Luke Grown Up

I now present for your intense enjoyment a collection of stories about my high school experience. Pretty much all of these have something to do with Chris Diaz.

On that note, I’m going to open with a story co-starring Chris Diaz. I first met him my sophomore year in high school. At this point, he had just moved to his new house. With this new house, I was introduced to the Deuce. The Deuce was this sweet dune buggy Bob (his step-dad) had gotten for him. It went 40 MPH, and we would take it out on the streets of the neighborhood to enjoy the speed. It was also clearly built for off-roading, so we did that too. Always a blast. All of us used to joke about going off jumps in it because it clearly could not handle jumps. Well, one day, Diaz took me out to these woods near his house. I hopped in the driver’s seat and we went for a drive. As we were driving through the woods, we happened upon some odd contraptions. It appeared to us that someone had built a BMX course for their bikes. It was then that we saw the jump. It was wide enough for us to hit. There were two kids on bikes a little far away that spotted us as we drove up in speed. I was going to go around it, but Diaz said, “Go over it.” Without even thinking I sped up and we hit the jump, completely destroying it as we sailed over. We neglected to see the huge pit that followed the jump, and we just narrowly missed falling into it. The kids yelled at us in anger as we drove away laughing. We crashed into a tree shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, from then on, we knew the Deuce could handle jumps, but we knew we would never survive another.

Another night with Diaz and most of the Crew, we somehow decided to make another terrible choice. I attribute it to the presence of Andrew Walker, without whom the following event would not have transpired. Andrew Walker was a dude that moved to Franklin mid-high school and came into the Crew. Of course, he sometimes brought trouble. Other times he brought trouble and bottle rockets. This was one of those latter times. One night we decided to shoot bottle rockets from moving cars. So two cars of us morons are driving around Diaz’s neighborhood, shooting bottle rockets at houses. I am in the car with Walker, Diaz, and Ross. The other car is D’Errico, Sean, and a couple others. We make the mistake of shooting bottle rockets at our friend Pete’s house. So we drive back to Diaz’s after our mischief, laughing like banshees. We are stopping off so that D’Errico can pick up his radar detector from his car. That piece of machinery helped us avoid many a ticket in his cozy Capri. Anyway, we stop in front of Diaz’s, and D’Errico jumps out of the car and runs to his. He comes back to the car and plugs in the radar detector, and immediately it starts going nuts. A cop pulled the convoy over, even though we were already parked - right in front of Diaz’s house. Walker asked for his tupperware back (it was holding the fireworks) and the cops said, “No.” Diaz was smart-mouthed with the cop. I thought I was about to get arrested. Luckily, nothing came out of it. In fact, despite the fact that the cop’s lights were flashing brightly, Diaz’s parents, sequestered in the back room of the house, never found out about our shenanigans. Oh, and we also found out that Pete’s parents had called the cops on us. We laid into him the next school day.

There are a couple stories that I had here that are just not very appropriate, so I’m leaving them out. You want to hear about them, ask me in person.

However, I can tell you about this one. One day after school, as we did often, my friends (Adam, Diaz, Ross) and I were driving around, screaming at people from Diaz’s car window. We decide to refresh at Dunkin’ Donuts in town. Adam is driving Diaz’s car for some odd reason. I ask him to order me an Orange Mango Coolatta - that shit is nectar. He was feeling harried after everyone else’s orders, so he said, “…and a Munga Coolatta.” I fuckin’ lost it. I was laughing so hard for so long that when I received my order (wrong - they gave be a standard Coffee Coolatta), I was laughing my ass off. Adam then proceeded to drive off without getting change for his twenty that he gave the girl. We ended up going back later, and of course I was the one that had to go in and get the change from them.

Diaz’s car was a Civic, and a fine one at that. It had a spoiler. Anyway, I’ll never forget the day that I either skipped or showed up late to track practice (I can’t remember which). If it was the latter, I think it was because I was hanging out with Ross and Diaz in school. So we walk out to Diaz’s car and he offers to give me a ride to where everyone was running up the street.  Either that or we were just going to yell at them. Snow had fallen recently, but it was pretty warm out, making perfect snow for snowballs. So we drove up to where everyone was running on a side street and decided to have a little fun. As usual, we were hanging out the windows screaming at the runners and trying to run them down. Then they got smart - they started throwing snowballs at the car. Well, being smart, our front windows were open (I was in the back, luckily), so I decided to get out before I was pelted with a snowball. We turned into a driveway where a middle-aged woman was shoveling. I got out as Diaz turned around, and of course, the kids started throwing snowballs right in the window at Diaz. Wicked uncool. As the car was heading back toward the main road, Diaz got out and started running after them as I stood at the foot of the driveway. The woman angrily said to me, “Y’know, someone could have gotten hurt!” I shrugged and watched as the Civic, still in drive, inched towards the main road. I see Ross fumbling around in the passenger seat, and then I see the brake lights go on and the car comes to a halt. So I turn back to the kids. Diaz had gotten in a fight with about 5 of them, so he was completely outnumbered - and they were all pricks too. I start walking over to break it up, but just as I’m about to, I hear a engine rev - I turn around and see the Civic careening up the street, Ross in the driver’s seat, looking maniacal. I Laugh my ass off as he almost nails the kids before they run away. Diaz screams obscenities at them as I approach, noticing red marks on his face from getting hit in it.

I just realized none of these, nor the stories that follow, are really that funny unless you were there. So I’m ending this post about 7 stories early. It’s just not worth it.

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