Things were much looser then, and kids riding their bikes around the plaza was a normal part of life. The only problem was that in order to get to the Shopping Center, I had to go down a block where a bunch of kids I didn't know hung out. There was one kid in particular, who seemed to be the leader, and whenever I rode by he would yell at me and tell me to stay off his block.
One day I was quickly going past and this kid ran out and threw a football that hit my tire, and I fell off my bike. I went up to this kid, who was much bigger than me, ready to fight. Apparently, just standing up to him earned his respect, and instead of clobbering me, he asked if I wanted to hang out with him. He said his name was Bob.
Bob became my partner in crime.
In the late 60's and early 70's, boys could still be boys, and the things we did back then, if done today, would be met with "zero tolerance," arrest, court, fines, restitution, criminal records, jail, and almost certainly, psychiatric intervention. My own son, who grew up hearing about my exploits, unfortunately tried to outdo his old man, and now in his 20's, married with children of his own, is still struggling to undo the consequences of his youthful exuberance.
Life itself was an adventure for us, and together we experimented with alcohol (Bob was an Old Style man, I preferred Stroh's), drugs, rock, joyriding, and girls. These were the days of blacklight posters, head shops, and concerts where you could go into the restroom with ten bucks in your pocket and walk out with half a bag of Mexican weed.
I shared a room with my brother, who is a year younger than me, in our house on 82nd Street. One year around this time, my mom let me redecorate our room, and I chose bright orange paint for the walls, and thick orange shag carpeting for the floor. Blacklight posters adorned the walls, and along one side of the room, across from our bunkbeds, was a long, metal shelving unit covered in faux-wood vinyl. The shelves held my collection of plastic models of the Universal monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, Godzilla, the Wolfman, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, all with glow in the dark heads and hands), and replicas of the spaceship from the Invaders (a Quinn Martin production), the Flying Sub from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, a Star Trek Klingon Battleship, and a record player.
That stupid, old, plastic record player was a warhorse that saw duty all the way through high school, and even on to my college dorm room, until I was able to replace it with a real stereo component system. All things considered, the sound was actually very good, and the volume could be heard half way down the block. We listened to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Blue Oyster Cult, Alice Cooper, and too many more to name.
To say it was a party room would be a grave injustice. Try to picture five guys tripping on acid, crawling around the floor, a Mick Box wah-wah-pedal guitar solo blasting out, searching by blacklight, strand by strand through orange shag carpet, for a dropped hit of orange microdot. (We found it!)
We used to roll fat joints of green pot in strawberry, banana, and wheat rolling papers, that we called Magician's Birthday joints, named after the title track of a Uriah Heep album. Not only was my room where we'd get high and listen to music, it was also where we'd go to feel up chicks.
Bob was a chick magnet. I swear to God that he could walk into a church and get the whole choir to come back to the room with him. He had this ability to go up to a group of girls that he'd never met before, hang around with them for a while, and come away with the cutest one of the bunch. Sometimes I was also able to hook up, but sometimes not, and that could get pretty awkward. More than once was the time that Bob would be making out in the bottom bunk of my room while I lay on the top bunk, listening to the music, listening to Bob and his chick du jour, and eating my pubescent heart out.
As far as the stunts we pulled, they are the stuff of legend. It's hard to know even where to begin: getting "runs" at the liquor store, joyriding in stolen cars, shoplifting, running away from home, the out of control parties when my folks were out of town.
Perhaps the best testament to the strength of the bond we shared, Bob and I are still good friends and "talk" several times a week on Facebook. Many of the recollections here were jarred loose by our conversations. In fact, we were just laughing about an episode that still has some mystery about it, even to this day.
For a relatively short period of time, we were into joyriding. Bob knew certain makes of cars that could be started without a key simply by turning the ignition switch. We'd cruise around for a while, then park the car somewhere close by, none the worse for wear. We were just kids and the thought never occurred to us of the inconvenience this must have caused to the car owners.
One time we were riding around (Bob always drove) and he accidentally sideswiped a parked car. There was a lot of noise and a lot of damage. It was common knowledge among the other neighborhood kids that Bob and I were doing this, and we were sure that we'd get caught for this. A family friend was going to college at the University of Illinois. Not a week before, I had been talking to him and he said that if I ever ran away from home, that I should go see him first before deciding what to do.
With this in mind, Bob and I took off for Champaign. But this was late at night, it was bitterly cold outside, and we had only the vaguest notion of how to get there. We holed up at a White Castle at 147th and Cicero. We scraped up the little bit of change we had between us and bought a cup of coffee and a slider to keep from getting kicked out. As it got later and later, Bob would go up to every customer who came in and beg a little money. We kept making small purchases, but the employees were eyeing us closely.
Finally a couple of cops came in and we thought we had had it. We must have looked underage and it was clearly after curfew. We had no money and no ID. We were sure the cops were looking for us, and if nothing else, the night manager would give us away. We were looking down and trying to be inconspicuous, but we were the only other ones in the place. All of a sudden, Bob gets up and goes over to one of the cops and starts shooting the breeze with him. After a couple of minutes, Bob asks the cops if they could lend him a couple of bucks. The cop digs in his wallet and hands Bob two singles. We bought another coffee and a couple of burgers and sat eating at one table while the cops took their break at another. Finally with a nod in our direction, they got back in their cruiser and went on their way.
At daybreak we made our way to the highway and started hitchhiking. I was pretty tired by this time and it was still very cold outside. I don't remember much of the ride down except that as each ride exited the highway, we'd be standing in the middle of nowhere with our thumbs sticking out. We must have made it, because we found our way to my friend's on-campus apartment. All I wanted to do was sleep, and after talking to my friend for a few minutes, I collapsed on the couch. Bob went in to take a shower.
It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when I heard a booming voice say, "Get up! We need to take you in." I rolled over and a large man in a beige uniform was standing over me. Another officer was in the door of the bathroom. We found out later that my friend had called my parents to tell them I was okay, but since my parents had already called the police to tell them I was missing, they called the police to tell them I was safe, but the cops insisted that my parents tell them where I was. A quick call from the Chicago Police Department to the Champaign-Urbana Police Department, and we were in cuffs.
I will say that as we were being led away, my friend looked truly stricken, and neither Bob nor I ever held a grudge.
We were taken in the back of a squad car to a juvenile detention facility on the outskirts of town. With little fanfare, we were separated, and I was placed in solitary confinement. As the hours passed, with no food or water, and just a thin mattress on the floor, I was sure that Bob's dad had come for him, while mine just left me there to rot. Banging on the door and shouting brought no response. Fortunately I was dead tired and spent most of the day sleeping on and off.
Finally, towards evening, a guard opened the door. He told me that if I caused any trouble or tried to run, he'd break my legs. Bob and I were pretty tough, and I immediately started sizing this guy up, but I figured I better play it cool until I saw the lay of the land. I was taken to an interrogation room, and sighed with relief when I saw Bob sitting there.
The facility director came in and explained that this was an experimental juvenile rehabilitation institution for nonviolent offenders called Target. He said that the institute worked on the honor system, and that we could earn points by making our beds, attending classes, and behaving ourselves. The points could be used to buy cigarettes, candy, and snacks.
He told us that our parents had been contacted and that we would be going before a judge in the morning. He led us into the common room, which was filled with boys AND girls all around our age. Dinner was just being served and we got in line with our trays. Surprisingly, the other "residents" were openly friendly and wanted to know all about us. They told us about Target and said that it wasn't a bad place. After dinner we even got to watch TV.
We were assigned bunks (the male and female dorms were segregated) and issued some basic sundries. I didn't smoke, but Bob and the other guys did, and they were scrounging between the window grates for butts until lights out.
The next morning we were transported by van to the courthouse. A prosecutor got up and told the judge we were runaways and asked that we be remanded to Target. The judge ordered that we be held until such time as our parents came to get us. Then that was it. Back we went.
The routine was shower, breakfast, classes, lunch, afternoon class, recreation time before dinner, dinner, free time for watching TV, board games, cards, etc., wash-up, lights out.
Although the guys far outnumbered the girls, everything was co-ed except the dorms. One guy, who seemed to be the unspoken leader of the townies, even had some kind of special dispensation to go off by himself with his girlfriend, obviously for sexual relations. This actually caused a bit of a problem towards the end of our stay, but I'll get to that in a minute.
Even though I attended a Chicago public school, the classwork at Target was remedial. Points could also be earned through good grades, and since I didn't smoke and could only eat so much candy (points were nontransferable), I had points coming out the wazoo. (I figure Champaign County still owes me about a hundred Snickers bars.) When Bob and I realized that we might be there for a while, our first inclination was to not cooperate by refusing to do any classwork. But then we figured what the hell and proceeded to ace every assignment they handed out. The other kids were not amused.
One afternoon the teacher said we were going to watch a movie. It turned out to be "The Andromeda Strain." I had never seen it before, but I loved sci-fi and monster flicks, and this was a real treat. The food at Target was also not standard prison fare, so it really wasn't a bad place, except we didn't know how long we'd have to stay there. We also didn't know what was happening back home about the cars.
A couple of days in, Bob and I decided to have a contest to see who could get thrown in "the box" first. The box was a 3' x 3' closet with a radiator inside it that made the space uncomfortably hot, that was used for time-outs for small infractions. Needless to say, Bob "won" when he got caught trying to steal cigarettes from the commissary.
One evening, after we'd been there about a week, I noticed this head honcho going off with his girlfriend again, and I remarked to some of the guys, how do I get a broad. At least that's how I remember it, but Bob claims that what I said was, how do I get a whore. It's not the first time my big mouth got me into trouble, but in any case, word got back to the guy, and Bob and I got the cold shoulder. I've seen Bob in action, and I'd put my money on him against any guy standing, but there was (of course) this one big hick the size of a mountain that even Bob didn't want to tangle with. I still don't remember saying anything offensive, but I wound up apologizing, and things cooled off after that.
The next Saturday morning, the director summoned Bob and me, and led us out to the lobby where our fathers were standing. From the looks on their faces, I knew we were in for it. Our fathers got into the front seat of Bob's dad's car, and we climbed into the back. Not one word was said the entire ride back. I think we made a couple of attempts at saying something to no avail.
When we got home we were not even grounded, which kind of worried us even more. Was some dire fate awaiting us around the corner? Bob and I were local heroes to our friends for getting locked up. We were still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but we never heard another thing about it. Things went back to normal, and I believe to this day, that money changed hands to pay for the damage we did to the cars, and the adults worked out that they would let it slide with "time served."
Bob believes that we were never connected to the cars and that his father certainly would have said something to Bob. But we were white, blue collar Chicago kids and my father was a well known lawyer. I have since asked my dad more than once if money changed hands back then, but he smiles and refuses to answer.
Very mysterious indeed.
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