Time couldn’t pass by any slower than it did that Wednesday at the office. I was working for an investment company on the 41st floor of the Transco tower in the Galleria area of Houston. It was a giant 70 story building that stuck out in the skyline of Houston. I was 21 and was a glorified customer service agent. The pay was good and I thought it was like Wall Street. I partied everyday at happy hour and wound up keeping it going all through the night. When the coworkers left around 8, my later friends would show at the bar and we would start all over.
I was a fully licensed broker working in support. I was underachieving like I have always done. I go the job as a result of a great interview and knowing 4 fraternity brothers that already worked there. It was dream job at the time, and I would eventually piss it away due to my alcoholic drinking and behavior. I had a promising future with the company and pissed it away to bartend.
But that particular Wednesday was moving tremendously slow. My roommate Shorty was waiting for me to get off so we could go to the airport. We had tickets that night ot go to Vegas. This was my first trip to sin city and we had all kinds of visions of grandeur. We were going to go there and be all Swingers and be the big winners. The trip is no Max Tucker trip or anything like that, although we all thought it would be when we left. Actually there probably was a good chance that this trip was about the biggest dud of a Vegas trip that could have happened.
Two days before Duke and Jesus left for Vegas in Jesus’ car. Jesus was a late addition to the trip. Originally it was going to be me, Shorty and Duke. Duke decided at the last minute to drive to Vegas with jesus and their trip was filled with snow, New Mexico and tickets, but that is their story.
Shorty and I arrived at Hobby airport with dreams of Vegas riches in our eyes. We boarded the Southwest airline flight and started to party right then. This was pre 9/11 and the airline did not care that 2 drunk guys on their way to vegas are strolling the aisles small talking with everyone and buying drinks for entire sections. About 10 Wild Turkey and cokes into the trip and the back stewardess cut us off. But this is Southwest…and there is always a front stewardess as well. She cut us off about 5 Wild Turkeys later when the Wild Turkey ran out. We drank an entire planes worth of the shit.
When we arrive at the Vegas airport we were greeted by Jesus and Duke holding up a sign for us. They were drunk as winos. We exchanged our hugs and started to play slots at every opportunity at the airport. This place was a amazing. There were slots every 10 feet and they even had a Burger King which would be a big deal Sunday morning when we left. The slots were not that big of a deal 4 days later. This is some foreshadowing.
We get outside to find a New York New York limo waiting to pick us up. Duke explains that they have been winning ever since they rolled into town and the hotel sent a limo to pick us up. This was amazing to me.
We get to the hotel, New York New York and we are greeted by name as we check in. I felt like a big time gambler whale type fellow. Vegas knows how to treat you. We dropped our stuff in the room and met Duke down at the craps table with Jesus. We are laying out bets and could not lose. I took a meager $750 with me thinking that it would be enough. When I left that night I had doubled my money and it was time to go out.
Of course being the big girl that I am I had to check in with my girlfriend, the second Succubus, every hour. She stopped picking up saying that she hated it when she had to communicate from so far away and it made her feel awkward. That would be the last time I called the Succubus for the trip. Fuck her.
It was coming to an end with her anyway. She was going to be dumping me within the next few weeks and I had no idea it was coming but at this point I almost wanted to get caught doing something stupid so she would end it and I could feel sorry for myself.
I can be a big fag.
So we leave the hotel and roll up on the Paradise Club. This is the Vegas strip bar. Over 20 Playboy Playmates were on stage that night. We roll up and the pit bosses from New York New York had taken care of us. This city was awesome. Now I am no Duke in a titty bar. I am a bit of a prude. Something about paying for short term gratification has never seemed like a great thing to do. I am just too much of a Jew to pull It off.
Shorty the whole time is talking about getting in touch with Steve Wynn and opening a bar or club with the billionaire casino developer. Shorty always had a scheme and a plan to open a bar or club or restaurant. He always had a plan. One time he had a plan to import Faberge Clocks…the only problem is Faberge makes eggs…not clocks. He was always a step ahead in the bullshit department and in Vegas it was time for him to shine.
He never met Steve Wynn but he kept talking about it the entire trip.
We left the Paradise club with at least a thousand dollars less than we walked into the place with. Shorty even bought a shirt. We headed back down to the strip where we witnessed Duke eat 4 pounds of breakfast sausage. We went to the Holiday Inn buffet and watched as Duke finished an entire pot of sausage. To this day he still has some of that quality meat lodged into one of his intestines.
By this time we are just lit up and it was time to crash. I don’t think Duke ever went to bed the entire trip and he stayed down in the casino for some more playing time.
When we awoke it was day 2. We had a convertible Mustang that Jesus brought with him and we strolled the strip. We went on a few rides and hit a few buffets and then it was time to drink and head back to the casino. We played for awhile and then we played some more. Shorty and I put on suits so we could be real big players and so he could meet Steve Wynn. We were up more money and I wisely deposited a grand back into my bank account. We were comped into the piano bar at New York New York and promptly went to the front of the 100 person line waiting to get into it.
We arrived and the bouncers knew our names and let us right in. We went to the bar and asked him what our comp was and they said to enjoy the night and the bar tab was on the house. This was the best place on earth. We start putting back Wild Turkey and cokes with Jaeger shot backs. Duke pays $250 to hear American Pie, the full version and I actually kicked a shoe across the bar when the song flips off their shoes. I am dancing with a bunch of girls from Iowa that are just aching for some love…but I am at the too drunk to notice that they want me mode. This is a special level of drunk.
I wind up at the blackjack tables with no shoes and I keep spilling drinks on the table. This is no longer fun for the pit bosses. Duke and Shorty take me to the room where Jesus is passed out. Jesus is broke and is headed to Colorado the next morning for a bar gig. Never even heard him leave.
That night Shorty pulls Duke off a craps table to go get something to eat and to possibly talk to Steve Wynn…well at least to get something to eat. They are gone for 45 minutes and when they return to the table the same guy is still rolling on the table. He had a 45 minute roll. He had turned $500 into something like $50000. Duke just never got over it.
The weekend will even be better…to be continued…
Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The Fish Comes Out
There are some things in life that confuse the hell out of me. Why do people act the way they do when they drink? Specifically, why do I act the way I did when I drank? Why is the Mangina even a friend of ours? Why does Hooters serve a bunch of 14 and 15 year olds? Why is destruction such a common theme in my life? Why do friends crack under pressure? Why would you sneak out of your friend’s house to destroy your school’s property? I hope to answer some of these and more in the following entry.
This is the spring of 1993. I was still a freshman in high school and I was making it by alright. The days of being a socially awkward kid had turned into the days of being a social butterfly. I hope someone comes from behind me and hits me with a hammer for writing that last sentence.
The evening started out like any other Friday night. We had no sports to play and Easter break was coming up soon. So Duke, Kimbo, Lee and myself are all going out. Mangina was supposed to come as well.
Mangina to this day does not let us off the hook for ditching him on many occasions. There was Mardi Gras 1994 where he drove to Galveston by himself and we told him where to meet us and we never showed. There was this event where we told him we were going to pick him up and we never showed. And there is the infamous Whopper situation that he brings up all the time. Whenever he does bring these things up we bring up the New Orleans trip and he shuts up. Or we call him a stinky Mangina, his nickname, and he starts to pout. Or we make fun of his receding…no…bald head. Why he still hangs out with us is beyond me.
Mangina joined the army after high school. He was some kind of ranger or something. He went in to become a meteorologist but all that math and physics made him jump out of planes. He injured himself on a jump and had to have knee surgery. Now the V.A. loves to cut people open. It is practice hospitals for young surgeons. Well his surgery went bad or something and he started to get blood clots from this. One day in 2002 he was eating thanksgiving dinner with his fiancé, you know the one, and he felt a jarring pain in his gut. He wound up going to the emergency room where they found he had a blood clot in his lower intestine and something like 8 feet had died. He had to have emergency surgery. He went into a coma for awhile and when he awoke he had a giant cut across his belly. Now he has grown a bit outward and his belly has gotten bigger. This caused the giant scar that reaches from his lower sternum to below his belly button to look like a giant ass crack, or as we call it, the Mangina.
Mangina has done terrible things in his life as well so I feel no remorse making fun of his near death experience. Once in Lake Charles he throws down his cards in a Caribbean Stud game face up into the dealers pile keeping 2 people from collecting over $1000 a piece. He gets all angry that they are getting angry at him and pulls his shirt up yelling…”I got this protecting all of you from terrorists!” He did no such thing but the table bought it.
There was also the Whopper incident. A simple little incident that most people would forget, but not the Mangina. One day he sent me, Duke and Lee to the store to buy Whoppers. We had all been drinking the night before and he was the only one with money so we took his money and bought a bunch of Whoppers. Back then they cost $.99 and we bought 8 of them. 2 for everyone. The only problem was we ate them all before we got home and told Mangina that his were in the bag and all that was in the bag were a bunch of ketchup stained Whopper wrappers. He almost fought us all, and this was before he had an ass crack on his stomach so it would not have felt good. He also owned the Brown Beauty, and that alone is enough to fuck with him about.
So Lee came to pick up me in his 1984 Jeep Wagoneer. This thing was awesome. Lee had a Hardship license and was able to drive at 15 which made our adventures start a year earlier than they should have. We went and picked up Duke and stopped off to by some beer. This was the only time in my life I drank Miller High Life. We picked up a 24 pack and had to drive out to pick up Kimbo. Kimbo was from Maryland and was a snob. He really did not fit in with us but when there are only 200 kids at the school you tend to drift towards people that you normally would not drift to.
B y the time we got to Kimbo’s house there was no more beer. I was a bit tipsy. Kimbo was mad. See at 14 there were only so many places that would sell you beer, and the closest was far from this snobby neighborhood. So Kimbo is sober as a school girl. Lee and Duke are feeling fine and I am basically drunk.
We decided that Hooters would be a great place for a few underage kids to go so we drove on down there. Now growing up I had always heard from my mother that this place degraded women, and boy was she right. It wasn’t a strip bar, but as a 14 year old boy this was as close as I could be. Since then I have spent many evenings in Hooters. I enjoy their food, especially the Daytona Wings. I could care less about the scantily dressed women that are flirting with the customers for tips, as I was a man whore throughout the years as a bartender and waiter myself. If wearing tight clothes would have improved my tips, I believe I would have worn them.
Much to our disbelief they served us there. We actually got beer at this place and Kimbo was a bit more happy.
Kimbo then convinced us to see his girlfriend. His girlfriend would one day date all four of us in the car at some point or another. Let’s just say she had a morally casual attitude. We went over there and on the way it was coming down. Springtime rain style in Houston can be a tremendous storm. The water on the feeder roads came up to the doors of Lee’s Jeep. He had a 10 year old Jeep with 10 year old windshield wipers and we couldn’t see shit on the way to Kimbo’s girlfriend’s house. I leaned over and yelled, “What do fish eat…shit!” and bit Duke on the arm. Why? I don’t know. I thought it would be incredibly funny but it just was a dud. But then I kept making fish faces and pretended to swim in the Jeep. I am pretty sure this annoyed the entire bunch.
When we got to Girlfriend’s house we all went in. We were hanging out in the living room while Kimbo and the girlfriend snuck away to make out for awhile. Kimbo was the first guy I knew to lose his virginity and it was with this girl. What an amazing thing to accomplish when you are a dick from Maryland.
We left and headed back to Lee’s house to crash. Then around 3 in the morning we decided to sneak out and drive around. What could be cooler than that? Now for years I have blamed Duke for the following events. I have admitted to him that it was my idea in private, but never have I publically taken blame for the next hour of our lives.
We decided to drive down to our high school. When we got there I suggested we go and destroy the front lawn with Lee’s Jeep. We could drive around in circles and fling mud. Now I was still a little inebriated at this time and Miller High Life was kicking around screaming at me to push Lee into doing this. So I kept encouraging him. Peer pressure is a motherfucker. Lee finally caved in and we start doing donuts in the schools front yard. Then came the crash. We hit a cable fence and tore out 3 or 4 posts when we did it. The Jeep got stuck on the concrete post and we had to flip it to four wheel drive. This was amazing. I blamed Duke for years that it was his idea.
When we got to school on Monday it was the talk of the teachers. Who could have done something like this? Well it didn’t take them that long to figure out who since Lee drove the damn Jeep to school with a big painted dent on the bumper. Kimbo, Lee and I all blamed Duke and he took the fall. We didn’t even collaborate this. We just all figured the next guy was going to blame him so we all did. That was a pretty fucked up thing to do but at the same time Duke getting in trouble sucked a lot less than me getting in trouble.
This is the spring of 1993. I was still a freshman in high school and I was making it by alright. The days of being a socially awkward kid had turned into the days of being a social butterfly. I hope someone comes from behind me and hits me with a hammer for writing that last sentence.
The evening started out like any other Friday night. We had no sports to play and Easter break was coming up soon. So Duke, Kimbo, Lee and myself are all going out. Mangina was supposed to come as well.
Mangina to this day does not let us off the hook for ditching him on many occasions. There was Mardi Gras 1994 where he drove to Galveston by himself and we told him where to meet us and we never showed. There was this event where we told him we were going to pick him up and we never showed. And there is the infamous Whopper situation that he brings up all the time. Whenever he does bring these things up we bring up the New Orleans trip and he shuts up. Or we call him a stinky Mangina, his nickname, and he starts to pout. Or we make fun of his receding…no…bald head. Why he still hangs out with us is beyond me.
Mangina joined the army after high school. He was some kind of ranger or something. He went in to become a meteorologist but all that math and physics made him jump out of planes. He injured himself on a jump and had to have knee surgery. Now the V.A. loves to cut people open. It is practice hospitals for young surgeons. Well his surgery went bad or something and he started to get blood clots from this. One day in 2002 he was eating thanksgiving dinner with his fiancé, you know the one, and he felt a jarring pain in his gut. He wound up going to the emergency room where they found he had a blood clot in his lower intestine and something like 8 feet had died. He had to have emergency surgery. He went into a coma for awhile and when he awoke he had a giant cut across his belly. Now he has grown a bit outward and his belly has gotten bigger. This caused the giant scar that reaches from his lower sternum to below his belly button to look like a giant ass crack, or as we call it, the Mangina.
Mangina has done terrible things in his life as well so I feel no remorse making fun of his near death experience. Once in Lake Charles he throws down his cards in a Caribbean Stud game face up into the dealers pile keeping 2 people from collecting over $1000 a piece. He gets all angry that they are getting angry at him and pulls his shirt up yelling…”I got this protecting all of you from terrorists!” He did no such thing but the table bought it.
There was also the Whopper incident. A simple little incident that most people would forget, but not the Mangina. One day he sent me, Duke and Lee to the store to buy Whoppers. We had all been drinking the night before and he was the only one with money so we took his money and bought a bunch of Whoppers. Back then they cost $.99 and we bought 8 of them. 2 for everyone. The only problem was we ate them all before we got home and told Mangina that his were in the bag and all that was in the bag were a bunch of ketchup stained Whopper wrappers. He almost fought us all, and this was before he had an ass crack on his stomach so it would not have felt good. He also owned the Brown Beauty, and that alone is enough to fuck with him about.
So Lee came to pick up me in his 1984 Jeep Wagoneer. This thing was awesome. Lee had a Hardship license and was able to drive at 15 which made our adventures start a year earlier than they should have. We went and picked up Duke and stopped off to by some beer. This was the only time in my life I drank Miller High Life. We picked up a 24 pack and had to drive out to pick up Kimbo. Kimbo was from Maryland and was a snob. He really did not fit in with us but when there are only 200 kids at the school you tend to drift towards people that you normally would not drift to.
B y the time we got to Kimbo’s house there was no more beer. I was a bit tipsy. Kimbo was mad. See at 14 there were only so many places that would sell you beer, and the closest was far from this snobby neighborhood. So Kimbo is sober as a school girl. Lee and Duke are feeling fine and I am basically drunk.
We decided that Hooters would be a great place for a few underage kids to go so we drove on down there. Now growing up I had always heard from my mother that this place degraded women, and boy was she right. It wasn’t a strip bar, but as a 14 year old boy this was as close as I could be. Since then I have spent many evenings in Hooters. I enjoy their food, especially the Daytona Wings. I could care less about the scantily dressed women that are flirting with the customers for tips, as I was a man whore throughout the years as a bartender and waiter myself. If wearing tight clothes would have improved my tips, I believe I would have worn them.
Much to our disbelief they served us there. We actually got beer at this place and Kimbo was a bit more happy.
Kimbo then convinced us to see his girlfriend. His girlfriend would one day date all four of us in the car at some point or another. Let’s just say she had a morally casual attitude. We went over there and on the way it was coming down. Springtime rain style in Houston can be a tremendous storm. The water on the feeder roads came up to the doors of Lee’s Jeep. He had a 10 year old Jeep with 10 year old windshield wipers and we couldn’t see shit on the way to Kimbo’s girlfriend’s house. I leaned over and yelled, “What do fish eat…shit!” and bit Duke on the arm. Why? I don’t know. I thought it would be incredibly funny but it just was a dud. But then I kept making fish faces and pretended to swim in the Jeep. I am pretty sure this annoyed the entire bunch.
When we got to Girlfriend’s house we all went in. We were hanging out in the living room while Kimbo and the girlfriend snuck away to make out for awhile. Kimbo was the first guy I knew to lose his virginity and it was with this girl. What an amazing thing to accomplish when you are a dick from Maryland.
We left and headed back to Lee’s house to crash. Then around 3 in the morning we decided to sneak out and drive around. What could be cooler than that? Now for years I have blamed Duke for the following events. I have admitted to him that it was my idea in private, but never have I publically taken blame for the next hour of our lives.
We decided to drive down to our high school. When we got there I suggested we go and destroy the front lawn with Lee’s Jeep. We could drive around in circles and fling mud. Now I was still a little inebriated at this time and Miller High Life was kicking around screaming at me to push Lee into doing this. So I kept encouraging him. Peer pressure is a motherfucker. Lee finally caved in and we start doing donuts in the schools front yard. Then came the crash. We hit a cable fence and tore out 3 or 4 posts when we did it. The Jeep got stuck on the concrete post and we had to flip it to four wheel drive. This was amazing. I blamed Duke for years that it was his idea.
When we got to school on Monday it was the talk of the teachers. Who could have done something like this? Well it didn’t take them that long to figure out who since Lee drove the damn Jeep to school with a big painted dent on the bumper. Kimbo, Lee and I all blamed Duke and he took the fall. We didn’t even collaborate this. We just all figured the next guy was going to blame him so we all did. That was a pretty fucked up thing to do but at the same time Duke getting in trouble sucked a lot less than me getting in trouble.
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Great Pumpkin
Halloween. 1995. Seems simple enough. I am 17 and all my friends are the same age so why shouldn’t we do something retarded together. Duke came by with his little brother Chuck Woast to pick me up early that evening. It was a school night and we were going to go around picking up people to take them to Chucky’s birthday party.
Chucky was older than all of us but he was in the same grade. He had been held back years ago because I guess he wasn’t bright enough to pass a grade or something. Chucky has since passed on and left this world, and that will be another story another day.
Duke was driving an old S-10 Chevy pick up truck that had all kinds of little problems. The horn would stick periodiacally and the car would die when you turned corners sharply. This is obvious foreshadowing of the events that will follow.
We went into old Pearland to pick up Mangina. Mangina is the buddy that will eventually steal my girlfriend from me with promises of Bennigans and ice skating at the galleria. How could I compete. He also drove the notorious Brown Beauty that would have gotten us better results in the events that will follow.
We then went to pick up Chucky, and his brother Bucky. Yep, they rhyme. Now John Paul was the last to be picked up. Now I am a strapping young buck of 280 pounds and Duke was about the same. John Paul and Mangina were about 6 foot 4 and 250 themselves. Chucky and Bucky were average size folks and Chuck Woast was not the 6 foot 6 giant he would become yet. Now we are all in a single cab Chevy truck. Duke, John Paul and I were in the front seat and Bucky, Chucky, Mangina and Chuck Woast were in the bed of the truck. We were pushing that little truck to its limits. Now somewhere along the way we decided that since it was getting dark that we should start stealing pumpkins and putting them in the back of the truck.
Right before we left my father stood at the edge of the driveway and cursed us with the following, “I don’t want to get a call from the police tonight.”
Now why would he say that? Up to this point he had never received a call from the police, so why now would he say that other than to jinx us.
Now we have a truck load of meaty folks and pumpkins. We pass a house with a skeleton in the front yard and I tell Duke to stop and I get out of the truck, pick up said skeleton and swing it at a gas lamp in the front yard. Before that incident I had no idea the power of natural gas. But when that skeleton hit the top of that lantern it exploded into flames like a gulf war oil well. Hilarity ensued as we screeched out of my neighborhood with a burnt skeleton.
So to one up me Chucky and the guys out back start throwing pumpkins out of the truck bed and watched them explode. Some with candles lit others just plain squashed. And then a BOOM.
Chucky screams out, “I hit a car…GOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
So Duke starts to accelerate, but that is hard with a ton of people in this little truck. Now we are screaming down the road with a Honda in hot persuit with the windshield crushed in. We are screaming down the road throwing beer out of the car knowing if we get caught with beer that we will be in some shit.
Then the first sharp turn happened.
We were out ahead of this accord by at least a quarter mile when the car stalled going around the corner. What made it worse was the horn was now stuck as well. So we are being chased down by this Honda with our horn blaring and basically screaming, “ARREST US!!!”
We are in a high speed chase through Pearland, into the county and then finally stopped in Friendswood. Now we have a Brazoria County Sherrifff, Pearland police and Friendswood Police arresting us trying to figure out where to send us.
Pearland won. But during this whole arrest thing all I could here was the whining woman with the broken Honda screaming, “ My Baby…My Baby…My Baby has glass in her eye…”
And all I could think was Chucky had a great aim. This ain’t no saltshaker. This was a pumpkin, flying 60 miles per hour at her car. And this lady had glass in her baby’s eye. And all I could do was laugh which did not go over well with the police. A simple thump with a baton to the head made me stop laughing.
SO we get to Pearland Jail. They did not know what to do with all of us. Duke was the driver, Chucky was the hurler, the rest of us were witnesses.
At that point we realized that Chucky was not going to make his surprise party. SURPRISE!!!
But we did think we would get away with it, well all of us but Duke and Chucky. We got Lee to come pick us up. And right before he showed my father walked intot he department. Now in my defense, he did not receive a call, because he had explicit directions that he did not want a call from the Police.
I held up my part.
Chucky was older than all of us but he was in the same grade. He had been held back years ago because I guess he wasn’t bright enough to pass a grade or something. Chucky has since passed on and left this world, and that will be another story another day.
Duke was driving an old S-10 Chevy pick up truck that had all kinds of little problems. The horn would stick periodiacally and the car would die when you turned corners sharply. This is obvious foreshadowing of the events that will follow.
We went into old Pearland to pick up Mangina. Mangina is the buddy that will eventually steal my girlfriend from me with promises of Bennigans and ice skating at the galleria. How could I compete. He also drove the notorious Brown Beauty that would have gotten us better results in the events that will follow.
We then went to pick up Chucky, and his brother Bucky. Yep, they rhyme. Now John Paul was the last to be picked up. Now I am a strapping young buck of 280 pounds and Duke was about the same. John Paul and Mangina were about 6 foot 4 and 250 themselves. Chucky and Bucky were average size folks and Chuck Woast was not the 6 foot 6 giant he would become yet. Now we are all in a single cab Chevy truck. Duke, John Paul and I were in the front seat and Bucky, Chucky, Mangina and Chuck Woast were in the bed of the truck. We were pushing that little truck to its limits. Now somewhere along the way we decided that since it was getting dark that we should start stealing pumpkins and putting them in the back of the truck.
Right before we left my father stood at the edge of the driveway and cursed us with the following, “I don’t want to get a call from the police tonight.”
Now why would he say that? Up to this point he had never received a call from the police, so why now would he say that other than to jinx us.
Now we have a truck load of meaty folks and pumpkins. We pass a house with a skeleton in the front yard and I tell Duke to stop and I get out of the truck, pick up said skeleton and swing it at a gas lamp in the front yard. Before that incident I had no idea the power of natural gas. But when that skeleton hit the top of that lantern it exploded into flames like a gulf war oil well. Hilarity ensued as we screeched out of my neighborhood with a burnt skeleton.
So to one up me Chucky and the guys out back start throwing pumpkins out of the truck bed and watched them explode. Some with candles lit others just plain squashed. And then a BOOM.
Chucky screams out, “I hit a car…GOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
So Duke starts to accelerate, but that is hard with a ton of people in this little truck. Now we are screaming down the road with a Honda in hot persuit with the windshield crushed in. We are screaming down the road throwing beer out of the car knowing if we get caught with beer that we will be in some shit.
Then the first sharp turn happened.
We were out ahead of this accord by at least a quarter mile when the car stalled going around the corner. What made it worse was the horn was now stuck as well. So we are being chased down by this Honda with our horn blaring and basically screaming, “ARREST US!!!”
We are in a high speed chase through Pearland, into the county and then finally stopped in Friendswood. Now we have a Brazoria County Sherrifff, Pearland police and Friendswood Police arresting us trying to figure out where to send us.
Pearland won. But during this whole arrest thing all I could here was the whining woman with the broken Honda screaming, “ My Baby…My Baby…My Baby has glass in her eye…”
And all I could think was Chucky had a great aim. This ain’t no saltshaker. This was a pumpkin, flying 60 miles per hour at her car. And this lady had glass in her baby’s eye. And all I could do was laugh which did not go over well with the police. A simple thump with a baton to the head made me stop laughing.
SO we get to Pearland Jail. They did not know what to do with all of us. Duke was the driver, Chucky was the hurler, the rest of us were witnesses.
At that point we realized that Chucky was not going to make his surprise party. SURPRISE!!!
But we did think we would get away with it, well all of us but Duke and Chucky. We got Lee to come pick us up. And right before he showed my father walked intot he department. Now in my defense, he did not receive a call, because he had explicit directions that he did not want a call from the Police.
I held up my part.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
So this is college...Moody Towers
What a way to start a new experience. I have left behind the halls of the public schools of Pearland and have landed in the hot halls of Mount Carmel in South Houston. The halls are hot since the 40 year old school has no central air conditioning. How did people learn in an environment like this in 1956 when the doors opened? It is 1992 now and there is no air conditioning and the place smells like my grandmas basement.
The floors are a solid granite style tyle that collects dust in the corners. There is a marvelous wood floor in the gym that has the finishes of years and years of polyurethane. Home of the Running rebels. I came limping into this school with my leg broke and my pride reestablished.
Gone are the days of that Mexican bully that I had to deal with and born are the days of a rebirth of sorts. This school was giving me a second chance as it gave so many people a second chance.
Mr. May was the first teacher to introduce himself. He was a proud individual. He was a former captain in the army they say. He was also the disciplinarian of the school. Many a Friday afternoon would be spent painting and cleaning the school under his direct orders.
Duke was the first student to introduce himself to me. He came up during physical education and took my crutches. He was an odd fellow that had a small head. I compare heads due my large cranium that sits atop my neck. I was 150 pounds wet my freshman year and 30 pounds of that was my large head. I had always been a fat kid that got little respect, but here things would be different.
The first week was hot. Hotter than hell. My mother worked at the school and I still had the joy of following in my sisters footsteps as she had graduated just months before. She was the valedictorian of the class of 1992. It would not be in my aim to follow her in those footsteps, as I was a lazy student. But I would socially eclipse her and would make my own mark. A mark that would be hard for others to follow.
I had moved around so much as a youngster that the new school thing was commonplace to me. The next 4 years would be the only time in my life that I stayed put. I had to make my mark. I ran for class president and in a landslide I beat some losing chick. I remember she wanted it badly. And she wanted to actually work at it. I wanted the title and I got it off a smooth speech and help from some friends. Ron Mexico actually helped rig it with the help of Duke. Lifelong friendships were made that week.
Ron Mexico and Duke would play major roles in my life as time went on. I owe both of them so much for me becoming what I am today.
Duke came from a family in Manvel. He had an older brother, TUBS, and a younger brother, Chuck Woast. Chuck Woast would grow to become a giant of a man with ‘Chuck Woast’ tattooed on his ass. TUBS would become a great friend over time but was a total dick in high school. The Navy changed him and so did some girl that crushed him. But that is another time and place.
Their father was a Houston Police officer and a power lifting champion. He was a stern man that now is a humble shell of his former self.
Ron Mexico grew up in Friendswood. You will find that at a Catholic school people come from all walks of life and from all corners of the Houston area. His parents were awfully wealthy. Yet Ron Mexico never flaunted it or showed off. He is still that way and for that I have a great respect for him.
The first few weeks of school were different. I had become accustomed to a junior high of 1000 students. There were now 200 at my high school. Everyone knew me as Mrs. Blake’s kid. And that did help with quite a bit. I did not know yet but my life was going to change within the next week or so when my first high school girlfriend, A little Mexican Chick, asked me out…
The floors are a solid granite style tyle that collects dust in the corners. There is a marvelous wood floor in the gym that has the finishes of years and years of polyurethane. Home of the Running rebels. I came limping into this school with my leg broke and my pride reestablished.
Gone are the days of that Mexican bully that I had to deal with and born are the days of a rebirth of sorts. This school was giving me a second chance as it gave so many people a second chance.
Mr. May was the first teacher to introduce himself. He was a proud individual. He was a former captain in the army they say. He was also the disciplinarian of the school. Many a Friday afternoon would be spent painting and cleaning the school under his direct orders.
Duke was the first student to introduce himself to me. He came up during physical education and took my crutches. He was an odd fellow that had a small head. I compare heads due my large cranium that sits atop my neck. I was 150 pounds wet my freshman year and 30 pounds of that was my large head. I had always been a fat kid that got little respect, but here things would be different.
The first week was hot. Hotter than hell. My mother worked at the school and I still had the joy of following in my sisters footsteps as she had graduated just months before. She was the valedictorian of the class of 1992. It would not be in my aim to follow her in those footsteps, as I was a lazy student. But I would socially eclipse her and would make my own mark. A mark that would be hard for others to follow.
I had moved around so much as a youngster that the new school thing was commonplace to me. The next 4 years would be the only time in my life that I stayed put. I had to make my mark. I ran for class president and in a landslide I beat some losing chick. I remember she wanted it badly. And she wanted to actually work at it. I wanted the title and I got it off a smooth speech and help from some friends. Ron Mexico actually helped rig it with the help of Duke. Lifelong friendships were made that week.
Ron Mexico and Duke would play major roles in my life as time went on. I owe both of them so much for me becoming what I am today.
Duke came from a family in Manvel. He had an older brother, TUBS, and a younger brother, Chuck Woast. Chuck Woast would grow to become a giant of a man with ‘Chuck Woast’ tattooed on his ass. TUBS would become a great friend over time but was a total dick in high school. The Navy changed him and so did some girl that crushed him. But that is another time and place.
Their father was a Houston Police officer and a power lifting champion. He was a stern man that now is a humble shell of his former self.
Ron Mexico grew up in Friendswood. You will find that at a Catholic school people come from all walks of life and from all corners of the Houston area. His parents were awfully wealthy. Yet Ron Mexico never flaunted it or showed off. He is still that way and for that I have a great respect for him.
The first few weeks of school were different. I had become accustomed to a junior high of 1000 students. There were now 200 at my high school. Everyone knew me as Mrs. Blake’s kid. And that did help with quite a bit. I did not know yet but my life was going to change within the next week or so when my first high school girlfriend, A little Mexican Chick, asked me out…
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