We have done some digging to find out what we can about Charlie Ryba. Without disclosing the specifics, we managed to find out which college he went to and in what year. This period of his life is essentially all you need to know about Ryba in order to understand his place in the Give Me Head comedy of wreckers.

From here we managed to track down a handful of his fellow students whose accounts matched up and gave us a clear understanding of not only Ryba the man, but also his friendship with Lawrence Cassidy which we found to be as moving as it was eye opening.

We even found out where Ryba is today and where we could probably find him if we wanted to. However, after a long heated argument we have decided that we will only ever disclose anything about any of the employees after the Give Me Head days with their express permission or if it’s so non-specific that it won’t compromise their privacy. This also applies to directly approaching them based on the fact that reliving ths trauma might see them shoot us dead on the spot.

We also cannot risk getting sued over such a project. In light of all this we will say that Ryba has gone on to do well for himself and if he ever reaches out, we’d be delighted to hear from him. We also believe that, in time, we will eventually hear from some folks attached to this project and we’ll hopefully have a chance to interview them.

Yet we would like to make it absolutely clear hat if we even get a whiff of Cassidy’s whereabouts, we will happily get sued for money we don’t have in order to visit him. Even shot dead if it came to it. Unless he’s had some sort of religious experience in the meantime, we’re confident he would love to talk about himself until the cows grow old and die.

What follows is everything we know to be true, based on numerous interviews. We would like to thank all of those who gave us their time and we respect their request to remain anonymous.

The Pre-Cassidy Years

Charlie Ryba was a much loved young pup. He was smart, funny, generous, good at anything he put his mind to (he was especially good with Yo-yos). He knew when to make a joke and when to be serious. He never got in much trouble and on those occasions when he did, he’d own it and apologise.

As a non-American who grew up in the north of England, this is how I imagine all young Americans lived in the 1980s. This is probably down to those amazing feel good highschool movies which usually star Molly Ringwald and/or Emilio Estevez: they all party around a pool, drinking fizzy pop that might be spiked with rum but only enough to make you puke. All the girls say “hi” in a flirty way and all the boys make jokes about their “jugs” behind their backs. There’s a couple of dorks who get their revenge in some underwhelming fashion and one jock who, after being a bit of a shit all movie, gets his comeuppance.

And that’s all there is to 1980s American life: nuclear family, MTV, white picket fence, hell yeah!

Of course I don’t really believe this, but it’s sometimes nice to imagine that once upon a time, there was no social media or mobile phones. What peace and quiet! Yet people were bonded together in ways which they simply aren’t today. You had to make a lot of effort to meet up with your pals and when you finally found them, you’d cling to them like they’re the most precious thing in the world. And what happened if you lost them in the park or the mall? After ten minutes of aimlessly walking around trying to locate them, your only option is home time.

You’d wonder where they went all night, and the the next day you’d ask them at class what happened and they would tell you that they’d also given up searching for you after ten minutes, and that would be that.

Such simpler times.

The “Enter Cassidy” Years

You don’t get to choose where you’re born, neither what year and what hospital. Some people get lucky; others not so much. We’re  all at the mercy of chaotic forces way beyond our control. It’s almost as if we spawn in to our lives at random; like pixels on a battlefield played on a console designed by a god who has long lost hs sense of humour. It didn’t take long for Ryba to understand the pits of this truism when he first met Lawrence Cassidy.

At this point in time Cassidy began to show up at some of Ryba’s lessons, and from the get-go he began alienating everyone around him. My dad’s dick is bigger than your dad’s dick. My dick is bigger than your dad’s dick. Your dad sucks my dick. That kind of nonsense which seems important to a certain type of teenager suffering from chidhood trauma. And then they grow up and either get therapy or get married.

But some of these damaged teenagers don’t do any of that. They tend to end up like Cassidy in adulthood or some complex variation of him which requires an intervention to fend off those destructive impulses.

So after alienating everyone else, Ryba was waiting for his turn and had memorised numerous adequate responses. However, when the interaction eventually arrived, he was a little  taken aback.

“Yo chicano, wanna buy some of the green sticky stuff at a good price?”

“No thank you. I actua–“

“No worries. I don’t sell to chicanos anyways. I have an affinity with you, guys. You’re often treated like outsiders. Maybe not in this college, but visit any other fuckin’ place and you get those eyeballs. Me, too, chicano. I know your pain. So like I say, I don’t sell to chicanos not because I don’t like you; I just prefer to give it to you. So very discretely, look under the table.”

Ryba didn’t want to risk breaking this surprising bond so he waited for Mr “Ogre” Phillips to turn his back at tye front of class and briefly looked under the table only to see Cassidy toss a little bit of weed which went under Ryba’s chair. He picked it up in a heartbeat although, despite the century-long stereotype still playing out about Mexicans’ love for marijuana, he didn’t really smoke weed but his older brother did.

“Wow,” Ryba said. “Thanks, man.”

Let’s pause here briefly because we need to be clear about what’s really going on. Cassidy tossed that weed because he wanted precisely that response. It wasn’t solidarity with the Mexican plight that drove it. He’d made all that up. Cassidy gave a shit about nothing and nobody. He wanted to win over just one student buddy because he was about to run out of all options and he needed at least one impressionable kid to win over. And this happy-go-lucky fellas with a funky mullet was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“You’re most welcome, Charlie. Speaking of which, you want to buy some next level snow? I don’t give that shit away to nobody but I can give you discount.”

“I’m good thank you.”

“No problemo. But you know where to hit me up now.”

“That I do.”

After pretending to do some writing in his journal he looked up. “Say, Charlie, do you like arcade games?”

“Of course.”

“So you know Twitchy Fingers, right?”

“It was my second home last summer.”

“Cool, cool. Well, there’s a new game hitting Twitchy’s this weekend called Pole Position and it’s meant to be like driving a real life racing car with gears and shit. Wanna join me play?”

Ryba didn’t, but for some reason said, “That’d be swell.”

‘Game on, chicano. Give me your addy and I’ll knock for you along the way. But there’s something you should know: I’m the best arcade game player within a one hundred mile radius of here. You know how I know that’s definitely true?”

“Go on…”

“You’ll see my preferred initials all over the leader boards: I go by Triple A or sometimes god. You’ll find them everywhere. And if you don’t, it’s because I ain’t had my turn.

“That’s totally cool, Lawrence.”

“Call me Cassidy. hotshot. Lawrence is a name for homos and I ain’t a homo. I’ve had sexy time at least a hundred and fifty times including with your mom. I’m only joshing. So you definitely coming to Twitchy Fingers to beat some crazy ninjas Saturday?”

“Absolutely, man.”

“So you’ need to prepare  yourself in advance because you’re gonna see a rock star playing Pole Position and I’m gonna need to prepare blowing all those stinking nerds away even while half baked.”

Ryba–the naive golden boy–began to think this manic Lawrence Cassidy fella had perhaps been misunderstood. Throughout all the bluster he seemed okay. Ryba looked forward to getting to know this dude a little more.

It was, of course, the biggest mistake of his life.

*****

That weekend Cassidy kept his promise and knocked for Ryba along the way. During the whole journey Cassidy smoked a joint and couldn’t shut up about how amazing he was at every single arcade machine housed at Twitchy’s. Apparently he’d mastered them all as if he was, in his own words, “a freak of gaming”.

Manwhile Ryba had begun to cotton on that this was all bravado and it was getting tedious very quickly.  It was even testing his usual nicee guy patience. He thought about a number of excuses to leave but in the moment none of them were believable enough. So he promised himself that after this little outing he’ll never hang out with Cassidy again and will gladly take the abuse.

When they arrived at Twitchy’s it was way busier than usual. They only had three Pole Position cabinets and about three hundred people queuing up to play them. The other hurdle is there was no one play throughy only policy which included brand new releases. So people were sitting down for up to half an hour or more and it was already late afternoon. There was slim chance of them getting a game anytime soon.

“Fuck this,” Cassidy said. “I’ll speak to the manager. He’s pals with my old man so we should be able to skip the queues.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ryba said although he wasn’t paying that much attention.

When Cassidy disappeared, Ryba played on the only game he was half decent at which was Gauntlet. He loved arcade games but he was pretty garbage at playing them. However, this never put him off until he reached adulthood.

At the precise moment he was navigating his way through Gauntlet like a pro,  Cassidy turned up. Ryba turned to him and was surprised that the manager of Twitchy’s stood behind him tight-lipped.

“Get your coins ready, Ryba, because we’re next in line for Pole Position and I’ve got twenty dollars to burn plus another five for you.”

“What?” Ryba shrieked with shock.

“Calm your ass, Ryba. I now consider you my best friend.”

“But five dollars is crazy, Cassidy.”

“Listen up my cupcake chicano. Everyone at that college hates my guts. You are the first person to chat to me like I’ve not got a midget dick hanging out of each nostril, nipples for eyeballs and some lady’s trim for a mouth. I know I can come across a nightmare sometimes but they can’t seem to find a diagnosis.” Cassidy handed Ryba a crisp five dollar note and a load of extra coins for the slots. “Now take these clams and go get yourself a nice Slush Puppie then meet me over at the cabinet where I’ll be kicking ass after ass”

“Slush puppies for you boys are on the house,” the manager said with an unconvincing grin. “As many as you like.”

Ryba was somewhat bewildered by what had just happened. Twitchy’s manager really was going to get the two kids to the front of the queue with VIP wrist bands which read: What would Twitchy do? And Ryba received way more coins than he could spend on any given weekend at Twitchy’s.

What in God’s name was going on? Maybe, for selfish reasons, his newfound friendship with Cassidy was totally beneficial after all

One final note about Cassidy’s sideline of selling recreational drugs: there wasn’t any cartel drugs and money flowing down to Cassidy. His fellows at college figured out he was a customer and not a vendor. So what on earth was happening? Ryba would try figure it out later. Right now there were brand new arcade cabinets to blow up.

*****

When Ryba made his way to the cabinets all he could hear were boos and verbal abuse launched at Cassidy who really couldn’t care less.

Holy shit, Ryba thought. He was about to sit in the reserved middle cabinet and a small part of him wanted to do a runner until he heard:

“Grab yourself a pew, chicano.”

He could now smell the joint that Cassidy was puffing on, “Will you hold this for your new good friend and feel free to smoke as much as you like. Here comes the tricky twists so I need to concentrate.”

Several chunks of popcorn hit Ryba on the back of his head,

“By the third or fourth time you finally get used to it. They’re all just fucking peasants. Please. Ryba, sit the fuck down and start getting as good as me at this game.” Ryba sat down at the second cabinet while everyone else sorely queued for the third. “And don’t worry about the splff. The security around here wouldn’t dare touch us.”

They both shut up and played for a while. Ryba couldn’t even qualify whereas Cassidy was fairly crap at getting around corners without hitting something.

“Just warming up,” Cassidy kept saying to an empty audience. “This is one tough mother.”

After an hour of playing, Cassidy had had enough. “Fuck this game. Let’s  go have some real fun. We’ll visit Franco’s for pizza and then hit a club.”

“I should be getting home in a couple of hours. My mom will be expecting me.”

“Fuck that! I mean you are kidding me, right? You’d rather eat a TV dinner filled with pig ass than a Franco’s special full of pepperoni, truffle and mozerella?”

“Not when you frame it like that. But–“

“Look, it’s all on me, okay. Whenever we’re out having fun, you don’t need them pockets.”

“That just ain’t right, though, man.”

“There’s very little right in this world. I know that as good as anyone and so do you because you’re Mexican and your mom cleans toilets for a dollar a day.

“Um, my mom is actually a teacher.”

“So what, Charlie! Don’t you see it’s all the same shit. Who cares? Go call Mom, tell her you’re sleeping over at a friend’s home to do some extra curricula studying of the female anatomy and then we’ll go and have the best night that you, my favourite chicano, have ever had in your–up until you met me–life. Now fuck off and make that call.”

*****

The Franco’s restaurant visit was like the arcade visit. It was heaving with customer with no free tables but with a shorter but sizeable queue of people waiting forever to ge seated. Cassidy strolled up to the door manager and whispered something in his ear. He disappeared for a couple of minutes and then a smiling maître d’ appeared to greet Cassidy while Ryba lurked around like he was searching for spare change on the kerbside.

“Cassidy Junior,” the maître d’ said with an Italian accent. “So nice to see you again. Your father’s private table is waiting for you. Follow me.”

Cassidy gestured for Ryba to come over which he promptly did, feeling the most self conscious he’d ever been. He sprinted passed the srarving, well dressed queue like he was on military exercise, trying to shield his face with his hand and hoping motion blur would conceal his identity.

They were led upstairs to a largely empty VIP room which looked like the private quarters of a Roman prince who had a name like Hugo Lorenzo if that’s even a real Italian name. There were huge potted plants and beautiful renaissance paintings so big that if you stood in front of one, you’d shrink down to the size of a comic book character.

Fast forward an hour…

When the two had finished eating a rich tasting menu, Cassidy leant back in his chair. “So now is when the real fun begins.”

“I really appreciate your generosity, Cassidy, but I should be going home now.”

“Didn’t you tell your mom that you’re staying with a friend tonight?”

Ryba was cornered. “I told her I was eating out and would be home late. She gave me a ten thirty hour curfew.”

Cassidy burst out with obnoxious laughter. “Y9ud mom gave you a curfew like you’re at kindergarten! If my mom gave me a curfew, she wouldn’t see me for three days straight. But listen up. Go call your mom again and say you’re stopping over at my place so you’ll see her tomorrow.”

“I don’t know Cassidy. I,,,”

“..Suck cock for peanuts us what you do,” Cassidy said, completing the sentence. He leant a little further towards him. “Okay, Ryba, I’m going to that lavatory over there. You count two minutes and then come join me. I’m going to give you a magic potion and if after that, you still want to go home to mom then you can go home to mom. Are you all in?”

“I really don’t know, man.”

“I’m talking a measly five minutes of your fucking time and then you can go home if you still want. Just five fucking minutes, alright?

“Okay, Cassidy, you’ve been very generous to me today and I’ve had a great time. So I only think it’s fair that I accept your invitation.”

“The party finally is on! See you in two.”

Cassidy disappeared to the toilet. Ryba really, really didn’t want to stay a moment longer, but at the same time coming back to their next shared class on Tuesday would be gruesome. So for the sake of five minutes he nervously timed two minutes then went to the bathroom.

Cassidy was stood before him with a devious grin. “I want to show you something so follow me. And don’t worry it’s not my giant cock.”

“That’s a relief.”

Cassidy followed Ryba into a cubicle. He locked the door behind them. Pointing to two big lines of cocaine on the toilet seat, Cassidy whispered, “This, my chicano, is the most powerful snow in California. One line for me and one line for you. No strings attached. If you still want mom’s love, the high will have subsided by the time you get home but you’ll probably do a U-turn, hunt me down and beg me for more. You ever snorted snow before?”

“Never, and if truth be told, I don’t really care for weed either.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Cassidy said quietly while tightly rolling up a banknote. “This ain’t nothing like a weed high. In fact it takes you in the opposite direction. So watch closely how I snort it all up then you immediately follow up.”

Ryba saw little point resisting so he watched how Cassidy hoovered up the line and then he spent a minute pulling faces like he was having fifty orgasms simultaneously. He babbled away while  passing the banknote to Ryba.

“God bless America. It’s your turn now.”

Ryba leant over the toilet seat and snorted a long line which seemed to be closer to the size of a paragph. The high immediately hit him like a tidal wave of orgasms and euphoria and weird gums.

As he tried to process his new thought patterns, he turned to Cassidy. “I fucking love you, man! I love this fucking cubicle and the toilet seat is suddenly fascinating. Charlie Ryba is awake for the first time in his life! I just want to touch the stars.”

“That’d be sexual assault, man. Be careful.”

“I mean the stars above, man!”

“Gotcha! So you gonna call mom and ask her for a blow job?”

“Pardon me?”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I have no idea what I’m saying right now. Ignore everything because this shit always hits my libido like I’m a fucking bonobo. Plus I have zero filters at the best of times.”

“You don’t ever have to apologise to me, man. I love you like a brother.”

“Same, man. Let’s go call your mom.”

The two wired teenagers wobbled their way to Franco’s kitchen. Feeling severely self-conscious because everyone else looked grey and dull.

“Yo, Franco,” Cassidy shouts. “You there? I  have one last tiny favour to ask.”

There’s no response from the kitchen.

“Maybe he’s gone home?” Ryba says.

“Fuck that. He’s here somewhere. Let’s just–“

A fat Italian with a grubby apron suddenly popped his head out. He’s whisking something in a bowl. “Who you be exactly?”

“I’m VIP Cassidy. I’ve just eaten a meal on the VIP floor.”

“You are not Cassidy. I seen Cassidy. He’s like an old person.”

“That’s my old man, you fucking wally. I’m his son Lawrence.”

“Accept my apology, señor. How do I help with you?”

“We just need to use a phone.”

“There’s one at the back of the the kitchen. Come, come. I show you.”

“I love you, Mr chef man,” Ryba says with a swinging jaw. “I really do. And that whisker thingumy is like modern art.”

“There is phone,” the chef says before rushing back to his workstation.

Cassidy was racking up two more lines while Ryba immediately called his mother. This is how it went down: “Mom, it’s Charlie here. I first want to tell you how much I love and appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me except that one time you forced me to sleep in the garage because I accidentally told you to F– off while on a solid Frogger run and you started hoovering in front of the TV. But I suppose I deserved that. Mom, I love you, l love you!” By this point Cassidy is trying to rush Ryba along with hand gestures..”Charades?”

“Charades?” Cassidy wwhispered, “I’m saying to get a fucking move on, you massive square!”

“Mom I won’t be home until some time tomorrow. We have a difficult pre-exam this week… What’s a pre-exam seminar thing? We don’t even know yet so we’re preparing for it tomorrow. Yes, I’ll call first thing… No I haven’t been drinking… Now don’t forget how much I love you. Signing off now. Have the best time possible and may love strike you from every direction. “

Cassidy snatched the phone out of Ryba’s hand and hung up. “Crikey, that sounded like a veiled threat yf violence.”

“Did it? It did didn’t it? J was trying to be poetic. I should call her back.”

“Fuck that! All sense of judgjent my side is officially switched off. You can say all sorts of bullshit like that forever on this shit. Now here’s another freebie line on me.”

Ryba took the banknote and he was off again like a professional snowman. He was immediately gurning with a half-smile frozen in time. “I fucking love this stuff!” he yelled.

“Keep your speech tidy, Ryba, or we either won’t get into any clubs or some eight foot muscle man will kill us and rob our corpses, and I only have this one baggie left between us. So can you manage that?”

“Piece of pizza.”

“Good, now let’s go to hot girl city. My favourite place. It’s actually Mirage Club and there are naked titties everywhere you turn. I get so fucking horny in there I could shove my cock in a champagne bottle. You in?”

“I’m all in except with the champagne masturbation technique. “

“Whatever. Just be prepared to hide your hard-on in a flash because these girls are smoking hot and they will flirt for money. And then have sexy time with you for just a little more.”

“What would I get for this five dollars you gave me?”

“You’d get your balls tickled for a minute. But as I keep telling you, Ryba, this is all on me so go as wild as you like. Just whatever you do, don’t try to get a freebie or you’ll end up in predator prison for life.”

“You mean grabbing some girl’s private parts? What kind of sicko would do that?”

“You’d be surprised. Now Let’s fucking go!”

*****

Ryba had no idea what was happening. The mirage club was for highflyers. He watched Cassidy whisper into the ears of the person on the doors and then their whole attitude would change considerably; like he was some sort of big shot in this neck of the woods. Yet everyone already knew he’d lied about being some high level dealer. So what was really going on? He’d either told the truth or he was an expert grifter.

Once inside Ryba had just taken another line of coke in the bathroom and for the first ten minutes he was telling everyone in the club they were so fucking cool: their flock of seagulls were cool; their fringes, cut to perfection with a spirit level, were cool; their homemade emerald dresses were cool, perms were cool, lipstick was cool, botched attempts at new romantic makeup were super cool. And unfortunately for Ryba, having virtually no experience of speaking to the opposite sex, he thought he was doing a fantastic job. Everyone else thought he was a little creepy.

After hitting the dance floor, listening to 80s disco, he really let himself dance like there was only him in the entire club. And of course there wasn’t just him; there was two hundred other people he was getting in the way of. He remembered Cassidy but couldn’t see him anywhere.

As the coke buzz dwindled, so did his self-consciousness. He scanned the club again and as he did he felt the arms of a gorilla grabbing him around his chest like the tightest safety belt in America. He was then dragged all the way to the exit where he was dumped outside on the cold ground right next to Cassidy who looked iike he’d been punched in the face a couple of times.

“You  best start running,” the big man said. “Because otherwise I’m going to ruin your lives with a simple call to the cops. Now run, you stupid motherfuckers!”

The two kids scrambled to their feet and began to run across an empty highway and then took some unstable iron steps down beneath a tunnel.

It was here that Ryba began to vomit all over his favourite salmon suit, no longer feeling too great. He turned to Cassidy who was bleeding from both nostrils with a black eye and a ripped shirt

“What the fuck just happened, Cassidy?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about, chicano. I just have some unsettled business with the Russian mafias so they booted me out until I could repay my debts. Nothing more than that.”

“The Russian mafia?,” Cassidy said. “Aren’t they worse than the worst crime families in New York?”

“Relax! They’re just pussy cats rubbing me up. I’ll pay them back double fold next month. Until then we keep a low profile.”

“Buf now these butchers know who I am?”

“Nah, chicano you were just collateral. They only care about my debts.”

If you haven’t sussed it by now, this is an elaborate lie. The Russian mafia were a sophisticated enterprise who only dealt in huge profits; way more than what some spoilt kid could handle.

We think it’s here that Ryba knew that this wasn’t just some delusion of grandeur; Cassidy was trying to impress everyone and he’d go to any lengths to obtain it.

But where was all this money coming from? How could Cassidy afford to buy everything? And why could he just whisper something in a manager’s ear and get admitted somewhere straight away with VIP treatment?

And then something from earlier that night struck him: while securing a rable at Franco’s he heard the maître d’ refer to Cassidy’s father’s table. And then it all clicked into place: his father was super wealty and his spoilt rotten son had some inferiority complex which had manifested itself as a giant penis.

In that moment Ryba could either walk away and spread shit about him around college or he could pretend he hadn’t noticed and just carried on as if he was totally oblivious. Perhaps he could even have a shot at trying to shake Ryba out of this facade.

This would be the second biggest mistake of his life.

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