The Irreverence Begins...

About a year ago, when I was finishing up school, my brother came up to live with me. He was a sophomore and staying with me was cheaper than paying rent. I lived in a pretty nice place, a three bed/three bath two story condo that was part of a building with three other units. The neighbors were all pretty cool, particularly the girls that lived next door. They only called the cops on me once for playing the guitar too loud, so we all got along pretty well. Well, as luck would have it, my brother ended up having this gigantic crush on on of the girls who lived there.

Despite the fact that the girls were all pretty cool, their boyfriends were the type of insecure douches that everybody loves to hate. The whole "popped collar, I lift weights for no reason and wear skate shoes but don't skate" thing was in full effect with these guys. Two of the three weren't TOO bad, and I was able to maintain a serviceable relationship between us. The worst of the three just conveniently happened to be the one dating the girl my brother liked. 

Most people have known at least one jealous person in their lives, whether they actually dated one, or just knew of somebody who did. Whatever the case though, the stories are all pretty blase and identical. This guy however, went about three notches over what might have typically been deemed over the line by most jealous people themselves. He would alternate between bouts of over the top crying, black rage, and threats to kill me whenever I watched him do it. He had no problem doing any of it either in front of me, or through the very thin wall that rested between my kitchen and her room.

One particular night, after a long string of fights, and almost break-ups, the guy pulled up to the house in his douche-y yellow hummer. Amy (the girl) met him outside and they sat on the bench right outside my place. When my brother got home, he walked right past the two before coming inside to tell me that he was tired of the way Todd was treating Amy, and that he was going to do something about it. Well, as luck would have it, predictability won out and the couple began arguing again. This time though, Todd became so scatter-brained that when he decided in short order to storm off, then apologize (a thinly veiled angle for make-up sex, no doubt), he forgot that he left his back seat door open. He had been planning on staying the night and when he threw his bag back in the car, I guess he just forgot what he was doing. Anyhow, when he and Amy retired inside, my brother decided that now was the time. I, being a sucker for entertainment, volunteered for action as well.

After taking enough time to make sure that they had gone inside for good, We approached the hummer and kind of stood there looking at it, not really sure what to do with the golden opportunity we'd been granted. At first, it seemed like we'd just end up standing there staring at it, letting the moment go to waste, but that was before Cameron decided he wanted to honk the horn. He hopped into the back seat and climbed over into the drivers seat, and began honking the horn, and flipping every switch the thing had to offer. He sprayed water all over the windshield and left the lights on, all without alerting Todd who by now was "preoccupied". Eventually though, the thrill of sitting in Todd's driver seat wore off. That happened just in time for me to notice the cup of McCallister's Iced Tea sitting in the cup holder. It didn't take long for me to decide what belonged in the cup more than the tea itself, and Cameron and I quickly took advantage by peeing in the cup and setting it back in the holder. Cameron was inspired though, and "accidentally" got some on the passenger seat. 

During the time all this was going on, the downstairs neighbor had come out to walk her dogs, and noticed that something was going on. The comically over the top laughter coming from the hummer likely being the indicator, though I'm sure the flashing blinkers may have added. When she walked over to ask what the hell we were both doing in the truck, she made the fatal flaw of giving Cameron an audience. We're both easily encouraged, but when Cameron gets into his zone, he'll drop any and all common sense he might otherwise have had in lieu of pleasing his newfound viewers. This time was no exception, and he quickly crossed his own line and decided that peeing in the car wasn't all that needed to be done. Despite her urgings, he shut the door and was left alone in the car to do his business. A couple of minutes later, he emerged and told us that Todd would have to spend his visit in the same clothes he had on.. He'd found his bag and dropped a deuce in it. All of us were laughing so hard at what had been going on that we never noticed the light in Amy's room turn off.

When we heard the door to her place open and shut, we panicked and quickly began to shuffle away from the truck as fast as we could. Cameron though, is a bit slow at times and didn't react fast enough. Rather than risk being seen running away from a hummer with its blinker on and the door opened, he literally jumped into the far back of the car. I was a few cars away when this happened, pretending that I was just talking to my neighbor, but I saw the whole thing. I vividly remember thinking to myself "Oh my God, Cameron. What in the holiest hell are you doing?" As Amy and Todd made their way to the car, they each looked over at Megan and I, and waved before they climbed into the car. Apparently not immediately noticing anything was wrong, or simply eschewing to care, they drove off, with Cameron still hiding in the back seat. I simply stood there and watched as the car left the parking lot and drove down the street until it was out of sight. 

About ten minutes later, I got a phone call from Cameron, asking me to come and pick him up at Cheddar's. I asked him what happened and he said that he would tell me when he got out of there. I left immediately and found Cameron standing at the corner about two blocks away from the restaurant, outside a Starbucks where other people had spent their evening studying. When I pulled into the parking lot, Cameron hopped in and sat there, staring through the windshield as I looked at him expectantly. There was a kind of awkward silence before Cameron told me that he heard Todd remark about something smelling bad about three quarters of the way to Cheddar's. He recounted how he went from being afraid of being caught, to being afraid he'd laugh too hard on the way there. Still, he said, that wasn't the weirdest part. After they pulled into the parking lot, he waited as they got out took enough time to allow them to walk away. When he decided to make a run for it, he climbed over the seat and let himself out. Ten feet away from Todd and Amy, who had bumped into some friends. He told me that when he hopped out of the car, Amy was looking right at him, but didn't say anything. Nobody else noticed anything at all. 

Turns out that later that night, Amy and Todd broke up for good, because we heard them fighting again, and watched Todd drive off into the night. We never saw him again.