It wasn't the Somnambulant and it wasn't Bill Lennon

(Continued from 1-18-14) I stood across the street and felt the dry heat of the flames as the old mansion continued to burn. The smell of the smoke did not betray the age of the old place. It didn't smell of new pine, but like old wood mixed with ancient dust that was being incinerated. The chaos of a ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST continued to loom as I watched the all the aimless and dazed half-naked zombies who had been rescued by Mr. Blaser in his underwear - and by my tribe - to which I was very proud, but also a tad bit miffed for making me stay across the street "out of harm's way."



It was dangerous as cars continued to catch on fire and blow up... I don't want to sound morbid - this was indeed another sad chapter in the story of Harding avenue...but I can't lie, it was entertaining to see O' Mr. Nargie behaving like a teenage cheerleader at football game, as he frantically rooted on Bobby Tripp who was on the roof with a garden hose (with very low water pressure) trying his best to keep the Nargie -Tripp duplex from catching on fire.

I made up cheers and began - chanting them to Tommy who was standing next to... as though they were Mr. Nargie's words... who was across the street moving back and forth like a crab and waving his arms up and down for the home team.

"Douse it out...Douse it out...WAY OUT! Keep it back... Keep it back...Way back!  Douse it out...Keep it back...Put it out...WAY OUT!"  I had Tommy in stitches... until I was interrupted.

Pat Lennon looked down at me, shook his head and said, "You're weird!"

The first thing that came to my mind was, 'of course I was - I've been electrocuted...left behind...tied to trees...buried in pits...choked...knocked out...attacked by a rooster...shot with needle-tipped arrows...wrestled an alligator...had to contend with the revenge of Sister Godzilla in the fifth grade and suffered oxygen loss to the brain...OF COURSE I'M WEIRD! Hello!?'

Then it suddenly dawned on me who it was. It was Pat Lennon!  I looked up at him sadly and asked what he was doing here.

"Climbed out of a window and escaped!" he said. "Couldn't miss this."

"Where is everyone else" I asked.

"Danny snuck out with me and is around here somewhere, but everyone else is under lock-down by the Secret Service. When the cars started blowing up, man, they thought it was gun shots and went ape on us."

"Hey, Pat...I'm sorry!" That's all I could say... and probably all I needed to say!  Like I said before this was the third biggest crime to ever happen in the history of Venice California. The first biggest crime happened just a couple weeks prior to this with a bunch of craziness when a lunatic who had been stalking the Lennon Sisters also made assassination threats against the President of the United States. In trying to be sensitive to that event, I'm not going to go into that story at this time... but suffice to say that with a Secret Service detail at the Lennon House and with the entire the family under protective custody we can cross Billy and Joey and Kippy and all the other Lennon's off the suspect list.

1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
2) Mr. Blaser and his whitey-tighties 
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
4). Mr. Lennon
5) Frank Nargie
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland the hot-rodder
9) Weenie Tripp and Family
10) Johnny Gillemonster
11) Tommy Blaser the Somnambulist
12) Four boys dressed up as girls
13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
14 Walter Daniels
15 The Anti-War Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.

For my brothers...they were out in Wall Drug doing some hippie stuff back there and had not sent up any... UFO's i.e. flaming dry-cleaning bags...recently so it wasn't them. They go off the list (Blog Post 8/24/13). As for the four boys who had dressed up like girls - even though everyone's feelings were hurt, Tommy and I had seen them through the fence in the backyard smoking leaves from their precious "Mexican Tomato Plants" in those funny shaped cigarettes.



1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland the hot-rodder
12) Four boys dressed up as girls
13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
15 The Anti-War - peace-loving Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.

My oldest brother, Gustav was out in the Rat Killer racing Leeland and had brought home a pocket crammed full of cash to prove it...so that accounts for all of my brothers and unfortunately, also gives Leeland an alibi.

1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland the hot-rodder
12) Four boys dressed up as girls
13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
15 The Anti-War - peace-loving Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.

I pretty sure dad wasn't involve - he had just driven in late from West Covina selling new, all-electric gold-medallion track homes out there so that eliminates all the Dahlins.

3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D

I was now down to four possible suspects, although Ricky Tripp came over to where Tommy and I had been standing and said something about his mother smiling a lot with all the firemen running through their house. I didn't know what to make of that - but I still don't think she set it on fire.

1) Rita Nargie
2) Sea-Shell
3) The Anti-War, draft-card-burning, peace-loving Crazies
4) The Owner of the property.

As for Johnny Gillemonster... I really liked him as a suspect and when I went over to his house with my detective note pad... and  interrogated him... this is when he told me the of story of the dog-poop payback - did jive with me - so I'll tell you that story next time.

In the meantime...Chewbacca had discovered a dead body at the foot of the 60 year old palm tree which turned out to be the only fatality of the Great Fire of '69.  Chewbacca fell to his knees, leaned over the corpse and cried.

Until next time..my friends...Gud välsigne och Hej då