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!  



 

Why...Chewbacca...Why?

I really don't understand a lot of stuff... i.e. here we are in the middle of a terrible fire that is consuming a grand old home with the daring rescue effort by my hippie brothers and a neighbor in underwear and two of the most bizarre things happen.  Let me set the stage:  Not only were there firemen and policemen that you would normally expect to find at a typical 3 alarm fire, but this particular event also drew the special interest of these mystery Men In Black - members of the President's Secret Service detail who had been staying in the Lennon house for their protection. These Men in Black began sniffing around like bloodhounds for information and asking questions about Chet Young and were concerned that this Molotov Cocktail bombing might have had something to do with Charles Manson.  The crazy-man, Chet Young, had made assassination threats against the President and Charles Manson was plastered on the front page of every newspaper in America for the gruesome Tate and La Bianca murders.


With the ensuing chaos of fire and smoke and firemen, and police, and paramedics, and anxious Secret Service, and my hippie brothers, and my dad and my near-naked neighbor rescuing half-clad college drop-outs - who were now homeless and walking around like dazed Zombies - it was totally crazy right! Picture - cars blowing up - people screaming, smoke hovering and flaming ashes falling... imagine if you will -  Night of the Living Dead, conspiracy - threats and big things to worry about - which in light of that brings me to the two things that I don't get:

Number 1) At a time like this, in the middle of all of this chaos with everything that is at stake - why would my second oldest brother, affectionately known as, Chewbacca, feel compelled, at this moment to make some type of emotional connection to a dead feral-cat that nobody in the neighborhood cared for anyway.                  

                           WHY?                   Weird?  Right!

He had lots of hair and the charred cat had lots of hair at one time I suppose - was that it?  Was it some strange hippie thing that I didn't know about? Did it have to do with some form of Arrested Development? Did it have something to do with those funny cigarettes and those hidden "Mexican Tomato Plants" the older boys were meticulously taking care of in our backyard.







I understand that I'm only 12 and in seventh grade, so I guess I have a lot to  figure out...but I just didn't get it.


Okay, now with all that said, why this next part?  Take your stupid dead cat that the cosmos has directed you to fall in love with and leave me out of this.    This leads me to number 2).

Number 2). Why on earth did Chewbacca feel he had to bring that char-broiled cat which had stunk like burnt hair and that had looked like some 4000-year-old thing buried in a pyramid in Egypt alongside of Tutankhamen...AND SHOVE IT IN MY FACE?  

Why Chewbacca?   Why?   What did I ever do to you? What did I do to deserve the 732 titty-twisters, a year of being squeezed to unconsciousness(blog post 6/26/13), 532 wedges, 321 monkey bumps to the leg...and now a dead, stinky, burnt corpse of a despised cat shoved in my face?  

CAN ANYONE TELL ME?   He could have taken that cat to the backyard and happily had some kind of hippie ritual for all I care, but why did he feel it was necessary to torment me on the way?  I was watching the show minding my own business and out of nowhere he shoved that disgusting thing in my face and you know what happened!   That's right - my superpowers kicked in - I bent over gagging and heaving and threw up 13 times on the Blaser's front lawn... and before everyone could clear the blast zone - Tommy, Ricky and even one of the escaping Lennon brothers had puke all over them.

There I stood despised by everyone - making matters worst, I was in my hand me down shirt, my holey jeans, my miss-matched socks - looking like a complete moron...besides all that, I knew that Mr. Blaser was sure to be mad at me in the morning - as if this was all my fault.

Later the next day, Mr. Blaser made me wash the puke off of his lawn and it was there that I determined to find out who started this whole thing. That's why I felt like I had to take investigative matters into my own hands and find out who started this thing in the first place - and why I figured that the Secret Service and the Fire Marshal needed my help is solving this terrible arson case.  

It turns out that it was neither Charles or Chet, which meant that my list of suspects was dwindling.

To my shame, I am not happy to report the next incident, which turned out to be an unbelievable miracle of epic proportions and the beginning of a new saga at the Harding House!