by Mike Morris
Mickey Purpy was the oldest and too cool to participate in our group. He just hung around on the fringes, a shadowy figure collecting free food and sympathy. My vision had always been limited and I didn’t see that Mickey had something about him that was very attractive. The Maryland State strutting champion saw it though, and soon they were a couple. I should have known that meant trouble for me, but like I said, my vision was limited.
Little Denton Purpy did join our group – at least for a day. Everyone thought he was such a cute little guy. I thought he was just the tragic, little, sleazy brother of Barbie’s new, tragic boyfriend. I didn’t like little brothers. In fact, at that time I didn’t like my own little brother much less the little brother of a guy cut from the same mold as Bubba Aroararoar.
Little brothers are these guys who take your stupidity and turn it into a way of life. On my exceptionally stupid days, my smart mouth was at its savorlessly worst. My baby brother, Ripley, like in “Ripley’s Believe It, Or Not,” had learned two things from me – how to say something really stupid, and how to say something really stupid at the most inappropriate time.
Ripley and I had joined the beginner drum class at the same time. After we mastered our paradiddles, flams, and a few other drum rudiments, we were able to join the advanced majorette and drum corps, where my little sister Melody and the state strutting champion Barbie Riskey were already members.
Our drum instructor was Rolland Gritheart. I liked Rolland a lot. I really wanted to learn how to play the drums and he could teach me. Rolland had been in the United States Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps and had a great appreciation for discipline. We liked discipline, too. It gave us an opportunity to nurture defiance and sedition. However, so as not to dissuade Rolland from teaching me to drum, I was careful to taint my insurgence with respect. On the other hand, Ripley had no such qualms.
Like many teachers, Rolland wanted to share with his students something he considered special. One day he brought in a beautiful pair of black drum sticks. I thought they were cool. They conjured up the mysterious, and I envisioned far off places with deserts and camels.
While trying to teach my baby brother to get past some block in his drumming – like not practicing – Rolland had reached the end of his patience when Ripley made a joke, cracking everybody up. In total frustration, Rolland brought his beautiful black drumsticks up into the air, over his head, and smashed them on the table, shattering them. That caught our attention, but what captured our interest even more was the enlarging wet spot on the crotch of Rolland’s pants. As we snickered, an angry and embarrassed Rolland walked out and never came back.
Thirty-four years later I joined The American Originals, a group of some of the best rudimental drummers in the country. Two of the members had played with Rolland in the United States Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps and when I told them the story of Rolland wetting his pants, they told me the story behind the black drumsticks.
Whenever the Corps performed at distinguished occasions, a unique drumstick design would be selected, and an artisan would be commissioned to hand craft them. It so happened that the artisan who handmade all of the drumsticks for the United States Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps doubled as a train engineer. For the memorial service of President John F. Kennedy, he hand-carved and hand-finished beautiful, black ebony drumsticks. Sadly, those were the last drumsticks he ever made. A short time later, in the week he was to retire from driving trains, the creator of those beautiful, ebony drumsticks died in a tragic train crash.
Ebony is a hard, brittle wood and during the performance at the memorial service all the drumsticks split – all of them except the pair Rolland Gritheart used. He carefully and gently played, saving those beautiful, hand-made, black ebony drumsticks for posterity. When Rolland brought the beautiful sticks, rich in history, to share with us, he was bringing in the only pair in existence – a prized possession and a golden memory. I guess I would have pissed in my pants, too.
Anyway, sometime after Rolland left, Denton Purpy joined the group for a day. It turned out it was as some kind of undercover mole for his big brother. As the drummers sat in the bleachers watching the twirlers practice, Denton asked me if Donald Hardin, another one of Barbie’s former beaus had made a certain crude comment about Barbie. I had heard the comment, so I replied, “Yeah.” I thought that was the end of it, but it was the beginning of a small war.
The next week, as my mother and I approached the entrance to the Boulevard Fire House, Mickey Purpy and his gang stopped us. Mickey was wearing a pair of black leather gloves, and even though it was summer – and like I said, we all wore our black leather jackets in the summer – black leather gloves were a little much. I figured this tragic but majestic moocher hankered for a handout, but didn’t desire to do his delicate paws dirty.
“Mickus, I wanna ask you a question.”
I was carrying a large box of something and didn’t feel like being courteous. Truthfully, even if I hadn’t been carrying a large box I wouldn’t have felt like being courteous. I halfway turned toward him, cocked my head, and with as much scorn as I could muster, sneered, “Ask.”
“Send your mother inside. You don’t want her to hear this.”
The surest way to get me not to do something is to tell me to do it. Then, as reinforcement, top that with telling me what I do or don’t want.
“You got something to ask me, Purpy? Ask!”
He wanted to know if I had made the comment Donald Hardin made about Barbie. Well, I hadn’t made the comment. I had just responded an affirmative to his sleazy, little brother about hearing Donald Hardin make it. Not feeling it was worthy of an explanation, and suspecting it might sound cowardly if I tried, I just acknowledged, “Yeah.”
Rather politely, he responded, “That’s all I wanted to know.”
I turned to leave and, “Kaboom!” A violent blow crashed into my left cheekbone and eyebrow. As the tops of almost all my teeth chipped, I spun around, still holding the box. At the end of my pirouette I faced Purpy.
“What did you do that for, you ...(obscenities)!” Then I directed him, “Don’t move!”
I walked my angry and frightened mother inside and dropped off the box. Before I could return my left eye was swollen shut and once outside I discovered Purpy and his crew had vanished. Threats, sopping with profanity, bellowed from the depths of my anger. Promptly, several of the firemen, who all seemed to have a warm fondness for the Purpys, were on the scene, threatening me. I guess they slid down their pole, or whatever firemen do, when they heard the disturbance. I left and went looking for Purpy and his gang.
Eventually, we found each other in an alley. I wasn’t afraid to die; in fact, as long as I could deliver serious damage to Purpy, I would gladly suffer death in the labor. Purpy approached and his swarm surrounded. Like a lopsided Cyclops, my one eye zeroed in on my targets – break his nose first with one punch, and then take out the hearing in his left ear with two more punches. That would probably be all I could get off. Then Purpy stuck out his hand as if to shake and began apologizing, explaining it was a misunderstanding. Well, he was right about that.
Although my one working eye was still on the selected targets, my peripheral vision saw the brass knuckles he held in his left hand along with his right glove. This fueled my anger and my muscles recoiled tighter for the explosion that was ready to erupt on his face. His buddies began tightening the circle around me and protesting, “He’s not gonna shake his hand!”
At that moment I made a decision which bothered me on and off for a couple years but now appreciate as one of the wisest choices I ever made. Dennis Prader, one of my best friends, had an older brother, a member of “Big Hellincrest,” and another “Bubba,” who had been in a similar situation. Bubba had been surrounded, then kicked and stomped viciously. He survived but was crippled for life. Among other injuries, he would never be able to father children. I did not want that to happen to me, so I relaxed, reluctantly slapped his hand, and walked away. My
limited vision improved, and my teeth had to be filed down where they had chipped. My very upset dentist wanted us to press charges, which we didn’t. A piece of cheekbone is still floating around beneath the surface. However, I am the father of the two most beautiful girls in the world and the grandfather of the three coolest grandchildren on the planet.
40
In the Shadow of Big Hellincrest
Having gotten away with a cheap shot to my face, Purpy and the gang from Boulevard must have been encouraged that they could vanquish the invincible Hellincrest. They recklessly suspected they could conquer and claim our standing as the toughest – “the baddest” – neighborhood in the D.C. area. Only a few weeks after my unexpected and unpleasant contact with Purpy’s punch, upon leaving practice, we discovered a clear challenge had been issued from Boulevard. Linus Blabcock, who had been recruited to play bass drum for the group, found his car, a small tank-like foreign vehicle called a Morris Minor, tampered with. The gang from Boulevard had picked it up and placed it on the curb. This was a clear challenge. A date was set for a gang fight – Boulevard against Hellincrest, or rather “Little Hellincrest” since the only alive and free members of “Big Hellincrest” scared us more than any foe.
In an earlier gang fight, word had gone out that Hellincrest was going to fight Anacostia and we all gathered at the park before heading into D.C. toward Anacostia. Since no one had the nerve to come into Hellincrest, we were always the invaders. When my friends and I arrived at the park, we crossed a small bridge, joining the forces of both “Big” and “Little Hellincrest.” My friends and I shared a common desire – we didn’t want to be there. Peer pressure dictated that we participate and not being very brave warriors, we were afraid not to be there. Some really menacing guys we knew, like Shoeman – known as “The Shoe,” and McGruder – called “McGoo” were standing with Bubba Brock – lovingly addressed as “Bubba,” and the Scribnor brothers, Percy and Sydney – both respectfully dubbed “Scrib.” I didn’t want to approach them because among other things, although I played football with Sidney Scribnor, I didn’t know what to call the brothers when they were together. In addition, I was “going steady’ with their younger sister, Cindy.
Mostly because I was totally intimidated by Cindy and her evil siblings, I wound up as her boyfriend. Besides her brothers being tough guys, Cindy was tough, too. She had these beady little eyes sitting beneath a beehive hair-do that rose about a foot into the air. Cindy wore her full length leather at all times, and she exuded this menacing persona that kept most people uncomfortable in her presence. I sort of remember saying something nice to her once and seeing her eyes go goo-goo. The next thing I knew, we were going steady. Somehow, I was so cowed by Cindy I must have given her a ring – because I remember that she was always wearing a ring – a ring that although it was attached to a necklace hanging around her neck, felt like a yoke hanging around mine.
Cindy insisted that she liked me because I was “really cool.” There were two phrases she repeated often to me: “You’re so cool!” and “Where were you?”
Teen club dances happened on a regular basis. Sometimes, the Immortals were playing and on those occasions I was safely on stage performing and didn’t have to worry about being with Cindy. Cindy was busy dancing, and Cindy could really dance! Yakov liked watching Cindy dance so much that he often wouldn’t let us end a song, so he could keep watching her – from a safe distance. But sometimes we weren’t playing, and I was just a typical participant. Since we were coming from different ends of Hellincrest, Cindy would give me clear instructions on when and where to meet her at the dance. After arriving at the club, I would immediately take cover and spend most of the evening hidden from her tenacious surveillance. When she finally uncovered my whereabouts and demanded, “Where were you?” I would pretend I had been looking for her the whole time and counter, “Where were you!”
Since I was afraid to break up with Cindy, I finally concocted a plan for her to break up with me. Because she always sort of raved about how cool I was, I thought I would attempt to be totally uncool. I started wearing clothes that my mother had bought me instead of clothes I had bought with my paper route money. I also started saying nerdy things like, “Wowy! Sheesh willowkers! That’s really neat!” I may have even done my homework, or at least said I did.
That seemed to do the trick. One day she gave me back the ring and declared, “I thought you were cool. But you’re not.” I was so happy, but pretended to be confused and disappointed.
Anyway, these remarkably menacing guys were loosely assembled at an apparently safe distance from some even more profoundly lethal looking overly ripe guys I had never had the misfortune to encounter. These sinister elders were members of “Big Hellincrest” and appeared to be the core of the crowd we completed. As we continued to move toward this horde of hoods, one of my friends warned, “Oh, no – Ganerd!”
I had heard the name many times, and the name scared me, but I didn’t really know much about Paul Ganerd. “Which one’s Ganerd?” I queried.
“The one with the gun.”
The gun! Oh man, I didn’t want to know anything about guns. I really wanted to go home.
My friend continued, “Ganerd is crazy. I was really hoping he wouldn’t be here.”
Soon, gun shots sounded and bark from the tree we were standing near fractured and flew. We all scrambled behind the tree as bullets punctured the large trunk. Peeking around the trunk after the shooting stopped, we saw Ganerd laughing and boasting that he was just testing the gun to see if it worked. A whole clump of guys looked seriously afflicted and ashen. When the large assembly headed for Anacostia, a small group of us hid in the creek and then crept home. If anybody said anything later, I would just say I got shot. With guys like Ganerd, it was no wonder no one messed with “Big Hellincrest.”
41
Protection From Demons
Yakov and I, as fairly old men, sometimes looked back at our time in Hellincrest. Becoming philosophical – and as Buddhists we had both developed somewhat as philosophers – he pointed out how facing our fears and standing up to them in Hellincrest had often transformed them into protective forces, similar to the idea in Buddhism of Buddhist gods. When Yakov awakened his courage to box Golden Gloves and enter the ring with some of the most notorious hoods in Hellincrest, he earned respect from some of those knights of darkness – like Duke Labumbard, Ganerd and “McGoo.” Just being accepted into their world and revolving within their orbit automatically inserted him into a protective force field.
For my part, I played county football with “The Shoe” and the younger “Scrib.” During tryouts, “The Shoe” was trying out for my position as running back. Most guys were afraid to hit “The Shoe,” so he was running pretty free. I was playing defense, and the coach moved me from cornerback to linebacker. I knew that if I let him run free, not only would he be taking my position at running back, but I would have to kowtow to him all season. So, as he came through the line, I greeted him with the hardest hit I was able to muster. He looked up from the ground and groaned, “You didn’t have to hit me that hard, Mickus.” However, from that day onward, “The Shoe” always treated me with respect, which garnered for me the respect of many other Hellincrest hoods.
“The Shoe” wound up as a flanker back. I was the halfback, and “Scrib” was the fullback. The offense which had once been built around Roger Strayler was now built around me. Roger had left the county team to play for the high school team, so I gathered a certain amount of glory as the featured back. I made numerous long runs, gaining lots of yards, but rarely made it into the end zone. I usually wound up tackled near the opponents’ end zone, within the 5 or 10 yard line. “Scrib” would then use his meanness and power to drive the ball in, scoring the touchdown. I always felt that he liked and respected me because I set him up for so many touchdowns.
Once while walking in enemy territory in the middle of the night on the way to a secret rendezvous, I was passed several times
by two automobiles crammed with hoodlums. The cars were pursuing each other at high speeds through very narrow lanes lined with parked cars. They were having a dangerous game of chase through the apartment complex where my secret rendezvous was to take place.
Things got quiet for a moment, and I thought the chase was over – maybe continuing somewhere else. Suddenly, one of the cars zoomed up next to me and stopped. I thought, “Uh-oh!” Some of the passengers started climbing out of the car, grabbing me and demanding to know where the other car was. I am not sure why, and although I had little experience with being drunk, I started to pretend I was drunk. I think I figured they were more likely to believe a drunk guy.
Just when it appeared that the two holding me by my arms were getting ready to start pounding me, a voice from the back seat said, “I know him. He’s okay.” I looked back to see Sydney Scribnor kind of squashed between two larger guys in the back seat. The two guys holding my arms let go, jumped back into the car, and it squealed off down the narrow road.
My sense of relief was short-lived. In moments, a bunch of guys I totally didn’t recognize raced up from behind me, surrounding me, yelling, “This is our neighborhood!” and demanding, “Did you just get out of that car, punk?”
I immediately went into my drunk act and stammered, “No … uh, no ... no, man. I was just walking …”
“What did they say to you?”
“They wanted to know if I had seen a car …”
At that moment, my desperate performance of a drunk guy was abruptly cut short when the car packed with Hellincrest hoods came roaring back toward us. The gang surrounding me immediately started to scramble around, some yelling, “Get rocks! Get rocks!”
At the moment the car full of Hellincrest hoods reached my stage, the unfriendly hosts let fly with rocks. The rocks battered the car, some breaking the windshield, and the Hellincrest hoods crashed violently into a parked car. The hosts disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.