September 1, 2011
Fuck, I had plans to do something tonight and for once it was slow at work, so I thought I’d leave a little early for once. But then a funny thing happened about a half an hour before I was ready to leave. Work started flying in. One job, two jobs, three jobs and then a pain in the ass job that’s due to be installed first thing in the morning. Now it’s after midnight, I’ve got a ringing, stinging headache and just feel like going home, which is exactly what I’m going to do. I think I’ll fish around for an old story to put up. In fact I know which one I’m going to use. It’s called “Blowing Up The Gin Room” and was first published in NY Press and later in my book, “The Boy Who Would Be A Fire Truck.”
Okay, almost home. What a fucking night.
----------------------------------------
Blowing Up the Gin Room
In the summer of 1977, I was nineteen years old. I moved out of my parents’ house and into a dump of a three-bedroom house in a somewhat dicey neighborhood in Peoria, Illinois. My two roommates were Chris and Moon, and the main thing we had in common was a powerful thirst for all things alcoholic. Our drinks of choice were Blatz beer and shots of cheap gin.
To fortify ourselves in the midst of so much alcohol consumption, we bought more than a thousand hits of speed and kept them in a large candy dish on a crumbling secondhand wooden coffee table in the front room. Whenever we felt weary from the constant drink-a-thon we called life, we’d pop a couple hits of speed and–boom–back to the liquor store.
Our dilapidated house had a basement that was divided into two rooms. One had a door, but it also had a window on the outer wall. Since the basement was musty and came furnished with a variety of insects and rodentia, we didn’t spend a lot of time down there. We did, however, turn the sealed room into something we called the Gin Room. We dubbed it that because we would take our empty gin bottles and smash them on the cracked cement floor.
After a couple of months, the broken glass was nearing ankle height. It was really quite something to see. Smashing the bottles was a great release when you were about to jump out of your skin from too much amphetamines and alcohol.
Being constantly drunk and raging on speed leads to some weird behavior. Once, Chris and I turned everything in the house upside down and watched the sunrise while debating whether or not it would be a good idea to hang meat from the ceiling. Chris thought roasts would be the best choice, but I thought a variety of pork chops, steaks and hot dogs would be little more eye-catching and fun.
The greatest day in the house happened sometime in August when Moon came home clutching a large shopping bag.
"You’re not going to believe what I’ve got in here," he announced to me and Chris, a curious grin creeping across his face.
"Girl Scouts?" I wondered aloud.
"Fuck you,” he shot back. “I've got enough fireworks here to blow up a tank."
Then he overturned the bag, and the goods spilled out onto the floor.
A friend owed Moon a hundred bucks, and when Moon threatened to break the headlights on his car if he didn’t pay up, the guy offered him the fireworks and the deal was done. There on the floor were M-80s, firecrackers, Roman candles, cherry bombs and things with fuses on them I didn’t recognize.
We huddled around the explosive pile, and it became painfully obvious what was to be done.
“Let’s blow up the Gin Room,” I said in quite a noble fashion. Of course Chris and Moon were in total agreement, and we moved the artillery downstairs and set it up on a pile of newspapers that would act as a mass fuse.
But first, celebratory drinks upstairs. And a handful of speed all around.
When the beaners had kicked in, we moved back down to the basement and argued over who would light the newspaper. (Moon won, as they were his fireworks, so it was only fair.) The fire set, we quickly exited and watched the action from the outer window. Soon, an orgasm of colorful explosions, smoke, fire and ear-shattering bangs and booms belched out of the room. After a minute, the glass on the window cracked and fell out. After four minutes, it was over.
Four minutes. Of pure joy. Pure joy unfettered by the everyday worries magnified ten times by the booze and speed. Worries about money, a busted-up car, a dead-end job at a downtown discount store, running out of cigarettes, the question of what I was going to do with the rest of my life, and the greatest worry of all: would we make it to the liquor store before closing time. Nothing mattered for those four minutes but the colorful explosion in the gin room. It was quite a liberating experience. It was a wonderful life-lesson that had no meaning. I think that’s why it’s meant so much to me as the years have moved on.
It took two minutes to put the fire out on the left wall. The whole room was covered in black soot. In fact, the whole house had a smoky gunpowder scent that we would never be able to totally eliminate. A month later, we were thrown out. We didn’t recover our security deposit needless to say,.
Moon went on to become a financial director for a loan company. Chris went back to college and became a lawyer. I moved to New York and went to work at a shitty night job while trying to peddle my writing.
I still like to blow things up.
Further reading: Wikipedia, Passages Malibu and Urban Dictionary.
You Might Also Like: Cheez Whiz, Gee Whiz and Gene Whiz.
Four Blow Up Videos
How To Blow Up A Lake
Blowing Up a Mentos Coke Bottle
Chris Blowing Up the Frog Pool with Dad
SCTV Farm Film Report with Neil Sedaka
September gurls I don't know why,
How can I deny what's inside.
25 Comments
Reader Comments (25)
Dear Fellow M.A.D. Readers,
I bring you a cautionary tale.
If you are intrigued enough to purchase Marty's "The Boy Who Would Be A Fire Truck” --- do yourself a favor -- do not be a tighwad and buy the digitial copy for the low, low price of $1. Go ahead and fork over the 13 bucks for the print version.
Plus, you know you'll be tempted to make the **bonus flip movies** work via insanely fast scrolling. Don't be a complete moron.
Your Pal
- roadsidewonders
Hold on to the dreams of your youth, "Blow the fucker up!"
Don't knock Blatz, its not that bad. Greatest moments in life usually last two minutes,,,so you got double pleasure.
@roadsidewonders: I really appreciate that endorsement, thanks!
@Mykola Mick Demetiuk: Exactly! I finished your "100 Whores" book and really enjoyed it! Great work!
@Al: They still make Blatz? I haven't seen it for years! We used to get cases of it for $4.99.
If there were ghosts in that house, do you think the fireworks scared them or pissed them off?
A FELLOW BASEMENT BOMBER! Way to go, Marty...if you're gonna get yourself kicked out of a rental unit, might as well do it in style I always say. When I was a kid I used to do things with M-80's and cherry bombs and Estes model rockets, little stunts of mine involving the afore mentioned items and some two sided tape and no filter cigaretts (they made excellent time delay fuses) that would have gotten me an all expenses paid trip to Guantanamo Bay for a week of waterboarding and rigorous interregation nowadays, not to mention a dossier of my very own. What passed for good, clean fun back then would get me a mug shot on the national news these days. I'm lucky I made it to my present age with my face and all of my toes and fingers intact. When I was a proffesional draftsman, I worked with this overgrown kid of an engineer that did things in his basement with fuel oil and amonium nitrate fertilizer that would have turned Timothy McVeigh's hair white at a glance. (This was in the eighties of course, in the pre terror alert days...good clean fun, you understand)
Wow!! That is one hell of a story!!
Yes!! Surprise link=Amazing
@csp: The fireworks were the least of the ghosts worries in that household, if there were any!
@Jaws: Sounds like you've had your share of blowing things up good! You'd have been a natural for the Farm Film Report!
@Lindsay: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! And the surprise link cracks me up too. Oh the things you can find on Google!
I love that story.. someday I wish I could blow things up...
i have sons now so they will blow things up for me!
i burned parks once.. twice.. ooops we wont go there...
love the big star video.. one of my fave songs by them...
"Boris" just played the cover by the Bangles on his Woman and Chords First" show on woodyradio.
that surprise link is hot!
To quote the great Pee Wee Herman (and Gidget), "HA HA! HA HA! I love that story." Glad you lived to tell the tale, Marty.
@Gidget: Don't you mean the "Look of Surprise" link?
@Gidget: Glad you enjoyed the stories, it's a great memory of mine. I hope you blog about the park burning, we need to hear about that!
@Biff: Thanks! Towards the end of my stay at the house I ended up with a horrible case of mono. I learned that a steady diet of speed, gin and beer, isn't the best for your health. It was my Hank Williams period of life!
@marty what is the statute of limitations on burning overpasses?
Thanks for reading my "100 Whores" it was easy to write but harder to sell, that's life, as they say. You can see my "100 Whores" at my web site
http://www.100Whores.com
or at
http://www.MykolaDementiuk.com
Lambda Literary Awards Winner 2009/Bisexual Fiction
Again thanks very much, you're fantastic!
What a great story. I smile with pride everytime I hear this story. Three of my best friends having a little fun. Marty you could write a mini-novel about that house. Please everyone do yourself a favor and get Marty's book.
Wow. Your young days were definitely on the other end of the spectrum of mine! Great story!
MAD sorry to hear work turned into a bitch for you...
Blowing Up the Gin Room...always a great read...i have probably read that one more then ten times...of course I Never Should've Opened Her Medicine Cabinet is a close second..."firetruck" a lot of laughs w/ a few tears for balance...
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
~Marlene Dietrich
rr
@Gidget: I don't know, but I'm challenging you to blog about it over at your blog—http://gidgetbates.wordpress.com/. If you get thrown in jail, I'll send you cigarettes. I know you don't smoke, but you can use them for currency in the big house!
@Mykola Mick Dementiuk: I hear you, it is rough selling books these days. I encourage everyone to purchase Mick's fine book either at St. Mark's Bookshop or online. Great New York stories in there!
@tehennessey: Thanks, Vern! One chapter in that book could be the night Chris and I came to your place after drinking two fifths of gin! A night I'll never remember!
@Britta: Thanks, it's a miracle I've lived to tell these tales!
@rr: I really appreciate you buying the product and enjoying it, it's what keeps a writer writing. Great quote about quotes!
Love the story, Marty!! That must have been pretty great. I have had no such excitement with explosives, but do have a spouse who teargassed his school. I want to get your book & Mick's - will have to go back to St. Marks & try to find 100 Whores again, after failing miserably the last time. Guess I'll call them first.
I wish I could see the look on the face of whoever gets your call at St. Mark's asking if they have one hundred whores available for purchase.
@onemorefoldedsunset: Thanks, glad you enjoyed the story! You should call and get Mick's book, great stories in there! I'll trade you a copy of mine when I finally get to Hank's!
@csp: Ha ha ha! Never thought of that!
Hey Marty - Missing a phone? Check your e-mail.
Your pal,
Biff
@Biff: If you can attach a phone to an e-mail you might be a warlock.
@Biff: Thanks, Bifferoonie! I owe you one...or two!
@csp: Wrong gender!
I always forgot which is a witch and what-not.