SINCE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT 5TH GRADE HORROR STORIES pt.3 and EPILOGUE

Mr. B wasn’t really trying to be intimidating, he just was. He was easily the funniest teacher I had ever had. He had made Math fun by playing games and telling us really long stories to help us remember stuff. For instance, for Long Division, we learned Dear Mother See Care Bears. Which meant Divide Multiply Subtract Compare Bring Down. Its twenty years later and I still have no problem remembering that, but I forgot to being my Netflix with me this morning.
When people you normally like and respect and you want the approval of are mad at you, it’s exponentially more terrorfying. You mix getting in trouble with fear of abandonment. Fucking super.
Oh yeah, did I mention the fact that Mr. B (something no one of my age would have called him to his face) was about 6’5 and had a grand Selleckian mustache. And it was man, this great great man, who had just called me out of line after recess.
Everyone was staring, waiting for me to get it. I was fucked. So fucked. Word of my new nickname had already reached the post recess gossip mill and the bad ass kids had started to gnash their teeth at me and growl. Chris Richardson’s popularity was such that even the bad ass kids were his friends, so basically there was no where in 5th grade to hide.
I was hoping maybe the blow had left Chris with out the ability to remember anything after August. We’d be cool and he’d have to re learn long division, but I knew the code now; I could teach him. Let that be my punishment please.
Of course maybe Mr. B didn’t know. Maybe no one had talked. Rules of the playground and such, but it didn’t matter. They had probably CSI’d Chris’s forehead by now and matched the marking to me. The police would be here any moment. Mr. B was just stalling my escape.
When I got up to Mr. B, he just looked down his mustache and asked me, “What happened Justin?”
Well being the James Bond type that I am. I looked at him with a cool icy confidence. I was innocent. He was my tag team partner; I never would have done anything intentionally to hurt him. It was all a misunderstanding and Mr. B would see that. In fact, I know he would invite me in to the teacher’s lounge later so we would laugh about it over a couple Cokes from the soda machine. Just boys being boys, roughhousing and what not.
That confidence held up for exactly one quarter of a second before I started to ball.
I mean why did I run right after? Sprinting away from the crime scene and back to the “rugby” game like nothing had happened. I couldn’t have looked more guilty.
It was the perfect storm. There was Mr. B staring, he had was already reforming his opinion of me. I was a good kid. I only got sent to the principal’s office once when I called Alyssa Sadowski an “A-hole” (sic) during a kickball game. She was blocking third base, and I was sure that was against the rules. It was at least in extremely bad taste. Then of course later that year, I got a pink slip for forgetting to do my spelling homework, but I had climbed back up that slippery slope. I had been clean for over a year and Mr. B was just staring at me. He already knew. He had his answer. It didn’t matter what I was gonna say. He just wanted confirmation. He wanted me to lie so he lay down the hammer.
All I could see was my Mom’s very disappointed face as I was carted away to the very soothing pink jail cell at the Middleton lock up (that I had been inside of already during a Cub Scout field trip).
This was it. I was going to be labeled and I was humiliating myself. I professed my innocence through a steady dam break of spit and mucus that was pouring from every opening in my body. I began blubbering. I think Mr. B just felt bad. There would be no detention or pink slip. He took me down the hall and let me hyper ventilate for a while. It was pretty much a perp walk down the line of my entire 5th grade class. All of them barking and growling at me. It wasn’t my fault, but the jury had said other wise. In this scene, Wild Wild West by the Escape Club would be playing and “Dance to the beat that we like best/ The Wild Wild West/ WILD WEST.” (gun fire)

EPILOGUE

Now Hold On to the Night by Richard Marx is playing. Elijah is nervous. He looks in every direction to make sure no one is around. Chris Richardson stands before him (played by a young James Van Der Beek. He wouldn’t know it then, but he’d need the money later on.) VDB has his hands in his jacket staring through the glass at a flower shop. Mrs. Flynn was ringing up his mother. So Elijah has little time. They were partners once. Friends. He had to make amends.
He keeps his head low and makes sure there are escape routes just in case it’s a trap. He contains himself this time. It’s just him and VDB.

“Hey,”
“Hey,”
“Sorry about…”
“It’s OK. I got a couple stitches.”
Demurely.
“Can I see?”

VDB pulls back the bandage and reveals the swollen yellow and purple lump on his forehead. There are a couple stitches at the zenith but they barely mask an unmistakable impression of Elijah’s two front teeth. They were like two dashes on his forehead. A scarlet letter M in morse code. But VDB just made Elijah feel at ease: they were partners. He knew he was sorry. It was extremely mature for a 10 year old. Elijah would have to take the taunting barks from his classmates, but VDB never joined in and it would die by the beginning of the next week, when someone else had erred.

I've been around, and I've seen the SHIT go down. In my years as an agent of social deviance, I've been at parties where people have been stabbed, bottles broken on heads, teeth knocked out, and then there is the pissing. God, all the pissing...
No wait, I dont like the way this is starting at all. Lemme start over.

I've never been one to turn down a reason to party. Classes are over, let's get after it! Flag Day, fuck yeah, fire up for the Stars and Bars. I woke up without a hangover, Jag bombs bitches!
This is where the plot thickens. A good friend of mine is getting married in Hawaii. Sorry, I dont think I can swing the $1100 ticket and then hotel on top of that, so I'll just come to the Bachelor party. Where? Vegas. But, still things are tight. So, what's the alternative? Vegas for 18 hours. I land at 11pm on a Friday and then fly back out at 630pm the next day. What have I gotten myself into? This could be epic. Or epically bad. We'll see.

SINCE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT 5TH GRADE HORROR STORIES pt. 2

In the late 80’s, I was the Encyclopedia (of Alton) Brown of Professional Wrestling. I could tell you who Don “The Rock” Muraco won the Stampede (or Canadian) Heavyweight Championship from both times or all of the Intercontinental Champions back to the two time reign of Pedro Morales (who beat Don Muraco for it once just so you know). I was a walking talking Wikipedia page waiting to happen and it was the Golden Age of Wrestling. It was my shit.

At recess during the Golden Age, rough housing came with nicknames, finishing moves and probably a couple of titles per person. (In Boy Scouts, among my many belts, I held the obscure Florida International Belt which I must have won while playing video games in the basement arcade of the Continental Hotel at Disney World. Otherwise I don’t remember going to Florida any other time.) On the battlefields of Howe- Manning Elementary, the most esteemed title I held was the Tag Team Championship with Chris Richardson, the heir to the Richardson dairy fortune. His family owned no less then three quarters of my small town. He was as popular as you can get in a class of 30 where everyone was your friend sort of. Still to have him as my tag team partner was none the less a huge step for me and together we formed Demolition (pre Crush) and we took on all comers and had them smoted.

The day of the Pumpkin Festival, I was not in a wrestling mood. Instead I had taken to a poor anarchist’s version of rugby. This style involved chasing around someone who had a deflated basketball and tackling them. At this point the person would give that ball up to someone they liked and the game would continue. There was no goal line or endzone. The only direction was away from the mob chasing you.

It was in the middle of one of these massive of scrums of ten year old body parts that I noticed something amiss. I looked further down the field and heard the gruntings of my partner. He was in trouble. He had been cornered by Leith Campbell and Ben Maxfield. They liked to be the Road Warriors, but at the time were going as the Hart Foundation because the finishing move did not require an actual ring. Seeing this, I immediate broke from the game (I was never like enough to get the ball anyway) and made a bee line straight for Leith Campbell. Now, Chris definitely could have handled the two future stoners by himself, but I, if nothing, have a strong sense of loyalty and although Ben and Leith were fellow Cub Scouts, the bond between partners is greater.

In today’s flashy big budget production WWE, I would have gotten fireworks preceding me, while my run up to the ring was on a 40 foot jumbotron and Tony Schiavone yelled, “Oh my God that’s Justin’s music!”

Now mind you in fifth grade, I was still a bit of a porker. I wouldn’t start playing baseball ‘til the spring and I had run a 15 minute mile that year and I had no control of my body what so ever. So when you run directly at someone and throw your body at them there is an 87% chance something bad is going to happen and you will not be the beneficiary. But I had Leith Campbell locked on like an enemy fuel tank in Zaxxon. At least I did, until he moved and then I was fucked.

I was visited by a face from the past yesterday...

I was parking my car in a spot at the RMV when a stanger approached my car.
He asked me, "Do you know the town of Charlton?"
"Not very well," I replied.
Not knowing what he wanted, I listened to his plight. He told me that his car was broken down and he was $14 short for cab fare back home. He then proceeded to tell me that he spoke to the registry police and they, "told him to hitch-hike." Normally, I would have told this guy to "take a hike." However, I have had some bad luck recently and I saw this a a chance to maybe spin the karma wheel back in my favor.
After listening to all of his excuses as to why he did not have the cash, I told him that I didn't have any on my person either. He told me his ATM card was at the daily limit because he just paid a wrecker $110 to tow his car.
"I'm a Christian...I'm a Christian," he kept repeating.
Well, "I'm a gimp." I kept saying to myself. I said, "It does not matter whom you pray to."
I walked with this guy to the nearest ATM and handed him $20 cash. He thanked me, took down my address and said, "I send 20 bucks back to you. It'll be in tonight's mail..."

In the back of my mind I kept telling myself this guy looked familliar. His eyes seemed kind. I didn't notice until the transaction was done that he was wearing a Yankee's cap.

To be continued

FIRST POST!!!!!!

Last night, I watched Night Moves (1975) starring Gene Hackman. Can you say gratuitous nude scenes featuring an underage Melanie Griffith? They don't make 'em like they used to.

SINCE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT 5TH GRADE HORROR STORIES pt. 1

The Middleton Pumpkin Festival had no rival. Literally. There was the Topsfield Strawberry Festival and possibly a Peabody Cowhide Festival and kind sorta maybe a North Reading Bee Festival, but when it came to festivals featuring the yields of agriculture, Middleton blew up the spot. There was hot cider, games, hay rides and lots and lots of pie. Pie rocks right? But most important to a ten year old was the chance to hang with your friends after the sun went down. At the age where bed times were still cemented between 8 and 9, no one was exactly heading out for martini at local 5th grade speakeasy. This was it. This is what everyone would be talking about tomorrow. Where were you? Who were you with? Did you see the fight between the bikers and the skaters? But during the 10th year of my existence I wasn’t quite so excited to see anyone. I fact I was scared to. That year the recess talk had already been established. It was about me. It was the scene of pre teen drama. It might as well star that little kid from the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but he’s much too small. Let’s go with Elijah Wood circa the Ice Storm. That’s about right.

As Elijah walked up the sidewalk towards the Festival, all lined with glowing carved pumpkins that had Mom and little brother ohhhing and ahhhing, he could feel the stares the pointing. Even people inside their homes would turn off the Evening News just to get a look at him. That boy. Elijah was sure the word was out. He was wanted. He would pay. That’s when it began. Elijah saw Tim Johnson and Ben Maxfield bearing down on him. (Tim was one of the head bikers in the giant biker vs. boarders showdown. He would go one to be on the European Cyclocross circuit. Ben Maxfield would buy a skateboard in the up coming months and trade sides. I believe he is now drinking his own urine.) Now imagine young Elijah, as Tim approached, ducking into the woods so that he couldn’t be seen, but trying to be subtle enough so that his mother did not question why he was in the woods in the first place, because there was NO WAY he was going to tell his Mom what happened today. Why he would rather stick his head in one of the glowing pumpkins and set his hair ablaze like he was in a Pepsi commercial, but it was too late for that. He had been seen.

In flashes, Ben and Tim’s bikes became the F-16 Tomcats I had just seen in both Top Gun and my new favorite, Iron Eagle. They opened the bomb doors and dumped their payload of bombs on me.

“Cuuu Jooo” “Hey Dog.” “Woof.” “Bark.” “Hey Cujo.” “Hey Cerberus, what a matter? Someone get to close to the gates of Hades.”

Ok so I made the last one up. Now imagine the Elijah’s Mom, playing the part of school bus driver and future school secretary, continues the humiliation by cavorting with his taunters and telling them to slow down.

Now imagine poor Elijah closing his eyes and trying to bend time space like the Japanese kid from Heroes. Wanna get away? Ding. Too bad. Oh where were thou SouthWest airlines? Why couldn’t you exist in 1987 along with the internet and Visa computer glitches that would mistakenly send credit cards to kids? Elijah thought about hijacking the hay ride and making them take me back across town at least as far as the Pepperidge Farm Outlet. He could walk from there.

Once he was off his mother’s hip. He would try and hide among the stores and architectural features like columns and door jams. He would not go out into any open spaces that had light or people under 14. But at the height of his anxiety just when he thought he was safe, Elijah turns a corner and there he is: the one kid he couldn’t face. Standing miraculously by himself, where his own mother has left him alone. A mother who would surely kill Elijah. He was just standing there hiding the pain that Elijah caused him. Its physical manifestation was wrapped up behind gauze on his forehead, hiding God knows what horror underneath. I thought again of the glowing pumpkins and the insides I had scooped out.

Now this would be the big moment. The music would be Pixies if they existed at the time. So instead it would be Simply Red. Elijah would sigh. Is the one person he can’t face going to talk to him? And then you would see the credits.

(Brisk handjobs for everyone involved if we keep this thing going beyond November 15.)

When I was in middle school, I had 5 albums I would play constantly:

Fugazi - Steady Diet of Nothing

Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me

The Smiths - The Queen is Dead

Primus - Sailing the Seas of Cheese

Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt. 2

Now the first four are arguably considered some of the finest albums created by their respective artists. (I'm sure somewhere people are arguing about the quintessential Primus record. Wow, that's depressing.) However, Keeper of the Seven Keys, Pt. 2 ("KOT7KP2") might possibly be the greatest album ever written.

"Excuse me Nick, you must be mistaken. You must mean it's the greatest record created since white people stole the soul of music from black baby Jesus. Beethoven wrote some pretty big hits."

Impossible. Music made by a bunch of deaf people banging on pianos in wigs cannot be the best music ever written. If we apply your thinking to modern music, The Kids of Widney High should be considered the apex of R&B. Plus I'm not willing to validate a piece of music written by someone who couldn't be bothered to lay it down in the studio. Here are the facts:

- Guitarist Kai Hansen left the band shortly after KOT7KP2 was released for "troubles with the record company", but really he quit because he knew he would never collaborate on anything that powerful ever again.

- Even though it written in the late 80's, "Eagle Fly Free" is powerful, blunt look at the United States in the current century.

In the sky a mighty eagle/Doesn't care about what's illegal/On its wings the rainbows light/It's flying to eternity

Clearly that's a reference to the illegal wiretaps, secret prisons, and shady politics our government (the mighty eagle) employs to stay upon its perch overlooking the Universe. The rainbow reference seems out of place, but they are German so it probably means something heterosexual over there. Hey, we think so supersonic too.

- My friend Chris: "They wrote a song about a monster who grows up to be a rock musician/politian. " Exactly.

- This photograph:

- Their tour behind KOT7KP2 was called the "Pumpkins Fly Free" tour which, when you think about it, is pretty true.

- In the video for "I Want Out", the premise is that we're all trapped by our own inhibitions and societal constraints (stunningly represented by "the viewer" repeatedly entering the "hallway" of singer Michael Kiske's psyche through his mouth). Helloween use the medium of video to show their struggle to break out of these self-imposed asylums and ascend to a higher intellectual level. Albeit one brimming with scalding hot guitar licks and impossibly bold drum fills. They also could be foreshadowing original drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg's battle against schizophrena (a battle he would lose in 1995 when he jumped in front of a train) since it was well established at the time that they were psychics.

- In the time it takes to listen to the song "Keeper of the Seven Keys" 102 times in a row, you can drive from Minneapolis to Boston. It will be the best car ride of your life.

Drums, guitars, bass, keys, and a song about throwing keys into large bodies of water; that is what this record has that others don't. I don't know why anyone even bothers writing music anymore.

Real conversations I've been a part of this week (whether I wanted to be or not)...

Dr. D : "So I went on a date this weekend."
Me: "oh yeah?"
Dr. D: "Yeah, she's a buddist and a reiki master"
Me: "Ah. Where did you meet her?"
Dr. D: "Craig's List...she was looking for a vegetarian."
Me: "but you aren't a vegetarian"
Dr. D: "Yeah, but I like the idea."
Me: "but I've watched you eat meat and enjoy it"
Dr. D: "so has she...I ordered rack of lamb"

PW: "Well Junior's older brother was your typical black lowlife...you know he had the 'car' and dressed in the gangster way and, you know, wore the gold chains." (This conversation also included the term 'blacker than the ace of spades' at one point).

Me: "So Sarah (his 4 year old daughter) showed me a picture she drew of you today."
Dr. D: "Yeah, she showed me too."
Me: "There was a dot between your legs and she pointed it out to me and whispered "thats his penis" and I couldn't hear her so I said "what?" and she said "peeeeenis"
Dr. D: "Yeah, she showed me too and I asked her why she drew it so small"

Back in 1987 (more specifically, September 26, 1987), I endured one of the most horrific experiences I've ever had in my 28 years of life. I was a third grade student at the Nathaniel P. Banks School (go Terrapins!). At this point I had been wearing glasses for about 2 years and had recently got into trouble for drawing a totally gnarly helicopter cockpit on the back of a take-home notice. Since I spent all my time in school drawing bomb doors and buttons marked "lazars", I was obviously terrible at education. This is probably why I used to love recess so much. I'd go out and play Tranzor Z or Transformers with this weird girl in the outfield of the kickball court. I should mention that when I say we "played Transformers", we didn't play with die-cast models of Bumblebee or anything. Rather, we acted out episodes. Everyday. I am not kidding. (Also, this girl wasn't weird in any sort of fucked up way. She didn't have a glass eye or those weird shoes that people with one leg shorter than the other have to wear. Really she was weird simply because she willing chose to re-enact TV shows and movies with a tremendous nerd like me.) On this day, we set up shop over by the fence that kept us safe from the alley filled with trash and began acting out Ghostbusters. Pretty soon this kid came up to us named Raymond. Raymond was weird in a fucked up way. Usually he ran around the playground aimlessly, only stopping to scream as loud as he could in your face. It was different that day though. Apparently he got it in his crazy little head to try something new. He ran up to me just like he always did, but this time instead of screaming, he gently placed his hand on my head and said "You it!"

Me: Ummm, what?

Shouty Raymond: You it!

Weird girl: I think he wants to play tag. I guess he's saying you're it.

Shouty Raymond (clearly pumped): Tag! Tag! You it!

Since I had just clapped my hands and said in my best Ernie Hudson "I LOVE THIS TOWN!" Ghostbusters was pretty much over. Tag? Fuck it, why not.

Me: Okay. I'm it!

Raymond took off across the playground laughing and shouting "IT! IT!" at the top of his lungs. I had managed to tag the weird girl in the back as she turned to follow Raymond, so I started running in the other direction. Pretty soon everyone not playing kickball was in on the game. "It" changed hands a few times before finally making its way back to me. I noticed this one kid over by a grassy area of the playground hiding behind a trash can. I figured I could sneak around and get behind him for a pretty easy tag if I was a careful. Creeping along the edge of the grass, I kept a large stone wall between me and my target. With a quick hop up and over the wall I was right where I needed to be. I was about 15 feet away from him, when I heard a loud snap and I felt fire shoot up my leg. I screamed and looked down at my leg, which was now gushing blood through my grey Husky jeans ($19 at Sears Roebuck). Jesus fuck, it was a bear trap! The kid I was stalking whipped around, took one look at my leg and started laughing.

Fucking Asshole Kid: "1, 2, 3, Slap! The gay nerd's caught in a trap!"

I had fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the tag handbook. Determined to get rid of my "It" status before going to the nurse, I lurched forward towards the kid. He was crouched down on the ground, laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his face. I don't blame him because the sight of me struggling towards him like some sort of handicapped giraffe must have looked pretty ridiculous. He started to scramble to his feet as I got close, but I dove towards him, arm outstretched in a last ditch effort to tag him. I fucking missed. By an inch, if that. The trap on my leg had thrown off my balance and I tumbled head first into the trash can. Did I mention this can was at the top of a hill? Yeah, well it was. Anyway, the Fucking Asshole Kid aimed a kick at the side of the can and sent it tumbling over onto its side and down the hill. Then the can rolled into the street and I was hit by a car, which broke both my arms. The force of the impact sent me off the side of the road into a small pond, wait, no it was a river. A swiftly moving river that set me rushing downstream towards a waterfall. Luckily for me a swarm of beavers working on their dam saw me heading towards my certain doom and pulled me ashore. Then they called me horrible, blatantly racist names and stole my wallet. Bastards.

Anyway, if these retards were around when I was a kid, maybe this whole terrible ordeal could have been avoided. God bless America!

It didn’t take long. Seconds maybe.

Only hours before, the city was in mild panic (a full FOX News Alert). Everywhere, New Yorkers had taken out their Jump to Conclusions mats and decided that it was the beginning of another terrorist attack. Around 4:45 the crawl read, “The plane that crashed into an Upper East Side apartment building was piloted by Cory Lidle, Pitcher for the New York Yankees.” Panic turned into a Friar’s roast. Jeffrey Ross was played by my boss, who upon hearing about Lidle’s demise, stopped in the middle of the pre shift meeting to say, “I hope Jaret Wright was his co-pilot.” It would only get worse.

In the papers, on TV and on John Kruk’s quickly shorn face there was nothing but solace and remorse. On the ground it was a surreal comedy. I would get three phone calls and a text message within minutes as the news hitting Boston. But where we could only talk about the “fucked uppedness” of the situation, the real cutting wit was coming from the Yankees fans themselves. Immediate favorites from the masses included, “He didn’t have that bad of a year,” “Maybe it was Randy Johnson’s apartment,” and, of course, “It’s A-Rod’s fault.”

The second wave came in more of a structured joke form. When the Mark Foley story broke weeks earlier, it was easy to take all the Michael Jackson jokes you knew and superimpose his name. (i.e. Q: What’s the difference between Mark Foley and acne? A: Acne comes on your face after puberty.) Before my shift was over, a colleague had dug up some old Christa McAuliffe jokes (of the 86 Challenger disaster) and superimposed Cory Lidle’s name on them. (Q: How did they know Cory Lidle had dandruff? A: The found his Head and Shoulders on the sidewalk.)

But as New Yorkers are (especially since the Yanks hadn’t won a championship in 6 years) it was more of a nuisance. “If they start comparing it to Thurman Munson I’m gonna puke.” or, “Traffic on the East Side is impossible because of this mess.”

As surreal as it was I had actually felt bad. No one really thought they should be laughing but they were. Maybe where reality was closest, distance had to be manufactured. It was truly a tragedy for the Lidle family and who ever the other three people were that died. (One of whom, we would find out later, had also had the misfortune of being maimed by a float during the Thanksgiving Day parade in the 90’s. Like the Gods of Pop Culture were against her.)

Lidle was, at most, an accidental Yankee. Thrown in by the Phillies with Bobby Abreau to get one more mediocre prospect. He lived out of a gym bag. Seven teams in nine years, he could have just as easily been on the Red Sox in a year or two.

Even my father in law asked his daughter over the phone, “Is Justin happy there is one less Yankee?” Well no, I thought, he was a free agent anyway.