In my Next 30 years Part 2: Night of the TP, my moron friend is still smarter than I am and the limits of friendship

Here’s another story from when I was living in Las Vegas. This one I’m a bit more infamous for. I was about 14 or 15 when this one happened. Now, please understand that there are certain parts of this story I’m not proud of. I was a nerd growing up and hated it. I’ve now embraced it and it doesn’t bother me and I call myself that. But through about age 23, I hated it. I was picked on a lot and ridiculed. So, when the opportunity arose to do it to someone else who had made the remarkable achievement of being nerdier, I seized it.

My friend, Joe DeVere (you’ll see his name a lot in my infamous stories in Vegas), and I used to go to the rec center almost every day during the summer. We’d play ping pong, foosball, shoot baskets and play cards while there. It was about a 2 mile bike ride to get there and we’d ride our bikes.

There was also this guy named Tom who would show up. Tom was about 2 or 3 years older than I was. He was about 5’10” or so, very thin and had short hair like Ralph Fiennes in Red Dragon. He was also one of those types who was shaving at age 12 probably. As opposed to me; I didn’t have to shave everyday until about age 20 or 21. He was visiting his parents in Vegas for the summer. I can’t remember where he was from but it was probably the nerd Mecca. And he always rode one of those beach bicycles to the center. He looked goofy as heck on it.

Tom really was a nerd. On a level I could only dream of attaining today. One day when we were playing cards, Joe had to shuffle. On Joe’s shuffle, Tom actually said “You know, when you shuffle more than 3 times, it actually becomes more likely that the cards will end up in the same order again.” Now, I know today that that isn’t true. But it was an incredibly dorky thing to say. And it demanded retaliation.

So we treated him like Forrest Gump. We’d ride our bikes next to him while he’d ride home and taunt him (these are the parts I’m not proud of) and one day we let the air out of his tires so he had to walk his bike about 3 or 4 miles home. Now, granted, this isn’t sick sadistic stuff. Nothing like what I blogged earlier about what I’d do to a boy who gave my daughter a hickey. But it was still mean.

One afternoon, Joe and I decided that it’d been a long time since we’d TP’d anyone’s home and we figured Tom’s place was as good as any. We found out where he lived when we were taunting on the way home once.

So one day we went to Smith’s, a grocery chain in Vegas at the time, and got about 12 rolls of toilet paper. While in the checkout lane, we had the following conversation:

“Geez, mom sure has had diarrhea bad lately.”

“Yeah, hope this is enough.”

“Wasn’t last time.”

"I know. My shoes are still soaked."

We knew full well that anyone seeing a 13 and 15 year old checking out 12 rolls of toilet paper would know exactly what it is for. We just decided to have some fun with it. And we at least got a disgusted look out of the check out lady.

That night we went to Tom’s small house, which was about 10 streets down from us. It was about 11:30 PM. Tom’s house presented a challenge. It had an attached garage on the left side with a small driveway leading up to it. On the right side was the front door, to the right of the front door a large living room window, along with the yard and a small tree. The challenge was that area was fenced in with one of those brick fences that was about shoulder high and dipped down for about 5 foot intervals with iron bars in-between. Looked a bit like http://www.virginiarailingandgates.com/fences_steel.htm but white. So someone was going to have to go inside the gate to do the yard. That, of course, fell to me.

I’d always held that I was smarter than Joe but as I go back and retell these stories I realize that he acted dumber but sure seemed to outsmart me. He said, because he was the chubby one, “You’re faster so you should probably go inside the fence. If they come out while I’m in there, they are probably gonna catch me.” I shrugged. Made sense to me.

So while Joe TP’d the car, the front light post and anything else he could find, I did the tree, the bushes and part of the fence. It was a good job. Not worthy of the Hall of Fame or anything but we were proud. I hopped the fence and we took a look at our work. We were happy. I took the last little piece of TP, balled it up and soaked it in the gutter. Then I threw it at their front window and we ran. I guess that was supposed to be for added effect.

Once we were safely away we walked the rest of the way home. We were expert liars and knew that if someone stopped us, we’d have plausible deniability since we weren’t that close to the house anymore and we had no evidence on our persons. We laughed and talked about the reaction we’d get from Tom the next day.

The next day we went to the Rec Center to see the reaction we’d hoped for. We got nothing. He didn’t even acknowledge that anything happened. We knew that he knew we did it. The nerd was outsmarting us by giving us NO reaction. It really pissed us off. So, we put our two brains together and devised a brilliant plan that we KNEW would get a reaction…

…We’d do it again that night.

I know. That’s lame but it’s the best we could come up with when overcome by rage. So we again went to Smith’s, bought 10 rolls of TP and talked about our mother’s diarrhea again. Then that night, it was ON. We’d show HIM what was up.

So that night, the plan was the same except we were going to do it about an hour later. I don’t remember why. I want to think it was because we figured we’d mix it up a bit in order to make it hard for us to catch. But it probably had more to do with us watching something stupid on TV.

We got there and I jumped the fence and went to work. Joe, once again, worked on the car. I was about 1/3 of the way done and along the right side of the front yard, near the house and barely around the side. That’s when I heard the front door open and slam shut.

Now, we’d done plenty of stupid things in the past and knew that when you heard something like this, you ran like heck. Don’t even look back. But I was in a bad spot. I’d have to jump the fence first. I heard Joe tearing off and luckily, so did Tom and his grandfather. They ran out the front gate after him as I stood quietly in the shadows on the side of the house. When I knew they’d gone, I jumped the fence and ran in the opposite direction up the street. After getting about 10 houses down the road, I hid in some bushes where I could see Tom’s house.

I waited about 10-15 minutes to see when they came back. Partly because I wanted to see their reactions and partly because I wanted to see if they caught Joe. Sure enough Joe comes walking down the street with Tom and his grandfather. They’d caught his fat butt. So Joe starts yelling,

“Eric! It’s OK to come out. They aren’t mad! They only want us to clean it up!”

I paused. I knew Joe. He wasn’t normally the type that would sell out his friend.

He yelled it again.

So I came out of my hiding spot and walked down the street to meet them.

I’m so $(&%$ stupid.

I get there and notice Tom is in his barefeet. He’d caught that fat piece of goo Joe in his BAREFEET! So now the grandfather says “Take us to your house. I want to talk to your parents.” I looked at Joe but he was looking at his feet. That piece of crap had sold me out.

So we start walking in the direction of our court. Joe and I were walking together about 10 feet ahead of Tom and his grandfather so we discussed some strategy…in-between me cussing him out. I knew I could out run them. Tom was tall and fast but I was a quick little bugger. But Joe would get caught and I wasn’t going to hang him out to dry like he’d done to me.

We decided that we’d walk to the end of the road, past our court, where it dead-ended into the desert. Desert in Vegas is dirt, stone and garbage. There would be no way they’d be able to follow us out there. Tom was still in his barefeet and grandpa wasn’t catching anyone. It was a good plan. A good plan fudged up by Joe again.

We weren’t far from the end of the street and all of a sudden he says “Hey, let’s turn left here.” I asked why and he said just to trust him.

Now, we’re off course and it’s going to be even further to the desert. Joe didn’t know what the heck he was doing. After about a half mile, Tom and gramps says “OK, that’s enough. Take us to your house right now or we’ll stop right here and call the cops.”

So we turned around and walked to our court. Now, this part of my recollection turns really hazy. For the life of me I can’t remember why but someone how we ended up going to my house. So we walk up, I walk in and Dad is still up. Gramps proceeds to lay into Dad over our actions. Dad is empathetic and says that the grandfather was right and he’d send us over right now to clean it up. But he wanted to talk to us first.

So Tom and his grandfather go outside and Dad sits us down. He explained that we would have to go back and clean it up. Then he says something that helped me to understand exactly how cool he could be:

“You know, I don’t care if you guys want to go TP someone’s house. But don’t do it maliciously,” he paused. “Oh, and for God’s sake, don’t be so stupid as to do the same place two nights in a row,” he said as he shook his head and gave a half smile.

Another good night. We cleaned Tom’s place up as much as we could and walked home. But I also knew from that point on:

#1. Joe is a moron. We had an opportunity to get away that HE messed up.

#2. Joe still outsmarted me. He got me to come out of my hiding place. He also got me to take the blame and to take Tom and his grandfather to MY house.

#3. Joe would sell me out in a second so he wouldn’t be alone in getting caught.

He was still a fun guy to get into trouble with. And there are many more stories I’ll end up telling on here that involved the two of us.