" '91 " (timekiller)

[mustynutz]

No one's ever accused me of being the smartest man alive. Or hanging out with the smartest men alive, for that matter (see my How Not To Go Rafting posts). I've always had the tendency to hang with the crazies. Life just seems more interesting that way. Rebels, socio-paths, the insane. There's always a story to be told and to be made (maybe that explains my love life as well).

But I digress.

The year was 1991. Grunge was grunge, my favorite rap group was De La Soul, and I had a completely unhinged friend by the name of Shawn. Shawn was the type of guy you'd sneak out of the house with at night and smoke cigarettes and drink vodka he stole from his Mom's liquor cabinet. He was hardly ever at school, he took pills to ease his troubled psyche, and, for some unknown reason, my parents loved him.

One fine Saturday morning I walked over to Shawn's to spend the day listening to the Dead Milkmen and Ministry and hopefully sip some Smirnoff and water. He told me we were going over to his buddy Steve's house, just up the street. Apparently, Steve was eighteen (we were fourteen) and we could do whatever we wanted over there. Perfect.

After meeting Steve, we settled in on the front porch blaring Motley Crue and drinking pink lemonade and gin. The road ahead was up a slight, grassy rise, due to all the flooding that frequently occurred in our little town in northern Washington. We drank, told dirty jokes, and bobbed our heads to the beautiful butt-rock that emanated from the home stereo speakers. I still love Saturdays.

A car pulled slowly by on the road before us and then the honking drowned out Skid Row. A girl leaned out the window, displaying the American hand signal for "Fuck You," and they sped off.

"Who the fuck was that?" Shawn asked.

"Just my ex." Steve explained, "That bitch has been harassing me."

Sure enough the two-door Toyota Celica cruised back by in the opposite direction horn blaring, fingers flashing, and a serenade from within of, "Fuck you!"

This continued for quite some time and Shawn had had enough. He told me to get up, because we were going. Maybe I should have been going home (and the wisemen say, "Duh"), but I didn't. I followed my friend back to his house. After all, this was just getting interesting.

I said to hello to his mother as we entered the home. Always polite, you know? We proceeded to his bedroom and he closed the door behind him. I sat upon his bed, hit play on the Sweaty Nipples c.d., and looked over at Shawn. He was pulling his single barrel shotgun from it's rack above his closet door.

 

[mustynutz]

"Push the bed against the door," he instructed. As always, I did what he said. His lunacy made him seem more mature. There were no males in my household besides my father and he was at work most of the time. Shawn had become my older brother.

After the bed was against the door, Shawn placed the stock of the gun in between the mattress and the bedspring. He produced a hacksaw from his closet (I didn't think to question the fact that it was in his closet until just now) and began to saw off a large chunk of the barrel. I turned up the volume of the music just to be safe.

He turned the gun around and began on the stock. He wanted this to fit in his jacket, he told me. Just flash it at the flippant females and be gone with them. I am of course adding some eloquence to his statements or you might be reading, "We're gonna put this shit in my coat, right? We'll go back to Steve's and let those sluts know not to come back. Fuckin' bitches."

Suddenly, the door banged against the bed upon which I was sitting. I looked through the crack and there was Shawn's mom. She stared curiously at me.

"What are you guys up to?" Such a sweet woman. Hot, too. She was a MILF before I even knew what a MILF was.

"Just rearranging my room, Mom," Shawn explained. She seemed to accept this and closed the door immediately. This was an age before Columbine. O.J. Simpson was still Nordberg. Innocence was abundant. Shawn finished his project.

After putting the gun inside his jacket, we walked back to Steve's. Sure enough, the girls in the Celica were still driving up and down the street. Steve, ardent negotiator and grandiloquent speaker that he was, was still standing out on the front porch yelling back at the car, "Fuck you!" Will these people ever think of something new to say?

Shawn instructed that I just walk back to the porch and he'd take care of the rest. I did as told and let our gracious host know that Shawn was going to scare the girls off. He smirked as I told him what was about to transpire and we turned back to the road.

There he was in the middle of the street, just waiting for the car to come back towards him. And here it came, right on cue. As the vengeful sorority pulled up, Shawn raised the sawed-off shotgun. We couldn't see exactly what his face looked like from our vantage point, but I assume to this day that he was grinning wildly.

The driver got out of the car. Shawn quickly walked up and pointed the gun at her, chest high. Steve and I stood up. There seemed to be a discussion going on, Shawn and "The Ex" yelling at each other. I nervously shuffled my feet. Drinking gin and juice underage is one thing. Smoking underage is one thing. Sawing apart a family heirloom shotgun is one thing. Witnessing a murder? Something completely and horribly different.

"Oh thank you God, thank you God, thank you GOD," I thought as I saw the shotgun being lowered. I knew Shawn liked to do things differently than most, but killing someone didn't seem to be like him. It most assuredly wasn't, and isn't, like me.

BOOM

The fucking gun went off. I froze. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I would complete both of those actions later. For now, I stood still. With eyes closed, I prayed.

I heard a car screech off.

I looked up and over and there was Shawn running towards us and the car full of angry, and now frightened, females speeding off. I was wondering what the fuck was going on. Did someone die? Did Shawn shoot the car? What the hell was I doing here?

"Dude, the gun went off!"

Steve and I once again looked at each other and told the gun-wielding maniac to show us where in the road it hit. We nonchalantly walked up the street, thinking everyone would assume some grouse or pheasant hunter was blasting off in the nearby woods. Why we didn't run and hide then I have yet to figure out. Like I said at the beginning, no one's ever accused me of being the smartest man alive.

I don't remember how long we were up there, talking, laughing, pointing at the shotgunned hole in the road and saying, "Shit, man!" It doesn't matter. All that matters is it was long enough for "The Ex's" new boyfriend to decide he was going to kill the three guys who threatened his girl's life. It was long enough for him to get some of his boys together. It was long enough that we had to dive off the road as his car (never did get that make and model) tried to run us down.

Shawn and I ended up landing next to each other and he made the suggestion that we get the fuck out of there. I concurred. We ran through backyards until we found a woodshed. We hid therein. I was scared, confused, mad, but my best friend assured everything would be fine as long as I followed his instructions. Sure, why not? They got me this far.

After an unknown period of time, the wait was over. We exited the woodshed. I thought we were going back to his house, but he led me in the opposite direction. I didn't know where we were going, I didn't care. I just didn't want to die. I kept looking over my shoulder down the road for some speeding car full of gangbangers.

We approached the cemetery. I was led into a large tool/storage shed within the gates. Shawn opened up a huge drawer and put in the shotgun. He quietly closed it, slowly turned around, and looked me straight in the eyes.

 

[mustynutz]

"Ben. Listen. If the cops ask us....if they ask us ANYTHING...tell them I threw the gun in the river. We went to the bridge and I threw the gun in the river. Understand?"

"Sure," I said. I did, but I didn't. I didn't know cops back then. Fuck, I wish I could turn back time.

We walked from the cemetery to my house. Shawn, of course, was cordial with my folks and sat and discussed religion with my father as I went and packed to stay the night at his house. Shorts, shirt, socks, drawers. Yep, I was set.

I said goodnight to my folks and we began to walk back to Shawn's. I was getting worried about the police. Hell, I had been worried about the police since the gun went off. I told this to my partner-in-crime and made a suggestion.

"Maybe we should take some backyard paths to your house. You know? Just to see if the cops are there? If they are there, we can hide someplace."

"No, man," he said shaking his head. "We should go around the front way. They'll be expecting us to take the back way. If we sneak around front, we can see the cop cars and then take off." Wow, I believed that.

"Where will we go if they're there?" I asked. Sitting here, writing all this now some thirteen years later, I stand up and kick myself for my reverence of a criminal. I know I had no heroes then, and some criminals are genius, but I could have picked a better one. The Una-Bomber for example.

"Canada, man. Canada. We'll wait out tonight, steal a car tomorrow, and then drive over into Canada." Sure. Sounded logical enough: two fourteen year olds, no license, driving across the Canadian-American border trying to escape from Johnny Law. Works every time.

We walked from my house on Gardner Ave., took a right on Larabee Ln., and then headed towards our eventual left on Penne St. It was dark by then, around eight in the p.m. I had my backpack on and was walking thoughtfully next to my mentor when...

"Freeze!" The cops. Shit. All I saw was bright lights and guns. "We're looking for Steven *****! Are you this man?!"

Shawn spoke up, since my scared, skinny ass was frozen. "No, I am Shawn *****!"

"We're looking for you, too!" the cops yelled. They ran from their hiding spots and tackled him to the ground. I watched as they pinned him face-first upon the roadway, his arms behind his back, wrists being handcuffed, dragged up and over to a nearby police car. Maybe I could have walked away in the chaos. Maybe I could have saved everybody the trouble.

I stayed still.

The cops that weren't questioning Shawn took my bag, searched it and then led me, handcuff free, to another city cop car. I sat in the back for two hours, nervous, pissed off, and thinking. I was thinking deeply about what Shawn would say. I knew he was in deep shit. If he gave up some info maybe he could save himself from the wrath of "The Man."

Or maybe not. They came to question me.

I didn't know what Shawn told them. I had been in the car right behind him the whole time. I was fourteen for crying out loud. I was a church going boy. My parents raised me right. These, and more, are all my inadmissible excuses for what happened next.

"Benjamin?" Officer Soandso asked.

"Yes, that's me."

"You've been read you're rights. Now, your friend here has told us everything. We just need you to verify his statement. Don't lie. We know where the gun is."

All right, all right. So you can guess where this goes, huh? Good for you. For the rest of the class, I led the cops to the gun in the cemetery thinking Shawn had told them the truth. I mean, I would have. Come to find out about a year later that my old buddy, my old pal, had told the cops the gun was in the river. I fucked up the story. He went to juvenile detention and I had to walk home and tell my folks why I wasn't at Shawn's house for the night.

No one's ever accused me of being the smartest man alive. Or hanging out with the smartest men alive, for that matter.

 

[mR.SiPpYGeTiPpY]

dumb mutherfuckers... thats the oldest cop trick in the freakin book... I hope that story was true.... Didnt that kid watch Qunicy M.E for fuck sake!