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Quinn kicked at a pile of leaves. “I’m just so sick of them thinking they can get away with bullying us around like this all the time. We were feeling so good, and then they had to ruin it. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think? It's like rain on your wedding day.”
I SAW THE SIGN
By Victoria Guidi
At precisely 9: 12 pm on Friday, November 18th, 1995, the freshly painted pea green colored, gloss-finished back door of the First Baptist Church of Clifton, Massachusetts, joyously swung open, releasing the spirited voices of five distinctly enlightened souls. Approximately 7 seconds later, the last member of the Senior Youth Group, 15 year-old Wanda Dewey, departed from the back of the house of God where her father preached.
“Hey, you know what other place isn’t wheel chair accessible?” she said to the rest of her fellow friends as they started down the sidewalk. “BookTrader’s on Mooney Place.”
“Oh wow! I can’t believe I forgot about BookTrader’s. I have to add that one to the list,” Tara remarked.
“Yeah, maybe we should get rid of The Sports Spot then ‘cuz I think more people in wheelchairs will go buy a book before a soccer ball,” Lawrence suggested, fiddling with his jacket zipper that was caught on his hood string.
Tara threw Lawrence a reproachful look.
“That’s so discriminatory, Lawrence. Just because someone can’t walk doesn’t mean they can’t use their hands. Didn’t you get tonight’s lesson? We’re all the same in God’s eyes, and we all deserve to be treated the same. If someone has a disability, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be given the same opportunity at least. Geez, haven’t you ever seen people in wheelchairs play basketball before?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen them play basketball,” Lawrence proclaimed. “But I’m just saying that maybe the wheelchair people will feel bad if they see a ramp at The Sports Spot. You know, like be offended ‘cuz they know they can’t really buy anything except presents maybe.”
“Man, this is turning into a big project. We’re going to have to do a lot of fundraising if we expect to build all these ramps. Wood can get pretty expensive,” commented David. He wished he didn’t feel so pessimistic about the community project, but the number of needed wheelchair ramps was already over 20.
Wanda threw up her arms to the sky. “Hey, where’s the spirit?! We can do it guys. Imagine how many people we’ll make happy! Let's don't wait till the water runs dry. We might watch our whole lives pass us by. Let's don't wait till the water runs dry. We'll make the biggest mistake of our lives. Don't do it baby.”
Quinn widened the stride between his short, stocky wrestling legs to keep up with the rest of the group’s pace. Nodding in agreement, he added, “And like Reverend Dewey said, man, it’ll be really good for Clifton with all the extra business it’ll bring. I know my dad sure could use it over at his stamp collectors’ shop.”
And then, roughly 45 seconds after leaving the church’s property, as they were almost to the street corner, voices called out from the lit porch steps of the black shuttered Victorian house across the street.
“Hey churchies! How’d Bible wanking go tonight?”
“Better run home to bed before your ten o’clock curfew.”
“Whoa! Who’s the queer snowman bouncing in the back?”
Realizing he had just been called a queer snowman, Lawrence quickly changed his jolly pace to a stiff walk.
David, Tara, Wanda, Lawrence, and Quinn didn’t have to turn their heads to know from whom the harassing was coming, with their fancy new Adidas shell toes and Aeropostle frayed wide leg corduroys. The popular kids in their pullover NFL team jackets. The pretty cheerleaders with their ‘spice’ colored lipstick and peace sign chokers. The buff jocks who lifted weights everyday after school in weight room.
Quinn fisted his hands at his side and cursed under his breath as soon the group turned the corner and headed down Inman Ave. “I swear, the next thing out of their mouths and I’m gonna punch ‘em in their faces.”
Lawrence anxiously chimed in. “Yeah, who are they calling a queer snowman? They don’t even know me.”
“Don’t let them get to you, Lawrence,” Wanda offered. “Besides, you’re not that fat.”
Quinn kicked at a pile of leaves. “I’m just so sick of them thinking they can get away with bullying us around like this all the time. We were feeling so good, and then they had to ruin it. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think? It's like rain on your wedding day.”
David nodded. “Yeah ... Or a free ride when you've already paid.”
“It's the good advice that you just didn't take,” Tara added. “And who would've thought, it figures. Ugh! Those bullies think we’re so goodie-two shoes.”
“That’s so not true. You know why one of my parents’ vodka bottles is filled with water? I drank it all in my garage before a recital,” Wanda threw out.
“Yeah, and I skipped school before,” Tara announced. “I mean, my mom knew I stayed home, but I lied about being sick. I wasn’t sick at all. I just didn’t want to go, you know? Like in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. ”
Lawrence fervently gripped Quinn’s arm. “Remember the time, Quinn, that we jacked off to your dad’s pornos in the bathroom? Oww. What was that for?” he said, rubbing the back of his head where Quinn just whacked it.
David let out a frustrated sigh. “Look at how pathetic we must look. I mean, This is how we do it? It’s Friday night, and I feel all right. Let’s flip the track, bring the old school back. No school tomorrow, and what? This is how we do it? Where’s the excitement? The rebels in us?”
“My parents are at the opera tonight. We can go to my house and fill some more liquor bottles with water,” Wanda suggested.
“Or egg mailboxes,” said Tara.
“Vandalize the school with toilet paper and mustard,” Lawrence proposed.
“Slash tires,” put forward Quinn.
“Ring random doorbells and run away,” added Wanda.
And then, as though God were listening to their pathetic ideas and thought he’d save them from doing something completely dorkish, the heavens parted and down shone the light, stopping David dead in his tracks as the group reached the corner of Jefferson and Inman.
There it was, across the intersection in front of Big Wheels Motorcycle Shop. Long and sleek. Weather stained and waxed. Extending out on a sleek and even 50 degree incline. Built with 3-inch thick solid pinewood planks the width of the shop’s double doors.
“Or we could fill waterballoons with—”
“Lawrence,” David commanded. Everyone stared at David, then toward where he was looking.
David stood in a trance. “I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes. I saw the sign.”
“We’re gonna steal the ramp?”
“Nooo, Lawrence. The ramp’s the sign. Through the store window’s our mission,” David said.
Wanda, Tara, Quinn, and Lawrence narrowed their eyes on the window display in Big Wheels Motorcycle Shop.
“What do you see, David?” whispered Wanda.
“That. The third one from the left,” he answered, slowly raising a pointed finger to the target. It was true. They had never seen anything like them before, not even on MTV. They were like those lowrider cars in rap videos. Only they were motorcycles. Two super long and shiny lowrider motorcycles.
“We’re gonna steal a motorcycle?”
“Not just any motorcycle, Lawrence. Those two lowrider motorcycles,” David answered.
Tara couldn’t believe what her ears were hearing. “Are you crazy, David?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I am. But guys, I’m telling you. If we really want our names to go down in history, then this is what we have to do.”
David pulled his four very I’m-not-sure-this-is-such-a-good-idea friends into a huddle and explained. “It’ll be simple. We pick the back door lock with pins. I’ve seen it in late night movies. The bikes aren’t locked up or bolted down. While Quinn and I grab the bikes, Wanda and Tara look for the manuals to those bad boys in the office, and Lawrence waits outside keeping watch.”
‘Whoa. This sounds like out of an action movie. Like Die Hard or Lock Up or something. I love it!” Quinn shouted. “I’m in man. Like Keaneu Reeves.”
“Me, too! And I want to be Tom Hanks,” Lawrence announced, jumping up and down.
“Hey, calm down. This isn’t a movie. This is real life. Dangerous. We’re messing with the law. Living in the gangsta's paradise. Now, who wants to be a big pussy dork churchie for the rest of their life? Who wants to look back 20 years from now and think, man, I wish I had...?
“Quinn, you’re fine with being called stumpy bubble butt? And Lawrence, do you want to keep letting the guys in gym class make fun of your pigeon toe every time you run? And Wanda, you seriously don’t have any problem crying everyday after school about how you wish the girls would stop making fun of your monkey arms and metal mouth? And Tara? Come on. Acne Nimrod? Pimple Dweeb?
“I know I’m through with being called fanny pack fag. I like wearing a fanny pack and I’m not gonna let myself be made of for it ever again. In fact, I’m gonna bring it back in style tonight.”
“Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,” roared Lawrence.
“So tell me what you want, what you really really want,” asked Tara.
“I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna be the bad guy!”
His face bright red with emotion, David looked each stunned churchie in the eye. “Now, who’s in and who’s not?”
Surprisingly, the minister’s daughter was the first one to answer. “I’m in, David.”
Quickly smearing a tear from his cheek. Voice trembling, “David, I’m in.”
“Me, too,” said Tara.
Lawrence looked down at his pigeon-toed feet, pointing them out, then in, then out, and finally in. As his four closest friends stared waiting for an answer, he extended his arm out towards his friends, palm down. “You bet I’m in.”
One by one, David, Tara, Wanda, and Quinn stacked their hands on top of the others.
“Okay. So, we meet at the big drain pipe behind Milton Lake in a half hour. All black. Tara, you go with Wanda. The guys to my place. Got it?”
Wanda gasped. “I feel just like Sandra Bullock in Speed! I can’t believe it!”
“On the count of three, all say Lowrider,” David continued. “One-two-three—”
“LOWRIDER!”
At precisely 10:09 p.m. that same autumn night, Wanda and Tara sat shivering inside the old massive drain pipe as they waited for the boys, having dressed inappropriately for the weather, but not caring. They felt like catwoman villains in their matching black leotards and jazz shoes. A few moments later, David arrived in a long black trench coat and carrying book bag, followed by Quinn and Lawrence.
“Man, I’m suffering in these pants. They’re so long!” Quinn huffed, as he kicked about in David’s navy sweats.
Tara rolled her eyes at the 5’4”, 105 lb. complaining JV wrestler. “You’re suffering? Look at poor Lawrence!”
The only thing David could find for Lawrence was his father’s 1973 wedding tuxedo, about two sizes too small.
“Hey, check out what I took from Mr. David Ralph’s basement bar. This is how we do it. It’s Friday night, and I feel all right.” Quinn reached into his pants and pulled out three cans of warm Coors and five mini travel size plastic bottles of Jack Daniels. Shouts of sinful delight echoed through the drain pipe as the bunch raided the goodies as though they had just fallen from a Piñata.
“Hey, and look what I found in the bathroom.”
Lawrence reached into the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket and pulled out a handful of white pills. “The round blue ones taste really good.... Oh, I think I finished them all. They were just so good. Like candy. Man, I can see how drugs can get addictive.”
As Wanda reached for two pills, Tara grabbed her arm and warned, “I don’t know about mixing pills with alcohol. You can get really sick that way. Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to. I know that you’re gonna have it your way or nothing at all, but I think you're moving too fast.”
Wanda looked at the little white oval pills in the palm of her hand.
“AMB10,” she read aloud. Seeing David and Quinn each chase down two pills with the warm beer, she shrugged her shoulders, tilted back her head, and swallowed the pills with beer.
The boys all cheered, then started chanting Tara-Tara-Tara until the five foot featherweight gave in and swallowed not two, but three pills.
At 12:26 AM—or 62 - (Lawrence couldn’t tell), the churchies, now the Apocalyptics, sat with heads slumped in hands at the back entrance of Big Wheels Motorcycle shop. On the pavement in front of them were: a metal coat hanger, wrench, five safety pins, baby oil, and butter knife.
“I’m tired,” mumbled Wanda.
Suddenly, another wave of nausea hit Tara. “Oh no. Not again. Oh now, feel it comin' back again, like a rollin' thunder chasing the wind, forces pullin' from the center of the earth again. I can feel it.”
“Yeah, my stomach feels kind of weird,” moaned Lawrence.
“Okay. Uuuuummmm. What we have to do is get the lock oily,” slurred David. “And then stick the pins in the hole.”
Twenty-two minutes later, Wanda finally figured out what she had been staring out all that time. “Whoa. Well, life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up in your face...The window’s ... it’s like ... open.”
Everyone drowsily looked up at the small window above Lawrence, who was lying on the ground cramped up in stomach pain.
“Tara,” David instructed. “You stand on Lawrence’s shoulders and go through the window. Then open the door from the inside.”
Slowly, Lawrence lifted himself to his knees as Tara climbed onto his shoulders. Then, moaning with pain, Lawrence arduously stood up. The sound of the back seam of his pants ripping seemed to produce no reaction from the others as they watched Tara reach the window, open it, and hoist herself through.
Twenty very long seconds later, they heard scuffling, a few jiggles of locks turning, the slow opening of the metal door, Tara’s glazed over eyes standing before them, and finally the sound of the alarm.
The next two minutes were a blur for the Apocalyptics. David and Quinn shoved past Tara into the store. As Wanda followed, Tara grabbed her arm.
“I can’t. I’m gonna be sick. Go without me,” the drooling 13-year-old advised as the convulsions began.
Tara proceeded outside where she began throwing up. A few feet away, Lawrence couldn’t resist the massive urge to relieve himself. Clutching his ripped rump, he said to her, “Woo-ee-oo, I look just like Buddy Holly. Oh-Oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore. I don't care what they say about us anyway. I don't care 'bout that,” then abandoned both Tara and his duty as he made a run for the obscure dumpster in the distance.
Meanwhile, David and Quinn managed to make it to the bikes, but suddenly were too weak to move them.
“I can’t! I’m soooo tired. I just can’t budge her. She's lump, she's lump, she's lump. She might be dead,” Quinn knelt down and plopped his cheek on the bike’s leather seat.
“Me, too. But we can’t stop now. We’ve come all this far... Okay. We take one bike. Oh, I’m soooooo weak!” David flopped against the shiny red motorcycle.
Wanda, who miraculously had a burst of energy come to her, ran over to the boys. “Tara’s aborted the mission! I can’t find the manuals without her. We can’t take the bikes! Come on. Let’s get out before the police arrive!”
Two days later.
“Hey, are you watching the Sunday Parade on TV?” Lawrence asked over the phone.
“What? I just woke up from sleeping for the past two days,” David said on the other end.
“Well, at least you haven’t been living in the bathroom like I have,” Lawrence answered. “Turn on channel 9. You have to see it.”
David grabbed the remote from his night table. As the image came up on the TV screen, he sat, mouth agape.
“We’re live here at the ‘Celebrate Small People’ Parade here in Clifton, and let me tell you. This is just another great example of what great work the church is doing for the community.”
“It sure is, Tina. And here with us is Mr. Danny Champ, who’s here to show us his very cool and groovy specially modified motorcycle. So Danny, what do we have here?”
“Well, Bill. Here we have the 450MDG model, custom designed for small people, which apparently is so irresistible that someone tried to steal off with it two nights ago from Big Wheels Motorcycle shop. But thanks to a brave young man who fought off the robbers before they could get away with the bike, we have this beauty unharmed here with us today. Thanks Quinn Sanders.”
© Copyright, Victoria Guidi
Click here to read Victoria Guidi’s Brief Bio.
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