Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man

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There are lots of ways to get into trouble. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

EGGING: Egg a car and you can put a big dent in the side. Let the egg sit there long enough and it wrecks the finish. That is, it never comes off. When you're a kid, there's always one Egging Night a year.

Fortunately, there was always some guy at the PTA meetings who said, 'Oh, they're just kids. Give `em a break.' I think he owned the grocery store. 'Oh, and tell your kids I've got pears that aren't moving, just rotting. Maybe they should do a fruit night.'

'DAD, CAN I HAVE THE CAR KEYS?: fm not talking about serious heisting here. Just kid stuff, like borrowing your parents' car without asking. Before you're sixteen. Now, I didn't do this, of course-to the best of their knowledge. Between you and me, I did take their car around the block once, and my heart beat so fast and so hard that I thought it would burst out of my chest and go right through the windshield. Suddenly, that's all I could think about. I started freaking out. If it came through my chest, I'd probably look down and try to stuff it back in or something. And while I was looking down, some neighbor lady walking her poodle would, at that very moment, decide to cross the street, and I'd look up-oh, my god-and with the skill of a race car driver, I'd swerve out of her way just in time, and plow right into a tree instead. I sped home in neutral and spent the rest of the day recovering.

One guy I knew actually took his parents' car to parties. We'd be out, drinking, flying around at ninety mph in his mom's Mercury Marquis station wagon. They'd be out to dinner, thinking it was in the garage. Just before they'd come home, we'd get back, shut the garage, rush inside. The car would still be going 'tick, tick, tick, tick, sss, ssss,' and there'd be six guys just sitting down in the living room as his parents walked in.

They'd say, 'So, what have you guys been doing?'

'Oh, nothing.'

'You mean you've been sitting here all night with your coats on?'

'It's cold.'

DONUTS: When you're out in the folk's 'borrowed' car, you can have lots of fun making donuts. Here's the recipe: You pull the car onto someone's freshly cut lawn, crank the steering wheel as far as it will go and then just floor it. You'll be making giant donuts in no time! The constant spinning action creates a lovely mixture of grass and dirt, with a haughty bouquet.

This drives the homeowner mad. So you wait until the poor guy has repaired the damage-and do it again.

Occasionally an irate homeowner will lay small tank traps-sharp, well?placed rocks-hoping you'll hit one as you spin around and puncture a tire. (Try explaining that to your parents!)

This doesn't really work because once a guy challenges your right to be bad you find a way to be worse.

What goes around comes around. I know. I'm a homeowner now.

SILVERWARE: Some guys really surprise you. I knew one who came to school with bags of silverware. Other people's silverware. In art class he'd fire up the smelter, toss in handfuls of heirlooms, and melt them down into ingots.

He'd tell the teacher he was sculpting.

What he meant was that he was sculpting his initials into the bars, which he'd then carry home to his clubhouse. (A six?bedroom, five?bath English Tudor.)

This guy's in big trouble today. He was already breaking into homes to get the silver-a bad sign, considering we were only it junior high school. But I liked his motivation. He'd caught on early that goal?setting was a key to a successful life-even if it was behind bars.

Iron bars.

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Do girls get into trouble? I don't think so. I've asked around.

Girls are more likely to be doing useless things like studying. Or going to afterschool functions to develop their social skills! Skills that don't prepare them for important things, like toiletpapering houses. Now, where's that going to get them?

Sure, some girls were chasing after the bad guys, which is another good reason to make trouble: boys learn early that we can't get a girl without a car and/or a prison record. A good grade point average and a working knowledge of King Lear can't compete with riding a motorcycle. When a girl's parents said, 'I don't like that Tim, he drives that bike,' you knew you were in. But mostly, if girls were into mischief at all, they stuck to petty stuff: to petty stuff:

Stealing cigarettes. Swiping lipstick and earrings from the five?and?dime. Ditching school to hang out with college boys, and smoking their cigarettes. Hemming their dresses really short, then hiding them in their purses so they could change into them at the school dance.

Here's the big one: Reading romance novels under the bedcovers at night.

Reading?

But reading what? Nancy Drew Meets Bernie Broder?

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Here's the big difference between men and women at the age when everyone's looking for action.

Take two equally equipped '68 Roadrunners, with the 440 Magnum-ah, what the heck, go for the Hemi with the decor package-vinyl top, the rally wheels with the custom rims, and the airgrabber system. Put four girls in one, four guys in the other. You send them both out to get a six?pack of beer, and tell them to be back at midnight.

The girls will probably be back by eleven o'clock. One beer is half empty and warm, with lipstick on the rim. The car's cleaner than when you left it, it smells like a mix of Chanel No. 5 and gossip. Everyone's chatting happily and planning how to get together soon for dinner.

The guys-if they ever come back-one is missing, there's blood everywhere, no one's talking. The beer's gone, a second sixpack is also empty, some liquor bottles are in the backseat, there are spent shell casings on the floor, butt prints all over the windows, a tire is flat, one fender's all dented, the muffler's hanging off, and a big piece of animal is strapped on the hood.

Two different worlds.

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Some kids cross the line and one day they get into too much trouble. You're in their car, they pull into the parking lot of a 7?Eleven, and you suddenly realize you're in the wrong car. They're bored and looking for trouble. If there are no women, at least there's got to be some action. And action is definitely not going to the mall and walking around. This situation can lead to wrong decisions.

Petty theft was not for me. I stopped hanging around with these guys and set my own goals.

Selling drugs.

I'm not trying to be funny. It's public record. Eventually it landed me in jail. No one likes to go to jail. Prison takes away your freedom in a way you can never imagine until you've spent time there. Anyone who says prison is great or they can do it-fine. So explain to me why, if you opened the door, everyone would walk away. Once you lose your freedom, you never want to lose it again. Prison was the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me. It taught me in no uncertain terms to be responsible for my own actions.

It's tough to be lighthearted about prison, even if like me you've made it through. Still, I feel a bit like Audie Murphy, back from the war, full of stories.

Even today it's a big shock to people that I spent any time behind bars. They say, 'You're not that kind of guy.'

Well, yes, I was that kind of guy. Half model citizen, half hooligan.

And where I was headed was full of Eddie Haskells, too.

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Prison is filled with guys in whom their lunatic is free. The lunatic is finally where he wants to be. He's in a place where lunacy works. The more of a lunatic you are, the better you get along with the other lunatics. Prison is a wonderful place for the lunatic to be since it's the lunatic in you that gets you there.

The difference between the lunatic living in the outside world and killing time in prison is that inside the lunatic actually speaks. He goes, 'I didn't do it.' Or 'if I had a chance to do it again I certainly wouldn't get caught.' The lunatic is always in denial because he never admits the slightest responsibility.

'It was the other guy.'