Markie D, The Fire Chief and the Big Mystery

(Continued from last time) Sept 1969

"Going by the Blasers...Now the McClains. Hi Mac how ya doing?  Now by the Bibles Hey Pat, Cathy... beautiful day!  Now a jaunt by Campbell's court around the corner in front of Doctor Arnold's. Hey Doc!"

My dad, "Mr. D" was in the living room jogging in place and talked to himself. He pretended to run around the block and say "hi" to all the neighbors that he passed on his short imaginary journey that took far less time to accomplish than a real run down around Harding Avenue, Grandview, Venice Boulevard, Naples and back.

I had fully intended on jumping on one of the motorcycles out in front and driving it over to the Venice Fire station, but since I had just turned 13 and dad was home - I opted to ride over on the handlebars of Jimmy's custom Stingray "Krate" with the 3 speed gear-shift-lever.  



The only problem with the cool gear-shift-lever is that if you ever slipped off the pedal "OUCH!" Boy did that black knob hurt the "vitals."  (Don't tell Jimmy, but every now and then I jammed on the brakes pretending it was purely accidental, hoping I could get him to jam his boy parts on the shifter! This morning on the way to the Fire Station it worked twice and poor Jimmy could barely walk by the time we arrived).

Anyway, I walked into the station with my list of arson suspects with poor Jimmy hobbling behind and asked to see the Chief. Knowing that he had been at a loss since Young and Manson had officially been removed as prime suspects (last post), I showed him my list of suspects and explained everyone's motives.

1) Chet Young
2) Charles Manson and gang
3) Mr. Blaser
4) A couple of my brothers and a long-haired friend
5) Susie Grant
6)  Mr. D (my dad).
7) Johnny Gillemot
8) The Catholic Nuns
9) Leeland
10) Walter Daniels
11) The Nargies
12) Tommy Blaser
13)  Mr. Malon

Though my neighbor, Don Blaser, had helped in the rescue, he had as much motive to burn the house to the ground as did most of the hard working responsible adults on our street. It was a plight and it needed to go!
The Chief's eyes widened and seemed very interested in Mr. Blaser- until I explained what I thought, unfortunately, was a pretty iron-clad alibi. We were right next door to the Blaser's and our house was an even worse plight.

I had an old couple from Nebraska pull up in front of my house one time and ask me if our dilapidated old thing was a hippie commune. With all the junk and the cars and the long-hairs hanging around. I have to admit, we did look like a commune which certainly had to drive down the prices of real estate on our street. Besides the fleas, the mosquitoes and the escaping rattlesnakes - Escaping Rattlesnakes and Iguana Del Diablo (click here) being right next door to the Blasers...this gave Mr. Blaser more motive to burn our house to the ground.




                                 click here for: Infamous Trash Towers of Venice






Judging by these pictures you might understand why the Fire chief could have felt why Don Blaser would have wanted our house to go up in flames first.

The Fire Chief had written his name down as a person of interest and then sadly scratched it off seeing the logic that if Don Blaser was going to burn anyone's house down-  it definitely would have been ours first!

1) Chet Young
2) Charles Manson and gang
3) Mr. Blaser 

My 4th suspect wasn't just one person, but was really three of the older boys who had been rejected in their cross-dressing scheme hoping to fake out the phony "frat guys" in order to gain acceptance into the place (this was what they had to do for losing a bet).

Again he was interested! I think the city of Venice was looking for any good reason to lock us up, but I explained that it probably wasn't the older long-hairs who had dressed up as girls to get into spurious  "Frat House" - because the guys had all taken their girl friends on another one of their notorious "Albino hikes" Click here for : Albinos and Vampires and finished off the night out back in the hippie-hutch-hut we called "Wall Drug."



That explained the reason why we couldn't wake them up right away when all of the explosions were going off.  They had just gotten to bed and probably had a little too much of this and a little too much of that....

                                Even more sadly, he crossed them off too!

4) Chewbacca. Puke-Breath. Primo. 
5) Next was Susie. Although, she was young, she had every reason to burn the place down. It wasn't because she necessarily wanted to see the place go up in flames, but rather because she wanted to punish her older brother for dropping her on her head on more than one occasion.  (I asked the Chief if he had seen the movie The Bad Seed and told him that I think she could have done it).  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and wanted to hear more.



"Isn't that right Jimmy?" I said, calling on my star witness. "Jimmy, tell the Chief why you believe it could have been Susie. (He was there when Cameron dropped kicked Susie from the second floor balcony of the "Fraternity house" and saw the whole thing). "Jimmy!"




Jimmy was over on the bench, apparently consumed with rubbing life back into his numb boy parts and hadn't been paying attention to one thing were were talking about.

I could tell this investigation was going nowhere without me, and now, the Fire Chief  was beginning to realized  how much he needed my eyes and ears if we were ever going to solve this mystery.

Next time: Susie off the hook and Johnny Gillemot's alibi!