Memories of the author from early teenhood through his mid-20's during his descent into life on drugs, loves and losses, time playing in rock 'n roll bands, and trying to find his place while drifting through an aimless career/work landscape from the American Midwest to Southwest. Told with unbounded flippancy, "Tough Luck Idiot" is a collection of tales showing the power of endurance and persistence of the human psyche through overwhelming stress, and the refusal to succumb to physical addiction in the face of all reasons why not, an escape from a death that many have not escaped.
Memories of the author from early teenhood through his mid-20's during his descent into life on drugs, loves and losses, time playing in rock 'n roll bands, and trying to find his place while drifting through an aimless career/work landscape from the American Midwest to Southwest. Told with unbounded flippancy, "Tough Luck Idiot" is a collection of tales showing the power of endurance and persistence of the human psyche through overwhelming stress, and the refusal to succumb to physical addiction in the face of all reasons why not, an escape from a death that many have not escaped.
With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain. âFriedrich Schiller
Why adventures like this one kept coming the way of the Gang of Four (and never the same four) is a mystery. But there we were one sticky summer night in the vehicle of yours truly, looking for something to do besides just the dope and alcohol. We were constantly in the local bowling alley, but no one ever bothered to bowl. No thrills that way. It was just a warm place to connect for drugs and get out of the freeze. The manager would kick us out over and over but weâd always come back to outrage him some more with our hair and weed-reek. We put a lot of quarters in the damn foosball ân pinball machines anyway so there. There was a big hill northward from town twenty-thirty miles out. It was just a hill, nothing more. But it was the âhighest point in the county.â This county had nothing to see but that was the bill for the night. Sparkling conversation on the ride up: Rocky: I never been here. NG: Uh huh. Rocky: Where is it? Did we miss it? Mickey: Up here a ways. You stoned enough yet Nik? 84 WHEN IN ROME Banny: Beer? (cracks it open and pushes it over the back seat) NG: I never get stoned. Just expanded. Mickey: My ass. Expand this (passing a joint up). Whatâs your sister doing lately? Rocky: What sister? NG: (over my shoulder) Sheâs dating your little brother, remember? Rocky: How old? NG: Who? His brother? Rocky: Your sisterâŚI thought. NG: Not old enough for you man, forget it. And too Catholic. Mickey: Never. Banny: Good weed. Sell me some. Mickey: Sure, couple joints maybe. Take a left up here. Banny: Couple joints?! After all the weed I turned you onto? Sheeeit. Mickey: (big laughs, hacking) âŚand on and on. Sure enough, the headlights lit up the sign âHighest point in X County.â I lock âem up and take a hard left, the road rising fast up around the hill. After a few hundred feet we level out on a gravel parking lot, the clouds bouncing the light from nearby towns and giving the whole place a murky moonlit look. There were the dim outlines of a couple other cars backed to the edges of the lot and I shied off of these and pulled the Chevy to the far side nose in and killed it. In a minute or two, one of the other two cars pulled out and disappeared over the edge leaving just one car besides us, which was backed in and pointed directly at us. We sat in the car, four dark shadows staring out the through the windshield at the sea of dark green with faraway town lights blinking through. Sure enough, it had 85 TOUGH LUCK IDIOT to be the highest point in the county which made me depressed to know how much there wasnât to see from here. A joint started going around along with cigarettes, little orange fireflies again through the smoky bubble of a car, all windows tight. Even in the most remote places life never fails with surprises. We hadnât been there ten minutes, just settling in to get really cross-eyed, when what to my buzzing ears did hear but a tap on the window right next to my head. Everyone froze. A cop? Banny was shotgun and I saw his dark face and mane turn slowly toward my window, cuffing the joint. Hell with it. I jerked my head around, squinting to see what bad surprise we were in for now. The surprise turned out to be a shrimpy little dude in a light colored sweater and Elton John haircut, grinning at me. This made no sense and it took me a good ten seconds to try to guess what he could possibly want, knocking on a blacked out car with four freaks who couldnât be doing anything else but what it looked like. Mickey saw him through the back window and cackled a little. âWhat the fâcking hell does he want!â âChristâŚâ Banny whispered out. I found my arm and jerked the window down an inch or two. âYeah? Whatâs up?â I rasped, voicebox all glued up with pot and cigarette smoke, half drunk and starting to slur. âHey!â Elton chirped out with a fixed grin on his face, adding to the confusion. âJust wanted to see if you guys wanted to partyâŚI have some weedâŚjust want to, yâknow, party!â The sands of time have buried the memory of his stupid babble by now, but this was the drift. No one could believe this, but the best was yet to come. âSure! You got anything?â Mickey pipes up from the back, getting his stride. I knew the guy, he was armed and ready for any sort of prank. I wasnât sure about the Banny/Rocky team. 86 WHEN IN ROME We slunk out of the car, giving the parking lot a good scan to make sure we werenât being set up. But there was only Elton. We all stood by the car while he chattered on. Mickey snaps out âSo whereâs the weed?â winking at us. Elton pulls out a joint, lights it, drags, passes it. âSo, what you all doing up here?â he says, plainly not a good observer. âUh, we came up to look for earthworms. To fish with. You?â, Rocky says deadpan, tipping a beer and eyeing the guy up and down. Elton grins, not getting it. âWell Iâm waiting for someone to come buy this heroin I have, got a few ouncesâŚâ he says right out loud. Or was it sell heroin? But I didnât hear that. I didnât just hear a total stranger, in the middle of nowhere at midnight with four drugged ân drunked out dudes heâd never even seen before, three of them with hair you could tow a boat with, say he was waiting here all alone in this parking lot to sell heroin. Well we werenât nowhere exactly, it was the highest hill in the county. No one else could believe it either. (And neither, I imagine, can the reader, but with hand on my heart I stand by the saying that you cannot make this stuff up). We all looked at the ground, then at each other in the sticky murky silence, weed smoke curling up. But Mickeyâs wheels were already turning. âNo shit!â he says. âHow much you got?â âA few ounces! Itâs goodâŚâ Elton chirps out again, or similar drivel. âDamn! We might want some, if you have enough,â Mickey says, a real b.s. artist. He looks around at us and gives a slight head jerk towards the car. âUh, weâll be right backâŚjust got to decide if we can do itâŚâ he says over his shoulder to Elton as we all drift to the back of the car. âThat guyâs got to have a lot of doughâ Mickey whispers. âI think we can get some of itâŚ,â he says, looking around. Banny is thinking, but opaque. 87 TOUGH LUCK IDIOT Rocky likewise. This was all new to me. The idea of taking some guy down for his money was something Iâd never even heard of in our little corn-town. âYou going to do it?â Banny says under his breath, with a sneer at Mickey, who grins back evilly. âHell yesâŚjust get around him in a circle. Iâll do it. Câmon,â and he starts moving back to Elton who hadnât moved, now with a shadow of unease on his face in the half-dark. Banny/Rocky and I all paused. Not a one of us was a mugger or had anything really against this guy, but the idea of teaching a complete fool a cheap lesson before he got killed had some vague appeal. We all shrugged to each other and followed Mickey over, none of us taking the whole thing seriously. Not exactly surrounding the guy, we sort of blocked him in on the sides, one directly in front of him. I decided it would be my job to keep Mickey from really hurting the guy if he started to get too loose. He had a way of getting under my skin with his nonstop reckless talk and I wasnât going to let him get away with too much. Mickey started to make small talk, Elton babbling some more. Without warning Mickey yells at him âLetâs have the money! Now!â Nobody moved. âWallet! Out with it!â barked Mickey. Elton looks around like a rat in a corner, all goes silent for a moment then out of nowhere he launches a flurry of rabbit punches into Mickeyâs ribs, which was ridiculous. Slap slap slap. Mickey, who enjoyed fighting, fed up with the rabbit punches backed up a few inches then grabs Elton around the neck and flings him to the ground hard. âYou want more?â Mickey shouts, holding him. A hoarse mumble from Elton, and Mickey gets him back on his feet. âThe wallet, manâŚâ Mickey says, bored. The guy pulls out his wallet, shaking so bad he almost drops it. Sure enough, he had a hefty stack of bills in there. But nobody really wanted 88 WHEN IN ROME any, it was too pathetic. He shakes a bill towards Mickey, who takes it, grabs one more, and leaves Elton with his wad shy two bills. âCoolâŚwe gotta go!â Mickey says to him, giving him a âjust kidding, yes?â grin. He sprints to the car, giving Elton a quick look over his shoulder, who likewise is making for his car fast and now we all have the jitters but not bad. We pile in, memories of our escape from the Kevin/trailer affair flicking through my head. âHit it! Fast! Outta here!â Banny spits out, grinning and scanning the parking lot. I throw the thing in reverse, punching it, the car swinging sideways, cranking the wheel hard over then forward in a hurry and racing down the hill with everyone watching to see if this fool would actually follow us, but no. The only other car on that road was coming directly at us, the headlights blinding me. Eltonâs buyer/seller? Not important. It was the same ride all over again, a beeline to the main road then a hard right and gone. Nobody to pick up from the woods this time. Before weâre gone a quarter mile weâre all laughing and swearing, a car full of panty-waist muggers who just saved a foolâs life. I could only conjure on what would have happened to that idiot if he had tried his hail-fellow-partyerwell-met with someone genuinely dangerous. Knife in the guts and thrown down the hill, or you name it. Whatâs that old saying, about suffering a fool? We didnât, and we did. Lucky for him. And not one of us made it to Career Mugger. We just didnât have it in us.
Â
   This is a Bildungsroman saturated in alcohol, shrouded in a marijuana haze, fueled by various other forms of narcotics. Some readers will focus on all of that and miss the insights the author gives. This is not exactly a confessional, although there are some elements of that genre here. More exactly, it is a memoir about his adolescent and young adult years.
    In this first-person narrative there is not much room for detail or background. Readers will find only the barest details about family. Primarily this story depicts the authorâs experiences in school and a succession of low-paying, entry-level jobs that would not make an impressive resume.
    There are numerous cultural references, especially to music. I would call it the Underground Music that was mainly on the FM side of the radio dial. That is what I listened to in high school and college. Truth be told, my life story would not be even a tenth as interesting as his in terms of recreation; I am fine with that, incidentally. Later in the book there is a very interesting section about concerts that the author attended. His commentary on the music and the musicians is cogent and well-expressed. Along the way the author learned the guitar and played in a number of bands.
    Travelling from Western New York State through the Midwest, Arizona, and finally Los Angeles, the author begins to pull back from his lifestyle and become a grownup. The last part of the book is insightful. He appends some poems which are actually quite good; I would encourage him to write some more, even a chapbook if not a full-fledged book.
    At times the book is repetitive, but that shows the spiral of descent that was going on. As I read, I thought about many of the students I taught or young Soldiers I knew in my careers. Not all of them would be able to write such a book as this for various reasons.