A Peck of Trouble: Mr. Teve’S Tall Tales

By Steven P Locke

In his humorous memoir, Steven Locke chronicles the mishaps, adolescent hazing, general confusion, and breathtaking stupidity exhibited by himself and experienced by those unfortunate enough to be in close proximity. He presents a whimsical journey through his experiences as he matured from an adolescent focused on creating a revolt in the high school cafeteria into a young man ready to tackle a warped world.

Recalling a lifetime of adventures and misadventures, Locke shares vignettes describing run-ins with high school principals, military policemen, irate hotel managers, firemen, university police officers, and Columbus cops. From rural Centertown, Ohio, to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and from Ohio State University to the classrooms of Ohios public schools, Locke takes a humorous romp through nearly fifty years of existence as he somehow manages to learn valuable life lessons while on fugitive manhunts, in emergency rooms, and atop snowy Alpine slopes.

A Peck of Trouble offers an entertaining collection of stories that detail one mans coming-of-age journey on the Big Blue Orb as he evolves from youthful barbarian to enlightened adult.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475986983

Steven P Locke

Steven P. Locke is a retired curator of history for the Ohio Historical Society. He served in the US Army National Guard, then taught history in the Granville, Ohio, Exempted School District. He studied at both undergraduate and graduate level at the Ohio State University.

Book preview

A Peck of Trouble

Mr. Teve’s Tall Tales

9781475986983.pdf

Steven P. Locke

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

A PECK OF TROUBLE

MR. TEVE’S TALL TALES

Copyright © 2013 Steven P. Locke.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-8696-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8697-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-8698-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013907292

iUniverse rev. date: 5/7/13

Contents

IntroductIon

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter Ix

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

EpIlogue

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

EDWARD GIBBON

INTRODUCTION

A Peck of Trouble is a collection of stories chronicling Mr. Teve’s primitivism, bewilderment, self-centeredness and stupidity while residing on the Big Blue Orb. Each tale is a self-contained vignette, a snapshot into my warped universe. Although the stories are arranged chronologically to give the reader a better understanding of my deeply disturbed state of mind, they can be read in any order. Other than myself, all characters and events in this book — even those based on real people — are entirely fictional and derived from my fevered imagination. A Peck of Trouble is not a vehicle to hurt anyone, especially old friends; therefore, several names, places and businesses have been changed to protect the (not so) innocent.

There were times, due to embarrassment, when I seriously considered scrapping the book, but it was too much fun to write and to muse upon my evolution from youthful barbarian to confused adult. And several close friends encouraged the continuation of the project. Though my behavior was at times disconcerting and boorish, it still makes me laugh. My hope is that it puts a smile on the readers’ face as well.

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Chapter I

REMEMBRANCE OF TRAYS PAST

I HAD AN UNSETTLING ENCOUNTER the other day that inadvertently brought back a flood of memories. I was looking for a twisty-tie in a junk drawer next to the stove. That particular drawer contains everything from a potato slicer, to old candy canes, Sippy-cups from the days of yore, protein bars, derelict can-openers, a corkscrew, and a box of Raisinettes whose expiration date has no doubt long-since expired. Anyway, whenever I open a new box of trashcan liners I usually throw the twisty-ties in with the other junk, and as I needed a tie headed toward the kitchen to retrieve one.

I mindlessly pulled the drawer open just like I had a hundred times before and looked down to locate my quarry. But instead of a tie I found myself frozen, unable to move, staring down into the well of the drawer. Paralyzed and motionless, it was as if some sort of flash-hypnosis had wrenched me away from the conscious world of reality and transported me back thirty years in time to Central High School’s cafeteria. For lying in the center of the junk drawer was a Rice Krispies Treat. Packaged in its distinctive, bright blue wrapper with a red streak across the top and those three little elves smiling happily, it was taunting me like a Siren, signaling telepathically to partake of its moist little ass.

It is an unfortunate, but obvious truth that I love to eat, and what is worse, I have a decidedly pronounced sweet tooth. Indeed, I adore goodies as much as the most dedicated 3rd grader out on Beggar’s Night looking for a sugar rush. And like Marcel Proust’s "Madeleine," a shell-shaped cookie that induced a tidal wave of memories in his novel, Remembrance of Things Past, that little Rice Krispies Treat I was suddenly salivating over triggered a series of recollections that had been lost in time for over a quarter of a century.

My hometown, Centertown, Ohio, was a small, semi-rural farming community. My father was a teacher and football coach and my mom taught 1st grade in the district. At that time students from kindergarten through 12th grade attended school in the same sprawling building. It had been added onto to meet the space requirements of an ever-expanding student population for more than a century. My Rice Krispies Treat flashback had returned me to May 1981: Ronald Reagan was President of the United States, James A. Rhodes was Governor of Ohio. Earl Bruce was the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Oakland Raiders were the reigning Super Bowl Champs, Eastern Europe was enslaved, and the Soviet Union was a going concern. I had but two weeks to go at CHS before joining Uncle Sam for a fun-filled summer vacation in the Carolinas, and was more than ready to depart.

Indeed, like every other young man in Central High’s class of 1981, I had an incorrigible case of senioritis. We knew we would graduate in two weeks, that we were short-timers who had worked our way, as a group, from the lowest rung in the pecking order to the summit of HS heights. Evidence of that ranking was nowhere more obvious than in the cafeteria. Known as the multi-purpose room at Central High School, it served as a small gymnasium for elementary students, a dancehall at homecoming, a place for the school board to meet in the evenings and a cacophonous dining hall between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Elementary and junior high kids didn’t eat with high school students, but when 9-12th graders sat down for their afternoon repast, the lowly freshman were huddled closest to the lunch lines and the seniors were seated farthest away. As a class progressed through the ranks the students who made it up moved further and further from the entryway and towards the coveted Valhalla of the back wall. Three sets of aqua-green folding tables filled the multipurpose room at lunchtime, and two separate lines allowed students to move past the lunch ladies, have their trays laden with cafeteria food, and pay for their meals.

Between the two lines was a large window behind which stood two cafeteria ladies. They varied from day-to-day, but worked furiously to collect the students’ trays, dump their remaining contents and give them a sprits with a hand-held nozzle before grabbing the next batch being continuously discarded on the stainless steel shelf in front of them. Most of the lunch ladies were very nice. Mrs. Swartz, for example, lived on my block and when I saw her while standing in line I’d bark, ala Hee Haw, Hey Mrs. Swartz! What’s for supper? From there I’d proceed to answer my own query with, "We got black-eyed peas, hammocks, mashed taters and gravy!" To which Mrs. Swartz and the other ladies standing next to her would usually laugh, or at least smile.

There were two lunch ladies, however, who weren’t exactly happy campers. One was downright hostile. She had bright orange-red hair, a pinched face, and was fond of sneering and scowling as we moved past her in line. Even as a senior with but a few weeks to go before graduating, I was usually quiet and well-behaved in her presence. So having left the 21st century in my kitchen while staring at the Rice Krispies Treat, I was brought back to the 18th of May 1981. It was a Monday, and a glorious one at that. My group of friends sat at the pinnacle of the HS pecking order in the back of the multi-propose-room. We were supremely confident: cracking jokes, flirting with girls, being as obnoxious as possible without risking corporal punishment, and eating hastily so we could leave the lunchroom and relax on the front lawn until the next bell rang, signaling afternoon classes had begun.

Having demolished my meal I rose with Denis Cox, Greg Bruce and Jeff Gyursik, my best friends at the time, and sauntered confidently down the center aisle, through a sea of underclassmen, and, more importantly, underclasswomen, toward the tray drop-off. There was an uneaten Rice Krispies Treat on my tray, but I understood that it would have detracted from the much sought-after air of cool — so crucial to the seventeen-year-old male psyche — to eat it while departing. No matter, I assured myself, I would take it off the tray at the drop-off and enjoy it on the front lawn. I tossed my empty chocolate milk carton into the waste-chute and set my tray on the stainless steel shelf. But before I could remove my Rice Krispies Treat, the tray was unceremoniously snatched away with tremendous speed and force. Bam! It was gone.

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Jeff Gyursik and Steve Locke Spring 1981.

Goddamnit! Of course, I hadn’t said such a thing aloud, but that was certainly my thought as a perfectly delicious, moist, chewy, untouched, uneaten, un-enjoyed Rice Krispies Treat was so cruelly taken from my grasp. And it had been such an impersonal act. Indeed, the lunch ladies hadn’t even looked up. Their heads were down as they snagged tray after tray off the shelf, dumping, rinsing and stacking them like automatons.

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Senior Greg Bruce, 1981.

I felt as if I had been slapped in the face. Walking through the hallways towards the front double-doors of CHS, I mulled over the heinous calumny, and put all of my limited mental powers towards arriving at an appropriate response. As someone who likes to talk, in fact, never shuts up, it was rather odd that I didn’t discuss my emerging plan with my buddies, but the loss of that Rice Krispies Treat set me to brooding on the front lawn that 18th day of May, 1981 — and alas Mr. Teve determined on a course of action.

On Tuesday, May 19, 1981, I made damn sure to eat whatever dessert was proffered before surrendering my tray. And not knowing exactly what response I would get, if any, from the lunch ladies, I also determined to seek my revenge alone. I stood up from the lunch table with Greg, Denis and Jeff and deliberately lagged behind. My compatriots threw their empty milk containers down the chute, slid their trays across the shelf, and peeled off towards the exit. I walked with grim purpose, clutching my tray in a death grip. To the right behind the drop-off window stood the redhead, face down, shagging trays. I was about to give her a dish best served cold!

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Denis Cox and Steve Locke 1981.

I sat the tray on the shelf, inching one end toward her field of view, but with my hand still clinched at the other. Reflexively, she grabbed my tray, and was immediately met with an unexpected resistance. It slipped from her hand, she grabbed at it again, and was unable to pull it in a second time. She stopped, puzzled, and looked up. Across the shelf I stood holding the tray, smiling. "You want this?" I asked. The expression on her face, as the perfidy of my actions became immediately clear, changed from disinterest to violent hatred. Dude! I could feel the Dark Side of the Force emanating from her pissed little body and it was an extremely uncomfortable, ugly three seconds before I at last released the tray and sauntered off. She called me a name, but I cannot recall what it was. Safe to say it wasn’t flattering.

Having successfully carried out my experiment, I immediately told Greg, Mr. Denit (Denis in teen-speak) and Jeff of the evil wenches who had stolen my Rice Krispies Treat, and of the revenge I had just inflicted upon them. "Dude! Man I would love to have seen that shit. Fuck-N-A man! You gotta do it again man, so we can watch." (The HS male vocabulary at its best) That of course, was not a problem. There is a certain satisfaction derived from incitement, but inciting the redheaded lunch lady with an audience of one’s peers, hell, no one could resist that.

On Wednesday, May 20, 1981, none of my buddies had given much thought to my tale of the tray and revenge from the day before as the attention-span of the seventeen-year-old adolescent male is not exactly lengthy. It wasn’t until we were halfway to the drop-off that I stopped the group and said, "Wait, wait, remember what I told you about the tray? Check it out." At that Greg, Denis and Jeff filed in behind me to watch the encounter. I worried that nothing would happen - having already shown my hand, as it were. And having really pissed off the redhead, I figured they’d be alert to a second attempt. But as I neared the window, their heads were down and they were grabbing trays as if their lives depended on it.

The redhead was directly in front of me when I pushed part of my tray into her line of sight. She grabbed at it but it stayed where it was, immobile, Steven Locke attached to the other end. This time when she looked up she wreaked havoc and let slip the dogs of war! "You little son of a bitch! Let go of that goddamn tray! You think you’re cute you little son-of-a-bitch! God it was beautiful. The lunch-lady at the opposite rinsing tub was mute, but the disgust and anger written across her face spoke volumes. I sat the tray back on the shelf, moved it in a circle just in front of the redhead and asked, Is this what you want? Beg me for it" Dude! At that it was Arma-Ma-Fuckin-Geddon! She was now so enraged that she was shaking. She began to shake her fist, the one holding the nozzle, and unleashed a stream of invective and profanity the likes of which would have made the hardiest drunken sailor proud.

Dropping the tray I peeled off with Greg, Denis and Jeff. They were laughing hysterically, hitting me on the back, replaying the scene aloud. At the same time, nearly half of the remaining seniors at our table had heard either part, or all, of the ruckus and wanted to know what was going on. Naturally I explained, so that on Thursday I would be guaranteed an escort to the tray drop-off of at least twenty students eager to witness a confrontation of Biblical proportions.

Thursday, May 21, 1981, was one of great notoriety for Mr. Teve. Throughout the morning fellow-students, some of whom were underclassmen, approached to ask if I’d be "messing with the lunch ladies?" Basking in the adoration, I confidently told them that, yes, it was true. As penalty for stealing my Rice Krispies Treat I had planned a third day of retribution, and that they were free to observe the fireworks. On that fateful day I was a month shy of my eighteenth birthday and weighed 165 pounds - 141 when I finished Basic Training later that summer. When I rose dramatically from my lunch table I was sporting a pair of faded blue jeans, a red flannel shirt, tennis shoes and a shock of curly brown hair.

Taking my first few steps down the center aisle it looked as if some choreographer had worked with Central High’s student body that afternoon to follow my lead. At least a quarter of the cafeteria stood in unison and began walking in a gaggle towards the drop-off. I basked in the glory of it all: confident, obnoxious, insensitive, ignorant, stupid and triumphant. The lunch-ladies, as was standing-operating-procedure, had their heads down as they furiously collected trays. You could feel the excitement and tension mount as I moved ever closer to that window. At last I sat my tray on the shelf and at that precise moment the floor of the multi-purpose room shook with the sound of hundreds of stampeding feet.

It was one of the most amazing sensations I’d ever felt, or experienced. A moment before I had been literally surrounded, like a rock star with an entourage. Four seconds later I was alone, abandoned, and every single solitary student that had accompanied me to that damn window was gone — like they’d been shot out of a cannon. I looked up, and there, standing behind the redhead and Mrs. Swartz, was Mr. McCall, Central High School’s Principal. His shocking, unexpected presence ensured that I went, in as little time as it took for my escort to disappear, from an upright, supremely confident rabble-rouser with the support of the masses at his back, to a deflated, abandoned, 17-year-old douche bag facing an arc of none-too-pleased authority figures.

There wasn’t even enough time to be embarrassed. I crumpled, or perhaps, popped like a balloon is more apt. In 1981 at CHS it was understood that students could get away with quite a bit — but when the line was crossed, Mr. McCall would gladly step in and beat your ass. There were no time outs in that world, or notions that every student was special and really ought to be nurtured. If you went too far McCall had you stand in the hallway outside his office while he secured a witness, — someone on staff to observe the punishment. Once located, he approached with a long wooden paddle, told you to turn around and grab your ankles, and then proceeded to knock the living hell out of your flabby little ass cheeks.

Mr. McCall stood about six-feet, two-inches tall. He had gray hair, a dignified air, a roman nose, and was solidly built. If he was personally involved and his blood was up when disciplining a student, he might add some psychological terror to enhance the experience. I once heard him say to a student who was in the prone position, "Now don’t move your hands because I’m going to swing this as hard as I can and I don’t want to break your fingers. I knew this. And he knew that I knew this. And so he just leaned nonchalantly against the back wall smiling at me while I pondered this new set of circumstances. The lunch ladies were beaming from ear-to-ear, eagerly awaiting the hammer fall, when he finally said, Go to my office."

Moments earlier I had led a triumphal procession through the multi-purpose room. Now I was walking alone, damned. When Mr. McCall walked into his office a few minutes later he said simply, "Locke, you’ve got less than two weeks before graduating. Don’t do anything stupid like that again." And so standing above that Rice Krispies Treat in my kitchen thirty years later brought this Remembrance of Trays Past, a flood of bittersweet memories in a rush. I gave the Rice Krispies Treat to my daughter, Ruby.

Chapter II

THE SAGA OF JIAWN NADUKE

(AUTUMN 1979 – SPRING 1981)

IN THE AUTUMN OF 1979 I was a junior at Central High School — a small farming community located in rural Ohio. I was an offensive lineman on the varsity football team, an above-average student, had a steady girl and a best friend — the aforementioned Denis Cox. The orbit of sixteen-year olds at Central High — at least this 16-year-old — revolved around football practice and Friday night games. The truncated, immediate reality of adolescence is a nice place to live, especially in 1979 as the outside world of that time was — as it nearly always seems to be — a damned mess.

Jimmy Carter was president of the United States, James A. Rhodes governor of Ohio. Inflation hovered around 11.2 % and the interest rate was 15.25%. The Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan prompting the commander-in-chief to announce a boycott of the forthcoming 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. In November, 1979, peace-loving Muslims had stormed the US embassy in Tehran, Iran, taking 70 Americans hostage. The showdown led to an oil crisis, resulting in consumers’ panic-buying gasoline; which led in turn to rationing and long lines at America’s service stations. The Sony Walkman was