, much less the rain. But that was a small immediate issue. We both were thinking of what we were going to get, and the fact that that clearly was not going to happen, at least not anytime even close to soon. Again, before widespread cell phone use. Eventually an IDOT truck came and towed her off to the right shoulder and called a tow company. Getting to the right shoulder was actually a huge relief. Traffic was bad before we caused a shut down of a lane, and we had been getting murderous looks from drivers for the previous hour or however long we sat there. And not looks as they cruised by. Traffic was so slowed that one driver could swear at us for a good 6 or 7 minutes before he was passed.
The tow truck came and hauled us, and Orchid, to their yard, which was in Calumet Park. Great. Now we are even further from home, and in Calumet Park. Sunshine called her parents from there, the legal owners of the car, and they had triple A so at least there was no bill problem. Getting home was a problem. Again, no cell phones, we tried a few peoples home phones, but not a lot of our friends had them, or the stability they would imply. We had a fair amount of cash, but that money had a purpose, and not all was ours. It would have been an expensive cab. So there we sit, talking a bit with the one guy there, the dispatcher, who somehow was a hick. I never understood how this happens, Calumet Park is south suburban Chicago, but it's hickish, at least some of it. Weird. Anyway, somehow we got talking about parties with this guy, I don't remember if he asked about our fat pants or what (would've been a far question, wearing pants that were over 32" around each cuff at the bottom). He tells us, oh yeah, one of the driver's is into those, always talking about them. He would be in pretty soon, depending on where his next call was, maybe he could give us a ride. A party kid tow truck driver? What luck! We never even considered how bizarre that sounded, especially in Calumet Park. There were not a lot of people in our scene over 22 or 23 (and that was pushing it) other than the DJ's and people who produced some of the big ones.
Finally this guy gets back, the dispatch points out his truck as it pulls in. We jump up and go to the window, and see a 45 year old Joe Dirt with a bald spot on top hop out. He was indeed into parties, followed info on them online (we didn't really know what that meant, this was 96 or 97). His next call was North, and he would be driving right past Cermak, our street more or less, so he could drop us. We pile in the cab of the truck and head out, back up the Dan Ryan. At least the traffic was light at this point. I idly noticed the sign for the Cermak exit coming up. Then the dude was pulling onto the shoulder of the highway. When he said drop you on the way, he meant right on the side of the highway, which as I remember was above Cermak, a bridge (but I may be embellishing that). Either way, we got out and started our walk down Cermak. We probably had a mile and a couple blocks to get to our building.
We had been slightly damp earlier but had dried out waiting for the ride. It had rained steadily all night, but now was just a light drizzle. There were, however, significant puddles and no real nice place to walk down the road, and at this time we got a little science review. Do you remember what capillary action is? When a solid-ish object comes into contact with the surface tension of water, the water will absorb and rise up the object (my definition, blow me if that's not exactly right).
Our pants were enormous around the cuffs, and came into contact with huge amounts of water. Fat pants produce a capillary action like nothing else. About five minutes of walking and we were soaked, soaked, to the knees, and it was rising fast. And dear God was it cold! We were basically wearing long almost knee length sweaters and fat pants. Maybe shirts underneath, but that's it. Chicago, late fall, nearing midnight, windy, soaked. And I swear those pants held so much water the weight slowed us down.
It seemed like forever, but finally the doors of the elevator were opening to our floor, and we both walked immediately to the bathroom/laundry room, took off our pants, and threw them in the machines. We then made the pilgrammage to the apartment. We walked in wearing long sweaters, no pants, no shoes, but socks (wet or not we werent walking barefoot across that floor). Andy and one or two other people were watching tv as we walked in and they looked at us incredulously. Sunshine mumbled car accident and we went up those freaky stairs into her room, got dry clothes and they only drugs we had, a little bit of special K and marched back to the bathroom. We started the hot tub, took off the rest of our wet stuff, did some K, and hopped in. I know me and Sunshine did it a few times but I don't think we had at that point, so that would have been the first time we had seen each other naked. I don't think we even noticed, we were that dead (and empty handed, an accident on the way back would have been much easier to take).
I mentioned earlier that I found out why Sunshine had that mean look to her so much of the time. I found a picture of her that was only a year or two old buried in some of her stuff. And she was fat. I don't mean chubby, I mean fat. Probably 16 or 17 in the picture, but shit, we were only like 19, so it was pretty easy to figure out what happened. She somehow found the party scene from Kenosha, not hard to believe, not that far, and she found meth. When she did, she figured out how to be rid of her weight problem in a hurry, and moved away from Kenosha to be with her new crowd, who never knew her before. I didn't stay there too long, and we didn't make a huge effort to hang out after, just bumped into each other out and about, like before I lived there. I never told her I found that picture, and she never looked mean to me again.
The place I found to crash was interesting. I knew this girl Sunshine (party kid alter ego, I never knew nor cared who she really was), and Sunshine was staying with this guy Andy I had met once. Andy had a true loft, maybe the only one I have ever seen. Most people who say they have a loft in Chicago are in a building of condos for half a mil a piece and a couple walls that don't touch the 16 foot ceiling. Andy, on the other hand, had either bought or leased square footage on a vacant floor of what was basically a five floor factory building. It was on the west edge of Chinatown in an industrial area. There were train tracks (unused at that time) leading to the front door of the building. There weren't any actual factories there at that time. The first floor was the offices for 1000 Words Magazine, which I think has long since shut down, and now there is an online unrelated magazine of the same name. Other offices on floors two and three. Andy was I think on four, don't remember the other. What was cool was that the offices on the first three floors had no doors, you walked in the front door or got off the elevator (no lockout) and you could walk through these relatively large offices, and go through peoples desk drawers. Which is what I did on the one occasion I had a good experience on Special K. Two friends of mine with a Blazer helped me drive some of my stuff over, and when we got there we just parked right in front of the building, since it was night and at night there was NO ONE in that area. Before getting out of the car we each did a bump (not much) of Special K, and then got buzzed in the front door of the building. And found ourselves in the middle of the 1000 Words Magazine office. At the time it was a trendy magazine that we were all familiar with, so it was neat finding ourselves unexpectedly there. And almost instantly, in mild k-holes. We hadn't done much so we weren't incapacitated, we just wandered through the office looking through peoples desks and things. Didn't take anything, we were just curious. Then we went up to the second floor and did the same. Then the third. Judging by the reaction we got when we got to Andy's we roamed around a very long time. It was engrossing, this little peek into peoples work lives (sober we would have realized how dull these people were, I don't remember finding anything unusual. Course I probably wouldn't remember.)
When you got off the elevator at Andy's floor, you stepped out onto a vast open area, old beat up floors, exposed ductwork and beams, factory type windows that were opaque. Immediately to your left was a new looking wall and door, and inside here was a bathroom (with small hottub) and a washer and dryer. At the other end of the floor, far, far, away, you could see where someone had basically built a couple walls to make an enclosed space out of the corner of the floor, and it looked tiny. It wasn't, it was just that far away. I have no concept for square footage, but you could just about smoke a cigarette going from the elevator to Andy's enclosure.
When you got close you could see that though he had built the walls himself he knew what he was doing, and the same inside. The ceiling of the floor of this building was tall enough that Andy's place had two bedrooms upstairs. To get to these bedrooms you went up a spiral staircase in the middle of the apartment. That had no hand rails. Just the little steps going up and around the pole. Going up that thing sober was nerve wracking. Going down when you weren't was....actually it was much easier, or at least not scary. Go figure. Now.....remember where the bathroom is? By the elevator. Far. And it was late fall, and obviously only Andys place and the bathroom itself were heated, the walk to and fro was not. Wake up at two in the morning having to pee and that staircase, the walk, and the cold really made you search for other options.
It was Sunshine that I was staying with, in her room, of course she was just mooching off Andy temporarily, so whatever. Sunshine was....well....fierce, in a way. She was cute, but she was kinda of broderline mean/aggressive. Or at least always had that kind of look on her face even if she never said or did anything mean. And she wasn't nearly attractive enough to have looks related attitude, so it was all very mysterious. Hey, place to stay for a bit. And as it happened, I would discover the root of her 'tude.
Like myself, and really most other Chicago party kids, Sunshine loved meth. When I started going to parties Ecstasy and LSD were the main drugs, and I had watched as tweak took over. And I watched the scene take a decidedly harder edge. The music switched more to harder breakbeats than the disco like (and Chicago original) house sound, the clothing got more serious and less candy (less bright and colorful) and the drug dealers were a lot more like drug dealers, not a guy on Ecstasy who sells you a pill and hugs and thanks you twelve times. Some of these new type lived in Hammond,Indiana (and seemed like Indiana tweekers instead of Chicago Ecstasy vendors, not a change for the better) and one night Sunshine and I scraped up a bunch of cash and headed to Hammond to make a moderately large purchase (for us, anyway). Sunshine drove us in her Honda Accord, which she had named Orchid.
I quickly learned that Sunshine was originally from Kenosha, Wisconsin. She explained this when I asked her how she couldn't find the highway that was one turn and about three minutes from our door. It was late fall, cold, raining, and between nine and ten at night. When we got on 94 traffic was still pretty heavy (it was a weeknight as well) though not stop and go. And Sunshine was driving way too fast, especially considering that it was raining. I tried to explain to her that city traffic would move then totally stop very abruptly, but my warning had no effect. I think she thought I was implying that she couldn't drive because she was from Wisconsin, which to a degree I probably was. And she was, probably still is, female. Two strikes. And she was driving too fast.
This was not a situation that I wanted to be able to say I told you so in. But not five minutes down the road brake lights flash on all in front of us, and I knew instantly that traffic was dead stopped. I doubt it would have mattered if she had slammed the brakes instantly, but she didn't. She started to slow, and we actually had enough time for me to gesture to the car ahead of us (rapidly getting larger) and say, "Well, you're gonna hit him." A car ahead of us had used the left shoulder and was stopped there, and the middle lane was solid with cars, so there was no where to go, but into this dude's trunk.
Now we are in a crash in the left lane of bumper to bumper traffic on the Dan Ryan expressway. Her car won't run (she hit this dude for real) and neither of us are really dressed for the cold, much less the rain. But that was a small immediate issue. We both were thinking of what we were going to get, and the fact that that clearly was not going to happen, at least not anytime even close to soon. Again, before widespread cell phone use. Eventually an IDOT truck came and towed her off to the right shoulder and called a tow company. Getting to the right shoulder was actually a huge relief. Traffic was bad before we caused a shut down of a lane, and we had been getting murderous looks from drivers for the previous hour or however long we sat there. And not looks as they cruised by. Traffic was so slowed that one driver could swear at us for a good 6 or 7 minutes before he was passed.
The tow truck came and hauled us, and Orchid, to their yard, which was in Calumet Park. Great. Now we are even further from home, and in Calumet Park. Sunshine called her parents from there, the legal owners of the car, and they had triple A so at least there was no bill problem. Getting home was a problem. Again, no cell phones, we tried a few peoples home phones, but not a lot of our friends had them, or the stability they would imply. We had a fair amount of cash, but that money had a purpose, and not all was ours. It would have been an expensive cab. So there we sit, talking a bit with the one guy there, the dispatcher, who somehow was a hick. I never understood how this happens, Calumet Park is south suburban Chicago, but it's hickish, at least some of it. Weird. Anyway, somehow we got talking about parties with this guy, I don't remember if he asked about our fat pants or what (would've been a far question, wearing pants that were over 32" around each cuff at the bottom). He tells us, oh yeah, one of the driver's is into those, always talking about them. He would be in pretty soon, depending on where his next call was, maybe he could give us a ride. A party kid tow truck driver? What luck! We never even considered how bizarre that sounded, especially in Calumet Park. There were not a lot of people in our scene over 22 or 23 (and that was pushing it) other than the DJ's and people who produced some of the big ones.
Finally this guy gets back, the dispatch points out his truck as it pulls in. We jump up and go to the window, and see a 45 year old Joe Dirt with a bald spot on top hop out. He was indeed into parties, followed info on them online (we didn't really know what that meant, this was 96 or 97). His next call was North, and he would be driving right past Cermak, our street more or less, so he could drop us. We pile in the cab of the truck and head out, back up the Dan Ryan. At least the traffic was light at this point. I idly noticed the sign for the Cermak exit coming up. Then the dude was pulling onto the shoulder of the highway. When he said drop you on the way, he meant right on the side of the highway, which as I remember was above Cermak, a bridge (but I may be embellishing that). Either way, we got out and started our walk down Cermak. We probably had a mile and a couple blocks to get to our building.
We had been slightly damp earlier but had dried out waiting for the ride. It had rained steadily all night, but now was just a light drizzle. There were, however, significant puddles and no real nice place to walk down the road, and at this time we got a little science review. Do you remember what capillary action is? When a solid-ish object comes into contact with the surface tension of water, the water will absorb and rise up the object (my definition, blow me if that's not exactly right).
Our pants were enormous around the cuffs, and came into contact with huge amounts of water. Fat pants produce a capillary action like nothing else. About five minutes of walking and we were soaked, soaked, to the knees, and it was rising fast. And dear God was it cold! We were basically wearing long almost knee length sweaters and fat pants. Maybe shirts underneath, but that's it. Chicago, late fall, nearing midnight, windy, soaked. And I swear those pants held so much water the weight slowed us down.
It seemed like forever, but finally the doors of the elevator were opening to our floor, and we both walked immediately to the bathroom/laundry room, took off our pants, and threw them in the machines. We then made the pilgrammage to the apartment. We walked in wearing long sweaters, no pants, no shoes, but socks (wet or not we werent walking barefoot across that floor). Andy and one or two other people were watching tv as we walked in and they looked at us incredulously. Sunshine mumbled car accident and we went up those freaky stairs into her room, got dry clothes and they only drugs we had, a little bit of special K and marched back to the bathroom. We started the hot tub, took off the rest of our wet stuff, did some K, and hopped in. I know me and Sunshine did it a few times but I don't think we had at that point, so that would have been the first time we had seen each other naked. I don't think we even noticed, we were that dead (and empty handed, an accident on the way back would have been much easier to take).
I mentioned earlier that I found out why Sunshine had that mean look to her so much of the time. I found a picture of her that was only a year or two old buried in some of her stuff. And she was fat. I don't mean chubby, I mean fat. Probably 16 or 17 in the picture, but shit, we were only like 19, so it was pretty easy to figure out what happened. She somehow found the party scene from Kenosha, not hard to believe, not that far, and she found meth. When she did, she figured out how to be rid of her weight problem in a hurry, and moved away from Kenosha to be with her new crowd, who never knew her before. I didn't stay there too long, and we didn't make a huge effort to hang out after, just bumped into each other out and about, like before I lived there. I never told her I found that picture, and she never looked mean to me again.
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: Amazingly, the morning ended peacefully
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: Amazingly, the morning ended peacefully: "Sometimes the things you didn't get caught doing are far more amazing than the things you did get caught doing. Case in point. It was a Sat..."
Amazingly, the morning ended peacefully
Sometimes the things you didn't get caught doing are far more amazing than the things you did get caught doing. Case in point.
It was a Saturday night, and I was hanging with a friend of my at his parent's house in the north burbs. His parents were gone, the house was nice, and we didn't plan to go to a party that night. We did, however, still want to get high. We were party kids who had reached the stage where drugs are far more important to us than going to parties. In retrospect that was a sad stage to reach. We had both worked so hard, and spent so much on drugs, becoming great dancers. The rave scene was ostensibly about the music and dancing, but the reality was that drugs were a major draw and a fundamental part of the success of the scene. As time went on, many people forgot about the music and dancing entirely. We were falling into this group. But on this night, we were striking out with our contacts and it looked like our one option to get some speed was to go to the party that night. Financially this was no small undertaking. Aside from the distance, maybe a bit over an hour from where we were, this was a big, massively promoted and produced party, which meant a $20 cover easy. Plus party prices for whatever we bought inside. Going to a party to buy a couple small bags of speed is like going to a Cubs game to buy a couple beers. Totally inefficient, way expensive, not at all worth it. So that's what we did.
It was late when we left, probably 2am or later, and probably past three when we reached the venue which I think was Sibley blvd, and that's around 147th street (I think). We bartered with the doorman over cover since the party would be ending in an hour or so, but I don't have any clue what success we had. Once inside we split up and began looking for someone selling crystal. These big parties hired "security" for insurance reasons, and this made finding stuff a little tougher. The security at these big parties was a complete joke, just a group of the most ghetto south side flotsam and jetsam that could be given windbreakers. What they were supposed to do was control drug sale/use. What they actually did was watch for people selling, they were ghetto rats they could spot that, they would then confiscate the drugs, throw the person out, and then promptly try to resell what they had just taken off the dude. But being ghetto rats, they had no clue what party drugs were, or what they were worth. I watched a guard bust a kid I knew was selling ecstasy once. The second he had confiscated the stuff I went up to him and asked him what he had taken. He showed me a bag of pills, at least thirty, maybe fifty. I offered the guy fifty bucks for the bag and his eyes lit up, he looked over his shoulders, and jumped on it. Those pills would sell for $25 to $30 a piece at a party, slightly less in regular life. There ended up being close to fifty. So that was security.
After about an hour we had found what we wanted and were ready to go. The party was about to end, it was near four, so we had no rationalization issues with taking off. Get back in the car, start heading north up the highway back to my buddy's house.
About 30 minutes north we see a car pulled over on the left shoulder, hood up, and two girls standing in front of it. They had clearly been at the same party, the clothes were a dead giveaway, but as I remember we both recognized at least one of them. We decided to do the gentlemanly thing and go back to try and help. After all, we both worked at a gas station and had no tools. Clearly we were qualified. My buddy pulls into the left shoulder, puts it in reverse, and backs up to them. As they watched us approach, backward, they looked puzzled, but when they saw us (and our clothes) they were glad for the help. Now we are standing on the left shoulder of a Chicago (nearly, anyway) highway, and it was summer so it was getting light. And all four of us are wearing full party kid dress, so a space shuttle couldn't have missed us. But we have drugs on us, so my buddy comes up with a great idea. At parties people pass out huge amounts of laminated color flyers for other parties, so he pulls one out of his pocket, folds our drugs in it, and when we get out, he sticks it in a crack in the median. The left side median is made of preformed cement blocks, so there are cracks where they meet every twenty or forty feet or whatever.
I don't remember what was wrong with there car, but we got it started pretty easy but there was doubt whether it would get them back home, Indiana I think. This is like 96 or 97, so no one our age had a cell phone. The plan was that my buddy would drive their car to the nearest gas station with a pay phone. I would follow driving his car with the girls. Off we go.
My buddy drives to the next exit and gets off and starts driving. And driving. There is nothing. And now these girls are thinking we are pulling something, and they're are getting hostile. I explain to them we aren't from around here, that he just took the first exit expecting to find something. And on we go. Still nothing. These girls are getting insufferable, what the fuck is he doing? Where are you guys taking us? I don't remember what they were driving, but it was a $200 car, and broken to boot. I point out to them that from a carjack standpoint their car wasn't worth the gas we had spent driving so far. Surprisingly, this did not help. Finally we see a gas station and he immediately pulls in, parks near the phone, and starts walking to us, still friendly and happy having no idea what these idiots had been accusing him of. They got out slightly mollified, but didn't really apologize. I quickly filled in my friend and shared a few thoughts with the girls and off we went. We make it back to the highway, get back on going north, and are back on the way home.
After ten or fifteen minutes for some reason I ask my amigo where our drugs are, glovebox, hatch area,...so on. The look on his face tells me immediately where they are. Still stuck in the median! He forgot to grab them before we left. There are no words in any human language to convey the feelings I had at that moment. We immediately turn around and start heading back south as we try to figure out what to do. Going back to grab them was obviously the intention, even though it was daylight now, on a Sunday morning with no traffic other than us. As we got back to the area we realized that we had no idea where we stopped to help them. We remembered the exit we took them off, so before that. But where do we start? We drove back to a point we remembered passing for sure, and it was pretty far. And then we turned around, headed back north, pulled into the very narrow left hand shoulder, slowed to about twenty, flipped on the hazard lights, and started looking for a brightly colored flyer sticking out of the median. Hopefully. Hopefully he didn't shove it too far in. We turned down the bass music (wouldn't want to call attention to ourselves) and made our way slowly up the left shoulder. While we are doing this we are trying to come up with an explanation for why we are doing this to give to the state trooper who should be showing up, well, anytime now. Fifteen minutes easy, and then I hear my buddy yell Eureka! There it is. But now we are really looking over both shoulders, a cop driving way back seeing him hop out and back in and us drive away would find that peculiar. All the stickers on his civic hatchback and the way we looked would warrant further investigation. Coast looked clear, he jumped out, grabbed it, jumped back in and tore ass up to sixty five, watching the rear view fearfully. But we were fine. No cops, no one at all really. We are just outside Chicago city limits, not out in the sticks. At 6am on a Sunday in this area cops on the road are the only cars you see half the time. That not one drove by when we were helping the ingrates or doing our search was so unlikely. But good, because we never came up with any reason for why we would be driving down the left shoulder for several miles. We made it back to his house, and I have no clue what we did from there. Didn't sleep, that's for sure. But how we didn't get busted throughout this massive sequence or terrible decisions is beyond me.
It was a Saturday night, and I was hanging with a friend of my at his parent's house in the north burbs. His parents were gone, the house was nice, and we didn't plan to go to a party that night. We did, however, still want to get high. We were party kids who had reached the stage where drugs are far more important to us than going to parties. In retrospect that was a sad stage to reach. We had both worked so hard, and spent so much on drugs, becoming great dancers. The rave scene was ostensibly about the music and dancing, but the reality was that drugs were a major draw and a fundamental part of the success of the scene. As time went on, many people forgot about the music and dancing entirely. We were falling into this group. But on this night, we were striking out with our contacts and it looked like our one option to get some speed was to go to the party that night. Financially this was no small undertaking. Aside from the distance, maybe a bit over an hour from where we were, this was a big, massively promoted and produced party, which meant a $20 cover easy. Plus party prices for whatever we bought inside. Going to a party to buy a couple small bags of speed is like going to a Cubs game to buy a couple beers. Totally inefficient, way expensive, not at all worth it. So that's what we did.
It was late when we left, probably 2am or later, and probably past three when we reached the venue which I think was Sibley blvd, and that's around 147th street (I think). We bartered with the doorman over cover since the party would be ending in an hour or so, but I don't have any clue what success we had. Once inside we split up and began looking for someone selling crystal. These big parties hired "security" for insurance reasons, and this made finding stuff a little tougher. The security at these big parties was a complete joke, just a group of the most ghetto south side flotsam and jetsam that could be given windbreakers. What they were supposed to do was control drug sale/use. What they actually did was watch for people selling, they were ghetto rats they could spot that, they would then confiscate the drugs, throw the person out, and then promptly try to resell what they had just taken off the dude. But being ghetto rats, they had no clue what party drugs were, or what they were worth. I watched a guard bust a kid I knew was selling ecstasy once. The second he had confiscated the stuff I went up to him and asked him what he had taken. He showed me a bag of pills, at least thirty, maybe fifty. I offered the guy fifty bucks for the bag and his eyes lit up, he looked over his shoulders, and jumped on it. Those pills would sell for $25 to $30 a piece at a party, slightly less in regular life. There ended up being close to fifty. So that was security.
After about an hour we had found what we wanted and were ready to go. The party was about to end, it was near four, so we had no rationalization issues with taking off. Get back in the car, start heading north up the highway back to my buddy's house.
About 30 minutes north we see a car pulled over on the left shoulder, hood up, and two girls standing in front of it. They had clearly been at the same party, the clothes were a dead giveaway, but as I remember we both recognized at least one of them. We decided to do the gentlemanly thing and go back to try and help. After all, we both worked at a gas station and had no tools. Clearly we were qualified. My buddy pulls into the left shoulder, puts it in reverse, and backs up to them. As they watched us approach, backward, they looked puzzled, but when they saw us (and our clothes) they were glad for the help. Now we are standing on the left shoulder of a Chicago (nearly, anyway) highway, and it was summer so it was getting light. And all four of us are wearing full party kid dress, so a space shuttle couldn't have missed us. But we have drugs on us, so my buddy comes up with a great idea. At parties people pass out huge amounts of laminated color flyers for other parties, so he pulls one out of his pocket, folds our drugs in it, and when we get out, he sticks it in a crack in the median. The left side median is made of preformed cement blocks, so there are cracks where they meet every twenty or forty feet or whatever.
I don't remember what was wrong with there car, but we got it started pretty easy but there was doubt whether it would get them back home, Indiana I think. This is like 96 or 97, so no one our age had a cell phone. The plan was that my buddy would drive their car to the nearest gas station with a pay phone. I would follow driving his car with the girls. Off we go.
My buddy drives to the next exit and gets off and starts driving. And driving. There is nothing. And now these girls are thinking we are pulling something, and they're are getting hostile. I explain to them we aren't from around here, that he just took the first exit expecting to find something. And on we go. Still nothing. These girls are getting insufferable, what the fuck is he doing? Where are you guys taking us? I don't remember what they were driving, but it was a $200 car, and broken to boot. I point out to them that from a carjack standpoint their car wasn't worth the gas we had spent driving so far. Surprisingly, this did not help. Finally we see a gas station and he immediately pulls in, parks near the phone, and starts walking to us, still friendly and happy having no idea what these idiots had been accusing him of. They got out slightly mollified, but didn't really apologize. I quickly filled in my friend and shared a few thoughts with the girls and off we went. We make it back to the highway, get back on going north, and are back on the way home.
After ten or fifteen minutes for some reason I ask my amigo where our drugs are, glovebox, hatch area,...so on. The look on his face tells me immediately where they are. Still stuck in the median! He forgot to grab them before we left. There are no words in any human language to convey the feelings I had at that moment. We immediately turn around and start heading back south as we try to figure out what to do. Going back to grab them was obviously the intention, even though it was daylight now, on a Sunday morning with no traffic other than us. As we got back to the area we realized that we had no idea where we stopped to help them. We remembered the exit we took them off, so before that. But where do we start? We drove back to a point we remembered passing for sure, and it was pretty far. And then we turned around, headed back north, pulled into the very narrow left hand shoulder, slowed to about twenty, flipped on the hazard lights, and started looking for a brightly colored flyer sticking out of the median. Hopefully. Hopefully he didn't shove it too far in. We turned down the bass music (wouldn't want to call attention to ourselves) and made our way slowly up the left shoulder. While we are doing this we are trying to come up with an explanation for why we are doing this to give to the state trooper who should be showing up, well, anytime now. Fifteen minutes easy, and then I hear my buddy yell Eureka! There it is. But now we are really looking over both shoulders, a cop driving way back seeing him hop out and back in and us drive away would find that peculiar. All the stickers on his civic hatchback and the way we looked would warrant further investigation. Coast looked clear, he jumped out, grabbed it, jumped back in and tore ass up to sixty five, watching the rear view fearfully. But we were fine. No cops, no one at all really. We are just outside Chicago city limits, not out in the sticks. At 6am on a Sunday in this area cops on the road are the only cars you see half the time. That not one drove by when we were helping the ingrates or doing our search was so unlikely. But good, because we never came up with any reason for why we would be driving down the left shoulder for several miles. We made it back to his house, and I have no clue what we did from there. Didn't sleep, that's for sure. But how we didn't get busted throughout this massive sequence or terrible decisions is beyond me.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: After Hours at the funeral home (or, the only two ...
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: After Hours at the funeral home (or, the only two ...: "I'm short on facts on how this came to be, so I'm going to go with the story as I know it. It's gotta be close. During my rave years, say 13..."
After Hours at the funeral home (or, the only two good things Rupe ever did for me he did the same day)
I'm short on facts on how this came to be, so I'm going to go with the story as I know it. It's gotta be close. During my rave years, say 13 years ago, there was a popular spot for after-hours parties. A funeral home. Kid you not. It was on 47th street in a ......well ethnicky area, not really a rats ass area. Lots of first generation latino immigrants, good people, just not the kind of area you would expect to find around a party spot. How this came to be, as I understood it, was a Polish kid and his brother inherited this funeral home from their grandparents. This made sense, because I'm sure that was a Polish neighborhood at some point. This is Chicago, after all. Every neighborhood was Polish at some point.
Anyway, these guys inherit the funeral home and the apartment above it. They move into the apartment, but instead of hosting funeral parties, they take a different course. Like any after-hours, their parties would start around 4am, prior to that the promoters would be attending the raves that night and handing out fliers. I don't remember what they charged but it wasn't much. The building was long and relatively narrow, and originally there was a large comfortably furnished room, then the area that the casket would sit. In the back of the building was a large workroom or stockroom or whatever (I shudder to think what that room was originally used for) that sealed off pretty well to the reception area. The place had last been remodeled in the 70's, and the furniture, carpet, and decor reflected that. What these guys had done, and it worked pretty well, was to take the stock room and line the walls with a hodge podge of anything that could contain sound, carpet remnants and the like. The turntables and speakers were back there. So you entered one end, paid your couple bucks, and walked through the narrow rooms of couchs, easy chairs, etc (all very 70's) where raver kids were lounging about. At the end of this area was a door that led to the dance floor/stock room. It was really a great idea, raves were fueled by a myriad of different drugs, so some people at 4am+ some would still want to dance, and others would want to relax. The problem, really, was that all the carpet remnants in the world couldn't deaden the kind of bass they were pushing into a pseudo-residential neighborhood. Most of the residents of this neighborhood spoke little English, all went to the church (almost directly across the street) Sunday mornings. See the disconnect?
I loved the funeral home after hours, and I probably went to a half dozen there, but you could see that this was not going to go on forever. One Sunday morning, probably 6am or so, a friend and I left to go pick up......chewing gum, because there was a lack of chewing gum and people wanted more. We walked out the front door,turned left, and were crossing an alley when we heard, "Hey! Hey you two!"
It was two chicago cops in the car at the other end of the short alley. Joe and I looked at each other with the same uncertainty. Granted, we had nothing illegal on us, but we sure looked like we did, white kids wearing bright raver clothing at that hour in that neighborhood. And Chicago police are incredibly hard to predict. Some people think they are meaner than suburban cops. Not true, at least not all the time. Suburban cops follow the "book" pretty much all the time, they aren't going to haul you out of your car and search it cause they feel like it. They also will almost never let you out of anything. Chicago cops play different. Finer points of due process are lost in their effort, but you stand a MUCH better chance of them letting you go if they do catch you with something they deem not a big deal. As long as you're not black, that is. Anyway, we glance at each other, trying to decide whether to run or not (instinct), and the cops must have sensed this cause they said ,"Hey wait guys. Did you just come out of the funeral home?"in a nice tone of voice. We called back, yeah, we had just left. They told us to go back and tell them to turn the music down, if they kept getting complaints they would eventually have to do something. And they drove off. Fair warning. When we got back an hour later we mentioned this event to a few people, none of whom seemed to care much. But it was pretty obvious to me, that unlike most rave locations, in industrial areas where no one is around for miles at night, a bass heavy, DJ featured (they promoted by booking known DJ's, at least known to us) party starting at 4am was not kosher in this neighborhood.
Now it's a couple weeks later, and I'm at a party (what we called raves) that's drawing to a close. There is a DJ there named Rupe (everyone was a DJ) and he was planning to play the funeral home. I wanted to go there anyway, he needed a ride, and walking in with him would save me the few buck cover (really the principle of getting in free). We went, hauled in his records, and basically went our separate ways. Well, not that separate, it wasn't that big. But before he even played, he finds me, tells me he has a bad feeling about being there, and wants to grab his records and go to another after hours. I was having a lovely time, and though my spider sense was not tingling, I knew the funeral home was precarious at best, so I agreed and we left. I don't remember where the second after hours was, but we got there, were there for five minutes, same thing. Bad feeling wants to go. Fine, fine. So we leave and head to a mutual friends house for a quiet small gathering. Not that this matters, but as I drove Rupe split a microdot of messcaline with his teeth, perfectly in half. A microdot is like a flat BB, maybe smaller. I was impressed. I would learn later in life it was a skill acquired from being a master mooch, and making people share what should be unsharable.
He was right about both parties! The second one was more a routine shut down, but when you're holding, there is no routine. The funeral home was a far larger deal. Apparently, on a couple of occasions Police had tried to stop by and tell them to turn the music down. The guys responded by killing the music completely when the cops were walking up, and not answering the door. There were no windows left exposed, city spot so thick metal barred door. And there was only one door left, the main front, the other in the stock room/club land had been sealed over in a vain attempt to soundproof. I guess having tried to openly come by before, the cops this time got sneaky. And there were a lot of them, paddy wagons already on hand, they planned on making arrests. So all of a sudden, boom, cops are filling the place. Some people ran into the dancefloor room and told them what was going on, they tried to bar the door between the two sections but the CPD took that out like it was paper (and really, where would they have gone? The door outside back there was sealed over. The party kid Masada, holding out back there until the Roman legions got through.)
So, stunned, nowhere to run, those holding illegal things (99%) did the one thing they could; they threw their shit onto the floor. As the cops took order, they rounded people up into areas, like ok you three sit on that couch and so on. And if you ended up next to something on the floor, you were one of the lucky ones to go to 26th and California. The details I have about this part are exactly factual. A girl who would go on to become one of the major girlfriends in my life was one of the unlucky ones that morning. They were drugs all over the floor, and a bag of coke by where she had been seated, with a couple other girls. All three were taken. (Coke, of all things. Not a party kid drug. She got busted because of what some imposter ditched.)
I had been hanging with her that night before Rupe got us out of there. In time, the charges were dropped, but she had to deal with a lot of people (family) doubting her story. I knew it was true. No way Kelly had coke (now if it had been ecstasy.....)
Rupe's intuition saved me, potentially big time. I was holding heavy that morning. And I would end up being rommates with the guy (and another guy) within 6 months. He was one of the worst roommates and worst people I had ever been around. The kind of guy who would ask you for a favor, and just not take no, keep asking, keep asking, until you literally had to scream at him. One of these favors was always to borrow my car, short time periods "for nothing". Heroin was not a major party kid drug, and at that time I was unfamiliar with it. That would soon change, as it brought down the house that tweak built. Next story.
Anyway, these guys inherit the funeral home and the apartment above it. They move into the apartment, but instead of hosting funeral parties, they take a different course. Like any after-hours, their parties would start around 4am, prior to that the promoters would be attending the raves that night and handing out fliers. I don't remember what they charged but it wasn't much. The building was long and relatively narrow, and originally there was a large comfortably furnished room, then the area that the casket would sit. In the back of the building was a large workroom or stockroom or whatever (I shudder to think what that room was originally used for) that sealed off pretty well to the reception area. The place had last been remodeled in the 70's, and the furniture, carpet, and decor reflected that. What these guys had done, and it worked pretty well, was to take the stock room and line the walls with a hodge podge of anything that could contain sound, carpet remnants and the like. The turntables and speakers were back there. So you entered one end, paid your couple bucks, and walked through the narrow rooms of couchs, easy chairs, etc (all very 70's) where raver kids were lounging about. At the end of this area was a door that led to the dance floor/stock room. It was really a great idea, raves were fueled by a myriad of different drugs, so some people at 4am+ some would still want to dance, and others would want to relax. The problem, really, was that all the carpet remnants in the world couldn't deaden the kind of bass they were pushing into a pseudo-residential neighborhood. Most of the residents of this neighborhood spoke little English, all went to the church (almost directly across the street) Sunday mornings. See the disconnect?
I loved the funeral home after hours, and I probably went to a half dozen there, but you could see that this was not going to go on forever. One Sunday morning, probably 6am or so, a friend and I left to go pick up......chewing gum, because there was a lack of chewing gum and people wanted more. We walked out the front door,turned left, and were crossing an alley when we heard, "Hey! Hey you two!"
It was two chicago cops in the car at the other end of the short alley. Joe and I looked at each other with the same uncertainty. Granted, we had nothing illegal on us, but we sure looked like we did, white kids wearing bright raver clothing at that hour in that neighborhood. And Chicago police are incredibly hard to predict. Some people think they are meaner than suburban cops. Not true, at least not all the time. Suburban cops follow the "book" pretty much all the time, they aren't going to haul you out of your car and search it cause they feel like it. They also will almost never let you out of anything. Chicago cops play different. Finer points of due process are lost in their effort, but you stand a MUCH better chance of them letting you go if they do catch you with something they deem not a big deal. As long as you're not black, that is. Anyway, we glance at each other, trying to decide whether to run or not (instinct), and the cops must have sensed this cause they said ,"Hey wait guys. Did you just come out of the funeral home?"in a nice tone of voice. We called back, yeah, we had just left. They told us to go back and tell them to turn the music down, if they kept getting complaints they would eventually have to do something. And they drove off. Fair warning. When we got back an hour later we mentioned this event to a few people, none of whom seemed to care much. But it was pretty obvious to me, that unlike most rave locations, in industrial areas where no one is around for miles at night, a bass heavy, DJ featured (they promoted by booking known DJ's, at least known to us) party starting at 4am was not kosher in this neighborhood.
Now it's a couple weeks later, and I'm at a party (what we called raves) that's drawing to a close. There is a DJ there named Rupe (everyone was a DJ) and he was planning to play the funeral home. I wanted to go there anyway, he needed a ride, and walking in with him would save me the few buck cover (really the principle of getting in free). We went, hauled in his records, and basically went our separate ways. Well, not that separate, it wasn't that big. But before he even played, he finds me, tells me he has a bad feeling about being there, and wants to grab his records and go to another after hours. I was having a lovely time, and though my spider sense was not tingling, I knew the funeral home was precarious at best, so I agreed and we left. I don't remember where the second after hours was, but we got there, were there for five minutes, same thing. Bad feeling wants to go. Fine, fine. So we leave and head to a mutual friends house for a quiet small gathering. Not that this matters, but as I drove Rupe split a microdot of messcaline with his teeth, perfectly in half. A microdot is like a flat BB, maybe smaller. I was impressed. I would learn later in life it was a skill acquired from being a master mooch, and making people share what should be unsharable.
He was right about both parties! The second one was more a routine shut down, but when you're holding, there is no routine. The funeral home was a far larger deal. Apparently, on a couple of occasions Police had tried to stop by and tell them to turn the music down. The guys responded by killing the music completely when the cops were walking up, and not answering the door. There were no windows left exposed, city spot so thick metal barred door. And there was only one door left, the main front, the other in the stock room/club land had been sealed over in a vain attempt to soundproof. I guess having tried to openly come by before, the cops this time got sneaky. And there were a lot of them, paddy wagons already on hand, they planned on making arrests. So all of a sudden, boom, cops are filling the place. Some people ran into the dancefloor room and told them what was going on, they tried to bar the door between the two sections but the CPD took that out like it was paper (and really, where would they have gone? The door outside back there was sealed over. The party kid Masada, holding out back there until the Roman legions got through.)
So, stunned, nowhere to run, those holding illegal things (99%) did the one thing they could; they threw their shit onto the floor. As the cops took order, they rounded people up into areas, like ok you three sit on that couch and so on. And if you ended up next to something on the floor, you were one of the lucky ones to go to 26th and California. The details I have about this part are exactly factual. A girl who would go on to become one of the major girlfriends in my life was one of the unlucky ones that morning. They were drugs all over the floor, and a bag of coke by where she had been seated, with a couple other girls. All three were taken. (Coke, of all things. Not a party kid drug. She got busted because of what some imposter ditched.)
I had been hanging with her that night before Rupe got us out of there. In time, the charges were dropped, but she had to deal with a lot of people (family) doubting her story. I knew it was true. No way Kelly had coke (now if it had been ecstasy.....)
Rupe's intuition saved me, potentially big time. I was holding heavy that morning. And I would end up being rommates with the guy (and another guy) within 6 months. He was one of the worst roommates and worst people I had ever been around. The kind of guy who would ask you for a favor, and just not take no, keep asking, keep asking, until you literally had to scream at him. One of these favors was always to borrow my car, short time periods "for nothing". Heroin was not a major party kid drug, and at that time I was unfamiliar with it. That would soon change, as it brought down the house that tweak built. Next story.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: A Warm (and hilarious) Thanksgiving Memory
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: A Warm (and hilarious) Thanksgiving Memory: "People say divorce wounds the children involved. I suppose it does, but in all honesty, remarriage is what really fucks them up. And in hono..."
A Warm (and hilarious) Thanksgiving Memory
People say divorce wounds the children involved. I suppose it does, but in all honesty, remarriage is what really fucks them up. And in honor of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday I would like to share a Thanksgiving memory made possible through the magic of remarriage. When I was 14 my Dad got remarried, to a woman he had been dating for about 6 months. In retrospect, had he spent a little more time wrestling with that decision he probably wouldn't now be on his 3rd marriage. Having dated for only six months, I had only met this woman twice before my father and I moved into her house, with her two boys (she was divorced from a cardiologist, and got the house. The house really was nice.) I met her two sons only once, on a Sunday afternoon for a few hours, before we all became one big, dysfunctional family. When I arrived at her house that Sunday afternoon her sons were not yet home, and my step mother- to- be took a moment to share something with me. Her older son had a bit of a problem with his mouth, and if I ever felt the need to solve a problem with him physically that was ok. I stood in stunned disbelief, and just as my mind began to accept the idea that this woman had just invited me to kick her sons ass my father pulled me aside and told me sternly never to do this. Talk about mixed messages! One thing was clear, either this woman was totally insane, or her son was really that obnoxious. Over the next 13 years I learned that both were true.
And with that bit of background I bring you to the first Thanksgiving dinner we all shared. My grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin joined us. I knew this was a disaster in the making when I saw what my stepmother was cooking. She came to this country when she was 15 from Germany, and presumably knew what traditional Thanksgiving fare consisted of. She chose to abandon this for salmon-almond mousse pate, among other things I had never heard of. My family was coming in from Northern Wisconsin and rural Indiana. If they had known that coming up with a turkey would be a problem they would have shot one themselves. Still, the strange food could have been overcome, but my older step brother could not.
We sat down to dinner with my father and step mother at the head and foot of the table, my family lining one side and my step brothers and I on the other. My older step brother was sitting to the right of my father, perpendicular to him. As the meal progressed, my step brother's comments became more and more inappropriate. I could see me family trying to catch me eye with the strangest looks on their faces, my father looked uncomfortable, his mother mortified. As for myself and my younger step brother, well.....we loved every minute. We ate our bizarre food and felt the tension in the room grow in what my theatre professor would refer to as rising action, the precursor to the climax.
That climax came when he made a comment about his mother deep throating my father. No shit. And instantly, while everyone else sat in shocked silence, my father (sitting perpendicular to him) punched him square in the jaw. Clearly, my step brother had never had taken a shot to the jaw before (it wouldn't be his last) and I'm not sure my father had ever thrown a punch before (though he threw that one like Evander Holyfield). My step brother sat there for a moment, then jumped up, grabbed his plate, and took he off. He grabbed his Domino's cheese pizza off the counter and retreated to his room, where he spent the rest of the evening. (A note about the pizza, he may be the pickiest eater I have ever met, but really, given the shit the rest of us were forcing down, he did all right getting himself a pizza. The rest of us had been watching him eat it, like, can we do that? I didn't know we could do that.)
My family didn't spend the night, I'm not sure if they had ever intended to, but they took off as soon as was polite. Our first Thanksgiving was a harbinger of things to come, and while we had many instances far more tragic and inflammatory, few spawned such hilarious memories.
And with that bit of background I bring you to the first Thanksgiving dinner we all shared. My grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousin joined us. I knew this was a disaster in the making when I saw what my stepmother was cooking. She came to this country when she was 15 from Germany, and presumably knew what traditional Thanksgiving fare consisted of. She chose to abandon this for salmon-almond mousse pate, among other things I had never heard of. My family was coming in from Northern Wisconsin and rural Indiana. If they had known that coming up with a turkey would be a problem they would have shot one themselves. Still, the strange food could have been overcome, but my older step brother could not.
We sat down to dinner with my father and step mother at the head and foot of the table, my family lining one side and my step brothers and I on the other. My older step brother was sitting to the right of my father, perpendicular to him. As the meal progressed, my step brother's comments became more and more inappropriate. I could see me family trying to catch me eye with the strangest looks on their faces, my father looked uncomfortable, his mother mortified. As for myself and my younger step brother, well.....we loved every minute. We ate our bizarre food and felt the tension in the room grow in what my theatre professor would refer to as rising action, the precursor to the climax.
That climax came when he made a comment about his mother deep throating my father. No shit. And instantly, while everyone else sat in shocked silence, my father (sitting perpendicular to him) punched him square in the jaw. Clearly, my step brother had never had taken a shot to the jaw before (it wouldn't be his last) and I'm not sure my father had ever thrown a punch before (though he threw that one like Evander Holyfield). My step brother sat there for a moment, then jumped up, grabbed his plate, and took he off. He grabbed his Domino's cheese pizza off the counter and retreated to his room, where he spent the rest of the evening. (A note about the pizza, he may be the pickiest eater I have ever met, but really, given the shit the rest of us were forcing down, he did all right getting himself a pizza. The rest of us had been watching him eat it, like, can we do that? I didn't know we could do that.)
My family didn't spend the night, I'm not sure if they had ever intended to, but they took off as soon as was polite. Our first Thanksgiving was a harbinger of things to come, and while we had many instances far more tragic and inflammatory, few spawned such hilarious memories.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: What if songs were news reports?
Empty Thoughts and Random Memories: What if songs were news reports?: "Over 15 years ago I was listening to the radio, and heard Steven Tyler report that Janie had a gun. Today, I was listening to the radio and ..."
What if songs were news reports?
Over 15 years ago I was listening to the radio, and heard Steven Tyler report that Janie had a gun. Today, I was listening to the radio and was dismayed to hear Steven Tyler tell me the bitch has yet to be disarmed.
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