Demetrios “Mechee”

He was this Kung Fu kid, a black kid, shorter and skinnier than me. Every kid in our high school that was into martial arts we were all friends and knew each other. We used to go out to the baseball diamond after school and have sparring sessions. In left field, probably, in the grass. Most of the time I got the better of Demetrios. I remember one time he had this tan jacket on and he had a big muddy footprint from me across the middle of his jacket and it reminded me of Game of Death where Bruce Lee had the big foot print on his jump suit from Kareem. One time, I wasn’t really practicing my Taekwondo so much and Demetrios wanted to spar and I didn’t think anything of it and he came after me pretty hard and he got the better of me that day. We were sparring, not fighting, but I got kicked in the nose and the mouth and I had a white polo shirt on with some blood on it. That exact day is when my girlfriend and her mother at the time were picking me up from school to do something and they were freaking out because I had blood on the collar of my shirt and I looked a bit worse for wear. I spent some time trying to convince them that it was no big deal.

In later years I would run into him periodically. He worked sweeping at the mall. I remember one time in particular, because I was wearing 80s style gym shorts and people would remark all the time that there was something the matter with my legs. He said, he could tell from my legs that I was lifting a lot and would ask me about my workouts. He was lifting and could only get up t about 160 pounds. I saw him a couple times when I was workings security at the grocery store and we would talk.

Dwayne’s Blazer

It was summer night and there was a Taste of Joliet festival going on and we were on the street just down the road and the windows were down. It was a hot summer night. This might have been just out of high school. This guy asks for a ride, an adult dude, brown hair, T-shirt and jeans on, not a homeless guy or anything, just drunk. He asked for a ride and Dwayne told him no. We were at a stop light and he was talking to us through the passenger side where I was.

The light turns green and he grabs on to the right mirror and steps onto the running boards and with his other hand he’s got his hand inside the door and hangs onto the Blazer as Dwayne’s driving. We were driving by an area where there was a cemetery and all grass on that side. I looked at Dwayne, like, ‘Can you believe this?’—and, just like that, like a bad dream breaking up, the guy is gone—must have been real drunk or something. I looked in the mirror and he was tumbling in the grass, didn’t roll out into the road or anything, so we figured he was good and kept going. I thought in after times, if I had not been sitting there, that maybe this guy would have just got in and caused some trouble. Just being together, with a friend, especially when he is doing something distracting, like driving, that is probably the best form of protection.

Donnie’s Invitation to a Party

My friend went to a technical college and would invite us to go with him to parties with his other friends he met in college. We went to a local party, three of us, Donnie and Jimmy and I. Donnie had a small car at the time, a two-seater with a back seat like a Chevy Chevette. We met these two girls at this party at my friend Steve’s house. It was kind of lame, so Don suggested we go to his other friend’s party and these two girls came with us.

We go to the party and the girl that was kind of hanging on me, she was drunk, drinking something in the car, was kind of wobbly and wasn’t walking straight. We go walking through the living room and she grabs this guys hat who was sitting down. I grab the hat from her and give it to him and say, “She doesn’t know what she doing.”

He gets up and says, with hat in hand, “This is death to you and your girl.” He’s pointing at me with his right hand, pointing down, because this fucker was like six-foot-seven. We’re right by the sliding glass door to go outside and Jim is out there making out with the one chick we came with. I go outside and set the girl on the picnic table next to Jim. This guy and two of his friends come out to get me and I recall it was fall, we had jean jackets and stuff on. His two buddies were in front of him and he was closer to the house yelling at me. His two friends are real close and smiling, like this is really entertaining to them and laughing how I’m going to get beat up.

Jimmy is still making out with the girl.

I grab the dude closest to me with this shit eating grin on his face. I grabbed him by his jacket with both hands and took a step and threw him down to the left. Then I grabbed the guy on the right and kind of ragged him down, both hands on the left side of the jacket, stuffed him down to the ground. The big fucker turns around and runs back in the house. I turn around and look at Jimmy and say, “Thanks a lot. Did you even see what was going on here?”

He says, “There was only three of them, so I knew you could take them.”

That guy left and everyone else at the party was bringing me beers. The one guy asked me if I wanted to use his bedroom with the girl I was with. But she was too drunk. I wasn’t about to go that route. The best part about it was Jimmy’s line. That situation was burned into my head.

Jim and the Squirrely Stoner Dudes

Jim’s girlfriend used to go out with one of the guys and there were these three guys that always hung out together who he called “the Squirrely Stoner Dudes.” I was at home with a girlfriend watching movies, and Jim kept calling and wanting me to come meet him at this party. Old land line calling, touch phone by then. I kept telling him no. Later on I found out it was because those guys were there and he wanted me to fight them.

Jimmy had a mouth on him and he was six-four, had a big frame, a baseball player, like a first baseman. We were at this party and he went over and changed the music to Metallica and this girl came up and got in his face and was yelling and her boyfriend came up and was standing next to her and Jimmy says, “Nice mustache, bitch.”

He turns to the dude, “Do you shave her before you kiss her?”

Right then I’m ready to go, jump up and go right there, because you can’t let that be said to your girl and not punch the guy. But the dude didn’t do shit, just walked away, totally pussed out.

At that same party there was a dart board with the old regular steel darts and this kid was sitting beneath it and it was above his head and I grab the darts and I was like, “Hey, do you want to move,” and he says, “No,” and I whip the dart right over his head and it sticks in the wood post. Then he got out of the way., and we proceeded to play darts.

That was a girlfriend of mine, her girlfriends house, and she was so mad at me because my friends and I came and ran roughshod over everyone. I could be kind of a bully at times, like a young testosterone, hierarchical, ritual.

Jim & Donnie?

Jim became an air traffic controller, making a ton of money, real successful.

Donnie went on to run his own tech company and makes like five hundred thousand a year.

I see them every once and a while around town, but we don’t hang out. When Dwayne visits periodically from Florida, then we all get together.