Head Case
(Published in Jubilee City, 2005)

It was rainy and overcast as I drove up the long gravel driveway to David’s trailer house away from town in a secluded setting behind another house on the edge of a plateau on a few Acers of rocks, mud and short scruffy trees to see the damage.
David was about 28 and we were all about 16.
He was left behind. He was a childhood friend of my friend Danny’s big brother.
He worked for the phone company and spent most of his spare time going from doctor to doctor looking for one that would write him a prescription. He would settle for most anything.
Plus he was kind of mental. He said he heard voices and always acted silly and sometimes totally insane like the time in the crowded teenage arcade when he jumped up on a foosball table and acted and barked like a dog.
But we thought he was a lot of fun and we would laugh at him until we almost peed our pants. And he bought us booze and shared his drugs. He had this trailer we hung out at and took girls to that would rock in the wind sometimes nearly tipping over because it wasn’t tied down and that was funny too.
I was just there a few nights before when this kid named Kit Frank brought in a paper bag. It held a quarter full of yellow jacket barbituates that somebody stole or robbed from a pharmacy.
It felt like a pound.
That’s when the fun started.
But I didn’t stay because I was in trouble already.
And days later,
This is what I see.
His new trailer home has all the windows broken out and the front door is open. There are big dents all around it and in the mud in front are all the furnishings like his mattress and sofa and his clothes and pillows plus the wall to wall carpet are all outside in the rain.
This is what I was told happened;
They partied and kept taking those downs till they blacked out.
It was like flies on shit. Kids came out of the wood work and for once there were more than enough drugs.
It was a big crash and burn seen for days.
In that time a lot of damage had been done like David not showing up for work and losing his job and wrecking his car.
David didn’t have good refusal skills. So when tall Larry Hall and fat Jimmy Walker…. Showed up too late wanting drugs and David wouldn’t answer because he was scared to death of telling the two baddest speed freak criminals on the east side he didn’t have any more. He watched as they broke all his windows with cinderblocks and dented in the side of the trailer before they broke the door in when David ran out the back and hid in the bushes as they threw all his clothes out the door into the muddy yard. Then they tore up the furniture and threw it out too. Then they ripped up the wall to wall carpet and pulled it outside.
Mad about not finding the drugs fat Jimmy Walker turned on his younger side kick and slapped him and grabbed his arm and spun around twice ramming his head into the side of the trailer house leaving another big dent.

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