Stranded: Mechanics, Make-Outs & Muscle Cars
A Teenage Nightmare
When we are younger and we look back, we think dumb things we did as kids were funny. As we age, we think we were a little bit ignorant and chuckle mildly. But when we start rolling towards being an AARP recipient, we realize how stupid our actions were and that we’re lucky we didn’t die, or worse. This is a good place to stop and read Junior High Con Artists to get a sense of how and why it was so easy for me to start acting like a hooligan at age 12.
One night at a typical Saturday night sleepover, my friend Debbie and I were on the phone with her boyfriend Eric and his friend Jesse. We were making plans for them to pick us up after her dad fell asleep.
Eric was 16 and in high school. He was super good looking in an 80’s rocker kind of way. Tall, thin, blonde, shoulder length, feathered hair, and wore the tightest jeans that needed to be zipped up with a pair of Craftsman pliers. He was 3 years older than us but, during puberty years, that can be radically different. We were just starting to get peach fuzz and went roller skating, while he had full facial hair and drove a Trans Am.
We were kids, he was a man.
We’d never met Jesse, only talked to him on the phone. He was Eric’s best friend. I’d chatted with him a few times before, but tonight was the first time we were actually going to meet in person. I was excited. While we were talking I said, “You sound cute”, not realizing that sounding cute was a falsity that had been proven by radio DJ’s for decades. I just giggled and kept making stupid comments like, “come on over, we are so ready to partaaaaay!” as if I knew what a real partaaaaay was all about.
“We will be there soon, I can’t wait to finally see you”, he said with his cute voice.
Not long after her dad went to bed, the guys pulled up in Debbie’s cul-de-sac. I was so excited that I might actually get to meet a boy that would like me, As we got to the car, I saw that Jesse was driving, so I dove right in the front seat. This also allowed the horny couple to get in the back and do whatever it was they wanted to do. As I jumped in, I shut the door, looked over, and heard myself gasp. Hopefully he didn’t hear me as well.
“Hi” Jesse said, with a little too much excitement in his voice.
“Uh, hi” I replied quietly. My excitement quickly deflated.
He had greasy black hair, horrible acne, and was most definitely not the cute boy I’d pictured on the phone. He was ugly and I was not impressed. What had I gotten myself into?
As we drove away and the two in the back seat started making out and steaming up the windows, it hit me. I’m 13 years old and I’m trapped in this car with an ugly guy who thinks I like him. Holy crap.
We went bowling with some of their friends which created a distraction for a few hours. I avoided Jesse as much possible. Once we finished, we got in the car and took off into the night. It was already close to 1 a.m., where the hell were we going? We drove for close to 20 minutes before eventually pulling into a grubby, dirt lot, with a small building and a bunch of cars on the property.
“Where are we?” I asked nervously.
“We work here” Jesse replied. He threw the car in park, turned off the ignition and got out of the car. Debbie and Eric followed behind.
I sat there for a minute not really sure what to do until Debbie yelled, “Kristen come on!”.
I got out of the car and entered into the small, dark, building. The inside had faux wood paneling, a grubby old sofa, and a few wobbly office chairs. It smelled like decades of Marlboro’s and broken dreams. Musty, greasy, and sad. Debbie and Eric sat on the couch and Jesse and I each took a chair. He offered me a beer. I quickly accepted because I had a gut feeling I was going to need something to numb whatever was about to happen.
“No on can know we are here. I’m not supposed to be here after hours” said Eric. “So we need to leave the lights off”.
I froze. This was a plan.
We all made small talk for a few minutes, then the lovebirds started making out on the dingy, old, sofa-of-regrets. Jesse and I just sat quietly in our perspective chairs sipping our 12oz. Budweisers.
It happened quickly. He started moving towards me. He shifted his chair closer to mine. Then, in what felt like an eternity, he started to move closer and closer, slithering towards me trying to make his way from his chair into mine. I had started sitting in the chair normally, but as the minutes passed and he crept closer, my body positioning changed. I drew my legs in, tucked my knees up towards my chest, and began hugging my knees, all while awkwardly trying to hold my can of Bud. As he advanced, I squeezed myself tighter and tighter, shifting further and further away, until the chair arm became embedded in my side and I couldn’t move any further. I could feel his hot breath on my neck. I was paralyzed. He was just about to go in for the kill when I said, “I don’t really feel good right now, I’m sorry”.
I rejected him.
He quickly backed off, stood up, stared at me for a second, punched the wall, and walked out the door abruptly. He was pissed.
Thank God he’s gone was all I could think.
Debbie and Eric came up for air, looked around dazed from their dry humping session, then Debbie said “Damn, what did you do to him?” while laughing.
“Nothing, I just told him I didn’t feel good”. I could still smell the scent of his teenage angst lingering in the air. You know the one, hormones and Jovan Musk.
“Oh damn girl,” Eric chimed in, “you turned him down? No guy likes that” he said lightly with humor in his tone.
It wasn’t funny to me.
Before he finished his sentence, we heard the car start. Eric jumped up and lunged towards the door. But it was too late.
Tires spun, dust and gravel filled the air, and the car angrily peeled out of the lot.
Jesse has left the building.
We all stood there for a minute not saying a word. Debbie and I had no real clue what was going on, but after a few minutes of silence Eric said “I think he left us, and I don’t think he’s coming back”.
Shit. It’s 3:30 in the morning, we have snuck out of my best friends house, her dad thinks we are tucked neatly in bed, we stink of hormones and beer, and we have no car. Or do we…?
Our after-hours escapades are taking place at an auto repair shop, so it seems appropriate when Debbie finally looks at Eric with her big brown eyes and says “Can’t you borrow a car?”. Finally, someone with a voice of reason speaks up.
“I shouldn’t, I mean, I don’t have a key to the lock box, ” he says, “and I could get fired, or worse.” he adds looking concerned. “Maybe he’ll come back”.
He wasn’t coming back.
We waited a half hour to give Jesse the benefit of the doubt before Debbie finally started to plead, “Please, there has to be something you can do, my dad will kill us if he wakes up and we aren’t there”.
Eric began looking around for the key to the lock box while Debbie and I wandered around halfhazardly in the yard. We had visions of Jesse rolling back in saying, “Hey guys, sorry about that, I went and got some Dorito’s and a hot dog from 7-11, we can go home now if you’re ready”. That pipe dream never happened.
Suddenly Eric came running out of the office yelling, “LET’S GO!!!!” holding up a set of keys. He led us to a 1970’s Camaro. We didn’t ask any questions, we just piled in. Eric immediately became our savior, and it made him that much more attractive.
As he turned the ignition over, the car spit, sputtered, and spattered, then gave out a mighty ROAR! Debbie and I giggled but Eric just looked straight ahead and said, “okay, get ready, we need to get you home and get this car back here before anyone knows its gone, I’m gonna be driving fast”. He put the car in first gear, popped the clutch, slammed the gas, and took off like a rocket. The engine still coughed like someone healing from bronchitis, but she had pick up and was going to get us where we needed to be. Out of trouble.
While the adrenaline had been pumping hard for the past hour, it finally started to fade. Eric’s eyes began getting heavy as he drove us home. The long night, multiple beers, drama of being abandoned, and stress of the borrowed (stolen) car had worn him out. This became our next major problem. Neither of us knew how to drive so we had to do whatever we could to keep him awake. Debbie blasted Van Halen as loud as possible and we all sang along. I rolled down all the windows and encouraged him to put his head outside for fresh air like a cocker spaniel on a joyride. It was all very tense indeed.
As we got closer to Debbie’s house, we began plotting absurd stories to tell her dad should we run into him walking through the front door we’d walked out of 6 long hours before. Things like;
We wanted to start exercising early in the morning so we went for a walk,
We heard a noise and wanted to investigate,
We couldn’t sleep so we were getting fresh air in the front yard.
Nothing really believable or viable, but normal deceitfulness from the mind of a conniving teenage girl.
Finally, we approached her house. We made Eric stop around the corner at the bottom of the hill because the car was so loud. There was nothing sneaky or stealth-like from a struggling 305 V8 engine. He stopped the car and let us out. They kissed like an old, tired, married couple, not like the young, raging, hormonal, juveniles of hours prior. Eric’s eyes were bloodshot and Debbie’s feathered hair had “fallen”.
“Bye,” Eric said, “let me know how it goes" he said with empathy.
“Well, if you don’t hear from me you can assume I’ve been busted and grounded.” she said with a little bit of fear in her voice as she slammed the car door. He would give us a 5 minute head start before starting the car. I just lifted one hand and gave a sad wave good-bye knowing the worse we could get was being grounded, the worst he could get was grand theft auto.
We walked quietly up the street. Between being afraid, tired, and a little bit tipsy, we didn’t have much to say. As we approached the house, we did so with somewhat jerky movements, like rodents. We’d walk, stop, and look. Our heads bobbing up and down, in and out, peering around corners, and lurking by bushes, before getting close enough to see in the long, skinny, windows on either side of the front door. We saw and heard nothing.
As we reached the door step we paused. I could almost hear the blood rushing into my head. If we were found out here, her dad would positively call my parents and that would be the end of our sleepovers. The end of late night parties. The end of sneaking out to do things that were borderline illegal. Except borrowing the Camaro, that was illegal. The end of older boys. The end of drinking Budweiser and the end of smoking weed. The end of all fun.
Debbie put her ear up against the front door as I stood around the corner. We made eye contact. She gave me a “come on” wave and opened the door. Nothing. Silence.
I ran in the door and she softly closed and bolted it behind me. While she was clicking the dead bolt in place, I was already motoring it down the hall to her room. Within seconds she was right behind me closing her bedroom door. We turned and looked at each other, smiled, and made the biggest WHEW! We did it! faces we could before high fiving each other and then crawling into bed.
We were never heard, never seen, and never caught.
Junior high con-artists triumph once again.
As I wrote this story, it startled me. It was luck of the draw that it didn’t turn out worse. This was a sexual assault in waiting. Not just because it was a horny, young male, but because all of the factors were wrong. I was well under age. I had teased him over the phone. We were drinking. We were in the dark. He was older and his hormones were far more enraged than mine. My ovaries were barely peeking from behind the curtains at this point and his sperm were clearly standing on stage front and center singing a boisterous version of I Want it All by Queen. The response of anger, followed by abandonment was a sign that he was pissed, irritated… frustrated.
I initially wanted to end on a rant about #metoo, but decided otherwise. As I continue to tell my stories of drinking, there will be plenty of opportunities to share about unsolicited sexual advances and that demonic side of alcohol.
But for now, let’s just bask in the delight that Debbie and I got a sound nights sleep, we were never caught, she continued to date Eric, I never saw Jesse again, we never went back to the mechanics garage, and it was a few weeks before we decided to sneak out… again.
Stay safe, stay sober.
Kristen XO