This story takes place on October 31st, 2003. I remember this exact day very well for two reasons. 1) It was Halloween and 2) It was the day I finally quit my job at the local Irving…

I had worked at the Irving gas station here in Yarmouth for about 2 years after graduation. If you can remember the winters that we had from 2000-2003 you will realize how much it fucking sucked to work outside 10-12 hour a day for shitty pay. I really liked the people that I worked with and it was a great job in the summer, but there was NO way I was going to put up with another winter. I gave my boss a full month’s notice and told him I would stay on to train the newbie. I promised I would not leave him hanging because, honestly, he had always treated me really well. I finally finished training the new guy and my last day on the job ended up being on Halloween…

That same day, two of Gentry’s old friends from British Columbia, Tyrell and Uriah, flew over to meet and party with the Meatheads. We had decided a few weeks earlier that we would have to come up with a good Halloween “prank” to start off the night and show the BC boys how we do things on the East fuckin Coast.

After some thought, we spent the weeks leading up to Halloween collecting tons of old tires. There’s a lot of garages around here that just throw the used ones out back (I’m sure they plan on recycling them or something, but we put them to good use). So, we went on late night runs and ended up with about 4-5 full truck loads of used tires. We stashed them all just off the old railroad tracks out in South Ohio. The train hasn’t run down here in a LONG time, so the tracks were torn up and it’s now a walking/ATV trail.

In South Ohio (about 5 minutes outside Yarmouth) there is an overpass on the tracks that crosses Highway 101. Our plan: to make a MASSIVE tire fire on the overpass over the highway (in hopes that it would be harder for the fire department to put out, without really “hurting” anything). It was perfect!

So, we had the tires stashed and ready for later, but we needed to get some booze into us first. After we picked the BC boys up we headed out to DogPatch to get things started. Before I knew it I was shotgunning beer after beer after beer. Showing off for the new guys, I guess (it doesn’t take much peer pressure to get me going).

While I was in the midst of getting shit faced, the boys decided that they were finally ready to go set it off. Unfortunately, I was running game on this girl I had brought with me and was already quite shittered… so I actually got left behind (I was kinda pissed about this at the time, but oh well). I honestly didn’t even notice they had all left.

Before I even realized they were gone, the group of them came flying back down the driveway, covered in black soot, reeking of gasoline and all of them super psyched! I guess it had gone well. They excitedly told me that they had poured a whole gas jug on top of the tires (there had to be at least 30 of them) and made a fuel trail back into the woods. It was lit from there and I guess it made quite an explosion followed by a really good smokey tire fire. The damn thing was still burning a little bit the next afternoon, so I’d say it was a complete success!

Now that we were all running on a natural high from the successful fire (we’re all a bunch of pyros, really) the beer started to disappear more quickly. Before it got too late, we decided it was time to hit the town and find ourselves a party. There are always tons of them on Halloween.

We quickly tracked one down at a random house in the North end of town. The home owner was 26ish at the time (we were all 18-19) and none of us knew him very well – but that didn’t matter. It was a costume party, but none of us were dressed up – we didn’t care. We were all fucked the fuck up and ready to party hard!

We crashed the house party in the dirty Limo Taxi with at least 15 of us packed inside. Drunk and rowdy! I was already totalled and barely able to walk before we got there. It was bound to end badly…

As soon as we entered the house I immediately looked for somewhere to sit down and collect my thoughts. After a quick look around I realized that the place was packed and there are no seats anywhere. So, I took the next best thing I could find: the dog’s bed right in the middle of the living room floor. I curled right up in it and passed the fuck out in seconds. I was in bad shape.

When I came to a short time later, I found myself completely alone in the living room. Everyone was now crowded around the doors to the kitchen and I could hear lots of pissed off yelling. The loud, angry voices seemed very familiar – I wasn’t surprised.

I pushed my way to the front of the angry mob and ended up standing right in the doorway to the small kitchen. This is when I saw the owner of the house, dressed up as a pimp in a bright purple suit and feather hat, passed out (or so I thought) in the middle of the kitchen floor. About 10 feet away from me I saw a solid looking dude, about my height but obviously a lot older, standing over the unconscious body. He was noticeably pissed.

The large stranger growled at me, “What the fuck are you laughing at???”

I looked down and pointed towards the body on the floor. Before I could even explain to him that I find passed out pimps to be slightly amusing, I saw a flash of red. The best way I can describe it was that it was like when you close your eyes and stare at a bright light.

I looked up and, after a couple seconds for my vision to refocus, I saw that the guy was no longer 10 feet away… he was now right in my face. I looked to my right and beside me there was a girl who was absolutely COVERED in blood and she looked very distraught.

Everyone was yelling and pushing me from all directions. The best I could figure was that this guy had just punched a girl and I was fucking irate! I tried to move and noticed that there were people tightly holding me back… I couldn’t understand why they would defend or protect this woman beater! These same people started to drag me violently down the small flight of stairs and out the front door.

As soon as I stepped outside (thrown outside, more like it) I was reunited with the rest of the Meatheads who were all outside now, smashing vehicles and destroying shit. It was like stepping into a warzone. I still had NO idea what the fuck was happening! It was all very confusing to my drunken mind…

I was still trying to wrap my throbbing head around things when someone grabbed my arm. It was a complete stranger, some random older woman dressed in a weird Halloween costume.

She kept repeating something, “Let me look at you, let me look at you.”

I just kept pulling away from her, confused and trying to get one of my buddies to calm down and explain to me what the fuck was happening; but they were all preoccupied with the destruction of property.

The woman grabbed me again, “I’m a nurse, let me look at you!”

This got my attention. “Wait, what do you mean??”

She pointed at my shirt and said, “Look, you’re bleeding badly…”

I looked down and, sure enough, my previously white shirt was now covered in red blotches… I reached up and touched my nose. It was FUCKED and pouring blood. It was only at this point that I realized he hadn’t hit the girl beside me – he had actually run across the room and hammered me right in the nose! That was MY blood all over the girl beside me. Shit.

Before the “nurse” could say another word, I saw the guy who hit me come swaggering out of the house. I pushed her out of my way and chased after him. I’m not quite sure what I expected to do, but when I caught up to him but he forced me out of the way and started running after my buddies, who were now taking off down the street – still smashing stuff, giving him the finger and just being Meatheads in general.

I caught up to him again and grabbed his shoulder. I pulled as hard as I could, ripping him around, and got right in his face, “What the fuck did you hit me for??”

He turned away again and kept chasing the boys. I caught him once more and did it again, “HEY!! Answer me mother fucker! What the fuck did you hit me for???”

He stopped, looked at me with cut eyes and said, “You’re that piece of shit that drives a green car and pounds his stereo all the time!”

Yarmouth people will realize how much of an insult this was to me. It caught me completely off guard. I stuttered for a second and then just looked him right square in the eyes and said, “Fuck you, buddy. My car is RED!!”

His expression changed completely but he shrugged it off and turned back towards the house. I heard honks and yelling from down the road – the limo was here! I was certainly in no shape to tangle with this guy and he was more concerned with protecting the property than actually fighting, so I jumped into the cab and we all fucked off back towards DogPatch. It was here that my face began to actually hurt.

The rest of the night was a complete blur. I remember being in the Irving bathroom and someone in a full Daisy Duck costume came in and helped me wipe the blood off my face… by dipping paper towel in the dirty toilet. Wow, thanks! They never said a word to me or told me who they were at the time, but I am pretty sure it was my friend’s Aunt. Either way, it was a very trippy experience for someone who is sloppy drunk and half concussed.

I made out alright, though, when it was all said and done. I had a broken nose, a cut on the side of it and another cut down on my lip. He got me good for just one punch!

I found out later that he was 9 years older than me and a well known scrapper. The owner of the house had started talking shit to the boys we brought over from BC, so one of my Meathead brothers, Cheek we call him, took offense to this and knocked the home owner clean the fuck out. This started a war and I walked right into the middle of it. Just my luck…

The next weekend at the bar (so this would be the night after I was followed home and had my life threatened, but more about that next story…) my boy Gerald came up to me and said he wanted to introduce me to someone. Naturally, I was fine with this, so I followed him to the back half of the bar.

He brought me over to this guy who looked sort of familiar, but I couldn’t place him right away. Gerald said hello to the guy and then turned to me, “Dan, this is Jason,” he said. “He’s the guy who broke your nose last weekend…”

I felt like stabbing Gerald right then and there… why would he introduce me to this rugged looking guy who broke my face the last time I saw him?? I got nervous.

“It’s cool man, he just wants to talk to you” Gerald said, probably noticing I had tensed up.

The guy just stared at me for a second. I had my hand wrapped around my lighter in my pocket, my feet planted firmly, my chin tucked and my mouth closed… ready for the worst.

Instead, he just stuck out his hand out offering to shake mine and said, very politely, “Man, I just wanted to apologize for last weekend. I got caught up in the moment and you really didn’t deserve it. Here, let me buy you a beer…”

I was beyond surprised. He bought me a cold Budweiser and we stood talked for a little bit. As we did he told me exactly how it all went down. Apparently, while I was looking down, he ran across the kitchen and, in his exact words…

“I have hit a LOT of people, but I’ve never hit anyone that hard in my life! When you didn’t go down and you just stood there and stared at me… I gotta admit it, man, I got fucking nervous.” He even ended up complimenting me on my red Acura and apologizing for mistaking me for someone else. He was actually a really nice fuckin guy!

I never did bother to tell him that I was knocked completely out on my feet and the only reason I didn’t go down was the crowd of people pushing from behind me. Not to mention the fact that I was pass-out drunk and couldn’t barely feel anything to begin with. Naw… he didn’t need to know any of that. I shook his hand again, accepted his apology and left the bar with a crooked nose but a big old smile on my face that night…

As a rather interesting side note before I end this, almost everyone that was there with me that night (all of the original Meatheads, including the BC boys) ended up signing my bloody t-shirt and I hung it on my wall until I moved out a few years later. I still have it at stored away somewhere as a souvenir of the wild times we had, back in the good old days…