Something unusual happened to me when I was in my mid-20s in Denver. I suddenly made friends with several teenage girls. I wasn't trying to date them, but I found myself getting swept up in their family issues. And I honestly never expected to get close enough to one to the point that we would act like brother and sister, but that's what happened.
This all came about because of Rid. Rid had made friends with several people who were Goth. Many of the people in the crowd tended to be teenagers. There were times when he couldn't provide a car, so I would get called in like the cavalry to help pick people up and take them to their destinations, whether it be an all ages club, Muddy's Java Cafe, Denny's or someone's house.
It all started on a Friday night in January 1990. Rid asked me to come pick him and a friend up in Arvada. His friend's name was Sterd. When I first met Sterd, he kind of had a mean look in his eye. But I got to know him a lot better (and he even wound up working at the Mayan Theatre). He really wasn't mean, but I guess he liked to give that as a first impression. While we were en route to their destination at Muddy's in Downtown Denver, Sterd told me about how he rang in the New Year with his new girlfriend Jused. However, he almost made it sound like he'd never had a girlfriend before.
We went into Muddy's. At that time, Muddy's would have you pay a cover charge of $4 on Friday and Saturday nights. They would give you a card and you could use that as a credit toward your order. Jused was there. There was also a good friend of Sterd named Haved and he was there with his girlfriend Vad. Haved was an interesting character. He worked in the mailroom for the Environmental Protection Agency. He got to wear his full Goth gear while on the job.
We all sat at a large table in one of the corners of the cafe. There were a couple of other people sitting with us. One of them was Knod. She was a 14-year-old girl with dyed black hair and large brown eyes. She sat between me and Rid. I didn't really get to talk to her that night. I remember Rid giving her a lecture on not treating people right with regards to some teenage boy that everyone was giving a hard time to.
We did not all stick to the table all night long. I went exploring around the cafe. They had a upper level with several bookshelves. You could choose any book you wanted to read while you were there at the cafe. At one point, I saw Knod talking to this guy named Daed between a row of shelves. I couldn't really hear the entire conversation, but it seemed like they had been going out and he was trying to convince her to come back to him. He had an intensity in his face that was a little intimidating.
The next Friday night, I had plans to go to Muddy's because the Rocky Mountain Theatre Guild was doing a production of Steve Tesich's "Lake of the Woods" in the basement and the director JA said I could have free tickets to the opening night. I told Rid and he was interested in going. He asked me to get three additional tickets. I asked JA for four tickets and he said it was okay. Then Rid asked me to drive to Arvada to pick Knod up from her home. She was going to go with us to the play. It was snowing, but not so hard that I wouldn't be able to drive. Traffic wasn't too bad. It probably took me about a half hour to get to her house.
I found her house and knocked on the front door. She answered. There didn't seem to be anyone else at home. She had to spend a little more time getting ready. While I was waiting, I looked at the photographs of her and her family scattered around the living room. Then she was good to go. We didn't talk much on the way to Downtown Denver. I remember going over a hill on I-70 and yelling, "Wheeee!" I also recall her singing along with the songs "Just Between You and Me" by Lou Gramm and "Dangerous" by Roxette when they came on the radio. That surprised me because I thought she was all into Goth music and shut out anything that was mainstream. I was wrong.
I drove Knod over to Haved's and Sterd's apartment. Rid was there. Haved was feeling bad because Vad broke up with him. Rid said he was going to hang out and help Haved get through this crisis. He told me and Sterd to go ahead to Muddy's and he would catch up to us later. Sterd and I didn't have to pay the cover because we were going to the theatre in the basement. The production started and there was no sign of Rid, Haved or Knod. I got to see several people who were involved in the production of "The Three Musketeers." After the play ended, Sterd and I went upstairs. I saw Haved sitting at a table with Knod and he was doing most of the talking. We found Rid and hung out for awhile. I had to go home and work the next day.
The next night, Rid called me and asked me to come over to Haved's and Sterd's place. We were all going to go hang out at Muddy's again that night. While we were on the phone, Rid told me that Knod thought I was a little weird when I went "Whee!" over that hill. When I arrived, I could hear Knod screaming, "I WANT TO DIE! I WANT TO DIE!" Apparently, something happened between Haved and Knod the previous night and he just told her he was getting back together with Vad. Rid, Sterd, Haved and I all went to Muddy's. Jused stayed with Knod to help her through this crisis. When we came back, Knod and Jused were gone, but we found a message on the bathroom mirror. There were a couple of streaks of blood along with words written in eyeliner, "These are the tears that I have cried. I will always love you. Knod."
I saw Knod sporadically over the course of the next year. During that time, I became friends with this girl named Sheld. We would hang out from time to time. She also happened to be a friend of Knod's. On Friday, January 04, 1991, we had gone out to meet some of her friends, including Knod, at Denny's in Arvada. I remarked about how it had been a year since I first met Knod.
The next Friday night, Sheld asked me to come over and pick her and Knod up to go out. When I went into Knod's house, her mother Ms. B was there. This was the first time I'd met Ms. B. She looked like an older version of Knod. She didn't seem to mind at all that her teenage daughter was hanging out with some guy in his 20s.
Sheld, Knod and I were driving around, trying to find this guy that Sheld liked. He was one of those guys who made himself up to look like Robert Smith from The Cure. Sheld had us go to the halfway house where he was living at the time. She said he told her that he was under curfew and wasn't permitted to leave the house that night. When we arrived, he wasn't there. "But what about his curfew?" "He doesn't have a curfew on Friday or Saturday night." The person there told us he was at Muddy's. We drove over there. Along they way, Knod kept telling Sheld, "He LIED to you! It's pretty obvious he doesn't think you're his girlfriend!" But Sheld wouldn't listen.
We got to Muddy's and asked around for him. One person asked, "Does he look like Robert Smith? Yeah, he was here, but he left already." We went back to the car. Sheld thought that the only way he could get back to the house was by taking the bus, so she figured if we drove back, we'd be able to beat him there. We got back to the halfway house and did a stake out. We were out there for about an hour before Sheld gave up and wanted to go home.
Shortly after we started off, Sheld saw a 7-Eleven and asked me to pull in so she could make a phone call on a payphone. I turned left at the stop light, pulled in and parked the car. The next thing I knew, there were police lights flashing behind me. An officer got out and instructed us to stay in the car. He asked to see my registration and insurance. I had registration, but no insurance. He said that the issue was that he couldn't see the temporary tag on my car. This was car #3, a 1978 Ford Pinto that did nothing but cause problems. (A much more detailed post will be coming up on that later.) I'd only had the car a couple of weeks. I didn't have my ID. I thought I was going to be arrested, but he asked for my name, date of birth and Social Security number. He was able to verify my identity. He had me get out of the car and showed me the tag on the back window, which had been all fogged up because of there being three people inside for the last hour without the heater going. Another officer asked the girls to get out of the car. My officer asked me how old my passengers were. I said one was 15 and the other was 16. "Just friends!" (At the time, I thought Sheld was 15 and Knod was 16. They were both actually a year younger than the ages I provided.)
In the middle of all this, another police car showed up. This was apparently the crime of the century going down at the 7-Eleven. The next thing I knew, an officer informed Knod that there was a warrant out for her arrest. He held her hands behind her back and put handcuffs on her. She started crying. "No, you can't. I'm just straightening my life out right now." My officer game me a ticket for not having any insurance and told me that Sheld and I were free to go. I drove Sheld back to her house without incident. On the way, Sheld told me she was surprised she wasn't arrested because she was aware of a warrant for her. I think the cops may have been confused because I said the girls were 15 and 16. Since Knod was the 15-year-old, they probably thought Sheld was 16. Sheld also gave the cops the nickname she went by and not her real name. When they were checking the database for a 16-year-old named Sheld, nothing probably came up.
However, after the cops took Knod down to the station, it was determined that the warrant had been suppressed. Someone had to call the judge up in the middle of the night to verify and she was released to her mother. While I was glad it turned out okay, I was concerned about the impression I was leaving on Knod. It seemed like anytime I drove her anywhere, it just led to trouble. But it didn't bother her and it didn't bother her mom.
The stupid thing was that if Sheld hadn't decided to make that phone call, I would have crossed the street and been in a different town, where the cops on my tail had no jurisdiction. I would have been able to keep on driving without getting a ticket or Knod getting arrested.
This marked the second time that I became friends with someone after getting into a tussle with the police. The first was Rid.
I'll have more on Knod tomorrow.
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