(This Hoodoo originally ran on September 25, 2013)
Once again this week, I was struggling with an entertaining
yet embarrassing story with which to regale you people this week. I actually
wrote several, and those are sure to make an appearance at some point this
season or another. But as I wrote last week’s Hoodoo, I remembered another tale
in a similar vein that I need to recount to you all at this particular time.
Get it out of my system, if you will.
Now when I say this story is in the same vein, I mean it
involves a long-closed chapter of my life, the salad days of my youth during
which time the operating philosophy of OWB, Inc. was ”We Don’t Give A F.” I
was a good kid, a smart kid, and that’s exactly what made me dangerous. Nobody
expected the studious young man at the top of his class to engage in such shenanigans,
but it was a life I savored, an alternate reality into which I could dip my toe
without becoming filthy.
While many of my friends turned to harder poisons for their
jollies, I was content with the Bocephus S(tandard) O(perating) P(rocedure): Drink
a little, smoke a little, hit on a chick or two, play some guitar and fall
asleep. I was a student by day, thug at night. Did whatever I wanted to do
because I always thought I was smart enough to get away with it. I’m slightly
more intelligent than the average bear, or so I thought, so in my mind, surely
I’d be able to wiggle my way out of any type of consequence. Even if my tactics
failed, I could always go nuclear and play the “police family” or “unblemished
record” trump cards, though I had hoped it would never come to that.
Those of you who’ve followed my meanderings in this space
over the last two years have heard tales of my brother B-Rad. This story is
dedicated to him, as he went under the knife this week as part of treatment for
his life-threatening (or at least life-shortening) condition, and I thought it
would be an appropriate time to drop this story on y’all. Especially in light of
the fact that it, like last week’s, is another story about “the dope,” as I
have always been one for theme-based literature (pronounced like my middle
school librarian…”litter-a-toor).
So B-Rad was my Dark Side. Where I was guarded in my tomfoolery,
he let his ever-loving freak flag fly. Where I was careful and paid attention
to detail, he was a dadgum bull dozer in a Swarovsky boutique. I spoke softly and carried a big stick; he’d
yell you down and beat you with said big stick. We are two halves of the same
whole, but in practice, we couldn’t be more different. Where I gave FTW lip-service,
he brandished it loudly and dared anyone to make something of it. Such was the
dissonance between us, as I loved him as a brother should, but I’ll be damned
if I was going down the same stupid road he seemed to want to travel.
That said, we spent a lot of time together, having shared a
lot of tragedy in our early lives. After my dad bucked out, we were
inseparable, and I think that dynamic only served to feed our yinyang
symbiosis. As we grew older, our pursuits once again joined. There was a point when
all either of us wanted to do was party and fight, and it was upon that common
ground that we pitched our tent.
One evening, we had the pleasure of entertaining an out of
town cousin. Let’s just call him “B-Ry.” Son of a professor, A student,
favorite grandchild of my Grandma-ma (the Heisman one). Now B-Ry was the
gotdang White Knight of my mama’s side of the family. He was an only child of
the only boy, my mother’s brother’s son.
Now he was a cool cat, really laid
back. He liked good music, didn’t mind a col’beer, and always had a ton of guns
as a result of the passing of his other grandfather, a retired Army Colonel
(and a great man in his own right). While he wasn’t a stick in the mud, he was
a boy out of Statesboro, GA, unfamiliar with the hooliganism and black magic
tendencies of his bayou based kinfolk. When we found out B-Ry was in town, we
invited him to tag along for nightly our carousing, and as expected, facing the
purgatory of a night spent looking at family photos with his grandmothers, he opted
for the Hell Ride with his badass cousins. He was privileged and white-bread to
a degree, and would have never done anything to get in trouble. I, in
retrospect, don’t know why he didn’t opt for the photo session with Grandma-ma.
Moving on…
Let me take a moment to explain riding with B-Rad to
somewhere benign, let’s say the grocery store. Backing out of the driveway was
comfortable, so long as you were a fan of Mystikal played at high-volume. But
once pointed in the proper forward direction, the ride would de-evolve into
something akin to being strapped to the nose of a Tomahawk cruise missile
piloted by a Ketamine-addled Dr. Gonzo…it was an experience that, if it did not
kill you, would make you pray for the sweet release of death.He was, quite
literally, Hell on wheels. B-Rad wrecked his first car within two weeks of
getting his license…and he didn’t stop for about 10 years afterwards. Smashed
everything unfortunate enough to find itself in his path. Brick mailboxes,
smashed…fellow motorists’ vehicles, smashed…roadside flora, you guessed it,
smashed. He was like the Incredible Hulk of the Alabama Department of Motor
Vehicles, a nightmare to all who would find themselves in front of his
windshield. As further proof, I will
submit only this evidence: at the age of 30, B-Rad had some 29 documented and
undocumented motor vehicle accidents of varying degrees of severity. Thank God
Alabama doesn’t have a points system, because he would have broken it.
Back to our tale…we had no particular place to go that night,
and that, my friends, is the way many a Southern man’s tale of debauchery
begins. Mobile was dead in mid-summer. You could go to the parking lot, but
that’d mean we’d get in a fight, and B-Ry wasn’t much of a fighter. We could go
hang out at the mall, but (see above explanation).
At this time, my brother was
driving one of the sweetest cars he ever had in his repertoire. So we resigned
ourselves to do a little cruising in B-Rad’s hot rod du jour: a ’78 Camaro LT
with a grafted-in 350 four-bolt main. This thing was legendary, like the
Christine of our family line. It was big and bad, just like us: gold with brown
interior, a straight-up hustler of a car. B-Rad had purchased it from my Uncle
Bartimus, a mechanic at the city garage who spent his career working on Harley
Davidsons in the MPD motor pool. His version of the Camaro’s creation myth was
as follows: He had the Camaro with its stock engine, but wanted more power. One
day, in the city yard, he saw what appeared to be an engine sitting on the
scrap heap, ready to be smelted down for scrap. Upon further examination, he
discovered it was the afore-mentioned sexy 350, pulled from what he described
only as “a cherry picker,” which I assume meant the bucket trucks the city used
to change street light bulbs. Being a deft mechanic, he dragged the engine home
and set about installing it beneath the hood of the Camaro, a mad Frankenstein
of raw horsepower. When done, this shining example of backyard mechanicship was
one…bad…mutha (Hush yo mouth.) I had personally been in the car when it topped
130 on Airport Blvd in about a half mile, and I don’t think my uncle had even given
it full-throttle. I remembered being pinned in the seat by the invisible hand
of overwhelming torque, which is a good indicator that this was one bad ass
mo-sheen.
That said, there is no reason for me to believe that some
combination of bovine spongiform encephalitis and the dropsy led Uncle Bartimus
to pass this 3000 pound guided missile to my reckless-a$$ brother, of all
people. It would be like giving Charlie Manson keys to the asylum, a vat of LSD,
and all the swastika stencils he could tote. B-Rad flat wore that thing out.
You always knew when he was coming or going, even if you never saw anything but
a gold flash, you always heard him. I was convinced that my uncle had sold
B-Rad the fanciest motorized casket the world had ever seen, but he and that
car became one, nonetheless. B-Rad had a tendency to smoke the tires down on
every start, to some degree or another. This car just had so much horsepower,
it was hard not to. But my brother relished in it.
Flash forward to our night out with B-Ry. We tooled around a
little, rolling J’s and drankin’ beer while we made “the circuit.” Stupid kid
stuff, but we thought we were kings of the M-O-B, too young and stupid and
lacking the context to know any different. We also had several pistols in the
car, as after being robbed at gunpoint at 17, I’ve not gone a day in my life
unstrapped. At the time, however, I did not have a concealed carry permit, and
no one else in the car was above legal age to carry a gun and/ or beer.
Of all places, we found ourselves in midtown Mobile, near the Police Headquarters on Government
Street. We rounded the little side street called Pine, but were caught at the
light awaiting the right-of-way to turn onto Government. As you can imagine,
when the light changed, my brother punched the accelerator, and the wheels spun
freely, smoke billowing forth, my brother laughing like Heath Ledger’s Joker at
my dismay. I remember thinking, “Of all places, in front of the PD?” But that
was ole B-Rad, letting that FTW flag fly again…
I remember actually seeing the face of the police officer
sitting at said light as we sped by, screeching and scrawling to my brother’s
delight. I swear that copper uttered “MotherOfGod” as he eye-balled us,
flipping on his lights as my brother ate up asphalt on the main drag. In the
sideview, I could see the officer pulling away from the light and getting in
behind us. B-Ry, also attentive to the officer, was decidedly freaked out. “The
weed OWB!...”
He was right, and I was a step ahead of him. I reached into the
glove box and grabbed the baggie. It was old school, not a Ziploc but the
fold-over type of sandwich bag that is the container of choice amongst the
finest purveyors of dank. I quickly flipped it out of the window, hoping that
the officer was far enough back that he wouldn’t see it. To my delight, the
slightly open bag puffed in the breeze, filled with air and emptied itself, as
if by the hands of angels. As I let go the pipe, I found irony in the fact that
it would come to rest actually in the yard of police HQ.
However, as the officer closed on us, I could not work out
the problem that confronted me, namely, what to do with the pistols and beer. I
handed B-Ry a can and we began to chug. I shotgunned two beers before the cop
caught up, and B-Ry did his part as well. Only one beer was in the car when we
got pulled over.
But what about the guns? Serious time, y’all, serious time.
The legal system does not play when it comes to guns, and I’d be damned if I
was throwing my H&K out the window. Wouldn’t have done any good anyway. By
this point, my future was in the hands of destiny and my effin’ hard-headed
brother.
As the Camaro grumbled to a halt and my brother put in park,
I only then noticed his attire. A worn FSU basketball jersey (no undershirt)
and baggy jeans. And my brother is tatted up, the gargoyle on his shoulder
looks like it was executed with a Bic lighter and a paperclip behind a Circle
K. Straight up jailhouse, which was oddly appropriate, because after taking one
look at him, I knew that’s where we’d finish our night.
At the officer’s request, B-Rad exited the vehicle and was
patted down. My cousin and I spoke through pursed lips.
“OWB, my dad is gonna kill all of
us, f^ck…”
“Yeah man, we’re dead, no way we’re
getting out of this…”
We could hear B-Rad and the officer conversing, but we
couldn’t make out the words.
“Should we run?” I mumbled to B-Ry.
“NO, no, it’s a two door, I’ll
never get out in time.” The man made a good point.
While we sat quietly deliberating our fate, B-Rad hopped
back in the car. I was stunned. He cranked the motor, put the car in gear and
began to ease off more slowly than if he’d been transporting nuclear eggshells.
After a moment of silence, B-Ry rousted out of his stupor.
“What happened?”
B-Rad recounted the convo back to us, as such:
Officer: “WTF are you doing out
here driving like that?”
B-Rad: “I’m sorry, I was just
having fun, showing off my car.”
Officer: “Well that’s a damn fine
way to get yourself killed, what is wrong with you?”
B-Rad: “I don’t know.”
Officer runs tag, returns to B-Rad, who was still outside
the car…
Officer (pointing to a slip of
paper): “This your name, son?”
B-Rad: “Yessir”
Officer: “You any kin to Bartimus.”
B-Rad:” Yessir”
Officer: “I thought I recognized
that car. He know you out here driving like a dumba$$, boy?
B-Rad “No sir.”
Officer: What’d happen if he did?”
B-Rad: “He’d kick my a$$.”
Officer: “Well, consider this a
head start. Get going. I’m going to give
him a call. Better getcho’ a$$ on home, son.”
I have never been more sure that I was going to jail than I
was that night. It may make for a better story if I had pissed or shit my pants
as a result of said fear, as prison is one of the few things that stops me cold
in terror. But none of that happened, and I held sway over my bodily functions,
literally scared…well…scared shitless.
B-Ry wouldn’t even finish the ride, demanded that B-Rad pull
over and call Grandma-ma to come pick him up. We told him to stop being a nancy
and grow some hair on his coin purse, we weren’t going to have any of that
sissy talk. But in all honesty, after that brush with John Q. Law, I’d had
rather hoofed it back home than ride another mile with B-Rad myself. Dude’s a
loose cannon, for serious.
Moral of the story: a) Hugs are better than drugs b) If
B-Rad is your only ride, best to get a bus pass c) (Pro tip) Only buy weed from
people who put it in baggies, not Ziplocs. (Ziplocs will get a brotha
arrested!)
Roll Tide Roll
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