“So, how ’bouts we find somewhere we can blow off some steam and pull an all-nighter to figure this thing out?” It was more a statement than a question.
It seemed like a fun idea (if I could finagle permission), and we were all in, the problem being that Tommy had just made the egregious mistake of mentioning our planned escape in front of our notorious troublemaker, Crazy Eddie O’Connor, and before Tommy could jam the words back into his overzealous mouth, Eddie was on it like flies to crap, rattling off a litany of bizarre potential locations for our overnight excursion, obviously fantasizing out loud, but suddenly, he managed to hit on one we sorta liked, and true to form, it was ludicrous.
His truly insane idea was this…
Late tonight we’d stash his and Tommy’s car behind Eddie’s friends’ garage just three streets away, then cut through some backyards that border the “park area,” quietly sneak into The Aptucxet Trading Post, and camp out in the historic village, which was set far in the back, and not visible from the road. Brilliant.
He had purportedly pulled off this same stunt once before with success. It sounded just daring enough to be fun, and when he mentioned the potential of bringing a small arsenal of mind-expanding refreshments, he had everybody’s attention.
The proposed “refreshments” would range from Boones Farm, Bali Hai, Schlitz Malt Liquor to Cutty Sark and a ’‘magical” foul-tasting elixir of unknown exotic and purportedly psychedelic origins, which would absolutely reek of wickedness, apparently courtesy of Eddie’s former girlfriend (oh, lucky her).
We were sold. Throwing caution to the wind and once again flaunting our devil-may-care tough-guy personas, while of course, applying zero intellectual perspicuity to the equation, “kids, what’s the matter with kids today…?”
“Does this sound like a good idea to anyone?”
Sure. Let the festivities begin!
Later that night, well after sundown so that it was good and dark, we all met in The Club’s back parking lot, where Tommy and Crazy Eddie had parked their respective souped-up cars, and Eddie was already shushing everyone. “Listen up, guys. Guess what I’ve got jingling in my hand?” he invited while swirling around a large set of keys attached to a piece of wood.
“No, creep face,” Tommy countered, “but I have a feelin’ you’re gonna tell us, so just get it over with fast, will ya?” (Tommy sounding weary of him).
“These keys. They’re the keys to the bar’s storage room, boys. One of the idiot bartenders left them behind. Probably that whacko Ben. So looks like we will be drinking free tonight, boys and girls, so what’ll it be? I can only take so much!”
Gold rush!
Secretly, I was plenty nervous, me being me, always worried about being caught, but hey, it was my role, and I was good at it, not exactly on the level of”‘The Voice of Reason”—that well-earned title belonging securely to Mary Ellen Kramer, but let’s just say I had a vested interest in not getting caught doing anything, ever!
As such, I was always a good candidate for lookout, or in this case getaway driver, as Tommy had entrusted me with his hotrod. Likewise Ken Flaherty was chosen to man Crazy Eddie’s jacked-up speedster. So Tommy and Eddie snuck through a single row of border hedges and disappeared into the clandestine darkness beneath the Boat ’n Bottle Bar, which was where the refrigerated storage room was located. The room was secured by not one, but three separate padlocks, hindering unauthorized entry, but astoundingly, Eddie figured out the correct combination of keys on the chain and easily gained accsess.
Our take was substantial, but not gluttonous.
Tommy came out with two cases of Schlitz stacked on top of the other in his arms, while balancing three large bottles of Bali Hai on top of those two. In the meantime, Crazy Eddie charged through the hedges, giggling like a little child stealing a lollipop, while also lugging two six-packs of Narragansett beer with several bottles of Boone’s Farm perilously shoved under each arm, everything threatening to drop and smash at any moment!
Each shoved their pilfered goods into their respective car trunks, which had been left wide open in anticipation of the heist, and jumped into the back seat, as their expert getaway drivers peeled out and skedaddled off the island.
It was also a moment when it would have been good for one of those drivers, namely myself, to know how to drive a stick shift, which of course, I did not.
But, I had plenty of unsolicited coaching…
“Push the friggin clutch in!”
It bucked. Then bucked again.
“Put it in first, dummy!”
“No, dude, that’s third gear!”
“Just get us the eff outta here already!”
“I’m gonna kill you, Jimmyrocketttttt!” (Ok, that one seemed to do the trick).
And just like that, I learned to drive a stickshift, albeit it a bucking bronco, and presto-changeo we were off to Aptucxet!
Chapter 42
Elixir
We stashed the cars a few streets over as planned, after first hiding the booze in a thicket near the front entrance so we wouldn’t be seen walking down the street carrying cases of beer! By the time we parked the cars and headed over it was nice and dark, and we easily breached the entrance, which was nothing but a short picket fence fortified by a chain-link extension sticking up a few feet which was easily climbed.
It was of course slightly awkward maneuvering the cases of booze over it, but we managed the task without incident. Once inside the grounds it was like stepping back in time, but with the added eeriness you’d only find at night. Looking around, we had to admit that perhaps Crazy Eddie had actually experienced a good idea, because man-oh-man, this place was out of sight!
The Wampanoag tribe had occupied a significant area of Massachusetts and Rhode Island for about twelve thousand years, and they had traded with the pilgrims. Thus, the Aptucxet Trading Post.
We quietly tiptoed past the famed replica of the seventeenth century trading post and the adjoining salt works, both of which were shrouded in shadows, and headed toward a clearing far in the back, which had been set up to replicate an authentic Indian campsite.
This particular display was a natural to join the trading post exhibits, and the privacy it offered our particular group was flat-out perfect.
This Wampanoag dwelling wasn’t anything like a conical deerskin tepee. Instead, the wetu was a traditional rounded, tree-branch-framed building which was then overlaid, first with huge squared-off hunks of tree bark and then covered with woven mats of cattail or similar reeds before the roof was further strapped down beneath another rounded frame of denuded branches. In case you were wondering.
Picture a sort of cross between a thatched hut and an igloo, and you get the idea. Woven blankets were suspended from the edges of interior walls, providing further insulation. Multiple branches, long, sturdy ones, perhaps two inches in diameter, had been lashed together to provide bench-height sleeping cots which were mounted on sturdy cuts of wood functioning as bed frames.
Multiple fur-covered animal hides covered each of the cots, offering cushioned warmth. A hole in the ceiling made for a natural chimney vent, and thick blankets covered the doorway for warmth.
Of course the group had to be reminded to be quiet about fourteen hundred times, until finally Rick the Stick put an end to the chatter.
“Don’t you crap-for-brains know that we’re on government-owned property?! I for one ain’t up for going to jail tonight, so listen up and shut up!”
And that, plus a hairy eyeball or two from Tommy, was that.
