Jake and his Hot Trans Am Part 5

Finally, Saturday arrived, and Jake roared up to our little apartment complex to pick me up. We were going to pick up Donna first and then shoot over to I’m-Not-Crazy-About-Her-Name  Peggy’s house.

I had worn some of my bests duds. A Black Sabbath T-Shirt, dark denim jeans, and earth shoes. I thought I looked pretty slick. Yeah, I was a regular Carry Grant alright.

We picked up Donna at her house in Los Altos, then drove over to Peg’s in Mountain View.

She was waiting outside and it was kinda dark so I really couldn’t see her. But from what I could tell she looked ok. Getting in the back seat with me I could tell right away she wasn’t a dog but she wasn’t what I would call a Fox either. She had shoulder-length frizzy hair, braces, no zits, thin, with very little bust, and breath had a slight “Merde de Cheval quality to it. She was wearing a Led Zeppelin T-Shirt, bell bottoms, and black boots. So we sort of matched.

Jake pulled away from the curb and we laid a patch towards Grant Avenue and El Camino where the old Monte Vista Drive-In was located.

The chicks chatted about school and friends on the way, so I just listened. Since I didn’t go to Paly High School, there wasn’t much I could add to the conversation. I just sat and tried to be discreet as I checked out Peggy. 

We got to Monte Vista in record time, paid a sleepy-looking woman in a booth, and Jake parked his car way in the back row of the parking lot. ” I Eat Your Skin” had already started, and the black and white programmer seemed just as cheap as I had suspected it would be. 

The plot revolved around some mad scientist, who was creating Zombies on some obscure tropical island. The zombies were just guys lurching around with crusty eyes that looked like they had just been hit in the face with custard pies. Like I said it was a real cheapy, typical American drive-in movie crap.

The girls went out to get popcorn. And by the time they got back, I had to go and hit the bathroom. 

Coming out of the can, I was met with a handful of Jujubees thrown at me at the concession stand by that asshole Pete Steakley, who was a bully at Farmstead High School. It seemed he had a summer job working at the Snack Bar at Monte Vista. Just my luck.

“Hey Asshole!” he catcalled me.

I had a couple of run-ins with this joker before at Farmstead and had gotten my ass kicked, so seeing his pizza face put a major dampener on my mood. Frickin’ Clown! I hated Pete Steakley.

So I gave him the middle finger and high tailed it back to the car before I got pelted by another barrage of hard candy. A torrent of obscenities and Jujubees followed me out of the snack bar exit.

By the time I got to Jake’s car, Donna and Jake were already warming up for another lovey-dovey match in the front seat. “Geez somebody get a garden hose for these two, ” I thought.

I think Peggy was just as uncomfortable as I was as she seemed to have scrunched herself into the right corner of the backseat and was staring stonily at the movie screen.

Before the second feature started Jake and Donna took a break and the girls resumed talking and laughing. Then Jake pulled Donna into his lap, Peggy clammed up, withdrawing into herself, as she moved back into her corner of the car, and I was left alone on my side of the car. Well, WHAT THE F*CK?! This was turning out to be one hell of a double date?!

So I watched the second movie alone as everybody was lost in their little happy orbit. The blood-drinking zombies munched on their victims on screen, Jake munched on Donna’s face, while Peggy munched quietly on her bowl of popcorn. She didn’t even share. Bitch!

I tried to engage Peggy in conversation but all I got was monosyllabic responses – till finally I just gave up and just pulled the remaining Jujubees I found lodged in my hair courtesy of Pete Steakley. Fine.

By the time “I Drink Your Blood” ended I was in a completely sour mood. Pissed off royally. I think I even got tears of anger and humiliation in my eyes a couple of times, not that Miss Oblivious in the corner noticed.

Eventually, Jake took a look over his shoulder, finally noticing the freezer action going on in the back. He then said something sotto voice to Donna. Donna looked over at us, made a fantastic face, and we immediately took off to drop off my “date” home.

As soon as we pulled up to Peggy’s house she was out of the car faster than a wet hen on fire and was in her house in nine seconds flat. Probably a record. And that was the last I ever saw of I’m -Not-Crazy-About-Her-Name Peggy.

As we drove, it came out that Peggy had had a last-minute reconciliation with her ex-boyfriend, yesterday during a lunch break at school, and as a “favor” to Donna, had agreed to still go out on the double-date with us.

Well, that was just the capper to the whole God Damned Evening. Two of my Best Friends in the Whole World HAD KNOWN about this before the date! THEY HAD KNOWN Peggy had gotten back together with her old boyfriend! AND NO ONE HAD BOTHERED TO TELL ME!

Now, normally I would have said crap like – I understand, blah, blah, blah, and just sulked. But the fact that they BOTH HAD KNOWN caused me to go ballistic!

Back in those days, whenever I got emotional I would usually get tongue-tied and just stutter. Making “Gap Gap” and other incomprehensible noises, whenever I tried to argue or explain myself. But, not that night, if I had been Anthony of Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar, I would have probably awakened Old Julius from the dead, with my withering oration.

I felt hurt, humiliated, and now betrayed. And to be honest this was just the trigger my fragile teenage needed to vent its frustration. Being a dorky teenager sucked and I wanted to lash out – even if meant alienating those closest to me. So I let my friends have it with both barrels of my volcanic rage.

I told Donna, in colorful language, what I thought about her taste in “FRIENDS” and the LAME, SUCK-ASS, MISERABLE,  DOUBLE-DATE she had just put me through.

“WHHHHAAAAATT?! SHE DID THIS AS A…A FRICKIN’ FAVOR?! I  CAN’T BELIEVE YOU BOTH KNEW AND DIDN’T TELL ME?! WHY?! WHY?! WHY?!” I roared. My angry voice continued to climb higher and higher. My first pounded on the armrest on the back seat sending seismic shock waves through the car frame with each utterance!

l finished my searing rant to her – saying that as much as I liked her personally, I would really, really appreciate it, if, in the future, she wouldn’t do me any more GOD DAMNED “FAVORS!” 

AND then, I told Jake, that THEY BOTH could FRICKIN’ count me out from any more Friday night cruising and Double-Dates – PERMANENTLY! And NO! I FRACKIN’ did not want to go over to FRICKIN’ Bob’s! NO! I didn’t need a cigarette to CALM ME THE FRACK DOWN! AND to PLEASE  take my FRICKIN’ ass home RIGHT NOW! PRONTO! Thank you FRACKIN’ very much!!

My friends cowered under my incandescent rage as I was so overcome with anger that I think I must have begun speaking in tongues. With white faces, they just gaped at me, their eyes staring at me with shock as if I had just sprouted a second head. This was a side of their friend they had never seen before and it left them stunned!

By the time I was done – The car reeked of anger, guilt, and failure.

No one said anything during the rest of the ride home.

*

To be continued…