We need to get something straight before we start.
 This is a totally false story.

 Well, some of it is, all the illegal parts are false,
 but all the parts that can't get me arrested are true, swear to Koresh.

 Recently (I don't know, time is a blur) I wrote about Fayetteville, AR,
 where Clinton used to teach something - constitutional law, maybe?

 So this Razorback writes me and we did the e-mail thing and he mentions PETE!
 Swear to Koresh, I know Pete. He mentioned his last name, so don't think I'm so dumb
 that I just assumed his Pete was my Pete, but yes, it's the same Pete.
 It's hard to believe he's still alive. You'll find out why in a minute.
 

 This is waaay back, the summer of Watergate - 1973.
 There was a Ken's Pizza near West and Dickson, just across from Roger's Pool Hall.
 The manager, Jerry, wanted go to on vacation really bad, but he couldn't because everyone
 who worked their was, ...we'll say, not Ken's Pizza in Fayetteville management material,
 if you can read between the lines. So I showed up one day, looking for a job, and he said,
 "You're hired. Here's how the place works, I'll be back in two weeks."

  Sidebar:
 The first Saturday I worked there, we got slammed. Hundreds of pizza orders, and hundreds
 of pitchers of beer were being served. The manager told me, "When we get busy like this,
 don't bother to ring it up, just put the money in the cash register."

 ha ha

 Translation: I'm robbing this place blind.

 Once I knew that, I decided I'd be crazy to let him have all the money.
 Soon, I was making an extra $200 tax-free dollars a week, and this was when minimum wage
 was $1.60 an hour.   (Of course, this is one of those false parts.)
 

 So, I'm in charge of a stable of stoned pizza delivery people and a fleet of Datsun cars,
 and trust me, Datsun was real shit 28 years ago. The car was made of aluminum foil.
 One of the stoned pizza delivery drivers was my man Pete!  Pete had done more drugs
 by the time I'd met him in 1973 than everyone who's reading this now has done in their lives.
 Pete was an experienced drug-user.   Pete ate LSD to study with if he couldn't find any speed.
 (That's true.)

 So, one day a dealer friend of his dropped by.
(This is the part I'm swear to Koresh making up, just to enhance a boring story)
 This dealer says he has a hundred lot of white crosses for $25.

  Sidebar:
 For you younger kids - a white cross was a  teeny-tiny  dose of speed.
 It was about the size of a punch-hole, and wafer-thin.
 A newbie might eat one to stay up and study for a test or something.
 Note: Speed is a hard drug, and shouldn't be taken lightly, but this was like kiddie speed.
 (Plus, it's just a made-up story)

 Back then, if I remember, a "white cross" went for maybe a dollar each, or 75 cents
 if you got it from a friendly dealer, so this hundred lot for $25 was a steal.

 So, this guy presents Pete, and me, since I had the cash register, with this great deal.
 Pete says I can have half for just $12.50.   Koresh!  That's retail at wholesale prices.
 This wasn't "drug-dealing," this is just buying a $10 case instead of a $5 six pack.
 It just made sense to buy in bulk, ...like shopping at Sam's.
 Don't believe me? As the "President."
 He always bought quarter pounds of pure coke, not $25 "papers" of cut crap.

 So, we make the deal, the guy leaves, and Pete splits the 100 pills in 2 piles.
 He handed me one of the piles and gulped down the other pile.

 No need to hit "refresh" on your computer - that wasn't a misprint.
 Pete ate 50 of those damn things while I stood there with my jaw open.

 Mama Mia...

 Stunned and amazed, I put mine away and he went on a delivery run.
 He calls 20 minutes later - says he's out of gas way the hell out by the VFW, near The Rink.
 So I pull another driver of his delivery route and send him to rescue Pete with a gallon of gas.

 Half an hour later, they both arrive, Rescueboy grabs more pizza and tears out the door
 and hops into one of the Datsun fleet of delivery cars, trying to make some money.

 Then there was Pete.
 Pete was maintaining, because for Pete, sober is dangerous.
 So Pete grabs a stack of hot pizzas and heads out the door.

 He calls 15 minutes later - he's out of gas - again.
 He forgot to get gas, and only had that one gallon, so here we go again,
 pulling another driver off his route to go rescue Pete - again.

 30 minutes later they gets back, Rescueboy Two grabs a stack of hot pizza
 and heads out, but Pete grabbed me and pulled me to the side.

 "Bart, that speed's not working. Can I buy yours?"

 ha ha

 You think I'm lying?
 No - wait, I am lying, remember?
 This is the pretend part, the Maureen Dowd part of the story...

 So Pete says, "I'll give you $25 for your half. You should help me out,
 since it's double your money and the stuff isn't that good, anyway."

 He kept pestering me until I agreed.
 (You know how those people can pester...)
 I handed him my bag of 50, ...and he gulped them down.

 I, ...I, ...I, ...

 I don't know why it was such a surpise, but I was shocked again.

 So Pete grabs a stack of hot pizzas and runs for the door.
 I said, "Pete, would you get some goddamn gas this time?"

 Pete screams, "Sure Bart. No problem."

 Pete jumps into his little white Datsun (I think it was a 220 model)
 and saw he was too close to the car in front of him, so Pete threw it in "R"
 and ran into the little Datsun 220 behind him.

 BAM!

 Sensing trouble, I opened the door and yelled "Pete!"

 Pete yelled, "I'm sorry," then put it in "D" and rammed the little Datsun in front of him.

 BAM!

 I screamed louder. "Pete!"

 Pete screamed, "Sorry" and sped off with the stack of hot pizzas.
 I had no idea he was that high, even tho I saw him pull a Robbie Knevil with a handful of hard drugs.
 (You think I'm stupid now? You should've known me 28 years ago.)

 So I have this moral dilemma, and this was before Laura the Unloved was available.
 Madman Pete clearly needed to be off the road, and I hoped he'd agree to that without me
 having to intervention his ass in a Friday night pizza parlor with four other high drivers.
 Before he had a chance to run out of gas a third time, Pete came back and told me,

"My stomach started hurting,  so I dropped by Dickson Street Liquors
  and chugged a pint of gin, and now my stomach really hurts,  so can I go home?"

 See?
 There is a God.
 Besides the owner's cars, nothing really got hurt that night.
 

  Sidebar:
 I really like telling old (fake) stories.
 That crack-whore/boxer story was fun to re-live.
 There was no chance I could get hurt re-living that, so it was fun.
 No chance of getting hurt, or seeing a friend hurt, or having to shoot a man.
 That story was real, but, this drug-dealing Pete story is just another false memory.

 Speaking of false memories, remind me to tell you about the Ken's Pizza owner, who's name is
 Glenn and drove a white Rivera, and who was bangin' some broad that Don Tyson put up in a
 swanky apartment a few blocks from the pizza parlor, at the corner of West street and the
 Chi-Omega house.  Yeah, those apartments right there with the white Corinthian pillars..

 ha ha

 That scumbag Glenn was rifling Tyson's paid-for honeybabe and he'd call his restaurant and order
 pizza to be delivered to her chicken-financed apartment, and then the son of a bitch would insist I,
 the acting manager, deliver the order personally, just so he could come to the door in his Hef-robe
 and bitch at me about how the pizza didn't have enough cheese!

 Hey, sorry about that, Glenn, but my portion-control commandant is real strict!

 Hey, Glenn, if I could remember your last name, I'd bust you, Dude!

 Oh, the old stories, ...there are hundreds...

===

 Last thing, if we get into the old stories, I should tell about the three road trips we look
 to St.Louis and OKC and Birmingham to see Jimmy Page and his band of zeppelins.
 ...and the time in Muskogee Oklahoma, when Robert Plant looked at me and said,
 "Where do I know you from?"

 ha ha

 Did we pull out all stops for Zeppelin/Page/Plant shows?
 Does the Pope have lips?

 Koresh, when you look up "decadent" in the dictionary, it says,
 see http://www.bartcop.com/ledtrips.htm,
 so I should work on putting those stories in print.

 Of course, those stories will be filled with mostly lies, too, because nobody
 would combine LSD, hash, TCH and alcohol for a concert, right?
 

 But, in closing (applause...) can you believe Pete is still alive?
 Way back in 1973, Pete was a druggie madman, and he's still kicking twenty eight years later.