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Diaryland |
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2004-05-17 - 7:41 a.m. The worst of the rain already passed. It was coming down hard in spots for a brief period of time. I even saw some lightning out of the corner of my eye while driving John Logan home. It never occurred to me to think of a thunderstorm as a rare occurance, but for the time I've spent here in Maryland, thunderstorms don't come around here that often. I love thunderstorms. I grew up in Central Texas and I remember sitting on the back porch and just watching the rain pound down, seeing the sky light up and counting down the seconds for thunder. Every second was a mile until you heard the BOOM! At times it was hard to do any sort of counting, only during the beginning and end of the storm you had any chance of deciphering one flash from another because those Texas storms just lit up the sky, strobing and flickering like a TV with fuzz. Last night, I thought to myself, "What a pussy ass storm......" With all these damn Tornado warnings and watches under my belt, 3 hurricanes, thunderstorms with hail, a couple of blizzards, blistering texas heat, I thought to myself........"This storm ain't got nothing on me......" I feel as if I could of just powdered up my hand and bitchsmacked the angels duckpin bowling in the sky last night back to the west, so they could brush up on their game, beef up and come harder like them "tornado alley cats" of my childhood. Speaking of childhood and thunderstorms and tornadoes, it reminds me of a story of an elementary school classmate who died along with his mother and sister in a tornado. Poor bastard, he was only 15. I only have 2 fond memories of him. In 3rd grade, we had three Michael's in the class. His name was Michael Carmona, and there was another hyperactive kid named Michael Dourghety, and me Michael "boom-boom" Bennett. We were Michael B., Michael C., and Michael D. respectively. Mike C. had a rat tail and spiky hair I remember and big cheeks. Mike D. was obviously ADHD. And as for me, Mike B. .........well I had dimples. Anyways, I fondly remember when Michael Carmona and my good friend Carlos Williams decided to fight. i don't remember what sparked the heated rivalry, I just remember being in the middle of it. Thinking about it now, it was like a battle of rat tails because Carlos had the puff box with the rat tail coming off of it. They chose to bring the battle to the playground behind the Youth Activity center, which always smelled faintly of piss because kids would routinely piss on the playground equipment. After school, one on one, mano e mano, may the best man win. I was there to make sure they would fight fair, as a referee of sorts. I figured, I've seen enough WWF on Saturday afternoons to pull a decent job and their wasn't any metal folding chairs to hit me over the head with to "interfere" with my ref duties breaking up tie-ups, no low blows, no pee-pee sand in the eyes, you know, I took it seriously like former-ref-turned-Honorable-Celebrity-Judge Mills Lane. Carlos and I got there early and I told him to warm up. he was obviously the favorite, Mike C. didn't look like a fighter and Carlos had height and reach over him by a good couple of inches. Regardless, I wanted to see a good clean fight, I thought it was "Mature" way of settling it and more or less was excited to see a showdown live and in person and have the power to exercise law and rules to ensure a fair and equal opportunity to kick ass, but it suddenly occurred to me that I was ill-prepared when Mike C. came strolling around the corner. Now this mu'fucka Mike C. right here comes strolling around the corner with two sticks in his hands. Not like branches sticks, not nightsticks, or even batons. This fucking kid comes around the corner banging two JUMBO PIXIE STICKS in his hands. No fucking kidding, I couldn't believe it, walking into combat with two sugar sticks. It baffled me. I wonder if he just pounded them after school to get pumped for the fight, because you know in 3rd grade sugar is THE one and ONLY drug. Sure enough his tongue had the familiar sour stain on it and I further wondered, "Did he just go into the corner store wondering if he could hurry up and buy a weapon but only had 50 cents to spare?" If I was him, I would of bought a pack of baseball cards with that rock hard chewing gum shank inside or a bag of jolly ranchers to throw at him. Shit, a pool "Fun noodle" would of been a more effective weapon then 2 jumbo pixie sticks, but there he stood clanging them together giving Carlos the staredown. Now being the ref and all, I had to figure if these were weapons or not and I figured "Hey, these things could poke an eye....." and told him to put the sticks down and I remember his reluctance to do so. He really believed in them sticks, it was like I took his power away, but you know, if you walk into a battle with Two jumbo pixie sticks wielded, you might as well TKO yourself. God rest your soul Mike C. God rest your soul.
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