Up To No Good

I was never a bad kid, but every now and then I’d do stupid shit. I think we all did. It’s all part of growing up, testing our limits, and inching towards independence.

I’d been to a few parties, some of them tame, others not.

The first (lifeguard) staff party I attended was held on the first night my parents extended my curfew. Be home by midnight, they said. Prior to this, I had to be home by 10 pm. I get to the party and I see a draft ball being pumped, and a glass of Northern draft is pressed into my palm. I inhale the sharp salty brew and take a sip. And before I know it, another is handed to me. I doubt I drank more than four, but four was enough. I was hammered. Guy Talbut sat me aside and said, “You’re going to get yourself in trouble if you don’t know how to drink.” He laid out a few rules to follow. Don’t drink shooters, he said, they sneak up on you fast, you can’t regulate your buzz, and they’re puke in a cup. Don’t play drinking games; you get drunk too fast, and your evening is over in an hour. And don’t buy or receive rounds; someone always drinks faster than you, and you’re racing to catch up, or someone drinks for free and leaves before he buys a round. Learn to drink at your own pace. Don’t get hammered. You’ll never impress a girl if your blind drunk and spilling your drink on her. Great advice. Good rules. I think I’ve broken every one of them over the years. Starting with that night. The booze was free, this being my first ever staff party. And before I knew it, I’d looked up at the clock and realized that I’d already blown my curfew. By the time I arrived home, I could barely walk. When I did stagger up to the door, my parents were waiting. My mother was livid. She gave me no end of Hell, as I tried to remain upright in my chair. Behind her, my father was shaking his head, and finally said, “Well, so much for the curfew.”

Sean Light, Sean Quinn and I were hanging out, when they decided to get a six pack from Northern (Doran’s) Brewery. Apparently, Quinn had a fake ID. Now, I’d never bought beer before, preferring to lift a bottle from my father’s beer fridge on occasion, instead. Quinn was served and we walked to Gilles Lake, where Light and I had keys to. It was quiet, the shack locked up for the evening, no on about. As we rounded the corner to the lake, we say a middle-aged woman glaring at us through her picture window. My heart leapt to my throat, my stomach tied in knots. I felt we should move on, but both Seans said the old biddy wouldn’t do a thing. So, we unlocked the old dilapidated old guard shack, and pupped the cap of our first beers. Our last, it turned out. A cruiser pulled up, the cops strolled down the hill, and confronted us. Hey boys, what’s your names, how old are you. Scared straight, we owned up to everything. The cops wrote everything down and watched us pour our beers out into the sand, every last one of them. Now, I’d never been spoken to by a cop before. I thought I was in deep shit, that my parents would be informed, that I would have a RECORD! But we noticed that, as the cops rounded the top of the hill, that they balled up the papers with our names on them and tossed them away.

Another party, this time with Jeff Chevrier and Peter Cassidy. Jeff was drunk, crashed out on the couch. Pete approached him, inspected him, and fingered Jeff’s nose. Jeff was unmoved. So, Peter grabbed hold of Jeff by the shirt, forcibly lifted him off the couch, and yelled into his face, “SLEEPING’S FOR FAGS!”

Words to live by.