Jimmy becomes Ronald, the 80's
......Its been almost two years since Mo walked away from Bee’ville, at 1st Mark thought it was just a bad trip, the recent haul from the local police evidence van was making them rich. The Middle Class kids in the neighborhood were trying to be city kids. Or maybe it was the opposite. Either way, it was too easy. The county sheriff allowed his team to drive their police vehicles home with them at night, I don’t think even he thought the evidence van would ever be a daily work vehicle, but alas it was. The 1st break in was small, a bag of pot, not the best weed the two had smoked but it worked. There was even enough to share and a little to sale to the jocks on the football team. Mark had played football and ran track but during his junior year, Mo asked him to come a house party on the west side of the city. Sometime after a few beer bongs and meaningless chatter about the state of high school football in the area, Mo offered a big rush. What a rush it was. White powder that made a person want to run, fast. The Z28 Mark had was fast but this powder was faster, he wanted more, there would be more and Mark would never be the same.
Mo seemed to be a regular with these folks all them also seemed to know Mo’s dad or someone like him, which Mark found odd during all his time with him he never mentioned him nor did anyone else for that matter. These people were seedy, like the types TJ Hooker bagged out in LA. Pimps, pickpockets and general loser but they were on to Mark; the look of an athlete was not one they were used to. Mark pulled Mo away from a large man who was probably about 40 and had more tattoos then WWF star. “We got go and go now” Mark said, sweat was coming from Mark’s brow and the hair along his neck was now standing on its edge. He knew what was about to happen and he knew Mo would not be too much help at this point, the boy was beyond gone, he was on the other side of madness. The shot to the back was hard, harder than the hit Mark took during section 5 high school football championship this fall. That hit took the wind right out of him; he thought he was dead and looking at never being able to return the favor by taking a crack at the asshole that blindsided him. The fall this time was a bit worst, Mark fell into the large fuck with tattoos and as he turned to take a swing at the asshole that sucker punched him he felt a prick and then a burning sensation in his right thigh. He felt wet; his right leg had a river running under his Z jeans. Mo, jumped back to defend himself leaving Mark on an island of killer loaded on Booze & coke. Not a good place to be. Mark grab a bottle swinging wildly to defend the crazy biker fucks who it seemed wanted this outsider out of there midst. After landing a few blows to the tattoo guy Mark made a break for it. Fuck Mo if he didn’t make it out of there, “not like he was there to back me”, Mark though. Mark had always defended Mo from the football guys who thought he was a “Burn-Out” and called his mother a whore. She was a Whore but it’s not the thing you yell out about someone Mother in a high school hallway. Once safely inside the Z28 Mark floored it towards the east and the safety of the suburbs. Those asshole would be dealt with Mark though but 1st “I’m going to kick the shit out of Mo for bringing to that place.” Times were changing faster now, Bush was in the White House, war was coming.
The Great Fake War of the Middle East- Oil and Money
Mike had kind of drifted from the group once he got to High School, the friendship was there but the pull of something greater laid on the horizon. He saw the changing that we didn’t’, he watched his fathers company layoff worker and offer job training, Data Processing, Data Entry and other work fit for a secretary not a steel worker or the person who helped build America’s great machines. Sometime during the Reagan years Mike and his family moved to a big house in a new sub-division with a in ground pool and 4 car garage, his family didn’t fit in with the rest of us anymore. They were the part of Reagan’s trickle down economics that worked; while the rest of us thought we were making it they increased their share of the prize. Mike’s mother even thought about sending him to a private school, the public education system was no longer good enough, even if the public school system was the main pull for his family to move to Bee’ville, no after 14 years it was no longer good enough. Dad said it was the because the New Boss at the office was a mover & shaker and his kids went to the private school, Christian Brothers Academy of Holly Names, it was for the rich kids he said. Mike fought against the move, Football & track were his passion and Bee’ville had a great class coming in, but saw it has his duty to try to save Mo and keep me on the right track….or so he said. But Mark could see it in his eye; he knew he had to keep one foot in the real world and one foot in the world of what could be. Mike never thought of Reagan as a great leader, he saw him more as a salesman selling our lives for a few others personal gain. He stopped playing football he sophomore year for the debate club became his passion, track was no longer a draw, and Mark stopped running the 1500 the same year. Mark had found that he was different for most people but didn’t know why, he saw things the same way as Mike but Mark’s reactions to them were vastly stronger, “Reagan is going kill us”, Mark said, to which Mike would reply “he has a plan, let it work out 1st”. They were both right
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