Okay, tonight we are gonna talk a little bit about 1989. Nothing major, it'll be ground I've covered many times before. I will not use names, just identifying letters like "X", "Y" and "Z", and I won't use genders. You who were involved know who you are. I'm going easy because I'm not mad at anyone and not as full of fire about the case as I was in 1997 or 2006, when I did name names on Myspace. Now, while I am not upset any longer, I am still just as determined as ever to find the truth.
Actually, make that twice as determined. Ten times as determined. I have to know what happened, and why, because it has had such an enormous effect on my life, and in 12 years I will be 70. And 12 years go by fast. In fact, it was 12 years ago this Summer that I began to write about What Happened In Northridge in earnest, for my book. That was in 2006, twelve years ago now. Yes indeed it does go by fast. And as the time has gone by, years and years of it, what has struck me is the Absolute Silence about 1989. Everybody who was involved in it knows what happened, and yet no one but me has ever talked about it. That part - the Total Silence - has been even harder for me to deal with than the memories of the events themselves. So I need to do what I can, because in 12 years I will be 70.
I will write letters to the CIA, I will perhaps write a letter to Ann at some point in the future, and I will write here at the blog, on and off. Therefore, with malice toward no one, with only the whole truth as my goal, here we go.
Let me preface by saying that there are two aspects to the case : one is what I will call the Local Aspect, the stuff that seems to have involved my friends and people in the neighborhood, and likely some drug connections and very likely some sexual connections. The other aspect I will call the Federal Aspect, which deals with all the far out, crazy sounding stuff like movie stars and soldiers and politicians and even possible aliens who were present during the proceedings. I will leave the Federal Aspect alone for now and focus just on a detail or two from the Local Aspect.
Here is a detail that took me about 20 years to make sense of. It took place the first night, September 1, 1989. I was in a car in the parking lot of Northridge Hospital. Those who are familiar with the story have heard this a dozen times at least. In the car was "M", the driver; "A" in the passenger seat, and "V" was in the back seat with me. These three had taken me to the hospital. I will not rehash the reason why because everyone knows it. The visit to the hospital was not successful, and we were getting ready to leave. A car then pulled up next to ours. Inside was "T"; "T's mother, who was driving, and "X". The people in our car shouted to "X" to join us, to leave the car "X" was in and ride with us. After some persuasion, "X" did so, getting into the back seat with "V" and myself. And then we tried to leave. But suddenly, before we could back out of the parking space we were in - and in fact before our driver "M" even started the car, something crazy happened. A madman came out of nowhere and attacked our car from outside.
This man's name was Howard Schaller. He was born in 1938 and is now deceased. At the time, Howard Schaller would have been 51 years old. He was powerfully built, with the upper torso of a weightlifter, and he attacked our car, with five people inside, with the full force of his body. He had a steel towing chain in his hand, and he threw himself against the trunk while swinging the heavy chain against the back window. Needless to say, it scared the hell out of everyone inside the car. People were yelling at the driver "M" to get us the hell out of there. But we couldn't because Howard Schaller was all over the car, hitting it with his chain and his fist, and we were terrified. He was trying to open the doors, and that is when I saw his face.
In an incredulous whisper, mostly to myself, I said "Howard"?
A few moments earlier, all I knew was that an enraged maniac was trying to either demolish or break into our car, but now that maniac had a face - one that I recognized in near disbelief.
I couldn't make sense of it. What was my former shift boss at MGM doing? Was he trying to kill us? It sure seemed so, but why? All of this was happening so fast. All I could register, in my state of shock, was "It's Howard Schaller.....but why is this happening"?
The reason why became clear in a few more seconds. Howard, peaking with anger, was interested in getting at a single person within the car. That person was "X", who had just entered the car a minute or so before the attack began. Now, trying to pick the lock on "X"'s passenger door, Howard shouted epithets at "X", horrible and frightening things. "M", our driver, was trying to get us out of there, but now we were at an angle where we were blocked by another car, or by a curb or tree or something. I think it was a car, but anyway, we were sandwiched in. Howard was out to get his hands on "X". I do not exaggerate when I say that he sounded murderous.
We in the car told "X" to lock the door and stay put. But everything was happening so fast, and it was all so terrifying. Rage is the word I use to describe it, or rather, "enraged". Howard Schaller, a guy I used to work with at MGM from 1979 to 1982, was enraged, totally out of control, and big and strong like a football player. Or a biker, which he actually was.
What he was doing there at the hospital I had no idea. I was still "out of it" from the ordeal that caused "A" to want to take me to Northridge Hospital in the first place. But I sure knew Howard. Not only had he been my shift boss when I worked at the MGM Metrocolor Film Lab, he had also been my Speed Dealer from mid-1980 through the Fall of 1982. I got turned on to "crank", a cheap form of methamphetamine, while working in the lab as a 19 year old. Very quickly, I was hooked. At first, I bought it via a friend who knew Howard but soon enough I was buying it directly from the foreboding but somewhat humorous man himself.
And by the Summer of 1982, I was driving over to Howard's house in Canoga Park on a weekly basis, to buy a gram of "crank". It was pretty good stuff, but not even close to the speed we got from Bob 15 years later. That stuff was rocket fuel. But I digress, and don't take speed because you won't be able to handle it and something bad will happen to you.
Back to the story, as we shouted at "X" to lock the car door, "X" did something entirely different, to the extreme fright of the rest of us. "X" opened the door and got out of the car, to face Howard Schaller alone. After that, I opened the door on my side and got out too. You can figure out why.
A confrontation ensued, but I am not here tonight to review that.
I am here to tell you about the detail that took me twenty years to figure out. You see, when my memories came back, I could not for the life of me understand why Howard Schaller would have been in the Northridge Hospital parking lot that night, attacking us. More specifically, I could not understand his interest in "X".
"Why was he not after me"?, I wondered. "I'm the guy who knew him".
But then I thought, "what would he want with me? I had not seen him since 1982, a full seven years before the incident in the parking lot".
I was vexed for decades about why Howard, my old drug dealer and shift boss at Metrocolor, would have wanted to extricate "X" out of our car that night. And i was equally vexed at why "X" would have voluntarily left the car to face him - a murderous man. During the confrontation that ensued, in which I stood next to "X", it was clear that "X" and Howard knew each other.
But how could this be?
I was the one who knew Howard. I was the one who had worked with him, even if it was seven years ago. "How in the world could he possibly know "X"?
"And why would he have wanted to hurt "X" that night"? Hell, the way he was talking, I thought he wanted to kill "X". That's how scary it was.
Howard Schaller was a big, burly, longhaired biker who looked like a Hell's Angel. I had worked with him at MGM Laboratories in the early 1980s, and I had bought speed from him during that time.
And then I hadn't seen him for seven years. But now, all of a sudden it seemed like he wanted to kill "X". I couldn't understand how he could even know "X", even as I stood at "X" 's defense.
It took me twenty years to figure it out, though the answer was staring me in the face the whole time.
Tomorrow night, we will talk about how Howard Schaller could have known "X", and why he would have been infuriated that night, to the point of wanting to commit an ultra-violent assault.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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