"Drinking Like a Fisch" Submission #28

It was the fall of 1974. I had just begun my sophomore year at the newly built high school out on Highway 17, at the north end of town. Beautiful building. It had opened up a couple years earlier but it was still shiny and new.

The old, brick high school building on Main Street had been built in 1915 and had churned out nearly 60 graduating classes. The old school educated and matured men who would fight in two world wars, the Korean conflict and Viet Nam. There were a lot of memories generated in the halls and classrooms of that three-story building but the town was proud of the new construction and those first few classes of students were anxious to occupy the new digs.

I think it was the first Friday of that school year. I found myself sitting with Mike Fischer in the Student Center. Shooting the breeze.

Fisch was a grade ahead of me. He was an acquaintance, but I never had a significant history of hanging out with him. So, the invitation to come over to his house that night to drink some beer came as a bit of a surprise but… there was beer… so I said, “Absolutely! I’ll be there. What time?”

He told me to come over late… about midnight. I don’t remember the reason for the lateness of the hour but I didn’t mind. Friday nights were meant for adventure, risk and exploration. It wouldn’t be the first time that I navigated my way across town after the legal curfew. I was pretty much a pro at avoiding the cops.

My mom and step-dad were gone for the weekend. They left Friday morning for a bowling tournament in Cincinnati. It was going to be a good weekend. I didn’t have to worry about experiencing their inevitable, Sunday knockdown, drag out brawl and on top of that, I could come and go as I please… no matter the time of day or night. I could head over to Mike’s house that night by walking out the front door instead of crawling out my upstairs bedroom window.

I was caught totally off guard when I came home from school to find that they had left a babysitter. Grandma Edna. My step-dad’s mom. Sweet lady but a fly in my ointment. Minor inconvenience. I’d work around it.

At about 11 o’clock that night, I yawned, stretched and told Grandma Edna that I was beat and was heading off to bed. I smiled to myself as I headed upstairs.

I smoked a few cigarettes in my darkened room as I watched the light traffic make their way east and west on 2^nd Street. I saw many of the same cars, multiple times… evidence that they were “scooping the loop,” a continual circle through town… radios blaring, horns honking as they passed friends, raising one finger off the steering wheel as a low-effort greeting. The cool kids.

One of those cars that I saw over and over was the Madrid cop car, patrolling his beat and looking for trouble makers. Keeping the streets clean. I began timing his appearances. When traveling west, he would come back by in about four minutes. When traveling east, his return was in about six minutes.

As midnight approached, I waited to see the cop traveling east in front of my house. As he passed by, I scurried out my window, down the slant of our porch roof, hung off the rain gutter and felt for the porch rail with my feet. I hit the ground and immediately crouched as I watched him turn left on Highway 17 and then I sprinted across the street.

I journeyed quickly between houses, under the cover of darkness, at a steady jog. Most houses in Madrid did not have fences… thank God. I never walked along the streets or sidewalks, I just crossed over them after making sure the coast was clear.

I saw the cop a couple times along the way. He didn’t see me.

I got to Mike’s house. He lived at the end of a cul de sac on the north side of town. His street ran parallel to Highway 17, one block west. The north side of his house was bordered by a cornfield with an abandoned old house and shed just beyond the yet-to-be harvested corn crop.

I heard voices coming from his backyard. I followed the voices.

There were a few guys there… sitting on lawn chairs with a large cooler of beer serving as a footstool for Denny Young, or “Farmer” as everyone called him. Farmer was the only “legal” drinker there. He was 18, the legal drinking age in Iowa at the time. The rest of us were juveniles… breaking the law, seeing who could get intoxicated the quickest.

I grabbed a beer and a chair and settled in. We spent the next few hours drinking, talking, drinking, laughing and then we drank some more.

It was about 3 or 4 in the morning. I think I was a six-pack or better into the process when I started thinking about heading home. I was a skinny kid that topped out at about a buck ten and I couldn’t hold my liquor. I was drunk. Drunk enough that I worried about finding my way home and my ability to dodge the police successfully.

Fisch laughed at my anxiety but I just kept obsessing about getting caught and going to jail. He told me I’d be fine. No problems. He smiled.

Mike excused himself and went into his house. Said he’d be back. I didn’t think anything about it as I finished off a cold one and decided to grab just one more before heading off.

About 20 minutes passed as I finished that last beer and realized that Mike had not returned to the backyard. Must have fallen asleep.

As I got up to leave, Mike rejoined the group with a smile on his face. I didn’t bother to quiz him about the smile and he didn’t offer an explanation. He just smiled.

Suddenly, we heard a siren… and then another one. We all looked at each other… wondering what was happening in our small town at 4 in the morning. The sound was getting closer. Fisch just smiled.

We finally saw the cop car out on Highway 17, heading north past the high school. As my eyes followed his path, I saw where he was headed and why he was heading there. That old, abandoned shed just beyond the cornfield was ablaze.

“Wow! Look at that thing burn!” I yelled. “How did that happen?”

I looked at Mike and he said with a grin, “Well, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about running into the cop on the way home now.”

“Wait! did you….?” My voice trailed off. He didn’t respond.

“Better get going if you want to avoid the cop.” Fisch advised.

So I went home. Never saw the cop. Never knew for certainty… but was pretty sure about what happened.

My adventures with Fisch and Farmer were not over. I met up with them again a week later. Alcohol was to play a role again… but there was another element involved this time… not fire… but rifles.