Rhode to Nowhere: Part III
By James Johnson
Last time on Rhode to Nowhere: our heroes, writer James Johnson and musicians Manquillan Minniefee and Stephen Waters went on an impromptu road trip from North Carolina to Providence Rhode Island, taking with them only $200, musical talent and six of the largest balls this world has ever seen.
Now, the exciting conclusion:
For such a small city, Providence was brimming with eventfulness. So much, in fact, that I’m going to have to break this story down into concise, vague and unhelpful blurbs.
Day 1
Minniefee, Waters and I meet our new roomies, Rhode Island College students, Dan Baker, Dan Ferrell and John Birt. Before any real introductions can be made, the three students let us in on their plan to rid their apartment of a fridge that they can’t quite fit down the stairs.
“See, a cop came by and told us the fridge was blocking an exit, and when we told him that we couldn’t fit it down the steps, he said to toss it out a window,” Baker explained. “… that sounds like permission to me.”
Some celebratory fridge tossing pasta is prepared, friends are invited over, and finally the main event.
Ferrell, Birt, Minniefee and Waters crowd around the apartment sized fridge and squeeze it through the tight window opening on the side of their building. The usual hunk of metal sounds are heard, however an uninvited sound effect arises - “KER-KLASH!”
“There wasn’t any glass in that fridge,” said Ferrell, trying to peak out far enough to see what could have possibly made such a sound.
Soon enough the long arm of the law was called in (it didn’t have to stretch very far, being as their apartment is located directly across the street from a police station).
The men are given a nasty talking to by one cop after another (seriously, it was like every cop in town was forming a conga line outside), and even got a nasty ticket.
