Skelator or Cupid?

This is the story of how I met my wife. Based on that, you may think that this will be some really crappy sappy love story. Well, it's a love story (at least in the end), but it's anything but crappy and sappy. I can promise you, that if you ask one thousand people how they met thier spouse, you won't get ANYTHING like this. I've had some strange experiences in my life (for example) and this is definitely one of them.

I've mentioned in other posts that when I was younger, I was a drunk, stoned, thug. Some of this will be re-illustrated by this post. I feel the need to warn you, because this story's going to get a little out there.

Way back in the when, I had a pretty small group of totally toasty burnout friends. One of these was a guy named Gene. If you've ever seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gene was the real-life version of Jeff Spicoli. Total burnout.

Now Gene and I were hanging out downtown with our usual mallrat/citypark crowds. I can't remember exactly how, but Gene and I wound up with about forty bucks in our pockets. This was roughly half the amount required to obtain a keg of cheap beer. Additionally, my parents were out of town that weekend, and my house was totally empty. Yep, this is the perfect combination of events for some really messed up late-teenage hijinx. The natural conclusion for hoodlum teenagers in this situation can only be one thing: "Duuuuuuude! Keg party!!!"

So Gene and I begin making grandiose plans for a keg party. We did however realize that we were a few elements short of putting it all together.

1. Someone twenty-one years old to buy the keg.
2. The remaining forty bucks for the keg.
3. Guests

Now, the guests part was pretty trivial. In the crowd we ran with, if you so much as breathed the word "keg," you'd have a couple of hundred stoners show up with red plastic cups. Finding someone twenty-one wasn't a huge issue either. We knew people who would buy booze for us in exchange for drinking a portion of it. The remaining forty bucks was the problem. So we began wandering the mall searching for anyone we knew who might have forty bucks available to them. Additionally, we told any attractive female we saw to meet us later, as, we're gonna have a keg party, and it's gonna be way cool.

Gene and I learn from an aquantance that Tommy's over at the park. Tommy usually had a few bucks in his pocket (though getting him to part with it was sometimes challenging) and we figured we could get him to go in half with us on our keg. As we're traversing the mall and passing a set of escalators, we hear from somewhere above, "Yo! Dudes!! Hey! You two! This chick digs you!"

I freeze in my tracks. "Huh? Chick? Digs me? Where?" I half expected one of my buddies to be pointing at some hideously ugly hosebeast and be playing a cruel joke on both me and her. But instead, I look up, and up there on the second floor of the mall, this guy I "sorta" know is holding this incredibly hot chick upside down by her ankles over the railing. "Dude! Seriously, she digs you!"

Now she's screaming like crazy (this is understandable) until he hauls her back up over the railing. I see her beating his back mercilessly while he's laughing and running away. Gene turns to me and says "Dude... Keg party... Tommy's probably got cash duuuude... KEGGGGGGGGG party! C'mon, let's go."

"Uh, dude, there's like four chicks up there, and at least three of 'em are hot. We gotta check this out."

"KEGGGGGGGGGGG party!"

"Keg party can wait, hell, let's go invite 'em."

So I go up the escalator to introduce Gene and myself to these chicks. I pick out the one I like (petit dark haired beauty) and gene picks out the one he likes (pretty hot taller chick with big hair). We invite them to our "keg party" (which, you'll remember, hasn't completely come together yet) and get thier phone numbers. Sweet!

Well, the day runs long, and it turns out Tommy would've loved to have helped us with our keg party, but he was broke. Everyone was broke. We couldn't find forty bucks anywhere. No keg party. As gene so eloquently put it, "bummmmmmmmer duuuuuude!" So we formulate a new plan. We'll call those chicks we met on the second floor of the mall. We'll see if they wanna hang out with us, we'll just meet up somewhere and get plastered.

So we jump on the pay phones (days before cell phones) and call 'em up. To our surpise, they're fine with it. In fact, they don't care where we go. So we just decide to go hang out on the riverbank and get drunk.

Then we hit a little snag. Gene and I had one mode of transportation between us. It was my 1982 CB900 Honda motorcycle. I somehow have to get four people, plus at least a case of beer to some (largely law-enforcement free) location on the river that's not too far from civilization (I was aware that chicks might get a little freaked out when taken to some place that very well may be the set of deliverance) where we can all get smashed on cheap beer and act like idiots. I actually solicited the girl I wanted to hook up with for location suggestions, which to my suprise, she had. Plenty of 'em. One of them was right beside this fairly well lit marina. I figured it was the perfect place. No security, no law enforcement, decently lit, close to convenience stores and munchies. It was a good place to get drunk.

We had the who, we had the where, we worked out the how. Gene and I would ride to the marina and pick up a case of beer on the way (courtesy of a bum that'd buy for underaged kids in exchange for a pint of rot-gut) and I'd drop him off with the beer. I'd then go get my chick, return her to the marina. Then I'd go get Gene's chick, and return to the marina. We'd all get drunk. After that, it'd all be improv.

There's a problem. I don't know how to get to a place called Tornado. Yes, that's the name of the town. Tornado, West Virginia. And yes, it is definitely in BFE. Fortunately, Gene knew where it was and had a general idea of how to get there. So we modify the plan a bit. We'll stash the beer at the marina. Gene will ride pillion to Tornado. I'll pick up the chick, tote her down the the marina, then go back for Gene. After that, I'll go get Gene's chick.

So we ride out to Tornado, and I ride past my chick's house (being warned not to let her dad see the motorcycle, he hates 'em) and we pull off the road and stop. While we're standing there smoking cigarettes, a 1970-something Vega made entirely of bondo rolls up. Inside, there are two people. Ever see the He-Man cartoon? Remember skelator? He's driving. Remember the captain caveman cartoon? That's the passenger. Captain caveman says "Hey, thassa purty nice bike ya got thar. Whar y'all from?"

We answer, explaining that we're from Charleston, and here to meet this chick et cetera. He says "Y'all want a beer?"

I remember thinking "Damn, this chick lives in a cool neighborhood" as the guy passes a couple of budweisers out the window to us.

Then, out of nowhere, Captain Caveman pulls a sawed off, 12 guage shotgun from between the seats and points it at my chest. "Git n thu car."

"Dude, fuuuuuuck you." Gene and I sprint to the motorcycle, jump on, get it fired up and headed out of Torndado without crashing or dropping it somehow. I was scared shitless. Unfortunately, the roads were wet from a recent rain. Otherwise, I would've completely ROASTED that Bondo Vega getting out of there. That bike was pretty damned fast and I was pretty damned scared. But big heavy cruiser bikes don't handle so well on wet roads. I would've crashed for sure.

So I'm getting the hell out of dodge, and sure enough, the Bondo Vega is following us. I'm completely freaking out. Gene is completely freaking out. I could hear "jesus! mmmmmmfmfmfm fuck! mfmamadfa goddamn gun! mfmfmfm" over the wind noise and Gene's helmet. Maybe it was Gene. Maybe it was me. One of us was babbling incoherently about guns and crazy fucking rednecks.

Vroom. The Bondo Vega passes us. This is a relief. It's a relief because they didn't shoot at us as they passed, and because now that they were in front of us, I could see what they were doing. After about a mile, I hear BOOM and see sparks fly out from under the car. I scream "DUDE! THEY'RE FUCKING SHOOTING AT US. THEY'RE GOING TO FUCKING KILL US!"

Gene screams back "NO MAN, THAT'S JUST FIREWORKS, THEY'RE TRYING TO SCARE US!"

I reply "THAT WAS NOT A GODDAMNED BOTTLE ROCKET THEY POINTED AT MY CHEST! WE'RE GOING TO DIE."

Then, inexplicably, the Bondo Vega pulls off at this country store, and we just ride right on by. And we kept riding. Right back to town. I get to a pay phone and call my chick. I get her on the phone. "Um, listen, you wanna party with us, you're going to have to get your own fucking ride. I am never going back out there again. Ever. Your neighbors are fucking crazy, they tried to kill me and Gene."

She was incredulous, and clearly didn't believe our story, but agreed to find her own ride. So we had a pretty interesting evening, got drunk, got busted by the cops. Got drunk after that (she had this brilliant idea to only have HALF the beer with us, so when the cops made us pour it out, we still had another 12 pack stashed in the bushes, which we opened right after the cop left) and generally had a fun, drunk evening.

We wound up hitting it off really well. Dating even. For at least a month, I flat refused to go to her house. She had to meet me somewhere. I was never going to set foot in Tornado again. That didn't last. A couple of months later, I was practically living with her. I stayed there most nights. I was there most of the time, had an awful lot of my clothes there.

One day, she says "Let's walk down to the store." She wanted some soda and smokes. The store's about a mile from her house down country roads, and the weather was nice, so I agreed. On the way back, about halfway, the Bondo Vega rolls up. Skelator's alone in it. It slows down. Skelator yells out the window, "Hey Beth!"

I'm shitting myself again. I'm elbowing her and muttering out the side of my mouth, "That's him! That's one of the crazy fuckers that tried to kill me and Gene!" She just kind of looks at me like I'm crazy.

She responds "Hey Vic! How's it going!" and the proceed to make small-talk while I'm turning alternate shades of green and white and trying not to piss my pants.

After a few seconds of this, Vic says, "Y'all need a ride?"

Beth responds "Sure Vic! Thanks" and gets into the Bondo Vega.

While every fiber of my being was screaming "noooooo! You'll Die! It's a conspiracy! Beth's in on it! This bumfuck town wants you dead!" I climb into the Bondo Vega. I have to sit in the back. Sitting in the back, I have to straddle a five gallon vat of peanut butter. Skelator/Vic proceeds to explain that he's been living off of the peanut butter for about a month, and it's suprising how filling it is.

As we're driving down the road, Vic tries to run over a few neighborhood dogs while explaining some things to me. "Man... that night a while back... Me'n Melvin was all messed up on coke and acid. And someone'd just stole all our weed. We seen that shiny bike and figured it musta been you. But we figured out who dunnit. No hard feelings, man."

I just responded "uh, yeah, ok," being somewhat suprised to be alive. Vic drops us off without incident, waves goodbye, yells "Fuckin' scrounges!" and squeals off in the Bondo Vega chasing another neighborhood dog down the road. I guess "scrounge" is Skelator's word for "dog."

Months and months go by. It's now November. It's hunting season. I'm coming out of the woods at sundown about a mile from Beth's house after a fruitless day of deer hunting. It's damned cold. As I come out of the woods, what do I see? The Bondo Vega. The windows are all fogged and frosted up. I quietly slip around behind it and see the driver's side window down about three inches. Inside, Skelator is asleep.

Now, I'm no pussy. And pulling a 12 guage on two guys like that's kind of an aggressive move. It's not the kind of thing one forgets about even if you're stoned and drunk quite a lot. So I crept up to Skelator's window and slid the barrel of my .270 winchester deer rifle in through the window, and laid that cold, hard steel right on Skelator's head right behind his left ear, and thumbed the safety off. *click*

Skelator wakes up pretty quick and turns around and looks at me. When he sees me, a rifle bore that must've looked like a 55 gallon drum, and a large scope, his eyes get the size of dinner plates. I said "No hard feelings, man," and quietly backed into the woods.

I've seen ole Vic a few times since then. I never go unarmed in Tornado now. I haven't since that November day. You can bet your ass, If I'm in Tornado, WV for any reason, I have enough firepower concealed somewhere on my person that Dick Cheney is pressuring CIA analysts to find it. Every time I've seen Vic, there's been an exchange of nods. You know the nod. That "yeah, I see you. Not starting any shit. Just recognizing that you're there and we're still at peace," nod.

Beth and I are now married. We've had some screwball experiences that rival this one. But I'll leave those for other blog entries.