When i started doing the essay all i kept saying is there is no way i can type 5 pages on a story. I thought of every which way to stretch the essay if i had to. Like you know if i finished and it was only like 3 pages i had my plan layed out. But once i started going it wasnt is it going to be enough it turned out to be do i have too much. And the funniest thing was once i started to think about the day and story i was telling the memory became so real that i remember the day exactly.......So heres my draft god i hope i didt it correctly and before anyone passes judgement, it is a working title ....so for those who read it, heres the preview its 7 pages double spaced.......and i hope you enjoy so without further delay............
" The Realization that your a puppet"
I remember the first time I realized that the people that surround us sometimes dictate our decisions and how we live our lifes, contrary to how we may really feel. This day was so long ago, but when I close my eyes and remember it, this day feels like it happened not even 24 hours ago. It’s funny as I look back on this day I remember how my mother use to always tell me to never let anyone else dictate the man I am or the man I am becoming. As always I would smile and agree because I was 17 and knew everything. Truly I wasn’t in charge of my life that day, all my decisions were made by my “friends” and my true emotions had to be hidden to prevent being judged.
When I was 17 and a senior in high school I would always hang out with the same group of friends. I mean we did everything together, from going to the same gym to eating dinner at each others houses. The group consisted of seven guys which were never called their true names. Being like any close group of friends we all had nicknames for each other. The group went as: Fur, Mell, Shanal, Goomba, Ant, Butt, some of the names would need some explaining, but that’s a whole other story for each one and I would need a lot of time to tell it all. Where we lived was a small suburban town named Hazlet, where basically nothing happened. It’s one of those towns where everyone waves to each other and you know everything about everyone else. So like most young teens we would have to make our own fun out of the simplest ideas.
It all started one day over Easter vacation, when we were all arguing on where we wanted to eat that day. So after probably about an hour of arguing about different places to go Shanal came up with an idea that when I think about now, I see how immature we really were. His idea was to put all the food places in New Jersey that we knew of in a tournament bracket like they do in college basketball. I mean every place we could think of, from restaurants that everyone knows to the deli (whose name we didn’t know) in that town (which one of us would only remembered because of the food from deli) one of stopped in with our families one day. Each place would be ranked and then placed in the bracket following the rules the NCAA uses. The two places would then go head to head and the winner would move to the next battle. The winner was chosen by a flip of Ant’s wallet, because of course on that day no one had any change on them, so we resorted to what we could. So the pace with home court advantage would be given the back of the wallet and the visitor would be given the part where the wallet closed, then Shanal would flip the wallet in the air spinning of course at least 5 times and the side it landed on would be the winner.
We planned to go for lunch, but after we made the list and saw we had about 170 places to go it was going to take longer. So we started the “Restaurant Tourney” as we called it and about 3 hours later, and god knows how many wallet flips we had our winner. It was a little Italian pizza place in Red Bank only about 15 minutes away from our house. As we left it was decided (well we were kind of forced) that because me and Fur had trucks that we would drive. So we all piled in the two trucks, in mine was me, Ant, Mell, and Goomba, and in Fur’s was him Butt and Shanal, then off we went going on the direction of what Butt remembered. After turning to what should have been a 15 minute ride into an hour we got there and ate. On the way out me and Fur were fighting saying who could get home faster, so we all raced to the trucks and raced out.
We were driving like idiots, cutting people off and weaving in and out of traffic to try to get ahead of each other. As I strategically driving trying top find a way to get the best of Fur, I could here the guys in my truck talking and planning something to do to Fur’s truck. Before I knew it Mell had his pants down and was mooning every car on the road. As we passed Fur his truck was in hysteria with laughter so we figured whatever we would do it to other drivers. I didn’t say that I thought it was a dumb idea and not to do it, and how the entire time I was laughing I was really freaking out that sometime bad would happen. So we kept going and seeing how other drivers would either laugh or put a real angry face on, as we kept going I saw that a light green Altima that looked “hooked” up(which means we thought it was either teenager or younger adults car) was changing lanes as I did . So I slowed up and the guy got along side of us and gave us a signal to pull over.
We saw that the guy driving was a bigger guy and he looked pissed. I remember exactly what happened next, I started freaking out and asking what to do, screaming at them and everyone in my truck yelled basically to do whatever it takes to get away from him. I was petrified I didn’t know what was going to happen and all I wanted was everything to go to normal. Luckily we thought we were close to our home town so we knew all the side roads in the towns we were passing through. I punched it and started to drive really out of control and every move that I made this guy made and kept right on my tail. So I pulled in a parking lot trying to loose the guy, as I sped through the lot I was dodging people, cars, shopping carts, and it seemed every 2 seconds I had to slam on my brakes almost hitting something. So I was shaking, sweating, and breathing in a crazy manner, and the laughter that once filled my truck turned into a quite scared silence. Every time we thought we got away this guy would wind up back behind us. We left the parking lot and shot into a development that has tons of side roads so we thought we defiantly loose him.
After about a 1 hour of driving around in and out of different developments we came up with an idea. We called Fur and asked for help, together we planned that we would have Fur wait for us on a corner we knew and I would go around him and he we would then cut this Altima off. Then he would slow this guy down and I would slip away. I was basically drenched with sweat and pale as a ghost, but this plan gave me hope. So we get to the corner and see Fur’s truck waiting for us. I pull around him and thinking we were going right when Fur thought we were going left, we both turned the wrong way and our trucks hit, not stopping I gunned it. Now I was going crazy and said screw it and pulled over. We were all mumbling saying how no matter what happens we would all stick together. As I looked in my rear view mirror I saw what I knew immediately was. The guy in the car was holding a badge. He gets out and walks along side my car and asks for my credentials and not being stupid I ask to see his. He shows me his badge and I.D. and he turns out to be a sheriff from a town I can’t actually remember anymore. As Sheriff Lopez takes my information 6 police cruisers from 3 different towns come pulling up extremely fast and surround my car.
Two were from Holmdel which borders Hazlet, two were from our town Hazlet, and the final two were from another bordering town called Middletown. The cops all got out and started screaming at me and flipping out. A few cops even pulled there guns and had them pointed at my truck. Easy to say at this point I was shaking and had the vomit feeling in my stomach, I could barely talk and kept think I was going to pass out. I thought I was done, the cops all kept saying that I was going to be arrested and put in jail and my trucked impounded as well as my license being taking from me .Then Sheriff Lopez took my stuff and walked away, he took my P.B.A. card and threw it telling me it was pointless. Thank god as he did this the officer who he card belonged to pulled up and saw the whole thing. The officer is named Mike; my mother is his children’s babysitter and he actually a good friend of the family. He gave me the card on my 17th birthday and told me not to get in trouble. That’s ironic now that I think of it. I was then taken out of the car and sat on the curb.
As I sat down, my mother pulls up with my older brother. Mike and Sheriff Lopez walked over to me and had me stand up and explained why there were six patrol cars surrounding my truck and how my mother came to be there. I didn’t think she just happens to be driving by, but maybe she knew my luck. So what happened was Sheriff Lopez was driving with his wife and saw what Mell did and tried to pull us over to talk to us. As I sped away and started driving like a moron as he put it, he then used the radio he had in his car and contacted the local police in the town we were in for help. Since we cut threw Middletown and Holmdel they were contacted and we trying to help corner us. Every time they thought they had me, I would change direction. So when I stopped the chase ended and they all caught up to me. Then Sheriff Lopez and Mike asked why I didn’t pull over. I then explained how I was always told to never pull over for an unmarked car and how I was scared and really didn’t know what to do and mostly was listening to what my friends said. I always explained Sheriff Lopez’s car didn’t look anything like a cop car and how we didn’t see his badge until I stopped.
After hearing my end they talked for awhile and came back and laid out my options. First they told me how I was right to not stop for an unmarked car, but that still didn’t excuse for what I allowed Mell to do. That it was still my responsibility t control what the passengers in my truck were doing. They said that running from the police would be forgotten and that speeding would be forgotten too. The only thing was the hit and run that Sheriff Lopez witnessed and how that was an automatic revoking of license. Then I said how we knew the diver and that was it part of the getaway plan. So they said to get Fur and everyone that was in his car to come here. So we called him and then convinced him to come. We then waited, I was still outside my truck and my friends were all sitting in my truck looking around. I couldn’t look my mother in the eyes, I was so embarrassed.
As Fur pulled up Mike walked over to his truck and asked for his end of the story. Our stories matched up and so Mike laid out three options for Fur. First he could press charges against me, which would put me under arrest and I would loose my license. Second he could go along with the plan and we would both be arrested me for the hit and run, him for adding in a felony. The third option was we would all forget this happened leave and take car of the damage to our trucks at a another time. So obviously Fur took the third option. As he left I thanked him and we actually laughed over it.
I then saw that Mell was arguing with an officer and then given a seatbelt ticket because they said if he was “mooning” people he obviously couldn’t be wearing it. All the cops then started to leave and Mike went over to where the P.B.A. card he gave me was thrown and he picked it up and walked back to me. He then handed it to me and smiled then started to walk back to his cruiser. I asked why he had given the card back, he smile and said: “Your mom watches my kids and besides that everyone makes a mistake”, he then smile and drive off. My mom hugged me and asked what happened and I told her the whole story and why I haven’t been home in two days. She smile and we agreed not to tell my father.
I got back in my truck took everyone home, drove to my house and passed out. Ten minutes later my phone went off, Fur was having people over for drinks and he thought I could use one. I went over and his dad looked and me and smile. We all sat in Fur’s basement and just started to laugh. Everyone waiting their turn to tell the story of the infamous car chase. When it came to my turn I smile and told it the same way everyone else did. Except in my own mind I thought how lucky I was and the feeling of fear and paranoia that I had the entire time. As the next person told their account I looked around the room at each of my “friend’s” faces and thought how I didn’t have one segment of control of the day, how they the complete control and I was basically their puppet.
" The Realization that your a puppet"
I remember the first time I realized that the people that surround us sometimes dictate our decisions and how we live our lifes, contrary to how we may really feel. This day was so long ago, but when I close my eyes and remember it, this day feels like it happened not even 24 hours ago. It’s funny as I look back on this day I remember how my mother use to always tell me to never let anyone else dictate the man I am or the man I am becoming. As always I would smile and agree because I was 17 and knew everything. Truly I wasn’t in charge of my life that day, all my decisions were made by my “friends” and my true emotions had to be hidden to prevent being judged.
When I was 17 and a senior in high school I would always hang out with the same group of friends. I mean we did everything together, from going to the same gym to eating dinner at each others houses. The group consisted of seven guys which were never called their true names. Being like any close group of friends we all had nicknames for each other. The group went as: Fur, Mell, Shanal, Goomba, Ant, Butt, some of the names would need some explaining, but that’s a whole other story for each one and I would need a lot of time to tell it all. Where we lived was a small suburban town named Hazlet, where basically nothing happened. It’s one of those towns where everyone waves to each other and you know everything about everyone else. So like most young teens we would have to make our own fun out of the simplest ideas.
It all started one day over Easter vacation, when we were all arguing on where we wanted to eat that day. So after probably about an hour of arguing about different places to go Shanal came up with an idea that when I think about now, I see how immature we really were. His idea was to put all the food places in New Jersey that we knew of in a tournament bracket like they do in college basketball. I mean every place we could think of, from restaurants that everyone knows to the deli (whose name we didn’t know) in that town (which one of us would only remembered because of the food from deli) one of stopped in with our families one day. Each place would be ranked and then placed in the bracket following the rules the NCAA uses. The two places would then go head to head and the winner would move to the next battle. The winner was chosen by a flip of Ant’s wallet, because of course on that day no one had any change on them, so we resorted to what we could. So the pace with home court advantage would be given the back of the wallet and the visitor would be given the part where the wallet closed, then Shanal would flip the wallet in the air spinning of course at least 5 times and the side it landed on would be the winner.
We planned to go for lunch, but after we made the list and saw we had about 170 places to go it was going to take longer. So we started the “Restaurant Tourney” as we called it and about 3 hours later, and god knows how many wallet flips we had our winner. It was a little Italian pizza place in Red Bank only about 15 minutes away from our house. As we left it was decided (well we were kind of forced) that because me and Fur had trucks that we would drive. So we all piled in the two trucks, in mine was me, Ant, Mell, and Goomba, and in Fur’s was him Butt and Shanal, then off we went going on the direction of what Butt remembered. After turning to what should have been a 15 minute ride into an hour we got there and ate. On the way out me and Fur were fighting saying who could get home faster, so we all raced to the trucks and raced out.
We were driving like idiots, cutting people off and weaving in and out of traffic to try to get ahead of each other. As I strategically driving trying top find a way to get the best of Fur, I could here the guys in my truck talking and planning something to do to Fur’s truck. Before I knew it Mell had his pants down and was mooning every car on the road. As we passed Fur his truck was in hysteria with laughter so we figured whatever we would do it to other drivers. I didn’t say that I thought it was a dumb idea and not to do it, and how the entire time I was laughing I was really freaking out that sometime bad would happen. So we kept going and seeing how other drivers would either laugh or put a real angry face on, as we kept going I saw that a light green Altima that looked “hooked” up(which means we thought it was either teenager or younger adults car) was changing lanes as I did . So I slowed up and the guy got along side of us and gave us a signal to pull over.
We saw that the guy driving was a bigger guy and he looked pissed. I remember exactly what happened next, I started freaking out and asking what to do, screaming at them and everyone in my truck yelled basically to do whatever it takes to get away from him. I was petrified I didn’t know what was going to happen and all I wanted was everything to go to normal. Luckily we thought we were close to our home town so we knew all the side roads in the towns we were passing through. I punched it and started to drive really out of control and every move that I made this guy made and kept right on my tail. So I pulled in a parking lot trying to loose the guy, as I sped through the lot I was dodging people, cars, shopping carts, and it seemed every 2 seconds I had to slam on my brakes almost hitting something. So I was shaking, sweating, and breathing in a crazy manner, and the laughter that once filled my truck turned into a quite scared silence. Every time we thought we got away this guy would wind up back behind us. We left the parking lot and shot into a development that has tons of side roads so we thought we defiantly loose him.
After about a 1 hour of driving around in and out of different developments we came up with an idea. We called Fur and asked for help, together we planned that we would have Fur wait for us on a corner we knew and I would go around him and he we would then cut this Altima off. Then he would slow this guy down and I would slip away. I was basically drenched with sweat and pale as a ghost, but this plan gave me hope. So we get to the corner and see Fur’s truck waiting for us. I pull around him and thinking we were going right when Fur thought we were going left, we both turned the wrong way and our trucks hit, not stopping I gunned it. Now I was going crazy and said screw it and pulled over. We were all mumbling saying how no matter what happens we would all stick together. As I looked in my rear view mirror I saw what I knew immediately was. The guy in the car was holding a badge. He gets out and walks along side my car and asks for my credentials and not being stupid I ask to see his. He shows me his badge and I.D. and he turns out to be a sheriff from a town I can’t actually remember anymore. As Sheriff Lopez takes my information 6 police cruisers from 3 different towns come pulling up extremely fast and surround my car.
Two were from Holmdel which borders Hazlet, two were from our town Hazlet, and the final two were from another bordering town called Middletown. The cops all got out and started screaming at me and flipping out. A few cops even pulled there guns and had them pointed at my truck. Easy to say at this point I was shaking and had the vomit feeling in my stomach, I could barely talk and kept think I was going to pass out. I thought I was done, the cops all kept saying that I was going to be arrested and put in jail and my trucked impounded as well as my license being taking from me .Then Sheriff Lopez took my stuff and walked away, he took my P.B.A. card and threw it telling me it was pointless. Thank god as he did this the officer who he card belonged to pulled up and saw the whole thing. The officer is named Mike; my mother is his children’s babysitter and he actually a good friend of the family. He gave me the card on my 17th birthday and told me not to get in trouble. That’s ironic now that I think of it. I was then taken out of the car and sat on the curb.
As I sat down, my mother pulls up with my older brother. Mike and Sheriff Lopez walked over to me and had me stand up and explained why there were six patrol cars surrounding my truck and how my mother came to be there. I didn’t think she just happens to be driving by, but maybe she knew my luck. So what happened was Sheriff Lopez was driving with his wife and saw what Mell did and tried to pull us over to talk to us. As I sped away and started driving like a moron as he put it, he then used the radio he had in his car and contacted the local police in the town we were in for help. Since we cut threw Middletown and Holmdel they were contacted and we trying to help corner us. Every time they thought they had me, I would change direction. So when I stopped the chase ended and they all caught up to me. Then Sheriff Lopez and Mike asked why I didn’t pull over. I then explained how I was always told to never pull over for an unmarked car and how I was scared and really didn’t know what to do and mostly was listening to what my friends said. I always explained Sheriff Lopez’s car didn’t look anything like a cop car and how we didn’t see his badge until I stopped.
After hearing my end they talked for awhile and came back and laid out my options. First they told me how I was right to not stop for an unmarked car, but that still didn’t excuse for what I allowed Mell to do. That it was still my responsibility t control what the passengers in my truck were doing. They said that running from the police would be forgotten and that speeding would be forgotten too. The only thing was the hit and run that Sheriff Lopez witnessed and how that was an automatic revoking of license. Then I said how we knew the diver and that was it part of the getaway plan. So they said to get Fur and everyone that was in his car to come here. So we called him and then convinced him to come. We then waited, I was still outside my truck and my friends were all sitting in my truck looking around. I couldn’t look my mother in the eyes, I was so embarrassed.
As Fur pulled up Mike walked over to his truck and asked for his end of the story. Our stories matched up and so Mike laid out three options for Fur. First he could press charges against me, which would put me under arrest and I would loose my license. Second he could go along with the plan and we would both be arrested me for the hit and run, him for adding in a felony. The third option was we would all forget this happened leave and take car of the damage to our trucks at a another time. So obviously Fur took the third option. As he left I thanked him and we actually laughed over it.
I then saw that Mell was arguing with an officer and then given a seatbelt ticket because they said if he was “mooning” people he obviously couldn’t be wearing it. All the cops then started to leave and Mike went over to where the P.B.A. card he gave me was thrown and he picked it up and walked back to me. He then handed it to me and smiled then started to walk back to his cruiser. I asked why he had given the card back, he smile and said: “Your mom watches my kids and besides that everyone makes a mistake”, he then smile and drive off. My mom hugged me and asked what happened and I told her the whole story and why I haven’t been home in two days. She smile and we agreed not to tell my father.
I got back in my truck took everyone home, drove to my house and passed out. Ten minutes later my phone went off, Fur was having people over for drinks and he thought I could use one. I went over and his dad looked and me and smile. We all sat in Fur’s basement and just started to laugh. Everyone waiting their turn to tell the story of the infamous car chase. When it came to my turn I smile and told it the same way everyone else did. Except in my own mind I thought how lucky I was and the feeling of fear and paranoia that I had the entire time. As the next person told their account I looked around the room at each of my “friend’s” faces and thought how I didn’t have one segment of control of the day, how they the complete control and I was basically their puppet.
1 comment:
Wow - 7 pages! I'm jealous of your productivity! An equally good title (or coda) would be "young and dumb", because you really captured the way things make perfect sense at the time...then you're 17...and scared....but not so much later. I liked the point where you were having drinks with Fur, the communal creation of memory. Shit that happens to us in our lives (if its funny or sad or whatever enough) becomes our own private folklore, and you caught that, as well as the individual thought that goes with it ("except in my own mind...")
All I can really say at first is some trimming, some tightening may be in order. Like the scene where the Restaurant Tourney is explained. I'm going to withhold any further commentary until the next draft, provided we post them publicly, cause I want to see what you come up with when you refine the plotline some more.
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