Tommy’s Roof (Preview for free subscribers; become a paid subscriber to read the whole piece)
White working-class chaos (Michael Mohr's autobiographical fiction)
This is a retread again. It went out over a year ago to only a few hundred subscribers. Here she is again.
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Tommy’s Roof
Retired cops and ex-Hell’s Angels have to have kids somewhere and Oak View, California—ten miles east of the coastal town of Ventura—is where they do.
Scott Casey’s father was an ex-Hell’s Angel.
Scott swings the covers off his bed and grunts, yawning and coughing almost at the same time.
He catches his blue eyes in the bathroom mirror for a moment and frowns, insidious. He slams the toilet cover, a loud thud against the porcelain, and presses the lever to flush.
Scott enters the kitchen. Tommy, his father, and his mother are eating and drinking coffee. The Los Angeles Times is covering his father’s face. His mother’s eyes drift up creepily, zeroing in on Scott. Her eyes squint hard nails. She’s reading the editorial section of the Times. She drops the paper with a thud.
“Scottie, what the hell is wrong with you, stop scratching yourself like an animal. And put on some clothes for Christ sake!”
Tommy sets the Times down, a picture of the Aurora, Colorado twenty-four-year-old killer on the cover. Tommy’s tough tendons flex. The thick, vein-throbbing neck and chiseled but aged cheekbones are what always scare Scott the most.
Tommy’s hulking, mangled hands scrunch up the Times. He eyes his derelict son.
“C’mere boy,” Tommy says. A deep, rough, scratchy voice; a voice which had commanded beatings, administered citizen justice, taken the law into its own hands. That voice. It was a demon voice, but it was a voice Scott couldn’t afford to ignore. Not while he was living under Tommy’s roof.
Scott moves forward, tiny steps like a docile mouse: weak, mellow, easy. Not his usual countenance.
Tommy looks at Scott, hard, the yellow irises of Tommy’s cold eyes dominating Scott’s. Scott swallows. Tommy lets go of the Times, and extends his hand, roughly rubbing Scott’s head.
“Shaved it again, eh?” Tommy says, pulling his hand away and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yeah,” Scott says. “Ain’t a crime is it?”
Tommy remains motionless. Scott knows this trick. It is akin to a rattlesnake, lying in wait. Tommy would strike without warning.
And he does.
Tommy grabs Scott’s wrist harshly. Scott begins writhing, trying to loosen the hold.
“Lemme go,” pleads Scott. “Mom…”
His mother looks at Tommy. “Tommy, c’mon let ‘im go; he’s gonna be late for school again.”
“Stay out of this woman,” Tommy fires. He tightens his grip.
“C’mon, man!” Scott shouts. Tommy swings his left arm, which has been lying on the breakfast table.
He catches Scott in his right cheek. Scott goes down.
His mother shoots up immediately.
“Goddamn you Tommy, don’t you touch my son, you hear me you sonofa—”
Tommy leaps up and smacks her clean in the face. She bends and almost goes over, but catches hold of the chair and gains balance somehow. She glowers at Tommy and there is a half tear in her eye. She’s used to this. She can’t leave him: the house is in his name, he pays the mortgage, and he had paid for both cars, plus his two motorcycles. One was a black Harley, just like Ron Holden’s.
Ron Holden—Scott’s best friend Eric’s father—and Tommy Casey were good pals. They’d been friends since the eighties.
Ron Holden had led an honest Flife. Tommy Casey had lied, cheated and stolen. Tommy’d run, as president of the Oak View Chapter, the rugged and nefarious Hell’s Angels. But he’d done one thing which would forever capture Ron’s respect: Tommy’d lived on his wits, and, furthermore, he’d never once, not one time, done anything he didn’t want to do. Unless, of course, you’re talking about jail time.
“You bastard!” Scott’s mom screams. Tommy takes a step forward and she cowers. Scott is still on the floor. Scott had tried once to fight back and the results had been worthy of remembering and never repeating.
“Remember what I told ya, boy. What did I tell ya? Huh? Speak up, Scottie,” Tommy says.
Scott, still sitting on the hardwood floor, wipes tear residue from his eye and looks at his father in anguish.
“You said: I don’t want you lookin’ like no Oak View skinhead.”
“That’s right, boy. That’s exactly what I said. Maybe you can explain your shaved head, huh?”
Scott takes a deep breath and pulls himself up. Standing, he faces his oppressor. Scott’s thin blue lips quiver for an instant and then he sniffles.
“Sorry, sir.”
Tommy eyes Scott with determination. He swivels his gaze to his wife.
“I expect you to do as I say, boy. And woman, don’t you undermine me.”
Tommy shakes his shoulders and walks off. She hugs Scott tightly and cries for a moment, then breathes, in, out, in, out. Scott runs his hands through her hair. In a minute they hear the familiar sound of the Harley’s engine, filling the house with mind-bending loudness.
Then the engine noise speeds off, decreasing, becoming softer, softer, fading into the distance.
“I’m gonna kill the sonofabitch,” Scott says, slamming his fist against the kitchen counter.
She begins clearing the table. This is the usual routine. Violence, then her cleaning up for Tommy. Protecting Scott.
“Honey, could you help me clear this table, please? Then you got to go to school, you’re going to be late.”
“Did you hear me, ma?”
Silence.
“I said I’m going to kill the bastard.”
*
Ventura High campus was off of Thompson Avenue.
About two-thousand kids attended. Most of these kids were blue collar. No pre-Yale or pre-Harvard or pre-Princeton students here. No parochial safe haven. Just cliques and cool kids and losers and meth heads and punkers and metal-rockers and, of course, jocks.
The Oak View Crew was a wild, unflashy group. The Oak View boys were raw violence and un-pretty truthfulness. When they staked a claim, it was for keeps. When they said “meet behind the Chemistry building after the last bell,” they’d be there. They didn’t mess around.
And, of course, there were girls, too, at Ventura High on Thompson Avenue.
There were two camps of chicks at Ventura High: the Oak View girls, and all the others. The Oak View ladies were, among other things, not like other chicks. They were tough. Tough and mean: ruthless. One O.V. chick—Scott’s girlfriend—Samantha De Little, had smashed a forty-ounce Mickey’s malt-liquor bottle over Taylor Soud’s girlfriend’s head at Taylor’s house party two Fridays ago. The event had not been forgiven or forgotten.
The O.V. boys had not apologized. Samantha had not apologized. Taylor Soud and his jock buddies had demanded hospital payment or threatened retribution.
O.V. had responded immediately: Anytime, creeps.
*
Eric Holden watches his father, Ron Holden, as he kick-starts his massive black Harley, in the driveway of their home, 1078 Vallery Avenue.
Eric looks at the clock: 6: 54 A.M. The deafeningly loud sound of the Harley’s engine fills the house. Eric yawns and sniffles, flipping the covers off his naked body, while he watches his father out the window of his room. His father foot-waddles the Harley, finally reaching the main street and heading left, toward Chestnut, which will take him to the snaking Highway, to Ventura, where he currently works doing construction.
In the kitchen, Eric grabs a hold of the refrigerator, starts to pull, then stops. He studies the pictures on the fridge: Ron on his stationary Harley from a few years ago; Ron holding the horns of a buck he’d hunted in the mountains from about a decade back; his mother with her best friend, Sara Jacobs; and an old photograph of Eric and Scott, age twelve, right before they were about to leave for vacation to Montana. The families had gone that year, 1994, on a big trip to “God’s Country,” to camp and fish and take a vacation for two weeks.
That was the last vacation they’d taken.
Secretly, Eric loves and romanticizes this photograph. In fact, he cherishes it. He would never, ever admit this truth to another human being, but he did. This picture, more than anything else, was what kept Eric going day to day amidst the crazy chaos of being an adolescent growing up in Oak View.
Ron wasn’t an ex-Hell’s Angel or a retired cop. He was just a blue collar guy. But he drank. And he hit.
There were days Ron came home and all was quiet on the Oak View Front. Then there were nights when he came home belligerent. Eric would hear the yelling, and then, eventually, the slapping, and finally screaming and things breaking; glass shattering. No matter how hard Eric tried though, he couldn’t hate his father. Or his mother. He didn’t blame his parents for their shitty existence; he didn’t blame anybody or anything.
It was just the way the world was.
*
Eric Holden runs up to Scott Casey; they are on Ventura High campus. Eight A.M.
“What’s up, fucker?” Scott says, eyeing up at Eric’s tallness.
“You see the note?” Eric says, tight-lipped.
“About me fucking your mom?” Scott laughs.
Eric punches Scott’s shoulder, hard. “Naw, idiot—the note from that bastard: Tim Gilbert!”
Scott’s whole body seems to freeze over, like a corporeal ice tundra, suddenly not moving or breathing or functioning. Eyes like fantastic slats of broken-up glacier pieces: murderous cold blue.
“What’s the score, Holden; what’s it say?” Scott says.
Eric takes in air and looks around, scanning the panorama. They’re supposed to be in Mr. Miller’s first period English. Mr. Miller—a real boring jerk; always stuttering and seeming to forget what to say at pivotal moments.
“The note’s from Gilbert. Taylor Soud’s chick, Tanya. The bottle incident,” Eric says.
“Yeah. Samantha. I mean, hey, she put a stupid little rich-bitch in her place—those pricks can’t take a hit, huh?” Scott says.
A quick flash of that morning star-shoots across his mind. He imagines kicking the shit out of Tommy. Next best thing: Taylor Soud. Taylor Soud: A rich boy jock who is slated to attend U.C.L.A. next year on a full football scholarship. One of the lucky ones. His girlfriend, Tanya Mendoza, is a Ventura native. Tanya had a bottle broken over her head by an angry and accusing O.V. girl and was in Ventura County Hospital.
But Scott knows the score. There are only a few guys who would volunteer to fight one of the O.V. boys: Tim Gilbert, one of Soud’s guys, is one of them.
Gilbert is a jock, and tough. He’d lived his whole life in Ventura. He did a lot of Soud’s fighting—a protective machine that hated O.V.
Though no one knew exactly, or at least no one on the O.V. side knew exactly, what the damage had been to Tanya’s head, there remained, within the Oak View circle, a feeling of ominous validation. Tanya, the “rich-bitch” Ventura broad, had deserved what she’d gotten.
But the Soud boys wanted blood. Oak View blood.
*
“Lemme see the note,” Scott says.
Eric chews his tongue, mouth closed. He hands the note to Scott. Eric begins pacing.
Scott reads the note with lightning speed.
“Ok. Taylor wants us to meet with Tim Gilbert, fine,” Scott says, his blue eyes shooting shadows.
“Who’s gonna fight ‘im?” Eric says. “Rocky Boy? James Douglas? Jeff Basel?”
Scott gulps. Takes in air through his nostrils. The scar, about two inches below his left eye—from Tommy—seems to shine. That scar had been received when Scott was eleven years old. Tommy had been in one of his near-blackouts, after coming back from Mahony Tavern with Ron Holden. They’d been drinking whiskey. Again. That night, Scott happened to be in the kitchen, drinking coca cola from the fridge, when Tommy entered.
“I am,” Scott says, staring at Eric.
Eric’s gaze hardens, fastens on Scott.
That night, Tommy had come into the kitchen and had begun questioning Scottie: what was he doing? Why was he not asleep? What did he think he was doing, drinking Tommy’s coke?
“What?” Eric says, his eyes like pool balls: hard, solid, bouncing.
“You heard me,” Scott says. “I’m gonna fight Tim Gilbert.”
That night, Tommy had pulled out his buckskin hunting knife. Scott remembered, with virgin accuracy, the glint of moonlight which played off the filthy, silver blade. It had been past three in the morning. The local bars in O.V. stayed open past two A.M. for the men.
Tommy had grabbed Scott’s hair. Scott had hair then. He’d grabbed Scott’s hair and held his skinny, small eleven-year-old body against the refrigerator. Scott remembered the plastic liter of coca cola falling to the linoleum kitchen floor. Coke everywhere; he’d felt it between his toes, the black, fizzing liquid.
“Scott. Man—look, we’re brothers practically. Ok, we’re more than that, man: We’re O.V. brothers. But look. What you’re talking about—it’s stupid. This is serious, Scott. This chick’s in the hospital. We’re talking brain damage. We’re talking your girl, Sammy, going to Ventura County Jail. We’re talking—”
“I know what we’re talking about. Jesus. You think I’m stupid? Huh? You think I don’t know what I’m—”
“Goddamn it,” Eric says. “I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”
“No,” Scott says.
Tommy had held the knife against the soft flesh of Scott’s cheek, below his left eye. He’d held too fiercely. The blade went in, cut tissue, severed veins, caused loose blood rivulets down Scott’s cheek. The hollow, full moon hanging like limp cheese out the window behind Tommy, beyond Scott’s home, where things like this didn’t happen. Where things were different. The O.V. crew had held Tommy in contempt and Scott in regard for the ordeal. Tommy was a bastard beyond belief. Scott was a survivor and tough.
*
Scott and Eric go to class, separating after the second bell rings, indicating that Mr. Miller’s class is finished for the day. Thank god.
Scott walks with his heartbeat poking at his brain. Every step brings fear. He is going to fight Tim Gilbert. What a world.
The note had said 6:30 P.M. behind the Math building. Usually it would be right after class and behind the Chemistry building, building thirty-one K. But today Soud had chosen after school hours. It’d be dark by then.
By now all of the O.V. boys and surely all of the Soud Crew knew about the fight. The whole school probably knew. It would be a wonder if the teachers didn’t know.
*
There is a wide, huge circle of probably two hundred kids. Not one, as Eric scans the faces, carries a smile.
Eric locates the Oak View circle, standing alone, vibrant, by the cement path lined with palm trees.
Eric treks over to the group. James Douglas, Tom Colmurano, Fred Doder, Cole Sampson, Jeff Basel, David Wellworth, Steve Demond, and Ralph “Rocky Boy” Johnson are surrounding the key player, in the middle. Many are around; other O.V. boys.
Eric nods to James Douglas and the rest, almost all at the same time somehow.
There are about thirty of the O.V. boys. The Soud group: There must be over fifty, easy. The rest are spectators.
Eric spreads a hole between the O.V. bodies and there he is: Scott Casey. He’s already got his shirt off, like a professional boxer. Scott’s tattoos, covering his chest and upper arms, glow from light off the huge streetlamp, the lamp connected to the back of the Math building’s wall, like a deathly searchlight.
The biggest tattoo, “Oak View For Life,” covers Scott’s upper back, against his shoulder blades.
Eric grabs Scott’s shoulder. They face each other. Eric lowers his head, whispers. “You don’t gotta do this, Scottie.”
“Yeah. I do.”
Eric searches deep into Scott’s blue eyes. Eric’s grip tightens. “This about your father, Scottie?”
“Don’t fuckin’ call me Scottie, man.”
Eric loosens his grip. His eyes loosen, too. He swallows and licks his lips, coughs, laughs for an instant, picks at his nose, cracks his fingers.
“It is. That’s what this whole thing is about: Tommy. Tommy—”
Scott whacks Eric in the face. Hard.
The Oak View boys look concerned. They step, most of them, forward, then stop. James Douglas puts his hand on Eric’s shoulder.
“It’s alright, guys. It’s ok. Don’t worry about it. Scott’s just on edge, that’s all. No need to get heated,” Eric says.
Silence. Nobody moves.
“Hey!” someone yells, from behind the O.V. crew.
Taylor Soud. He is signaling that the machine has arrived. And he is pissed-off, rearing, more than ready. Eric shakes his head and raises a single eyebrow, throwing his arm in the direction of the machine. Scott takes a moment and eyes each one of the O.V. Crew, the boys in a mini-circle, within the massive circle around them; a microcosm within a macrocosm.
Each pair of eyes affirms Scott’s decision. Except one.
Scott breathes loudly and begins walking in a circle, around his boys. He punches a few of them on their chests, just for practice. The boys who have been targeted nod in affirmation. This is a sign of strength, both for Scott, and for the boys who have been punched.
Scott stands inside the circle and shakes his shoulders. He slams his fists. Then he nods.
The circle separates and leaves a small opening. Across the way, there is Tim Gilbert. Tim looks even bigger than Scott remembers. They hadn’t crossed each other’s path in probably six months.
Scott walks outside of the O.V. ring. He scans the faces of the hundreds. Fear seems to ripple through the place.
Silence.
Fuck ‘im up! someone yells. It is the Soud side.
Kick his ghetto Oak View ass! another kid screams.
Tim approaches. He is big but maybe not quite as big as Scott imagined from thirty feet away. Tim mimics Scott and pulls his shirt off, roughly, chucking it to Taylor Soud, who is standing ten feet to the left, within the ring.
They move toward each other. Scott glances up and catches Taylor’s eyes. Dark, demented, vengeful. Taylor looks evil, holding Tim’s black T-shirt.
Neither Tim Gilbert nor Scott Casey speak. They move toward each other like feral magnets, attracted through the sheer laws of physics, nothing else.
You’re a dead man, Casey! someone yells.
None a you punks got shit to say about Oak View! O.V. Pride! an O.V. yells. It is James Douglas. Scott knows by the voice; that rough, raw, almost high-pitched but masculine twang.
Serrated silence; it goes in deep, fills the pores of everyone, and rests, dank and dirty.
Casey and Gilbert are close: a few arm lengths.
Casey’s eyes grow huge. Tim’s eyes remain rock steady. Scott notices Taylor again, out of the corner of his eye. His eye focuses on the black shirt.
Suddenly, as Tim is about to crash into Scott, Taylor throws an object which had come from behind the black shirt, like a dark magic trick. It is a long toss, but Tim catches it: it is a knife.
Scott’s eyes bug to unseen proportions. It all happens so fast.
Scott tries to turn but they are so close; the momentum works against him. Tim grips the knife and grabs Scott’s shoulder, plunging the thing into his stomach. The knife goes in.
Instantly, Tim Gilbert runs away. Taylor Soud runs. Then the whole crowd begins, in the fives and tens, to run as well. It is too easy, as if it’d been planned. As if the whole thing had been orchestrated.
Scott Casey, on the ground, his hands covering the wound, which is just above his waistline, looks behind him, in a daze, at the O.V. boys. Most are running away. A few, James Douglas, Fred Doder, and Eric Holden, sprint over to Scott.
Eric kneels, his eyes massive, face pale, lacking blood. He places his hand on Scott’s hand, above the wound. Blood is everywhere. A miniature stream of blood squirts out of the wound, through two of Scott’s fingers. His eyes have lost their blue hue; they are a darker, royal blue now.
“Jesus, Scott. Jesus. Jesus,” Eric says.
Scott tries to pry his eyes open, and does so half-successfully, coughing. James Douglas is staring at the wound. James moves Scott’s hand. Scott groans loudly. Blood squirts. James’s eyes go huge. The thing is gaping.
“You know what? I feel fine, guys. Seriously…I feel…warm…ya know…just…warm,” Scott says. He is almost smiling.
Eric’s lips are trembling. “Go!” he says, full of tears to James Douglas and Fred Doder.
Fred and James look incredulous.
“You heard me,” Eric says. “Get out of here!”
Fred and James don’t budge.
Eric stands up and grabs James by the collar. Eric slaps James several times, fast, hard. James backs off. So does Fred.
“I said, get the fuck out…NOW!” Eric screams.
Fred and James look shocked beyond belief. They take slow, shallow steps backward. Then, almost on random instinct, they turn toward Thompson and run.
Eric, crying, looks at Scott. Scott’s eyes are ruby red; they are less than half way open. Scott’s hands have fallen to his sides. Blood is covering Scott’s stomach.
“Scott,” Eric says, leaning in again, close to Scott’s ear. “Scott.”
“Yeah?” Scott croaks.
“I love you, man,” Eric says.
“I love you too,” Scott says.
“Listen, Scott. You know that picture, on my fridge, the one of you and me in ’94, right before the trip to Montana?”
Scott groans, half-moving his body.
“Don’t try to move,” Eric says. His voice has a tone of acceptance. “Scott. Do you know the picture I’m talking about?”
Scott licks his plastic, chapped lips. “Yeah, uh huh. I know the picture.”
Eric looks hard into Scott’s eyes. Tears are flowing. Eric leans closer and places his head on top of Scott’s.
“That picture, Scott, my Oak View brother, is what has kept me going all these years, through all the bullshit. Through our dads, and our messed-up families. All of it.”
Scott swivels his head, in slow motion, looking at Eric. Tears stream down Scott’s face. Eric is holding Scott’s hand. Eric’s hand is trembling.
“I know,” Scott says. “Me too, brother. Me too.”
They cry and all else is drowned out by the noise and the energy and the feeling. It is as if that feeling, from the Montana trip in ’94, has momentarily returned: their youth reclaimed. Eric envisions that picture on the fridge. The fourteen days they’d spent in Great Falls, Montana. The unshakeable energy he and Scott had shared.
Then there is only one person crying.
Eric shakes Scott’s body. He feels Scott’s neck, and then his wrist.
No pulse.
Scott Casey, Eric’s best friend, is dead.
Eric hears police sirens wailing around the corner, on Thompson. He stares at Scott’s warm, dead body. Eric wipes the remnants of tears from Scott’s face, and then his own. Standing up, he raises his hands in the air, ready for the police. He is the only man there.
As the cops from the first squad car pull up, guns drawn, Eric looks to the heavens. He closes his eyes, says a prayer for his brother, and then says these words: Fuck Oak View. I’m done with it. I’m done.
The first policeman approaches, gun extended in front of him.
“Turn around, keep your hands up!” the cop yells. Eric hears feet padding the lawn from behind.
Eric feels rough hands searching his body, slapping cuffs on his wrists. He stares at Scott’s shell of flesh, unmoving, stagnant, wasted.
If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take, Eric whispers to Scott’s body as he is hauled off by the police.
My soul to take, Eric whispers.
My soul to take.