Buying a case of beer always seemed to be a problem. Leading the sheltered life of a 16-year-old from the San Fernando Valley, I hadn’t yet heard of heroin, uppers, downers, roofies, opium, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD, steroids, crack cocaine, PCP or even pot. I wasn’t even interested in vodka, whiskey or tequila. All I wanted was a case of beer.
The way I usually found it started with putting the word out to all my friends to check with their connections. A couple of days later, I’d discover an anonymous note in the bottom of my school locker from the dealer.
I spent the next three hours following directions that put the Lindbergh kidnapping case to shame. I tossed the beer into the trunk of my car, where it stayed until Friday night, warming up to the temperature of the engine compartment, tasting like a certain kidney byproduct from an equestrian animal. There had to be an easier way to get a cold beer. As it turned out, there was. His name was Stan.
Stan was a huge guy for only being a junior in high school. He was 6 foot 4, weighed 235 and wore size 17 Converse high-tops. Because of his size, he was able to get a job working the counter at his uncle’s liquor store in an affluent part of town. I could buy whatever I wanted from Stan and it was easier than the black market. The down side was that I had to include him in all my activities. But, that turned out to be advantageous. I’d dress Stan in a black suit, tell everyone that he was my bodyguard.
Later, I stepped up (or, stepped down, depending on how you look at it) to cheap wine and found that buying alcohol was largely a matter of supply and demand. If you could find a decrepit enough liquor store that was desperate for your money, they’d sell you anything. Since I was never interested in taste (just it’s ability to send me to another planet), I’d hit the bargain bins in the back corner of the store. Bargain bins were filled with unknown brands of clearance wines that no one else in their right mind would think about buying, let alone drinking. Brands like Bartles & James, Blue Nun, Mad Dog 20/20, Boones Farm, Cisco, Ripple, Night Train Express, Thunderbird, Arriba and 777 Russian Port Wine and all-purpose wallpaper remover.
As luck would have it, I was taking a public speaking class in junior college. Our mid-term assignment was to deliver a 10 minute speech on how to make something. One of the students brought in an empty gallon bottle and poured in grape juice, sugar and yeast. He sealed the top with a condom and told us that we’d be drinking some of the most memorable wine of our lives by the end of the semester when he gave his final speech. We did. We got so wasted that the professor cancelled the last half of the class and sent everyone home to sober up. That was at 10:00 in the morning. And they say you never learn anything in college…
Over time, I graduated from cheap beer and wine to even cheaper spirits. The point was never to enjoy their taste. The goal was to get as drunk as possible in the shortest amount of time. I grew to love Popov vodka and the cheap gin they sold at Fedco. When feeling rambunctious, my friends and I would pile into my VW bug and drive south to Tijuana. While you could easily buy Mexico’s name brand tequila for a fraction of what it cost in the U.S., we tended to gravitate to the off-label torpedo juice. You could find it at gas stations in refilled Pepsi bottles, sealed with a cork and melted wax. No label, no identification of any kind to indicate what was inside. Just 100% grain alcohol guaranteed to melt the rims off your glasses. To this day, I blame that torpedo juice for never becoming a Rhodes Scholar.
I’m older now and quit drinking years ago. After experimenting with all those variations of cheap booze and every recreational drug known to mankind, I’ve learned to enjoy the magical wonders of reality. It’s so much more fun waking up in the morning, remembering what you did the night before, where you parked your car and not having to explain all the blood stains to your mother. And I don’t have to entertain Stan.
