My Friend Chris

 

The summer of 1975 was almost completely lost. One of my neighborhood friends’ family left for a two month vacation to Europe, and a few of the neighborhood kids decided to go and use the hidden key to watch television in the den.

Before too long, we were drinking all the liquor in the father‘s liquor cabinet, and then we started cooking the steaks in the freezer, and then some girl started coming over, and then we eventually made it upstairs to the bedrooms, and then we found the keys to the father’s E-Type Jaguar, and on and on. Because I didn’t have a car of my own, this basically became my car to use for the summer.

When the family finally came home, about fifteen of us, along with our fathers, were called in to a meeting and presented with a list of damages valued at $30,000. My friend’s father said that he could either call the police and file a report for breaking and entering, or he would accept a check for $2000 from each of the fifteen dads. 

At that moment, all the fathers simultaneously took out their checkbooks and started writing, but it was my dad that said, “Hold on a minute. If we start writing checks right now to get our boys out of trouble, we might as well be writing checks for the rest of their lives. My kid is gonna get a job and work off his $2000 debt, if that’s something Mr. Mott would agree to.”

One by one, all of the dads kept writing their checks, handed them over to Mr. Mott, took theirs sons and left. At the end, I stood standing there with my dad and I pleaded, “Come on, man, just write the check!” My dad looked at Mr. Mott and said, “I guess you’ll have to call the police” and then he turned around and left. 

I burst into tears as I sat there with Mr. Mott. He looked at me and he said, “Son, I expect you to get a job and pay me for this.” I promised I would, and I got a job. Each time I got paid, I would bring the paycheck over to the Mott‘s house, knock on the back door, sign the back of my check and hand it over to Mr. Mott. It took months to raise $2000.

The fact is, I really, really liked my friend Chris, and the entire Mott family.  I was glad Mr. Mott gave me a chance to pay off the debt. He very easily could’ve gone the other way, but he gave me that second chance. Even though I made my amends to my friend Chris, I still feel guilty for what I did but, thank God, today I’m no longer that person.