No, not ‘Bald Eagle’

Oh man! Royal Oak is the best so we’re going to keep plowing through memories from ‘88 – ’90.

Every group of kids has the one that’s the equivalent to Pig Pen from Peanuts; the kid you don’t want to touch for fear of contracting ringworm. My mom prided herself on my being super put together and clean. She would curl my puffball bang every morning and put hairspray in for optimal hold – future ho, anyone? – put lots of makeup on me for picture day, with rouge, NOT BLUSH (I don’t think it became blush until the 90’s) and lipstick, and I was forced to be smart and polite. Except to racists. RACISTS. What I’m really trying to say was that I was the ‘clean, cute kid’. Or I thought I was…

A block from our house was a park with an epic playground and swing set and it almost took up an entire block except for two houses. Some Native American Indian whatever it’s called now girls lived at the very edge on the corner of the block with their mom. Their house was haunted – because they probably smoked too much peyote and awakened some evil fucking spirits – and they had a tree swing. So you always wanted to check out the swing when it wasn’t occupied, which was almost always since the house was 2” from deserted, but were then worried about becoming possessed. It was a confusing place. Very Boo Radleyesque. So you’d drink a shit ton of ecto cooler juice boxes and run to the park with all your friends and play and then have to tinkle. And you’d always wait until your bladder was at maximum capacity before acknowledging that you’d have a leak if you jumped off the swings just right. So I’m doing the pee dance (we all know this dance - don’t pretend, pretender!) and suddenly realize that the most beautiful Barbie doll girl, Erin, lives across from the park. I’ll just go over there and let loose, right? So I knock on the front door and her mom answers saying that someone is in the bathroom. Okay…that’s cool. I can hold out. I wait 10 minutes or so, because who knows what they’re doing, and then knock again. This time Erin’s mom says someone is showering. Was I not good enough for their bathroom?

I figured that I must not be, or that I have lice, or that I smell like a combination of spit / sweat / ecto cooler sticky, sweet smell and that Erin’s bitch mom is definitely not letting me use their bathroom under any circumstances. So I have to run to Phillip’s house since his mom was babysitting me that day after school. Running when you have to pee is the worst feeling. Especially when the reactor is about to blow. I get all the way there and, shit, someone is in the bathroom. But like for real unlike at Erin’s. I’m sure their bathroom hadn’t been occupied all afternoon. They’re probably fasting, too, or have a hole dug in the dirt out back because they’re preserving the majesty which is their sole bathroom. Back to reality: I’m hopping around and trying not to give in to the relief I know I’d have by emptying my bladder in Phillip’s foyer when finally Drew gets out of there. Thank God.

You know when you’re so excited to pee that you can’t get the buttons or zipper loose because your hands have gone retarded with the overwhelming urgency you’re feeling, but you’ve anticipated already sitting on the toilet by that time and then fuck you’ve pissed all over your jeans? Yeah? That happened to me. Awesome.

Phillip’s mom ‘washed’ my jeans that day, though my mom realized later on that she had only put my jeans in the dryer and sent me back home with a set of piss dried pants. Seriously. Seriously amazing. And salty.

So maybe I was the dirty kid.

No I wasn’t. Chester Baldiga was.

Chester had an amazing lisp. His name should be pronounce CHESS-tuhr Ball-DEE-gah. He pronounced it: CHEH-tah Baw-DEE-guh, and he said it twice as fast as someone should say their name.

His whole family was jacked up; total juvies. It’s like his parents didn’t realize with each new child that they were drowning the human species with their more than inadequate spawn. They all smelled like fruit snacks and mustard.

The following can be attributed to them:

During a funeral hosted in our fair city, one of the kids stole the presiding pastor’s wife’s purse and went on a spending spree with her credit card.

The kids were all left home one weekend and set their entire backyard on fire using aquanet and a lighter

I take it all back - they had a PowerPad and we would play Summer Olympics on the Nintendo and it was fucking sweet. We’d cram like 20 kids in their living room and all open-mouth breathe until it was our turn to run in place representing the digital USA.

Chester was like never at school. My mom worked a lot of evenings and would be at home during the day studying or working out to Jane Fonda while drinking Tab and smoking Merit 100s. Chester came to our door one morning to see if ‘Ma-WEE-uh’ could play. My mom responded with ‘No, Chet (He went by Chet, probably easier on his underdeveloped palette) – Maria is at school. Do you think you should be at school?’

He’d pick lilacs off our bushes and bring them to me. Great. Thanks for leaving a hole in our bush, Chet.

My dad and I would rent and play videogames on the weekend with the sole intention of beating them. Because it was like 3 bucks to rent Mega Man 2 for two days. Damn, Gina!

Chester came over to play. Joy. I told him that I didn’t want to go out because I was helping my dad play MM2 (son) and wanted to be there for the win. He was pumped and came and sat by my dad while he was playing in his gaming pose: On his left side, pillow under head, so he didn’t get Nintendo Neck, of course, and zoned the fuck out. My hero.

If you know anything about Mega Man you know that very often the screen would become overwhelmed by too many pixels on the screen at once causing it to freeze up, blink out, and then whammo blammo, you were dead or seriously fucked with a high chance of dying despite maddened button jamming. It’s very frustrating when it’s later in the game because you probably have less lives and your password resets the game super far back so you have to put in a ton of time to get back to the same level you bombed. So my dad had that happen and he died. Cheh-tah was like ‘Mr. Momez, Mr. Momez, I know this game, I can help you, I can help you’ and my dad’s all like ‘It’s okay, Chet, I’ve got it’. So Chet is watching and impatiently waiting for his opportunity to strike and lead my dad to the promised land. Boogers streaming across his upper lip with a nice smear of dirt in there for texture. A constant in his life, probably still today.

Dad dies again. ‘Mr. Momez, really, I can help you get through this level!’. Dad is sort of silent so Chet pushes again.  Then my dad freaked the fuck out: ‘Chester, shut the hell up. Get the fuck out of here’. And then quietly resumed his futile game play.

I don’t think we beat Mega Man 2 that weekend. And I felt kind of bad for Chet, but I think he was used to it. I did a google search for Chet because I intended to locate him, trap him, apologize and then set him free back into the wild, but didn’t find anything (in prison). Find him, or one of his mutant kin, for me and I will love you fo-EH-vaaaah.