Three kids and The Demon Possessed Paint

(continued) Three stupid kids and a 5 gallon bucket of yellow paint.


We knew this was going to be dangerous, but never anticipated the scope of the blast zone.








Tonight Tony was going to celebrate his job promotion from Wright Brother's Ford in Venice (on Lincoln Blvd next to the Carroll Shelby racing facility) to becoming the Service Writer at A and B Chevy in West LA by inviting the hippies to his property on Palms Blvd.

(Above - picture of celebration dinner in front of the Palms garage)

(Right - picture of Shelby Cobras rolling out of the Shelby's factory in Venice directly behind Wright Brother's Ford)*



Assembling our tools, fighting over rollers and pulling the lid off of the big 'O bucket of paint―Tommy, Jeffery and I started off with the best of intentions. Looking back we realize now that the fact that any paint at all actually went on the house―was a miracle in itself.

Tommy bored quickly and was the first to succumb to the small wicked voice coming from inside bucket. The insidious paint told him to lightly brush Jeffery's elbow with his paint-dipped roller and had also tempted him to lie by saying it was an accident.

Jeffery sensed that his cousin had no real remorse and of course, had to―HAD TO paint Tommy's forearm in retaliation. Ughhhhhh! It was almost impossible for a 14-year-old like me to manage a couple immature 11-year-olds. These guys went back and forth, tit-for-tat and were practically worthless, but I tried.  I TRIED!


I really did until Tommy missed Jeffery and got the front of my shirt―accident or under the spell of the evil spirit, I couldn't tell.

All I knew was that the paint in the rolling pan TOLD ME to stay cool and to pretend like it didn't bother me. The haunted paint actually talked to me by name. "Markie D, you're the oldest―you're the boss―they can't treat you like this and get away with it." Everything the demon said made sense. "You've got to show them who's boss. Calmly put your roller into the pan and soak up as much paint as you can. Do it."

I mean a voice from the paint was talking to me. "Something evil this way comes" Who was I to argue.

"Hey Markie D the juggler vain on the side of your neck is bulging and a dead give away―GET IT UNDER CONTROL"  The ominous paint yelled. But it was right.

Trying to calm myself down I breathed like a lady doing la maze at child birth. As if under a spell, I obediently plunged my roller into the paint and pretended to go back to the patch of wood siding I was working on and screamed, "ATTACK!"

I had to show the two little kids that I was older and that I would win at all cost.

The DEVIL TOLD ME THAT I HAD TO WIN.

Screaming "attack" I lunged and ran that roller up the front of Tommy's shirt all the way to his nostrils.

The paint.
The paint.
It was the paint, I tell you! Just like the demon possessed rototiller that had dragged El Heffe around the front yard. This bright yellow paint incited a war and just like in those occasions where more baby food gets on the outside of the baby than inside the baby―there was more yellow paint on the torn up lawn, on  the stack of lumber, on the ladders, on the neighbor's wall, on the sidewalk and on the three of us than on the house itself.

  

 @

It was a canary yellow disaster of epic proportions. By the time Tony arrived back the three of us dripped from head to toe like zombies ONLY instead of blood it was bright yellow paint. This gave new meaning to painting the town red only in this case it was yellow demon paint―nearly half of of Venice was lemon colored. 

It wasn't like we could hurt the prices of Real Estate on this side of Lincoln Blvd, like anything over here would ever be worth more than twenty five thousand dollars.

The three of us stood there dripping and in unison said, "The devil made us do it." knowing full well that we would have to go to confession before we could ever take communion again.




BEST DAY EVER. That is until we found out that it was oil-based paint.

Tony called the Heffe, woke him up from his nap and told him to bring gasoline so we could scrub patches of the haunted yellow goo off of our extremities and out of our orifices.











The party went on as planned, only we were no longer invited. Our moms weren't too happy but the good news is we went trick or treating as three radioactive alien-brothers from Superman's neighboring planet―Plankton!

At least we thought our Halloween costume idea was funny.






Until next time!  














* Shelby Cobra picture posted by Enis Yeneriz on You know you’re from Santa Monica Facebook group

@  Picture telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/viral-video/11643553/Russian-driver-crashes-lorry-and-covers-himself-in-yellow-paint.html

Last Supper, Jalapenos and The Creature!

Last Supper and Jalapenos Pt 2

I have a lot of Superpowers, but most of them are in my imagination! Whenever I am buried in a pit, dropped out of a window, shot with needle-tipped arrows, electrocuted, tied up in a rope, or shoved in a hamper, those circumstances provide the opportunity to pretend!  I pretend that I am Superman or Spider Man... and in this latest adventure of the diabolical scheming by older brothers (AKA the Wolf Pack) I wished I could have been the new action hero - Iron Man - mainly because he doesn't feel anything. In the times when I'm been tortured and I receive the gift of adrenalin that pulses through my body and I get the strength of about 3 or 4 boys my size...like the mom who has the superhuman strength to lift up a car to free a trapped baby, I have to be reminded that I am only human. DANG IT! I come to the painful realization that I am like most mere mortals.

Anyway, getting back to the story about the Hawaiian, Luau themed party in the backyard. Everyone was having a good time outside at the party until it came to a screeching halt when they heard the piercing shriek of horror coming out of my mother's bedroom window.

Mr. and Mrs. Nargie heard it
Mr. and Mrs. Blaser heard it
All of those at the (now ruined and infamous) Luau in the backyard heard it!

The Steadmans across the street
The Lennons down at the corner

The Nuns at the convent around the corner
The old grouch next door- and her drunk brother, Hutch, heard it!
The Tripps
John Gillemonster on Naples

and Mrs. Gass over on Crestmore Ave
the Grants down on Angelus Place heard it
The Vasquez'
and Bobby Manriquez  - they all heard it!

I'm sure some heard the terrible screams of the 7-year-old all the way to the Venice canals... and if you were alive back then, it is possible that if you think really hard you might just remember hearing this awful screaming no matter where you might have been in the world at that time.

If you didn't hear me screaming in pain, then you heard my mom, shouting out furiously for Roy (that's what she called my dad) to do something!  That was nice I thought. It was good thing to know that she still cared and still went a little berserk from time to time when bad things were happening.

I don't know exactly why they did it...or whose idea it was to cut open all the left over jalapenos and smear the skins and the juice all over my tender little body. They took off my shirt, held me down and wanted to see what the hot chili peppers would do to human tissue when rubbed over its entirety! By that, I mean everything that was exposed - like arms, legs, upper torso, both arm pits, face and lips.  Everything turned red and swelled, I looked like a red Pillsbury-Dough-Boy that had caught on fire.

I was burning up and wanted to jump from the window, but they held me down until they heard the rushing footsteps of Mr. D tromping up the stairs, then they vaporized into the four corners of the globe (i.e. cluttered bedrooms on the third floor).

Dad picked me up and began running down the stairs and mom began shouting for him to take me to the emergency hospital...she thought I was going to die. My eyes burned and were swelled shut, but I could tell he turned right instead of left. This was not the way to the front - instead he was headed for the backyard!

The pain was too great...I screamed...She screamed and had begun to shout down curses on the older boys and said stuff about "Pain of Mortal Sin" and about how they would never see their way out of Purgatory!

Embarrassed, people left the party quickly yet somber like it was a funeral dirge... as they cleared a path for my dad who was holding an unrecognizable hideous red creature in his arms. Instead, of the hospital, he flung me into the pool! More screaming by Mrs. D...which launched Jerry LaFountaine on a rampage in a search and destroy mission through the the house for the boys. Boy, did he enjoy that! Poor Jerry, however,was sorely disappointed because he could not find a single soul to punish as my clever siblings hid in the secret crawl space behind the walls up in the third story across from the rattlesnake cages.

After recovering from the shock of being tossed into the pool, I emerged from the water CHANGED! Something happened in the chemical reaction to the burns that interacted with the chemicals that had been release by the adrenal glands located in the cortex on top of my kidneys.

I emerged from the water as if i were The Creature from the Black Lagoon bent on revenge. Frightening the remaining guest away, I went on a pillaging rampage... and ate all the cowardly older brothers, drinking all of their blood and letting the helpless reptiles out of their cages (seeing that now, I was related to the scaled reptiles).

I walked the earth all the rest of my days alone and hunted, a reptilian fugitive surviving off the flesh of humans and yearning to drink blood.

Okay, so the last part - the part after I was thrown into the pool and went around eating everybody was only something conjured up in my puny brain while I had been intoxicated with drugs to numb the pain.

Though I was a hideous little red creature for the next couple days and looked like an actual relative to the monster from the Black Lagoon - or something that lived in the snake cages upstairs, I laid in bed, draped in damp towels having weird thoughts and mostly thankful that I hadn't eaten any family members or drank their blood.

A week later, however, I did manage to sneak up stairs when no one was home and opened the door to a rattlesnake cage.  Hehehehe...  

Someone sounded the rattlesnake escape-alarm and raised the flag to alert the neighbors.  Havoc reigned and neighbors complained... but it was just another regular day on Harding avenue...where we all survived - not perfectly unscathed, but enough to share the infamous and crazy stories that made life worth living.