And Away We Go

“Dude. We’re gonna get caught.”

“Uh, no. We won’t.” Tommy looked me straight in the eye and lied his ass off. “There’s no way they’d even notice. They’re way upstairs and besides there are a lot of people.”

He was right. There was a party going on right above us and there were a lot of people. But that was the extent of his expertise.

We had been debating the finer points of stealing booze for months prior. What is the best way to get a hold it? Where would we store it? Would we even be able to get enough to have any left over to store? How quickly would we get drunk? Would we get drunk at all? Really stupid questions in hindsight but at the time they were of the utmost importance and we were serious as hell. And tonight all our question would be answered thanks to a party, distractions galore, and a fridge full of hootch only feet away from Tommy’s bed.

“I don’t know. I mean your dad always seems to know how much is there-“

“Bull. He doesn’t really know,” Tommy interjects. He always interjected and would go on interjecting until he interjected himself into Iraq and was quickly silenced. But that was years in the future. For now he just had to prove me wrong. “He just drinks and my mom buys more every week at the store. Always been that way.”

The way he said it was enough to make me believe him even though it was the total opposite of how things worked at my house. I know it seems strange to put so much faith in a nine year old but when you’re also a nine year old you require a much lower standard of evidence. And plus I really wanted to know what Miller Lite tasted like. My house was always stocked with Old Style for my mom and a few stale cans of some kind of off brand beer that were slowing fermenting in the basement fridge. I had been sneaking sips from several cans over the years just to see what the appeal was and I distinctly recall being horrified at the bitterness. This? This is what the adults were always so eager to drink after work and on the weekends (and in the case of Tommy’s dad pretty much any time he wasn’t sleeping)? Or maybe it was only Old Style that tasted like stale bath water. Miller Lite had to be better. Right? 

(As a side note: I came to love Old Style and respect its place in Chicago history. A Cubs game wasn’t a Cubs game without a paper cup of overpriced, poorly poured Old Style!)

“Okay,” I finally say. “We’ll take one. Split it. We can  hide that.” I felt so sly. I had seen my first James Bond movie not long before this (Casino Royale, still my favorite) and felt a little like him. And what did he always order? A Coke? A kiddie cocktail? Nope! Booze. I didn’t have anything to stir and you shouldn’t shake a beer but still for all intents and purposes I was a damn secret agent. Only instead of a license to kill I ended up having a license to throw up all over my Denver, The Last Dinosaur sheet set.

The party seemed to be getting louder above us which meant grown ups were streaming through the basement every few minutes to get themselves the same stuff we were impatiently waiting to grab. There seemed to be no end to the parade of ever increasingly tipsy adults traipsing around the doorway and all but throwing themselves down the long and narrow flight of stairs. We decided to play it cool. Pretend we didn’t even want the stupid beer. We were kids, after all. What the hell would kids need with booze? We took a perch at the bottom of the stairs to see if we could catch a break in the flood of drunkards. But we were still kids and still quite yellow so every time we heard footsteps we dove for the Nintendo controllers and continued the game of The Legend of Zelda. Yes, it was a one player game but the grown ups didn’t know that. So like Pavlov’s Little Lushes footsteps would drive us to lunge at the TV and as soon as the coast was clear we would not-quite-whisper in that shitty way only kids trying to hide something do. It was all rasp and breath and I don’t recall being able to really understand anything Tommy said but I kept the ultimate goal in mind that was all that matter.

Several hours went by. A rerun of Love Connection and the monologue of whatever host was on SNL crawled by slower than anything on TV ever had at that point in my life. Why did the adults keep coming down? Why the hell didn’t they just keep the beer in a cooler in the kitchen like normal people who throw parties? Why were they harshing our buzz? (I had recently heard this idiom for the first time and was using it liberally at the time.) Sure, we didn’t have a buzz yet and we wouldn’t until they damn grown ups would stay the hell away.

Then Tommy had an idea. Really it was more of a police report waiting to happen but six of one…

“Why are we waiting in here?” He asked.

“Because this is where you live,” I said slowly, as if Tommy was the dumbest person I had ever met. Later I would meet much, much dumber people, one of whom is typing this now. “And this is where the beer is,” I added, hoping to sound insightful. I failed.

“Okay, yeah. But why are we waiting?”

I stared at him. I blinked. I swear to this day I heard something in his head crack. It was most likely his last nerve and I had finally snapped it. I blinked again.

“Dummy. Think about it. We’re not waiting to get the beer…” He trailed off and raised his eyebrows. Obviously I was supposed to say something intelligent. 

“Right. We’re waiting to drink the beer.”

“Exactly! That’s exactly right!” I had to grab him by the shoulders to stop him from bounding around the room. I silently hoped that everyone who ever got an acceptable answer from me would respond in exactly this manner forever. But I still didn’t get what I said right. Tommy noticed my total lack of self awareness (something I’ve never once pretended to hide).

“We don’t have to drink it here. We can go outside. It’s only eleven. The streetlights reach to behind the bushes and by the electrical box. We can drink it there. I mean, we’ll have to be fast in case my mom comes looking but we can do it. What do you think?”

What did I think? I thought I was in the presence of genius. The smartest human being in the history of civilization was standing mere inches from me. I was face to face with inspiration personified. 

“Huh. Yeah. Okay.” Not exactly what I was in my head but then again what was there rarely ever found its way to my lips. I shrugged and nodded and Tommy made a bee line for the fridge on the other side of the sliding wooden door. When he emerged moments later Weekend Update was starting, Tommy was grinning like The Joker in the new Batman movie we just saw, and both our head shot in the direction of the stairs as we heard Tommy dad yell, “Hey! Bring your old man a beer so I don’t have to walk down all these damn stairs!’

Forgetting my total lack of coordination and sporting technique Tommy tossed me the beer. It grazed the tip of my right middle finger and smacked the cement floor with a whistle I didn’t place for the first half second. By the time a full second elapsed and my foot was soaked in Miller Lite I realized what had happened. My heart sank and Tommy’s dad yelled again for more beer. I was immobile. Eyes wide, frantically shaking my foot. Tommy ran to grab another one, which he held tight tight to his chest as he hurried past me and up the stairs. 

“Here ya go dad.” 

“Yeah. Thanks. Don’t do nothing gay down there.” (The 80s really were the golden age of comedy.)

“Right dad. Have fun.” Tommy came back down, breathing much softer but walking a little funny. He went to his bed and pulled something out of his pants. 

To this day I don’t quite know how he did it but Tommy had managed to shove an entire can of Miller Lite into his pants - but NOT his underpants as he was sure to point out several times - and climb up and then descend sixteen stairs without it slipping out of the leg. I was impressed. How could I not be? But more than impressed I was wet. And I was starting to stink. Or my foot was anyway. I told Tommy to give me a second and I went to wash my leg as best I could in the utility sink in the laundry room.

“Hurry up, will ya?” He moaned it more than spoke it and I knew what that meant. Tommy wasn’t one to take his time with anything and if I didn’t finish up as soon as humanly possible the beer would be gone. I had never seen him drink (I would learn later that it was his first time too) but something I still can’t put my finger on made me certain he would down the whole can before I had to chance to object. I shook my leg harder than a dog finishing a good long pee and heard the now familiar crack of a can opening. I turned quick to run and join my friend, soon to be my drinking buddy. I turned, but I forgot to actually remove my leg from the sink before throwing every one of my hundred pound frame at the laundry room door. 

Did you know laundry room sinks used to be made out of something resembling soapstone? My shin does. And my knees. The ground was just plain concrete as my chin learned moments later. I’m sure I yelled and probably swore - something I had only recently taken up as a hobby but was already quite good at - because Tommy came running into the doorway. 

“What the hell did you do that for, man? My mom is gonna hear you! Do not fucking cry! You’re only bleeding a little bit. Don’t be a bitch!”

But I was a bitch. I was in pain and bleeding and I had never sprained something before but my thigh muscles were burning. If crying over that is being a bitch then I am King Bitch. All hail and kneel before King Bitch. But wait until the snot stop flowing from my nostrils directly into my mouth. Your King demands it. 

I looked up at Tommy as the din of the party filtered back into my ears as the blood rushed from them and out of the gaping holes in my legs and face. No one seemed to be coming down the stairs and Tommy was still holding the beer. In that instant I stopped being a bitch. I was about to become a man. Forget sex - when you’re nine years old girls are still an impediment to jumping your BMX bike off a huge dirt hill. That didn’t matter. What mattered was doing what real men did: drink beer. And scotch, but that was still a year or more away for both of us so beer would have to fill the void.

Speaking of the void…

I jumped to my feet and lunged at the can in Tommy’s hand. He was caught off guard and almost threw it at me. I recall him chuckling. I shrugged, looked at the can, looked at him, back at the can, and tossed it back hard. I hit my nose and flinched, it wasn’t broken but it was close. I tasted blood at the back of my throat the farther back I tilted my head. Tommy was saying something but the rushing sound had retuned to my ears, only louder this time. I didn’t stop my pull until Tommy tugged the can away.

“Holy fuck, man!’ He began. He was already proficient at cursing and could use the word fuck as a noun, adjective, adverb, and verb. Couldn’t do long division but could work a swear word into most any sentence like it belonged there all along. I was proud to call him a friend. “Did you even save any for me?”

I shrugged. And again I winced. I had wrenched more than my legs when I went down. I could already tell it was going to hurt in the morning. Tommy continued to berate my drinking ability. 

“You better not have gotten any snot in here. Gross! You did! And there’s blood on the lip of the can!” He yelled a lot. Usually over nothing. This wasn’t nothing. 

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I guess I kinda, uh, fell.” I looked down. “And sorry about the floor.”

The shower from the opening scene of Carrie had less blood than the floor of the laundry room. I was examining it and Tommy was following my gaze. “We better get this cleaned up. Here.” He handed me the can. “Finish this. I’ll just get another one and blame it on my uncle.” All I could do was nod.

It dawned on me then that I hadn’t really tasted the beer when I took my hasty gulps of it before. What the hell was wrong with me? I had waited all this time and we had been so clever and I had blown it! I had forgotten to pay attention to my first real drink of booze. (If only I had known at the time how many more drinks I would forget to pay attention to over the next eighteen years…)

Tommy disappeared behind a curtain to get some towels to start the clean up and I wiped my shirt across my face to soak up the quickly crusting blood and mucus. I don’t know if IZOD shirts were one hundred percent cotton back then but I can tell you their polos and my Member’s Only jacket were both about as absorbent as a yellow raincoat. But they were great at reminding me in scathing painful detail that my chin was still cut and had yet to scab. Fuck it I thought. Down the hatch!

I’m not going to sugar coat this part. I’m not going to say that the moment was anything it truly wasn’t at the time. I drained the rest of the can - easily eight more ounces - without coming up for air. And here’s the truth: it was fucking amazing!

Did it taste like a shitty light beer mixed with boogers and blood? Yes. But it also tasted like adulthood and independence and adventure and like it was only a matter of time before I was hanging poolside with the dog from the competing beer company’s commercials. It was cold and helped numb my pain, starting at my face and working its way down to my toes. It was cold but it also warmed me at the same time. Holy shit! Alcohol is magic!

Then I threw up.

Abracadabra! I can make a beer disappear and reappear right before your very eyes! AMAZING! 

Lunch, dinner, snacks, pop, blood, snot, and beer were strewn from the doorway to the washing machine. And sitting between the door and washer was the steel tub of ice. And in that ice was the beer. All of it. More than eight dozen easy. And they were ruined. It was at this moment Tommy reenters the scene.

You know that moment in movies and TV where someone is frozen from shock and their jaw drops and the let anything in their hands fall to the floor? Well that wasn’t exactly what happened. A version of it happened but there was obviously more swearing and more than a few declarations of no longer being Tommy’s friend or welcome at his house anymore. I just stared. The snot had stoped flowing, which was nice. Still bleeding. Foot still wet. I was watching Tommy yell but something else was happening too.

I was buzzed. I could hardly believe it. It was new and enchanting and I didn’t want it to end. 

But then I blinked hard as I clocked Tommy’s open hand coming at my head. He made deafening contact and my vision went blurry. I was pleasantly surprised when I slowly opened my eyes and felt somehow even better. Getting smacked in the head makes being drunk better? Noted.

“Fuck you, asshat! Get the hell out! Go! Now!”

I leisurely blinked again. Calmly I bent down, grabbed three of the cleaner cans from the near the rim of the bucket, and ran in long strides to the stairs. I didn’t stop lunging forward until I was already a block away. It’s entirely possible I was asked by several adults where I was going or what the hell I looked like I had just escaped from some kind of weird kid version of a snuff film. I didn’t care about any of that. I didn’t care about the morning or the pain I’d most certainly feel then. I didn’t care that I was three hours past curfew. I didn’t care that it was actually already tomorrow.

I had a buzz, three beers, and no one to tell me no.

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

My childhood was annoyingly, frustratingly average. Loving even. No harsh realities ever smacked me in the face. I never knew what it was to go hungry. I never wondered where my parents were or if they loved me. In fact there were more times I would push them away so I could run off and do something they didn’t approve of than anything else. It was a great way to grow up for any kid but maybe not so much for a writer. And certainly not for a writer whose life took so many drastic turns and went down roads there was really no reason to go down other than it was where the shiny things were and I was easily distracted. Am easily distracted. Bird!

From my first memories of being a kid though my ninth birthday I can’t say anything of note really happened. Fantastically elaborate Christmases and run of the mill family reunions were almost routine. My parents remained steadfast in their involvement in my life, as well as with my sisters. We were a well adjusted family from all angles - and not in the way you hear about over foreboding music at the beginning of a Netflix documentary about a family found dead at the hands of the patriarch, throats slit and bodies sliced to ribbons by the broken glass of picture frames that once held family photos from vacations to Disney and Wisconsin Dells. We were legitimately happy.

And I was apparently going to do everything I could to fuck that up.

It wasn’t on purpose. No one ever becomes an addict or alcoholic because it sounds like a super fun time. You know why? Because it’s fucking not. And I’m not talking about the more colloquial uses of those words like you might hear at a college kegger or from a few moms getting wine drunk at two in the afternoon on a random Tuesday after they drop Makenzie and Ryleigh or Rylee or, God help us all, yet another Madison at the babysitter’s. I mean taking bumps of blow off the pipe of a urinal at the now defunct Excalibur nightclub in Chicago while the random girl you found on the dance floor guards the door or orders you yet another Grey Goose and Red Bull. It wouldn’t be the first drug of the night, nor the first drink, nor the last girl. That’s a true story. That’s not bragging. And if you think it is there’s nothing I can say to make you less of an asshole.

But as with most things I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t know exactly where to start with this to be honest. While I’ve maintained a faulty (at best) memory since birth my recollection was further hindered by the use of alcohol and narcotics. In other words to label me an unreliable narrator would be doing a disservice to unreliable narrators. Nick Carraway is a more reliable narrator than I am. My point is that I’m probably not going to give you much of a reason to trust my word regardless of my intent. To that end I’m going to do what has become second nature to me over the last four decades: I’m going to lie.

Not in a malicious way, mind you. I’m not here to make enemies (though I have a sinking feeling that’s going to happen as a matter of course) but rather pepper my truths amongst the fabrications. Not totally fiction but not totally fact. But then that’s how we all live our lives isn’t it? It’s okay. We’re all friends here. You can be honest. You lied today. And yesterday. And you will tomorrow even if you promise you won’t. Every morning is like New Year’s Day when it comes to lies: you have every intention of not doing the bad stuff anymore but dammit you just can’t help yourself. Only instead of cheating on your diet you’re irreparably dismantling decades-long friendships over a conglomeration of little white lies. Because the thing about little white lies is that sooner or later they tarnish and before you realize it you’ve built an ugly wall of distrust around you and no one is near enough to hear you apologize.

Well, this is my apology. And my story. And my truth.

Well, sort of.

I will visit moments in my life that to this day stand out in my memory as important for one reason or another. Maybe it was a life altering interaction with a loved one or that time I threw up on a state trooper’s boot. Maybe it’ll be funny or maybe I’ll look back at what I’ve written and sadly shake my head, hardly believing I was able to live through it all. It’ll most likely be all of this. And it will also be counterfeit. I don’t recall specifics but I know they’re what makes a story great. So I’ll write what I know and play a little bit with names, locations, pill count, and blood alcohol content (though the many hospitals and police departments of several Illinois towns could probably help fact check that last one).

So I guess we should start with the first thing that went wrong. Of course it didn’t go wrong at the time but those seemingly tiny decisions are the ones that have the most lasting impact on us. There’s probably a story in that sentence alone but it’s nothing Bruce Springsteen and Kenny Chesney haven’t already written a song about so I’ll leave it be.

We begin in my friend’s basement. It’s 1989. There’s a party upstairs for some reason I don’t recall. The adults are all there. But the booze is stashed in the fridge in the laundry room. 

And away we go.