Some of the old gang

Peter S had a surname easily altered into the nickname Scribbles. Like me he was at age sixteen a high school drop out. He was also likewise bereft of any ambition beyond getting stoned each morning and watching I Love Lucy and playing air guitar along with the likes of Led Zeppelin Two and Johnny Winter And. Months into our slothful revelries however we were spurred on by parental demands to go in search of jobs. We managed in doing so to get hired together at Rail Road Salvage a retailer of carpets and goods that were in deed salvaged from fires and close outs and all manner of minor catastrophes. It was the perfect job for a couple of stoners. Management was lax. For instance one employee managed each day to take a nap in a space he'd burrowed in the stacks of carpet. Somehow he was never missed. Our duties too amounted to little more than pushing brooms, tidying shelves and going out to the parking lot to retrieve shopping carts. The latter we undertook any time we felt like smoking a joint. As little demanding as the job was we lasted only a couple of weeks. Peter was fired when he caught a football that someone tossed at him after calling out his name. The manager who canned him could not be persuaded by Peter's argument that his dismissal was a gross injustice. I got canned shortly thereafter for lollygagging too long in the parking lot.

Freddy K was swarthy with a chipped front tooth and a ready grin. He had the hairstyle of a television depicted Apache. One day while he was working on a tobacco farm two older boys stripped him bare for one reason or another. Utterly naked he covered his genitalia and butt with two of the largest tobacco leaves he could pluck and took refuge on the bus that had transported him to work. Naked but for the leaves he rode the bus back to where he'd been picked up that morning. Then doing his best to keep the leaves in place he scurried through the streets to his family's apartment. Some years later Scribbles and I dropped by to pay Freddy K a visit. He was seated at the kitchen table with his stepfather who was shucking oysters and slurping them down. Egged on by Freddy his stepfather downed an entire quart bottle of Black Label beer in something like three seconds flat. A minute or so later without warning the stepfather inexplicably hurled the shucking knife with intentions it seemed to hit Freddy in the face. The knife stuck in the kitchen door with a thwack no more than two inches to the right of Freddy K's head.

Debbie D from very early on was called Debbie Depresso and she seemed forever in a sulk. One night when she was seventeen she came to after passing out from too much to drink. When she did so she found herself naked with Paul D. atop of her. And it was in this manner that she lost her virginity.

Tom C loved drugs. He imbibed whatever was available twenty four seven. When he ran afoul of the law in his early twenties he opted to join the navy to avoid imprisonment. A couple of years into his tour of duty he came home on leave. He had with him dozens upon dozens of photos taken around the world. Every photo shared a common theme: in some he was standing among marijuana plants some eight feet high, others showed him beaming while holding ounces of hash, there were photos too of mounds of cocaine and piles of variously colored pills, also included were snapshots of Tom completely wasted. After he was out of the navy he had us read his official discharge papers. They attested to his being an enthusiastic and able bodied seaman, but, it was duly noted, due to his frequent trouble with drugs he was not recommended for reenlistment. Tom really got a charge out of that.

Steve L we called Screwy Louie. One night while exceedingly drunk he managed somehow to drive himself home where he immediately passed out in his driveway. A short time later he came to and had no idea where he was. In a panic he pulled out of his driveway and sped off. He did not get far as he promptly smashed into a car parked on the street some four or five houses away. The accident shattered his jaw. In turn he had it wired shut. A couple of days later there was a gathering of friends at my parent's house where Steve tried drinking wine through a straw. When the alcohol hit the lacerations inflicted by his accident you should have heard his clamped mouth scream.

Mark D was running full bore and looking over his left shoulder when he caught the spiraling football pass. The very next second as he turned to look in the direction he was running he smacked head first into a solid tree some some eight feet in circumference. The impact sounded like the mighty crack of a bat when a slugger puts one out of the ball park. For the next several minutes Mark lay sprawled on the ground frothing at the mouth and biting his tongue.

John W who was tall and passive and good natured to boot had a terrible car accident that altered his personality ever after. Post collision he took to carrying an eight inch long serrated steak knife that he called Little Johnny. Over the ensuing years he brandished the weapon ad nauseam without provocation. The look on his face when he did so was a fright mask of seething dementia.

Steve S was another guy who really loved drugs. One bright and sunny day I happened to see him on the opposite side of the road as I drove by. He had the look of the utterly lost with his mouth agape and his eyes bulging out. Later that night I saw him at our usual partying spot in the woods. He still looked disturbed. As best as he could in his addled state he told us how he'd gone to court that morning after swallowing enough animal tranquilizer to dope a dozen people. All he could remember of that morning's proceedings was the judge's mouth moving. He had no idea what the judge said. Some years later Steve died of exposure after passing out on downers one frigid night in those very same woods.