We were little boys. We went to elementary school together. We stood by the fence at the field house at Paris Elementary, hooked our fingers on the fence and watched the cars. We estimated horsepower. We knew some cars didn't have "pickup" while musclecars always did. We gave them voices as they passed. We made sounds. We laughed. We were little boys. We were friends.

We imitated the intro to The 6 Million Dollar Man. A crushed Mountain Dew can was Lee Majors; "WE CAN REBUILD HIM!!! {uncontrollable laughter} WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!!!
We were genius.

We were pals, me and my buddy Jeff. We didn't give a shit what the other kids were doing. We kicked a can around or explored the boundary of the track and field area - the places where the other kids weren't. We were explorers.

My buddy Jeff got big in high school. I was a thin, sickly little drunken pothead and a smoker, but he got "thick." He told me once it was "Quit smoking, get thick." I was too much of a rockstar by that point to buy it. Smoking and being fucked up was more important than any physical attribute, but he knew. Him and his buddy Chuck knew.

I transferred to Bourbon County mainly because the white trash kids and then later the black kids were beating the shit out of me at Paris Elementary and then moreso at Southside. Jeff and Chuck had nothing to do with the bullying and were always friendly towards me, but i think they sort of watched from the sidelines. They just were somehow naturally immune from ridicule. I think nobody fucked with these guys because Chuck was bigger than everyone else and Jeff had this crazy brother that everyone either looked up to or was scared of. I also had a brother like that and he had a gaggle of friends that were just...i don't even know how to explain them. Nobody fucked with them, i know that. Between Andy J, Mike W and Mark K, nobody messed with these these cats. Mike was a computer genius, Andy was just menacing and Mark was crazy. My brother Dan and i used to taunt the other neighborhood kids, "You can bring the Army, Navy Air Force and Marines. Fuck it, I'll bring Andy J--------."
They always knew we'd win.

So, i jumped from Paris to Boco in 7th grade. I had begged my dad to switch me, since i was getting kneed in the gut during lunch and constantly fucked with between classes by the white trash and some black kids. I was this timid little knot-haired white kid. I was a natural target. He finally acquiesced and i came to Bourbon County Jr High in my second round of 7th grade, which i already failed once at Paris.
While at Boco Jr high i had my first girlfriend, Marsha, which i stupidly dumped for my second girlfriend Alicia and i then i discovered pot and Metal.

Metal.

Black Sabbath.
Iron Maiden.
Judas Priest.
Ozzy Osborne.
Alice Cooper.
Led Zeppelin.
The Scorpions.
Van Halen.
Motley Crue.
Etc...

Metal.

Around sophomore year - maybe 1987, Jeff and Chuck showed up at BCHS at the same time - having transferred from Paris. These guys knew more about intimidating other people than any kid in the school. They could laugh at anyone and didn't need to be with the 'in' crowd to be popular. They just were just somehow automatically the coolest guys in school. They dated sisters, the most beautiful girls in the school. They were unstoppable and me and my brothers were on the inside because we had all already been getting stoned together for years. Besides that, my older older brother Charlie and Jeff's older brother Mark had been friends. We smoked a lot of pot and drank a lot of whiskey and mostly laughed at Mark, who just seemed to be several steps ahead of everyone. Mark made a party. He was just fucking crazy and and we all just laughed or were scared.

So, Metal changed everything.
Everyone started trying to play Metal. Chuck was an amazing drummer because his dad had played forever - allegedly having toured with Rod Stewart and others. I got a guitar (My buddy Will traded a legendary broke-down, ragtop 71 Plymouth Satellite for two guitars which he later gave me before he went to the Navy because he was so tweaked on acid he was afraid he'd destroy them) and started to play some Metal. My brother Charlie had been to Oneida Baptist Institute where he had learned, via a list distributed to students, which music was prohibited at this boarding school in Clay county, Ky. It of course included

Black Sabbath.
Iron Maiden.
Judas Priest.
Ozzy Osborne.
Alice Cooper.
Led Zeppelin.
The Scorpions.
Van Halen.
Motley Crue.
Etc...

Charlie brought all of these tapes home and I learned.

Jeff learned too.
He and his buddy John bought some equipment - a Big Monster Peavey halfstack which Jeff would use to play The Metal and John played The Bass.
They tried.
They mainly pissed Chuck off. He was so advanced that no one could catch up.

As i said before, Jeff and Chuck dated sisters. Lisa and Tammy. They were the top of the heap, these girls. They all seemed like rock stars to the rest of us, though my brothers and i occasionally would run into our old peers and ..get stoned, jam, whatever. Maybe cruise around in my brother's 68 Chevy or later in Jeff''s 69 Camaro.

I think Lisa and Tammy both had Nissans. Tammy''s was white and Lisa's was red. Lisa's was a Pulsar i think. I wish i could remember what Tammy's was.

Anyway, rumor has it that Jeff and Chuck were racing each other in the sisters' cars on Hume Bedford Road one night when they came around a right-hand corner that was -and still may be- banked to the left. Chuck and Tammy made the curve, but Jeff and Lisa didn't. The red Nissan went tumbling through the fence and off into the field off the side of the road.

This was extremely fucked up.

I remember noticing Jeff's weird, bruised and blackened eyeball and Lisa's teary, quiet reverence while they gave school presentations on how fucked up and wrong drinking and driving can truly be...in the lobby of BCHS..during lunch with pics of the wreck everywhere.

They were sober after this.

Sometime after this, while walking in town I somehow scored a single joint -probably from "Hog Jowls" - and sought out my old friend Jeff. I was giddy. I had "bought pot". I Never "bought pot". I thought "If there is anyone I 'd dig getting stoned with , it'd be Jeff." so i stopped by his house. He was home alone. This was maybe midday on a Saturday. Maybe it was summer.

"Hey man - smoke this joint with me." I said, after hanging around for a few minutes.

"No way, man." he said. "I quit."
"Yeah?" i said.
"Yeah. Stone cold."
"You sure? Really? Come on."
"Nope. Clean. "
"Well , shit. Ok.

I pushed him a few more times that day to smoke this special joint with me.

He refused, though so we just hung around, watched MTV, listened to music, got Mark's Strat out and ogled at it. We never smoked that joint.

A few years later he showed up at the house one winter Saturday in that dark blue 69 Camaro. There was about a couple inches of snow on the ground. We took a ride - me, both of my brothers and Jeff in his car and we smoked that joint.

I got so high my face hurt from laughing. Jeff got so high he damn near wrecked the car on the way back from Lexington.

That was the last time i saw my buddy Jeff.