It was one of those nights where you promised yourself afterwards “I’m never drinking again.” One of those nights where a keg that’s been sitting on the back deck for five months through warm-again-cold-again-warm weather actually tasted good enough to drink. Grossly, one of those nights.

We went to a new place for Dave’s birthday – North Bowl in Northern Liberties. Cheap drinks, great bowling, cool mix of people. While we were waiting for some lanes to open up, we all swarmed the watering hole like a pack of parched wolves. Drinks all around! …One of those nights where I leave a tab open on my credit card for the night’s entirety. Den and I were walking around just to check out the new scenery. After about 30 minutes, we walk back into the bar area when I hear a bellow from our group of friends, 15 feet away.

“Bflo, what’s the craziest place you’re ever choked your chicken.”

Without hesitation, I shout back, over a throng of twenty-somethings, “Eighth grade. Sixth Inning. Right Field.”

I disregard the people I was talking to and continue to walk toward everyone to hear some other answers. “On route 76!” “In Baghdad.” “The parking lot of Springfield Mall.” “In my parent’s minivan.” “All the time in my car… I keep my silver bullet in there.” “At work…” “In a porta-potty at Bonnaroo.” “On the fourth floor of Scranton’s library, while doing research, into a book, at 11:30 PM…”. As the stories progressed, I swear it started to sound more and more like that Michael Jordan / Larry Bird commercial of the old days — “Over the second rafter, off the floor, nothing but net.” (That would be impressive, actually. Give it a go, ‘Mas).

‘Mas seemed to have brought up a topic that stirred mixed emotions, but in my opinion, a bunch of hilarity. …One of those nights were the alcohol tickles your lips loose and, whoops!, out slips some of your most intimate memories. It brought me back to that inappropriate and, maybe to some, embarrassing memory. Hell, I don’t lie. It was what it was. In a way, I’m proud of it. How many people can tell the same story?

“But how’d you cover it up?”

“I had a baseball mitt. I didn’t really know what i was doing, per se. But before I knew it, I wasn’t paying any attention at all to the batters, but instead to the game in my pants.”

Luckily, no fly balls came screaming my way. I got no action besides the self-induced kind. Come to think of it, I guess that’s why in little league, they put the worst player out in right field. No fly balls. No action. Little need to pay attention. Makes sense. With that…

Plllllllaaay Balllll! Only 9 days, 11 hours, and 6 minutes until Spring Training!

“Holy shit! Do it again!”

I get a little bit red in the face as more people gather around the freak who can swish backwards three-point-shots without breaking a sweat.

“Joe! Come see this!”

Joe leaves the line for pizza, and instead joins the crowd that is now 20 large. The booth operators at the other carnival attractions stare as I draw a larger and larger audience.

“You can’t do it again! There’s no way!” Joe’s friend, a portly little fucker, screams at me — cheeks rosy, plump, and clearly agitated. As his lips suction around the bulb of his waterice cone, I see that he was clearly working up quite an appetite being such a loud and obnoxious prick. So I goaded him on. “Put your money where your mouth is, tubs.”

I take one of the over-inflated balls from the ancient Swiss-cheese net, careful not to spill the remaining balls out into the crowd from one of its many holes. Solidly, I grab the ball with both hands, in a “The T” hand position as if I was shooting normally. Elbows cocked, I turn away from the basket.

“$20.00 says I make it again.”

Two kids throw money down, looking at me in disbelief. “Ain’t no way, shorty!” I was several feet taller than him, but I chuckled at his nickname, knowing he would eat his words in a few short seconds. “No other takers?” I ask.

“Jus sfoot da damd fing!” Joe’s friend had finished the waterice and was now working on an Italian sausage sandwich. I was getting repulsed at the food crumbling from his cherry-chapped lips, and I wanted a new crowd. So, without turning to gauge where I was, I threw up the basketball, shooting it normally — but backwards. I don’t even have to turn around.

Swish!

“HOLY SHIT!” I smile.

“HOWLY SFIT!” Joe’s friend coughs up the large chunk of sausage that had yet to even meet his teeth. “That’s four in a row!” he says with a now-empty mouth. The look on his face was priceless.

I collect the $40.00 and stuff it into my Home Depot carpenter’s-turned-money belt. This routine went on all night — kids talking shit on me, me talking shit on them, me goading them, them losing money. I rarely ever missed this shot. It was an act of God – or of an incredible sense of repetition and muscle-memory.

I was only fourteen myself, an eighth grader at the school that was hosting this “Family Fun Fair.” I would help out my good friend Mr. Z by running the basketball booth until he got there, and I would love doing it. I worked every night to lend a hand, and I collected record amounts of cash for any booth.

Let’s face it. The rules of the booth sucked. You got 3 shots for a dollar. You have to make in THREE out of those three in order to win a fifty-cent prize. Come on now! NBA players can’t even hit that percentage from an uncontested foul line! Regardless, many competitors would blow $15 trying to win that oh-so-cool Dr. Seuss felt hat or the ever popular water-pistol needed to hose down school-girls wearing white-tee-shirts. I don’t blame them. Money well spent.

But as much money as I was bringing into the booth playing the game legitimately, I would bring in even more money by hustling the crowd. What an angelic Catholic I was.

… yet I was a teenager.

I conjure up some more betting suckers, who throw another $40 on the dented red frame that is barely holding up the booth.

Swish!

I take the money. Literally. This time, instead of digging into the Home Depot belt, I dig the cash into the bottom of my too-tight jean pockets.

I did this once or twice a night. I probably stole a hundred to two hundred dollars from my grade school that year. It’s not all a lost cause. 80% of what I stole, I spent that night at the Fair. So the money was being recycled immediately. I know, I know… if Catholicism is the “right religion,” boy will I be red in the face. Hell, here I come — stealing from a Catholic school! Geezus!

Sister Marianna, if you are reading this, please do not bring out the whipping ruler.  I have given hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars in donations to the Church since.

Mark the time as Senior year in high school. My high school, Haverford Senior High, had block scheduling, which is basically similar to college scheduling. You take 4 classes per semester (4 blocks, if you will), and they are an hour and a half each day. This being Senior year, and me being the perennial slacker that I liked to be, I took third block as a “Study Hall” for the entire year. Third block was right after lunch, so I ended up having a 2 hour chunk of time to go out to lunch (the usual place was Chuckie Cheese’s with Lauren Kaufmann and Andrew Frueh and sometimes badass James). Let me digress for a minute. James seemed at times to be an evil guy stuck inside to body of a goody goody. For example, on one of these lunch trips, he told us about this time that he was in the city (I think Philly, but it may have been New York). James was stuck in a lane that was trapped between a mass of cars on the left and a parked car with an open door on the right, jettisoning out into James’ lane. The evilness and impatience bubbling to the brim, James decided he could wait no longer for the man to close his door. He floored it, taking off the driver-side door of the parked car, not stopping to look back. He just kept driving.

Okay, back to the story. I often cut fourth block as well because the teacher loved me, and I was with a bunch of hooligans in the semester-long Senior Project. I could get away with anything at Haverford. Let that be a lesson to all of you kiddies out there – sucking up really does help. If I was an hour late for class, I go to a number of faculty members and ask them to write a note for me that I was doing one of a number of lies: I was taking yearbook photographs (I was the main photographer and won an award for my photography after graduation; as such, I had a pass to be off school grounds whenever I needed to be), I was making photocopies for another teacher (I had surgery on my jaw freshman year and was not allowed to participate in gym; as such, and for credit instead of gym, I worked with and got in tight with the secretaries and A/V room lady Mrs Cutillo, who was more connected in that school than anyone). Sweet deal, kiddos. Start sucking up now.

Anyway, Lauren and I went out to lunch one day, and I told her about the goof our friend Ben Shababo pulled on me and how we had officially entered a prank war. Ben started the whole ordeal when he registered an AOL Instant Messenger name fIoundies (f *capital i*oundies), which looks remarkably similar to floundies (f*lowercase l*oundies), which is and has always been my main AIM screenname. AOL used to use Arial as the main font for the Buddy Lists, so that you could tell no difference between the two names. Ben went around talking to everyone as the Faux Brian, stirring up chaos and telling people what “I” really thought of them – those that “I” crushed on; those that “I” wanted to crush; that kind of shit. Then he IMmed me. I was confused as hell and tried to figure out who the hell this was. Back in the day, when AOL was fresh and new and not as popular as it once got n the 90s, our family had AOL. Someone came on a chatroom as my name while I was in it and started cursing up a storm. It resulted in my suspension from AOL! I thought this was another case of that, but I eventually got it out of his that it was actually him.

So instead of going out to eat, we went to her house to think of an idea of a prank to pull on Ben. We ate something quickly at her house (she force-fed me Vegetarian “Chicken” Nuggets which weren’t horrible, but weren’t chicken either – silly vegetarians). We came up with this: Ben had a big Banquet coming up that night (of which Lauren and I were also conveniently – and delinquently – a part). It was the perfect opportunity to do something. But what? Lauren and I drove to my house, found the only picture I had of Ben – a crappy yearbook picture, grabbed a photograph of a woman swimsuit model off the Internet (tasteful as it was going to be presented to him by teachers), and very roughly (and poorly) Photoshopped his head to her body. We printed it out with a slogan “Got Shababo?” and ran to the local Bakery. We ordered the cake with icing-text of “Congratulations on the Sex Change, Benita”. The bakers thought we were nuts, and they held back obvious laughs. We brought the cake out for desert and we all sung “Happy Sex Change to You” and “For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow” in front of all of the parents, faculty, etc. It was classic, and the look on his face was priceless.

So a war is supposed to be mutual, right? WRONG! Not when it’s with me. I dominate. I suffocate. I will house you like you Wicked Witch of the West, bitch. I didn’t give Ben any time to rethink his strategy, to plan another attack, or anything of that sort. Instead, sometime later that week, Lauren, Frueh and I go out to lunch again. We got back early because one of them had something they needed to do during third block. So I sat around talking to people in the cafeteria for the rest of my lunch and into the next two lunches. Word had spread of the rather large sheetcake with the Benita photo on it.

Rachel Bagelman had the last lunch of the day, so I sat with her and chatted. We started talking about Ben and his obsession with her (I keeeeed I keeeed… but they have known each other rather well at one time or another). She knew that their parents did not lock the doors when they left for work (this was not a big deal to me as I don’t think my parents even know where the keys are to our door). Well this was perfect, wasn’t it? Rachel cut third block, which was halfway over, and we ventured to his house – for what, we weren’t entirely sure of yet. On the way over, we start talking about what could be done. I suggested rearranging the whole house – bedroom = living room, living room = basement, etc. But we thought this may aggravate Mr and Mrs Shababo. So we didn’t. We shot around more ideas and eventually came up with something involving gay porn and Ben’s bed. We quickly U-turn into a 7-eleven.

“Can I get a Playgirl?”, I ask politely.

“Playing cards? Right over there,” he responded politely.

“No, a Playgirl – you know, naked men … suggestive poses?” I reaffirm as I demonstrate.

“OH! We don’t have thathere!” he embarrassingly replies, shooing us out the door.

Disappointed, but nary the quitters, we drive to the local Borders. Luckily, we found what we needed. I puffed out my chest and perked my shoulders in jest and reaffirmed my masculinity as I went to the register to the manliest looking of the Border’s clerks (this was a hard find). He, also, tried to hold back laughs as he rung up the magazine, but I assured him “It’s for the pictures, not the articles.” Everything was A-OK. We hustled to Ben’s house, walked inside, and went straight to his bedroom. His bed is tiny because, well, Ben is tiny. Okay, okay, it was a standard twin-size bed. We disassembled Ben’s bed and loaded it into the back of my Shaggin Waggin (good ole’ Bertha the Taurus Station Wagon). We proceeded to hang pictures of naked men all over his room and put Caution tape all across his room, like it had been roped off my the police.

As we were carrying the bed out to the car, we saw two sets of wrinkly eyes (is that possible?) peering at us through the neighbor’s window. We laughed and waved. They weren’t too happy, but were’nt too set on moving to the phone either. So it was all good.

With Ben’s bed in tow, we drove back to school and hung out in the Cafeteria to let loose with people for a little bit. I didn’t want to stick around too long for the fear that Ben would see the car before he saw his room, so I cut fourth period (to take “pictures” of the Chorus for the yearbook). I drove home and kept the bed in my car. That night, Ben had his Sophomore dance. We knew where he was going after the dance, and we knew the father in that house fairly well.

“Mr. Lang, can we setup Ben’s bed in your garage for the party?”

“Haha, Ben? Suuuure. I don’t want to know what for, but you had me at Ben.”

Ben was an instigator. Obviously.

We setup the bed in the garage, put the gay porn on the bed, and waited. I showed up at the party at 11:30, but no Ben. I hung out there, but Ben never showed up. Damnit. What the hell was I going to do with the bed? It was Friday. He was going to need the bed for the weekend, right? Screw that! I loaded the bed up, and brought it back home with me. I set it up in the living room just to get it out of my car. My mom flipped, but it was worth it. I was surprised: no call from Ben at all – the WHOLE weekend!

Monday came around… “Rachel, what can I do with this thing? He hasn’t called for the bed at all.” Well, like all good pranksters, we brought it to school with us. We went to school a few minutes early and talked to our Physics II teacher. Ben was in Physics I, we wer ein AP Physics. They were both in the same classroom, AP Physics was Block One, Physics I was Block Three. I ask Mr. Demos if we could setup the bed (sans porn) in the back of the classroom. He looked somewhat disturbed. “It’s Ben’s bed.”

“Oh! Sure!” he said with a chuckle. SO before classes, we setup the bed in the classroom. Beautiful! I still laugh about it. By the time third block came around, there were about 60 people waiting for Ben to show up to class, crowding the halls and the room. (I really wish I could have used the gay porn, but oh well).

Ben comes slowly into the classroom, avoids looking at everyone. Finds me, hugs me, says “Dude, that was fucking awesome.”

Of course it was.

To this day, he has yet to get me back for that. I told him I would wait to retaliate until he did something back to me, but alas, I had to retire from this War, as one can only assume he completely forfeited. It’s a shame, because I have a lot of great ideas. Anyone up for a little prank war? The ball’s in your court…