by Mike Morris
As I watched the Beatles play their music, I realized I liked them. We were all inspired! Leo and Willie Wennett decided to start a band. Linus Blabcock, Jimmy Loance, and I joined.
We invited some of the girls in the neighborhood to come over for our first concert. As I recall, we had no instruments. I played on what was left of my little brother Ripley’s toy drum set and some boxes. Some of the guys had tennis rackets for guitars, and we used stand-up vacuum cleaners for microphones. We played records, sang along, and pretended to play our pretend instruments. The girls were so kind. They acted like they loved us. Much later, one of them loved Linus so much that she married him.
We eventually did get real instruments and really played and sang. It turned out that Yakov was actually a really good musician and he along with another good musician friend, Dudley Peppers, joined the group replacing Linus and Willie. The group, The Immortals, became pretty good, appearing on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City and actually made it into a book titled Capitol Rock by Mark Opsasnick about the history of rock and roll in the Washington D.C. area.
Back to Ms. Delonnie. When I asked her to marry me, she didn’t say no, or complain that the question was stupid, or do anything like that. She explained to me that unfortunately she was already happily engaged to be married and that I was too late. She seemed disappointed. I felt more encouraged than heartbroken. On the last day of school Ms. Delonnie kissed me on the cheek. I felt like a million bucks as I wafted from her class. Seventh grade finished, sun shining, bring it on. I thought I was ready for anything.
23
Wild Ponies
I don’t think my father was liking anything about me at that time. He didn’t like my attitude, my smart mouth, my leather jacket, and he hated my greased-back hair. That summer, in a continuing effort to remove me from the influences of Hellincrest and to expose me to the good, healthy culture of real American values, Dad took me to Tennessee. Before dropping me off at the farm of my Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Joe – two people I did not know – he took me on a visit to a distillery that produced a very famous whiskey. I think my uncle may have worked there, and he gave us a tour. It was a pretty putrid place with these colossal vats bubbling with some very stinky liquid. I am not sure why, but my dad decided to dangle me above the boiling liquid, gripping me by my ankles. I think I may have lost consciousness for a moment due to the powerful fumes. My uncle said that sometimes snakes and rats got too close to the vats, lost consciousness and fell in, adding to the unique flavor of the famous brew.
I have fond memories of my stay on the farm now, but at the time I was not liking it. My aunt was an incredible cook. Breakfast was a feast – eggs prepared in different ways, cheese, bacon, sausage, ham, fruit, tomatoes, pancakes, grits, potatoes, biscuits, gravy, toast and jelly. It was incredible. My younger cousin, Alvin was a jovial giant. Having eaten this way his whole life, Alvin probably outweighed me by 100 pounds and towered over me.
My grandfather lived there and had very little to say to me or to anyone. Every morning I woke up, descended the stairs from my room in the attic, and stepped out onto the front porch where my grandfather was already sitting, drinking coffee. There was a young cow – a tan heifer – hanging around. She and I became friends. She followed me around like a pet dog, but sometimes I would get on her back and ride. For some reason, my goal became to get up before my grandfather and be there sitting when he came down. Every morning I woke up a little earlier, but every morning he was already positioned in his chair, sipping his coffee. I don’t think we ever talked. We just sat for a while, then I would go play with my pet cow until my aunt called us to breakfast. It wasn’t until the very last day of my stay that I finally beat my grandfather down. When he arrived and saw me sitting, he very slightly smiled. I think that may have been the only time I ever saw him smile. I have wondered if he was aware I was trying to beat him down to the porch each morning. I think he may have been and let me win that last day.
My uncle recruited me to participate in a community project. I didn’t really know what the purpose was, but I found myself walking behind a flat-bed truck as it lumbered up and down the hills of my uncle’s farm. I, along with a few others, would pick up large boulders and throw them onto the back of the truck. It wasn’t until we all climbed on the back and drove to another farm that I understood what was happening. Men were building a stone structure – I don’t remember if it was a house, or garage, or what – and the boulders we had gathered were part of the building materials.
Once at the farm I immediately became enemies with the kid who lived there. He claimed he had a wild pony that only he could ride. Although the closest I had ever come to riding a pony was riding my new pet heifer, I claimed I could ride anything, including his wild pony. The farm boy was calling me a sissy Yankee, and I was calling him a hick hillbilly. We were close to throwing punches when someone convinced him to let me attempt riding his wild pony.
Some people gathered around a corral and he saddled up the pony. He challenged me to get on, and I did. As soon as I mounted up, the pony started running and bucking. I was having fun, but the pony started travelling up a hill and I could hear the farm boy yelling at me to get off because the pony was going to fall and break its leg. That made sense to me, so I slid off. When I walked back over to the fence, farm boy started taunting me, “I told you! Nobody can ride him but me!”
“You told me to get off – that he was going to break his leg!”
“You fell off!”
That went on for a while, until someone pulled the pony back to the fence and I climbed on again. The pony started to run a little and bucked a little, then stopped. I climbed off, but just to make my point, I waited for a few seconds, then climbed back on, and the pony just stood there. I stared at farm boy, but he wouldn’t look at me or say anything.
Uncle Curly, my father’s crazy, red-headed brother, brought his two trouble-making stepsons to the farm to join me in rehabilitation – it was apparently going so well. Rolland and Clint were older and took me under their wing. They taught me how to smoke cigarettes and led me in a pursuit of vandalizing surrounding farms. Their sophisticated delinquency may have polished my meanness; fine-tuned it a little.
Leo had been sent to stay with my cousin Jedell in Alabama. I am not sure why my father would have thought that was a good idea. Anyway, after Rolland and Clint left, Leo appeared at the farm. Apparently, he and I were going to make a switch. Before I left for Alabama, I was showing Leo around the place. We got into a playful scuffle and I pushed him against the barn. Suddenly, Leo’s eyes got really big. He opened his mouth in an appearance of horror and started sprinting away from the barn, screaming. Following him was a swarm of hornets. Leo ran for a while, being stung multiple times, until he fell on the ground, appearing unconscious. I ran over and began dragging him toward the house, yelling for help. When we got him into the house, my aunt placed him on a table and removed his shirt. He had welts from stings all over his back. She began to remove tobacco from cigarettes and soak the tobacco in water. She placed the soaked tobacco on the welts. In no time, Leo was as good as new.
After I arrived at Jedell’s, he wanted to know if I wanted to ride some horses. Well, having missed out on my opportunity to ride Thunder the Race Horse, and having broken a wild pony in Tennessee, I was totally up for it. We headed out on foot. After walking through the woods for a while, we arrived at a pasture full of horses and ponies. Jedell hopped up onto a horse and began to ride.
“Well, pick ya one and hop on!”
I approached the horses and realized they were too big to just hop on. “Hey man, they are too big. I don’t think I can get on.”
“Well, git on ah pony.”
I cautiously approached a somewhat peaceful appearing pony and with a short running start pounced onto its bare back. It immediately jolted into a full gallop. I clutched its mane and held on for dear life. The pasture was riddled with gullies, and each time the pony approached one, I mentally pr
epared to crash. However, the pony leaped over each gully, and its frantic charge seemed to accelerate. After clearing the last gully, the edge of the pasture rapidly approached, and at the edge of the pasture stood a barbed-wire fence. The pony didn’t slow down. It sprinted onward, headed for the fence. I imagined that we would definitely crash and die and I would be responsible for the death of a pony. I closed my eyes about a foot from the barbed-wire fence, and at that moment I was launched into flight, soaring through space – alone, without the pony. He had abruptly halted at the edge of the fence, and I was hurled airborne – until I hit the ground – pretty hard.
Having my fill of real American values, I headed back to Hellincrest where Leo and I joined Arcadia who was home under the supervision of two of my older cousins. It turned out that my mom and dad had taken Melody and Ripley on a European vacation free from three unlikeable teenagers.
24
The First Day
What lay ahead? Was there a way I could have envisioned the horror to come? How could I possibly know? From that very first day of the eighth grade, I abruptly learned that I was entering a long, bitter, and harsh winter.
The first teacher I met was my homeroom and “core subjects” teacher. Ms. Grates was a first-year teacher and opening day she was more than tightly wound. Beneath angry, ice blue eyes, colorless lips were pressed firmly together. Her initial reaction upon meeting us was horrifying. Her red, pockmarked face burned bright as the colorless lips parted, spewing a flurry of verbal assaults, which abruptly ended with, “Shut up and put your heads on your desks!”
As she stalked the aisles, we watched warily from the corners of our eyes. It was obvious to me she was very uncomfortable. At some point, great compassion must have begun to emerge from my life. I wanted to find something positive about her. I wanted to say something to help her relax – to make friends. Finally, I blurted out, “You know, you’ve got great legs!”
For a moment there was a strange calm. Then the violent storm exploded. Snow whirled, and the icy north winds shattered the air. All happy memories vanished. Demons began dancing about the room and weapons of mass destruction were poised for attack.
“Get ooooout!” She blustered.
On my way to the door, I slithered past the brittle ice sculptures that used to be my classmates, leaving a trail of scummy, pathetic slime. Fear they would fracture into thousands of pieces prevented me from touching or looking at them.
When I finally reached the hallway, warmth and quietness welcomed me. In fact, the hallway was to become a place I could escape the tribulations of the classroom and reflect on my future. The obvious conclusion was Ms. Grates didn’t like me; although, the thought crossed my mind that she may have been playing hard to get. Whatever, a simple compliment about her legs didn’t get the anticipated reaction. That first day, hope that my relationships with the other eighth grade teachers would be more amicable than my disastrous first encounter was all I had. Unfortunately, Ms. Grates had many friends among my other teachers.
25
I Am Swined
For me, “art” is remembered mostly as an extremely dangerous subject. It recalls to my mind, short-legged, stocky, frizzy blonde-hair evil spirits that especially hated 8th grade boys named Mo Mickus. I can recall one incident when this short-legged, stocky, frizzy blonde-hair evil spirit, otherwise known as Mrs. Swine, the art teacher, was ranting and raving. This was not unusual, and it was not unusual that I was tuned out to her delirious railing.
Something began to bring me back into focus. It may have been the heat coming off the evil spirit’s body. She was standing so close to me. It may have been the cool breeze created by the huge ruler she was waving recklessly in the general vicinity of my head. Then again, it may just have been this eerie feeling growing in my senses that she might be talking about yours truly. And apparently that was indeed the case. I had gone over the edge one too many times. I couldn’t imagine what it might have been. Any one of many creative behaviors launched recently into the school environment were possibilities. But, one thing was certain, this time the evil spirit was boiling over.
There was a flash and a loud crack as Mrs. Swine suddenly brought the yardstick crashing down on the table. Glaring at me and vomiting verbal abuse upon my 13-year-old life, she did not see what my classmates and I did see – the broken end of the yardstick fly across the room and lodge firmly into Jackie Latchfoot’s forehead. She was screaming at me and I was staring at the blood oozing down Jackie’s face. A fresh batch of ice sculptures was in a state of shock! Mrs. Swine, cognizant that something more than she intended had taken place, followed my gaze to the protruding, head-piercing, bloody stick. And for a brief moment the short-legged, stocky, frizzy blonde-hair evil spirit staring at this grisly sight – Jackie Latchfoot, son of the president of the P.T.A., bloodied, stabbed in the noggin by her hands – froze. And there was peace.
If one thing could be chosen to last forever, peace would be my choice. But in life, nothing remains forever and soon war was again raging.
“Mo Mickus, go to the corner!”
Mrs. Swine had never sent anyone to the corner before. I slowly shuffled in the direction where the evil spirit was dragging her stool. I climbed on as she was putting it in place. Still not knowing what I had done, I again briefly combed over some of my recent activities. It could have been three or four things earlier that day, or numerous possibilities from the day before. Beating up Bobby Andrews? Making Mikey Chewowitz eat dog do? The urine on the radiator? The spit dripping from Miss Fountainbleau’s beehive hair-do? Setting Carl Wooten’s hair on fire? It was pointless. The choices were endless, and anyway the evil spirit was again bellowing and making it impossible to think.
“Face the wall! No, I don’t want your back to me ... No ... Wait! I don’t want you facing me. Get out in the hall!”
Well, another chance to warmly reflect...
26
Stealing Cars
The original members of the Immortals – Leo, Willie Wennett, Jimmy Loance, Linus Blabcock, and myself – were a close-knit group. Willie, Jimmy, and Linus all lived on the same block near the D.C. line, and Leo and I lived on the next block over. Jimmy and I were the youngest. Willie and Linus were a year older, and Leo was a year older than Willie and Linus.
Fighting was such a fundamental component of Hellincrest that my initial acceptance into the group was based on a fight between Linus and myself. The aftermath of our fight resulted in Linus and I becoming the best of friends. Later, Jimmy and I fought, and during a neighborhood football game, Willie and I got into such an intense exchange that blood started to gush, and one of us ended up needing stitches. It turned out to be me. I think Leo believed fights were not a trait of civilized society, and he was fairly successful at avoiding them. However, one time he became so annoyed at my obnoxious efforts to goad him into a fight that he retaliated by hitting me so hard I journeyed briefly into the middle of the next week and realized it was best to leave a sleeping lion alone.
Although relatively well behaved, Leo – along with Willie Wennett – were often on the cutting edge of bad behavior. They liked to create fake dead bodies and place them along the side of the road to freak out passing motorists.
They also came up with what they believed to be an iron tight scheme to get us a case of beer. Usually, we would loiter in front of a liquor store and eventually offer an unscrupulous customer cash to buy himself a six-pack under the condition he buy us a couple of six-packs as well. However, sometimes we misjudged a patron’s lack of principles leading to either a scathing scolding, or on the other end of the spectrum total thievery of our dough.
After ingenious deliberation, Leo and Willie fashioned a dubious, but dazzling ruse that would have a case of beer delivered to our house when our parents were not home. Linus, who looked the youngest, would answer the door when the delivery man arrived. He would then call back, “Dad, the beer guy is here!” Willie, who could imitate a deep, mature voice, would yell fro
m the back, “I’m in the shower. The money is on the table.” Linus would give the money to the delivery man and accept the case of beer. That was the plan.
It seemed like a great plan. Unfortunately, my parents came home early, unexpectedly walking through the front door before the beer had been delivered. Jimmy Loance, who was terrified of his father finding out about his participation in any illegal endeavor and prone to total panic, started panicking. He ran outside, and Leo followed him and tried to calm Jimmy as the two of them hid in a neighbor’s hedges. Linus and I fumbled about for a moment then followed Leo and Jimmy outside, leaving an unaware Willie backstage, waiting to deliver his “I’m in the shower. The money is on the table” line. As Jimmy whined that his father was going to kill him, and Linus and I hid in another neighbor’s yard, the delivery man pulled up in front of our house. As we squatted in our hiding places and helplessly anticipated our doom, Willie suddenly appeared and walked up to the delivery car. After a brief conversation, Willie was handed the case of beer, and the delivery man drove off. We gathered around Willie and headed off to the sewer where we usually drank our beer.