Lost in the Woods: Excerpt from the Chapter – Jordan Dean

Our sophomore year had just begun. One of our best friends through high school was David Bunyard. He was a real country boy and a genuinely nice guy. He played football with us until we got to high school. We kept in touch at school, and he was one of the regulars at almost every party I had. He also dated one of my sisters for a short time.

His dad had a trailer out in Ink where occasionally we would have small get-togethers. Mainly just the boys would go to these. Jordan and I went there a few times and had a great time drinking and carrying on in the woods with David.

There was one time that David decided to have a bigger shindig at his place. Jordan, Dakota, Billy D., Keelan and his girlfriend Stevie, Sarah Thacker, Kaylie and John Stroud, David and his girlfriend and I were all in attendance. Not the biggest party, but we were having a ball out there. We had plenty of beer, a fire, four wheelers, and a good guy/girl ratio.

At one point, Dean, David, and I had been dared to strip down and race to the end of the driveway. We were having such a good time no one saw a problem with it. Boys will be boys, as they say. We strip down and race down the road. I lost as I had already known I was the slower of the three, but I had thought of something that they hadn’t. I took my clothes with me when I ran.

The others had grabbed both Dean and David’s clothes as soon as we took off. They took them in and locked themselves in the house. Being that it was David’s house, he got himself in and got his clothes back. Dean just so happened to have a pair of shorts in his truck. He finished the rest of the party with nothing but those shorts on. No shirt. No shoes. Just shorts.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly. We had been playing beer pong, chugging beers, talking and laughing and just having a good old fashioned party when things started going downhill.

David, who had had very little to drink so far, was taking some people out on his four wheeler. He was romping up and down his driveway, which might as well have been a track seeing as it was a bumpy dirt road. He took a couple of the girls on the back and took them around busting wheelies and flying up and down the drive for about fifteen minutes straight.

Unbeknownst to us, the neighbor had taken offense to some kid romping on his four wheeler at one in the morning. He called the police and about thirty minutes after we finished up with the four wheeler the cops showed up. One cop by the name of Bo stepped out of his durango. Everyone was quiet to this point, waiting and listening for a plan.

David gives us one order “Stay in the house.” and heads outside to talk to Bo. As soon as he stepped outside the door everyone panics and runs to find a door out the back. I had found the back door, but it was jammed up from the outside and wouldn’t open. 

I work the knob for a second and I hear a crash from further in the house. I ran back through the back bedroom to see that the window unit air conditioner had been pushed through and everyone was scrambling out the window. Not wanting to be the only one in the house, I followed suit. We scrambled out and into the woods.

I waited in the woods with a few people and we eventually gave ourselves up to the cops. Dean was nowhere to be found. They allowed us to call our parents and arrange rides rather than haul us all back to the station.

The next day I called up Jordan to find out where he had been. As it turns out, He and a small group had continued through the woods. Keep in mind that he had lost all but pants at this party. They had gone from Ink, through the woods, across barbwire and briers and fields, and had come out in between Mena and Acorn on Highway 71. Just ballparking it, I’d call that a ten mile journey through the woods. No shirt. No shoes.

We all show up to first period the following monday. We’re laughing it up and reminiscing over the whole thing before we get dressed for practice. Dean had brier marks and cuts all over the tops of his feet and all the way up his legs.

As we are talking and laughing, our coach calls us all into the office. Dean, Dakota, Billy, Keelan, John and I all sat there while Coach Weaver flanked by Bentley and Bledsoe explained that word had reached them about the party that we had all attended. From what I gathered later, we had been outed by one of the parents. They went on to explain that they were going to take us all one by one and ask us a few questions. That’s exactly what they did.

We sat the whole period in a room with coach bledsoe keeping watch over us to keep us from talking to each other. Any time he would leave the room for a second we would all work on the story. 

When it was my turn, I admitted to being there and to drinking a little while I was there. I mean, there had been alcohol there and everyone else was denying it. Someone had to be drinking. They didn’t ask me many questions as I tried to get out ahead and just admit as much but as little as possible to get out of there.

Later that day at practice we were all asked to stand after practice while the coaches explained to everyone what had happened. They assured everyone that we were to be punished severely, but since three of us were starters and the rest were huge parts of the practice teams they had to let us continue to practice to help everyone.

Immediately after that the coaches ran us all in front of the team until they were satisfied. We did this everyday after practice for two weeks and sat out the first two games of the year as punishment.