The God Damn Clown Defense-Mayhem in a New England Town

The God Damn Clown Defense
Mayhem in a New England town

When I was about 23 years old, I moved back briefly to my parent’s home. I had been physically assaulted by a raging psychotic shvatza that lived in my subsidized apartment complex. This man, who had a young son that always seemed to have either an arm or leg in a cast at all times, chased me to my car. As I opened the car door to get in, he pushed the car door against me so that I was pinned and unable to get all the way in. I was in all honesty terrified. I mean my father had warned me all of my life about “those damn shvatzas.”I had my dog Max with me. Max was an amazing little grey Shitzu that was my roommate and confident. He was my friend and protector. I loved that little guy. My neighbor began to scream at me and Toto too. I believe he was ranting something about hating small grey Shitzu's. Max growled at him but his under bite made him less then convincing. When my father found out he and his brother Bert, who had an ice cream truck, had me and all of my worldly possessions moved out by midnight. If I had been battered by a white man, they probably would have let me pack up and make the move on my own.

I was still working as a cocktail waitress part time in the evenings at a Mafia run night club, attached to a bowling alley in my home town. It was an awesome club with two bars and three dance floors. My boss's names were Harry and Paulie who had a glass eye. His nephew’s name was Junior and he weighed in at about 400 lbs but it was mostly water retention. Their associates Tony and Vinnie frequented the establishment often. Tony, a homely Italian man of small stature with a large afro and matching nose carried a small card in his wallet that said “I had a vasectomy”. He felt this would up his chances with the ladies. Unless Tony had a face transplant he didn't have a chance in Barstow with the ladies. Tony had about as much of a chance of getting lucky with the ladies as Junior did in winning a wet tee shirt contest.

I started dating a boy named Vince. He was built like Tarzan and had sandy blonde hair. He looked like what I envisioned a California boy to be but would later learn that he would have had to been a Mexican to fit that role. Vince had a really cool way to meet women. He would sit at the bar and look completely depressed as if he just lost his best friend so that women would come up and console him. I fell into the trap myself. “What’s wrong” I asked one evening. The rest was history.

Vince liked to drink. Now that I look back he was a raging alcoholic. One evening we were driving home from ‘Spanks’ night club in Vince’s bright yellow, pristine 1972 Mustang. I kept telling him to hurry up since I was living back home and I didn't want to upset my parents s too much. I harped and harped on him to hurry. So he took a short cut. The house was on a corner lot. He drove across the side of my parent’s house, over the lawn, under their bedroom window, whizzing by the lilac bushes and down the front yard and onto the street. Did I mention there was about 4 inches of fluffy white powdered snow on the ground? The next morning, as I lay in bed tormented by my hangover I heard my father screaming “Betty, what the hell is this?” “Jesus Christ, God damn it, there are tire tracks going across our lawn!” “What God damn clown did this?” I giggled, felt the throbbing pain in my head and then went back to sleep.

The following weekend, this same boy and I had gone out for Chinese food. We were eating Chinese chicken wings in Vince’s dazzling yellow mustang in front of the house during the wee hours of the morning. Due to the alcoholic consumption, I was unaware that we were tossing the chicken wing bones out the window and onto the driveway. The next morning, as I lay in bed tormented by my hangover I hear my father screaming “Betty, what the hell is this? “Jesus Christ, God damn it there are about 100 chicken wing bones on the driveway. What God damn clown did this?” I giggled, felt the throbbing pain in my head and then went back to sleep.

It's hard to fathom the thought that there was no such thing as a DUI back in the 70's. Happy hours and drunk driving went hand in hand. As previously mentioned, I had the most awesome 1968 mustang. It was beige with black pin stripes that I applied myself. It had black and tan shag carpeting in the rear window, an awesome 8 track tape deck with speakers in the back and real ‘mag’ wheels. My father made a great contribution in the purchase of this, my very first car. He drove me to the used car lot. I remember that my car payments were $68.00 per month for my 1968 mustang. That’s pretty much the amount today to fill my gas tank. Damn I’m old!

On one occasion I misjudged the driveway at my parent’s house and ran down the aluminum trash cans with my car which were curbside. Damn those things make a racket on impact. On another occasion I misjudged the location of the garage door and drove my front grill right into it, leaving three horizontal foot long cracks. I learned quite quickly why they say that alcohol impairs your judgment. Both of these incidents went unreported and were blamed on some God damn clowns. Then there was the time I came home in the wee hours of the morning acting twelve kinds of crazy due to my alcohol level. I walked down the hallway of my parent’s house holding out each arm and dragging my hands along the walls to keep me from falling. I made it to my bedroom, through the orange and yellow crystal love beads that hung in my bedroom doorway and I took what I thought was a Mark Spits quality dive onto my bed. I missed my bed and landed face down on the floor. As I lay there with a bloody nose, I hear my mother’s voice from her bedroom. “Don't think I can't hear you in there, I know you just got home.” And I hollered back “What God damn clown moved my bed?”