Okay, kids. Story time.
This story comes from aeons ago, when dinosaurs walked the Earth and… well, okay, so it was about ten years ago and I was in high school. It seems that it might have been longer than that, though.
I’ve been telling a lot of stories about my friend Rob recently. I’m not sure why, really. Perhaps it’s partially because I miss him, or because I learned a lot from him and our friendship.
You see, him and I used to get in to some fairly dicey situations together. Some have said that they’re surprised that Rob and I survived a great number of the things that we did. I wouldn’t say that we were stupid, but… okay, yeah, we were completely and utterly stupid. Though, I should explain a few things that were going on at the height of our stupidity, and that will give a bit of perspective.
It was the summer of 1998. My mom, after battling with cancer for the previous two years, was on the last downward slide toward her death in 1999. I was 16, trying to deal with high school and my slipping grades, a full time job, maintaining a household that was coming apart, trying to cook dinner when I got home, and visiting my mom in and out of the hospital day in and day out.
To say the least, I was stressed, sleepless, tired, over extended, and had absolutely no end in sight. And most teenagers do not handle stress very well. So of course, I turned to alcohol.
One night, my mom was crying downstairs. She was in pain and a very familiar feeling of helplessness fell over me. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that I could do. She was in pain, and she was going to remain that way whether I tried to do anything about it or not.
I called Rob and after I said, “Hey man, how’s it going?”, he replied with, “I’ll be over to pick you up.” He could always read me, and knew when I needed rescued.
I slipped out of the house as quietly as I could. There was a giant old window in my room, and a fire ladder that was used on many a night to escape (I was on the second floor). Rob was waiting for me by his car out on the street. He gave me a hug and said, “Get in the car, loser.”
Unfortunately for us, we were young. We were stupid. It was Friday, and we had nowhere to be the next day.
I kept telling Rob that I just wanted to forget that I existed. I didn’t want to think about anything anymore. I didn’t want to consider death, or the next time I would have to dry pack my mom’s open wound, or carry her to the bathroom. I was tired and done. I didn’t want to feel anything at all.
As it turned out, he had just the cure: a party.
Rob and I were famous for the parties that we had, and for the ones we were able to attend. It seemed we always knew someone, somewhere, and we could always get in. It’s for that reason that there was almost never a dull moment on a weekend.
Though, on this particular night, we were going to take it way too far… just like we always did. Not to say that we ended up streaking through a mall (which is something that occurred on an entirely different night), but there was of course the requisite mayhem and craziness to follow.
To be perfectly honest, I have to make a few educated guesses on what happened that night. Not only is my memory failing me these days, but I was inebriated by the end of the night.
We drove to Tim’s house, left Rob’s car there, and Tim drove us on (I don’t remember why). Tim was another of my best friends. Between him and Rob, I always knew I was in good company and with people that would make sure I was okay. They were always nice enough to make sure I was still breathing and, on a few occasions, it was a good thing that they did. But that’s another discussion.
We arrived at the party at about 11pm. It was an older looking farmhouse type of place out in the middle of nowhere, just outside of Lebanon. I would say there were about 200 or so teenagers drinking and carrying on outside.
The house was surrounded by field, and on the edge of that field was forest, creeks, and ditches. The fields had just recently been plowed, so there were long lines of dirt kicked up.
The party was great, of course, and about 90 minutes later, I’m well beyond inebriated. I’m staggering, stammering, slurring, and basically just trying to maintain. Rob is outside, and talking with a group of people. I’m lying on the couch in the family room, and I seem to remember talking to a dog.
I honestly don’t know if it was a real dog. I could have been talking to a throw pillow, to be perfectly honest. At least if it was a real dog, it seems a bit less crazy. A bit.
I hear some commotion up front, and I hear Rob’s voice cut through the crowd of people, “ANDY!”
I had been fairly sleepy, and considering passing out on the couch. I was comfy. I was warm. I was oblivious to life. But the tone of Rob’s voice told me I should get up, stagger as expeditiously as I could to the front door, and see what was going on.
To my shock and horror, I could see that Tim was driving away without us. And I mean, he was hauling ass. He was up the road and gone before it really occurred to me what was going on. At first I wondered if Rob had gone with him, and I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on.
And then, I glanced toward the South and I could see at least six or seven police cars racing up the road in one steady line. They were only about 50 yards from the house. It occurred to me, as I turned back around, that I was the only person standing in front of the house, and now there were about 200 people diving in to cars or running out in to the fields screaming, “COPS! COPS!”
Suddenly I felt an arm grab a hold of mine and I knew I was busted. I knew I was going to a holding cell for the night and I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t run like everyone else.
I looked up and saw Rob standing there, and he was pulling me screaming, “RUN DUMBASS! RUN!”
By now, all the police cars had turned on their sirens, their lights, and were using their little spotlights to track all of us. It was surreal and hilarious at the same time. I started laughing as we ran. It escalated to the point that I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe (even though I was trying to run).
Rob, of course, was laughing too. He was terrified, of course, but laughing. We were running through the field, away from the house, and making our way toward the wooded area. To our surprise, a police car had followed us in to the field, bouncing its way along and threatening to shudder apart from the grooves in the earth.
At this point, I’m laughing so hard that there are tears coming down my face. I’m laughing so hard and so drunk, that I feel like I’m going to throw up. Do you realize how hard it is to run, laugh, and throw up? It’s tough. Very tough. But I managed.
I fell over three or four times, and each time, Rob would pick me up and we’d keep running again. Still laughing. The police car was catching up but very slowly, and in a last ditch effort to stop us, he kept swerving back and forth.
He was trying to clip our legs with his front bumper.
I guess it never occurred to them to get out of the car and give chase. If they had, we would have been caught for sure. We sure as hell weren’t running very fast.
But instead, they chased us with their cars, screamed in to their loudspeakers, and we laughed until we cried and leapt down an embankment in to the woods and escaped. In later years, I wonder if they were simply having as much fun as we were.
Rob and I ended up about a mile in to the woods, laying on the ground among a grouping of fallen logs and branches. If anyone had been looking for us at that point, they would have found us immediately. We were laughing and shouting about how awesome the entire experience had been, and how much we wanted to do it again.
A couple of hours later and we staggered back up toward the field. All of the cars were gone. Nobody was in sight in any direction, and we had no way to get back home. We ended up walking five or six miles back to town and called our friend Steve to come pick us up. I eventually made it home at about 7am, and crashed.
I received a call at about noon the same day from Tim. There was a Sheriff’s deputy at his house and his parents were being questioned about what they knew about the party.
“How did they know to come see you?” I asked him.
There was an uncomfortable silence from his end of the telephone. I could hear him shift uneasily in his seat.
“Well?”
“…. my license plate was torn off as I left last night.”
At this point in the day, I’m still drunk. I’m still half asleep. But his statement cuts through the cloud and I begin to laugh at him. I try not to. I try to be polite, but I can’t help myself.
“You mean to tell me that you raced off like that, got away, leaving your friends behind, and you got nabbed because of your license plate?”
(Sheepishly) “Yes…”
“Wow man. Weren’t you the designated driver? You were sober, weren’t you?”
“Yes…”
“That’s awesome.”