Every Halloween I like to post a tale from a Lisanti Halloween Past. For me Halloween has always been one of those ridiculously insane Holidays where I have almost died, been arrested, made trip to hospital or a combination of all three. I have a few Halloween blogs from the old Myspace Blog and over the next few days I will post them up here as blasts from the past and then on Halloween post a brand new Halloween tale from the Lisanti Archives of gnarl. As always any text seen within the blog in the color red is a commented added for this edition.
Halloween of my junior year of High School I was running with the artsy crowd. A group of musicians, artists and alternative thinkers. Basically it was our excuse to think we were better then all the “cool kids” and gave us an excuse to smoke pot and drink on a regular basis writing it off as helping our cause. Now unlike in NY where trick or treating and vadalism all go down on the 31st in NJ the day before Halloween is called Mischief night and that is when you go out, break shit and cause trouble. I grew up in NY and moved to NJ at 15 for those of you who are new to this blog.
We did not go out on Mischief night opting to get high instead. So Halloween was going to be our night. We began this night as any other in my buddy Matt’s garage crowded around the bong while doing shots of Smirnoff (plastic Handle, of course, classic high school). After getting good and baked we headed to Wall’s favorite health and recreation spa located in South Wall (I wont give the name of it so as to not find myself in trouble later, but you should be able to figure out where I am talking about) to relive a Halloween past time for this group. It was only my 2nd Halloween here in NJ and I spent the first one with my girl friend at the time so this was all new to me.
Turns out the last two Halloweens this crew would go down to the aforementioned health club and knock over the three outside vending Machines near the pool before bolting from security. I am always amped to get into trouble was down for the challenge. The thing we forgot was that the previous years no one got as baked. I in no means condone drug and alcohol use among minors, but I was young and dumb as you will see as you read on.
We got to the back of the health club via the woods and hopped over the fence by the soccer fields and stealthily made our way to the Pool. The lay of the land was there were three vending machines spaced out along the grounds. One next to the pool, one near the tennis bubble and one up against the side of the racquetball courts. To accomplish this imbecilic ask we had to break up into teams of three or so in order to make sure we tipped them all at the same time cause when the shit fell down it was super loud. If we attempted to do each individually we would definitely get clipped.
Stew, Hugine and Jay took the one near the Tennis bubble, Ellen, Fisher and Shelly took the Racquetball one and Matt and I got the Pool. Everyone got into position and when each team was ready we quickly shined a flashlight in the air. When all three were seen we would count to three silently and flip the machines. Everyone had three people but Matt and I so we had our work cut out for us but were up to the task.
As we knocked our’s over Matt’s sweater got caught on something on the front of the machine and he ended up going over with it. At that moment all that was heard was the crashing of vending machines that had fallen over with a loud bang followed by the shattering of broken plastic and to my dismay Matt’s scream of sheer pain. I look down and his arm is now caught under the vending machine crushed by the weight and there is blood everywhere. I guess the broken shards of plastic shrapnel must have cut him up good.
I looked toward the other side of the compound and saw the other teams retreating off into the woods unknowing of our situation. I quickly was able to pick the machine up enough for him to get his arm out. When he pulled it out the shit was mangled. I’m not going to lie dude’s arm was definitely broken and the lacerations from the plastic definitely needed stitches. Matt sat there in shock for a moment, but before we could take stock on the situation a security guard was hot on our trail.
I was like “Matt we go to run”. I ripped my shit off and made it into a make shift sling for him to hold his arm with as we took off running. Security was on us from all angles. They even had the golf carts out chasing after us. We made it to the fence and I could tell by Matts eyes he was not going to be able to flip himself over the fence. I cradled my hands and boosted him up and over the fence. He fell to the other side flat on his face landing square on his good arm. As I would find out very steadily would no longer be a good arm.
I made the hop over the fence, pick up Matt on his feet now with two broken arms and we took off running through the woods as fast as we could till we came out on the street. By now I figured security had to have called the cops and they would be out patrolling for us in the surrounding streets of the perimeter of the club. I pulled off my jacket and put it over Matt so as not to bring attention to ourselves. After all a kid shaking from shock with two broken arms and blood all over might alarm some people. Then I grabbed some decorations off some guy’s front lawn and made ghetto costumes to pass as trick or treaters.
It was good we did too cause the next block we came to there was a cop car eyeing up everyone around. By the time we made it back to Matt’s house he was just about ready to pass out. The crew was not there either. I figured they probably went out looking for us. I had to drive Matt to the Hospital in his car with just my learners permit, an act that if I caught doing would make me not able to get my license till I was 18.
We arrived at Jersey shore and Matt was fucked up. He ended up with 2 broken arms, casts all the way up to his shoulders, surgery on both and 133 stitches combined. It was pretty funny. He could not do shit for himself for around a month or so. Worst part was we had to tell everyone he fell down a flight of steps in order to not get busted for the health club thing. Everyone at school thought he was a retard. It was classic. Another epic Halloween in the can.
Imagine getting crushed by one of these.
Surfing Ruined My Life 