Chronicles of an Educated Hillbilly by "Buck" number nine Graduation Party '86 When I was young, movies like Risky Business, Bachelor Party, and Animal House popularized the epitome of how to party. We watched in awe as the silver screen at the Dryden Theatre unfolded with gratuitous nudity, mindless sex, and a free flow of alcohol. I was often lost in a world of fantasy about actually being a part of that sort of get together. However, parties in the country don't quite go that direction. There were two exceptions, one was the senior trip to Daytona, which was detailed in a previous episode, and the second was my graduation night. Unlike the young Revenge of the Nerds characters and the pseudo-hunk Tom Cruise we didn't have a home big enough or nice enough to trash. No hillbilly high school kids have their parties in the woods. The place considered party central for my high school was Maple's Gap. I never really understood the name since it wasn't a gap at all; it was actually on the top of a mountain peak. To get there you had to have a jeep or some other four-wheel drive vehicle. The unspoken invitation was out there and the rumors of the party of the century were circulating for two weeks before the party. Somehow I managed to keep those rumors from my parents and was given clearance to stay out all night-it's a good thing. Most high school parties are BYOB, so in my book that stood for Boney You're Our Buddy. Boney Collier provided another gallon of hooch for my friends and me to share the wealth. Kenny Bowman came up with a fifth of Canadian Mist and Ronnie supplied a fifth of Jose Cuervo, both procured from their old man's liquor cabinet. We were off in my dad's truck to the Gap to celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives. or less poetically to get shit faced and laid. There are a series of forest service roads in that area to fight fires, so there are about a dozen different ways to get there. We took the road less traveled and came bouncing over the ridge top about half-lit to what looked like something out of a country music video. There was a huge bonfire burning in the center of a ring of four-wheel drives-all with their lights on. Various strains of music were coming from a number of high powered stereos. Some were blaring Hank Williams Jr, others were cranking the tunes of AC/DC, Skynyrd, and Guns-n-Roses. Somehow, although a lot of it was distorted, it didn't matter, it all sounded damn good. On the tailgate of one truck were three kegs of beer and everybody was helping themselves. Somebody had plugged a watermelon with Grain Alcohol, and there were shitloads of coolers filled with all forms of alcoholic indulgence. I don't know if it was the booze or if people had actually changed their tune, but we were all having a good time and nobody was being an asshole-at least to me. Elsewhere, that wasn't the case. At least five fights broke out that night, but the participants were so drunk that it's unclear who won or if anybody really landed a punch. I can recall seeing things that I'd always longed for. Kristi Sturgill ran through the encampment topless. I still send her a Christmas card for that. I witnessed two guys doing Candi Mason in the back of a Ford truck on a mattress at once. It was almost like a wrestling match as a whole crowd had gathered to watch this. It seemed like there were hundreds of people there, way more than just our senior class. Shit, there were ninth graders there and some from other schools that I didn't even know. It seemed like every door you opened to a vehicle or in the bed of every truck-somebody was having sex. It was rampant Sodom and Gomorrah kind of stuff. People were pulling trains, girls were giving multiple blow jobs, and it was amazing - just like in the movies. I was continuing to nurse the jug of shine I'd obtained from Boney ahead of the event and was feeling numb by about 1:00 in the morning. Suddenly from out of nowhere a girl who I didn't know threw her arms around me from behind and jumped on my back. She began sucking on my neck and damn near tearing off my clothes. I staggered around half because I was drunk and half because she was flailing away. I managed to catch a glimpse of her to realize she was a hottie and began staggering off into the woods. I can only imagine what happened after that, because yet again I blacked out. This always seems to happen. The next thing I remember, I woke up face down, with the lower half of my body stuck in a creek. The button and fly of my pants were torn open, I had no shoes, my t-shirt was ripped in three places and the jug that Boney had provided was shattered on a rock near my right hand. I could hear birds chirping, through a misty fog I could make out my truck's headlights-very dim at this point. There wasn't another soul around. I was completely alone. I felt like I had swallowed a cat. I slowly walked back to my truck, trying to see through my frozen eyelids. I was soaking wet, aching from a hangover and various cuts and bruises. I can only figure that I fell facedown with that jug in my hand. I had a cut on my hand from it. All around there were liquor bottles, beer cans, the fire was down to nothing but smoking embers. Cups, trash, and used rubbers were littered everywhere. I figured the truck wouldn't start since the lights had burned all night-thank goodness for the Sears Die-Hard. it passed the test. A day later my buddies asked what happened to me. Turns out the girl who jumped me was Katy Stapleton, a cheerleader from Wise. She was (fortunately) 17 and had just graduated too. They assumed I had hooked up with her and would be back later. I never saw her again, and still don't know if we had sex or if I passed out ahead of time. What a night. |
