I think after high school, once we'd parted ways, my friend Dana ended up being a decent and well-adjusted person. This goes quite contrary to what she was when I was well acquainted with her. This TALE OF DEPRAVITY involves her, myself, and one other character, whom I'll introduce in a bit.
The year was 1996 when I was 15. Dana was 16 and most importantly of all, she drove a 1989 Grand Am. If you were her, would you be happy with such an arrangement? Didn't think so. Having a car in high school at the ripe age of 16 is a ticket to instant popularity, but she somehow thought the quality of her car was conducive to the sort of popularity she'd receive. I think she was perhaps sick of hanging out with the likes of kids like me.
In our little clique, I was (unfortunately) the brains of the operation. Dana couldn't get a job, and thus couldn't get any money to improve her ride situation. As stupid teenagers typically do, she thought it would be cake to scam insurance into getting her a better ride. She put me to task to think up something.
The next day, at lunch, she asked me what I'd come up with. I didn't even bother to think about it over the previous day, so I sort of just tossed out the response:
"Pay someone to steal your car and crash it into a flooded strip mine." I mean, duh. Flooded strip mines were all over the place. Things that went into them never came out. People killed themselves in those things all the time and bodies were never found. Cars had crashed in them before and had never been recovered. Still, this was a facetious response. She, unfortunately, didn't take it as one.
At lunch the next day, the next chapter unfolded. She'd just paid Billy Wolfgang approx 100 bucks to do the job. At first, I wanted to tell her how retarded she was, but upon hearing her details I decided that this could play out interestingly.
First of all, Mr. Wolfgang was a pretty loony individual. At the time, he was 18 and still a sophomore like me. I could fill a book with stories about him alone. He was the sort of person you'd invite to a party not because you liked him, but because you knew he'd start shit and at least provide entertainment. Daft, confrontational, and chemical dependent.
The details of the job: Dana would leave her keys under her car seat. At 2-4AM that Friday night, Billy would steal the car, drive it into the mountains to one particular strip mine with a strong downward slope into the water. At said slope, he'd stop the car, remove the keys, and push it down the slope, over the edge, and into the water. That way, in case the car somehow was recovered, there'd be no keys. I think he was then supposed to bury the keys or something.
That Friday, I was having a party at my house. Just a bunch of my friends really. Billy ended up showing up at like midnight. Nothing was mentioned, but I assumed this meant the hair-brained car-jacking scheme had been shitcanned. I sold him a handful of Xanax (I was prescribed to it at the time, but didn't take them myself), and lead him to the tap.
An hour later, he was gone, and I knew, just knew, he was going to follow through with the plan.
Poor Billy. Filled with alcohol and alprazolam, he did steal the car. Not so well, though. He made it about two blocks before he veered off the road and crashed into the glass front window of an auto dealership, damaging several cars at the same time.
This was one of those things we all promised to never mention again.
Billy ended up going to jail. . .he was 18. Last I heard of him, he got re-arrested and sent back to jail for selling blow at the very high school we went to.
Dana got sent to boarding school for a year or two. When she came back, we really didn't talk much anymore. She sort of straightened out, whereas I just got worse and worse throughout school.
The end.
Excuse the wordiness. It's an amusing story.
The year was 1996 when I was 15. Dana was 16 and most importantly of all, she drove a 1989 Grand Am. If you were her, would you be happy with such an arrangement? Didn't think so. Having a car in high school at the ripe age of 16 is a ticket to instant popularity, but she somehow thought the quality of her car was conducive to the sort of popularity she'd receive. I think she was perhaps sick of hanging out with the likes of kids like me.
In our little clique, I was (unfortunately) the brains of the operation. Dana couldn't get a job, and thus couldn't get any money to improve her ride situation. As stupid teenagers typically do, she thought it would be cake to scam insurance into getting her a better ride. She put me to task to think up something.
The next day, at lunch, she asked me what I'd come up with. I didn't even bother to think about it over the previous day, so I sort of just tossed out the response:
"Pay someone to steal your car and crash it into a flooded strip mine." I mean, duh. Flooded strip mines were all over the place. Things that went into them never came out. People killed themselves in those things all the time and bodies were never found. Cars had crashed in them before and had never been recovered. Still, this was a facetious response. She, unfortunately, didn't take it as one.
At lunch the next day, the next chapter unfolded. She'd just paid Billy Wolfgang approx 100 bucks to do the job. At first, I wanted to tell her how retarded she was, but upon hearing her details I decided that this could play out interestingly.
First of all, Mr. Wolfgang was a pretty loony individual. At the time, he was 18 and still a sophomore like me. I could fill a book with stories about him alone. He was the sort of person you'd invite to a party not because you liked him, but because you knew he'd start shit and at least provide entertainment. Daft, confrontational, and chemical dependent.
The details of the job: Dana would leave her keys under her car seat. At 2-4AM that Friday night, Billy would steal the car, drive it into the mountains to one particular strip mine with a strong downward slope into the water. At said slope, he'd stop the car, remove the keys, and push it down the slope, over the edge, and into the water. That way, in case the car somehow was recovered, there'd be no keys. I think he was then supposed to bury the keys or something.
That Friday, I was having a party at my house. Just a bunch of my friends really. Billy ended up showing up at like midnight. Nothing was mentioned, but I assumed this meant the hair-brained car-jacking scheme had been shitcanned. I sold him a handful of Xanax (I was prescribed to it at the time, but didn't take them myself), and lead him to the tap.
An hour later, he was gone, and I knew, just knew, he was going to follow through with the plan.
Poor Billy. Filled with alcohol and alprazolam, he did steal the car. Not so well, though. He made it about two blocks before he veered off the road and crashed into the glass front window of an auto dealership, damaging several cars at the same time.
This was one of those things we all promised to never mention again.
Billy ended up going to jail. . .he was 18. Last I heard of him, he got re-arrested and sent back to jail for selling blow at the very high school we went to.
Dana got sent to boarding school for a year or two. When she came back, we really didn't talk much anymore. She sort of straightened out, whereas I just got worse and worse throughout school.
The end.
Excuse the wordiness. It's an amusing story.