The Final Chapter
Well gang, this will be a wrap in the Nasty John saga. I could have filled ten episodes with the stories I could share, but it’s time to move on. Fast forward. Things changed drastically over the Summer. Our dorm, McKneely Hall was torn down, our housing request to room together was unanimously and vehemently denied by the university and we were assigned to separate dorms on opposite sides of the campus. The roommates they assigned us were tools. There was no way they were putting up with more crap from us. Those bastards! After an uneventful semester on campus, Randy, John and I decided to get an off-campus apartment. That’s where the fun continued.
Randy
“True friends stab you in the front.” – Oscar Wilde
I would be remiss if I ended this saga without elaborating further on our good friend Randy. The Nasty John saga would not have been the same without his ridiculous and ludicrous participation and agreement to go along with everything we suggested. Randy, like John, was a photographer for the school paper. He was obsessed with the band KISS, chemical experimentation and wreaking havoc with John and I. Randy was part of our regular running crew and was present for most of the catastrophic events we caused. As stated above, he eventually became our roommate when we moved into our off-campus apartment. One night, John, Randy and I were driving around looking for somewhere we could get in trouble. We were running low on fuel so we stopped to fill-up at a local Raceway gas station. While we were gassing-up, John and I hatched a scheme to get some free alcohol. We told Randy to go smoke a cigarette away from the gas pumps near the outdoor beer display. Back then, gas stations would stack cases of beer outside the store that were “On Special.” The plan was that when we were finished gassing-up and paying, we would give Randy the signal and he would grab a case of beer, run to the car, get in and we would haul ass. We gave the signal. Randy stomped out his cigarette, looked over his shoulder to see if the cashier was looking, then grabbed a case of beer and started running towards the car. As he awkwardly approached our vehicle, that’s when John and I jumped in the car and drove off, leaving Randy standing in the middle of the gas pumps with a stolen case of beer. Knowing he was in deep shit, he tried to think of his next move. There was Randy, his feet moving up-and-down in a side-to side jogging motion, head looking left and right, like a leprechaun doing an Irish jig or someone who was about to crap their pants. Making his final decision, he dropped the beer and took-off running. John and I drove around for a couple of hours, drinking beer and giving some time for the police to get their statements and clear out. As we drove back near the store, a darkened, hairy blur came flying out of the woods, across a ditch and dove onto the hood of the car. It was Randy. He’d been hiding in the woods for two hours, covered in mosquito bites, briar scratches and pissed off to high heavens. He said that the police drove by shining their spot lights in the woods and almost caught him. We gave him a cold beer and he was fine. We all had a good laugh (except Randy). How he stayed our friend I’ll never know.
Horticultural Heists
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Throughout their college career, both John and Randy had a strong interest in Botany. Sorry, let me clarify. They weren’t interested in studying Botany, just stealing plants. Case in point…The Great Bubby Harvest. Another reminder…Bubby is the friend we left in Florida after “borrowing” his truck to drive home to Louisiana (and) almost had him arrested on terrorist charges on the roof of a dorm. Bubby would always brag about how his cousin operated this big pot farm hidden in the woods somewhere around Tickfaw, LA. We would always tell Bubby he was full of shit and it would really piss him off. Finally, John and Randy bet Bubby $ 20 he was lying. Knowing he would not be able to function in life until he proved them wrong, Bubby said “Bet accepted! I’ll show you the farm!” He reacted exactly as John and Randy expected. Bubby fulfilled his end of the bet and with a brand new air of confidence and feeling vindicated, smugly collected his $ 20. Two days later I entered my room to a strange but familiar smell, a whirring noise coming out of my closet and my hang-up clothes strewn on my bed. When I opened the closet door there were numerous four-foot tall pot plants hanging from the clothes rod, several blow dryers running and a space heater. Under the bed were pillow cases stuffed with additional plants that were waiting their turn to be dried. John and Randy had conducted a night raid on the pot farm and carried as many marijuana plants back with them as humanly possible. Now common sense would dictate that stealing pot plants from an active drug dealer could have got John and Randy in a lot of trouble (and possibly shot). When asked why they took such a ridiculous risk, Randy clearly articulated, “Because we got all this pot for $ 20!”
The most classic display of impaired stupidity occurred on a Saturday night. I had started dating Celina at this time and she was still in a dorm, but was a regular visitor at our off-campus apartment. Sometime during the day, John and Randy got drunk, high or both and were driving by a Home Depot that was having an outdoor garden sale. Randy was particularly intrigued because apple trees were on sale. When later asked why he was so intrigued by these trees Randy candidly stated “I love apples.” We think he just had the munchies and apples sounded good at the time. I’m not sure what they did the rest of the day, but I do know the result. When Celina and I arrived at the apartment Sunday around noon to drop off my stuff, we opened to door to find the entire apartment filled with apple trees. It was like walking through the Garden of Eden only it smelled like dirty underwear and stale beer. Almost every square inch of the living room was filled with foliage and I could barely make my way to my bedroom. The only thing missing in the apartment was Randy and John. After dropping Celina’s laundry and other stuff at her dorm, we returned back to the apartment to try to figure out what was going on. When we got there, Randy and John were finally there and looked like hell. I asked them “What the hell happened to you?” In unison they replied “We got arrested.” “Doing what?” I asked. “Stealing apple trees from Home Depot.” And then Randy asked one of the most random, unexpected questions I’ve ever been asked. “Do you guys like them?”
One of the explanations they gave as to why they would do something so stupid and reckless was that they though it would be funny when Celina and I walked in and saw all of the trees. Apparently what eventually got them caught was that after making several back-and-forth runs to abscond trees, Randy’s car broke down on the final run. There they sat in Randy’s white Ford Mustang, in the Home Depot parking lot with the rear bumper sagging due to the weight of the trees protruding from the trunk. His car looked like a white lab rat crapping stalks of celery. When the police pulled up and hit their lights, they told Randy and John to step out of the vehicle. They complied. When the police officer asked them what in the hell they were doing, John told them “We were trying to return these trees but the store is closed.” Not a good excuse at 11:00pm. They were subsequently arrested, booked and bailed out of jail the next morning by our Director of Publications, Rick.
Community Service
“It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.” – Mahatma Ghandi
Fortunately, thanks to Rick’s vouching for Randy and John and the raw stupidity of their motives, the police realized that their actions did not have any major criminal intent, but there would still be consequences. I can’t recall the actual sentence but I do remember it involved some fines, probation and community service. By some miracle of fate, I found out where John and Randy were preforming community service on a particular afternoon. Possessing this knowledge, I gathered some of our mutual friends, loaded up in the car, grabbed some beer and headed towards the work site. As we approached the work crew picking up trash on the median, we singled out both John and Randy wearing their neon orange work vests carrying their government-issued trash gigs, rakes and plastic bags. As we drove by, we flung the empty beer cans we’d been drinking along with several Burger King bags full of trash in front of them yelling “You missed a spot asshole!” John & Randy were furious, flipping us off while cursing us the entire time. As we made a U-turn and were headed back for our second trash deposit, there they were waiting for us, rakes and gigs at the ready looking like Captain Ahab waiting to harpoon Moby Dick. As we came within distance they launched their tools through the air sailing towards us like track star javelins. Some sailed high while others hit their mark, cracking a windshield and pummeling and gouging paint from the hood and sides of our vehicle. This carried on for 10 – 12 minutes until we had run over their tools so many times they had to resort to throwing trash and mooning us. The passing traffic wasn’t quite sure why there was an angry young man, wearing an orange vest, with a broken gig and a rake, holding a plastic bag, bearing his ass on Main St. We laughed all the way home. Sadly, this brush with the law was one of the last acts of stupidity that I can recall being committed by our crew. It is a bittersweet memory.
Growing Up
As the saying goes, “All good things must come to an end.” Time passed. I met a girl. John met a girl. We matured? Over time we started spending more time apart. We both moved on in our lives to find ourselves, start careers, get married and basically get caught up in the high-speed chase of life that consumes your time, priorities and in some cases, friendships. Sadly, I haven’t spoke to John in 36 years. Over the years, I thought about him constantly and wondered how he was doing and how his life had turned out. I made many attempts to locate him. I networked common friends, searched LinkedIn, Facebook and the internet for him, all with zero results. I’m ashamed to say I even searched obituaries for him. I just wanted to know he was O.K. The guy was a ghost.
It’s amazing how such a simple act as writing a blog can have such an incredible impact. When I decided to write about the Nasty John days, I did one final search for John online. Again, I didn’t find any contact information for him. What I did find though was a picture…a picture of him! Holy shit! Yes, he was alive and quite well. Fast forward to the next week. While reading my blog, a good friend of mine Gina contacted me and said “I have John’s phone number! You should call him!” Uhhh..holy shit. After working up the courage to dial the number, I got his voicemail. Then I texted him saying who I was and could we talk. John and I talked that evening for the first time in 36 years. In way too short of a time, we recanted our lives over the past many years. We shared our successes, failures, celebrations, tragedies and talked about our past days in college together. Both of us agreed that if we had the chance to apologize to everyone we had wronged (especially Bubby) we would do so in a heartbeat. So as I close this chapter, let me share something that may surprise you about John. Given the crazy-assed antics I wrote about in the first three episodes, what do you think he’s up to today? Well, he is CEO of his own company, he’s a nurse practitioner and provides in-home comfort, mercy and medical care to patients (many of them elderly) who are unable to leave their homes. Surprised? This just goes to prove the old saying, “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
Lastly, I’d like to share some advice that I’ve learned first hand. Firstly, hold on to your memories, even if they aren’t the most acceptable. You might not be proud of them, but it’s part of what made you who you are today. Secondly, try harder. Don’t let 36 years pass to find out what your good friend has been doing his entire life.
Hot Jeremiah 