American Teen

By B.S. Adkison

The 1970's might very well become a blank in history concerning everyday, ordinary people. Such a mundane, regressive, back-sliding era, at least that is how it can appear to those of us who lived through it. The glories of the space age, the civil rights breakthroughs, the sexual revolution and even patriotism itself seemed to die a slow, selfish death as institutions and established norms fell by the wayside one after another as nothing was 'good enough' anymore. The era was pushed aside in a self-centered indifference as people positioned themselves to 'grab-up' all they could for a run at a future of personal wealth to be horded and stashed away without regard for future generations. Of course that is a pesimistic exaggeration but it might be true enough as we examine the era with regard to personal satisfaction and overall happiness. But one boy and his friends refused to be beat down and made lemonaid out of the lemons that were thrown their way. Their triumphs may not of made them millionaires, but they don't deserve to die in obscurity either, especially when much of it was so damn fun! See for yourself and read American Teen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: B.S. Adkison
• Release date: May 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463026069

B.S. Adkison

Air Force veteran. Fleet manager for a contracting company.I Have built and/or restored several vintage racing and collector cars over the years. I Won a racing championship in 2010. I am an avid reader of mostly history, science and science fiction. I tend to find the topics of magic and time travel intellectually vacant, vacuous and tedious but don't let that discourage you if that sort of thing is your interest, it's my problem, not yours! I'm a hopeless romantic but I tend to shy away from that theme as well. (Too personal.) What little I do write regarding sexuality is usally from an unapologetic hetero-sexual viewpoint because of my comfort of that concept and I admit that I can sound somewhat near the verge of misogynistic, and I do apologize for that, but I certainly won't condemn, criticize or denounce anyone's differing views. Live and let live in freedom and peace is my viewpoint and I will fight like hell for other's rights in that regard if i have to, but, I insist on being able to exercise my own thoughts and opinions so please don't take it personally. Go ahead and hate me if you must but not the free-speech forum or the intellectual freedom that I exercise and love. I really just want to have a fun and pleasant life on this earth and I hope others also want that and I try to treat everyone well with that in mind.

Book preview

AMERICAN TEEN

B.S. Adkison

Copyright 2020

Smashword Edition

ISBN 9780463026069

Chapter One

The obsession probably officially started when I was four years old, while walking down the sidewalk in our little town with my family. I clearly remember the rather junky looking, jacked-up hotrod ‘smoking the tires’ right out in front of everybody while scruffy looking delinquents stood around the scene hooting and cheering. My parents, who ordinarily were in a constant state of verbal combat and chronic disagreement, but this time they completely agreed with each other in a rare display of unity that this foolishness, this madness, must certainly be an example of the reason of all the problems and insanity of the entire world.

Their probably ‘hopped-up’ on drugs my mother proclaimed and as a nurse’s aide, her opinion carried professional weight.

They’ll blow that transmission not to mention those tires added my father in one of his standard ‘one up-man-ship’ statements meant as the ‘last word’ to increase, in his mind, the absolute mastery of every encounter and situation of the family while simultaneously deflecting any importance that my mother’s statement might have had, all in an subconscious effort that by this time had grown so natural and automatic that even mother didn’t seem to notice anymore that she was being belittled, and if she did, the fact was that she didn’t care anymore what he thought. To us kids (seven of us, ranging from teenager to toddler) this particular display of banter was a rare example of kind and even generous behavior of my parents towards each other. So much more pleasant than their constant fighting with all the shouting and screaming which was usually followed by the inevitable door slam that marked the general easing and calming that was to immediately follow. Of course, whichever of us kids that were in earshot of that slam, they had to endure the final statement from whichever of our parents remained on this side of the door: That bitch if it was the bedroom door and slammed by my mother. That bastard if it was the front door which was usually followed by my dad leaving for the bar. Either way, the tension ended, and us kids could relax, play and generally enjoy whatever was left of the day.

That sort of conflict behavior eventually reduced the seriousness and the respect that us kids had for them as role models, and as examples for normal, acceptable behavior, because we weren’t stupid, and also because that was all offset by the ‘real’ cultural guidepost, the ‘actual’ behavioral example of how to act and how to behave; television.

The Fonz, Captain Kirk, movie and rock and roll stars, they became my role models and I studied their behaviors and mannerisms critically. The more my parents belittled such influences, the more I ‘doubled down’ and increased my worship and my longing to join such lifestyles, no matter how far from reality they really were. I mention this because it is an example of much of my background and the apparent, overall basis of my upbringing, at least as I seem to perceive it.

But as I watched that unbridled, relentless display of the excess and the excessive power being unleashed right out here in the street, and as it was being unabashedly performed in front of everybody in the form of simple friction, wildly releasing clouds of incinerated rubber for the enjoyment and entertainment of the reckless young men and women that cheered it on, I had seen a glimpse into my future and my destiny, my chance and my way into such a fantastic world that seemed custom tailored just for me. All I need to do is burn rubber baby!

The concept that an engine could produce so much excess power that it could apparently defy the laws of physics appealed to my childish mind in a way that nothing else had before, to the point that as I watched the thick, gray smoke roll off the madly spinning tire, and as I got a whiff of that strange, acrid chemical smell for the first time, it was a discovery that there were things, events and circumstances beyond my family and more real than television. Things that existed out in the real world and those things were as close as this street of our little, ordinary small town. That was the turning point, the marker and the waypoint of so many of my future decisions and desires. The path into an iconic future had been marked by a black streak of burning rubber.

This is the story of how such a pivotal (and trivial) event along with other senseless influences during the late 1960’s through the mid 1970’s shaped and guided a typical American Teen boy on an adventure and in a direction that led to a unique and unusual series of events that seems today that might be lost, smothered and pushed aside in this modern, certain, button-down and unquestioning world, that the story must be told just to prevent its loss from the annuls of history. It is a tale of things that were once considered normal, even mundane but today seemed to have been pushed aside (for better or for worse) by significant changes in social structures to a point that the concepts to be presented here have become so unrecognizable, that not only have they been forgotten but they seem to have been shunned and ignored until they have all but disappeared under popular consensus and public edict. What could have been so dangerous and damaging to warrant such destruction? That’s what I’ve been wondering, so I decided to write it down and let you decide what to think. Is it poison, or entertainment? I have faith in your judgement, and don’t be afraid to judge. Whatever you think about anything in this story, no one will know, it will be our little secret. That’s the beauty of the written word, it’s a personal experience, just between you and me, and what you think remains (if it is your desire) hidden away in your brain. So, go ahead, judge the crap out of it! I won’t know what you think which means I can’t tell anyone, so your secret is safe. What I think…, well…, what happened anyway, I will try to explain, and I will try my best not to waste your time and I will present it all in a fast-paced, no nonsense format, and I am certain that it is unique enough and that it contains so many downright bizarre events that it will be worth your attention. All I know for sure is that it all happened, and it is written for your entertainment and perhaps it will provide some aspects (eventually) that will make you think. Other than that, it is the story of a typical American Teen boy just trying to figure things out and survive in a complex and often unforgiving world but perhaps this kid (me) may have a different view than most kids and occasionally, he takes a unique and unproven path several times along the way. As for shocking danger, brave boldness or scarring injustice, well…, remember, the title of this thing is American Teen, and my trials and tribulations are really nothing to get worked up about, just a series of events probably only possible in the richest, most decadent country to ever exist and that is the point, while so many novels revolve around so many turning points of history, where life and death hinge and pivot with each plot twist on every page, what is left for ordinary people to relate to? Is our reward for ‘good’ decisions left to die in obscurity because of the boredom of such choices? A gap in the historical record because of a failure to assassinate a tyrant? Spark a revolution? Or change the world in some other critical or important way for better or for worse? But there are important and pivotal events and waypoints even among the ordinary. Just because the world won’t end with each decision and action doesn’t mean such stories don’t have a place in history. In fact, that might be why I have presented this story for your consideration, let the little people have their day in the sun. In the future, there might be a gap in understanding of how the ordinary and the obscure lived. What was life really like? Let’s find out something of that together.

That tire smoking ‘burn out’ may have been the starting point, and the ‘spark’ that shaped much of my future, but it was a fund raiser in the third grade, a magazine subscription drive that focused my actual actions and much of my attention after that. I sold enough subscriptions that I qualified for the pick of three magazines to be delivered right to our door for the upcoming year ahead. I chose Car and Driver, Car Craft and Hotrod. I read each issue cover to cover and soon I became one of the top reading students in my class. If possible, all my book reports and school projects came straight from the pages of those magazines. I sent away for catalogs and brochures from parts suppliers and ‘kit car’ manufactures that advertised in those pages and soon I was getting more mail then my parents. I would pour through that data and produce comprehensive parts lists and cost analysis for building my own hotrod, all with the apparent blessing and enthusiasm of many of my teachers, but as I pitched my father to consider what I thought would be a fool-proof plan and a bonding experience for both of us, that together we would produce a hot rod by the time I was old enough to get my driver’s license, I was shocked at the reaction that the plan received.

I’ve put up with your nonsense long enough! If you think we’re gunna have a bunch of junk laying around here just so you can lose interest in it all when you see all the work that it will be, you got another thing coming!

In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he would have had such a reaction, but at the time, I was shocked, speechless. I had years invested by then in researching my plans, but before I could voice any protest, there was more:

Let me set you straight boy, you never buy a car that doesn’t run, and you never tear apart one if it doesn’t; you get rid of it!

That was the exact opposite of all that I had learned and believed from my reading and my father must have sensed the contradiction to what he had just said to all that I had planned because he went on a tear about reinforcing his dictate, and after that, he never let up about it. He forbade me from talking about cars, he threw away all my magazines and other literature if he found it, he wouldn’t let us watch any auto racing on TV, he made it his mission to belittle and marginalize anything to do with motorsports and the automotive hobby, even after I was well into middle age and after I had made a career in the automotive trades. By then it had been going on for so long that I don’t think he even remembered why he was so against it. He had made his choice and that was that. Every time he would see an old car, no matter how pristine, all it was to him was a bucket of bolts and he would editorialize endlessly how with all the money that was spent, He could have bought a new car. Bottom line; my dad was not a car guy.

But I was!

When I was twelve, my oldest brother Mike owned a 1966 Pontiac GTO. It was gold with a bucket seat interior, four on the floor and three two-barrel carburetors; tri-power to was called. I worshipped that car and to some extent, him as well. I used to spend hours with him as he fiddled with the thing (apparently my Father’s anti-car bias didn’t extend beyond me for some reason) and I mastered the arts of polish and wax much to Mike’s benefit. As a reward for my detailing prowess, he would occasionally take me to the drive-in for burgers. I felt like the king of the world riding in that car as he snapped through the gears, and I would look around constantly, hoping that my friends from school would see me. But one Saturday night, Mike took me with him on an adventure that cemented my automotive enthusiasm to new and even more absurd levels.

He took me to the local drive-in movie complex and playing there that night was something called American Graffiti. I watched it as if it were an important lecture, absorbing every scene as if it were a documentary to be followed by an important quiz. While it was a movie about young people dealing with the Viet Nam war among other things, to me, it was the fact that it featured cars and cruising, cumulating with an illegal drag race on a deserted road on the outskirts of their town, and that cemented, in my mind, the importance and the reason of the creation of the film. I was fascinated from the opening scene to the ending credits. It was a peek into a world custom made just for me.

After the movie, there was much more in store for me; this over-stimulated and highly impressionable small-town kid. Starting with a procession of tire-smoking burnouts as each carload of hyped-up teenagers demonstrated their enthusiasm for the film by reducing their tire’s tread depth and increasing the profits of the tire manufacturing companies. But this was just the beginning of what would be my complete conversion and the focus of my destiny.

You’re not tired, are you?

Mike asked this as we neared our turn to exit the drive-in.

Tired? You have got to be kidding! I was so hopped-up and on sensory overload that I could have possibly lit-up the souls of my sneakers, given a means and a way to do that.

Good! Because we’re not going home just yet.

He pointed the GTO in the other direction then that of home, and he did a small ‘burn-out’ as we left, (Mike was so straight-laced that it was often embarrassing, I’m sure that this was just about the only time I can remember him purposely spinning the tires) and we joined the dozens of other cars heading for the city, and not the single street, downtown of our small, irrelevant little town but the nearby real city of Bremerton.

It was a magical experience riding with this pack of cars and young people heading towards adventure, and it went without saying that this would be a secret from our parents, especially my Dad. But neither of us knew the levels of the radicalism that lay ahead for us.

Cruising the gut is what people called it in those days, and it was the most important (but mostly pointless) endeavor that a twelve-year-old boy could imagine. At a snail’s pace we crawled down the city streets with the windows down as all manner of insults and banter was thrown back and forth between the participants. Music was being blasted from every car radio, locations and directions to hook-ups and parties were being suggested and/or confirmed. Girls went out of their way to look extra sexy as boys tried every line and action imaginable to try and catch their attention. It was a human wonderland of interaction and I was in a front row seat enjoying myself immensely and leaning and absorbing every detail that I could for future reference. But in a flash, things suddenly turned ugly.

From a side street, they poured into the main drag; a group of sailors from the local Navy Base were tangling with a gang of bikers, and one of them threw another up on the hood of the car right in front of us as they all traded violent punches. I had never seen such a thing in real life, and I had to admit, it was unsettling. Mike was justified in fearing damage to his car and he looked for an exit down a side street, but traffic completely stopped as everyone hooted and cheered the combat. Luckily for us, the fighting spilled out across the street and into an alley, but I could tell that Mike was rattled which meant that when things got moving, we would probably be leaving. But what a story I would have for my friends at school! We steered into a turn lane that lead to the exit and at that moment, the traffic around us just stopped.

Moments later, you could see people were out of their cars and in the street stopping incoming traffic but letting those exiting on through. We were off the main drag at that point, and the line of cars that we were in was hopelessly stuck in the forced gridlock. Something was up, something incredible.

The wide, downtown boulevard emptied, and soon we could see what was going on and we had the best seat in the house. I thought the movie that we had watched earlier was the living end, then the rowdy ride down the freeway in that pack of cars rivaled that and I thought that would be the highlight of the night, but that was eclipsed by cruising the gut, then witnessing a street fight topped that (and as far as I knew was still in progress) but this, this that was forming not a fifty feet in front of us, this is the stuff that legends were made of, and I was beyond words to describe what was happening. I could see Mike’s apprehension but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. This was happening and I couldn’t have been more excited or more pleased. That was until I had seen who the competitors would be.

With the street now empty, the cars to be involved in the competition had arrived and lined up, side by side for a showdown to determine the answer to a question asked of and wagered on concerning the outcome of many important, but in hindsight, trivial and pointless questions: Who had the most power? Who was the best driver? And ultimately, who would win the race? But at the time, they may as well have been the most important questions in the world and they would be answered, settled once and for all, right here and right now, and as far as I was concerned it was happening just for my entertainment because of the fact that I was in the right place and at the right time.

It was all nearly beyond my comprehension as the highly modified engines, both with uneven, ‘choppy’ idles that rattled windows with their barely muffled exhaust systems as they blipped their throttles occasionally in an effort to keep their cylinder’s from loading up, and certainly because it looked and sounded so damn cool. That is when a very sexy, big-haired blond young lady in a yellow miniskirt and a pink halter top strutted out in front of the pair and she stopped and struck a pose with one hand on her hip and a green handkerchief in the other.

The car on the left was a Mustang GT 500, jacked-up with oversize ‘meats’ (tires) and it creeped ahead until it was in the perfect position, but it was car on our right that I revered and that I thought that Mike would also be cheering for.

Vonne Tempie! Mike gasped, hardly holding back his contempt.

He’s ruined that car!

That car, a 1966 GTO like Mike’s, but much different. Raised in the rear with ridiculously wide tires sticking out. Black lacquer paint that looked as deep as the impossibly still water of a bottomless lake. Polished ‘mag’ wheels and a hood scoop as big as a large mailbox, grafted onto the hood for feeding air into an engine obviously modified beyond reason. It was the sound that engine produced that had it standing apart from Mike’s car or any other car on the face of the earth. (In my limited opinion anyway.) Each hit of the throttle shook the nearby buildings as that wonderful, glorious sound echoed up and down the street. The Mustang was magnificently close to that same sound with its own unique and dramatic pitch, but it just didn’t quite seem to measure up.

That Mustang’s gunna take it I’d bet. It’s gotta be almost a thousand pounds lighter Mike said, but if I had any money, I would have taken that bet. Both cars lit up their tires and smoke quickly rose in clouds as big as houses as the breeze blew it towards the rear of the pair as they shot ahead, only to gather up their brakes before they had moved more than about fifty feet. The sound of that action was deafening, and it rolled and bounced between the buildings in a haunting, extended echo long after both cars had cut their throttles.

The cops will be here any minute said my brother as they both backed carefully right into the rubber that they had just laid down, but even I recognized that the same gridlock that kept us trapped here also prevented any police cruisers from approaching. With both cars now carefully staged, the pretty blond lady held her handkerchief high in the air and the constant hoots and cheering (including from a certain batch of bloodied sailors and bikers that were either settled in their dispute or had put it on hold as they lined up on the sidewalk to watch with everyone else) was suddenly drowned out by the sound of engines wound up to precise, launching RPM levels. Everything, including the spinning of the earth itself seemed to stop for me while that handkerchief was held high. Breaths were held, even the pounding in my chest seemed to skip a beat until…, the pretty lady’s arm came down in a blur of fluttering green silk.

The roar was fantastic as they lurched ahead with the Mustang gaining a slight advantage off the line, but that car quickly lost traction and kicked out sideways just as it passed the pretty girl and she did a brave, sexy little twist of her body in a move that let that car’s rear quarter panel graze her hip on the way by! And as that happened, Vonne Tempie, in the other lane, blazed on past in a streak of glossy black, straight as an arrow and hooked up as if his side of the street was coated in glue. Mike gave out a disgusted harrumph as his comment at the results of the race. I, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more pleased.

Chapter Two

That Saturday night, car magazines, (now contraband, which added to the allure) racing on television (also prohibited at my home but not at my friend’s houses) and the occasional, actual (and in hindsight, extremely dangerous) antics of some older kids that could be goaded (which was rather easy) into giving me highspeed rides, all of that reinforced and cemented my interest and devotion to motorsports but it was the discovery of the local drag racing track that absolutely sealed the deal.

I was at one of my friend’s houses and we could hear the sounds of racecars roaring down the strip as we were goofing-off in his backyard.

What’s that sound?

That’s the racetrack.

I was in the vicinity of a racetrack? So close that I could hear it?

You’re kidding?

Yeah, it’s pretty cool. We could sneak in, it’s easy to do.

I didn’t need to hear another thing. A short while later, we were climbing a fence that was hidden in the woods and we dropped down on the other side into a world that would eventually change my life. We blended into the crowd near the starting line and I was spellbound as each pair of cars smoked their tires to heat them for maximum traction before inching into the staging beams of the starting line. The noise from these cars was deafening with their open, unmuffled exhaust. One after another, each brightly colored and numbered pair of cars would scream down the track with the winner highlighted by a single light (the ‘win’ light) on one of the electronic scoreboards located down track at the finish line, one on each side for each lane.

Where had this been all my life? Actual auto racing happening minutes away from my friend’s house? Incredible! Unfortunately, my friend didn’t share my enthusiasm and he worried that we would get in trouble, it wasn’t long before he wanted to leave.

What? You can’t be serious! Don’t you want to see who the winner is?

They’ll be at this till dark. The winner won’t be determined until tomorrow’s final he said in the detached and bored manner of someone who has worn-out their interest. What’s wrong with this guy? (I can’t for the life of me remember his name.)

Let’s just watch a few more.

Okay, but I need to get back home for dinner.

I silently stewed in my disappointment. I would have stayed until dark regardless of the consequences. I seriously debated staying and letting him go back without me but that meant risking not being there when my father came to pick me up later which might prevent further visits which now, I couldn’t risk. No, I had a new thing, a mission and a past-time that had to be kept secret from my Dad and the rest of the family. As we stood there watching the wheels spin and grab traction, the wheels were also turning in my mind as I formulated plans and schemes as how exactly I would find myself here as often as possible.

Come on, we’ve got to get back.

Alright! Just one more.

What’s-his-name shot me an impatient look but what happened next erased his anxiety. One of the next cars, an Anglia, which is an English Ford from the 50’s that looked more like it was from the 30’s, was modified into a very small, short wheelbase racecar. It rolled up and staged in the ‘beams’ of the starting line. With its engine revving, the lights came down the ‘Christmas tree’ and at the last yellow, the little car exploded off the line in a chest-high, wheels-up launch. Drifting towards the centerline of the track as the front wheels came down, the driver grabbed second gear and the car bounced its front wheels back up again and this time it drifted towards the outside guardrail. Halfway to the finish line already and gaining terrific speed, third gear was grabbed and bounced the racecar back towards the centerline once again, but the driver allowed the car to veer a little too far and when he tried to grab forth gear, we could see the inside rear tire of the car just start to leave the surface of the track. As if in slow motion, the car slowly started to rise on the driver’s side until we could see the spinning drivetrain underneath, and that is when the driver, with apparently no other choice, lifted the