 |
| Goldie On Rowan & Martin |
Rowan: Do you worry about the high cost of rents, Goldie?
Goldie: No. I live in a downstairs apartment.
In other words, while the outside
world struggled with wars, assassinations, protests and riots, life in Pepperland chugged on like a series of pop outs on the Rowan & Martin joke wall.
The good news: the absence of
the Blue Meanie meant that Mr. Cohen could proceed with his plans to improve
the property. Roger and I were kept busy fixing up the apartments as, one by
one, the old tenants moved on to make room for a new, better-paying breed of
clientele.
Most of the new
tenants were college students, or kids starting out in the arts, or single
mothers with newly draft-exempt boyfriends. A few waiters and waitresses from
the restaurants opening in the new Marina across the street also made the place
home.
The not so pleasant news: the upstairs and
downstairs junkies remained longer than I thought would be possible, but they
managed to hang on even though I got Mr. Cohen to jump the rent in an attempt to
drive them out. Roger said the upstairs junkie was dealing weed to the other
tenants and the more upscale we became, the easier it’d be for him to afford
the rent. The downstairs junkie, a red freak, was a trust-fund baby and could
stay as long as the bank kept sending me checks. So there was no immediate
relief there.
Out of principal, Mr.
Cohen left the Social Security widows’ rent alone, but one of the old dears left
anyway. The loud music and boisterous young people frightened her. Mrs.
Williams, on the other hand, took great delight in the new, improved
Pepperland. The kids all adopted her and treated her like the Queen Mother,
doing little errands for her, and giving her gifts of food and items bought at
the thrift shops everybody frequented in those days.
Even the Right Wing
Bikers who lived in the two-story garage/shack next door seemed to calm down
for a time. They still got stoned every night, of course. And they still raised
the flag every morning while playing taps on their stereo at full blast, ending
with a shotgun salute.
However, they
suddenly appeared to gain a sense of great purpose. They bathed, trimmed their
beards, cleaned their boots and donned new thrift store jeans. And that was
just the girls. No, seriously, the bikers seemed to have turned over a new oil
pan and a period of immense activity ensued.
The activity centered
on Alabama Governor George Wallace and his breakaway American Independence
Party (AIP). Spurned by the Democrats, the racist governor formed a radical
right wing third party to run against Vice President Hubert Humphrey and
Richard Nixon for the presidency. Unfortunately, there were plenty of fellow
racists in America in 1968 and his candidacy was so strong that for a time
Wallace was a real threat to both major parties. Fierce proponents of the
Vietnam War, which in June had become the longest war in U.S. history, also
pumped up Wallace’s cause.
Well, the Right Wing
Bikers were ecstatic over this. First, they spread out across Venice, cajoling
and sometimes downright threatening people to sign petitions aimed at putting
Wallace and the AIP party on the California ballot. Then, when that momentous
feat had been achieved, they became a veritable army of propagandists,
thundering up and down the streets on their big choppers, dispensing pamphlets
praising their Southern hero and his running mate, Gen. Curtis LeMay of WWII
fame and late ‘60’s shame.
Finally, on the
fateful day, the bikers redoubled their energies to get out the vote. Checking
the lists at the polls to see which AIP registrants had failed to vote, then
roaring off to their homes to roust them out. Those voters without wheels were
strong-armed into climbing on the backs of the Harleys and heading off to cast
their ballots. For 24 hours it was a common sight to see blue-haired little old
ladies in proverbial tennis shoes perched behind hairy bikers, their skinny
backs propped against the sissy bars, rumbling down the streets of Venice.
As it happened, when
the vote was tallied, the highest vote (per capita) cast for Wallace in the
state of California was in Venice. Due, no doubt, to the efforts of the Right
Wing Bikers who nursed their disappointment over their candidate’s loss to
Richard Nixon by throwing a drunken wake that lasted for more than a month.
In case you might get
the wrong idea about Venice, I should jump in here to point out that the
community also had the highest per capita vote in the state for the anti-war
Peace And Freedom Party, whose candidate was the convicted felon and Black
Panther co-founder Eldridge Cleaver, whose book, “Soul On Ice,” was all the
rage.
Anyway, the bikers’
patriotic activities and subsequent dope and booze binge kept them out of
Pepperland until well into 1969.
Then in June of that
year, Carol and I were blessed with the birth of our first child, whom we named
Jason, not Timothy. We’d lost two babies before – both born prematurely – and
Jason was our golden child.
We put his crib in
Charlie’s room and Tasha, who acted almost more excited than we were, took up
her doggy post at that door, guarding Jason from any and all possible
intruders.
So for us, life was
going well, thank you. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I was bringing in
enough from the job and the apartments to finally afford a few little luxuries.
Things were also
going fairly well in Pepperland, except for the Marines’ old apartment. A
stream of tenants moved in and out, most of them causing more than a little
trouble. It was if the apartment had been permanently cursed by the Blue
Meanie.
Then matters appeared
to take a turn for the better when a couple of Japanese American students moved
in. They were the perfect tenants. Their parents came and inspected the unit
first – Roger did a magnificent job of fixing up the place, including
refinishing the hard wood floors until they gleamed. The boys were high school
honor students and freshmen at UCLA. Both were science and math majors, very
serious, studying all the time.
They’d been best
friends their whole lives and went in together to buy a new car – it was
Honda’s first attempt at the American market, I believe. The car was advertised
with billboards showing the Honda with the numbers 15-15-15 beneath it.
Meaning, it cost $1,500 to buy, you only needed $150 down, and it got 150 miles
to the gallon. The car was basically one of their motorcycle engines with a
two-seater chassis popped over it.
The guys moved their
stuff in and proceeded to study their butts off. All they ever did was study
and go to school. They never had a party, never had girls over, never played
music. I mean, those kids were determined to succeed.
Now, do you remember
that American flag the two Marines had hung in the kitchen window as a curtain?
Sure you do. Here’s what happened:
About ten o’clock one
night Tasha came clacking down the stairs, ears up, eyes worried and a growl
rumbling in her throat. She sniffed at the door. Checked out the front window,
then rushed into the kitchen to inspect the door and windows there. She whined,
then bolted upstairs, to make sure little Jason was safe. Then down she came
again to repeat the whole routine.
It took us a minute
to realize something was up. Carol was on the phone with someone and my
brother, Charlie, was wrapping up his homework in the kitchen. I was listening
to a new record by Tom Rush, a musician I’d recently met at the old Troubadour
club, and I planned to dor a review for my newspaper's entertainment section.
Tasha rushed the
front door, but before she could roar out a warning, I heard Roger speaking
very softly, but plainly - “It’s me, Tasha. Don’t bark. It’s me.”
Tasha didn’t bark,
but she did charge over to let me know it was friend not foe, beseeching
entrance. I went to the door, got a grip Tasha’s collar in case somebody else
was out there with Roger, and cracked it open.
Roger slithered
through the narrow gap, then quickly shut the door behind him. He absently
scratched Tasha’s ears to thank her for being a good girl.
“It’s the fuckin’
pigs,” Roger explained. “They’re all over the place.”
“What the hell?” was
my reaction. Then, hopefully, “They’re hitting the junkies, right?”
“Didn’t hit anybody
yet,” Rog said. “But, fuck me, they’ve got squad cars all up and down the alley
and all along the street. Gotta be fifteen, twenty cars. Looks like a piggy
parking lot out there. But there’s no headlights. They’re just sitting in their
cars eating doughnuts and shit. Couple of pig sergeants walking around gruntin’
at each other. Looks like they’re getting’ ready for something big.”
“Damn,” I said, my
stomach knotting up. “They’re going to raid all of us.”
By all of us, I was
mainly concerned about yours truly, a normally semi law-abiding citizen, who
had good reason to be paranoid. For at that precise moment in time I happened
to be holding three felony kilos (a little less than seven pounds) of Korean
marijuana in the hall closet.
When I’d scored the
stuff I’d thought I was being exceedingly clever. I mean marijuana laws were so
ridiculous they ought to be flouted, right? The laws, after all, were the work
of elderly, bourgeois white men who were killing all my friends in the jungles
of Vietnam. Surely you see the logic for buying all that dope as a heart-felt protest
against those dastardly war mongers. Don’t you?
Anyway, I came by the
dope as a music lover. A Navy buddy who was stationed off Korea offered to get
me some really trick Japanese speakers from the PX. These were theater quality
speakers, encased in waist-high polished mahogany boxes. They were mine for $75
bucks each - $150 in all - which was ten
dollars less than what I made each week. When I said yes, my friend pointed out
that it was routine for sailors and GIs in that arena to pack the speaker boxes
with dope.
At the time Korean
grass went for ten dollars a kilo. At home it was ten dollars a lid, meaning an
ounce. Do the math: nearly seven pounds of dope – say a hundred ounces. That’s
a thousand dollars worth of grass for thirty dollars. Never mind that thirty
dollars was a lot of money then. It was whole lot less than a thousand. And
here’s the thing: since the shipment would go through the military postal
system, which didn’t concern itself with security in those days, it was a safe
buy. I couldn’t get busted. Guaran-damn-teed. It was a commodity coup of the
first order and a much better smoke than pork bellies.
Long story short: I
borrowed a hundred and eighty dollars from the newspaper credit union to buy
the speakers and the grass. I had no intention of selling the dope, but had
visions of grand generosity to my friends for many months to come as we all
listened to cool music through my incredible speakers, while we smoked said
dope. Cool music – in the form of vinyl albums - being free, courtesy of the
reviews I wrote for the paper in my spare time. Man, talk about the rewards of
Rock ‘N Roll.
Well, the speakers
were as advertised, creating smooth rich sounds that rivaled the best speakers
in the best theaters in Westwood Village. But soon as all that dope arrived I
became paranoid to the nth degree. I mean, seven pounds of marijuana is an
awful lot for a civilian. And the rich smell filled the apartment the moment I
broke it free from its ironed-shut triple-layered plastic bags.
And so on what soon
became known to us as “The Night Of The Pigs,” as I stood there with Roger, I
could smell that rich odor of marijuana wafting from deep within the hall
closet where I had it stashed. Meanwhile, my friend and fellow paranoid was
announcing that the entire Metro Squad of LAPD was practically outside my door.
Yeah, it had to be
for whom the bells toll time, and in my fevered brain those damned bells were
most certainly tolling for me.
Carol turned white.
Charlie raced upstairs to hide under his bed. He disapproved of our marijuana
shenanigans from the full height of his newly discovered fourteen-year-old
morality. Tasha whined, knowing something was up.
I said, “Let’s not
panic. Let’s think this through.”
Roger nodded. “Sure,”
he said. “But if they bust in during the next couple of minutes I’m just here
to complain about a leaky faucet, okay?”
I did not snort
derision at his cowardice. For with seven pounds of dope there was no way
anyone could plead that it was merely for “personal use.” Hell, guys got ten
years in jail in those days for possession of a few ounces. In Texas, I could
be sentenced to life in prison. Of course, the first thing that jumped to mind
was that the Funk brothers, my super conservative bosses at the newspaper,
would fire my young ass. But my second thought was that it wouldn’t matter
because I’d be going away for so long that the best job I could hope for would
be in the prison library.
The thing is, the
dope wasn’t that good. I mean, what do you expect for ten dollars a kilo? To
get high, you needed to take up pipe smoking - fat bowled corncobs, stuffed to
the brim. The Korean dope was also good for tea making. I’d take a good handful
and dump it into a pot of boiling water. Let it really, really boil. Then pour
out a couple of cups. You had to be patient, the stone was slow, but it was
mellow and lasted for a very long time. It was also good for cooking, but more
on that later when we get to the chapter about our Venice Thanksgiving, on the
third Thursday in November of 1969.
Never mind
Thanksgiving – hang on to me and Roger
and Carol freaking out because the whole block was surrounded by cops and I was
in possession of nearly seven pounds of marijuana. And as God is my witness, I
never intended to sell the shit.
A light bulb went on.
I said, “Marita.” She was the very respectable-looking middle-aged neighbor
lady next door.
Immediately, I raced
to the closet, grabbed the black trashbag full of dope and ran to the door. I
cracked it a bit, looked this way and that, saw nothing, and slipped out. I
rapped on Marita’s door. Immediately she opened it.
She said, “Allan, did
you know there’s cops all over the place?”
I said, “Yeah. And I
was hoping you could help me out.”
She looked at the
trashbag, eyes widening as she recognized it for what it was. I’d been very
generous with Marita who sometimes needed to come down from her beer and
bennies highs with a nice soothing cup of Allan’s Korean grass tea.
Marita stuck out a
hand. “Give it here,” she said. “They wouldn’t dare mess with an old hide like
me.”
I handed her my stash
and she quickly shut the door so no one would see the transaction. Did I tell
you that Marita was a Valley Girl? Okay, she was going on sixty, and was
perfectly proper. But in her day a Valley Girl wasn’t somebody who said, “for
sure, for sure,” Or… “like he said, and I went…” She was old-school Valley
Girl. When San Fernando Valley was ruled by the ho-daddy’s and their mommas.
Guys driving muscle cars with glove-box record players. Cars that proclaimed
that they were “My baby’s passion.” The ho-daddy gangs were all white, chop shop
mean, with hair greased back like the Fonz on “Happy Days.” These gangs were
many times the size of our modern villains – it was Baby Boom time, you know. So
there were zillions of them. Every guy was packing, and every gal had a
straight razor in her purse, or her hair, and every car on the street had
engines so blown out they could run a jet into the ground.
So, although Marita
talked sweet, she knew what was what. She also had money, thanks to her
estranged machine-shop-owning husband whom she had wrapped around her little
finger. No, no, never fear. Marita was not a woman that cops would be eager to
confront.
Okay, so, now that
the dope was out of there, I could think more clearly. The first thing that
came to mind was - why the hell would the pigs be after me? Few people knew I
had all that dope and the ones that did weren’t the sort to talk. I mean, was
I, or was I not the manager of this whole block of apartments? Obviously, it
was my duty to find out what in blazes the cops were after. Maybe, stave them
off with my press passes if I could.
Press credentials
were impressive in those days, before the cops and the “media” really started
hating each other. Nobody called it the media back then, except Marshall
McLuhan and his “the media is the message.” It was a word guys only used at
journalism parties when they got really ripped and had lost track of what the
fuck they were talking about.
My LAPD press pass
was laminated and imposing as hell - looking a lot like a cop’s personal ID -
but not so impressive as my LA County Sheriff’s credentials, which consisted of
a by-god sheriff’s badge, except if you looked close it said “Press” instead of
“Deputy Sheriff.” I also had California Highway Patrol credentials, which
rivaled the LAPD in attention getting. Meaning, I could cash a personal check
anywhere in California because when the clerks and their managers saw the cop
emblem they assumed I was a policeman and figured I had to be good for the
money - otherwise my cop bosses would come down hard on my lily white. So it
was that in the days of my journalistic poverty I was able to float checks from
here to there and back again and merchants were hesitant to call me on it –
which allowed me more time than usual to get the necessary money into the
banking system, which operated sans computers in those days.
Was I unethically
using my journalistic position to my advantage? You bet. Was I ashamed of
myself? Hell no. I had a chronically ill wife, an infant son and a teenage
brother in high school that I was responsible for. Fuck ‘em if they can’t take
a joke.
Meanwhile, back in
the jungle: when my intentions to investigate the mysterious cop doings became
clear, Carol declared a migraine and rushed upstairs to take a couple of
(legally prescribed) codeine tablets and check out of life.
Roger said, “I’ll find
you later,” and slipped out the door.
Into the night I
went, loins girded, press passes at the ready. And a fabulous night it was. I
don’t remember the time of year, but it was a balmy California eve and I could
hear the waves breaking against the shore less than a quarter of a mile away.
The breeze was blowing off the sea, and the stars stood out bright and clear. I
breathed deeply and the air was full of salt and spume and the taste of
beckoning horizons. Down Ocean Avenue, which intersected with the Venice
canals, I could hear ducks quacking contentedly at the forage center set up by
the Duckman of Venice – an elderly musician recently retired after long service
with the Lawrence Welk band.
Cautious as I was, I
didn’t spot the Black Maria hovering at the alley’s edge until it was almost
too late. The lights were off, but the low rumble of the engine and static from
the radio gave them away. I saw the two cops waiting inside a split second
before they saw me and I wheeled around and set off in the opposite direction,
stretching out my arms and running in place, as if I were engaged in a little
late-night exercise.
I stopped running in
place and jogged to Washington, hooked a right and continued down the street,
passing the buildings that I managed. Only a few lights were on – either people
were hitting the sack early or the word was out about the raid. But who were
the pigs going to raid, and why? When I reached the corner – and the big lot
where the right wing bikers squatted – I was brought up short by Roger, who
slipped out of the dark and pulled me behind some shrubs.
“Shit, Allan,” he
whispered, “you almost walked right into them.”
I peered out and saw
how right he was. The side street was full of cop cars, as was the alley. I
could see uniformed figures, some carrying shotguns, strolling around in that
slow, distinctive cop shuffle.
“They after the
bikers?” I asked, figuring that was the most logical target.
“Fuck no,” Roger
said. “It’s the Nip kids they want.”
At first I didn’t get
what he was talking about. Then it dawned on me. He meant the Japanese American
kids who lived in the Marines old apartment.
I was astounded.
“What the hell for?” I said, a little too loudly for Roger’s comfort.
He shushed me, then
said, “Beats the shit out of me, Al. But I overheard them talking about some
slant-eyed gook bastards and they’re the only guys of that persuasion around
here.”
“They’re just
babies,” I protested. “They never do anything.”
I took another look
at all the squad cars, pulling back when a few more showed up, lights off, so
as not to be noticed.
Roger giggled, but it
was a nervous giggle, a giggle of awe. “Got enough pigs to raid Little Tokyo,
for fuck’s sake,” he said.
My Irish temper
finally got the better of me. Or, perhaps it was a reaction to having the
bejesus scared out of me because of a guilty conscience. For whatever reason, I
suddenly straightened up and shook off Roger’s warning hiss.
“This is bullshit,” I
said. And I marched resolutely toward the phalanx of cop cars. Wisely, Roger
did not follow.
I went for a group of
four cars that were pulled in close together, with eight or ten cops standing
about, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly.
Heads shot up as I
approached.
“Where’s your
sergeant?” I demanded, keeping my voice level, but firm. A trick I’d learned
from an old newsman who’d advised, “You can’t help looking young, but for fuck
sake, Cole, don’t squeak when you address authority.”
At same time I
carefully showed my LAPD press pass to the bevy of flashlights that pounced on
me. I didn’t need an old mentor to know that when confronting the LAPD, herky
jerky motions will likely result in the worst sort of lead poisoning.
Somebody said, “Who
the fuck are you?” Which is not how a member of law enforcement ought to
address a representative of the fourth estate.
I made sure to
underscore this point. “I’m Allan Cole from the Santa Monica Evening Outlook,
officer,” I said, raising my credentials higher. “And I’d like to know what’s
going on here so I can call my city editor back to fill her in.”
You’ll notice my
teeny lie - the business about calling the city editor back. Okay, so I hadn’t
called her in the first place. I’m speaking of Donna Walburn, the first woman
city editor of that century-old daily. However, soon as I raised my credentials
and announced myself, I was all-but-obligated to tell Donna about it. Maybe not
this very minute – she was probably happily ensconced doing whatever city
editors do at night, like pulling the wings off cub reporters, or getting
drunk, or maybe both. The thing is, having used my credentials at a police war
zone this size, at some point I had to inform my boss that I’d done so. She’d
tell the intrepid cop shop reporter who would no doubt check it out to see if
there was something worth informing our worthy subscribers about.
My announcement was
greeted with a dead silence. Flashlight beams fell off me and started examining
the ground for interesting bits of alley trash. Before I could say another word
my presence was forgotten as big spotlights blasted down the alley. This was
followed by indiscriminate shouting and blaring radio speakers and all the cops
piled out of their cars and raced for the Japanese kids’ apartment.
More than a little
intimidated, I followed. It was a bizarre scene. All the formerly dark cop cars
now had their red bubble gum machine lights whirling and several more squad
cars came shooting out of the night, sirens blaring, lights revolving, doors
coming open and uniformed men bursting out with drawn guns.
Minutes later,
several enormous cops led the two kids out in handcuffs. Both were in shorts,
tee shirts and bare feet. They were scared to death, shaking as if it were dead
of winter instead of a balmy night. Through the kitchen window I could see half-a-dozen
officers searching their small apartment, dumping shit out of cupboards onto
the floor, ripping the stuffing out of their couch and two single beds.
It was just dawning
on me that something was strange about the kitchen window when a gray-haired
cop, wearing captain’s bars emerged, holding an American flag up high. The
police photographer snapped pictures of it, the motor drive flashes blinding
everyone.
I don’t know what
surprised me more. The flag, or the fact that Captain Emory, new commander of
the Venice Division, had personally headed up this raid.
It took me a minute
to regain my nerve. My mother had always told me that if you were afraid of
something, confront it head on. So, after taking a deep breath, I pushed
through the crowd, hoping like hell that my dearly departed mother’s advice
would be on target.
One of the kids saw
me and started crying. “Mr. Cole, Mr. Cole,” he sobbed, “thank God you’re
here.”
Every head turned
toward me, including Captain Emory’s. Before he could get a word out, I said,
“Pardon, Captain Emory. Remember me? I’m Allan Cole, from the Evening Outlook?”
Although my presence
surprised the shit out of him, he covered with a forced smile. I’d done a piece
on him for the paper when he’d taken command which had found favor with his
bosses. I’d written it so that if you were a Nazi, you’d admire the hell out of
him, but if you were a liberal pinko freak like me and my friends in Venice,
you would run like hell upon his approach.
“Good to see you on
the job, Allan,” he said. “I know my boys will always get a fair shake with
you. However, we’re in the middle of urgent police business and I have to ask
you to call our public relations office in the morning for the full story.”
I shook my head. “I
don’t want to be pushy, Captain, but I’ve already spoken to my editor about
this. If I don’t call her back right away with some information about this
display of police resources…” I waved my hand at all the cars and cops… “she’ll
want a helluva lot more for tomorrow’s paper than a word from the PR office. ”
As he considered
this, I went on, asking, “Why are you arresting these young men?
Emory, a bigot and an
asshole of the first order, wasn’t totally stupid and acted quickly to cut off
any criticism of his invasion of Normandy tactics.
He drew himself up to
his full, considerable height and displayed the flag. His eyes were fiery,
nostrils flaring as he declared, “We’re arresting them for defacing the
American flag.”
The surrounding cops
made noises of approval, while the two kids quailed, practically peeing their
pants.
I kept my expression
blank and looked closely at the flag. “How was it defaced?” I asked. “I don’t
see anything wrong with it.”
This made Emory mad.
He held the flag up, motioning to one of his men to shine a flashlight on it.
“See those holes?” he said.
I peered, seeing
nothing. Impatient, the captain growled at the flashlight man to move closer.
Finally, I spotted two tiny holes in the top corners of the flag.
“But those are just
from tacks,” I said, “to hang the flag in the window.”
“Bullshit, that’s
defacement,” Emory said. “And desecration of the flag, as well. Disrespecting
the holy symbol of our nation by using it as a curtain.”
One of the cops
standing watch over the kids, smacked the older of the two across the shin with
his club. The kid cried out, “Jesus, that hurt.”
“Fucking Nips,” the
cop said. “First Pearl Harbor, now this.”
“I happen to know
that they’re both native-born Americans, Captain Emory,” I said. “From West
Covina, for crying out loud. How American can you get? And the flag… it had
nothing to do with them. It was put up by a couple of Marines who lived in this
apartment for six months. They were just back from Vietnam. That’s hardly
disrespectful.”
But nobody was paying
attention. Not Captain Emory. Not the rest of the cops. As if on a signal
everyone headed for the cars – four burly officers frog marching the kids to a
plain-clothes car. They shoved them in, with some bouncing of heads against the
roof, then the car squealed away. A second later, all the other cop cars
followed in somber procession.
I stared after them
until they were gone. A moment later Roger slipped up beside me. “I guess you
told them,” he said.
“Shit,” I said. “Shit.”
Cut to the damage: it
cost the kid’s parents fifty thousand dollars to get them out of the jam – more
than a quarter of a million dollars in today’s money. Although they were not
guilty of anything but having eyes with epicanthic folds, the guys were forced
to plead to slightly lesser, but still humiliating charges. The DA told their
folks he’d talked to their draft board and the university and if they didn’t
agree to the deal, in two shakes their sons would lose their college deferments
and be shipped straight to jungles of Vietnam.
That was justice,
Sixties style. I’m not saying it was any worse or better than today, it’s just
that the racism was upfront, instead of hidden. Later, however, I’ll tell you
how a little revenge was meted out for the (hopefully late) great Captain
Emory, commander of the Venice Division station.
Meanwhile, to be cold
about it, I was stuck with their apartment. Their folks had paid first and last
plus a security deposit. They’d also signed a year’s lease. Technically, they
were paid up on their rent and still in possession of the place. But what would
happen when they defaulted? I doubted very much that Mr. Cohen would let them
out of their lease and return the deposit. He was a nice enough guy, but he was
dead serious about business being business.
I played for time,
trying to figure out what to do. I felt partly at fault since I hadn’t thought
of taking down the flag when we’d remodeled the apartment. On the other hand
when the kids and their folks first saw the unit Rog was just finishing up the
hardwood floors and the whole place glistened – the flag reflecting on the
floor. It was so impressive that they asked if the flag could remain. These
were patriotic people, for crying out loud. Ah, well. More guilt. None deserved,
I suppose - but still…
Then one of the kid’s
father’s called. He was an aerospace engineer at TRW, or Hughes… I forget
which. He said a young engineer and his wife had agreed to take over the lease,
if it was okay with me. I was so relieved that I didn’t inquire further.
And boy was that a
mistake of the first order.
NEXT: ENTER THE MAD BOMBER
*****
COMING MARCH 15-17: THE SECOND ANNUAL EMPIRE DAY Celebration! Fan Fiction Invited. Kilgour Jokes, New Recipes From The Emp, Commando Tips From Sten. Plus Prizes Galore! Click Here For Details.
*****
FREEDOM BIRD: THE SUMMER OF LOVE
During the Vietnam war, GIs who managed to survive their tour of duty were flown home in chartered airliners, which they called “Freedom Birds.” This is the story of three young men – from wildly different backgrounds – who meet on such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco. Their goal: to spend every cent of their mustering out money in a party of a lifetime. And they’ll get more than they bargained for: because when they land, it is July 1967 – in a time that would come to be known as “The Summer Of Love.” A place and time where each young man will have to confront the ghosts who followed them home from the jungles of Vietnam and contemplate a future none of them had imagined.
*****
ALL THREE STEN OMNIBUS EDITIONS NOW ON TAP
The entire 8-novel landmark science fiction series is now being presented in three three giant omnibus editions from Orbit Books. The First - BATTLECRY - features the first three books in the series: Sten #1; Sten #2 -The Wolf Worlds; and Sten #3, The Court Of A Thousand Suns. Next: JUGGERNAUT, which features Sten #4, Fleet Of The Damned; Sten #5, Revenge Of The Damned; and Sten #6, The Return Of The Emperor. Finally, there's DEATHMATCH, which contains Sten #6, Vortex; and Sten #7, End Of Empire. Click on the highlighted titles to buy the books. Plus, if you are a resident of The United Kingdom, you can download Kindle versions of the Omnibus editions. Which is one clot of a deal!
*****
HERE ARE ALL EIGHT AMERICAN EDITIONS OF STEN
YOU CAN BUY THE TRADE PAPERBACKS, E-BOOKS AND AUDIO BOOKS BY CLICKING ON THE STEN PAGE!
*****
THE STEN COOKBOOK & KILGOUR JOKEBOOK
Two new companion editions to the international best-selling Sten series. In the first, learn the Emperor's most closely held cooking secrets. In the other, Sten unleashes his shaggy-dog joke cracking sidekick, Alex Kilgour. Both available as trade paperbacks or in all major e-book flavors. Click here to tickle your funny bone or sizzle your palate.
*****
IT'S A BOOK!
THE COMPLETE HOLLYWOOD MISADVENTURES!
*****
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
 |
| Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969 |
In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself. Here's where to buy the book.
*****
STEN #1 NOW IN SPANISH!
Diaspar Magazine - the best SF magazine in South America - is publishing the first novel in the Sten series in four
episodes. Part One and Part Two appeared in back-to-back issues. And now Part Three has hit the virtual book stands. Stay tuned, for the grand conclusion. Meanwhile, here are the links to the first three parts. Remember, it's free!
During the Vietnam war, GIs who managed to survive their
tour of duty were flown home in chartered airliners, which they called “Freedom
Birds.” This is the story of three young men – from wildly different backgrounds – who meet on
such a plane and make a pact to spend three days together in San Francisco.
Their goal: to spend every cent of their
mustering out money in a party of a
lifetime. And they’ll get more than they bargained for: because when they land,
it is July 1967 – in a time that would come to be known as “The Summer Of Love.” A place and time where each young man will
have to confront the ghosts who followed them home from the jungles of Vietnam
and contemplate a future none of them had imagined. 
