Today Oh No You Didnt is coming to me. I will attempt a strange internet push to write a collection of short stories that I am recalling from my past. I want to see if anybody likes a good short story with as much detail as necessary to convey the point. There will be colorful language and may not be suitable for all readers, but nothing to graphic.
Orange Volkswagen Great Escape (1984)
I had joined the Navy in 1982, went to boot camp in Orlando Fl., from there I transferred to Pensacola Fl. for a 9 month school to be a Cryptographer. Then it was to my duty station in Rota Spain. All these places I have been already and the one place I want to be is home. North Carolina, Fayetteville to be exact!
The 15 months I had been away from the Carolina blue felt like a lifetime. Spain was great, everything was cheaper there and I had it made it the shade. I was sick of the shade give me some Carolina Sun!
I left Rota Naval Air Station on a Thursday on the "Freedom Bird". A C-5 transport plane that carried passengers on the upper level. A huge fucking plane. The neatest thing was all the seats faced the rear of plane, gave flying a bit of a new experience. We touched down in Dover Delaware and I beat feet to the local airport to catch my connector to my beloved Fayetteville North Carolina! My family was waiting for me as I arrived and I was ready for two weeks of pure fun,
My parents lived in a sub-division off Raeford Rd. known as Aaron Lakes. I t was a nice congested neighborhood with a good mix of civilian and military folks living there. Fayetteville is the home of the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army . As we drove from the airport to my parents home I couldn't help but daydream of all the things I was going to do! How many friends will I see? Are there any new strip clubs? Who has done what and gone where? Being home held all kinds of possibilities, no hum drum crypto work, no set schedule for the first time in 15 months, I was ready to party!
The silver lining in the whole thing was that my Grandparents were also in town visiting my Mom and Dad. I had not seen them in a long time, a couple years maybe, and I always loved seeing them. My older brother was also in for a visit so the house was crowded until the bomb was dropped! My parents had to leave town for a conference and would be gone 4 days. So now it just Grandparents and Grandkids. Grown Grandkids!
My brother and I woke early Friday morning with plans to make. What would we do first? I was kinda tired and going to the bar scene all day was out of the question. So I asked him "What you thinkin we should do?" His reply was rapid and so off beat that I didn't have time to say no. "I just got this new pump action BB gun, we got a couple cases of Carling Black Label and some Jim Beam a little weed to start with and we will go down to the Cape Fear River, drink these beers, chug this whiskey, and shoot them cans as they float down the river!" Fucking genius, that is what my older brother is. He had thought of everything, well everything except we were not the only two people on planet Fayetteville that day.
We loaded everything into the car. The gun, BB's, beer, whiskey and weed. Check our pocket money for gas and miscellaneous spending and the Bright Orange Volkswagen was ready to roll Its just past noon when we pull out onto Raeford Rd , a four lane, that will take us to 401 by pass where we are turning right on Skibo road. In 1984 Skibo was a 2 lane road that had a few sub-divisions that were on the right and nothing but woods to the left as you were heading east. This being important because the way we were headed all traffic from these housing areas will be pulling across or into our lane. The speed limit was 45 and my brother and I had already begun to enjoy the great taste of Black Label and the warm sweetness of Jim Beam. Catching up on old times and new things, my driving was certainly distracted!
The thing about Skibo being a 2 lane was that only lasted a couple miles until it widened to accommodate a bridge overpass that ran over the All_American express way. At the end of the bridge on the right side of the road there was a local fire station and the road continued 2 lanes to the next stop light at McPherson Church road. These factors play heavily into the shit storm that is about to erupt because I was not watching the road.(Forget the beer,whiskey and weed).
As my brother and I continued our conversation about new girls, whose the better shot, whose the better shot drunk? You understand all the important shit. A moment of sanity, and I took my eyes off my brother in time to see the biggest bluest Caprice Classic pulling right out in front of the orange Volkswagen, oh shit, evasive maneuvers, I pulled the wheel hard to the right sending us off the side of the road into the gravel and grass, amazingly I was able to recover and get the car back on the road! The both of us shaken and PISSED could only be the reason for what we did next!
"Pull up next to that motherfucker when we get to the bridge!" my brother demanded
"Leave it alone." I said "Nothing good can come of this!"
"I don't want anything good to come from it, just get alongside that bastard!"
I accelerated the little bug to pull alongside the huge Caprice, he in the outside lane me on the inside, As the cars pull about even my brother pulls the BB gun rifle out of the backseat and lays it across my arms holding the steering wheel and points it at the man driving the Caprice, The driver was a huge Black man whom had turned white as a ghost, I guess from his perspective we were pointing a real rifle at him and he was scared! He slammed on his breaks. skidding to a halt in the middle of the bridge. We continued over the bridge laughing our ass off when we looked to the right at the Fire Station and two Fayetteville cops were enjoying a door to door chat, and much to our dismay the Caprice was waving the police officers to his location at the entrance to the Fire Station!
Oh shit we are in it now! Gonna try and out run the cops in Orange Volkswagen loaded down with beer, liqueur and some buds, Brilliant! At the intersection of McPherson Church and Skibo going straight reduces down to another two lane with side streets galore, maybe we had a chance! We immediately began hurling beer cans whiskey bottles and herb out the windows. Traveling at a high rate of bug speed we managed to duck into a side street and then another and parked the car there and waited and waited. Thirty minutes has passed and no sigh of the cops. Had we done it? We were so fucking full of ourselves. We fought the law and the law lost! Yeah MotherFuckers!
Decision time was upon us. What do we do? Take this as a sign and go home or think our luck was just in the right place to shrug it off and look for other things to do. I guess you have figured out that we choose luck! We had ditched all the beer, whiskey and weed. We felt safe and thirsty! My Brother said "Lets go to O'Brians and have a drink." that sounded good, I was still a bit nervous. So we cranked up the ORANGE Bug and proceeded to drive through the neighborhood till we arrived back on Raeford road and turned left to hit the watering hole.
Much to our amazement there was a heavy police presence on this stretch of road and Oh my god they were all apparently looking for an ORANGE VOLKSWAGEN BUG! There must have been 15 of them all turning on their lights and sirens as soon as they saw the car. No place to go but our intended objective, the bar. I pulled into the parking lot and we were greeted with every car with a door open guns drawn and the speaker telling us to "Show us Your hands!" Now it was "Get out of the car slowly, and lay flat on your belly, hands behind your head!" Oh shit I am home on leave from the Navy its my second day in town and I am in a shit storm. I holler at my brother "Mark, what are we gonna do?" "Shut up!" was his only response. We were handcuffed and brought to our feet and asked "Are there any weapons in the car?" Fuck. I knew we forgot to ditch something, my brothers precious BB gun! My brother says "I guess that would mean your idea of a weapon."
"OK smartass can I search the vehicle?"
"Yes, but start in the trunk, there is a BB gun in there."
"Thats it? No other weapons or contraband?"
"No Sir." I replied
"Shut Up!" from my brother again
The next thing I heard was "You are both under arrest, we will be taking you downtown!"
My ass was in a knot not to mention my stomach, I was fucked royal here! I had a top secret security clearance and a career in the Navy gettin ready to be blown to shit! They put my brother and I in the same room before questioning and we got our story straight. The great thing about brothers, they always gonna protect you. He told me "You did not know what I was going to do, I acted alone you had to drive the car or wreck so I am taking the heat on this and that's it!" I would like to say I argued his points, but I didnt and so it went. The cops let me go with no charges and charged my brother with Brandishing a firearm and released him on his own recognizance. It was a long walk back tp our car so we asked the police if they would be so kind and to my surprise they obliged.
The night was still quite young, so we went into O'Brian's for that long awaited cocktail. As we entered the front door we were ambushed by astonished folks wanting to know what kinda criminal activity we were involved in? A little embellishment and some high fives and my brother and I didn't pay for a single drink the rest of the night.
I look back now some 30 years later and try to find some moral to this story, but fuck its just lucky, funny and a bit of chicanery that is wasted on youth. I don't want to do it again but I'm glad its a story with my brother that I will always cherish.
Written by "The BigBadAssBone"
