Bisco

    It was the summer after I graduated from high school and Anthony Piper made sure that we would never be the same after it. There was no amount of sanity that could stop us from a good time. We were eighteen years old and hungry for anything that came our way. Freedom was everywhere and was fed to us in spoonfuls of life; it was in the nights we didn’t come home until sunrise, tucked in between the ends of rolling papers and drowned in the last drop of empty bottles. At any given moment, we were a lighter flick away from diving into the depths of madness.

    A lot of the summer had being going in the direction of wherever we desired. Everyday there was something new that brought us to boundaries we had never crossed before. Anthony was the perfect guy for any type of adventure. He had a calmness about him while navigating through the danger of poor decisions that always seemed like he knew what he was doing. He could be trusted. No matter how much his luck seemed like it was about to run out, it never did.

    I was walking downtown with my friend Craig one afternoon when I got a call from Anthony, raving about this music festival that was happening in a giant field out in Mariaville -which was about thirty minutes from his father’s, where he was staying that summer-. He assured me that his friend could get us in for free and that everything was taken care of. All we had to do was be there. I knew better than to trust him, but my curiosity threw common sense to the wind. I was blind to consequences and only saw the gold at the end of our debauchery-filled rainbow. That gold shined with reflections of music, pretty girls, drugs and youthful mistakes that would be laughed about in reminiscing years later.

   The sun was beginning to slip away and tuck its shine behind the leaves of trees as I drove through the forgotten back-roads of upstate New York to meet Anthony. His father was out of town for the weekend but Kelly (his father’s partner) was still at the house when I arrived. Kelly was a few years younger than Anthony’s father. She was a petite, blond woman who had tattoos up her arms and even listened to some of the same music that we did. There was a sense of safe haven when it came to understanding with her. She was cool. She was one of us deep down. Kelly agreed to drive us out to the festival that night so that we wouldn’t have to pay for any parking. Plus, she had nothing else to do except wonder what we were really up to.

    We hung out in Anthony’s room for a little bit before we headed out. I sat on the edge of his bed and he continuously rolled joints, placing them in an orange pill bottle after he was done with each one. He was a like a madman diving further into his own hysteria while he described to me what the night had in store for us.

     “Yeah, man. You won’t believe what’s going on out there. My friend Johnny -the one who’s camping there for the whole weekend- gave me a call today. The people he’s with, they definitely know how to rage. One of the girls there will drop an acid tab on your tongue, and she won’t even charge you for it. All you have to do is stick your tongue out at her and she does it. I’m definitely looking to get dosed tonight. Imagine that, just tripping face while the Disco Biscuits are jamming out. I can’t wait. He even said we could stay at his could camp out with them if we wanted to. I’m down to stay there if it’s crazy as he says it is.”

    “What about my car, though?” I asked while trying to figure out logic’s place in all of this. “Kelly is fine with me leaving it here over night or is she expecting to pick us up tonight?”

    “Don’t worry about it at all. She’s cool with this kind of stuff,” Anthony semi-answered. He had a way of holding things in place without committing to them. It was how he lived his life. The unknown took priority over security.

    Anthony tucked the joint-filled pill bottle in between the waistband of his shorts and it sat there the whole ride out to the festival. I watched the green hills out the window and wondered if Kelly was clueless or just didn’t care. Either way, it didn’t matter because nothing was ever said about it. All she wanted was a phone call to know if we needed a ride back that night. We got to a point where there were several men wearing safety-vests and directing the traffic that was flowing in and out of the festival. We hopped out of her truck and off we went.

    The festival was out in the middle of nowhere. Empty fields with half-built farm fences were the only thing you could see for miles. We walked passed one of the fields that was covered with cars for parking and then made our way up to the main entrance. The music was rumbling in the distance and the echoes from the crowd roared across the purple hue that had painted over the sky. Anthony’s face was stained with a smile that couldn’t be washed away. He was in his element. And it was quite the scene; girls wearing bikinis with hula-hoops spinning around their waist, dreadlocks that were decorated with glow-sticks and tie-dye as far as the eye could see. We were really out there, wandering with everyone else in our trek to see what great mysteries of life could be discovered at the festival. We were rolling through the hills of freedom without anything in the way to stop our momentum. Watch us roll, baby. Just watch us roll.

    We went to the ticket booth and Anthony let them know that he was there to pick up his tickets that were left for him by his friend Johnny. Not only were there no tickets left for us, but that wasn’t even something that they did at the festival. We didn’t have any money to afford tickets, so we turned away.

    “Well, s**t. I guess that we’re not getting in tonight. Do you think Kelly is close enough to turn around or should we wait a little while before giving her call?” I asked.

    “Ryan,” Anthony looked at me with eyes that were determined, come hell or raising hell himself, to find a way into the festival. “We’re getting in there. We have all these joints to smoke still, too. It’s way too early to call it a night. Come on,” Anthony started walking down the hill that we had just walked up. I followed, putting all of my reckless faith into him.

    “What’s the plan then?”

    “There’s a way to get into this b***h. Here, let’s walk around for a bit,” Anthony took out one of his joints and lit it as we walked out of view from the ticket booth.

    The frenetic energy, traveling from the concert to the side of the road we were walking on, filled the air and sang to us in choruses that we knew every word to. Anthony’s mind was racing. He hadn’t said a word in a few minutes, except for the sound of his lungs exhaling. He was a wild animal that was separated for the pack. He just wanted to be back home with the rest of his kind.

    “I got it,” Anthony took out his phone with a burst of inspiration. He dialed a few numbers and then waited with the phone pressed up to his ear. “Yoooo. I’m here. I’m f*****g here! Tickets were too expensive, but what side are you camped on? I’ll just meet you there.”

    There were several uh huhs and maniacal laughs before Anthony ended his call with a promise to see his friend soon. He turned to me, putting one hand on my shoulder and blowing the last of his smoke towards the sky before looking back to me with a smile.

   “I know how we’re going to get in,” he reassured me.

    “And how’s that?” I asked while taking a rip from the joint for myself.

    “So, here’s the plan. He said that the camping area is to the right once you get passed the main entrance. All we have to do is cut through one of those fields until we hit the fence around camping, jump it and then blend it. Are you down? Because I’m not giving you a choice,” he stared at me, waiting for a spark of encouragement to keep his thrill-fueled fire burning.

    “I guess so,” I said with hesitation trying to grab each word back into my mouth before it got out. “But I’m gonna need to smoke again before we do this s**t.”

    “Now, that’s what I like to hear,” Anthony smacked my back with a that-a-boy type of excitement. He put a joint to my lips and held a lighter up to it. “How about that, I’ll even let you get the first couple hits off of that one.” And it was settled. Two joints and one sake-of-the-moment decision later, we we’re off to hop the fence.

    We were runways, ravishing the open fields and looking for our way into the one place where we felt free. I kept looking over my back to make sure no one would catch us. I couldn’t tell if it was common sense trying to reach me or paranoia from the weed. But I felt like a deer that could be shot down by hunters without even knowing it. It got to the point where even Anthony told me to relax. We wandered aimlessly for about twenty minutes before we finally reached, what we thought was, the fence into the camping for the festival. Half of a football field away we saw all sorts of tents and canopies. In either a leap of faith or a jump of stupid, we climbed up one side of the chain link fence and our feet touched down on the other. We were in.

    It didn’t take long for the discomfort and anxiousness of not knowing if we were safe or not to buzz through my chest. This was either apparent to Anthony or he was feeling the same way.

    “Put your hands in your pockets,” he warned. “Everyone here probably has wristbands. We can’t let anyone see that we don’t, until we either get to wherever Johnny is or the stage the band is on.”

    “Alright, I hope this works.”

    “Don’t worry so much. We’ll be fine.”

    I put my hands in my pockets, concealing my wrists and we continued walking along. It was moments like those that showed the true brilliance of Anthony. There’s no etiquette or right way to go about what we were doing. Yet, he had the perfect solutions for it all. He was an angel that wanted to spread joy with as much trouble as he could. He was the captain on the boat of unpredictability. No matter what type of stormy waters came our way, he was able to navigate through them.

    I thought I’d feel safer once we got around more people, but my feelings had other plans. They drove me to the complete opposite side of confidence. I felt like everybody knew. They all knew we weren’t supposed to be there. Even Anthony was at a loss for words. The joyous smile that stained his face not too long before had vanished and was replaced by a steady gaze that was focused on finding his way out of this situation and into the warm, welcoming arms of a drug-fueled calm.

    The instinct of Anthony had proven to be right once again. There was an older guy with a pop-belly, bandanna, long, greying beard, jeans and a leather vest that was yelling to us from the side.

    “Hey. Where are your wristbands?”

    We ignored his questions and kept on walking along the dirt path of the campground. The further we walked, the more people shouted to us. They were all asking about our wristbands. I felt guilty inside. Those people paid however much money to get in, and there we were, two idiots who took the shortcut in. I was a thief and deserved the shame.

    The fence that we had jumped over was a little distant, but still visible from where we were walking. A man, who looked just like the one who was yelling to us before, pulled along the side of us in an ATV.

    “What are you boys doing?” he said.

    “Not much, man. Just walking around and checking everything out,” Anthony answered with a natural calmness.

    “It’s funny that you got all the way over here then. This is security camping. The only way here is through our checkpoint, which we radio in or coming through that fence right over there,” the man pointed towards the fence that we had just climbed over. We stood there stunned. We were figured out. “And I didn’t hear nothin’ about the two of you being let in. So, come on. Hop on. I’m taking the two of you in with me.”

    We sat on the front of his ATV in this luggage rack type of thing as he drove us along the path. All along the way his fellow security guards would hoot and holler at us saying things like “Look what you caught. Did you go fishing today?” We smiled and laughed along with them. If we stayed in the moment then we wouldn’t have to face what was coming after it. What came after that was the anxiety of our uncertain fate. Was there a way out of this? Were we going to get arrested and go to jail? What would we tell our families? How much trouble were we actually in? All of these questions were racing around my mind, trying to reach the finish line first to get answered.

    We got dropped off in this small cabin that only had one room in it. There was a front door, a desk and couple of chairs facing the desk inside. We were patted down before they let us sit. They found Anthony’s stash of joints and set it on the desk in front of us. There was a gorilla-sized man standing with arms crossed in front of the only door in the room. This was the end. Our wild spirit’s had been hunted, trapped and killed. We were about to be skinned alive and the only thing to do after that was to mount us on the wall for everyone to look at. We’d be a trophy; the two boys who didn’t know any better, the fools.

    Anthony and I didn’t say anything to each other as we sat in the room. We just looked at the floor, not knowing what would happen next. That’s that opposite side of following the unknown, the side no one wants to be on. The side that controls you; making you wonder what type of horrible despair is about to dictate your life for the foreseeable future. There’s no more sunshine or rainbows to fill those field of dreams you’ve been running through, chasing around that feeling of happiness. The only hope you have left is that you’ll be able to crawl back to some sort of stability after facing the repercussions of something that went terribly wrong.

    The door swung open and another man walked in with greying hair, a mustache, tattered jeans, boots, a leather vest that read “Wild Hogs” "which I assumed was the name of his motorcycle gang-. Right after him, a girl with grungy looking hair and a tie-dye sundress was patted down and sat next to us in the chairs. No one spoke as the grey haired man paced back and forth.

    “Whose is this?” he finally stopped and picked up the Anthony’s bottle off of the desk.  “Huh?!” his voice boomed as he looked across at each one of us.

    “It’s mine,” Anthony raised his arm up.

    “Are you f*****g brain-dead?”

   “Ahahaha,” Anthony, titled his head to the ceiling and laughed. It was the sound of a death wish, praying to the stars above to kill off any chance of our lives continuing after that point. He was getting off on the trouble that he had created for himself.

    “This kid must have already been smoking some of this s**t. But that’s not what I’m mad at. I want to know why all of you think you can sneak into here and steal from me. Because that’s exactly what you did. When you don’t pay, you’re stealing and that’s dishonest. When you’re dishonest, you’re a liar. I know murderers, but the one thing I hate more than anything is a f*****g liar!” he took off his leather glove and slammed it on the table. As loud as he was, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the knife that he had tucked into his belt. We were defenseless. The girl started crying and whimpering about how she does everything she can to give back. She offered to pick up trash and do anything else that they asked if they just please let her go. They just told her to calm down and that it wasn’t that bad. She continued to cry.

    “Maybe, we’ll just turn them over to the police,” the interrogator turned and suggested to the giant guarding the door. I started to think about what I was going to say to my mother to come bail me out or if she would even consider it. I didn’t want to go to jail. Hell, I didn’t even want to be there anymore. Freedom seemed further and further away with each passing minute, though. “Let me see you ID,” he asked me.

    “I don’t have it on me,” I said.

    “You don’t have it on you? Do any of you have it on you?” he looked around the room, both Anthony and the girl shook their heads no. “Jesus Christ. So, you’re telling me that if you got shot in the head or something out here, we wouldn’t even be able to call your families and tell them what happened because we don’t know who the hell you are?”

    “I guess not. I didn’t really think about that.”

    “You didn’t think about any of this did you? I know your idiot friend over there sure didn’t,” he paced around in front of us, looking down at the floor and contemplating what I’m sure was the end of us. “My job here is to keep everyone protected and safe. When you guys are sneaking in like a******s, we can’t keep track of you and when we can’t keep track of you and if something happens, then we’re not doing our jobs. We look like liars when we’re not able to do our jobs and I can’t let that s**t happen. So, I think what we’ll do is we’ll let you go, but that doesn’t mean you can come back onto this property. You better get as far away from here as you can; because if I see you here again, I’ll f*****g kill you. Radio for a ride and get them out of here,” he told the other man standing at the door. He motioned for us all to get out and we stood up heading for the door. He stopped Anthony as he stood next to the desk and pointed at his orange bottle.

    “What, do you want me to take that?” Anthony asked, barely being able to hold back the grin at the corners of his mouth.

    “Well, I ain’t got no f****n’ use for it,” the man answered. Anthony’s grin stretched into a smile, unleashing the small bit of madness he had saved for the rest of the night.

    We were dropped off where our night had started at the ticket booth by the main entrance. Anthony’s phone had died, so we asked where the nearest gas station was so that we could call Kelly from a payphone to pick us up. It was a five mile walk from where we were but nowhere was too far, considering that the alternative option was being held in that room again. I wanted to kiss the ground and thank it for blessing us with its magnificent freedom. Anywhere that was open to the possibility of freedom was a good place to be.

    We smoked and joked around the entire walk to the gas station. Miles and miles of I can’t believe that happened to what happened to the lighter? Anthony said he hoped that directing us to the gas station wasn’t some sort of cruel joke that they play on people who sneak in, sending them towards nothing as a way for further punishment. Regardless of our imagined downfall, we reached the gas station and called Kelly in a stumbling, stony haze as we reached the end of our night. We sat on a bench outside, in the parking lot, waiting for her truck to pull up.

    I looked up and watched the stars the filled our unpredictable night. They shined bright, sending a guiding light for rest of the maniacs that couldn’t say no for the sake of a good time; the people who laughed in the face of common sense and who’s only goal in life was to smile as much as they could without the boundaries or rules of expectations to restrict them into being just another schmuck. Anthony was one of those people, I was sure of it as he offered me an orange starburst candy. He told me there are two types of people in this world; those who like starburst and those who didn’t, and I believed it. Starburst, those wonderful, colorful little squares that drown the blandness of your life with a little shot of flavor and leaves you with an aftertaste of desire for more.  

    All the joints and all of the starburst were gone by the time Kelly pulled up. She asked how our night was and we told her that it wasn’t anything too eventful. We turned out of the parking lot and headed back towards Anthony’s place, where we called it a night.