Cuddling in the Cutlass

I don't remember how old I was, but I was probably about 14 or so. Two of my friends from a nearby suburb had come to hang out with me and we ended up dropping quite a few too many hits of acid. It was cold outside and I can remember sweating my ass off as we walked the streets, trying to avoid too many people.

Greg and Joey were there names. Greg was an 18-year old whose father had thrown him out of the house recently and he was basically living in his car. The benefit for Greg was, though, that his father went out of town on business often and had not changed the locks on the house. His father was currently out of the country, which was good for Greg; it was freezing cold outside. Seriously. It was icy.

Joey wasn't in much better shape. His mother was totally uninvolved in his raising and left it entirely up to his stepfather, who was a complete tyrant. I went over there one time and had to leave because of all the yelling. I was embarrassed for Joey, who really hadn't done anything wrong, but I don't think the stepfather wanted him around. Joey did everything he could to stay away from home as often as possible, and I don't blame him.

We were a group of three misfits whose only solace in life was to alter our reality. Sure, we had other choices, we just didn't take them. So on this particular night, we had split half a sheet of acid between the 3 of us and were out walking the streets. Eventually, somebody got hungry (it wasn't me), and we ended up at this ghetto-ass Denny's. Being around the public when you're tripping your ass off is never a good idea but, once again, this was something I'd never quite learned how to do.

We were in a booth, but I remember this guy sitting at the bar. He was in a green woolen sport coat and he was really old. He was wearing a matching green bowler hat. I could only see his face quartering away, but his nose was long and pointy and I could see it sticking out from behind his cheekbone. I swear, he looked like a leprechaun. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. Of course, I did laugh, but I tried really hard not to be too loud about it.

So, there we were, in a Denny's in the bad part of town, tripping on way too many hits of acid, sitting across the restaurant from a leprechaun.

And we didn't even eat 99% of our food. I had water and that was it. The guys ordered these huge breakfasts and ate hardly any. And so we walked out into the chilly night, crawled into Greg's 1987 Olds Cutlass, and drove back to my house. That link shows you what it looked like - that's not him!

We drove around for awhile, then parked in my driveway. I was exhausted. The acid was starting to wear off and I was beat down. I bid them adieu and went inside to lay down.

It was about 5am when my father burst into my room, screaming. "Why are you bringing faggots over to my house?!"

Since I hadn't really slept anyway, I got up and followed my father outside. He put on his jacket and thrust mine into my face. "Put it on! Follow me!"

We went outside and, in the driveway, was Greg's Cutlass. The engine was off, and the windows were fogged up except for part of the windshield. My dad merely pointed and said, "There!"

I peered in through the tiny clear spot in the windshield and saw Greg and Joey spooning in the back seat! You could see Greg's faded green mohawk poking out from under a flight jacket emblazoned with Chaos UK, Subhumans, and Exploited patches. Joey's little rat face was sticking out from under the side of the jacket - it was quite obvious there were two people under that coat.

I thought about lying to my father for one second, and telling him that Greg's mohawk belonged to a girl, but figured he'd just bust me anyway. That would have been easiest, but I told him the truth.

"Dad, they're not fags. They're very hetero, just total losers and no girls will date them. It's not a big deal - they were probably just too tired to drive back home and it's really freakin' cold out here."

"I don't care what the reason is. Get those faggots out of here!" With that, he stomped back into the house and slammed the door.

I opened the passenger door and a rush of warm, rank air hit me in the face. Those two punk boys were never big on hygiene. I woke them up and told them what had just happened. They admitted they were too fucked up to go home and were just trying to get comfortable. They conceded, though, and drove to the church parking lot down the street from my parents' house and I went back inside.

My father was quite upset with me for a few days, even though he refused to listen to my reasoning. I never saw Greg after that and I never did figure out what happened to him. Joey said Greg dropped him off at home, and then Greg was going to his own house. That was the last we heard from him.

I recently saw Joey in a picture one of my friends posted on MySpace. I hadn't thought about that kid at all except for this one particular memory that came up on occasion. I've thought about asking the poster what's going on with him...
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