Night of the
Stolen Boxer Shorts
by Don Drewniak
My first six
weeks of college life decades ago went by without
anything resembling some of the craziness that
seemed to happen on a regular basis in high
school. That ended when a classmate and new found
friend, Bill Crandell, asked if I wanted to go to
a B.Y.O.B. party at the house of someone he knew
whose parents were away on vacation.
I brought a
six-pack of beer that I bought using a “borrowed”
Massachusetts driver’s license with the name
Thomas J. Minor on it.
I lived off
campus in a three-story house with a large park
across the street. The bottom floor was occupied
by a couple who owned the house. They were
probably in their 40s. The second and third
floors were identical: four bedrooms, a bathroom,
a kitchen with a gas stove, a refrigerator and a
table with four chairs.
Limit: one
renter per room. At any given time there were
between four and seven renters, most of whom were
college students. I had a small room on the third
floor with a single bed, a dresser, one chair and
a desk. Rent was $4.00 per week.
Long story
short: Two weeks after my freshman year began, I
found an evelope from the Massachusetts Registry
of Motor Vehicles addressed to Thomas J. Minor on
the floor in a hallway inside of the front door.
It had obviously been dropped through a mail slot
in the door. No one by that name lived in the
house. I put it in the glove compartment of my
’51 Mercury.
What to do?
What to do?
Drivers’
licenses back then (1961) were printed on thin
cardboard. No photo. To be validated it needed to
be brought to a Registry of Motor vehicles office.
It cost five dollars to renew and to be stamped
with, if memory serves me correctly, the name of
the RMV. I knew I would be asked for some form of
backup identification, so that was not an option.
Minor, by the
way, was twenty-four. I was nineteen and figured
that was close enough. A few days later, I drove
to the seediest looking liquor store (called
package stores in Massachusetts) that I could
find.
Stay calm.
Look confident.
I walked up to
the counter. Behind it was an old guy —
balding, glasses, short and overweight.
“Whaddya
have?”
“Two six
packs of Bud.”
“You from
‘round here?”
“Just
moved in. Live on Russell. Looking for a job.”
“Let’s
see a license.”
I had bent it
a few times and rubbed some dirt on it. Pulling
it out of my wallet, I hoped he wouldn’t
notice the missing stamp or wouldn’t care.
He gave it a
brief scan and handed it back to me. “Bud,
you say?”
“Yep.”
He walked to a
shelf on the far right of the store, grabbed the
six-packs and put them on the counter.
“That’s
five dollars.”
I knew that
was nearly two dollars too high, but I was in no
position to argue.
He nodded as I
handed him the five and then bagged the beer.
I grabbed the
bag and headed out.
“Thomas.”
I turned
around.
“Next
time you come, make sure I’m here. Don’t
work nights.”
I nodded,
turned around and walked out.
And that’s
where I bought my liquor while in college until I
turned the legal drinking age of twenty-one.
Times were different back then.
The party,
held on a Friday night, was lame. It was located
in a finished basement of a large house in one of
the better parts of the city. The entire floor
space of the basement was carpeted. Quality
furniture, two televisions, a record player and a
bar. There was a large refrigerator as well as a
wine rack behind the bar. Both were off limits.
There were
between ten and twelve guys and seven girls. Not
good odds. It was pushing ten and I was working
on my fourth Bud when two of the girls walked
over to me.
Both appeared
to be close to my age. One was thin, the other
carried a few extra pounds. Both were reasonably
attractive. Looking at the can I was holding, the
thinner of the two asked if I had any extra beer.
“Maybe.”
“Just one
can, we can split it,” she said as she
brushed up against me.
“Wait
here.”
I walked to a
cooler and pulled out my two remaining cans of
beer. The second six-pack was in the refrigerator
at the rooming house. Upon returning to the
ladies, I found Bill with them. The three were
sipping gin from a pint bottle.
Damn he’s
quick.
I gave each of
the girls a can of Bud as Bill passed the bottle
to me. I took a sip. (I had never before mixed
two different types of alcohol and I doubt I have
ever since that night.) As the pint of gin got
down to a few drops, Bill said, “I’ve
got another in my car.”
Not to be
outdone, I added, “I have another six-pack
back at my place.”
“Where is
it?” asked Margie (the thinner one).
“Russell
and Elm.”
“The
white three-decker?”
This is
getting good.
“Yes.”
“Let’s
go,” chimed in Sandra.
We polished
off the remaining beer and gin and off we went to
Bill’s 1954 four-door Oldsmobile.
As we drove
away, the new bottle of gin was passed round and
round. The last thing I remember until waking up
to the sound of scratching coming from the bottom
of the door to my room was Bill parking his car
in front of my house.
My head was
pounding. There wasn’t a stitch of clothing
on my body. A faint amount of light was coming in
from a street lamp through the only window in the
room. I managed to turn on the lone overhead
light and stagger to the one closet in the room
where I grabbed a baseball bat.
The scratching
stopped and a low volume thud followed. Then
silence. I waited for a minute or two before
unlocking the door and slowly opening it.
There was Bill
flat-out cold on his stomach. Next to his hand
was my key chain.
What in
holy hell?
After picking
up my keys and tossing them onto the bed, I
grabbed his wrists and dragged him into the room.
He was breathing. It didn’t take an Einstein-like
brain to figure out that he was passed out drunk.
I grabbed a spare blanket from the closet and
tossed it over him
Neatly folded
on the chair were the pants, pullover shirt and
the socks that I had worn to the party. My
sneakers were under the chair. Missing were my
boxer shorts. I scanned the room, looked under
the bed, checked the closet and the three drawers
in the dresser. No boxer shorts.
What in
holy hell?
My head
started to spin. I flopped back onto the bed.
Sleep.
“Don, Don,
wake up. I think I hit a telephone pole.”
I opened my
eyes to bright sunlight. My alarm clock told me
it was 7:36.
“What?”
“I’m
sure I hit a pole. I need water.”
So did I. I
pulled a pair of clean boxers from the dresser,
put them on along with a pair of short pants and
headed to the kitchen. I looked inside the fridge.
My beer was gone.
Dammit!
I poured tap
water into two large glasses and downed half of
one of them before returning to the room.
“Can we
take your car so I can see if I hit a pole?”
“Where’s
your car?”
“In the
dirt parking area next to this house.”
I finished
dressing and down we went to check out his car.
The passenger side was smashed in an inch or two
from front to back and covered with brown and
black muck that seemingly came from a telephone
pole.
“My
father is going to kill me.”
“It’s
your car.”
“He paid
for it.”
Off we went in
my Merc.
“Okay,
Bill, what the hell happened last night?”
“You
blacked out in my car, so the gals and I dragged
you up to your room and dropped you on the bed.
They went to the kitchen and came back with three
cans of your beer.”
“How did
I end up with no clothes on and where are my
boxer shorts?”
“Um, do
you really wanna know?”
“Give it
to me straight or I’ll turn the car around.”
“They
took off your clothes.”
“What?”
“They
stripped you and that’s not all.”
“That’s
enough.”
“Then we
finished off the last of your beer and off they
went with your shorts. Said it would make a good
souvenir.”
I could only
laugh.
“Do you
know where they live?”
“Nope.”
We never found
the pole he sideswiped. Maybe it was a tree.
Heading back, he asked me to find a variety store
where we could get coffee and something to eat.
He paid. We finished eating and downing the
coffee. By then, I was feeling human again.
It was off to
a hardware store where he bought two cans of
lacquer thinner.
“What are
you going to do with that stuff?”
“Scrub
the shit off my car.”
“Don’t
do it. Bring it home and scrub it with water and
dish washing stuff.” From my days working
part time in a hardware store while in high
school in Fall River, Massachusetts, I knew
better than to mess around with stuff like
lacquer thinner.
“Can’t,
my father will kill me.”
“Have it
your way.”
Using some
greasy rags from the trunk of his car he spent
well over an hour rubbing the muck off his car
I went back to
my room and knocked off a couple of homework
assignments. Bill staggered into my room high as
a proverbial kite and reeking of lacquer thinner.
“I need
to lie down,” he mumbled.
“Not on
my bed. Go wash your hands, arms and face in the
bathroom.”
One step
removed from turning into a zombie, he said
“Okay.”
I thought he
would jump out of the lone window in the room if
I told him to do it. He came back into the room
where he went to sleep on the floor.
Off I went to
a nearby basketball court where I played in a few
pickup games. Basketball courts were used big
time back then. Today they are mostly empty. From
there it was off to the only McDonald’s in
the city. When I returned to my room, Bill was
gone.
It was at
least a month before I had another can of beer. I
doubt that I have ever had another drop of gin
since the night of the stolen boxer shorts.
|
