Booby-Trapped between Hormones and Hope.

I was in Hensheys on the fifth floor. Hensheys in Santa Monica was upscale for those of us from Venice. Excited to be buying new clothes I was, “bouncing off the walls” according to my mom and all the other regular people in the store who were freaking out about the earthquake.

I wasn’t really there at all. I was back at Saint Monica’s thinking about the time I was cornered.

Darting from clothes-rack to clothes-rack, my  mind traveling back as if I was right there when Marilyn and Theresa cut me off and trapped me in the hallway. I felt like the wounded gazelle on one of those nature shows on TV.

“Well?” Marilyn said with hands firmly planted on her hips, in the way Sister Godzilla and the nuns did at Saint Marks every time I was in trouble.

I looked at Marilyn then to Theresa, then back to Marilyn, and did this a couple times before opening my mouth.

“Well…well…well what?” I asked with great trepidation. Not knowing what I was in trouble for, feeling like the girls were about to pounce on me and rip the flesh from by body.

This could be a problem. Not because Marilyn was about 9 feet taller than me or that she outweighed me by a good 50 pounds, but because we had two rules in our house.

Rule 1: Dad said that us boys were never…NEVER ever…EVER to hit one of our sisters i.e. girls.

Rule 2: I can’t remember what the second one was.

Anyway, I wasn’t really afraid that they could beat me up, after all I had taken on members of the Wolf Pack more than twice my size before. I was more afraid that if war broke out between us I would have to let them beat me up and was also afraid for them if my crazy-psychotic adrenaline stuff kicked in ( I didn't want to go to prison). It was a Game of Thrones. Who was in charge here? Definitely not me.

Trapped.

With pupils pinpointed they waited for my answer and held their ground, blocking any chance I had of escape.

I had no idea what they were talking about. I felt like I was in History or Latin class—nothing my teachers said made any sense to me.

“What’s wrong with you?” one of them said demanding an answer.

You know that proverbial “Deer in the headlights of an oncoming car” look. That was me. The same look I give my teachers whenever they asked me a question in class.

      Today would probably not be a good day.

I opened my mouth. No words. What do I tell them?

There were a lot of things wrong with me—duh!

Where do I start?  Do I tell them that I was tested to see if I was retarded? At least, that’s what my oldest brother said. He said that was the reason Aunt Mary had taken me up to Loyola University. Usually I didn’t believe him, but felt it had to be true because all of my other brothers agreed with him, when they laughed about it at the kitchen table.

“I’m retarded.”  I thought. No, that wasn’t the answer they were looking for.
“I’m hyper.” All the nuns at Saint Marks said so.

I ran down the list of all my faults, “I’m a robot,” “numb” “adrenaline junkie” “PTSD” “memory issues.”

I don’t think any of those explanations is what they were looking for. AND I certainly wasn’t about to share my deepest-darkest-secrets with anyone—EVER!  Fear. Shame.

Sighing, I shrugged, hoping they would give me a clue for this ambush.

“What’s wrong with you,” Theresa led off with again followed with, “why didn’t you do anything?”

While processing the words, “Do anything” Marilyn jumped in. “Yeah. Why didn’t you go after her?”

Stunned and having no idea what these crazy girls were talking about, I stared as the oncoming car came speeding toward me. This was not like Marilyn and Theresa, they were my friends—I didn't understand.

(Marilyn pictured to the right)

“Andrea!” blurted Theresa like an erupting volcano that couldn’t hold back the pressure anymore.

My brain was processing—slow—too slow. “Andrea?”

“Why didn’t go after her?” Marilyn said looking down at me.

Blank stare…processing…processing…This was like Brother Coleman asking me to translate some Latin. Omnes viae Romam ducunt—I didn't have a clue, it was like a foreign language to me.

The building shook. People panicked and screamed. I didn’t know. I wasn’t there. I was still back in that corner being interrogated by the hungry cheetahs.

“Well?” Theresa said trying that line of questioning again.

Three words squeezed out as I stared up past the boobs, which were at eye level and distracting (the advantage and disadvantages of being short), “Go after her?”

“Yes,” Marilyn said frustrated.

Like magma flowing down the side of the agitated volcano, “That whole thing in the school yard,” Theresa said, “was for you.”

“The whole thing?” I carefully asked more confused than ever. "Me?"

“When Andrea hugged that boy, over by gym...that was for you.”

“That was her cousin, stupid. She was trying to make you jealous.”

One thousand thoughts flooded my brain cells. HOPE! I felt like not all was lost because “someone liked me?”  Me?

The whole leg-lift and head-tilt thing Andrea did. The hug of 1971 was intended to make me jealous. I was jealous and hurt but now I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to get her phone number or how to approach a girl or what the next step is. “Ugh…I just wished these two girls would get their boobs out of my face and tell me what to do next”

Help me, I pleaded. I guess spoken words on my part would have been better. I am a looser, but a happy one because someone liked me.

Coming back to planet earth, I looked to see all the people in Hensheys clutching the floor and crammed in doorways. It was a big aftershock, but I had no idea that the old building had been violently swaying back and forth.

I calmly walked over to the cashiers table where a pile of red clothes were stacked up and asked what all the commotion was about.

Incredulously, three ladies stared at me as my Mother explained that we had just experienced another earthquake.

“What Earthquake?” I asked.

My mom laughed knowing that I had been totally oblivious. She knew that  it was because I had been moving more than the building and that I had probably disappeared into one of my out-of-body day-dreaming experiences. The others ladies joined in and soon everyone on the Fifth Floor was pointing at me and laughing. Fun on the Fifth Floor. It didn't matter—but it did.

On the way home, from the back seat of the car, I told my mom and Mrs. Exstromer that I really didn’t feel like the whole Europe thing was real yet—that’s why I was so calm.

“Calm!” my mother chortled from the driver’s seat, breaking out in laughter.

“Calm!” Mrs. Exstromer barely managed to get out after spraying her Tab cola all over the inside of the windshield when the two of them broke into a hysteria of laughter.

The two of them laughed so hard that mom couldn’t see because of the Tab cola and the tears in her eyes and had to pull the car over.

Gasping for breath like both of them could die of laughter, they volleyed the “calm” word back and forth between them.
(Pictured L-R Mom, Herb Williamson, Mrs. Blaser, and Mrs. Extromer. Mrs. Extromer was the Secretary for Saint Marks grammar school in Venice).

I sat in the back of a car in the parking lot of Kenny’s shoes watching the two ladies who I felt might have need medical attention at any moment.

Embarrassing…hello! This was the first time I had ever seen adults wet their pants.

Happens to the best of us, I guess. Oh well, at least with my new red Hang Ten shorts, and my red Hang Ten T-shirt, and my red Hang Ten socks I’ll be the best dressed kid in Germany. This had to be better than the stupid reverse turtleneck with the zipper on my first day of High School.

On the following Friday, my big, squishy, beautiful Irene, saw me dressed in my red Hang Ten "outfit" and said that it was probably better that I was going to wear this in Europe rather than in Watts, where she was from (I didn't know what she meant, but we both laughed).



Hormones were kicking in...being booby-trapped wasn't so bad... :)

Maybe not "Straight out of Venice."
Via Europam Amantissima ac spei plenus

Pictures Credit : Hensheys of Santa Monica posted on Facebook by Michael Hayashi; May 16, 2016 “You know you're from Santa Monica if”

Muhammad Ali and I Go Down!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO….!"

I screamed loud enough to be heard by the neighbors―loud enough to be heard by the Lennons on the corner!  

said Joey

asked Kippy

"What's wrong with you" dad asked examining the front page of the LA Times staring down at the horrific results of the FIGHT OF THE CENTURY. 

Without having to turn to the sports page it was right there in the headlines. Ali had lost!                                                                                                                                                   "It can't be" I said. "Impossible."                                                                                                                                                       My dad was surprised, but not shocked like me.  

They wondered...  Hide your wife. Hide your kids.                                                                                                                          

   Hamper                                                                   Electrocution                                                 Veloci-Raptor 

"But we had a contract...he promised to knock Frazier out in 6 rounds"

Dad furled his brow and stared incredulously at me. "Vad är fel med dig?" he said in Swedish. 

  

Dad didn't get it. "This can't be!" 

He set his paper down and raised a brow as if waiting for my answer. 

"You don't get it." I said. And he didn't. "That might as well be me in there." 

               Another blank stare.

"What chance do I have now of becoming anything more than moldy bread."

I got this look like I should have been committed to the insane asylum at Camarillo.

Obviously he didn't know what Muhammad Ali said about moldy bread and penicillin.

"We had a contract," I said waiving my arms. "He promised me that I was destined not to be moldy bread"

My poor father had no idea what I was talking about. "Come here and let me look at your tongue," he said.

I did and then realized that he was looking into my eyes. I knew what he was doing. He was scared. He thought that maybe I had discovered the Mexican Tomato plants in the backyard and had started puffing on the "Mary Jane." He was afraid I had turned to the dark side... 

"Dad...No! Tony Alva...whatever..."  He was more confused than ever. 

Ali's victory was my victory. This fight meant that I could become someone and now I have no chance. I felt like everyone kept lying to me. First it was Phyllis Diller now it's Ali. Adults and their promises and their Prophecies just can't be trusted.  

The Blasers next door heard the scream.                                                                                                        "What's the screaming," said Tommy in alarm pulling on his grandpa's shirt.  
                                                                                         

 "It went the full fifteen," my dad said.

 It was me. I had been knocked down.











"Unanimous decision." He continued.


 I felt sucker punched. "ughhhh!" Not by Frazier, but by Ali.










  thought one of the neighbors

"Ali...Ali...Ali...Ali...how could you do this to me?" I said walking away talking to my dog, Poochie.

Poochie was minding her own business, enjoying the warmth of the sun―trying to stay out of it.                                                                                            
I was rejected by Andrea and the world had just shifted off its axis. Bent I'm telling you.

I turned around and my Dad's eyes were still trailing me. He watched for a little bit and said something else in Swedish, "Galen!" 

It's been less than a month and the city was still recovering from the big Sylmar earth quake that hit back in February.

Frank Nargie the mailman who lived across the street said he was outside when it hit and saw our big old house rock back and forth. He said he thought it was going to fall over. Two of the boy on the third floor got knocked out of their beds and another rattlesnake got loose. I remember feeling like I was on a ship being tossed back and forth by a storm. 

It was tragic. Fourteen people were killed. Two Hospitals collapsed. Governor Reagan declares a State of Emergency and appealed to President Nixon for Federal aid. 

                                                                               

"Earthquake―Smearthquake" I felt like I had been rocked from my foundation and in a personal state of emergency. Who do I appeal to?  I tried God and that didn't seem to work.

Who could I trust?

I swan and improved on my times in the Butterfly. But I still sucked. In my first race I was so terrible that a guy with a broken arm and plastic bag over his cast beat me.

                                                                                                                                         

I finished my first swim season at Saint Monicas, but  really didn't care a whole lot  about competing. It was pretty simple―I had given up on the notion that I could discover what true love was about and settled on finding friendship and fitting in. 

Distance and distrust was best.   

I wanted to fit―belong―find my place, not win gold medals. Kurt the "big Saint Monica's scoring champion" was up at Humboldt University and becoming more of a hippie. I could never be like him―why try! Ali lost. Adults are not to be trusted. I realized that life was easier as a robot and decided to withdraw into my own world where it was a little safer.  

More aftershocks...then the "Hensheys Incident of 1971" in Santa Monica!

  and off to Dachau ...but why?  

Hensheys picture credit: Facebook post by Michael Hayasi "You know you're from Santa Monica If" group May 2016 

     

I Said Yes! Why?

       Why? Why did I say yes to her?

Where were we before I interrupted the story of Markie D for the long pause while I traveled to Malawi with Water Wells for Africa.

Oh, yeah—we took a side trip into the future for the harrowing but true life adventure of grownup Mark—who had to fight off an intruder and found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle in Paris. I reported that crazy incident, just to show that you can leave Venice, but can't take the Venice out of you.

Going back in time to 1970, the next 4 years at Saint Monica high school was not like a new invasion of Venice had suddenly spilled into Santa Monica—by no means. 

My grandmother taught at Saint Monicas and my older brothers had already carried the Venice virus into Santa Monica for about 10 years already! We had already loosed the infection into Santa Monica, Topanga, Ojai, Malibu, Ocean Park, Mar Vista, Culver City, Salton Sea, Kings River, Detroit, Idaho, Northern California and all parts between.  

September 1970.  The hippie hordes at my house subscribed to the doctrine of Antiestablishmentarianism, which means they boycotted and protested against any kind of political or adult authority—i.e. "The Man." The Vietnam war granted them permission to rebel against everything. 

This included oppressive parents (or parents they view as oppressive) who still believed in the antiquated rules for acceptable social behavior.  In March, John and Yoko Ono, had staged their "Bed-In For Peace" following the "Love-In" two years before that. 

NOW, everything was okay—Sex, drugs, Rock and Roll. I was still a little young for sex and drugs, but I loved my Rock and Roll, and felt sorry for my parents. I felt sorry that they were marginalized by the ones who felt had marginalized them and had empathy that their authority had been blatantly disregarded and disrespected. I was torn. I so desperately wanted to fit in with the "Wolf Pack" and was so willing to be tortured by them just to feel like I belonged, yet didn't want to totally give myself completely over to hating my parents.  

Okay, here is what I'm trying to say. I'm pretty much a looser and don't know what world I live in. Do I listen to the "Wolf Pack" brothers (who hate me) or do I listen to my mom which will make my brothers even more mad at me—inviting even more physical harm?

I felt like Uncle Fester (from The Munsters) as if I had a giant clamp on my head with my tiny brain stuck in the middle.

So, when mom says she went to Hensheys and bought me a new shirt for my first day of high school, I had empathy for her and said, "Yes." 

No one listened to her anymore and so I thought it was only right to show respect for her.                                                      
                                           Stupid Stupid Stupid Stupid

Ugh. Against every impulse; against any chance of belonging (which I so desperately wanted), I said yes to the multi-colored shirt that had a zipper on the back collar. She thought it was cool and I didn't want to hurt her feelings even though I knew that I could be persecuted for showing up in it on my first day—in a shirt that wasn't even fit for a girl.  

I could put it on, wear it out of the house with a smile and take it off somewhere in between—she would never have to know.  I thought scheming up a plan.          

Dang it. I got caught leaving the house by a brother who laughed at me, pointed at the hideous shirt and called me a 'tard. 

My mocked "coat of many colors" had a turtle neck with a gold zipper - DOWN THE BACK!

Maybe Chewbacca was right. Maybe I was a bit retarded. Who would wear a shirt like this—after all it had a round, golden ring-thingy attached to the zipper-pull.  

    Nothing about this shirt made since to me.

I felt like John the Baptist—Again. 

(Here I am pictured to the right confused by a previous clothing malfunction - submitting the to fox stole and a bloody head on a paper plate).    

It turned out to be a blistering 80 degrees that day and I refused to take off my stolen Saint Mark's uniform sweater—a sweater that did not hide the collar and zipper from hell. 

AND WHY DID I CHOOSE TO wear this colorful plaid-shirt WITH PANTS that had colorful STRIPES. I looked like a dork from another planet. I deserved every bit of ridicule that I received that day.  

Putting her nose in the air, a senior girl came up to me and said, "Didn't anyone ever show you how to dress? Never put stripes and plaids together you dork." 

No I thought. No one ever took the time to talk fashion sense with me. My family only makes fun of me and me tells me I'm retarded.  I'm an orphan raised by the Wolf pack.  Idiot.    






















Our front yard










                                                Their front yard

Their backyard 










                              Our backyard

I said, "I'm wearing this shirt to make my mom happy. She feels bad about her parenting skills, because no one listens to her anymore. She wants to compare our family to the incredible Lennons who live across the street and is suffering an identity crisis of her own. So I am wearing this shirt—despite the criticism I know that I would receive today because of love. You're so stupid" I said. "Don't you know anything about kindness or about love?" 

There I did it. She spun on her heal and walked away.  

I'm 14. It's my first day of high school. I am a freshmen dork cornered by a beautiful, stuck-up, senior girl—of course I didn't say those words (those words went through my head about three days later—actually about 3 weeks later—when I woke up in the middle of the night). 

The only thing that saved me so far was the kid from Saint Gerard's grammar school in Culver City who road his bike to school first day—in White Pants!  Kevin McCaffery hit an oil slick, skidded across the greasy asphalt and continued to slip across a patch of grass. Poor kid dressed to impress but looked nearly as bad as I did. He took some of the attention off of me. Thank you Kevin for crashing your bike and wearing "The Pants of Many Colors." 

Listen, I had been in love with Andrea since 5th grade and haven't had the courage so far to look into her eyes and say anything about my feelings. She's probably going to give up on me. I don't blame her.  




I had about as much chance with the girls as Philip.                                                                                                                                                   Philip was one of the strays my mom took in who lived in one of the rooms on the third floor. 

This shirt all-but-sealed my fate with the ladies for the next four years of high school.







What was wrong with me? 

I hid out the best I could for most of the day and even skipped the meeting after school for everyone interested in playing water polo.   

I had to take the Big Blue Bus (the 3 Lincoln) all the way back to Venice, which would be crammed full of  mean high school kids. What was I to do?  How do I face the cool kids and the cute snob in her hush puppies and low-rider jeans. 


Epic fail, I forgot to bring the extra shirt.
I will either have to:
                                  kill myself
                                  mug an 11-year-old kid and steal the shirt of his back     
                                        or 
                                  hitchhike

All three were out—I didn't want to die—not yet. I wasn't going to rob a kid and I couldn't hitchhike with THIS STUPID SHIRT.  I was a doomed, "retarded" 14-year-old and it was only the first day of high school.  


I needed a new plan.  

I snuck into the janitors closet that was filled with brooms, with the smell of moldy mops and with a thousand rolls of toilet paper.  I skipped 6 period and began undressing. 

This was the only thing I could come up with. Unfortunately the door open at exactly the wrong time AND it wasn't the Janitor. 

Who was it?     Will Markie make it back to Venice with any sort of dignity at all? 

Next time. 


P.S. Even though this combination pictured above is terrible—this is not the shirt I was talking about (turn this shirt around backwards put a gold zipper on the back collar and you can pretty-much get the idea).