Okay, make sure and read last night's blog to get up to speed (no pun intended), and we shall continue. I just now re-read the blog myself, and while it was not as well written as I would have liked (I was tired), I think it nevertheless described the basic setup of the Northridge Hospital parking lot incident involving Howard Schaller. The question we arrived at was "How did Howard Schaller know "X"? Other questions could be asked in the same vein, such as "How did Howard Schaller know we would be at the hospital"?, or "Did "X" know Howard"?
The latter two questions did not really cross my mind for many years. "Yeah....some Detective you are, Ad", I hear you saying. I know it sounds lame. But the investigation into 1989 was so multifaceted, so gigantic, that I was constantly switching from event to event, detail to detail. I mean, this thing was - and is - huge. So when I hit a brick wall in trying to figure out a certain detail, I would just switch over to another event and work on that. As I said last night, it should have been easy to figure out how Howard Schaller knew "X". The answer was right there, hiding in plain sight. Howard was a drug dealer, and not just a small-time marijuana guy but a methamphetamine seller. He sold to many people in the Metrocolor Lab, which was how I got introduced to the drug. And he was also a biker. Not a member of a biker club, but I would wager that he knew a lot of outlaw people.
The main obstacle to my understanding of the relationship between Howard and "X", besides the total absurdity and incongruity of it on the surface, was that "X" - as far as I knew - was not part of the drug world in any way. By September 1989, I had known "X" for nine years, and in all that time I had never seen "X" use drugs or have anything to do with them. "X" did not even smoke marijuana, nor even drink except for the occasional wine cooler. Therefore, I suppose I had a mental block when it came to connecting "X" to Howard Schaller through drugs.
That mental block lasted for twenty years. During all that time, when I thought of the Hospital parking lot incident, I just figured there must have been some crazy reason for Howard's attack, probably having to do with MGM and me, some past grievance that I couldn't fathom. I even did a lot of Google research back in the early 2000s and discovered that the Metrocolor Lab went out of business and closed up for good in late August 1989. In other words, Howard Schaller had very recently lost his job at MGM, after working there since about 1959. "Maybe he was pissed about that", I guessed.
But none of it made sense. And so for twenty years, from 1996 when the memory came back, to 2016, I couldn't figure out why Howard attacked our car that night, on September 1, 1989, and I couldn't understand how he knew "X" or why he was so infuriated at "X".
Then, one day two years ago, the answer hit me like a bolt out of the blue. Here's how it came to me :
I recalled something that my friend Mr. D once said to me back in the late 80s, perhaps around 1988. At the time, he worked at a flower shop in Canoga Park called "Mr. B's Flowers". You can Google it for authenticity, and to put you in the neighborhood. I wasn't seeing Mr. D as much in 1988, because our band had broken up, and he was living with his girlfriend "K" (who will figure later on in other details about 1989). They lived for a time in a house in Canoga Park that was rented by our mutual friend Shecky, a musician who grew pot for a living. Then, in late 1988, Mr. D and "K" moved to the house on Burton Street in Reseda that was owned by his parents, and which I myself would move to many years later in 1995. My point, however, was that in the last couple of years of the 1980s, I did not see Mr. D very much. He had been my best friend, and would remain so, but he had more or less disappeared from my life from late '88 to mid-1993.
However, during one phone call in about Fall 1988, he mentioned something offhand.
"Hey, guess who came into the shop the other day"? He meant Mr. B's Flower Shop.
I replied that I had no idea.
"Howard Schaller", Mr. D informed me. D said that Howard picked up a flower arrangement he had ordered, but then he speculated something......"he's probably selling to people in the shop".
Selling speed, he meant. D had worked at Mr. B's since 1982, and I knew from his reports that the shop was fueled by drugs, top to bottom. Most folks who worked there were using, including the bosses. So when Mr. D told me in 1988 that Howard had "stopped by" the shop, I made an educated guess that maybe he was selling to someone in the store. Or maybe more than one person.
The kicker was that Howard lived just around the corner from Mr. B's Flowers, near Hart Street (and again you can Google map it). Howard lived just a minute away, so it was not a stretch to figure that he might have drug customers at the store, which was full of druggies.
My good friend Mr. D, God rest his soul, was a hard core drug user. He was harder core than me, and I was pretty hard core. But I had had enough by 1997, and I quit. I quit everything.
D did not quit, and he died in 2008, at 47 years of age.
But to get back to the story, when I remembered - in 2016 - what D had told me in that phone call from 1988, that Howard Schaller had come into his place of work at the flower shop, I began to think.
And I thought......."Wait a minute. Mr. D used to ride with me over to Howard's house, every week in the Summer of 1982. He would always wait in the car while I went inside and scored, but he knew of Howard and had an association with him, through me, since 1982. Heck, he sat in my car, in front of Howard's house while I was inside, week after week".
And Dave was very addicted, to the extent that it wound up killing him. And he worked in a shop where everyone used drugs, and where it seemed like Howard - who lived around the corner - might have been a supplier.
A lightbulb appeared over my head, and I put two and two together. I myself had not seen Howard since 1982, and thus had not used speed since that time, by 1988. But Mr. D, being very addicted, may well have approached Howard when he was in the flower shop, especially if he knew that Howard was selling to others in the shop. He might have told Howard, "Hey, do you remember Adam? Yeah, I know him". And so perhaps Howard would have trusted him and begun to sell to him.
As I said, I didn't see Mr. D very much between late 1988 and mid-93. It was like he disappeared with his girlfriend "K", who will play a very important role in the story (if I ever get to that point).
Here's the bottom line for tonight. This took me twenty years to figure out, but I believe that Mr. D did indeed make himself known to Howard Schaller while working at Mr. B's Flowers, which he himself told me Howard had frequented.
I believe that, during the time period beginning in late-1988, during which I did not see D for about five years, that he became a customer of Howard Schaller, completely independent of my own connection to Howard, who I had not seen for many years by that time. D wanted to get speed, and so he got up the balls to introduce himself to Howard, who came into his flower shop.
And now, he knew Howard personally himself.
For twenty years, I could not understand how Howard knew "X" that terrible night in September 1989.
But then it hit me : "The only possible connection for "X" to know Howard was through Mr. D. He was the only other person who had any connection whatsoever, among the people we mutually knew, to Howard Schaller".
Howard was a guy I knew, beginning in 1979, when I first started working at MGM. Mr. D didn't know him then. And I didn't even know "X" in 1979.
But I knew Howard. And by 1982, I was driving to Howard's house every week, with Mr. D in the passenger seat.
Mr. D was the only other person in our circle who had any association with Howard.
Therefore, in 2016, my question was finally answered.
"How did Howard Schaller the meth dealer know "X"?
Through my best friend Mr. D, that's how. D must have been a go-between in a drug deal, involving "X" and the late but not-so-great Howard Schaller.
There is no doubt about it, and we will explore the situation further when we next write and read about 1989.
Perhaps tomorrow night.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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