M is for Mailboxes

In high school I was homogeneous. Not a homo. Homogeneous. I blended in with whomever I was with at any given moment. You wouldn't vote me Most Likely to Know What She Values, but you probably would have liked me because I'd go along with your adventure.

For ill or for good.

One night I was hanging out with my friend Carla (not her real name). She and I were a year apart in school (I was older--and should have been wiser). Both of us were wholesome looking over-achievers. Some students in public school even teased me for knowing all the biblical allusions in literature class. Carla's work ethic impressed almost everyone. (She was one of the few students who held a part-time job while going to school.)

No one would have suspected that we were capable of vandalism.

And I don't mean toilet-papering a Ford truck on Halloween. I mean vandalism.

I still remember the night it happened. I was spending a Friday night at Carla's and we were listening to music and thinking about baking brownies, doing our nails, and watching TV to fill our evening. It was just the two of us upstairs, and her brother and his friend were in the basement. Carla's dad was often away on business trips, and I don't know where her mom was this particular night, but she wasn't home. (There is a theme to my "when-parents-aren't-home stories," huh?)

Carla and I made a pan of brownies and ate half of them ourselves. We shared a couple with her brother Connor and his friend Ricky, and then ate the rest, for what reason I don't know, other than that we could.

Friday Night. No Parents Home. Keys to the Car. The boys decided that this would be a good time to go for a ride. And take some baseball bats with us.

I was so naive I thought we were going to go find a lighted field somewhere at 11 p.m. and play baseball. Seriously, I was so dumb I should've been blonde.

"Hop in the back, girls!" and we did. Connor got behind the wheel and Ricky rode shotgun.

We drove through the neighborhood, Connor zig-zagging between parked cars. Windows rolled down all the way, Connor shouted, "That one, man! Get that one!"

Ricky stuck the bat out the window and started swinging. He clobbered six or eight mailboxes in a row before Connor changed streets and sped off to find other metal to mash. At one house that was completely dark, the boys got out and took turns bludgeoning the mailbox to a mangled heap on the ground. Their laughter creeped me out.

I sat in the back shivering with fear. I had never taken part in a crime before. All I could think about was those poor people would wake up to find their mailboxes destroyed on their front lawns.

Ricky handed the bat to Carla. She laughed nervously and said, "Nah...I'm not strong enough."
But they coaxed her into taking a slug at a plastic newspaper box. She cracked it wide apart with one blow. Then she handed the bat to me.

I shook my head.

"No, that's okay. Haven't we all had enough fun and destruction for one night? We'd better quit before we get caught."

"Aw, you scared, Zoey?" I hated being called Zoey, and they knew it. It made me mad enough to swing.

"No, I'm not scared. I just don't want to do this."

They shrugged and kept driving and smashing mailboxes, cackling all the while. After twenty minutes or so, I think I got numb to the destruction part and started seeing it as fun. Rick turned to me and said, "You know you want to. Take just one swing. That's all. Just one."

So I took the bat, held it out the window and purposefully just grazed the next mailbox.

"Took some paint off that one!" I bragged, probably lying.

By this time Carla was egging me on. "Hey, Zo. Let's show 'em what we're made of." And then, I took the bait. The competitor in me had to win, or die trying.

I don't remember doing any damage personally, but I remember cheering Carla while she smashed the boxes to smithereens.

And I remember the terrible stomach ache I had as I tried to fall asleep back at Carla's house. The guilt over my actions gave me crippling pains inside. It wasn't worth the so-called fun to realize I had taken part in ruining property. We never confessed. Never apologized. I never did that again, but the memory haunts me still. I have asked, and received, God's forgiveness for my foolishness, but there is no way of going back to make amends to those people. That happened thirty-two years ago and I have no clue where we were exactly in the darkness of that night.

I learned something about my friend Carla and myself that night. We were capable of destroying far more than a pan of brownies.