Brass Balls

By Daniel Owen

Most people probably feel their life isn't interesting enough to fill a book. My story is an exceptional one. I’ve decided to write down everything I remember of my college years. I don’t intend to offend or embarrass anyone. It’s been over 30 years since these events occurred, so I feel it's safe to tell you what happened.
It was an early September day, in 1978, when my brother and I crammed our stuff into my old blue 1970 Mustang and prepared to hit the road for college. Our belongings consisted of a beat-up, piece-of-shit stereo, an alarm clock and a brand new plastic crock-pot, which was my mother’s parting gift. The rest was just some clothes.
The ride to the college campus was about eighty miles, at least a two joint ride. There were no open container laws back then, so a few cold beers were part of the equation. I don’t want to give the impression that we were overly reckless. We could easily handle a beer and a joint and function reasonably well or at least that's what we thought. We were in no rush. We just wanted to sit back and enjoy the ride.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Owen
• Release date: Feb 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311460974

Book preview

Brass Balls

by Daniel Owen

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 by Daniel Owen

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Introduction

American Express.

The restaurant was filled with the heady atmosphere of seafood and garlic. Our waiter had just served fancy desserts to my family, but my father and I were satisfied with espresso and Cognac.

Will there be anything else, Mr. Buonadi? The waiter hovered by my side, waiting expectantly for my response. I looked across the table, past the coffee and snifters of fine brandy and raised a brow to my father. He sipped the dark brew and nodded his approval.

I think we're good here. Everything was excellent. The waiter smiled and surreptitiously laid the leather book where I could reach it before slipping away.

Raising my glass, I toasted my father, Salute.

There was love and pride in his eyes as he did the same, Salute.

Looking down the long table past my kids, I winked at my beautiful wife and her smile let me know she had more than food on her mind. Life is good. There's nothing quite like a really fine meal. I enjoyed taking my parents and family out. Dad would never come to a place like this on his own.

I slipped my American Express card in to the leather book. I always leave a generous tip, because I know just how hard it is to bust your butt for a living.

Tomorrow, at the office, I'd finalize the travel arrangements for our annual trip to the Super Bowl. We all looked forward to it. This year a chartered flight to Miami and a skybox at Super Bowl XXXIII. Not too shabby.

No one ever thought my brother Rocco, and I would ever achieve anything like this success. They all assumed we'd be deadbeats, in jail, or worse. Well, they were so wrong. We beat the odds, in spite of everything, and no one can deny it. Those college years were tough, but we were tougher.

My mind drifted back to my college days. The vision of Sweet Lynne naked, stretched across my bed, reaching for me. Grace slowly stripping and begging me...Susanne exposing herself with her unusual...and of course, Maria. Lovely, willing, Maria. I chuckled quietly to myself as I sipped my brandy.

Success is sweet, but so was the memory of the incredibly beautiful face of Sweet Lynne. That last day of college, she'd taken my hand and eagerly followed as I lead her back to my room. Looking steadily into one another's eyes, we'd shed our clothes without a word. I remember clearly, as if it were yesterday, watching her slide those tiny white panties over her ass, discarding the last piece of clothing between us. Then I'd reached for her. That beautiful, perfect body and...I couldn't help softly chuckling to myself at the memory.

That was the moment I decided to write my story. It was the age of sex, drugs, and Rock & Roll, in the 1970's. My brother and I were headed for college in our piece-of-shit car, with zero money and with absolutely no idea what the hell we were doing.

* * *

Most people probably feel their life isn't interesting enough to fill a book. My story is an exceptional one. I’ve decided to write down everything I remember of my college years. I don’t intend to offend or embarrass anyone. It’s been over 30 years since these events occurred, so I feel it's safe to tell you what happened.

I’m a little unusual because I’m a triplet. The three of us were the first set of triplets to survive birth at a small local hospital in New Jersey. The year was 1960, long before medical advances made multiple births commonplace. We made the newspapers! The local press at the time gave our weight, height, and time of birth in detail. There was a picture of the three of us including comments from my older siblings. My brothers regretted the fact that we weren’t all boys. When I was older and able to read the account’s on my own, I noticed a mistake. The papers had reported my brother as the first-born.

My name is Daniel. I was born with a full head of black hair, unlike my sister and brother, who were bald as cue balls. My hair was so thick they almost couldn’t get a comb through it. Since I was the first-born, it was assumed that I would be named after my mother’s father. My oldest brother had the honor of my paternal grandfather’s name. This was the family tradition. When I questioned her, my mother explained that after seeing all that hair, she'd switched our names. I wanted to know what my hair color had to do with my name. She let me know that I looked much more like my father’s brother, the black sheep of the family. Uncle Dan had a reputation for being a lady’s man. I could tell by her tone of voice that this embarrassed her.

So, from the day I was born, I was destined to be the black sheep of my family and my generation. The strange thing is, I lost all that black hair within two weeks, and was a light blond as a boy. Today my brother and I look so much alike most people think we’re twins.

At the time of our birth, my parents already had three children. My oldest brother, Number One Son, was eight. Number Two Son, my dad’s namesake, was a year younger at seven, and then my sister just two years old.

The first born son had a position of seniority. My father was the oldest son. The first born son, of a first born son, of a first born son in our Italian family. Yes, he actually called my brothers by their titles. You have to understand, there were certain responsibilities, rules, and privileges associated with Number One Son. Dad actually sat us at the dinner table in order of age and importance. The seat of honor, at his right, went to the oldest. The next son on his left, and so on down to the women, seated closest to the kitchen.

My parents came from completely different backgrounds. My father, a first generation Italian American, was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was a large, handsome man, with classic Italian features. Dark eyes, dark curly hair, and a hot temper, at around six foot two, he weighed about two fifty for most of his life.

Dad was sixteen in 1941 when World War II started. He left home at seventeen and tried to enlist in the Marines, but he was nearsighted. So, he joined the Merchant Marines. They weren’t so choosy about the physical.

In 1947 my father was docked in San Francisco on shore leave when he met my mother. Mom was working at Fox Studios as a secretary and was vacationing there with a girlfriend. She was a tall, slender, blond. A real beauty from the South, where they thought Italians from New Jersey were strange visitors from another planet. I suppose the scarcity of handsome Italians in the South, and a scarcity of blond southern bells in Jersey City made for a strong attraction. I always kid my mom because she let my father pick her up in a bar called Top of the Mark. Was it surprising that a properly raised southern girl was socializing with a strange dark Italian in a night club. Hmm. Maybe not?

Dad was a civil engineer, but never finished his engineering degree. When he left the service, he was offered a scholarship to the University of California. He only needed three hundred dollars to pay his part of the tuition. When he asked his mother to withdraw the money from his account, she said, You have no money. This was hard on him, because he’d sent most of his pay home to support his family during the war. He’d even paid for the house where they lived, but his parents kept it all, including his savings.

Our family, even though there were six of us kids, got along very well on a limited budget. My oldest brother was a good student, gifted athlete and received a basketball scholarship to college. He went on to receive his Masters and PhD. Frank became a successful contractor.

My older sister surprised us, defying my father when she married a man several years older than herself. Her husband was blind and Dad said, He’ll never be able to do a day's work. Having grown up during the great depression, he believed that when times were hard, a man with a family needed to be able to perform manual labor. In the end, Dad turned out to be wrong on this one and even admitted it later. My brothers and I always liked her husband and after a few years, and a few grandchildren, he and the old man became good friends.

This left only the three of us at home. The strong, strict, authoritarian father figure I'd grown up with was beginning to mellow. His attention turned to my triplet sister, since his three oldest children were on their own and out of the home. He offered to pay for her school if she went to a woman’s college. It was the only tuition he ever paid. Not a dime to the rest of us. I think Dad was afraid she’d get married young to someone he disapproved of. Rocco and I were running wild. Perhaps after raising three kids, my parents were too exhausted to worry about their younger sons.

We both had very attractive girlfriends. I'd met and fallen in love with a girl from the next town over. Maria was smoking hot. Half-Italian, half-Spanish, she had big dark eyes, dark complexion, and a petite frame. Her thick black hair, almond eyes and ethnic mix gave her an exotic Mediterranean look. She had a small, well-shaped ass that fit nicely into the super tight jeans that were popular back in the 1970's.

Maria’s family was wealthy. Her mother drove a Porsche and her father a Turbo Mercedes. They had a grand house with a heated swimming pool situated on top of a hill. Maria was sixteen when we started dating and, like most kids our age; we thought we'd invented sex. Did I mention that I was in love?

Rocco’s girl friend, Joanne, was entirely different. She was a tall blond with a voluptuous body. Her parents were divorced and her mother rented half of a two family house with two of her three sisters and younger brother.

That year, for our eighteenth birthday, my father purchased Bail Bond insurance for Rocco and me. We were becoming a bit wild and he expected that sooner or later we'd be arrested for something. As far as we were concerned, we were having a wonderful time. Sexually active, without any responsibilities, we did whatever we wanted. Isn’t life all about having fun? Remember, these were the 1970’s. And... we loved to party.

I had no interest whatsoever in going to college. My plan, so far as I had one, was to drive to California and get a job working on movie sets. I’d worked several years as a framing carpenter with my older brother and though I didn’t want to be an actor, I figured that’s where the beautiful girls were. Movie set construction would be an easy job. I’d done it for some class plays and I enjoyed being part of a production.

To my surprise, one day Rocco told me he'd decided to go to college. Dad's response to this was, Great. Have a good time, but I’m not paying for it. He didn’t think either of us had a snowballs chance in hell of graduating from college. Our oldest brother, who was then in the process of getting his PHD, said, You two just simply aren't college material. Nice.

Rocco wanted me to go too, and came up with a great plan to convince me. If I took out a student loan for the first year, I could attend school, party, and play football for one semester. With two family members attending, he'd get half off his tuition and additional financial aid. Then I could keep the balance of the funds and take off for California. He agreed to fill out all the applications for enrollment and student loans. Remember. These were the President Carter years. When anyone could get a school loan and the checks weren’t made out directly to the college.

His plan nearly backfired when I was accepted, but he was rejected for lack of academic credits. I wondered at the time, if I was accepted simply because I was a more desirable football player. After all, we’d both filled our high school curriculum with classes like auto shop, metal shop, and wood shop. Not exactly college prep.

Rocco argued with the admissions office pointing out that he actually had six more academic credits then I did. They accepted him conditionally. We both had to enter college under academic probation. I wasn’t concerned about this. I was attending simply to play football for the semester and get the cash to move to California. Nobody gave us much chance of making it to the second semester anyway.

Chapter 1

The First Ride

It was an early September day, in 1978, when we crammed our few belongings into my old blue 1970 Mustang and prepared to hit the road. It was a cute car that I’d bought from my neighbor and it was a bitch ride. I had dreams of swapping the little six-cylinder out for an eight, but never got around to it. Our belongings consisted of a beat-up, piece-of-shit stereo, an alarm clock and a brand new plastic crock-pot, which was my mother’s parting gift. The rest was just some clothes. Jeans, Frye boots, flannel shirts, the usual.

When we left, there were no accolades or farewell parties thrown by our parents. Not that we expected anything. They didn’t make plans to help move us into our dorms or travel to the college for visits. Dad and Mom were under the impression that we were off to some country club to have fun and play football. They thought we had no intention of going to class or graduating. And they were probably right. They knew us pretty well, especially my father. The deal I made with him was this; we were free to do whatever we wanted as long as it didn’t cost him any money or too much embarrassment. It wasn't anything like things are today with helicopter parents crying while they video tape their kids moving into a dorm, writing them checks and worrying about how they'll get along.

When the time came for us to leave for college, our girlfriends panicked. They knew we'd probably find new college girls and break up with them. The farewell sex was frequent and terrific. Days before we were scheduled to leave they were crying and marking their territory with hickeys all over us. I never liked those love bites, but at the time it stopped Maria from crying, so I let it go.

The ride to the college campus was about eighty miles, at least a two joint ride. We used to measure the length of our drives by the number of joints needed to stay high for the entire trip. Among our peers, this wasn’t considered strange, just what you did. Get high on the ride. There were no open container laws back then, so a few cold beers were part of the equation. I don’t want to give the impression that we were overly reckless. We could easily handle a beer and a joint and function reasonably well or at least that's what we thought. We were in no rush. We just wanted to sit back and enjoy the ride.

My brother lit a joint and I could tell he had something on his mind. Rocco was bigger than I was at the time, about 6’2" and 235 pounds. We’d weighed about the same until he took a job as a cook’s assistant and ate his way up twenty-five pounds.

He had a mean streak in him. He’d been in lots of fights, not necessarily winning them all. Now, with his increased size and strength, he was quite formidable. The joint was done. We were about to take the turn for the interstate, when I felt a punch against my right shoulder. This was his usual way to get my attention. I was used to it. The car didn’t even swerve.

Rocco began to outline his plan to take over the campus and rule it like it was his own. At first I thought it was the weed talking, but he had this intense look on his face. I got another punch in the arm, this one so much harder than the first, that I jumped a lane. I told him, Sure, sure, in a patronizing tone, which brought on a third punch.

I’m serious, he shouted.

Ok! Ok fine, I said. If you want to rule the campus I see no problem with that.

No, we are going to rule this campus, the football team, the works. He’d given the matter a lot of thought. The majority of the students are just dumb kids. This will be easy, he said.

I had no great desire to rule anything, but he knew that I would always have his back. We weren’t particularly popular in high school. This was mostly my doing. I had a group of friends that were older and already out of school. Rocco hung out with me sometimes, but mostly he hung with his girlfriend. Whatever the reason, he wanted college to be different.

All I wanted was to play a season of college ball and see how good I really was. I’d broken our high school record for single season tackles, middle linebacker and tied it for interceptions. After that, it was off to California for me to pursue my big dreams.

I decided not to argue with him. My right arm was getting sore, so I suggested we smoke the second joint. The rest of the ride, he hyped his ideas, getting all worked up and excited. I concentrated on my driving and made it to the campus without incident.

The school was on a large estate that had been converted to a college back in the 1950’s. The original mansion was large and housed most of the classes for English and Economics. Several new buildings held computer, statistics, and other classes. Overall, the campus was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen, and I think that was a factor in my brother’s choice.

We proceeded through the large main gates and parked next to the gymnasium. It was cool because the private facilities hadn’t been built for the college, but had a full-sized gym, indoor pool, and sauna. We jumped out for our first team meeting, right on time. Rocco still had that intense look on his face and I was hoping he'd forget his desire to somehow rule this place.

After we met the rest of the players and coaches, we got our room assignments, equipment, and playbooks, and were instructed to go back to the dorms and move in. Then report to the gym at eight a.m. sharp.

Like most schools, all freshmen were required to live their first year of school in the dormitories. They were five and six story walk-up structures that were easy to spot so we had no problem locating our room and unloading our belongings.

We were a little surprised to find out we had a roommate. John came from somewhere in central Pennsylvania and was on our team. We knew he was a little different, because the first thing he complained about was not being allowed to bring his guns on campus. He told us he'd never seen so many fat squirrels and other things to shoot. The dorm room looked like it was going to be a little tight with the three of us,