WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE

THE BEETLE MAN

Based on a true story....

Some background information:

This happened way back in 1983, the year after I graduated high school. I'd hitchhiked south to Florida with the goal of becoming a beach bum-ette until I got tired of it. Anyway, I had shacked up with several guys until I ended up with BJ. BJ was in his thirties, was drunk all the time, and was a huge asshole. He would constantly try to start fights with people and it followed the exact same progression each time:

1) He'd piss off someone by generally being a drunk asshole.
2) If the person stood up to him, he'd bait them by calling them some variation of " motherfucker". Fat motherfucker, skinny motherfucker, ugly motherfucker, *insert racist slur here* motherfucker, etc.
3) He'd tell them they didn't want to get hurt and/or they didn't know who they were messing with.
4) He'd call their penis a "little wee-wee."

He did this literally every day I was with him, sometimes more than once. No one ever rose to his bait, though. They all just walked away from him without a word, except some of them would call him out for being a drunk. I guess he thought he was intimidating even though he was only about five-foot-seven and didn't have big muscles or look tough in any way. He just looked like a guy who was drunk all the time. He also hadn't been in the military or anything that I knew of to get training or experience, so I never knew why he thought he could win any of the fights he tried to start.

You might be asking why I had ever hooked up with this guy. Well, looking back, I don't know. He was nice at first until he "had" me, then he showed his true colors. I could have left then, so why didn't I? All I can figure is that he let me stay at his house and gave me alcohol, so that was good enough. I guess I was too naive at the time to realize how bad of a situation I was in. And maybe, well, maybe I was arrogant. Maybe I needed to prove to myself that a man like that couldn't get the better of me. Maybe I was just a stupid teenager.

Now that you know the particulars of my situation, this is the story:

After a while, I decided I was tired of Florida and it was time to go home. BJ wanted to drive me. I told him no because I didn't want him to know where I was from. All that he knew was that I was from Knoxville, Tennessee and I thought even that was too much. I was going to take a bus, and had managed to scrape up and hide just enough money for a ticket. BJ didn't like that but what could he do? Well, turns out he knew where I was hiding the money and had stolen it. He pulled it out of his wallet and waved it in my face, laughing. He left to go buy booze with my money and I just laid on the couch, crying. He got back late in the evening with several cases of beer and some bottles of Jack for the "road trip".

Feeling like I didn't have a choice now, I let BJ drive us in his old Nova. It actually did have cool paint with one of those flame-jobs people used to do all the time. He talked about the thing like it was some awesome muscle car but it wasn't. I'm not even sure it was a V8, I remember it didn't sound like one. I know for sure the power steering didn't work because he told me it ran out of fluid and he was so drunk when he tried to fix it, he filled the reservoir with beer and ruined the whole steering system. BJ thought that was hilarious.

Anyway, we left a little before dark and he drank non-stop from the moment we left his house. He'd finish a beer, toss the bottle out the window, and tell me to grab him another one from one of the cases in the back. Sparingly at first, then before long in-between every beer, he gulped from one of the whiskey bottles. It was pretty heavy drinking, even for him. After a couple of hours, he was so drunk his eyeballs weren't even both pointing in the same direction. Keep in mind the bastard was driving, and fast! I begged him to pull over or he was going to kill us. He told me no, the only way he'd stop was if I agreed to go back to his house, otherwise he was going non-stop to my parents' front door. He couldn't wait to meet my parents and show them just what kind of man their little girl was with.