Life in the Last Lane

My freedom is winding down until the time that I must become a normal student citizen, but I still have one more summer.  The summer is filled with Belmar and Jewish girls who were more than accommodating.  But we hear the New York Jets have their training camp at Peekskill Military Academy so we jump into two cars and plug along up there.  We go to the camp and walk right into the locker area.  Picture this we are 19 years old and standing there with the likes of John Huarte, Heisman Trophy winner, Joe Namath, star of the Orange Bowl, both rookies, bonus babies fighting it out for the QB job. But there is also Matt Snell, Don Maynard, Wahoo McDaniel’s, Paul Rochester, Sherman Plunkett and on and on.  They are huge especially Rochester and Plunkett. On the way out we split up and my friend Billy’s car dies and they have to junk it and take a bus home but something more interesting is happening with my group.  We are walking back to me car and we notice a footlocker, which says “game jerseys” on the side, well, as Flip Wilson used to say “the devil made me do it”.  We took them all!!!  We hustle back to my VW trying to figure out how to get it in the car, well we did but the car wouldn’t start.  So we push it to jump-start it and off we go back to Jersey with our treasure.  So now we know we have something special but we don’t know for sure how many.  We start to divvy up the goods; there are four of us, Tom, Roy, Michael and me.  I get first choice because it’s my car; I take Huarte because he just won the Heisman. I get second choice because we pick numbers and I win, so I take Namath and then in rotation Snell, Wahoo, Maynard and many more.  We go to my house in Jersey City and spread the jerseys all over the floor. It was amazing, a sea of green and white and these were top grade shirts.  We had a total of 56, count ‘em 56 jerseys that’s 14 each.  I took Namath and Huarte packed them up nice and put them in my drawer, I figured one of these guys would be famous some day. I began to deliver pizzas in Maynard’s and Wahoo’s jerseys and sold the other ten shirts.  We were celebrities in Jersey City.  One night I take a delivery to the Marion section and a guy at the bar calls me over and shows me an article in the Star Ledger. It states that the jerseys have been lifted and that if you see someone wearing one not to ask for an autograph but to call a cop.  Ha, we’re just kids having a good time. Until!!!!! I am working at my pizza job and I get a phone call from a reporter by the name of Cas Rakowski.  I know him from the YMCA and from write-ups when I played high school football.  He says ‘hey how are those Jet jerseys’ I respond “great” and ask if he wants one. He demurs and says “no thanks but I do have to do a story about it because the FBI is being brought in because it is grand larceny across state lines, federal crime.” I protest we are just kids having a good time.  He reminds me the jerseys were valued at $75 each, timer 56 equals $4200, the cost of a Corvette and also grand larceny.  I feel weak in the knees, I am about to start my legitimate college career in two weeks, and I can’t become some guy’s wife in Rahway.  To add more complications my friend Michael is leaving for Texas in two days.  My mind swings into overdrive, after I shit my pants, and I work out an agreement with Cas.  If we get the jerseys back to him he will protect us and he will have a great story.  We spring into action because we have to collect 56 shirts in 24 hours.  It really pisses off my girlfriend because we were supposed to go down the shore but I had to protect my ass, literally.  I found out how we were found out.  One of the fellows, Tom, was a CYO football coach and he gave some shirts to his star players.  They were standing on the corner when Sherman Plunkett and Paul Rochester saw them on their way to a Jersey Jets, New York Jets farm team game at Roosevelt Stadium.