The Linear Canvas

Mt. Sterling wasn’t always a very friendly place for someone who went to high school in London.  Many times, I had been in a car driving there with several other London teenagers hell-bent on kicking some Sterling ass once they arrived there. Usually over some minor incident, trivial or imagined.  It was a slightly smaller town, about 15 miles from London, and that made for a nice little ride before you got there so that you could strategize on the coming carnage, yet not one ass ever got kicked on any one of the trips I went on.  By high school I had made many friends in Mt. Sterling.  Once on an ass kicking trip, one of my London “friends” told me he would personally kick my ass if I didn’t help him beat up someone from Mt. Sterling that evening.  I told him he might just have to try that.

My Friend Dennis.

By 1974, I had a mostly different set of friends.  I had known Dennis for several years but we had grown closer in the recent past.  We also continued to be friends for years to come, even sharing an apartment after high school. Dennis’ father was a single parent with two other older children.  He worked for the state like my father, but both were better acquainted from the local taverns.  His father was very strict, so anything that caused Dennis to arrive home after his established curfew could be stressful for me and my parents as well.  Many nights I would arrive home late only to find my mother on the telephone with his father.

Dennis by far got the most severe punishments for anything that we got caught doing.  Sometimes he would be grounded for months.  I spent many Friday and Saturday nights with him at his house, when he was even allowed to have company.  I could easily get out of my punishments after a few days. As a teenager being annoying sometimes had its benefits.  Dennis never could get out of anything.  His father was a stone wall.

One incident that I’m sure got Dennis grounded for several weeks, occurred on a Saturday night after a high school basketball game.  There was usually just enough time after a game to take a ride, cause a little trouble, and then return home before our special curfew of midnight, after a game.

Post Game Ceremonies

As we left the game I saw my old friend Tim.  He was sitting in the car along the street and motioned me over to him.  As I approached the car, I noticed the driver was another friend of mine named Steve.  Steve was about two years older than me, and had tried several times to befriend me because he had a crush on my sister and thought somehow that would help him get her to go steady with him.  He always acted overly enthusiastic about being around me.  The other thing was that Steve was also very erratic and emotional.  Once when I was in the car riding around with him, he pulled a gun and pointed it at a passing car that was being driven by someone who had bullied him much of his life and swore to me he was going to kill him someday.  Had that person seen the gun, he probably would have beaten Steve’s ass and taken his gun away from him or shot him.  As far as Tim, where ever he was, trouble surely followed.  But he still wasn’t as bad as Steve.

Steve and Tim had decided they were driving to Mt. Sterling.  They wanted to go to the pizza house there to eat and look for girls.  Neither one was looking for trouble.  Then they asked us if we wanted to go along.  Seeing nothing wrong with pizza or girls, we gladly got into the car and headed off for Mt. Sterling.

We were all in good spirits as we left town and made our way towards Sterling.  On the way there, we partied and planned what we would do if we found some girls and what we would do if we didn’t.  Either scenario seemed likely as Mt. Sterling could be alive one minute and dead the next.

The Pizza House

As we entered the crowded pizza shop, I noticed a table by the counter.  We all sat down and I assumed that we were going to order some food.  At first I hadn’t noticed any problems, but then Dennis looked at me and said, “We’re wearing our London jackets.”

He was right.  Neither of us had given it any thought until then that we were wearing our school jackets in a rival high schools hangout. Two red and white jackets in a sea of green and gold! The realization of that fact went through me like an electric shock.  Immediately I began hearing behind me several people talking about us.  One was accusing Dennis of making eyes at his girlfriend, although his girlfriend was saying nothing had happened.  There was suddenly a lot of commotion all around us.  I looked at Steve and Tim and noticed both were very concerned as well.  I felt a bump on my knee and looked down.  Steve was trying to give me a knife with a 10 inch blade.  He was trying to hand out other weapons to the others that he was carrying.  In his other hand, he was holding a .38 caliber pistol.  He was very shaky and seemed like he could explode at any moment.

My history with fighting was that I tried to avoid it whenever I could.  In every grade I was always taller than most other kids but also very skinny.  As a result sometimes older children would pick on me.  I just wasn’t a very aggressive person.  Rather than fight I would sometimes run the other direction.  Sometimes it made me look weak, but I didn’t care.

As I had grown up and filled out, I began noticing that the times when I had to fight, I was actually pretty good at it.  As I neared adulthood my height would exceed 6’4″, but more importantly my reach was similar to a heavyweight boxer.  Anyone who fought with me couldn’t hit me that well without getting hit themselves.  I also packed a pretty good punch and could take one too.

I refused the weapon that Steve offered me, as did all the others.  It would have only made things worse. What was certain was that we had been at the pizza shop long enough.  We all got up and walked to the door.  I’m not sure that we thought we’d get to our car without incident, but I think we all hoped we could.  There was a least 30 people in the pizza shop at the time, and the odds didn’t seem to be on our side.  Getting back to the car seemed the easiest way out.

Last One To The Car…

As we exited the store, both Tim and Steve took off running towards the car.  I remember thinking to myself that was such a good idea, I wish I’d thought of it.  By the time I could make a break for it, I looked back to see one of the locals sucker punching Dennis. When I instinctively moved towards Dennis to help him, one of the others blocked my path and said to me, “Well, do you want to get it on?”  I could see Dennis holding his mouth with blood dripping from his hands.  I tried to walk around the person that was in my way, but he became more aggressive.  I nodded my head and then beat the living shit out of him.

By this time Dennis was not giving them any trouble at all.  They looked back and saw that I was pummeling one of their own so they let Dennis fall to the ground and came to the assistance of their friend.  They grabbed hold of me by my arms and legs, while my original attacker grabbed me around the head and was punching me in the face.  After a moment I noticed my ears were being pinched.  I yelled “Stop!”  as loud as I could.  To my amazement everyone stopped.  I moved my head just enough so that he wasn’t pinching my ears anymore and I said “OK”, and then he started punching me in the face again. (I said we’d been partying, obviously I wasn’t feeling any pain mentally or physically at the time, ’nuff said)

I must’ve tired of that quickly, as I threw everyone off of me and then pushed several of my attackers to the ground and said “Where are my glasses?” (puny humans!) Then I started looking around on the ground for my glasses.  The next thing I knew the people who were trying to beat me up a moment ago were all engaged in the quest for my glasses.  At that point one of the girls on the corner yelled out, “It’s Alex!,” And then as if she had to clarify even further she yelled, “It’s Vickie’s Alex!”

Vickie
(I also mention Vickie in my post “KISS Live At Veteran’s Memorial Columbus Ohio 1975)

I had been dating Vickie for quite some time.  She was actually some kind of superstar in Mt. Sterling at the time.  She was in junior high there and was a very capable person with many friends.  Most girls wanted to be her and most boys (and probably girls) wanted to date her.  Fortunately for me at the time, I was dating her, which just about made everyone there idolize me immediately.

As everyone realized who I was, their concern for Dennis grew.  All the pretty girls who had been at the eye of the storm only a few minutes ago were treating Dennis like he was one of their boys from the front and now they were tearing strips off their petticoats and bandaging his wounds.  Several of them helped him into the pizza shop and he was given first aid by the shop owner.  During that time many of the young men who had been attacking me were ecstatic at finally meeting me.  I almost felt like a rock star.

Right about then, Tim and Steve made a pass by the pizza shop.  Obviously their intent was to rescue us.  Now the entire crowd was angry and jeered at them as they passed by. Not because they were from London, but for leaving us there in the first place.  To be honest I had a sort of Stockholm Syndrome and was yelling at them myself, in spite of the fact that I was clearly the victor in the fight against the pizza shop gang.  Concerned for their own safety, they drove back to London without us, which left us with no ride home.

As things settled down a bit, and Dennis’ bleeding stopped, the Sterling “gang” asked if they could make it up to us by taking us home.  We were also invited to a party that was being held at a gas station by the freeway.  We accepted their apologies and their invitation.

Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere Before?

When we got to the party, I thought to myself, someone here must work here or all of this was really illegal.  Many of the party-goers were underage as were both myself and Dennis. All of the lights at the station were on, so no one was trying to hide this very large party right off a freeway exit.  There were at least 50 people in the gas station when we arrived.

Dennis and I both went to the bathroom to clean ourselves up.  He had dried blood on his shirt and coat, but had no major damages that wouldn’t heal soon.  I had to look very hard for any indication that I had even been in a fight.  Finally I noticed a quarter-inch line on my eyebrow that looked like a small bruise.

We stayed at the gas station for about an hour and drank beer with our hosts and new friends.  Just before we left the gas station a guy walked up to me and started talking to me about the fight.  He was apologizing profusely.  I told him not to worry about it. That it was okay and everything had turned out all right.  I noticed he had a large gash above his eye, an obviously broken nose and was bleeding from the mouth.  I said to him, “Man, what happened to you?” thinking maybe he’d been in a car accident or something.  He looked at me and was silent for a moment, and said, “Uh… You just beat my ass.”

Attempted Revenge?

After we had left the gas station party, we went out to a state lake park grounds where the partying continued in an empty parking lot.  It turned out that several of the people there were familiar with the area in eastern Kentucky where my mother’s family was from.  As we discussed the people we knew there we found that about four of them were first cousins to my first cousins.  I believe that actually still made me related to them as I was distantly related to that uncle’s family too.

We continued to drink beer until about 2 a.m.  That’s when we decided we were going to London to find Tim and Steve and beat them up for leaving us in Mt. Sterling.  The only car there with enough gasoline to get to London and back was a ‘67 Chevy Camaro.  Under normal circumstances this car was meant to seat four people comfortably.  More people wanted to go than the car could hold.  But that didn’t stop us as we squeezed 12 people into the car for the trip.  The owner steered, someone else used the clutch, still another person shifted gears, as well as me on gas pedal and somebody else on brakes.  It was extremely unsafe.  We were all drunk, underage, crammed into a car that was way too small for the number of occupants, and we were having a blast.  A few years later I ended up dating a girl that was in that car that night although I don’t remember seeing her at all.  She said she remembered how much fun we had crammed into that little car.  It’s a wonder we weren’t all killed.

After we got to London, we drove around a little bit but did not see anyone.  We decided to just go home as it was nearing four o’clock in the morning.  They dropped Dennis off first and then they took me home.  We all promised to hang out again, but really never did.  There is no doubt in my mind I didn’t see Dennis again for a month or more after that except maybe at school.  I would have hated to be him as he walked though the back door, four hours late. I saw Tim sometime later and explained to him what happened.  They did the best they could under the circumstances, so I didn’t hold a grudge against him or Steve for leaving us.  I didn’t see Steve again for two years and then I just happened to run into him at a concert in Cleveland. I don’t recall mentioning it to him.

After Effects

I didn’t think too much about the incident after that. Of course the next week, it was the talk of the entire Madison Plains school district. Vickie was prouder than normal to be dating me. No matter the telling I was portrayed as quite a tough guy, a person not to messed with. I had evidently taken on the toughest guy in town and wiped the floor with him. Not many people from London had ever thought of me in that way. I really didn’t want that reputation honestly.

Other than dating the girl from the car, I didn’t see any one from that night in Mt. Sterling again until one night about four years later. An unknown young man was talking to a friend of mine in London one night when he mentioned he was from Sterling. We talked for a minute and then I mentioned the guy I had fought that night. He began to stare at me and looked as though I had offended him. He said in an almost maniacal tone and referring to the guy I had beaten up that night, “Do you think he’s bad???!!! I told him, “Not particularly.” At that he yelled for his companion in the car, “Hey man this dude doesn’t think you’re bad!!!” Then a man started to walk hurriedly towards us from the shadow. When I saw him I recognized him as the guy from Sterling that I had fought. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, I think his buddy thought he would be fightin’ mad. He took one look at me. His face changed immediately from anger to a smile. He then grabbed my hand, shook it and said, “Alex, buddy! I’m so glad to see you. I haven’t seen you for so long.” They finished their business there and as both walked back to their car, I heard him say, “Man, that’s one bad mother fucker. Don’t ever mess with him, he’ll beat your ass good!”

I heard later that he was put in prison for murder.