"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.