I was meaning to write this in October as that would have been the twenty year anniversary of the party I am about to write about. But, I got sidetracked a bit. In October 1987, I threw a party at my Parents house on Sholer Avenue in Bridgeview. The night would end with me having to call the police to my own house.
I had thrown parties at my Mom and Lou’s house before. Every time they traveled to Albuquerque or Las Vegas I used the opportunity to invite some friends over to enjoy some forbidden alcoholic drinks. During the Thanksgiving weekend of 1986 I threw a memorable bash where Marty Buchcowski basically moved in for four days. He consumed cans of Coors at a record pace. Still, he was one of the few people who helped clean up the house before my parents came home and he even helped install my friend Chuck’s radio in his Pontiac Aster.
My Mom and Lou were off to Albuquerque (Where my Step Dad Lou has family) again in October of 87. By this point I had already graduated from Argo and was attending the higher learning institution known as Moraine Valley. I invited a few friends from the Junior College. I also was hanging around Haunted Trails a lot at this time (okay, I was a loser) and had befriended a couple of guys who worked there. I invited them as well along with some co-workers from Kmart. On top of my usual posse this was turning out to be a pretty big gathering.
The problem was that those friends I invited from Haunted Trails went to Reavis and a lot of the people I invited from Moraine were Argo graduates. For those not schooled in southwest suburban folklore, Argo and Reavis have this lame, my dicks bigger then yours competition. I never got into the whole high school rivalry thing. I just didn’t get it. What really baffled me is how any one could give a shit after they graduated. But, as I would come to find out, there are some big losers in this world who have nothing going on in their life so, they have to live through their alma maters perceived toughness.
The night started innocently enough. I was able to secure a keg through a connection a friend. I also had some harder stuff on hand as well. My brother was home as well, so we got the house ready before the guests started to arrive. Before long, beer bongs and shots of Jack Daniels were flowing and everything seemed to be moving along. The first casualty of the house was the cabinet under the kitchen sink. Dell, for some reason decided to lean against it, and the door came off the hinges. Sadly, this would soon be the least of my problems.
There was this guy I was barely friends with from Argo named Jeff. He had put in his Van Halen tape in my tape player and was jamming to it. My friends from Haunted Trails, Jeremy and Ralph were big rap fans. As a matter of fact, the little rap I still like was late 80’s stuff that they introduced to me. Well, Ralph decided he wanted to hear some L.L. Cool J. So, he yanked the Van Halen out of the tape player and put in his tape. This Jeff guy took exception and tempers started flaring. I was able to broker a piece between them, but sadly this peace would be short lived.
As the night was getting older, I realized most of my good friends, were leaving. They all had legitimate reasons for going. Most realized that since it was only Friday, and my parents were going to be gone all weekend why blow your load when they could come over the next day and stretch the carnality over the whole weekend. Not having some good friends there to help calm things down would come back to bite me in the ass.
I had a friend from my Argo days, Paul who was kind of sketchy. He was a nice enough guy but, always seemed to be getting in trouble. He also could not handle his booze. He drove a red Ford Torino and it was parked in my driveway. I am not sure how it started as I was in another room at the time, but he started arguing with some other guest who was from Reavis. By the time I got to them, Paul in a drunken stooper had thrown this poor guy into the wall. The wall was paneled and from the brunt force of Paul’s action there was now a hole in said wall.
I was obviously pissed. The guy Paul threw decided to make a run for it. Paul, who was shall we say a tad overweight, instead of chasing him on foot, decided to get in his car and try to get to him that way. The problem was that, there was another car in my driveway behind Paul, blocking him. Not giving a shit, Paul instead decided to do a lawn job in my yard in the process knocking down the light pole in front of my house. I could see the whole thing go down in slow motion but I was powerless to stop it. The only thing I could think of was how in fucks sake am I going to explain this to my Mom and Lou.
At that point I thought the worst was over. Again, I would be mistaken. Beer and inexperience can be a lethal mix as I was about to learn. Another acquaintance, Tim then started to get into a shouting match with the same Ralph guy over God knows what. They took it outside. Ralph at the time had his right arm in a cast. Using it as a weapon he promptly started pummeling Tim in my front yard. The entire Argo posse used this as an excuse to jump in and before I knew it, it was the Greasers and the Socs in a rumble in front of my house.
That was when I took over and told everyone to get the fuck out. Sadly, the damage was already done. My house was a wreck both inside and out. Glass was everywhere. Someone threw a beer at the wall in the front room leaving a huge mark. I was just starting to get things organized when the Reavis crew came back with re-enforcements. The bell rang and I told the people at the door the party was over. One guy in particular was not happy with that answer and started to badger me to tell him where “My Argo pussy friends went.” I had no idea. He then opened his coat a bit to expose a gun. That was when I said enough is enough and closed the door and called the cops to my own house.
By the time the one squad car the Bridgeview police sent came, everyone was long gone. I went to bed knowing I was going to have to do some major cleanup and explaining in the next couple of days. I had to work the next morning at the Mart. I hatched a plan to have my brother break the news to my Mom and Lou about the front yard while I was at work. I figured I could clean most everything else up but there was no way to explain the lawn job, so I got creative. At the time we lived there, we had some neighbors who were notorious for throwing these wild parties that would last until the break of dawn. Knowing this I had my brother call my Mom in New Mexico and tell them some drunk had driven through our front yard last night assuming she would blame it on the bad neighbors which is exactly what happened. (To this day, I am not sure I ever told my Mom the truth about what happended.)
My friends and I then worked feverishly to clean the rest of the house. Dell and I with the aid of a hot glue gun where able to fix the cabinet door. It would break again like a month later but, it was camouflaged for the time being. The only other thing we could not figure out how to fix was the wall with the paneling. Eventually, after my Step Dad found it we blamed it on an accident of some sort.
Other then cleaning, the rest of the weekend was spent re-living the party and having to hide Dell from Doyle’s girlfriend after it was discovered that she was harboring a crush on Mike. That would be the last party I threw in that house as we moved less then a year later. I learned some valuable lessons that night and used them on every party I threw after that so, I guess it wasn’t all bad.
