The Making Of An Outlaw
(Originally written 2017)
THE MAKING OF AN OUTLAW
I was five years old when I smoked my first cigarette.
It took me and my best friend John a week of planing. Which is an eternity when your five. A few days in and we seriously considered just waiting until we were adults. But the plan was already in motion.
We lived in military housing for enlisted men with families in Fort Campbell Kentucky. Military brats. We stayed just a few houses from one another. Initially you might think that growing up on a military base would provide the much needed structure and discipline to otherwise deviant youths. You'd be wrong. In a way we were all children of single parent households. The patriarchs were gone all day, at the same time, creating a "Lord of the Flies" free-for-all for the hordes of adolescents that swarmed the base. Many firsts in my life happened on military bases. Where men are men and kids are heathens.
John and I were best friends, more like co-parented brothers actually. We spent most of our time at his house. He had all the cool shit, namely a Nintendo game system. Our households were very different. Both with macho, old school, fathers who believed a good ass whooping trumps a good talking to every time. But that's where the similarities ended.
My house was what you'd probably expect of a decorated military man and war hero. The air of a no nonsense authoritarian rule filled our dwelling and my psyche. However that was only when dad was there. Mom was the complete counter balance to dads energy. A punk rock chick that spent her teens partying with bands and madman like the Ramones, MC5, and Patti Smith. Mom has always been a free thinking, tough, rebellious, and completely loving woman. It was a completely odd paring but the balance of the two extremes worked well.
John’s house was a completely different vibe. Where my house had two strong personalities that competed for control, his had one clear ruler and his agenda was decadence and fun. They had all the newest toys and implements of entertainment. Big TVs, calico vision, VCR's and...a Nintendo Entertainment System! The N.E.S! For those of you who were born in to a world with preexisting gaming systems. I cannot over state the mind blowing affect of the first Nintendo system.
John’s parents smoked like chimneys, drank competitively and had a knee high stack of playboys next to the toilet. A fucking wonderland for a kid. I wasn't aware of the term "white trash" at the time and even of I was, if that's what they were, I would have thought of it as high praise.
All the houses on the base were the same. Bare bones, two bedroom houses with a flat roofs and a wooden sheds towards the back.
Much of the neighborhood debauchery took place in or around those sheds.
It’s rare to be able to pin point exactly when and where you became a man. For me it was the first time a caught a glimpse of the inside of john’s dads shed. Every inch was plastered with the centerfolds of adult magazines. Vixens with giant breasts, startling tan lines and even more startling bushes (it was the eighties). It might sound tame now, in the post internet world of porn hub but trust me when I tell you it was life changing. Im pretty sure that I sprouted a single pube right there on the spot.
Neither me nor John were saints before our latest plan. We'd both sipped the last swigs in our dads beers before, took part in petty vandalism, had been into our fare share of fights, and we were now both veterans of perusing adult magazines, and so we decided the next logical step in our initiation into adulthood was to start smoking cigarettes. Again...We were five!
It wasn't a complex plan, however it was high risk. Since we were practically men now a lil risk was nothing to be afraid of.
We made a list of the implements necessary to accomplish our goals. It was a short list: a lighter, two cigarettes, and that's pretty much it. We would get the supplies in stages. We decided to get the cigarettes first. They would be the least likely to be missed. If we made it through phase one unnoticed and unscathed then we would proceed to phase two operation "fire grab". Which was just the stealing of a lighter.
The heist would take place at john’s house because, well, my parents didn't smoke. We staked out the area, the players, and the goods for a full day. Johns dad was a "no-go" for several reasons. One: he wasn't there during the day. Two (and far more importantly); was the real threat of physical violence. John’s mom, on the other hand, was there all day, left her cigarettes in the kitchen, and we were confident that we could out run her if shit went sideways. She would be the mark.
The next day we would snag one cigarette from her pack, stash it, and repeat the process the following day, as to not arouse the suspicion that two missing cigarettes might cause.
John showed up at my house right after breakfast. We walked to his place and formulated our plan of action. Since his mom was never stationary for too long we'd need a distraction. That would be John’s job. Leaving the thievery to yours truly.
We approached his front door. My heart rate began to increase as we closed in on the threshold to the little square house. Upon entering, the kitchen was immediately on the left. John pointed to table at the far end of the kitchen. He mouthed the words "right there". A soft pack of cigarettes sat under a red lighter perched atop the table. I tip toed into the kitchen as he went to run interference on our unsuspecting mark. His mom sat on the couch in the living room folding laundry in front of the TV, between the laundry and the soap opera drama she was completely enthralled. In hind sight our "distraction" was not only completely unnecessary but it almost did us in. As I approached the table and silently lifted the lighter off the the pack of smokes, John said "hey mom whatcha doing?"
There were two doors leading into the kitchen. One in the entryway of the house and the other, at the other opened into the living room, where John’s mom sat with her back to me and the table. If she turned around she would have immediately saw me handling her pack of cigs.
John’s question startled her out of her soap induced trance. She briefly looked around. I froze with lighter in one hand a her pack of smokes in the other. My heart had never beat so fast. Just before her head swung around far enough to witness the crime in progress John picked up the remote and changed the channel. "Can we watch Space Balls?" asked my codefendant. She stopped dead in her tracks “Goddamn it John!! Go out side and play!" To this day I've yet to meet more than a handful of people more capable than a five year old John in that moment.
As quick as a magician I pulled a single cigarette from the pack, placed it back on the table and positioned the red lighter on top, exactly as I found them.
With the contraband secured we shot out of the house like two bottle rockets. The screen door slammed behind us partially trapping the string of obscenities that followed.
Once far enough away we slowed to a walk. My heart still pounding but in a different way.
So began my true addiction. An addiction to that special mix of adrenaline and chaos brought on by the subverting of rules. An addiction that has followed me like a shadow for my entire life.
It wasn't the first cigarette that I'd ever seen but it felt like it. I rolled it between my fingers examining its details. I looked the little brown filter with the tiny imperfections in the coloring. I noticed the horizontal lines, so thin that they were almost invisible, on the white paper of the cigarette. I stuck it under my nose like a fake mustache and inhaled the aroma. It smelled so much nicer that the ones in he ashtrays at johns house. I looked around before letting it hang from between my lips like I'd seen the neighborhood teens do at the park. John was less enamored by the spoils of our heist. He'd probably already done this foreplay to smoking a few times.
We made it to the shed of a uninhabited house on my street. I went in and stashed the cigarette on one of the two by fours in the dark wooden box. Step one was now complete.
The plan was to let another day pass before going back to snag the remaining implements of our delinquency.
The next day, our day of inaction, crept by at a snails pace. We bull shitted around trying to distract ourselves from the single cigarette waiting to be smoked in the empty shed.
There were two parks on the base: Sunny park and Shady park. At that age things are clearly defined, either black or white. There aren't many grey areas when your five. The two parks on the base were perfect representations of this hard line. The parks gained their nicknames obviously enough; one was sunny and the other shady. But the meanings ran deeper and its taken years of perspective to fully appreciate the depth and meaning of the two parks.
Sunny park was designed by convince. The block of houses in the center of the neighborhood created a huge field in their collective backyards. In the center of this sea of green sat the makings of a playground: swing sets, monkey bars, a slide, a merry-go-round and a big dome of interconnecting metal bars that created a geometric contraption to play on or bash your shins against. Not a single tree or bush grew in the field. Every inch was bathed in unobstructed sunlight and every action visible from the rear windows of the surrounding houses. Windows constantly manned by the bored and nosey housewives of the enlisted men.
No one under the age of twelve used Sunny park for anything other than a short cut to the other park.
Shady park, on the other hand, was designed by no one.
Shady park was tucked away in a wooded area, on the outskirts of the neighborhood, hence the name. Dirt paths leading in and out of the park cut between the towering trees. The occasional few rays of sunlight that made it through the foliage created islands of light on the park floor.
I'd walked past Shady park everyday on my way to school. From the side walk you could hear the older kids in the park skipping school. The crash of breaking bottles, foul language, and general teenage revelry was the soundtrack to my walk. Every few steps I'd catch a glimpse of the forbidden playground and its inhabitants. A mixture of fear and excitement gave goosebumps to my skin.
So in an attempt to burn through the rest of our day, while we waited for tomorrow to bring us phase two of our heist, we decided that we were ready for a romp through the darker of the two parks. After all, we were just a few days and a couple of puffs on a cigarette away from becoming men.
I remind you that this was the eighties. A decade where the, now cliche, douchebag bullies from eighties movies really existed.
Around the same time one of my cousin Judy's "friends", complete with long ratty hair, fingerless gloves, and a single dangly cross earring, flinched at me like he was gonna punch me in the face and said "Fuck you pussy!" Again, I was five! He must have been seventeen going on forty. I was so young, small, and Asian that he had to flinch down at me.. This goon was completely serious too. A hundred percent unaware. It was so par for the course at the time that only after entering adulthood did I realize how ridiculous it was.
Man I miss those days and that specific brand of asshole. And I only mention this to give reason for our trepidation of Shady park and the characters we were likely to meet up with.
John came over and we walked towards the park. We approached the foot path that lead into the park. A path that I'd walked past a thousand times, always knowing, in the back of my mind, that the time would come when I was meant to follow it. Today was that day. Ten steps in and we were in a different world. It was oddly quiet and noticeably darker. The thought that we'd interrupt a group truant teens knee deep in some sort of unholy communion made me queazy. John was the silent type but I knew he felt the same.
About ten yards in, the narrow dirt path split in two, then three, then four paths, before opening up to the Shadiest of parks.
Huge sections of concrete tubes, big enough for us to walk through, littered the park at random intervals and angles. The left over artifacts of some unfinished drainage project. Each cylinder with its own custom smattering of spray painted obscenities and vulgar pictograms. Some familiar others confusing. On one tube, a giant red dick seemed to be assaulting some sort of hairy clam standing on end.
The park felt and sounded empty.
We huddled in the first tube that we came to, the one with the clam, to get our bearings. The bottom of the tube glittered with jewels. Diamonds, emeralds, and gems of every color crunched under our feet. At the opening of the other end of the tube sat the biggest gem I’d ever seen. An emerald with part of a 7up logo on it. Some of the smaller shards had been there so long that their edges were dull and rounded. We picked the best ones and put them in our pockets, to build our fortunes with later.
We exited the concrete tunnel and made our way into the heart of the park. An old swing set was the center piece. Large chunks of green paint had been chipped away exposing rusted metal. The stillness and the silence made for an eerie setting. John kicked one of the swings. The chains creaked and rattled forever. It was like time stopped. Like we were un-welcomed visitors. We were technically in the park but something was off. We were tourists. Sightseers...trespassers.
We walked to the decrepit merry-go-round and sat down. It groaned under our insignificant weight. I don't remember what we said. Probably nothing. John kicked at some pebbles. The chains of the swing set eventually went silent.
Finally, I said "let's get outta here."
We walked home in relative silence. I knew that things would be different once we smoked those cigarettes. The forbidden part of the world would finally open up to us. We'd be adults. We'd be enlightened.
I could hardly sleep the night before the next phase of the heist. It was like Christmas morning. I woke early, poured a bowl of cereal, and sat down in front of the TV. Before I could drink the pink tinted milk from the bowl John was at the door.
"Bobby, John's here." I jumped up, tossed the bowl into the sink, and ran outside.
When I saw john he was already smiling. "You ready?" he asked.
Now, the plan was to grab the last cigarette today and the lighter tomorrow. So I assumed he meant "was I ready for phase two?" When in fact he meant "are you ready to do this?"
He looked around before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a a single cigarette and a red lighter! What I did to deserve such a sneaky, conniving, grab the bull by the horns, type of best friend like John I'll never know, but I was grateful.
My palms started to sweat. Hesitation and fear fought for control. Reasons to abandon our plan suddenly flooded my mind. However it didn't take long for another kind of fear, the fear of looking like a pussy, to override my better judgement. Such is life.
With chests out, strutting like roosters we walked to our shed of inequities. Some of the neighborhood kids were gathered in a driveway. They couldn't help but notice the confidence. Or maybe it was the cigarette that dangled from my lips. I pretended not to notice them as we neared, feigning a conversation with John.
One of the kids, I can't remember his name, ran up and asked "John, what you guys doing? That ain't a real cigarette is it?"
To which I smirked at him.
"Nothing" said John and we kept walking. John flicked the lighter as we made our way down the street.
We made it the house, up the side and to the shed out back. John struggled to open the door. He had to lean with all his weight to force it open.
I followed him into the dark and musty wooden box. I grabbed the cigarette that we'd stashed away and tried to hand it to John. His back was to me as he leaned his head out the door.
"Get outta here, we're busy!"
"Here" I said and handed him the cigarette. As he took it I glanced out the door. The two boys we walked past were coming up the side yard. I pretended to be pissed but was secretly glad to have an audience. I mean what was the point of being an outlaw if no one was there to witness it?
At this point the cigarettes were merely symbolic.
"Forget them" I said…"gimme the lighter."
I grabbed the lighter and flicked it several times before it sprung a flame.
This was years before burn stop cigarettes and child-proof lighters that infuriate the drunk and elderly smokers of today.
I held the lighter out and lit John’s cigarette before lighting mine.
I need to make this perfectly clear. At the time I had absolutely no idea how to inhale. The idea alone would have confused me. As far as I was concerned you just puffed on the cigarette by pulling air into your mouth. But none of it really mattered. This wasn't about smoking anymore. It was about rebellion.
We both stood there puffing away, filling the small shed with smoke almost immediately. I did my best impression of an outlaw who had done this a thousand times. But the fact that my eyes were starting to water from the smoke almost gave me away for the rookie I was.
As I fought back the tears two more nosey kids made their way up to the shed. It was the two black girls that lived next door to me. They were sisters (I mean that in their relation not color, though I guess both could apply). I don't remember their names and any attempt to guess would probably just come off as a tad "stereotype".
I do remember that, of the two, I liked the younger one. She was sweet and funny. Her older sister was an asshole, already jaded by the ripe old age of seven. She was mean and spiteful. I was actually glad that she was there to witness my bad-assery, maybe now she would give me the respect that I deserved.
The entire time the onlookers said nothing. They just stood witness, looking dumbfounded.
We finished our cigarettes, left the shed, and walked through the kids gathered around the shed. The older of my neighbors, the jaded seven yr old, said "ewwwwww" in a admonishing tone as we walked by.
John and I walked home together. The only words spoken were his: “I gotta get this lighter back." I nodded and we parted ways.
I got home and went straight to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I went to my room and sat on my bed. I sat there staring at my Hulk Hogan poster and realized that I didn't feel any different. I wasn't more mature. I wasn't more bad-ass. I wasn't an Outlaw…
Some time passed, it felt like hours but I can't be sure, when my mom opened my door a crack and said "don't go anywhere your dad wants to talk to you when he gets home." My heart sank. I knew it was a wrap. Right then and there I knew it was over. A mixture of panic, embarrassment, and fear set in.
I wasn't a tough guy. I was a scared kid afraid of an ass whipping.
It turns out that as soon as we left the shed the neighbor girl ratted me out. My dad came home, promptly threatened to hand me a sore ass, reminded me that I was anything but a tough guy compared to him, and grounded me for a month.
So there it was: my life as an outlaw had started and ended in a single afternoon.
Life has a strange way of giving you, not what you want, but only what you're ready for in that exact moment. And there's no way of cheating life. No way of speeding up the process.
And so for the time being, Shady park and my life as an outlaw would have to wait...
Originally posted June 2019
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