Just Like Old Times

The car stereo had a stroke sometime in it’s life as the latest dribble by Poison squawked out of the right side speakers; the click of the tires against the shitty asphalt patches -oh, our lovely government paid for roads- went in time with Poison’s simplistic drum beats as we cruised in Glen’s ’79 Buick Skylark. The funny thing was I didn’t remember Glen having the car the last time we saw each other a mere two weeks ago. But two weeks is two weeks and a lot can happen in that space of time. I for one know first hand how true that was. Life can change at a moment’s notice. Not that I wasn’t happy to see him pull up in front of my Grandmother’s house as I wasted away in the sun in her front yard. I was sick of looking at the back yard, plus all the banging of hammers from the construction of the new homes that were going up where the horse stables use to be behind the large lilac bushes that made up the back wall of the yard was making it hard for me to concentrate on my reading and sunning. Not having a job was great but also it could be very boring. Hence the reading. So I figured a change of locations would lighten the funk my mood was in. Unfortunately it didn’t. I toiled away for about an hour, reading the same pages twice because my mind had drifted half way through. I was doing that a lot lately, my mind drifting; remembering things best left forgotten. When -being the nosy person I am- looked up to see this puke green car with shit brown patches of primer speckled about the frame. Watched it as it came too a screeching halt before the mail box next to the driveway. “Now who the fuck cold this be?” I said quietly to myself.

“What’s up dude? Like the wheels?” Glen said as he leaned out the driver’s side window with his goofy trade marked smile; his bushy brown hair windblown. That smile should of put me on guard right away; nothing ever good comes when he’s smiling like that. But I was too happy to see him. Life was getting a little boring since his Mother and her Girlfriend packed him up and moved down state. Supposedly her job transferred her to Kankakee but the two of us new better. It was to separate us. Which was probably smart on their part.

Glen had a fucked up first seventeen years and I was astounded that he wasn‘t more fucked up than he already was. His mother, Linda, had married one of Chicago’s finest -why Chicago cops called themselves that I’ll never know- after she learned that she was pregnant with Glen’s older brother, Brian. Then fourteen months later after giving birth to Brian out popped Glen. The first few years were grand like most young marriages, but being a cop’s wife can grow old after a while and the couple settled into a kind of routine that only seemed to benefit Glen’s dad. The routine then became one of arguing then into one of non-talking except for how was your day and will you be home for dinner. So their marriage dissolved into just being a kind of roommates of sorts. By this time Brian was in seventh grade and was considered old enough to become the live in babysitter. Linda could now pick up where her youth was cut off thirteen years after becoming wife and mother.

Linda went back to the nursing courses she gave up when she became pregnant and in less than two years had finished in the top ten of her class and had a new job to boot. Not only that, but a new and exciting relationship blossomed around the same time. So after years of the slow dissolve of her marriage it was time to call it quits and move on. That was fine for her husband since he spent most of the time at the home him and his girlfriend bought a couple of years earlier. So Linda and her new found love -commonly called Aunt Sally by Glen- made the plunge and found an apartment together and moved to the suburbs.
“So tell me, Glen. Where and when did you get this?” I have to admit I was curious. Glen, like myself, wasn’t one for holding down a job. Plus the two of us had a certain kind of reputation when it came to automobiles.

That goofy ass smile of his again. I knew it. I just knew it. “Off this dude at school. He couldn’t wait get rid of it. So I thought: ’What the fuck’, and came out here to see what’s been going on since Mom and the Bitch moved us and stumbled into Leo here ditching class.”

If anyone resembled their name it was Leo. The dude looked like a lion with his long shaggy hair and a mustache that went down to his chin that most forty year old bikers would kill for. It was almost hard to believe that he was only eighteen.

I turned around too face Leo as he sat in the backseat looking like royalty touring the lands while chauffeured by a couple of his niggers and said, “So how are all the Stagg Fags and Tight Pussyed Bitches doing at your esteemed high school?”

“You how it is, Paul. Same shit different day. How come you’re just hanging around on a week day? You still over at the land of the Trojans?”

He said all that without even looking in my direction. God, Leo could be such a pompous prick. “No. The powers that be at my local Community High School thought it was time for me to depart since I was never really there anyway and when I was, I was just there for dating purposes.”

“Oh boy,” Glen injected, “super Step-Dad must love that!”

“Why do you think I’m spending time at the Grams’ house?”

“That’ll explain why no one was at you’re your house when I stopped there.”

“So what made you cruise by my Grandparent’s house?” I asked.

“Well after I came up empty at your place I figured I could swing by your school then thought better of that. Even if you were there I’d have hell of time in finding you. Then I remembered that you were banging some big titted hotty at Stagg and took a chance on going there and bumped into that bum back there-”

“Fuck you dickhead,” came from the backseat.

“-and asked if he’d seen you around.”

“And that brought you by my Grams‘-how?”

We were just coming out from checking all the forest preserve hangouts; the trees began to fade into town home communities as we made our way back towards Stagg. Non to our surprise nobody was around. It being early afternoon on a Thursday and all. The kind of people that didn’t have a job or at school were more than likely still in bed.

“It didn’t really. After I picked up Leo and we started to drive around I just happened to go down her block.” Glen laughed. “I guess you could call it kismet.”

I had to laugh. “Kismet? Where the hell did you pick that up? Not at that retard school that your mom dumped you in.”

“It’s not a retard school. It’s a school for the special.”

“The special-ed maybe!” I said with a laugh. Glen looked over at me with mock surprise. “You guys basically sit in the same class all day except for what? Except maybe a couple of classes that you go across the hall for? That’s what I used to do in the sixth grade! Why? Because dorks like you can’t be trus-” As I bantered with Glen, I watched his face go from mock indignation to real concern. “-What? W-What is it?” I managed to sputter out.

After a couple of long seconds Glen answered. “Cops.”

A sinking feeling hit the pit of my stomach. When I looked behind me, past the nonchalant form of Leo, sure enough, there was a squad coming up behind us. Coming up fast. “That would be bad why?”

Glen drove on in silence; his eyes fixated on the rearview mirror.

“Hello? Glen? Why is tha-”

“Of all people, Paul, you should know!” He was starting too panic. I could see it in his face. “I can’t take another bust. We have run.” I think he said this more to convince himself than to convince me. He already knew the score: there wasn’t a chance in hell we were going to out run anything in this shit box, I didn’t have to spell it out for him.

“Take the next turn off before this asshole gets to close.”

“Wha-”

“Now dickhead! Turn here and we’ll try too lose him in the side streets of Shady Pines!”

Leo finally woke up from whatever passes for a daydream in his head and asked what the matter was as Glen took a quick right turn into Shady Pines Town homes. I told him to shut the fuck up as we passed the faux guard shack that was suppose to deter the unsavory. Unfortunately the cop made the same turn.

“Why is that cop following us?” His voice lace with uncertainty. “Will somebody tell me what the fuck is going on here!”

“Stay to the right when the road splits then make the quick left that’s coming up right after it.” To Leo: “Sit tight Leo. We’re just trying to shake the fuzz loose.” I said calmly as I could. I knew I could count on Glen to keep his cool if the shit came down. Or so I hoped. But Leo was an unknown variable in this equation and bound too panic.

“And why the fuck do we want to do that, Paul?”

“Because the car’s hot.”

“Oh my fucking god! You stole this piece of shit! You fucking assholes!” He was quiet for a second then said, “STOP THIS FUCKER AND LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT NOW!”

“I ca-can’t loose him. SHIT! We fucked ourselves by coming in here, Paul.”
I was starting to think the same thing when it hit me. “At the next fork go left and we’ll jump and let the car go. That way he’ll have the choice to either let the car careen out of control and chase us or stop the car before it does damage to something. Then all we have to do is make our way through the houses and hit the trees that line the canal two blocks away.”

“That’s your plan?” Glen asked. “What kind of a plan is that?”

The top lights of the squad lit up. The discussion was over.

“The only one. Now getting ready because here we go!”

The cop was about three quarters of the way down the block when we hit the fork. Glen gave the car a little goose on the gas as I open my door as we made the turn. My foot slapped loudly as I hit the pavement running. My heart was pumping from all the adrenaline. The only thing that was running through my mind at that moment was: I can’t believe I just jumped from a moving car being chased by the police. That and Leo screaming that he couldn’t get out! The seat was stuck!

I took a chance and looked over my shoulder to see where the cop was only to watch him speed past us down the right fork and stop in front a town home.
Son of a bitch! He wasn’t after us!

“Glen!” I screamed as I made my way back for the car that was just starting to get ahead of me. “Glen, get back to the car! He’s on a call!”

The two of us got back to the car at about the same time and just as Leo finally freed the seat’s latch and was trying to crawl out when I pushed him back in.

“Change of plans Leo. We’re staying with the car!”

Glen and I were giddy with what just happened. I mean we just leaped out of a moving car ran for almost a half block only to jump back in and speed away. I kept thinking that nobody was going to believe this one! Leo on the other hand was not happy.

Leo was quiet as we drove like crazy through the maze of streets that made up Shady Pines. Hell , that was the whole reason I wanted Glen to turn in the there. Once we hit the main drag however Leo screamed for Glen to stop and let him out.

“You know what asshole,” Leo said as he shoved the seat forward and got out, “forget you fucking know me! Who the fuck do you think you are picking me up in a stolen car? All because you like to fuck your life up doesn’t mean you can fuck up mine!” Leo turned to me as he slammed the door shut. “You’re a smart guy, Paul. You should get away from this fool before he drags you down with him.”

Leo stalked off back towards Stagg as we slowly pulled away from the curb.

“You think he’s pissed?” Glen asked with a chuckle.

“No. Not at all, dude. Why didn’t you tell him from the get go about the car? For that matter why hell didn’t you tell me?”

“For one I figured you knew. Where the hell would I get the money for a car with that cunt Sally taking my money all time. And if I told Leo about the car being hot -well actually it’s not really hot since I doubt that this deweeb even knows it’s gone -he wouldn’t of got in. I didn’t want to drive around by myself. Where’s the fun in that?” We stopped at a red light. “So, where to now?”

“Home Cheeves. I think I’ve had enough excitement for one afternoon.”

“You’re no fun. No fun at all.”

As I stood in the front yard, not yet knowing that this would be the last time I saw Glen, and watched him drive away, the truth behind Leo’s words still rang in my ears. He had no idea how right he was. Things from the past have a strange way of rearing their ugly head when one least expects it. Even though I didn’t want to, I was forced to think about the last year or so of my life. And I wondered how things were going too be now that that chapter of my life was closing. Where do I go from here? Isn’t that one of the age old questions of life? I didn’t have the answer. Hell, maybe I never would. How many people in life actually do know? From what I’ve seen of the world not that fucking many. I guess we just roll with it and hope for the best. But it was nice, being in that car with Glen. It was just like old times.