The Wilderness Years - Young, Drunk, Stupid and Incredibly High - Part 1

Back in the good old days at Podunk U. i had a radio show for three years, it was from 9 to midnight or more correctly whenever my co-host and i felt like signing off and since there wasn't much to do in the town of  Podunk U. some of the best parties on wednesday night took place in the studio, i usually did my show stoned out of my gourd or blind drunk or both, preferably both but you know one or the other was fine, sober was not an option... the dope was smoked in the tiny bathroom and blown into the fan and the booze was drank stealthily in cups but really no one ever came up to the station, down below was the student union and sometimes when my co-host took over i'd roll down and play some pinball or wander the station and look at all the records that came in, being a college radio station we got a shit ton of records and it was the most infamous Hassler who one day pulled out a copy of the Pod while we were stoned silly, a vinyl copy no less, we put it on and it was if Boognish himself had shined a light down on us revealing the secret meaning of things, what things we didn't know but things nonetheless... and what does this have to do with this post? nothing really...

As are most college towns Podunk U. little hamlet was a haven for slumlords and scam artists all trying to take the money of the unsuspecting college crowd, of course by the time i had hit my last year i was damn near and expert in slumlords and since we were renting a prime apartment in the center of town at a good price we knew (we being me and 3 roommates) what the down side was, that being the dickheads who owned the place. It was located above the family clothing store, there was our place and two units next to us and if you crossed over a fire escape there were two more in the back, those were the nice ones and were almost exclusively rented to females cuz the Brooks family figured college girls wouldn't destroy the place, our fine dive had been handed down from class to class among the hardest partiers at the university, all of us knowing full well that the Brooks family was a raging pain in the ass, old money in a small town, on every board at the U. and with major pull with the Podunk fuzz and city hall, yet we stilled signed the lease, we being moi, the Hassler, the Poet and the good Doctor...

Now if we count the years this was during the Late Night Maudlin beginnings and i was pretty much adrift in the world, finishing up my classes and getting my degree so i could get on with things, hence by the second semester the good Doc had split (graduation) and me and the Zinch had usurped the town's local weed dealing legend as the guys who had all the smoke, see with the family finances all tied up in court the old man had told me i might need to find a job and i just sorta grinned and said yeah i'll look into it but he knew and i knew that there weren't many jobs for the student types at Podunk U., hence when the opportunity arose i sat down the Zinch, a short bespectacled maniac and started buying pounds and splitting them and wheeling to all the kids in need, it was a good way to keep myself high and put money in my pocket for shit like food and booze, mainly booze mind you, the food we mostly stole from the supermarket down the street, and before you knew it we were each getting our own and making enough coin to live pretty high on the old hog, he lived down the street from me so if one of us was at class it was an easy walk to the next ones place to score...

But let's get on with it now shall we? I had spent most of my spring break holed up in that apartment and drinking myself silly, there was also a bar down the street that i've written about that i spent a lot of time in, me being a ranking member of what the locals called the art crowd, but towards the end of break i packed up a few things and one of the girls i was seeing and headed home to spend a few days with the old man, it was around the day before i was due to go back that the blizzard of 93 hit and we ended up stuck for an extra day or two but that was alright, i was happy hanging with the old man and my temporary girl, my old man took a shine to her saying she was a pretty bright lass, see one day after drinking triple 7's or what amounts to pint glasses of 7&7's at the Literary Cafe in good old Tremont, that's the Tremont section of Cleveland and before it got all uppity and gentrified, at that time it was just starting and we always joked that Lincoln Park wasn't named after Abe but 77, as in 77 Lincoln, you could score pretty easy and the kids were hip back then, i had one of those all day fucking hangovers and the girl sat with my old man watching old movies and debating the universe and looking back it was probably a fine day for my dad, the girl seemed to think he was a righteous dude and i was like no shit he's my dad and knowing how my dad likes a fine pair of tits i'm sure he was a-ok himself... but back to the story now...

We finally got dug out and headed back to Podunk U., where i arrived about the same time as the Hassler and since we lived on a corner of Main St. anyone passing through town would see the lights and since the Hassler and i like drinking we started in immediately and then some people showed and then some more, nothing huge, but it was then as we sat in the kitchen doing bong hits that we noticed that the place had been painted, we then noticed that there was a box of shit tucked in the corner, not actual shit but plaster that had fell and remnants of drop clothes, paint brushes, fast food bags and the Hassler and i were like what the fuck? those cocksuckers came in our place without our permission when we weren't here? that shit don't fly, of course we knew that's how these people operated, at one point the old man Brooks showed up on a saturday morning unannounced about 10 minutes after a wake and bake and spent 20 minutes fretting about piles of laundry and burning incense, he didn't seem to understand that the place smelled like a Jamaican hash house he just doddered around mumbling his favorite words, fire hazard and eviction...

Well at this point the party had been rolling right along and the Hassler and i were like fuck these pricks and i proceeded to take a marker and write all kinds of derogatory things about our lovely landlords all over the freshly painted walls, the Hassler meanwhile wrote a little note and took the box down and plopped it down right in front of the doors to Brooks Clothing and left it, of course we drank more and smoked more and no one thought anything of it, i in a moment of clarity decided i better paint over what i had written on the walls and so me and a fine young lady started slapping paint all over the walls until you couldn't see it anymore only for me to take a close look and burst out laughing cuz the paint we used was a different color, not much different but a little more than slightly noticeable, of course were so proud of the handiwork we packed up more bongs and drank more malt liquor and at some point the Hassler left and people started leaving or passing out or in the case of the Poet and his slutty girlfriend, the bedroom, i of course kept right on going until i locked to the door and passed out only to be woken up an hour later by a pounding on the door, i wobbled over and opened it to see the Hassler well fucking wasted, he smiled and took a step in the door and passed out cold on the floor in his parka, work boots and hat...

Timmy Brooks was the heir to the Brooks kingdom, Timmy was more than a bit effeminate with a wife and kids and predilection for blowing men, of course in a backwoods town in Pennslytucky the last thing the heir to the kingdom wants is to be a known fag, of course everybody knew but it was a bit nudge nudge wink wink, except of course when he offered to blow a friend of ours after he threatened to evict him, no Timmy was not the toughest or meanest guy and when he saw that box outside his door with Hassler's elegant note saying stay the fuck out of our place you Assholes! it didn't go over to well, Timmy bounded up the steps and was prepared to let us have, well almost...

Meanwhile our heroes were just rousing themselves from a wasted slumber, i was walking around in my boxers and button down shirt smoking the remnants of cigarettes and doing the occasional bong hit, the Hassler was pulling himself up off the hallway floor and joining me and the Poet and his slutty girl were giggling and canoodling behind closed doors, that is of course when Timmy used his master key to try and entree but the genius that is El Kono had put the chain on, of course this elicited a scream from him to open the door and as i bounded over i could see he had the note in his hand and of course once again being 6'4 helps, i mean i wasn't the least bit afraid of Timmy but by the time i swung open the door he had taken a step back as i growled can i help you? now Timmy let loose with a diatribe how we should start packing our bags cuz we were outta here and i laid my best 1000 yard stare on him and said listen up asshole, you just fucked with the wrong crew cuz i'm pre-law (i wasn't)  and began to run down a list of tenant rights about notification of entry and the proper amount of time and how him and his old man were in violation of more than a few things as far as tenant rights went and the more i talked the more he squealed and behind me the Hassler just laughed and shouted obscenities at him and before you knew Timmy was getting a bit weepy, of course he tried to counter-attack with what his daddy had seen but the Hassler and I were like fucking pit bulls barely tethered to our chains, i think he knew that we'd like nothing more than to beat the shit out of him and as he stood in the hallway shaking he once again screamed to pack our bags and that's when the Hassler let slip the most evil sounding sentence i'd ever heard, "yeah i'll go pack my bags... and i'll leave a lit cigarette on the carpet when i leave..." at that point Timmy began to full on weep and as his voice cracked he screamed at us, "I'm calling the police..." to be cont.