The time I almost went to jail

I have been waiting forever to post this, but for legal reasons I couldn't. Until now.

As I wrote in an earlier post, at the end of each school year I do a trip to the Outer Banks of NC with a group of about 100 other friends. Each year gets progressively more ridiculous as we try and match the events of the previous summer, which include: hot tub sex, streaking, threesomes in the shower, and other related activities. This year topped that.

The houses this May were divided by year and gender. One male house, two female houses, and a senior house. Our houses were basically falling into the water due to sand erosion, so safety was immediately demanded to take a back seat. Danger was king. Our road was also host to a few broken down beach homes that had not been rented out in years. I must preface this story by saying that the men in the senior house were in the mood to break things the entire week. By Wednesday we had purchased ceramic babies from a dollar store for no other purpose but to smash them.

We began the night with a Men's Century Club- 100 shots of beer, 100 one-minute song clips. The girls have followed suit in recent years and started a power hour of their own. Then we all met up at the party house, and thats when shit gets crazy.

I recall the following events:

-A vacuum being thrown off of the balcony into the ocean.

-Two guys taking off their shirts and standing on chairs while people rubbed beer onto their chests and shouted "You're Gods!"

-A shadow of a guy crouched in the corner taking aerosol hits off of a silly string can.

There had been talk of going to one of the abandoned houses the entire week, so around 11:00 someone yelled "LETS BREAK IN!" A group of us trekked two houses down and climbed up the busted stairs to what looked like the most dangerous beach house on earth. It was literally leaning into the ocean. We tried the door but it was locked. Some people decided to leave at this time, but the determined stayed. All of a sudden...

BOOM!

In one of the most bad ass moves of all time, the smallest guy in the crew kicked open the door. Group mind took over as we all simultaneously realized this is happening. We went ape shit on this house. It was pretty dark, and being tanked blinded me even further. I was in some sort of kitchen, grabbing anything and throwing it as hard as I could. One of the guys was in the bathroom ripping off the toilet seat. He then joined me in taking dishes from out of the cupboards and chucking them against the wall, hitting objects, breaking windows. It was a shit storm.

We then went back to the senior house, ate everything in the fridge, and rubbed condiments on this girl Brooke, who was posing on the counter in her bra and panties.

My next memory was waking up on a bare mattress wearing someone else's shirt and no pants. Around me were the three other guys who broke into the abandoned home, and we laughed about the previous night's events. Then things went downhill. We are told by the trip organizer that the house we broke into was not abandoned, but rather condemned, which meant it still had an owner.

Fuck.

We felt awful. The four of us sat and imagined our fates. What made this worse was overhearing the commentary from the other people in the house. "I had a friend who did this same thing last year and he is still serving time" and "They think life is just a joke, they cant take anything seriously."

We were told by the trip organizer to go outside and sit on the curb and wait, because the cops were coming. There we were, the four of us, hands clasped and heads down, wishing human beings did not have innate desires for chaos and destruction. A police car pulls up and parks in front of us. And then another. And then another. Jesus, three cop cars? Was this necessary?

One cop doesn't say a word, takes our identification, then asks for "the first one." This is when I knew I was about to be arrested. The first guy reluctantly got up and walked to the police car. The cop reached inside the car to pull out what I believed to be handcuffs. People watched from the balconies. His girlfriend quietly sobbed in her hands and the policeman pulls out... a clipboard?

We were not arrested or evicted, thankfully, but charges were pressed by the owner. We were each cited with two misdemeanors- breaking & entering and destruction of real property. We were given our slips and the policemen left, telling us we could clean up the house if we wanted to. Fuck yes I am seeing this damage.

As I walked up the stairs I was shocked. This was a legitimate house. Furniture, poker table, television, fireplace, board games, movies, etc. I broke into and destroyed a house. To be honest it was pretty much a hazard and will be swept away by the ocean in a year or two, but there is no ignoring that fact that it looked like people lived there. The damage looked bad but was not very extensive as we cleaned up the best we could.

So we got a lawyer and eventually the charges were dropped under the condition of good behavior, and I just mailed the last of my owed restitution last week. As the other guys worried about grad school applications or getting clearance for government jobs, all I could think was "When can I blog about this?"

That, and wondering what happened to the silly string kid. Probably dead.