“Life goes by so fast/You only want to do what you think is right/Close your eyes then it’s past/Story of my life.” –Social Distortion, “Story of My Life”
We heard the sirens coming from a mile away. No one knew what to do. We were way out in the open along a broad two-lane road running through the middle of the area’s biggest housing development. There were a few trees here and there, and glimmers of porch lights illuminating the grass on one side of the road—meaning there was almost nowhere to hide, and few places to blend in with the shadows. We were dead meat for certain.
“Kroger, you moron, you were yelling when we rang that old lady’s doorbell. She fucking heard you,” the fifth dude shrieked.
“Shut the hell up, man,” I said back, feeling my heart palpitating and my palms clamming up. “Shit, I’m applying to college. That’s all I’m thinking about now, I must be crazy doing this crap! I don’t need another in-school suspension! I don’t need an underage!”
“Screw this,” Putnam whispered next to me putting me in a half-hearted headlock. “And shut up about that. We’re not even in school. What’s really gonna happen? Be rational here, man.”
The sirens got closer and closer. I saw flashing lights just a few hundred yards away. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. The law was closing in quickly; we’d probably be in jail before the night was over.
“Fuck it, dude,” I said, staring at the flashing lights heading our way. “Let’s go bowling.” I took a head-dive under the closest pine-tree next to the industrial park across the street from a handful of boxy McMansions. Kroger followed right behind me, unsettling the frigid water from the needles above. We sat there shivering, getting soaking wet hiding in the mud underneath, hoping to God our entire bodies were concealed. Even as the old rainwater soaked our shirts, we didn’t move a muscle.
At any second, we reckoned, the police would be rolling up. The fifth guy and Putnam sort of moved behind the tree, hoping they’d be obscured by its shadows. And Keeley, our resident renegade, stood against the wall of some large warehouse casually puffing on a cigarette, using his body language to tell whoever might come by “Just try and fucking arrest me. My dad will own you.”
As we heard two cars make a right turn about three blocks away, we had the worst feeling that we’d be arrested for giving the neighborhood squares and their annoying little sons and daughters some innocent, 11th grade shit.
“Mother of shit,” Kroger whispered. “My parents are going to kill me.”
Four hours earlier, probably around 8:30, we were at some independent film festival our high school was having. It was a dreadful bore to say the least, but Keeley knew a kid who co-wrote one of the crap pictures we were enduring. He’d insisted we go because there might be some girl there who wanted to bang him. Why we had to sit through this garbage just so he could maybe get a phone number, though, was beyond the rest of us.
“Who dragged us to this ‘film festival’ or whatever?” Keeley yelled to me across four auditorium seats, forgetting that he’d been the one to get us here.
“You got us here, man,” I said, barely paying attention to whatever was on the screen. “Didn’t your friend help write ‘The Red-Rider’ or something?”
“Yeah, but still, I’m trying to meet up with that girl Clarissa,” Keeley yelled. “She said she’d be here, man.” But, alas, Clarissa was nowhere to be found, so we plotted our escape from the auditorium loudly.
“We should leave,” Kroger said, grinning at Putnam and me. “Keeley, your place?”
“You got drinks?” Putnam yelled loud enough for the whole theatre to hear. Two girls in front of us, decked out in local band t-shirts, tight jeans, and Chuck Taylors glared back at us through thick black-framed glasses as if they’d really been enjoying these pseudo-intellectual “art” films.
“Yeah,” Keeley shot back. “What do you think? Let’s roll, like, right now. I’m driving.”
“You don’t even have your license, Keeley,” Kroger said. It was true—most of us had had learned to drive when we were a year younger. Not Keeley. He was content to pay one of us a few bucks to cart his lazy ass to school everyday. While we’d all been cruising for almost ten months, he still hadn’t bothered taking the test to get his learning permit.
“Right, you’re driving me,” Keeley muttered. “Asshole.”
As the hipster girls glanced back at us disgustedly again, Keeley asked them to join us for a few beers. They sulkily rolled their eyes and looked away. “Fucking lame,” he said, loud enough for them to hear. We tip-toed out of the auditorium so that as few people as possible would see us taking off.
Within twenty minutes, we were back at Keeley’s mansion trying to raid his dad’s liquor cabinet and having a tough go at it. His old man, a chain-smoking cardiologist (not joking), kept his booze locked up in a closet in the basement. He left the Bailey’s, and what looked like a 20-year old bottle of Old Crow bourbon out in the open behind the dry-bar, but his good shit was behind closed doors a few feet over. Or so we thought.
Using the fifth guy’s soccer talents and a screwdriver, we got into the ‘good shit’ quickly.
“Keeley, there’s just a bunch of...uh...triple sec, and like nothing else!” the fifth guy yelled. “I can’t believe I kicked this fucker open for this crap! Motezuma?”
“And a thirty year old bottle of scotch!” Putnam exclaimed, grabbing it from the closet and examining the label. “I bet this is the real shit, man! Let’s drink this.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what he wants to do with this, but take a handle, that’s it,” Keeley said. “Don’t touch the scotch Putnam. My dad’s had that shit forever.”
“Triple sec?” Kroger asked. “Is that good?”
“It’s pretty awful, but we can nail this down straight,” I said. “Give it over. We’ll make margaritas without the tequila. Or the lime juice.”
We passed the handle of orange-flavored crap around for a minute or two, swilling down what we could and put on an actually decent movie. But the drinks, instead of relaxing us, were making us antsy. It was a Friday night, and none of us could stomach just sitting on the couch drinking 40 proof alcohol like it was a big deal.
“Is this what’s happening tonight?” the fifth guy said manically. “Let’s go do something. We need to do things. Things! ”
“What the hell do you do in Blue Acres?” I said to the fifth guy, taking another pull from the bottle. “And, Keeley, this stuff is toxic. It’s way too sweet.”
“Let’s just go out,” Keeley said. “We’ll take a walk around for awhile. There must be something to do. I think that girl Clarissa lives around here...”
“Oh, drop it with that shit, man,” Putnam said.
We got our jackets on and giggled our way back to the end of the street he lived on feeling the minor buzz from the crap we’d been drinking. The early April air blew back against us, and the only discernable smell was Keeley’s cigarette, one of a few he stole from his old man, smoldering in the breeze.
“Who lives over here?” the fifth guy asked us.
“Uhhh...”
DINNNNNGGGGGGGGG. Before we even turned our heads, fifth guy sprinted up to the door, banged the huge doorknocker a few times, and rang the doorbell once or twice. And with no warning, we started to run. Great, I thought. We’re playing ding-dong ditch. I’m a year from graduation and we’re going to go ring doorbells and screw with 45-year olds in the middle of the night. Totally fucking mensa.
“Oh Christ! What are you doing, man?” Keeley yelled. “That’s my neighbor! He plays golf with my dad, and I think he’s like 60. He gets up to piss like six times a night. He’ll definitely call the police.”
“Then let’s run!” fifth guy yelled. “Let him shake it out the window on us.”
After a five minute jog, all of us were wheezing uncontrollably. The fifth guy was the only one still standing, making fun of us for being complete pussies.
“I recognize this house,” he said nonchalantly. “Let’s get it.”
“What?”
“None of us even know what fucking street we’re on. We don’t live in this development,” Kroger barked back, coughing up half a lung. “Why the hell did we just run for five minutes to avoid getting caught?”
“That dude wouldn’t have messed with us,” I said, faking nonchalance, like I knew things would be fine all along.
“Yeah,” the fifth guy yelled. “They can’t run as fast as us.” We looked the other direction, checking the street for anyone looking at us suspiciously. When we turned back around, fifth guy’d all but disappeared. That is until...
DINNNNNNGGGGG.
“Nice!” Kroger yelled, rapidly getting in the spirit of being 12 years old again. He took two quick breaths, jumped in the air, and started running away from us, yelling “Okay, fuck it. I got this one.” He scampered down the street and rang some lady’s doorbell on some overpriced house. No lights. He rang the buzzer next door. Nothing.
“Okay, this is lame,” I said to Putnam. “No one’s even waking up. I haven’t seen one light come on yet.”
“Guess we need to make things more exciting. Let’s try out another street,” he replied. We all slowed down, looked around for a minute or two, and ran across one of the development’s main roads, and made a quick left onto another road.
“Alright, let’s go down a little bit farther, then,” Keeley said, motioning to his right. “I know a couple of the people on this next street. If we get caught, they’ll probably just laugh. Well, maybe. Or they’ll call my parents.”
We made our way down a large cul-de-sac with about five houses, and the fifth guy made a great suggestion: “Let’s each ring one and start running.”
“No. Let’s stay for a minute and watch chaos ensue,” Putnam said. “We can see how many lights go on then.”
We stood in the middle of the block, staring at all five houses, and...ready...set...go! each of us charged at one of the places ready to make some trouble.
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! We heard the doorbells sounding in the night as we ran back toward the center of the block, looking for any signs of life, or people being miserably disturbed at 11:48 on a Friday night.
“Oh, we got them good!” fifth guy yelled. “Watch them call the cops. They won’t do it. Fucking pussies. Let’s knock down a mailbox, too! Just for fun, right? Just for fun!” Fifth guy was jumping around gleefully, tearing circles around us like Speedy Gonzales, acting like he hoped some dude might bring a .45 out of his house at any time and take pot-shots at us like that redneck in Dazed and Confused. Fifth guy, who we all barely knew through Keeley, was the source of entertainment for that early part of the night. To this day, for some reason, none of us can remember who the hell he was or what happened to him after our junior year of high school.
“Are you kidding me?” Kroger said. “Time to run, soon.”
“Yeah, good call,” I whispered to Kroger. “We’ll run when lights go on. Which is likely to happen at any second.”
We watched for a second though, and lo-and-behold, two second-floor bedrooms lit up. People in their bathrobes were scrambling around trying to figure out if the UPS man was ringing to deliver those $200 J. Crew orders they placed just in time for Easter. You knew what was going through their minds...
We heard the sirens coming from a mile away. No one knew what to do. We were way out in the open along a broad two-lane road running through the middle of the area’s biggest housing development. There were a few trees here and there, and glimmers of porch lights illuminating the grass on one side of the road—meaning there was almost nowhere to hide, and few places to blend in with the shadows. We were dead meat for certain.
“Kroger, you moron, you were yelling when we rang that old lady’s doorbell. She fucking heard you,” the fifth dude shrieked.
“Shut the hell up, man,” I said back, feeling my heart palpitating and my palms clamming up. “Shit, I’m applying to college. That’s all I’m thinking about now, I must be crazy doing this crap! I don’t need another in-school suspension! I don’t need an underage!”
“Screw this,” Putnam whispered next to me putting me in a half-hearted headlock. “And shut up about that. We’re not even in school. What’s really gonna happen? Be rational here, man.”
The sirens got closer and closer. I saw flashing lights just a few hundred yards away. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. The law was closing in quickly; we’d probably be in jail before the night was over.
“Fuck it, dude,” I said, staring at the flashing lights heading our way. “Let’s go bowling.” I took a head-dive under the closest pine-tree next to the industrial park across the street from a handful of boxy McMansions. Kroger followed right behind me, unsettling the frigid water from the needles above. We sat there shivering, getting soaking wet hiding in the mud underneath, hoping to God our entire bodies were concealed. Even as the old rainwater soaked our shirts, we didn’t move a muscle.
At any second, we reckoned, the police would be rolling up. The fifth guy and Putnam sort of moved behind the tree, hoping they’d be obscured by its shadows. And Keeley, our resident renegade, stood against the wall of some large warehouse casually puffing on a cigarette, using his body language to tell whoever might come by “Just try and fucking arrest me. My dad will own you.”
As we heard two cars make a right turn about three blocks away, we had the worst feeling that we’d be arrested for giving the neighborhood squares and their annoying little sons and daughters some innocent, 11th grade shit.
“Mother of shit,” Kroger whispered. “My parents are going to kill me.”
Four hours earlier, probably around 8:30, we were at some independent film festival our high school was having. It was a dreadful bore to say the least, but Keeley knew a kid who co-wrote one of the crap pictures we were enduring. He’d insisted we go because there might be some girl there who wanted to bang him. Why we had to sit through this garbage just so he could maybe get a phone number, though, was beyond the rest of us.
“Who dragged us to this ‘film festival’ or whatever?” Keeley yelled to me across four auditorium seats, forgetting that he’d been the one to get us here.
“You got us here, man,” I said, barely paying attention to whatever was on the screen. “Didn’t your friend help write ‘The Red-Rider’ or something?”
“Yeah, but still, I’m trying to meet up with that girl Clarissa,” Keeley yelled. “She said she’d be here, man.” But, alas, Clarissa was nowhere to be found, so we plotted our escape from the auditorium loudly.
“We should leave,” Kroger said, grinning at Putnam and me. “Keeley, your place?”
“You got drinks?” Putnam yelled loud enough for the whole theatre to hear. Two girls in front of us, decked out in local band t-shirts, tight jeans, and Chuck Taylors glared back at us through thick black-framed glasses as if they’d really been enjoying these pseudo-intellectual “art” films.
“Yeah,” Keeley shot back. “What do you think? Let’s roll, like, right now. I’m driving.”
“You don’t even have your license, Keeley,” Kroger said. It was true—most of us had had learned to drive when we were a year younger. Not Keeley. He was content to pay one of us a few bucks to cart his lazy ass to school everyday. While we’d all been cruising for almost ten months, he still hadn’t bothered taking the test to get his learning permit.
“Right, you’re driving me,” Keeley muttered. “Asshole.”
As the hipster girls glanced back at us disgustedly again, Keeley asked them to join us for a few beers. They sulkily rolled their eyes and looked away. “Fucking lame,” he said, loud enough for them to hear. We tip-toed out of the auditorium so that as few people as possible would see us taking off.
Within twenty minutes, we were back at Keeley’s mansion trying to raid his dad’s liquor cabinet and having a tough go at it. His old man, a chain-smoking cardiologist (not joking), kept his booze locked up in a closet in the basement. He left the Bailey’s, and what looked like a 20-year old bottle of Old Crow bourbon out in the open behind the dry-bar, but his good shit was behind closed doors a few feet over. Or so we thought.
Using the fifth guy’s soccer talents and a screwdriver, we got into the ‘good shit’ quickly.
“Keeley, there’s just a bunch of...uh...triple sec, and like nothing else!” the fifth guy yelled. “I can’t believe I kicked this fucker open for this crap! Motezuma?”
“And a thirty year old bottle of scotch!” Putnam exclaimed, grabbing it from the closet and examining the label. “I bet this is the real shit, man! Let’s drink this.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what he wants to do with this, but take a handle, that’s it,” Keeley said. “Don’t touch the scotch Putnam. My dad’s had that shit forever.”
“Triple sec?” Kroger asked. “Is that good?”
“It’s pretty awful, but we can nail this down straight,” I said. “Give it over. We’ll make margaritas without the tequila. Or the lime juice.”
We passed the handle of orange-flavored crap around for a minute or two, swilling down what we could and put on an actually decent movie. But the drinks, instead of relaxing us, were making us antsy. It was a Friday night, and none of us could stomach just sitting on the couch drinking 40 proof alcohol like it was a big deal.
“Is this what’s happening tonight?” the fifth guy said manically. “Let’s go do something. We need to do things. Things! ”
“What the hell do you do in Blue Acres?” I said to the fifth guy, taking another pull from the bottle. “And, Keeley, this stuff is toxic. It’s way too sweet.”
“Let’s just go out,” Keeley said. “We’ll take a walk around for awhile. There must be something to do. I think that girl Clarissa lives around here...”
“Oh, drop it with that shit, man,” Putnam said.
We got our jackets on and giggled our way back to the end of the street he lived on feeling the minor buzz from the crap we’d been drinking. The early April air blew back against us, and the only discernable smell was Keeley’s cigarette, one of a few he stole from his old man, smoldering in the breeze.
“Who lives over here?” the fifth guy asked us.
“Uhhh...”
DINNNNNGGGGGGGGG. Before we even turned our heads, fifth guy sprinted up to the door, banged the huge doorknocker a few times, and rang the doorbell once or twice. And with no warning, we started to run. Great, I thought. We’re playing ding-dong ditch. I’m a year from graduation and we’re going to go ring doorbells and screw with 45-year olds in the middle of the night. Totally fucking mensa.
“Oh Christ! What are you doing, man?” Keeley yelled. “That’s my neighbor! He plays golf with my dad, and I think he’s like 60. He gets up to piss like six times a night. He’ll definitely call the police.”
“Then let’s run!” fifth guy yelled. “Let him shake it out the window on us.”
After a five minute jog, all of us were wheezing uncontrollably. The fifth guy was the only one still standing, making fun of us for being complete pussies.
“I recognize this house,” he said nonchalantly. “Let’s get it.”
“What?”
“None of us even know what fucking street we’re on. We don’t live in this development,” Kroger barked back, coughing up half a lung. “Why the hell did we just run for five minutes to avoid getting caught?”
“That dude wouldn’t have messed with us,” I said, faking nonchalance, like I knew things would be fine all along.
“Yeah,” the fifth guy yelled. “They can’t run as fast as us.” We looked the other direction, checking the street for anyone looking at us suspiciously. When we turned back around, fifth guy’d all but disappeared. That is until...
DINNNNNNGGGGG.
“Nice!” Kroger yelled, rapidly getting in the spirit of being 12 years old again. He took two quick breaths, jumped in the air, and started running away from us, yelling “Okay, fuck it. I got this one.” He scampered down the street and rang some lady’s doorbell on some overpriced house. No lights. He rang the buzzer next door. Nothing.
“Okay, this is lame,” I said to Putnam. “No one’s even waking up. I haven’t seen one light come on yet.”
“Guess we need to make things more exciting. Let’s try out another street,” he replied. We all slowed down, looked around for a minute or two, and ran across one of the development’s main roads, and made a quick left onto another road.
“Alright, let’s go down a little bit farther, then,” Keeley said, motioning to his right. “I know a couple of the people on this next street. If we get caught, they’ll probably just laugh. Well, maybe. Or they’ll call my parents.”
We made our way down a large cul-de-sac with about five houses, and the fifth guy made a great suggestion: “Let’s each ring one and start running.”
“No. Let’s stay for a minute and watch chaos ensue,” Putnam said. “We can see how many lights go on then.”
We stood in the middle of the block, staring at all five houses, and...ready...set...go! each of us charged at one of the places ready to make some trouble.
DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! We heard the doorbells sounding in the night as we ran back toward the center of the block, looking for any signs of life, or people being miserably disturbed at 11:48 on a Friday night.
“Oh, we got them good!” fifth guy yelled. “Watch them call the cops. They won’t do it. Fucking pussies. Let’s knock down a mailbox, too! Just for fun, right? Just for fun!” Fifth guy was jumping around gleefully, tearing circles around us like Speedy Gonzales, acting like he hoped some dude might bring a .45 out of his house at any time and take pot-shots at us like that redneck in Dazed and Confused. Fifth guy, who we all barely knew through Keeley, was the source of entertainment for that early part of the night. To this day, for some reason, none of us can remember who the hell he was or what happened to him after our junior year of high school.
“Are you kidding me?” Kroger said. “Time to run, soon.”
“Yeah, good call,” I whispered to Kroger. “We’ll run when lights go on. Which is likely to happen at any second.”
We watched for a second though, and lo-and-behold, two second-floor bedrooms lit up. People in their bathrobes were scrambling around trying to figure out if the UPS man was ringing to deliver those $200 J. Crew orders they placed just in time for Easter. You knew what was going through their minds...
And in the middle of the night? What the hell is the UPS guy doing here doing here? Hold on, Ethel, let me see if it’s those goddamn kids again. The ones ringing doorbells in the middle of the night a few weeks ago, remember? They woke Joey up and he couldn’t get back to sleep all night! If it’s them, I swear....
They opened the doors, looked around, and babbled “Hello?” through sleep-induced stupors.
“HELLO?! Who the hell’s out there. Don’t think I don’t see you!” some middle-aged guy said, stepping off of his front porch ready to make a run at us.
“Okay, let’s go,” three of us mouthed to each other. We backed away slowly, and spun toward the take-off position.
We ran, and decided to cool it for awhile. We walked around on a few streets until we accidentally found ourselves on the main drag, a two-lane road with big houses on one side, and warehouses and industrial buildings on the other. A car came by here and there, flashing their beams at us so we’d move out of the road. As we jumped to the side for the umpteenth time, we heard a wailing sound cut through the clear, breezy night.
“Oh Jesus, I hear sirens,” Kroger whimpered. “They got us, man!”
“Bullshit,” Putnam yelled. “You’re just paranoid! They’re not going to come this way for a few fuckin’ doorbells.”
We ran back out to the main drag that connected a dozen sidestreets and started hooting and hollering on the side of the road. Keeley and Putnam fired up smokes and started shoving each other into the grass on the opposite side of the road. As we continued walking, the road widened and the sirens came closer and closer. We all glanced at each other, and for that moment, thought that we might get caught--a bunch of high schooolers playing grammar school games. Keeley grinned reassuringly, fifth guy looked dead-set on a mission, Putnam stared up at the stars, and Kroger looked terrified. We all had the same thoughts, but the crazy differences in reaction cracked me up for just a second. But then, another wail sounded, this one appreciably closer than the last. My brow furrowed quickly as I scanned the street for a good hiding place.
“HELLO?! Who the hell’s out there. Don’t think I don’t see you!” some middle-aged guy said, stepping off of his front porch ready to make a run at us.
“Okay, let’s go,” three of us mouthed to each other. We backed away slowly, and spun toward the take-off position.
We ran, and decided to cool it for awhile. We walked around on a few streets until we accidentally found ourselves on the main drag, a two-lane road with big houses on one side, and warehouses and industrial buildings on the other. A car came by here and there, flashing their beams at us so we’d move out of the road. As we jumped to the side for the umpteenth time, we heard a wailing sound cut through the clear, breezy night.
“Oh Jesus, I hear sirens,” Kroger whimpered. “They got us, man!”
“Bullshit,” Putnam yelled. “You’re just paranoid! They’re not going to come this way for a few fuckin’ doorbells.”
We ran back out to the main drag that connected a dozen sidestreets and started hooting and hollering on the side of the road. Keeley and Putnam fired up smokes and started shoving each other into the grass on the opposite side of the road. As we continued walking, the road widened and the sirens came closer and closer. We all glanced at each other, and for that moment, thought that we might get caught--a bunch of high schooolers playing grammar school games. Keeley grinned reassuringly, fifth guy looked dead-set on a mission, Putnam stared up at the stars, and Kroger looked terrified. We all had the same thoughts, but the crazy differences in reaction cracked me up for just a second. But then, another wail sounded, this one appreciably closer than the last. My brow furrowed quickly as I scanned the street for a good hiding place.
Kroger and I, being the biggest bitches out of the gang, took head-dives into some bush hoping to avoid getting caught. If the police were coming, we figured we’d be out of harm’s way. Eventually, everyone but Keeley was hiding, us under trees, Putnam and fifth guy standing a couple of feet behind us giggling nervously. If they came down this way, we'd be dead; Keeley'd give us all away.
We hid down there for awhile not paying attention to anything. We were scared shitless—so, of course, we didn’t hear the sirens fade into the distance. Once we heard some laughter, we both climbed out from underneath the tree, clothes dripping with water.
“Shit,” Keeley said sarcastically. “That was too close for comfort.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you hide?” Kroger yelled. Keeley took another drag off of his smoke.
“Dude, that car was at least five streets away,” Putnam said, smacking Keeley on the back, both of them hooting. “And even if it wasn’t, they weren’t coming this way, man. Look over there, I think they’re heading toward the highway. You idiots.”
We hid down there for awhile not paying attention to anything. We were scared shitless—so, of course, we didn’t hear the sirens fade into the distance. Once we heard some laughter, we both climbed out from underneath the tree, clothes dripping with water.
“Shit,” Keeley said sarcastically. “That was too close for comfort.”
“Why the fuck didn’t you hide?” Kroger yelled. Keeley took another drag off of his smoke.
“Dude, that car was at least five streets away,” Putnam said, smacking Keeley on the back, both of them hooting. “And even if it wasn’t, they weren’t coming this way, man. Look over there, I think they’re heading toward the highway. You idiots.”
The other three guys started laughing at us, and eventually we couldn’t help but join in too. My ears and cheeks were bright red from embarrassment, and my hair was soaked. I guess whatever we’d seen was a figment of our imaginations.
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly, rapidly shaking my head back and forth like a wet dog. “That’s my fault. Thought we were fucked. I thought the cops were coming right down this way.”
“Me too,” Kroger said, taking a few heavy panic-attack sighs.
“You need your inhaler?” the fifth guy asked, laughing and shaking Kroger by the shoulders.
“No. I’m cool,” Kroger wheezed. “I think I’m cool.” He coughed for a minute and jumped back into the street with the rest of us.
“We oughta get back,” Putnam whispered. “This fourth grade stuff's just too heavy. Let’s get some more of that orange flavored stuff.”
“Sounds good, buzz is fading,” Keeley said. “We still have a few bottles left.”
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly, rapidly shaking my head back and forth like a wet dog. “That’s my fault. Thought we were fucked. I thought the cops were coming right down this way.”
“Me too,” Kroger said, taking a few heavy panic-attack sighs.
“You need your inhaler?” the fifth guy asked, laughing and shaking Kroger by the shoulders.
“No. I’m cool,” Kroger wheezed. “I think I’m cool.” He coughed for a minute and jumped back into the street with the rest of us.
“We oughta get back,” Putnam whispered. “This fourth grade stuff's just too heavy. Let’s get some more of that orange flavored stuff.”
“Sounds good, buzz is fading,” Keeley said. “We still have a few bottles left.”
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