COUCH MATINEES

The party was in Pennsylvania...a small town in the middle of nowhere. The summer had been going great. Working as a life guard at the local pool, the tan was a solid bronze and he had met a few nice ladies (girls) who admired him more for the fact that he was a lifeguard then his looks.

At 19, who cared why they liked him, all he cared about was he had dates most night of the week.

So, back to the party...he was meeting his friends in Westchester at Jamie's house. They were all planning on driving together and planned to have some fun before even getting to the party. There was Gary, who had come down from upstate NY and they were going in his car...Jamie and his girlfriend Nikki, Paul, Val and CJ, the lifeguard. 6 of them in that big old Buick. It would be tight, but hey...summer...fun...booze and some weed and what more can you want in life.

As they left Jamie's house, they stopped at the local deli and picked up 3 cases of beer...didn't want to run out or anything, did they?

Now, the question was, who was going to drive out of the city? Gary had already been smoking a few on his own, so he didn't want to be the chauffer. Paul took the wheel...they must have been young and stupid for sure! SO, they had Paul driving, and Gary in the center and CJ was in the shotgun seat. In the back, Jamie, Nikki and Val behind the driver.

Joints lit, beers open, they are off on their adventure. They drove down the NY Thruway and took the ramp to the George Washington Bridge. As they are getting to the other side (THE JERSEY SIDE), CJ looks up and sees Paul is in the wrong lane and has taken the wrong off-ramp. "Paul, we were supposed to be over there" CJ shouts and everyone groans.
"No problem", is Paul's reply and he cuts the wheel to the right and heads for one of those openings in the guard rail. You know, the opening that is just barely wide enough to let a car go straight through and Paul was going to try and cut the angle.

Horns blare as Paul cuts across two lanes of traffic and then, miraculously, through the guard rail. As they get through, CJ looks to his right and sees the Winnebago barreling down on them and begins to see his 19 years flash in front of his eyes. He can barely hear Nikki's scream above Paul's insane laugh as Paul cuts across two more lanes of traffic and hits the exit ramp at over 60 miles per hour...tire squeeling.

Paul continues laughing, but everyone is now shouting about what an insane lunatic he is and that there was no way he was going to continue driving. They made Paul pull over and Jamie got behind the wheel and Paul slid in the back on the drivers side, putting Val on the hump (which he complained about until someone shoved another beer and a joint into his mouth) with Gary moving into the back next to the passenger window and Nikki taking the middle seat between CJ and Jamie.

Jamie hadn't been drinking, so they felt a bit more comfortable with him behind the wheel. Everyone continued to slam down beers and a joint was in constant circulation over the next few hours. It had gotten dark and they were almost to the NJ/Pennsylvania border. They were going to cross at the Phillipsburg/Easton crossing. One of their fraternity brothers lived in Phillipsburg, but there was not room for Corky, so they kept driving.

It is now near midnight as they cross into Easton, PA and from the back seat comes a groan, alerting them all to an unpleasent possibility.

The blast of air in the car alerted them to the fact that Paul had rolled down the window (yes, a crank not an electric window), and Paul's head was outside and the sounds of him depositing his share of the beer onto the highway could be heard.

Almost immediately, another sound was heard...the sound of the police cruiser that had pulled out from behind the gas station they had just passed! "Everyone hide the joints!" Gary shouted.

Jamie pulled into a parking lot and the cruiser follwed them in. The officer, a local Easton cop, not a Pennsylvania trooper, climbed out of his car and made his way to the drivers window.

Jamie rolled down his window, "Evening officer, was I speeding?" "No, son, but your friend was decorating the side of your car and the road with his vomit...is he ok?"

"Yes, sir, we are sorry, we are on our way to a party in Hamburg and, well, Paul had a few drinks before we left and got car sick."

"I see, well show me your license and everyone else, how about some ID" was the office's response. Jamie pulled out his license and the rest grabbed theirs and handed them over. In the back seat Paul opens the door and barfs again.

"This your car son?" asked the officer. From the back, Gary replies, "No sir, it is mine."
"Can I see the registration."

Gary says to CJ in the front, "Hey it is in the glove compartment." So CJ opens the glove box and starts rumbling through it. "Can't find it Gary."

Gary opens the back door and as he does the cop comes around to the passenger side. As Gary opens the front passenger door about 8 beer cans come tumbling on to the pavement. You see the beer cans were so high on the floor, CJ's feet were on the cans and not the floor by that point.

The officers light shines down and a small shake of his head can be seen. "Been doing some drinking?" he looks up and says.

"Well sir, we are all from the same college, the same fraternity in fact, except for Nikki, and we are on our way to a big summer bash, and well...I guess we started a bit too early" answers CJ.

"Same college, huh?" says the officer. "Yes sir" and they all grabbed their college IDs and hand them to him.

In the meantime, Gary is rummaging through the glove compartment as he leans into the car. "Where is that registration?" he mumbles and reaches, once more for his wallet. As he opens it, a joint tumbles out. Gary, thinking quickly, proceeds to dump the entire contents of his wallet on top of the joint, grabbing the regsitration, which had been in the wallet the whole time, and hands that to the officer. Gary and CJ, proceed to bend over and pick up the beer cans, the papers and silently, the joint and throw it all into the car and the glove compartment.

The officer looks at all the licenses and IDs and the registration and straightens himself up to his full 6'4" height and flashes his light into the car once more.

From the front, CJ smiles and says "Officer, Jamie has not been drinking the whole time, which is why he is driving sir." The officer says "Is that right?"

From the car comes a chorus of "YES SIR!" Except for Paul who is barfing on the side of the road once again.

As he hands all the paperwork and IDs to Gary, the officer looks into the car again and says...

"I suggest you use that dumpster over there to get rid of all of these empties and also not make any more empties before you reach your destination...you never know if you might get stopped by a cop."

He touches his hat with his fingers and walks back to his car and drives off.

They all sit there in silence...until the first giggle starts and then the entire group is in an uproar laughing. They did empty the car, they didn't drink another beer until they reached Hamburg and the rest of the weekend was a blast...but NOTHING they did that weekend compared to that 10 minutes on the side of the road in Easton, PA.

An Original Work Of Fiction Copyright 2006 VEMjr

Any resemblance to actual people living or dead is purely coincidental - well, maybe not so coincidental, but ssssssssssh
Originally Published On 8/29/06