Batman and the Yellow Sports Wagon

It was the summer of 1989, just before my senior year in high school, and I was 17 years old. The greatest week of my year, camp week, was but a few days away. I was on top of the world. Then I woke up with a sore throat. A very sore throat.

At first I held on to hope that it would clear up, but it didn't take long for me to realize that this wasn't just an ordinary sore throat. Within a day I was admitted to the hospital with a hard-core case of mono.

Not only was I devastated to have to miss out on my yearly camp experience, but I felt absolutely miserable. My throat got so bad that the only thing I could eat for two days was whipped cream. I was so worn down that I could barely walk to the bathroom. I'd end up spending three or four nights in the hospital, watching the summer days pass outside my window and thinking about all the awesome things I was missing. I sank into a pretty deep depression.

During this time, there were only two things that made me feel better. The first was my nightly dose of Demerol and the second was knowing that Batman, starring Michael Keaton, was due to be released soon.

For some reason, I was just crazy about this movie. I wasn't even into comic books, but when I heard this film was coming out, I got all amped up. Somebody brought me a copy of Premiere, which had Batman on the cover, to read in the hospital, and I kept telling myself that I'd know I was on the road to recovery when I was finally well enough to catch this flick.

Anyone who's had a bad case of mono knows that recovery comes slowly, and after I got out of the hospital I was laid up for a good week or so before I could do much of anything. Eventually I started to come around, though, and as soon as I was remotely well enough, I called my buddy Raoul Duke (pictured). Time to go catch Batman!

We usually went to see movies in Fairmont, which was 20 minutes up the freeway, just because they had chairs that reclined back and it was always cool to leave town by ourselves at that age. Good ol' Raoul swung by my house and picked me up in his good ol' Yellow Sports Wagon. My recovery was under way -- everything was going to be okay.

Before he picked me up, I specifically remember looking at the thermometer, and it was a scorching 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). As we embarked on our journey to my well-being, I remembered that the Yellow Sports Wagon wasn't equipped with air-conditioning. Oh, well. The fresh West Virginia air would probably do me good, even if it was packed with 98 percent humidity.

As I reached down to twist the window's handle, Raoul said the following:

"Uh, what are you doing?"

I sort of looked around to see if there was someone else in the car he could be talking to, but when I realized that he was indeed talking to me, I answered:

"Uh, putting my window down."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, see, I'd really rather you didn't do that."

"Dude, shut the eff up!" I reached down again toward the window. He slowed the car down and said:

"I'm serious. I don't want the window down."

"What? It's 104 degrees! I'm freaking dying here! Why don't you want the window down?"

What Raoul didn't know was that I had a tape recorder going at the time, secretly recording our conversation. After nearly 20 years of keeping the existence of this tape a secret, I'm bringing it out right here on RtN. And I'm going to uncover it by playing Raoul's actual answer as to why I couldn't put the window down in this extreme situation. This audio recording hasn't been manipulated in any way and is 100 percent authentic.

Click here to hear Raoul's response.

It was his car, so I relented. My throat started to swell. After a few miles, I started to hyperventilate, and soon I was hallucinating as we raced zebras up the interstate. Eventually we made it to Fairmont and to the theater. As the door of the Yellow Sports Wagon opened up, I looked like an Army recruit fleeing from the tear-gas house at boot camp. I was lying in the parking lot, gasping for air, my throat well on the way to swelling shut again.

Raoul said Batman was great, at least as far as he could tell, since he spent the whole movie making out with some Fairmont chick in the back row. I wouldn't know, because I spent those same hours recovering on a cot in the theater's office. But I wasn't mad. Raoul's perfect hair got him the girl, and as a best bud, if you can't make a sacrifice for the greater cause, what kind of friend are you?