Good Morning, my Darling,
Today's blog is a little different, more like some of the old Myspace blogs I used to write, where I was telling a story about something, often something that involved a part of my life. This story is not about my life, per se. It's about somebody I once knew, but it's also about the way lives interesect and the influence people have on each other. It's also about circumstances and how they can have a profound effect on different people, in different ways. You don't know any of the people in this story, except me, but it might still have some interest, just as a story about life.
I arrived at Pearl's this morning at 7:30, and as always, I picked up the newspaper from the driveway before entering the house. I love the idea that, in our modern age, the newspaper is still being read. It is a constant of life, and I love constants. We have two papers here in Los Angeles. The big one is of course the Los Angeles Times, founded in 1888. The other is a smaller paper called the Daily News. The Daily News was founded around 1910, to serve the San Fernando Valley. It was originally called The Valley News and Green Sheet. Everyone just called it The Green Sheet (the paper had a greenish tint), and it was always our minor paper, compared to the nationally renowned Times. Whereas the Times carried the news of the city, the nation and the world, the Green Sheet carried mostly local news of the city and Valley, with only paragraph length blurbs about the world at large. Still, the Green Sheet - known as the Daily News since the 1980s - has been around for a century now, and has archived a lot of local history, Valley and city, in articles and photographs. Also, a lot of kids from the area got their start with the Green Sheet. I was one of them. My very first job, when I was 12, was delivering the paper from my bicycle before school.
This morning, I picked up the paper and brought it in the house. One of the first things I like to do is to open it, while Pearl and I are eating breakfast, and read the weather. You know me : I don't much care about the news or politics. Though I do pay close attention to both, I find them to be the same ol' same ol'. Nothing much changes except the cast of characters. So I always start our morning by reading the five-day weather forecast, out loud. It's a nice, innocuous start to the day.
This morning, however, the headline caught my eye. In big bold type, it read "CAUGHT STEALING". Beneath the headline is a photo of a lineup of young baseball players. A closer look reveals them to be Little Leaguers. The photo is black and white, all the players and coaches in the photo are caucasian, so you know just at a glance that it is an old photo. The Valley is now thoroughly integrated. Above the "CAUGHT STEALING" headline, written in smaller bold print, is the storyline: "Fifty years later, the story of a bank robbing baseball coach and his accomplice known as the Valley's 'Mutt and Jeff Bandits' - a perfect pitch for Hollywood".
Now I was intrigued. I have lived in the Valley all my life and love local history. Scanning the article without really reading it, I saw a smaller photo of an old newspaper article that described how the bank robbers were ultimately captured in Northridge, fifty years ago today, on November 4, 1963. Now I really wanted to read it. I am a 45 year Northridger and have been with the town for almost half it's existence. So much has changed from when Northridge was a rural place, known mainly for it's horses. But even in 1963, it was beginning to develop. I wanted to see where the bank robbers were caught, to see what's there now. So, I started to read the article while Pearl was eating her cereal.
(this will be a bit of a long blog, so I will continue in a moment......hope your week is off to a good start!)
10:55am : For reference, the article is available at www.dailynews.com. Scroll about 3/4s of the way down, and you will see it under the ironic banner of "Entertainment". In the paper edition, it is the headline. Also, the old nickname for the bank robbers as the "Mutt and Jeff Bandits" refers to a newspaper comic strip of the era. The two robbers are said to have resembled "Mutt and Jeff".
Back to the story - in a sidebar next to the main article is a list of all the banks these guys robbed, 13 banks in all, from January to November 1963, a little more than one per month. According to LAPD, they netted over $150,000 dollars from all the robberies, an enormous sum in 1963, probably the equivalent of about 750,000 to a million in today's dollars, when you consider that a new home cost less than 25,000 back then, a new car about 2000. These guys were no ordinary, bumbling bank robbers, then. They were good. They used guns, but never shot anybody. One was big, and would hold the employees and customers at bay, while the other, smaller guy would hop the counter and grab the money. It was a big bank robbing spree and a big deal at the time, though it was soon to be entirely overshadowed in the news. The robbers were caught in Northridge on the afternoon of November 4, 1963, shortly after their last robbery. Due to someone spotting their license plate, they were traced to the office of the larger man, who was an insurance agent. It is that office location that I want to find, just to see what's there now. But back to the story.
Reading the article, a main thread is that the ringleader - the insurance man - was also a local Little League coach, in the Woodland Hills - Canoga Park area. Those are two Valley towns located about 5 to 7 miles southwest of Northridge. One of his M.Os (methods of operation), which was very effective, was to schedule a robbery right before a Little League game or practice, so he could rob the bank, separate from his partner, then drive to the baseball field and change into his coaches' uniform and proceed to coach his team, as if it was an ordinary day. Because he and his partner were so efficient in their getaways, and because he was soon changed into his baseball uniform, no one would suspect in a million years that this upstanding citizen and former military man was a heinous criminal. And it worked, for quite a while.
(back in a minute)
11:25am : The other main thread of the article, and the reason it is listed under the "Entertainment" banner on the Daily News website, is because Hollywood is interested in the story. Rick Dempsey, a former professional baseball player who was with the Dodgers when they won their last World Series in 1988, was on the Little League team that was coached by the bank robbing insurance man. The team also included a ball boy named Robin Yount, who would go on to become one of the greatest hitters and overall players in the history of Major League Baseball. Yount, regarded as the greatest player ever to come out of the Valley is in the Baseball Hall Of Fame. Rick Dempsey, a darn good player himself, has connections to Hollywood, and according to the newspaper story, he sold a treatment (a script outline) a while back for a movie about the bank robbers. The movie was to star Adam Sandler. It was supposed to be a dark comedy. But, as often happens in Hollywood, the movie never got made. I say "thank God", not only because I think Adam Sandler makes the worst movies in the history of film, but also because this movie should not be a comedy, dark or otherwise. I guess Rick Dempsey and his connections are still trying to sell the script, and now that the story has been featured in a major article it may well get sold, but I hope they will consider making a serious film rather than a comedy, though it could certainly have light touches, in that the robbers were creative and non-violent (at least as far as not killing anyone). Also, my Darling, as we have discussed, there is a timeless and old-fashioned aspect to baseball that lends itself to nostalgia for a simpler past, and that past is a lighter one, if not necessarily comedic. But the movie certainly should not be a comedy, because in reality, it is not true that no one got hurt. The Daily News article hints at that, in a couple brief sentences, but I know more about it, and so I will tell you now.
(back in a minute)
11:47am : Reading the article, I learned that the insurance man's name was John Jennings. That may have rung a subconscious bell, because something caused me to scan the article faster after that. Something about his name, the local setting and Little League baseball. But if I bell had been rung, I didn't notice it. All I noticed, upon reading his name, was that I was suddenly even more intrigued in the article. I turned the page, and in the midst of the text was another photo. This one shows two coaches, one the bank robbing insurance man, flanking the team's "star Catcher", a handsome, smiling young kid wearing full catcher's gear. The caption benath the photo reads "John Jennings, right, talks with his son Steve Jennings and coach Chuck Young".
I read that caption and my heart sank about a second later, because I realised very quickly why a bell had rung about the story, and why I had been so eager to read it.
I knew Steve Jennings. He was in my life from mid-1989 until September 1995. It is hard for me to reconcile the handsome, beaming boy in the newspaper photo with the man I knew, but as the morning has progressed, and I think of how his life must have been affected by his Dad's actions, I can understand his life a little better. Let me tell you about him, and in doing so, I will also tell you a little about my life at that time, some of which details you already know.
1989, as you know my Dear Girl, was a crazy year for me. My parents split up in March of that year, and my Dad went to live in a HUD building for seniors about a mile up the road from our house just south of CSUN, which we had lived in since 1970. We'd had our domestic troubles for years, but now Mom and Dad were finally splitting up, if not divorcing. I had always tried to be the peacekeeper in the family, and it wasn't easy, and I was far from perfect myself, but after Dad moved out, I still went up to visit him almost every day. Though my parents had been difficult, and though I gravitated toward Mom, I still loved my Dad and wanted things to be like they always were. If I saw both my folks every day, it felt less like they had split. So, I'd go visit Dad and help him clean his apartment, do the dishes, whatever. Now that Dad was on his own, he could drink all day with no one to bug him about it. But his apartment was pretty messy as a result, so I'd help him and hang out and talk. I was going through some rough times of my own as a result of my own relationship, which was headed toward catastrophe, though I didn't know it at the time. All I knew was that it was in trouble. So I'd go hang out with Dad to take my mind off things.
One day, maybe in May 1989, I went to visit Dad, and there was a sleeping bag on his living room floor. "What's that, Dad"?, I asked him. "Are you sleeping on the floor"? Dad explained that it didn't belong to him, but to a guy he'd met at the local VA Hospital, which is located in the town of Sepulveda in the Valley, about four miles west of Northridge. Dad had been going to the VA on a regular basis since 1982, first to treat his alcoholism, and then for all kinds of things like art classes and physical therapy, even small jobs to suppliment his retirement income. Dad explained that he'd recently met this guy, and they'd gotten to talking, and the guy needed a place to stay. So, Dad offered him the floor of his living room. Dad was most proud in his life of having been a soldier, and since this guy had been a fellow soldier (hence their VA connection), I could've imagined Dad offering him a helping hand. I pictured an older gentleman, maybe late 60s like Dad, probably a WW2 vet, and homeless. Down on his luck. Still, I was a bit purturbed. Dad had only moved into the HUD apartment a couple months earlier. It was a nice place, and it was hard to acquire. He'd had to be on a waiting list for many months to get in. It was only a one-bedroom, and now here was some unknown man who was sleeping on the living room floor. HUD regulations would not allow that, and I knew it. "But Dad", I said, "how long is this guy gonna be here? Who is he anyway"?
"His name is Steve", Dad said. "He went out on the bus, but he'll be here later if you want to meet him".
I did want to meet him, because I wanted to look out for my Dad. Dad was a pretty tough guy, but he was almost 70 years old, and very alcoholic. I didn't know this "Steve", and I didn't want Dad taken advantage of, whether the guy was homeless or not. So, I left and came back later that day, and the guy was there. The first time I saw him, he was laying on the floor, in his sleeping bag, watching a small TV. It was probably that TV he had gone out earlier to retrieve, as it had not been there on my first visit. There were various food wrappers and soda cans scattered about. I don't remember him greeting me, just watching TV, and I got the feeling he was acting as if he owned the joint, as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to be staying illegally in my Dad's HUD apartment, as if he and Dad were best friends and I was the interloper. So, I asserted myself a little bit. I am kinda shy, as you know, but I can step up to the plate when necessary, and so I began to act like I owned the joint, doing dishes, straightening the place up. I had told my family members about Dad's new roommate, that I was worried even though I hadn't met the guy, and frankly, from what I could see, I had been right to be worried. The guy looked slovenly, and he was ignoring me. He appeared smug, like he had every right to be there. I don't remember who spoke first, but it was probably me. I was pissed off, but trying to hold back.
All I remember is talking to my Dad, as if this homeless guy wasn't even there, and trying to give him the hint, through my end of the conversation, that he should pack up and go. Dad must have sensed my mood, because it was he who finally made the introduction. "Son, this is Steve. Steve, this is my son Adam". That broke the ice, if not the mood. I was raised to always shake hands, be a gentleman, so I walked over to where he was on the living room floor and put my hand out.
"How ya doin'"?, I mumbled. "Steve Jennings", he said. "Nice to meet ya".
I calmed down a little after that. I get vibes from people, pretty accurate ones even at first glance, and while the guy looked unkempt and seemed weird (and a little smug), he didn't give off any vibe of violence or crime. He just seemed like a stray. He was also younger than I had expected, Vietnam age instead of World War Two. Steve would have been 40 then. Dad had brought a few similar types home from the VA before, when he still lived in our house. All of them were beat-up types, looking for odd jobs like painting our house or fixing the plumbing. Dad had been a Sergeant in the Air Force and, despite his drinking problem, still gave off a strong leadership vibe. He was that way all his life. Whenever Dad talked, people listened, especially at the VA, where a lot of veterans, broken by wars, longed to have someone who might understand them. Someone with strength. That was Dad, all the way. He was messed up himself, but boy was he ever strong. He was the Sarge all the way.
At some point that evening, Steve finally got up off the floor to grab himself another soda. He never drank alcohol himself. When he stood, I noticed that he was pretty big, well over six feet, about 225 pounds. I was glad he seemed non-violent, and though he was weird, he also seemed very intelligent, talking politics with Dad. Since Dad had said earlier that he'd only be staying a few days, until he found a permanent place, I decided to let the matter with Steve drop. He'd be gone soon, I figured.
(back in a few, sorry it's so long but I've gotta tell the whole story) :)
1:20pm : Well, you can guess how these things go, when someone is down on their luck and has nowhere to turn. Steve didn't leave my Dad's apartment after a few days, or even after a few weeks. He was there as Summer dragged on, and as the days went by he never left Dad's unit, except to slink down to the store every few days. He had food stamps and a welfare check, so he wasn't a drain on Dad's money at least. But he was messy. Boy was he messy. Food wrappers and newspapers all over the place. And, while he didn't drink alcohol or use street drugs, Steve did have a number of pychotropic prescriptions like Diazepam. The kind that make your head spin, or stop it from spinning, or both.
My Mom thought Steve was interesting, and by now she was making trips up to Dad's, to talk to Steve. According to Mom, he seemed to have a pretty good understanding of Dad and his alcoholism. My Mom had quit drinking in 1986 but Dad never could. Steve seemed to understand him, and because it brought Mom up to Dad's apartment, I was happy enough. Maybe it would bring our family back together. Of course, things don't work out that way with hard-core alcoholics, but what did happen was that Dad finally complained to me. He'd been the guy to initially defend Steve, but now he couldn't get rid of him. Steve had taken over the apartment, totally trashed the living room. Dad had been reduced to hiding out in his bedroom all day. Something had to be done. By then, however, I was in no mood to interevene. I was immersed in the collapse of my own relationship, and trying to decipher what was going on behind my back. I didn't have time to get involved in an eviction. So, Dad did the job himself. He called the building's owner and admitted he'd had a guy living in his unit, but that he couldn't get rid of him. Could they be of help?
According to Dad, this is how it went down : Joe, the owner of the HUD building, showed up at Dad's door and introduced himself. Talking casually with Dad and Steve about the rules of tenancy, which precluded sub-letting to unqualified persons, Joe opened his jacket slightly to display a handgun he'd brought with him, a subtle hint to Steve that he'd better get while the getting was good. The next time I went to visit Dad, a day or two later, Steve was gone. And he didn't come back.
For a while anyway.
(back in a few)
2pm : Okay, Sweet and Incredibly Beautiful Baby, I didn't know this story was gonna get so detailed, so I again apologize for it's length. But it's kinda writing itself at this point, and at this point I've gotta keep it detailed or it will fall apart as a story, so, you can either dispense with it, lol, or continue reading. I may not be able to finish before I leave for Pearl's at 4:15, though if I can't, I will certainly try to finish this evening. At any rate, if you are still reading, then thanks for doing so! So, to continue:
Looking back, over 20 years now, I don't remember seeing Steve for any extended periods between 1990 and 1994. He was around, to be sure, and if I remember correctly he may have even stayed at Dad's place again, perhaps in 1991, but if that is true it was only for a few days, that time for real. Other than that, I would see Steve around, once in a while at Dad's, just hanging out for an evening, or getting off the bus near CSUN. Though Dad had him evicted, they remained friends, and as I would myself discover later on, Steve wasn't such a bad guy if you didn't have to live with him. If you did, however, that was another story. I learned a few things about Steve in the intervening years. One was that, though he'd been in the Army, he'd never been to Vietnam. The other was that, at some point in his life, he'd suffered a head injury. According to Steve, he'd fallen out a window at the VA and hit his head. It was never clear why he'd fallen, if it had been a suicide attempt or not. But whatever the reason, Steve said his injury had left him with a metal plate in his head, brains that were somewhat scrambled, and a lifetime of psychotropic prescriptions to deal with it. He also had a VA psychiatrist with whom he was in regular contact.
Now, my Darling, we will fast forward to January 1994. On the 17th of that month, at 4:31 in the morning, we were hit by what felt like a nuclear bomb gone off. The earthquake changed everyone's life in Northridge and the surrounding area. My life had changed in other ways before that. In December 1990, my relationship was overwith, and - here we go, you've read this before but here is a specific detail - in October 1993 I had begun to use methamphetamine for the second time in my life (the first time was from 1980-83, when I worked at MGM). This detail is neither here nor there, because this is not a story about drug use, but I give you that detail just to help you understand the times and conditions I am describing. Also, as you know, I have used no drugs since June 1997, over 16 years now, and I never will again. I also highly recommend against their use, for various reasons, even marijuana. But that is a whole 'nuther story.
At any rate, in January 1994, we got Quaked. I was on speed and wanted to document everything, so I got my camera and took pictures for months, at every quake-damaged site I could find. Usually I was accompanied by the late, great Dave Small, aka Mr. Davey or Mr.D for short. He was using, too, and we would take pictures all day and at all hours of the night. Nowdays, I love my sleep, but back then sleep was overrated and not much necessary. I was also dealing with the return of memories from the story I call What Happened In Northridge, but that's a whole 'nuther story, too. People used to chalk that story up to my drug use, even though they knew it was true, but they can't anymore, because I have produced too many details. It's too massive a story, with too many facts, and so nobody challenges it or chalks my memories up to drugs anymore. They just don't talk about it, and hope it has gone away. For me, it is on the back burner, but one day it will be talked about, and hopefully solved, with no harm to anybody. That is my hope.
But Dave and I were using, and taking pictures, and we got let into The Meadows and took pictures there, and became fascinated with the place, and finally in May 1994 Dave bought a lot of video equipment and we began working on our video. By Summer, the video was an all-consuming project. I was working on it about 18 hours a day, because we wanted to get it on PBS or sell it to the news while the subject was still topical. It was fun but it was also difficult, because I was teaching myself to operate all this unfamiliar equipment, like a video editor and mixer, all analog of course. There was other electronics involved, sound editing, special effects. I don't even remember learning it, because I was so focused on getting the film done. We had 40 hours of footage and I was trying to pick out the best 90 minutes of stuff and put it in some kind of order to tell the story of what had happened to the people in that building. So, I was working really hard, and I am not a technically oriented person, so I needed all my concentration. By then, I was the only person living in our family home. It had been yellow-tagged after the quake, meaning that it had to be completely rebuilt. We had always been renters, so as soon as the owner said so, I'd have to move out. Mom was by now living with Dad in the HUD apartment. I was low on money, too. Dad knew it, so I suppose he thought he was helping me out...........
..........but I was still shocked and dismayed when, one day in September 1994, he called to announce : "Son, I have something to tell you. Steven Jennings is moving into the garage"! Dad knew I'd object, which I did, vociferously. That was why he said it like it was a declaration, like it was final. "Steven Jennings is moving in", and there was nothing I could do about it. Dad even said so. "It's my name on the lease of that house", he said. And he was right. So, in September 1994, while I was feverishly working on "The Meadows" (my ingenious name for the movie), Steve moved into the garage of our house.
And he proceeded to disrupt my work, deliberately, every chance he got.
(back in a few)
3:10pm : I thought at the time that Steve was envious of me. I was 34 and on drugs, but I still had a place to live, some money, and was focusing on a video project. Drug users are supposed to be unproductive screw-ups. Steve was neither entirely unproductive, nor a screw-up. He really was very intelligent. But because of his mental and emotional problems, he just didn't have it together. You wouldn't have noticed much, because he could converse without sounding schizophrenic or bi-polar, and he was neither. But there was no way he could have focused on anything. So I thought he was envious of me for those reasons. Also, he seemed to resent my close relationship with my Dad. Looking back, I can especially see that now. Though Dad was alcoholic and I was on speed, we got along pretty good. Steve seemed to want to interrupt that, as if he were the son.
I think Dad was also worried about me. Later on, I would know for sure that he was. Drugs were a big no-no with Dad (even though he'd used prescription amphetamines in his day). Steve probably gave him the word that I was staying up night and day, working on this video about that building, the one where all the people died. People thought Dave and I were weird for going in there, for wanting to film it. They didn't understand, and I didn't expect them to. Steve, on his behalf and probably on Dad's as well, began to antagonize me every night, usually when I was deep in concentration on an edit.
I'd be sitting there at my video table, all nice and quiet, and in would storm Steve, lumbering into the living room. He knew I loved my doggies, so he'd start by saying something nonsensical, like "Hey, I've got an idea! Let's barbecue Trixie"! That was a favorite of his - suggesting that we "barbeque" my beloved blonde Lab, the doe-eyed daughter of Alice. "Barbecue Trixie, barbecue Trixie"! I can still here him. Then he'd stand right behind me and laugh ; "heheheheheheheheh". Like it was the funniest thing he ever heard.
It mightily pissed me off at first, and I'd yell at him to stop bothering me. I knew he wouldn't really cook my dog, but he seemed to get off on suggesting it. When that tactic didn't work anymore, he'd come up behind me and eject the tape I was editing, and then pop in one of his own, like a tape of a Neil Young concert. Steve was particularly fond of Neil Young. "Here. Let's watch this instead"! Then he'd laugh again. One time, he just came up behind me and hit the master switch on my elecrical outlet strip, where all my video boxes were plugged in. I think that was the time I finally lost my temper. Looking back, it is ironic that I grabbed a miniature Dodgers bat to chase Steve out of the house with. It was a souvenier I'd had since I was a kid (and I still have it), a small wooden bat about the size of a police baton. Smaller than that, even. But I grabbed it, and even though Steve was half a foot taller and 75 pounds heavier than me, I ran him out of the house. The next day, to my surprise (and joy!), Steve was packing up his stuff and moving out, without my even asking him to. I had no idea where he'd be going, though I should have suspected. And no, it wasn't back to Dad's place.
(back in a few)
3:40pm : Steve wound up moving in Mr. Davey's house in Reseda, about 2 1/2 miles south my Rathburn Street house in Northridge. In the quake years, I was spending a lot of time at Dave's house anyway, so I figured I'd still see Steve, but I wouldn't have to live with him anymore. As I said earlier, he wasn't so bad as a non-roommate. Just before he moved out, Steve even did me a favor. I was going to be on the local news as a result of my video work at The Meadows. Steve taped it for me. I still have that tape. One last thing I recall about Steve when he was my roommate - on January 17th, 1995, Bill Clinton came to CSUN on the anniversary of the earthquake, to speak about the progress that had been made. The President was gonna be right across the street. And it was Bill Clinton. I thought everyone would be excited to see him, but no one wanted to come with me. Not Dave, not any other friends, and certainly not Steve. "I wouldn't walk ten feet to see him", he said. "Big Bad Bill", he called him.
Well, Steve was now living at Dave's, and I could visit them at will, or stay away. It was a convenient arrangement, much nicer than having him in my garage. The thing was, the first time I went to visit, I found myself locked out. Dave had always left his door open, I could come over at any time of the day or night. This time, there was a note on the door, written in Steve's jumpy handwriting. It said something about he and Dave preferring to keep themselves until further notice. It turned out he was trying to sway Dave against speed, a good intention that didn't work. When I finally got ahold of Dave, on the phone, he told me that Steve had described the baseball bat chase, and had taken to calling me "Madman Adam". Now he was trying to break up our friendship, just as he'd tried to put a wedge between me and my Dad. I thought about it; yeah, I was on drugs. Yeah, I was pretty intense myself in those days. I was certainly what many people would have considered weird, talking about The Meadows all the time, and Ghosts, and............well, my Darling, a lot of the stuff I still talk about nowdays. Only nowdays, I can articulate it better so it makes more sense, haha. But the point was that, even though I was speeding, I still got along with everyone, for the most part. Whereas wherever Steve went, trouble followed. He couldn't get along. Again, it wasn't because he was a bad guy, just very, very troubled.
(I am gonna head back to Pearl's now. I will finish the story and correct any typos when I get home. If you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me! I Love You and will be back at 6:45)
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
6:55pm : I am back, Wonderful Lady, and now I will finish. I realise that a story like this can lose steam when not told all at once, but this one does need to be completed. I will try not to draw it out with too many details, but again, the story is the story, and it cannot be partially told. So, let's pick up where we left off, with Steve living at Dave's house. As I said, I'd been told I was persona non grata at the house, via Steve's note, which meant to me that he was now controlling Dave the way he'd tried and failed to control me. Dave was a malleable personality; I am not subject to undue influence. As far as The Meadows project was concerned, however, I was now on my own. I attended the Clinton speech and continued working on the film, but I was now having the highly unusual experience of having memories come back to me from what seemed to be an extremely strange incident in the past. I was having trouble making sense of these memories, and so I called my ex to see if she knew anything about the situation. Though I could not explain very well what I was remembering, I believe she remembered it all too well. She probably remembered at least some of What Happened In Northridge, probably assumed I'd forgotten all about it, which I had but the reason is a long story. At any rate, she'd remained friendly with me, even after our relationship ended, right up until I began making those phone calls. I was admittedly high, and not making complete sense, but in hindsight, she certainly knew that I had remembered something that implicated her, big time. She had a new boyfriend by then, and he got into the act by suggesting to her that she get a restraining order against me.
I was arrested four times between February 1995 and March 1997. That's one of the prices you will pay if you use speed. Sooner or later you will do something stupid, because you become overconfident (among other things) and you think you are invincible, and you do things that you'd normally never do. Now, I never did anything too outrageous, certainly nothing violent, but I did do things that were stupid.
My first arrest was for trespassing at an apartment building next to The Meadows. It's a long story, but combined with the memories I was remembering, which were very real, I was also dealing with the mental noise brought on by prolonged meth use. When you use for a long time, everything becomes hyperreal. Every story involves You, You are at the center of every intrigue. This is embarassing, but here goes:
I had seen a white Ford Bronco parked in the lot at this building next to The Meadows. The O.J. Simpson trial was on the news every day then. O.J. had been involved in the infamous "slow-speed chase" after the murders. He had been driving a white Ford Bronco. Ergo, the white Ford Bronco now parked in the lot of the building next to The Meadows had to be O.J.'s Bronco. It was simple logic to me. So I had to make sure everybody else understood it. A lady who lived in the building saw me looking in the Bronco's window and called out from the second floor. "Hey you! What're you doin' down there"? I tried to explain to her that I'd found O.J.'s Bronco. She threatened to call the police.
"Please do", I said. I wanted them to also know that I'd found O.J.'s Bronco.
I was inside the LAPD Devonshire station for 24 hours for that one. Luckily for me, I'd had enough cash on me to bail myself out before I got sent downtown. I got charged with tresspassing, a misdemeanor, and a date was set for my court hearing. Also, while I was in that cell in the police station, I got served with my ex's restraining order. To this day I don't know how she could have known I was in there. My best guess was that someone told the process server from my address, my house, and the only person who could have done that was Steve, or Dave. I had been allowed one phone call at the station, and I had called them. At any rate, the restraining order is neither here nor there, either. I can tell it all now, though, and tell it to you, my Darling, not only because a lot of time has passed and I haven't used drugs in ages, but also because there was a reason behind what happened to me, and why I went to jail four times. It was because a secret was being kept from me, a really big secret. I can guarantee you that no one would want to cross-examine me about it now, or put me in front of a judge, because I could tell a precise story that would blow them out of the water. But, it is very easy to pick on a confused drug user. Though I no doubt did initiate a lot of my own problems by being verbally confrontational, nothing would have ever happened if people had only had the courage and decency to tell the truth about what I was remembering.
Anyway, when I got out of jail, 24 hours after the Bronco episode, I went right down to Dave's house. They'd answered my phone call from the police station. Surely they'd want to be friends again. And they did. Dave and Steve welcomed me in, we had a few laughs about my speed stupidity, and I noticed that the walls of Dave's living room were now covered with paintings. "What's going on"?, I asked. "When did you guys learn to paint"?
Dave explained that Steve had taught him how. Steve knew all about abstract expressionism, and artists like Jackson Pollack and Willem deKooning. He himself had done a stint as a sign painter; that was as far as his artistic training went, but Steve was explaining that, in abstract, it wasn't the technique so much as the expression that counted. (of course, I learned that technique was important, too, otherwise every "splatter" artist would have the quality of Pollack, when of course his work is unique).
I saw Dave out in his backyard, stretching canvases over hand-crafted wooden frames.
"What the Hell, man? When did you learn to do that"?
"Steve showed me".
It was what they'd been doing in the time I'd been banned from the house. As it turned out, Steve had learned a lot about Abstract Expressionism from my Dad. He already knew about the frame building and canvas stretching. All of these things he had taught to Dave, while I was away. There were paintings all over the place. It looked like fun. Now I wanted to be a painter, too.
I managed to stay out of trouble - and off speed - until June of 1995. During that time, I started painting at Dave's house. We all did, painted and painted. I still have all of my paintings from that time, and I inherited many of Dave's. You've seen one of his in one of my Facebook photos. It is a dark, chaotic abstract, the kind of painting many people would not like, or might think that "their six year old could do". I know different, because it came from inside Dave. Only he could have done it. And, as dark and crazy looking as it undoubtedly is, it has a lot of technique. It is really a good painting in it's way. Dave had a lot of talent.
And he'd learned about it from Steve.
I think Steve wanted to do good things, to be helpful, but it had to be his way, his idea. It was as if he'd decided, "Now we're not gonna work on that creepy Meadows video anymore, with all the ghosts and dead people. Now we're gonna work on painting, something I'm good at". He was good at it (though Dave was better), and because we all embraced painting, Steve was now a nice guy. Pleasant, even.
For a while, anyway.
There was no way I could just drop The Meadows video, not after all the work I'd put in, so in Summer 1995 I went back to it full time. I was on the verge of completing it, all it needed was a few more edits and a soundtrack. I had been writing a story, and I would recite the dialogue, too. That was my plan, to make the video a story about The Meadows, the earthquake, and our post-quake experiences all in one. The only problem was that I was also being overwhelmed by my memories. Now I was remembering bits and pieces of really horrible things, like being kidnapped by my neighbor. What was driving me crazy was that I couldn't put a time frame on these memories. Nor could I put them all together. They were, at that point, just fragments. Real fragments, but not enough of them to remember what had happened as a whole. All I knew for sure was that something huge and terrible had happened in my life, and I was determined to find out what it was........and, to complete "The Meadows" before the Summer was over. Dave and I had met the director David Lynch at an art gallery opening for his paintings, and he had been very enthusiastic and helpful in telling us about contacting PBS. We were excited, me especially.
My second big mistake was trying to contact my ex. And starting up with speed again. It was not a good combination. On speed, restraining orders didn't apply to me. Well, I mean I knew they applied. I was never a person with criminal mentality or intent. Just a guy high on meth who took chances.
I saw my need for answers as more important than any restraining order. I thought she had those answers and went to her house, trying to talk to her. Her boyfriend was there. There was no violence, but certainly a heated discussion. Soon the police came, and I was off to jail again.
This time, I was in for a whole weekend. The judge told me that if he saw me again, I'd "need more than one toothbrush". That was his witty way of saying that he'd send me to jail for over three months, or 90 days. Isn't that the length of time you're supposed to use a toothbrush? :)
I didn't wanna go to jail for more than one toothbrush, or even for the time it took to brush my teeth just once. I never wanted to go back ever again. I am not, and never have been, a Jail Type. Not even close.
I am the opposite of that type. But the speed, I tell ya. Sooner or later, if you use it, you will go to jail. It's happened to every user I ever knew, including Dave. He went, too, eventually.
So, I didn't wanna go back, and I did continue to use meth, even after my weekend in jail for my trip to Lillian's house. This time I would be ultra careful, though, and not do anything stupid. All I would do, I decided, was finish my video and paint paintings with Dave and Steve.
Unfortunately, the L.A. Superior Court system screwed up it's paperwork. I was on probation for both the January trespassing charge and also for my restraining order. Somehow, the Court had scheduled me for two appearances on the same day, in two different courts. This was all unbeknownst to me. I attended the appearance I did know about, but missed the other one across town. It is not possible to attend two hearings on the same day. Both are scheduled for 8am. You can't be in two places at once. All the Court knew, however, was that their computer said that I'd missed a hearing. So, a warrant was put out for my arrest. The cops came to Dad's door one morning in July (I'd been visiting him), and placed me under arrest. When I asked the officer what I'd done wrong, he told me about the warrant for the missed court appearance.
"But I went to an appearance that day", I explained. It did no good. "Tell it to the judge", they say.
They gave me a public defender and I explained it to him. He came back a while later, telling me that, mistake or no mistake by the Court, they (the prosecutors) wanted me to serve three days. "But I haven't done anything", I replied. My lawyer didn't care. The judicial system is a machine, especially at the misdemeanor level. In/Out, grind 'em through. Shut up, serve your time, don't complain or we'll make it worse. He told me to think about it, serving the three days. I told him I would do just that, but apparently I took too much time for his liking. I'd told him, "okay, I'll do the three days", and they'd sent me dowtown this time, to Men's Central Jail. It's a hellhole, the infamous Greybar Hotel that you may have seen in one of my Flickr photos. After three days, I wondered why I wasn't getting called for release. When I finally found out, they told me my release date was actually in twenty-three days. "More paperwork confusion" was the reason. I bitched and complained. "Don't get yourself in here in the first place" was the answer. I didn't bother repeating that I hadn't done anything wrong this time. The Sheriff's didn't give a hoot. So, I just sucked it up and did my time, all twenty three days of it. Luckily for me, after that third horrible day in Men's Central, I got sent to the Supermax up in Castaic, a Real Nice Place as jails go, complete with newspapers, FM radio, cable TV and clean dormitories. Oh, and basketball too. And, a library!
All of that stuff is explored in more detail in my book, "What Happened In Northridge". For now, let's just say that I did my time and got out. While I was in jail, both Mickey Mantle and Jerry Garcia died, two Icons of Americana. When I got home, I went to stay with my Dad, who was living in another building by now. He has ceded the HUD unit to my Mom, and his new building was a block down. I knew my stay with him wouldn't last long, though, because his drinking was worse than ever. He was yelling and screaming all the time. I had my dogs in the apartment, too, and I was trying to stay off speed. Listening to Dad when he was drunk was straining my nerves to the breaking point. I had to find a new place, so I asked Dave if I could move in with him. He told me he would've let me stay there, but the place was full. Besides Steve, there was now another friend living at the house: Ryan, aka "The Prime Minister". He was our meth connection. I had quit (for the time being) but Dave wanted him close by.
It was now September of 1995, and one day I went down to Dave's to hang out and see how things were going, if they were still painting and such. I'd always loved the creativity more than anything, that sense of joy in artistic expression. When I got there, I noticed something immediately.
"Where's Steve"?, I asked. His room was empty, everything was gone.
"Oh, you didn't know"? Dave asked. "We had to kick him out. My Dad got an eviction notice against him".
"But you just told me a week ago that I couldn't move in because he was here, with Ryan too. What happened"?
So, Dave told me. He, Dave, had exploded at Steve over a failure to pay rent. That was Dave's story; I'm not sure that's all there was to it, because Dave was not a guy to lose his temper over money. Most likely it had been a provocation of some kind. Steve had probably found a button to push with Dave, just as he'd pushed mine when he lived with me. The difference was that I just chased Steve. Dave had actually hit him, and when Dave hit Steve, Steve dropped him like a sack of potatoes. Steve was a big guy, Dave was my size.
I'd learned a few things about Steve in the months after the earthquake. He'd mentioned once that he'd done some jail time himself, for jewel smuggling. He said his Dad had gotten him involved in that racket. He said he'd been caught getting off an airplane with some smuggled jewelry, had been caught by the FBI, and they'd given him a choice : become an informant or go to prison for a long time. I never knew if he was making that up or not, but he'd also mentioned that his Dad had once been a bank robber. That I didn't believe at all, until he produced a scrapbook containing an old newspaper clipping. It turned out his Dad had been a bank robber. Maybe Steve was telling the truth about the jewel smuggling, too.
Steve told us one other thing about his Dad. He told us that his Dad was really mean, and that "he'd beat the living shit out of me if my shoes weren't lined up right". I didn't wanna believe that - nobody should ever hurt a kid, or anybody else for that matter - but something had caused Steve to become the way he was. Also, if his Dad had been a bank robber, it wasn't a stretch to believe he'd also been a violent asshole, but excuse my language.
I remember that Steve also had some clippings in his scrapbook about Baseball. Something about Little League, some kind of championship. I mostly thought of him as Steve the troubled guy, though. Steve the artist. The bank robbery and baseball stuff went to the back of my mind. Now he had been evicted from Dave's. Where had he gone?
"He said he was gonna stay with some friends in Topanga", Dave told me. I wondered about that. As long as I'd known him, six years by then, I'd never known Steve to have a single friend except us. And the psychiatrist he consulted, if you can call a shink a friend (and I suppose you can).
I was concerned about Steve, and about the way the eviction had gone down, with the fighting between the guys. I knew Steve didn't have money to pay rent anywhere. He'd been out of the picture for about a week when we finally heard from him again. When he called, Steve wanted to know if I'd help him move a few last belongings out of Dave's house. He said he wanted me there as a buffer and a witness. "I don't trust Dave and his Dad", Steve told me. I said I'd be there, and that I'd help Steve by driving him and his belongings to wherever he was staying in Topanga Canyon. It was no big deal, I assured him. We met at Dave's, packed his stuff up, and drove away. "Can we stop at the store first"?, he asked me.
"Sure", I said.
I will always remember that stop, at a local Sav-On Drugstore in Reseda. Steve just wanted to get a few things, some chips and soda. We got back in the car, and I asked him the directions to the place in Topanga. Steve just told me to take him to the bus stop instead. I still remember, it was the one on Sherman Way and Woodley, right in front of the Toy's R Us. "But this bus doesn't go to Topanga", I observed. "I know that", Steve said, "but I'm gonna visit some other friends first, to see if maybe they can help me find a place".
I didn't know how he was gonna cart all his stuff with him on the bus, but I helped him unload it anyhow, not asking anymore questions. I will always remember that Steve was real straight with me that night. No sarcasm, no needling. He was real sober, calm, like a big brother. "You've been off that stuff, right"? He meant speed. I assured him that I was off it. "Good", he told me. "Keep it that way". I did keep it that way for almost another year. By July 1996, I was back on it for one more year. I had one final arrest, in March 1997, again for something I didn't do. Dad fell down drunk one night, and when Dave came home, he coached Dad to say that I'd pushed him. It was a lie, but Dave called the cops anyway. Dad went to the hospital, and when the cops asked him if he wanted to press charges, he said yes. I was hit with an assault and battery charge this time, and was looking at a year in jail minimum. But I really hadn't pushed my Dad. This time, I got a lawyer who cared, and I had my facts straight. When they subpoenaed Dave and Dad, my lawyer shredded them. Dave's story fell apart, and Dad didn't even show up. Both of them would later be arrested; Dave for freaking out inside the Reseda police station in Summer 1997, and Dad for "assaulting" a worker in an assisted living facility in 1998. Dad was drunk and hit the guy with his cane. He was 77 years old at the time. They were characters, Dave and my Dad. Both gone now, but God Bless 'Em. Better yet, like the sign once said at The Meadows, "God Bless All People". I like to believe that, even if some people don't deserve to be blessed.
What about Steve, you ask? Well, after he got evicted from Dave's house, I moved in. Now there was finally a room for me. My dogs moved in, too. Dave and I proceeded to paint paintings. I had helped Steve move out, presumably to Topanga, though I'd always wondered about that last trip to the bus stop, the bus that didn't go to Topanga.
Around the last week of September 1995, the phone rang at Dave's house. I recall it was early evening. I picked it up, said hello and heard Dad's voice. He said something in that military way of his, that way of talking that made everything sound like a declaration.
He said, "Son - Steve Jennings is dead".
Those were Dad's exact words, and I will never forget them. I don't remember the rest of the phone call verbatim, just a bunch of stuff about The Palisades and Steve's body, and the Coroner.
In Santa Monica, there is a place called Palisades Park. It is a small but lengthy strip of grassy land at the edge of the cliffs that run above Pacific Coast Highway, just across from the ocean. The cliffs - palisades in Spanish - are perhaps 150 to 200 feet above PCH, maybe a little more or less. But they are high enough. There is a fence before the edge of the cliffs, but it is small and wooden, and no deterrent to someone who is desperate.
Dad was explaining to me that Steve had gone to those cliffs, on the night of September 20th as it turned out, and he had jumped off. I couldn't think of anything worse, then or now. I don't know if I was the last guy to see Steve alive, but I think I may have been the last one to talk to him. The night I dropped him at the bus stop was pretty close to the 20th. Steve never had any other friends that I saw, probably none in Topanga, either. I think he got on that bus, went down to Palisades Park and stayed there a couple days. A lot of homeless people sleep there, so he wouldn't have stood out. I think he was there for a day or two, and figured he had reached the end of the line after his eviction from Dave's. There was no place else to stay, no one else to turn to. So he jumped.
I couldn't believe it, then or now. Even at the time, I actually refused to believe it. Weeks later, Dave and I called the Coroner's office and gave them Steve's name and date of birth. All the coroner did was verify it. "Yep. He jumped off a cliff". Those are exact words, too.
Seeing Steve's picture in the paper this morning was something I just couldn't reconcile. The smiling, happy looking clean cut 13 year old in his baseball uniform vs. the man I knew. That's why I say that if they're gonna make a movie about his Dad the bank robber, it shouldn't be a comedy, not even a dark one. Steve wouldn't have thought it was funny, and his life counts too. He mattered, he is part of the story. No one should ever feel driven to suicide, or feel that there is nowhere to turn except the edge of a cliff. No one should ever feel that way.
Steve was once on a championship Little League team that included Rick Dempsey and Robin Yount. Steve himself might have gone on to become a professional baseball player, maybe even a great one like those guys, After all, as it says in the paper, he was the team's "star Catcher". The difference was that he had a Dad who was a bank robber. Maybe a child beater and a jewel smuggler, too. I wonder if Rick Dempsey knows about that, or if he knows what became of Steve, or if he doesn't know, does he wonder? Steve was the coaches' son, after all, the bank robber coach Dempsey wants to make a movie about. I hope they do make a movie. I think Steve would like that. It wouldn't have to be a horror story, but it could be done telling the real story, in a poignant and poetic way. What's more poetic than baseball, right? The past is poetic, too. So is tragedy.
But this story is not a comedy, Please don't sell it as one. Please think of Steve, the son who paid a huge price for the sins of his father.
Imagine being that clean cut kid, that star Catcher, one minute on a championship team, the next - finding out that your Dad had been the master criminal the police have been searching for, for months.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 18 days after John Jennings was arrested for the bank robberies, and his case was all but forgotten about in the tumult of what followed. Then came The Beatles, in February 1964, and the 1960s were under way. Steve had to live his life in The Wreckage Of What Came Before. His life was that memory, of his Dad, of robberies, of a baseball dream crushed very suddenly.
But looking back, he was a pretty good guy. I didn't like living with him, but he taught me about painting. Steve also had a saying that he got, I think, from Ram Dass the philosopher :
"Thought Creates Reality".
I told Steve once, "That should be amended, to "Action plus thought, creates reality". I always thought, back then at least, that you had to do something in order to create, that you couldn't just imagine your own reality. But I think now that Steve may have been right. I think my own reality all the time now, every day, and I don't even need drugs to do it. I've been clean for 16 years and will be forever more.
Dad, Dave and Steve are all gone, but I am here and Life Is Magical. I know that because that's my reality. I think it, and create it, and It Is.
So, thanks Steve. And thanks for all the talks and the paintings. I am grateful for having known you, and that the good parts of your reality became a part of mine. //////
The End. Thanks for reading. :):)
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