I had just gotten out of a four year relationship several months prior and still wasn’t looking for anything serious. I had gone out with this girl who was going to school at Northeastern who I met at a Red Sox game. Early in the week she texted me about a party her friend was going to have on Saturday. She invited me along, but she said she needed to “clear it” with some people first. I laughed a little bit at that statement.  I understand having to ok it with one person. That would be the originator of the party, but why a few? At that point I figured this party was either going to be  A: Full of a bunch of uptight nerds playing Dungeons and Dragons, who I need to recite a password to at the door in order to gain entrance or B: A sex party where I need to recite a password at the door in order to gain entrance. Either way, as you can tell, I wanted a password scenario. haha

So Saturday rolls around. I take the T to her apartment and we jump in her car & start driving. With us, is her roommate and her roommates boyfriend. Let’s just call them Kate and Steve for story purposes and my dates name will be Kim. I won’t use real names in these stories and in some cases I won’t be saying the location.  As we are driving she tells us “ok so you guys can’t tell anybody about this party and where it is” That’s an odd request. I laugh, but a small part of me is wondering if we are driving fast enough where it would now be a bad decision for me to open the car door then tuck and roll. I’m like “what kind of party is this?” All she would say is “a fun one!” What the hell does that mean? Gee could you be more vague. At least I’m not the only clueless person in the car though. As we get closer to our destination we turn onto this horribly paved road that is surrounded by forest and no street lights. Where the hell am I? No need to worry about me telling anybody. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. This place is literally in the middle of nowhere. The forest around us looks like something out of Sleepy Hollow. After a long bumpy car ride on this prehistoric road, the forest around us opens up into a giant clearing of grass. Further up the way just on the horizon I can see our destination. This place was impressive. It was a three story mansion. We park in the field clearing with the rest of the cars.

There was easily over 150 people at this place. It looked like a bit of a cliche from all those stupid teen movies that had house parties. We walked right in the front door. I asked Kim where the person or person’s who are throwing this party are because of course I want to be polite and say “thanks for having me hear” before I run off and start drinking. She told me to hold on and she would be right back. Well, “be right back” was taking forever. Kate, Steve and myself decide to go explore. This party truly was for every kind of person. The basement had people playing guitar hero. (hahaha remember that craze) In one corner you had a poker table. In another corner was a pool table and ping pong table. The ground level floor had a really nice kitchen and nice polished hard wood floors in the living room. The second floor had bedrooms. I honestly don’t recall how many. I also remember seeing an office/study. The third floor was incredible. It was practically just wide open space like a function room and had a bar. It was definitely the kind of room you could have a wedding reception in. On one side you had the front balcony which overlooked the grass clearing and road leading up to the house. On the other side was the rear balcony which over looked the pool in the backyard where people were grilling burgers and swimming in there clothes like they didn’t have a care in the world. Like I said, it was impressive. The three of us sat by the pool area for a bit. I eventually went off to go look for Kim. I found her snorting some coke with some people in a room. I truly have a strict no drugs policy when it comes to dating. Drinking and smoking weed every now and then is fine. Outside of that, not a chance I  wouldn’t date you! Being around hard drugs makes me feel uncomfortable. It was that moment I knew tonight would be the last night I was ever going to see Kim again. I gave her a look but I didn’t make a big scene about it. She offered me some and said “I don’t do this all the time. I have it under control” That sounded like a very sad statement of denial to me. I declined and said I would meet up with her later in the night and I left that room. I wasn’t going to let that ruin my night. I was going to have fun. I cracked a beer open and made my way to the third floor and sat on the balcony over looking the pool. I was having some good conversations with strangers. This is when the shit would hit the fan!

All the sudden people are scrambling out of the pool like cockroaches and I hear someone yell “cops coming everyone run & split!” I was confused and thinking Why split? It’s just a cop. Hide stuff and say you will keep the noise down.” Although I can’t imagine someone calling in a noise complaint since we are in the middle of no-where. I looked down at Steve and Kate from the balcony who were still in the pool area. They looked as confused as I did. Still, the look of panic on some of these faces had me a bit concerned. Myself and a few other people on the rear balcony with me dash across the floor to the other end of the house and onto the front balcony. What we saw next gave me anxiety. It wasn’t just a cop car making it’s way up the road to possibly answer a disturbance call. It was four cop cars and two paddy wagons! Something was going on and I wasn’t sticking around to find out what. They were halfway up the clearing (I would say about half a football field away) I had to get out of there. A bunch of us then ran back to the rear balcony. It looked like the scene in Titanic where everyone is trying desperately to run to the other side of the ship. Running out the front was a bad idea. They would probably catch you in the open clearing. The rear of the house had more woods behind it. I dangled down from the balcony and landed on the shed next to the pool. By the time I got down from the shed and into the backyard the cops were in the house. One idiot decided to jump from the balcony straight into the pool. As much as I would have loved to see the outcome of that dumbass decision, I had to keep moving.

I jumped the fence in the backyard and darted into the woods. Some other people made it over the fence also. At first I could hear the footsteps of other party goers alongside mine in the darkness as we ran, but people started breaking off in different directions and fanning out. Eventually, I realized I was alone in the woods. I stopped running. Occasionally, I could hear someone in the distance yelling for someone. Well, this was wonderful. It’s pitch black and last time I checked I wasn’t exactly Bear Grylls when it came to survival skills in the forest. Of course, my cell has no reception, even if it did I don’t know where I am or what just happened. All I know is I’m stuck in the woods and I don’t know what’s out hear with me…A coyote, wolf, Bigfoot who the hell knows! As I’m walking I hear something in the bushes next to me. I thought it was an animal but it was a person mumbling and crying. This guy was definitely on something. I remembered his face from the party. He was sitting on the ground and looked terrified. At first he didn’t want to go with me because he said “they would find me” but after I threatened to leave him behind he decided to follow. He grabbed a branch off the ground and brought it along with him as a weapon. We continued walking. My thinking was if myself and the village idiot keep walking we are bound to hit a road. When we do, we follow it because roads typically lead to population. Thank you Discovery Channel. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a light blinking at me. I went towards it. It turned out to be another person from the party who was trying to get my attention with her key-chain flashlight. She had a village idiot walking with her also. He was just drunk, scared and wounded. It looked like part of his leg scrapped across the top of the chain link fence when he jumped it. I asked her if she knew how or why this happened. Her response was “looks like someone tipped them off” Inside I can feel my blood starting to boil. ‘Tipped off?” I asked. She looked surprised I didn’t know. It turns out that house belonged to a politician who doesn’t use it for most of the year. Kim’s friends decided to break in and throw a party in it. Just wonderful right!? Breaking and entering, trespassing. I’m sure some destruction of property. I was pissed. Why would you withhold that kind of information from me!? Not just from me, but also her roommate who was as clueless as I was. At this moment, I had two priorities 1. Get out of hear and 2. Kill Kim!  I asked if anyone had any ideas that were better than mine. It was apparent we weren’t exactly the dream team of survivalists when the drunk guy suggested we build a fire. This would have been fine if it wasn’t already 85 frigin degrees and humid out! Build a fire really!? So we all kept walking. It didn’t feel like we were making much progress.

 Finally, we find a road! Shortly after we start following it we see a set of headlights heading our way. My first instinct was to jump back into the woods, but I had nothing left in me. I had spent the last 4-hours in the woods. I didn’t care if it was a cop or a psycho serial killer. I was willing to deal with whatever the consequences were. I put my hands up and waved. The SUV slowed down and stopped. I hear a familiar voice yelling out the window “Common, get in.” I make my way to the passenger side. This car is packed with people beyond it’s capacity. I would say there was about 13 people packed in. Among them, was Kate’s boyfriend Steve. These guys somehow managed to get a car out of the clearing at some point. Me and my special ed survival team packed into the SUV. We all smelled like a swamp. We drove off and followed twists and bends down the hill. When we got to the bottom we stopped at a gas station to fill up. We all piled out of the car to stretch. It must have looked like a clown car with the amount of people that kept getting out of this thing. As we were all standing around in front of the SUV a cop car pulls into the station. As he gets out of his squad car he takes a bit of a long look at us all standing around. He wasn’t stupid. He knew where we came from. I got nervous for a moment, but he just kept walking and went inside. I’m thinking the cops had exceeded there quota for the evening. We got back in the car and drove off. I would later be dropped off at a T station and find my way home. I remember walking in the door covered in dirt and exhausted. I was still living at home at the time. My mom took one look at me and asked “do I want to know?” I just went upstairs and crawled into bed. As for Kate and Kim, both of them were among the group that got arrested that night. Kim and I only spoke once after that incident.