At
sixteen, life was a mystery. Unleashed with the
newfound freedom of a driver's license, I traveled streets I'd never
known that fall, and with a tank of gas in my '97 Plymouth Breeze I
pushed against the limits of my suburban life. Nighttime
joy riding and parking lot meet-ups became social events. But
mostly, I drove around aimless, passenger-less. There were a
lot of voids in my life, that fall – spiritually, emotionally,
philosophically.
Disenfranchised
with the Catholic church, I had stopped believing in God entirely,
and sensed, quite palpably, an awkward disconnect with those
religiously-inclined classmates, parents, and family members around
me. I despised the Bible-thumping crowd dressed up in their Sunday
best. Some of the more gossipy mothers already disliked me for my
known drinking habits, and while that hurt initially I embraced it,
eventually, fashioning myself a sort of outlaw lurking on the fringes
of that whole scene. I went through the motions of daily life in a
Catholic school dutifully, religion courses and mass included, but
inwardly condemned it all as bullshit. Existentially, I felt void of
purpose in a small-minded school and town that I was stuck in for
another two years.
More
immediately, I had a void in the way of my after school schedule that
fall for the first time in many years. That summer I had quit
football the football team, declared myself free from the tyranny of
high school football coaches. No longer were after school study halls
and evening practices a part of a grueling daily routine, that fall,
leaving me free to do what I would with a new car all those nights I
otherwise would have spent at practice. I continued tailgating
varsity games, cheering on my buddies, including Matt Forystek, from
the stands, went to some post-game parties with the team, but I was
no longer in the locker room with the guys, no longer had a jersey to
wear on spirit days. While my friends were doing wind sprints and
tackling drills in the cool evenings, I drove around with a bottle of
whiskey under the seat, veering away from that identity.
Moreover,
my job at the bookstore turned out to be “seasonal” – whatever
that meant. Management simply left my name off the schedule when the
college semester got underway. Initially I considered this another
victory for social liberties until, no more than a week later, Dad
started hounding me to find another job. I realized soon enough that
it hadn't been that bad, at the bookstore. I started avoiding him,
went out driving in the evenings after six, when he would arrive
home, doggedly, from work.
Plausibly,
the NHL lockout that season contributed to Dad and I’s straining
relationship. A labor dispute between NHL players and owners over a
proposed salary cap resulted in the postponement of the 2004-05 NHL
season in September, and there were zero games through Thanksgiving
and Christmas. In February, 2005, commissioner Gary Bettman called
the entire season, marking the first time a major sports season was
lost to a lockout and the first time the Stanley Cup would be
orphaned since 1919. There were no games to watch, that winter, no
Mitch Albom articles to discuss at breakfast, no playoff races to
make small talk over, all of which contributed to a growing distance
between the two of us that year. There were high school hockey games
and the Grand Rapids Griffins, but those weren’t the same – not
for me and my dad.
Naturally,
I went out more. I had recently watched Dead Poet’s Society for
the first time and – inwardly – declared Robin Williams’ “carpe
diem, lads, seize the day – make your lives extraordinary” line
my personal mantra, used it as an excuse to start drinking on school
nights. Alcohol injected a sense of possibility into otherwise dull
school nights. I drank with Matt and Chris, when they could meet up,
but they were busy with football most nights. I found other drinking
companions, or drank alone.
I
drove out to Dolan’s a few times more; we patched things up between
us and he took me to a dance at his new high school, where we drank
from a flask in the bathrooms and flirted with sophomores. We
tailgated with vodka slurpees before Divine Child football games on
Friday nights, after all, and we even met a couple freshman girls in
the student section whom we started hanging out with at Matt’s
house, in the barn. An innocent-looking redhead named Janel and
I started dating soon thereafter.
Often
I met some of the JV football guys – Manuel, Harry, Andy –
in Dearborn at the Levagood Park parking lot, where we drank beers in
the baseball dugouts and smoked weed in various vehicles. Other
nights I met up with my Catholic Central buddies – Nidhal,
Brian, Joe – out in Novi or Northville, where we smoked
hookah, drank in parking lots. Some nights, I drank while
driving out to my girlfriend's house on Belleville Lake, where,
imbued with liquid courage, I called her on the phone,
trying to convince her to sneak out. Those Autumn nights of aught
four are all soaked in an amber haze.
I
maintained my grades, studied when I needed to and crammed for tests,
but high school was no longer novel. There were tricks for cramming
and memorization, tools for skimming such as SparkNotes. I had even
learned Chemistry in a weekend before my sophomore final exams after
failing to learn a thing from our wayward-minded witch of a
teacher, Mrs. Harvey. I did homework at school and studied
immediately afterward, perfecting my time management skills so that I
could go out in the evenings. It did not matter where.
Because
many of my peers considered it a sin to go out on a school night, I
wound up alone, many nights. By choice or by lack of an alternative,
I grew increasingly interested in self-discovery, experimenting with
mind-altering substances.
When
I finished my afterschool responsibilities – chores and homework –
I marched downstairs to the basement to find a C-D from my
parents’ music collection, then headed upstairs to my bedroom.
There, I’d get down on my hands and knees to find my half gallon
bottle of Rich & Rare whiskey underneath my bed, unscrew the cap,
sniff, and pour ten ounces or so into an empty gatorade or pop
bottle. It smelled of carmeled whiskey, root beer, and apple, an
aroma that got me high on its own. I grabbed a Coke or a Diet Coke,
too, for mixing purposes, stashed the lot of my stuff in a mesh
backpack that concealed my hoard aptly. Finally, I told my Mom –
Mom and Dad, if Dad was home – that I was “going out,” vaguely.
“Where
are you going?” Mom and Dad asked, drinking beers on the living
room sofa, watching “Survivor”.
To
Brendan Dillon’s, I said. To Chris’s, to Matt’s, Allen’s, a
movie, dodgeball, the DC basketball game, Art Club, it didn’t
matter. My parents trusted me enough, at the time. They probably
would have let me go wherever, but I lied about my whereabouts
constantly, almost compulsively. It felt like part of the whole
routine – sneaking out to go drink somewhere. We occupied two very
different worlds. I walked out the front door guiltily, headed across
the lawn to my Plymouth Breeze parked in the street.
I
had a secret spot – not far from Millwood. It was off the
gravel portion of the old Farmington Road, mostly hidden from street
view under a sighing row of towering pines, adjacent to the
Lutheran High School athletic fields and a hundred yards or so from
the haunted bridge and haunted barn at the dead end of the dirt
road. I pulled into a parking spot that overlooked the Lutheran
athletic fields, the beacon light of the football field press box
tower glowing golden like a North Star over the grounds, casting a
deep blue haze over the pines beyond at the edge of the Rouge River
woods. Another light glowed golden through the trees from Dead Man’s
Hill, across the river near the Nankin Mill, which grew
increasingly visible as the autumn trees shed their leaves.
I
used to go there nights, that fall of my Junior year. It served as a
default spot for when I had no other immediate destination – when I
was waiting on a friend to text back, waiting for a friend to get off
work, or when I just needed to get out of the house. I went there
before going out and at the end of a long night; I even slept there a
couple of times over the years, too drunk to bear the prospect of
encountering one of my parents. It became my secret spot away from
the world, a place I could sneak off to and disappear for a while.
Some
nights – if liquor was in short supply – I went there to get
high. I smoked out of a makeshift soda can bong out along the
baseball fields, in the dugouts. I walked out to the edge of the
woods and sat atop the banks of the Rouge, looking down on the brown
waters reflecting shadows in the fading daylight. Dusk settling, the
fear induced by the marijuana made strange visions appear near the
haunted bridge and the haunted barn, strange lights appear in the
starwealthy sky of violet.
But
mostly I went there to
drink. Liquor was my drug of choice, even then, specifically
whiskey and gin. I poured an ounce of whiskey into my cactus-shaped
shot glass, added an ounce of coke, and mixed the miniature cocktail
with a plastic sword. I sipped, swallowed hard. The whiskey
burned in my chest, stirring up memories. When I had a sip or two
down, I’d slide the C-D into C-D player, wait for the music to turn
its magic. Neil Young, REO Speedwagon, John Cougar Mellencamp, Gin
Blossoms; or my own music: Our Lady Peace, Blink 182, mix cd’s.
The sweet buzz of intoxication slipping over me, those songs and
words conjured strange spirits in the Rouge River fog.
