Pals - Amigos

Well, why don't I just go ahead and start with one of the finalists for dumbest things we ever did.  I suppose that after months stuffed with all the manly-bonding we'd been doing, it seemed only appropriate that something be done to memorialize this summer of summers when boys were becoming young men and any self respecting young women were running for safety.  We never really put it in words, or realized what was going on, but an unspoken bond had formed amongst us and despite our lack of ability to understand or articulate it, there was a closeness we were clinging to, a gang to which we belonged.  And unconsciously I think some of us were feeling that something should be done to signify the timelessness of these friendships - something that you could see or touch that might just be as strong and enduring as we believed those bonds of friendship would be.

Well, before diving into the plan we hatched, I think it important to back up just a little.  YOu see, it wasn't just for kicks that I chose the name "PALS" as the theme for this section of memories.  On the contrary, in fact, the word 'pals' meant something of significance and at that time sacred to us.  

It was about this time when the "Young Guns" movies with Emilio Estevez et al had descended upon the theaters and taken the hearts and minds of adventuresome boys our age by storm.  We were growing up as semi-farmers, and I think it just goes without saying that the heroes of all farm boys are cowboys, particularly the sort who are expert in the craft of causing mischief and mayhem.  And when our young gang of ruffians learned of Billy the Kid and co, we knew we need look no further for heroes to emulate.  I can't believe how many lines from that movie that I can quote to this day.  

Now, the first of the Young Guns films was rated R, and while we were all powerfully drawn to it, we knew there was nuthin' doin' there - our folks didn't let us watch rated R movies so we were left simply to our imaginations, whatever we was in the previews, and any nuggets we could glean from our other and more scandalous friends who had seen it.  Well, and say this from my perception alone, I believed God himself smiled down upon us and in reward for our abstinence from Young Guns I, He deemed it appropriate that Young Guns II should be rated PG13, meaning it was sanctioned for our viewing pleasure.  Well, that movie was nothing short of scripture for us, and pretty much laid out a blueprint for how a good gang of buddies should organize themselves.  Most notably in that film, Emilio (playing Billy the Kid) said to his crew, "See, you got 3 or 4 good pals, then you got yourself a tribe.  An' there ain't nothin' stronger n' that".  So there it is, Pals, it's what stuck.  And we were indeed a tribe to be reckoned with. 

Well, to revert back to the initial story and our efforts to convert something that was only an idea or a feeling, into something physical and tactile, a plan begin to take seed in our minds.  And this was it: tattoos, that would certainly do the trick.  Well, there were several major impediments to a bunch of 14 and 15 year old kids haulin off and gettin tattoos.  First, I'm pretty sure it would have been illegal without parental consent - which was never, ever, ever, ever going to happen.  That leads us to reason 2: our church frowns upon tattoos, and that frown is plenty strong enough to keep any of our parents from even considering giving their consent for a tattoo.  Finally, even if we HAD parental consent, plain and simple we just didn't have the coin.  Tattoos are expensive and whatever child labor pittance Gramps was paying us on the farm wasn't gonna come close to gettin us there.

But the idea was too powerful to surrender.  If not tattoos, then what?  I mentioned previously our resourcefulness . . . and honestly I wasn't prepared to give up on the thought.  So, I suppose the line of thinking at that point probably went about like this.  "Well, can't do tattoos, but the point is to mark our bodies with something permanent so we'll be brothers together forever . . . maybe we can do something ourselves LIKE tattoos?"  Then would have followed the thought, "Well, our bodies are covered in scars, they seem to stick around a long time . . . where do scars come from?"  Then, the connection was made - "Cuts make scars, scars last.  So let's just carve something in our skin - shoot, we'll make our own tattoos".  Now I don't know how sequential or conscious that stream of thought was, but if it wasn't that linear or deliberate, that was certainly where we landed on it.  Not surprisingly, the next question wasn't "Should we really do this", I think the next question was simply, "So what should we carve?".  Of course the word "pals" came to mind, but for some reason - perhaps it was too short or lacked that certain something, but it just wasn't the right word.  Then, maybe as a nod to Johnny's heritage, and certainly because the word was just way cooler, we settled on "Amigos". 

So, there we were,  with Grandma and Gramps away somewhere, here are 4 boys rummaging through their home, gathering up all sorts of sharp instruments to see which would work best for the undertaking.  I vividly remember 3 things - there may have been others.  Those three were a razorblade, a small knife, and some sort of ice pick thing.  We experimented with all of them, but If I'm not mistaken that dang ice pick seemed to be the most effective tool for the task at hand.  I can't remember who went first, but either way the carving began; I believe we alternated between carving and being carved to give us reprieve from the pain.  I can still remember the sting of it pretty vividly, and I can even recall in my mind quite clearly the sound of the cutting, and the feeling of tearing through the skin on our shoulders.  We were determined to make it stay so we tried to get it as deep as we could tolerate.  I honestly don't know how we sat and just took it.  And if I recall correctly, by the time we were done, our carvings looked pretty darn good if we do say so ourselves. I'll note that I believe this was those previously mentioned times when Chet's wisdom and foresight surpassed that of the rest of us and he opted out - wisely.  But if memory serves, by the time the carving was complete I believe CJ, Johnny, and I were proudly branded, fairly bloody, and feeling as manly and legitimized as ever.

Well, we were certainly proud of ourselves, our toughness, our grit, and this manly solidarity we'd immortalized on ourselves together.  But for some reason when we got down to CJ's house and his mom Shar realized what had happened (I don't remember how she got the down low on us but it was remarkably quick), for some reason she was not nearly as impressed with us as we were with ourselves.  No compliments on our artwork, no lauding our mental and physical toughness and endurance, simply a bootie-whoopin anger that had me back up confessing to Gramps, Chet back home, Johnny's parents on the fast train to come get him, and CJ in some seriously toasty waters.

As I write this I frankly can't remember what if any consequences actually came from that event.  It was clear that our choice was not going to be endorsed by those under whose authority we operated, but frankly - and not to be cheeky - what could they do.  The masterpieces were completed, and it was all over but the cryin' as they say.  I know I significantly dialed back the amount of time I wandered about shirtless - no reason to pour salt the wound (pun totally intended) with our parents / grandparents, but every chance we got we all tore the scabs off the cuts, in hopes that they would really scar up nicely.

Truth is, as I look at my arm today, there is very little evidence that anything ever happened.  If I ever get any real tan on that shoulder and the sun hits just right, some small marks can still be deciphered, reminding me of our brazen loyalty and teen sincerity, but moreso probably just of our ridiculous kid-brained stupidity.  But truth be told, I'm 45 now and honestly, no regrets . . . while the execution was absurd and deeply flawed, the feeling was real and meant something - still does.

Pals - the crew

 I was about 15 years old, turning 16.  It was the summer my parents and family had moved to Champaign, IL.  My parents and I had decided I'd stay the summer in Utah and work with my grandpa on the dairy and rejoin my family in August in Illinois when school was about to start and soccer workouts began.  It was to be a summer to remember, probably the best summer I had as a kid.

I say that largely because of the close gang of ruffians that became my brothers for those few unforgettable months.  It was me, my cousin CJ Bateman, Chet Wall, Johnny Ortiz, and pretty large doses of a guy named Justin Horne.  As a bit of background, CJ was the thirdborn of Doug and Shar Bateman, and a young man of innate talent and character that has always been inspiring to me, even to this day.  He wasn't afraid to raise a little you know what every once in a while, but like me, he knew there was a line out there not to be crossed.  It was one that is well past the one our parents would have drawn for us, but also well short of that sort of trouble that may not be able to be undone.  I don't know how that line is created in the minds of some teens and not others, but CJ and I somehow knew it, felt it, and were pretty good at adhering to it.  If I'm honest, my own line was probably a bit past CJ's, but I think together we adhered to that unspoken, undefined boundary as well as you could expect of any resourceful teens without a ton of supervision and probably more than our fair share of self-confidence.

Chet was the son of Joan and Jim Wall, the closest folks - in geography and in feeling, to the Bateman crew that we had outside of family.  Chet was a wily character, younger brother of my first "love" and first kiss.  Whenever my folks left town and I was to stay somewhere, I always chose the Walls - double value; got to be with my good pal Chet, and got to bask in those teen flirtations that make an early teen feel alive and infinite. Chet knew right from wrong, and was a good moral barometer for the group - I think more than once Chet found that aforementioned line to be a bit beyond his comfort and opted out.  That's a testament to the character of ol' Chet.  He was true, he was family, and a key piece of the puzzle that made up this group of pals.

Johnny Ortiz was one of CJ and Chet's friends that became a friend of mine simply because he was a friend of theirs.  Johnny was quick with a smile, smooth as silk with the ladies, and always a joy to be around because he was light hearted and generally up for whatever.  As I remember, Johnny was a pretty good ball player and really was a brother to me.  He was not a Mormon kid and unlike Chet and CJ, in retrospect I am sure there was a whole other world he moved in of which none of us were a part, but when he was with us he was all in, and we wanted him around as much as we could get him.

Justin was in and out with us that summer.  Justin was the younger brother of the the wife of CJ's oldest brother Brandon.  Justin was the product of some family challenges that I'm sure none of us could have understood at the time.  His parents were separated and it seemed like we never really knew where home was for him.  But he was so happy and a jokester - his smile was contagious and he had a lot of love and kindness woven into that complex fabric of his character. But I also unconsciously sensed that there was a depth in him that was different, and as I think about it, I presume that came from his experience with the kinds of unsettled feelings that come from that kind of less-grounded life, and frankly there was likely some trauma in there that the rest of us couldn't have contextualized had we known about it. We didn't talk about that stuff much - not because we avoided it but probably just because at that age it didn't matter - not that we didn't care but it was just a time of life where it was all about enjoying each other, projecting our prospects with the ladies, pushing limits just enough, and really just extracting as much as one could out of a life that was wide open with opportunity.  I don't think life has been particularly kind to Justin.  I have attempted to contact him but the interactions have been such that I don't know if we are anywhere near understanding one another anymore.  That makes me sad.

To give you a little more of the backdrop - or what our lives were like at this time, I'll share a few things.  First of all, I was the oldest among us at 15, and obviously without a drivers license, though nobody seemed to recognize that - particularly yours truly.  I had begun driving with my Grandpa when I was 13 on tractors, and by the time I was 14, he was making me drive on public roads when we went out to clean the canal grates - I honestly just think he didn't like driving that much; maybe because he didn't have a knee on his right leg.  Either way, the lack of a license in no way inhibited our mobility.  There was always an old truck or something on the farm that we figgered nobody would miss.  We were mid teens - I was 15, the others 14, and our parents trusted us probably a bit more than they should have.  Maybe they realized that together we'd probably - as a collective - stay within some reasonable bounds; though had they known all that went on I think the restrictions would have tightened measurably and quickly.  I was working close to full time on the farm, but somehow, maybe because of the erratic schedule of dairy work, I found tons of time for our extra-curricular antics.  Grandpa and grandma didn't question me much, Grandpa's focus was for me to get my work done, and to do it well - which I did; I learned that from my Dad and mom, Gramps, and often my somewhat scary uncle Steve.  

I don't know how Chet got away so much, but I suppose a 14 year old kid can't be expected to sit around the house all summer.  Too old to to not get bored at home, but too young to have a job.  I think his parents pretty much turned him loose so long as they knew where he was and made his way home when he was expected to be there - which he pretty much did.  

CJ's parents weren't super hands-on with him, not to mention he had two older brothers who kept their hands full pretty much all the time.  CJ was - and could be - trusted to do his thing and keep himself out of trouble generally, which he did.  So he kind of moved around at will so long as he got his own work done.  

Johnny, I don't know, probably a lot like Chet.  The Batemans were long time respected members of the community, known for their hard work and having scraped together, from a pretty bad situation, the makings of what became a remarkably successful dairy.  Further, Gramps was regularly in leadership positions in our church, which was a pretty dominant part of the fabric of our community there in West Jordan, Utah.  I think that reputation made most parents pretty comfortable letting their kids hang with the Bateman clan.  Johnny was a good kid and I think was making pretty good choices himself - from what I could see he was pretty solid.  I think he could be trusted, and clearly his parents did trust him.

Justin was there when he was and we took him when we could get him.  Shared custody between his parents made that unpredictable, but when he was around he seemed to have complete reign of time and space as far as we could tell. Generally when we were with Justin, his dad was away at work, unknowingly leaving a snazzy old blue ford pickup at our disposal.  If he had any idea how often that restored rig almost made it way back to its unrestored condition he'd have killed every one of us.  Luckily providence did not see fit to give us our due on that front, and disaster was narrowly evaded more than once.

So there it is, that's the foundation and the backdrop for several memories I'll document in forthcoming entries.  It was a summer of summers for me,  For a teen there is very little one can hope for than a group of true pals whose friendship felt sincere, committed, ready for anything.  I look back on those rascals and feel a deep love for them and what we meant to each other once upon a time.  In some important ways they are still in me and hopefully I in them - and in that way I love them deeply still.  As I write of them I feel that brotherhood beating deep inside me, and I presume it will be there forever I'm sure . . . and despite it being 30 years ago, it doesn't feel so distant.  Perhaps that's because in some ways I hope I still have some of those 'admirable" qualities of the adventuresome, rough and tumble, wily, edgy but honorable men we were all trying to grow into.