Good Time Charlies

There was a time, call it a time between times, where the forces in my life had reached a neutral balance. Dad was still friends with the Ricks gang--George, Troy and Raimey. Clay was in his prime. My step-mother Polly was in a good mood as long as her pacifier, a cool can of Budweiser, was either in hand or sweating a white ring into the coffee table. Her nephew Fess and his honkytonk crowd of friends provided comic relief in the style of the old western--from friendly jesting to barroom brawls.

There was never a dull moment.

The gang grew like cotton candy floss to a swirling stem as we moved across the country from job to job. Dad and George were leaders, the bread-winners to whom contracts were given like handshakes. We swarmed like army ants over new construction sites and left new buildings in our wake.

We typically split the rent four to ten ways, and so had money to spare. Life was about two things: work and play. We ran from dusk till dawn, and then partied until the AM. Sometimes we had to be rolled up and thrown into the cab of the truck, but we always started the workday on time.

You may have recognized our type. Dirty baseball hats, mud-streaked faces and arms, ragged jeans, crimson necks and t-shirt tans. People stared at us at fancy restaurants until we caught them looking, and bad guys at taverns mumbled in the corner to their friends until we were gone.

The kind of people I am describing would cause me fits today--and while I was making the best of those days, biding my time until I could escape to a path of my own choosing, I have to admit to a few guilty pleasures. There was a code of conduct even amongst our scofflaw bunch. We could pick on each other, but nobody from the outside could do the same. If you stumbled into a bees nest, your buddies had your back. The humor was crude yet oddly liberating. There was nothing politically correct about those days. Skin color was irrelevant--as long as it was thick.

George was the devil of the bunch. A gang of Native Americans stared us down as we took our places at the stools and tables at a backwoods tavern. These people were known for their brutality to stray white people that came unwittingly alone into this wolves den. I had heard a few stories involving knives and pistols, and so had George.

We paid them no heed as we sloshed down the first round. The biggest of their bunch was giving us the evil eye, so George walked up to him and put his arm around his neck.

"Do I know you from somewhere buddy?" He asked him.

"Uh, no."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Well you keep starin' at me. I was startin' to think we was old buddies or somethin'." George jerked him around and walked him around like his own personal Charley McCarthy. He brought him to the bar.

"Bartender," George said, "I'd like to buy my old buddy a beer. In fact, I'd like to buy one for all my new buddies too."

Soon we were playing pool and dice with our would-be aggressors, and having a good time. We left the bar and piled into the truck. Our new native friends were looking out the large plate glass window at us, and a few were at the door. George didn't get in with us, and pulled at his zipper and started taking a leak. Dad fired up the truck and pulled away, leaving George exposed to his audience within.

George got stage fright and sputtered to a halt; but through an extreme act of will--and a few false starts--managed to finish the job before pulling his shorts up over his snow-white cheeks. He gave the double bird as a farewell to the caterwauling crowd within the bar, jumped in back of the fish-tailing truck that sprayed gravel and dirt into the parking lot behind it.