All of this transpired at light-speed.
The next thing I knew, we were standing in the garage. My mom was in her robe. We hurriedly lifted a massive aluminum extension ladder off the wall and somewhat sprinted – in a wiggly fast walk – to the front of the house. My window overlooked a peak over the front door. On the other side of the front door was my parents’ bedroom.
When the aluminum ladder connected with the aluminum gutter on the peak, Mom and I froze and listened for Dad’s voice.
Nothing.
“Go-go-go…” Mom hurried me up the ladder.
Halfway up, she yelled in that loud whisper-voice, “Police car!”
I was almost there when I stopped, looked over my shoulder and sure enough, a patrol car was slowly coming down the street, right in the direction of our house.
No doubt we looked like burglars!
My mom ducked into the shrubs. I tried not to laugh out loud.
The police car moved so slowly it was painful. How he did not see me on a big extension ladder scaling the front of my house, glimmering in the street light I’ll never know.
I popped out my screen, rolled silently into my room and found a long ash leading to a burned out butt, leaving a heat stain on my desktop.
After all was clear, I chain smoked my nerves back to normal …outside!
Gore Orphanage
We moved a temporary “bridge out” sign so we could drive our car across. Clearly, the bridge was not out, but we were, for a good time.
We had driven well across rural Lorain County, a route so many teens have come to know. Mike and Bobby had the munchies. We pulled off at a rickety old roadside store and they went inside.
“Look, is that someone leaning out of the window above the store?” asked one of the girls in the backseat.
I rolled the window down.
“Do-o-o-on’t go-o,” the stranger lobbed down to us.
We looked at each other inside the car. When we looked back up, the stranger in the window was gone.
“What the hell was that?” asked one of the girls sitting behind me.
Surely it was just some guy having fun with us.
Mike and Bobby jumped back in the car. They didn’t believe a word out of our mouths about the stranger in the window.
Eventually, we arrived at a desolate country road which led down a steep, narrow hill. We noticed but ignored the “no trespassing” signs riddled with bullet holes. Near the bottom of the hill there was a turn-off to the left that veered so sharply it was difficult to see. This offshoot was even steeper and narrower and led to blackness. Our other option was to continue on the main route and ascend up the other side.
We chose blackness.
With windows rolled down on a crisp night, we listened as we puttered up to “heartbeat bridge.”
“Kill the engine!”
We listened. Then, we got out and leaned against the metal bridge.
“I heard it.”
“Me too.”
“I didn’t hear shit.”
The legend was that long ago, there was an orphanage that burned to the ground taking with it dozens of kids. If you listened closely, you could hear their faint cries echoing through the valley. Oh, and if you turned your car off on heartbeat bridge, it wouldn’t restart until you pushed it off. So, we intentionally left it out of gear to spook the girls. They even gave it a try before we pushed it to the other side. Wouldn’t you know it, it started right up. You could probably catch us winking and smirking at each other on the sly if you were looking in the rear-view mirror.
We continued down the all but forgotten road, winding around a bend one way and then back another before pulling over to park.
“They say the foundation of the orphanage is that way,” Mike said, pointing a flashlight in the direction of the trailhead, where woods met an open field.
Before going there, we ventured up the road on foot. There was a lonely house at the end of a long wooded driveway.
“Holy crap! Someone lives down here!”
Uphill, around a bend, the road was barricaded. We went back to the car.
“Oh no, cops!”
“Those aren’t cops, they’re teenagers.”
And they led us to the foundation. At the tree line was a lone pillar. Large graffiti warned, “You are now entering Hell.”
We sat on the remaining foundation blocks and befriended the new carload of strangers. They decided to leave before us but we weren’t far behind.
As they drove away, I went for some kicks. I threw my flashlight as hard as I could, end over end, high over their windshield, freaking them out. They sped off. Pleased with myself, I ran, laughing, to pick up my flashlight. Within minutes, it died. Worse, unbeknownst to me, my car keys bounced out of my unzipped jacket pocket.
We knew we were up shit creek without a paddle after our failed attempts to search for the lost keys. The other flashlight went dead. So, Mike and I left Bobby with the girls and went to the old house to ask for batteries or a flashlight. It was pretty late at night.
A freak rain shower drove down upon us forcing us to return to the car. Everyone bitched up a storm.
“Shut-up!”
“What the …”
We were all staring out of the back window at an old-looking pickup truck pulling off the road near our car.
“Get down.”
Peeking over the back seat, we all witnessed a man jump from the truck. He was carrying something long. He let three dogs out the passenger door and they all ran into the field together and out of our sight.
“What do we do?”
POP!
“What the hell was that?”
“Was that a gunshot?”
“Here he comes!”
The man emerged with two dogs, hopped in his truck and motored away.
When we finally peeled ourselves from the floor mats, the rain had stopped. It was past midnight. We were stranded …far from home.
Amazingly, another vehicle appeared. No, it was two cars carrying more teenagers. They were locals. One agreed to drive me back to his parents’ house so I could call my mom. She would have to come out with a spare key.
“Now, listen carefully, Mom. At that point, you’ll have to get out and move a sign that says bridge out but don’t worry, you can cross. Ignore the no trespassing signs. Go down the road that looks like a car should not go down. It gets really steep and narrow …”
It was close to dawn when we got home. But it would be a long time before any of us saw the light of day again.
Is this Mahogany?
There was a chunk of metal lodged in my eyeball. Fortunately it was in the white, barely! Nonetheless, you could see it and it hurt.
It must have happened in metal shop. I thought it was just a bug until I got home and looked in the mirror. I called my mom at work and she made a doctor’s appointment for me. The problem was I had to drive to Cleveland. Mom told me to drive to my grandma and grandpa’s house and they would give me more detailed directions to the doctor’s office from there.
When I got there, Grandma took one look at my eye and said, “You can’t drive like that.”
She called out to Grandpa, “Cliff, you take him.”
My grandpa hated doctors and despised hospitals. Once, I heard a story about how he walked home in a hospital gown. The chances of him agreeing to take me were slim and …”
“Sure!” he said.
I told him he could wait in the waiting room but he insisted on going in with me. He was in a chair and I was on the examination table.
The nurse came in and took my temperature.
“Take mine too,” my grandpa said.
I looked at the nurse, she at Grandpa and he nodded to do it, with puppy dog eyes, so she did. I got my blood pressure tested, Grandpa got his tested and so on and so forth. After each test, he asked how he did. Not how I did but how he did.
The nurse would smile and say, “Ju-u-ust fine.”
Grandpa l
ooked pleased with his free checkup.
The nurse left for a while and then came back with the doctor. My grandpa was opening and closing the door, examining it.
“Is this mahogany?” he asked the doctor.
The doctor looked dumbfounded.
“That’s good stuff. Nice solid door,” Grandpa kept examining it while the doctor examined me.
The doctor and nurse said they had never removed a piece of metal that large from any eye without surgery. They began to explain the risks.
Grandpa walked over, edged past the doctor and looked at my eye.
“Why I see no reason we can’t just take it out here and be done with it.” Grandpa said that, not the doctor.
Low and behold the doctor agreed.
I about shit myself.
Nightmare on Grove Street
It was very late when I came home so I did as I always did after a night out; I entered the house extra quietly so as not to wake my parents.
I had some serious munchies so I opened the refrigerator door, slowly, so nobody could hear the rubber seal peel apart. Then, I opened and closed the cupboard, softly, so I wouldn’t make as much as a peep. The real trick was pouring a big bowl of cereal without the thunderous sound of it hitting the bottom of the bowl. I broke its fall with fingers spread wide on my hand – hardly a rustle. I knew where the creaky floor boards were so I walked the edge of the kitchen into the dining room. I sat cautiously so the swivel seat didn’t squeak when I turned and melted into it.
The dining room overlooked the sunken family room. Strange, the television was still on. I ate my cereal slowly, trying not to clank the spoon against the sides of the bowl. I figured someone accidentally left the TV on so, lucky for me, I had entertainment while I enjoyed my late night binge. I quickly became engrossed in the movie – the original Nightmare on Elm Street.
The plot thickened and the tension built. My eyes were glued to the screen. So much so, I bumped my cheeks a few times with a spoon full of heaven as I fumbled for my open mouth. I chewed slowly, creating a mush before I swallowed so the amplified crunching in my ears didn’t interfere with hearing the TV.
Something was definitely going to happen soon! There I was, all alone, enjoying my cereal and an intense horror flick for the times. Just as Freddy Krueger, the disfigured serial killer who used a gloved hand with long finger-razors to kill his victims, was about to kill again, the entire family room burst with blood-curdling, girlish screams. It was so sudden and shocking I swung from the chair, took one step to run and met the wall. The next thing I remembered was being spread eagle on my back, looking up, wondering why my face hurt so bad.
From this vantage point, I saw down the two steps between the couch and chair. The floor of the family room was covered with about a dozen 13-year-old girls in sleeping bags. I tried to process the scene. My sister was having a slumber party. Gaining my senses, I was about to slink away, hopefully unnoticed. That’s when a silhouette emerged from darkness. Before I could do anything, the shadowy figure of a girl tripped over me.
I panicked and almost jumped through my skin, like having an out of body experience – clearly she experienced the same fright. She shrieked and fell back into the family room, knocking down who-knows-what and startling every girl in the room. I wanted to flee as quickly as I could but I was not that fast in getting up. Apparently my knee wasn’t working. It felt like the cap was cracked, it hurt so badly, no doubt from my earlier collision with the wall.
Everyone’s attention turned toward the dining room. I slowly stood up in the shadows of the dull light emanating from the television screen. I could feel a wall of terror coming from the girls. As I darted towards the doorway to the kitchen, I miscalculated and went sprawling again. The thud was followed by a moment of silence. I quickly jumped back to my feet and this time found the opening and fled out of their sight.
As I clumsily navigated through the kitchen to run upstairs, I heard frantic voices, “What was that? …Who was that? …I want out of here! …Turn off the TV! …Linda, was that your brother?”
Skinny Dipping Dips
Growing up a stone’s throw from Lake Erie provided many good times.
Common watery pastimes included fishing, although I never really enjoyed it as much as my family and friends. What I did enjoy was being a bum all summer long at Huntington Beach. We’d throw Frisbee, hit on girls, play Hacky Sack and dive for footballs that we lobbed into waves. When the waves got really big, it was pure joy to flip your entire body haphazardly into them. Staying up all night and swimming at sunrise was right up there, too.
Huntington closed at night but we’d park and walk there. I used to enjoy taking girls to sit out on the roof of a storage shack on the beach. If you got on the other side of the railing, it was a short jump to the shingles. We’d lie back on the lake side under the stars, listening to the soft rippling waves, out of sight from foot patrols. We’d have to be quiet, which was always my plan anyway.
Another favorite pastime was floating away the hours on old inner tubes. They weren’t store bought. They usually came, used, from a grandparent’s garage. At least that’s where mine came from. My grandpa made his living retreading tires. Anyway, we’d ride bicycles to Veteran’s Memorial Park, one handed with old car tire inner tubes hung over our neck and a shoulder. They were big, black and usually had one spot that bulged so you could lean against it for more comfort. But you had to position away from that damn valve. Another nuisance was flipping the black rubber inner tube every so often when the sun made it too hot to touch. Nothing was better than this except for skinny dipping with girls, but that rarely happened. In fact, that was about as rare as catching a fish from the shore in January …unless you were behind the power plant.
One hot summer night, Pete and I were sitting on the embankment of the old cemetery facing Lake Erie next to what we called the boat club. We were just kicked back, enjoying the cool breeze and mist coming from the water, trying to bend each other’s brain with conversation we thought was trippy. It was a great way to enjoy a summer night in Avon Lake. Only one thing could top it and they appeared from behind us, giggling.
So we sat with two girls, one was from out of town, visiting the other. That was always a good thing because they were looking for thrills to remember the visit. We were thrill seekers, so they happened upon the right guys.
After about a half an hour of warming them up with chatter and laughter, they beat us to the punch.
We couldn’t believe our own ears when they said, nearly in tandem, “Do you want to go skinny dipping?”
We were half unclothed, walking to the break wall pier before they even finished their sentences.
“Hell yah, let’s go,” we said, pausing to look back.
“You first and then we’ll come,” said the townie.
“Shy?” we laughed.
“A little. This is our first time so you go, then we’ll come. Turn the other way when you get in the water and count to 10 out loud and we’ll be there,” the townie insisted.
There were no more questions from us – just counting.
When we got to 10, they weren’t with us. We looked up the shore trying to see them but they weren’t there. We looked at each other and back up the shore again, this time calling out.
There was no answer.
“What the …?”
We got out, buck naked, and looked for the last garments we had cast aside but they were gone.
“Ahhh, hell noooo…!”
It hit us. We’d been had! They stole our clothes.
We left coolness in the lake and pleaded to the night air for our clothes back. Our requests went unanswered. By this time, we were at our original spot and continued to plead with the night. Eventually, our pleas turned to realization and desperation. What the heck were we to do? We didn’t drive or ride here. We walked at least a mile.
“Dude, what are we going to do?” Pete asked.
The humor of our predicament didn’t e
scape me so I had to laugh, albeit an uneasy laugh.
“We’re screwed!” I said.
There was no way we could even attempt crossing Lake Road buck naked without being noticed. That’s when we heard a giggle from the cemetery. We went to investigate and plea some more. Pete’s voice grew in anger as he now knew they were listening.
So, there we were, playing a naked game of cat and mouse, running around a cemetery trying to free at least some shorts from these evil temptresses.
Here I Thought I Was Normal: Micro Memoirs of Mischief Page 9