Sunny & Sydney

During my teen years, I pushed my limits north, south, east and west, towards the heavens and towards hell. Only a handful of people were willing to go there with me. At this critical developmental phase of my life, one person with whom I felt an enormous sense of freedom, albeit at times fearless and invincible, was my friend Sydney.

I met Sydney in junior high school during English class. He had a distinct walk as if striding on his tip-toes. Sydney and I got along wonderfully. All of my creative ideas jived with his and we laughed incessantly. Sydney had large flat lips my sister once referred to as “mashed potato lips” and Bart Simpson green eyes. Sydney dared to speak what others kept to themselves.

At home in the evening I would think about how much I liked him in an almost desperate way. Any time we had a class together, we would get thrown out for disrupting the class. If you weren’t laughing with him, you could be sure he was laughing at you.

We would tease the “uncool” kids and then laugh like two monkeys. Some people started hating us. I even got a taste of my own medicine when I came to school in shiny new silver ballerina shoes.

“Hey, Dorothy! Hey, look! It’s Dorothy,” someone hollered down the hall. “Hey! Where’s Toto?” This went on for weeks.

“Dorothy had ruby shoes, dumb shit!” I replied every time. And Sydney would show his support with high pitched hoarse laughter.

One day, I got a phone call after school. “Hey, Sunny. I’m on my way to pick you up,” said Sydney. Ten minutes later, a big blue van pulled up in front of my house. As we were only 14 years old, no driving license or experience, my heart began to race. I fled from the house and climbed into the van.

“Sydney! Oh, my god!”

He chuckled, a menthol cigarette dangling from his fingers.

“You stole your mom’s van?” I was in disbelief.

“Yeah”, he began to drive out of my neighborhood. “My parents are gone this week.”

“You know how to drive?” I couldn’t imagine driving, especially a huge van.

“Yeah, it’s easy,” he glanced into the rear view mirror as if he had been driving his entire life.

I lit a cigarette and tried to relax but it was so far from anything I had ever done before. With the radio turned up, we drove down the streets, windows down and our hair blowing wildly. We came to an intersection and as we pulled up to a red light, Sydney started to light a new cigarette. Then, he rear-ended the car in front of us.

“Oh, shit!” He froze in his seat unable to react.

“Sydney! What the hell?”

A large woman got out of her car, walked around the back of her car and observed her bumper. She came up to Sydney's window. He sat petrified, his cigarette burning in his hand.

“You’re lucky there’s no damage, young man,” she glared at Sydney.

“Oh, my god! I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” His cheeks had patchy red marks.

“You should probably get back home and tell your parents,” she shook her head and got back into her car.

I looked at Sydney. As soon as the light turned green, he brought me back home. Our ride was silent. When we got to my house, he got out to check the damage. “Oh, shit,” he put his head in his hands. “Oh, no!” He stood there staring at a small dent in the front bumper.

“What are you going to tell your parents?” I gasped.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I better go home. Oh, shit.” He got into the van and drove off.

I was terrified and didn’t say a word to my parents that evening.

We finished junior high and started high school, the place where I reached my height of metamorphism. Sydney followed me all along the way ratting his hair up as high as possible. My curly hair was dyed eggplant purple. The cowboys called us “Chicken Heads” as we walked down the halls together.

On the weekends, we began to perfect an act at liquor stores. It was during a time when neither one of us could be seen without a long-sleeved shirt tied around our waist. It was an essential fashion accessory. It was known as our “dick thing.”

I wore bright red lipstick and thick black coal under my eyes. No one could miss our duo walking into a store nor think us innocent but we were too naïve to know this at the time. Thus, we would pretend we were brother and sister and ask for help from the sales person at the liquor store.

“Hi. Yes. We were wondering if you could help us.” I’d say. “It’s our parents’ anniversary soon and we wanted to know what your best Champagne is so we could buy it for them.” As I talked to the shop keeper, Sydney would peruse around and slip bottles into his baggy pants.

I’d note down the best Champagne and smile. We’d say thank you and steal away into the night with our Root-beer Schnapps or whatever we’d manage to steal. The two of us would find a dark alley and drink the entire bottle. Then we’d emerge stumbling and laughing and louder than ever. We’d find our way into a teen club and dance all night. Sydney had a fabulous way of prancing around the dance floor and smoked in an effeminate fashion.

One evening, we chose a very small liquor store. As we entered, I noticed high mirrors on all the walls. They had hidden cameras. I tried to tell Sydney not to take anything but he shoved a huge bottle of vodka into his pants in an alarmingly conspicuous way. As we headed towards the exit, a short sales clerk with a mustache grabbed Sydney’s arm.

“What’s this?” he said tugging on the shirt sleeve tied around Sydney’s waist.

“Oh, that’s just my “dick thing,” he said yanking on his loose shirt sleeve, though the sales clerk had no idea what a “dick thing” was.

“And, what’s this?” he said pulling out the huge bottle from Sydney’s pants.

“Oh, um…”

“I’m going to call the police,” the man began to make his way over to the phone behind the cash register.

“Please don’t,” pleaded Sydney. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Please,” I said trying to sound pitiful. “We’re sorry. We’ll never do it again.”

“My dad’s a doctor. It will ruin his reputation if we get caught,” said Sydney.

The man looked at me. Then he looked at Sydney. He hung up the phone. He grabbed both of us by the backs of our shirts. He dragged us to the door like two naughty kittens and then launched us into the cold winter night. “Get the hell out of here!” he screamed.

Frightened, we ran as fast as we could. Suddenly, I hit a patch of ice and slipped on the street. I flew forward scraping my hands and knees on the pavement. My black tights ripped around the knees.

Sydney bent over to help me up, “Here,” he grabbed my hand while laughing hysterically.

“Damn it!” I said embarrassed from falling and still high on our adrenaline rush. “Let’s get out of here!”

We continued running until we made it to a nearby teen club. I pulled out a tiny bottle of Kahlua I had miraculously managed to steal. I downed it in one gulp.

Soon we moved onto weed. We smoked it in the video game arcades of a big teen club, in my car, in the back of the school; anywhere that was slightly sheltered. We’d spend hours taking apart the lyrics of songs.

“Oh, my god! This song is about a transvestite!” Sydney once gasped as we listened to The Kinks’ “Lola” in my car.

“Huh?”

“Listen! Listen!” Sydney said rewinding the tape and replaying the lyrics a tad louder.

“Oh, my god! You’re right!”

An innocent song, after a good analysis, was never the same again. We had endless theories and solved lots of problems. We ate lots of Ranch flavored Doritos and Sydney had a thing for Butter Finger candy bars.

Getting stoned became part of our daily routine like brushing your teeth in the morning. It became a fundamental part of who we were. Sydney would take the longest hit imaginable and then holding his breath he’d eek, “Come here.” We’d place our lips together and he’d exhale the glorious smoke while I inhaled it all in. Smoking pot habitually also meant that we frequented kids who lived on their own or who were completely neglected by their folks. We’d get stoned with them and then wish we weren’t at their abandoned homes.

“Life is a living hell,” began one girl with whom we shared a bong while we sat on a dirty futon couch in a tiny apartment.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she flipped her long feathered hair and turned up her stereo that was playing a Heavy Metal song. “We are already in hell because the only way out of this world is up…”

I tried to understand what she was talking about. “But, Earth is in space…we can go up or down or side to side.”

“No,” she disagreed, “you can only go up. There is no down. This is down. Therefore, we are in hell.”

“Totally,” agreed another chic with shaggy hair and a torn black t-shirt. These chicks were buzz killers.

Sydney gave me a sideways glance. With deception on his face he mouthed, “This is awful.”

I nodded in agreement but we had no excuse to free us from the chains of these Head Banger losers. We felt as if we were being punished. That was the downfall of being a desperate pot-smoker; you smoked with anyone who had it.

One weekend Sydney’s parents were out of town. He invited me over. We sat in his kitchen and he pulled out two minuscule red paper squares.

“You got acid?” I asked wide-eyed.

He laughed. “Here, take it.”

I stared at the palm of his hand holding the little squares.

“Take it. Come on! I planned the entire night for us.”

That sounded promising so we both put the papers onto our tongue and sat quietly waiting for it to work its magic.

We went down to Sidney’s bedroom. His bed was made. Everything was in its right place. His room had blue carpet. Little boats covered the walls. Marine décor? This sailor wallpaper could not have been his choice. We might as well have been sitting in some stranger’s room. Surely his mother had picked it out thinking he was a traditional little boy or maybe trying to convince herself of this. Or worse, he had picked it out as some cover-up of his true colors.

His famous vacuum was parked in the corner. The first time I saw it, I asked, “Why is the vacuum in here?”

“Because I need it in here,” he responded.

“Why? Do you vacuum every day or something?”

“Yes,” he replied is if this was a totally normal thing for a teen to do.

We sat on some pillows in Sydney’s closet. He had created a lounge area amongst his wardrobe. Sydney lit a long black stick of incense. It smelled sweet and musky. We watched the smoke whirl its way up into the air and mingle with his hanging clothes. We lit up cigarettes and inhaled pensively. Twenty minutes later, Sydney looked at me, his pupils as big as saucers. He stood up and took a drag off his cigarette with large sweeping gestures and laughed.

After some free flowing movements, he came over to me and cupped my chin in his hand. “When I look into your eyes, darling”, he paused and waved his arm around like a magician. I waited for him to say something like “You are beautiful,” but he said, “I see… myself…and I look marvelous, darling, simply marvelous.” Hoarse laughter erupted from him and then he sat down and quietly puffed away.

“Should we go out?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you in your car. Give me a minute.” While he began airing out his room and disposing the cigarette butts, I went out to my car. My acid trip seemed in control for the time being. I sat behind the wheel in the darkness. I opened my moon roof, put on some music and stared at the stars. They were swaying to the music for me. I don’t know how long I remained like that but at one point I realized Sydney was still inside. I got out of the car and walked into his house. He sat on the couch staring at the TV which was turned off.

“Sydney? What are you doing?”

He turned to me. His lips looked bigger and flatter than usual. A look of fear washed across his face. “My father,” he said into space, “I was having a conversation with him.”

“What? What did he say?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you,” he shook his head, “it was really awful though.”

“Well, let’s go.”

He followed me silently to my car.

“Look, the stars are dancing,” I showed him the sky as we sat in my car.
We lit up some cigarettes and reclined our seats and watched the stars that were pastel shades of pink, yellow, and blue.

“I’ve gotta get home. It’s getting late.” I said. “Come back with me.”

“Okay. But, what will we tell your mom if she finds me?”

“Um. We’ll tell her your parents are away and you didn’t want to stay home alone because the Skinheads have been threatening you again.”

I gave myself a brief pep talk before driving us back to my house. "Okay, you can do this. You can do this." And we were off on our way. Everything was going just fine until we stopped at a red light.

"Oh my god!" Sydney started pointing at the car next to us, "That lady! Look at that lady!"

I glanced over. A woman was seated soberly behind her wheel. Her dress was caught in the car door and she did not know. When the light turned green, we both drove at the same speed. Her dress was flapping in the breeze.

I doubled over laughing. I could barely breathe. "Oh, my god! Look at her. She is so serious. But, her dress...her dress is caught in the door. She has no idea. How can she remain so serious?"

Sydney and I could not contain ourselves. We shook so hard our stomachs hurt. We tried to communicate with each other through our laughter but only gasps came out. This woman and her dress happily tailing alongside the door was the funniest thing we had ever seen. What a mad scene, the two of us bent over in laughter in my car. Though I doubt anyone perceived us driving in the night like that.

Soon we were back at my house. It must have been around midnight and we were in full trip mode. We quietly walked into my house and went straight to my bedroom. I pulled out a stack of white paper. “Let’s do some algebra!” I proposed. Feeling like a challenge, I created an algebraic equation that needed to be calculated to the 35th power.

We must have gone through 20 sheets of paper each. We worked up a hunger so we sneaked into my kitchen. We left with Frito Lays corn chips, a bottle of ketchup and some paper plates. We went back to work in my bedroom with paper plates and ketchup spread out among our math pages.

My walls were covered with posters of Rock bands, faces that had become very familiar to me. Sydney stared up at them for a long time. “Don’t you think it’s weird how we hang photos of people we don’t know on our walls?”

I thought about this for a second.

“I mean, you don’t know these people at all. Why are they on your wall? Wouldn’t it make more sense to hang posters of all of your friends on the wall instead?”

“Yes. You’re right. It is weird that we do this. Humans hang famous people on their walls. I mean, these rock stars, they don’t know us. They don’t know we even exist.”

“I think I’m going to have my friends’ pictures blown up into poster size and put them up in my room. Wouldn’t that be cool?” Sydney asked.

“I guess,” I responded though the idea of my friends’ faces big and shiny hanging on my walls sounded scary.

“Hey, wanna paint?” I asked. I set-up everything and we began painting. Soon afterward, my door burst open and my mother came in.

“What the hell is going on?” she wore her little black night gown, her hair tangled. “It’s 3 in the morning!”

“Umm, we’re just doing some math,” I said pragmatically.

“Sunny, I need to talk to you. Now!” said my mother and left the room in a huff.

I nervously glanced at Sydney and then at my bedroom. The floor was covered in pages of impossibly long math equations, paper plates of ketchup and chips, strange paintings. I looked at Sydney who sat uncomfortably on the floor chewing his thumbnail.

My mother stood in the kitchen waiting for me.

“What is it?” I asked innocently.

“Are you two on something?” she looked very upset. My mother's face kept morphing into a witch. She kept staring at me. I couldn’t look at her. I felt like crying. Did I know this person? Was she actually my mother? Act normal! Act normal! You can pull it off!

“What’s going on?” she scowled, her eyes cringed at the brow.

“Nothing, why? Sydney was scared to stay at his house alone since the Skinheads said they were going to get him. His parents are out of town and I told him he could stay with us and we aren’t tired so…”

“Look at me!” she grabbed my face and held it under the light. “Look at me!” She stared into my eyes. “Don’t tell me you aren’t on something.”

“Mom, I’m fine. I promise we’re not on anything.”

“Then what is that mess in your room? Don’t tell me you aren’t doing drugs! What is it? Pot?”

“I promise. We’re just hanging out.”

“That’s enough already! It’s 3am! Get to bed. Tell Sydney he can sleep in the guest room.”

I walked out of the kitchen and back to my room.

“Your mother is super scary. She turned into a witch. I have to go home. I can’t stay here,” Sydney was trying to clean up our papers.

“Don’t be silly! Sydney, everything is fine. You can sleep in the guest room.”

“Your mom looked like a witch, Sunny. She’s evil. Your mom is super evil.”

“I know. She looked really scary but we’re just fucked up so don’t worry. Everything will be fine in the morning. Just be sure you tell her you came here because of the Skinheads, okay?”

Sydney silently walked into the guest room. The wallpaper was salmon colored with huge white sea shells. In the morning, Sydney said he heard sounds of the sea calling him the entire night and couldn’t stop staring at the walls. I don’t think he slept. And I don’t think he laughed too much either.