My name is Parker Beck. But my friends call me Parky. I’m a junior at Fred Williams High School. Today I got an A on my English paper. In most cases that’s an occurrence not worth explaining, but I think you’ll find my story a bit more interesting than most.
Friday my English teacher, Mr. Fatone, gave us an assignment to write a short story about anything we wanted to. It was a simple assignment and I planned on getting started on it right at 7:30 on Sunday, which was when I usually finish dinner. I was sitting down at the computer opening up Word Perfect 12, which is one of those Microsoft Word poser programs. Then I heard a “bzzzz”. It was a text message from my best friend Johnny Grant, a senior, telling me to come into my garage because he was in there grabbing a few drinks from the fridge. He was a good bud so I didn’t have a problem with that. When he said “drinks” I had assumed that he meant Cherry Pepsi, or flavored sparkling water. Not Miller Lite!
“Johnny what are you doing!” I shouted.
“I was thirsty!” exclaimed Johnny.
I didn’t have time, however, to tell him my dads VERY strict rules on taking alcohol from the fridge because my dad, Mr. Beck himself, was opening the door to investigate the noises he’d heard. We immediately, slammed the fridge door shut, bolted out of the garage and just kept running through backyards until I hit somebody and fell. Hard. I looked up to see a familiar face, it was Cindy Brown. We were as close as could be sophomore year until she started hanging out with a “different” crowd. Instead of lending a helping hand while I was grabbing my nose to check for blood, she was staring at the bottle that Johnny grasped like a 2 year old with a blanket.
“I didn’t know you two were into this kind of stuff.” she said.
“Well I’m not, but Johnny’s the one who goes into the Jewel every Monday night with a big man purse and, ow!” I was saying until Johnny gave me a punch on my left hip.
“Of course we are!” said a very proud Johnny.
“We’ll I was actually on my way to a party in Loftman Estates, I could use some company!” said Cindy.
“There’s no way there’s a party on a Sunday night in the middle of fall!” I said.
Within 15 minutes I was proven wrong. The house it was at was in one of those neighborhoods that your parents tell you to roll up your windows in. Immediately after walking in, a guy who I’d never met before sloppily walked over to me and started telling me about how I will always be his “one true love”. After 5 minutes with prince charming, I decided to start looking for some familiar faces. I noticed Nick Weinhardt on a half torn couch with a blonde who looked very interested in the lamp on her left as he told her about his Warcraft account. How he got invited to that party, I’ll never know. After being there for a good 2 hours, doing nothing but standing awkwardly in the corner making conversation with a Diet Pepsi Twist, I looked around for something entertaining to watch. There were two guys in a corner eating brownies and laughing like hyenas. I had a feeling if they saw me looking at them they might hurt me. So I kept looking. I started to giggle to myself about how Nick’s “girl” was flirting with another guy and he wasn’t even noticing. Then I saw three men in outfits that were dreadfully recognizable. Either Nick and I were the only ones at the party not impaired visually by a beverage or everyone else in the house didn’t care about the police walking in. I think the first makes a bit more sense. We immediately charged for the door going through the cops like an old western sheriff would kick through the double doors. I tried to grab Johnny on my way out but he was too busy bragging about his work as a freshman in our school’s soccer program.
I’ll always be grateful for my twin sister’s obsession with milk after that night. Just as me and Nick had sprinted one block away from the party, with an extreme sense of paranoia that the cops were chasing us, I saw my sister coming back from a milk-run at the nearby Oberweis. She greeted me with a warm smile and I responded with a demand to let us in the car.
After dropping Nick off I told my sister that me and Nick were running to get in shape so we’d get hot dates for Turnabout this year and we’d taken a wrong turn that lead us to Loftman Estates. I also told her that we smelled like smoke because the local 8th graders who hang out at our street corner had taken up a new hobby. She bought it. Oddly enough my dad did too. Sure I’m grounded for the weekend for not asking for permission but I can’t complain.
Then it hit me. I still had to do my paper. I decided to write about a kid named Geoff Tomaino who had a hard time getting around to his English paper. I found it pretty relatable.