Innocence Lost

Two houses down from me lived a man named Nick. Nick was close to twenty years older than me and my friends. He was married, and had two children at the time. Nick went to church every Sunday. He let us play football in his yard and would play quarterback for us. Nick was a good guy to us and a father figure to more than one of us.

When my friends and I started getting old enough to ask neighbors for odd jobs so that we could have some pocket money, Nick saw an opportunity to help us out. Nick was in route sales for a major potato chip distributor. Which is a fancy way of saying that he delivered chips to grocery stores in the area. He offered me and a couple of my friends, Ben and Higgs, the chance to earn eight bucks an hour working with him. It was a windfall for us. There was no way we could turn it down.

It started during the school year on Saturdays. He would pick us up at four in the morning, we would pick up product at the warehouse, and delivery it to the grocery stores. We would usually be done by noon every day. Nick would buy us breakfast and lunch, and he often took us bowling after work. He would deduct the cost of those things from our pay. We didn't mind because we probably would have used the money to eat and go bowling anyway.

When summer rolled around, we began working with Nick more often. I was there almost every day and worked hard. I was making a good bit of money, and used it for books, bowling, the movies, cigarettes, and whatever else I could get away with.

After a couple of months of working with Nick, we stopped at a beer store one day. This wasn't unusual. It was one of his "cash stops". Instead of an account with the distributor, they would pay him cash for the product that he brought in. It's where he got most, if not all, of the cash he paid us with. This time, however, he took his mini cooler in with him. I stayed outside to smoke because I wasn't allowed in the beer store. I was barely allowed in the grocery stores to work because I was so young. Nick came back out and we went on our way.

At the end of the day, Nick says, "Hey, I got something for you in the cooler."

I took a look in it and saw four wine coolers sitting in ice. I closed it and asked him to take me home.

Nick took me home. I only told the couple of friends that worked with Nick about it. They thought it was the coolest thing ever. They saw it as an opportunity, and there were mad at me for refusing to drink it. You see, after he dropped me off, Nick didn't come around anymore. He had already moved to an apartment across town, and he stopped returning our calls. I assume he was afraid that I had told my mom, and that he was going to be in some trouble. My friends were afraid that the opportunity had been lost.

Eventually, one of my friends got in touch with Nick. We convinced him that we hadn't told anyone, and we wanted to work again. The next time he showed up, all three of us were waiting for him. Ben was on a mission; he wanted to drink some alcohol. Higgs was just a follower; whoever he talked to last had the most power over him, and that was Ben today. I was really confused and didn't know what to think or expect.

After work that day, Ben spoke up and asked Nick to buy us some wine coolers. Nick gave me a sideways glance and asked if we were sure. Ben and Higgs were sure, but I wasn't sure. I said I was, but I really just didn't know anything about alcohol. Nick agreed and bought some wine coolers. Now, at the time, he only needed to by a four pack as that was all that was needed to get a few thirteen year old first timers a little too tipsy. Nick realized that he wasn't going to be able to do this after work anymore; he couldn't take us home drunk.

It turned into a thing where we would stay the weekends at his house under the pretense of getting an early start in the mornings, and he would bring us home on Sunday afternoons. So our Friday & Saturday night benders began at the age of thirteen or fourteen.

As you can imagine, that time of my life is a little blurry. I began drinking pretty regularly. I didn't go to school drunk, but some of my friends did. I didn't drink at home, but I did at my friend's homes when their parents were out.

It went from drinking a few wine coolers to drinking Mad Dog 20/20 and Magnum 44 beer. Eventually we were making milk shakes and spiking them with vodka and/or rum from a parent's liquor cabinet. This went on for a couple of years, I think. It was a big blur.

Nick never did anything to any of us other than supply us with alcohol. It wasn't a good thing for him to do, but he NEVER did anything else. All of this activity, however, opened me up to a new world around me. Because of the alcohol I didn't always make the right choices.

I guess my point is that parents need to really know the people their children are around. Just knowing that a person attends church and has a family doesn't mean that hes's a great person for your children to be around. This doesn't mean that you should shelter them from everyone and never let them be themselves, it means that you need to spend time in their home, have their family spend time in yours, and really learn who your children are with. I turned out OK, I think. But I know many that didn't.

We lose some of our innocence too soon when parents don't watch out for us properly.