Ever been nearly arrested on Easter Sunday? No? Guess what, I came close once...too close for comfort. What a way to celebrate that holiest of holy days for Christians...by very nearly getting thrown into the back of a squad car. For the record it was less my fault than the other guy but my parents didn't care...guilty by association as far as they were concerned. The other guy? Aldo. I'm not even sure if I was related to him but lets say he was a distant cousin...not distant enough for my liking, but there you have it.
If I have lived my life in a somewhat fearless way by challenging just about everything Aldo was the type of kid that would not only push boundaries but break through them on a regular basis. The more moronic the better, the more illegal the better. And this is the kid that my parents encouraged me to hang out with when we did the family visiting thing...the kid was nuts, and I got dragged into all kinds of nonsense. OK, maybe dragged wasn't entirely correct but at least I never would have got arrested for my antics....wait....ok, he was nuts.
The aforementioned Easter we were visiting my aunts house for the Easter meal. No turkey and ham here by the way, screw that crap. We had lamb, little spicy homemade meatball like things called cevapcici, probably some BBQ chicken and all the fixings for a Croatian get together. The adults were doing their normal arguing in a language that was quickly slipping away from me, save for the swear words and the kids, between 4 and 8 of us were left to find entertainment in other ways in-between asking if we could go home now...really, an hour in and you want to go home? Don't make me come over there! I'm sure the Daisy air rifle was my cousins that was haphazardly stored in a closet somewhere, probably next to his collection of Penthouse. It could have been locked in a vault with security guards and it would not have mattered, Aldo would have gotten it out, because he wanted to shoot things. Those things were cans and trees, which we (mostly he) peppered with bb's for awhile and when we ran out we tried pebbles. Sometimes it seemed to work but mostly it did not, thankfully for us in the end. You see Aldo didn't give any thought to consequences, I guess all boys are like that and most men...go figure, and as luck would have it, a few girls happened to be standing across the street from my aunts place by the variety store. Moron Aldo scooped some ground debris and tried firing in their direction, it didn't work this time. I think the sand and debris jammed the gun somehow and thankfully that was what the police concluded when they had arrived. You see, the girls did not take kindly to being used as target practice, go figure, so they ran home and told their parents. And sure as you can say vortex of stupidity the police showed up in their yellow police cars (yes, Toronto used to hand out bright yellow police cars...haha). The fine men in blue were probably the only thing standing between me and a swift kick to the ass from my folks...I seriously had nothing to do with the infraction but again, guilty by association. Thankfully it all ended with much ado about nothing, the gun was jammed and Aldo lied through his teeth about it to get away from any form of legal repercussion. All I'm saying is good thing they didn't question me too hard, because I can't lie worth a shit.
Another example of the vortex of stupidity effect that came with being forced into the same vicinity as Aldo was a weekend away at my uncles cottage somewhere on that crazy river. This place was the stuff of dreams or nightmares, depending on context. The first incarnation of the cottage was a ramshackle run down potential fire hazard sitting right by the rivers edge. All the charm of the Toledo Holiday Inn circa 1971. But it was away, there was water to frolic in and of course, the crazy family...resplendent in their lunacy and idiosyncrasies. And the other cottage dwellers were no better...who the hell names their daughter Bibi and why was she sitting naked on the log beside a couple of young teens, Aldo, my cousin and me?
At some point my uncle decided to build a new cottage to replace the soon to be driftwood structure, and while under construction we ended up sleeping in a tractor trailer of all things. Don't know how it got there but it was there, regurgitated farts and all...I hated that thing. The new cottage, once finished was more suburban home than cottage, with carpeting and all the comforts of Etobicoke. I want to say it was Easter again because we had the traumatising lamb incident this same weekend as the vortex of stupidity. On this weekend one of my uncles showed up in his low slung white Chevy Impala, he exited this chick magnet car, flipped up the front seat to reveal a little baby lamb...so cute, so white. So...oh my god what did you do to fluffy!! Hung upside down to bleed out in preparation for the spit. I recall being put off the whole process and not eating lamb that weekend, but not so traumatised as my sister, as she still won't eat lamb while I love it.
And there we are, a long weekend away with roasting lamb, stubby beer bottles for the adults and time on our hands to get into all kinds of trouble. At some point, most likely as a result of my not wanting to be near Aldo, I decided to nail some boards to a tree to make a ladder to climb up. Two issues here, my nails weren't nearly long enough for grip and I picked a tree near the waters edge. Yep, you guessed it...fifth rung up I fell backwards onto the bank. I'm not sure how long I was knocked out for but luckily my head wasn't submerged in the flowing river. When I came to I did what everyone does when they were stupid enough to almost kill themselves, I said nothing. Until this moment my folks wouldn't have heard about this. This was a regular thing with me, if I fell out of a tree and winded myself...I would have stopped my friends from going to tell my parents. I'd rather suffer than have my parents know the extent of my stupidity.
And then the vortex came to be, let's take the boat out and go fishing says Aldo. Go ahead say my parents...really, do you remember last Easter? Fine. So out we go with my uncles boat and what looked like a brand new motor to me...for the first little while we were fine. No run ins with Loch Ness's distant cousin, we hadn't scraped the bottom of the boat on the boulders dotting the river and I hadn't clubbed Aldo with an oar...things were looking good. Until it was time to go back....as usual Aldo was in control of the outboard and was steering us back to shore when he decided to cut the engine for some reason. Instead of gliding into the shore under our own power in the flowing river we were being taken with the current away from our destination...dumb ass. Start the motor will ya. And yes, you guessed it...this is where we got ourselves into trouble. Aldo trying to restart the motor was like watching a penguin try to fly...no chance. And the sounds emanating from the housing on the motor didn't sound right as he pulled the cord....from bad to worse. Maybe we should just row in....no, we'll be fine. Well we were not fine, when he removed the cover off the motor and pieces of engine starting to fall into the river we knew we were going to be lucky to escape without a paddle to the head. God damn it!! So we rowed to shore, actually tried to hide the boat and pretend it had nothing to do with us. That went over like a lead zeppelin, which is to say not so well. Everyone knew we had taken the boat out so it should have come as no surprise that we were responsible for the missing motor innards. See...vortex of stupidity around this guy. I made it worse when I decided to be defiant to my dad...I tried staring him down as a rebellious teen, ha...pretty funny in hind sight. My mom was offering suggestions on what he could hit me with for daring to stare back....I believe she coached for the broom.
Once again I was guilty by association because this magnet of trouble would be forced upon me. I knew he was bad news and I knew I was going to get into some sort of mischief with him around but what choice did I have when my parents were pushing me to hang with him when families converged. Next time I'm bringing a book...ugh
Ciao
D
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