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Part 1: Shit Happens

I suck at jobs. Before I sold my company a few years ago, a company I had to create to have any hope of even holding a job, the only real jobs I’d ever had were working at my hometown gas station in southeastern Ohio, and working as a rough neck in the central Oklahoma oil fields. My A.D.D. made both of those jobs complete disasters. Only back then they didn’t call it A.D.D., called it “absent-minded”.

The only reason I wasn’t fired from either of those jobs was because of family connections. The guy that owned the gas station I’d worked at while in high school, owed my father some poker money. The Oil Well service company I worked for one summer between college semesters, serviced my great uncle’s oil wells almost exclusively.

For instance, it was during my first job at the Hissom’s Gas-n-Glo, a Gas Station with an attached Automatic Car Wash in my hometown in southeastern Ohio (pop. 4000), I almost blew up the town. Back when I worked there, gas station attendants actually pumped all the gas for customers, self-service was relatively new concept at the time. As a Junior in High School and early on in my career at Hissom’s Gas-n-Glo, on a busy Sunday afternoon, just after church had let out, the station was packed with cars waiting to fill up for their Sunday drives. Jimmy, a good friend of mine had pulled his car into station, and went to the restroom while I filled it up. However, after I finished filling his car up, he was still in the bathroom, and his car blocked the way for other customers to get to the pumps.

I knocked on the bathroom door and asked Jimmy to hurry up and move his car. He grunted one of those grunts we all make when we have trouble pooping. ,”I can’t right now man, ugh, could you move it for me? The keys are in it. ughhhh!”, he replied. So I jumped into his car, and moved it. Now, southeastern Ohio is extremely hilly. This Gas station was at the bottom of a small valley and was a bit lower than the adjacent highway from where you’d enter the station. When I moved his car, I parked it up the hill by the highway, next to a grassy bank where it would be out-of-the-way.

I ran back down and resumed pumping gas for other customers. Spaced out as usual while pumping gas, I heard someone yell, “Look out!”. I looked up, and was surprised to see a car speeding down the hill straight for one of the pumps. It took a few seconds for me to realize that the car was actually Jimmy’s car. It took me another few seconds to realize I forgot to put it into park.

Jimmy’s car hit the pump so hard that it broke a pipe below the safety valve that was supposed to cut the gas off in just such an emergency. Gasoline shot into the air in a steady stream like a geyser. It was spraying gasoline all over the parking lot, the cars, and everyone there. The station didn’t have one of those canopies overhead, and so the gas was free to spray really high into the air and get everywhere.

All the customers panicked. They jumped out of their cars and ran in all directions away from the station.

The first thing to pass through my mind was that some of those people were much faster than others, and if the station were to explode at any moment, then this would be a fine example of “survival of the fittest”. Beyond that, I just stood there, still pumping gas into the car I was servicing, in shock wondering what to do.

I don’t know why I didn’t run, perhaps it was because I was in shock, or maybe it was because deep down I knew I was responsible for this, that I should try to do something, or go down with the ship. Scanning the lot, I searched for anything that might produce a spark that would blow this place to smithereens. I thought about warning people about the danger of starting their cars, but it was clear that everyone nearby had already fled.

My co-worker that day was David, who was a long time employee at the Gas-n-Glo. I saw him run out of the office, then back into office, then back out again. All the while, I could hear him asking himself, “What should we do? What should we do? What should we do?”, over and over again. Finally, he gathered himself, and he went inside and shut the pumps off using the switches inside of the station. . When he did, the fountain of gasoline slowly decreased and stopped. However, It was still a very dangerous situation since there was a giant puddle of gasoline a couple of inches deep covering the entire area. Plus, all of the cars had pools and droplets of gasoline all over them.

Jimmy, who had been in the bathroom this entire time, finally came out, and with a look of shock and amazement yelled at me, “Holy Fuck, Stosh, What the hell happened?”. I was still despondent and just shrugged. Then after he expressed his surprise with a few more expletives, he walked up to me and said, “I guess this is what they mean when they say ‘Shit Happens”, and he started laughing. He repeated it several more times for effect, “Hey, shit happens! Shit happens!”

A fire truck eventually showed up and secured the situation with water and chemicals. The owner, Mr. Hissom, told me to go home early. Unfortunately for him, he let me keep my job.

Part 2: You clean up real nice



A few weeks later, I had to work the Saturday shift at the Gas-n-Glo all by myself, because Mr. Hissom’s daughter’s wedding was that day, and everyone else but me who worked there was invited. Now, ever since the “Shit Happens” incident, Mr. Hissom was rightfully nervous when I was working, and this was the first time that he ever let me work the station by myself. So, on his way to the wedding, he couldn’t help but to stop by to check up on me and the status of the Gas-n-Glo. He pulled up in his usual gray and black ford pickup truck, but when he stepped out, he looked great. He was in a light gray tux, and his black italian hair was even slicked back and his mustache was trimmed.

He asked me how things were going. Everything was fine, except that I couldn’t put cars through the automatic car wash because it was only washing the left half of the cars. When they’d exit the station, the left side would be shiny and clean and the right side would be filthy with brush marks all over it.

Mr. Hissom was a notorious cheep-ass. Even missing out on one $3.00 car wash would make him boil. So, when I told him the situation he immediately went back into the car wash to see what the trouble was all about and of course, I followed him out of curiosity. He quickly discovered that a manual override switch was in the off position, on the main brush on the right side of the car wash.

Now, this particular car wash was one of those that you put your car in neutral, and then it pulls you through a sequence of automated actions not unlike the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland. There are these wands that stick out horizontally so that when your car hits them it activates the next set of big round brushes to swing out and wash your car.

Once he solved the problem we stood there a couple of minutes and talked about his daughter getting married. Eventually he checked his watch and said with a chuckle, “I better get going, I don’t want to miss my own daughter’s wedding”

At that moment, he tried to get by me, so to be polite I backed up to get out of his way. When I did, I backed up right into one of those activation wands, and it turned the car wash on. It activated one of the giant brushes which had soap, dirt, and water all over it. As the brush moved out and spun it threw dirt, soap and water all over him and his tuxedo, from head to toe.

He stood there a moment staring at me through the soap dripping down his face with a “I can’t believe you did this to me” expression. I can only imagine the thoughts of killing me going through his head as he stared at me with growing rage. All he could get out was “FUUUUCK!” as he screamed at me at the top of his voice, and then he marched out.

He got into his truck and left, but instead of heading to town towards the church, he went the opposite way towards his home. I later found out it was to put on a different suit. I heard when he gave his daughter away, that he looked ridiculous as he was not only the only person standing up there without a tux, but that he was in a light blue polyester leisure suit that was too tight, since it was the only suit he owned and he hadn’t worn it for years. Apparently, the official wedding pictures were redone later to save the wedding couple and family from further embarrassment.

My last day of work, before I left for my first quarter at Ohio State University, Mr. Hissom was happier than I’d ever seen him. I was told he had a party that evening to celebrate.

Part 3: Getting a job in the Oklahoma Oil Fields

I needed a job the summer after my first year at Ohio State University. But, because of sucking so badly at at the Gas-n-Glo, there was no way I could ever consider returning to work at that place, or anywhere else in that town for that matter. I was untouchable in my home town. That summer, the unemployment rate in Ohio was well above 10%. Badly needing a job, and having trouble finding one, my mother recommended giving my Great Uncle Wayne a call. Besides, he was paying for my college, so it wasn’t out of line to ask for a job too.

It’s an appropriate time to share a little family history before moving on to the meat of this story. My great-grandfather, who was my father’s mother’s father, apparently was so once so poor that he went to Oklahoma in a covered wagon with his wife and six children (three boys and three girls), and homesteaded in Stroud, Oklahoma, a tiny town in central Oklahoma about halfway between Tulsa and Oklahoma city. For years, he eked out a living by raising cotton by hand using only a mule to till the not-so-productive Oklahoma clay. Eventually though, an oil company struck oil on his land and although he was cheated out of his rightful percentage claim to the mineral rights, was paid off enough to buy a ranch in northern Missouri, and to buy all of his children a college education. Every Easter my grandmother would speak of the day they struck oil on their land, because it was on Easter Sunday that my grandmother cried because the spraying oil from the gusher ruined her Easter Sunday dress. She remembers her mother saying, “Don’t worry, Eva, we’ll be able to buy you many more dresses now”.

My Uncle Wayne was the only one of the six siblings who went back to Oklahoma after college and got into the oil business. He and his partner were two of the first people to exploit a new technique to rejuvenate old unproductive wells by pumping water and/or steam into the ground to push oil stuck in the lower parts of the sand which was previously out of reach of the pump towards the well. They’d purchase the rights to unproductive wells for next to nothing and end up with productive flowing wells using this technique, and they made a lot of money doing so.

Uncle Wayne, who was in his early 80s, was by far the wealthiest and most successful person in my extended family. My own parents didn’t have the money to pay for my college so my Uncle Wayne offered to cover it, assuming that I majored Geology with the understanding that I might eventually take over his business (that didn’t happen but that’s another story). His only son, Bill, was an obnoxious and ruthless divorce lawyer that my Uncle didn’t like very much, and so I’d become a bit of a surrogate replacement son for Wayne, at least for a little while.

I gave Uncle Wayne a call, and he told me he’d find me a good job and to come on down to Tulsa. I imagined he’d let me intern with him or something, and that I’d probably just have to follow him around learning how to make millions. At the very least I expected to get a desk job. Instead, he found me the hardest and nastiest job imaginable: working as a rough neck, fixing and maintaining oil wells in Stroud, the tiny and desolate town where my Great Grandfather homesteaded. He got me a job at M&W Oil Field Service, a company that serviced some of his wells in the region. Apparently he told them to work my ass off, because they placed me on the dog crew which used the oldest rig and got the hardest jobs.

I couldn’t afford a plane ticket to Tulsa, so I took a Greyhound Bus. Something I’ll never do again. I’d rather hitch hike than take a Greyhound Bus ever again. It took three days to get there from Ohio, and stopped at several dozen bus stops on the way. For the first part of the trip, I had to sit next to a strange man who had dozens of back issues of “Star Magazine”, and every couple of minutes he’d chuckle and point at a picture of some movie or daytime soap star. He would chuckle and point at each picture in the magazine, until I acknowledged him. He never spoke a word, and in fact I think he was mute. Years later, I got a letter in the mail from him that expressed his love for me. I’m not sure how he got my name and address since I didn’t talk to him, but he probably got into my wallet while I slept on the bus.

When I arrived in Tulsa, Wayne’s son Bill let me borrow his old 1972 Grand Torino station wagon for the summer. The Gran Torino Station wagon is one of the largest cars ever made. In fact, it was powered by a 460 V-8, which is one of the largest production automobile engines ever made. It was also one of the ugliest cars ever made. This one had the fake grain paneling on the sides that was typical of the Grand Torino Station wagon line in the 1970s.

When I arrived in Stroud, which was about 60 miles southwest of Tulsa, I had arranged to rent a room at an old single story motel along Route 66 since there weren’t any apartments available for the summer in Stroud. The couple from India that owned it, let me pay monthly. The historic Route 66 highway went through Stroud and there were remnants of hey-day when it was the great highway to the west. Ever since the Oklahoma Turnpike was built and bypassed Stroud, the once proud motels and drive-in restaurants along Route 66 were sad and dilapidated. The room I rented was a 7 X 10 cinder block room painted baby shit green with no room for anything more than a bed, a toilet and a shower.

Part 4: First Day on the Oil Rig

The first day on the job, at 6 am as told, I arrived at the “shed” which was the very large garage and central office of the M&W Oil Field Service. Waiting on me were a couple of my new co-workers, Ronnie and Donnie, who immediately struck me as two long-haired hippy redneck types. After introductions, we got into a company pickup and headed for the job site. I squeezed into in the middle of the seat between Donnie on the driver’s side, and Ronnie on the passenger side. Once on our way, the first thing that they asked me was if I smoked “Hooters”. After some initial confusion, I found out that “Hooters” are a local nickname for Marijuana cigarettes, and not big breasts as I had thought. Now, since it was my first day on the job, and I wanted to be cool with my new co-workers I said “yes, of course!”

So, they handed me big bag of weed and asked me to roll a “hooter” because the pick-up windows were rolled down and the wind was blowing less in the middle where I was seated. I took this as a test of my coolness, so I took my time, and rolled what I considered to be a perfect joint about the exact size and shape of a regular cigarette. Donnie took it, held it up, and immediately laughed at it, and said …”that ain’t no HOOTER!” and then he ripped it up and quickly rolled another one. His version turned out to be much larger, much fatter, and looked like a short snake that had swallowed a pig. He held it up, and proudly said, “Now THAT’S a Hooter!”

I shouldn’t have smoked any weed. It was a big mistake. I’d didn’t know what I was about to get into. I’d never seen any of this oil well shit in my life, and everything was heavy and very dangerous. A lot of the older guys were missing fingers on their right hands. Our foreman was missing his index finger and his middle finger on his right hand. Apparently most finger amputations happen when pulling pipe and using the giant 700 pound

hydraulic wrench thing that unscrewed or screwed the pipes together. Guy would get their gloves caught in it and it would rip their fingers off. I was doing my best to stay the hell away from that thing. I like being able to signal the number one or two to bartenders on busy nights.

Not only was I scared that I was going to get hurt, but I was having trouble understanding what I was supposed to be doing, and being high made it worse. A lot worse.

We were pulling 10,000 feet of pipe from an oil well in 25ft sections. An active oil well is basically a long 5 inch wide pipeline with an equally long length of one inch rods also screwed together in 25 foot sections running down the middle of the pipe. Terminating at the end of the rods was with a piston that acted as a pump as the rods move up and down as the pump head at the surface moves up and down. Every once and while something would break on these pumps. Sometimes it was a rod, sometimes it was a piston, and sometimes the pipe would corrode and get a hole in it. If you had to fix the pipe, first you’d pull out all of the rods 25 feet at a time and unscrew them and hang them up on the rig on giant slot hangers, or if you had an older rig you’d lay them down on railroad ties on the ground. Then once you had the rods out, you’d pull the pipeline out 25 feet at a time and lay them down into giant triangular piles also on an expanse of railroad ties, that you’d have to roll out-of-the-way to make room for the next bunch.

The rigs used to pull rods and pipes out of these wells are massive. They have 40+ foot tall girded towers we’d set up off the back of the rig. They have to be balanced and tied down with cable stays held down by six-foot long and four-inch wide iron stakes that we had to hammer into the ground with sledgehammers.

As I mentioned these rigs also have these finger eating hydraulic machines that hang down from the rig that the pipe goes through that unscrew the collars that hold the sections of pipe together. It was my job to pull back the 25 foot sections of recently unscrewed pipe as the rig operator lowered the other end down. The end being lowered down had a locking buckle on it attached to a thick cable that went up through the 40 foot tower and down to a giant motorized winch on the rig. Once the end with the buckle on it was near the ground, I’d detach it, put the pipe down and attach it to the next section of pipe that stuck out of the well hole. That section was held in place by a hydraulic roller cleat, that I would release by hitting a button on the ground with my foot, once I had attached the buckle to the pipe. Then as the operator raised the next section, I’d walk back to the section that I’d laid down and roll it into place or use this technique where you could hop the pipe up onto the pile using a crazy whipping motion. These pipes were heavy, so none of this was easy.

This is a pretty complicated process where timing is everything, especially when you’re high on a hooter. These guys wanted to work fast, and I kept stumbling around and getting confused. It wasn’t long until I completely got the timing wrong and released the hydraulic cleat before I got the buckle onto the next section. The result was that the remaining 500 feet of the 10,000 feet of pipe they’d spent several days pulling up before I got on the job, fell back down the hole 10,000 feet. My co-workers yelled, stomped around, and threw tools all over the place. The rig operator immediately turned the engine off.

After they cooled down a bit, the foreman told me that to retrieve the section of pipe that was now at the bottom of the well, we’d have to get a special tool and put it on the end of one of the pipes. Then we’d take all of the pipe that was already pulled up, and send it back down the hole 9,500 feet, attach the tool to lost section of pipe, and then pull it all back up again. This immediately tripled the amount of work needed for the job.

Since he had to go back and get one of those tools, the foreman told us to take the rest of the day off.

Part 5: “We wear clothes in Stroud.”

Since this was my first day working in the oil fields, I had no idea just how dirty I’d get. Gallons of black crude come up with each section of pipe, and spills down out of the pipe as they are unscrewed and pulled back. Oil and paraffin get all over everything and everybody. Within an hour of starting a job, not only does the oil completely cover your clothes, your arms, your hair, and your face, but it also soaks all the way through your clothes. When you take your clothes off, your skin is completely covered in oil. You have so much oil on your skin, that you look like you jumped into a tar pit naked. (I later discovered that there are tons of specialty laundry mats that only exist so that people can wash oil soaked work clothes).

Again, since it was my first day, I didn’t know to bring an extra change of clothes or even a towel. I couldn’t get into my car to go to the motel either because I’d ruin the interior of the Grand Torino station wagon that I’d borrowed from my Uncle’s son, Bill.

I took a two-hour shower to get all of the oil and paraffin out of my hair and off of my body. They had gallons of that gooey GoJo grease remover and cartons of Lava Soap in the Showers. You’d use GoJo to get the big stuff and Lava soap to get the grime out of the creases.

I didn’t have a towel, and nobody else was in the shop. Walking around the garage I found a box of those red oil rags. I used several of them to dry myself off. Once dry, I still had a problem. I didn’t bring an extra change of clothes, and I couldn’t put the clothes I’d worn to work that day back on, because they were completely soaked with oil (I later discovered that there are tons of specialty laundry mats that only exist so that people can wash oil soaked work clothes).

I figured I’d just hold one of those red oil rags over my crotch, get in the Station Wagon, drive up to the motel, and walk into the room. After all it wasn’t far, and I can park right in front of my room.

So, I snuck out to the station wagon without anyone seeing me, and drove up route 99 to where it intersects with route 66, where I needed to right. However, just as I got to the intersection, I ran out of gas, coasted to the middle of the intersection and stopped.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve had this recurring nightmare many times over my life. In the nightmare, it’s the first day of school, I’m in class and sitting at my desk, and then I realize that I forgot to put any clothes on. The rest of the nightmare is spent trying to figure out how to get out of class without anyone seeing me. That moment, in that intersection, I was actually living that nightmare. I was naked and sitting in a huge station wagon in the middle of a four-lane intersection in the center of town.

My first instinct was to hop out of the car and run. However, it was already too late. The traffic light had changed, and now I was blocking traffic. A Semi-truck was trying to turn left around me and couldn’t get around me, and so now all directions were blocked. My second instinct was to stick my leg out of the car door and see if I could move the car at all. I couldn’t. My final plan was to just sit there and wait. Eventually, someone would have to do something to help me. (Remember, this is before cell phones, today this might not be such a huge problem). Of course, the traffic situation got worse. People were getting impatient and honking, but there was nothing I could do. I just sat there staring ahead, with my arms folded, and waited.

Finally, one of those jacked-up red neck monster pick-up trucks drove over the grass and curb, and then parked in the intersection near me. This guy with a duck-billed Mack truck hat, and a Southern Comfort t-shirt with the sleeves cut off jumped out of the truck and walked up to my window, and asked “Eva’thing aw right here?” to which I responded, “No. I’m out of gas, and I’m naked.” He peeked into the window and replied slowly, “ya say, ya out a gas, and ya neked?”. nodding and tight-lipped, I replied, “Something like that.”.

He stuck his head into my window and said, “holy shit!”. He backed away, started laughing, and then yelled to his buddy still sitting in the pick up…”hey Bobby, you gotta see this!” When his buddy Bobby walked over, he pointed at me and told him, “This muther fucker is outta gas, and he’s neked!”, to which Bobby said, “Nunh unh, no he is NOT!”. So Bobby looked in the car for himself, and started laughing. They high hived and alternated between hunching over to catch their breaths, and stomping around holding their sides as if they’d been shot. They laughed so hard, and had such a difficult time controlling themselves that eventually they layed on the hood of my station wagon one on his back in a position of surrender and the other with head in his arms pounding on the hood with laughter.

Eventually, they gathered themselves, caught their breaths, and proceeded to help me out. Luckily, there was a gas station on the corner of this intersection. So they directed traffic to give some room to get the Station Wagon turned around and headed into the station. Also luckily, they were very big and strong. So they pushed my car, first forward and then backward while I drove and eventually we got the station wagon to where it needed to be and into the station next to one of the pumps. I was so relieved to be out of the intersection that I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to stop these guys from hopping back into their truck and leaving. I simply thanked them and they left.

It suddenly occurred to me that this gas station was not only a self-service station, but it was also the only convenient store in town and it was really busy. So, I got out of the car with that small red oil rag held against my genitals. It must have looked like a blood soaked rag and I was applying pressure to stop the bleeding. As I pumped the gas, I tried to stay hidden between the pump and my car, and I was kept my head down so I didn’t have to see anyone who might be pointing and laughing at me.

At one point, I dropped the gas cap on the ground. As I bent over to pick it up, I heard someone directly behind me clearing their throat loudly to get my attention. When I turned around, there was a local police officer standing there looking at me stoically. He looked like he was right out of central casting in Hollywood. If you were looking for someone to play a cop, this was your guy. He was a little chubby, had a thick dark mustache, was wearing mirrored aviator sunglasses, and was slowly chewing on a piece of gum, all without a hint of a smile.

I tried to explain how I got there, how it was a mistake, and how I really didn’t mean to be naked. As I tried to talk my way out of this, he didn’t react to anything I was saying. He just kept staring at me and slowly chewing his gum. Finally, he just said stoically, “We wear clothes in Stroud.”.

I tried to apologize further, but he interrupted me and said, “You get that bare ass of your’s home, and don’t ever let me see you out here again without any clothes on. Do you understand?”

After he left, and after I finished pumping some gas in the car, I had to go into the convenient store to pay for it. As if my day hadn’t sucked enough so far, I had to stand in line to pay for my gas. Everyone in the store made great attempts to conceal their laughter, which only made it louder and more obvious when they exploded in laughter as they walked out the door. At one point, with people standing both in front of me and behind me, I heard a little girl behind me ask her mom, “Mommy, what’s wrong with that man?” She just hushed her daughter through a chuckle.

I had to use one hand to open my wallet, and pay for the gas, while my other hand still held the oil rag steady against me crotch. Once I paid and exited the store, I could hear a roar of laughter as the door closed behind me.

The next day at work, at 6am, when I walked into the garage there were about 50 men standing around waiting for me. When I entered, they all turned, looked at me, and started applauding. Several of them approached me and patted me on the back. Obviously, in a town this small they all heard about the events that had unfolded. From that day on, everyone in Stroud called me “Ohio”.

Part 6: I suck at Skinny Dipping

It’s not difficult to understand why I had an uphill battle trying to get respect from my Oklahoma co-workers. For a while, I was just made fun of, and I always got stuck on the shittiest jobs. But I didn’t understand why I hadn’t made any friends. All kinds of groups went out after work together, and even though they were really just a bunch of crazy rednecks, who I had probably had little in common with, I wished they’d ask me to go out with them. Later, I discovered that there was a another reason they avoided me – there was a dangerous man who was plotting to kill me, but I’ll get to that later in this story.

Eventually, one Friday after work, some guys asked me to come to a party with them. Yes! I was psyched. Finally, some companionship! So I went to this party held at one of their houses, and I say about half of the guys there I recognized from work. Not very many chicks were there but the ones that were there were a sight for sore eyes. Everyone who came up to me said something like “Hey, aren’t you that Ohio guy that ran out-a-gas naked downtown?” They’d wait for me to acknowledge it then they’d say “dude, how in the hell did you manage that?” and I’d explain, over and over again.

As the party wound down, Ronnie, one of the guys I worked with, came up to me and whispered…”hey man, you want to go skinny dipping with some of us and these girls over here?”. It was a no-brainer, the girls were cute, and I was tired of telling that god-awful story over and over. “Sure, let’s do it.” I told him enthusiastically.

So two car loads of people left the party to go skinny-dipping. One carload of guys and one car load of girls. On the way, I asked, “Where are we going swimming?”. “The only place TO go swimming around here, the public pool at the park”, Ronnie replied. “Isn’t it past midnight? Won’t that be illegal?”, I asked. Ronnie then pulled out the pussy card, “What, are you a pussy?”. “No of course not! I just want to know the situation.” I said boldly.

The “guy car” got to the pool first. It was dark, but there was one of those bright park lights near enough to the pool to light it up. We had to climb over the chain link fence to get in. It wasn’t terribly difficult since it was only about 7 feet high and it didn’t have barbs on the top like they do sometimes. These guys obviously did this a lot as they took no time getting their clothes off and jumping into the pool. I took bit longer.

I don’t know about you, but to me, skinny-dipping has never really been all it’s cracked up to be. The only real reason to go skinny dipping in a group is see chicks naked and rub up against them in the water while playing Marco polo or something. But that doesn’t ever seem to happen, at least not to me. Usually everyone gets in the water quickly so you can’t see them, and then they try to act like its normal to be naked in the water and end up having normal rather boring conversations.

This time it was even worse. The girls didn’t show up, so there were just a bunch of dudes naked in a public swimming pool wondering what had gone wrong. Sure, every once and while one of the red neck dudes would do a naked nutcracker off the high dive for a laugh, but without chicks, this was just silly, and uncomfortable.

We decided to leave, and just as we were starting to get dressed, Donnie yelled, “COPS!”

Everyone panicked and quickly grabbed their clothes. I had my tightie-whitie underwear on, but that was it. In the confusion, someone grabbed the rest of my clothes, and by now everyone else was already up and over the fence and running away, most of them naked carrying a bunch of clothes yelling “go, man go, don’t stop! Hey, Ohio! Come on!”. I went to climb over the fence but without my shoes on it hurt too much. I looked around and spotted my shoes poolside. I ran over, slipped them on, and eventually made it over the fence. By now however, my comrades were nowhere to be seen, and could see the police car coming around the park and getting closer.

Now, of course, I wasn’t at all familiar with this park. So with just my underwear and tennis shoes on, I ran around until I found a steep bank near a small pond to hide behind. As I laid there hiding, I could hear the engine and the tires of police car as it drove slowly by on the park road. He was scanning the park with his car mounted spotlight searching for intruders. I could see the light shining over my head back and forth, and it was clear that if I stayed put he wouldn’t see me. Once the cop car drove around to the other side of the park, my next move was to find my co-workers and get my clothes back.

Foster park in Stroud, looking from the pool area.

Still wary of the cops, I crawled along the bank on all fours and kept my head down. However, I couldn’t see much in front of me. As I was crawling along, I put my weight on my right hand right onto a half-broken beer bottle. It cut my hand at the base of the thumb where it meets the wrist. All I know is that there must be a major artery or something there because I was bleeding badly. It was bleeding more than I’ve ever seen anyone bleed before. A stream of blood with the thickness, consistency and flow of oil pouring out of an oil can was coming out of my wrist. Every time my heart beat the stream responded with more blood.

It occurred to me that this losing blood thing was a bigger deal than getting fined for trespassing on public property for god’s sake. So I decided to hunt the Policeman down who could help get me to the hospital to get this fixed. So, I hopped up and saw the cop car still driving slowing around the park looking for us. I walked down the park road holding my bleeding wrist with my left hand to slow the bleeding. I had blood all over me, was wearing nothing but my underpants and tennis shoes, and I was headed straight for the cop car.

Being from a small town, I know that small town cops can be a trip. Everything they know about police work they get from TV and movies (in this case, I’m sure its the Dukes of Hazard!). They have wild imaginations, and they have fantasies of getting to do real heroic police work, and not just doing accident reports and settling domestic disputes. The other thing is that small town cops know everyone in town. So even when they make an arrest, there is some sense guilt and shame that they have to do this to someone who they played high school football with, or is the son of best friend, or maybe even is his cousin. So, when they get a chance to arrest a stranger, they get the sense of guilt free real police work, and they really get into it.

So imagine what went through this particular small town police officer’s head when he saw a mostly naked stranger approaching his car with blood all over his body clutching his hand. “This is it!” he must have thought, “This is my chance to crack a big case!”.

To my surprise, he put the spot light on me, opened his car door and from behind his car door pointed his gun at me and yelled, “Stop right there and Put your over your head!”.

With the headlights and spot light shining in my eyes, and my hands over my head bleeding down one arm I said “I can explain everything, officer”. He said “I bet you can, now turn around and walk backwards towards me…very slowly!”. When I got back by his car he pushed me in the back towards the police car and made me put my hands “against the car”.

Now, I had nothing but my tennis shoes, and white tightie underwear on, but he was so nervous that he still searched me with a complete pat down, on my skin, my sides, and my thighs. Then he grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back and cuffed me, after which he shined a flash light in my face and said “Hey, aren’t you that fella I caught naked downtown a few weeks ago? What is it with you? Are you one of those Charles Manson Nudees?”

“No, these were both just accidents…”, However, before I could finish and explain, Ronnie, Donnie, and the rest tore around the corner in their big Oldsmobile. The cop said “That must be the rest of your gang!” He threw me into back seat, and the chase was on.

I was still bleeding. I bled all over the back seat as we chased these guys out of the park, out-of-town and down country dirt roads. All we could see in front of us was dust. Visibility was about 5 ft. Somehow he got close enough to get the license plate number, which he called into the station. After a while, the person on the other end said that car was owned by the town’s hospital. The cop in the front seat yelled something about the car being stolen, then addressed me and said, “First, you people set the school on fire, and then you stole a hospital vehicle? You must be a drug cult!”.

I was shocked, “WHAT?! I didn’t set fire to anything! and I don’t know anything about a stolen vehicle!” I yelled back, bouncing around in the back seat as we still gave chase. In fact, the chase had gotten more desperate and more dangerous. The car was swerving all over the place, nearly hitting trees on both sides of the road. It really was like an episode of the Dukes of Hazard, only not nearly as funny. The cop was simply following dust and every once and while he’d see red tail lights and yell “You can’t get away from me!”.

Still bleeding, I felt like I might be getting a chill which scared me. I leaned up and said…”I’m bleeding really badly, and I’m losing a lot of blood back here, if I die in your back seat when all I’m guilty of is trespassing, you are going to be in a shit load of trouble…sir.” So he slowed down, and let my comrades go.

He took me straight to the hospital to get stitched up, but kept a close guard watch on me the whole time. The people at the hospital were good to me, they cleaned the blood off of me, and they give me a hospital gown. The gown was one of those backless gowns we all know and love. I still don’t really understand why they don’t have backs. I figure it must be so you can go to the bathroom quickly or so they can give you emergency enema in a jiffy. Whatever the reason, it’s pretty clear that your ass is the most important thing you have when you’re in the hospital.

Anyway, after I got stitched up the cop took me back to the Stroud police station, and sat me down in this room that only has a couple of chairs sitting at table opposite each other in the middle with one those metal desk lamps that you can point in any direction. There I sat with nothing but tennis shoes, bloody underwear, and a hospital gown. I was probably 2am at this point.

The cop who arrested me turned suspiciously friendly and offered me a cigarette. I don’t smoke but it definitely seemed like a great idea at the time so took one. He pulled up a chair and straddled it backwards with his arms on the back of the chair. He said “Look, you’re in big trouble here but I like you, and I’m willing to help you out. Now in a minute another police officer is going to come in and ask you some questions. If things get too tough for you, let me know, and I’ll back him off.”

All I could think was “Jesus Christ, A good cop, bad cop routine? These guys watch too much TV.”

The other cop walked in carrying a notebook and wore mirrored sunglasses, at 2am. He sat down across from me and without looking up at me began to doodle. However, I don’t think he could see with his sunglasses on, so his doodling didn’t have any pattern to it. He’s just kept doodling and doodling, without saying anything. The silence and boredom were maddening. It made me want to confess to anything just to stop the dull silence and doodling.

Finally after about 5 minutes, he started talking, “You’re in big trouble here son. The more cooperative you are the easier we’re going to be on you.”

I replied quickly, leaning towards him for emphasis, “This is completely ridiculous! All I did was take a swim in the public pool after hours.”

“What about setting the middle school on fire? I supposed you didn’t have anything to with that?” he asked, continuing to doodle.

“Why would you even think that I had something to with that?” I replied.

He sat back this time and looked at me, all I could see was my reflection in his mirrored sunglasses, “Well, you’re not from around here and you seem to have some kind of mental disorder”.

“What?! What kind of mental disorder?” I asked indignantly.

“Well, Ray here has caught you twice without any clothes on, sounds to me like you are some kind of expressionist”. He says.

Confused, I asked…”What is an expressionist?”

“You know someone who goes around showing off their gentiles”, he said,…and he did say “gentiles” and not “genitals”.

“You mean… exhibitionist?” I said slowly.

“Whatever you people call it.” he said.

I was fed up, and so I said, “Look, if you’re going to charge me with expressionism then go ahead, but I didn’t burn down any school!”

The guy playing the ‘good cop’, Ray, stepped in and said “It’s not actually burnt down. It was just a small fire.”

“what happened?” I ask.

Then he said softly in an embarrassed tone, “It was a dumpster fire.”

Exasperated I asked, “You guys are keeping me here, and questioning me over a dumpster fire?”

The ‘bad cop’ siting at the table chimed in and said, “Shut up! there is a stolen Vehicle involved as well. Who are your accomplices?”

I responded with “What makes you guys think that car was stolen?”

He came back with, “How else would a hospital vehicle get involved with something like this?”

I knew that Ronnie and Donnie’s father was a doctor at the local hospital, and it had just occurred to me that this car was borrowed from their father. Now I had to decide if I should rat on those guys. Surely nothing would come of it, but how un-cool would I be to my co-workers now if I told on them?

“So, what am I being charged with?” I say.

“Vandalism, stealing a motor vehicle, and trespassing” the bad cop says.

It took everything I had to keep from screaming at this guy, “Look, I couldn’t have done the vandalism if I was trespassing at the pool, and the car wasn’t stolen, it’s Ronnie and Donnie Johnson’s car”

For the first time during this interrogation, a look of understanding formed on their faces and they even laughed. The bad cop took off his sunglasses and said, well why didn’t you tell us that in the first place? It’s Ronnie and Donnie? It all makes sense, now.”

I still had to spend the rest of the night in the county jail (20 miles away from this police station because I didn’t have any ID, I was from out-of-state, and didn’t have any money to pay the bail for the trespassing charge. I stayed in jail wearing hospital gown and tennis shoes with a dumbs who claimed that some dude hired him to drive a truck from Tulsa to Mexico City, and didn’t think it was strange that the guy who hired him had to hot-wire the truck to get it started.

In the morning, still in jail, I still had a phone call coming to me, but I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t have anyone’s number, so I looked up my workplace, M&W in the phone book. The owner of the company answered who always worked on Saturday. He asked how I ended up in Jail and I started to tell him, “Well, Ronnie and Donnie, …”, He interrupted me and said, “Oh, I see. I’ll be right there.”

When he saw me come out of the cell and into the reception room, he looked me over in my hospital gown and asked, “Ronnie and Donnie, huh?”

“Yep.”, is all I had to say. He drove me back to my car in Stroud, and we didn’t speak the whole way. When I got out of his car, he just said, “See you, Monday.”.

Part 5: The Trouble with Carl.

I mentioned earlier that there was this guy who wanted to kill me. His name was Carl. When I first met him I was at a party at this apartment building in Stroud. I was pretty stoned so I decided to home. I went outside and was walking to my car, when I heard someone yell, “Hey Red! come over here a minute!”. Whenever anyone yells “red” I know they are talking to me. So I went over to where there were these three dudes standing by the front drivers side door of a big pickup truck. Two of dudes are obviously of American Indian heritage which was common in central Oklahoma. They flanked a scary looking man in 50’s. He looked a lot like “Quint” from the movie Jaws, the tough stubborn guy who got bit in half by the shark. He had gray hair though, and had a gray Fu Manchu mustache that connected with his scraggly sideburns.

I just stood there and listened, while he talked to the two other dudes about his new Bowie Knife. But he never took his eyes off of me the whole time he talked to those guys. In case you don’t know what a Bowie Knife is, it’s a big ass knife with a sharp point, that wikipedia says was named for Jim Bowie who in 1827, first used the large knife in a duel called the Sandbar Fight. Bowie Knifes always come with a leather holster that you loop onto your belt. He bragged about how he had this holster custom-made for him so that he could get the knife out quicker.

Without taking his eyes of me, and before I could even react, he pulled his knife out of the sheath and with a back-handed stabbing motion, like Norman Bates stabbing Janet Leigh in ‘Psycho’, the tip of the knife hit my chest right in the middle of my sternum. He pulled it back the moment it touched me, and quickly back into it’s holster. It felt just like someone had angrily poked me on the chest with their finger. I stood there motionless with my arms out to my side looking at my chest with the air shocked out of me and unable to take a breath. There was a tiny hole in my t-shirt and a little bit of blood started oozing out through it.

It must have been 30 seconds before I could breathe. I looked up, and the two Indians and Carl where laughing. Carl reached up and patronizingly grabbed my shoulder next to my neck and said “Sorry about t, man, I’m just fucking with you”.

So I finally caught my breath and calmed down a little when I realized I wasn’t dying, but I still hadn’t said anything. All I wanted to do was to get the fuck out of there. So I said, “hey, I gotta get going” and I started to leave, but before I could get going, Carl grabbed the back of my neck and held me next to him while he had his Bowie Knife up against my stomach just under my ribs. The blade was against my abdomen horizontally ready spill my guts all over the sidewalk.

He was really strong, and I didn’t make a move to get away for fear of inciting him to go ahead and plunge his knife into me. His face was about an inch from mine his anger and intensity was growing. He continued to stare at me, and he finally said, “I should fucking kill you right now!”

Right then, the two American Indian looking dudes grabbed him and one of them said “Hey, let him go Carl. This isn’t the time or place for this.” So Carl let go of my neck and backed away and said to me, “Get the fuck out of here you piece of shit!”.

I obliged in hurry. It was no time before I was in my car headed home wondering what had just happened. I couldn’t figure it out. Was this some kind of crazed lunatic? Was he confusing me with someone else? Did he not like people with red hair? Maybe they were just fucking with me, and this was some kind of initiation game they do around here? What the hell was going on?

The following Monday at work, I learned that this Carl guy was fired the same day I was hired. He was under the impression that he was fired to make room for me as a favor to my uncle since about 75% of their business was servicing my Uncle’s oil wells. Everyone agreed that this guy was going to be fired no matter what. They told me he often came to work drunk and was difficult to work with. However, this was a good excuse to finally pull the trigger and let him go. So in sense, I was partly responsible for him losing his job.

They also told me he was once convicted of manslaughter. Something about killing a man over a pool game. They said they’d heard around town that all he talked about was how he’d like to kill me. They suggested to me with raised eyebrows and all sincerity to avoid this Carl guy at all costs. It turns out that would be a lot easier said than done.

The next weekend some of my co-worker buddies asked me to go to “Stallions” just outside of Stroud with them. Stallions is an establishment like no other place I’d ever been. It was a huge metal-sided quonset hut with nothing but picnic tables, a giant dance floor in the middle, and stage in the front for a band. What really made this place different was that they didn’t sell liquor or beer, you brought your own. In Oklahoma they have two kinds of liquor licenses, the normal kind, and this kind where people can drink their own booze inside your establishment but you can’t sell it them. It’s a massive BYOB, with a cover charge.

The other weird thing about Oklahoma at the time was that they had a law that beer had to be 3.2% alcohol or less. So Budweiser and Coors both made a watered down version of their watered down beers to satisfy this 3.2% requirement. The end result of this was that everyone who drank in Oklahoma drank shit loads of whiskey instead of beer.

So you can imagine what a wild redneck drunk-fest Stallions would be on any given Saturday night. Every picnic table in the place had several bottles of Jack Daniels or Southern Comfort on it and it was customary for anyone in the place to walk up and take a swig of any bottle that was out as long as you said “howdy” and tipped your cowboy hat.

Only I didn’t have a cowboy hat, and I didn’t have cowboy boots, and I didn’t have a western shirt, and I didn’t have a bola, and I didn’t have a 5 inch wide brass Jack Daniels belt buckle either. I was definitely out-of-place in my blue converse all-star tennis shoes, my loose and torn jeans, and my baseball jersey cut REO Speedwagon T-shirt with red sleeves. To say I was out-of-place is an understatement.

On the dance floor at stallions they didn’t really dance as much as they’d shuffle around. They do this Texas two-step shuffle around the dance floor counter-clockwise in a big oval. It’s very much like what people do at skating rinks, only instead of skates, they had on cowboy boots. They even had a guy on a microphone who changed things up a little by having everyone skate … I mean … shuffle clockwise instead of counter-clockwise. As you can imagine, that always makes for a hoot of fun!

I’m simply not very comfortable in this environment. I’m not saying I’m a city slicker, far from it. But this was ridiculous. So I just sat at one of the picnic table drinking away at my Jack Daniels. Every once in a while I’d hand the bottle to some cowboy who’d come over say “howdy” and tip his hat.

Throughout the night, I noticed that no “cowgirls” were came over and said “howdy”. That was a Bummer. It must have been the way I was dressed and my long red hair. Oh well, I decided to just sit there, get drunk, and watch.

Later that evening, after I got good and drunk, an older woman came up and said “howdy”. By older I mean like late 30’s or early 40’s. Not drop dead gorgeous, but not gross either. She had long black hair, was dark complected and sort of looked like she had a little American Indian in her. She looked a bit like Cher only shorter, wider, and not as pretty. Anyway, this was the first female I’d actually talked to since arriving in Stroud. There was no way I’d ever hook up with this woman, but I was flattered, and it sure felt nice for someone like her to come up and talk to me.

Eventually, she asked me to dance. I said “naw, I don’t know how to do that going around in circles thing”. She says “The reason they do that is because it’s the easiest thing to do when you’re drunk. Now come on, I’ll show you!”

So we went out to the dance floor, and she showed me how to shuffle along. And you know what? It’s kind of fun! To make it more fun you can do things like put your fingers in your belt loops and strut around like a rooster. But you always ended up back with your arm around your partner shuffling around in time to the music.

Just when I was starting to get the hang of it, I felt someone grab my shoulder, and I spun around and before I knew it…WHAM! I saw lots of bright-colored dots, and I fell to the ground.

Someone had just punched my lights out. If you’ve never been punched out, it’s a lot like doing lots of Nitrous only it hurts and isn’t funny. If you’ve never done, it’s a lot like standing up too quick and watching the lights go out and feeling dizzy. When you punched out, there is this “Wha Wha” sound, the room spins, and nothing makes sense.

I was flat on my back and as I struggled to get up, I felt someone kick me in the ribs saying “Stay the fuck away from my wife you son of bitch!”

I looked up at him and immediately recognized that it was CARL! “Shit! I’ve been dancing with Carl’s wife”, I thought. Then, I got tunnel vision, the tunnel closed in, and I passed out.

Part 7: Not using your noodle.



The next Saturday morning I got into the old Grand Torino Station Wagon and went over to Ronnie’s house to smoke hooters and watch Green Acres with Ronnie and Donnie (Green Acres is set in Hooterville, get it?). If you’ve never had a chance to watch Green Acres inebriated, I highly recommend it. This day was so weird, I can still remember the episode we watched that morning. It was the one that starts out with Lisa seeing the show’s credits on the eggs she’s gathering outside. She comes in and says “Oliv’a vere’s za boooze?”, “Lisa, why do want the whiskey?” he replies. “I’m seeing vords on all za eggs, now vere is za boooze?”.

Anyway, after an hour of silly chuckling, Ronnie said, “Okay let’s go! We’re going Noodlin’ today”. “Did you say Noodlin’? What is Noodlin’?” I asked. “You’ll find out soon enough, a lot of guys from work are getting together today to go noodlin’. You’ll love it!”, he said as he clapped his to get me off the couch.

If you aren’t from Oklahoma it’s likely that you don’t know what noodlin is. I certainly didn’t. I thought maybe it had to do something with worms, they kind of look like noodles. Now days you might think it’s swimming with those foam floatation devices called Noodles. No, it’s neither of those things.

We drove down a long dirt road that was barely passable. We arrived at a place where the road widened and came to an end at the bank of a river. There were about fifteen pick up trucks and about 25 redneck dudes standing around, or sitting in lawn chairs drinking whiskey or some that where drinking that watered down 3.2% Budweiser beer (the watered down stuff at least kept you hydrated on those blistering hot Oklahoma days).

We showed up to grand greetings, “hey Ronnie, Hey Donnie, I see you brought Ohio out to go Noodlin!”, “Hey Ohio, I bet you’ve never done anything like this back there in Yankeeland!”. I just nodded, smiled and said “We’ll see. What are we actually doing?”. They all laughed and high-fived each other and shouted things like “you’ll see! Oh, You’ll see alright! HA HA!”

So after we had a few more beers and some general hootin it up, someone yelled “It’s time for some noodlin!” and everyone started hollering, “yeah! Whoooo Hoooo! Let’s get it boys!”.

At this point they took their shirts off. For a while I just stood there concerned that this noodlin thing might actually just be a giant redneck circle jerk. In which case I’d made a big mistake.

After they got their shirts off they all walked into the river. Now when I say river I want to make sure you understand that Oklahoma Rivers are probably not what you are imagining. They barely move. If you throw a stick in the water it is hardly even perceptible that it’s floating downstream. In fact, you really can’t tell which way is downstream. Because of this, the water is a smooth cardboard brown. It looks more like mud than it does water. It’s simply not something you’d think of swimming in.

They all got into the water and waded around the river by crouching down so that just their heads were just above the water. They looked like they are feeling around the bottom of the river like they lost a set of keys or something. At that point I was the only one standing on the shore watching this bizarre behavior. Their heads moved around the top of the water like skimmer bugs on a pond. “What the fuck is going on here?” I thought.

Suddenly, one of the dudes yelled, “Whoa! I got one!” he grunted and tried to stand up but he fell back into the water. There was obviously some kind of fight with some kind of monster going on. Some of the other dudes converged on the guy, and they all grabbed onto this giant catfish that seems to have a hold of the dude as much as the dude did it, and they hauled it to the shore and tossed it up onto the bank in front of me. “Yeeeeeee Haaaawwww!” they all screamed. “That’s a big one!” someone else said. They took turns sharing high fives with each other like they’d just scored a goal in the world cup.I bent over to look at this thing and it was a huge ugly slimy bigheaded catfish. I’d say 40 or 50 pounder but that’s just a guess. It was huge.

I looked at Ronnie in the water and yelled the obvious question, “So this is noodlin’?”. “yeah isn’t it great!” he said. At that point I all I could do was laugh. It is by far the strangest sport I’d ever seen.

Ronnie yelled, “Hey Ohio, come on in and try it!”. “No way!” I said, “I’m not wrestling with one these ugly monsters!”. “C’mon you pussy!” he said. And all of the other rednecks joined in calling me a pussy, one at a time.

I can’t stand being called a pussy, especially from this bunch. These guys have been making fun of me all summer after all the shit that happened early on. It was time to earn some respect. So, I took my shirt off, and waded into the water near Ronnie. They all applauded and Ronnie told everyone, “hey the next one you find give to Ohio, okay?”, they all happily agreed.

Ronnie gave me instructions, “Now what we are doing is feeling around for their heads. Most of what we catch are female catfish protecting their nests so they’re usually held up sitting in or on top of a big hole they make for themselves. The only real danger is every once and while someone will stick their hand in front of a snapping turtle and get their fingers bitten off. That’s what happened to Jack over there”, Jack raised his hand up, and showed me that he was missing his ring and pinky fingers.

Ronnie continued, “now once you find one, you feel around till you find the front of their head then you can feel water rushing in and out of their mouth. When it’s rushing in, their mouth is open, and that’s when you shove your hand as far into that bastard’s mouth as you can. He’ll bite you and then you’ve got him!”

I looked at him and laughed, “He’ll bite ME, and then I’ve got HIM?”. ”Right!” he said laughing.

Trying to hide my fear, I acted like I was actually trying to find a catfish on the bottom of the river, but it wasn’t long till someone else found one, “I got one over here, and it’s another big one!” he yelled. “Crap, why did have to be a big one?”, I thought.

Ronnie coaxed me over to where this dude was wading near a half-submerged log. Ronnie reached down and found him and said “okay, he’s really big but we’re right here to help you. Just reach down and follow my arms to his head.” So, I crouched down and followed his hands until I felt this huge hard head. To this day, I can’t say I know why the catfish let you touch them like that without moving.

Anyway, he said “Now do like told you, feel that water rushing in every once and while?”. “yeah, I see” I said. “Okay now when he’s got his mouth open shove your hand in there and get ready to pull him up” he said. It turned out it’s surprisingly easy to feel the water coming in and out of their mouths, and so I let this go on a few times trying to get my nerve up to put my hand in his mouth. Finally Ronnie yelled at me “C’mon Ohio! Just do it! Jesus!”

I finally shoved my hand in this catfish’s mouth and he immediately clamped down hard on my forearm and moved swiftly sideways which pulled me underwater directly beneath the log. Holding my breath underwater, I couldn’t see anything but the light brown color of the water lit by the sun. My arm, still in the catfish’s mouth, was caught between a branch and the insides of this catfish which was itself trapped against the steep bank.

I tried to stand up, but I was underneath the log which prevented me from getting up, and I couldn’t get my arm free. I thought, “Oh crap! I’m going to drown!”. I didn’t think I could hold my breath much longer, so I started punching the catfish with my other hand as hard as I could but he didn’t budge. I felt Ronnie grabbing my pants waist and pulling me back towards him. At this point, it was three-way tug of war between the catfish, the log, and Ronnie. I felt someone else grab my leg and start pulling. They pulled hard enough that my arm slipped past the branch, and slid out of the fish’s mouth scrapping my arm. Finally, I was free grasping for air without the fish. “Fuck this!” I said soaked and dejected. I crawled up onto the bank and sat down catching my breath.

After a few hours of watching these guys capture and wrestle with giant catfish, Ronnie and I decided to head back to town. We smoked hooters the whole way back, which made me feel much better. I decided to stop by my room at the motel to grab a change of clothes before we headed up to Stillwater to go to a party at Oklahoma State University, which I was pretty excited about.

Part 8: The Cutlass Supreme.

After we got back from noodlin’, we showered, changed our clothes, and smoked another hooter together in my room. Then Ronnie and I got into the station wagon to go pick up a couple of Ronnie’s friends and then head to Stillwater. I got the Torino turned around and was getting ready to make a left out of the parking lot. Now, the motel parking lot was gravel and bounded by the four-lane Route 66 highway all along its length. The motel was laid out with in the of shape of the letter “C”, and the top of the C was on my left blocking my view of oncoming traffic. There was also one of those cheap back lit plastic signs advertising the motel that went from the ground up to about 6 feet that stuck out a time bit into the highway. I needed to make a left and go east across the west bound traffic but I couldn’t see around the motel sign to see if there was any oncoming traffic. So I sat and tried to see around the sign for a while, until Ronnie who had a better angle said “It’s clear man, you can go.” So I pulled out.

A metallic blue cutlass supreme immediately smashed into us, hard. Hard enough so that the hood of the cutlass buckled and folded back. It was folded so much I couldn’t even see the front windshield from my car. The only thing on my mind at that moment was how my uncle and his son Bill weren’t going to very happy about this. I dreaded getting out and seeing the damage. I pulled the Grand Torino back a little bit to separate the two cars so I could assess the damage. Ronnie and I got out and looked at the left front corner station wagon and to our surprise there wasn’t much damage at all. The only thing broken was the plastic trim that bordered the fake wood siding. Ronnie and I, shocked at how ridiculous this was, burst out laughing.

My attention moved to the condition of the other driver. Was he okay? Should we call an ambulance? I walked around the front of the Cutlass towards the driver’s side, when the other driver got out of his car, stopped, and looked at me. I immediately recognized him. My mind raced with thoughts and fear, “Fuck! It was Carl! No fucking way. Not Carl. Of all the fucking people it could be! It was Carl, the guy who wanted to kill me!”.

Carl walked towards me, and I ran around the other side of the car. He raved and screamed, “You took my job! You took my wife! Now, you fucked up my car! I’m going to fucking kill you!” He chased me around the cars. Luckily, I was a lot quicker than he was. He would try to cut between the cars to gain an advantage but I’d just speed up to get to the other side of the car. The whole time, Ronnie stood off to the side and shouted out the play-by-play and gave me advice, “He’s coming around to our left! Oh, nice move Ohio! Watch out Ohio, he has his knife out now! Stay on your toes, and whatever you do don’t trip!”

This went on for 15 or 20 minutes until a police officer arrived. Of course, it turned out to be Ray, the same Stroud police officer I’d run into twice before.

He got out of his car and shouted, “What the hell is going on here?”

I immediately shouted “He’s trying to kill me!”

“Carl, are you trying to kill this boy?” Ray the officer asked.

“Yes!” Carl yelled back.

“Carl, you can’t kill him! Now come here and settle down while I talk to this guy for a minute.”

The officer came around to my side of the car and said “You aren’t getting along with Stroud very much are you?”. I didn’t say anything and they he asked, “Alright so what happened here?”

I pointed out what happened, showed him the sign that was in the way, and told him there is no way this could be my fault. He told me to wait there a minute while he got a statement from Ronnie and then from Carl. After some discussions with them, he just walked over and told me I could go. By soma e miracle, he didn’t give me a ticket for the accident. I didn’t even have to share insurance information with Carl. This would turn out to have some legal consequences later.

Part 9: Stillwater or Bust

After smashing Carl’s car, Ronnie and I decided to keep our plans for the evening and head up to Stillwater to party. Before we left we stopped and picked up Ronnie’s brother Donnie, Kevin, and Screech. This was the first time I had the pleasure to meet Screech. Screech had long hair, a thin goatee and mustache. He looked a lot like he could be one of the three musketeers. Only he was really too skinny and looked like he might look older than he really was because of hard living and drugs.

Driving up to Stillwater, I asked Screech if he knew the other guys in the car from school.

He said, “Naw, I ain’t been to no school since I was a pup. Them teachers didn’t learn me nothing’ no how! Hell, half’n the time I was a’learnin them!”

“It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic”, I thought.

This trip to Stillwater was important to me. For the first time since I’d arrived in Oklahoma I was going to get mingle with normal College students like me. These would be people I understood, and they would understand me. In this environment, with this crew, “I” would be the expert and “they” would be the rookies.

While driving up to Stillwater, I realized these guys knew Screech as their “Crystal” connection. “Crystal” is what Methamphetamine was called in Oklahoma back then (It may still be called that for all know). Crystal was big with the Oil Rig workers. Everyone I worked with seemed to use it, and many of them shot it up all of the time. You could tell the users from the non-users because the users got a lot more shit done at work than the non-users and seemed a little too eager to do it.

I eventually had to yell at them not to smoke Crystal in my car. They told me I had nothing to worry about and if I felt the need to worry, to worry about the pound of Marijuana they threw into the back of the station wagon. When I asked what the hell they needed with a pound of Marijuana for an evening in Stillwater, the consensus was that “You never know”. I didn’t have an argument for that either.

When we arrived in Stillwater, we were ready to take the town hostage. The first stop was cool bar with some hot coeds laying in wait for some great guys just like us. It was this really large trendy bar that had a large dance floor as well as several pool tables. Bad habits drove us to the pool tables. Hey, it can be a good place to start before you get bar legs, right?

Ronnie and I were playing pool hoping to win so as to capture the pool table, so we could all play. Meanwhile, Donnie, Kevin, and Screech told us they wanted to go check the place out. Actually, they just pulled up to the bar and did shots of whiskey, lots of shots. Shot after shot after shot.

We hadn’t been in this place more than an hour, hell, we probably hadn’t been in Stillwater more than hour when we heard this screaming and yelling coming from the center of the bar. Ronnie and I ignored it at first, but then Ronnie noticed that it was Screech who was doing most of the yelling.

We walked over and saw Screech flanked by Donnie and Kevin standing there yelling at these really huge strong-looking dudes. It was clear that these guys were either on the wrestling team or football team or did something where big muscles are important. It was a large group of them too. I’d say about 10 or 12 of them, and none of them were happy with Screech for some reason. In fact, they were looked like they were going to beat the crap out of Screech. Ronnie looked at me and said, “Come on, I think we can take ’em”.

Screech wasn’t intimidated by these guys at all. With his acid washed steal grey eyes glaring at them, he was simply trying to make them understand what pussies they all were, “Fuck all ya pussy ass mother fuckers! Ya’ll think ya’ll tough? The last thing ya ever saw that was tough, was your mama’s pussy when you were born!” Screech yelled. It was the most articulate thing I would ever hear Screech say.

That was it! These guys had finally had enough of Screech. They were ready to kill him, and they were clearly going to do right there and then. They all partially surrounded him so that his back was facing the bar. Ronnie and I quickly worked our way through the crowd to try to stop the massacre that was about to happen.

Suddenly, there was mayhem, somebody punched Kevin, and Ronnie jumped on one of their backs and had him in a headlock. People who weren’t even involved were getting shoved and pushed around. Things seemed to be escalating when someone yelled “OH MY GOD!”.

Everyone in the bar just stopped and looked in the direction of the yell. You could see people slowly backing up and away from Screech. I was scared that something really awful had just happened to Screech and so I rushed to where people were standing all around him and staring at him. I looked at Screech and what I saw was amazing. He had just bitten the end off of a long neck beer bottle and was chewing it with a horribly evil look on his face. The crowd of people standing around was all silent and paralyzed with awe. Every mouth was agape with surprise and shock as Screech just kept chewing.

Finally, he smiled really big which revealed his now horribly bloody teeth. It was a directed evil smile right at one of the muscle-bound dudes. Screech looked at him and said, “You’re a pussy!” and then spit …or should I say sprayed … a mixture of blood, saliva, and glass all over the front of the guy. There was collective “EWWWWW!” from the crowd, and everyone turned away in disgust.

After that display there wasn’t anyone that was going to mess with Screech. You could hear the crowd as they were walking away “That guy is fuckin’ crazy!”. The guy whose shirt and face had spots of blood all over it looked at me and said, “That guy needs help!”, and then he left.

It was obvious that we needed take Screech to the Emergency Room. He drank a shot of whiskey to rinse his mouth out and he screamed in pain. So back to Stroud we went to take screech to hospital.

On the way back, I asked Screech what started the ruckus. Screech just mumbled “un’t know.” So Donnie piped in and said that screech was leaning over the balcony and accidentally dropped his beer, bottle and all off of the balcony rail. The full bottle of beer had hit one of those dudes in the head. Screech went down to apologize and buy the guy a beer, but they started yelling at him.

I was disappointed how the evening turned out but I couldn’t be mad at Screech. He was trying to be a good guy. I was zoning out when I saw red and blue lights in my rear view mirror.

“Shit! It’s the cops!” I said. “Hide all your shit!”

“God Damn it! I’ve had my share of bad days but this is the worst.” I said to the guys in the car. Ronnie tried to calm me down, “Just be cool, Ohio, just be cool.”

“We’ve got a pound of pot and god knows how much of that crystal you guys have stuffed my seats and you want me to be cool?” I asked. “It’s actually just a half-pound.” Kevin said in a reassuring voice.

“Great.” I replied sarcastically.

The State Patrolman approached with his flashlight shining into the car. He came up to my window, shined the light in my face and said, “I pulled you over because you have a font headlight out. Can I see your license and registration?” I said “Sure. That lights out because I had a small fender bender today”. He simply responded in a serious tone “Can I see your license and registration please?”

I got out my license and gave it him, and then I reached over to my glove box to get the registration. The Patrolman was shining his flashlight on my glove box in order to help me see. When I opened my glove box a rolled up ounce of marijuana in a sandwich bag rolled out into sight.

I grabbed the registration and Ronnie quickly shoved the bag of weed back into glove box and shut it. It was too late. The Officer walked around the back of the car and up to the passenger side window, and then tapped on window. Ronnie rolled the window and the officer asked, “Could you please open that glove compartment for me?”. “This one?” Ronnie said stupidly. “Yes! THAT one!” the officer replied.

Ronnie opened it and again the ounce of weed rolled out. “So what have we here?” The officer said in a patronizing way. “Could you hand that to me please son?”. Ronnie handed him the weed without looking at him.

The Officer came back around to my side opened the door and said, “Sir could you step out of the car?”. When I got out he showed me the weed and said “Is this your marijuana?”. Now it wasn’t mine, but all I could think about was all the other drugs in my car that weren’t mine. Should I say ‘no’ and then if he searches my car play dumb like I didn’t know my friends were drug addicts? Or should I say ‘yes’ and play like ‘yeah, you got all our stash. Damn…’. This was going to be a big decision so I took my time.

The officer got impatient, “I said…Is this YOUR marijuana?”…

“yes.” I finally replied.

The officer sighed, “I’m going to have to take to you to the station.”

He walked over to the car and asked Ronnie to drive my car and follow us while he took me to the station. The situation was really ironic. He was taking me in for marijuana, but he was letting Ronnie who was drunk, and on probably high on meth to drive my car.

Once at the station, we sat in silence while inspected our weed. At this point, I felt slightly better because he hadn’t found all the rest of the drugs that were in the car. I knew I was probably in big trouble but it’s not nearly the trouble I would have been in if he found a half a pound of weed and whatever Crystal Meth those guys had stashed in my car.

I began to notice that this State Patrolman was kind of strange. He walked and talked a little too deliberately, like he had taken some tranquilizers. I hoped this would be to my advantage.

He walked over, grabbed the phone, put it in front of me and then said, “I’m going to have to ask you to call your mother.”

I was confused and I even thought maybe didn’t hear him quite right, so I asked for clarification, “Uh, did you say you want me to call my mother?”

“Yes, I want you to call your mother, and I want you to tell her that you’re being arrested for possession of marijuana”. He said slowly.

I looked at my friends as if to ask them what I should do, and they all nodded quickly, and reassuringly as if to tell me “Do it, this is an opportunity”.

I looked at the officer and said “um, she’s in Ohio. I haven’t lived at home for over a year now. Plus, she’s in Eastern Time zone so it’s pretty late there.”

“Call your mother son, I want her to know what kind of person you’ve turned out to be”, he said.

So I reached for the phone and called my mom.

Here is how the conversation went:

Mom: “Hello?” me: “Mom?” Mom: “Chris is that you?” me: “No mom, it’s Scott.” Mom: “Oh, right, Scott, how are you doing honey?” me: “Not so good, mom.” Mom: “What’s wrong?” me: “I’m in a Oklahoma State Police Station, mom.” Mom: “You’re in prison?” me: “No mom, not yet. I’m being arrested for possession of Marijuana.” Mom: “Marijuana? oh, okay.” me: “so…uh…” Mom: “Are you asking me for money?” me: “No mom.” Mom: “Well, I love you very much and good luck, I know you’ll do your best but I have a big day tomorrow and should probably get some sleep…”

At this point the officer grabbed the phone from me and here is what I heard:

Officer: “Mamm? Hi, you are Scott’s mother? Well I know how disappointed you probably are in your son. Yes I know. I know. I know. Yep. I know. Right. It is difficult, I know. Two. 12 and 14. Yep. No. You did? Really? Okay, well I just wanted you know. I will. You too. Thanks. Good night.”

Then he hung up and said to me, “You got a great mother. You should do more to make her proud.”

Now, I thought, “What the fuck was that?” as I slouched and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

He grabbed the weed, handed it to me, and said, “Now I want you to throw this in the garbage.” So I took the bag and tossed it in the garbage can. However, he got up, reached into the garbage can, got it back out, handed it to me, and said “No, dump it out! Slowly. And I want you all to watch” as he pointed at my friends.

So I took the bag, opened it and then slowly spilled it into the garbage can. While I was doing that he said, “All of it, shake it ALL out!”

When I got done, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “There. I’m sorry I had to do that to you, I know it probably is painful but you have to start somewhere.”

He finally noticed Screech holding his shirt up to his mouth and soaking up blood, so he asked him “What is wrong with you, boy?”

Screech tried to say something but it didn’t come out right, so I said, ”he got punched in the mouth at a bar and lost some teeth. We were on our way to the hospital so they could put his teeth back in.”

“Well then you better get going, and I don’t want to see any of you boys in here again. And get that headlight fixed!”

We left the police station, obviously very happy, but we had some work to do. We had to go back and find all the drugs that it turned out that my passengers had pitched out along the highway while they were following the State Patrolman and I, and then we had to take Screech to the emergency room.

Part 10: Hot Carl.

I didn’t get back to my motel room until about 4am Sunday morning. When I arrived I was surprised to find that my motel room door had been broken into. “It had to have been Carl”, I thought. Nothing was taken, but I didn’t have much to take anyway.

I was too tired to worry about it. It had been a long strange day, and I was beat. All I wanted to do was turn on the AC, lie down and sleep until noon. I simply braced my door shut with the only chair in the room and went to bed. I fell asleep soon enough, but sleeping until noon wasn’t in the cards.

At about 10am there was a knock at my door.

I was scared. It had to be Carl. So I crouched down below my window and peeked over the bottom of the window through the curtain and could barely make out a person standing there. Who ever it was had crutches and bandages. They couldn’t be too dangerous, so I answered the door.

When I opened the door, there was Carl’s wife standing in front of me on crutches. She looked bad. She had bandages all over her face and head. She had a sling for her arm and a soft cast on her leg. She talked first, “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at Stallions and my husband Carl hit you.”

“I remember you. What happened to you?” I said gesturing toward her bandages.

“Carl did this to me. I told him I was leaving him yesterday and he went berserk. The reason I’m here is to warn you. When I last saw him, he’d grabbed his gun, and said he was going to get you.”

“Shit.” I said.

After standing there wondering what I was going to do, I asked, “Do you need any help? A ride or something?”

“No, my friend here is taking me in at least until the police find Carl and I’m safe. I think you should find somewhere else to stay since he knows where you are staying.” she said.

“That explains my broken door last night”. I thought.

“Yep, I better get the hell out of this motel then, thanks” I said.

I carefully hugged her and she left with her friend.

I grabbed all my stuff and threw it into the Station Wagon, drove to Ronnie’s hoping he’s give me a place to stay, and explained the situation to Ronnie.

Ronnie said reluctantly, “Oh, Ohio, you can’t stay here. I can’t put my family in that kind of danger, man, you understand? Perhaps you could stay at Repeatin’ Charlie’s place? I’m sure he could use the company after the accident.”

Repeatin’ Charlie also worked for M&W Oil Field Service, and was involved in a bad accident at work. This particular summer, all the foremen allowed workers to work without their safety helmets because of the unusually extreme heat that summer. It was the hottest summer on record up to that point. We’d had over 20 days of temperatures over 100 degrees. I personally had passed out 3 times on the job and one time had to be rushed to the hospital due to heat exhaustion.

The newer rigs had a 60ft boom on which to hang 50ft section of rods being pulled up from the well (the rods are the things on the well that connect to the pump). There is a worker in a basket on top of the boom where he guides the rods into the slots for hanging. Well, Charlie was working on the floor (the ground), and the guy at the top of the basket accidentally let the rod loose before it was secure. As the rod fell, the guy at the top yelled “headache!” which is Oil Field code for “Look out!” and everyone ran in different directions as the rod first hit the ground, and then fell like a fallen tree. Unfortunately, for Charlie he only made it forty feet away from the rig when the rod hit him directly in the middle of his head which split his skull in half. He survived though, and he was staying in-house by himself out in the country.

So without any other opportunities, I followed Ronnie out to Repeat’n Charlie’s place. It was located down a long open dirt road that dead-ended when it got to the house. The house was tiny and painted lavender with dark purple trim. It was partially surrounded by a tuft of woods and had some old rusted out cars sitting around the yard, and there was a backhoe in the back yard.

Repeat’n Charlie had seen us coming up the road and was there to meet us when we got out of the cars. “Hey Charlie!” Ronnie said (no one used the name Repeat’n Charlie in front of Charlie). “hey there Ronnie, how ya doin’? eh, eh, How ya doin’?” repeated Charlie.

Now you can see why we called him “Repeat’n Charlie”. He had this habit of repeating just about everything he said. He’d repeat it 4 or 5 times or more if he thought something was really funny.

When Charlie walked up to us I couldn’t believe how he looked. The doctors shaved the top half of his head bald. On the lower half he had long hair. His head had a big bumpy ridge going down the middle where the rod had split his head. There were huge stitches in his head where these bumps where. If you are familiar with Star Trek the Next Generation, his head looked a lot like the character known as Worf.

I asked him as I shook his hand, “Hey Charlie how are you doing?”.

Charlie replied, “Hell, my life couldn’t be better. I’m collecting Workman’s comp, I don’t have to work for at least 6 months, and there’s hardly any brain damage! eh, eh, hardly any brain damage! eh eh, Hardly any brain damage! yelpers, hardly any brain damage!”

“Well, that’s great.” I said with undetectable sarcasm.

Repeat’n Charlie invited us in for a beer. His place was just like any poor man’s bachelor pad. It had bed sheets for curtains, and on the couches, presumably to cover them up because they were ugly. Beer bottles were everywhere, and every once in a while you’d smell something that smelled like human waste.

Ronnie and I took turns explaining the situation I was in with Carl, and how Carl was hunting me to kill me. I asked if I could stay at least until the police found Carl. Charlie said, “Of course ya can! eh, eh, of course ya can!” You’ll be safe out here, and I’ll watch after ya. eh, eh, I’ll watch after ya”.

I caught another whiff of that awful smell, which forced me to ask, “Charlie where is that smell coming from?”.

“I been meanin to fix that. eh, eh, I been meanin to fix that.” he repeated.

He took us out behind his house, where next to the backhoe was a big pile of dirt and a big deep hole about 8 to 10 feet in diameter. He pointed to a big broken plastic tank further back in the yard and said, “That septic tank over there was broken so I took it out. eh eh took it out. I’ve been meaning to get a new one but till then I just dug this hole deeper. eh eh, just dug it deeper.”

I looked in the hole and at the bottom was a bunch of sewage and water and it smelled horrible. You could see the pipe that came from the house, and spilled the shit right into the hole. All I could think is that I hoped the police found Carl soon because I would have to smell this crap the while I stayed there.

Ronnie, Charlie and I hung out in the front yard drinking beer the rest of the day.

Ronnie left around 5pm and so Charlie and I just sat around smoking bong hits, and watching TV throughout the evening. All he had to eat was bologna and bread. No catsup, no mustard, no condiments of any kind. Just bread and bologna. It was okay though, especially when you’ve been smoking weed all day.

At about 11pm, Charlie hopped up from the couch, pointed out the window, and said “Someone is comin’ down the road! eh, eh coming down the road.”

I got up and joined Charlie at the door and watched as the headlights came down the road. When it got close you tell it was a gray pick up and I said, “Fuck, I think it’s Carl!”

Charlie said, “Turn out the lights, eh eh turn out the lights.” I didn’t know why except that maybe Charlie thought Carl wouldn’t know we were there. I turned out the lights, and nervously paced around wondering what to do. My pacing around was interrupted by a gun Shot followed by Carl yelling “I know you’re in there, Ohio! Come on out so I can shoot you!”. He slurred his words, and he was obviously very drunk.

My heart was pounding, and my knees were shaking. I thought about escaping out the back door when Charlie ran back into his bedroom closet and grabbed a rifle, one of many he had. At this point, I thought we should call 911 and get the police out here.

“Charlie where is your phone? I’m calling the police!” I asked frantically.

“You can’t call the police! eh, eh, you can’t call the police!” Charlie said emphatically.

“Why the fuck not?” I asked.

“I have lots of weed growing around this property and Meth Lab out in the shed!” He said without repeating which made me think he was really serious. He didn’t repeat the things he was most serious about.

“I will take care of this!” Charlie said confidently.

“What the hell are you going to do, KILL HIM?!” I asked.

“Naw, this only a .22, it won’t kill him, eh, eh, it won’t kill him.”

Before I could say anything else, Charlie went to the window, pointed his rifle out the window, aimed ,and pulled the trigger.

“I think I got him! eh, eh, I got him!, eh, eh, I got him! eh, eh, I think I got him! eh eh, I got him!” Charlie repeated.

I went to the window,crouched down, and peeked out into the front yard. The area in the front was well-lit by one of those pole lights on a telephone pole. I didn’t see Charlie anywhere. I actually hoped that he hadn’t shot him. I just wanted Carl to get scared and go away, not get killed. Also any shot that didn’t kill Carl would probably just serve to piss him off even more.

“Are you sure you shot him?” I asked.

“Well, I thought I might have got him, eh,eh might have got him” Charlie sad.

I sank to the floor with my back against the wall and just sat there praying, “Please let me live through this, Please let me live through this”.

We sat tight for about 15 minutes, every once and while we’d crawl to various windows to see if Carl’s truck were still out there, and if we could see any trace of Carl, but there was no sight of him. The silence was maddening. I was ready to call the police again, and so I crawled to the kitchen where I was sure Charlie kept his phone. As I crawled along, I heard Carl’s muffled voice yelling “Charlie! Charlie! I need you’re help, Charlie! Help me!”

I crawled back into the living room, and asked “Charlie did you hear that?”

Charlie said, “Yeah, it sounds like’s it coming from out back. eh eh from out back.”

We went to the back screen door, and I heard Carl yelling some more…”Charlie! Come on, man, I give up, just help me get out of this fucking hole!”

Carl, it seemed, had fallen into the big sewage hole that Charlie had dug up, and couldn’t get out since it was definitely more than 8 or 9 feet deep.

Charlie went out back while I stayed hidden in the house. I could hear them talking, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Pretty soon Charlie came back to the house.

“Here’s his gun. eh, eh, here’s his gun.” Charlie repeated while showing me a handgun. “He’s fallen into my shit hole and thinks maybe he’s broken his leg. eh eh fallen into the shit hole! eh eh fallen into the shit hole! Broken his leg, eh, eh, broken his leg, eh, eh, broken his leg!” Charlie repeated laughing.

Then Charlie somewhat disappointed, Charlie said, “I guess I didn’t hit him with that shot, eh, eh, with that shot.”

“That’s great!” I said excited that I wouldn’t be standing trial for attempted murder.

Charlie then looked at me seriously, and said without repeating, “We have to help him out of that shit hole and get him to the doctor”.

I said “No Way! I’m not him helping that mother fucker out of there! In fact, I’m leaving! I’m outta here! You’ll have to get someone else to help him!”

We argued about it for a while but I simply decided I was leaving. I walked out to the car shaking my head the whole way. That’s when it occurred to me that I needed to take a shit and there was no way that I was going to miss that opportunity. I went back to the house and to stop Charlie from helping Carl out of the hole for a moment I lied, “hey Charlie, I’ll help you get him out of there, just wait a minute.”

“Right on, Ohio! eh, eh right on!” Charlie replied.

I went to bathroom and took a nice healthy shit and piss. Then I opened the bathroom door before I flushed, so I get out in a hurry. I flushed the toilet and ran to the back screen door and cracked it open to listen. I could barely hear the water and shit run into the hole and then I heard in a muffled but loud voice from the hole…

“Awwww SHIT! GOD DAMN IT! AWWWWW!” I heard Carl’s disgusted voice yell.

I just smiled, opened the screen door a little more, and yelled proudly, “I’m sorry about that, Carl!”

I could hear Carl yell back at me, “Fuck you, you son of bitch, I’m going to get out of here and kill you, you fucking bastard!”

I ran out of the house and to the station wagon and spun out there laughing maniacally to myself as I drove away. I decided right there and then that I was getting the fuck out of Stroud and Oklahoma for good. I thought about my favorite Bob Dylan song “Just like Tom Thumbs Blues”. The final line of the song Dylan sings, “I’m going back to New York City, I do believe I’ve had enough!”

Well, I’d had enough. I’d had enough of Stroud, I’d had enough of Oklahoma, I’d had enough of that job, and most of all, I had enough of Carl. So I drove straight to the Tulsa, and purchased a one way ticket to Fort Meyers, Florida, where my girlfriend from Ohio was on vacation with some of her friends for the summer.

Epilog

Four months later, during Fall semester at Ohio State, I got a summons from a court in Oklahoma. I was sued by Carl for totaling his Cutlass Supreme. Of course, there was no way I was ever going to go back to Oklahoma, and besides that was probably a trick Carl was using to get me in his sights again so he could kill me. I just threw the summons away, and forgot about it. A few months after that, I got a notice in the mail that I’d lost the case and that I had a judgement against me for $6000. About six months after that, I got a notice that my driving privileges had been revoked in Oklahoma, and that there was a warrant for my arrest. Big fucking deal. I didn’t have any plans of visiting that state ever again, and still don’t.

The End.



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