It was a Friday night in July on Stanley Ave. We were in the 8th grade. So we did what any 8th grader would do, we decided to get a bottle of wine. There was a guy who hung around, named Chan. he mustve been in his 20s, he wore a black bandana on his head. I think he was a wino. We would give him money for some wine and a quarter tip for him. He used to drink Gypsy Rose port wine, or Fleishman's something or another. We stuck to the "good stuff".. it was either Ariba or Thunderbird. As i write, i could fondly remember that taste. and the theme song. "whats the word?"
"Thunderbird"
"what's the price?" 40 twice" yeah i think it was 80cents a pint. It would get a young kid pretty damn drunk. So we drank 2 of them down fast. Shared it amongst the four of us. It was me Mooney, Hal, Jeff and me. We decided to take a walk down to Snediker Ave and visit a friend of ours. We get their drunk, I had a gripe with this guy for stealing my clarinet, but we got involved with other stuff that night, and that wasnt brought up. The guy we met was named Red. Flaming red hair, with a big pompadour. He had a great idea. Now, mind you , we were drunk and the dumbest of ideas sounded good. He had a fold up cot bed. One of those metal fold up things with wheels. And he happened to have a steering whell from a truck laying around. So , we rolled the bed outside. And Red said , hey lets drive this thing down Linden Blvd. Linden Blvd was treacherous over in that area, near Van Sinderen. Alot of sharp turns, broken road and speeding cars. We put our feet in , to choose who would be folded up in the middle of the bed. We did "engine engine number nine, going down chicago line...." it was a choosing thing, like "sky is blue how old are you or eenie meenie infancheenie ,,,". anyway I won. YAY! ummm I won the honor of getting folded up into the cot bed. My hands were the imaginary gas and brake pedals.Palms up and the "driver" would step on them. The steering wheel post when down into the crack between the mattress and someone controlled the steering wheel , which did nothing. and two guys were pushing the bed. They start pushing onto Linden Blvd. It was night time, and we had no lights on this "vehicle". We seemed to be going pretty fast , actually faster than the guys who were pushing it. Holy Shhhhhhhhh....!!!!! We were going fast on Linden Blvd, cars honking, people yelling at us, and there I am trapped in this folded cot in the middle of the biggest street in East New York( excluding the Belt Parkway). There are no brakes, the guys on top can jump off, that would leave just me with my head out one end, and my feet out the other end, ready to crash into a pole or a truck or just tumble over and get run over. We were approaching a major intersection, Pennsylvania Ave, and the two bed-pushers caught up and were able to stop the speeding bed. It was like Pelham 123, except it was like Sealy 123. They stopped the thing thank goodness. No one got hurt, except one guy pushing fell and cut his knee.. We were laughing afterwards, all drunk and stuff. I had to remind them to let me out. It was crazy being trapped in that bed . It was a very fast bed. Next time I'll wear a helmet. Years have gone by, and I haven't even thought about a next time.
Afterwards, we went to the Galaxy Diner for some roast pork on garlic bread and some Cherry Cokes. Another exciting adventure in East New York.
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