Nothing To Lose

We were sitting at the edge of the park. I think it was Cal, Stan, Curly, Jimi and I. We did not have steady girlfriends or our own places yet so we used to just wander around and get fucking wasted wherever the fuck we wanted. All it took was a little dope and a shot or two of our dads' whisky we would replace with water. Once we had played little league baseball in the park. Now we thought we were big league teenage druggies. This was our Basketball Diary. It was dark, midnightish, when the police rolled up in their Crown Victoria.

"What are you boys up to tonight?"

Fucking pigs. We lived in the most crime ridden city in Canada, except for maybe Ottawa, and the fuckers wanted to know what we were doing?
I guess maybe they thought we were going to tell them we were wandering around between rounds of hot knifed hash looking for teenage girls so new to the neighbourhood they had not been warned about us.

Come to think of it Clifford Olson was probably burying a body at the exact same moment the police were nosing into our fucking business. There was no curfew in those days for teenagers and no reason for them to hassle us at all.

"Nothing. We're just hanging out."

"Yeah, man. We ain't doing nothing."

No policeman's heavy flashlight was going to intimidate us.

Cal had hid his blowtorch we were using to heat up the knives in his big coat. If they were going to shake us down for our hash it was going to be the smallest bust in Sliverville history.

We all knew that because everybody else in Sliverville treated the police like shit in the bottom of a shit pit the thing to do was to be polite to the fuckers. They were used to clubbing people who gave them nothing but excuses to get clubbed.

After some more questioning and assurances from us that we were law abiding little teenage hood motherfuckers the police got back in their car and went looking for real work or a quiet place to fuck hookers in their cruiser's stained big back seat. We knew of one such place and used to watch them get their free dirty fucks from the safety of the woods near a dead end street. We figured the only thing the police liked better than kicking head was getting head.

When they left we heated up the knives. We laughed and laughed. Then we went home, pretended we were straight and watched the last half hour of Saturday Night Live. Saturday Night Live was funny back then - or was it just the drugs? With the parents safe in bed we would watch a live rock show and talk about it the next day.

"Hey did you see Status Quo on the tv last night? I was still so high I almost forgot I had some hash left. The only time I can smoke it at home is when the folks are sleeping. My mom asked if I was catching a cold the next day. She said she heard me coughing."

We laughed and laughed.

The only thing that beats being teenage is being older.

But I sure hope Sonja and I never get so old that the only thing that makes sense is Penticton-style euthanasia and suicide.