"Grace!"

As children, most of us are taught the following prayer:

God is great, God is good,
Let us thank him for our food.
Amen.

(Some people go on to learn additional stanzas about "being fed" and "daily bread," but frankly, that's just overkill. It's like learning the second verse of the Star Spangled Banner, and who the hell needs that?)

So like most normal kids who are indoctrinated at an early age, I learned to Bless the Food™ by rote. Any time I was called on to say the blessing, I would simply bow my head and recite the prayer I had been taught.

As I got older, the prayer went through several mutations...

Good bread, good meat,
Good God, let's eat.

Or...

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Thanks for the grub.
Yaaaaaaaay, God.
Amen, dig in!

But by the time I became a teenager, praying by rote was no longer acceptable. Or rather, praying a prayer that someone else had written was no longer acceptable. My grandfather had been praying the same prayer for so many years that he had it down to a science, and every time he "asked the blessing," he would speed pray like an auctioneer.

Accept this thanks our Father for this day we ask that you bless this food bless it to the nourishment of our bodies...

About that time, my younger stepbrother J.J. began receiving the prayer duty. I, for one, was happy because it meant I wouldn't have to do it anymore. Also, J.J. hadn't managed to commit the entire prayer to memory, so his blessing would always be along the lines of "God is great. Amen."

One day, after visiting the First Baptist Church in Winnsboro, Texas, we all went back to my grandparents house for lunch. My grandmother had done her traditional pot roast, and we were all pretty hungry. So when the time came to say the blessing, my sister and I both chimed in, "Let J.J. say it!"

Unfortunately, J.J. had apparently received some schooling in proper praying since the last time, and he went to town.

God is great, God is good,
Let us thank him for our food.
By his hand, we are fed.
Thanks for this, our daily bread.
God bless Daddy and Momma and Meme and Daddy Pops and Mamaw and Papaw and Gran and Chris and Sunny and Uncle Mark and Aunt Pam and Rob and Amber and Zane and Heather and Teresa and Jan and Bubba and Lee Wayne and Leroy...

...and so on, for about five minutes. My mom finally interrupted his heartfelt prayer by saying, "Hey! God knows who's in your family, okay? Just say Amen."

Anyway, once non-recited prayers became the norm, I became very uncomfortable and self-conscious any time I was asked to pray in front of people. I'd stumble through something about "thank you for the food and the weather and, you know, all that." I made a couple of ill-fated attempts to emulate my grandfather, but I lacked his mastery and got my tongue all tangled up over "AcceptthisthanksourFather..."

So imagine my joy some years later, when I was in college, and my mom married a Catholic guy. Suddenly, recited prayers were back in vogue! Any time I joined them for dinner, we would recite:

Bless us, oh Lord, for these gifts we're about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Simple. Elegant. To the point. I wasn't a Catholic. Hell, I wasn't even a Christian by that point. But to me, it was an out. It was a handy, socially-acceptable prayer that I could whip out any time someone put me on the spot. Even after mom divorced the guy, I kept the prayer.

So fast forward a few years later. It was Thanksgiving, and my sister and I were having dinner with my dad and grandmother. (This was before they died, otherwise this would be a truly creepy story.) We'd all just sat down, and Dad said, "Hey, Chrisco. Why don't you bless it?"

So we bowed our heads, and I said, "Bless us, oh Lord, for these gifts we're about to receive..."

When I was done, I looked up, and everyone was looking at me strangely. My grandmother asked, "Where did you hear that prayer?"

My sister said, "I think it's a Catholic prayer," in the same tone of voice that someone might say, "I think that's a turd in your coffee."

I shrugged. "It's the only prayer I know all the words to."

My sister was simply outraged. "You're not supposed to just recite something. You're supposed to pray what's in your heart."

"Whatever. Can we eat now?"

"We need to bless the food for real," my sister insisted.

"Fine," I sighed. I bowed my head again and this time prayed, "Dear Lord, we ask that you smite us not, miserable wretches that we are, but rather you spare us for another day in your service..."

That's as far as I got before I started laughing. Dad laughed, too. My grandmother and my sister, not so much. In fact, it was over an hour before my sister would even speak to me again.

But nobody's asked me to bless the food since then.

Amen.

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part IX

Note: For those of you who are writing my goddamn life story, this incident takes place just before Ms. McCollaugh flashed her nipple to the entire Fifth Grade Class, firmly setting me on the path to heterosexuality.

It was February 1978, and I was in the fifth grade. Carter was president, Star Wars was a hot property, and people were listening to the Bee Gees without a trace of irony. It had been six weeks since we'd all got back from Christmas vacation, which meant just one thing... REPORT CARD DAY!

This was back in the day when computers were roughly the size of Guam, so our report cards were decidely low tech. They were blue sheets of cardboard preprinted with a list of subjects. Our teachers would go through and lovingly hand-letter our grades with ballpoint pen every six weeks. Grades ranged from A+ to F and, as one of those insufferably smart kids that got beat up a lot, my report card was usually chock-full of As and Bs.

However, I knew it was going to be different this time. I'd totally bombed a quiz on the state capitals, "forgotten" to prepare for an oral presentation on the Iroquois, and neglected to turn in several assignments. I'd known for the past two weeks that this wasn't going to be one of my better report cards. When Mr. Price placed it on my desk in its manilla sleeve, my hands were trembling. I slipped it out, opened it up, and saw my worst fears confirmed. Social Studies: C.

Mr. Price reminded us that we needed to get a parent's signature on the report card and turn it back in next week. And as I stared at that cursed C, just blatantly sitting there amongst the respectable grades and mocking my childlike faith in God, my mind raced desperately to find some way out of this predicament. I considered losing my report card in the sewer, or forging my stepdad's signature on it, or faking a coma... In the end, I did what I think any self-respecting kid in my position would do. I panicked. I ran home, found a black felt tip pen, and valiantly attempted to change that C into a B.

My forgery was pretty pathetic, but that didn't matter because I was committed now. When my mom got home from work, I showed her the report card. The first thing she said was, "What's this one grade? It looks like a C that was changed into a B." Total panic, but I didn't let it show. Somehow I kept my composure and just flat out lied to her face. "Oh, yeah. That was a mistake. Mr. Price changed it." To my surprise, she just nodded and signed the report card. I couldn't believe I'd gotten away with it!

My elation lasted all of two minutes when I suddenly remembered that I still had to turn the report card back in to Mr. Price. He would open it up, see the changed grade, and I'd be busted. I felt another attack of panic as I saw my entire retarded plan coming unraveled. So once again, I did what any self-respecting kid in my position would do. I stalled. I took the report card and shoved it into my top dresser drawer.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Price kept asking me where my report card was, and I kept telling him that I'd forgotten it. I had no idea how long I'd be able to keep up the pretense, but I had no other plan on deck. I just kept hoping *something* miraculous would happen, to get me out of this mess.

I was miserable, at school and at home. Wracked with guilt, nervous every time the phone rang, terrifed every time my mom or stepdad would call my name. There were times when I wanted to confess, just to end the entire ordeal. In fact, one Saturday evening, when my parents were back in their bedroom watching TV, I decided the time had come to own up and face the music. I walked back there, and listened for a few seconds to the TV blaring from the other side of the closed door. Finally, I steeled myself and knocked gently. They didn't hear me. I lost my nerve and didn't knock again.

After three miserable, gut-wrenching weeks, the horrible incident finally came to an end. I came home from school, and my mom was standing there, holding my report card. "What's this?" she asked me. "I thought you took this back to school weeks ago." By this point, I had given up the idea of confessing. Instead, I was going to ride this thing out to its defiant end. As nonchalantly as I could, I said, "Oh, yeah! Good! I've been looking for that! Where did you find it?"

I slept fitfully that night, knowing there was no way out of it now. The next morning, I went to school and, on trembling legs, made my way to Mr. Price's desk. Still defiant and determined to go down fighting, I handed him the report card and said, "Mr. Price? My mom was wondering about one of those grades. She said it looked like it had been changed."

Mr. Price slid the card out of its sleeve, opened it up, and studied it for a second. Then he said, "No, that's right. It was supposed to be a B."

To this day, I still don't believe that. There's no way that grade was *ever* supposed to be a B. I know this sounds crazy but, somehow, I used the goddamned Jedi mind trick on him!

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part VIII

When I was a teenager, I went through a country music phase. It was my first real musical identity, unless you count my unhealthy obsession with the Star Wars soundtrack from 1977-1980. But for the four years I was in high school, I was all about Hank Jr. and Charlie Daniels Band.

Of course, this was during the mid 1980s. Reagan was president, Michael Jackson was still black, and both Judds together were roughly the size that Winona is now. I was living in the thriving metropolis of Garland, Texas (home of cartoonist Mike Judge and, so I've heard, the inspiration for the town of Arlen in King of the Hill). On top of that, I drove a 1969 Chevy pickup truck until 1985, when I traded up to a black 1977 Trans Am right out of Smokey and the Bandit.

Damn. I'm lucky I didn't grow up to marry my cousin.

Anyway, when I was going through my C&W thang, my sister Sunny was all about the Rap music. Of course, back then Rap was a little different. Most rap songs would consist of the guys spelling the name of the band and introducing themselves, and then they'd rap about something nice, like their sneakers or how tricky it was to rock a rhyme that was right on time.

My sister *hated* country music when we were in high school. She was just mortified that I not only knew all the words to "Devil Went Down to Georgia," but I insisted on accompanying myself on air fiddle. She hated Ricky Skaggs and Alabama and just about anybody who had ever appeared on Hee Haw, and would rail on and on about it until I'd finally pull out my 8-track tape and let her turn the dial to K104 (which was basically a 24-hour Sugar Hill Gang station at the time).

So while I was in college, I made the switch to classic rock. It started with Pink Floyd, and pretty soon I was blasting Led Zepplin from the cassette deck of my Trans Am. I listened to the Beatles, from Rubber Soul to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, and even most of the White Album (except for the crap Yoko made them sing).

And my sister, ironically enough, became a huge fan of country music.

One day back in 1989 (Bush was president, Michael Jackson was pale, blah, blah, blah), Sunny and I were driving home from visiting our grandmother in Texarkana and I was listening to Abbey Road. And my sister, as always, was whining about my horrible musical choices.

"I don't understand why rock music has to always be about sex," she said.

"That's not really fair," I told her. "I mean, Conway Twitty used to sing about the tiger in the tight-fitting jeans, but all the Beatles ever wanted to do was hold her hand."

I'd scored a point, and my sister knew it. She was struggling to find an example of what she was talking about, but she couldn't think of one. So she finally just blurted out, "Oh yeah? Well at least country music isn't all like, 'Nice ass, can I kiss it?' or 'Hey big titty momma, come lick my neck!'"

I howled with laughter. "What the fuck rock songs have YOU been listening to?"

She blushed and got a little defensive. "You know what I mean," she insisted. But I just kept laughing and repeating, "Hey big titty momma, come lick my neck!" Eventually, she started laughing too and it became something of a running joke between us.

So flash forward about six months. I'm home for the summer and hanging with my friend Steve (who occasionally frequents this blog). We're having lunch, and he mentions that he's recently started listening to country music. I roll my eyes and let out an exasperated moan. "God, you and my sister should start a support group or something."

I tell him the story about our heated debate, and we start tossing out silly prank ideas. "Hey, you should tell her your favorite song is 'Hey Big Titty Momma!'" From there, the prank evolves into something ridiculously convoluted. It takes us all afternoon, but using a synthesizer and a couple of cassette recorders, we finally create our masterpiece.

Later that afternoon, we're driving my sister to the airport and the cassette tape is in my stereo, ready to be played. Steve's riding up front with me, and Sunny's in the back. Steve starts things off with, "You know, I've been listening to some country music lately. I've decided it's not that bad."

My sister eagerly takes the bait. "I know! I love it too! But try telling Chris that. He won't even listen to it anymore."

"That's not true," I say, sounding a bit hurt. "There's some of it that's okay. I've got a tape of some local band here that I like."

"God," Sunny says, rolling her eyes. "It's probably Pink Floyd or something stupid."

So I press play, and the tape starts with a roaring crowd dubbed from Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder. But then, you hear Steve's voice saying, "All right, we wanna thank you all for coming out! This next song goes out to a little filley in Garland by the name of Sunny Irby!"

My sister actually gasps as the crowd noise dies and is replaced by a lame auto polka rhythm from Steve's synthesizer. Steve starts off with a solo:

Sittin' on a barstool, just the other night.
I saw her standing there, and her shirt and jeans were tight.
She walked up beside me, and I ordered her a beer.
And when she hugged me tight, I thought "It must be cold in here."

Steve and I then sing loudly and proudly on the chorus:

Hey big titty mama, won't you come and lick my neck?
I know you're only 16, but my god, who gives a heck?
If you think I'd like to kiss your ass, well then you'd be correct.
So please big titty mama, won't you come and lick my neck.

More crowd noise, and we fade out with Steve saying, "Thank you! You've been great!"

When it's all said and done, my sister is less than impressed with the lengths to which we went. In fact, her sole assessment of our musical endeavor is "You guys are SO gay!"

But we don't care. We're well-pleased of our first and only foray into the realm of shitkicking tunes. We take gratification in the knowledge that our song, however hastily thrown together, is still better than anything Billy Ray Cyrus ever put out. In fact, we're so proud of this song that even today, if you get us drunk enough, we'll happily perform it for you. And then throw up on your shoes.

Yeehaw.

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part VII

There were three 5th grade teachers at Club Hill Elementary (GO SCOTS, or whatever the fuck the team name was). The classroom was one large room divided into three areas. Each teacher had his/her own area of expertise, so we moved from area to area during the day.

Mr. Price was my homeroom teacher, and he also taught social studies. He was a badass (short and bald, but a badass nonetheless) who wore a leather jacket and rode a motorcycle to school. I remember most of the girls got giggly and squishy around him.

Mrs. Bouchard was the matronly math teacher who was born sometime during the Taft administration. She was always going on about "the New Math" and explaining to us how lucky we were because when she was our age, they didn't have numbers and they had to do all their arithmetic with I's, V's, and L's.

And then, there was Miss McCollaugh, the English teacher. Young and perky, with bobbed blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was particularly fond of wearing tight blouses without a bra, which made her inordinately popular with most of the boys. She was stern and bossy, but in the hottest way imaginable. I used to fantasize about being forced to stay after school, but unfortunately she wasn't my homeroom teacher.

Mr. Price was a married man and Miss McCollaugh had a fiance, but the two of them used to hang out together a lot. They ate their meals together, stood near each other while we were at recess, and occasionally left us unattended so they could go converse in the hall. Of course, this gave rise to the rumor that they were having an affair. Hell, we were 5th graders with no understanding of sex, and even WE assumed they were knocking naughty bits.

Every afternoon, around 2:00, all three classes would gather in a common area for story time. Mr. Price never participated, but Mrs. Bouchard and Miss McCollaugh took turns reading chapters to us from their novel of choice.

So one fine spring afternoon, we were all gathered around Miss McCollaugh as she read to us from A Wrinkle in Time. She was an animated reader, really getting into the voices. She was wearing a loose-fitting white sweater with nothing on underneath, and her breasts were bouncing around happily as she regaled us with the tale of... well, hell. I don't really remember what was going on. It involved tesseracts and hobbits or something.

At one particularly exciting moment in the narrative, Miss McCollaugh leaned forward. She took a deep breath, pausing to maximize the dramatic tension... and her left breast popped out!

For several seconds, we all just stared in stunned silence at that lone nipple, peeking at us over the neckline of her sweater. Miss McCollaugh stopped reading and just looked out at us, her cheeks burning bright red. Nobody made a sound.

Then all at once, wild and crazy laughter from all 80 of us. We shrieked and howled and pointed. Miss McCollaugh let out a cry, threw down the book, and bolted out of the classroom. Mr. Price ran after her, which just made us laugh louder. And poor Mrs. Bouchard was left to try and calm us all down.

Somehow, Miss McCollaugh managed to finish out the day. The next morning, she came to school wearing five bras and fourteen sweaters under her heavy winter coat, and no mention was made of the incident. Like I said, she was stern and bossy, and many of us were terrified of incurring her wrath.

But when we were sure she wasn't looking, we'd poke our hands under our shirts and recreate the incident, complete with "Boing!" sound effects. And then we'd giggle like Karl Rove with a freezer full of orphans.

You know how kind kids can be...

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part VI

When we were in the 6th grade, my friend Sean decided he wanted to make movies. Not just act, mind you, but also write and direct. A true auteur.

Armed with his dad's Super-8 camera (this was well before the age of video, you understand), he shot his first feature. It was about 5 minutes long, and it featured our friends Tim and Curt as wizards, battling it out on a local playground. The special effects were done by scratching the film with a nail. I remember being in total awe when I first saw the finished film. Even to this day, I think it's pretty fucking impressive.

For his next project, Sean decided to try something truly ambitious. He invested $45 of his saved allowance on something called a Craven Backwind, which would allow you to wind film backwards and create double exposures. He also got hold of an old cassette recorder, so now we could actually have sound.

Eager to push his new special effects capabilities to their limits, Sean decided our next film would be Return to the Land of the Giants. This was a big budget film, well over $100! Sean and his dad actually built a large, wooden spaceship to be used as a set.

Sean read a few technical books to learn how to do the giant/little people special effects. Unfortunately, despite the high tech capabilities of the Craven Backwind, they didn't turn out very convincing. Not only were the little people frequently transparent, but they were standing at odd angles in comparison to everything else. One hilarious scene featured me being frightened by a giant dog and swinging my briefcase at it. The dog was staring up at the camera, and I seemed to be floating on my back at a 45-degree angle.

Our next feature was The Adventures of Agent .05, starring me as a secret agent. This was the first collaborative writing effort between me and Sean, and I still take credit for the funny bits. Agent .05's partner was written in the script as a very sexy woman codenamed 36-24-36. We thought this was hilarious, despite the fact that she was played by a 7th grader. The bad guys belonged to an organization called M.E.S.S. (Maladjusted Enemy Secret Service), and they employed an assassin with a steel hand named Paws. You know, instead of Jaws. Holy shit, we were ON FIRE!!!

Most of the action took place in the local library (Sean actually called them and asked permission to film there). It also featured an exciting bike chase through the streets of Garland.

(Our 7th grade actress, Shelly, wasn't available when it came time to redub the dialog, so we called on Tim's sister Ruthi to fill in. Which means that our sexy secret agent was a 7th grader with the squeaky voice of a 4th grader. I just know that's gotta be against the law...)

Other film projects included parodies of Alien, Flash Gordon, Raiders of the Lost Ark (in which Sean was actually dragged behind a car driven by one of our older friends), and The Black Hole (where Sean finally got the hang of his Craven Backwind and superimposed an image of a spaceship floating above a flushing toilet bowl).

Probably our most ambitious project was our Dungeons and Dragons film, which was conceived immediately after seeing Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the first time. We were in the 8th grade by then, and our sense of humor had grown MUCH more sophisticated over the past couple of years.

The idea was simple. We'd have some people playing Dungeons and Dragons. And as they described the actions of their characters, we'd show the characters acting them out. Sometimes the players would make their characters do something truly stupid, like swing at a falling rock. And the character, rolling his eyes with annoyance, would step under the rock and swing his sword before getting crushed to death. It was comic gold, I tell ya!

Somehow, the original idea evolved into something much more far-reaching. I think Sean had it in his head to create an actual epic fantasy. And so, several months into production, we found ourselves in a vacant lot filming a pivotal scene.

Sean was an elven prince, garbed in armor and a cloak and wearing Mr. Spock ears. In the middle of the field, sticking up from the ground, he would see the legendary sword. So he'd grab it by the hilt and pull it from the ground. He'd hold it aloft, and its blade would burst into flames.

Now Sean was pretty well versed in special effects and pyrotechniques by this time. In addition to our crew of six and our equipment, we also had Sean's backpack, which was stuffed full of firecrackers, smoke bombs, Roman candles, and the empty shell of an actual Army surplus hand grenade.

The sword was made of wood, and Sean decided the best way to handle this magical scene would be to dowse the blade with gasoline and set it on fire.

So Sean was standing in the middle of a vacant lot and surrounded by tall, dry grass while holding a flaming piece of wood over his head. And the rest of us were so intent on getting it on film that we didn't even notice the police car that drove into the lot until we heard the quick little blast of the siren.

Sean was so startled that he dropped the sword, and we all ran over to stomp it out before it caught the grass on fire. Sean took the opportunity to slip off his pointed ears, and went to face the policeman.

"What the hell are you boys doing?" the policeman asked us. "You trying to start a fire or something?"

"Um, we're making a movie," Sean answered nervously. The officer glanced at all of us, and then his eyes fell on the backpack.

"What you kids got in there? Have you been firing a .22 out here?"

This caught us totally off guard. "No sir," Sean said. "We don't have any guns or anything."

"Mind if I have a look in there?" Before Sean could answer, the officer knelt and opened the backpack. Fortunately, he didn't seem terribly alarmed by the fireworks. But he was a bit concerned about the hand grenade.

"What the hell is that?" he asked.

"Oh, it's not real," Sean said, reaching for it.

The policeman jumped to his feet, his hand on his revolver. "Don't touch it!" he shouted at us. "I have a wife and kid at home and I want to make sure I make it home to them tonight."

"It's not real," Sean repeated in a trembling voice. He was talking frantically fast, running his sentences together, no doubt imagining the policeman opening fire on him. "If you look at the bottom you can see it's empty there's nothing in it it's not real I bought it at an Army Surplus store but it doesn't have any of the stuff in it that makes it explode..."

"All right, all right." The policeman examined the grenade, then set it back down in the backpack. "So, what's this movie you guys are making about?"

Sean had regained some of his composure by now. "Dungeons and Dragons," he said.

The officer regarded all of us, then said, "Do you boys know what that Dungeons and Dragons can do to your mind?"

Too intimidated to snicker, we could only look at each other with somber nods. Sean said, "Um, I don't know about that. I'm just making a movie."

"Well, I'd say you guys are done with your movie. If I catch you out here again, I'm calling your parents." He turned to leave, but stopped and stared at Sean's breast pocket.

"What's that in your pocket?" he asked.

"Huh?" Sean looked down, and then answered rather sheepishly, "Oh, those are ears."

***

When we first started in the 6th grade, Sean called his production company F&I Productions (for Freeman and Irby). However, by the time the incident with the policeman happened, my interest had waned somewhat. Part of it was pressure from my parents, who were convinced that Sean was going to get me arrested or killed. Part of it was high school, with new friends and new interests. And part of it was just the fact that I had grown self-conscious about dressing up in costumes and running around in public.

Sean changed the name of the company to AFP (Adventure Film Productions) and made a few more short films, some of which were truly hilarious. My favorite was an ad for a fake radio station called EVIL featuring Brian Damage and Jason in the mornings! Basically, the ad would feature somebody rocking out with a jam box. Brian Damage (in a straight jacket) and Jason (in a hockey mask) would approach. Brian would say, "What are you listening to?" The listener would answer enthusiastically, "E-V-I-L! Radio 105.666!" Then Jason would brutally murder the listener with a machete.

But eventually, Sean's passion for filmmaking went into decline. He still hosted AFP parties, and we all still got together on a regular basis. We hung out at the mall together, we played nerdy RPGs together, we went to movies, played computer games, played Photon (a precursor to LaserTag) rather religiously...

But we pretty much quit making movies.

***

Sean still has all of those old films in a box at his house. Every once in a while, he'll dig them out and set up the old Super-8 projector and we'll have ourselves a film festival.

Recently, he's expressed an interest in converting the films to digital format. He wants to get any of the old cassette tapes that survived the ensuing decades and synch up the sound, and then stamp them out onto a DVD. Sean's plan is to ultimately stage a film festival, and invite all of our old friends and long-suffering parents to see the fruits of our labors from 1978 to 1981.

So my pre-teen awkwardness and social retardation will soon be digitally remastered and preserved for the ages.

I can't wait!

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part V

In November of 1982, I was a sophomore in high school.

My first period class that semester was Health. Now this was in the crazy days before we learned about dirty, dirty sex in school, so the entire focus of the class had been the Food Pyramid and how to keep your skin clean. So far, it had been a blow off. The final exam was going to count as 25% of my grade, but I had a 98 average in the class and I wasn't all that worried about it.

The teacher was a woman named Ms. Rothfus, who also coached the girls' volleyball team. She liked me because I was a good student. I paid attention, I took good notes, and I always raised my hand when she asked a question. In other words, I was an insufferable prick. But like I said, I had a 98 average in the class...

There was a girl named Sharon who sat in front of me, and she'd been very nice to me for the past six weeks or so. Every morning, I let her copy my homework. And once, during a pop quiz, I had whispered answers to her when Ms. Rothfus wasn't looking.

So the day of the final came, and I was blasting through the multiple choice without breaking a sweat. I had an English final and a World History final later that day, both of which were going to be pretty rough. But at least I'd be able to get through the Health final with no problems.

Then Sharon passed me a note. There was a portion of the exam where we were supposed to list the basic needs of humanity in order, and she couldn't remember what they were. Could I help her?

I looked up and saw Ms. Rothfus looking in our direction. I didn't know if she'd seen Sharon pass the note or not, but I didn't want to take any chances. So I just slipped the note under my exam and ignored it.

Sharon passed me back another note. If she failed this exam, she'd fail the class and her mom would kill her. Please. Just help with this one part. She wouldn't ask me for anything else.

Ms. Rothfus wasn't looking, so I scribbled down the answers and passed them up to Sharon. Sharon was copying them when Ms. Rothfus suddenly stood up and marched over to us. She snatched the cheat sheet from Sharon and beckoned her to the desk up front.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to faint. I swear, I'd never been this terrified in my entire life. Aside from the occasional detention for tardiness, I'd never gotten in trouble in school before. I kept my head down and kept working on my exam, trying like hell to pretend like whatever was going on didn't concern me.

Ms. Rothfus said to Sharon, "I'm only going to ask you this once. Who gave you these answers?" And Sharon pointed right at me and said, "He did." Ms. Rothfus marched back and snatched up my exam as well. She held the two of us after the bell and informed us that we'd both be receiving a grade of 1 on the final. Not zero, but one.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, I protested my innocence. It was a setup, I proclaimed. I didn't give her any answers. She was only lying to protect the REAL guilty party. But Ms. Rothfus wasn't buying any of it.

Somehow, I made my way through my World History and English final. But all day long, I was just dreading getting home and explaining this whole thing to my mom and stepdad.

I should note at this point that, in 1983, my stepfather J.R. was going through his crazy born-again evangelical Christian phase. He and my mom had been attending Church on the Rock, one of those kinda creepy charismatic churches where people flail their hands in the air and start speaking gibberish. You know, like Jesus commanded.

Anyway, J.R. was on a real demon kick around this time. He was convinced that demons were responsible for EVERY evil in the world, from gayness to headaches.

So I got home and told Mom and J.R. that I'd been accused of cheating, but it was totally false. I was being set up. All Ms. Rothfus had was a piece of paper that sort of looked like it was written in my handwriting, but that didn't prove anything. And it wasn't fair, because she wouldn't even listen to me when I told her I was innocent, blah, blah, blah...

J.R. and Mom didn't get mad, but they didn't believe me. J.R. kept after me, prodding me with questions, until I finally broke down and admitted that I'd cheated. I was in tears by this point, so J.R. hugged me and started praying to Jesus to cast out these demons of lying and cheating that had possessed me.

Once the exorcism was over, J.R. told me to go to Ms. Rothfus the next morning and confess to her. Only then would Jesus truly forgive me my sin.

So I did. I asked her if I could speak to her in the hall outside the classroom, and I worked up my courage and I told her I'd cheated. Ms. Rothfus just snorted and said, "I know you cheated! That's why you got a 1!"

Eventually, the incident blew over. Mom and J.R. were relieved that the my demons had been cast out, and I didn't even get whipped or grounded! I could hardly believe my luck!

Of course, there was the report card to deal with. The final grade was listed there along with the rest of them. Because of the final exam, my 98 average had been dragged down to a 74. And thanks to the no pass/no play rules in Garland I.S.D., I had to endure the scrutiny of a less-than-discreet band director who examined my grades and said in front of the entire South Garland Concert Band, "I don't understand how you ended up with a 74 when... OH MY GOD! YOU GOT A ONE ON YOUR FINAL EXAM?"

But given the severity of the crime, I still feel like I got off relatively lightly. Sharon ended up failing the course. Unfortunately, her mom didn't follow through on her promise to kill her, but she did have to repeat the class.

Sharon dropped out of school the following year, and my buddy Charlie told me that he thought he'd seen her working the drive-thru at Long John Silver's. I don't know if this was true or not, but it would certainly serve her right.

That's what you get for not studying the Food Pyramid, bitch!

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part IV

Special Valentine's Day Edition

It's a Thursday evening in February of 2002. I'm about to settle into my usual weekly routine of watching CSI while eating a Hot Pocket when I get a call from Silver.

Silver's actual name is Chris Smith, and he is an incredibly talented painter. He started going by Silver back in his pretentious goth days, and I guess the name just sort of stuck. Anyway, he's one of the few single friends I have left.

So Silver has just rolled in from a business trip to Boston (he works for Verizon Superpages) and he wants to know if I feel like grabbing supper.

(That's a point of contention between us, by the way. Silver's family is from Mississippi, so they refer to the three meals as breakfast, dinner, and supper. Whereas I stubbornly insist that it's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. "There is no supper," I have informed him many times. "Jesus ate the last supper." But I digress...)

He swings by to pick me up, and we decide to hit the Cheesecake Factory. But when we arrive, it turns out the place is packed and there's an hour-long wait. It seems the two of us have forgotten that it's Valentine's Day.

Well, we've both got our hearts set on eating there, so I put my name on the list and we spend the next hour wandering around the mall, waiting for our beeper to go off.

Finally, our table is ready. The hostess is a cute, bubbly girl who smiles knowingly at us. "We've got a nice, quiet little table for you," she tells us as she takes us to be seated. "It's perfect."

The foodserver, another cute and bubbly girl, comes to take our order. She suggests several entrees that we can share, if we want. She also asks if we'd care for any wine or Champagne, making sure to mention that she can bring a bottle to the table if we like.

When she leaves, I tell Silver, "Okay, they totally think we're a couple."

Silver, who worries about that sort of thing much more than I do, sort of blusters. "What? No! No way! They do not!"

"I don't know why you're upset," I say. "You should be flattered. Personally, I think I could do a lot better..."

"Stop it," he says, his voice a whisper. "We should tell her that we're not... you know..."

"Why? I'd rather she think I'm gay than think I couldn't get a date on Valentine's Day."

All through the meal, the foodserver keeps dropping little comments about our "special Valentine's Day dinner." Silver orders dessert, and she brings two spoons. "Just in case you want to nibble off his," she says, with a wink.

The check comes, and I lay my cash down on the table. Silver decides he needs the cash, so he picks it up and puts the whole dinner on his Visa. The foodserver comes to pick it up, smiles, and says, "Ooh, big spender" as she walks away.

"Well," I say, "that ought to put an end to the rumors."

Our foodserver returns with the credit card slip. She pats Silver on the shoulder and says in a voice laden with innuendo, "Happy Valentine's Day, you two!"

We're on our way out the door, and I say to Silver, "Thanks for dinner, honey."

"Stop it," he mutters.

"If you like, we can cap off the evening by making out in the parking lot."

"I should have said something," Silver says. "I should have told her we weren't on a date."

"Why didn't you?"

He shrugs. "I didn't want to sound homophobic."

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part III

It's October 1986, around noon on a Friday, and I'm home visiting from college. My friend Sean and I are on our way to the Dairy Queen for lunch.

I'm driving my stepdad's pickup truck, since my car (a truly badass 1977 black Trans Am straight out of "Smokey and the Bandit") is back in Lubbock. I've been running errands all morning, including doing a load of laundry at the Kwik Wash. My shirts, folded and still warm from the dryer, are sitting in a paper bag on the seat between me and Sean.

(So far, it all sounds very Beverly Hillbillies, doesn't it? Between growing up in Garland and driving that Trans Am, I'm lucky I didn't wind up marrying my sister. But I digress...)

In the year since we both left high school, Sean and I have put a lot of effort into redefining ourselves. I'm trying to pass myself off as an obnoxious frat boy, and he's totally immersed himself in that horrible 80s rave scene. We're both being pretentious as hell, each trying to dazzle the other with how COOL we've become.

I'm asking Sean about the old gang, and he's bringing me up to date. Just as he starts telling me about our friend Steve Bruce, a cop pulls up behind us. No lights, no siren, nothing. Just a police car, following along behind us. But in high school, I used to get pulled over so often that it became something of a joke. So I sigh and mutter, "Oh, great. I wonder what he wants."

Sean, always good in a crisis, keeps turning around and looking at the cop. "He's still there," he informs me helpfully.

"Well, stop looking at him," I say. "Otherwise, he's going to think we've got a body in the back of the truck."

We continue another mile or so, and the policeman stays on our tail. So finally, at the next stop sign, I take a left onto a side street. The cop just continues on straight. Feeling like I've dodged some kind of bullet, I breathe a sigh of relief.

We wind through the residential streets and make our way back to the main road. And we reach the four-way stop just as that same policeman pulls up to it!

The cop turns left, glaring at me as he drives past. It's creepy, but I don't really think anything about it. I turn left, and we continue on our way to the Dairy Queen.

About ten minutes later, the policeman is behind us again, lights flashing. I pull over, and he walks up to speak to me through the window. He's a fat guy with a walrus mustache and enormous sweat stains under his pits. Garland's Finest.

"Can I see your license and insurance please?" he asks. I fish them out of my wallet and hand them to him.

"What seems to be the problem, officer?" I ask.

"This your truck?" he asks me.

"No, it's my dad's. Why? What's wrong?"

He shrugs. "We've had a bunch of burglaries in this area, and the suspects match your description. And your friend there kept looking back at me like he was nervous, and then you turned off the road like you were trying to get away from me."

"We weren't trying to get away," I lie. "We were just on our way to lunch and we were going to check with a friend of ours and see if he wanted to go."

"What's this friend's name?" the policeman asks.

For some reason, Sean and I are totally in synch on this one. "Steve," we both say in unison.

"Steve what?"

"Steve Bruce," Sean and I both say in unison.

"Where does Steve Bruce live?"

"I don't know," I tell the officer, and jerk a thumb towards Sean. "He was giving me directions."

"I don't know the address," Sean says. "I just know which house is his."

The cop nods, then heads back to his car to check on our story. He spends about ten minutes on the radio before he finally walks back up to us. "Can you boys account for your whereabouts last weekend?"

In a voice of strained civility, I say, "Officer, I go to school at Texas Tech in Lubbock. This is the first time I've been home this semester. I haven't burglarlized anybody."

"You have any proof of that?"

So I fish out my student ID and show it to him. He turns it over and notices a tiny line of fine print that says, Possession of this Identification Card does not guarantee enrollment. "What does that mean?" he asks me.

I sigh. "You can call the university, if you want. They'll confirm I'm enrolled there."

He shrugs. "You boys ever been arrested?"

"No sir," I tell him.

"Once for shoplifting," Sean says, and the cop's eyes glimmer with new hope.

He points to the sack of laundry. "What's in the bag? You boys been shopping?"

"It's my laundry, officer."

"Can I see it?"

I pull the shirt off the top, which just happens to be a Red Raiders t-shirt. "See, Texas Tech University. It's my shirt. I go to college there."

The policeman suddenly jams his head through the open window and sniffs the air inside the cab of the truck. "You boys smoke?"

"No sir."

"Have you been smoking marijuana?"

I sigh again, no longer hiding my frustration. "No sir."

"Can I see inside your ashtray?"

I open it up, and its filled with cigarette butts. I take one out and hold it up so he can see the brand name stamped on the filter. "Raleigh Light 100s, officer," I say, perhaps a tad snarkily. "My dad smokes them. This is his truck. He's letting me use it because my car is in Lubbock, where I go to school. This is my first trip home since classes started two months ago."

The policeman glares at us for a few seconds, then finally says, "Well, I'm still not convinced. And if we have any more burglaries, I'm going to turn you boys in as suspects and we'll have to bring you in."

"I'll probably be in Lubbock when that happens, officer. Would you like my address there?"

"No," he says as ominously as he can. "We'll find you." And with that, the Chubby Blue Line climbs back into his patrol car and speeds away.

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part II

The year is 1990, and I'm watching Hee Haw with my dad. (This is before he died, otherwise this would be one truly creepy story.)

My dad was a country-western musician and sort of swung in those Pickin' and Grinnin' social circles. He was buddies with Chet Atkins, and was acquainted with many of the beloved Hee Haw characters, such as Grandpa Jones, Minnie Pearl, Goatfuckin' Ned, Six-Toed Bessie, Cletus Q. Cousinhumper, Hillbilly Jesus, and Roy Clark. Personally, I wasn't much of a Hee Haw fan, but I did frequently ask Dad if he could introduce me to those hot girls in the straw hats and cutoffs. Unfortunately, that never seemed to pan out.

But I digress...

It's the summer of 1990, and I'm visiting my Dad in Texarkana. It's about 9:15 at night, and we're sitting in my grandmother's living room, watching Hee Haw. Or rather, he's watching Hee Haw. I'm reading Foucault's Pendulum and doing my best to ignore the hoedown.

Dad's drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, because he likes his whiskey expensive but his beer dirt cheap. He's been putting them away since before dinner, so he's pretty buzzed when Buck Owens pops up from the corn field to announce the next performer. It's nobody I've ever heard of before, but my dad gets really excited.

"Chrisco!" he calls to me in a slurred voice.

"Yeah, Dad?"

"I want you to put that goddamn book down for a minute and listen to this next song, 'cause it's got some lyrics that will just... oooh.... tear you up!"

So being the dutiful son that I am, I put down the book and I listen. It's a typical twangy sad country song about a man who marries a woman, and the two of them have a daughter named Candy. Then the man and woman get divorced, and the woman eventually winds up engaged to another man, which means Candy is going to have a new father. And as the song reaches its emotional pinnacle, the singer pleads, "Please, don't give Candy to strangers..."

I'm about to make a sarcastic remark, but I bite it back when my father lets out an emotional sigh. "Oooh!" he exclaims, shaking his head. "Oh, man!" And then, he holds up his forearm and points to it, showing me all of the hairs standing on end.

Suddenly, I feel guilty for not being moved by the song, so I shake my head and say in a voice choked with emotion, "Wow, that's powerful."

Dad nods enthusiastically. "I know! I mean, oooh!" And he proudly displays the raised hairs on his arm again.

It's a bonding moment, and Christ knows we've had precious few of those. So I close my book, and spend the rest of the evening watching back-to-back Hee Haw episodes with him. And even though he falls asleep in his recliner before it's over, I watch all the way to the end.

I figure it's the least I can do. Right?

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part I

The year is 1984, and I'm a junior in high school.

My friends are all going through that horrible Duran Duran stage, which means they're dressed in white cotton Banana Republic clothes and Panama hats. Oh, and lots of mascara. I'm the only one in the group who is tragically unhip, in my jeans and button-up shirt. With my hair parted to the side, I'm just a bow tie and a lobotomy away from being Tucker Carlson.

These are the guys I grew up with. We used to dress up in ridiculous costumes and film movies with my friend Sean's Super-8 camera. We'd spend entire weekends playing Dungeons and Dragons (until my dangerously Baptist mom and stepdad found out it was evil and put a stop to that). We'd plan all day excursions to the mall, making sure to hit the arcade and Lone Star Comics on our way to the theater. We were all content in our nerdiness.

But then, somewhere along the way, all of my friends got cool. It wasn't a gradual thing. It was like I missed a meeting, and suddenly they were all putting mousse in their hair and dressing like Simon LeBon. And they still wanted to hang out at the mall, only now they were more interested in shopping for clothes and flirting with girls.

So we're all at the Outlet Mall one Saturday afternoon. I didn't really want to come, but my friends have declared an intervention and are bound and determined to have me dressed in something paisley by the end of the day.

It's early April, and the mall is having a clearance sale on its leather jackets. So the five of us make our way to the back wall to browse. And as we're pawing our way through racks of leather merchandise, we hear an odd sound from the next aisle over.

It sounds like a cow mooing.

We stop talking and just listen. And sure enough, there it is again. Somebody's making cow noises in the leather department. How clever!

We hear it again, and we all start laughing. I make a comment, rather loudly, about how they must be making some more leather jackets up fresh. Another moo, and my friend Cary starts mooing back. Pretty soon, all of us are joining in.

All five of us are mooing rather raucously when we walk past the aisle and see the source of the sound. It's this profoundly retarded boy, about ten years old, in a wheelchair. He isn't mooing. He's simply moaning.

His parents are standing there, red-faced and angry, glaring at us as we walk past. They've been listening to us for the past five minutes, assuming we were making fun of their child. And honestly, there's not a thing any of us can say to make the situation better.

So we simply slink out without a word.