Spruce Creek

"LET ME tell you about the Spruce Creek Airport Keg Party Raid."

"O My God! Were you there?"

"We'd just popped open the keg when the police came. Terry Chick is sitting locked into the fetal position right in the middle of the runway, with his hands over head, nothing around him for a hundred yards and he's being quiet so's no one will find him. He was so drunk."

"So five flashlights descend on him, swooping and swirling in the night...'Hey look what we got here!'...and then one of the sheriffs makes the mistake of saying 'Let's go son' and, Chick, he's up and says:

"I'm gonna beat your goddamn motherfuckin head to pieces. C'mere goddammit! And of course Chick goes down under a pile of flashlights and sheriffs. Five lunky mother-fuckers. He really went into the wild man bit."

"Then De Ross he swims out into the inlet and comes back about 2-3 hours later with mud on him. And walks the five miles home. But he didn't know that more cops were all waiting for him back at his house...

"The poor sonofabitch!"

"And Pierre. The Big Samoan. All-State shotputter, the Brute! At first he tries to hide! You can't hide an elephant in the bullrushes."

"At the first rush he realizes that it's his car with the keg attached to it, so he comes out with his hands up with that funny finy voice of his saying, 'Don't shoot, coppers! Don't shoot, coppers! It's all my doing. I led everybody into it. Put me away. I done it all!"

"Yeah, Big Pierre."

"And Jacobs is heading out through the woods on his motor bouncing over stumps as fast as he can go. SGA President. Top stump jumper.

"WELL THEY load me and Mark Sibley and Jack Chick--Terry Chick's brother, and somebody else, God I forget. And then they get Chick.

"Goddamn cops won't let anybody have a little fun any more," says Chick.

"And every beverage agent and state trooper in the county had swooped in on the joint. There were 10 cop cars of various descriptions.

"And there's Terry rolling drunk and they've about got him in the car and he yells out.

"I've GOTTA PISS!"

"'Well son, not 'til we get to the station.'

"And Terry yells again,

"I've GOTTA PISS YOU MOTHER-FUCKERS!"

"And this guy tells Chick, 'Don't be a wise ass son or I kin make this a night you'll never forget We're drivin' straight to the station.'

"'I GOTTA PISS.' Then Chick just kinds folds his hands real polite and scrunches up his sholders like a little altarboy.

"'LEMME OUT I GOTTA PISS BAD!'

"And this dude in the front seat is playing it smart and he don't say nothin' and they're cruising on back to the station. And Chick he says,

"'IF YOU DON'T LEMME OUT I'M GONNA PISS RIGHT HERE IN YOUR GODDAMN CAR!'

"'If you don't get quiet in a big hurry boy you're gonna wish you were...'

"And Chick scrunches up in the back all quiet and says 'OK I'll be quiet officer,' and then he yanks his foot back and kicks the fuck out of the screen next to that guy's head BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.

'WHAT KIND OF FUCKING NAZIS ARE YOU GUYS DRIVING THIS CATTLE CAR I GOTTA PISS!'

"And that guy leaned a little forward in his seat and the other guys drove on faster into the night, curving down the dirt roads and past the woods and swamps and there's DeRoss out there somewhere swimming away and they've got me and Jack; and Pierre's probably all packed away and Jacobs is home free and Billy Morrison is leading the football team out of danger in the big broad pink Mercury he use ta have and then Terry's got such a head of pressure built up, God! he braces his foot against the cage and he just lets it all go and it catches the sheriff right in the ear and Chick had a lotta beer in him so he hardly stops before they get back to the cop station. He just sprayed that guy back and forth. Chick was a hard drinker and wasn't one to puke it all up.

"So by the time they all get back to the station Mr. Chick has got the word and here he's come to get his boys.

"Have you all met Mr. Chick? Well then I needn't tell you his gig. An ex-Marine karate instructor and just then they lead Terry in and Mr. Chick sucks in the air his cheeks are puffed out and his eyes bug out and his shoulders draw back in the classical Chick and all of the sudden the little man with the beerbelly is a hulking 30 pounds bigger, a devil bird about to tear apart the cop station and Terry has this big bruise over his eye you know, either from running into a branch drunk as a skunk with the cops charged in or from banging his head against the cage in the cop car, and Terry says,

"'Daddy, Daddy, that copper beat me! He tried to kill me.'

"And Mr. Chick just busts out like a boiler:

"'A a a a a a a a a o o o o o u u u u u u u n n n ngggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!'

"It was a godawful scream like a mother bear that sees one of her own being pushed off a pit into the bubbling fires of hell. Mr. Chick has that old karate adrenalin rush and shrieks:

"'Who was he? Who was the one, son? Yellow copper beating up my boy? I'll kill him!'

"And Terry points out the guy but the cops are in control.

"ANYWAY Jack Chick and I are in the cop car and he turns to me and says 'Say we're in big trouble.' And I say 'Yes we are.' So our cops are headed home and this truck comes cruising out of the woods with an old redneck bear with a big gut at the wheel. Cruising out there with a six pack of beer and a mean old dog in the back and gun racks in the window and the cops stop him and he's just been cruising around, y'understand, fox hunting I believe it was, and they see he's packing a wild west .44 shotgun. The cop goes up to him and asks him if he could see his license."

"They shined their big spotlight on him, and his big ol' red beery eyeballs take a squint at the situation and don't like what they see. Like an armadillo rooted out at night, cross as hell.

"'Goddamn. I have just been out here tonight trying to shoot me a few foxes, having enough troubles of my own without all your friggin' flashers and sirens and running around tonight to scare 'em off...'

"'Now just take it easy, sir. Whyn't you just step out of that truck a minute...'

"'And you, you runty nosed little bastard, YOU ask ME to show my credentials? And he does step out of the truck, and the deputies could see him rockin' back and forth on his heels, drunk as a skunk, kinda fondlin' the .44 so's the deputies would know it was there.

'AND YOU'RE telling me, ME to get out of mytruck?' We could smell his breath way back in the cop car. So this dude starts leaning forward across his belly and looking real clear at the depty who's doing all the talking and starts wavin' the shotgun around his finger-like it's a fuckin' toothpick, man--and the deputy is a little skinny guy whose uniform is all trim and tucked and he says,

"'Now don't get mad, mister, we're gonna haveta see you for a moment here....'

"'Me, me mad? No, I'm not mad. Why should I be mad? And you, YOU can sure as hell see ME. Why just step back into the woods with me about half a mile and my dog'll trot along to drag you out after I'm finished with you and your goddamn measly worm-eaten carcass...'

"And the deputies are backin' away nice and polite with all deliberate speed and they say:

"'OK. OK Mister. Just forget it. Go along hunting and sorry we bothered you...'

"And the big guy slung his gut back in the cab of his pickup with the point of his rifle stuck out the window and he roared one more time with his booming voice...

"'Goddamn! Cops out to stop everybody from having a little fun. They try to pick on some boys and they run into ME!' And he and his truck and his rifle and his dog in the back jostle and bump back into the woods over little clumps of palmetto scrub and burnt out stumps, looking for foxes...

"AND THOSE coppers radio in to headquarters, after they finish rounding everybody up, since everybody is already out in the Spruce Creek area, they send in five sheriff's cars full of deputies and surround the guy, five lawmen to every car, twenty-five Volusia County Sheriffs and deputies, and they jump the guy. And take him into the cop station, with the rest of us."