Stolen Flowers for Mommy

My dad shows up in a lot of my stories, mostly due to the fact that, of my two parents, he is the funnier one (sometimes even intentionally). Don't get me wrong, Mom's got a great sense of humor too (and it's a damn good thing, considering all the crap my brothers and I put her through). Anyway, in an effort to keep my mom from feeling neglected (in case, you know, she's the one in charge of the will), here's a "Mom Story". Enjoy!
,
It's the Summer of 1968. I'm three years old.

I see flowers growing in a garden in front of my house. Mommy is tired from my baby brother or sister that's in her tummy, and she's crying about something on the TV. Maybe if I take her some of these pretty flowers it will make her happy again.

"Let's get some flowers for our moms," I say to my friend Michael. He lives across the street and we play together all the time. Sometimes he's bad, though. I saw him get his mouth washed out with soap once for saying "shit". That's a bad word. He didn't like the soap at all, but his mommy said, "Don't spit it out, chew it up and swallow it." So he did, or else she would have spanked his butt. Nobody likes getting their butt spanked, and Mike's mom is good at it.

We sit down in the dirt next to the flowers. I find the prettiest blue one and pull it up out of the ground. The clump of dirt at the bottom looks like the chocolate cupcakes that Mommy gets from the store. Mike picks a flower, then we each pull up two more. Mike goes across the street to surprise his mom, and I take my flowers upstairs to Mommy's room. I hope she likes them.

"Here's some flowers for you, Mommy."

She starts crying harder. Did I do something wrong?

That's where my actual memory ends. In the years since that day, my parents have filled me in on, as Paul Harvey says, "The Rest of the Story".

Mom was five months pregnant with my brother Eric, and was going through all the physical and emotional symptoms that this entails. On top of that, the events of June 5, 1968 were being rehashed on the morning news.

The assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

Suffice it to say, Mom was a wreck. Which is why her adorable, wonderful, loving, and most of all quite charming three year-old son was trying to cheer her up.

When she saw me standing there with a handful of flowers, clumps of dirt falling on her bedroom floor, Mom's emotional fortitude red-lined and she started bawling her eyes out. She gave me a big hug, put me down, and laid down in bed.

I went back outside to play with my Tonka trucks.

Unbeknownst to me, when our landlord Mr. Thomas got home, he was furious about his meticulously manicured flowerbed being uprooted and trampled by a couple of bratty three year-olds. He wasted no words in expressing his displeasure to my pregnant mother.

In her highly emotional state, Mom did not take this well. So as soon as my dad got home from work, she told him what happened.

Dad then went next door, threw a ten-dollar bill at Mr. Thomas and said something to the effect of, "Here's ten dollars for your fucking flowers, and if you talk to my wife like that again, we'll be settling up another way."

This exchange was overheard by Mrs. Thomas, who proceded to rip her husband the proverbial "new one".

"How dare you yell at a pregnant woman! Her darling son took her those flowers to keep her from being sad, and you're worried about how your precious garden looks? You're going to go over there and apologize right now!"

And he did.

Daddy and Mommy take me to King Kone for ice cream. I like chocolate the best. It's all melty, so it drips down my chin and I get some on my shirt. But Mommy doesn't get mad. She just smiles and wipes my face.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

"Bartender, make it a whiskey sour!"

That was my usual order at the Little White House Bar and Grill on the corner of Hallock and Bound Brook Road. I usually stopped in for a drink before work.

I climbed up onto the stool at the end of the bar, and slapped that day's edition of the Courier News down in front of me.

"Here you go, mister." said Mr. Baker the grizzled old suds-slinger, as he placed the Dr. Pepper in front of me. He took the newspaper and set it down behind him.

"Got any extras?" asked the heavy-set factory worker as he took a pull off his bottle of Schlitz.

"Yep, sure do." I handed him a copy, and he gave me fifty cents. Cool, a quarter tip. I finished my Dr. Pepper, and headed out.

"See ya tomorrow, Mr. Baker."

"Yeah, be careful out there kid," he replied, as I walked out the door.

I slung the canvas newspaper bag over my shoulder, climbed back on my beaten up Huffy with the crooked back rim, and started to make my daily rounds. The bar was my first official delivery, conveniently located right across the street from where I picked up my batch of papers each afternoon. I always enjoyed a quick Dr. Pepper, and the couple extra bucks I could make peddling my surplus papers.

Armed with sixty or so papers and a bag of rubber bands, I'd work my way down Runyon Avenue rolling, banding, and slinging that day's edition onto various porches (or, upon customers' request, putting it in their mailbox).

Wednesdays were always a pain in the ass, because that was the day that the Courier News included an extra section of advertisements. The Wednesday paper was a lot thicker, and sometimes I'd have to load up half my inventory, deliver those, and then go back home to pick up the second batch. And I'd really have to crank up my arm to reach the porches, which tended to affect my accuracy. One Wednesday, for example, I took out the screen in Mr. Wagner's front door.

That cost me about a week's salary.

Yeah, Wednesdays sucked.

The route started on the corner of Runyon and Pond Avenue. The first major challenge was at Old Man Schmitt's house. Mr. Schmitt was ancient German immigrant, and very particular about where his paper ended up. Top step, center. He could get a little cranky when it ended up somewhere else.

"Hey! Paper boy! Ve don't vant zee paper in zee hedges, ya? It goes right here on zee top ztep! Got zat?"

"Ya, I mean, yes, Mr. Schmitt. I'll make sure to put it there tomorrow."

"Zehr gutt! Dankeshoen."

Hey, be thankful your screen door's still intact, I thought.

Most of my customers were pleasant and generous. Mr. McMaster would always give me a dollar tip every week. Since a weekly subscription was a buck twenty five, an 80% bonus was nothing to sneeze at.

Mr. and Mrs. Van Wyck, on the other hand, would always seem to be "away" on collection Fridays. They fell so far behind on payments that I considered calling my dad's co-worker Paulie Bonafacio to encourage them to be more diligent with their financial obligations.

"'Scuse, me, Mr. Van Wyck. Ah, a friend of ours says dat ya seems ta be a bit, ah, slow wit' da payment. I t'ink we might need ta have a talk..."

Perhaps the next day's edition of the Courier would have a fish wrapped in it.

And then there were the Robinsons, with their Satanic Rottweiler named Bruno.

Bruno presented a challenge all his own. He was fenced inside the front yard, but despite Mrs. Robinson's assurance that the dog would NOT, in fact, rip me limb from limb should I open the gate and put the paper on the porch, I was not willing to take such a risk.

So my task was this:

I had to throw the paper from the sidewalk, clear the yard, and land it on the front porch. Of course, if I came up short, Bruno would treat the afternoon edition like a wounded squirrel and rip it to shreds. I remember one Wednesday when it took a few tries.

First attempt: Wide right. Chew toy.
Second attempt: Short. High fiber dog biscuit.
Third attempt: Hit Bruno. Pissed him off. Wet my pants.
Fourth attempt: Landed on the front porch.

Final score: Bruno 3, Porch 1.

After a few months on the job, I'd saved enough money to buy myself a royal blue Schwinn Varsity, the Porsche Carrera of ten-speed bicycles. I passed the clunker Huffy down to my brother Eric that same afternoon. Having two circular wheels sure sped up my daily rounds, and the classy new ride made me the envy of the neighborhood.

Which turned out to be a very bad thing.

One afternoon, I went to the garage to get the Schwinn and start my rounds. I raised the garage door . . .

. . . and it was gone. Someone had broken in, cut through the chain, and stole my bike. I still had my papers to deliver, so I went to my brother and borrowed my ex-Huffy. But before I started on my route, I had to go drown my misery.

"Bartender, make it a whiskey sour . . . "

Sailing Away

"I'm sailing away
Set an open course for the virgin sea.
'Cause I've got to be free
Free to face the life, that's ahead of me . . . "
/
I was driving along Interstate 15 not too long ago, flipping through radio stations, hoping to find some upbeat rock music to make the drive go by more quickly.

"We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll have a full hour of oldies for you here on KROQ . . ."

Oldies? Awesome. I'm up for the Beatles, or even some early Elvis. "Jailhouse Rock" or "Heartbreak Hotel", perhaps.

And then the music started playing. Styx's "Come Sail Away".

STYX? Are you fucking kidding me? Styx is NOT an "oldie"! Styx, at worst, is "classic rock". I nearly took out a Geo Metro that was holding up the fast lane. This is impossible, I'm way too young for my prom song to be a friggin' oldie.

I kept the station on, of course, because it's good music, but as "oldies hour" progressed the knife dug deeper and deeper.

"Lying beside you, here in the dark . . . "

Journey. Whack me with a guitar and call me Neal Schon.

"I heard it from a friend who . . . heard it from a friend whoooo . . . heard it from another you've been messin' around . . . "

"Hot blooded, check it and see . . . got a fever of a hundred and three . . . "

I guess I should've seen this coming. A couple months ago, I took my kids to see one of the current teen flicks, "You're a Hottie, Beth Wilson" or something like that. Anyway, there was a scene where the horny teenage boy takes the slutty teenage girl home to meet his parents.

In the role of horny teenage boy's father? Alan Ruck.

That's right, Cameron from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", the greatest teen movie of all time. He's now playing, essentially, Ferris's dad. When did this happen? I don't even want to think about how old the cast of "The Breakfast Club" is right now.

The more I thought about getting older, the more bummed out I became. So, as I often do when I have something like this on my mind, I went to my folks' house and talked about it with my dad. And as usual, his level of sympathy was somewhere between "tough shit" and "deal with it".

"You know, Pop," I said. "I was watching a ballgame the other day, and Lou Piniella was managing. He looks OLD. It's pretty depressing, man, all my favorite players are coaches now."

"Quit griping," said Dad. "All my favorite players are dead."

He got me on that one. Mickey Mantle, 1; Lou Piniella, 0.

Yeah, the years are piling up, and it's an eye-opener, but I was able to take it pretty much in stride. I have my health, a rewarding job, and as Joe Walsh would say, life's been good to me so far. All things considered, I could look at the whole "Styx on the oldies station" thing with a sense of humor, and accept the natural transition into the next phase of my life.

A few weeks ago, that outlook changed.

On Thursday, August 27, one of my best friends from high school died. Brad, his name was. He lived on the east coast, and since the flow of information hasn't been great, I'm not certain of the cause of death and I don't care to speculate. All I know is that he's gone, and he was only 43 years old.

That's a year younger than I am.

The game can end pretty quickly, can't it? You think you're just starting the back nine, when in fact you're lining up a putt on the 18th green. It's a thought that's pretty damn sobering.

Brad is the first person that I was close to, and was around my age, that has left us. I hadn't seen him in almost twenty years, but it couldn't have hit me any harder than if I'd had lunch with him a month ago. Sure, we'd kept in touch on and off, mostly through e-mails. To be honest, though, it wasn't all that often.

How I wish I'd been more diligent about that.

Brad was a very easy-going guy, with a great sense of humor. He'd be pissed off at me if he knew I was getting all sappy and nostalgic. He'd prefer that I focus on the everyday goofiness that we enjoyed, that helped us get through our first couple years of high school

So let's just do that.

One thing I remember is that Brad was terrible about remembering people's names. Someone would introduce himself (or herself) and halfway through the conversation he'd have forgotten who the hell he was talking to. Unfortunately, he was too proud to admit that, so whenever we saw someone that he recognized around school, and it was usually a girl he wanted to take a run at, he'd ask, "Oh, man, there's that cheerleader. What's her name again?"

"That's Renee."

"Cool, thanks," he'd say, and then he'd go make a move on her.

"Hey, Renee, how's it goin'?"

"Um, my name's Wendy, Brad."

"Oh, yeah, that's right. I knew that."

By that time, of course, Wendy had gone off on her merry way, and I was escorting Brad down the long hallway of rejection, chuckling to myself.

He never stopped trusting me, though. I don't know if that says more about him or about me. But there's no way I wasn't gonna keep going to this particular well over and over.

A couple weeks later we were having lunch in the cafeteria. "Come on, Chris. Don't fuck with me this time. That girl over there paying for her food. What's her name?"

"Oh, her? That's Jennifer."

"You're not messing with me now, right? Her name's really Jennifer?"

"Yes, Jennifer McDaniel. She sits behind me in Geometry class. I'm not going to just make up a last name, am I?"

"Okay, cool. Thanks."

Brad walked over to her. The damn fool looked so suave and confident. I almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

"Hey, Jennifer! Can I buy you a soda or something?"

"My name is Susan."

Brad glared at me like he was trying to telekinetically set me aflame. I was laughing so hard that chocolate milk nearly came out my nose. I composed my self as Brad stomped back to our table.

"You bastard. You lied to me again."

"Not completely. Her last name really IS McDaniel."

Brad fell for that every single time. It was like the little boy who cried wolf, only the wolf never showed up.

This next memory is kinda stupid, I'm not even sure why I remember it, but we laughed our asses off every time we did this. It was sort of a routine we had.

Near my house in Jersey, there was an Acme Supermarket. Brad and I would stop by there every so often to get a soda, a Drake's Devil Dog, or our absolute favorite junk food, the coveted Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpet. Before we checked out, we'd go up to the Acme kiosk and ask the manager, a nice old guy, to help us locate an item or two.

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Yes, how can I help you boys?"

"Well, we were wondering what aisle we'd find the Acme rocket skates in."

We'd do this EVERY time we were there.

"I can't find the instant holes. Do you have any in the back?"

"When will you be getting your next shipment of giant springs?"

After awhile, bless his heart, the manager started playing along.

"Sorry, boys, you're out of luck. Some frazzled old coyote was in here an hour ago and he bought the last giant spring, and I think he cleaned us out of the magnetic bird seed, too."

"Okay, thanks."

That's what our friendship was like, just hanging out, being stupid, making people laugh. It was that way as teenagers and the last time I ever saw him, when he came to visit in 1990, it hadn't changed. Even our sporadic e-mails were hilarious. He was a great guy, and I'm sorry that we never got the chance to hang out one last time.

One last laugh.

" I look to the sea . . . reflections in the waves spark my memory.
Some happy, some sad . . . I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had."

What Ever Happened To . . . Pebbles Flintstone?

The only daughter of Fred and Wilma Flintstone, Pebbles lived as normal a childhood as possible, given that the family dog was a dinosaur and their kitchen sink was a woolly mammoth. She had a bubbly personality, cheerful disposition, and was simply a joy to be around.

During her junior year at Bedrock High School, however, Pebbles' demeanor began to change. Soon after she started dating, she became withdrawn, and her self-image deteriorated rapidly.

"We didn't notice it right away," admits Wilma. "But Pebbles became distant. She was involved with the boy next door, and he was always polite to Fred and me, but we just weren't sure about the nature of their relationship. They'd go into Pebbles' room, and for hours we'd hear nothing but 'Bamm! Bamm! Bamm bamm bamm! Looking back, maybe we should've talked to her about it."

Pebbles dropped out of high school halfway through 12th grade, and took a job as a waitress at the local Hootstones. The attention of other men gave her the self-esteem she'd never gotten from her relationship with, as Fred called him, "that Rubble kid." Pebbles was growing up quickly.

Too quickly, as it turned out.

"Working at Hootstones showed me that I could be my own woman," said Pebbles in an interview for Rocksmopolitan Magazine. "My high school relationship was purely physical, and Bamm Bamm didn't respect me one bit. I wasn't meant to be the plaything of some hormonal Neanderthal. I'm better than that."

When her Hootstones income proved insufficient to support her increasingly-materialistic and self-centered lifestyle, Pebbles took to stripping. Headlining at the Spearmint Stegosaurus, she averaged several hundred bones a week, just in tips. At the age of 20, Pebbles was invited by none other than Hugh Hefrock to spend a few weeks at the Caveboy Mansion. She quickly became Hef's favorite, and was featured as the Cavemate of the Month in the magazine's July issue.

Predictably, Pebbles soon outlived her usefulness to Hef and, running low on viable options, she returned to Bedrock to try to reconcile with her estranged parents. When her bus pulled into Granite Central Station, however, she was greeted by none other than her ex-boyfriend Bamm Bamm Rubble, who'd armed himself with two dozen roses and a Whitrock's Sampler. They walked to a nearby coffee shop, and reminisced about days gone by.

Pebbles decided to give him another chance.

When your main squeeze has a nightclub bouncer name like "Bamm Bamm", there's no point crying "foul" when he clubs you upside the head for overcooking the brontosaurus burgers. On a muggy August night, Rubble knocked Pebbles unconscious with repeated bamms to the head. Thinking he'd punched her ticket to the big quarry in the sky, Bamm Bamm rushed her to nearby Bedrock General Hospital where she was immediately taken in for surgery.

Distraught at what he'd done, Bamm Bamm drove to the home of his parents, Barney and Betty. When he told them the story, the three Rubbles went next door to break the news to the Flintstones.

This was a poor decision.

Upon hearing that his Pebbly-Poo was comatose, Fred went absolutely sabertoothed-tigershit. He stormed into his bedroom, got his Slate and Wesson 357 Night Guard, and dropped Bamm Bamm with a bullet to the head.

Fred Flintstone was arrested, and convicted for the murder of Bamm Bamm Rubble. He is currently serving a life sentence in Gravelworth Penitentiary.

Although Pebbles survived the savage beating, she was never quite the same. She has frequent dizzy spells, occasional memory loss, and a few really unattractive scars. An attempted civil suit against the Rubbles was short-circuited when Barney Rubble pointed out (reasonably), "Hey, our kid is dead. Yours is just a bit wonky. Whaddaya say we call it a wash?"

Putting the past behind them, Barney and Betty Rubble moved to Fort Lauderstone, and are currently retired.

Pebbles lives at home with Wilma and Dino the Dinosaur.

And Bamm Bamm is still dead.

The Teacher Files, Volume IV: Mr. Raymond

Every time I hear the theme to "Green Acres" my butt clenches and I break out into a cold sweat.

Thanks very much, Mr. Raymond.

Archie Raymond was my Drivers' Education teacher, and he had this habit of singing "Green Acres" during our behind-the-wheel training. He'd even punctuate the melody with a quick "bomp bomp" on the dashboard. This annoying distraction did nothing to improve the car-handling skills of our trio of would-be Mario Andrettis.

"Okay, time to hit the road ladies," said Mr. Raymond. "Who wants to go first?"

"1-2-3 NOT IT!" called Donny Duncan, bottom-of-the-high-school-food-chain dweeb with the coke-bottle glasses.

"NOT IT!" I echoed.

"Pussies," said Rick Mustain. Rick was a sophomore jock, admired by some, despised by everyone else. But more to the point, since Rick's parents were divorced, and Rick's dad got wrapped up in the whole "gotta show m'boy what a cool father he has" phase, Rick had already been driving for two years. Dear ol' dad had given him access to the Camaro right around the time he'd given him access to the Old Milwaukee.

Mustain got behind the wheel of the 1982 Ford Fairmont, revved the engine a few times, and we screeched out of he Norco High parking lot.

"Greeeeeeen Acres is the place to be . . . "

With minimal coaching from Mr. Raymond, Mustain merged into the flow of traffic and cruised the Riverside Freeway. Although I couldn't see the speedometer from my vantage point in the back seat, it seemed like we had a pretty good chance of qualifying for the pole at Daytona.

" . . . keep Manhattan just give me that countrysiiiide."

As Donny battled car-sickness, Mustain exited the freeway, and pulled into the K-Mart parking lot so we could switch drivers.

"Okay Duncan, you're up," said Mr. Raymond.

"Me? Why can't Chris go next?"

"Just get in the driver's seat, Candyass," said Mustain, as he drilled Donny in the chest with the car keys.

"Ow!" Donny rubbed his right nipple as he bent over to get the keys from the pavement.

The poor bastard. Donny was only taking drivers' ed because it was a requirement, not because he had any interest in actually operating a motor vehicle. If Donny had his druthers, he'd happily pedal his Schwinn or ride shotgun in his mom's minivan till he was eligible for Social Security.

Donny immediately drove over the curb as he misjudged the width of the parking lot exit.

"Neeeew York is where I'd ratha stay . . . I get allergic smelling hay . . . "

We proceded down Hamner Avenue at the breakneck speed of fifteen miles per hour. A kid on a skateboard whizzed by.

Mr. Raymond had Donny enter the freeway. We accelerated to about thirty, completely monopolizing the slow lane. For the next fifteen minutes (two miles) Mustain and I played a game of "Count How Many People Give Us the Finger".

"Right there! The old geezer in the next lane!" called Mustain as a twenty-five foot Buick blew our doors in.

"You sure she wasn't just pointing at us?"

"No, man, she flipped us off. Her arthritis makes it look weird, though."

"There's another one, the guy on the Harley," I said.

"Check it out . . . a double bird from the kid in the back of that station wagon."

". . . darlin' I love ya but give me Park Avenue . . . "

Donny managed to get off the freeway, and we headed into a residential neighborhood to practice parallel parking. We found a reasonably empty side street, and Mr. Raymond set up a couple orange cones.

Which Donny promptly crushed. Repeatedly.

You've heard of a U-turn and a K-turn? Well, Donny Duncan invented what could best be described as the "asterisk turn". Forward, reverse, forward, reverse, hit the curb, forward . . .

Once he finally got parallel parked, we changed places and I was responsible for getting us back to the high school via surface streets. I did a fair job, kept up with traffic, obeyed all traffic regulations, and to the best of my knowledge avoided getting flipped off by any road-raging grandmothers.

Mustain, though, spent the whole ride back alternately punching Donny in the arm and giving me wet willies in my left ear.

"Mr. Raymond, can you tell Mustain to knock it off?" whined Donny.

"Ah, shut up, ya little fairy," countered Mustain.

"Green Acres we are therrrre . . . Ba dump ba dump bump, BOMP BOMP!"

An American Icon to Address Students

The following is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual events is, um, purely coincidental.

On Tuesday morning, via the Major League Baseball website and ESPN, New York Yankees' shortstop Derek Jeter will address school kids across the country, encouraging them to work hard, set goals, and do their best to make a difference in society.

Last week, when Jeter and the Yankees publicized this event, school districts and parents expressed their enthusiasm and gratitude. "The idea that someone so well-known and publicly respected is willing to take time from his unbelievably busy schedule to talk directly to students, well, I think that is truly inspiring," said John Smith, a superintendent in Southern California. "Our district is making it mandatory for all teachers to show his speech in class."

Parents have been equally supportive. "Not only am I glad that my fifth-grade son is getting to see this," said Mary Jones from Decatur, Illinois, "but the principal has opened up the school library so even our preschool kids can hear what Mr. Jeter has to say. This is something they'll remember for the rest of their lives."

On his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh supported Jeter, saying, "This one is just a no-brainer. I mean, who on earth could possibly believe that an American icon like Jeter sending a message of encouragement to the youth of our nation is a bad thing? Jeter is to be commended for using his celebrity status in such a positive manner."

Because Jeter is bi-racial -- his father is African-American, and his mother is Caucasian -- his message is expected to have an even greater impact. Students of all races can easily identify with Jeter, specifically because he can't be pigeon-holed according to any perceived ethnic expectations. Indeed, Derek Jeter embodies all that is good in every American citizen.

On Tuesday, millions of students are expected to tune in and according to the Yankees public relations department, this is part of what Mr. Jeter will have to say:

"No matter what you want to do with your life — I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we can meet our greatest challenges in the future."

Major League Baseball, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education, has also created lesson plans and a videotape for teachers to use after their students listen to the speech. One suggested activity is for students to write a letter to Mr. Jeter, sharing with him their goals for the future. As an incentive, the Yankees will send an autographed Derek Jeter baseball card to all students who participate.

Thank you, Mr. Jeter, for doing your part to support education in America.

The Spirit Was Willing, But the Fists Were Weak

Growing up, I had two distinct personality traits that would seem to be in direct conflict with each other: a sarcastic sense of humor, and extremely poor fighting skills. Given this potentially deadly combination, it's pretty amazing that I survived my teenage years. In fact, I can only remember being in two fights in my entire life.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, they both involved meat-headed football players.

"Fights" might be a generous term, actually. Despite what you'd think to see me now, what, with my ripped physique and six-pack abs and all, I was a scrawny teenager. So, in both of these "fights-but-not-really" it kinda looked like the referee tossed a coin and I'd elected to receive.

The first incident occurred when I was in tenth grade. One of our classmates, a girl named Wendy Byrne, had been killed in an automobile accident over the weekend. Come Monday morning everyone was pretty shaken up, and seeing her empty seat in our third period geometry class was emotional for all of us. Well, all of us except Frank Watkins, linebacker.

Watkins entered the classroom, noticed the sad faces and the empty chair, and offered these words of condolence:

"Hey, looks like Wendy Byrne GOT burned!"

I happened to be the closest one to Watkins when he said it. I stood up and looked him square in the chest and shouted, "That's a pretty fucked up thing to say, you asshole! She's dead, and you think that's funny?"

The next thing I remember I was lying on the floor, looking up at Watkins' teammates who, having set aside for a moment their team camraderie, were beating the living shit out of him. Seems that I wasn't the only one offended by Watkins' insensitivity.

The Wendy Byrne incident did involve me getting whacked for opening my big mouth, but it wasn't sarcasm that time. Frank Watkins was a four-star douchebag, and someone needed to speak up.

It just happened to be me.

The same can not be said of the other "fight".

Kevin Mills was a six-foot four, two hundred and eighty pound offensive lineman with the intellectual capacity of a brain-damaged slug. We'd never spoken, and I'm sure he had no idea who the hell I was, since it was my first year attending high school in California. I only knew him as "the big dumbass over at the football players' table".

Anyway, one Friday afternoon, the usual thundering herd of students was stampeding out of the cafeteria after lunch. In a hurry to get to my algebra class, I swung the door open, and continued on my way. All of a sudden, someone grabbed me by the back of my jacket and spun me around.

It was Mills. Apparently, when I swung the door open, it hit him in the arm, spilling his soda all over the front of his NHS football jersey.

He was not happy.

"What the fuck, you asshole! Lookit what ya did to my jersey!"

I'll admit it. I was terrified. "Oh, man, I'm sorry about that. I didn't even see you there."

All I was saying, was give peace a chance.

Unfortunately, all Mills was saying was, "I'm gonna kick your ass."

"Now wait a minute, dude. It was an accident. I'd be happy to buy you another soda, and let me know how much the cleaning . . . "

Mills, however, wasn't in the mood to negotiate. He shoved me hard against the lockers. A crowd had gathered. There was no doubt in my mind that I was about to get pummelled. That being the case, why not go for the laugh? Maybe a witty remark that they could emblazon on my tombstone.

"Hey, Kevin, that's the first time I've ever seen that."

This caught him off guard. "What're you talkin' about? First time you seen what?"

"Well, a guy with his IQ stitched on his shirt."

A somewhat funny line, which became hilarious when Mills actually looked down at the front of his shirt at the big, white "52". Apparently, he hadn't yet memorized his own number.

The crowd went wild.

When I regained consciousness in the nurse's office, my back hurt and the left side of my face was throbbing. There was a large knot on the back of my head from, according to eye-witnesses, my head hitting the concrete when I fell.

Mrs. Greene, the nurse, asked me what happened. I told her what I could remember.

"Jesus, that's funny," she said. "But was it worth getting beaten up over?"

I considered the question.

"You know what, it kinda was," I said.

And I meant it. If you're going to get a beating, you may as well take it in style.