Gus, zeez, crank and bedlam

Gus Otto was handsome, exotic, dear-hearted and shady as fuck. He was sinewy, every muscle defined like a gymnast, and his reddish-blonde hair either hung down over his shoulders in corkscrew curls, or was pulled back in cornrow braids. He wore jewelry and earrings fearlessly in a small town in the early 1980s. Some forty-odd years ago, Gus's style was sometimes interpreted as queer but, I can assure you, Gus was as hetero as they come. In fact, he was a spectacularly successful hetero as evidenced by Ellen, his wife at the time, who was of Japanese and Cherokee heritage, astoundingly gorgeous, and worked as a stripper. She too was dear-hearted and shady as fuck.

Never have I formed a friendship more quickly or under more delightful circumstances than I did with Gus. He and I were enthusiasts of freestyle frisbee (the underground sport of trick throws and catches). In the fall of 1980, Gus came out of Quillan's Grocery, near the University of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, and spotted me playing freestyle in a park across the street. He pulled up on my friend and me and asked if he could join in.

We were reluctant since casual players generally can't throw a frisbee in the unique way needed for freestyle. It's not a throw that travels far or accurately, it's a throw that spins as quickly possible. This rapid rotation is something that players of my generation called "zeez," and zeez helped players control an essential aspect of freestyle known as the "nail delay," something like the guy at the circus spinning plates on poles.

Concerns aside, my buddy and I agreed and Gus joined us. Jesus H Christ, the first throw from Gus to me was a revelation. Never before or since have I encountered more zeez. With all those zeez I was able to perform my most elaborate tricks. With my return-throw zeez, Gus busted out his finest moves. And with two throws and catches of a frisbee a storied friendship began.

Gus and Ellen lived in a battered, rented house near the university. They shared the house with two children, a sweet, shy boy aged about ten, and a younger boy aged four or five. The older boy, whose name is lost to me, was Ellen's son from an earlier relationship. The younger boy, Micah, was Ellen's son with Gus.

Their neighbors were mostly loud college students living in other battered, rented houses in the battered, rental neighborhood. Gus was also a student at the university, on the GI bill after his stint in the navy. It was Ellen's work as a dancer that kept food on the table.

I loved the Ottos, but I couldn't help imagining that the children's early life experiences, so complex in comparison to mine, would be a hinderance to them in the future. With frat-boy neighbors, the comings-and-goings in their own home, and me (the visitor with punk rock hair and glued-on frisbee fingernails), a Ward-and-June-Cleaver scene it was not.

Once, a rough character showed up on his Harley at Gus and Ellen's home. He wore the colors of a motorcycle gang from Chicago and I then learned that Ellen had lived in Chicago and had a connection to the gang. I first met the biker guy when I stopped in at the house to pick up Gus for a frisbee outing. The biker was in the back yard with the older boy. He was showing the boy how he could quickly deploy his belt, made from a motorcycle chain, to be used as a weapon. Later, Gus told me that the biker, during the few days he was in LaCrosse, took time from his

beer drinking to defend the older boy. The older boy, shy and awkward, was being teased by frat boys from the porch of their rattle-trap house next door. Biker guy walked over to the porch, unleashed a stream of aggressive profanity and pulled a big fucking hand gun out of his waistband. He pointed the hand gun at the frat boys and made it clear that things would go horribly for them if they messed with the boy again, called the cops, or even looked in his direction.

A few days after the biker arrived, Gus filled me in on the reason for his visit. The Chicago gang was in possession of a quantity of crank (crank was the biker term at the time for methamphetamine). Ellen's connection to the gang was deep enough that the biker figured she'd help sell the crank in the LaCrosse area. Dear-hearted and shady-as-fuck Ellen and Gus agreed. Gus then enlisted me, Mr. Clueless-As-Fuck, to offer my circle of friends some crank. And so, for a very short time, my slope became slippery.

Some of my friends took to the crank like ants to a picnic. So did I. We were students, why rely on NoDoz to help us cram for exams or gear up for a kegger when there was crank to be had? A small snort of the white-powder hit like an entire box of NoDoz. It was as fun as it was stupid.

This went on for a couple of weeks and then I got a call from Gus.

More bikers had arrived from Chicago and they explained to Gus and Ellen that biker number one did not represent the gang. In fact, biker number one had ripped off the gang and some of the the gang wondered if Ellen wasn't aware of this all along. Gus told me to keep a low profile until things were sorted out. Jesus H, one minute I'm just a clueless punk frisbee kid, the next, I've got an armed and angry motorcycle gang considering me as a collaborator in the theft of their drugs. Slippery fucking slope indeed!

Aside from a few days of panic and useful introspection, nothing came of this. I quickly brought my remaining stash of crank and a wad of the money to Ellen. She and the bikers patched things up and my slope became, for the moment, less slippery.

My friendship with Gus continued for many years, through many more adventures and hurdles. Eventually, Gus's uber-hetero tendencies got the best of him. This destroyed his marriage and cost him his son and stepson. The end came when Ellen caught him in bed with Tisha, a young beauty who was, sort of, my girlfriend at the time. Wow, like a frisbee move, Gus had executed an impressive double-cheat on his wife and his buddy with a woman ten years his junior. I found out about this in another phone call from Gus. I never imagined I'd have a conversation with Gus more disconcerting than the one we'd had about murderous bikers looking for stolen drugs.

Gus was remorseful and the "sort of" nature of my relationship with Tisha was such that it was I, curiously, who wound up helping Gus after Ellen's departure. Gus needed a shoulder to cry on and a tidy guy like me to help him shift through the wreckage in his home.

In one afternoon, while Gus was away in class, Ellen packed up her belongings, gathered up the boys and bolted. Throughout the house, the things that she hadn't taken were strewn like the aftermath of a police search. In the kitchen, on the fridge, there was a day-at-a-glance calendar. Each day had a featured-word's definition. Gus tearily pointed out that the word for the day, on the day that Ellen left, was bedlam.