HHD: Crime and Punishment

As most of you might know, Octo and I were arrested in 1984. Yep, that’s right, arrested. Our crime? On a warm spring evening Octo, myself, and our friend Keith (who is unfortunately insane today) were bored and we decided that it might be fun to climb on top of Barrington Middle School. Let me provide a bit of context here; Octo and I LOVED climbing and we took every opportunity to climb on trees, buildings, structures, you name it. Octo had recently acquired his driver’s license, which made our ability to explore new climbing opportunities that much easier.


Octo circa 1984


JPX circa 1984

After mulling over our options the Barrington Middle School appeared to be the most convenient and appealing climbing challenge. We quickly hopped into Octo’s tiny excuse for a car and made our way to our climbing destination. Pulling into the parking lot we were delighted to find that the place was completely deserted – mind you this was in the early evening so it wasn’t that surprising. We started our assent.



We made it onto the roof lickety-split and began frolicking around, titillated with our (simple) achievement. We explored every corner and eventually lowered ourselves into the courtyard where there was a small green house. At some point we tried the door to get into the school but had no luck, which turned out to be a very good thing. Climbing back onto the roof from the courtyard we were horrified to see a vehicle pull into the parking lot. We weren’t certain but I recall some nervous chatter about it possibly being a police car. We lay low for a while but our hearts sank when several more cars pulled into the lot – there was no mistake, they were police cars.


A plan was quickly hatched to slowly lower ourselves onto the ground in an attempt to make it back to Octo’s car, which was unfortunately in plain view. We almost made it. We were stealth-like in our decent off the roof and we actually got back to Octo’s car. Unfortunately this was also when we heard, “Freeze!” It was all over. Before we knew it we were swarmed by cops. We were quickly lined up against Octo’s car and handcuffed together. The beefy, mean cop who nabbed us noted, “Sonitrol got ya!” Later we were to learn that Sonitrol was a silent alarm system. Go figure.



The rest of the evening was just a nightmare. We were taken to the police station in the back of a cruiser and we sat in terror as we listened to the squawk of the police radio. We heard communication suggesting that the cops were inside the school checking to ensure that we hadn’t stolen computers (?!) or caused any sort of mayhem. The worst part was hearing the police desk jockey phone our parents to inform them that their thug teenagers were arrested and to come pick us up. The aftermath was uncomfortable. My father picked me up and he was cool about it. My mother, on the other hand, was livid and I was grounded (the only time in my life) and prevented from seeing Octo for a few weeks. It all blew over, of course, and today my mother is able to acknowledge that we really hadn’t done anything too terrible. Still this experience had a profound effect on my life. To this day cops scare the hell out of me.



So how about it, Horrorthonners? Tell me your tales of crime and punishment. What did you get away with? What did you get caught doing? I’d like to believe that the Horrorthon crowd is pure and above such seedy matters, but I suspect differently.