What the hell. Here are a few more stories for the road.
THE RED CARPET, THE CAUSEWAY, AND THAT ANNOYING CIA GUY
One UC academy class was particularly long, and the students performed well. They worked through every problem and advanced the UC scenario for the next day. Because they did so well, we thought we should celebrate, and it was off to Pam’s #1. We didn’t need a reason to celebrate. Advanced UC school was a rite of passage of sorts. Agents could establish relationships that would advance their street cred and make a name for themselves. I’m certain that many of the shenanigans were directed at fitting in. Don’t get me wrong, this was a group of overachievers who worked the scenarios like the pros they were. But they also were a bunch of high-octane agents thrown in with a bunch of high-octane instructors. It was a perfect storm.
It was getting late at Pam’s, and Darren and I had to make it across the causeway to Brunswick without getting arrested. He was driving, and if I haven’t mentioned it before now, Darren had a thing about speed. So, there we were at 3 AM on the main drag, heading toward the F. J. Torras Causeway at about ninety miles per hour, and not for any reason other than Darren liked it.
I spotted a chick hitchhiking on the side of the road and hollered, “Let’s give her a ride.” Darren slammed on the brakes and came sliding sideways up to the hitchhiker. I should note that at this time I was divorced. Not that being divorced made picking up a hooker at 3 AM okay. More precarious for us was that a Georgia state trooper had seen it all go down. When he pulled us over, I had somebody on my lap who shouldn’t have been, Darren had a gun on him he shouldn’t have had, and we were both drunk.
The trooper had no sense of humor and did not care what kind of badges anybody had. He said, “Really, a hundred miles per hour?” Darren replied, “My speedometer only said ninety, sir.”
The trooper had Darren in cuffs at the back of the vehicle and was in the process of telling me to “shut the fuck up,” when, in a desperate Hail Mary pass, I asked that he not contact our supervisory instructors.
The trooper decided that would be the perfect punishment and would save him a buttload of paperwork. He demanded my supervisor’s telephone number, and I hesitantly gave it to him. At least, I pretended to hesitate.
Within ten minutes, Box and Jimm rolled up. They got out of their car and came over and started chewing on Darren’s and my asses, threatening every punishment possible. They put on quite the show. This satisfied the trooper, and he uncuffed Darren and turned us over to our bosses. The trooper had no way to know that we all had left the same bar thirty minutes earlier.
Not lost in the irony of this entire debacle is that by this time, the great Pat Kelly had retired from ATF. One of his first postretirement jobs was as chief of the FLETC police. The base has its own federal police force that provides security for the center as well as protecting the well-being of students and employees. Believe it or not, crimes have occurred right on the facility, and I’m not talking about just misdemeanors. There have been reports of drug use, sexual assaults, thefts, and other crimes at FLETC over the years. Granted, they are few and far between, but every now and then a questionable hire slips through the cracks. Although Pat chose not to stay in that position very long, I can’t help but believe that our collective foolishness didn’t help the cause. That is purely my opinion. Not every UC class that graced St. Simons Island was as raucous as this one.
In fact, we couldn’t leave the center after this class graduated without at least one more incident, now could we? The story goes that in the final days of class, there was a verbal confrontation with a student from the CIA’s uniform division. The argument allegedly escalated to one or two of the females from our class threatening to throw the CIA employee off of his balcony. He went crying to the base police.
Several of the students happened to be returning to the center after this incident. Several of them may or may not have been involved. So, when their vehicle approached the gate and they were asked for their IDs, in true UC fashion, they all provided fake IDs. The problem was they were riding in the exact same vehicle described by the pussy CIA guy. When interviewed by IA, they were able to explain it away by saying they were just practicing their UC techniques. Box and Jimm backed ’em up.
ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHERS
After a night of drinking off base from FLETC, a couple of us were standing in the parking lot, shooting the shit at 2:30 AM. My companion, we’ll call him “Box,” was one of the permanent instructors at the ATF Academy. “Box” casually popped his trunk open. Whatever he was doing didn’t catch my attention until I saw that in his trunk he had about thirty red-handled training pistols, all in holsters. The red handle designated the guns as inert, unable to fire, welded shut, and easily identifiable to police and civilians. “Box” was babbling about whatever, probably trying to distract me. Even in my highly intoxicated state, I noticed that one pistol on top of the pile did not have a red handle and was not in a holster. Even though the instructor was a career-long friend of mine, I immediately registered danger. He was reaching for the black-handled pistol, and I couldn’t react. My brain was forming the words, but my drunk mouth wouldn’t let them come out.
Within two seconds, he jerked the pistol out of the trunk and fired one shot, right between my feet. I felt a sting on my right calf. I froze. I looked at him in shock as he tossed the gun back in the trunk, closed the lid, and began to enter the driver’s side of the vehicle.
I mumbled, “I think you fucking shot me, bro.”
Without a word, he started the car, slipped it into drive, and sped off.
I looked down and could see the bullet impacted in the blacktop. I looked at my leg. No blood. It probably was just some frag that hit my leg. I hollered after the disappearing vehicle: “Fuck you, motherfucker! That shit ain’t funny!”
I then realized I’d better haul ass so I didn’t have to explain to the local cops what happened. Truth be known, it was funny as hell. At least, we thought so.
SPECIAL SPOUSES
Being the significant other of a no-shit UC operator requires a special kind of crazy. My third wife—I know, the jokes write themselves—quickly learned what she was up against. Shortly after Robyn and I began dating, the RatSnakes got together at my house in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Robyn was just dropping by to get the key to my pool so she and her kids could use it later when we were all gone. She was met by an agent named Fitz, butt-ass naked, throwing a football in my front yard with another member of the crew. Being drop-dead gorgeous, Robyn was like a magnet to a drunk-ass Fitz.
It was just really bad timing on her part. I hadn’t had an opportunity to ease her into the fold. After explaining to Robyn that Fitz played football for the Dallas Cowboys, which he didn’t, and how he loved kids, which he didn’t, I handed her my key and said, “Run.” She did.
A year later, our second annual Core reunion happened in Panama City, Florida. I invited Robyn to come along—and then for several weeks warned her not to. This would be her second exposure to the RatSnakes. We drove all day and got to the rental house late and exhausted. Box showed us our room, and we just wanted to crash and then jump into the fray the next morning. I knew that was never going fly, but I tried. Five minutes after I’d closed, locked, and then barricaded the bedroom door, which kind of freaked Robyn out, all hell broke loose.
I thought the pounding would bring the door right out of the frame. Four or five voices were screaming: “Oh, fuuuck no, Cefalu. Get out here, you pussy. We got Jack. Wake the fuck up!”
I didn’t even try to ignore them, as it would just encourage them. I just said to put some clothes on quickly, and then I opened the door. Milton fell through the doorway, followed by Gundo, Fitz, and Box, who had ratted us out. After hugs and kisses were exchanged by the guys, they all wanted to plant a sloppy welcome-aboard kiss on Robyn. Welcome to the RatSnakes, baby. I looked over my shoulder at her as I left the room and said, “I warned you.” I walked out to the pool where everybody else was gathered, laughing.
The next time I saw Robyn, she was being dragged across the yard toward the pool, hanging on to her favorite pair of Victoria’s Secret panties, with one of the RatSnakes holding on to the other end of the lingerie. By the time they got to the pool, the panties were stretched to a size sixty-four. I heard Robyn say, “You can have ’em now, fucker, but you owe me new panties.”
There was nothing else to do but marry her.
RANDY’S PANTS
Admittedly, this may be my all-time favorite experience. Remember ex-cop Randy? On this day, there was a plan for Randy to go to a violator’s house, buy an illegal machine gun, and leave. He already had met with and bought drugs from this particular violator, so we weren’t too worried. A bad guy usually won’t risk pulling a rip-off in his own house. But because the violator picked the location, we had a substantial cover team using both long-range still photography as well as video of the outside of the house for evidentiary purposes. In hindsight, I wish we hadn’t video recorded this one, and so does Randy.
The violator’s meth-driven paranoia kicked in that day. Randy walked up onto the porch and knocked on the door. The bad guy opened the door just a crack, and we heard over the wire, “Man, are you a cop?” Randy said, “What the fuck, man. Let me in.” The violator said, “You wearin’ a wire?”
This question was met with a classic Randy play. Right there in front of God and everybody, in a neighborhood at high noon, Randy unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his shirt, and dropped trou. I mean around his ankles, underwear and all. In a nanosecond, the violator ripped open the door and was yelling at Randy, “Jesus, man. All right, all right, come in.”
A textbook buy went down that day—well, it was textbook until Randy’s dick was seen waving in the wind. The video had to be turned over to the defense, who made enough noise that ATF had to give Randy a few days on the beach. The violator went to prison.
RatSnakes forever. Forever RatSnakes.
—Vincent A. Cefalu