by Mike Stangle
But before that progress? He didn’t always like me.
Have you guys ever seen that horror movie called The Purge? Me neither. No way. No fucking way. I was too scared. I hate scary movies, and it’s not because I’m a wimp. I am a wimp, but that’s not why. Spiders scare me, just like anyone else. I’ll admit that. Fuck spiders. Heights? You heard it here first. I’m six feet four and afraid of heights. But being wimpy isn’t why I hate scary movies. It’s because I’m a fucking human. Why would I see a scary movie and choose to be terrified for two hours of my life? Who volunteers for that? What is the matter with you all? Fuck that. Isn’t watching a scary movie just the emotional version of cutting yourself? And you think I’m the sicko?
I do know what The Purge is about, though. The idea is pretty wild. In a futuristic society, once a year for twenty-four hours, any and all crime is legalized. There are no laws whatsoever. The premise is that human beings are evil and will commit crimes and do bad deeds, because it’s inherently in their nature. The Purge is their opportunity to get it out of their systems. Three hundred sixty-four perfectly peaceful days are worth one bad day. I actually like the idea. I think I’d just take a bunch of fun hallucinogenic drugs and reenact that scene from the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, where the Joker and his beret-wearing goons break in and gas the entire museum, blast a boom box over their shoulders with Prince playing, and spray-paint priceless artifacts. I could do that for Purge Day Every. Fucking. Year.
So why am I talking about The Purge so much? Because long before the movie came out, my old man and I were basically maintaining our shred of a functional family relationship by getting our deep-seated issues out of our systems in an annual father-son, Purge-like battle. One fight a year, so the other 364 days would be peaceful.
SPOILER ALERT: Since starting this tradition I am 0-13. Zero wins, thirteen losses. We don’t even need to do it anymore to get along; it’s just that I can’t go out without at least one victory. Every year that goes by, he gets older. He is sixty-two now! He is old as shit. I’m not retiring. Not now. He has plantar fasciitis, for Christ’s sake! I’m due, God damn it.
Before you get all John Kreese1 on me, laughing at my 0-13 record, you should know a little bit of background about my old man. John Thomas Stangle Jr. is the oldest of nine wild kids, a record-holding runner who could do a mile in under four minutes, who briefly played hoops at Syracuse, and who went on to be a three-time judo gold medalist in the Empire State Games. Again, that’s judo (a hybrid of martial arts and dick-swinging swagger). He always used to quote his old sensei in this really unintentionally racist Oriental sort of accent, “No much juuuudo, but you stwoooong rike bearcat!”
That old man is tough as nails. He’s had a mustache for as long as I’ve known him. He actually had a full-on lumberjack beard through his late twenties. But when our older brother, Sean, threw up all over it when he was little, JT did some damage control with a first-generation Philips Norelco and came out with the mustache.
Shall I go on? I once saw him put a camel in a headlock, because he considers spitting rude. It’s rumored he was mistaken for Tupac a week before Tupac’s death and got shot up while running errands. Not only did he not succumb from his wounds, he also kept it a secret so the real hit on Tupac would go off unspoiled, all because he doesn’t approve of rap. Okay, those last two are a stretch, but here’s a nugget of truth: he once bit a dog in the leg because the dog bit him first. It happened when he was twenty-seven and in line at McDonald’s. Apparently there was a dog in McDonald’s? He never explains that part. What he will explain is how the “little squirt” of a dog bit him in the ankle, so he responded by dropping to his knees, grabbing the dog’s hind leg, and biting it like a caveman. What makes this story even better? The dog belonged to the lady he was working for at the time. I think she was actually buying him lunch, because he was building her an in-ground swimming pool. He didn’t even get fired. The dog got put in time-out, and JT went back to her house and built the shit out of that pool. It’s unknown if the dog survived the leg bite.
• • •
When you’re 0-13, you have to look at your record differently than you would if you had squeezed out one or two wins. If I were 2-11, I could go into every year’s fight trying to remember what I did right for those two victories. I’d have something to work from. There are no two victories. There isn’t even one. I’m not on the board. Instead, I look at my near victories versus my most humiliating defeats. This strategy has allowed me to compile a highlight reel. There are a few Purges I can vividly remember, because:
1. I was not severely concussed afterward, and
2. For at least a slight moment during the bout, I had a fucking chance to win.
These were the deadliest Purges.
Purge III—Pool-side Choke-Out.
I was in eighth grade for Purge III and really coming into my own shitheadedness. All my buddies were older guys. They were well past eighth grade, already causing a ruckus in high school, and I wanted a taste! I had access to new chicks, baggy jeans, Smash Mouth CDs, and a completely unjustified chip on my shoulder so big it cast a shadow over my head. My sister, Kristen, was already in high school. She was only a sophomore but dominated the Shaker High School swim scene, because she is basically part dolphin. JT loved watching her swim meets. I never understood the draw or why he made me watch every single one with him. Maybe he had a thing for one pieces? But I was there, bored within minutes and looking for a distraction. Not him, though. He would sit and watch every swim meet from start to finish. Kudos, Dad. We’re wired quite differently, you and I. Toward the end of Kristen’s swim season, I was getting tired of sitting around doing nothing while all of my buddies were running around doing something that was a combination of stupid, illegal, dangerous, and involving stolen lacrosse equipment. I had the itch. I was sniffing around for some excitement.
On the day of Purge III, JT and I were off to a bad start. He was pissed at me because he found three bags of empty Busch Light cans in our tree house in the yard and was unfairly pinning the blame squarely on me. His anger and my refusal to accept responsibility (coupled with my horrible poker face) were putting us at odds. What started at a whisper quickly escalated to a shouting match. And, after I ended one of my comebacks by addressing my dad as “pal,” it became a full-on pushing match. Don’t ever call your dad “pal” in an argument. We were instantly wrestling outside my sister’s high school swim meet. I don’t remember much of it, because he choked me out right away. What a spectacle! We were two giant gladiators doing their worst to one another. An old-fashioned duel! Except most duels don’t end with the loser waking up in the back of the winner’s van as the winner is driving it home and laughing his ass off. He won by putting me in a sleeper hold. Do you know why they call it a sleeper hold? Because it puts you to fucking sleep. How did no one object to this? A dad chokes out his son, throws him over his shoulder, and walks out of a public high school in the middle of the afternoon . . . and no one says a thing? Times have certainly changed.
Purge III was the Purge that gave me my first gulp of false confidence. I must have thought I had a chance at some point, probably when my dad was catching his breath from laughing so hard, when I thought I had figured out what it would take to beat him. I was all skin and bones but no meat. I was a boy, not a man. I had the frame, I just needed to grow into it. Just needed to get a little bigger, a little faster, a little stronger. That theory would eventually be proved utterly false in Purge VI—Can a Dog Have His Day? But it was my strategy for the time. Looking back now, I can’t recall how I ever believed in my body that much. While writing this very chapter, I took a break to crack my back over the stool at my desk, lost my balance, and fell backward directly onto my head. Yeah, Dave, this body will get you there.
Purge IV—The Mistake in the Lake
After several Purges it began to seem less important to strategize for victory and more important to strategize for how to avoid total humi
liation. Every summer, my family went to the same cabin on Brant Lake up in the Adirondacks. We didn’t own the place; it belonged to my mom’s mentor when she was an up-and-coming court reporter in the 1970s. The environment nowadays is pretty relaxed, but when we were teenagers, it was just fucking wild. The only thing I can compare it to is the scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when Eddie Valiant pulls through the tunnel into Toon Town and everyone is going bonkers. My brothers and I all had our girlfriends there, we were sneaking booze at every opportunity possible, the entire camp always smelled like grass, despite all of us swearing we didn’t even know what grass smelled like. It was mayhem, and I was the leader. Not old enough to drink with the older kids, too old to do stupid kids’ activities. I was stuck in the middle and looking for TROUBLE. At the other end of this was JT. All he wanted to do was relax. It was the only vacation he took all year. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even want us there, but to have us there and causing trouble and stealing his booze? Purge IV was on!
This time, it started before I even knew it. We were both standing about knee-deep in the lake water, probably ten feet offshore. It was hot as shit; otherwise he never goes in the water, which might be why he has only owned one pair of swim trunks in the past ten years. My dad was half in the bag. It had been over ninety degrees that day, so he was up to about eleven Busch heavies to counter the heat. It’s a sound strategy. What he didn’t know was that shithead Dave filled a 7 Up bottle with his gin when he wasn’t looking and had quietly and painfully (fucking gin!?) been slurping it all afternoon. The property was big, but not big enough for the two of us. Soon we found each other in front of the lake and both attempted to have a civil conversation. A wisecrack turned into an exchange, an exchange turned into some Jerry Springer–style face yelling, and at the first smell of blood, the heat was on.
I was fourteen years old, about six feet one, and skinny as a rail. I had speed on him, but not much strength. I couldn’t let him exploit how much stronger than me he was. My only hope for survival was to avoid being put into a sleeper hold. I was immediately put into a sleeper hold. Son of a bitch! It’s downright pathetic how helpless someone is while in a sleeper hold. There is nothing you can do. My dad rotated my body toward the shore to make sure everyone who had been watching the fight was truly paying attention. Mike claims that he and my father met eyes, and in that exact moment, eleven-year-old Mike promised himself he would never participate in a Purge. Dad held me there and did nothing for a minute, just to make sure that anyone building a sand castle, having a margarita, taking a nap, or reading a book was now watching him. Think Russell Crowe in Gladiator, “Give the people what they want!” As soon as he had the camp’s full attention, he slowly began walking backward into the lake, deeper and deeper, taking me with him each step of the way. I felt like a shark had swum into shallow waters, latched on to my leg, and was dragging me out to sea. He walked me backward until we could both barely touch the lake floor. I have no idea how he held on to me with such little footing. Why was I so much more buoyant than he was? Is his inexplicably rock-hard potbelly made of cement? Once he got me into deep waters, he told me to “take a big ol’ breath, Davie boy” and immediately plunged my head underwater. I had about 0.3 seconds to gasp for any oxygen at all before my head was buried in the sand that was at my feet just seconds ago. I was struggling so much to avoid drowning that I didn’t realize what he was doing until I came up out of the water choking and swinging. My swings connected with nothing but air.
When I wiped the water out of my eyes, my dad was already ten feet toward shore, calmly walking out of the water. My swim trunks were draped over his shoulder like a towel after a workout. I was ass-naked thirty feet from shore, choking up lake water and rubbing sand out of my eyes. My friends, family, and high school girlfriend were all watching. I can remember trying to decide if I should keep fighting or if I should look for a sign that the Purge was over. When my dad walked out of the water, he whipped my trunks off his shoulder and no-look threw them at my older brother, who was sitting on a lawn chair playing Game Boy. My dad walked five more feet onto the beach, grabbed my mom around the waist, kissed her, and said, “Time for happy hour?” He never even bothered to look back over his shoulder. Purge IV was over; 0-4.
Purge VI—Can a Dog Have His Day?
At least once in his career, even the biggest of all losers has a shot. Even Willy Loman made a sale at some point, right? I can remember the specific Purge that I really believed I had a shot at winning. It was the middle of my career, and I couldn’t have positioned myself better. I was coming up on my first summer after my freshman year at Butler University in Indianapolis. Months earlier, I had called my dad to tell him that playing Division 1 lacrosse really stunk, and I didn’t want to do it anymore. Did I mention that my place on that lacrosse team was arguably the only thing that pleased my dad during our thirteen-year “friction period”? He had all the gear, the mugs, the sweatshirts, the magnets. He traveled unlimited miles to watch me play, scrimmage, practice, anything. I could have been beating off in a public restroom, but if I had on lacrosse gear and did it with a mix of athletic style and aggression, he’d cheer me on. The only problem was that existence at Butler University was zero percent fun. Our freshman lacrosse class’s average GPA our first semester (sixteen kids) was a 1.82. A 1-point-fucking-82! And that was the average, meaning eight were under that! We were a pretty stressed group. As a side note, eleven of those sixteen eventually transferred out to other schools. I was just an eighteen-year-old kid with an appetite for fun, God damn it. We established a resistance. Every Thursday, Friday, and most Saturdays, we would buy a Weekender (a thirty-pack; credit: Mousey Lynch, RIP), sit three across in the Ross Hall men’s bathroom with our pants around our ankles, and drink. You’re reading this correctly. We had to act like we were taking a shit in order to sneak booze. Bottom line: Butler was miserable and getting worse. It was time to call home and break the news that I needed to transfer. My dad’s disappointment was a real kick to the dick that I didn’t need.
The one nice thing was I did come home from Butler with the body of a Greek fucking god. It was miserable to have to get up at 5 a.m. and sprint every morning. It was miserable to have to lift weights twice a day six days a week. It was miserable to drink never and exercise always. In general, being healthy is downright miserable. I guess it wasn’t that miserable to be in incredible shape, though. I had the body of Michael Phelps but the bravado of Ryan Lochte. It was a deadly combination, and I couldn’t wait for that year’s Purge. If I ever stood a chance, this was it. By the end of my second semester, I had made a nice rebound with my grades and thought that might have started off my summer in the right place with JT. A “nice rebound” was a relative term, as JT would point out, because it would have been tough for me to fall off the floor. Good point, JT. Doesn’t mean we can’t get along this summer, right? Oh, Dad, did I mention I’m miserable at Butler and I’m not going back? Where am I going? To the State University of New York at Geneseo—the college no one has heard of, unless you’re a teacher or a farmer, or both. Why am I transferring there? Because the gal to guy ratio is 6:1 and all people do there is rage. That’s why I’m going.
I could see why he wasn’t happy with my life choice. That I concealed my true, degenerate interior with a lacrosse-playing persona was just about the only thing my dad liked about me at the time. It was no wonder we fought within literally minutes of me arriving home from Indiana that summer. The night before, I was fourteen hours into the seventeen-hour drive and decided to stop at a friend’s school for the night, before hitting the homestretch the next day. For a few very silly legal reasons that are somehow still an issue ten years later, I won’t get into just how I got arrested at my buddy’s school that night. But I will tell you that it involved Senator’s Club whiskey, and an alleged “all-you-can-eat” buffet at Ponderosa. That next day, somehow, someway, news of my arrest traveled back to Menands faster than I did. To this day, I don’t know how he knew, b
ut when I pulled into the driveway that next morning, JT was standing on the front lawn, hands on the hips of his cargo shorts. I was so fucked. I started heavy breathing. I got nervous. I felt like Luke Skywalker running around that swamp with Yoda’s balls on the back of his neck: Remember your training! I was jacked up—psychologically, yes, but also physically. This was my day!
I got out of the car and immediately started yelling. I don’t know what I was even yelling about. I just knew that if I yelled loud enough, I wouldn’t hear the things my father was yelling simultaneously. He apparently had the same exact strategy. We were standing face-to-face, screaming total nonsense. At one point, I think I might have even kicked dirt on his shoes. It didn’t take long for us to come to blows. No matter how strong I was then, how much I thought I was his physical match, I learned very quickly that with the sole exception of retard strength, nothing compares to old-man strength. He had me pinned within seconds. I think he’d still have me there with my face smushed into the grass on my front lawn had Denise not come outside screaming for it to end. It was over before it started, Mom.
I’ve battled my father over thirteen grueling Purges, through my entire adolescence, and lost every fucking time. When JT and I started our annual battle, I was fourteen. I was young and dumb, and (soon to be) full of cum. I thought I knew the way! When I finally got my shit together and retired? I was twenty-six. It took me until then to realize that maybe JT was onto something all along. Maybe I was the shithead.
* * *
1 Shame on you if you don’t know who John Kreese is. Uh, that bad guy from Karate Kid? I hope 90 percent of you just said “Oh yeah” and the other 10 percent of you just shut the fucking book. RIP, Mr. Miyagi, by the way.
The Hunt