There are so many things that I want to write about. Depressed Mode lyrics, the way that the fine, dry snowflakes blow across the frozen road and the Great frozen snow tunnels of the Northern Wasabi peninsula.
There was the Chevrolet dealership on Jones Blvd. The one across from the Weinerschnizel that became some kind of a Weinerschnitzel knock off and did serve the best chili fries and… something else that I can’t remember. The little cups of ranch dressing do not escape my memory though. I remember being so frustrated because those little cups of ranch were too small and they never gave you enough of them, even when you paid the extra fifty cents. If you dipped your fries two or three times, the glorious ranch dressing was gone. Those French-fries were very salty, and they needed that ranch dressing. They needed the dressing the way that a baby needs breast milk, the way that a blue whale needs the open sea, the way that a man needs his bride in all her naked glory! Hah, ranch dressing is divine!
Anyway, there was this creepy guy that lived behind the Chevrolet dealership named Jerry. He was your run of the mill rocker guy. Greasy hair, big thick coke bottle glasses and heavy metal. Not you regular heavy metal type person but someone darker. You know, the Headbangers Ball guy. Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. Black light posters, and ceramic bongs. Blacked out windows and pacts with Diablo! How the hell did I hook up with this guy? My memory does hide those details. Although I do recall the night that Jerry took me to the first bar that I ever set foot for the express purpose of drinking whiskey in. What was I, fourteen or fifteen? Whiskey does not set well with such a young frame. But, Jerry was in the in and I was hanging out with him and some other older rockers so everything was OK.
I’m surprised that he didn’t try to molest me. In addition to the metal edge, there was the perfunctory obsession with porn. Samantha Fox was pretty big right then and I remember lusting after her along with every other red blooded guy I knew. “Touch me, touch me now. I want to feel your body. Your heartbeat next to mine. Touch me, touch me now!” Holy cow! I wanted to do some touching. The funny thing is, is that I didn’t care one bit about heartbeats, only the chest that encased the heart, in particular the breast region! Anyway, we thought that her music was horrid compared to RATT or TWISTED SISTER, IRON MAIDEN or SABBATH but she was fine. It’s funny that all these years later I have come to find out that ol’ Samantha was down with the female gender and not any of us red blooded guys! DOH!
I didn’t hang with Jerry for very long. I think that I had a deep down, unknown knowledge that devil worshippers did not make good friends. So I left one night via his bedroom window and walked home past that Chevrolet dealership on Jones. Those cars on that lot were so far from home and Weinerschnitzel was so inviting but I was so broke. Damn! There were too many steps between the Chevy sell-a-thon and my mothers house but all those steps were mine to take. I had to go past the Vons and record store where I bought my first O.M.D. tape. Past the Marine recruiting center. Over the freeway and on towards the municipal golf course. “MUNI” as Bob Green used to call it. The MUNI course behind where Corinna Harney lived. Across from Sigfried and Roy’s house, where, on more that one summer night we hung out in front of Mark and Scotts house, drinking 40’s, listening for Sigfrieds white tigers to roar! Whoa, not your average neighborhood!
I had to pass that pricks house that was in the CRXtacy club. I puked all over his dining room one night during a rather losing-ish game of quarters. Jason , Kenny, Dana and Jeff saw me hurl under the kitchen table. They made fun of me, but we never told anyone, and we sure as hell didn’t worry about cleaning up my mess. BARRFFF!
Two more blocks and I was home. I wasn’t really interested in letting my mom know that I had shown up after who knows how many days. I ran away occasionally and I tried to slip back in unnoticed as many times as such.
In through my back bedroom window I crept. As silent as a teenaged boy creeping through his bedroom window could be. The shades made more noise than I wanted to make and I froze, terrified that I had awoken the sleeping mama bear! Did she hear me? Did she care? Nothing. Her bedroom door remained closed at the end of the hall and I sank into my bed, securing my own bedroom door. I ever so silently switched on my cassette deck, fading to the sounds of the Smiths, cranking away, louder than bombs. The next morning when she awoke and discovered my sleep deprived body nestled in my bed would suck! But, that is another story and another memory…….
