Winner's Circle

 

“You'll die at a rate of two per year.” Sister Mary Elephant told our graduating class of 1982. Not at the ceremony mind you, but in her European history class. We all just looked aghast at her at that seeming improbability. But she was one of the “with it” and friendlier nuns at Saint Rays high school and we believed her, sort of. But that kill rate wouldn't kick in for a long, long time, so why pay any mind to it now when we were all eighteen.

Now it's 2020 and from what I can tell, five to six out of our 100 graduating class size are now dead. All due to illness and not spectacular car crashes nor scandalous drug overdoses. I suspect that “two per year” average will ramp up briskly after decades of doldrums where everyone had an easy time of it staying alive.

I had met Mike Mulligan, when we were 15, on my walk home from Saints on Walcott street. We happened to pace one another one day and started talking. On one of the walks home, I had shoved my foot in my mouth about car racing. I told Mike only 'tards and rednecks would be delighted with cars going around in circles for hours.

“Have you ever seen it live? Or driven a race car.” he asks me.

“Nope”'

“I have. I sometimes help a pit team at the Seekonk Speedway.”

At first I didn't believe him but as he kept talking about it, the words he was using and such seemed to lend credibility to him.

Whoops...Shoved Foot Into Mouth for the 303^rd Time. I was good for that when I was younger.

But Mike took my dismissive ways with a grain of salt.

For some reason we hit it off on some secondary, unsaid level. We both would try to one up one another on our “experiences” or what had done by the age of 15, trying to seem more adult. I had him beat on concert attendances and he had me beat at driving 150mph in a souped up Mustang. Looking back on all that, we both knew nothing about life nor was alive long enough to really bray about any substantial accomplishments. But that's what teen boys do, boast about our hot dogging ways.

He had me beat when it came to asking out girls. He did it first, before I had the guts to try it. There was one girl, an Italian/Greek girl with chinese black hair who I didn't really know but apparently was in our class. I was there to see him do it an unfortunately for him, she said “No.”

He had ran up to her while we were walking home and in a 70 second conversation with her I couldn't hear, I could tell it was a no go. He walked back to me like someone had stomped on his kitten. I felt bad for him really...and jealous, because he had the balls to try it. I tried to shore him up but it took a good week for him to heal himself from that sting. Teen love is hotter than hell but boy, ain't it sore as hell when it goes bad!

We graduated and as life has it, we floated to different parts of the world. I had seen him briefly while I was trying cross Armistice blvd, standing on the divider at a red light, he was stopped at it in a blue hopped up GMC pick up truck. The problem with that was that our conversation lasted two minutes till the red light changed and he had to drive off. He had joined the Army and was married. “Holy Shit” I thought, you moved fast! I was just attending classes at RIC and dated emotionally damaged girls as they were easy.

That was the last time I saw him.

Many years later we became “friends” on Facebook and I suggested we meet up again, as we literally lived blocks apart but he nixed that idea, saying he was too sick to do it. I initially thought it was a lame blow off but as I kept up with his Facebook posts, I found out he really wasn't in the best of health.

I saw various pictures he posted of himself and wow...was he ill with diabetes. I guess he had a severe enough case of it where if he ate 1/10^th of a Snickers bar he'd collapse into a coma in a minute. I barely recognized his face in those pictures, but eventually remembered his eyes...he was in there still, somewhere. It was Mike, for sure. 

I am told Mike died last week after years of being unwell. I then time warped back to when we were 15 and itching to grow up when we had all that great health, thinner, less scared skins and a more unblemished life. We were full of hope then for things that may happen to us, fun things, happy events. It wasn't always perfect but in general, we were in a better spot then, before life really gets you in it's teeth. And before you understand and accept, what limitations are.

“Two per year...” Sister Mary told us...wow...it's here now.

I spent a few young years on Top of the World with Mike, I'm glad I did.

 

 15 Year old Mike, at Seekonk Speedway. How I prefer to remember him

 

 

What's On the Horizon

On 60 Minutes, an interviewer is talking to Roger Waters about his The Wall Tour that was loading in in Boston. Roger is asked, “You're turning 70 in a few months, how can you possibly do this? A world tour?” He answered that for many years, due to aging, that his muscle strength had been waning. He added that his body stiffness was worse and he was advised to hire a personal trainer to whip his ass into shape before he'd begin touring again to slow that decrepitude that happens with anyone who is “getting on in years.” He said it worked.

OK, this piece has little to do with the concert, but it reminded me of what I'll have to be doing one day.

I'm prone to charley horses or plain ol' muscle cramps for years now, though they've been occurring more frequently. At first, they'd just hit the back of my legs and I'd be out of commission for 15 minutes till they passed. If they were bad, I'd have a feeling of a bruised muscle for a couple of days. Now, I can get them in my hands, arms, ribs (front and back) thighs, calves, feet and toes...yes toes!

Everyone has advice. And I thank theme for it. “Eat more bananas!” I hate real bananas though I love that fake banana flavor. “Drink more water!” I hate water since I was a kid because Pawtucket's water tastes like Six Flags waterpark pools, half of it is chlorine. The first time I had tap water that originated from the Scituate reservoir in 1987, I was slightly amazed. “Wow! This doesn't suck!” I thought. More advice...“You need to stretch more.” Well, yes, I've done it but now it's not easy to do Yoga on the floor, once I get down there, it's kinda hard to get back up again.

Everyone's probably right, if I did all those things perhaps the cramps would at least lessen. Though an interesting thing has occurred for over a decade and may have something to do with it. Every blood panel test I've had, my phosphorus levels comes in borderline low. Guess what happens if you have too little or too much phosphorus? Your muscles get bitchy and punish you.

**

I went on a fishing trip the other day with some old friends I probably hadn't seen in nearly a year. We were overdue meeting up and it turned out to be a good time as the fish were biting and getting out of my covid rut was nice too. I hadn't done “anything big” really since we were all locked down in March. The weather was perfect except for that mid July sun that turns Irish people into ashes. That would be me. I kinda knew I had better watch it but like the 2,402 times before, I forget how little it takes to make be turn red.

Deep water (somewhat deep) fishing requires you dropping a weight, hook and bait down 150-200 feet of water till it hits bottom. That's where the haddock and cod like to feed. So, you do that and wait for those short, quick tugs on the line and pole and you try to snag that hook good into his mouth. The next part is fun.

If you get a definite bite and mostly you can tell, you have to reel that baby to the surface. Your reel, with each revolution, probably only pulls in 6 inches at a time, so you're reeling for a while when you consider 200 feet, or 2,400 inches.

On a later fish I thought I had caught, I was reeling, reeling away with my right arm. I stopped a bit because I could feel my right hand starting get stiff from doing it and because I stopped, the muscles in my right forearm relaxed and then decide to yank all at once as hard as they can.

“Fuck...here's another one.” I think

Since I've been through it before I know that in 10 minutes it'll fade and loosen up again, but boy, does it feel like hell. When your muscles contract all at once, they tend to move the appendage lower than they into a weird contorted form. My forearm muscles yanked my hand all the way up and back as far as it could go. I have no decision in this matter. Trying to move it in the opposite way will only hurt like even more hell.

What does it feel like? It's not that muscle burn you feel when pumping weights. That, is a definite pain you can't mistake at all. But this spasm pain, it's weird..hard to describe. Using your hands, grab your thigh muscle and squeeze it like a vise and don't stop. What I can describe better is the second pain you feel on top of it. Since your muscles are pulling as hard as they can, they also pull the tendons that attach them to your bone and it feels like they're going to tear off any second. They haven't yet for me but I swear someday it might happen.

It feels like that could happen though.

So, for FOUR times, four distinct occurrences, I got hit in the right forearm from reeling fish up. Know what I was thinking besides...”OWWW!?”

I'm vain...to a point. Older guys are because we do not want to seem we're losing any vitality as we age and hate it when the body betrays us. We, I...still want to hear, “Hey, he's still got it!” I knew, just knew the others were watching me and confirming small judgments...”Shit, he IS getting older!”

Yeah, I know that already, I just don't want to display it so publicly! Yeah..like I have a choice when these spasms hit. Yeah, I see 60 coming at me...Yeah, it's all true, you see it too. Every bit of it.

On the way back to Plymouth harbor, we were on the top deck, talking and enjoying the sights. For some reason, the brother of my friend opined to me, “Yeah, I'm 63 now and getting uglier, but I don't care..you get past that point where you care and accept the reality as it is...and it's liberating in a way too, you no longer have to care so deeply about 'how you look. You get free of that. Those blonde girls fishing to the right of us..that family of them...I don't have to impress them at all with $300 cologne and the latest shirt and shorts.”

“Free of that.” Advice from someone a bit older than me. I suppose I will, or more so..I have been slowly getting to that point. I've said it before, this is a different period in my life and it's definitely “new to me” so it'll take some time. I can grow my hair, beard and eyebrows out like Gandalf (I have that kind of hair) and dispense ancient advice to the young'uns. Or I can do that, hit the gym like Roger Waters did and tone things up and keep them from becoming goo. It worked for him!

**

Special Goofy Story Time!

On that same trip, we were fishing off the back of the boat where you tend to get more hits. As L. and I were fishing, the captain of the ship gets between us and dumps something out of a mason jar. These dried twigs, leaves and tiny wooden bundles hit the water and start to drift. After a bit, we all kinda figured out what it was, marijuana.

We all sort of wondered, “Why would he toss about nearly an ounce of weed into the sea?”

A few minutes later the same captain comes back, checking on everyone and we get the story out of him. In the bow of the ship, these twenty-somethings decide to roll a fat joint and start smoking it. Well....we aren't in intentional waters and this captain has federal and state licenses he'll LOSE if he allows this to happen on his ship. Apparently being told ONCE to knock the shit off wasn't enough as they did it again and the captain just grabbed the mason jar when and dumped the contraband over board.

When we docked, I guess some one radioed home and let the Plymouth Police know. We were just behind these 20 Somethings and the cops let them pass one by one and then grabbed ONE of them. We then knew WHO it was! We didn't stick around to watch but when I glanced back, the kid was turning out his pockets and whatnot to the cops.

Moral of the Story. Wait till you're in international waters or if not, bring a damn vape pen! If they did that, know one would've cared.

So Don't Show Up Around Here till Your Social Worker's Helped

This Song is About One of the Stories...Right Click!

Some of the better stories I could tell you would probably get me sued because they involve people currently living and at times, still in my life...and they don't want any of those stories publicized. Also, it would be rude as shit to tell the WHOLE TRUTH as it would cause some personal pain.

But...they would be sooo good to tell! So here's some first lines to subjects I can't really write fully about..

“Ron..she LIKES you! She keep asking questions about you! She asked me if you had a girlfriend. She's been by your house in Pawtucket and all that! C. tells me

“Didn't she just get out of a rehab unit kicking a heroin addiction...and why is she stalking me?”

“She's all about you when you're here! She really lights up!” he says further.

End of that story!

**

“YOU live in that house all alone! You have TWO full floors and you can easily have a second person there!” K moans to me.

“No...the dog doesn't like others around.” I say.

“THAT monster loves girls! I know this! How many times have I been here and he loves me because I'm a girl...he hates men instead!”

“What are you getting at?” (I know where this was leading, I wanted her to come out and say it)

“Well, if not that...YOU have money...you know my car is a piece of shit....”

I get up to leave the couch as reaction to that request and I hear a faint “Fuck you,” as I walk away. I then turn around and feel something slam my lip. I raise my hang to my lip and there's blood. On the floor is a TV remote.

“You THREW a remote at me because I won't buy you a car?!”

End of that one due to ugliness...

**

“Hey, I need a ride to Central Falls...just a quick 30 mins...” M asks me.

“Ok, I got nothing to do..c'mon.”

We get to some three decker and M goes in, spends about 89 seconds in there and comes back carrying a full Almacs paper bag and hops in.

“Ok, we're all done.”

So we drive back home.

I park in front of his house and M takes the paper back and shakes it onto the floor of my car and out falls three compressed, giant bricks of marijuana.

“YOU MUTHA FUCKER! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE DONIG THIS???!!!”

“Shit, what's the problem? He asks.

“IF I got pulled over..anything...ANYTHING in my car is legally MINE!”

“But we didn't get pulled over.” he complains.

“THAT'S NOT THE POINT!”

End that one with a louder argument with all sorts of past shit brought up...

**

Mike, Dave and a few others are hanging out around the corner when JR shows up carrying a notebook, college-ruled mind you!

“Hey, listen to this..(giggle)..it's so funny!”

He reads an excerpt.

“It was so wonderful! I know he's the one..and he's my FIRST boyfriend! It sort of hurt at first but I kept quiet because I didn't want to mess things up. It was romantic too because it was raining a bit by the side of the garage.”

“What are you reading?” we all ask JR.

He giggles more, then busts out laughing and finally....when he can control it he bellows out:

“It's my sister's DIARY!” AH HA HA HA HA HA!”

We all instinctively knew which sister too...

End of that one! There are others...

The Sound Track To Your Life

Right Click n Play, Mazzy Star

I wish I came up with that phrase above but no. JB105 constantly uses it to promote their 80's retro to their audience. How can the 80's be retro? But there you are..it's been over for 30 years!

Shit...30 years...

I spend an undue amount of time cruising Youtube for songs I haven't heard in years, then find a flac recording of them and steal them, or if not that, then to joggle some memories of my life when a particular song was hot. I'll tend to post them on Facebook to the very few fans of that song that give a rat's ass. Many times my memory and the song's placement on the hit list don't jive. But there it is, dated and stamped...I guess my memory isn't what it used to be. To be honest too, there are gaps in time back then when my life wasn't producing any significant signposts. You work, sleep and slog along and those months become a blur. Why would you remember redundancy? Any songs that were popular then were not paired to any remarkable event in my life at the time. And then there are the “Holy shit..I had forgotten all about that song!” flashbacks.

Mazzy Star's “Fade Into You” was hitting it's highest peak in September 1994. The girl singing it was Hope Sandoval,. She was pathologically shy and would only do live stage work IF the lights were not shown on her. She'd also refused to engage the audience or give them eye contact and instead stared at the floor while immersed in darkness. Very rarely would she do any work and be easily seen doing it w/o some coercion. To this day she hides. Hence the expression, “shoe gazer music” came into being. It was popular for a bit back when alternative was really about alternative.

Sept. '94 found me unemployed and typing off resumes like a bandit. I had finished up a year long battle with a former employer after hiring three, yes, 3 lawyers to make their lives shit. Boy, when I have a vendetta, I sure go balls to the wall doing it. Don't worry about me now, I am old and too tired to mount such a offensive. AND...looking back on it all, I now see I should have not wanted their heads on a platter and just settle for the cash buyout. But hindsight is always that, hindsight.

I didn't know it but in a month's time I would be hired by a place that dealt with the deaf population on the East Bay. I didn't know I'd be learning ASL either. It's amazing how you don't know anything really about the future and how it'll steer your life in a different direction. You can make plans, point your life a particular goal and still be surprised at that new details you have to deal with. You can't anticipate everything! And this is happening now still. When does it ever stop?

I didn't know I'd meet a girl there who was sort of similar to Hope Sandoval, extremely shy and had protective walls three feet thick and 20 feet high. Funny how sometimes, and maybe just barely, a song dovetails into your life just a bit. More likely, you MAKE the song your own even though it's lyrics may have very little to do with your life at all. “OMG...That's about ME!” (say that with a teen girl's shrill voice)

So how do you approach a shy girl like Sandoval or Beth as I'll call her? You go very slowly and you carefully worm your way through the cracks in the wall. But, since her radar was on it's highest setting, she saw any attempt to “reach her” as a breakdown in security. But, there were times I manage to have her lift that protection and see what I knew was there, a too sensitive heart that at one time, or more likely, many times, was dragged across barbed wire. So she did the only thing she knew, she walled up to protect it.

I never managed to get through though for any appreciable amount of time. Her fear was too great to allow it. After some months, she quietly quit that job and moved back into her Mom's house in Bristol I was told. Gone forever. Perhaps now after years, she has managed to trust...somewhat. It's too bad, she was one of the few people I knew whose heart was “good,” even if it was a bit banged up.

That month also had me driving a Dodge 400 convertible that was falling apart. I had salt and pepper hair at 30 and was dying it. I also thought then that being 30 was “old.” At that point in you life it is because you are expelled forever from the 20 Something set. Expelled from waking up hung over in your car in a beach parking lot. Expelled from making rash decisions that can haunt you for years. Expelled from taking last minute road trips to “we don't know where yet”. Being 30 demands you act like an adult. Just the sound of that number alone will do it. You brag to those around you then about how mature you are, and your just 30 friends brag right back. You talk of careers, first homes, marriage and buying “sensible” cars. Sensible meaning a 90's “mini van.”

At 56, 30 now seems to me just a more sober version of a 20 Something, but still not knowing life well enough yet and winging it as best as you can.

Ask me, if I make it to 70, what “56” really means...and life will still be doing what it always does, not showing you the future at all and surprising you...and there will be a hit song to mark it.

Bugs...

I hadn't tried lobster till I was 30 years old. Yeah, that's right, 30. Up until that point, it was fried scallops for me. In my mind, nothing beats them, well...maybe baked scallops would take second place.

Why did it take so long?

As a kid, the family, after visiting Scarborough beach would go over to Galilee to eat at the Portside restaurant. Half the time we'd go to that take out window, order clam cakes and chowder and sit on the picnic tables and eat it. Once in a while my Dad had the patience to wait 30 minutes in that line and we'd all get a booth instead. Their chowder was the color of used dishwater and I had to be told it was the Rhode Island version, just clam stock. I was too young to know there were three versions; red, white and “Rhode Island.” To me, it looked like the RI kind was just watered down garbage fed to tourists. It came barely warm or scalding hot.

My Dad would order the lobster and every, and I mean every time the waitress brought it, I just saw a GIANT BUG on a plate. Anything that has an exoskeleton is a BUG in my book. I would eat my scallops and watch my Dad tear apart this...thing and I'd be secretly disgusted by it. Food you have to post-butcher yourself was NOT food. It looked like you were tearing apart an entire cooked cow to eat it.

He'd go on about how great it was and then my Mom and Dad would discuss if there was any “green stuff,” or roe in it. That was when the lobstermen could take pregnant females. Regulations then didn't really care about lobster populations. “Green stuff?” are they kidding I thought to myself. I did see my Dad eat that goo once, it looked like baby seagull shit.

Quietly I thought...”You're gross..”

**

In my 20's, when we all had jobs and money, I'd see friends order lobster as well. Again, I'd be ordering scallops. I'd get ribbed for being cheap bastard for NOT getting the lobster but any protests from me about that not being the reason were shot down. I couldn't convince them that I didn't like it nor the idea.

“But EVERYONE likes lobster” was the reason I was given as to why it was good.

“I don't.” I told them. Oddball I was...just leave me alone to enjoy my damn scallops in peace, would you?

**

Finally, in Johnson & Wales, we ended up having to cook lobsters. They brought in this crate of 30 of them for each of us to work on. Ok...I have to do it..but I don't have to eat it later. We did all various kinds, steamed, fried, Newburg, lobster rolls, Diablo, Thermidor....you name it we did it. Afterwards, when we all sat down to eat it, I finally told myself I had better find out what all the hoopla was all about. I picked a simple, steamed lobster to try. I wanted to get that base flavor w/o any other ingredients confusing my tongue.

I had told the guys I sat with that this would be my first time trying it. One guy, a Navy guy, who was from Arkansas had tried it long before me and was goofing on the fact he was raised in a state not near to any salt water and he had had it before I did, a Rhode Islander.

So I tore off the claw, busted it open and pulled out that meat. I dipped it in the butter and I was expecting to see Jesus because EVERYONE saw Jesus when they ate lobster. It was that kind of experience to them. I popped it into my mouth and chewed...

I chewed...then swallowed it and I thought...

“That's it...that's all?” I was not impressed at all, Jesus had NOT returned and I was NOT impressed at all.

“OK, it's a seafood...” I could taste the ocean in it. Then a few seconds later I said to them.

“Big.Fucking.Deal...That's it? That's ALL there is? Where's Jesus? Everyone acts like it's the Second Coming when they eat this!”

Know how many lobsters I”ve eaten in 56 years? Less than the fingers on my hand. Know how many scallops, sea and bay ones in the same time? Way more than 10 and I counting in pounds.

Another Form of Social Distancing

I was schlepping my six empty two liter bottles of Coke out to the recycle bin when someone walking by on the sidewalk shouts, “Hey!”

I look up and it took me a second or two to recognize him...Jack from down the street. When I knew him he was a good 10+ years younger than I and didn't run in our circle but being a neighbor at one point, he was still familiar.

I walked over to him and thought, “Yep, that's him...I recognize the eyes.” When I was close enough he fired out his life's story at me in under twenty seconds, and part to explain why he was back in the old neighborhood.

“...and then I walk in to see my wife banging a guy about your age!” When he said it like that I kinda felt guilty...but for what reason? I have to defend every guy in their 50's?

He goes on.

“Three kids! Three different whores! I'll never get with a girl again...it's not worth it!” he complains.

I was sort of half listening because I was focused on his beard, his VERY gray beard.

“How old are you now?” I ask. I had to ask twice to break him from his obsession with his three failed relationships.

“45” he tells me.

“You're 45? I say with some surprise.

“Yep!”

I then remind him of when he was 15...and the age I'll probably always remember him at. Around the corner, M had his garage and he fixed people's cars there. It also served as a bar and we locals would sit around in it getting drunk. Up comes Jack on his ten speed, trying to fit in with us older guys and we give him a beer, then two, then tree and two hours later we have him good and soused.

He then feels it's time to go home and he gets on his bike and then pedals furiously out of the drive way onto the street. He probably got about 40 feet before he lost control of the bike and went SPLAT right onto the tarmac. He was wearing just summer shorts and when we got to him, he had a nice minor grade road rash up and down his face, back and right leg. He sat there, bewildered about what had happened. We got him to his feet and wormed a promise out of him to NOT tell his Mom where he got so drunk at, should she wonder why her son was bleeding all over and smelling like Michelob.

“God....I remember that.” Jack tells me.

He goes on to tell me other woes besides cheating wives, moving back to Rhode Island and why his foot was in a brace.

As I hear this, I hear a past conversation I had with Barn as he commented on a similar story I had told him about another guy I had known whose life had hit the skids.

“See what you missed Ron?” “See all the bad marriages, the bad bankruptcies, the bad kids you NEVER had?” he says. “All that shit other people get involved with and crash and burn with...you avoided. Hell, you were far enough away from some to even avoid any splatter!” After reminding myself of that conversation something else occurred to me due to his awful luck...

The other thought I had was...”Does Jack have covid?” And I stepped back a bit.

So I wished Jack luck and watched him limp to his childhood home. He came home to save money to restart his life once again, with hopes of opening a new business.

I dump my Coke bottles finally, and wonder again all those I have known who have lived their lives bouncing off one wall then the other, making their way down life's hallway getting bruised and bloodied. Personally, I hate messes. They're hard to manage and clean up and can divert you from your intended direction that day, or in life. I'm not saying I was a perfect navigator, hell, I SUCKED at it when much younger but after a while you learn NOT to put your hand into the fire...repeatedly.

Yet I see people do this again and again.

**

I once got the ire from a 20 Something girl I was talking to a while back. I had admitted that I reject 95% of the girls I meet because I had learned something about their Smash Up Derby lives. Hell, these girls admit it like it was a Badge of Honor. What tips me off is when the girls tell story after heroic story of surviving these crashes in life. “Story after story...Uh Oh! Why the repetition?” I think.

She became pissed with me because my view had touched a raw never in her...she was one of those people who repeat fuck up after fuck up in their lives.

“You think your SOOO perfect!?” was her response.

“No I don't. I have some deep scarring on my back from bad sunburns and teenage acne. I can be a skinflint when it comes to money. I can become cold blooded and walk away from 20 year friendships should they go sour and not feel bad 5 years after about not wanting to patch them up.”

“But I try look before I leap. And there's too much other people's shrapnel out there and I learned to duck.” I finally said.

And that old admonition chimes in my head...”See what you missed Ron?”

Squirrel Tales

Around 1990 or So...

Lee was an animal rights activist and a vegan. I had met her in 1988 when she joined our crew in the group home I first worked in after college. She was a sparkler, one of those zippy personalities that made itself the focus of a room easily. I liked that. I liked the animated ways she had.

One day, she was driving the company van and it was one of those big ass “church” type vans you see heading down 95 on Sunday mornings, loaded with the faithful and I was in the passenger seat. I was NOT wearing a seat belt either.

Olney Arnold road in Cranston had a speed limit of about 25mph but no one ever obeyed it. If anything, most did 40 to 50 mph on it as it was one of those country roads you could do that because you could see a half mile down it to respond in time to anything. So Lee and I were zooming down it headed to Rt 37.

I must've been daydreaming or something as I paid little attention to what may be up ahead. The last thing I remember seeing clearly was Lee's face as I had turned to look at her. I then heard a skid and felt my entire body become airborne and head straight for the windshield and monster sized dashboard.

WHAP!

I felt like we had come to a dead stop and I managed to crawl up from the floor as I had collapsed into it after smacking the windshield. My right shoulder was complaining like I had overextended it and I gripped it some as I lurched myself back into the seat.

“What...What happened?” I asked her.

“I nearly hit it!” she said.

“Hit what?”

“A squirrel! I almost hit a squirrel!” she tells me

A couple of seconds go by as I process that information.

“You...sent me into the windshield because of a squirrel?” I said.

“But I nearly hit him!”

“YOU threw my body into the windshield over a fuckin' squirrel?” I protested.

As I told her this, she kept looking out the window to see if there were any injured squirrels.

I was surprised/not surprised by this. I had come to expects these sudden things from her, thought this was the heftiest thing she had pulled on me to date.

We start moving again and I quickly put on the seat belt. I then ask her what was more important, a human life or a squirrel's? She said the squirrels because...humans are evil and malicious.

“When was I ever malicious to YOU? I ask.

I get no answer because she couldn't back that up at all.

**

I never told Lee this story, it would've proved she was right and I was malicious.

In our teens, M and I used tear through Slater Park with our air rifles infringing on the rights of squirrels. It hadn't started like that. We just brought the rifles with us to snap off shots at cans, beer bottles we found from previous parties the older teens had in the woods and just kill time because we were bored. We were bored enough to plug holes in various tree trunks that morning.

Now, we both thought we were well hidden enough by the forest cover from the neighborhoods that surround the park's north side. The report from an air rifle is really pretty pathetic. At best, it sounds like a dry branch breaking cleanly in two, nothing like a powder powered real firearm.

But as teens do, we got bored of shooting trees, water and rusty cans we found. We walked further on to the north, getting pretty close to the nearest homes and we spotted a squirrel jumping from branch to branch and he seemed in a damned hurry. Of course M and I start pumping up our guns and fired pot shots at him as he flew. We also started shouting tactics as we tried to cover both sides of his escape.

The problem with most air rifles is that their accuracy really sucks. You try hitting a small target beyond 50 feet and chances are you will miss easily. So we both are pumping, loading and firing as fast as we could. Now we were about 75 feet from the roadway.

I was aiming my gun up into the tree when I heard the sound of tires on the road...and then come to a stop. I have turned my head from the sights and saw this green truck parked right there with this stenciled on it's door.

RI Department of Environmental Management.

A man had come out of the truck and was wearing that goofy Ranger Ted uniform you would see in old Disney flicks about Yellowstone Nat'l Park. It was the first time I have ever seen a real game warden. When do you EVER see one of these guys in the city? You don't.

I turn to M and yelled, “RUN!!!!”

Lucky for us, we knew, like the back of our hand, all the trails, streams, slopes and everything about that park as we had explored it since we were kids. I didn't look back to the road way but had heard the truck door slam, it's engine fire up and that spitting of dirt and gravel as the truck, I'm very sure, started to chase us.

Like I said, we knew the place better than he so we managed to zig zap our way through the wetlands and up a slope and over to the others side by Newport Ave where we quickly collapsed our rifles and started to cut across the road like we were just out of a morning walk.

We managed to out run and out maneuver Ranger Ted. We surmised one of the neighbors nearby had heard or seen us doing what we were doing. We wondered why DEM and not the Pawt police showed up. The police would've told us to “beat it” had they caught us. I'm sure DEM would have up on charges instead.  Someone had called earlier, complaining we were firing on public lands NOT intended for that at all. 

**

There once was a fad toy in the late 70's called a Squirmel. It was sort of worm/snake like furry thing with two googly eyes and if you pet it, it would deform, twist due to whatever weird rubber material made up it's insides. They were popular for a week and a half like all fad toys are.

Kimberly was in our 7^th grade class and we all being around 13....are just starting to encounter puberty, though Kimberly wouldn't reach that for another two years. RJ, a boy of the same age wasn't there yet either but being a boy, was far more bold than most of the girls we knew.

Kimberly was an only child and a shy one at that. You could turn her face beet red by saying words like, titty, ass or sex to her. Not that we did that a lot to her anyway, unless we boys were in a rambunctious mood and wanted to make Kimberly squirm a bit.

For some reason, the girls sitting near one another were busting one another on their “experience” with boys which was probably nil, At best, maybe a quick kiss in the dark where each had managed to click their teeth hard against one another's. Again, it's the usual kid's attempts to seem soo grown up to the others and therefore hold that social status.

The girls knew that Kimberly had NO experience whatsoever, that including even seeing a penis in real life or even in an porno magazine their older sisters may have had. So of course they ribbed her again and again till she broke down and admitted she had never, ever seen anything like one on a real boy.

RJ, who was sitting next to them heard the whole conversation. He then whispers to us boys that he's going to stand up, undo his zipper and “whip it out” in front of Kimberly's face. He was that kind of kid who would do the outrageous. 
 

So he stands up but is very secretive about what he's doing and we boys can't really see much either. He then turns his head to Kimberly and says, “Kim...wanna see mine?” and he turns around in a quick fashion and stops, about two feet from her face.

There is nothing louder in the world than a 13 year old girl's shriek. They really should include then in operas as their voice can penetrate carbon fiber truss beams used in the Space Station.

The poor girl got up and ran out of the classroom. The other girls start guffawing about it and finally, RJ turns around facing us boys, holding what we thought was his dick still.

But it wasn't his dick, it was a Squirmel toy had had snuck into and out of his zipper, where it hung down somewhat into his hand. 

Kimberly, the poor, poor girl, probably thought, for a second anyway, that THAT is what a real penis looked like. No wonder she ran, it was looking RIGHT at her. 

Where was our teacher? Well, this being Goff Jr High, a lot of teachers were blowing off class time in the coffee room.