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What follows in this post is a story about growing up in Collinwood, a neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. These stories, unlike my other posts, may contain situations that are inappropriate for work and will almost certainly contain vulgar language. There won’t be anything completely explicit, such as detailed descriptions of intimate acts. Even so, some of these might only be borderline ‘workplace safe’ and you may want to wait until you get home before clicking the “More” button.

Mark and Scott were two guys who embodied “punk” more than anybody else I’ve ever known. I’m not talking about that fake Hot-Topic my-parents-don’t-understand punk who grew up in a mansion in Shaker Heights and walked around Coventry in chain-studded clothing worth more than my entire closet.

Mark and Scott were real punks who got into fights, drank like crazy, took as much dope as they could score and pretty much hoped that this would be the never ending story of their life. Their biggest hope was that they’d make it into a trade or into a factory, put in their 20-years, and then retire with a pension…assuming they didn’t melt down or slug a supervisor along the way.

Mark dressed in stereotypical Collinwood flannel, construction boots and jeans and this totally cheesy black pork-pie hat as if he were ‘Jake’ from the Blues Brothers. It was an awkward, if unique, combination. He was also as anti-religious as anybody could be at that age. In short, Mark had a chip on his shoulder and would occasionally knock it off himself to ‘get things going’.

Scott was a short Irish guy who was better read than me but used all that intelligence to figure out how to make easy money or get drugs. At fourteen, Scott decided he had enough of his father and took off to live in Pennsylvania. He made it for eight months before his employer decided that it was easier to call the cops on Scott than pay Scott for two months of work…at which point, Scott’s reunion with his father was less prodigal and more pugalistic as Scott had realized (earlier than most people at that age) that he could fight back.

One night, our group was sitting in Walt’s bedroom. Walt’s family filled the house and every child shared a bedroom with a sibling, except for Walt. He was lucky enough to get the attic bedroom which was as big as any two of the other bedrooms downstairs. His attic lair was the place where we could sit, out of the way of parents and siblings, and be “ourselves”. On this occasion, Scott was with us and we were drinking MGD’s we got from the corner gas-station and talking about some philosophical idea or another…

Mark appeared a short time into the evening and immediately exclaimed, before greeting anybody: “MGD? Why are you drinking that pussy beer?! Real men drink Little Kings or Mickey’s Big Mouth.”

Everybody looked at him as you’d expect and ignored him.

“C’mon! What’s wrong with you losers? I know a place that sells both. It’s just up in East Cleveland. It won’t take long.”

Everybody looked at him as you’d expect and ignored him.

“C’mon, already! We’ll get some Little Kings and then we’ll stop by the roller rink in Euclid. There are a ton of black chicks there. They’re fucking hot and if we have beer, we’ll get lucky.”

I’d had enough.

“We are not driving into East Cleveland to buy beer when we already have beer. We are not going to a roller rink. We are not going to pick up chicks of any color. We’re having a good discussion here. Why are you trying to fuck it up? You came late to the party, you lose.”

“C’mon, I can’t drive myself or I’d already be gone. You gotta help me. I’m out of gas and I know one of you losers has a car here.”

It was my car. I wasn’t driving him anyplace. But I had a job and I had a little spare cash in my pocket.

“If I give you five dollars, will you go away and not come back?”

“If you give me five dollars, it just proves what a wimp you are.”

“Go to hell” was the reply as I pulled a five dollar bill out of my pocket. “Say you’re sorry and I’ll give you the money. Make me believe it.”

The ‘bargaining’ for his departure continued in this manner for a short period as creative names were assigned, heritages were questioned, sexual orientation discussed and eventually a threat of violence was made that if he should appear again, we would still have fun and he would wish he had sticked to roller skating.

Scott said “Wait, Mark. Were you serious about the black chicks?”

Mark was overjoyed that somebody was listening to him.

“Hell yeah. They’re hot. I was up there skating a few weeks ago and there are a bunch of them there. C’mon, let these losers play with themselves. I’ve got five bucks and we only need one of them for gas.”

They left, got their dollar of gas and got their beer. The girls at the roller rink were unimpressed and Scott learned that roller skating with another man wasn’t a great way to get attention. They found more beer and drank it in Mark’s car. Scott apparently had something else stashed away that was also consumed. Then it started to rain.

Drunk on their cheap beer and high on something or other, they drove back to Collinwood. At the time, Collinwood still had a number of brick streets, some of which followed the curves of Euclid Creek as it made its way into Wildwood Park.

For some reason, Mark picked that winding, wet brick-paved street to speed home upon. As he hit the bottom of one of the hills, on a curve, the car slid sideways, flipped over and hit a telephone pole. This was a 1970’s rustbucket with unused seat belts and Mark and Scott were thrown around like dolls.

Scott later told us that he crawled out of the car, stood up, and shook off the broken glass. He looked around for Mark and called into the car, “Hey, get out here, you’ve got to see this.” Mark groaned from inside the car, “Call an ambulance.”

Mark wound up being OK, but here were casts, crutches, and even a cane. They were both incredibly lucky. A little bit one way or another and both would have been killed by the impact. After he healed, Mark was bitter, had a limp, and the chip on his shoulder went from large to unavoidable. He stopped coming around and nobody knew where he went or who he saw except that he always seemed to be high when we found him.

I know it wasn’t my five dollars that caused the accident, but if I could take it back, I would.