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Date Posted: 13:40:09 09/08/01 Sat
Author: GhostDog
Subject: Gallagher's Pit

There were a few different places we went when we were underage drinkers.
We fell in love with them and lived in them like homes.
But the funny part is that they were all outdoors.
We would find places where a dirt road led into a woods and
We'd follow two overgrown tire tracks through a field and hope for a spot to lay for the night.
One of those places was called "Gallagher's", not because there was a sign there
But because the kid who started throwing parties there was named Gallagher.
After a while, Gallagher wasn't really welcome at his own spot becuase we liked it but not him.
It was a clearing in a woods behind a housing tract out in the country where we lived.
Nothing really there...except shelter and the lack of authority.
There were tall trees all around us and the foliage would hide us from the people who drove down their road to get home.
They called the cops on us all the time for being there but we never stopped going.
Most party people would show up on the weekend but we were there all week long.
We'd divide up our nights between Gallagher's and Evan's Road.
We had all just graduated from high school then and we didn't have real jobs.
We'd smoke bongs and roll joints listening to Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Blind Melon like we were at church.
Some of us would climb those big trees and smoke a joint and then let go.
I remember the feeling of letting go of the branches so fondly.
You could fall right though the tree branches and come to rest on the ground and not get hurt.
We'd leap away from the branch and see what happened.
Just saying it sounds so dangerous and stupid but that's what we were.
We'd build a fire at night and everyone would gather around it and throw their bottles and cans in to watch them melt.
Someone would always show up with a truck bed full of tires and we'd burn 'em.
That's what usually drew the cops.
Once those tires caught fire they would spit black sparks and the flames were more bright and intense than any good natured fire needs to be.
Giant cumulous clouds of soot and poison would billow up through the trees and fill the air.
We'd joke about how we were destroying the earth and how it wouldn't matter to us because we'd be dead before it could affect us.
We thought we'd be dead before we were held responsible for anything we were doing.
I remember staring up at the clouds one night as I lay out in the adjacent field and thinking that there could be nothing better than this.
I never wanted to leave there.
Soon enough our circle was slowing down thought and I was still making my nightly ventures out into the cold.
I'd drag someone with me if I could convince them it was going to be fun.
Eventually I was going by myself, half from boredom and half from habit.
I remember one Sunday afternoon I was out there by myself on a beautiful sunny day.
I borrowed my mom's car to go to the store and I stopped off at Gallagher's on the way.
I had gotten a 12-pack and I was sitting on the hood of my car drinking it...all of it.
I began to feel very depressed about the state I was in.
My girlfriend had left me and gone to college and I felt like I had nothing to live for.
I began to climb the tall tree and all I could think was that I was going to jump farther than I ever had before.
I had half a joint to smoke when I got to the top and I perched myself up there and smoked the hell out of it.
I rehearsed a note I should've written and made all the proper speeches one should make before leaving forever.
I sat there and took in the view and felt as though nothing could hurt me in this tree.
But I knew I couldn't just live my life in the goddamn thing, someone would eventually chop it down and want to build a house there.
As I sat there muddled in my stoned pontification, I could see a car starting to make it's way down the winding dirt path leading to me.
It was a few friends of mine that had come looking for me.
I heard them singing with the music and yelling my name when they spotted my car.
I felt overwhelmed for some reason, I felt so loved by these people who are all strangers to me now.
I was so lost in thought that I forgot why I was in the tree at all.
I couldn't believe that I had climbed it with such morbid intentions.
I could feel the sunlight on the top of my head and I felt warm, a warmth that I needed so desperately.
They parked and yelled up to me and they were just laughing at me for being up in this tree when no one was around.
I didn't know how to explain it so I didn't.
I never talked about it with any of them or any one else because it didn't fit.
I wasn't someone who would do that to himself...and clearly I didn't.
But it seemed that everytime I almost took that step someone would find me.
I'm glad my friends found me that day or I wouldn't be alive to bore you to death with this.

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