Terence means

Per. 4 Wilson-scott

10/11/07

            Mom always asked a load of questions before I ever walked out of the house to go anywhere. She was always curious of what I was really up to. This was just a normal Friday night party I told her, because it really was. What I never told her is what we do at these type of parties. Althought she probably already knew about high school parties being a teenager once herself. After about 15 mins she quits with the questions, and lets me leave along with all my other friends. As all my friends and I walk out the front door, my mother shouts,

“Hey!”

“If you get fucked up or anything……call me!”

I responded with irritation,

“OK! Ok!”

            After escaping the maze of questions and comments of my mother, we make our way to the bus stop. It’s a long wait at the bus stop. We are all talking and laughing, excited for the upcoming experience. We all know it will be a night to remember no matter what happens. We talk and talk and talk the whole bus ride. We are already having the time of our lives. Meanwhile my phones text messaging is going out of hand. Everyone in my address book wants to know where its going down at. I ignore most of them.

            As we wait at the bus stop we are all thinking the same things-Drugs, alcohol, friends, girls, it all sounds perfect. We think to ourselves “perfect”, and we get on the bus. On the bus we are all smiling, laughing, talking and joking, we know we are in for one hell of a night. I think to myself, “I’m ready for anything!” and underneath the surface I really am not expecting anything. All in all we are prepared for another party adventure on just another Friday.

            As we walk into the party we notice the distinct smell of alcohol. We notice that people are socializing, people are passed out, people are smoking weed and cigarettes, and the music is playing. The party is “crackin”. We all split up our separate ways. Some of go to smoke some to talk some to drink. I go to talk to my Berkeley high friends; it’s always my first choice. I’ve been high before and I’ve been drunk before, but tonight is not one of those nights. Me and my friends were still going through our identity crisis’, we tried the best we could to be thuggish. That’s the reason one of my friends was in the next room over from the one that I was in trying to stuff a laptop into his pants. He never quite got it all the way in. that’s how he got caught. The owner of the house caught him, he didn’t get mad or angry, he just told him to put it back. My friend complied with no trouble.

            Next thing we know people are shouting at him, screaming

“Give us our stuff back!” and “We know you have it!”

Me being one of his friends, I jump to his side immediately not even taking a second thought about anything.

I yell and scream back to them,

“Step the fuck back!”, and “My brah didn’t do shit”.

             Not only was I yelling for my friend. I was yelling at my other friends. I knew everyone that was there that night. All of which were close friends on mine except for the owner of the house. Soon we had carried the fight out into the street. People screaming and shouting and threatening one another. It went on for about 15 mins. Until the police showed up about a disturbance of the peace complaint. The officers were told about the missing property. As I hear about the missing things I think to myself who could have them? Who would take them? The police frisked us all. And to my surprise- it was my friend all along who had taken all of the stuff. There were cameras, cell phones, and Ipods missing. at least fifteen hundred dollars worth of stuff. We all of us got arrested at that moment. I felt sick to my stomach. How could such a good time turn into this?

            4 of my friends and I got picked up from jail that night(the last one lucky enough to sleep away without being caught by the police), by all of our parents. I was so disappointed in my friend and in myself. He made me look so stupid and so embarrassed. But as we thought to ourselves in the jail cell, we all looked at each other all at once. Without one word said, we started laughing. We had the hardest laugh we had had all night. Even thought we were in some of the deepest trouble, we were kids, and it was all fun and games for us.

            It wasn’t such a joke for me when I got into the front seat of my mothers car at around 2 AM. She was silent for about 15 mins-15 mins I took to think about what I would say to defend myself. She begins asking me the simple questions like “Why weren’t you home at two?”

And,“Why am I picking you up out of jail when you should be at home?”

I begin with my normal lies and excuses. She shouts back and shuts me down. Even thought I really have nothing to say for myself, I try my best to defend myself. I knew I was in the wrong, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to make myself feel better in anyway I could.

When we get home my mom screams and shouts for at least 30 mins. She finally lets me go to bed. I fall into a deep sleep very quickly. The next morning I wake up thinking I can avoid my mom the whole day. It was really only what I wished. I hear a very loud voice yell, “Terence! get your ass in here.” I proceed into her bedroom with pretty good idea of what is about to happen. I know that a very long lasting punishment is in order, I’m ready for whatever it maybe. Surprisingly talks to me in a calm voice. She tells me how she understands that I’m a teenager and that things happen like this normally for teenagers, but she still is pissed at me. She gives me an early curfew for 2 months, every night-in by nine o’clock.

            My friends are not as fortunate. They’re parents are furious with them and the rest of us. All I know is that the only other times I saw any of those friends was at school. It was like this for at least 2 months. They got the hammer dropped on them so hard because this was not the first time they had gotten picked up at the police station for similar crimes. We didn’t really learn anything from that night. We just better learned how to avoid the police everytime we left the house, knowing that we all now had a police record. We never stopped getting into late night trouble. When we all talked about it, we smiled and laughed, looking back on it. It was all so hilarious, how one of my friends kept telling to the police not to shoot him when they had arrested us, and how another one of my friends had a huge fight with an officer when he tried to get him out of the car to go inside the station.

            The only negative thing of the occurance of that night was that whenever we went to a party, we were always watched closely or even denied. That night had made us a lot of enemies. We didn’t really mind, we were used to being despised by others. We called them “haters”. We all made sure from there on in we never got caught up. And if we felt like we were about to, we avoided it as much as possible, we just weren’t that good at it.