My faithful fans once again get to sink their hungering into our unknown scribe (if you misssed Ch. 1, see September posts), again from these lost pages spilling around my feet
2. Cops and Rooftops
by
Sterling Dew
My parents pretty much let me do whatever I wanted when I was fairly young. Maybe they really trusted me for some strange reason, or maybe they didn't think they could stop me. Anyway, I started going to NYC all the time for punk and hardcore shows when I was about 13 or 14.
Jeffrey had a car and a license and was always ready for a road trip. We would all pile in whatever shabby beater car he happened to be driving and take off to the city for days. Our punk scene was so small at that point that the bands we wanted to see would never make it anywhere near us. The real shit was going on in the city as far as we were concerned and we wanted to be a part of it.
Agnostic Front, Cro-mags, and the Bad Brains were blowing up like crazy at that point, and there were a whole new slew of bands that were popping up left and right. Bands like Underdog, Killing Time, Sick of it All, and Leeway. These bands didn't even have records but they had an incredible energy. We wanted to see that kind of stuff so we had to travel. Sometimes we would hit shows at the Anthrax in Connecticut on our way down, drive to NYC beat up and bruised, crash out, then wake up for the Sunday matinee at CBGB's and do it all over again. It was always an adventure.
Jeffrey was not exactly the best driver. He also was not quite right in the head. Getting in the car with him was always an experience in itself. Sometimes it could be scary. But one way or another, we always managed to arrive safely. Maybe missing a muffler or dragging a gas tank, but safe. His driving style, though, did tend to attract the cops for some reason.
They pulled us over three times on one trip, and that was just the beginning. Jeffrey insisted it was because of the sticker on his car that showed a skeletal cop beating up a punk and said "Aggression," but the truth is he was all over the road due to his over-active mouth. Nick was with us too on that one, and Pauline and her boyfriend Daniel.
The first cop who pulled us over, somewhere in New Hampshire, was a real dick about it. He fucked with Jeff about the sticker and about the way we looked.
"You guys headin' for a Halloween party?" he sneered. "Bit early for Halloween isn't it?"
We drove out of that one with a $125 ticket.
I've never been very fond of cops. When I was about 3 we lived in Florida with a bunch of hippies, in a small commune-like situation. One day the cops raided the place and seized a small amount of pot. The woman that had it was a friend of my mother’s. She had a son who was about my age. They took him away from her and didn't return him until the next day. That kind of terrified me. I don't remember it but I do remember hearing about it and being afraid that they might return for me. The thought that anyone could take me away from my mom was horrifying at the time.
It was years before I learned all the other neat things the cops could do. I never really got into too much trouble, but cops are like the chicken pox, there is only so long you can avoid them.
Somehow I managed to sleep through being pulled over the second time, and during the third I pretended I was sleeping. I was sick of questions. Jeffrey managed to talk his way out of getting a ticket by telling the cop he already had one. Eventually Jeff was able to deliver us to our destination, but not before he had told his life story to every cop in the northeast.
The five of us were staying on 6th Avenue at this guy Larry's house. Larry was an older guy who was friends with Nick’s parents. He was out of town and had agreed to let us crash at his house, clearly unaware of what we were capable of. It was fairly nice but like most NYC apartments, it was not much more than a box.
That night we ran into two guys we knew from home, Eddie and Luke. They had their van parked right in front of our building. It was strange to run into them in the city by random chance, but New York is like that. So many paths cross its beaten track, at one time or another, and for so many different reasons. The motive for these guys was coke, I believe. That was long before I had gotten into hard drugs, and I wasn't really interested.
We sat in the van and smoked out, yet again. That was cool for a bit, then the crazy kids started huffing this reddish-brown liquid out of a small vial and things got ridiculous. They were really into it for some reason, but it just gave me a headache. It was like sniffing nail polish to get high. It took me about twenty minutes to convince them that skulking in a van on the side of the road sniffing fumes out of a vial was no way to spend an evening in New York City
Dragon Ale was only one dollar for a forty-ouncer in the city back then so you could get fucked up for very cheap. I couldn’t buy beer in NYC until I was 16, so Jeffrey had the job. He collected a few dollars from each of us and went to stock up. We then crowded into the apartment and proceeded to get smashed. It was summer and it was hot. The air conditioner in Larry’s apartment was not working and cold beer seemed to be the only relief from the heat.
Before long they were after another cheap high. “Whippits”, the cheapest high known to man, headache guananteed. Whippits were little canisters of nitrous oxide that they used for batching up whipped cream and stuff like that. Back in those days they had “Optimo” shops on every block in New York City. They were little head shops that sold tobacco, pipes, bongs, and of course, Whippits. There must have been thousands of them.
Whippits were not like the medical grade nitrous that they give you at the dentist, though. We used to get huge five-foot tall tanks of that shit for parties at the commune when I was a kid. I remember sneaking hits out the tank with Nick when we were about 8 or something. We would run into the tank room, grab the hose from the adults, who were too fucked-up to stop us, huff down as much as we could and stagger out of the room giggling. Nick would look at me, still holding his hit in and say:
“I’m going out of my skull man,” in a husky airless voice, and we would both roll on the floor with laughter for a few minutes, then jump up and go do it again.
It’s fun being a kid because you feel safe and secure. I did anyway. Everyone is pretty much on your side, and just tries to keep you from hurting yourself. You don’t have to worry about a lot of crap. At about fourteen that innocence starts to get beaten away by all the bullshit. Of course, that doesn’t stop you from doing stupid shit.
Whippits were definitely stupid shit. After a couple 24-packs I start to feel like I’ve been holding my face over a campfire or something, just roasting in the heat. Sometimes, if I did enough I would pass out and have little dreams. At the time they seemed long and elaborate, but I was never out for more then a few moments.
When I was younger my friends and I would try to get that feeling from hyperventilating. This kid Wayne who was a bit older then us showed us the trick. One person would squat down for a few moments and breath in and out heavily. Then when the time was right they would stand up and another person would grab them from behind and squeeze their chest just below the ribcage. It made you see stars, feel faint sometimes fall over, but it was a little bit like a nitrous high.
One time a few of us were doing it in the parking lot at the commune. This one kid Ren had never tried it before. After breathing for a few moments he stood up fast and Nick grasped him around his chest. Nick squeezed and Ren’s face went into a stupid looking grin as he went out.
It wasn’t uncommon for someone to pass out while hyperventilating but usually the person holding them up has enough sense to let them down gently. Unfortunately for Ren, Nick didn’t possess that kind of sense. He let go and Ren fell like a rock to the ground. His body remained straight and erect as it tipped over and his forehead collided with the dirt. We all gasped in horror. I didn’t think he would get back up.
Nick ran to his side and checked to see if he was alive. We had heard some horror stories about a guy who died hyperventilating, so naturally we feared the worst. The blow to his forehead was no laughing matter either, but damn, it looked funny.
“Ren are you ok?” Nick was shaking him gently.
“Uhhhh, you prick” Ren groaned. ”you were supposed to catch me.”
“Sorry man.” Nick pleaded. “I didn’t realize you were out.”
“Yeah right.” Ren snapped irritably as he staggered to his feet.
As he turned around to face us, we all fell dead silent again, though only for a moment. Stuck right in the middle of Ren’s forehead was a shiny green Mountain Dew bottle cap. We all burst into laughter when we saw it.
“What?” Ren snapped. He was now quite annoyed.
“Dude, look in the mirror.” said Nick.
Ren bent over and peered into the rear view mirror of a nearby car. His cheeks turned slightly pale as he looked. He stared with a blank expression for a few seconds then a morbid look crossed his face, only to be replaced by a stupid looking grin. He began to laugh and we followed his lead. We then pried the bottle cap from his head leaving nothing but a bloody imprint on his forehead.
Naturally, we were excited when we realized that you could get a better version of that high, simply by buying these fancy little cartridges and sucking them down out of a balloon. It was all so much easier. Of course, they still made you black out and fall down half the time, but that was half the fun.
By evening we were on our sixth box of whippets. Nick, Eddie, Luke and I had gone up the roof of Larry’s building, which was fairly tall. I don’t know how many stories it was but the people below looked like ants from this height. If they had looked up they would not have been able to see us. We sat for awhile, inhaling balloons and dropping the empty cartridges to the street below.
After awhile you start to build up a tolerance to nitrous and you have to do more and more to get high. Luckily you could fit quite a few into a balloon. I put four into one fat pink balloon and prepared to inhale. Frost poured off the end of the balloon where the nozzle was frozen shut. I grasped it with my warm fingers until the ice melted, then quickly huffed it down. I was able to finish it in four breaths despite the fact that it was swelling near to the point of bursting.
I stood up just before the rush hit me, only to find that my legs were a bit confused about the location of the ground. I lost my balance and tumbled to the floor making a loud crash. They all laughed at me. We smoked out, yet again, regardless of the fact that the nitrous made us completely immune to the weed. We could still try.
Before long the weed had been consumed and we were forced to turn our attention back to the whippits. I had just done a double balloon when I saw a light flash quickly by in the corner of my eye. It was gone so fast I could not even be sure that I had really seen it. I heard a loud shuffling sound that could have been footsteps, and then . . .
"Don’t move motherfucker." The voice was not loud or overly hostile despite the owner's remark.
I felt a point of pressure on the back of skull. My heart skipped a beat as I realized it was a gun. Its cold barrel was pressed against the back of my shaven head which was swimming in a nitrous-induced daze. I had no intentions of moving. I didn't think I could. I was too busy fantasizing about how my brains would look splattered all over the roof if he pulled the trigger. Maybe a few pieces would make it over the edge and land on a pedestrian or two. I kept these thoughts to myself and before I knew it was yanked roughly to my feet.
"Put your hands against that wall" a voice said calmly.
The realization that these were cops actually brought some relief. I had half expected to see some crazed, gun-toting junkie or an over-excited tenant intent on protecting his building. Either one would be likely to shoot us. The cops probably would not. Besides, all the pot was gone, and whippets were fully legal.
I did as I was instructed and leaned over, putting my hands on the four-foot-high brick wall that separated me from one hell of a fall. Far below people scurried to and fro like ants gathering food to bring back to their hill, every one of them in such a rush. I wondered briefly what each of their lives were about and what drive possessed them to race along so madly.
Rough hands patted me down and riffled through my coat pockets, dragging me out of my thoughts and back to reality. I was relieved that I had left my bowl in the apartment. It's always a good feeling knowing you are clean when you're being searched, pulled over, or even talking to the cops. It makes you so happy that you just want to help the kind officer in any way possible.
"Here, officer, let me empty my pockets for you." or "Please, officer, don't trouble yourself, I'll put these handcuffs on myself." It feels great to be innocent.
On the other hand, if you've got some shit on you, you're fucked and you know it. And you know the cop knows it too. You feel like you have a sign attached to your forehead that says "CRIMINAL", and you wonder if any loose drugs or weapons might be hanging out of your pockets. So of course you check, and then you wonder if the cop is wondering what you’re checking. It's a vicious circle that makes you appear at best confused, at worst guilty.
We had a close one this one time when Jeffrey and I were coming back from one of our "punk rock pilgrimages" as we used to call our trips to the city. We were in Jeffrey’s Pinto and we were hauling ass. He had this ridiculous stereo in there with like ten speakers and gigantic subwoofers. It was worth about twice as much as the actual car, which, like most Pintos, was a piece of shit.
We had that thing cranked up full blast as we raced up I-89 doing 80, which was fast for a Pinto. It was so loud that we never heard the crunching sound as the gas tank dropped down from the underside of the car and began dragging along the highway. We never even noticed until we were getting pulled over and Jeffrey killed the music. It was a miracle the tank had not exploded and killed us. The cop said that there were sparks trailing all over the road behind us and that we were lucky to be alive. He seemed horrified by the fact that we had not noticed our gas tank fall off because we were too busy rocking. This seemed to sum up all of his fears about our generation.
After a brief interrogation and a lengthy lecture he offered to give us a ride to a nearby motel. My first instincts were to refuse. My brain scraped and scrambled for a way out, but found none. In my jacket pocket, my sweating hand clutched a large glass honey jar filled with bright green, crystal-covered skunk bud, at least half an ounce. The jar barely fit into my pocket. I cringed in horror, feeling sick inside, as I climbed into the back of the cruiser, weed and all.
The ride was about ten miles but it felt like ten thousand. It was my first ride in the back of a police car. In my pockets my hands were sweating. My left hand white-knuckled the jar and forced it into the bottom of my pocket. I imagined it falling to the floor and spewing its contents out all over the car. I felt like puking. That blinking neon sign on my forehead was clearly reading "CRIMINAL," but officer didn't seem to notice. True to his word, he dropped us at a motel off one of the exits and gave us the number of a local mechanic. By the time he was out of sight, we were back up on the interstate, hitchhiking home. I don’t remember seeing the Pinto again.
Here on the roof, though, it was not like that. I had nothing illegal on me and I was not breaking any laws that I could think of. It felt great. I felt confident that I could explain the whole thing given the chance. However, it looked like I might not get that chance.
One cop still had his gun on me as another locked a pair of handcuffs tightly around my wrists. The metal was cold against my skin.
"How did you get up here" he asked shining his flashlight in my eyes.
"We took the stairs," I replied. I had not meant it to sound snide but I was sure it had.
"Cut the bullshit," the officer snapped, clearly annoyed. “How did you get into this building?”
“We have keys. We’re staying at a friend’s apartment on the 3rd floor.”
I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not, but his attitude seemed to warm slightly. He began to ask me a long series of questions, ignoring the fact that Eddie was being roughed-up by the three other cops. He could not help but mouth off at them and he was suffering for it. They spun him around and pushed him down onto the wall forcing his face out over the edge and cuffed his hands behind his back. He squealed a bit as the cuffs bit into his flesh.
“How do you like that, fucker,” the oldest cop snarled, grabbing Eddie by the shoulder and spinning him around again.
“It feels fucking great, man,” Eddie blurted out sarcastically.
“Watch your fucking mouth.” The cops gray moustache was bristling slightly. He slapped Eddie across the face with the back of his hand. Not hard enough to do any real damage, just hard enough to silence him.
Apparently I had the good cop and Eddie had the bad cop. That or I just had enough common sense not to piss them off. At any rate, he was pretty decent to me after I explained the situation to him. Still he made no attempt to stop his partners from roughing up Eddie. I had almost talked us out of it when a large bag of white powder fell from Eddie’s jacket pocket onto the rooftop. The cops were thrilled.
“Damn what’s that you got there?” The youngest was quite excited. “Looks like coke to me.” We were finished now and I knew it. This was it.
“I think you better take us down and show us this apartment now,” said “goodcop,” glaring at me with disgust. His eyes called me a liar.
Luke was being searched now and the cops’ treasure pile was growing rapidly. Weed (someone had been holding out), two more pipes, more coke, a knife, some strange vial of nasty-looking liquid. The pigs were stoked.
“Damn you guys are the real jackpot,” one smirked as he began loading all the evidence into a bag.
I looked out over the edge of the roof in despair. Twenty stories below there was freedom. I considered jumping. Traffic was moving smoothly on the Avenue of the Americas, no obstacles to hinder its flow. I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be whisked away by its steady flow. To anywhere but here.
One car, it seemed, was not content to flow with the current. Its horn blared out as it sped down a side street that connected with Sixth Avenue, oblivious, it seemed, to the people in its path. It quickly reached Sixth Avenue but failed to turn right or left. Instead it forged on straight ahead, plowing through the front window of a movie theater. Terrified screams mixed with sounds of breaking glass and twisting metal as people and smoke poured out of the shattered wall. Even after the death of the vehicle its horn continued to moan in protest. Numerous sirens joined its chorus as it barked out its final note.
“Guess what, boys” said goodcop. “This is your lucky day.”
They quickly un-cuffed us and hurried out into the stairwell. I could hear them thundering down the stairs for a moment even over the wail of the sirens. We all stared at each other in amazement.
“What the fuck just happened?” said Luke.
“I have no idea,” I laughed. “But the cop was right. It is our lucky day. They forgot the weed.”
We all laughed in total disbelief of everything that had just happened.
“So who was holding out?”
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