Darin Abernathy

Saturday I was setting up 2 computers with some broadcasting software and Skype so I could take calls. (I’m doing a new show, more on that later.) So I was testing it all out and it seemed to be working perfectly and I could hear it on the internet stream several seconds later. To make sure I had the levels all set right, I decided to make some test calls. Whenever I make test calls for anything, I always default to calling Domino’s Pizza in East Alton, IL. It’s the one John and I pranked a lot as kids and their number is easy to remember. So I called them up and asked a bunch of nonsense questions, as usual, and we hung up.

Then I had more to test so I needed to call another number. I dialed a familiar exchange and then a random 4 digits afterwards and immediately realized that those 4 digits weren’t exactly random. They belonged to a childhood nemesis of mine named Darin Abernathy. This is a guy I haven’t thought of for about 20 years now, but somehow I’m suddenly calling him up and talking to his mom. I have no idea how his number suddenly popped into my head.

So I start in with lots of nonsense to Darin’s mom, asking her meaningless questions like, “So, how’s your dog?” “Uh, we don’t have a dog.” And I needed to test the music function of this software I’m using so I said to her, “Hey, listen to this really awesome song!” and I start playing Roses by Outkast. You know, the piano part. She tells me it’s very nice and I ask her if she was able to hear it okay. It wasn’t too loud or distorted was it? She says no, it sounded fine to her. Then she resumes asking me who I am. I’m Dave.

I don’t know why I didn’t like Darin Abernathy as a kid. He was about 2 years older than me. I know me and John Sever both had something against him. I’m not sure if I brought John into it or he brought me into it or if John was even that much a part of it. I’m not sure if Darin actually did something to warrant my dislike for him or if it was just completely random. I do remember that he seemed to really hate me, but it’s probably because of whatever irritating things I was doing to him. It’s just been so long that I don’t remember. Maybe John will know.

I do remember a few specific things that I did to Darin and his friend though. They would play tennis behind our garage and I would hang out in the garage making insane noises inside. Crashing into things, yelling, starting up the lawnmower, setting off fireworks, etc. Just whatever I could do to irritate them. And it worked too. They would bang on the garage wall at me and yell back. I wasn’t yelling at them though. I was just performing theatrics in the privacy of my own garage. How dare they listen in on me!

I had this plan to mount a big speaker at the peak of the roof inside the garage and run a wire for it underground so that I could annoy them even when it wasn’t possible to go outside and bother them in person. I was dedicated! I even went as far as running the wire along the fence and hiding it with leaves, but I think I ran short of wire or something because I never completely.

Something I did often in the 80’s was hang out on our patio’s swing. You know, a bench hanging from chains? And from this swing I had a perfect view of Darin’s front porch on the next block over, which him and his friends seemed to sit around on a lot. So when we got our first cordless phone I discovered the hilarity of outdoor prank calling by calling his phone number whenever they were outside, just to see them get up and go inside to answer it. I’d hang up before they got in the door, they’d come back out, sit down, then it repeats. At the time it seemed so innovative, having a remote means of dialing the phone from outdoors. Cordless phones were amazing!

Eventually they must have noticed me on the swing talking on the cordless phone in completely unrelated phone calls. And also noticed that I was always there when their phone was mysteriously ringing, because they started yelling at me (from a block away) whenever I called them. I forget exactly what they were yelling.

This tormenting of Darin continued until at least when I was 16 or 17 years old, because I remember using the phone line in my room (which I had installed when I was 16, after I had a job to pay for things like that) to call the Alton Telegraph and set up a fake newspaper ad, listing Darin’s home for rent. This is back in the day when newspapers would set up an ad before getting paid for it. I gave them my own telephone number so that people could call me about the house, I think with the intentions of recording the phone calls and saying funny things to the callers. But then I started telling people to come and look at the house and if we weren’t home to just walk around the house looking in the windows to see what it looks like inside. I made it a really awesome renting deal so there were lots of calls.

I guess when I left home and went to Texas I completely forgot about him. Weird that I dialed his number like that, after all these years. And even after I was so weird at his mom the other day, she still kept talking to me so I asked if Darin was around. I expected her to say, “Oh no, he hasn’t lived here for 15 years!” but instead she told me he was out for the day and then she gave me his cell phone number. I called it for another test of my system, but only got his voicemail. I babbled to his voicemail for awhile and played Roses in its entirety, then talked a little while longer, mostly about issues I was having with software. His voicemail seems to have unlimited recording capacity. I should give him a call later and apologize to him! I bet he’d love that.