The Rough Drafts Writing Blog

“Did I ever tell you the story about Paul and the steamroller?”
Ted let out a low chuckle and replied: “Paul? Steamroller? No, I don’t think so. Did you know a guy named Paul that got flattened by a steamroller?”
“No smart-ass, that was Bugs Bunny. It wasn’t that kind of steamroller.”
“OOOK then.”
“Anyway … when I was sixteen my friends and I all hung out with this guy named Weirds; Uncle Weirds actually. His name was actually Dave. Being a weird guy, the name just came. Even my friends’ parents called him Weirds. It was his thing. He was Uncle Weirds to us because he was my friend’s uncle.”
Ted laughed to himself and smiled because he knew this was going to be another of Tom’s stories. Tom was always able to amaze Ted with crazy stories from his life.
“Weirds was a really great guy once you got to know him, but it was easy to see how he earned the nickname. He was very slight. He was easily less than five feet tall and I’d be surprised if he weighed 125 pounds. He was always drunk. He was prone to falling on the floor after removing his pants for no discernable reason.”
Ted was laughing really hard. “You’ve got to be making some of this up.”
Tom looked him right in the eye. “I’m not making it up AND I’m not done yet.”
Tears were running from Ted’s eyes.
“The pants thing? It happened to me once. He fell on the floor, dick in the wind of course, and looked at me and said ‘Woah … look what I done now.’ He was shit-faced. It was like eleven in the morning. As I said before, there was more. He had a giant porn ‘stache. Really … it would’ve put anyone from the ‘70s to shame. He had a voice that sounded like seventy-one kittens being drowned in a bag while it was being hit with a bat. He sharply mewled more than spoke. The other thing about his voice that was weird was the cadence of it. His words would seem to get lost on their way out of his mouth sometimes. It was like they were too drunk to float out or something.”

Ted was grinning ear to ear. He loved the story.

“He used to call me at like eight in the morning occasionally to drive him to work … because he was too drunk to drive. Now if that’s not weird enough for you, just imagine how my parents felt. Their sixteen year old son was getting early morning calls from a piss drunk forty-five year old man. Yeah, that was pleasant to deal with.”
“I’ve heard so many crazy stories from you that I’d almost imagine that they’d expect it.”
“Yeah, I’ve had an interesting life. Yes, let’s say interesting.”
“So what about Paul and the steamroller?”
“You have so little faith in me. I’m getting there. I had to set the scene.”
“Sorry.”
“No problem. OK, so anyway, my friends and I hang out with a forty-five year old wino basically. We used to go over to his house all the time. We’d drink (obviously), get high, listen to music – that sort of thing.”
“He got high with you too?”
“You’re honestly surprised by that? Jesus man, what story have you been listening to?”
“Well I thought that maybe….” Ted trailed off. He’d been dumb. He knew it.
Tom went on. “So one day we decide to go over to his house at lunchtime. We used to get out for lunch every day because the school that we went to didn’t have a cafeteria.”
“ I forget sometimes how small the school you went to was.”
“It was pretty crazy. We shared books.”
“You did not!”
“Yeah, you’re right. We didn’t. It was a really small school though.”
“So anyway … Mr. Distraction … we went to Weirds at lunch because we had weed and wanted to smoke it. We climb the stairs and knock on the door. We hear someone inside cough. Weirds voice breaks the silence. He softly mewls ‘come in.’ I walk in the door first and see Weirds sitting on the couch. He smiles at us and turns the stereo back up.”
“What was he listening to?”
“Marley, of course. Look man, you don’t get to be that weird by being afraid of clichés.”
“Yeah, I should’ve known.”
“I look over at the other couch and recognize the guy sitting on it. He’s holding his breath. I can tell that they were getting high when we knocked on the door. It was so funny, it was like he thought that he could hold his breath until we left or something. Weirds slapped him on the back when he started turning purple.”
“Who was it?”
“It was this guy Paul that I’d known since I was in the third grade. The amusing part though is how I knew him. He was my little league coach. “
“No shit? You caught your little league coach getting high?”
“Oh the story isn’t over yet. It gets a bit more bizarre. Paul was an odd character. I have no idea how anyone decided to leave this man in charge of a group of young kids. First of all, he didn’t have a kid on the team. He just coached for the fuck of it. He’d been doing it for a while. Hell, he’s probably still coaching. Secondly, he invented a kind of uniform for himself. He always wore shorts. I never saw him in pants once. That’s not that weird right? Yeah but, they were silk Richard Simmons style booty shorts. Very fucking bizarre. His balls would fall out like three times each practice. One of us would say “hey Paul, your balls are hanging out” and he’d just yell “thanks” and tuck himself back in.”
“Wait, your coach’s balls were constantly hanging out?”
“Yes, Terrible Listener, they were. But back to what I was saying… he wore sunglasses ALWAYS. Sunrise or sunset, Paul was rocking the shades. He also wore our team’s hat EVERYWHERE. You could see him going into the bar in the dead of winter (in booty shorts of course) and he’d have the hat cocked oddly to an angle on the top of his head. There may have been a bulb that lit up over my head as I saw him exhale the smoke. It all suddenly made sense. Paul was high all the time. Feeling relieved, I finally smiled.”

Tom paused for a second. He was waiting for the anticipation to fill well up to Ted’s eyes. It always did. Seeing it, he moved on.

“So Weirds asks me if I’ve brought my steamroller.“
“What’s a steamroller?”
“A steamroller is similar to a bong, but there’s no water and typically it’s a straight pipe.”
“Oh. I’ve seen those before.”
“Yeah, I had a feeling you would’ve Hunter S. Thompson.”
“Whatever dude.”
“I’m just busting your balls. Ok, back to the story. I turned to Weirds and said: ‘of course I did.’ Paul got this really sad look in his eyes. I watched his heart break… or it seemed that way until he realized that we could match him.”
“You smoked pot with your little league coach?”
“Of course I did dude. He had really good shit.”