Chapter Twenty-Three
Kidnapped!
Steve Takes a Ride in the Trunk: Here’s another story about the wild antics of my buddies (and me) in high school. I’m embarrassed about this joke that went a bit too far, but this is what kids do in high school, right?
You remember my best friend Steve (the drowning “joke”)? This guy was as much of a character as I was. For example, in high school, he hosted an exchange student, Adriano, from Brazil. Soon after Adriano arrived, all the new exchange students were taken to another school for a question and answer session, and Steve went along because Adriano spoke very little English.
Steve was on stage with the others, and a teacher asked what country he was from. Without a second’s hesitation, Steve put on a British accent, and said “England, Mum.” He got the most questions, since he was the easiest to understand, and had a great time making up details about what life was like in jolly old England. Adriano had to step on the other foreign students’ toes to keep them from laughing.
On April 1, 1971 Adriano asked Steve how April Fools’ Day worked. “I don’t understand—how do you make someone feel like an idiot?” he asked. Steve raised his index finger and said “Watch this.” He called several friends, including me, and told each he was out of gas and needed a ride. We all jumped to his assistance, only to arrive at the designated spot and find: No Steve.
All there together, we realized we’d been April Fooled, and planned our retribution: Steve would have to be kidnapped and dropped off in a remote location. We drove to his house, knocked on the door and quietly told him that we were glad he’d made it home safely. And, “by the way, we’ve got something to show you guys. Come outside.”
We grabbed Adriano and Steve, and took them over to the open trunk. Steve knew he’d get in trouble if he struggled and alerted his parents, so they got in quietly.
As soon as we drove away, the captives started bawling and banging like bears in a trap. This presented a problem for us, since we needed gas. Self-service gas stations were still years in the future, so we knew there would be an attendant involved. We waited for a lull, and, risking discovery, pulled into a Shell station. Steve and Adriano figured out what was happening, and redoubled their noisemaking efforts.
Now here’s the puzzle: The attendant, an old man, shuffled over to the car and put in the gas, staring straight ahead as if nothing was going on. His head was a foot from the trunk, yet he didn’t seem to register the yells that we could hear from 20 feet away. He was either deaf or assumed we were part of the Mafia. This was indeed Long Island, but we didn’t look like Mafiosi. Perhaps he realized we were just kids having some fun. In any case, he took our payment without comment, and off we went.
Steve had a new strategy at this point. We heard him yell, “I am now disconnecting your taillights!” This strategy had an upside for Steve—someone, perhaps a policeman, might stop the car and not ignore the yelling coming from the trunk. There was a downside too, of course. If you’re riding in a trunk, anything that increases the chance of a rear-end collision is probably a bad idea.
His scheme didn’t have any effect, and we drove to Duck Island (connected to the mainland via causeway) and dropped them off on a desolate dead-end street. When I say “dropped them off,” I mean “pried them loose from the car.”
Heading for home, we hadn’t driven 200 yards before a police car stopped us. “Did you know that your taillights are out?” he asked. We opened the trunk and puzzled over this mysterious electrical problem, all the while darting glances down the road, expecting Steve and Adriano to come screaming up the hill.
Luckily for us, Steve had seen the police car, and didn’t want to cause the extra trouble that would come from having the law involved. More luck—the policeman accepted our promise to fix the lights, and let us go.
The kidnapees’ return to civilization was a tortuous one, since they had no idea where they were, and of course, no transportation. After a lot of walking and hitching, they arrived at my house at 4 AM. In my mostly unconscious dream state, I mistook their arrival at my bedroom window for burglars, and when I yelled and banged on the window, it shattered. No injuries, though, and when I was fully awake, I drove them home.
Here’s a photo of Adriano (on the left) and Steve taken a few months after the adventure:
Fortunately, Steve was a good-natured fellow, and perhaps because he “started it,” he never held the episode against us. He went on to become a prominent astrophysicist at Caltech, publishing over 200 scientific papers.