“What the heck just happened?”
None of us could reason an answer.
We laughed about it, uncomfortably.
Dad drove like a bat out of hell (town).
I didn’t mind my hunger pains.
CHAPTER 2:
WILD TIMES IN HIGH SCHOOL
Prank Calls
There was a time when we only had one phone per household and when it rang, you had to answer because you would otherwise have no idea who was calling.
My first encounter with a prank (rather, obscene) caller was when I was playing at my friend Jacob’s house. His mom asked him to answer the phone as she scooted by with an arm full of laundry. We were only in grade school at the time. The caller asked Jacob a series of questions that progressively got more personal. When Jacob’s mom walked back in the room she reached for the phone asking Jacob who it was.
“I don’t know but he asked what color panties you had,” Jacob answered.
My eyes bugged out.
Jacob’s mom was a saintly woman but she increased my vocabulary in just the brief statement she shouted into the phone before slamming it down.
Years later, although we were never seedy or obscene, we, like many kids, made prank calls. I actually used to call them crank calls. There are two that stuck with me. One happened in junior high school and the other happened in high school.
The most elaborate prank we learned was the ole, “We have workers on the telephone lines nearby.”
It went like this: “We’re just calling to let you know that we have workers on the telephone lines nearby. Please stay off the phone and definitely don’t answer if it rings in the next five minutes.”
Almost always, the trusting party on the other end would say okay, albeit some were somewhat perplexed.
We’d wait almost the entire five minutes and call back. If the phone rang and rang – answering machines were rare back then – we’d be disappointed that they heeded our warning. If the same person picked up the phone, we were ready. We’d waive a hair dryer back and forth and then scream like hell and kill the line by hanging up.
A minute later we’d call again. If they didn’t answer this time, we’d laugh our devious heads off. If they did answer, we usually couldn’t get in a word edgewise as they apologized profusely. At least we left them reassured that everything was fine.
In high school, radio station phone contest giveaways were common. You could be the recipient of a random outbound call or be caller number 100 for example, if the station was 100 FM. A few of us were listening to music one night in a friend’s bedroom. We decided to prank some people and then came up with an idea to pretend we were radio disc jockeys.
Our first call was to a young-sounding woman, maybe in high school.
I forget the hot concert tour of the time but we told her, “CONGRATULATIONS, this is so-and-so at FM (name of a station) and you are our random call.”
She pierced our ears with excitement, “AGHHH – what I win, what I win …?”
“Brace yourself because you and a friend are going to see …!”
Her reaction nearly made us go deaf listening together on our end. She had to put someone else on the line – while she hyperventilated – so we could confirm details to send the tickets but we didn’t write a thing down on our end.
When this sensational phone prank ended, we were beside ourselves in how well it went. Then, our conscience took hold and nearly five minutes later, we felt so bad we decided we had to suck it up, call back and let this poor soul off the hook.
But we didn’t remember her phone number.
Big Shots
It’s funny, but I don’t remember any of my childhood friends or classmates being Cleveland Indians baseball fans. Maybe it was too painful to admit openly.
When I was in high school, the manager was probably best remembered for charging the mound at an opposing pitcher, pathetically failing to land a karate kick. To add insult to injury, the pitcher dropped our manager with one punch. But this was my team, my lovable losers. I played in a world of possibility whereas nearly everyone else I knew played in a world of probability. Life is safer their way. But perhaps it’s with my mindset that I entered an essay contest by a Cleveland newspaper – “Why Do You Like The Indians?” At this age, I was reading the sports section daily so I wrote and sent in my essay.
I won!
Thinking back, I wonder if I was the only one who bothered with the contest.
Nonetheless, the prize was “dinner” with the Indians and a free ballgame. Dinner with the Indians meant I got to invite a friend to accompany me to the stadium for a luncheon that launched the team’s winter press tour. Only the manager and a couple players showed up to talk to the room full of reporters and afterward, I got to wait in line to shake the hand of a forgettable rookie infielder.
When we got there, Mom dropped us off and my friend, Steve, and I walked in. Immediately, we seized a plush booth. It was long – very long – and center stage. It was located in the back of the room next to huge windows high above the ground outside. It had our names all over it, so to speak. It was ours! Until some lackey in a suit scrambled across the room to us as some old guy and his entourage entered.
“Hey kids, you can’t sit there!” he said with alarm.
“Sure we can,” I said.
“We are,” said Steve, shooting a smile my way knowing he just slipped in a cocky remark under the radar.
The man demanded we move.
“But I won the contest,” I said matter of fact.
He looked dumbfounded. Then, he saw the entourage nearing and looked back to us in desperation.
“You gotta go, now,” he pleaded, reaching for my arm.
I pulled away and scooted farther into the wrap-around booth.
“What seems to be the problem?” asked the old man arriving next to the table. His entourage fanned out around it.
The scared looking man (lackey) sounded like he had diarrhea of the mouth so I explained.
Laughing, the old man said, “You boys have a good time,” and he left us to the enormous booth.
Then, he and his entourage pulled tables and chairs together in the center of the room, displacing some adults.
As they crowded around a hastily made large table by clustering together smaller tables right in front of us, we sat back and ordered meals fit for kings. I sat at one end of the long booth and Steve sat on the far end. You could have sat five adults on one side between us.
This was our day and nobody was going to take it away.
Later, the old man was introduced as the general manager of the Cleveland Indians. My natural instinct was to boo, but I bit my tongue. We all knew how the Indians were mishandled, but I couldn’t help but appreciate the kindness he extended toward us.
On the way out, Steve and I shared an elevator with a “rising star.” He had a giggling girl under each arm, thereby making him a bigger hero than just a moment earlier, even though he didn’t notice us in the tight space we shared going down.
Sunset Park
She said she’d be back as soon as she could sneak out.
I kicked back on my sleeping bag as the streetlights came on, listening to Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb through my headphones. About an hour later, it was dark and I was enjoying the peace of the night, alone.
Every now and then, I’d see headlights running parallel to the front of the park. I was as far back as you could go, nestled under some trees and against a natural barrier separating the park from the houses in the subdivision behind it. More time passed. I was getting sleepy and barely paid attention to another passing car – until it stopped.
My attention came into focus even though I was sure nobody could see me in the dark, not from the front of the park anyway. The headlights reversed and under a streetlight I saw that it was a police car. I perked up and slowly slid my legs free from the sleeping bag. The car reversed into a side street pointing its headlights to the back of the par
k. I couldn’t believe it. Immediately, I lay low and still. The lights grew brighter. The car was driving through the grass directly at me.
I got up and ran.
When I got to the edge of the park, I cut the corner and ran to a friend’s house that bordered the park. He slept in a basement bedroom so I knocked on his window. He didn’t answer. He may not have been home now that I thought about it.
The police car sailed quickly by my position down a sidewalk that led from the park to the subdivision behind it, right next to my friend’s house.
I ran again.
The police car hit the street and whipped around the corner, no doubt catching a glimpse of me on the other side darting behind a line of houses. I ran through the backyards all the way to the end and then circled back a couple of houses and peaked around. The police car was circling back too. He knew he had me pinned down somewhere back there. His car went back and forth in shorter distances as if somehow he was narrowing his search. When he drove back up the road, I bolted across it. I saw the headlights spin around and come in my direction again. I hid in a tunnel under a connecting road until he passed again. This time, he made the zigzag and followed the road further down. That’s when I sprinted to the woods and headed north again in the direction of the park but west of it. My adrenaline was pumping and so were my feet and heart. I blazed a trail in the dark and paid for it. My arms and face were stinging from the branches whipping me as I made my way to who knows where.
Finally, I stumbled on a trail and I knew where it led.
Once I escaped the woods, I went to the house of the girl who was supposed to meet me in the park. In her backyard there was a step ladder leaned against the house just under her window. It was only a one-story house. I laughed. This was how she was going to sneak out. I stepped up the ladder and whispered through the open window into her room. She was sound asleep so I whispered louder and louder.
Finally, she lifted her head, startled. Then her eyes settled on my silhouette. She invited me inside. We figured it was too risky to sleep out as planned. So, I crashed there for the rest of the night. In the morning, I had to hide in a closet from her mom.
After her mom left for work, we went to the park to retrieve my things but they were gone.
Somehow, I felt lucky.
Three Choices
I was given three choices. He would vandalize my parents’ house, kick the shit out of me or kill me.
We were in high school and I had fallen in with a troubled kid in the neighborhood. After school one day, I showed him my dad’s amazing, award-winning, tropical fish in what we called the fish room but was really most of the basement. There was a razor blade on a worktable and this dude picked it up and started swiping it in the air like a maniac, uttering who knows what. He actually sliced through something of my dad’s. I yelled for him to stop. Instead, he turned and swiped downward, slicing open the sleeve of my new winter jacket. The slash was long. My jacket was ruined. I was angry.
He dropped the razor blade and ran upstairs, laughing a demented laugh the whole while. I picked up the blade, gave chase and tackled him on the living room couch. That’s when I swiped downward to cut his jacket sleeve as he had done mine. Call it revenge.
I accidentally ripped through more than just his jacket. The razor also sliced through his flannel shirt, sinking into the top of his forearm. Thank goodness his arm wasn’t twisted another way. Still, the blood was frightening to us both. More frightening was how the thick layers of skin, and probably muscle, spread open. I apologized profusely as I applied whatever I could find from our medicine cabinet. He later got medical attention but the resulting scar was long, wide and red.
After that, I was a marked man.
He threatened me constantly. Often he cited the three choices he was offering: Vandalize my parents’ house, kick the shit out of me or kill me.
One spring night he tore out all of my parents flowers up front so the taunt was altered to, “Vandalize my parents’ house AGAIN!”
He was much bigger than I and seemed pretty unstable. I did not want to take any of the choices he offered but our paths crossed too often to avoid him. We had classes together. I went to my parents for help. Dad told me that unfortunately, I would probably have to have it out with him.
His pep talk involved things about what’s in my blood, my roots, the bigger they come the harder they fall, and finished with, “Don’t tangle at school, though, if you can help it.”
Well, I sure didn’t sleep that night. I knew I could fight. I had done plenty of it to defend myself in the past. I only started one fight in my life and lost. Dad had no sympathy for that. He said I got what I deserved. Never start a fight – but always finish. The next day was finishing day.
After a science test, we had free time to just socialize about the classroom before the “tone” went off to change classes. I was with my friend, Steve, near one corner in the back of the room.
My nemesis calmly and confidently walked between us, sat on one of the long black lab tables stretching across the entire back of the room and said, “So Satullo, did you decide? What’s it going to be …” and he rattled off the three choices I had.
As my nemesis remained sitting on the table, he looked at me and repeated my choices. So, I made my choice with an uppercut to his chin. He rolled backward over the table and I leaped it, following punch after punch into the side of his head. Every blow knocked him back and I followed, all the way across the back of the room until a massive body flung me to the side and my nemesis ran from the room. The teacher who separated us wielded around and gave me a look that could kill. The air was thick with testosterone as we locked eyes.
The moment was interrupted by several students who had followed my nemesis to the bathroom, “I think you broke his jaw.” …“I think you broke his nose.” …“You’re in deep shit, Satullo.”
All of us still in the classroom were directed by the teacher to get cleaning supplies and as a class, we scrubbed the back wall which looked like a B-movie blood bath with spray patterns marking every blow I delivered.
Later, my nemesis and I sat in the vice-principal’s office. The vice-principal kept silent as he read the report given to him. Occasionally, he’d look up and then look down again to be sure he knew who was who.
“Let me get this straight, YOU beat up HIM?”
We were made to call our parents to get picked up from school immediately to begin our suspensions. I was standing next to the vice-principal at his desk when he handed me the phone to talk to my mom.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you win?”
I was too embarrassed to answer.
She kept repeating the question. Her voice could be heard across the room through the phone receiver.
Eventually I whispered, “Yes.”
Happiness and relief erupted through the phone receiver.
I handed the phone back to the vice-principal and sank low into a chair.
Rumors circulated going into summer that it wasn’t over. Supposedly, my nemesis had something to carry out choice number three if our paths crossed.
I’m Not Drunk!
A few doors down, an older high school friend invited me over along with others. I knew there would be beer there.
The friend stepped out and came back in the side door with two cases over his head. His smile was as wide as the room. Everyone roared. One case slipped and crashed to the floor. So it was set just outside the sliding doors as we gathered around a table with a glass and quarter for a drinking game.
It was the first time I ever drank alcohol. After a while, I thought I must have some sort of superman endurance because I felt no effect, but I did have to pee.
In the bathroom, I stared at myself in the mirror, somewhat judgmental, somewhat as hypnotist and said out loud to my reflection, “You are not drunk. You are not drunk. You are not drunk.”
When I returned, I felt like I was walking on
the deck of a ship at sea. Like a sailor, I continued to toss back beer like it was the last night of leave. I also made return trips to the bathroom to pee. Eventually, even I knew I was kidding the man in the mirror.
Walking home, my arms seemed to go up and down at supersonic speed with every step. A car drove by. Although the speed limit was only 25 MPH, I only saw trailing lights.
It was Saturday night so my parents were still up watching a movie in the family room when I entered through the kitchen.
“I’m going straight to bed. Goodnight,” I called to them.
Here I Thought I Was Normal: Micro Memoirs of Mischief Page 7