I doubted the veracity of that last statement, but Mif was earnest. Eric Capitola, who we called Cap, wasn’t so diplomatic. He called and questioned my manhood, my gender, and my sexuality, which was how we usually attacked one another.
In the end, I figured sitting in a car watching a movie wasn’t much different than sitting at home watching TV. Plus, I could drink beer. Billy Holland lived close by, and since the Pinto was a hatchback and prevented us from hiding anyone, I didn’t have to drive. Billy picked me up in his parents’ station wagon. We met Mif and Cap, along with Ed and Mickey, each with a carload of our friends, in the parking lot behind a warehouse on the road weaving along San Francisco Bay. We met for two reasons. One was to hide as many guys as we could. The second was to meet Scotty, a graduate who worked in a liquor store and had purchased beer for us. We settled with Scotty, then Mif and Cap hid under the tarp in the back of the station wagon.
Who got to hide was always hotly debated. Ideally, we were to split the cost of the movie four ways, but it was never that simple getting restitution from unemployed young men. Someone always owed someone for beer bought a prior weekend, or for the cost of a burger at a drive-through. The minutiae got ridiculous, and some nights the argument would continue throughout the movie. The only real leverage we had if someone refused to pay his share was to not let him out of the trunk of the car, which could be a problem when you’re trying to be sneaky and a loud voice is screaming from the trunk.
We usually just ended up eating the difference and taking turns hiding.
We had also argued over seeing Alien or some film called The Prisoner of Zenda. I voted for Zenda, knowing that Alien would lose much of its tension playing on a mammoth outdoor screen, the sound nasal and faint through a squawk box, while four of us argued over inane subjects—our stupidity a direct correlation to the number of beers we drank. This night, I drank slowly, the self-inflicted punishment I had endured at work still vivid. I also had to be at the job by seven. If I still had a job. I figured I’d have a few beers, watch The Prisoner of Zenda, which did not start off very good, go home, and go to sleep. I’d bring the leftover beer and put it in William’s cooler, which I hoped would both ingratiate me with the guys and make them see me as more than just Mike’s kid brother.
From the back seat, in the midst of some inane conversation, Cap said, “Holland, give me one of your beers.”
“I’m not giving you one of my beers. You still owe me for the movie.”
“Come on, just give me a beer.”
“Drink your own,” Billy said.
“I did.”
“You drank a six-pack already?” I asked. Not believing Cap, I turned and looked over the back of the front seat at empty cans littering the floor, along with the empty cardboard box. “Holy crap.”
“What?” Cap said. “How many do you have left?”
“Four, and I just cracked the second.”
“What, are you nursing up there?”
“I’m drinking like a normal person. How have you not had to pee?”
“Don’t mention peeing,” Mif said. “We’ll all have to go.”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want to miss the plot of the movie,” Billy said. He’d voted for Alien.
“Vinny B., let me have a beer,” Cap said, turning his attention to the guy with the most.
“I was going to bring them down to the jobsite tomorrow. They keep a cooler and drink beer after work.”
“Wait a minute.” Mif laughed. “They’re paying you and giving you beer? Do they need another laborer?”
“Shit, I’ll do that job,” Cap said. “Give me a beer, Vinny B., come on.”
I handed back the remains of my six-pack. It was easier than arguing the rest of the night.
Cap immediately appropriated the box. “What do you want for them?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“I can’t drink them. I told you, I got to work in the morning. Just leave me a couple to put in the cooler so I don’t look like a mooch.”
“Like Cap,” Billy said.
“Where are you working?” Mif asked.
“A remodel in Burlingame. Five bucks an hour under the table.”
“What?” Mif’s voice again rose in inflection and volume. “Seriously, can you get me a job?”
“It’s a small crew.”
“Ask them if they got any more openings. Five bucks an hour and beer.” Mif also came from a large family and, like me, what he made went toward paying his college tuition. Unlike me, he was not headed to a community college, but to Cal Berkeley to play rugby. Billy was headed to Santa Clara to play baseball and Cap would play baseball at San Diego State. I felt like the odd man out. For the graduation brochure, I’d opted to put “undecided” beside my name as my college choice, too embarrassed to put “community college.”