Souvenir of Escape

And back to the story of youth...

Things, events, and people seem to blur together at that time of my life. So they might be a little out of order but in all, they are things that I remember and that somehow makes them important.

EDIT**It was the summer before I started tenth grade and I was doing more drugs than ever. I was spending a lot of time with this girl, LG. I became a master at sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. And even better at disguising my drug problem.

I was able to keep my grades around average and my attitude in check. Not sure how I managed either but it kept my mom from getting suspicious. It had been years since I had spoken with my father and, really, I didn't care. There wasn't much I cared about back then. Not even myself.

LG was about as crazy as I was, except she had different reasons for being that way. She just wanted to piss off her parents and, like I said, I just didn't care. But I didn't want my mom to know because I didn't want her to try to make me stop traveling my path of self destruction. I was enjoying it too much.

It was a late Friday night and the summer rain had the front lawn a muddy mess. Mom and my bro had crashed for the night, so I headed for the window to sneak out. When it rained like that, the metal around the window would shock me when I climbed through.
I pulled the window down and walked down 2nd Street. LG lived three houses down but she wasn't outside yet. She wasn't as careless as I was and she was so afraid of getting caught. I lit a cigarette and leaned against the light pole as I waited.

I had no attraction to LG. She was just a girl I had met the summer before and we had become close friends. I was closer to her than any of my other friends but that was probably because she lived so close. She had long bleached blond hair and she was tall and lanky. She walked with a slouch that she thought was cool. I didn't have the heart to tell her it made her look goofy.

I glanced up at her house as she came swiftly towards me. I had to laugh. She was ducking down like she thought her parents would see her if she stood up straight and waddling like a duck as she crossed her lawn. When she hit the street, she took off in a run.

"Wait up!" I laughed. I had pictured her with a beak and couldn't stop laughing.
She stopped abruptly and put her finger in front of her lips to quiet me. I jogged up to her side.
"Give me a break. You're so fucking paranoid." I lit two cigarettes and passed her one.
"Thanks." She took a drag. "You don't know how crazy my step dad is."

Her step dad wasn't really half as bad as my dad was or MM's dad turned out to be. (At this time, I still didn't know the real story of what MM's dad was doing.) I think she just didn't like him because he was some kind of authority figure.

"Still, they're sleeping," I said as we rounded the corner to Southgate.
"Yeah, but he would hear me sneeze if I was standing on 441," she laughed.

We crossed 441 to where the Cassa Serena apartments were. There was a party at Red's place and lots of chemicals to feed any addiction you might of had. We found his building and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The door was open, so we walked on in.

Red welcomed us as we crossed the living room. James took my arm and directed me to the bong he was hitting in the corner. Weed wasn't what I was wanting but it was a start. I lost LG for a while.

"You really should be my girlfriend," James said. He had me backed against the wall in the corner and we were sharing a joint.

"You couldn't keep up with me James. Besides, you have a girlfriend and I like her. So drop it." I passed him back the joint and ducked under his arm. I figured it was time to find LG.

When she would get fucked up, she would get real stupid. I think she thought it made her cooler to get stupid and hook up with some random guy. In reality, it made her easy and all the guys knew it. Sure enough, I found her tangled on the bed with Tom. Since their clothes were still on, I thought it would be a good time to stop things before it got to something I knew she would regret. She always did.

I sat on the edge of the bed and smacked her ass. "LG. Come on. I think we ave to head to South Side now."
She held up her hand.

Then everything started going in slow motion. The cops were banging on the front door and seconds from bursting in. I grabbed her hand and pulled her from the bed. Poor Tom had no idea what was going on. I peeked out the door and saw the cops heading our way.

"Shit, LG! They're coming." I ran to the window and pushed out the screen. "We are gonna have to jump."

LG looked out the window. "No way! You realize we are on the second floor right?"

"I'm not that fucked up. When you hit the ground, roll." I climbed up on the ledge as the cops beat on the bedroom door. "Just do what I do."

I jumped and hit the ground in a tucked roll. Hell, I'd jumped from higher. She stared down in disbelief.

"Come on, dammit!" I yelled.

She shook her head and then vanished back into the room. I waited for a minute and was about to run when her leg came through the window. She was on the ledge and she was fighting whoever was trying to stop her.

"Just jump!" I knew the person wouldn't follow her.

Finally, she landed with a thud next to me. She didn't land right so she screamed out as the electrocuting pain shot up her legs.

"Shake it off," I said. "We got company."

Two cops were coming around the corner with their flashlights in our faces. I grabbed her had and ran as fast as I could towards the canal. There was no way I was being caught. We made it to the waters edge and ran beside it for a while. The cops weren't giving up.

"LG, we are going to have to swim to get away."
"Are you kidding me," she huffed. "There's alligators in that canal."
"Its swim or get caught. They probably have more cops waiting for us on the next street. We can't out run that radio."
"Fuck!" I knew she was scared but the fear of her parents finding out she was at that party must have scared her worse.

I jumped in and started to swim to the opposite shore. It was about thirty or forty feet to the other side and if I swam fast enough, I knew I could find a place to hide before the cops that were radioed would find us. She jumped in right after me.

It took a little longer than I had hoped. Swimming fully clothed isn't so easy and being high on top of it, made it that much worse. The cops didn't jump in after us but I did hear them radioing for units to pick us up in Aztec, the mobile home park we were swimming towards.

I half dragged her out of the water and we ran down to the end of the street. I could hear the sirens getting closer, so I pulled her through the yards and we ducked behind a shed as the cop car passed. As soon as it did, we were running again. I figured the cops would search all the areas around the shore so I kept us running south. South Side was the next neighborhood anyway and we had lots of friends over there. They would hide us out or a while, at least.

We made it. We stayed in the shadows as we walked towards Mike's house. It was a good thing, too. The cops were cruising his neighborhood...probably looking for any one else that might have escaped the party.

"You are insane!" she said as we hid from the approaching car. "I would have never jumped out of that fucking window. I wouldn't have thought it was an option."

"No big deal. And I've jumped from higher," I shrugged. "Look, our choices were limited. It was jump or be sent to juvi. Did you see all the drugs in that place?"

"Yeah. Red was growing shit in his closet, too. If they caught him, he is going away for a while." She raked her hands through her wet hair. "God, and there was more coke on that table than I had ever seen in my entire life." She pulled me close to her and kissed my cheek. "Thanks for getting us out of there."

"Anytime. It would have been an easier getaway if you would have just trusted me," I joked, elbowing her ribs.

She laughed. "They arrested Tom." She held up her wrist and I was stunned. "They almost had me too."

The cops had gotten one handcuff on her but somehow, she managed to get away. I was laughing so hard, I couldn't breathe.

"At least we have a souvenir. I hope you can get this off of me." She didn't think it was as funny as I did.

"Yeah. I can. (Don't ask.) I'll get it off when we get to Mike's."