The World Played Chess (78)

You think about home, and you’re about to die.





Chapter 22


August 10, 1979

Friday night would be the final outing of the summer for our rat pack—me, Mif, Cap, and Billy. Then we’d leave for college and go our separate ways, though I wasn’t going anywhere, not for at least two years. Mif and two other high school friends had moved to Cal Berkeley for fraternity rush and freshman orientation. They all had pledged a fraternity previously pledged by Serra graduates we knew well. We were to drive to their apartment in Berkeley with Donny Keaster. Donny had graduated Serra the year before and was playing football at a local community college. I didn’t tell my parents I was headed to Berkeley to attend a fraternity party. I simply said I was going out and would spend the night at Billy’s.

As we drove through the city to the Bay Bridge, I noticed Donny drove with his hands in a weird position on the steering wheel, noon and six o’clock. I leaned forward from the back seat. “What’s wrong with the steering on your car?” I asked over the sound of Ted Nugent blasting so loud the speakers crackled. Nugent had achieved cult status with Serra guys. He claimed he deliberately failed his Vietnam draft physical by taking drugs, eating junk food for days, and crapping and pissing in his pants, earning a 4-F status.

“It’s all screwed up Vinny B.,” Donny shouted back at me. “I have no idea.”

“Can you drive like that?”

“You get used to it.”

Except it didn’t look like Donny had gotten used to it. It looked like he was fighting the steering wheel, and we kept inching from one side of the lane to the other. This was not good. We had stopped at Scotty’s liquor store and picked up a case of beer for the drive over, and a dozen empty cans already littered the car floor. I had nursed just one, but Donny had downed three.

We made it to Mif’s apartment in Berkeley. They sublet it from Serra guys who rented it the year before under rent control in liberal Berkeley. Mif and two other friends paid almost nothing for it, but free would have been too much. I had envied them having their own place, but after seeing the squalor, living at home was looking better and better.

We walked from the apartment to Greek Row. The streets, sidewalks, and lawns were packed with college students. Because we were with fraternity brothers, we got into Mif’s house, though only after doing Jell-O shots at the door, which were so strong they nearly made me puke.

“Everclear,” Mif said, which was grain alcohol. Billy acted as if he had downed the shot, then spit the Jell-O onto the lawn. I wished I had done the same thing.

Mif and the other pledges were put to work and seriously abused. The rest of us didn’t fit in, and it soon became apparent that while this had sounded like a good idea in theory, it would not be one in practice. I knew few people, had no allegiance to the school, and therefore had few subjects in common with anyone. As the night wore on, we lost Mif and the other pledges, and I lost interest.

When the police showed up, we took that as a cue to leave. Billy, Cap, and I walked with Donny back to his car. Donny was so drunk he stumbled from one side of the sidewalk to the other, the way he steered his car on the freeway. Cap also was in no shape to drive. When we reached the car I said, “Donny, let me have the keys.”

Donny refused.

Billy also asked for the keys.

Again, Donny refused. “Nobody drives my car but me.”

“I can drive,” I said. “I didn’t drink.” I’d had just one beer and the Jell-O shot hours before.

“Get in the car or you’re walking,” Donny said, swearing.

“Donny, let him drive,” Billy said.

“It’s my car. I drive. You want a ride, get in. Otherwise take the bus.”

We could see there would be no reasoning with Donny. Billy looked at me. “What do we do?”

My first instinct was to not get in the car. My first instinct was to call a cab, despite the significant expense. I could afford it. I also thought of going back to Mif’s apartment and spending the night on the couch. We could have done a lot of things. But I also knew that letting Donny and Cap drive home was a death sentence for the two of them, and maybe others.

I couldn’t let them make the drive without being there to at least keep Donny alert. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting them go and later learning they had died in a car accident, maybe killed others, but I also had a premonition—a premonition that if I got in that car, I would not live.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” I said.

Billy remained hesitant. “I’ll go if you’re going. Try to keep him awake.”

“That’s my plan,” I said.

Donny nearly sideswiped several parked cars before we even reached the freeway. Cap, in the front seat, fell asleep. I was in the back with Billy, both of us imploring Donny to pull over so one of us could drive. We kept talking to him, trying to keep him alert. Donny drove so erratically it was a miracle we were not pulled over. I kept hoping we would be.

As we drove across the Bay Bridge, I looked over at Billy. He had cinched the drawstring of the hood of his sweatshirt so tight he couldn’t see.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t want to watch us die,” he said. And I could tell by his tone he meant it.

I wondered if I had pushed my luck too far, if I was going to die. Why did I get in the car? What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t have a death wish. I wanted to live. And in that moment, I realized something else. My ass was twitching, uncontrollably. At first it felt like a muscle spasm, but it gradually worsened.