Here's another chapter- enjoy! (Of course, I do not condone reckless behavior or drug use. I wrote in the summary that this story would be addressing such topics- it would be naive of me to write a story set in Chicago in the 1970s without exploring sex, drugs, etc. We're gonna get just a little dangerous here for the next few chapters. Or at least, Eric is. Buckle up!)
It was only a few days later that the young Wisconsin teen found himself strolling down the street accompanied by Aaron and Ritch. It was Saturday evening, the store was closed for the night, and the trio were looking for something to do. None of them felt like going to a bar, party, or club (of the three, Aaron was the only one who was ever fully comfortable in such a loud environment, and even he wasn't in the mood for a spree.) Joy and Valerie had ushered them out for the evening, wanting to have a "girl's night-in" watching movies and hanging out. In fact, the three guys hadn't all been in one place at the same time in a week. On days when Eric was working, Aaron was out either playing gigs or practicing with the band he'd finally managed to put together. When Aaron was at the shop, Eric was usually off of work. And Ritch had contracted a cold earlier in the week, and had been restricted to bedrest by Valerie, who insisted on running the store while he got better. Even when his symptoms were completely diminished, Valerie wasn't satisfied for another day and a half, and despite the fact that he was exactly a foot taller than his petite wife, Ritch followed her instructions. Despite them being completely different in personality, Eric couldn't help but notice how their relationship so closely mirrored his parents' marriage.
So, it wasn't until Saturday that the three guys found the time to hang out all together. They crossed the street, walking by several crowded bars on the way. A young African-American woman passed in a sparkling disco suit so bright that Eric watched her in interest as she went.
"What about Rennan's?" Ritch offered, looking over Eric's head to watch for oncoming cars. The bar in question was much smaller, less known and more bearable on a Saturday night.
"It's closed this whole month. The owner's wife just had a kid," Aaron smiled, looking up the five inches his friend had on him. "You need to get out of the shop more."
After several rounds of suggestions and nothing piquing their interest, the three just decided to head to Aaron and Joy's for TV and soda. Eric smiled thinking that if he hadn't left Point Place, he would be doing the exact same thing in his own basement. For some reason, it seemed more appealing to do it where he could look out the window and see skyscrapers.
They were only a block away from the building when they turned the corner to see two guys breaking into a car. One of the thugs had a crowbar, and was fixing to smash one of the rear windows.
"Hey!" Aaron shouted, making one of the thieves turn. The other didn't hear, and swung the crowbar through the glass, which shattered all over the sidewalk. He looked up when his partner started running, and seeing that they were compromised, followed at a sprint.
The three guys didn't follow, knowing that they'd never catch the fleeing robbers, but instead went to inspect the car. Luckily, only the back window suffered any damage, and Aaron picked up the crowbar.
"What a stupid way to break in to a car," he remarked, as Eric looked around for a potential owner.
"It must belong to someone in this building," he said, looking at the complex in front of them.
"Let's call the cops," Ritch suggested, just as a police car pulled up next to them, lights flashing. Two men got out.
"Oh, well there you go," Aaron said. "Hello, Officer, we were just about to call you."
"Right," the cop remarked sarcastically. In one movement he knocked the crowbar from Aaron's hand and had him pinned up against the assaulted car.
"Hey!"
"Woah, hey," Ritch said, striding forward in an attempt to defuse the situation, but the second cop took it for aggression and quickly turned on the two un-cuffed men.
"Stay right where you are, both of you," he barked. Ritch and Eric put their hands up, as Aaron tried to explain to the cop patting him down that the situation was a big misunderstanding. It was no surprise that the police officers didn't believe them, having found one of them holding the weapon while the other two were looking around (possibly for any approaching witnesses).
Aaron was loaded into the back of the police cruiser first, and Ritch next. The police officers were anything but gentle in their process of cuffing Eric and shoving him into the back of the car. The teen's eyes were wider than dinner plates the whole time. He'd been arrested before, also for a car related misunderstanding, but the Point Place cop hadn't cuffed them! The three made a ridiculous sight in the back of the cruiser, with Eric staring straight ahead in fear, while Ritch, whose legs were far too long for the space, tried not to squish Aaron, who wasn't exactly comfortable either. He was exactly one inch taller than Eric, and the back of the police car wasn't meant for three men, all 5'11 or taller.
"Joy's gonna kill me," Aaron groaned.
"And Valerie won't kill me?" Ritch said, too exasperated at the situation to hold any malice in his voice.
Eric didn't have a girlfriend or wife to kill him, but he wondered what the officers would do if they found out he was a seventeen-year-old runaway from Wisconsin. Would they find out? He couldn't be sure. His driver's license was, in fact, a Wisconsin one, so he couldn't claim to be from Chicago. Maybe he could lie and say he was visiting family? That Ritch and Aaron were his cousins? That seemed plausible enough, but could lie to the cops?
By a miracle of heaven, he didn't have to. They were booked and forced to take mug shots, but just like in Point Place, no one called his parents (not that he would have given them the right number anyway.) However, because no one was called, the three "partners in crime" were deposited in a small room of cells in the back of the precinct.
"This sure beats sitting at home, right guys?" Aaron asked, trying to lighten the mood.
Ritch ignored him and spoke to the officer who had taken them to their cell. "Excuse me, could I make that phone call now?"
The uniformed man nodded and led him out to the phone, leaving the remaining two to sit and wait. Soon enough, Ritch was back, sitting on the cell bench with a sigh.
"She almost didn't answer the phone," he said of his wife. "They're on their way now."
"Are they mad?" Eric asked.
"I don't know. They seemed worried, but I told them we were all fine, so who knows what they'll be like when they get here…"
As he spoke, Eric regarded the wall of the cell and noted, with interest, the various carvings and scratches left there by past occupants. The majority of the graffiti had been done in recent years, and often consisted of nothing more than a name and a date- presumably the night that guest had stayed in the cubicle. However, it was the older tags that caught the young man's eye. They were faded with time, but these signatures often came with a long slogan, or a sarcastic description of the offender's crime.
"Disturbing the peace by trying to promote peace"
"Up Against the Wall, Mother******!"
"For Dr. King"
Eric studied the dates listed with each slogan and name, and found that they all fell between the years 1967 and 1972. Some were obviously from the Race Riots of 1968, others from the Days of Rage in 1969, almost a decade earlier. (Others either belonged to people arrested for individual acts or other, less notorious demonstrations.) Eric had forgotten about the violence that had gripped the city in the recent past. He was lucky to have grown up on the tail-end of this conflict, but it didn't mean he wasn't unaffected by it in the slightest; he remembered his parents' trepidation about how far the violence would spread. He recalled Kitty's worry one night, that perhaps the rioting would happen in Point Place- it had happened in Detroit and Chicago, why not their city? Red had calmed her by assuring her that such a thing was impossible- Point Place was much too small, too content a town for rioting to happen. Still, the footage of smashed cars, fires, and screaming young protesters did not provide the same comfort.
It was weird that he should end up in the same cell as these activists and anarchists; well, it wasn't weird, there were only five holding cells in the station, but it certainly was an eerie juxtaposition. His crime was only a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he was given the same exact cell as people who had set fires, looted buildings, and attacked cops….and the crazy thing was, those people had been his age at the time.
"This your first time in jail, Forman?" Aaron asked good-naturedly, mistaking Eric's thoughtful expression for worry.
"Actually, no," Eric grinned, coming out of his reverie. "But it was a mix-up that time too."
"Well, we shouldn't be in here long," Ritch said, standing and studying the names on the wall.
"Anyone you know up there?" Aaron asked.
"Nah, I never ran with this crowd," Ritch said. "Too violent."
Eric raised an eyebrow, questioning the exchange. With a grin, Aaron declared, "Ritch used to be a hippie."
"I did not," the older man said.
"I don't know man, anyone who attended Woodstock is a hippie in my book…"
"Woah, what?" Eric cut in. "You were at Woodstock? The real Woodstock?"
Ritch gave a small smile. "That's where I met Valerie."
Eric considered this for a moment. Ritch was almost 29, which would make him 20 or 21 at Woodstock.
"After that, he was part of the SDS," Aaron informed.
"The SDS?" Eric asked incredulously. "The Students-"
"Students for a Democratic Society," Ritch muttered. "I don't like to talk about it."
"Didn't the SDS turn into-"
"The Weather Underground," the older man said. "It was a faction of the SDS."
The Weather Underground, the militant group responsible for the Days of Rage, was a bleak mark on the reputation of the SDS, which had been conceived with Civil Rights and peace in mind. Also, some of the "Weathermen" had never been caught, so admitting that you had been a member around the start of the decade could possibly bring some suspicion down upon yourself.
"I quit the SDS long before it got violent," Ritch said. "And when I finished school, Valerie and I got married and settled here. I inherited the store from my dad when he died."
"Wow, that is…way more interesting than my life story," Eric said.
"Are you kidding?" Aaron said. "Have you been paying attention for the past few weeks? When I was 17, I was sitting in my basement teaching myself how to play guitar. Look at you, in jail."
"Yeah well, I didn't have to leave Point Place to get arrested because of a misunderstanding."
The door to the front room opened, and a grouchy clerical police officer entered.
"Hey, there are a couple ladies to see you."
He held the door open for the ladies in question, then went back into the front room. Joy and Valerie came into view, identical smug expressions on their faces.
"Hey Babe," Aaron said sheepishly, standing and walking to press his face against the bars. Joy just smiled and produced her Polaroid camera, snapping a picture of Aaron, then one of Eric, and finally one of Ritch. The last one she took and handed to Valerie before it had even finished developing.
"So what happened, exactly, Richard?" Valerie said, failing to hide her amusement and using her husband's full name, which she knew he hated.
"I think you're both enjoying this too much," Ritch said, eyebrow raised.
"Probably," Joy conceded. "Now explain."
The three prisoners took turns explaining what happened. At the end of the story, Joy kissed her boyfriend through the bars. "I brought your bail money. Yours too, Eric."
"You didn't have to-"
"We're not going to leave you in there," she said, smiling at the very thought. "You can owe me if it really bugs you."
"Great. Thanks," he said, relieved.
"I have your money too," Valerie said to Ritch with a smile, as the girls turned to go talk to the officer out front. They paid the man and he let them go, not stopping to think about the fact that the youngest of the three men vaguely matched the description of a teen that had gone missing a month before. Some sheriff from a nowhere town called….was it Point Bluff? Point Watch? Whatever, the fact was, he had called to notify them of a runaway teenager. None of this occurred to the officer on duty. Besides, why would a runaway kid come to Chicago just to steal a car?
...
The five young adults ended up at Aaron and Joy's apartment, drinking cokes and laughing off the night's escapades.
"You three have the worst luck," Valerie said from her spot on the couch.
"Babe, I never told you, but it runs in my family," Ritch said in mock-seriousness. "But lucky for us, it weakens with each generation. So our kids might have a fighting chance."
"Ha ha. Get arrested again and you'll never even have a chance at kids," his wife teased, kissing him on the nose.
Joy sat on the reina chair, while Aaron sat on the floor and leaned against the chair. He pulled out a bag of those pills that he'd given Eric at the club.
Aaron offered one to Ritch, who took it and popped it in his mouth, then settled back on the couch and closed his eyes.
Aaron and Joy each took one, then handed a little tablet to Eric.
"Is this acid?" Eric asked. He had experimented with weed, of course, and had tried one of these little pills a few weeks before, at the nightclub, but hadn't given them any thought at the time, or any time since.
"No, I don't mess with that crap," Aaron assured him. "Too rough. This is just modified prescription. Nothing official. Nothing dangerous."
Eric put it in his mouth, enjoying the short high. It was even better here than in the club, where he was nervous and twitchy. The faded lights made a kaleidoscope in front of his eyes.
When he started to come down, he looked to Aaron for another, but the older man shook his head.
"One at a time, man. If you're gonna use, you gotta be careful."
Eric just nodded and closed his eyes, riding the rest of the high right to sleep.
…..
He woke to the sensation of being nudged repeatedly. Cracking one eye open, Eric saw that Ritch was leaning over him, prompting him to wake up.
"Hey man," his older friend grinned. "I always forget that you're actually seventeen, and then you go and sleep 'till noon."
Eric shot into a sitting position, ignoring the head rush he inflicted upon himself. "Oh god I'm sorry, I didn't mean to miss work-"
"Woah, relax. It's Sunday. We're closed on Sundays, remember?"
"Sunday…" Eric muttered, looking around to find himself on the floor of Aaron and Joy's living room.
"You slept like a log. It's like you took cold syrup or something…" Ritch's grin faded when he realized what he'd said. "Hey, how many of those tablets did you have last night?"
"Just one," Eric reassured him, taking Ritch's hand to stand. "I feel fine."
"Those things seem to take longer than they should to get out of your system."
"I'll be careful," the teen promised. He didn't want to admit it, but it did concern him that he'd slept so hard after just one of those things. He'd taken one with an empty stomach, too, which probably explained why it had worked just a little too well. It also explained the dull ache and hunger he felt.
"Where's everyone else?"
"Joy's at work, Aaron's taking a shower, and Valerie went back to our place."
"When he gets out, can we get something to eat?"
"Sure," the store owner said, making a mental note to tell Aaron to be careful with those pills, especially where Eric was concerned.