"Long-Hair Hippy Commies" and Markie's Death

11:21 AM

The phone rang like 20 times before one of the hippies finally decided to answer it.  Normally, no one in our family would answer the phone – that was Joan’s job.   Joan was my mom.

Our living room and dining room were filled with the delirious Wolf Pack that had been back in the hidden ivy hangout we called "Wall Drug" communing with the herbs they secretly grew under the code name of “Mexican tomato plants” 

So our house was filled with the likes of this group...(including "Pinky" pictured far left).

 and this motely crew...

And this bunch...

along with this heterogeneous collection...

...all except for Bob of course.  He was in Vietnam! 

             And I'm not talking about a vacation. 

You see, my older brothers (that's all my brothers- by the way, if you haven't caught on by now), no longer used the affectionate and intimate designation of “mom” and “dad.” Instead, they called our parents by their first names or with titles, like - Joan and Mr. D.  I think mom and dad had come to terms with these labels that expressed a distance in relationship. This remote detachment was safe for the unfeeling Wolf-Pack because it was a declaration that there were no demands on their relationship other than existing under the same roof as hostile roommates. 

 

I don’t think my parents minded that too much because it represented a separation of values. Although we were all born democrats, my parents were conservative “Kennedy Democrats”  - you know - a strong America… less government… programs that care for people… but not giving away our future by putting the yoke of debt around the necks of generations not yet born – through wasteful government spending.  Though the world had changed a lot in the last five years since Kennedy’s assassination, their political views remained unchanged and they considered the motley – long-haired, draft-card-burning crew as “dope-smoking commies.” 

 

I think a couple of the Lennon boys were present –  and if I had to guess, they probably still called their parents "mom" and "dad."

Anyway, Chewbacca finally answered the phone and couldn’t make out what Kjersten was saying through all the blubbering sobs and stupid stuff about a leg being cut off and someone dead by the side of the pool. This phone called was just a nuisance to him so he kicked Flea-Bait in the butt and told him to tell Joan she had a phone call – half thinking she might have already been eavesdropping with her little suction-cup-bugging-device she used for wiretapping every conversation the boys had with their girlfriends.

In our house, no one ran up the stairs anymore to tell someone when they were wanted on the phone.  It was viewed as a frivolous waste of energy.  Our communication system was standing at the foot of the stairs and screaming as loud as you can – making sure to use derogatory nicknames that the Wolf-Pack invented –so the Steadmans and the Tripps across the street could hear.

“Hey Puke Breath, phone’s for you!” Or  “Lardo…Pick up the phone!” or “Dooh-Dooh Pants…” they would scream at the top of their lungs while hitting the wall with a broom like dad does on street-cleaning day, and then they would top that off with something really nice like, “You stupid idiot you got a phone call.”  

  

Kindness was not generally found among the list of adjectives used to describe our family.

“Joan”Flea-Bait yelled, hoping to please the older boys.

"... pick up the phone!”

Flea-Bait felt his job was done and Chewbacca had set the receiver down, forgetting about who was on the other end and the urgency of the call altogether. 

Like most typical Saturdays (ever since the zoo incident), Mom had locked herself in her room. Trying to drown out the noise from the raucous below, she turned up the volume on a rerun of Gun Smoke.

11:30 am

When the episode was over, she picked up the phone to call Ida Nargie, who lived across the street, for gossip only to discover the sobbing and the tearful pleas of Kjersten still begging on the other end of the line  hoping someone would eventually walk by and pick up the abandoned receiver.  

“Please!” cried the desperate 9-year-old.  “Someone help us. I think he’s dead!” were the first words mom heard. 

“What Kjersten?” she panicked ―freaking out.  “What’s going on?”

“Mom” Kjersten said almost undecipherable through huge sobs that interrupted her words. Mom could hear the frightful crying in the background from the other kids at the pool.

Choking back the word she dreaded to say. in a battle between lips and brain, her brain finally won as she spit out the foulest tasting words a 9-year-old might ever have to experience. “Mom” she bellowed, “he’s dead.” More crying!  More tears!

Shock! “Kjersten, who’s dead?”  Mom asked, screaming through the receiver in order to get Kjersten's full attention.

 “Markie!” she answered as the flood gates of words began spilling.  It’s Markie… there was a booger and vomit and Ulrich and then there was cold water... and then a pushing match and…and…and…and Ralph went one way and Markie went the other―”

“Kjersten, slow down and just tell me what happened.” 

Kjersten began bawling again. “And…and…and…Markie flew through the glass wall… and his leg is cut off… and he’s lying in a pool of blood…and we think he’s dead...and we didn’t know who to call. Help…Mom!” she resorted to, desperately pleading in incomplete thoughts and tears.

Joan jumped from her bed, unlocked the five latches on her bedroom door and frantically leaped into action. She raced downstairs parting the red sea of long-hair commies partying below, hysterically soliciting help and trying to find the keys to a car that had more than a bucks worth of gas and that didn’t have to be push started.

  

11:03 am - 30 minutes earlier

Markie wanted to show Ralph who was boss and slipped out of his grip again. Just as Markied had planned, Ralph shot backwards like a rocket ship right into the pool. What Markie failed to calculate into his equation was the 12 foot stationary wall of glass 2 feet directly behind him.

 “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”

Markie shot like the Apollo 7 launched a few days ago and flew backwards crashing through the glass wall. Up to this point, the 12-year-old had proven to be pretty indestructible (he had bested pits, and arrows, and ropes and hampers and lived through Salton Sea, but this time he was no match for the tremendous force of this fatal impact. The plate glass shattered spraying shards and fragments throughout the entire recreation room adjacent to the pool. 

Laying bent over the couch, which was just inside the room behind the glass panel– Markie straddled the galls wall - half in and half out of the room. Thankfully, shock had immediately set in and Markie felt no pain, but neither was his brain capable of  processing the severity of the accident! It wasn’t until he tried to stand up by hoisting himself off the couch that he saw the pointed top of glass, which had been protruding through his left thigh.  

Pushing up off the couch, he staggered to his feet as the glass ripped open his entire leg. 

Blood 

Bone

Blood

Muscle

Blood

Looking down into the middle of his leg, Markie laid down on the cold deck where blood mixed with water and tried to hold his dangling appendage together. He told the other kids a joke to ease their pain and to help Ralph with his guilt. Slipping into unconsciousness he told Kjersten to call home… “EXbrook 8 - 0466” he told his baby sister not sure whether she knew the number.  Closing his eyes, he quietly slipped away  whispering the "dying" prayer Sister Edith Mary taught his 7th grade class.

Crying and hysterical, Kjersten made the call and waited for what seemed like an hour after Chewbacca put down the receiver and had kicked Flea Bait in the butt.   

Feeling helpless, Tommy Blaser and Annie Lennon cried, having absolutely no idea what to do. Things like this just didn't happen at the Lennon or the Blaser house, so this was new for them.

Meanwhile, Ralph was useless. He just walked around in circles crying and talking to himself as if he testifying about his innocence in a court of law.  Either that or he figured that if his excuse was good enough, he could buy some time out of  purgatory, not to mention the guilt he was feeling - having had something to do with the murder of his best friend. 

 "Be nice to each other, while you have the chance. You might not get another one."    Markie D   5th grade