In the 5th and 6th grade, there was a kid in my class named Darryl Ryan. He was quite tall and peculiar looking. His claim to fame was that he used to sneak into his parents’ room and hide under the bed while they had sex. Gross. It was gross then. Still gross now.

Darryl Ryan also had a penchant for Doritos. If he was lucky enough to find them in his lunch sack, he’d stand-up and do a wildly awkward dance, complete with spin moves, while singing the latest Doritos jingle:

“DEFINITELY DO-RITOS!! D-D-D-DORITOOOS!! Hi-five! Hand jive! That’s it, don’t quit,
Do-riiiiiiitooooos!!!”

That kid was no Ben Kowalski though. Ole’ B.K. used to keep a film cannister full of boogers and eraser bits on his person at all times. Once he had all of his boogers and bits lined up on his desk, ready for “battle”. My friend Jason Carols (who we called “Baydo-C”) walked by, huffed and puffed, and blew them onto the floor. Ben Kowalski, who was thought to be a mute, let out a screech like a half monkey/half piglet being being pelted by throwing darts. He then fell on the floor and began shaking violently. In retrospect, he was probably having a seizure. Either that or he was quite good at faking one.

Bay-do C’s mom used to give me a ride to school in high school before I had a car. Although she sang in the church choir, she had no qualms about letting us listen to 2 Live Crew’s “As Nasty As They Wanna Be” in the van. She seemed quite oblivious to it. I couldn’t imagine how Baydo-C got any pleasure from listening to songs consisting mainly of Miami black men ejaculating in various ways, anal sex, and ejaculating after anal sex, with his mother present. One time, for no reason, she turned to Baydo and, referencing the lyrics of Heavy D, said, “Girls they never like me, I’m the overweight lover Baydo-C!” Me and my friend Karl thought that was enormously funny. Girls didn’t like me either, but at least my mother didn’t point it out in front of my friends while slipping in a fat joke on top of it.

Baydo got away with quite a bit. Out in the open porn mags in his bedroom, pellet guns, cursing, and he had a Brian Bosworth haircut. I think his freedom may have stemmed from this:

In grade school, on the way home from St. Stephen’s Elementary, in the same van, Baydo-C fell out of the front passenger side door of the vehicle. While they were driving. The lock/handle was tricky. And Baydo-C’s mother drove for a full block before she noticed. She had to back up and take her wounded son to the emergency room to have his newly totally fucked up knee tended to. But again, when we heard the story in the next day with our wet and moussey hair freezing to a nice crust in the winter morning air, me and Karl laughed the shat out of ourselves. Me and Karl weren’t cool. We had to take pleasure in other’s pain. Baydo-C was less cool than us. So went the cycle.

After the incident, Baydo-C had to wear a neoprene brace for basketball. I was jealous. It was just like Michael Jordan’s. Never mind that we wore green and gold and his brace was black and red. I always dreamt of hurting my knee bad enough playing sports to wear one. And several times, I’m pretty sure I did. But by then I’d become a Charles Barkley fan and probably relished playing with different sorts of injuries. Kids are dumb. Ever see that free Sports Illustrated NBA highlight VHS with Bird and Magic and Jordan and Barkley and they each have their own little comp with a song playing under as a bed? Charles’ had “Warrior” playing, and there’s that one shot of him shooting free throws with his eye completely swollen shut? I did. I watched it all the time. 76er Barkley weren’t wearing no brace. ‘Course, Phoenix Suns Barkley did. On his elbow. That’s when I stopped watching the NBA.

Definitely Doritos.

06/10/2006
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