10 April 2012

Alive with Pleasure: Spring Break 1982




In 1982, GM was a word. "Geeyem." Like someone from Georgia says, "Jim." This one was a Buick deuce and a quarter. A white hunk of fat Detroit steel that made a trip one Spring Break from St Augustine to Daytona Beach with four friends.

Troyer drove the chariot. Golden haired and Aryan, none of us in the car that night knew he was gay. Some of us still don't. A cold case of canned Schaffer shared the back seat with Fusco and Beaudoin. None of us knew Fusco would wind up a screenwriter and producer -- although none of us would've bet against him. Movie star looks but amazingly cheap...he was pre-ordained for Hollywood success.

Beaudoin sat next to Fusco chasing raisins from a generic one pound box with beer. Brillo headed and bearded, the war in El Salvador was excuse for six hours of his indignant Boston accented argument that the Monroe Doctrine was the ultimate evil.

I'm riding shotgun and have to take a leak. Troyer offers to pull over on a stretch of darker-than-the-inside-of-a-goat, I-95. "No need." I say. Wise old man of the car, I explain how I pissed in cans during Army convoys while, "you fuckers were starting ninth grade." I open a beer can with a P38 on my key chain and pull down the fly on 30/30 khakis. I stick my dick in the can careful to avoid the sharp edges.

Success as I fill the can but seconds later feel warm pee covering my khakis. "No problem unless you piss more than 12 ounces," I say and fling the can out the window not knowing the back window is down. Not remembering all the windows are down in the white Detroit slab-o-steel Troyer's mom should be driving.

"Fuck, Tinseth!" Fusco screams as my nephron unit (thanks, Dr. Lardner) formation strikes him head and chest. Beaudoin, slow to catch on, thinks its raining for at least five seconds before a handful of piss-misted raisins are digested. Troyer, of course, laughs.

I spend the rest of the trip holding khakis out the car window at 70mph in an attempt to dry the large stain on my crotch. My friends. And they have remained friends... are tolerant. Like friends who get pissed on always are.

30 comments:

Wallace Stroby said...

What a heartwarming story. Glad I missed that one.

tintin said...

Wallace- I'll get you eventually.

Anonymous said...

Now see, here's this little story swimming along (pun intended) when all of a sudden you spill the beans and "out" your friend. I bet he'll be pissed when he learns about this...

-DB

Jeff P. said...

Troyer - hmmm, didn't know that.

tintin said...

DB- he's been out a while.

tintin said...

Jeff- I always wondered about you.

stephen said...

Good song, great story. I bet the rest of the trip was a success.

notanymore said...

I can't say I've ever experienced a spring break like that... Best Spring Break I had was New Orleans, 2004. Before Katrina. I went there for a drill meet. Hundreds of midshipmen running around New Orleans drinking and smoking cigars. Nothing quite so insane as pissing all over my shipmates, but I think we pissed in a few corners of the French Quarter. That was probably illegal now that I think about it...

Oh, yeah, and we placed higher than the team from Annapolis. We didn't win, but we sure took pride in that.

Michael Rowe said...

Aweso.....Capital piece, Tintin old chap.

Jeff P. said...

"Jeff- I always wondered about you."

HaHa, that's probably because of my affinity with mens clothing (insert sarcastic smiley face here).

Anonymous said...

"DB- he's been out a while." Thirty years? I pretty much guessed that was the case. Just the usual questionable humor on my part...

Fun story.

-DB

Alice Olive said...

Classic!

Hmm, women just don't bond in quite the same way. (Well, not in my experience anyway.)

tintin said...

Kionon- My father told the story of a Special Forces NCO who climbed up the rafters of the SF Club in Nha Trang and took a crap over a ceiling fan.

Rowe- Thanks. I'm thinking this video could be the inspiration for my first novel.

Jeff P. & DB- Fusco told me he came out 20 yrs ago. I don't care if he fucks Coke machines.

Alice- I wouldn't think so. Although Kitty has always stuck me as a little kinky.

Anonymous said...

Most of what these guys are wearing will show up in Gant's next Summer line.

Alice Olive said...

Tintin: Yes, I can't resist your bait. Kittie and I bonded over champagne and fabulous shoes, with many sessions at NoMI's bar. Nothing kinky about that.

Anonymous said...

I am writing from Athens, outside of Atlanta, and I can assure you that "Jim" is not pronounced "Geeyem" here in Georgia. It is pronounced "Jim Bob." Thank you.

Makaga said...

Great piece, Tintin

Heidi R. said...

I was eleven. My Dad worked for Dupont and, in partnership with GM, developed and patented the silver paint used on cars today. I spent my youth in parking lots outside Detroit, waiting not so patiently while he stared at the finish on cars like yours. Now, I'm 41, and I pick up your story as any refined woman would - with rubber gloves and a shudder of relief that I never had sons.

The Sluice Box said...

Enjoyed reading the story. I may have to relent and buy that song, which has now been running through my head all day.

Michael Rowe said...

What a depressingly middle-class comment, Heidi.

Trailer Trad said...

Mike Rowe,

Just because you do Ford commercials doesn't mean you have to hate on Heidi's touching GM story.

Heidi said...

What was truly middle class about it was what I left out - that he drank himself to death five years later. And aren't Vampire novels the new middle class?

Heidi said...

OK, you have to delete my comment about the vampire novels. That was rude of me. I have a day job (heidirettig.com) that makes me feel like I've already seen it all.

tintin said...

Alice- Not unless you were only wearing shoes and drinking champagne. In which case, I need to be there for the photo opp.

Anon 15:07 -So much honesty from the land of red and black polyester.

Heidi- I think that's understandable. I remember my ex-wife getting very upset whenever I used her Clinique face soap in the shower. Have no idea why other than she was a woman... and, didn't like the little hairs I left on the soap.

Michael Rowe- I don't think most adult women are looking to have pee thrown on them. I understand there are some who do but they are in the minority. Remember, it's live and let live around here. And no utterance of, aweso$#.

Heidi- You're too young to have seen everything. Talk to me when you're 50. I haven't forgotten about the Ylang Ylang.

Michael Rowe said...

I hadn't realized that appreciating the writing of this post was an expression of desire to have pee thrown on one. In that case, I retract my compliments and just thank God that I never had sons. Especially ones questionable aim when it comes to peeing in cans in moving cars. At least the khakis were probably 100% cotton.

And Heidi, no, vampire novels are not the new middle class. They're the same old middle class they always have been. Except Twilight, which is the new low-prole class.

Heidi said...

There is a powerful connection between divorce and leaving little hairs on the soap. I'm sorry she never got past Clinique, though. There are so many far more wonderful kinda soaps out there.

I'm going to buy your book, Michael, and give it to my sister who is the ultimate vampire reader (but not Twilight.) According to her, I didn't mean to be a bitch, though I have been one for several weeks now, truth be told. It would be boring and middle class to explain why. If it's any consolation, I never had any children, with any of my husbands.

GSV JR said...

Yeah yeah yeah. But can you shit in a Gatorade bottle while doing 85 in a Dodge Dart headed towards Gulf Shores? I thought not.

Michael Rowe said...

How anyone could have resisted siring a brood of Heidlets with you is beyond me. Thank you for your kind intentions regarding my brilliant first novel (which Barnes and Noble called the best vampire novel of the year, but anyway....) and FYI I never thought you were a bitch, at least not in a bad way. The ways in which you likely are a huge bitch comprise many of the attributes I find most attractive in my friends. Look at Mr. Tin, for instance: did ever a bigger male bitch trouble daylight? And yet I hang onto the edge of his every word. Lack of that type of bitchiness is too middle-class to be borne, and I just...can't. That's why God made Rotary Clubs and sewing circles.

tintin said...

M Rowe- Army issue 8.2 oz. Took 30 miles to dry. What happened to Mummy Movies. Haven't seen a good one since Johnny Quest.

Heidi- I'm too middle class and American to read. Fortunately there's an audio version of Michael's book.

GSV- do you throw the bottle out the window? No, you don't. Your missing the whole point of this story.

M Rowe- i'm so happy you kids were able to make up. And you sold a book. My inner bitch is screaming with joy and looking for for a new Villeroy & Boch pattern...all at the same time.

GSV JR said...

Cutting a turd into a bottle mouth and tinkling into an aluminum can are opposite spectral ends for cromagnonry. Ditto for throwing the turd bottle at the driver and throwing the tinkle can out the window.

Crom laughs at you, Tinseth.