Got Ice and Got Arrested, Kind Of.

I guess I was around 30 years old, so I'm gonna say this story takes place in the summer of 2007, in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

If you haven't been to Highlands Ranch personally; you've probably been to someplace just like it or you've seen a place like it on TV or in the movies or a magazine.

The thing is that Highlands Ranch is, without a doubt, THE PERFECT SUBURB, and my street Heatherton Lane, was the crown jewel; with perfectly painted McMansions and perfectly manicured lawns, hedges, trees and...people.

Wide, clean and perfectly paved streets, master-planned communities with "Final Build Out" dates so you could know when the 7th day was and when the gods of Shea Homes would rest.

There were tons, JUST TONS of white families just multiplying all over the place like it's their job (seriously, I think there was like one black family in the whole town, and two hispanic families...uggghhhh, seriously, diversity was a big problem!), block parties every weekend, game night at somebodies house every other night, new neighbor parties that lasted three days, goodbye parties that lasted a week.

Land Rovers and Volvos perched in every garage and every other house seemed to have a boat or jet skis or a motorcycle or a jetpack sitting out front. Children's bikes and toys littering the streets, stray dogs that weren't stray dogs just wandering into your house for a mid-day nap...

*I should say at this point that I never wanted the suburban life, house, cars or neighbors...my ex wanted the big beautiful house in the perfect neighborhood, and I made it happen for her.

Maybe I'll tell that story someday. Maybe not though.*

...I knew everybody and everybody knew me, which means (of course) that we gossiped the shit out of each others private lives until they weren't private anymore. In fact, after a while nobody in my neighborhood really expected to keep any secrets (air quote) truly secret. (air quote)

It was the ideal of suburban life.

The most perfectly managed community with the most benign and quiet neighborhoods in Americana. (Hey The 50's, Be Jealous!)

But that's not true at all is it?

Of course not. Know why? I lived there. (insert smiley-winkey-face here)

Anywaysies.

I owned this house in Highlands Ranch with my now-ex-wife. It sat right on the corner lot of our street and it was awesome.

My ex and I threw parties pretty regularly and we had a pretty small group of neighbors that we invited over. The ones without kids. (sidenote, I want kids, my ex didn't, hence the "no kids" party rule...fyi done...)

The couple that we hung out with the most was A&T. (A&T are now divorced and I'm not friends with either of them anymore, but for all I know they could be doing wet work for the CIA, so I'm just going to use their initials just to be safe. Cool? Cool.)

"A" was my home slice. The cool guy transplant from Detroit. We mountain biked together a bunch of times, brewed beer several times, worked together a few times and bullshitted with eachother most of the time. And when we weren't doing all of that stuff we were just hanging out drinking the hard stuff and telling lies about people we knew.

"A" was, no joke, the best guy friend I think I've ever had.

"T" was (true story) pale, bug-eyed, red-headed, loud-mouthed, tactless, cruel and, well, she was just a real bitch. I never understood why "A" put up with her, let alone married her in the first place.

On this particular night "A", my ex and I, along with a few stragglers from my ex's work were celebrating my new Wii console and trying to distract "A" from the fact that he was headed toward divorce with "T" because she sucked ass (sad story), anywho, we had been going pretty hard at the drinks since early in the evening. I rule at Wii. Btw.

We've got the music blaring now, the Wii is a hit, "A" has temporarily forgotten how shitty his life has become and I'm feeling like that guy in that movie where he says "I am a golden god!" right before he jumps off a roof into somebody's pool. You know the one..? Doesn't matter, I felt that good, only I didn't have a pool to jump into, so I jumped into another cocktail. Wheee! Splash! Drunk.

I guess it was around 2 in the morning when the saddest thing happened...We Ran Out OF ICE!!! I know, I cried too.

Whilst the other party people didn't know that we had run out of ice, "A" and I were all too suddenly aware, and knowing that we were still far too thirsty to quit; we immediately devised a brilliant strategy to get more of the cold stuff.

We were going to steal it. Kind of.

The thing is that since "A" and "T" had been going through the first days of their separation and impending divorce "A" had been staying with us because he and "T" couldn't be in the same room or he might strangle her or worse, forgive her for being a cheating bitch. (truth)

"A" had only been staying with us for a few days so far, but shit was definitely tense between those two and "A" did not want to see her AT ALL.

Now, had I been a better man or more sober I would have been sensitive to that fact.

But I wasn't, and I wasn't. So I wasn't.

A few minutes later I had convinced "A" to join me on the black-ops mission to get more ice.

I think my exact words were "Do it for you. Do it for me bro! WE'VE SIMPLY GOT TO SAVE THIS PARTY!!"...Hi, Drama Club? Yah, it's your Boss.

"A"s house was on the next block over, so cocktail in hand, yes I brought it with, we set out at a fast walk, trying to be as quiet as possible while drunkenly (read: loudly) reciting (read: shouting) the lyrics from Motorheads classic "The Ace Of Spades"..."You know I'm born to lose/and gambling's for fools/But that's the way I like it baby/I don't wanna live forever"...ahhh poetry for the weary soul.

We got to "A"s house and he wanted to see if "T" was even home in the first place so he stood on the bumper of his work truck and peeked into the windows of his garage door. He panicked and said something to the effect of he couldn't "go thru with it", couldn't "stand to see her face, even on accident." (actual quotes)

So, we bailed. We ran back to my house and decided that even great parties have to end sometime.

The End.

j/k.

We went back to "A"s house a few minutes later (after I pumped him up about "Epic Parties" and "Plenty of Fish in the Sea" and "Whiskey Tastes Better With Ice" and "I Won't Be Your Friend If You Don't Man Up And Do This". You know, pep talk stuff.)

We get to the house and for some reason "A" decides that rather than walking calmly into HIS OWN HOME to retrieve the ice, he's going to sneak in as quietly as possible, he's not going to turn on any lights, he's telling me to keep the Motorhead lyrics down and he even takes his sandals off! Ninja!

So I'm standing on the curb, humming metal tunes to myself when "A" comes tearing out of the house AT A FULL SPRINT, carrying the entire fucking ice box! Which he gives to me!

Now "A" is sprinting for my house and I (retarded) don't know why not to run, so I run too!

We're about halfway around the block now, giggling to ourselves about a successful mission and how the party will be "even more epic now", and far, far in the distance we hear police sirens, maybe two police cars.

"Oh man! somebody's in trouble dude!"

"I know right?"

"It must be like three in the morning, who the hell is up at three in the morning in Highlands Ranch!?...Dumb shits!"

"Totally!"

Now, far at the edge of my neighborhood I see them, two police cars with sirens blaring, and one blacked out SUV with a SWAT looking dude hanging off the side of the vehicle.

I shit you not!

"DUDE! I think those guys are after somebody around here!"

"This is crazy! Who do you think they're after!?"

At this point the police and swat cars turned onto my street and gunned their throttles headed in our direction...

"Oh. My. God. Bro! I think they're after somebody in our neighborhood!"

"Damn Dude!"

The cop cars screeched to a very dramatic stop right behind us. Guns Drawn.

"Oh, it's us."

"Oh."

POLICE: "PUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS IN THE AIR!!"

Oops.

Now, I wanted to comply, I wanted to put my hands in the air. I really did.

But you see, I had the ice box.

A's got his hands in the air by now, and I'm just standing there looking at the cop, at the ice, at the cop, at the ice...at the cop.

POLICE: "YOU WITH THE ICE! SIT DOWN!!"

No problem. But, I didn't want to sit on the sidewalk because, let's face it, sitting on the hard concrete is uncomfortable no matter how you sit. So I walked slowly to the curb (POLICE: "SIT DOWN!") gently set the ice box down and sat on the curb with my legs stretched and crossed in front of me. Comfy as Kanga in Roo.

The thing about this cop that's yelling at us is that he's HUGE and really serious looking. Imagine "Bull" from Night Court with the voice of the Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket.

Also, point of interest, the other cops and the one SWAT dude still have drawn guns.

POLICE: "BACK TOWARDS ME"

"A" backs up.

POLICE: "INTERLACE YOUR FINGERS BEHIND YOUR BACK!"

"A" tries, fails, says: "I don't understand" ever so quietly.

The cop rumbles over and demonstrates by turning around and holding his own hand behind his back..."LIKE THIS!"

"A" does it.

The cop grabs "A"s pinkies and pulls up. Hard. He starts frisking him and says "DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR POCKETS THAT WILL POKE, PROD OR GENERALLY MAKE ME UNHAPPY?"

"A" says "I don't think so..."

The cop is now touching the OUTSIDE of "A"s pockets and (no shit) says...

"WHAT'S THIS? GUM!?"

"yes."

"WHAT KIND? STRIDE?!?"

"Wow yah it is!"

"THAT'S GOOD GUM!"

The cop touches the outside of his other pocket and says...

"WHAT'S THIS? A PHONE?!"

"yah"

"IS IT A MOTOROLA RAZOR?!"

"that's incredible! it is!"

"I HAVE THE SAME PHONE!"

The cop pulls out "A"s wallet and shouts "GO SIT NEXT TO YOUR FRIEND WITH THE ICE!"

"A" sits next to me and he's actually smiling at me as he says "That was pretty cool."

"STOP TALKING TO THE GUY WITH THE ICE!"

And then..."YOU! WITH THE ICE! STAND UP...BACK TOWARDS ME!"

I do.

"INTERLACE YOUR FINGERS BEHIND YOUR BACK"

I try, I fail. "I don't understand"

The cop walks over to me and demonstrates by holding his own hand behind his back..."LIKE THIS!"

I do it and the cop grabs me by the pinkies and lifts up. Hard. And starts frisking me...

"DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR POCKETS THAT WILL POKE, PROD OR GENERALLY MAKE ME UNHAPPY?!"

"I don't think so..."

Touching all of my pockets on the outside he shouts into my ear "WHY DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING IN YOUR POCKETS!?"

"I didn't plan ahead?"

"WHERE DID YOU GET THE ICE?!"

"From his house...?"

"WHAT'S THE ICE FOR?!"

"Cocktails?"

"GO SIT NEXT TO YOUR ICE!"

So, the cop walks over and talks to his buddies and slowly but surely we see the guns going down and being holstered. The blacked out SUV with the SWAT dude drives off and so does the other cop car...so now it's just me, "A", the cop and the ice. But he's still shouting, even tho he's like, 12 inches from our faces.

"OK GUYS, HERE'S THE DEAL, WE GOT A REPORT OF A COUPLE OF GUYS DRESSED EXACTLY LIKE YOU TWO"...

"Exactly like us?!" ... We were wearing t-shirts and blue jeans, I had sandals on, "A" was barefoot.

"EXACTLY LIKE YOU! ANYWHO (He says "anywho") WE GOT A REPORT OF A COUPLE OF CAR THIEVES CASING A HOUSE ABOUT 30 MINUTES AGO AND THEN WE GOT A REPORT THAT THE SAME THIEVES CAME BACK AND BROKE INTO A HOUSE AND STOLE AN ICE BOX INSTEAD!"

"Ah Ha Moment" here. These cops were bored to death on their night shift and got a report of a couple of idiots sneaking around in the middle of the night with an ice box...this makes so much more sense now.

So, the cop checks "A"s ID and sees that the address on his license is the same as the house where we stole the ice from. We talk to him about the party and how we ran out of ice. He seems to relax (a little) and he actually walks with us back to my house where the music is STILL BLARING and nobody even knows about the drama that was happening less than 30 feet away and at this moment the hard-ass cop becomes the laid-back cop we had suspected was hiding behind that booming voice...

Until he says his goodbyes "DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!"

After all that; the party was, in fact, more epic.

BTW...I found out later it was "T" that had called the cops.

Got In A Fight - OR - Peed My Pants In Public

I was probably nine or maybe ten years old. It was the middle of the 80's in Santa Rosa, California.
His name was Popeye. I shit you not.

At least, "Popeye" is what we called him.
When I say we; I mean The Gang.

Looking back at The Gang and who we were, I have to shake my head and wonder how we had any friends at all.

In describing the trio of miscreants that were The Gang I have to start with my brothers neighborhood friend, Scott.
Scott, lightning rod for shitstorms. He the pornography loving super geek with early signs of carpal tunnel syndrome, tall and long with lanky blonde hair and coke-bottle glasses. A HUGE zit owned real estate on the tip of his nose for as long as I knew him. Thinking back I'm wondering if the Pimple of the Century had in fact been Fetus In Fetu, not a zit but merely Scotts womb-twin trying to survive. "Hi there, my name is Brian, please don't pop me."

My older brother with his soccer socks pulled up too high and the best White Mans Afro in the Western U.S. of A. is Jimmy, and he was undoubtedly the leader of the pack. He was on a level of cool that I hadn't earned, but was working at daily.
If you know me personally you've probably noticed a scar about two to three inches long running vertically on the right side of my face. I was trying to be like Jimmy when I got that beauty. I'm not blaming him for me getting hurt, it was my fault and besides, chicks dig scars. I don't remember it happening, but I think I was 2 years old when Mom and Dad moved us to Spokane, Washington.
We were only minutes into a mild winter storm when the two of us pushed our mother to the breaking point and left her with only two obvious choices, she could either strangle her own children where they stood in their Winnie the Poo footy pajamas or bundle them up, shut them out of the house (into a winter storm) and vacuum the house until all the crazy went away.
I'm still here, Jimmy is too. She chose option 2, but I'm sure it was a difficult choice.
Because we were shut out of the house for being rambunctious and annoying we decided to do the exact same thing in the front yard. Jimmy and his little neighborhood friends facilitated the rambunctious by jumping off the of the stairs that led up to our front door and into the bushes on the side of the house. I took care of the annoying by sitting in the snow, wailing at the top of my lungs and crying my eyes out.
I stopped the crying act when mom didn't immediately drop the vacuuming act to come to cuddle me and dry my tears.
I wiped my face and stood up, and like a brain damaged puppy I forgot what I'd been upset about and was insanely chipper about joining my brother in jumping off of the stairs.
Have you ever seen a small child jump into the air? It was like that but at the edge of concrete stairs 4 feet in the air with nothing to land on but rocks and naked bushes with roots sticking up everywhere. I basically propelled my self into the air by throwing my hands in the air and locking my knees. You and I both know how I landed.
Headfirst.
On the only rock in the entire yard big enough to do what had to be done.
Split my head open like a coconut.
When Jimmy saw what I had done to myself and all the blood and brain leaking out, he did what he has always done since, he saved my ass.
I can just picture my mama frantically vacuuming the living room floor, talking to herself "Don't stop now Karen, keep vacuuming, you love your children and don't want to strangle them." mere footsteps away from the front door whereon the other side Jimmy was pounding with all the strength that a 4 year old can gather. Now shouting at the top of his lungs "We're sorry for whatever we did! Ben's bleeding to death, can we come in now?"

My dad wasn't home at the time that my mama discovered her second-born bleeding out in the front yard, I've been told that she had carried me next door and gotten our neighbor to drive us to the hospital in his car. It was a car if my mom tells the story. It was a truck if Jimmy is telling it.
If I am the one telling the story and I am, it was a monster truck, like Big Foot or Gravedigger, and our neighbor drove us at 100 miles an hour to the ER with the stereo blaring and the windows open to let in the winter storm. Mr. Ben's Wild Ride.

Anywho.

So here's me. All 75 pounds of Mickey Mouse T-shirt-wearing me. With a fresh scrape on every appendage and phalange, and a serious looking lump on my forehead. Also, I had one or two front teeth missing for basically 10 years of my life, so, there's that. And the gloss on this portait of youth, my hair. I can not say that my father never put a bowl on my head to help steady his scissors for my annual First Week of Summer haircut. I can't say that. I want to, but I can't.
I remember this summer particularly well because I had saved up enough money to buy a brand new pair of KangaRoos, you know them? The shoes with the little pocket on the outside? Small enough to hold...I dunno, change is what I put in it, what did you put in that pocket?

We had "The New Coke" and Pop Rocks for breakfast, our mouths were perpetually filled to capacity with grape flavored Big League Chew and for lunch we might sit down for a three-course meal of Nerds, Charleston Chew and a Slurpee. Red AND Blue mixed together, naturally. Yes, Red and Blue were flavors.
Dinner of course was with the ones who had brought us into this world and could just as easily take us out of it and trust me that you never wanted to come in late if mama had been slaving in the kitchen to make her special lasagna. If your ass wasn't in a chair at the dinner table by the time the echo of her voice calling you had died...you died. Not true as it turns out, but it felt like it and the danger of possibly being handed our own hearts kept us out even later for fear of a premature death.
Every single day of that summer we tested Einsteins Theory of Relativity. The days lasted forever, but Summer itself seemed to pass before the blink of an eye.

We rode BMX bikes with the seat too low and the handlebars too high, plastic seats and knobby tires, the buzzing-hum of a lesser known 3rd baseman's face being ground off of a baseball card against our spokes drifted on the breeze, a comforting melody to our ears as we cruised the sparkling suburbs of Pembleton Place and Appletree Drive searching for yet another new kid to impress with our joint effort in coolness.

We were badass.

My nemesis Popeye was so-called because of a slight ptosis of his right eyelid that gave his left eye a decidedly obvious POP, hence the name of shame and comedy Popeye.

Popeye and his gang claimed the seedier streets of Yardley, Glenside and Dunaway Drive as their own, and though these streets were a few blocks away they may as well have been a third-world-country.
I mean to say that we thought little of them and did not appreciate it when they jumped our fences.

Tempting the fates we rode along Dunaway Drive with reckless abandon when we ran straight into Popeye and his thugs.
The tension was palpable, borders had been crossed. The unspoken rule had been broken. I mean that this rule was completely unspoken, I didn't know we weren't supposed to be in their neighborhood! It's the fucking suburbs! Like Michael Jacksons crew in BAD we circled each other on our BMX's and looked fiercely tough. The fight was about to go down and all I could think of was how I wished I hadn't drank quite so much "The New Coke" that afternoon when the inevitable occurred.

THE SHOWDOWN ON DUNAWAY COURT

It started the way that all fights do, the phrase that pays "What are YOU looking at?"
To which we replied that we were looking at his popped-out-eye.
He laughed at our bikes because they weren't brand-new.
We laughed at his popped-out-eye.
His thugs commented on our fashion sense.
We commented on his popped-out-eye.
He glared at us.
We glared back with our best imitation of his popped-out-eye.
His thugs rammed our bikes with theirs.
We pointed at his popped-out-eye.
Popeye reached the boiling point and leapt off of his bike and ran straight toward the smallest of us and gave a shove to my chest. That's right, he was gonna fight me.
I pissed my pants.

You gotta understand, I'd never been in a real fight before, my bladder was at capacity and this kid was almost TWICE MY SIZE!!
I'd only ever wrestled with my brothers on the lawn or given each other noogies or at the most a kick in the crotch out of absolute rage! This guy was a MONSTER! And he was singling me out! NO! Fight my brother! Fight Scott! Fight your mom for giving you that eye! Just leave me out of it!

Gaaawwwdd HELP!!
I was terrified of getting a beat down, humiliated at emptying my bladder and was now seriously considering disowning my brother for leaving me to the whims of this brute. My options were slim, I could attempt to bolt and lay down and be pummeled...Or I could fight.

All of these thoughts were running through my dutchboy-haircutted head in a matter of the snap of a few synapses when another shove to the chest by the popeyed freak broke through my concentration on impending doom.

There I stood, in the middle ground.
The battle for Dunaway Court only moments away. I shook with fear and humiliation as I felt the dampness of my jeans grow cold in the sudden breeze that pushed dead leaves and debris between me and my destiny.

My fear was strong, the smell of urine stronger and the confusion in my tiny brain at this sudden turn of events was strongest. But that didn't stop me from KICKING......HIS......ASS!

I sprang like a demon-cat! Shoving, kicking, punching, scratching, spitting and cursing...Screaming at the top of my lungs that I pure, cold, HATED him for making me piss my pants!
I fought like a child possessed, not knowing where my strength came from, not knowing how suddenly Popeye was on the ground and I was on top of him with my hands around his neck and my knee pushing into his groin...Not knowing how I got behind him so quickly or how his throat wound up being crushed between my arms in a chokehold...I saw snatches and glimpses of the faces that cheered me on, my brother looking concerned, Scott pumping his fists in the air like a war child and Popeyes punks looking as confused as the day they found out Santa Claus was not real.

But I couldn't hear their cheers or jeers, I couldn't hear Popeye begging me to stop or that he gave up. Actually, I couldn't hear anything until the brutal slap of a dirty old broom caught me squarely across the head and suddenly I could hear a voice that I'd never heard before...it was saying "GET THE HELL OFF OF MY LAWN! GO FIGHT SOMEWHERE ELSE YOU ROTTEN KIDS! GET OFF! GET OFF! GET OFF!"
Apparently our fight had gone from the middle of the street to some "nice" old lady's lawn a few houses down the block, and apparently she didn't appreciate the fine art of an ass-whooping because it was her broom-whacking action that brought a swift end to the fight for Dunaway Court with yours truly emerging as the undisputed victor!

***The gentle refrains of "We are the Champions" plays sweetly in the background as The Gang and I head back home***

Scott is grinning like a maniac and patting me on the back as we walk, he's saying something about commending me for my efforts and congratulating me on a fight well fought.

My brother has his arm around my shoulder as we walk, I think he knows that whatever strength I had is gone now and I am near collapsing. He's silent, but I think he's proud.

I'm shaking adrenalin born of rage and fear and as I look down at my soaking wet pants, now stained with the grass and gravel of the battlefield; I know that I'm different, older, stronger and I secretly hope this is the last war I'll ever to have to fight.

Broke a Bone

In my early teen years, I hated this one kid...With a vengeance.

That's right HATE.
I remember his name but I'm not going to type it out, liable laws being what they are...Let's just say that his first name rhymes with Dumb and his last name rhymes with Ass.
I don't really remember now why I hated Dumbass so much back then.

I do remember that Dumbass was Uber-Annoying and liked to push my buttons, he had a way-too-big forehead, thought he was the best at everything and challenged me to beat him at virtually anything he happened to be doing at the moment.
And I do mean ANYTHING. I'm talking about Basketball, Football, Foosball, Air Hockey, Soccer, video games, running, walking, breathing, holding breath, eating, vomiting, starving, making paper airplanes, flying paper airplanes, building model cars, destroying model cars, handstands, pumpkin stands, kick stands, duck walks, high jumps, triple jumps and anything and everything else that could be done as a competition...In short he was Lex Luther to my Superman, Tom to my Jerry, Boss Hog to my Bo...or Luke.
That's the background, we didn't get along and we were always competing.

So, at this time I was around 13 or 14 years old...you know, still pretty dumb, practically cro-magnon really.

My family (2 parents, 2 teenagers, 2 grade schoolers, 2 pre-schoolers) had befriended this other family that was also huge, by all accounts, I mean they were HUGE! I'm pretty sure they outnumbered us by at least 3 kids and to my understanding the mother of this family continued shooting out kids until only a few years ago...Holy Uncontrolled Child-Bearing Batman!
And, you guessed it, Dumbass was one of the kids that made up this hoard. He was the second oldest, just like me, and ever since the day that our two families started hanging out Dumbass lived his life like a fire was under his ass...He was in constant motion and stuck on Code Level Annoying 24-7-365.

On this particular day Dumbass's Dad had built a skateboard ramp...The skateboard ramp of doom. It was sort of a launch ramp for future astronauts really, the angle on the ramp was incredibly steep and you had to have a great deal of momentum behind you as you hit the ramp to even get to the lip of the ramp and launch off of the other side...needless to say; our skinny asses were not getting much air.
In the heat of the afternoon Dumbass and his 17 brothers and sisters were taking a soda break when I got the idea of the day and began to plot out my course to fame and riches.

Imagine if you will for a moment...
A suburban side walk.
On one side a row of bushes that separate the front yard from the world.
On the other side a fairly unused surface street.
Before me a stretch of sidewalk that ends at the ramp about 20 feet away.
The ramp sits couched between a telephone pole and the sidewalk shrubbery.
12 feet up the telephone pole a crossbar the width of a baseball bat's handle crosses over the sidewalk.
The telephone pole crossbar hangs 12 feet above and slightly ahead of the skateboard ramp of doom.
Perfect.

This is how I imagined it going in my mind...
I would set the skateboard aside, kneel in a sprinters starting stance and bolt from that position of calm readiness into a frenzy of spinning arms and legs like Fred Flintstone on a Brontosaurus steak. My mind focused on the crossbar, my body tense and ready for the jump. As I near the skateboard ramp of doom I look briefly to my right at Dumbass and his hoard and say something smart, like "Watch this!" or "Heads up!" or "You suck!"...Then, turning my attention back to the ramp at the last possible second; I'd run up the ramp at terrific speed and jump at the last second straight up into the air. In slow motion now, arms reaching, teeth gritting, soaring like an eagle...I'd grab onto the telephone poles crossbar and swing in the air with the greatest of ease with a laugh on my lips and a twinkle in my eye as Dumbass sits dejected and alone as I deal out the final trump card that he can not match or dispute. The neighborhood girls would be impressed by my athleticism, naturally, so they would come from several blocks around and cheer for me and chant my name.
Eventually I would get down from the pole and walk up and down the block signing autographs while surrounded by admirers and lovers until the sun went down on the glorious day that I had created.

This is how it actually went...
I set my skateboard aside and knelt in a sprinters starting stance. I bolted from that position of calm readiness into a clumsy ambling gait worthy of a newborn deer. My mind a jumbled mess of confusion, my body turning to jelly and telling me to stop. As I near the skateboard ramp of doom I look briefly to my right at Dumbass and his hoard and say something dumb, like "Hey!"...Then, turning my attention back to the ramp at the last possible second; I'd run up the ramp at a fast walk and jump at the last second straight up into the air. In slow motion now, arms reaching, teeth gritting, trembling like a leaf...I reach out for the crossbar and only manage to brush my two longest fingers against the cold hard steel before the momentum of my body plus the brush of my fingers against the pole set my body in motion. I begin to twirl in mid air completing a double backwards flip before landing on the sidewalk. When my body slams down on the concrete sidewalk my arm has hit the ground a millisecond before my face. My chin slams squarely into the middle of my right arm breaking both of the bones in my arm into two pieces and twisting my arm into something resembling Gumby in the hands of a sadist.
I raised my head and looked around, a little dazed, a little confused. I saw my arm all twisted and broken and it definitely did not click in my brain that I had done some damage until I turned to Dumbass and his family to point out that my arm looked funny. When I saw his face and the other kids screaming and running away I got a new perspective on the condition I was in. I immediately became aware of the numb sensation coming from my arm and after I looked at it again I knew that I wasn't feeling weird because my idea hadn't worked, I was feeling weird because I'd broken my body!
So, an air splint administered by a hot looking blonde EMT and an ambulance ride to an emergency room brought me to the point in the story where the doctor injected some kind of three wisemen of shots into my veins and I started feeling sleepy right away, but I did not fall asleep before witnessing the doctor taking a firm grasp on my hand with one of his hands and my shoulder with his other and proceed to pull the broken bones in my arm apart and then reset them...after that it was 3 days of drugged-up bliss eating popsicles and ice cream in between naps and TV watching.

If I had it all to do over again I think I would've put a little bit more steam in my engine before jumping off that ramp.
It would have been glorious!

Anywho, that's the first time I ever broke a bone.

Learned to Cuss

At a certain point in my mid-teen years I came to the clear and sudden realization that my older brother was going to marry a girl that I had had a crush on for a pretty good amount of time...Now, don't get too emotional over this statement of seeming teenage romantic nostalgia, you don't know the facts yet...the truth is, she hated me at the time and will admit to that fact today.

This story starts with my Sister-in-law because without her delicate instruction I would be perhaps the least foul-mouthed Irishman alive today, let alone that I would have the worst tone, inflection, affect and emphasis of maybe anybody that had ever cursed or ever would...

In short, at 12 midnight in the Taco Bell parking lot at 771 Stony Point Rd in Santa Rosa, California; the existential summer blonde, my future sister-in-law and ex-crush broke it down and showed a good Christian boy the sheer joy of a properly executed F-word and all of the magical ways that that word could be promulgated.

I remember practicing the spacing, rhythm and tempo of the phrase that she had given me to learn by...frightening yet brilliant in its simplicity: "Fuck you, You fuckin'-fuck!"...Over and over again I would recite the cursing mantra until I felt that I had sufficiently matched her cadence and inflection...I feel a small amount of pride when I tell you today that I'm probably the best and most well-versed F-word enthusiast that I know of...aside of course from my sister-in-law...

She, the wizened instructor. I, the eager grasshopper.
The tools; one word, endless combinations and a smirking sarcasm born of pride in craftsmanship and unbridled enthusiasm.

The next week she taught me the proper letter emphasis of the word Shit...
It went something like this "Shea-It."

I'm still working on Shit, be patient master, be patient.

Kissed a girl

I was 8 years old, maybe 9, I'm pretty sure that I had buck teeth and a page boy haircut. God help me.

To complete the image of me at 8 or 9 years old in your mind; imagine that I am wearing hand-me-down velcro tennis shoes, knee-high soccer socks, a sky blue t-shirt with "Benjy!" proudly printed across the front and shorts that would make Magnum P.I. blush.
Got that? Ok...Here we go...

Her name was Amanda, I think. She was cute, I remember that.
She was about as cute as a redheaded, green-eyed, pale-yet-befreckled girl could be, but I didn't know that she was cute back then...I thought she was gross, had a staring problem and was really, really grabby.

At the time I thought she was my cousin, which put me off bigtime because I thought that she was coming on pretty strong for being family...I mean, as young as I was, I knew that making out with family was generally a bad idea...also, at the time I was under the impression that making out led directly to Pregnancy and therefore Madness and Poverty.
Gimme a break, I'd only been tying my own shoes for a few years, I was figuring it all out.

Anywho...

We (my family and hers) were at the Sonoma County Fair in Santa Rosa, California, if you'd ever been there you would know that unless you're very interested in Farm Animals, Indian Quilts and Hay, lots and lots of Hay; you would not be very interested in the Sonoma County Fair.
However there were and I believe still are some of the greatest and scariest fair rides in existence...I say greatest because every ride is great when you're a kid, and I say scary because I now know that at any given time the ride that you are on can suddenly burst into flames or come loose and fly across the sky before landing in a pile in the middle of the fairway.

That's right Folks! The really old and rickety looking Ferris wheel really is rickety and old...I think that the Carnies must lay bets at the beginning of every fair season as to when the the "Ol' Girl" will fall apart. I would if I was a Carnie!
Of course, at the time I didn't know any of this, all I knew was that this red-headed girl named Amanda was trying to hold my hand and kept asking me to ride on the same booth as her when we went on the Ferris wheel.

I was terrified. Terrified!
Not of the Ferris wheel mind you...that was a piece of cake, in my 9 year old world I faced death square in the eyes everyday and laughed as I sped away on my BMX with a baseball card flicking in the spoked wheels, making my cruiser sound much more menacing than it actually was.
But this was a different story altogether, I was feeling true and genuine fear...this crazy red-headed girl was trying to hold my hand! AND she wanted to ride in the same booth as me on the Ferris wheel! AAAGGHHH!! I was no dummy, I knew what happened when girls got boys alone on Ferris wheels...Pregnancy, Madness and Poverty...I didn't want anything to do with it; yet I was powerless against the iron will of the little girl that crushed my hand in a vice-like grip as she led me toward my destiny. I knew then what the Bible meant when it said that "...He was lead like a lamb to the slaughter." I was doomed.

So, it was there on that incredibly old and incredibly rickety Ferris wheel that the girl that I thought was my cousin leaned over and stole a kiss from me...she must have known that if I had not been 80 feet in the air on a spinning death trap that I would have bolted after puking on her shoes. As it was, I had no where else to go and could do no more to resist her pursed lips than close my eyes, scrunch up my face in the hopes of becoming less attractive and pray to Jesus that it would be over soon.

To my relief and further belief in prayer; Amanda did no more than give me a light kiss on the lips before turning away from me and giggling like a crazed person...she giggled like that for the rest of the ride and only looked back at me once or twice - I'm assuming to confirm that she had actually done what she thought she had done.

When we stepped off of the Ferris wheel I felt fairly certain that both my parents and hers knew that Amanda and I had been "Making out", I'm just guessing, but I think they may have known because Amanda and I were holding hands, grinning like idiots with bright red cheeks and glazed-over eyes.

I never saw Amanda again after that night at the fair and even though my memories of her are a little fuzzy and I lose a little bit of the memory as time passes; I'll still think of that red-headed, freckle-faced girl with grim determination in her green eyes whenever I think of the first time I ever kissed a girl...rather, got kissed by a girl.