gardiac

i have a short story to tell, but to tell any great story there must be character development. introducing the major players in the creation of my antisocial personality (in no particular order!) :

jerry aka souldragon - his house was the main meeting point for hundreds of tabletop roleplaying sessions, all night video-gaming, and other such activities. he always found humor even in the most fucked up situations we got into.

steve aka deathtrodder - had the cool parents, the ones you always wished you had. they didnt mind us being loud late at night, never questioned our bizarre personalities, and sometimes even joined in with us for some fun. also had the least 'normal' personality of us. he listened to strange music, had strange ideas, and GM'd many a role-playing session.

aaron aka rat - was always able to think ideas through to the end. he was a planner and organizer. he also introduced me to castlevania symphony of the night, for which i will always be grateful.

matt aka chainsaw - the musician amongst us, he was also a planner, but of a more diabolic type. he led us through many a real-life adventure, especially car related ones. the personality i can most sympathize with.

brian aka skydreamer - introduced me to previously unheard of music, techno. had the largest station wagon on earth, the dragonwagon. with so many main characters, we needed a large vehicle and he was happy to provide.

erik aka lizard - sadly, i have known this fool since before kindergarten. he was the jester of our group, the klutz, the butt of all jokes, the source of much amusement even to this day.

jason aka gardiac - me!

the seven of us together created what we called the 'murphy club' a long time ago. like 15 years ago. all nicknames were derived from our role-playing sessions, usually involving frequently chosen character names. it is not uncommon to hear 'hey i talked to rat this weekend' even now. this is the core group.

there are other sub-members as well including jess, jim, dave, tony, and mike, most of which have no importance in this story.

so the story begins...

10 years ago today, the 7th of april (a saturday that year, and also easter weekend). many activities happened that day, but the main story starts later that night. after much galavanting around, a few members of the murphy club gathered at a house (which one is unimportant). we were bored with everything, it was cold out, and threatening to snow. what better night than this to scale the mountain to the radio towers!

back home in mountaintop (hahah what a fucking stupid name for a town), the radio towers were something you always saw. we were at a decent elevation already, and there were many peaks around us that made perfect spots for these metal monsters. i had always wondered how the hell you got up to them. the crew had decided to find out exactly how. we knew a great starting point : a cluster of houses at the base of the peak which provided ample parking.

from my feeble recollection our group that night consisted of : steve, aaron, matt, erik, jess, brian, and jerry. erik was back on leave from the coast guard where he was stationed in HI. needless to say, he was freezing his ass off as soon as he stepped off the plane.

the trip to the tower was actually quite fast. i believe it only took us 15 or so minutes to get up there honestly. it was starting to get really cold at this point, more so than the past few nights. the view was great, but not the best. what we did find, was a trail leading into the woods, headed in the general direction of the next nearest radio tower. from our really, really, really bad guesstimations, it was only a 2-3 mile walk. we decided the view would be better from this other tower. we left immediatly.

a long time later, still trudging through the woods, it decided to start snowing. not heavy at first, but building up considerably on the cold ground. we had spent at least an hour or two in the woods at this point, and logic seemed to indicate we would be best off to try and get to the next tower (assuming houses would be nearby with phones to call for a ride). erik was turning into a popsicle, so someone traded their coat for his flimsy jacket. i believe it was me because i never used to get cold, no matter the conditions.

after arriving at the 2nd tower, we realized what a mistake we had made. we could see a main road some distance away, but it didnt seem populated. what would we do? go back through the snow and woods to the original tower, many hours away? go to the road a short walk away, and hope to find a passing car or gas station? the logical ones in the group (yes, the same ones that made the original decision to travel to tower 2) decided the road was the better idea. we had no idea how far we had gone, time passed quickly with so many people chatting it up, and we thought we were still near mountaintop.

once we got to the road, we picked a random direction, literally determined by a coin toss. heading off this way we started seeing houses, none of which looked inviting enough for a group of misfits to inquire about phone privileges. we ran across a building with a clock on it. 1am on sunday. yuck, i had work at the gas station in the morning as i was one of only 2 employees without a wife and kids. we still didnt know exactly where we had ended up so we kept traveling down the road. eventually matt realized we could simply start looking in mailboxes for a street address to at least get our location. bear creek.

bear creek? fucking bear fucking creek? how the hell did we end up there? traveling on roads, from mountaintop to bear creek, is about a 30 minute trip going 60+mph. we were thoroughly confused as to how we got to this place. another decision was made to head in the direction the house numbers DECREASED. about 2 hours later, we finally saw something we were all familiar with...the turnpike. it sank into my head at this point just how late i was going to be for work. little did i know, this was also the weekend were you change your clocks, making it already an hour later than we thought.

there was a brief respite at this area as aaron went to the turnpike booth to take a shit. once he returned, we got back on the road and went the only sane direction left to us, towards wilkes-barre. at least we knew where to go this time. we anticipated an hour walk to the hospital, a phone call, and a ride fucking home from steve's previously mentioned parents.

what we got was a much longer walk (it seems so short driving it!) during which a car full of random people our age stopped to ask if we were ok. a bottle of iced tea was given to us in trade for some of erik's cigarettes. now we at least had a drink! after arriving at the hospital, and placing a phone call, we waited. steve's mom showed up around 8am from what i recall. she had donuts, bagels, hot coffee and chocolate, and a van full of wet, dirty, frozen murphy's.

once we got back to mountaintop, i changed and headed off to work where i PROMPTLY fell asleep sitting up in a chair for 3 hours. this was an old gas station, and as such, our only indoor area was a small booth about 10 feet on a side that contained a chair, our register, and a kerosene heater. yes, thats right, an open flame heater at a gas station. it was easter morning and noone was on the road. my partner that day handled cars for those 3 hours and then the fucker woke me up and told me i needed to work while he thawed out. hours later, instead of easter dinner, i had easter MUCH NEEDED SLEEP.


i decided to actually give people something to read. my entries are always so small and boring. i wish i had pictures to share of this trip, but this was before cheap digital cameras reared their heads, and none of us thought we would be gone long anyways.

have a good weekend, and remember, the next tower is always farther away than you think.