Trailer living...

Most people would say that living in a trailer is shit.
Most would be right except for one major factor: they don't realise the location of said “mobile domicile” can be a major factor
For instance; the place I grew up in was a trailer park in the middle of the country.
Literally,a huge circle cut out in the middle of an undeveloped forest. You could run as wild as raped apes on acid and no one would EVER know!
A bunch of us guy (ok...kids :->) decided we were going to camp out one night on a creek bank about a half mile from the house. Like I said,this was in the middle of NO WHERE, so no other people for ages!
We had to walk around the back of a huge cornfield to get an opening that lead down the backside of a hill to get to the creek.
Once we got there,we set up camp in an area right next to the creek itself. The banks were about 5 feet high above the water,so it was safe to sleep near....... for some.
We decided to build a fire(as ya do!) and I remembered finding a big fallen tree branch that I picked up and swung into a tree to break in half and use for firewood. When it broke, it kind of shattered, but the amazing thing was; the inner portions of the branch were glowing in the dark!
I thought it I had made some kind of new discovery! Glow in the dark wood! How cool?!
(Then I found out later when I moved north to Ohio,where they have “proper” schools and education systems, that some "Mr. Wizard" prick ruined my fantasy by giving it a scientific explanation and shot my dream all to hell....Yankee bastard)
Once it got dark;we decided it would be fun to wrestle(or “rassle” as we to say in the south)
at a rather high,non-intellectual, rate of combined violence and speed, in the pitch black of the night, in a heavily wooded area right next to a 5 foot high creek bank. After a few NFL tackles into that silhouette you thought was Jerry lee, but actually turning out to be a very alive and well TREE, you don't seem to play as long. Or running at someone who moves at the last minute and you sail off the 5 foot high bank and head straight into the 5 ft high bank on the opposite side (15 ft away) of the creek and end up doing a terminal velocity face-plant into the 5ft mud bank on the opposite side.....about 18inches down.
Great times.
When all that juvenile restlessness became tiresome; we sat down around the fire, which was rearranged because we kept throwing each other into it, and all voted unanimously to fire up a bit of the blessed anointed vegetation from the good lord himself......pot.
Once we were all higher than bat shit,we decided it was time for the inevitable munchie run.
The closest was the Jiffy mart,which was opened 24 hrs,thank the dear fluffy lord.
3+ miles of pitch black country road for an RC cola and a banana flip.
One nice thing; the stars are always amazing in the north Carolina summer skies.
The night time was cooler,but still muggy as hell. You felt like a lizard.
It was a fairly uneventful walk to the Jiffy mart mainly due to the fact we were stoned as fuck and time itself just walked the fuck off. Hey..it was some goooood shit back then!
Once we got to the Jiffy mart, we walked in,about 7 of us, and we headed straight to the chips,chocolate and liquids!
It was like a shark feeding frenzy on acid! A couple of us paid for empty packages.
The guy running the register was the 1970's cliche “stud”. Blond hair,parted down the middle and feathered back. Tight t-shirt with the classical “Keep on truckin'” logo. The Kiss belt buckle the size of a fucking hub-cap. And the tight bell bottom blue jeans.
But he was cool. He let us hang out and play pin-ball and check out all the dirty mags behind the counter. He was our new best friend.
Then; the inevitable happened: after all the banana flips, RC cola and chocolate milk.... The sugar rush.
We all walked out immediately, at the same time, like radio controlled drones. Once we hit the cold air; we went crazy screaming and acting mad-ass crazy like full moon hooligans gone insane! It got even better when we went back towards home and left the lights of the Jiffy mart and faded back into the dark of the country roads we called home.
To break the boredom, we found a car tire laying in a ditch and decided to play “tire-tag”!
The rules were simple: If you hit someone with the tire,they are “it” until they hit someone else with the tire, so on and so forth. Rules for hitting people: NONE.
When Leroy swung this tire around in circles to build up momentum and got going pretty damn fast, he let it go at his own brother, Tony...who was turned completely the opposite way.
That tire hit Tony flat horizontal, right square in the middle of the spine. It bent his ass in two like a Chinese acrobat! The back of his head slammed into his own ass cheeks in the middle of the tire!
The sound that came from him was a sound that will never be repeated by a living creature(but it was funny as hell!),ever again. We left him in the ditch and kept playing all the way home.
When we finally got back to the creek; we realised we had left someone there the entire time.
We had completely forgot this person(whatever his name was) and left him asleep on the ground using a tree root for a pillow. He managed to wake up for a bit after we got back and had a major surprise....half of his face was swollen to a massive degree! It looked like something from a Hammer Horror Film! We looked at him. We were shocked as fucked! We lost interest.
So did he. He went back to sleep like nothing ever happened. When he woke up later; he was normal.
Once we decided it was time to leave; we took the long way round in hopes of finding some kind of animal to try and capture.
We got lucky, we came across a 4ft black snake! Most people run from a snake in the wilderness; we would beat the pure snot out of each other to see who would be the one to capture it!
Leroy was usually the winner. He was fast and lanky. Kinda like an anorexic gazelle on coke.
When we came out of the tree line,right behind Mike & Patrick's trailer, I saw my ride coming.
It was Cheryl and her boyfriend. She was “in charge” of me for the night while mom went out for a while. Cheryl's Boyfriend drove a black,1970 charger. It was nice.
They pulled up and I just ran and dove in the back window and landed in the back seat then scrambled up to the front to steal a cigarette from Cheryl.
Cheryl was great. Medium height, red hair,nice body,cute toes(she never wore shoes hardly), boobs to kill for! And just great people all the way around. My mom once said she thought I was getting an education from Cheryl..... she was more than right!
We had to go pick up another friend,who we will call ....Dicksfer...and his girlfriend(we'll get a name for her later).
Dicksfer lived in a big house at the far end of a huge corn field.
When we got there, he was waiting with his girlfriend for us to arrive. As soon as we got there, everyone started drinking and getting primed for the night.
The sun had gone down by this point,but there was still plenty of light from sky. The air was a cool summer night,but the humidity was low this time. It was a really nice,proper southern evening.
With Deep Purple on the radio in the Charger and some new band called RUSH...(getting an idea of the time period?!) and Three Dog Night on the 8-track!
Dicksfers girlfriend was nice! She had long,jet black hair,big brown(almost black) doe-eyes with a slight oriental touch,slightly chubby cheeks,a cut-off midriff t-shirt (a cleavage most worthy of said shirt), hip-hugger bell bottom jeans and the first woman I ever saw wear a toe-ring! She had the cutest feet peeking out from under those bell bottoms. God I miss my southern women....
We stopped off at a gas station to pick up more munchies and road beers and general supplies for the rest of the evening. I, of course, found the only pool table in the area and had to put my quarter up! After not being beat for sometime; Dickfer's girlfriend whispered in my ear very seductively and asked me if I would let her win. I had no choice. My dick was so instantly fucking rock hard, I couldn't stand up from the chair! Which meant I had to forfeit and we had to leave to continue with the rest of the evening.
From there, we went down this long country dirt road which ran down one side of a cornfield(lots of corn in these here parts!) and forest on the other side. It went on for miles.
Cheryl's boyfriend decided to randomly pick a spot and stop.
We got out and everyone decided to start drinking as soon as toe hit dirt. I never did care for beer much, but I was OK with some grape flavoured MD 20/20 or Boones Farm Strawberry wine!
Everyone was doing typical drunk teenage stuff for entertainment; telling bad jokes,wrestling for the sake of the women,trying to out-macho each other while the women giggled at the sad but sweet display of teenage male affection based mating rituals.
It must have worked.
Cheryl and her boyfriend ended up laying in the sand in front of the car and Dicksfer and his girlfriend was at the back. The night was dark, yet, star-filled once again and the sand of the road was nice and kool to lay on. When you see all the stars the good lord put in a southern sky; you'll be convinced he's a confederate!
And me.....
I laid on the roof of the car watching shooting stars in that night sky while listening to “Sara Smile” by Hall & Oates on the car radio.(as well as getting an “education”!)
When the love quartet was finished,we had to return all humans to their rightful owners(parents).
I actually got to sit in the back seat with my head in the lap of Dicksfer's girlfriend, that was a big deal for me! We had all the windows rolled down and the warm summer breeze blowing through the car was magical. She was stroking my hair while it was blowing in the breeze and I remember looking up at her while that straight, long, jet black hair was flying wildly in the wind from the car windows and thinking that she was the most beautiful thing in the world when she would just look down and gently smile and run her fingers through my hair.
When it came time for her to leave, I remember watching her walk away while looking at all that lovely hair hanging down her back leading to the very top of those hip-hugger jeans with an ass so nice... not "tight", but so plump and firm, I bet you could bounce a quarter off of it and get change back. I wasn't sad about her going away, I was happy about the fact that none of my friends would ever believe it! She was gorgeous.
Anyway; back in the car.
A few miles down the road,we start to notice the car was a little smokey....on the inside.
The smoke was coming from the dashboard and vents. Then we heard the most uncool noise.. We pulled the car over, popped the hood and had a look. A the rod that had just blown through the head. The engine was fucked.
After another cigarette or 2 and another beer or 9; we decided the only option we had was to start hitch-hiking.(cell phones were not even a thought yet)
We decided to break into pairs and try and get a ride that way. With less people and we figured a girl with a young kid should get picked up first. So, Cheryl and I walked about 100-150yards ahead of her boyfriend and dicksfer. It was also agreed up that if dicksfer and Cheryl's boyfriend got a ride first, they would send the car to us and then they would catch the next ride.
Well, they lied. The first car that stopped, stopped for them and they fucked off.
Or so we thought.
The next car was 2 marines heading to camp Lejeune.
Semperfuckinfi!
They picked us up and we stopped a little shack in the middle of nothingness called The Party Store. It had no real business license and no one really knew what the little building was for originally, but some people decided to make it into a "party store" where you could go and party and buy your party supplies. Great little place.....
When we got there, we asked had anyone seen dicksfer pass through.
No one had,but we got free gear for our search! God I miss those days...
Eventually; we got back to j'ville and we had to part ways with the marines who so graciously helped up out. Luckily, they dropped us right at the door of Cheryl's “other boyfriend”.(Cheryl was allowed, so watch your tongue!) and he had a car and could take us the rest of the way home.
We walked up to the door of the trailer and Cheryl,being this guys girlfriend, just walked right in.
And Tracy walked right out of the bathroom into the living room.
(Tracy=Cheryl's mortal enemy).
Now we proceed into the cat-fight portion of the evening.
Cheryl was NOT happy and; unfortunately for Tracy, could kick your ass while wear 7 inch cork soled platform shoes!
But I actually liked Tracy.
She was my 1st...... Gee, I wish I could find her now and show her how good I have gotten!
Once the fight reached the boring stage, they decided it was time to call it a night and take us all home.
Cheryl and her “bf” rode in one car while Tracy, her date and myself rode in another.
When we got my house; it was 2:15am. It was almost 3am by the time Cheryl stopped shouting and kicking the shit out of her “other” bf.
Cheryl and I walked into my house and immediately knew something was wrong. We knew someone was, or had been, in the house.
I grabbed a K-Bar knife, she grabbed a butcher knife and a Boss Pepsi bottle(the original 2 litre bottle bade of glass). We searched the house,but no one was there. Then we heard the door...
We charged in and almost killed my best friend to death! He had come to stay the night,but we weren't home, so he went down the road to see friends.
Tony and I decided to make 2 massive bowls of pistachio pudding.
At 3:30am.
Tony asked me where I had been........
I debated if should tell him.
After all; it was an interesting 24 hours for a kid who was juuust about 13 :)

Dale Jr.

We were all partying at Eddie Carter's house one night in the summer when I was 21.
It was a typical hot,muggy North Carolina summer night, the temperature was only matched by the humidity. There was no need to blow dry your hair after a shower; you didn't know when the water stopped and the sweat started!
Anyway; on this particular night, there was house full of people(well, a trailer full anyway) and we had Jim Beam and Jack Daniels abound! We were in Budweiser country after all ;-)
Since I was heavy into weightlifting back then,NOT fitness, I made up a smoking game(drinking games are boring) for some of us to play. The game at this time was to take a huge hit off a joint and see how long you could hold it in while doing triceps extensions with eddies weights.
Talk about a head rush! People turned as purple as the bib-overalls I was wearing!
The party on this night was a typical gathering,but it had a special ring to it on this night.
There was a guy with us named Dale Jr.(last name with-held) who was just getting back into life after getting into a drunk driving accident about 18 months before where his best friend died. Dale was driving. He was about 17-18 years old at the time.
Also on this night, we were celebrating an engagement between Eva and Chris.
Eva and Chris were made for each other. Eva came from a family of 4 girls and 1 boy.
ALL of the girls were stunning! Neil, the brother, was just fucking insane. Great friend! We won't go near his bad side.
The house Eddie carter lived in was about 75 yards from his parents house and it was on a country road so far away from civilisation, if you got hurt, there was no need to call 911,you were likely to die before they even found you! But it was beautiful. Total silence at night with the brightest stars ever created. And on certain nights, if you just listened, you could hear the sound of the ocean waves crashing on the beach...MILES away.
Eddie was still at work when the party was going in full swing. He was a roofer and worked 12 hours a day,7 days a week, to make sure his baby girl would have a good life.
He use to wear this t-shirt that was given to him by his daughter on his first fathers day that read: “ anybody can be a father,but it takes someone special to be a daddy”. He cried when he got that shirt.
So did everyone else when they saw him.
You must understand; Eddie was a man's man. To this day; he still holds the record for receiving the worst beating I have ever seen a man take in a bar fight; and he STILL won the fight! He spent a week in the hospital afterwards, so to see him cry because of his little girl making him happy; it was a moment for all of us to remember.
Not long before Eddie was due home that night, we had already achieved most maximum intoxication! But while we were in this state; I was watching Dale Jr. enjoying his first real night out since losing his best friend and Eva and Chris were just having the time of their lives. Shit; we didn't even exist to them on this night, and that was just fine with us.
Eddie had built his own CD rack and had it hanging on the wall in his living room.
Damn good job he did making it too! Considering this was in a time when Cd's were still a novelty.
And since I was pretty much in charge of the music, I got real acquainted with said CD rack,but obviously not as good as I should have.
I stepped away from the entertainment system and went out on the front porch to have a breath of fresh country evening air.
While I was doing this, everyone else was dancing and playing quarters( my game didn't last long...I was the healthiest stoner anyone had ever known :D) and having a great old time.
One of our other friends was assuming my position as DJ and as he was going through the Cd's, he decided to see if there were any missed Cd's on the top of the rack. There was one or two....
But.... he also found a shotgun.
Only Eddies wife remembered it at that point. Eddie had stuck it up there almost 6 months before to get it away from someone else who was drunk. But then, they all forgot about it because everyone was partying and time had passed with no one seeing it. Eddie even had his guns taken out of the house and stored at his parents house when his daughter was born.
When it was found,everyone had a look at it as it was passed around. Although, the girls didn't touch it. It was dusty and had rust starting to form on it,so we knew it had been there for a while. It was a single shot,breach break .410 shotgun. .410 being the smallest shotgun round you can find. It's used mainly for fowl and squirrel hunting. Being proper southern people, we weren't worried because most of us started our education on gun safety and hunting procedures with a .410. So it was no big deal.
Dale Jr., was sitting on the couch (sofa for you EU people!) and the way he was facing was a direct line into the kitchen.
I was standing in the doorway watching; with a bottle of JB in one hand and fat ass hawg-leg in the other! I was still in my purple bib-overalls which I had cut into shorts. I mean; c'mon! I got “300” legs! Of course I'm showing them off!
Anyway; Dale asked to see the shotgun.
It was handed to him and he had a good look at it and wanted to make sure it was unloaded.
Well, the breach catch was rusted a bit,so; for some unknown reason, Dale tried to pull back on the hammer to see if he could get it unstuck that way. The hammer itself was sticky because it had been sitting in high humid conditions combined with salt air for so many months.
I got bored watching these people trying to pry open a rusted shotgun,so I turned back around and was talking to some people in the front yard.
Then is happened.
BANG!!!!!
It was one single shot that no one had any clue that was ever there.
Time stopped. Everything went silent. We couldn't even hear the music for what seemed to be an eternity. You couldn't hear the ocean waves any more. All the whiskey I had in me came pouring out in a cold sweat. We all did. We all became sober in that instant.
Then came the worse sound we could have imagined at that time.....
Eva screaming.
Chris; the love of Eva's life and soul; had taken the full blast in the stomach while standing in the kitchen.
When I turned around, he was on the floor. Still conscious,but making very little sound.
Eva.
Eva was ghost white and in hysterics.
Most people would call 911 right off. Not us. We called Momma Carter first.
Momma Carter was Eddies momma and she lived right next door. This was about 9pm and she was already in bed,but she got straight up,threw on her bathrobe and came straight over. Momma Carter was a nurse and even more so, she was so Christian; we were convinced she was a direct advisor to God!
When she got there, we made a path for her to get Chris and she did what she always did best...
She made you forget the bad things the best she could.
She made sure we called 911 and we said we had. Then she looked at Chris' wound. She took a blanket and put it over Chris' torso and made him lie on his back. She had one hand and Eva held Chris' other hand. She asked Chris if he believed in God and if he had accepted him as his Lord and Saviour and if he truly believed that Jesus had died upon the cross for his sins. Chris answered yes.
Right then; we knew.
She said to Chris: “Repeat after me”...
'Our Father,who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,the power and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen'
We all followed in with Chris and momma carter and repeated the prayer.
Then the strangest thing happened; Chris just relaxed and opened his eyes and he looked straight at Eva He smiled and said “hey. It's OK. It doesn't hurt and everything is going to be fine”. Then he looked at momma carter and said thank you.
Then he asked for Dale.
Oh God. Dale.
We didn't want to look at him,but we had too.
He was still sitting on the couch. Shotgun in his lap. He was like a statue. His knuckles were pure white wrapped around that shotgun. He didn't even seem to breath at this point. Shit...none of us did.
Momma Carter held out her hand for Dale,but he didn't move. She got up and went to Dale and took the shotgun from him and got him to walk over to Chris Chris took Dale Jr. by the had and said it was all OK. He wasn't angry at Dale. He knew it was an accident and he seemed more worried about Dale than his own situation.
This was twice in less than 2 years Dale had been inadvertently responsible for someones death and both of those were childhood friends. He wasn't even 20 yet.
When the ambulance arrived, some were outside in the front yard,some were inside with Chris and Eva. Chris was even joking at this point about he wanted something to drink, but we didn't want to get beer all over Eddies kitchen floor! So I gave him my joint.
Eva; God bless that beautiful woman, she was laughing and joking with Chris and trying so hard to brave and fight back the tears. Chris actually got mad at her for being scared and crying. He promised everything was going to be OK and he was never going to leave her.
The paramedics did what they needed to do and a whole pile of us helped lift Chris into the ambulance. The paramedics didn't have to touch that stretcher one time until it was locked down in the ambulance.
While this was going on,Eddie came barrelling across the road in that big ass 4-wheel drive truck(hey! We are country boys,ya know!) and he jumped the ditch in his front yard, because when he saw the ambulance,he thought it was for his daddy.
Through it all...Eddie was,and still is to this day, a daddy's boy! He loved his daddy like you wouldn't believe. So,naturally,he thought it was his daddy in trouble.
He had a huge sigh of relief when he found out it wasn't daddy Carter.
Eva gave Dale big hug and a kiss and said it would be OK,then she climbed into the ambulance with Chris. It was where she needed to be. As the ambulance pulled away,we watched Eva.. she never looked up once.
Dale dropped to his knees in the front and asked momma carter why God hated him so much to do this to him....again.
Momma Carter knelt on the ground with Dale and said God would never hate someone as wonderful a person as Dale Jr. was.
We all fell to our knees to be with Dale. We all cried.
Then Eddie got back into his truck and hollered whoever was going to the hospital,get in!
Dale stayed. He couldn't handle it. Momma Carter stayed with Dale. She knew what was going to happen with Chris,so now, Dale was most important.
We caught up with the ambulance and followed it all the way to the hospital emergency room.
When we arrived; Eva was the first person out of the ambulance, then they took Chris out.
Eva walked to us and said Chris didn't make it to the hospital.
We all had a group hug and cry in the parking lot.
We stayed at the hospital until Chris' family arrived and then most of us went back to eddies.
Eva stayed with Chris' parents.
By the time we got back,Dale had left.
Momma Carter called his daddy to come and get him. He went straight to the police.
Everything was silent when we got back.
Momma Carter and eddies wife had cleaned the kitchen floor and we helped clean up the rest of the house. Party over. When we finished; we all sat outside on the front porch, on eddies truck, in the grass, we all had a bottle or can of something ( I had hawg-leg duty;-)) and we sat in silence as we watched the sun come up.
Funny thing was; we decided that was the most beautiful sunrise ever!
Why,you may ask?
2 reasons; 1- we knew that was Chris was never going to see a sunrise again,so we made it the best for him and 2; we said that wasn't a sunrise, that was Chris hitching a lift to heaven!
Even that made Momma Carter smile.
We all went to the police station to see what happened with chris.
His case never really went to court. He found not guilty from day one, so, on the day of his trial, we wnet and he was released.
We said our prayers, gave our hugs and kisses and knew this was going to be a new path for us.
Some things would never be the same.
We never saw Dale Jr. again after that. He joined the navy to get away from Onslow county.
And we didn't blame him. We still love you brother.
And Eva.
God's beautiful gift to this life......
About 2 years later she met another fella who worshipped the very ground she walked on.
She found love once again.
I was there when he was killed too.
He was working on his car when it slipped off the hydraulic lift and crushed him.
At least she didn't have to see that one happen.
Eva; where ever you are; you are still loved.
I can never tell this story without crying.
But the reason I tell it is because of what I saw that night we lost Chris.
I saw proof that God (or a power greater than us,at the very least.) does exist.
You might not know what I mean,but you will..........
some day :-)