A Neighborhood
Escapade
‘The
Bloke ’
(1967)
…
The Bloke
came down into the cellar’s party room, in back of the ‘Belmont Club,’ off
University Avenue, where there was a drinking party going on. Lou had beat the
crap out of some wise guy, whom ran wherever and brought back this fellow, he
looked like a football player, perhaps a
relative, for lack of a real name, I have called him ‘The Bloke’.
He came in a rush down the wooden basement stairs puffing like a bull, I
could hear his teeth grind. He was all of six-feet tall, and perhaps two inches
more to boot, and 250-pounds. “Who is
Larry L.?” he questioned with a yelp.
Larry being about six foot one, 180-pounds. And Lou stepped forward
“Right here,” he said. With no more ado, with his powerful loins, the Bloke
leaped at Lou as if he was a Viking football player in attack mode.
The basement apartment was crowded, and small for such a horde, with a
good number of the Donkeyland gang, amongst several other unknowns. I was
there, and John L., was there, and I think Gunner and Mouse was there, and Doug
and Roger L., and a few of the girls, were there, like: Jackie, and her elder
sister Trudy, and Karin, and so forth. Lou taken by surprise, got a few blows
in, but the Bloke, somehow brought him to the ground, he tried to hit Lou, but
never quite in the right place at the right time to knock him out, he was too
awkward. It was as if Lou was grappling
with a mad dog. “What a crowd,” I said to myself.
It was evident the Bloke was not a puncher, or for that matter a skilled
fighter, he simply was strong, heavy, and took advantage of the moment, with a
surprise attack. Saying that, Lou made so violent a heave, giving a powerful
jerk, while having moved the Bloke off one side of him, his legs half throwing
him over, the Bloke no longer could keep
a tight hold on him, to ready himself to
punch Lou again, had that been allowed, that may have been curtains for Lou.
Now his left hand loosened the hold the Bloke had on him, completely. Lou then
being allowed to get back up and onto his feet, and getting into a fighting
stance, or trying to, for space was sparse. Blow for blow Larry would have
killed the Bloke had he not made a turnabout to try and escape the premises,
being lost within the crowd, with his three companions.
John was laying against a wall, he had been beaten by one of those cohorts
of the Bloke: the whole basement had turned into thunder and lightning,
everyone had woken up to what was taking place, as if coming out of a
semi-comatose state for the longest time; a rumble had started, and the four
were being blocked in making their escape, nonetheless they did escape. But the
nightmare wasn’t over, not yet.
Outside in the parking lot, across from the ‘Belmont Club,’ where all
the cars were parked, the club’s cars as well as the Bloke’s car, and everyone
who had a car at the party, their cars, “Quick!” yelled the Bloke to the person
in the white parked car, and the doors opened as they started to jump in, one
after the other, Lou chasing them
yelling, “Come back, we got lots of room out here to finish the fight!” And not
given a response, or rematch, as the car started to take off Lou picks up a
4x4, about ten feet long and tosses it at the car, it smashes into the side of
the car and bounces off, leaving I’m sure a big dent, as the car speeds out of
the alley and onto the street.
Mind you, the Bloke was pale as ashes having difficultly supporting
himself after that ten-minute brawl, he was all winded out. As Lou was just
warming up.
Reflecting, for a long moment they were both tied together like two
rolls of tobacco. Larry was like a good dog that bites but doesn’t bark. And
must have felt once outside in the fresh air, with lots of room to maneuver,
was his boxing ring, for nothing venture, nothing have, —this was where he’d
gain his advantage. Unfortunately, to my understanding, there was never a
second go.
No: 1094/July 4, 2015
