Back in 1970, my social life was better much split between Brunswick and Chippewa. That led me to an unfortunate situation that no high school boy wants to find himself in.
I found myself hopelessly infatuated with two girls in two different cities at the same time. Two girls that had boyfriends and that “just wanted to be friends”.
Let me be safe here and refer to them as simply BB and JB.
As I said, BB and JB both had boyfriends, boyfriends they complained about. .
I must be been one of those guys that comes across as safe or something, because both of them felt perfectly comfortably complaining about their boyfriends to. We were friends, so I listened to them.
It drove me insane. Really. BB and JB were very attractive young women. Both were smart and funny and fun to be with. I’d have a great time with them.
And then they went out with their boyfriends.
And then they would come to me to complain about how selfish or inconsiderate or whatever those boyfriends were.
During the spring of 1970, somehow JB’s then current boyfriend got the idea I was sleeping with her. He wasn’t.
Although I really liked the idea, I wasn’t.
First I started hearing that the rumor was going around. Everyone I knew were sure it was just a rumor. I thought it was funny, in a sad sort of way.
Then I started to hear that JB’s boyfriend, let’s call him Frank (because I can’t remember his real name), was looking for me.
After a few weeks it was that Frank was really looking for me. I was f***ing his girlfriend and he was going to kick my ass.
I’d never even met Frank. JB’s previous boyfriends didn’t like me, but they knew threatened to beat me up.
It started getting ridiculous. I’d go to a party and hear “Frank was here, man, He’s after you.”. I’d be leaving a party and hear, “Man, good thing you’re leaving. Frank’s on his way.”
This went on for months. There were a few times I was somewhere and KNOW he was there. He never found me.
I wasn’t a fighter, so I wasn’t looking to find him. I wasn’t hiding from Frank, but I wasn’t going to looking for him, especially since I never met him.
Finally, during the summer of 1970, I was walking down the road in beautiful downtown Brunswick, a car pulls up in front of me into a gravel driveway/parking lot. A lot of noise and flying gravel. Quite the impressive entrance.
Out of the jumps this little greaser.
Now, those of you reading this that grew up in Brunswick know what a greaser was, or at least what they’d become by 1970. From those of you from Cloverleaf (or from some other part of my history), greasers had been the tough guys in the mid-60’s in Brunswick. They weren’t of any particular ethnic groups, unlike the gangs up in Cleveland, but they were as close to a gang as we had. By 1970, however, weed had come to Medina County and the toughest of the greasers had become bikers. That were left were guys like Frank.
Frank was all of five foot six and weighed maybe 125.
Frank jumped up on the hood of his car and yelled, “HEY, BALOG, I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU.”
I decided I may as well go see him. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.
“So, Frank, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, as he pulled out a cigarette. “Got a light?”
“Sure.”
I told him that I’d heard he was looking for me and wanted to know why.
He said I was lucky he hadn’t found me earlier. He was going to mess me up for banging his woman.
I started to tell him I’d never done it when he cut me off.
“But I left that b*tch, so we’re cool.”
I wish there was a moral or a lesson to that story, but there’s not. I wish there was some ironic twist to it, like JB and I ended up in some glorious romance, but it didn’t.
Oh, yeah. I forgot, real life doesn’t come with those.