Suck and Blow by John Popper Read Free Book Online Page A

mom and dad had all these tea cups and china sets because they really took their tea time seriously. Everything would rattle when we were playing because we were under their kitchen. The basement was also surrounded by pipes covered in asbestos, and I kept smacking my head into them. I still wonder whether I can get some workman’s comp out of that.
    I should also mention that my parents would let everyone in our house drink because none of us did it very much. So our liquor closet was always open, and when Brendan and Chan discovered this, it became a feeding frenzy. I remember one time Chan took a fifth of Jack Daniel’s and drank it. My dad eventually noticed it was missing and came to me to ask what happened. I told him I didn’t know, and he insisted that Chan get him another bottle of Jack Daniel’s. This was how my dad thought, even though Chan was seventeen.
    But then I came downstairs one day and found our cleaning lady’s brother passed out on the floor in our basement next to many bottles ofbooze. I thought he was dead. As a result, because now my father couldn’t prove that Chan had been responsible for the missing Jack Daniel’s, he had to go out and buy Chan a bottle. To this day this is one of Chan’s favorite moments of vindication: when my fifty-something-year-old dad had to buy him some whiskey . . . even though Chan had pilfered it in the first place. I remember another night Chan showed up at my house completely drunk. He kept saying, “Let’s call our album Felicia’s Hairy Butthole,” because he was drunk and wanted to be disruptive. He was with Brendan, and I told them to meet me at the bowling alley because my mom was in the other room. But I had no intention of meeting them. As it turned out they hitched a ride to the bowling alley and were stuck out on Route 1. So they called me late at night, and I was so mad at them when I picked them up to take them home, I said, “I don’t want to hear one word out of either of you motherfuckers,” and Chan goes, “John . . .” To this day he claims he was going to apologize, but I slammed on the breaks, did a total high school skid out, and I yelled, “That’s it! Get out of my car!” Brendan said, “But I didn’t do anything!” And he didn’t. He had just followed Chan because he wanted to go bowling, but I left them there on the highway and went home.
    There was also an incident when Chan was thwacking the back of my head while I was driving. So I pulled over the car and said, “I am not leaving unless you get out of the car or promise you will not hit me if I’m driving.” Then after a long bit of arguing, we were philosophizing and he said, “John, I promise I won’t hit you unless you’re driving,” and I said “Okay.” So I drove away and then he started taunting me, “Ha ha, I said unless .” So I pulled over again and went to look for a road sign to get him out of my car with (the thought process was still forming, but I likely would have used the sign to scoop or poke him out of the car, much like getting a grizzly to rear up on its hindquarters in order to spear a vital area and perhaps land a decisive blow. The key with a larger, stronger opponent is never to swing wide; they will always catch the implement and likely hit you with it). Eventually he apologized, but when it came to the music, he was always serious.
    There was this moment early on when Chan, Brendan, and I got really stoned and played in the basement for what seemed like twenty minutes, but in actuality three hours had gone by and we taped it allon Brendan’s sister’s Fisher Price tape recorder. That was the first time we got high and really let loose.
    Then we went across the street where we could smoke cigarettes because we had to hide all of this from Brendan’s mom. And while we were listening to it, this black cat walked up to us