A bunch of savages in this town.

Living in San Pedro there wasn’t a lot of places to play. We played in an old cemetery and construction sites. It was the 70’s and there wasn’t a whole lot of security at the sites. Once the crew was done for the day, we would invade. We would run around the half built structures and play Hide and Seek.


When I was five we had our choice of two sites to play on. The first one was on 24th street. Every kid in the neighbor hood knew that was our site. No one else could play there but us. The other was on some street that intersected 23rd and 24th. We didn’t play there much, a bunch of teenagers hung out at that one.

We decided we wanted to claim it as our own. We walked up to the teenagers and told them we were going to play there. “Fuck you babies” was the response. They said they will beat us up if we stayed. We turned and ran.



WHAM! Something smacked the back of my head. I fell face first in the street.

“Shit man you hit him!”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here before he tells on us.”



Hal and Joey G. (The same Joey G. from the Noel incident) picked me up. My back was all wet. I put my hand on the back of my head. I looked at my hand. It was covered in matted hair and blood. There was a broken beer bottle next to my feet. The bastard threw a beer bottle at a five year old kid. Hal yelled out to the teenagers that we are going to kill them. I started crying. Hal and Joey G. walked me home. My mom threw me in the back seat and we drove to the emergency room. The nurse shaved the back of my head and comforted me. The Dr. came in and cleaned the cut out. He kept squirting water into and spreading it open looking for glass. It hurt like hell. He stitched me up and I was on my way home. I got sit in the library for recess for the next couple days.
We never told anyone who actually hit me. As far as the parents know, clutzy old Verne fell down and sliced his head open.