PICTURE ME ROLLING.

It was late spring of my 7th grade year. Seth, CJ and I walked home from middle school under blue skies dotted with fluffy white clouds. I was wearing khaki shorts and a gray Nike t-shirt. Seth was wearing a hunter green Eddie Bauer polo shirt and khaki shorts.  Tall and lanky, CJ was wearing baggy black basketball shorts and a baby blue shirt. We were weighed down by our heavy black North Face backpacks. We made our way slowly down quiet residential streets. Some lawns green, some lawns yellow.

 “I was walking by Moto’s house the other day, this fool was watching porno in his living room, you could just see the porn on the screen through the window, haha fucking Moto!” said CJ.

 Seth laughed and said, “The last time I chilled with that guy he was digging a hole in his backyard to hide his porn from his parents.” 

 “Really?” I said.

 “Yeah that fool has a problem, he’s like hella addicted to that stuff,” said Seth.

 I frowned a little. I was under the impression that we all looked at pornography. Did I have a problem? What made Moto’s habit any worse than any of ours? I knew both CJ and Seth had extensive dirty magazine collections. I myself had recently acquired a huge box of porno magazines. Hand-me-downs from Basement Dude. Maybe I should chill out on that; I didn’t want people to think I was a creep like Moto. Before that thought process could run the rest of its course, a white Honda Civic made the corner, full of older kids. One of the kids was swinging a frat-style paddle out the window. A yell came from the car.

 “Eat shit FAGS!!”

 An egg hit me in the face and exploded. Egg was all over my face. They sped off.

 “What the fuck dude!” I said, wiping my face off with my hand. 

 That didn’t work so well. I pulled the front of my shirt up and wiped my face with it. It already had egg on it. It didn’t matter if I got more on it.

 “What a bunch of fags!” said CJ, clutching the straps to his back pack in each hand. 

 CJ spit onto the ground and squinted in the direction the car had sped off in. We kept walking. Seth, CJ and I only made it another block before the Honda Civic pulled up on us again. This time the older boys got out of the car, leaving it idling with the doors open in the middle of the street. They were “white-hats”. Abercrombie button ups and cargo shorts. The bills of their white college hats were curled into round, narrow tunnels. They weren’t college students though. They were high school students at the same high school we would all end up going to after middle school. 

 One of the boys spun the paddle from his right hand to his left. We stood there, staring.  There were four of them and three of us. They were walking towards us. The boy with the paddle spoke.

 “Get over here.”

 “Do you fags know who my older brother is?” said CJ.

 “We don’t give a fuck who your older brother is.”

 “Gabe. Gabe Russell.”

 “The sophomore? Whatever dude, grab the trunk.”

 “Fuck you!”

 “I SAID GRAB THE FUCKING TRUNK.”

 The older boy grabbed CJ by the shoulder with his right hand. He tried to pull CJ towards the car. 

 “Get the fuck off me!” CJ said, pushing the older boy.

 The older boy and CJ scuffled. CJ yanked on the paddle. They struggled over the paddle, yanking it back and forth between them. The paddle flew from both their hands. It flew in an arc through the air landing handle up, straight up and down on its tip. The paddle cracked and splintered loudly. CJ and the older boy continued to scuffle.

 A silver-haired man came out from his house. He was in his 70s wearing a paint-stained rugby shirt, tennis shorts, and dirty white boat shoes. 

 “Hey what are you kids doing? I’m calling the cops! Let go of that kid!”

 Everyone turned and looked at the man.  The older boy let go of CJ. The older boys hopped back into the Honda Civic. They peeled out accidentally, speeding off. The silver-haired man spoke to us.

 “Are you boys alright?”

 “Yeah, we’re coo.” CJ responded returning his grip to the straps of his backpack.

 

********

 Billy was the first kid in our friend group to have his own car our sophomore year of high school. A maroon Nissan Maxima sedan. You weren’t legally allowed to have anyone else in the car with you when you first got your license. Billy blatantly ignored that law. Billy drove fast. Billy ran red lights. Billy would try and catch air with his car over bumps going down steep hills. The car stuffed like a clown-car full of teenagers instead of clowns. Girls sitting on laps. People sitting four abreast on a seat designed for three.

 It was a beautiful day. Billy and I were standing outside our high school on the front steps. School had just let out and the steps were crowded. Everyone milling about and socializing. Daniel Spinelli came up behind Billy and put him in a playful headlock and gave Billy’s buzz-cut a noogie. Spinelli was with Tim Corcoran and Daniel Bond.

 “Hey! Watch it dude! Don’t fuck up the hair!” said Billy, laughing.

 “What’s good, foolione? What are we going to get into today?” said Daniel, letting go of Billy.

 “Yeah, what’s going down?” said Tim.

 “I don’t know, I was thinking about schmobbing around and fucking with the kids walking home around Eckstein. You guys down?”

 “Hella down, foo!” said Spinelli.

 “Fa sho, wait’ll you guys see what I got in the trunk.”

 We walked to Billy’s car.  He popped the trunk and started digging around in it.

 “Check it out!” he said, pulling out a yellow Super Soaker.

 “Sick!” said Daniel Bond.

 “Shotgun.” said Spinelli.

 “Left nut.” said Tim.

 “Right nut!” said Daniel Bond.

 I was stuck sitting “bitch” in the middle. We piled in the car. Billy stopped at the QFC by our high school and filled the Super Soaker from a spigot on the side of the store.  Tim, Daniel Bond and I went into the store, the automatic doors swooshing and making a dinging sound as we entered. There was a bunch of other kids from our school in the store crowding the lines alongside the ladies shopping for their families. Tim took off his grey hooded sweatshirt and held it at his side. We walked to the dairy section and he picked up a carton of eggs. We continued walking up the aisle then back down the middle of another aisle. Mid-aisle Tim quickly wrapped the eggs up in his sweatshirt, concealing them. We walked back to the car. 

 “Oh yeah, shit’s about to pop the fuck off!” Tim said grinning as he unwrapped the eggs showing them to Billy and Spinelli.

 “Sick! Great idea. I like where your head’s at!” said Billy.

 We piled back in the car. Billy sped up towards 75th taking a right towards 35th wheeling around the corner as the light turned from yellow to red. A minivan honked. Billy held a middle finger out the window not looking back. Atmosphere’s God Loves Ugly blared on the CD player. I closed my eyes. Driving fast in cars made me nervous. I tried to not think about Billy crashing into someone and killing them, or killing all of us, or worse paralyzing one of us. I imagined living the rest of my life paralyzed from the neck down. 

 “Please dear Lord God, don’t let me die a virgin.” I prayed under my breath, barely moving my lips. No one noticed.

 We passed Eckstein Middle School. A group of middle school girls were standing at a bus stop on 35th. Billy pulled alongside them.

 “HEY LITTLE GIRLS!” yelled Spinelli in a cartoony voice before spraying them with water and laughing.

 The girls screamed. Billy drove off.

 Everyone was laughing except me. I did not like this. I held my tongue. Terrified of being perceived as a “pussy.” 

 “That shit was sick foo!” said Spinelli before letting out a “Yeeeee-haaaaw” and laughing some more.

 “Let me see that shit, foo,” said Tim grabbing the Super Soaker from Spinelli before he could respond.

 Billy lurked the side streets. We saw some boys walking behind Lutheran Concordia School. Tim sprayed them with the Super Soaker. Daniel Bond started throwing eggs at them. The younger boys started to run. Billy pursued them in his car. They hit a corner to a dead end street that ended at the fence on the back end of Lutheran Concordia’s large playfield.  The kids were trapped. Tim jumped out of the car, as did Bond and Spinelli. They hosed the kids down with the Supersoakers and lit them up with eggs.

 When they got back in the car I couldn’t stay silent any longer.

 “Yo, Billy can you just drop me near my crib?”

 “God Joe, you are SUCH a puss sometimes.”

 “No I’m not, I need to be home. I told my mom I’d help her with something.”

 “Liar.”

 “P-p-p-p-usssy,” said Spinelli.

 “Stop it, guys.”

“Stop it guys!!” mimicked Tim in a falsetto voice.

 “I’m serious. Drop me off.”

 “You’re such a pussy. Fine, I’m not driving your bitch-ass all the way back to your house, though.”

Billy dropped me off at the Wedgwood Mart. A mile walk from my house. 

 “Sorry guys, I promised my mom I’d help her.”

 “Whatever pussy,” said TIm.

40 OUNCES AND CHRONIC DICE

ILLUSTRATION BY FONSE D30

“Sloppy” Jim Sullivan lived two blocks from my parents house. I had met him for the first time hanging out with Milo when I was in the 7th grade. He had brown hair and hazel green eyes that sometimes would look grey or blue. Sometimes one eye would appear to be a different color than the other. He punctuated his sentences by hawking loogies and he chain smoked Old Gold cigarettes. He was two years older than me. He didn’t pronounce L’s at the end of his words. He sounded like a whiteboy surfer mixed with Mr. T.

It was the summer before my freshman year and I was chilling with Sloppy Sullivan and two other older boys in the BBQ shelter by the 20th bridge in the Ravenna Park. It was early afternoon and we were drinking 40s we had purchased from a mentally challenged store clerk at the Boulevard Grocery.

This was back when Boulevard Grocery was an Asian owned convenience store. Before it was known for its artisan espresso and it great selection of wine. It was just a crummy little store people bought beer and cigarettes from. It was a store converted from an old residential house.

One of the owner’s sons had Down Syndrome and if he was working you could use your school ID to purchase beer and cigarettes. He would man the counter, playing with Star Trek action figures. It was one long block from the park we were sitting in.

Sloppy Sullivan was talking. Smoking a cigarette. Standing while the rest of us sat.

“Yo, those one foos, yeah they’re pretty coo. They ain’t no savages though. They’d get mopped up real quick if push came to shove.”

Sloppy Sullivan hawked a loogie for emphasis. He took a drag off his cigarette and gazed off into the blue sky of a Seattle summer. Tall trees swayed back and forth gently in the wind.

His friend Evan “E.B.” Baylor finished crumbling up some weed on top of a CD case.

Sloppy Sullivan creased the outside of a Swisher Sweet with the thumb and pointer finger of his right hand and split it open while simultaneously smoking a cigarette with his left hand. He then gutted the tobacco from the cigar onto the ground with the sweep of his right thumb. He put the cigarette to his lips and left it there. He held out his left hand to E.B. who had scooped the crumbled weed into his own hand. E.B. carefully dumped the weed into Sloppy Sullivan’s left hand with two hands. E.B. carefully picking off stray crumbs stuck to his palm and putting them back into the pile in Sloppy Sullivan’s hand. Sloppy Sullivan hawked a loogie.

Another older boy named Brandon “Mackie” McIntire sat on a bench. Hands in his pockets. He was a stocky young man with the demeanor of Buddha. Mackie was the older brother of a pretty girl my age named Angela. E.B. was a tall boy with blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes. We were all wearing brightly colored Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and khakis.

E.B. handed me a large marijuana stem off the top of his schoolbook and said,

“Yo, chew on this Flojo, might catch you a little buzz.”

E.B. laughed at his own joke.

Sloppy Sullivan laughed and hawked a loogie. Mackie smiled but didn’t laugh. I took a swig off my forty ounce of Olde English High Gravity malt liquor and put the stem in my mouth. I chewed on it. It was like chewing on a branch. Which I guess is exactly what I was doing. I chewed anyway I didn’t want them to think I was some kind of fag or something.

Sloppy Sullivan dumped the weed from his left hand into the empty Swisher skin in his right hand. He put his left hand to his cigarette and inhaled deeply before pulling the cigarette away from his mouth. He began to roll the blunt wrap back and forth in his right hand.

“You about to be geeked, foo. This is that fire I copped from my older homie Adrian. That ohhhh-weee!”

He was gesticulating with the cigarette in his left hand and rolling the blunt with his right hand. He put his right hand to his mouth and licked the blunt wrap before rolling the blunt one last time. He put the cigarette back in his lips and took his lighter out the front pocket of his dirty khakis. He ran a flame up and down the outside of the blunt completing the process. He had just rolled a blunt almost entirely with one hand.

E.B. said, “Dos”

Mackie said “Tres.”

I didn’t know what exactly they were talking about, but I thought I knew what I was supposed to say. I said,

“Cuatro.”

“Duh, you dumb fucker. There’s only four of us. Obviously you’re last in the rotation,” said E.B.

“Oh,” I said.

“Yo, let me see that water right quick,” Sloppy Sullivan asked E.B.

E.B. handed him a Nalgene bottle out of his backpack. Sullivan took a big swig and swished it around in his mouth. Then he spit it right back onto the ground and coughed up some phlegm onto the ground. He threw his cigarette into the middle of all the loogies and water. The ground looked like the scene of some kind of bukkake gangbang porno. He lit another cigarette, took a drag, then lit the blunt.

We smoked the blunt.  I had a coughing fit after my first hit. When I was done coughing the colors appeared brighter and I felt very small on the face of the Earth. An ant in the colony. The smoke was sweet from the cigar wrapper and tasted faintly like blueberry from the weed. I licked the roof of my mouth. It was delicious.

The blunt made it round the circle a few more times. Till it was almost nothing but a small fleck of brown paper. Sullivan took a few last hits pinching the blunt roach between his thumb and pointer finger. He dropped it on the ground and snuffed it out with his foot.

A man approached us. I had known him as long as I can remember.

“Hi, I’m Larry.”

“Hi, Larry,”  we all said.

Larry was a mentally challenged man who hung out in Ravenna Park. He wasn’t homeless or anything. He was always well dressed and cleaned. Every time you met him was like meeting him for the first time.

“You guys hear there’s supposed to be a lot of snow this winter?”

“Yeah, Larry. Lots of snow.”

“What’s your guy’s names?”

We told him.

“Be careful of the snow guys.”

It was the middle of August.

We had all had this same conversation with Larry hundreds of time. I remember being four and getting excited when Larry said it was going to snow. As I got older, I thought he was a liar. When I was 9, I realized he was mentally challenged and always went along with his conversation from that point onward.

We polished off the 40s. They started off cool and refreshing but once you got to “ass” end they were gross with all the backwashed saliva. We all drank the “ass” anyway. It was, after all, our own saliva.

We all piled into Sullivan’s baby blue Cadillac Cimarron. We went to the McDonalds on 25th and gorged ourselves on dollar menu hamburgers. E.B. asked me,

“Yo, Flojo, you know that girl Angela in your grade?”

I didn’t know at this point that Mackie was Angela’s brother.

“Yeah, I know that chick. She’s pretty hot. I think she might be kind of a slut though. I heard she blew one of my homies.”

Mackie knocked his tray off the table and reached over and grabbed me by the collar.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY SISTER??”

ILLUSTRATION BY FONSE D30

Mackie was furious. The other boys were all laughing.

“I..uh..I dont know, that’s just what people have been saying. I don’t know that for a fact. I think she’s a nice girl..I uh.. shouldn’t have that said that…”

“FUCK WHAT PEOPLE SAY, HOMIE.”

“I’m hella sorry..”

He released me from his grip and sat back down. Everyone was quiet. We went on eating hamburgers in silence until Mackie spoke again.

“You’re all good little homie, You shouldn’t spread rumors about people though. Especially if you don’t know whether they’re true or not.”

Mackie bit into a fresh hamburger.

I said, “I won’t. I didn’t even know that was your sister, dog, I’m hella sorry.”

“I know, I want you to look out for my little sister, and set anyone straight that you hear say anything about her.”

“I got you, homie.”

We dapped on it clasping hands. I had learned a valuable lesson.

We left the McDonald’s. Four white kids bumping Brotha Lynch Hung in a 1980s Cadillac Cimmaron. We made another stop and bought more 40s at Boulevard Grocery then went back to the BBQ shelter at 20th. There was a ton of other kids there now. More dudes Sullivan’s age and a few chicks.

More blunts were smoked and the 40s were drank. When the 40s were gone we drank beers from cases that other kids had brought with them in the trunks of their cars. Rap music boomed loud out of a subwoofer in one kids car. I was the youngest kid there, not even in high school yet. Talk turned to paddling.

Paddling was a form of hazing that had supposedly been going on at our High School for generations, but I always got the feeling that a  group of seniors in the mid 90s had started the tradition for themselves after watching Dazed and Confused. I never found out for sure, though. Regardless, It was now a firmly established tradition.

“You’re about to get it next year foo, my ass was black and blue after Campus Day.” said Sullivan

“Yeah I remember.”

I had hung out with both Milo and Sullivan the evening after they had been paddled. They had both been sitting in tubs of ice in Sullivan’s basement drinking beers. Their backsides one giant bruise of black and blue.

Sullivan continued,

“We ought to belt you so you’re ready for next year.”

“Yeah, let’s show him whats up!” said E.B.

More boys talked excitedly in agreement.

“I guess I’m d-d-down.” I said.

E.B. removed his belt. A thick leather belt from Eddie Bauer.

“Grab the table.”

Reluctantly, I put both my hands on the edge of the picnic table. E.B., Sullivan, Mackie and few of their homies took turns belting my backside. It was over the pants, but when I got hit the first time the pain automatically made me jerk and stand up and grab my bottom.

“GET THE FUCK BACK DOWN!!” said E.B. slamming me back down onto the table.

I toughed out the rest of the “licks”. When it was done Sullivan put his arm around me and said,

“The little homie took it like a man!”

He smiled at me and passed me a beer. All the other boys seemed to agree, each of them giving me daps and slapping me on the back in a friendly manner. I felt hella cool. We stayed there drinking in the park until it was dark.

Sullivan gave me a ride home. Milo had joined us at 20th, so I was sitting bitch between Mackie and E.B. Milo sat up front. Sullivan was fiddling with his cd player not focusing on the road. Milo shouted,

“YO SULLIVAN WATCH OUT!!”

Sullivan slammed on his brakes. Tires screeching to a halt in front of a lady walking her dogs. He had almost ran her down. The lady was my mom. I shriveled up in the back seat and tried to make myself as scarce as one could while wedged between two older boys. She walked over to the drivers side window furious. My heart was racing.

“YOU FUCKING KIDS NEED TO NOT TO DRIVE SO FUCKING FAST IN A FUCKING RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD YOU COULD OF FUCKING KILLED ME. NEXT TIME YOU BETTER SLOW THE FUCK DOWN AND PAY MORE FUCKING ATTENTION TO WHAT THE FUCKS GOING ON!!”

Sullivan started to speak,

“I’m so sorry miss it’s dark and I couldn’t see you, maybe you should wear some brighter colors….”

“FUCK YOURSELF KID.”

My mom walked off. She had been so mad she didn’t even notice me. I let out a gasp. I had been holding my breath with out even realizing it. I said,

“Yo, Sullivan, maybe I should just come chill at your house for a minute then walk home.”

All the older boys laughed. Sullivan hawked a loogie out the window.