LIGHTNING IN
GRAY CLOUDS

11/9/04

Jeff Burk Photo

(With apologies to the memory of William S. Burroughs and the reps of James Ellroy and Hunter Thompson.)

After I saw the recent posting in our electromagnetic rag on NHRA 2002 taxes, I knew what I had to do. 22-23 years of loyal, misshapen service to the association, wiped out with the stroke of a computer key. Me and 20 other drag racing dummies. St. Valentine’s Day on June 22, 1998. Cut loose, lying in a ditch, sprinkled with sand, our throats slit, the hermit crabs dancing wildly on the cold flesh of meat locker talent. Okay, amigo, two can play this game.

Six years later.

We were in the high fashion hills above Claremont, overlooking Harvey Mudd College, Pomona Raceway, and NHRA headquarters. I was shoe-horned in the back seat with “Fat Ralph” Provenzano, and Jimmy and Markie Menichelli. In the cockpit were the notorious Fasta brothers, “Joey Bop,” and the Lord high fixer, Adolph Ritacco’s best friend, Mino, as in “Mean-o!”

Just down the winding drive, a house or two away, were the East L.A. car “dealers”, “Juan-Tanamera” and “Keeny” Parra in a fat-assed Buick Riviera. If anything went wrong, one of us, the guy with the TEKs, would hit the Fastas’ old Chrysler and get it out of there, and the rest of would go with “Los Parras.”

Da’ Boss’ Mercedes snaked-hipped its way up Whispering Glades Drive and headed for the driveway. With his salt-and-pepper hair militarily coiffed into flawless law and order, and his Republican formality, he alit from the shiny beast in the crescent-shaped driveway and strode comfortably and confidently through the polished, oaken, brass-laced front-doors into home and his usual twilight unwinding routine.

The game was a heaven-sent lock. But me? Body sweats, giant red eyeballs, and hands shaking like a margarita maker. The boss was out to the poolside, and top-line Home Depot patio furniture.

Over the shoulder to the dutiful wife, “Honey, have Oscar bring us some drinks, and bring your butt out here.”

The Better Homes & Gardens couple was silhouetted in the peach-hued sunset backlighting the million dollar horizon.

Perfect.

Fat Ralph, the Menichellis and I took the concrete ribbon alongside the house and through the flower garden to the Hawaiian backyard fence, its only protection being a U-shaped lift on a silver pole. We slid through like smoke, a fat cat on a shag rug.

There he was, holding down a chaise lounge in front of a kidney-shaped Anthony Bros. pool.

“Chris!!??” This is an unexpected surprise. "Who are your friends .. the ones with the … ohmigod, sweet Jesus, noooo .."

The three TEK-9s kicked out of the coats like Vegas chorus legs. Fireworks show spitting snot and fire, screaming soundtrack, the slaughter of innocents drowned in the wooden indifference of neighborhood trees.

Too bad. Old Oscar, a southern-style gentleman negro, took the first blast, a blood-spattering throat explosion above his starched collar that sent him through the plate glass of the sliding den door. The screwy logic of firecrackers in a Chinatown nighttime nightmare.