Huffing and puffing I walked up the sharp incline towards the Moore house with the limp bloody-body over my shoulders and a tricycle in each hand.
Mike, Louie, Alex and the others ran out of the Moore house and gently lifted the dead carcass from my burdened shoulders. “How are we going to tell Mr. Moore that James died,” asked Mike as tears welled up.
FLASHBACK
Last night was the big hike to the Moon Fire Temple at the top of the Santa Mountains in Topanga. Marylee, Theresa and most of the Water Polo groupies finally went home in the wee-hours of darkness leaving a remnant that spent the night on Moore's living room floor.
James tried to explain to me the intricacies of the detailed mechanisms and gear-ratios in the cuckoo-cuckoo clock when all I was trying to comment about, was the annoying noise it made.
I pretended to understand, but couldn’t sleep.
The worry of being smothered, the sounds of raspy-slobbery snoring, the smell of armpits and bile-beer-burps haunted me. I laid awake and thought about the mechanical parts of the cuckoo-cuckoo clock and about my new tribe. Friends. Acceptance and belonging.
“Cuckoo,” screeched the irritating rooster SIX TIMES as it sprung forth from the little doors on someone’s annoying invention for keeping time—like fingernails on a chalkboard.
The sun was coming up when I finally fell asleep.
The sun was coming up when I finally fell asleep.
The creatures sleeping next to me began to awaken like that small rooster—emerging from the cocoon of slumber with all manner of irksome gurgles and farts and groaning from partying too hard the night before.
The restroom was full. So a small contingent of us went outside into the rustic chaparral of the Topanga hillside and relieved our bladders. Louie pointed to the pile of tricycles.
Epiphany.
Someone had the brilliant idea of racing the tiny three-wheelers down Tuna canyon road. It was brilliantly ridiculous! Wonderful and dangerous. If someone could get killed doing it, then it was precisely something the Dahlins would do.
I’ll never take credit for it, but I may have been responsible for flaming the foolish idea into becoming a very irresponsible reality.
With too much enthusiasm, eight of us threw the trikes into the back of Mike Moore's truck. We road in the back of the truck and fought like brothers over dibs on tricycles all the way to the top. Past Saddleback ridge—past the dirt road leading into the Moon Fire Temple we arrived at the spot where we could see Ojai on one side and the expanse of the Pacific Ocean on the other.
Since seven of us were Water Polo players and swimmers and practiced practically naked everyday, Mike Broneau suggested that we do the crazy ride in Speedos.
More Insanity!
Since a member of the football team, Alex Delgadillo, was with us, we decided not to discriminate against those who wear shoulder pads, butt pads, tights and who do not wear Speedos.
Flip-flops and shorts it was.
Two hours from the time I would arrive with James over my shoulders → we shot out of the back of that truck and down the hill in a “shotgun start” like the Le Mans.
Poor Louie Coda was stuck with the pink tricycle and the frilly-sparkly-things that dangled from the ends of the handlebars.
Poor Louie Coda was stuck with the pink tricycle and the frilly-sparkly-things that dangled from the ends of the handlebars.
Reaching speeds of up to forty, some of the guys began to freak-out and gave up after barely surviving the first outside turn.
Six of us regrouped and started the race all over again.
Kevin McCaffrey, Broneau, and Coda sat on the trikes while James and I decided to stand on the back axle.
Our idea was better. There was no way to tame the little peddles spinning at a bazillion-miles-an-hour. Mike almost got run over as he careened around a corner to find he was on a crash course with an oncoming station wagon of a driver who managed to swerve at the last second – almost killing Louie in the process.
Mike Moore picked up the rest of the crew—the smart ones who quit—and took them back to the house leaving just James and me to finish the fateful ride to the bottom.
After a near head-on with a Buick, I put my foot on top of a rear-wheel in an effort to slow down and tumbled, skidding head-first into the dirt bank. This is when I knew we were in trouble. I waited for for James to catch up. He crashed into the same hill. I told him that for the rest of the harrowing thrill-ride that neither of us should attempt to slow the trikes by putting a foot on one of the rear wheels. I told him my plan would be to try and ride-it-out by steering my trike up a steep hillside instead.
He was the genius and waved me off.
I jumped on my Le Mans race-car and sped away followed close behind by James. I gained distance on him and could no longer see him behind me. I came to a sharp corner, “Deadman’s-curve,” as it will be solemnly known from this day forward—and feared I would not make it out alive. Like a toboggan-racer at the Olympics, I banked my trike up the side of dirt grade at almost ninety-degrees and made it out unscathed.
I had a premonition! A thought. A bad feeling that James would try use that small wheel to brake his speed. At forty-miles-an-hour, I carefully looked over my shoulder a couple of times and never caught a glimpse of James.
Knowing something bad had happened I ran my purple batman-trike up a dirt embankment and sprawled headlong across dirt and rocks into the prickly manzanita bushes (that I had become so familiar with prior to last night when I was used as a rope-toy by the Wolf-Pack).
I left my tiny trike and walked up the hill towards "Deadman's curve" to find an empty tricycle in a bush and no James.
Eighty feet further up I discovered the lifeless body of my genius friend.
I checked for vitals, wasn’t about to do mouth to mouth, and slung his carcass over my shoulders.
Making my way back to Banium Drive, I trudged up the sharp incline towards the Moore house huffing and puffing with exhaustion.
Broneau, Coda, Delgadillo, McCaffrey, and Reardon sprang out of the front door like that cuckoo-clock rooster. Mike cried wondering how we were going to tell Mr. Moore what we had done.
I felt like a soldier coming off the battlefield with a wounded comrade, someone please take a picture, I thought.
So, it didn't happen exactly the way I said in the beginning. However, I did have both tricycles in one hand and supported James who had his arm slung across my shoulders. AND I did walk all that way supporting him and those two tricycles the entire distance.
I felt like a hero.
OKAY, HE DIDN’T DIE! But he could have. He had a gaping hole in his kneecap that exposed the bone underneath. Blood ran down his leg and the grotesque wound was mixed layers of flesh, dirt, asphalt and rocks. He couldn’t walk and needed to go to the emergency room.
We got in trouble with everybody—the Moore's, Coach Palma, parents, and were brought in before a tribunal of the Dean, Waldo Autobelly, and Priests and the Principal at Saint Monica’s high school.
I was a part of something. A new tribe. I couldn’t wait to do something stupid like this again—being a Dahlin—being from Venice—and being from Harding Avenue, danger was right in my "wheelhouse."
The next chapter of this ongoing epic saga is where six of my older brothers along with nine other hippies from Venice died in a storm on the Salton Sea. Unlike this story, I had no power to save them, but was thankful—for once—that I was not included in that fateful and disastrous, “Three-Hour Tour” across the giant inland sea in our leaky, wooden boat.
Just another day in paradise.
Pictured here with Pat Lennon and Bruce Grant is the infamous wooden-boat → there under the Palm tree, next to the green MG, behind the piece of plywood, parked behind the sailboat and the paint thinner can.
...and the bonus video below explains it all
Just another day in paradise.
Pictured here with Pat Lennon and Bruce Grant is the infamous wooden-boat → there under the Palm tree, next to the green MG, behind the piece of plywood, parked behind the sailboat and the paint thinner can.
...and the bonus video below explains it all
