How to teach a lesson.

"Do you do crack?"
"No?"
"LSD?"
"NO."
"Acid? Or how about pot, every one likes to get smoked up every now and then, you get into that right?
"I've smoked. I'm not a fan."
"Thats not what your friends say."
We were in my car. Six had fit into the four seats that are reguaraly allotted to passengers. Two had gotten out when we pulled into a gas station, to get some food. The rest stayed and smoked and didn't bother to roll down the windows so I did it for them, but they still felt the need to ash on the floor. I was angry.
"My friends know I don't do drugs."
"Fuck you, I know what I heard."
"I'm sorry?"
"I said fuck you. You look like a druggy." He starred out the window. His friends were quiet, they just smoked and looked at me, waited for a response. "You're a drinker though, thats what Max says."
I put on a fake smile to try and pull the enitre atmosphere of the conversation from train wreck to jokes and random drunken bantor. "Yeah, I like a good drink."
"Good for you."
His friends came out with candy bars and they squeezed into the back of my car and I turned on the engine again. Two cars down was a cop in his big white shimmering Crown Vic. He was starring at me and I wondered if he'd pull me over. I wished he did. I wished he'd pull me over and I'd tell him that I had a car full of drunks and "could you please arrest them", and he would, but before he did that he say, "You know I never did like Frat boys," and he'd shove them against the car, rough them up a bit, and start screaming at each one of them, and each one would begin to tear up and cry like the cowards they really were.
But he let us go.
"Do you know my name?" The same guy asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
"I'm not good with names."
"You better learn it by Monday."
Or what?
I heard the snap and pop of a can open in the back. "Let me chug this before we get there, drive slower."
I sped up.
"Shit I spilled some on myself."
I pulled up to the bar, they all got out. I waited for a meteor to fall from the sky, or a lightning bolt to rip from the heavens and strike each one of them down right then and there. But I havn't been to church in a long time. I knew the big man wasn't about to do ME a favor.
"Listen up, you will pick us up a two. You understand me?" I nodded. "I got your number. I'll call if we leave sooner." He walked away.
I drove away, pissed off.
I looked in the back seat of my car and six beer cans were scattered on the floor and I quickly pulled over and threw them out the window.
I looked at my self in the rear view and said, "What are you doing? They can't do this to you."
I drove away.
I got a call an hour later and it was from a friend I hadn't talked to in a long while and she was crying over the phone, drunk, emotional, wanting my help. I talked with her for two hours. Around the thirty minute mark of our conversation I got a beep on my phone and the frat boys I had dropped off were looking to get an early ride back home. I didn't pick up, didn't answer, listen to my friend's sob stories instead.
They called twenty two more times.
From what I heard, they had to walk back, a two mile drunken adventure for them. It was raining out, a cold rain. One guy puked on himself on the way. A friend told me they were cursing my name the entire way.
"Good," I said. "Theres a thing in this world called manners, a way of treating people.
I hope they remeber that."
I told my friend not to ever put up with that shit. But he's the kind of guy that does. I don't understand why some people feel the need to be assholes and others take it.
Let the assholes find their own way home.