Literary Work
TOP OF THE WORLD Michael Cibeno
May 1989. Based on a true story. (But really, aren’t they all?) I knew I shouldn’t, but my friends could be very convincing. As a sort of pre-graduation celebration, they decided we should ditch school and drive down to the shore. I’m sure it was Emil who came up with the idea. We called him “Katt” on account of his last name, Kattermann. It suited him perfectly because he had a certain feline quality of somehow always getting his way. “C’mon, Mikey,” he purred as I wedged myself into the passenger seat of his cherry red Pontiac Fiero. “It’s too gorgeous a day to be sitting in classes.” I really couldn’t argue with that. We met up with the others in the parking lot of the A&P supermarket. Wayne was already there, leaning against the hood of his silver Mercury LN7. We called him “Dicky” on account of his middle name being Richard. He was sporting his Maverick look with brown leather jacket and aviator sunglasses. A minute later, Todd came screeching in. At six and half feet tall, he possessed no quality that could be described as subtle. Changes by Yes blared from his white Nissan 200SX. As you’ve perhaps ascertained, my friends had in common a penchant for second-rate sports cars. And we all had our nicknames. Todd’s was “Wacky,” which was bestowed after Katt once walked in on him jerking… Well, never mind, you don’t need to hear that. The guys called me “Spanky” (but for reasons totally unrelated to Wacky’s moniker).
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So the four of us headed out of the county and toward the nearest entrance to the Garden State Parkway. I stayed in Katt’s car, while Dicky jumped into Wacky’s. (Dicky wanted to drive, but Wacky complained the LN7 didn’t have enough room for his giraffe legs.) Nowadays, I suspect it’s hard for kids to cut school. It seems every absence triggers a call or text to whomever is listed as next of kin. But back then, I don’t think schools were quite as vigilant. We made it to the beach and Wacky opened up the Nissan’s hatch to reveal a styrofoam cooler filled with a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon (in cans). On account of his size, he was almost always able to buy beer from a local bar whose owner wasn’t overly concerned about checking IDs. A lot of things were different back then. None of us had really eaten breakfast, so the beers went to our heads pretty quickly. We were having a grand old time throwing a Frisbee, and feeling quite superior to all our classmates stuck in a big brick building on this glorious summerlike day. Until the police showed up. Boy, were my parents pissed. The fact that my own dad was a cop didn’t really make things any easier. Well, maybe it did because when the officer who busted us found out who my father was, he called all our parents and no charges were pressed. Still, we had to serve a week of detention at school, and I was grounded for a month. I tried to pass the time reading or figuring out keyboard riffs on my little Casio CZ-101. At about 9PM on a Friday night, I was working on the main riff from Van Halen’s Jump when the phone in my room rang. (I was allowed to have a separate phone line so that I could use the modem on my Commodore 64 without tying up the house’s main line.) “Hallo. Is dis Michael?” I immediately
