Children of the Corn

In the 1980's the horror movie, Children of the Corn came out. It's based on Stephen King's book so you know it's gonna be scary. The premise is that kids in some town worship a demon who tells them to kill all the adults to ensure a good corn harvest. I didn't read the book or see the movie and the relevance to this post is that corn fields and demons were in the cultural atmosphere at the time.

I fell in love with Toby the Spring of my sophomore year of high school. Toby was a 6 foot tall, leather jacket and combat boot wearing bean pole with an 8 inch spiked mohawk. What he lacked for brains he made up in height. He was a sweet guy. He'd toss stones at my bedroom window at night, left love notes in my mailbox.  He gave me a silver coil "ring" which came from his motorcycle engine. It was a very John Hughes movie type of vibe. 

As nice as Toby was, his common sense was pretty questionable as well as his firm belief that every where you turned society was out to get you. 

For example, he thought marriage "was just societies little game to trap you in the system." (Hello, we're 16. Settle down) And he agreed with his dad that banks were corrupt so they both apparently kept all their money under their mattresses. (Insert eye roll here). But hey, he was a teenager. I was a teenager. We were dumb. 

This is NOT Toby

Like a John Hughes movie, there was drama. In my case, the drama was that trouble showed up wherever Toby was concerned. You know how parents tell you things like, "hanging around that crowd will only attract trouble"? That was exactly my situation that summer. Luckily, I came to my damn senses by the end of the summer and ended it. But I digress.

 Toby's Aqua Net sprayed 8 inch mohawk never helped a tense situation out in public. Actually, it didn't help in
any situation especially one involving adults. 

One Saturday night, my friend Reb and I walked to the tennis courts on Jackson St. and lobbed tennis balls to each other while blasting Madonna on my boombox. After awhile we noticed that Toby had showed up and was sitting on his gigantic green car watching us.

Toby: "Hey, you guys should come check out these corn fields by Winnegago." (Winnebago Mental Health Institute, previously the Northern Hospital for the Insane) You can drive through them." 

Us: No really? What do you mean drive through them?

Toby:  "Steve and I were driving around and saw a path into the corn field so we drove in. It's really cool at night."

When it got dark, Toby picked us up in his old Impala and off we went.

We turned onto the dirt path that led into the field and slowly drove along. The corn came almost above the car so you could only see directly in front of you. In the dark, the headlights showed the corn dust floating as we drove through. It was pretty cool, but also kind of creepy because of the Children of the Corn vibe. We were deep into the corn field when all of a sudden headlights popped on behind us in the distance.

"Holy shit!"

"What the hell!?"

The car behind us started speeding up so Toby sped up. 

"Who IS that!? What do they want?" we screamed.

We were so scared and the car was gaining on us. Toby drove faster and faster; the corn stalks whipping by, Reb and I screaming.

Finally we catapulted out of the corn field onto a road that ended at the Winnebago asylum.

Toby stopped the car and that's when we saw; it was a police car.

The cop car roared up to us, slammed to a stop and a policeman jumped out. 
WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP?!

Us-Why didn't you put on your police lights!? We didn't know who it was!

Cop-Jesus Christ. You are trespassing on private property! Give me your license. You in the back, license.

Reb-I don't have it

Cop-Why not

Reb-Because I'm not driving!

The cop shook his head disgusted with the three of us. I personally thought Reb had a valid point there. He gave Toby a ticket for trespassing and told us to get the hell out of there.

Off we went back into town. By now it was around 11:00 pm and we decided to get ice cream from Leon's Frozen Custard drive-in. 

Vanilla cones in hand, Toby proceeded to drive us home.  Having trouble eating and driving, Toby parked on Nebraska St., a quiet residential street near mine. We talked and ate our ice cream. And wouldn't you know it, a car pulled up behind us and put on the red and blue lights. Another police officer.

"Not again!" we yelled

A cop (different from the corn field debacle) came to the window. He said there was a call of a break in in the area. He shined his flashlight in at us. Reb and I were sitting in the back seat innocently.  

Cop-What are you doing?

"We were just at Leon's and heading home."

Cop-What's your name?

Me: Mine or hers?

Reb-"Mine?"

Cop-The one in the pink

Reb-"Rebecca" 

Me-I'm in the pink.

Reb-"Oh right."

The cop shook his head. 

He rolled his eyes and told us to get going.

I'm going to get back to my high school journals and piece together the other police related incidents with Toby. More to come...