"The Protocol of Stoners" Submission #33

A continuation from Submission #32

We grabbed our coats and made our way out to the high school parking lot.

It was January in Iowa or to put it another way… it was face-numbing cold! The ground was covered with a thick blanket of snow and the wind was whipping out of the north at a brisk pace.

Huffy and I trudged towards Hallsy’s dark colored van, hands thrust deep into our pockets, the snow crunching loudly with every step. We piled into the van, already occupied by Hallsy and someone else… I really can’t remember who… I just remember there were four of us.

We pulled out of the school parking lot and headed south on Highway 17 and then made a left on Highway 210, by the bowling alley. We called it the Slater Road because, well… if you stayed on it for six miles… you’d end up in the town of Slater. Yeah… we were a clever bunch.

I don’t recall the conversation, or if there was any conversation at all. I just knew we were on a journey that would end with yet another experience that would contribute to my downward spiral. I was nervous.

Oddly enough, we ended up at a cemetery two miles east of Madrid, just past the railroad tracks. We pulled into the entryway and Hallsy maneuvered the van toward the back corner. The snow was deep and you could hear the tires spinning several times as it felt like we might get stuck. We ended up next to an old shed as we tried to hide our presence from any traffic that happened to pass by.

With only the faint light from the moon, you could see the tips of tombstones sticking out of the snow. It was so eerily quiet with only the wind gusts providing a sound. I was creeped out. Just the four of us and a bunch of dead people… prospective Democrat voters. Why did we pick a cemetery as the location to get high? Oh well, I guess it added some flavor to the story that I would eventually share.

Huffy pulled out a box of Marlboro cigarettes and popped open the top. Alongside the neatly packaged, filter tipped cancer sticks were a couple, hand-rolled joints. Doobies.

He pulled one out and fired it up, as he took a long drag. He made a hissing sound as he inhaled deeply, his lungs filling with smoke and then he held his breath for a few seconds before exhaling, creating a massive cloud inside the van.

“Interesting,” I thought. “There seems to be a technique happening here. Who knew?”

The joint was passed around, which I thought was odd. How come I couldn’t have one of my own? I never passed a cigarette around to my friends… or a bottle of beer. Weird.

The protocol of stoners.

When the joint came to me for the first time, I tried my best to employ the same technique I’d seen demonstrated by my more experienced comrades. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to look cool. I wanted to look like I’d done this before but all four of us knew that wasn’t the case and that fact became painfully obvious when I sucked the smoke into my lungs and my lungs immediately said, “OH NO YOU DON’T!”

It felt like someone had slit my trachea with a razor blade. I coughed so hard, I swear a piece of my lung came flying out. My coughing spell lasted for several minutes, which apparently was hilariously funny to the other three guys. They howled with laughter. It was as though I was a pledge to a fraternity and they were putting me through a little hazing but to be honest, I wasn’t having very much fun.

I took my turn several more times, albeit with gentle drags… trying to take it easy on my reluctant lungs. When it was all said and done, I felt a minor buzz but that’s all. Bad quality weed or a failure to correctly inhale? Maybe both.

The deed was done and we needed to head back to town.  Hallsy popped the van in reverse and pressed on the gas. We could hear the tires spinning but the vehicle wasn’t moving. He pressed down harder and the tires spun faster… but we didn’t move. We were stuck and as it turned out, stuck pretty good.

Three of us hopped out and pushed and heaved as Hallsy attempted to maneuver the wheels to such an angle that would gain some traction. No luck. We entertained the notion of walking back to town but quickly dismissed it as a “bad idea.” So we kept pushing for probably a solid half hour.

Finally, we broke loose and the van started rolling backwards. We jumped in, dying to get some heat on our frost bitten hands. I looked down and noticed that Huffy wasn’t wearing any shoes. He didn’t even realize it. They had both come off as we were pushing the van. He found them… stuck in the snow. Maybe the quality of that marijuana was stronger than I thought!

It was spring and the weather had warmed considerably before my second experience with weed. My buddy, Kevin Gibbons and I had scored a “nickel bag” and I had purchased a small, home-made pipe from… someone… I don’t remember who.

There was a dance being held in the log cabin at Edgewood Park and we thought it would be a great idea if we showed up stoned.

Kevin met me at my house. My parents were home and so we decided to find an alternate location to smoke our pot. It was still light outside. We decided to head toward the park and figure out a good spot along the way.

That “spot” ended up being the Christian Church, a block west from my house. On the backside of the church, hidden by some overgrown bushes, was a porch, tall enough for us to comfortably crawl underneath. Perfect. Nobody would see us.

We filled the bowl of the pipe and lit it up. We passed it back and forth, as I had learned from my “stoner pals.” I don’t recall how many bowls we made it through but before we crawled out from under the church porch, I was higher than a kite. This felt totally different than being drunk.

I felt like I was in a cartoon. I didn’t feel real. I kept looking at my hands and my fingers, as though I'd discovered them for the very first time. 

My surroundings looked like animation and everything suddenly turned very humorous. We laughed the entire way to the park and once we got to the park, I became the best dancer in the place… at least in my mind.

Getting high became a routine activity after that. Whenever I wanted to escape the reality of my miserable existence… and it WAS a very miserable existence… I got stoned.

I stole money from my parents to buy my dope. I became brazen enough to smoke it in my own bedroom… often. My sanctuary. A room in the house that my parents never, ever visited. A blessing and a curse.

For me… life sucked. I didn’t know if I wanted to continue living it but getting high allowed me to escape those heavy thoughts and dark questions… even if it was only for a little while.

"Up In Smoke" Submission #32

In the 1950’s, the term “stoned” was coined to describe somebody that was “under the influence.” Similar to “drunk” or “high.” In the late 1970’s, a derivative of that word, a noun, “Stoner,” entered the American vernacular and was used to describe, primarily, one who frequently smoked marijuana.

So, even though we weren’t actually using the term “stoner” in 1974, at Madrid High School… we had our “stoners” and everyone knew who they were. Steve “Hallsey” Hall, Brian “Huffy” Huffstutler, the Udorvich boys… and a number of others.

I can vividly remember many occasions passing one of these guys in the hallway or in class, usually before our first class of the day… and smelling the strong and distinct odor of pot. And you knew what they had been doing on the way to school or in their cars out in the school parking lot.

The smell stuck to their jackets, their clothes and their hair. Their half closed eyes and dazed smiles were further evidence of their impairment. I often thought that if I knew they were high, surely the teachers knew also. But they never said anything or did anything… at least not that I was aware of.

I didn’t hang out with this group much. I mean… we knew each other… heck, everyone knew everyone in Madrid. But other than being friends for a bit with Huffy in junior high… I wasn’t part of the “stoners.” But my curiosity about getting high was something that began to creep into my consciousness during my freshman year of high school.

I sat by Huffy in a couple of classes and I began to ask him about his experiences with weed. I asked him about the difference between getting high and being drunk. I asked him about cost and availability. I learned that it was packaged and sold in denominations such as a nickel bag, a dime bag or a lid.

He didn’t divulge who the dealers were but he assured me that he could procure it for me if I ever wanted some and could produce the cash. Huffy was as good as a used car salesman. His words intrigued me and his stories fascinated me. But I wasn’t ready to commit to an actual transaction.

One Friday night in January of 1974, the whole town (it seemed) had packed the gymnasium for a basketball game. The Madrid Tigers boys’ basketball team was state rated in the top 10 and the community was abuzz. We were not used to that level of success from any of our teams. It was an exciting time.

The team was led by a couple of seniors… Kevin Munson (my cousin) and Jim “Coba” Nicoletto, who had captured the imagination of high school sports fans across the state. Coba was a gifted, 4-sport athlete who nearly had his athletic career ended the year before in a freak accident during a baseball game.

Coba, who was the varsity catcher, threw off his mask as he prepared for a play at the plate. The runner barreled into him at full speed and his elbow crashed into the area around Coba’s right eye. Jim Nicoletto would never see out of that eye again.

The whole town lamented the loss of Madrid’s best high school athlete and wept over the fact that his senior year would be a total loss… athletically speaking. The problem was that someone forgot got to tell Coba that he was done participating in sports.

A couple games into the next football season, the townspeople were shocked to see Coba suited up for the game and standing on the sidelines. They were even more surprised to see him inserted into the running back position during Madrid’s first possession.

Coba finished that game with over 200 yards rushing and a legend was born.

Yes, he played basketball too, despite the fact that he was blind in his shooting eye and he competed at a level far beyond anyone’s expectations. His leadership and his skills on the court led the Tigers to a #8 rating in the state that season.

Now… what does this story about Jim Nicoletto have to do with the “stoners” and my first experience with pot? Other than the fact that I was watching him play on the night that I first smoked a reefer… absolutely nothing. It is just a great story and I wanted to tell it!

It was almost halftime. I didn’t see him at first but I suddenly smelled the aroma of cannabis.  Huffy had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and sat next to me. He had never sat next to me at a game in his life, so I knew something was up.

“You wanna take a ride?” He grinned broadly as I pondered his offer.

“Where to?” I stalled.

He repeated the question with exaggerated pauses between the words, as though he were speaking to someone from a foreign country. “Do… you… want… to… take… a… ride? Yes or no?”

I caught on to his cryptic utterings. At least I thought I did. This must have something to do with the topic that we had been discussing nonstop for a few weeks… his friend, Mary Jane.

"The Unlearned Lessons of Life" Submission #31

After conferring with Mike and determining that neither of us had spilled the beans about shooting out the high school windows, we both sat patiently, waiting for our parents to pick us up.

Jack worked the swing shift at Firestone, in Des Moines, so he was at work and my mom didn’t drive. She was forced to walk to the Madrid police station. No big deal. We lived about five blocks away.

Once our parents arrived, instead of letting us go, they sat us all together and the cop in charge said, “I’m going to ask you guys one more time… what do you know about the high school windows getting shot out tonight?”

Instinctively… we both lied again… as he just stared us down. Something was up. He knew. Somehow… he knew.

Finally Mike mumbled… “Okay, we did it.”

The cop nodded his head and said, “I know you did it. Your buddy spilled his guts to the officer that transported him to Boone.”

Farmer ratted us out. It was for the best, though… I guess.

We had to pay a fine and we were put on some sort of probation. I remember meeting a couple times with a probation official at the high school… in the middle of the school day. That was embarrassing.

We made the Madrid Newspaper, further tarnishing my less than stellar reputation in the small town where everyone knew the minutest details of everyone else’s life. I suppose this may have been part of the reason that I became more and more isolated from my friends… or former friends. I would not blame their parents for instructing them to stay clear of the Munson kid. I would do the same today… with my kids.

But the lessons of life hadn’t yet persuaded me to turn over a new leaf. God… I wish they had of! Could have saved me some additional grief.

Saturdays in the dead of winter could be very boring in small Midwestern towns. We didn’t have the electronic entertainment of video games, cell phones, computers and tablets… like the kids do today. So, when the school system decided to open the old gymnasium at the elementary/junior high on Saturday afternoons, my buddies and I, with nothing better to do, would trudge to the gym, through the snow and cold, to see if we could start some sort of mischief.

One Saturday, Carlo (Marc Carlson) and Greg Drake showed up at my house about 90 minutes before the gym was to open. My parents were gone, tending bar at “Jack & Verna’s” and my step-siblings were either still in bed or were pursuing their own Saturday interests. All I remember is that my buddies and I occupied the downstairs area… alone.

We were horsing around in the den, using throw pillows for boxing gloves as we took turns “fighting” each other.

On one side of the den was a love seat and a shelving unit where mom kept many of her useless nik naks, many of which I had already broken. Mom would simply glue them back together and place them back on the shelf.

On the other side of the den was a miniature bar, about five feet long, with a couple bar stools in front of it. It wasn’t long before Carlo made his way behind the bar and discovered a large variety of alcoholic drink. He began pulling out bottles and placing them on the bar. Bourbon, brandy, Crème de Menthe, scotch and, of course, a half-gallon of Smirnoff Vodka.

I think Carlo and Greg may have partaken in sampling some of the stock but somewhere in the process, I had made the decision that I was going to get drunk. What better way to liven up “Gym Day” than to arrive with a buzz!

At that point in my young life, I was still in the amateur ranks of alcohol consumption… particularly when it came to the hard stuff.

I started my taste testing with sips from the various bottles. It was awful! I could never see myself drinking for enjoyment sake. My goal was to get wasted and so the sips turned into gulps. First brandy, then bourbon, followed by vodka… and then back to brandy. With each gulp, the taste wasn’t so much a factor anymore. I was getting looped in a hurry.

A few minutes before noon, we decided to head toward the gym. We walked by the bank downtown where their spinning sign showed us the time on one side and the temperature on the other. It was in the single digits and the wind was howling but I wasn’t cold in the slightest as I made my way, coat unzipped and with no covering on my head.

We got to the gym and it was as if the bitterly cold temperatures outside kept me sober enough to be cognoscente of what was going on because as soon as I felt the blast of warm air in the gym, I remember little else for the next couple of hours.

I sensed a crowded gym of bodies darting around in an absolute blur and the sound of voices rising and falling and rising and falling. I’ve seen the way they depict such a scene as this in the movies with their special effects and I must say… it seems pretty accurate.

I seemed to drift toward slight coherency for very brief periods of time before drifting back into a blackout period. And so, I remember a few things about that day in the gym… the first of which was finding myself on the stage at the north end of the building where the wrestling mats were laid out and a group of kids were milling around. I kept stumbling toward various individuals, boy or girl, and challenging them to a wrestling match.

Surprisingly, nobody took me up on my wrestling challenge. They all just backed away from me before I fell into them. Some laughed, others just shook their head and removed themselves from my presence. Those were the smart ones.

During my lucid moments, I was aware that I was really, really intoxicated… more so than any time in my brief drinking career. Darn hard stuff! I knew that I was fall-down drunk and a wave of extreme nausea was beginning to set in. I was sweating profusely.

Someone, I honestly don’t know who, was aware of my condition and decided to help me out. He put his arm around me and led me downstairs to the boys’ locker room. He told me that it was cooler down there and perhaps I should grab a bench and try to sober up some.

I thanked him… over and over again. I told him that I loved him and that if I could ever do something to help him… that I would! I told him that he saved my life and that I owed him one!

I still have no idea who it was.

I remember sitting on the edge of a bench, my elbows resting on my knees and my head cupped in the palms of my hands. I passed out in this position. I’d wake up on occasion as my head would slip out of my hands and my whole body would jerk and stiffen up in an effort to keep me from crashing down to the cold, hard, cement floor.

Every once in a while, I would hear voices and footsteps coming down the stairs. I didn’t bother to look. I didn’t care who saw me. I was too drunk and too sick. I was in survival mode. Sober up and never do this again! (Until the next time, of course)

My next period of awareness came when I woke up, lying on the locker room floor… my face planted in a pool of my own vomit. I still didn’t care. I didn’t bother to lift my head… I just opened my eyes and saw someone’s bare feet about five inches from my face. I had a spectator.

I slowly raised my head and followed my line of vision upward to discover a naked guy, toweling off as he looked at me in utter amusement… or maybe it was disgust. He wasn’t smiling.

It was Rick Isolini. A popular kid a couple years older than me. Rick was a great athlete and a kid I admired quite a bit. He didn’t like me much. This scene did nothing to improve my standing with him. Oh well.

I staggered over to the sink, turned on the cold faucet and thrust my head beneath it. The cobwebs began to slowly clear but I was still far from sober.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Carlo handing me my jacket. Huh… I had no recollection of ever taking my jacket off. I slipped it on and headed out the outside door to begin my journey home. My wet hair almost instantly turned to ice but again, I wasn’t bothered by it.

As I approached my house, I observed the Buick Electra parked on the street on the east side of the house. Mom and Jack were home. Great!

I steadied myself, opened the door and walked briskly by them as they sat on the couch… drinking, as usual, and watching television. I raised my hand with a quick wave and bounded up the stairs and to my bedroom. I fell onto my bed, clothes on and hair frozen… and slept until the evening.

I was 14 years old. This behavior had to stop. But the self-medicating was the only method I knew to dull the pain of a miserable existence and a home-life that was pushing me to the brink of ending it all.

"We Denied... He Smirked" Submission #30

Alcohol, rifles, teenagers… and a vehicle. Can you think of a worse combination? That sounded perfectly fine to me back in the mid-1970’s when I was doing my best to sow my wild oats, but now… as a father of five… it causes me to break into a cold sweat.

Mike Fischer (Fisch), Denny Young (Farmer) and me.

After about an hour of driving around in our small town and consuming our fair share of alcohol, we stopped at Mike’s house to pick up some rifles. I don’t recall but I have to assume that Mike’s parents were not at home. I’m pretty sure that he didn’t have carte blanche to remove their firearms from the gun cabinet and go target shooting with a couple drunk teenagers.

We drove somewhere north and west of town and ended up at the Des Moines River near the town of Luther. I do not have a clear recollection of this portion of the adventure. I vaguely remember shooting, laughing and using the river as my personal restroom. But that’s about it.

My memory becomes a lot clearer with what happened next…

 

Dusk was setting in and we decided we’d better call it a day and get those guns back in the gun cabinet at the Fischer household. So, we made our way south on Highway 17 towards Madrid.

On the northern edge of town sat our beautiful and pristine high school. It was just a few years old at that point in time. As we passed by the school… it was as if we all had the same idea at the same time.

Farmer whipped into the driveway of the school and followed the circular roadway until it brought us right in front of the school student center. It’s where we ate lunch, had study halls and congregated between classes and after school.

The front of the student center was a grid of 4 foot by 4 foot windows with black metal trim. The windows went from floor to ceiling.

We sat there for a few seconds and looked at those windows. Buoyed by our consumption of liquid courage, Fisch and I hung the rifles out the car windows and squeezed the trigger. My senses were overwhelmed with the sounds of gunshots and of glass shattering, the smell of gun smoke and the feeling that we just did something really, really bad.

We needed to do two things very quickly, 1) vacate the school premises before anyone saw us and 2) rid ourselves of any criminal evidence.

Fisch lived a couple blocks from the school and so we promptly drove to his house where he quickly put the rifles away. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Nobody would ever find out.

It was now dark and I needed Farmer to drop me off at the bowling alley where I could grab my bike and peddle home.

“Let’s just scoop the loop one more time before I drop you off.” Farmer suggested.

Bad decision.

My house was on a corner at 216 East 2^nd Street… on the main drag of town, a couple blocks east of the downtown business area. Part of the “loop” that everyone “scooped.”

After we turned west on 2^nd Street from Highway 17 and just before we made it to my house, we got lit up. The cops.

“Oh Sh*%!” Farmer muttered.

 Farmer turned left on Cedar Street which bordered the east side of my house and pulled over. I could see my mom through the window, working the crossword puzzle from the Boone News Republican. She had no idea that I was a matter of 30 feet away from her, drunk… and about to answer to Madrid’s finest.

Farmer was driving down the middle of the road, straddling the yellow line. Seems he forgot that it was customary to drive on the right side of the line. So we got pulled over… right next to my house.

The cop pulled us all out of the car, asked to smell our breath and then accused us all of drinking. The nerve!

We denied… he smirked.

I feel like I sobered up in a hurry at that point.

He didn’t cuff us but he did order us into his back seat. We were going for a little ride to the Madrid Police Station.

Farmer was 18 and was of legal age to drink at that time… except it was illegal to drink and drive… obviously. So, they immediately packed him up and took him to Boone for a blood test.

They separated Fisch and me. Took us to separate rooms. Odd. What was going on?

I sat in a small room for what seemed like an eternity. I was scared, sweating… and promising God all sorts of stuff if He’d just get me out of this jam. A “jam” that was about to get a lot worse!

Finally… a cop came in and pulled up a chair and sat in front of me… his nose no more than 6 inches away from mine. Just like the movies. Intimidating. Thought for sure that I was about to get roughed up. My stomach was churning and my legs were jelly.

His opening volley, “What do you know about windows getting shot out at the high school today?”

“What?!?”

“How in the world did he know?” I thought as the color drained from my face and I began to feel feint.

“Nothing… sir. I don’t know what you are talking about.” I lied.

He wasn’t done. He told me that he was sure that I was involved and that it was only a matter of time before the truth came out. But I was determined that the truth would not come from me… deny, deny, deny!

Weary of his lack of progress, he grabbed me by the shoulder and led me back into the lobby where Fisch was sitting. We were told that our parents had been called and they were on their way to pick us up.

“If you think this is over,” He growled, “think again.”

Wide eyed… I just nodded.

I turned to Fisch and whispered, “He asked me about shooting out the high school windows!”

“Me too!” Fisch responded.

“Did you admit to it?” I asked.

“No! Did you?” He asked

“Of course not!” I said.

Good! We were in the clear…

Or so we thought…

"Firewater and Firearms" Submission #29

After several hours of early morning drinking at Mike Fischer’s house, I stumbled home at about four in the morning. This wasn’t the first time for this scenario to play out.

My typical protocol had me sneaking out of my bedroom window when I left... and then simply but quietly, walking in my unlocked front door when I returned. My parents would be in an alcohol induced coma with very little chance of hearing me, no matter how noisy my arrival.

So... no worries.

But remember, my parents were in Cincinnati, Ohio... at a bowling tournament and my step-grandma Edna was staying the weekend with us and making sure we stayed out of trouble. If only she knew.

With that in mind, as best as I could at my level of intoxication, I stepped lightly onto our porch, wearing my white Converse Chuck Taylor’s (no socks) and grabbed the hand rail in an effort to stabilize myself as my head spun in circles.

The moths were relentlessly flying around the illuminated porch light as I slowly pulled open the screen door and grabbed the knob to our front door and turned... wait... it wasn't turning! Why wasn't it turning? It always turned! 

It always turned… unless someone had locked it. But we never locked our front door… ever.

I was drunk on a porch... locked out of my house.

Grandma Edna had locked the front door.

I ran around the house to the back door. It was locked. I stood there for a moment… listening to the crickets chirp… trying to devise a plan.

I began to circle the house… looking for a downstairs window that was open. My last chance was the kitchen window and as luck would have it, it was open. Unfortunately, the bottom of the window was about seven feet from the ground and well out of my reach.

I found a small stool on our patio and put it up against the house, beneath the kitchen window. It got me closer to my goal but this would be a challenge even if I were sober… which I wasn’t.

I removed the screen, tossing it onto the yard and grabbed the window sill. I leaped as I simultaneously pulled with my arms and got my chest on the sill as my head entered the interior of our kitchen. It was pitch black. Couldn’t see a thing. 

We had a portable, electric dishwasher that
connected to the kitchen faucet when in use and when we were done with it, we would wheel it against the wall, right under that kitchen window... where it sat most of the time.

As I hovered in the darkness of our kitchen… half of my body in and half of my body out... I thrust myself forward with the goal of landing on top of the dishwasher. As it turned out, the dishwasher wasn’t there. Grandma Edna had decided to do a load of dishes before she went to bed.

I crashed head first onto the linoleum floor about four feet below the window. It was loud… and painful. I just knew that Grandma Edna, who was sleeping in the downstairs bedroom, would be out to investigate just as soon as she could locate her robe. I hoped she wasn't bringing a weapon.

So I just lay there on the cold floor… awaiting the patter of her footsteps and drawing a blank as I attempted to dream up an explanation for my folly. I waited… and waited… and waited… until I fell asleep. She never came. Sound sleeper.

I awoke at first light and all was quiet except for the pounding in my head. I got up and tip-toed toward my grandma’s bedroom. The door was shut. She was still sleeping.

I was still drunk but somehow had the sense to go outside and put the screen on the kitchen window. I quietly climbed the stairs to my bedroom and fell on my bed… fully clothed… and slept until two that afternoon.

Still undefeated.

I ran into Fisch and Farmer a week later. This time, we upped the stakes.

It was a Saturday. The afternoon had begun innocently enough and a few hours before dusk, I got the urge to play some pinball down at the Madrid Bowling Alley. I was a pinball wizard… or at least I thought I was.

Playing pinball at Wayne Novotny’s bowling alley was a favorite pastime for teens in Madrid. In a small town where not much happens… our entertainment options were severely limited. So we’d spend hours beating up that old pinball machine, racking up as many free games as we could earn.

I hopped on my ten-speed and rode the half mile or so. Just as I turned into the parking lot off Highway 210, I see a car flying right at me and it wasn’t slowing down. I froze and just squeezed my eyes shut… not wanting to see the point of impact.

I heard the brakes lock up and the wheels squeal as the speeding car stopped inches from me. I didn’t open my eyes until I heard some raucous laughter coming from inside the would-be assassin’s car. Farmer was behind the wheel and Mike Fischer was in the passenger seat.

“Did we scare ya Munson?” Fisch laughed.

“I’m pretty sure I wet myself.” I reported.

We all laughed.

“Get in.” Farmer ordered.

“Nah… I’m gonna play a little pinball. I’ll catch up with you guys later.’

“C’mon Munson… you can play pinball anytime.” Mike tried to persuade me.

I retorted, “I can hang out with you guys anytime too. I’m playing me some pinball.”

Farmer broke the stalemate. “But we got boooo – ooooze!” He smiled as he held up a pint of vodka. Smirnoff. The seal yet unbroken.

That’s all it took.

I leaned my bike against the wall of the bowling alley and hopped into the backseat of the car.

Fisch pulled a can of orange flavored Hi-C from a brown grocery bag and pierced a hole on either side of the top with an old fashioned can opener. He held the can out the window as he dumped half of the contents onto the pavement below. He broke the seal on the pint of vodka and dumped the whole bottle into the orange drink.

 A traveling screwdriver. Genius.

My front seat bartender handed the can to me and I began to consume the contents. I drank fast. I never really liked the taste of booze much… I just wanted to get drunk. Once I reached a certain level of intoxication, the bad taste ceased bothering me.

The boys were already looped by the time they had picked me up and so I caught up with them in a hurry.

You could only scoop the loop in Madrid so many times before total boredom sets in. It was close to dusk.

“Whattaya want to do now,” Farmer asked us.

“Hey, I got some guns at my house.” Mike offered. “Let’s go do some target shooting, huh?”

Why not? Firewater and firearms! What could go wrong?

We headed to Fisch’s house.

"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. 

"After Midnight" Submission #27

I was devious in so many ways back then… 14 or 15 years old… little parental support and certainly no guidance. I looked for ways to push the envelope. I’m not sure if I was just bored or if I was crying out for attention… or help.

My mom and step-dad had a routine on week nights. They would get home from the bar at about ten o’clock and continue their steady intake of hard alcohol as they tried in vain to comprehend what they were watching on a blurry television screen.

Whichever one stayed awake the longest would eventually rouse the other one, who had passed out and they would stumble off to bed. That might be 11 o’clock or it may be two in the morning.

On these summer evenings… when I wasn’t camping out at the Catholic Church, I’d find myself in my upstairs bedroom, lights out, windows open… watching the cars pass by on Madrid’s main drag… 2^nd Avenue… just two blocks east of downtown.

Boredom. Hitting on a cigarette, practicing the blowing of smoke

rings… using an empty pop can as an ash tray. One after another.

On numerous occasions, the desire to break free became overwhelming and I would escape through that window. I’d crawl out and onto the arched roof that covered our front porch. I’d lay on my belly… feet dangling over the edge as I inched downward, my feet feeling for the rail around the porch. Once I had my footing, I’d let go of the roof’s edge and hop to the ground below. Freedom.

Most of these “out the window” adventures were the result of a prearranged rendezvous with a buddy. Sometimes it was Carlo sometimes Steve Ewing or maybe Greg Drake. We would walk around town, lurking in the shadows and ready to scatter if we saw a cop car patrolling nearby. We were killing time and looking for some action.

 

One night, Greg Drake and I were roaming around town in the wee hours of the morning and decided to head to Lori Comstock’s house. Lori and I had been seeing each other briefly. She lived out near Edgewood Park on the southwest part of town.

Her bedroom window was too high to reach and so we began throwing little pebbles at it, bouncing them off the glass. Eventually, I saw the top part of her head slowly come into view as she scanned the darkness, trying to figure out what was going on.

In a loud whisper, I said “Lori! It’s me… Bart… and Lucy!” (Lucy was a nickname I had for Greg… long story… and boring too).

“What are you guys doing? It’s one in the morning!” She whispered through her giggle.

“Let us in!” I suggested… still whispering loudly.

“I can’t, my dad’s still up.”

“Oh… then that won’t work.”

Eventually, she devised a plan to go to her basement by telling her dad that she didn’t feel good and that it was hot in her room. She explained that the cool basement would make her feel better.

Seemed like an odd story... but it apparently worked.

Within a couple minutes, she was opening the small basement window as Greg and I took turns squeezing through it. We sat on her couch… the three of us… awkwardly. We didn’t want to talk because her dad was just up that flight of stairs.

After a few minutes of silence, feeling like a fifth wheel, Greg declared he was leaving and he made his way through the small window and disappeared into the night. Lori looked at me and smiled.

Alone at last. Alone and scared. Alone… without a plan.

So I left too. I tried to catch up with Greg but he was long gone. 

I headed home and walked through  my unlocked front door at about 3 AM. Very few people locked their doors at night in Madrid in the 1970’s. For all I know, they still don't. When I sneaked out of the house through my upstairs window after midnight, I always knew my reentry would be much simpler through the front door.

Carlo and I pulled some similar shenanigans one night as we crept over to Deanna Morning’s house. She lived on the north side of town, just a block west of the Dairy Sweet. Her dad owned the body and fender shop on Highway 17.

Deanna was a very sweet girl and we had been going steady for quite some time. I had a very strong affection for her that lasted long after we broke up.

I don’t remember exactly what time it was but it was near midnight. Deanna’s bedroom window was ground level and behind some bushes. We saw that her light was on and her window was open. As we crept around the bushes, through the screen, we could see Deanna, in her pajamas, sitting on the edge of her bed.

I whispered her name, expecting her to rush to the window… but instead, she bolted from her room… yelling for her mom!

Carlo and I took off at a dead sprint… laughing the whole time.

I think of these mischievous adventures now and laugh… until I think about my kids and if they had tried pulling stuff like this. Then it doesn’t seem nearly as humorous. Of course, my parenting style was/is 180 degrees different than that of my mom and step-dad, so the risk for such behavior was greatly mitigated… thank God and James Dobson.

One weekend that fall, my parents had made plans to drive to Cincinnati, Ohio where my step-dad was going to bowl in a tournament. I came home from school that Friday and was excited to see the Buick Electra was not parked in its normal spot on the east side of the house. They were gone!

Parents gone! No adults! Party time!

I came into the house, screaming Alice Cooper’s “Billion Dollar Babies,” but stopped in my tracks when I saw Grandma Edna sitting on the couch with a smile on her face.

They left a babysitter?

Edna was Jack’s mom and a very sweet lady. I was very fond of her… but her presence was cramping my style and putting a crimp in my plans.

I would just have to get more creative…

"Reckless" Submission #26

My behavior grew worse and my careless stunts more reckless.

One summer night, Carlo (Marc Carlson), Bob C (Robert Cervetti) and I found ourselves in our familiar setting… the back patio of St. Malachy’s Catholic Church with our sleeping bags and pillows strewn about on the cement slab.

Fighting boredom at about one in the morning, Carlo and I decided to venture out to see what sort of mischief we could drum up. Bob C had no interest in our plans as he turned over and headed to dreamland.

We crossed over Gerald Street, between a couple houses and through the parking lot of Dunne's Sure Save grocery market. The town was eerily silent and the air hung heavy with typical, Midwest humidity. We stood there for a minute trying to decide where to go and what to do.

Highway 17 was usually a bustling thoroughfare of vehicles heading north to Boone or Ames, or heading south towards the state capital, Des Moines. But not at 1:00 AM on a week night… in Madrid, Iowa.

Carlo and I crossed over the highway and found ourselves in front of Farley’s Dairy Sweet, a local eating establishment with a gravel parking lot. They specialized in ice cream desserts, candy and a variety of sandwiches. My favorite by far was their tenderloin sandwich. The golden brown meat dwarfed the bun as it hung out several inches from the bun’s perimeter. Ketchup, mustard and onions… please.

Of course, the Dairy Sweet had closed for the evening some hours before. Inside of the restaurant was mostly dark with only a couple lights illuminated. The “CLOSED” sign hung prominently in the front window. A street light conveniently lit the parking lot and the walk-up window area.

I was always the sort of kid who checked the coin shoot in telephone booths and vending machines. In stores, I’d always scan the floor near the check-out stands for loose change that customers may have dropped but were too lazy to pick up. And I have already chronicled my history of shoplifting. I looked to get something for nothing… a very bad characteristic.

It is with that spirit that I decided to run over to the walk-up window of the Dairy Sweet and see if one of the minimum wage workers had remembered to lock the sliding window at closing time. As luck would have it, somebody didn’t do their job. Tragedy!

With ease, I slid the window open. Carlo jogged over… laughing. Our eyes lit up as we considered the possibilities. For a moment, we considered trying to squeeze our whole bodies through the small window opening but in the end, decided to simply grab that which was within reach from the window. That strategy yielded us pockets full of candy bars and cigarettes.

My body was parallel to the ground… half in and half out… as I grabbed and stuffed the goods into my pockets. Through the corner of my eye, I saw headlights from a north bound vehicle. Minor interruption. I hopped out, slid the window closed and ducked under some bushes. All that was between me and the building was about 20 feet of larger rock gravel.

I didn’t know where Carlo took refuge but was certain he’d come out of hiding like me as soon as the headlights passed.

I caught partial sight of the car from my hide-out as it slowed down upon approach. It became clear that the vehicle wasn’t heading to Boone or anywhere north of town. It turned left just beyond the Dairy Sweet and I figured all was clear. But before I could crawl out from under the bush, I again saw headlights as the car slowly swung around from behind the building and I heard the crunching of the gravel under the tires of the car as it crept closer to my hiding spot.

It wasn’t until the vehicle came to a complete stop five feet away from me that I saw the writing on the side of the vehicle, “Madrid Police Department.” The jig was up. I thought I was caught! I thought some nosy neighbor had seen us breaking into the Dairy Sweet and had dialed up Madrid’s finest. They were here to cuff us and haul us to the pokey.

Two cops were in the vehicle. They killed the engine and with windows rolled down on that still, calm, sticky, summer night… they casually conversed. The chirping of the crickets was the only audio competition to the voices of these police officers… that and the beating of my heart. No other cars on the streets.

Meanwhile, there I was… on all fours… just a few feet away. They were so close to me that I was almost afraid to breathe, lest they hear me. I was frozen in position… fearing that the slightest movement would generate a grinding sound from the rocks crunching beneath my hands and knees. Sweat soaked my t-shirt as I strained to maintain my composure and my position.

At that point, being out after curfew was the least of my worries. My pockets full of cigarettes and candy bars were evidence that I had just committed the more serious offense of breaking and entering.

It became obvious that they were not dispatched there to investigate a robbery or any other crime. They were just two cops, killing time on the boring overnight shift in small town Iowa. This assignment did not typically generate much excitement for the boys in blue, in Madrid.

The minutes went by. I was paralyzed with fear. My knees and hands were killing me and starting to go numb, as they supported my weight atop a pile of large, sharp rocks. The two cops… five feet away.

Should I make a run for it? That was my usual “go to” strategy in such situations but this one was a little different. My offense was far more serious this time. My hands and legs were numb and I wasn’t sure how they would react if I tried to sprint away. Plus there were two of them. I just didn’t like my odds. So I kept still… in a crouch.

At one point, I came this close (finger, thumb… a quarter inch apart) to walking up to them and giving myself up… spread eagle, hands on top of their cruiser. But… I resisted the temptation and kept still.

The minutes passed and eventually gave way to hours. After what seemed to be an eternity, the engine roared to life and the cops vacated the parking lot of the Dairy Sweet. As I slowly unfolded my body and attempted to stand in an upright position, the pain I felt in my joints made me think of what the elderly must go through as they get up every morning. I was hurting!

It was after 3:30 AM. I was trapped under that bush for more than two hours!

I carefully made my way back to “Camp St. Malachy’s,” watching carefully for headlights before I sprinted back across Highway 17. As I reached the patio, Carlo and Bob C were in a deep state of slumber. I lit a cigarette and took a few hits before shaking Carlo awake. My nerves were shot.

Groggily… he asked me where I had been. I recalled, for him, each and every excruciating detail. He howled with laughter. Apparently, he had chosen an escape route that was a tad better than mine. He told me that he thought that I had either been caught or that I had gone home. He was wrong on both counts.

I slept at the Catholic church several times a week that summer. My parents didn’t really care. Heck, most of the time, they probably didn’t know. My bedroom was upstairs and they NEVER ventured upstairs. I was free to roam… no restrictions, no rules, no supervision… no guidance or direction.

I was young… and I was reckless.