With Crazy Eddie leading the way and narrating local history, (seriously?) we quietly snuck across the dimly lit grounds. A pair of faded-yellow spotlights were mounted on telephone poles, effectively representing wishful thinking as opposed to actually being able to illuminate the entire area. Perfectly faint for our secret, clandestine purposes.
As much as we hated to admit it, Eddie had really outdone himself this time. He’d picked a really cool place, so we settled right in, job number one being to organize our alcoholic beverages, right under the carved wooden signs announcing the Wampanoag Indian territories: Bourne, Manamet, Plymouth, and Mashnee. Pretty cool!
So the eight of us sat around the fire pit: me, Ed, Tommy, The Stick, Patrick and Ken Flaherty, Stevie Bird, and Mary Ellen Kramer (sans the alcohol) to keep us in check, each mentally morphing into the mindset to become one with our surroundings, while toting multiple drinks in our hands and wide smirks on our kissers, just shooting the shit and telling tales, feeling like we were a million miles away and hundreds of years in the past.
Man-oh-man, what a night!
Then Crazy Eddie pulled a large, metal flask out of the tattered, faded, green knapsack he’d been carrying, held it aloft, and declared: “Gentlemen and lady, our fun night is about to get a whole lot funner!”
“I have with me a secret magical elixir imported directly from ... well... you don’t need to know where. But I guarantee that it will turn this mellow night into a flippin’ fireworks display!”
At this point I was no longer breathing.
Eddie continued, “Now, I’m not gonna kid ya; this stuff’s gonna taste like absolute dog crap, but I promise it’ll get you flying higher than you’ve ever been in your entire lifetime, and you’ll be back beggin’ me for more.” How alluring.
And with that he raised the flask to his mouth and took a hearty gulp. Spitting up as he sipped. Tommy reached over and snatched the flask out of Crazy Eddie’s hands. He sniffed it, shook his head, and spat a big chunk of flem.
“Holy Jesh,” he muttered, as his eyes began to water. “This stuff’s friggin awful!” Then he laughed and took three more gulps.
That’s when Stick announced the “rules” of the game.
“Ok, pass it around, everyone gets three chugs each to start.”
Without hesitation Stick sucked down three gulps as well, literally groaning as he did, then put his head between his legs. But to his everlasting credit, he didn’t vomit. The guy must’ve had a cast-iron stomach.
The rest of us sat there, fearfully side-eying each other like a dead man walking on execution day.
That’s when Mary Ellen stood up, looked us each in the eye and, well, acted like Mary Ellen. “Guys, I don’t know what’s in that stuff but please stop! It could be poisonous or make your head explode, or something even worse! And in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in the middle of the damn woods! Listen, this is NOT a good idea! I don’t want anyone to get sick and have to go to the hospital! Gawd!”
She went on… “Can you imagine trying to explain THIS to our folks? We’d be grounded until we’re sixty. And besides, how the hell could anybody even get an ambulance all the way back here, and…”
Blah, blah, flippin’ blah.
We were guys, so naturally we didn’t listen.
Around the circle the flask went, each of us doing our best to hold down what we could. Admittedly, two of our crew couldn’t help but toss their cookies after the first sip, I was just glad it wasn’t me, this time! Even Mary Ellen finally caved and took a small sip.
Ya gotta love that girl!
Surprisingly, I don’t remember anybody asking what the hell was even in that flask but even if they had, I’m pretty certain Crazy Eddie had no clue.
Over the couple of next hours, as the beer and wine and whatever the hell the stuff was we drank blended together in our pliable brains, we began imagining things. Seeing things. All sorts of things.
Our “mission” was now clear; tonight we were “The Colonists!” Although somewhat dazed and confused, we were colonists nonetheless, and I had an eerie feeling that something, or someone, was hunting us.
Concurrently, for some strange reason, the entire world was spinning…
“Holy hell, guys. Is anyone feeling like I’m feeling?” Stevie asked, as he sort of oozed off the deer-hide-covered bench, while making a feeble attempt to stand, promptly propelling the entire group into a ten-minute fit of hysterical giggles. The Bird Man now lay face down on the hard-packed sand, his fractured eyeglasses lying next to him.
Helpfully, the rest of us simply erupted in another round of laughter.
“I might be feeling like you’re feeling, if you can’t feel your nose,” Big Patrick thoughtfully replied to Stevie’s earlier question. His face was flushed and his eyes were crossed as he unsuccessfully tried pointing to the tip of his nose.
Mary Ellen totally cracked up, and the rest of us got the giggles again.
“I can’t feel a friggin’ thing, and man, I gotta tell ya, I’m loving it,” Patrick’s brother Ken announced.
By this point, I had only consumed two beers, a few swigs of Bali Hai, and whatever the hell was in that swamp juice, and my head was already starting to spin, but in a good way, a pleasant way, with maybe some unexplained colors floating around the sky. I added my carefully chosen words of wisdom to the mix, reflecting my stellar education and deep thinking ability,
“Man, am I frucked up.”
And that pretty much summed it up.
Then Rick the Stick started telling stories.
Scary Stories.
Stories about kidnapped colonists.
And cut-throat pirates headed down the canal.
And ghosts roaming unseen in these very woods.
Stories about killings, massacres, walking the plank and revenge!
Stories that sounded real, too real, ridiculously real, frighteningly real, like it was all happening to us right now at this very moment! We believed every last syllable!
We were no longer seven juveniles hiding out in an historic open-air museum. Oh no, we now had a much bigger role, as Rick explained. “We are the last survivors of an attack by unknown pirates in which fifty of our fellow travelers were taken captive, perhaps killed. Or maybe worse. We don’t know. Because every single one of them has vanished into thin air.”
