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.