The Night of the Red Yugo

In writing down all of these stories for posterity, I do cringe when I think of the effect it may have on my mother.  She has been amply warned.  I am trying to appease the karma gods in the hopes that history doesn't repeat itself.  I'm also remembering these things about my younger self, and trying to absorb as much of the lesson as I can remember.  Onward.

When I was 15, I had a good friend named Carol.  We'd been friends since 7th grade.  We ended up going to different high schools, but we remained friends.  My family loved Carol.  She was different from my other friends in a lot of ways.  She was a major non-conformist, dressed differently, was insanely artistically talented, and probably one of the smartest people I have ever known in my life. Her sense of humor was piercing and unmatched. She had awesome taste in music and we saw incredible shows together. Among them were General Public, The Cure, and The Untouchables, all in Hollywood. I remember bad fashion and even worse eye makeup. We had tickets to see Fishbone, but we didn't end up going for reasons I can't remember.  I still regret it.  She got me into The Specials and basically all things ska. Another thing Carol had going, from a teenager's perspective at least, was very little parental supervision.  Her mom and dad owned a boat, and spent a lot of time on it, leaving her and her older sister home to pretty much fend for themselves.  In fact, my memories of her parents are very dim, I may have only met them once or twice.

So one night, I was invited to go out to a club in Hollywood with Carol and her boyfriend.  I think there was a band playing, maybe they knew them?  Her boyfriend was in a band.  I honestly can't imagine another reason why 15 year old girls would find themselves allowed into a club in Hollywood, but there we were.  Truth be told, I remember little of the night.  We started drinking early.  I had my very own bottle of Night Train.  Ha!  This is funny...I just googled Night Train so I could describe it for my readers who don't know what it is.  The first link popped up on BumWine.com.  It describes the following:  

Night Train Express
17.5% alc. by vol.
 
Don't let the 0.5% less alcohol by volume fool you, the Night Train is all business when it pulls into the station.  All aboard to nowhere - woo wooo!  The night train runs only one route: sober to stupid with no round trip tickets available, and a strong likelihood of a train wreck along the way.  This train yard favorite is vinted and bottled by E&J Gallo Winery, in in Modesto, CA.  Don't bother looking on their web page, because they dare not mention it there.  As a clever disguise, the label says that it is made by "Night Train Limited."  Some suspect that Night Train is really just Thunderbird with some Kool-Aid-like substance added to try to mask the Clorox flavor.  Some of our researchers indicated that it gave them a NyQuil-like drowsiness, and perhaps this is why they put "night" in the name.  

I am not lying when I tell you...that description is so 100% accurate and reading it just made my stomach hurt.  Holy Moses, that stuff was vile.  I'm pretty sure that this particular night was my one and only trip on the Night Train, for reasons that are forthcoming.  There are a lot of reasons I can't stomach NyQuil, but now that I'm really thinking about it, that evening may be the reason.  So!  There we are in a parking lot in Hollywood, drinking our cocktails.  Very glamorous.  I remember being hungry and somehow acquiring a large bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.  They tasted amazing.  I'm fairly sure that my cocktails and chips were my dinner that evening, and I'm positive that everyone can predict what happened soon after.  The club spun.  I fell numerous times.  I was taken outside and threw up in an alleyway.  The parking lot spun.  A guy Carol knew took pity on me and put me in the backseat of his red Yugo and locked me in.  This sounds awful and dangerous and it WAS, but he honestly was just trying to keep me safe.  The backseat began to spin, and I felt that I would be the worst person in the world if I threw up in this nice dude's car, so I scrambled toward the passenger door to unlock it before hurling myself (and the contents of my stomach) onto the asphalt.  The guy was nearby, and was impressed by my efforts.  I clearly remember him saying, "Man, THIS girl has the makings of a champion drinker!"  SIGH...

My friend Carol emerged from the club eventually, and stalked down the street.  Wait!!  What's going on, you drove me here, how am I going to get home?  She had had a fight with her boyfriend and strode down the street at top speed, not listening to anyone around her.  Her boyfriend ran after her.  I waited awhile before it became clear that she was not going to be returning soon.  It was late, I don't even want to guess what actual time it was, but I had to call my dad.  It had to have been at a phone booth since it was 1985 or 1986.  Here's where I cringe today...I was drunkedy drunk drunk.  I called my poor dad to let him know that, not only would I not be making curfew, but that I no longer had a way home from Hollywood to Altadena.  And there was NO WAY I could hide the fact that I was hammered out of my mind.  I remember him asking me where Carol was, and I said, "I don't know, she had a fight with him and she ran off.  But I met this really nice guy named Mike, and he said he'll drive me home."  Gee...I'm sure that put his mind at ease.  I continue to be sorry, to this day, for doing that to my dad.  There were plenty of other times that I engaged in crazy, dangerous behavior, but my parents were usually kept in the dark.  This time he knew, and all he could do is wait for me to arrive home.

Now is when I tell all of you how and why I was the most fortunate girl on the planet that night.  Mike F., (not to be confused with my husband), truly was the nicest guy in the entire world.  He absolutely looked out for me.  He drove me straight home, he never laid a hand on me, and he even walked me to my door and handed me off to my dad.  Mike F. was sober, and my dad told me later he couldn't believe how lucky I had gotten.  I don't think he grounded me, because Carol had kinda left me hanging.  The fact that I was 15 and plastered didn't seem to register that much, but that's a different story for another time.  Of course, the next morning I woke up and I thought I was going to die.  Carol called and apologized, and told me Mike F. had asked for my number.  Hmmmmm.  Well, okay.  I wasn't interested in him in a romantic way, but he HAD been exceptionally cool and nice to me, so we started to talk on the phone.  Looking back, I cannot think of a single moment that evening in which I could have possible appeared charming or appealing in any way.  The only thing that I can think of that might have impressed him was my sheer determination not to vomit in his car. By the time we met, I was trashed and regurgitating everywhere.  How incredibly attractive! Ugggggg.

Mike F. and I talked on the phone quite a bit.  He was a few years older and lived a few towns away.  I think he may have graduated already, while I was still a sophomore. I could consult my journals to check the accuracy of this, but I would probably become mortified at what I would read and lose interest in this post, so I shall go forth.  Mike F. worked at the flower district in downtown LA, and at some point, I did indeed receive roses.  I didn't know what to do.  I did go on a date with him, once.  The funniest thing about our "date" was when we walked out the door of my mom's house and I asked him where his car was.  "Right there."  A white Yugo was parked in front of my house, not a red one.  He found that hilarious and began to point out all the other things that were red that night...my eyeballs.  My face when we got to my dad's house.  Probably at least part of the contents of my stomach.  His car though, was always white and I had never been more sure that there had been some mistake.  

We stayed friends for years, through girlfriends of his and boyfriends of mine, Mike F. was always looking out for me.  When I moved to SFSU he actually sent me a stun gun to use for protection.  One night we went to see a show in Berkeley and my car was broken into and the stun gun was stolen.  Whoops. At one point, he gave me his calling card number so I could make long distance calls when I had run out of points on my dorm phone.  That was lovely until he called one night and said he'd gotten a $200 bill.  Double whoops...I paid him, of course.  

I lost track of Mike F. in my early 20's, and I never found out what happened to him.  I want to thank him for always being so cool to me and for being such a good friend.  MY Mike maintains that our friendship probably wasn't what I thought it was, and he probably carried a torch for me all along.  I disagree, but there we are.  Whatever the case was, I have intense gratitude for having had this person in my life.  I also lost track of my friend Carol, who had some rough years from what I've heard.  However, I also heard that she pulled herself together, has children, and is also some sort of scientist.  This makes sense, as she was incredibly intelligent and gifted.  I miss her, and would love to find her one of these days.

I didn't deserve to be lucky on The Night of the Red Yugo. I was reckless, irresponsible, and incredibly, incredibly stupid.  There was clearly an angel looking out for me that night who came  in the form of a young man I'd never met who made sure I stayed safe and was properly delivered home.  I will forever be grateful that he took care of my pathetic, foolish 15 year old self. Thank you Mike F., wherever you are 

I still can't smell or eat Cool Ranch Doritos, or take NyQuil.  And I still swear that on that night, that car was RED.