It was late May right around final exam week and the sun had just begun to thaw out the tundra that was encompassing the rolling hills of Oneonta, New York.

Women no longer looked like they were bee keepers lining up for the vote in Iraq and men, well, their testicles hung low.

Vitamin D fueled the wave of energy, and in my honest opinion the power of sun is the cause of the entire saga that I will explain to you.

It was the time, it was the season, and everyone was coming out of their hibernation dens. People you never knew existed were slothing out from everywhere. Hippies roamed the campus basking in their false sense of well being; monsters in tank tops stomped about campus trying to entice floosies who wore skirts up to their eyes.

It was like the flood had ended and all God’s deformed creations were slogging out to flock towards the sun. The stage was set for something dangerous to happen, the hung-over grey afternoons and bone chilling winter had ceased and mischievous deviance was in the air.

My buddies and I also followed the magnetic pull of the sun and went out in front of our dormitory named Matteson Hall. In the beginning our attitudes were mild and innocent. We tossed around a lax ball and booted a soccer ball; we were the G-rated fun that SUNY Oneonta wished they could take a picture of and put on the next campus newsletter.

Of course, they were wrong, we weren’t G-Rated, we were NC-17, XXX, a Peter North box office smash. We were the modern day villains, a rare blend of Nicholson from Batman and Hopper from Easy Rider. As the day progressed into night this side would rear its ugly head.

After awhile we developed a quenching for some booze and weeds. These were everyday vitamins of the soul and we knew the outcome would only lead to a little rowdiness and some Dominoes pizza. The X- factor in the equation was that we planned to abuse these substances around a huge bonfire next to the state owned lands which were adjacent to a reservoir.

Sounds fun right? It was fun, a lot of god damn fun.

The band of miscreants that agreed to trek towards the reservoir included me, my roommate Miles Ross, my Ex- roommate Mark Magaril (sold out to creating steel art and transferred to Rhode Island School of Design) and Tom Tupa (better known as “Crazy Tom,” or TJ). Tom Tupa is not my real friend’s name but I will not reveal it because he was the only one to escape the horrors that we would encounter later on in the night.

We packed Mark’s ‘97 black Honda Accord with a bevy of products that included three 30 packs of Keystone light, three blunts, and some lighter fluid. As we arrived at the reservoir I had a tingling in my bones and felt that I could drink a gorilla’s portion of booze.

I wasted no time and swigged down three funnels as soon as we parked the car. I let out a huge belch that shook nature’s core and then proceeded to follow the trail towards our campsite. Crazy Tom Tupa was an accomplished outdoorsman who had spent time in Alaska cutting trail; he was the lively pulse behind the fire. Soon enough he had created a giant blaze and the mood was set for insanity.

We ravaged into the three 30 packs like liberals at a SHUT DOWN INDIAN PLANT bake sale. We were all getting tanked around this fire drinking way too much and smoking like Marley. As the night drew closer and closer to darkness, everyone’s soul followed suit until we reached the abyss that was as opaque and dangerous as the embers of the charcoal seething beneath the fire.

The beer was soon long gone and I would testify in City Court that I drank 20 Keystones that night all from a funnel.

I do not tell a lie Judge, I do not tell a lie.

Everything was becoming a blur and the fire was growing bigger and bigger by the moment. If anything were to go wrong, we could easily use the reservoir and archaic irrigation methods to put it out.

This made me feel safe enough.

After the beer was kicked we became very hungry and Miles and Magaril ventured off to get hot dogs while I remained at the fire with Tom Tupa. Miles has the tale of the journey with Mark.

MILES’ WORDS:
Mark drove and I rode shot gun.

Excited, just to cruise, I juiced up Magaril’s disc-man/tape-deck sound system. My thoughts ran high on emotions as the music filled the air. Magaril pointed his nose down the road and pressed his foot on the gas peddle.

When the desolate country road gave way to familiar surroundings, my thoughts came back to me.

I spoke to Mark over the music. “What are we getting again?”

Before he could muster an answer to my question, which seemed to come from a far off place, I already stated the purpose of our mission, “Oh yeah, the hot dogs and buns and shit.”

I left the “shit” in there because it was an open ended mission. But what we had was not what we needed and what we needed was ahead.

We drove up onto campus and scurried to the common room, the base of our mission. It felt comfortable to be back but we needed to scramble and gather what we could. Lost in the warmth our homely common area, we gathered more than we needed or maybe not enough. But through our motions my eyes locked with those in Mark’s head and we knew we had to leave.

The rest of them were waiting, out there. So, with the hotdogs and hotdog buns among what we had chosen to bring back we traversed our path back to the fire. When we got back to the flame lit area the men still stood and around them mostly empty beer cans were littered.

AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL BACK

“It’s CRAZYYYYYYY MANNNNNNNNNN!!!!” Someone shouted as we smoked a huge blunt on a broken down shack overhanging the reservoir. We looked up at the stars professing about extra terrestrial life and other stoned interplanetary banter. This lasted ehhhhh possibly 25 minutes and then we descended from the shack still thirsty for more action. I felt weightless under 15 pounds of beer sloshing in my stomach and was up for anything. We needed MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE ACTION MOTHER FUCKERS! Action is what we wanted and WOOOOOOOOO action is what we got.

Awhile back—say two years ago—I had purchased some professional fireworks from Sickoville, Delaware. The place I bought them is not too important and you can read Frank Andolina’s “Southern Living,” article to get an idea of the setting.

These fireworks were beastly, the kind the Gotti’s got their hands on for their infamous firework shows in New York City. The fireworks came with one single tube and many upon many three round shots of mortars that exploded in a variety of colors ranging from Blue Cherry with palm and Red Cherry with palm. There was also a special shot that only crackled to add a spine straightening effect.

After the fire crackled out I informed my friends that I had these fireworks and we all decided that tonight, during campus wide quiet hours would be the only time to use them.

We all staggered into Marks’ car like cattle waiting to be slaughtered. Mark sped home fast and we approached the dorm ready for madness. We grabbed the fireworks and put them in a bag and headed directly outside our dorm room to light the first one off. Crazy Tom—because he is crazy—was in charge of lighting. He took the lighter and CKKKKKKKKKKK TSSSSSSSSSSSSS BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The firework was a thing of beauty and it could be seen miles away high in the clear crisp night. The fireworks were like drugs, once we exploded that first mortar we only wanted MORE, MORE, MORE!

We changed positioning to the side of the dorm and lit off another, same result, same elation. Next, we decided that we needed a prime spot where the rest of the sleeping souls of Oneonta could be awakened to the magical show. We chose directly in front of Mills dining hall which is smack in the middle of the main quad. Four dorms surround it and people were sure to see it.

CKKKKKK TSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

It was crazy, we saw lights turning on in dorm room windows people rushing and bustling about, and then…our worst fear…a shining police light.

The next thing we heard was, “HEY! PUT YOUR WEAPONS DOWN!”

We saw the cops running towards us, guns drawn. We looked at each other and sprinted down over a grassy slope and then over a rock wall. Miles, Tom and I made the jump down and we looked back for a brief second and Mark was collapsed on the ground in a heap of sweat and blood.

MILES’ WORDS:
Just then with the sound of the police shouting and their doors opening Magaril came up beside me in a gate of escape. But we had the rock wall to descend first.

Mark jumped.

Poor Mark jumped posting one leg on a picnic table to ease the landing. But the table slid just enough to shake his balance. The opposite ankle rolled on the pavement then his knee bore the impact.

Finally, his femur couldn’t hold.

I viewed this action as I was air born and it appeared like a tragedy.

But the noise was hardest to take in.

A blood curdling pop the kind only associated with a clean break.

He was silent for a few, probably in shock from the pain but seconds later I saw my friend scrapping the pavement in pain and I heard his cries. I couldn’t leave him there blatantly immobilized. But nor could I comfort him. My sight ran along the pavement to where Mark lie in pain, the pounding of his fist in pain sent vibrations to my cheek.

“Yooooo, Mark man, are you alright?” I called out to him.

“OHHH MY FUCKING GOD THIS HURTS SOOO BAD,” he shouted into the night.

“I’m here dude they got me cuffed.” Never leave a man behind.

POST MAGARIL BREAKING HIS LEG

Meanwhile Crazy Tom flew down the hill behind Mills and escaped, he was never caught. He ducked under the law avoiding the police pursuit on his dorm room for two weeks.

We both stop running and Miles is standing there and the cop form tackles him right to the ground. I’m just standing there saying, “Yea Man, lock me up, take my hands.” And he did just that, piercing my wrists behind my back and slamming my head down on a picnic table. I was caught, like a dumb 18th century thief robbing a market during the plague. Miles and I sat there hands behind our back mulling over the situation.

I remained silent spreading saliva across my cut knee while looking over at Mark who was being inspected by the police. He was screaming in agony, “AHHHHHHHHHHH IT FUCKING HURTS, AHHHHHHHHH FUCKING SHIT, SHIT, SHIT.”

This whole time the cops were mocking us on how we should not have run. They went on to explain how they thought we were firing shotguns at them.

We all thought, SHOTGUNS????

Eventually an ambulance rolled up and Mark was strapped onto a stretcher and loaded into the back of the meat wagon and taken off to FOX hospital. We looked up and everyone was at their dorm room windows screaming at us, watching us. I yelped in their direction, “SHOWS OVER! GO BACK TO BED!”

People laughed, clapped, and jeered all at the same time. We sat there head in hands, and stunk of fire, sweat, booze, blood, and dirt; it was quite the disgusting display of humanity.

Miles and I went downtown to the Police Station and got registered into the computer. They took our weight, height, gang related tattoos, you know the usual stuff. We sat there and my heart was threatening to beat out of chest cavity and then the cop says, “Well at least you guys are sober, because otherwise we’d have some big trouble on our hands.”

Inside I started laughing harder than I ever had on the outside wondering how these guys couldn’t have known we were blitzed. We drank disgusting amounts of booze and smoked three gigantic blunts. We had escaped in some sense, I guess. Eventually we were released from the station, and we got back to our dorms.

That evil sun was coming up again.

I awoke in the mid afternoon to the smell of propane, it seeping into my dorm window which was located directly next to the front entrance. I walked outside, my eyes burned from the sun, and there was a BBQ going on. People were whispering around and I knew exactly what they were saying. Eventually the cat got out of the bag and people were like, “Man that was you guys? That was so LOUD, woke me up.”

The whole campus heard the HUGE fireworks go off. As I walked around that day I heard mutterings of it as people walked by. I just smiled, grinned, knowing I was the sicko who was responsible for it.

I still have fireworks left over in Yorktown, the same exact ones. Sometime this summer at Fahnestock or Huntersbrook we can light those mothers off. I’m there, you’re all invited.

Goodbye and Peace.

Questions or comments? E-Mail Isaac at icass83@yahoo.com