LUNKHEADED

Part 10

A new mall was opening a few miles from Wildwood, said to be the biggest in America. None of us were real excited by this, knowing what the growth of Six Flags Great America (also nearby) had done to local traffic. Our sleepy little town was quickly becoming one of those off-ramp towns you only stop in for gas or directions. The other problematic aspect of this was that now none of us would really have a viable excuse for unemployment to our parents any longer. There were enough crappy mall jobs for every burnout, stoner, and slacker within a fifty mile radius.

So, like just about everyone else, I got myself one of those crappy mall jobs. I knew I couldn’t handle something like Banana Republic or Starbucks so I only applied at the bookstores and record stores. Since the mall was still several weeks away from opening, there was no way to know if you were applying at one of the ‘cool’ record or bookstores or not. Luckily, when I got a call and went in for an interview at Dicken’s Books, I knew it would a cool bookstore, maybe cooler than I thought. The manager, Virginia was super cool and we rapped about Bukowski and Vonnegut and I knew I had the job when I walked out. The called the next day and I was set to start that Monday.

I worked at the information desk, which beat the hell out of being a cashier. My responsibilities consisted of telling moms and dads where the Tom Clancy books were, the sailors where the books about serial killers were, burnout teenagers where the Necronomicon and the Anarchist Cookbook were, and everyone else where Stephen King was (we used to call him “Steve King” to throw off the customers). It was a pretty banal existence but every now and then you’d get a really good customer you could really talk books with, or change someone’s choice from something crappy to something good.

This is also, much more importantly, where I met Ron. We worked together on the info desk, cracking on customers and changing book titles in the computer (“Tess of the Doobie Brothers”, “A Sale of Two Titties”), we’d end up howling with laughter in the middle of the store. Sometimes we’d prank call Ron’s insane, profane uncle on speakerphone and we spent hours and hours scanning customer lists for funny names.

Another thing I love about Ron is that he shared my love for funny names. There is simply nothing funnier than a truly unfortunate or bizarre name. We discovered names like Jesse Overall IV, Scarlett D. Poon, Madonna Compton, Jew Don Boney, Jr., Hartmut Heep, and David Smelly. We compiled list after list. [Ed. Note-As I type this, there is one of these lists still tacked to the bulletin board next to me and the first name on it is Lashley Wragg] [Ed. Note 2-The funniest name I’ve ever seen didn’t come from the Dicken’s lists, it was a customer who ordered a cd from a aplace I worked at later whose name was, prepare yourself: Dick Stroker! And, he lived on HANCOCK LANE! I swear! We called him and gave him some bullshit story about having a problem with his credit card, just to see if he was a real guy. And he was, “Yeah, this is Dick Stroker…” he drawled over the speakerphone. Dick Stroker. Fuckin’-a.

One day Ron came into work wearing a Misfits t-shirt. I asked if he liked punk rock, not knowing him too well yet IU expected the reply of a bunch of mall punk bands like the Sex Pistols or the Exploited. Ron almost knocked me out when he said he really didn’t like the Misfits, it was just the only clean shirt and that he was really more into bands like CRIMPSHRINE. Crimpshrine, holy shit! In those days the truest sign of being into good music was, to me, being into Crimpshrine. You couldn’t find Crimpshrine at the mall, heck you couldn’t even find Crimpshrine on CD! We noticed all the Lookout! bands referring to Crimpshrine and heard stories about how they’d toured in a VW bug and played garage sale equipment and knew we’d better check these guys out. And they were pretty much instantly our favorite band. The production was terrible, and it certainly did sound like they were playing on garage sale equipment, but the songs were among the best we’d ever heard. Sounded like they were from the suburbs, too.

Ron was easily the smartest person I’d ever met. Not smart in the I-went-to-a-state-college way, smart in a I-read-Voltaire-for-fun kinda way. He despised ignorance in any forum and would openly mock the stupid. He’s equal parts Noam Chomsky and Randall from “Clerks”. In addition to Dickens, Ron also worked at a pizza place in Trevor owned by a guy who used to be in the GEORGIA SATELLITES, which was super cool in my book; “Battleship Chains” is one of my all-time favorite songs. And, he’s the only person I’ve ever known to get shot in the head and lived to talk about it.

Matter of fact,not only did he live, he never even LOST CONCIOUSNESS!!! Gadzooks! Think about that, a .38 slug to the head, and the dude never even PASSED OUT! To make matters worse, when the paramedics cut off his clothes (which is standard procedure for a head wound, apparently), the local cops began to make fun of Ron’s genital piercing. He was able to laugh about it later; lying on the floor, blood pouring from a gunshot wound to the head while the local fuzz point and laugh at your rig (Ron’s term of choice, he once told me). Bummer.

He had been shot by accident by his stepbrother Brian, when he was fooling around with a gun they’d found in the house. Brian was a trip in his own right. There were all kinds of crazy stories about him, and I myself own a glossy 8X10 of him in the nude. One night Ron had come home and found him sitting around naked and asked if he could take a picture of him and Brian said yes. Little did he know that a few years later, he’d be driving around his hometown frantically pulling down hundreds of Lunkhead fliers prominently displaying his nakedness. It’s funny how life works.

LUNKHEADED

Part 9

At that time Mike, Pete and I were on a shoplifting bender the likes of which has never been seen since. We stole anything from anywhere. In fact, in addition to our everyday, run-of-the-mill thieving, we’d developed a shoplifting route of sorts we began to take every Sunday. We’d start at the record store then hit the comic book shop then hit the chain bookstore (I’d never steal from an independent bookstore-I’m not a fucking lowlife) to load up on the hardcovers we couldn’t afford and Club magazines.

One particular day Mike, Pete and I went to the aforementioned comic book shop and as soon as we parked Pete’s sweet-ass Mustang Mach II we got rushed by a phalanx of local cops who penned in the car like we were bankrobbers. There was that weird moment when they make you stew while they take their time getting out of their cars (I hate that moment) and we had a quick hushed conversation, quickly figuring out our only trouble spot would be the quarter of weed in the glove compartment. It was sort of a good news/bad news thing, because while the glove compartment WAS locked, the hinge that held it on on the bottom was gone and you could easily slip your hand in there. The cops strolled over and milled around the car, peering in and poking through the clutter with their nightsticks while one told Pete his plates were expired and he’d have to step out of the car. The other cops were silent, checking out me and Mike silently while we eyed them back silently. They took Pete and put him in back of one of the cars and one of the local cops, a younger, handsome dude who looked like he’d call you ‘champ’ leaned in and rested his forearms on the window.

“Anything in the glove compartment, fellas?” he asked, string me square in the face. I stared down at the glove compartment knob between my knees and got real warm.

“No, man. That’s broken. It’s been broken since we bought the car.” I said as evenly as I could.

“You his brother?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then why did you say ‘we’?”

Truth was, I didn’t know why I said we; everything was ‘we’ with us. I figured I’d keep it simple.

“We’re roommates. We share stuff.” I said.

He shot me a look. “Looks like it’s just locked.” He said, jiggling the knob.

”Yeah, we thought that, too, but the car didn’t come with a key for it.” I was ready for this contingency.

Supercop began to feel around under it, I was so nervous I was squirming involuntarily. He noticed the hinge defect and began to squeeze his fingers in. I could envision his fingertips brushing within millimeters of the plastic baggie of trouble. I had to act. I had only one shot: the Jedi Mind Trick.

“Dude!” I blurted, “You don’t wanna BREAK it!!!”

Time stood still.

The cop froze, his hand still halfway in the glove compartment, and slowly turned his head towards me.

“You’re right.” He said blankly, “I DON”T want to break it…” And extracted his hand.

I swear.

He turned his attention to the backseat and I could barely contain my orgasmic joy at having been the first person on record to Jedi Mind Trick a cop! I watched in the rear view mirror as Pete was released from the backseat of the cruiser he was in and handed back his wallet, giving us the tiniest of fist pumps. It was a good win for the freaks.

I could write a manual on shoplifting, but I won’t. That’s the kind of thing you just gotta learn for yourself. But, there are certain rules of shoplifting that needn’t be written down for even the most doltish of criminals. One of these, assuredly, would be: Do NOT draw any unnecessary attention to yourself! Our friend Ray lived to disprove this and often would just jump out of line at the grocery store or wherever and run screaming out the door, his arms full of Little Debbies’ and toilet paper. He had a dog that I’m pretty sure never in its life ate dog food that had actually been paid for.

Another rule probably is: Don’t recycle spots too much. The comic store parking lot fiasco was proof of that. Plus, the record store people were way onto us as well. They’d stare us down as we walked in, but every couple of weeks one of us would buy something little (trying to dig our wallets out of our pants pockets without dropping any of the cd’s stuffed up our sleeves) to keep them at bay. [Ed note: I once found there (and PAID FOR) the first LIFE SENTENCE lp. Score!} They had good used vinyl for a store in the suburbs, but was run by demonic yuppies. The type who drove Land Rovers with Grateful Dead stickers on them, so it wasn’t like, a moral dilemma, or anything. We’d stuff cd’s down our pants, stick vinyls in our waistbands, hide stuff near the door, grab and go, stage diversions; Sunday after Sunday. We never got caught, despite the pungent reek of marijuana and guilt, we never got caught. I retired soon after the comic store incident. With a perfect record.