storeeze

The sun drives the seasons and the days between Legion ball and football practice. These were the best of times—running with Richie and his older brother Larry, living on unemployment and sponging off the old man—more interested in getting laid than getting paid. Traffic tickets, pecker tracks in the back seat, a police escort home after midnight. Mom wringing her hands like Lady Macbeth, crying out loud, “Where did I go wrong?” On one of those dog day Friday afternoons, things got kinda screwed up when I turned my Harley onto Diagonal Boulevard, a mile from home. A bubble machine lit up on a side street. I grabbed a handful of throttle—my risk insurance had expired—no license! The Harley roar and a siren alerted mom as I swung past the house, wind in my face, the fuzz on my ass. I looped on 74th Street and flew past Marlys Pederson's, a fantasy I had until I saw Phoebe Crouch the first day of seventh grade. At Portland, a busy thoroughfare, I said a prayer, and blew across without...

CONTENT WARNING:  READER DISCRETION ADVISED “Whilst Man, however well-behaved, At best is but a monkey shaved.” —W. S. Gilbert (1884) What I remember is a  bitter January morning wrangling a junkyard transmission into a ‘53 Packard,  jacked up on blocks. Richie and I should have been trudging through the snow to classes at the U instead of o ur backs jammed against a freezing curb,  lining up an Ultramatic, biggest I’d ever seen.  Two cars rolled up — Alan would come upon you anywhere, anytime, and frequently intoxicated.  “Charlie?”   “Yeah, what?” “We got two women and Bunny's pad.” Alan peered under the car. “Back-to-back racks.” “Hold it there, Richie. It’s Alan.” “Not Alan. Fuck no!” grunting disgustedly. Alan fished a loose cigarette from his jacket and lit it. “ The one  in the Studebaker  has the hots for you.” I edged out for a look.     “The one with twenty-four zeroes ?” “Yeah. ”  “No chance.”  Alan began...