It's the middle of the summer and a perfect night for such festivities. Congregation kicks off a little before sundown. Spirits are high and merriment abounds. On this particular night, me and a few of my park-gal-posse have procured some purple mescaline ahead of time up at The Dome, Forest Park's own on-premise recreational drug emporium.
Note: This was the 70's. As of this writing, The Dome is no longer rife with drug dealers. The up-and-coming generation now refers to the location primarily as 'The Band Shell'. But to the seasoned park regulars from the old days, it is - and shall remain always - The Dome.
Drugs ingested, we truck on downhill from The Dome, along the golf course fence opposite the Interboro (now the Jackie Robinson) Parkway. We don't need to look for the rest of our crowd (or a hole in the fence) because we can see them clearly in the near distance and hear their laughter. Some are holding the fence open at it's base and the rest are push-rolling THE KEG thru. Turns out they did indeed require the wire cutters, so by the time we catch up it's smooth sailing and we breeze on thru the opening into the course: The Land Of Oz with it's lush rolling hills of endless, fragrant, fresh-mown green. There was a sun shower earlier today and everything is a little slippery. Nice-slippery. I take a deep breath and remove my sandals. I'll be damned if that mescaline is not already kickin' in…
We set up Beer Camp. Our fellas are pros at this keg thing, and we're all chugging from Solo cups by the time the sun sets. As usual, I've brought my guitar but haven't felt any urge to play it tonight. Tripping on mesc isn't always conducive to that kinda thing, and I probably should've left it home. Oh, well.
It's a warm, dark night. Overcast, so that the whole sky looks white with the moon behind the clouds. Great, big boom-box is blaring YES (I seen all good people turn their heads each day so sah-tiss-fiiiiied, I'm on my waaaaay)….
We are having ourselves a time, and it honestly feels like no time at all has passed before….
AMBUSHED!!! - that's right. THE MAN.
This was actually insane because, seriously, 5 or 6 cop cars showed up. And as I said previously, we'd had some minor inconveniences here and there with The Man, but for chrissake. Suddenly we're in the middle of this radical ROUND-UP at the KEGGER CORRAL or some shit. I don't know what the story was with that. My best guess is that one squad car caught wind of us and called in for reinforcements so that they could all come swooping in together. The whole mess felt really overblown, not to mention quite surreal what with the whole hallucinogenic factor ta boot.
The pretty hilarious thing is, the cops had to climb thru the hole in the fence we'd made, and walk a good 300 yards in to get to us. We were partying so hardy that we only knew they were there when they were practically on TOP of us and they all turned their flashlights on at once.
Couple of our guys closest to the light beams turn around, squinting:Guy #1 (Confusion): "Hah? What tha FUCK?"
Guy #2 (Shock and dismay): "AAAAAAAaaaaahh…FUCK ME! IT'S THE FUCKIN' MAN!"THE MEN (5 or 6 Mannish voices in stern unison): "DON'T MOVE. DO NOT MOVE. HANDS IN THE AIR. IN. THE. AIR." (and other such Mannish directives.)
Now, there were at least 40 of us there that night, probably more. As soon as all this crap starts going down, I'm immediately cursing myself. I'd have avoided all this nonsense had I only gone to pee.
There were several lush little groves of trees and bushes sprinkled throughout the golf course, and that's where we ladies would classily and inconspicuously mosey, usually in groups of 3 or 4 for general camaraderie as well as safety's sake. And I had JUST been invited for a group urination mosey, dammit all, but I had declined - opting to hold it in until the next mosey-train. (Which typically ran every 20 minutes or so, give or take.)Like an idiot, I decide to BOLT in the direction of Bladder Relief Grove. Why? God knows. My thinking was not right, to say the least. I think I actually was grasping at what could have been or something: No, No…not me, officer….I should be IN THERE…safely PEEING….
But I think I was the only moron attempting to run like that and A MAN was on me like white on rice. As I spastically slide/run on the uneven, grassy hills I can see my shadow in front of me, the cop's flashlight trained on my back. Damned if I didn't hear that cop snickering, too.
It filters to me that he maybe thinks I'm a drug dealer or something, making a reckless break like this, so I stop running and turn to face him. He grabs my bicep HARD, gives me a shake.
Man: "Where you GOIN', huh? You got someplace to GO?"Me: "I'm sorry. I needed to pee, that's all. I shouldn't have run."
Man: "No you shouldn't, kiddo. No you shouldn't. You can piss in your PANTIES before you run from ME, kiddo." Me: "No, that's okay."
He roughly push/tugs me, never letting go of my poor arm. He yanks me back to the rest of my friends, whom the cops have begun hand-cuffing in pairs. Me: "What's going on? Why are you cuffing us? Oh, please don't do this..." I'm supposed to be sleeping over at a friend's house tonight. And she's not even at this party.
He slaps a pair of cuffs on me: "And here's a boyfriend for ya, doll."And he cuffs me to Stashley.
TO BE CONTINUED….
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