Halloween 1999 was on a Saturday, which meant the college town of Isla Vista would be going crazy. Isla Vista is an approximate 1 mile square area with about 20,000 college age kids on an average weekend. But during Halloween, the population would double with young adults from all over the state, all looking to get high, drunk and hopefully laid. I myself, was no exception, except I lived there, so I lived this every day.
I bought a bottle of Belvedere Vodka to celebrate my favorite holiday, Halloween! The celebration of fall harvest. I also had a little weed, but I always had at least a little. The night started early, probably around 2pm, when Shaun Brimicomb showed up at my buddy Dave Dickie's apartment. Dave lived one small block north of me. It would only take about 2 or 3 minutes to walk to his apartment from mine. We hung out for a while, drinking beers, smoking weed, listening to music and playing foosball. We were expecting more people to arrive. I didn't know who exactly, but I heard Steve Randolph and George Alvarado would probably show. Nor did I, or we have any plans for the night. I was expecting we would be getting wasted and going to any of the 100 or so simultaneous parties that night.
After a couple hours of getting wasted, probably around 4 or 5pm, Shaun and I walked over to my apartment to get something. What, I don't remember, but odds are it was more weed. On the way, on the street corner, adjacent to Dave's apartment I couldn't help but notice a box of spent shotgun shells had been dumped in the middle of the intersection. Dave lived pretty close to the geographic center of I.V., so it seemed someone was making a statement, or a threat, against what or who, I didn't notice or care. Being one for souvenirs, I picked up 2 or 3 of the spent shells and left them on the dresser in my room. We hung out at my apartment for close to an hour. That's how it is when you're wasted. You get easily distracted and we ended up taking more bong hits and hanging with my roommates than we initially planned to.
We got back to Dave's; Steve, George, Ryan Driscoll and two big guys from Saint Francis High School whom I never met were there. George was a Mexican with a shaved head, somewhat short but tough as hell. Ryan was tall, and sorta suave. I saw him get into a fight in high school over a girl and break a blood vessel in the other guy's eye. However, he ended up going out with the most annoying girl, and short, which made them look awkward together, for the longest time. Steve was an interesting character. He also was short, but he had a big mouth, yet was somewhat timid about fighting. We had words at one point in high school, but we both declined to fight in the back alley of school.
We broke out the Belvedere Vodka almost immediately and started taking shots and drinking beers. I was pretty wasted at sunset. But I had been drinking beers and smoking pot all day. So by the time the night began at 2pm, I would not have been able to safely drive. A few weeks earlier, I heard from one of my friends named Shaun Ryan, that he caught Steve at the gas station and beat his ass. I thought this was hilarious because I knocked Shaun out when I was a junior in high school. We were all in the same gang in high school, 88. Me, Steve, George, Ryan and about 5 or 6 other people used to roll to parties in high school and hit on girls and start fights. And we were always fighting in some form amongst ourselves. High school was a real cluster fuck.
So once I started to get pumped up for the night, I began taunting Steve, "I heard Shaun fucked you up!" I could see Steve getting madder and madder, and I was laughing harder and harder.
I was having fun. I was so relieved after high school that I got accepted to UC Santa Barbara. I was able to move 2 hours northwest of where I grew up, Sierra Madre, just east of Pasadena. My old friends from high school neglected to realize that I made a series of new friends in Santa Barbara and their sole purpose to me anymore, was merely humor.
At some point during the night, early, before 10pm. 2 girls from Santa Cruz and some hippy showed up at Dave's. The girls were cute, so my attention was no longer about teasing Steve, and now about getting to know these girls. We took more shots of the Belvedere and the rest of the crew was no longer paying any attention to me. The girls and I smoked a few bowls in private outside and we seemed to be getting along quite well. I didn't even know if they knew Dave or anybody else at this point. I started thinking that maybe they came down from Santa Cruz and Steve and his friends came up from Pasadena so they could meet for some kind of major pot deal. I didn't really care though. I was there to have fun, make friends and possibly hook up.
