This short story, is but a chapter in a greater story about young men wreaking havoc in the streets. They were in the midst of their care free teenage
years. It was 1987. These events are true, but fictionalized as to who was on what mission, and what occured on eaach mission. The names are their nicknames from the era. This is to protect the writer from any litigation. Please have a laugh.
THE DOG
(The Imperial
Le Baron Chronicles)
After about two years of wreaking nocturnal havoc in the streets of Huntington
Beach (1985-87), the Street Survivors had yet one unaccomplished goal. One particular mail box stood out, protected by its location, the degree of difficulty seemed overwhelming. The range of mail box styles laid waste to over the years was extensive: the
standard tins, the houses, the mansions, the bronze medals and the specials. The specials being the most prized targets of course. Yet, there was one special that was beyond compare in its artistry and difficulty in execution. (The standard tin as the name
applies a plain mail box, the houses look like a house-a roof with windows and a door painted on it, the mansions are made to look like the house they reside in front of, the bronze medals are shaped like a standard tin but made of very heavy metal and look
like a 3rd place prize, the specials are anything outside these descriptions that is not a standard tin—say made to
look like animal, car, aircraft or overly large in size)
When it was time to pull a mission, most sorties were conducted in the neighborhoods in North Western Huntington Beach. Where Talbert Avenue intersects with Springdale Street. The houses in these tracks were mostly two story, three car
garage models. The tract homes that bore the most fruit, had the majority of their mail boxes fixed to poles right on the curb. You know the kind of street where the mailman doesn’t have to get out of the jeep to make the deliveries. There were some mail boxes that stood out like a planet unto themselves; specials that garnered extra attention. One such special, far more than just a mail box,
a statement if you will, was located in an area that even Seal Teams Six, Seven and Eight would have had difficulty infiltrating to conduct operations (particularly on the night in question). This particular neighborhood had many cul-de-sacs and streets that
came to a dead end at Springdale Street. This special box was located several doors into the cul-de sac (of about six or eight houses on each side). In addition to the kind of street the box sat on, the box had an added degree of difficulty. Two doors further
into the cul-de sac was one of those houses that always had loads of activity going on. The Street Survivors didn’t know if it was a drug house or not, it did not seem like one; and was in a neighborhood that seemed much too affluent (for the 1980’s,
not like today) for such activity. Every time, for several months, when the Street Survivors conducted a reconnaissance mission into the neighborhood to assess the target, there were always people standing about in the driveway and the garage door was open.
There was no music blaring or cars rolling in and out of the property; just people standing about like gargoyles; they were a constant presence. The Street Survivors once probed the target at almost 3:30 a.m. and still, there were several people standing around
talking. These were not teenagers, but say twentysomethings just hanging around and chatting. Perhaps it was a halfway house,
or some revival group. The Street Survivors once ran a mission late on a Wednesday night, thinking they were only out on weekends. To no avail, there were people about. The cul-de-sac was swarming with orc.
One evening, Trayvion, a senior member of the Street Survivors, cautiously suggested
that we may have to pass on this target. It was only a suggestion. Wilfong, another senior member, was not about to let this
target slip past and mock him as a failure for the rest of his life. As a matter of honor, the target must be taken out. Death before Disco.
Some targets could be taken out with a single swing of the Louisville Slugger baseball
bat (scientific name Louisvillas Slugarious). Other targets required multiple sorties. On some rare occasions, the door gunner would have to go extravehicular and deliver multiple blows, on foot, to the target in question. On even rarer occasions, the Imperial
Cruiser drove down a stretch of sidewalk, taking out trashcans, a mail box or two, and any other target of opportunity that stood despondent in dull society. On one very special occasion, an agent of pure evil; a lawn jockey was of the doldrums that required
correcting. On this night, many scenarios would play out for the rogues who cared not for the conventions of mankind. This first target would set into motion an evening of destruction that stands alone in the fireside tales of those who refused to grow up.
The lawn jockey was unknown to the Street Survivors prior to this night. He was discovered, quite by accident, as the 1972 Chrysler Imperial Le Baron merely did a patrol check of some rarely cruised streets on the opposite
side of town. This neighborhood, known as Glenn Marr, lay near the border region of Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley. The lawn jockey, was a loan sentinel, standing before a lush green lawn, eyeing the street for what would have been an eternity had the
Street Survivors not happened upon his lonely post. He stood there, reminiscent of a frozen tin man meeting Dorothy and the Scarecrow for the first time. Only, the tin man did not have his feet secured to a base; not to mention the base was secured to the
earth with some form of lawn spikes. Nor did the Street Survivors have any good intentions for this hollow, plaster cast figure. The Street Survivors found the lawn jockey to be a gross mockery of human life and an abhorrent excuse for art. The cheap paints
used to color his vest and knee high boots looked ridiculous.
When this first target of
the night was originally stumbled upon, a couple of the Street Survivors bailed out of the vehicle and went hands on with the lawn jockey. The Street Survivors jumped at the opportunity of grabbing a statue, as did Don Jake the previous Halloween. Yet, the
Street Survivors would not be so foolish as to drop their captive and let him shatter to pieces on a sidewalk. The Street Survivors thought the lawn jockey would make an excellent trophy; they even contemplated pressing him into servitude at someone’s
house. Wilfong and Brumoscowitz had the exact same idea simultaneously (since they were both in photography class): they would have a couple of men from their crew don ski masks, against a plain backdrop, put a blindfold over the lawn jockeys eyes, point guns
at their prisoner’s head, and snap a few 1970’s style ransom pictures. This stunt would hopefully land the caper on the news. Later, the Street Survivors would leave lawn jockey somewhere in town and place a note at his previous residence, describing
to his loved ones where he could be found; alive and unharmed. Once again landing another local news story. Dreg Coyle had entertained
the thought of mailing the lawn jockey home in pieces; they brushed that notion aside quickly. Yet, finding the lawn jockey secured to his post, all hope was lost on an Entebbe style raid/ hostage rescue. The boys noted several targets of opportunity on the
sidewalk leading up to, and away from, this painted statue wearing riding breeches.
Wilfong urged the troops back into the Chrysler Dreadnaught. Brumoscowitz threw
the shifter into reverse, looked back over his shoulder, out the window and said, “Lets motorvate,” as he gunned the clinking, clanging collection of collagenous steel into motion. The vessels long dead suspension gave the car a ride like a nautical
conveyance in fairly calm waters. After going past several houses, he stopped the beast. Brumoscowitz shifted down into drive, but kept his foot on the brake. He turned to look at Wilfong in the co-pilot’s seat.
“Hit it,” Wilfong said as he chopped the air with a bladed hand. Wilfong loved to ride in the Chrysler, it reminded him of the kids’ vehicle used in one of his favorite films, SUBURBIA
from 1983.
Brumoscowitz applied his boot to the squeaking accelerator. The Imperial Cruiser lurched forward. When it was parallel to the second driveway ramp on its
starboard side, the Imperial cut sharply to the right and straightened out a moment later. Now the land barge was driving half on the sidewalk and half in the street. At 79 and a half inches wide, the rolling metal beast took up twice the space any post 1970’s
sedan could ever hope to occupy. The over two and a half tons of vintage steel took out a newspaper recycling box with a dull thunk. The next mundane lawn accoutrements to fall, like dominos, were several ancient lawn sprinklers. You remember the old style
sprinklers that stood a foot above the grass and had an alligator like head. They were spitting water at regular intervals in 180 degree arc before whipping their heads back to the opposite side and starting over. The Imperial passed over them like a lawnmower
blade, clipping them with ease. The sprinklers snapped off their PVC pipe necks and spewed water high into the air. With speed increasing, a couple of errant green trash bags sat unsuspecting of their doom on the green belt. The trash bags vomited their contents
high into the air when the front bumper of the Imperial Cruiser made contact at over 20 miles an hour and still accelerating.
The lawn jockey, small in stature and holding some kind of ring
in an outstretched hand, bravely stood his ground. Feet planted solidly, he faced down the miles wide chrome front bumper and
radiator grill closing in on him. The gaping, gleaming maw of the Chrysler closed the distance like a gargantuan steel dinosaur set to feast on the diminutive lawn jockey. The lawn jockey did not blink. He did not so much as shift his head in one direction
or the other. Even as the ancient engine, four hundred and forty cubic inches of pre-catalytic converter Detroit ingenuity, roared like a mighty dragon from the days of yore.
The target standing fast, the troops in the Chrysler wondered, for a fleeting moment, just what the hell is going through
the lawn jockey’s mind?
In
a dark corner of his broken mind, Brumoscowitz had a brief vision of a scene from THE BLUES BROTHERS. The scene Where Elwood drives directly at some Illinois Nazis holding a demonstration on a bridge; the Nazis brining their formation to attention in a show
of bravery against the impending doom of another Chrysler product (a 1974 Dodge Monaco). As the Blues Brother’s Bluesmobile engine roared, the Illinois Nazis broke and dove from the bridge; the Bluesmobile accelerated right through them. The lawn jockey,
all alone and facing down certain doom, never so much as flinched.
Over the roar of the 200 plus horsepower engine rumbling down the sidewalk, Brumoscowitz was sure
he heard the lawn jockey shout, “NONE SHALL PASS!”
From within the Imperial Cruiser, the Street Survivors saw the black cap resting on the head of the lawn jockey disappear beneath the leading edge of the front hood of the vehicle. From the windshield to the nose of the vehicle
it looked like a mile in length. For a fraction of a second, the troops within the vehicle saw nothing but the night darkened sidewalk stretching out for miles ahead of them; the street to the left and driveways with lush green, well-manicured lawns to the
right. At the moment of impact, there was a loud knock which shook through the hardened steel battlewagon. Simultaneously, a cloud of fine powder and chips of cheap ceramic like material filled the air over the front hood of the Imperial Cruiser. Just then, tiny pebbles shot back and peppered its windshield.
The howls and cheers of warriors within their armored transport filled the air. Wilfong screamed, “DEE-BRISS (Debris)! Ok, get the fuck outta here!”
Brumoscowitz applied the accelerator as he swung the vessel to port and scraped
the bottom of the vehicle, half on a driveway down-ramp and half off of the curb, into the street. A few quick turns and the elated Street Survivors were on their way to more late night mayhem.
The Street Survivors went on another run, in
their favorite neighborhood, maybe 3 or 4 streets away from where the dog, the Holy Grail of mail boxes, resided. This neighborhood,
which for two years had been suffering at the hands of the Street Survivors attacks, had never bothered to set up their own neighborhood watch program. Sure, there were some targets that were hit several times and elicited responses from home owners. On many
occasions, an upper middle aged gentleman would hear the clang of a Louisville Slugger smashing into his prized mail box. Said homeowner would charge from their abode, wearing slacks, tasseled loafers and a long-sleeved buttoned up shirt (as was the business
fashion of the 1980’s), sprinting for all they were worth after a vehicle filled with hysterically laughing young men. It was hilarious to watch the bespectacled, rotund gentlemen, their long silk ties fluttering behind them as they charged after the
jalopy issuing uproariously loud sounds of merriment. The best of these homeowners, or victims rather, could often run five or six doors down the street in pursuit of the villainous vehicle. Almost all of them would come to an exhausted halt, raise a bladed
hand over their eyes, and use the other hand to pluck a pen from their pocket protector. Next, they would pretend to copy down a license plate they could not see. So the Street Survivors felt secure on this slightly more dangerous mission.
On this night of running perilous missions, the Street
Survivors happened upon a particular mail box, some believe by providence, which demanded immediate and drastic action. As they combed the streets of their favorite neighborhood, pondering solutions to the dog, this particular target came to Wilfong’s
attention. The Imperial was just rumbling by and Wilfong called it out. One peculiar mail box, which would have been referred
to as a house, though it was more of a standard tin with a wooden shell over it, stood out oddly on this street. By no means was this mail box a mansion. The troops had to reconnoiter this odd mail box since being discovered only moments earlier, to assess
its level of difficulty. The old drive by with a scrap of paper in hand as if reading directions was Brumoscowitz’s play; it worked. He drove slow and deliberate, so the troops on either side of the Imperial got an eyeful.
This mail box
was secured by a double pole and heavier top mount than other standard tin targets (the base of the mail box was bolted to the top mount rather than just a couple of cheap screws securing it). This box required very specialized attention. Also, the location
of this particular target, had its own enhanced risks. It was not on a regular street or in a cul-de-sac, but it was on a dead end street. Only about 3 houses from the dead end, seven or eight houses from the cross street on the opposite end. It was a very long street, deep within the housing tract. To make their escape would require making the hit, at speed and turning the Chrysler land barge around
to make a hasty withdrawal; which would certainly lead to failure. On the street itself, there were two houses with some kind of function or party going on, loads of people standing about chatting and drinking from plastic cups. The Street Survivors surmised that the party goers would surely be suspected as the assailants, should the residents at the target’s house call for the police.
Further analysis presented these issues to properly hit the box: driving up the long street to the target, passing the houses with the late night function, hitting the box, slamming on the brakes and hopefully getting the car turned around without having to stop and back up, and again passing
he houses with the late night functions. The size of the vehicle and the narrowness of the standard width street worked against our heroes.
One option considered was driving to the end of the street with the door gunner hanging from the rear driver’s side window, but that meant only a three or four house acceleration to the target
from the dead end. This was in no way acceptable. The vehicle needed to be at a particular speed to deliver a proper amount of damage to the target; and allow for a hasty exfiltration.
Wilfong had the first of two epiphanies that night. He insisted the Street Survivors go on the attack in a different mode. First, Wilfong needed a trip home. Brumoscowitz gunned the Imperial Cruiser
all the way to Wilfong’s house (just a few blocks away). When they arrived, Wilfong and Dreg leapt from passenger side doors and disappeared around the side of Wilfong’s garage. Brumoscowitz and Patronics (whose real name is Junipero Serra) waited
in the running vehicle. A moment later, Wilfong and Dreg emerged from the garage. Wilfong, carry something small in one hand, was wearing a grin as wide as a cowcatcher on the front of a train. Wilfong had as wicked a grin as any devil in hell could muster.
He was truly operating within his medium. Dreg’s sunken eyes had a gleam of barbarous anticipation. Dreg marched with pure purpose back to the Chrysler. Assured destruction guaranteed to follow in coming minutes.
“What is that in your hand?” Patronics ventured to ask.
“What we need,” Wilfong responded.
He shoved the item into his jacket pocket.
Brumoscowitz turned his head to see what Wilfong was carrying. It disappeared into Wilfong’s pocket too quickly for him to see. He was expecting to see a slingshot or some other type of weapon.
“Here’s what we do,” Wilfong started as he hopped into the co-pilot
seat. “That street the box is on, it dead ends at Springdale Street. The wall at the dead end is only three feet high with some Juniper bushes there. We park on Springdale about a block down, walk to the dead end and hop the wall, then walk to the mail
box and handle it. Then we run for it.”
“Did you bring a camera? This one sounds really cool,” Brumoscowitz questioned.
“Dude, we can’t take pics of us committing crimes! Imagine that getting out as evidence against us if we got caught,” Wilfong answered.
“The lawn jockey almost got a portrait,” Brumoscowitz answered.
“That was different,”
Wilfong countered.
“You want
to reminisce about your handy work?” Patronics asked of him. (Years later, Johnny Knoxville would make a handsome living doing just this kind of thing.)
“Nah. This one is just different and we don’t have the whole crew with us,” Brumoscowitz answered. He flipped on the radio as they drove the few short blocks back to their theater of operations. The 1986 Art of Noise version of the Peter Gunn theme was playing as they drove. It was perfect.
“We should call Trayvion and see if he wants to
go with us,” Patronics suggested.
“No!”
Wilfong barked. “He’s on a date with some GIRRRRL!” All of the Street Survivors, at one time or another,
missed out on a mission. They would be out on a date and typically miles and miles away from where the Street Survivors were running their sorties. Wilfong was probably the most frequent of the group to violate their bond; yet he never missed an opportunity
to disparage his cohorts for missing a mission for the same reason.
Brumoscowitz drove his land barge to Springdale Street. As it turned out, several streets in that neighborhood came to an end at Springdale. There was one inlet to the neighborhood, Littlefield Drive, from Springdale Street, just
a few streets south of the target. Wilfong directed Brumoscowitz to park there and leave it running.
The troops disembarked from the Imperial with great excitement. They hurried
back up Springdale Street to the dead end of the adjoining street where the target resided. There was a palpable hue of excitement in the night air. It wasn’t very late, maybe 11:00 o’clock; but it was late enough that the misty fog was beginning
to form low to the ground over the grassy lawns in the neighborhood. So close to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, the dampness brought on fog throughout the year. The low fog was reminiscent of very old horror movies; black and white classics where Lon Cheney Junior
would scurry through the woods, his feet covered with hair like a dog; his face covered with hair and enlarged fangs hanging out of his mouth.
“Brumoscowitz, you stay here and watch for cops,” Wilfong directed as he, Dreg and Patronics were about to step over the low wall.
“What the fuck are you going to do?” Brumoscowitz asked.
Wilfong barely turned his head over his shoulder and said, “You’ll
see.” He and Patronics disappeared through the juniper bushes. Dreg was already two lengths ahead of the other men.
As the three Street Survivors marched inexorably
towards the target, Brumoscowitz could see several people standing about the driveways of the houses only a few doors past the targeted mail box. He scanned to the left, looking North up Springdale Street. There was nothing visible but some street lights and
the intersection that looked more than a mile away. It was one of the very few intersections on a main street that still had four STOP signs, no signals. He looked right, to where Springdale Street curves gently to the right and comes to an end up against
the Bolsa Chica Wetlands park fence. Nothing. He looked all around the sky, no sign of HB-1 anywhere (designation for the Huntington Beach Police helicopter). He turned his attention back to his cohorts. Surprisingly, they were already at the target. It looked
as if Wilfong had opened the box to empty it of its contents, but his hand was there far too long to be just grabbing the mail. One of Dreg’s hands lifted from his side to parallel the mail box. He was raising the little red flag.
Suddenly, there was a flicker of light from what must have been Wilfong’s cigarette lighter; one of those older metal jobs that you must refill yourself with butane and even change
the wick on from time to time (you know the kind that guys get engraved with some message or glue a regimental badge onto). This gave Brumoscowitz pause, is he lighting up a stogie? Dreg doesn’t
like cigars. Hell of time for a smoke!
Before Brumoscowitz could blink, his question was answered with a golden-orange fireball bursting into existence amongst his friends. The sun seemed to appear in the center of a dark forest and his friends resembling a few trees standing near it.
The troops projected shadows out behind them, their fronts brilliantly illuminated by the sudden flash of fire. Another millisecond
passed and the fireball turned into a column of bright red-orange flame reaching to the heavens from the roof of the mail box. The entire street momentarily lit up as if it was day time. Another second went by and the characters standing around the houses
a few doors further down the street began to show some interest in the rising column of fire. From the houses with the late night function, characters were spilling from the garages and out into the street. Patronics was nearly doubled over with laughter as
Wilfong took great joy in this latest act of arson. Dreg was bouncing up and down like a marionette doing a toddler’s happy dance. Wilfong was leaning back as though the heat generated was too much for him, but he was unwilling to miss the spectacle
of his creation.
A violent cough of
laughter thrust Brumoscowitz over just like Patronics was a moment before. He struggled to hoarsely force out the words, “LETS GO!” He was worried the looky loos from further down the street might want to become do-gooders. He saw Wilfong’s
right hand rise and another ball of flame engulfed the entire mail box, the poles, and negated the column of fire above it. Another shot of Butane. He forced himself to inhale, his vision turning down to the sidewalk momentarily. His lungs were achingly devoid of oxygen; his laughter robbed him of the life sustaining
air. As his eyes rolled back up he could see the street over the short wall but none of the Street Survivors.
Suddenly, Wilfong burst through the juniper bushes with the grace and dexterity of an Olympic high hurdle sprinter. Wilfong’s devilish grin, ever present above his well-worn leather biker jacket, was now exaggerated to the size of a Mardi gras
puppet. Wilfong nearly slammed into Brumoscowitz as he came in for a landing.
“Get the FUCK moving,” Wilfong chortled as he landed.
Brumoscowitz did not see Patronics and searched further down the street as the shouts and calls to come back here issued from the looky loos a few doors away from the mail box inferno. At once, a dark shape arose on the opposite side of the
wall, between the juniper bushes. Patronics was coming through with Dreg behind him. Dreg was last because he was marveling at the flames leaping high into the night. Brumoscowitz looked past Patronics and could see the looky loos starting to trot in his direction.
Brumoscowitz grabbed at Patronics and helped him clamber over the short wall. Patronics face was scarlet red, alight with a crippling laughter that made his legs nearly fail him in the time of escape. Dreg bounded over the wall in a single leap and hit the
sidewalk running.
The Street Survivors
sprinted for all they were worth to the running getaway vehicle. Wilfong and Brumoscowitz hit the car simultaneously getting into their seats. Dreg flew in through the rear driver’s side door and took his seat. Piling in the rear passenger side door,
Patronics nearly failed at the door; he tripped as he came in and was on the floor in the cavernous back passenger compartment of the Chrysler land barge. Brumoscowitz hit the accelerator and the titanic vehicle lurched into motion. Patronics rear passenger
side door was still open with one of his feet hanging out. Patronics’s laughter induced state of weakness denied both of
his hands and single planted foot from finding purchase to pull him into the car all the way.
“Close the fucking door,” Brumoscowitz shouted over his shoulder into the cavernous back seat area. All he heard in response was his own voice echoing and the distant cough of laughter from Patronics
and Dreg. It sounded as if the Demon of Happiness himself was about to claim the soul of Patronics as his very own this evening.
Wilfong turned around and saw the door hanging open. Being a man of action, he took charge of the situation. Wilfong spun around in his seat, planting a boot on the seat and raising his upper torso
out of the front passenger side window. Hanging halfway outside the moving vehicle, he did not bother to steady himself with his hands. A dangerous move in a no-post vehicle (a car with all electric windows and no metal door frame around the window nor the characteristic post that delineates between front and rear doors). He placed a flattened hand on the door and shoved it as hard
as he could while receding into his seat. The door swung but stopped short with a thud and bounced back open. “What the
fuck!” Wilfong exclaimed. Is the door broken?
A groan mixed with painful laughter issued from the back of the car. Patronics was still incapacitated on the floor. He managed to cough a few throaty syllables at his friends, “My fucking
foot! It is still outside the car!”
Wilfong blew up in a wicked chuckle and looked at Brumoscowitz for a split second; just long enough to get the nod from driver who was roaring with his own laughter. Wilfong was back out the passenger side window, slamming the door again into Patronics’s
now battered foot. The ancient steel door creaked and groaned as it swung home.
“STOP!!!! THE!!! FUCKING!!! CAR!!!” Patronics shouted with all he could muster from his near coma like condition.
Again, another dull thud could be heard as Patronics shouted this time in both pain and unbridled amusement. Wilfong spun back around and landed in his seat.
“That’s my foot you FUCKER!” Patronics shouted, his anger was fleeting, as was the split second of pain from the slamming door dissipated. Patronics sat up and pulled the door closed. He leaned his head over the living room sofa sized front bench
seat of the car, intent on giving his cohorts a piece of his mind, but failed as laughter once again overtook him. He looked at Dreg to see why he didn’t bother helping him. Dreg was facing backwards, on his knees with both arms resting on the top of
the back, couch-like seat. Dreg was watching out the rear windshield like a small child looking out the back of a station wagon while on a long road trip vacation. Dreg was transfixed, looking out for pursuers his friends thought. Actually he was thinking,
I could set off a whole garage in a split second.
They pulled over several blocks away from
their recent escapade and held a debriefing session. Wilfong went into detail about the mail box being a sham of sorts. It was a standard tin, covered in wood, which would not have been a problem, there were several in that configuration. This particular box
though was totally egregious. The wood cover was made of shake roofing shingles. Leftovers from when the shake roof that went on the house 8 or 10 years earlier. Not long ago in Southern California, shake roofs were all the rage. Large wooden shingles that
resembled the bark on trees in California’s forests. Which of course is what these tiles basically were, only, they are very dry and known to catch fire at just the hint of a spark. The shake roofs were outlawed on new constructions in California in
the early 1980’s because of this fire hazard. Houses that already had a shake roof, could keep and maintain them.
To take a few left over shake shingles
and make them into a cover for a standard tin mail box was an affront that Wilfong could NOT let stand. Dreg himself was a natural at felonious destruction of property; arson being a favorite. Given both of their predisposal to fireworks and explosives in
general, those two cooked up a solution in a jiffy.
After their debriefing, and still feeling the elation of victory, the Street Survivors set out again on
another mission of destruction. They cruised several other streets but were not having any luck. There were people about and cars driving up and down the streets of their usual theater of operations.
Wilfong could barely sit still in the navigator’s seat as they haplessly patrolled the suburban streets. Finally he proclaimed, “We’re getting the dog.”
Brumoscowitz pulled a right from Bolsa Chica Road and headed east on Heil
Avenue. It was just a short distance to Graham Street and making another right.
“Brumoscowitz, you still have some Roman Candles or any M-80’s?”
Dreg inquired.
Brumoscowitz had arsenal of pyrotechnics he had been stockpiling over the past couple of years. His bosses, members of the local syndicate,
made him run particular errands and even made him work in various establishments from time to time. Places they did not own
or operate yet. Restaurants, stationary shops, auto parts stores, a bakery and the like. He would have to report back to his
bosses about the amount of foot traffic, the scale of the clientele and such. The influx of Asians brought on new opportunities to make cash, so Brumoscowitz was made to work in a Chinese restaurant and a video rental store. At both places, he had ample opportunity
to obtain fireworks when the Chinese New Year/ The Tet (Tet Offensive he called it) was approaching. Dreg and Trayvion made
use of his Roman Candles on a transient sleeping in his car at Central Park only weeks earlier. Dreg was particularly given to pyromaniac lust; he was going into a full addict withdrawals now. Dreg’s need for fire and destruction had to be quenched.
Brumoscowitz answered, “I got some in the trunk, but that’s going to draw too much attention. We already caused one raging inferno.”
“BULL FUCK!” Dreg shouted in response. His cravings taking over, all rational thought escaped him.
As Brumoscowitz pulled hard to starboard, the Chrysler land barge ponderously responded and churned out onto Graham Street, southbound towards the dwelling place of the holy grail of mail boxes. Brumoscowitz responded to Dreg, “This place is going to
be crawling with cops for a while. We shouldn’t use any more fire tonight.”
“BULL FUCK! GET THE FIREWORKS OUT AND DRIVE THE FUCK OVER THERE
NOW! ” Dreg demanded. His eyes wild and mouth gaping open.
Brumoscowitz stomped on the brake and guided the vessel to the right shoulder. He threw the
shifter into park. He turned around to face the much younger and smaller Dreg. Wilfong noticed the homicidal look in Brumoscowitz’s eyes. Wilfong decided to intervene before Dreg was tied to the radiator grill as a corrective measure in response to his
disrespectful tone.
“Brumoscowitz is right,” Wilfong said as he leaned over the back of his seat, sort of getting between them. Dreg had recoiled all
the way back up against the seat. He tried getting some distance, though it would not have helped, had Brumoscowitz lunged to the back in search of Dreg’s blood. “If we set two fires that would be way too much if we get caught.”
As if on cue, a black and white Huntington Beach Police car quietly passed by the Imperial Cruiser parked on Graham Street. It came from the front, so the boys in the
front of the Imperial did not see the police car coming. Patronics called it out to everyone’s attention as it quietly passed by and kept on rolling. The cop at the wheel of the mid 1980’s Chevrolet Caprice was busy with a clipboard and papers
in his hands rather than steering the municipal vehicle. All at once the Street Survivors fell silent. In a dark corner of Brumoscowitz broken mind, he remembered a scene from THE LONGEST DAY; when some of the scattered paratroopers of the D-Day invasion grouped
together and set out to accomplish their mission in the darkness of night. Those paratroopers quietly passed within feet of unsuspecting German soldiers going in the opposite direction out in woods; barely escaping a firefight.
“Fuck,” Wilfong said to no one in particular. “They might
be looking for us.”
“Cops don’t come down these streets unless they get called,” Patronics nervously added. Wilfong, Dreg and Patronics lived
near this area and knew very well the police patrol habits.
“And that my friends,” Wilfong rejoined with a tone of finality, “makes this
particular mission that much more difficult …and ABSOLUTELY necessary for tonight.” He finished with his trademark devilish grin. The other three Street Survivors, to a man, would later remark, Wilfong was channeling brother Otter from NATIONAL
LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE.
Patronics chuckled to himself and sank back further into the seat.
Dreg found some willpower to tone down the need for a pyro-fix.
Wilfong had a second epiphany of the evening. “We are
going to exit the vehicle for this one. We’ll park around the corner, size the dog up when we are face to face with it. What do you think Brumoscowitz?”
Chin rising and eyes narrowing in a grand gesture of acknowledgment he said, “Eloquence me boyo, pure eloquence, as always,”
Brumoscowitz answered in an Irish Brogue. His murderous tendencies having subsided.
“If we bash it, we have to run, so you have to have the car rolling
when we get there. We’ll have to do a running jump to get inside,” Dreg added with several nods.
“Before we get into that neighborhood, we should splash some mud over the license plates, just in case,” Patronics added.
They drove a very short distance to get near the area that was once Meadowlark Airport and now becoming a golf course. The airport was one of those ridiculously small ones that looked more like a public park
but for the half dozen Cessna aircraft parked around it. There was a time when nearly every city in Orange County had a municipal airport. The thriving economy and tract housing expansions quickly dealt them a death blow at the hands of property developers.
There was plenty of dirt lying about and finding some mud was easy. Patronics exited the land barge and gathered up enough to splash the license plates. As Patronics
tried to re-enter the vehicle, Wilfong shouted, “Did you splash the bumper and the fenders too? We don’t want to look suspish!”
Patronics stood for a brief moment looking into the car, then walked back to the puddle for some more mud. He dutifully splashed it around
the fenders and the bumper. As a final touch, he slung a small clod of mud onto the side of the car, above the passenger side rear quarter panel. The thud caught Wilfong’s attention. Patronics began to re-enter the car.
“Did you wash your hands? I don’t think so Mister Bungle.
You’re not getting in here to smudge everything with your fucked up hands,” Wilfong commanded.
Patronics stopped dead, his eyes sunken back deep into
their sockets. He looked as if he was about to retaliate. Surprisingly, he just turned and vanished into the ink black night.
“Is he pissed and walking home
now?” Brumoscowitz asked of his cohorts.
“Fucken puss out!” Dreg exclaimed.
“Jest hold yer horses there pardners,” Wilfong responded. “He’s going
to be back with a whole new gut-full of anger.”
And like that, Patronics emerged from the darkness. He got back into the car, hands clean.
“You found a place to wash them?” Brumoscowitz had to ask.
“Yes. As a matter of fact. I did,” Patronics answered in a very even, yet pissed off tone. “However, I did not find
any towels to dry them with. So I have to do the doggy shake.” He raised his soaking wet hands to eye level, in the center of the vehicle, just above the front bench seat, and shook them furiously. Water droplets flew about in all directions resembling
a freshly stirred up hive of angry bees.
“Fist Fuck!” Dreg shouted as he tried to shield himself.
Wilfong laughed as he leaned backwards into the glove compartment door. His hands up in a useless gesture of protection. He looked at Brumoscowitz and began laughing even harder.
Brumoscowitz sat still, completely deadpan as the droplets flew about.
Several droplets hit him in the face. When Patronics was done and wearing a wicked grin of his own, Brumoscowitz exhaled whispering, “….thank you…”
Wilfong was having trouble getting ahold of himself. He slid back a little further, until it was both the dashboard and the passenger side door keeping him from falling over backwards.
“Fucking DICK!” Dreg exclaimed. “You didn’t have to do that.”
This brought another, louder guffaw from Wilfong. “Yes he…
he… he… he… fucking well did.”
Patronics brought his hands back up, resting them a few inches above the top of the front seat. All eyes were transfixed, waiting for Patronics’s hands to shake back into action. They just hovered for several moments until the silence was broken by Dreg
Coyle.
Dreg said, “You fucking dick! Put your fucken hands down!” The hands hovered for another couple of seconds, then slowly withdrew.
Brumoscowitz shifted into drive, gunned the motor of the
Imperial and slowly pulled onto the street. As they headed toward the neighborhood where the dog resided, they witnessed another Huntington Beach Police car go into the neighborhood they were headed to. “See that?” he said.
“He’s a mile ahead of us, dude,” Wilfong assured. “We will stay out of that side of the neighborhood. Maybe for a couple of weeks after tonight.”
“You guys are pussies,” Dreg interrupted.
“Pussies huh?”
Brumoscowitz answered. “I never seen you drive on any mission, EVER! Never mind kick in for some gas money. So what we say, goes.”
Dreg’s eyes nervously
darted to the rear view mirror; he could see Brumoscowitz’s eye focused as if he was a gypsy invoking a curse on Dreg. Dreg looked away, being the youngest in the car, his only means of transportation to do crimes was on the graces of his friends. He
did not have a car, nor would he barrow his parents’ car to do crimes. He sat back in the rear seat a little further and
remembered, as many had told him throughout his young life, to control himself.
Wilfong
and Patronics picked out the best route to take to the dog. Patronics wanted to buzz the dog once more to check the feasibility of a hit this night. Wilfong and Brumoscowitz were dead against the suggestion. Brumoscowitz said, “If we do a fly-by, drive
through the cul-de-sac and someone is standing outside, they will see us and put 5 and 5 together when we do pull off this caper.”
“You think there’ll
be some street walkers out there or something? They hate cops anyways, they won’t talk under any circumstances. I will have you know,” Patronics responded with slight mirth.
“Hackers? You mean some HACK-UZ walkin’ da straats?” Brumoscowitz responded with his horrible version of a Massachusetts accent. He knew it was bad, but if a phony like Ted Kennedy could get away with it for a lifetime, he could pull it off
too.
“HACK-UZ!” Wilfong responded with a rising chortle of laughter.
“Hack-uz, shack-ing dahr tatts at evvy cahh goins by,” Brumoscowitz proclaimed.
“HACK-UZ!” Dreg blew up, joining the senseless banter.
“Lay-tees of da noy-T,” Patronics rejoined with an Australian accent.
“What’d her…her tats look like?”
Wilfong forced the words from his mouth.
Brumoscowitz shot a quick grin to the rear seat before continuing. “Her tats were hee-yawj, day was massives. She had
napples lack maj-er-ine lids, pash-un trew her brarhs. (Translation: her tits were huge, they were massive. She had nipples like margarine lids, pushing through her blouse.)”
Wilfong tried to say something, but he never got past the first syllable. Dreg, for once, was turning bright red in the back seat and folded over. Patronics looked as if he was enjoying himself, but wanted to interject something; anything but he had no material
for the moment. The elation from 2 successful, dangerous missions had made the assembled Street Survivors giddy.
“Damn caps was drah-ven around in dare black
and whaats, facken wath avry kids day can fan-d outs here,” Brumoscowitz continued. “Dem sans a batches don’t
have no scrapples, nunz at tall anysmore.” (Translation: Damn cops driving around in their black and whites, fucken with every kid they can find out here. Them sons of bitches don’t have no scruples, none at all anymore.
Wilfong tried sitting upright, but doubled over again. His ass was firmly in the seat, where it belonged but his head was between his knees as he tried to stop laughing. Both Patronics and Dreg had perched
their heads on the top of the front bench seat. To Brumoscowitz, the two in the back looked like skulls mounted on a fence as an ominous warning of some kind. Both were pointing and laughing at Wilfong now.
Wilfong tried to force himself to stop laughing, but only managed to snort like an enormous hog. After the snort, he had an uncontrollable gag reflex. Dreg and Patronics were now slapping the back of the helpless
Wilfong; dry heaving in his seat.
Brumoscowitz, fearing Wilfong was about to hurl, pulled the vehicle over again. He reached over the top of Wilfong and shoved
the passenger side door open. He said, “Barf out there if you have to!”
Wilfong was forcing his breathing to slow down. He slowly sat up in his seat, eyes watery and his face nearly purple. “You…you fuckers…you can’t make it worse…when…when…
“I can sat hee-yar and las-ten to yooz batch about shat orz I can chass a few hack-uz and dahd-j the caps!” Brumoscowitz shouted.
Wilfong, turning dark blue and suffering a violent convulsion, leaned back until he was almost falling out of the passenger side door. Patronics and Dreg continued their open-handed assault, both trying
to push Wilfong out of the open door. Wilfong’s gag reflex took on one more giant convulsion and brought his knees up to
his chest trying to control himself.
After a half of minute of laughing, Wilfong straightened up in his seat. “Fucken Hack-uz,” he said.
As the laughter finally subsided, the rogues settled back into their seats. Before Brumoscowitz could apply the accelerator, another Huntington Beach Police cruiser rolled past
them. From the back seat, Patronics offered a vocalization of some appropriate music. The melody matched the opening horn sequence from THE WILD GEESE. Brumoscowitz reached for the radio and turned the dial on. From the worn and bleeding ancient speakers issued
HOMICIDE by the band 999.
“Let’s go do crimes!” Wilfong proclaimed, waving his hand in a forward motion; like John Wayne commanding the cavalry
to move out.
The Imperial slowly crept down the connecting street to the cul-de-sac where the dog resided. All but the driver were low in their seats as the vessel puttered by. They peered over the Detroit steel, looking
out of the passenger side windows. As expected, there were people loitering in a careless manner, just a few doors away from the dog’s location. None of the loiterers paid any attention the steam engine sized vehicle passing on the adjoining street.
The men in the car, all had the exact same vision as they surveyed the target area. The dog himself, a supposedly inanimate object, turned his wooden head towards them, lifting his snout slightly higher in the air and released huff. The little, four legged
aristocrat scoffed at them.
Brumoscowitz raised his right hand pointing at the dog. He was at a complete loss for words when Wilfong chimed in.
Wilfong said, “I saw that shit too! Little fucken snob thinks he is better than us huh?”
A fist punched the ceiling of the passenger compartment. “That gesture cannot go unanswered!” Patronics joined in
a level anger seldom seen in his character.
Dreg shot forward, slamming his chest and fists against the sofa sized front bench seat and said, “I say we pick
the fucking dog up and throw it through their front window!” His head floated above the seat, nodding up and down in an attempt to convince the others.
Brumoscowitz
turned the car around at an intersection and was ready to make a second pass on the adjoining street. He felt the hair on the back of his neck begin to rise.
While
the vehicle ponderously made its turn, a glow, starting rather soft and diffuse, appeared in the front passenger seat. As the
milliseconds passed, the intensity of the glow increased. The men noticed the glow was coming from Wilfong’s face; he was now as bright and blinding as the searchlight on a police helicopter. Finally Wilfong said, “Pull to the curb.”
Now nearly at the mouth of the dog’s street, Brumoscowitz halted the beast, moved the shifter to reverse. Giving it some gas, he threw a leather jacket clad arm over the
back of the front seat. Slowly he guided the Chrysler Dreadnaught into the concrete slip awaiting their arrival.
Wilfong said, “Stay at the wheel, put in drive
and get ready to fucking hall balls.” With that, he exited the vehicle, his Louisville Slugger in hand; closely followed by Patronics and Dreg.
Brumoscowitz stayed at the wheel, and let the vehicle inch forward a short way; maintaining an excellent view of the operation.
As Brumoscowitz watched them head up the street, he realized the dog was much further away than it initially appeared. The dog itself, was also much larger. He had thought the dog was a standard tin mail box with some wooden limbs and a special paint job.
Oh how wrong he was. As the Street Survivors approached, the dog seemed to grow in size. The dog looked like a Saint Bernard impaled through the belly on a small pole. Dreg and Patronics came to a halt within feet of the beast hovering above the sidewalk.
Wilfong started walking around the dog in a clockwise manner. As Wilfong went into geosynchronous orbit, something transcendent occurred. [This split second scene would sear itself into Brumoscowitz’s memory for life. The way the three of his cohorts
looked, standing on dark the street. Only some street lamps and house lights offering slight illumination. Twenty-nine years later, this scene would come back to Brumoscowitz as he sat in his living room watching the seventh season opener for THE WALKING DEAD.
Negan was not the first person to swing a Louisville Slugger with malicious intent. The Walking Dead team of heroes at the mercy of the baseball bat wielding Negan. Wilfong’s mannerisms and wardrobe were nearly a perfect match to Negan’s; the jeans,
the jacket, the boots, choice of weapon, and the sociopathic affliction. Patronics in his trademark flannel shirt; Dreg in a surf shop t-shirt. The difference here from the television program, unscripted mayhem to follow would not have: a director to shout “cut,” there would be no stunt double for the dog, and no commercial breaks.]
The dog stood silent, resolute in holding his own, and eyeing down Wilfong. The dog’s duties of standing watch on the sidewalk and collecting the mail from the postman, would not be interrupted by these rogues.
The dog was steadfast, motionless and brave.
Brumoscowitz watched Patronics and Dreg look around suspiciously. Without checking first, Wilfong tossed Patronics the
bat and charged the dog. Patronics nearly took the bat in teeth, his attention was on Wilfong, who just became a blur.
Wilfong assaulted the dog, locking on to it
like a sumo wrestler. Wilfong tried to rip the dog from his post, but the dog gave no quarter against the onslaught. Wilfong reset his feet and tried again, the dog still resisted.
Looking up the street, Brumoscowitz could see the loiterers taking interest in the Street Survivors activities. Dreg turned in the loiterers direction and froze like a burglar caught on camera.
Patronics turned his back to the loiterers and said something inaudible to Wilfong. Wilfong’s fangs came out as he snarled and forced the dog sideways! Yes, the target was turning in a clockwise manner. Another two twists and the dog was relieved from
his post. Wilfong hoisted the freshly extricated beast above his head with a victorious cackle.
“Bitchen!” Brumoscowitz said to himself. He checked the
loiterers then put his eyes back on the Street Survivors.
Wilfong was sprinting with the dog cradled like an enormous baby in his arms. The trio, cackling like wild hyenas, ran for the Imperial Cruiser. The ubiquitous shouts of, HEY YOU KIDS and WHAT THE
HELL IS GOING ON OVER THERE, sounded from the loiterers.
Dreg answered with his favorite battle cry, “FIST FUCK!”
Brumoscowitz visually scanned the streets for pedestrians and vehicles that
could hamper their escape; he found none. Slowly raising his foot off of the brake, the Chrysler began to crawl forward. He turned his head to check on his cohorts’ progress. Patronics landed in the co-pilot seat; Dreg got in the back on the driver side.
Wilfong could be heard, “Get going! Get going,” over the laughter of the other renegades. Once Wilfong was even with the rear side passenger door, he shoved the dog into the open window then leapt into the air. Wilfong came through the open car
window like a commando rappelling down a rope to assault terrorists; his hands slapping the landau roof as both of his feet entered the window. His careless dive snapped the upper portion of the door lock rod completely off. Nothing to worry about at the moment,
the Imperial’s ancient motor gunned up for all it was worth. Tearing down the street, Brumoscowitz checked his rearview mirror; only one superman made it out to the corner they just took off from. The superman, like many before him, stood in the street,
putting a bladed hand above his eyes, as if the night lights were too bright for him. The superman made the phony, useless gesture of reading the vehicle license plate as they sped away.
“I wonder if there is some breed of creature living amongst us that gets bionic vision when shielding their eye from the intense brightness of the moon,” Brumoscowitz asked of no-one in particular. “These knuckle-noggins always do the same thing,” he said as he mimicked the superman while driving away.
Wilfong, laughing victoriously declared, “This calls for something VERY special. We need to celebrate this.”
“Trayvion
needs to be here!” Patronics insisted. “We need to track him down and display our trophy.”
“You see those fucking retards standing out there?”
Dreg asked excitedly. “They fucking got a taste of Doctor Know and…,” he paused as he lifted something from a trouser pocket and thrust it into the air, “the SOG MASTER!” He held up his 2 inch tall plastic figure he had obtained
from a box of Captain Crunch a couple of days ago. He showed it off at school a morning back and received many laughs.
Patronics found the Sog Master a little too strange to follow. He stared at the figure for several seconds
the looked at Brumoscowitz. Brumoscowitz was staring at Dreg, no concern for the steering the vessel; or any of their lives at the moment. As the bow began drifting into the oncoming lane, Patronics tapped Brumoscowitz on the shoulder. Brumoscowitz appeared
catatonic, the tap unregistered. An oncoming vehicle swerved wide to give the Chrysler room and Patronics slapped Brumoscowitz on the shoulder. Without looking forward, Brumoscowitz corrected his steering, and turned around in an afterthought.
A little further away, out on Springdale Street, Brumoscowitz pulled the dog half way over to himself and was scratching it behind its wooden ears and saying, “There,
there Fido, we have a nice new home for you.”
Wilfong starts to laugh at Brumoscowitz and asks, “You want to stop and get him a treat? Some Milk-bone?”
Dreg leaned his head over the front bench seat and chimed in saying, “Let him hump your leg.” He lingered there for several moments, absorbing his friends’
stares.
Brumoscowitz looks at Wilfong for a second then hefts the dog all the way onto his lap; the dog is riding with its tale in Brumoscowitz’s lap
and cradled up into the crook of his left arm. He scratched the dog under its wooden chin first then gave the dog a quick examination with a glance. Channeling Peter Graves in AIRPLANE II, he announced, “Well my goodness, Scraps is a boy dog, isn’t
he?”
Wilfong swiped the prize back from Brumoscowitz. He said, “Captain Oveur in Airplane.”
Patronics corrected with, “Airplane Two, the Sequel.”
“We need to get word to Trayvion about this. When do you
think he will be home?” Patronics asked.
Brumoscowitz gunned the vehicle, now heading north bound on Springdale Street, towards a liquor store on the corner
at Warner Avenue. He said, “I have an idea.” He pulled into the parking lot and hopped out, leaving the vehicle running. Patronics and Wilfong exchanged seats while Brumoscowitz was in the store. He went into the liquor store and came out a minute
later with a small paper bag in his hand. Brumoscowitz pulled a greeting card and envelope from the paper bag and held it up. He grinned and announced, “We must leave Trayvion a very special note. This is a card for all occasions.” Back in the driver’s seat, he gunned the Imperial Cruiser around in a circle, intending on heading back to Springdale Street, heading
back south from where they just came, then turning on to Slater Avenue and down to Trayvion’s house near the beach. Only the sound of furiously screeching car tires on pavement caught everyone’s attention. They all looked out the passenger side
windows, in the direction of Warner Avenue and saw a Huntington Beach Police black and white blow through the red arrow on Warner Avenue and gun its engine south bound down Springdale Street; in the direction from which the Street Survivors just came.
“We’re after need’n to
plot a new course for this vessel,” Patronics said in his own Irish Brogue.
“Let’s head down Warner to Golden West and we take that down to Trayvion’s,” Wilfong suggested.
Brumoscowitz drove through the parking lot of the Warner-Dale shopping center to the Warner Avenue side and went east bound on Warner. Driving only a short distance, he saw something far ahead, at the next intersection, which gave him pause. He pulled quickly
into the next small street where there was a large apartment complex. Over the couple of years he had been driving, he made it a point to be able to recognize the make and model of a car by its headlights, both head on and in the rear view mirror. Most importantly,
to recognize the headlights of the Chevrolet Caprice Classic; the preferred motor vehicle for police departments everywhere. He saw just such a pair of headlights swing onto Warner from south bound Edwards Avenue. The Imperial came to a halt on the side street
that runs parallel to Warner Avenue. Brumoscowitz killed the headlights and the doors that conceal them slammed down. Over the cranking and winding of the headlight doors, the engine of the police car increased its roar. The Street Survivors watched the police
cruiser fly past them. They heard its tires execute the same turn as the previous black and white.
“Damn! That’s all fucken for us!” Dreg declared.
“We’ll be on the police blotter; and that means we’ll be published in the Independent (a free newspaper that was seldom read by anyone).”
Brumoscowitz watched Dreg as he spoke. When he first met Dreg, he reminded him of the Frankenstein Monster character in the Groovie Goolies cartoon show. The misshapen head, sunken eyes, the protruding ears, and the long gangly limbs. Getting to know him though,
Dreg now reminds him of the Weasel character from the Loony Toons cartoons. The small, gray creature with bulging eyes and constantly
slurping mouth while rubbing its hands together in feverish anticipation. (Foghorn Leghorn had to deal with the Weasel, keeping it out of the hen house. The Weasel would just rub its hands together and dart its eyes about as Foghorn Leghorn spoke to it.)
“Oh fuck. We better be Blue Thunder stealthy tonight,” Wilfong warned everyone.
Patronics, whose real name is Junipero Serra, another man of action, unseated himself and posted himself, side saddle, upon the top of the rear passenger side door. He looked about for a few seconds then came back in. He said, “I don’t see HB-1
anywhere, but we need to be mindful of that thing.”
Brumoscowitz flipped the lights back on and gunned the vehicle back onto Warner Avenue. Shortly, they made
it to Goldenwest Street and headed south.
“We need a personal inscription for this card,” Wilfong said. He held it up as if he had never held one in
his life.
Dreg produced a large black marker, the one he used for gratuitous graffiti when he got the itch. He said, “How about this, the dog, she is ours.”
“That sucks,” Patronics protested.
“We need something memorable.”
“Yeah, no fucking cliché’s,” Wilfong said.
“Ok,” Brumoscowitz shouted. “This is what we write, Roses is red...”
“You FUCK, I said no clichés,”
Wilfong railed at him.
“I like it,” Patronics countered.
“Roses are…
“NO!” Brumoscowitz barked. “Roses IS red.” He waited three beats and continued. He said, “Violence is blue. We got the dog. So fuck you.”
The troops howled in approving laughter as Dreg jotted down the unique inscription.
“That’s fucking beautiful man,” Wilfong shouted.
For Brumoscowitz, it was his first real foray into on-the-spot poetry.
Dreg was
sitting with his chest up against the back of the front seat and leaning all the way back, incapable of inhaling a single breath and forcing out the words, “Violence…is…is…BLUE!”
“A poet warrior,” Patronics declared with one finger in the air. “You are a poet warrior. No! Wait. A Sonnet wielding Street Survivor.”
Wilfong slapped Brumoscowitz on the shoulder and said, “Shouldn’t we get a better name for us? Something with an Irish connotation?” The crew had been considering other names all along. Some members belonged
to more than one crew. Such as Dreg was a member of PCU as well.
“The Shee-ite slingers!” Brumoscowitz answered without missing a beat.
“The FUCK is that?” Wilfong asked, half
bewildered and taken aback by a word he was unfamiliar with. “What’s Shee-ITE?”
Brumoscowitz, steering with his left hand and raising his
right, used his right hand in several scooping motions towards his lap. “Eeee-mah-gine” he said in his thick Irish
brogue, “You shite right here in de auto-mo-bile, and as we navigate the avenue, ya sling shee-ite about as ya please.”
He finished by mimicking tossing something invisible out of the window.
A roaring cough, mixed with wheezing death-throws arose from the back of the Imperial. Patronics’s
face was a thick shade of maroon. Dreg was curled up like a baby on the couch-like rear bench seat; his head was leaning so far back it may have been touching between his shoulder blades. Wilfong had a look at the victims in the rear of the car; his own laughter
induced his fist to involuntarily pound on the seat; begging for mercy.
Brumoscowitz was puzzled. Was
it really that funny? Maybe we are all just giddy. Or was it so stupid they couldn’t help but laugh at it? This further isolating me in the world of Attention Dumbass Disorder. After
some brief deliberation, he decided to leave it alone. He drove the cackling cuckoos towards the older track homes of downtown Huntington Beach. Heading to Trayvion’s house at this hour was nothing new, but it was risky. This part of town was where the
weekend partying was always in full swing. The cops were constantly patrolling these streets; and notorious for pulling over any vehicle filled with youngsters. Brumoscowitz made a left from Goldenwest Street onto Yorktown Avenue. Passing Huntington Beach
High School on the right, he pondered the few months he had left of school. After about a half a mile, he clicked on the blinker to make a right and head west on Lake Street. As they passed by the Huntington Beach Police Department parking lot on their right,
to their left, sat THE FOUNTAIN. If you made a left from Yorktown Avenue at Lake Street, you would head into an exclusive,
gated community. The Fountain sat in the center divider, next to the gate guard’s shack as you enter the neighborhood. They all looked at the Fountain as the Imperial made the right turn on to Lake Street and headed away from it.
“The Siren, she is beckoning us to our doom,” Brumoscowitz said.
“Tad
o’ the old ODYSSEY,” Wilfong responded. “We don’t want to respond to that thing, not after that one night.”
From the cavernous
rear compartment of the Chrysler, deep within the blanket of darkness came the voice of Dreg Coyle. He said, “We haven’t hit that in a long time. They won’t be expecting us.”
The car lurched noticeably as Brumoscowitz pushed the accelerator to the floor. None of them needed a close call like that again. It was only by the hand of providence that some 30 year old idiot marched down and hit the fountain
only moments ahead of the Street Survivors.
“What the fuck man?” Dreg protested from the back of the car. “We can hit it again.”
As soon as the words left his lips, HB-1, only a hundred feet overhead, sped out ahead of the Imperial. The whirring rotor blades of the Loach helicopter were loud enough to
make everyone look up out of a window. They all imagined the helicopter was but inches above the roof of the car. For a second, the helicopter sounded like it was tracking right above the Street Survivors; they waited for the searchlight to click on. Instead,
the helicopter accelerated away and down Lake Street towards the neighborhoods closer to the beach and downtown Main Street. A collective sigh of relief was had by all.
“Do we ring the doorbell and run for it?” Patronics chuckled. “Tad of the old Ding Dong Ditch.” The crew was standing out in front of Trayvion’s house.
“Fuck that,” Wilfong answered.
“We don’t need to wake up his parents at this hour.”
“Wait,” Patronics threw his index finger into the air. He looked about like a Greek
Philosopher who just had a thought and was about to grace the amphitheater with otherworldly wisdom. “Let’s put it in his widow so we can call him later and make him look outside for it.”
Fortunately the window was of the perfect style for balancing the dog on its lower ledge. They placed the card ever so thoughtfully within the dog, closed the door, and left.
Police and Fire sirens were sounding from several different directions, not far from their location. Some were short burst sirens, traffic cops pulling
people over. Some were the long whaling fire truck sirens that signaled a long journey to someone in distress. Scattered amongst the other two sounds were the forceful whale/yelps; the kind police sound when breaking up a fight on a front lawn. The Street
Survivors stood for a moment wondering what to do next. They resolved to call it a night. They decided first to go to Patronics house for a refreshment. On the drive to Patronics’s home, STUKAS OVER DISNEYLAND by The Dickies issued from the ancient radio.
When the Imperial Dreadnaught parked on the curb in front of Patronics home, Patronics went into his
garage and called Trayvion on the telephone. They learned they had just missed him when they delivered the dog. Trayvion answered the phone on the first ring; and as ordered, looked out his window. He retrieved the dog with no difficulty.
“Perform an autopsy on that creature,” Brumoscowitz said from the background.
Trayvion asked if he should smash the dog outside. Patronics said, “No. ‘Tis time for surgery. Open up its chest and remove the contents.”
The fearsome foursome stood silent, Patronics with the telephone a foot from his ear. Patronics body twitched as a burst of indecipherable noises came blaring through the telephone. Trayvion was crippled over with joy. “Violence is blue!” issued
from the telephone loud enough to be heard by all in the garage.
A half hour later,
Brumoscowitz was driving home alone, east bound on Talbert Avenue. On the radio The Pet Shop Boys song SUBURBIA was playing. The synthetic percussions, melody and lyrics seemed sentimental. To him the song had some yearning for another time; as if the singer
needs to step out of the present. The lyrics go:
Break the window by the town hall
Listen the siren screams
There in the distance, like a roll call
Of
all the suburban dreams
Let's take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight
In Suburbia
You
can't hide, run with the dogs tonight
In Suburbia
Rather fitting lyrics for the
Street Survivors, but the night is over, he thought as he drove down the poorly lit street. Brumoscowitz scanned the east and west sides of Talbert Avenue. To his right is a 5 story steel tower, used for cable television transmissions. The cable transmissions were often garbled by private planes flying in for a landing
at Meadowlark Airport. You could be sitting, watching DEATH WISH II on Showtime, and the television screen would get wavy and scrambled while a pilots voice came in squawking radio call signs asking for permission to land.
The rail road tracks registered their existence as the Imperial Cruiser’s wheels went over them. To his left, Brumoscowitz gets a fleeting glimpse of the rock quarry that sits on the west side of
the rail road tracks. He thinks back to the summer of 1981 and there was a cave under the rail road tracks about 100 yards north of the Talbert Avenue crossing. The days of the empty fields rush through his mind. He is recalling when Huntington Beach was a
suburban city. Just a few years back, there were lots of open fields on the main drag, Beach Boulevard, and all the side streets. Now, early in 1987, the open fields are a rarity. All the grassy fields that were south of Slater Avenue on Beach Boulevard as you head towards the beach, are filled with pocket sized shopping malls and auto dealerships. For crap sakes, even Wilson Ford is open 24 hours a day; it has been for a couple of years now.Who the hell buys a car at 3 a.m.?
by Bruce McRae ©2017