Squats, natty bo, and two weeks of chaos! The Squats Laughter echoed through the halls of Blue House, one of the earlier squats in Towson. Pioneered by Dave Betz himself, it was shut down in a few days when his first order of business was to remove all the boards over the windows. The neighbors adjacent to Blue House took notice pretty quickly, and the cops were kicking everyone out the next day. But that didn't stop most of us, as we just snuck back in, drank, laughed, and slept, only to sneak back out the next day. Using this more covert technique, Blue House was probably the longest lasting house in Towson's very short squatting history. We drank in a circle around our flashlights, laughing loudly, people were making out with each other and others were practically screaming songs. Another Towson party getting a little out of hand. I was standing at the window of the second floor, looking through the blinds at the street below. The noise was making me nervous, and I could feel the heat coming. I yelled for everyone to shut up, but not many listened. Just as I turned back to the blinds for another look, a searchlight scanned over my window, making me instinctively duck to the floor. "Fuck! The cops!" I yelled. Seeing the light scan through the blinds again, everyone in the room hit the floor, and yells went down the hall to shut the fuck up. I slowly stood up to peek through the blinds again, seeing the cop car slowly driving away. I wasn't sure if he saw us, and it was entirely feasible that they could be waiting for us to escape. A tense two hours later Father Church and Tinkerbell volunteered to escape first, and see if there were any cops around. An hour after that we were all free from what we were sure was certain capture. It wasn't the first time we escaped the long arm of the law, but somehow that night was the scariest. No one ever really went back after that. Most of the squats in Towson ended like that. We'd discover a new place to sleep and drink a few beers, and suddenly everyone and their grandmother was there, partying the night away. Next day the neighbors or cops would be snooping around the property, or in a few cases, kids would wake up with guns in their faces courtesy of the Towson police department. Fortunately, no one ever got thrown in jail, just the knowledge that if they got caught there again they would be. Amittyville was probably the biggest squat in Towson, a large yellow two floor house with a basement large enough to house every punk in town. We were pretty optimistic about it at the time, because it was surrounded mostly by dense trees and there didn't seem to be any neighbors to worry about. That night everyone had invited everyone over to Amittyville, and our new squat was hosting the biggest squat party Towson had ever seen. It was the usual shenanigans, people passed out everywhere, Tinkerbell throwing herself half naked on countless guys, music playing downstairs, and everywhere in between were people talking, talking, talking. It was a fun night, but it had it's price. We cleaned and swept the house the next morning, hoping to really make this a place that we could live in. As I swept what I planned on being my room, I glanced out the window to see two neighbors looking panicked at each other and talking on a cordless phone. The gig was up. An hour later I emerged from the outskirts of the dense trees surrounding Amittyville, joining up with everyone that had been in the house with me not long before. I had to slowly crawl across the trees and branches army style in an attempt to not attract the attention of the neighbors or any cops that might be coming. We returned to the bench at the Library to consider other options. People went back to old houses to party every once in a while, but eventually the cops caught on. So much so that rumor was they formed a Towson "anti-squatter task force" that patroled all the known squats in town. At this point squatting in Towson pretty much died, with the exception of a few places the "real" squatters (kids with no homes to go to) kept secret. Chaos Party Demi sat down next to Mugsy and myself on the bench outside of the Towson library, where many of us were known to loiter constantly. "So guess what?" Demi asked. "I dunno, what?" I said, my voice muffled by a bagel I had dumpstered a few minutes before. "The 'rents finally left for vacation today." "Really?" I replied. The whole of Towson and been waiting for this event for weeks. Demi promised a party once they were gone. "Can I crash at your house for a few days?" "Sure. I'm trying to let everyone know that I don't want anything like what happened at Chaos Party though, okay?" he said, looking at me. "Yeah, that was pretty fucked," I replied. The event we were referring to happened only days before, but many of us were still feeling it. Dave Betz, in his malevolent wisdom, decided to have a party in the home he was housesitting (without the owner's knowledge of course). To make matters more sketchy, he was housesitting it for a fifteen year old girl that had checked herself into a mental hospital while her parents were away on vacation. The fact that he would even consider having a party there in this situation was a testament to Dave's insensitive nature. I wheeled 200 dollars worth of assorted booze out of Jerry's Tavern in a dolly that night, amazed that so much money could be pooled together by so many punks in so little time. As I stacked each rack of beer in the trunk of Darkstar's lincoln, it suddenly occurred to me the lethal combination that lay before me. Shitload of booze + Towson punks + house with no accountability = The end of the world. I was sure the house would be a burnt out shell by morning. Being the only person of legal drinking age in town gave me the exclusive privilege of officially starting parties like this by simply arriving with the booze. It was no different that night, and the party went into full swing as I set the first case down on the living room table. Within the hour I was downloading gobs of porn on the computer, Mugzy was spitting on everything in sight, laughing hysterically, while Demi was getting a handjob from some strange kid in the garage. Later, people were starting to break things, the music got louder, and someone discovered the house cat lying in a pool of it's own blood (it was later discovered to have died of natural causes). Dave, quite drunk by this time, was convinced the loud music had killed it and put it in the parent's car and drunkenly sped off to the vet emergency room. I stood outside the door to the garage, listening to the sound of a loud hissing and the yelling of several people as they pounded on the door. I turned the knob and the door flew open, white clouds of smoke bellowing into the den. A single dark figure emerged from the smoke, carrying a katana. Darkstar walked by, holding the sword in his left hand, two smears of blood under each eye. He calmly walked past me without a word. I didn't ask. More people clammered out of the garage, coughing and gagging. I gathered from their drunken bitching and laughter that someone had locked them all in the garage. Darkstar, spotting a rare opportunity, ripped the fire extinguisher off the wall, and coated the room and many people with fire retardant. A few kids left the garage with spraypaint in hand, and what order remained in the house was tossed out the window. The sound and smell of spraypaint filled the garage and house. Dave returned early that morning to a practically demolished house. We were all gone by this point, and he was left to picked up the pieces. I couldn't feel too bad for him though. I don't think anyone else did either. He pretty much brought it upon himself. The kicker was that he spent the next three days cleaning the house as best he could. Apparently he got it back to looking halfway presentable, and went home exhausted (how he cleaned the spray paint is beyond me). The parents came home, and the house was destroyed. Furniture was overturned, there was spray paint everywhere, and countless stuff broken. Supposedly, Dave left the back door unlocked, and some came back and destroyed the place. I don't know how true this is, but either way, Dave had some explaining to do. Two Weeks of Chaos Fast forward a few days later. I opened Demi's front door and a crew of Towson kids carrying the usual assortment of alcohol piled into the living room. Several cases of National Bohemian beer were stacked on the kitchen table, and a keg was wheeled in through the backyard. National Bohemian (or "natty bo") had always been the beer of Towson and almost every other place in Baltimore. Originally a beer produced in and found only in Baltimore, the factory had moved to Milwaukee a few years ago. Ironically, the beer is still made in Milwaukee and shipped all the way back to Baltimore, the only place you can find it. It was an unusual phenomenon, but the punks of Towson were thankful for it, for it was a damn fine beer. Imagine a beer with a slightly higher quality than Pabst Blue Ribbon at a much cheaper price. It was the topic of conversation once again between Jason and I. Jason was a tight black pants wearing discharge-obsessed punk rocker kid that worked and lived down at the anarchist bookstore in downtown, Black Planet. He had a dream of bringing the natty bo factory back from Milwaukee someday by stealing it one piece at a time. Brick by brick he would bring the factory back to Baltimore. His theory reminded me a lot of that song by Johnny Cash, "One piece at a time". The party kicked into gear as Against Me! began blaring out of the stereo. It was the official soundtrack to our lives that summer and a flag (obtained from the neighbor's yard) was burned in Demi's backyard as a dozen or more voices joined Against Me in their song, "Baby, I'm an Anarchist". Darkstar was whipping up a storm in the kitchen, using his cooking skills to cure the drunken munchies running rampant through the house. While the main ingredient in his cooking was most often natty bo, most were too drunk to notice. I stumbled into the kitchen to find a group of kids around Darkstar, who was tapping his foot in front of the stove while everyone laughed hysterically. "What's cookin'?" I asked. The question made everyone laugh harder. "Shoe souflee," he replied, opening the door to the oven. Dana's shoes sat on the grill inside, smoking wildly. It took me a while to pull myself off the floor and wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes. I could hear Dana's voice somewhere in the house asking people if they knew where her shoes were. I answered the door again, to find Beverly's glowing face behind it. We mingled a bit, but before long we were stashing ourselves away in Demi's parent's room. "Booty busts" were abound that night, and whenever someone heard the sounds of sweet love coming from a room, a group of kids would soon follow, kicking in the door and screaming "BOOTY BUST!" Sometimes, they went so far as to bring cameras. A booty bust on our room led by Demi had failed due to our placing of a dresser in front of the door. Defied cries came from the other side as Beverly and I snickered in bed. A few hours later the sounds of love came from the room Demi's little brother slept in, and I gathered my forces. We burst into the room, yelling, "BOOTY BUST!", the lights were flicked on, and suddenly before us was Jason's bare ass bobbing up and down over Casper. It was the most scandalous booty bust of the summer! We were all laughing hysterically, until we slowly realized that... well... they weren't stopping. Jason's hairy bobbing man ass kept... well, just bobbing away. Seeing that our booty bust was having no effect on their personal enjoyment, we eventually just closed the door and went back to the party downstairs. The only incident that night was when James popped up uninvited that night, and started harassing a girl at the party. James had always been a jack-off in my opinion, and no one liked him much anyways. This was the last straw for Darkstar and Fode though, and they quickly chased him outiside. Fode was a big fan of kung fu movies, and read a lot about ninjas, but no one really took him too seriously. That is until Darkstar witnessed his flying double kick into James' chest as they caught up to him in the street in front of Demi's house. Darkstar later described it as something Bruce Lee would have been proud of. I guess if you watch enough kung fu, you just might pick something up... The two of them proceeded to beat the crap out of him until he started running down the street in an attempt to escape. Darkstar and Fode gave chase, and after a few blocks, Darkstar exclaimed, "Goddammit! If you don't stop running away, I'm just going to beat the shit out of you even more when I catch you!" Amazingly, he stopped. James obviously wasn't a terribly bright person. A few minutes later James was left in a battered heap in the middle of the street as Darkstar and Fode walked back to the party. The drinks flowed. It was one of those nights were you see everyone that you haven't seen in forever, and it seemed everyone was together that night in a rare unity that you just don't see everyday. The shenanigans continued into the wee hours of the night. Again, I found people gathered suspiciously around the bathroom, giggling. I made my way through the crowd and into the bathroom. Inside, several people were peeing into the toilet at once, laughing. Looking into the toilet, I had to fight to keep myself from collapsing with laughter again. Dana's shoes were in the toilet. I pushed everyone out of the bathroom. "I need a minute." I said, closing the door. The crowd outside roared with laughter. I woke up the next morning forcing my hungover body to carry me into the kitchen, my mind focused on a single activity. Greasy food. My eyes rose from the sink to the kitchen window. Outside, I could see Mugsy's feet, along with the rest of his body, hanging upside down over the keg. Two people held him in place as a small crowd of Towson kids cheered on in the background. I checked the clock on the wall. It was seven am and people were still doing keg stands...

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