Open City

 Open City

      Open City was held during a ten day absence of parents from the big house at 9230 Annetta in July of 1969. High schooler Greg was following in the older boys missteps, drinking beer and  thinking about spreading his devil's wings. He tried one vice but kept his lungs clean for a while longer. He had finished his junior year and was doing well as a Warrior of Pius X.  The Times Were a Changin' and we all wanted to be cool. My parents had left on a cruise to Alaska and in a  rare poor choice had put me in charge of keeping the home place in good shape. All I did was invite every kid I knew to show up, drink, play loud music and try to have sex with eachother. Christine had just graduated from Pius and her crew was also aboard this sinking ship that made the alcohol intake all the more precarious since it involved 17 to 18 year olds. I was in a relationship with dear Nancy who was always up for a good time but was not a real abuser of substances. She had not reached the point where she was going to send me packing so that added to the unbridled joy I felt at the time. Parties stretched into the wee hours and began before dusk. Unlikely kids coupled up and even coupled (or so they said). There were Knowltons, Breens, Whitneys, Joyces, Carroll and a rambunctious Sheehy kid who kept the fires burning. Without naming names I believe he "became a man" during these bacchanals and walked a little taller for his senior year because of Open City. There were strange occurences. For some reason one night a group of drunken louts climbed up into the crawl space/attic above the new house without realizing they would be bringing down insulation to be tracked everywhere. One dumb cousin fell from the access door and landed with a startling thud but just puked behind the TV and kept drinking. A beloved family dog ate three grams of hashish but survived. A pair of size 40 women's panties were found at the bottom of the swimming pool and there were several inebriated "I love you's" said to no one in particular. Yet, the one sentence Greg plucked out of this tomfoolery was one night when Christine's friend Patty Anne darted from the room in tears. A pretentious drunken teenage asshole named Rick Pallas was sitting next to us on the couch and when Greg asked him what was the matter with her he spoke like a guru "she's just trying to find herself...like a lot of us." It seemed to express the affected bullcrap of an entire decade and Greg and I used it about a hundred times over the next forever.