Orange Crush

I saw those movies at a different drive-in on another night when I joined Kevin and his sister Cindy on a night out with their parents later that summer. On the trip back from the concession stand we caught their parents making out in the front seat of their spacious white Buick. They looked like two love-crazed teenagers going at it. Preoccupied as they were, they didn’t see us. Kevin had a flashlight and beamed it on them, saying in the lowest voice he could muster, "What’s going on in there?" Mrs. Ferring screamed a blood-curdler that blended in sync with the other sounds of carnage up on the screen. Mr. Ferring’s head hit the roof when he popped up. He gave us a look that would have normally killed as sure as a Mothra death ray, but with his disheveled red hair and the smeared red lipstick around his mouth, he looked like Bozo.

"Why don’t you kids get the sleeping bags and watch the movies in the park up front there", he panted.

That wasn’t a request; it was an order.

"Yes, good idea, honey. Have fun kids..." Mrs. Ferring agreed quickly while she adjusted the rear view mirror to apply a fresh layer of lipstick and combed her fingers through her hair.

Kevin carried the three bags while Cindy and I brought the popcorn and orange soda. We unrolled the bags and sat in the grass with our backs to the fence. Speakers we pulled over from a nearby post dangled above us as we craned our necks to watch the gargantuan mutant dinosaur fry King Kong with his atomic breath. I stood up at one point to stretch and looked back at the Buick. I couldn’t see Mr. and Mrs. Ferring. The windows were steamed up.

Kevin’s sister, Cindy, like her dad, had red hair, bright orange like Lucy Ricardo. And like Kevin, was covered with freckles. Her freckles and scars didn’t obscure the fact she was really cute. Every time I looked over at Cindy, she smiled back. It was driving me nuts.

I secretly liked her and wanted to kiss her so bad my stomach ached. This wasn’t puppy love; I wanted to lap her face like a dog. I’d seen enough Frankie and Annette make-out scenes in those stupid beach movies that I figured I was ready to give it a go. You just kind of puckered up and mashed your lips together until you ran out of air. I was dying to try it out on Cindy. But it didn’t seem like the right time for romance at a Godzilla movie. Anyway, I would, could, never do it with Kevin there. But as luck would have it, he had to make a run to the restroom. I scooted over next to Cindy, on Kevin’s sleeping bag, and nodded awkwardly at her as I tried to think of something romantic to say. She stared back at me as she sipped her soda. My eyes moved down and were suddenly glued to her lips around the straw.

“Can, can I have a sip…of your soda? Mine ran out,” I said.

Uh, real romantic, I thought, as Godzilla screeched above us. She handed me her soda and I took a sip from the straw her lips had just touched. I was about to chicken-out, when I blurted, “ Bet your lips taste like Orange Crush too.”

She blinked and looked at me, then smiled.

“Probably…” she said.

I leaned over and closed my eyes (that’s what they did in the movies) and kissed her, missing her lips entirely and instead laid a wet-one on her chin. She kindly adjusted and our lips locked. A warm tingly sensation ricocheted around in my gut, down to my toes and back up again. No wonder Frankie was all over Annette, this was great! Cindy tasted like Orange Crush: zesty and delicious. I didn’t know what to do after I came up for air so I just said, “Thanks!”
“You’re welcome,” she said and smiled that beautiful freckled smile again.

“Mike…”

“Yeah?”

“Can I have my soda back?”

That was my first real kiss. Every time I taste an Orange soda I can’t help but think about Cindy…and damn it, Godzilla too.


Fight Club

My personal time shared with the Adams clan was primarily at the house or when we went out as a family unit to church or the zoo. We painted a portrait of civility when we were out in public. At home it was like Picasso’s painting… Guernica. When our parents were out or my mom was pre-occupied on the other side of the house, mayhem ruled. There were days we were so bored we decided to fight for the fun of it. A seemingly innocent wrestling match or pillow fight would escalate into an all out brawl after someone got pissed. One of us always managed to get hurt. Not seriously, but squealing-pig-hurt, I guess. An ill-aimed karate chop, a poked eye, or say, an accidental bite might occur in the fracas. More than once, someone’s skull bounced off a hard wood floor. I’d do the Three Stooges hit-my-fist-routine, where you hold it out—someone hits the top of your fist—creating a quick opposite and not so equal reaction and you’d nail the dupe on the noggin with a swinging vertical roundhouse hammer-blow. Sometimes, you kind of missed the target and delivered a painful blow to a nose or a tender ear. Then you’d nearly smother the squealing sibling by clamping their chops shut to muffle the crying. If that didn’t work, the injured party would be ditched and left bawling wherever the incident occurred. Fingers were pointed, denials made, and if my mom remembered later, possible retribution awaited the offending party when Dad got home.

I guess it was cruel, in retrospect, but it was definitely entertaining and funny as hell when we forced my sister Laura and brother John to fight each other. Karen was never included in these events because she would have told on us or been a killjoy and put a stop to the festivities before they began. John was four, Laura six and a half, both were thin and wiry with sun-bleached dirty blond hair and always game for the battle. We had rules, not Marquess of Queensbury etiquette per say, but the competition had a semblance of civility to it. Fighters could be disqualified for intentional face punching or groin kicks. Hair pulling was tolerated as long as it remained attached to the scalp, inadvertent face rakes were ignored and grunting was permitted. No yelling, screaming out in pain, and definitely no crying!

We encircled them as they faced off like roosters in a cockfight. Rounds lasted a few minutes with a minute break in between as the fighters caught their breath and were coached for the next go-round. My brother, John, I’d describe as a grappler. He would drive forward, his hands protecting his head as he went in low for a leg-take-down. As he did so he received a vicious pummeling from Laura, a boxer, who employed a windmill fighting technique of churning arms and fists. John would retreat under a rain of blows until he found an opening. Laura kept him at bay or would quickly squirm free if she were taken down. If John curled up in the assault, Laura would vault on top of his back and beat him around the head and neck. The next second, she’d be flipped on her back in a reversal and be subdued in a choke-hold/crab-leg-lock combination. Back and forth it went, the rest of us cheering as they beat the crap out of each other.

Gore Fest

Gore-fest

Besides that Padres baseball game, our Dad took us to see a San Diego State University football game on another occasion. Don Coryell was in his last year as the head coach there before stepping up to coach the Chargers. His assistant coach at State was Joe Gibbs, an alumni and letterman on the Aztecs from 1961-63. When Coryell left, Gibbs took the helm at San Diego State and led them to an undefeated season his first time out. Watching football was relatively new to us but Dad managed to explain the basic nuances of the game as it played out so we would know what was going on. It was just as fun and loud as baseball. Mid-way through the third quarter and my second soda, I had to find a bathroom.

The men’s room facility was absolutely horrific. It was under construction, I don’t know, but there were no barriers between the urinals or toilets. The center urinal was a long open knee-high tub, twelve feet long, equipped with a sprinkler bar above it to keep it flushed. You stood on either side of it facing someone else, adults, unzipped and exposed. If that wasn’t disgusting enough, rows of toilets were out in the open. Guys sat on the pots with their pants around their knees staring sullenly at floor tiles. I pretended I only came in to wash my hands and got the hell out of there. Outside, I found my way to the back of the building and left my mark on the wall.

We faced more horror that night when Dad decided we’d take a little detour on the way home. We headed south, to within a mile of the Mexican border.

“You guys like scary movies, right?”

(Does a bear shit in the woods?)

“Yeah,” we answered.

“I’m gonna smuggle you in.”

“What—Yeah?”

My dad may have spent most of his money that night at the game or he just wanted to save a buck, or we were too young to be allowed in; I’m not sure, but he had a plan. He was in the military, after all, having once worked in a U.S. Embassy and had to know about espionage techniques and stuff. We pulled over to the side of the road when The South Bay Drive-in sign came into view. It was featuring a triple-header of blood-sport. Before I ducked down I read aloud the movie listing: “Color Me Blood Red, 2000 Maniacs and Blood Feast.”

“Ok, you boys duck down behind the seat, that’s right, on the floor. I’ll pull backseat down and cover you up. Don’t say a word, don’t breathe, I’ll handle this.”

“Sir, Yes Sir!”

When the car pulled up to the admission/guard booth we held our breath. What would happen if we were discovered? Was there a law about smuggling kids into bad movies? When the guy said, “Evening, how many?” my dad intentionally cleared his throat and calmly answered, “Just one.” I almost blew our cover with a fit of suppressed giggling. My heart raced as the money was exchanged, papers examined, or whatever went on. “Thanks,” I heard Dad say as we pulled away from the checkpoint. I waited for the guy to figure out our cunning ruse at the last possible second, and yell out in a thick German accent, “Halt! HALT!” followed by a spray of machine gunfire.

Instead, I heard the pop of gravel as we drove up the hill and the sound of distant screams as we drove into the movie lot.

“Are we there yet?”

“Shhh! I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.”

After another loop around Dad found an open spot with no vehicles on either side of us and steered the car into position up a small incline. He flipped up the folding seat and announced, “The coast is clear!” Joe and I stealthily crept out into the bright flickering light of the movie screen, looking guiltily around. The lot was half-filled and nobody seemed to pay us any mind. Mission accomplished. We eagerly climbed through the windows and pulled in the metal speakers from the posts and rolled the windows halfway up to hook them on the lip of the window.

Dad made a quick run to bring back some refreshments as the closing credits for the first feature “Color Me Blood Red” was scrolling down the screen. Shame, I probably would have liked that one because it was about a painter who used human blood, (altar-sacrificed model’s blood) when he ran out of crimson red. Oh, well.

Herschel Gordon Lewis, the “Godfather of Gore” directed the infamous blood and mayhem trilogy. They were visceral campy drive-in fare that sidestepped vague censorship laws and quality filmmaking that would have made fellow low budget director, Ed Wood, (Plan 9 from Outer Space,) proud. The Lewis films unlocked the door that let out Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers in the 80’s.

“Blood Feast” was about this insane bug-eyed Egyptian caterer who butchered people for their body parts as sacrifice to an Egyptian god, Ishtar, who actually was a Babylonian goddess. So much for details, and for that matter, good acting and film technique…let the slaughter begin!

I’m not sure what made you cringe more, the dismembered limbs or the acting. But the ending was pretty satisfying. The two dumb-ass detectives, as Dad called them, finally did something right and somehow managed to chase the killer into the back of a trash truck. It was an unfortunate choice for a hiding place; the caterer was crushed in the compactor.

“Two Thousand Maniacs” was a fun knee-slappin’ Hee Haw kill fest with a lively blue grass sound track. A carload of Yankee tourists is lured into a small off the road Southern town. The welcoming citizens—vengeful ghosts of the Civil War, invite their special guests to the town’s carnival-like centennial celebration. A girl gets a splinter in her thumb and a friendly local pulls out his whittling knife and offers to remove it. Her thumb, that is. She, well, parts of her, are roasted over a barbeque pit as the rednecks passed around moonshine jugs and sang hillbilly campfire songs. Four horses pull apart her boyfriend limb by limb. Yee Haw! The tension was unbearable; (Oh No, Dad finished off a big box of popcorn. In an enclosed space like we were, the consequences could be deadly.) Another couple is dispatched soon after. The girl is tied down on a wooden platform below a huge boulder as the folks take turns until one hits the bull’s-eye, triggering the release lever.

Crunch!

Having personally survived a similar ordeal, minus the nails, the worst death scene was the last. The squashed girl’s boyfriend gets rolled down a hill inside a barrel; his was spiked though with nails. The boy was hamburger when he reached the bottom. The third couple escapes so the movie ended on an uplifting note. Joe and I clapped our approval. We thought the movies were bloody good.

There was one last possible horror that awaited us when we got home…Mom. She would be absolutely appalled if she found out what we had seen. Dad briefed us, making it clear that what we saw that night was to be kept “Top Secret.” In case we happen to be cross-examined later, we’d have to come up with a good story. After a brief discussion on the ride home, we decided on a Godzilla double feature: “King Kong vs. Godzilla” and “Mothra Against Godzilla.” The plots, easy…Godzilla kicks King Kong’s Kiester and Godzilla makes mince meat of Mothra.