There Was A Time When I Ate Ketchup & Crumbs

A LIFE HACK FOR YOUNG LOSERS

This is not a Free Life Coach post, this is a Thought Launcher post, a reflection on days gone by.

When I was a kid I felt like I was living in a movie that was made for an older audience. It was exciting, that feeling like sneaking out of my bedroom at midnight to peek at the grownup TV show my parents were watching. That was also something I did sometimes.

But my life was like a TV show that wouldn’t even air at midnight. At least, not back then. Now, sure. My TV show life featured divorce, drunkenness, drugs, and women. When I was ten I played pool in bars with guys who just got out of jail while my dad got hammered on Jack Daniels at the bar. None of the guys I played against had all their fingers or all their teeth. They weren’t the kind of grownups who let the kid win. They were the kind of grownups who hoarded their wins because they didn’t have many.

They didn’t smile. Or if they did smile, it was the manic smile of a man who was about to blow a .25 on a breathalyzer. “Well, here goes, officer.” The happy-go-lucky smiles of the damned. They bark-laughed sometimes. More like a cough than a giggle.

When I was a little older, say 12, I had a friend named Todd. He was older than me. A burnout. That’s what our types were called back then. Burnouts. Todd drove a Chevy Nova. It was a classic burnout car. The car guys loved to talk about these kinds of cars. They said things like “450 stock, can you believe it?” “Four on the floor!” Stuff like that. I actually know what those things mean, but I’m not telling you because it doesn’t matter. I don’t really want to know, myself.

Todd drove this Chevy Nova like a maniac. He always had a different bra dangling from the rearview mirror. I was a kid who couldn’t get a kiss. He had a different bra every week. So many questions! I could tell that these trophies were part of being a man, but they freaked me out. I wanted to ask, “Why do they let you take their bra?” “How do you even get to that point in your relationship(s)?” “What if your mom sees that?” I didn’t ask those questions. Like all my other questions, I kept them to myself. I still don’t exactly have answers.

Todd and I smoked weed in his Chevy Nova and then played Judas Priest very loudly on his car stereo. One song, United, had a chant about “United we stand!” but I didn’t feel very united to anyone but I loved the song all the same.

I had to sit in the back because Todd’s cooler friend rode shotgun. He’d rigged his care stereo so he had 13 speakers and most of them were in the back. The music literally went through me. It rocked my guts. Todd’s driving scared the shit out of me. He fiddled with an equalizer with one hand while he drove. An equalizer was a weird car stereo thing that had a bunch of levers on it. A guy could mess with the levers and change the way the music sounded. It would add bass or treble. And Todd loved to futz with the levers while the music blew bubbles in my insides.

We were always extremely broke because all our money went to weed, booze, and pills that some guy made in his basement. But we would get very hungry when we were stoned. So Todd drove us to Long John Silvers. This was a fast-food seafood joint. They had big bins of deep-fried chicken or fish. The fried food sat on a bed of golden brown, crispy fried dough nuggets that had broken off of the chicken or fish or shrimp.

Todd had a life hack for losers. These broken-off pieces were called “crumbs.” They were not on the menu. They cost twenty-one cents for a big basket of them. We would ask for crumbs, stir in ketchup, and eat them when we were high. They were so satisfying and delicious. And while we ate, I would say, “The music in your car is ten times louder in the back!” and this would make Todd laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

Then we’d pile back into Todd’s car and listen to Judas Priest at full volume. Then I’d go home to my mom. She’d feed me a home-cooked meal while I came down and sat like a sullen little punk. Then, after dinner, she would make me read the bible out loud. Reading the bible out loud when you’re coming down is not an especially spiritual experience.

Looking back, I wonder how Todd is doing. I googled him. He had a picture of a Camaro on his Twitter profile. I no longer drink or get high. I haven’t for a very long time. I never hung a bra in a car. And I love my mother very, very much. And I still read the bible. It’s a better read than I remembered.