The Nor Cal Crash Stories

By Steve Howard

This is a work of Tricktion, some truth and a lot of fiction Also, it is some truth and some fiction that has been tricked out to make it a more interesting read. Some of these stories I experienced firsthand, many of them I heard second, third, and even fourth hand, if there is such a thing. All of them have been altered if for no other reason than to preempt any potential lawsuits or even attempted murders if revealing some of them happens to really piss off those that were involved. Most of these stories happened well over twenty years ago, so I have to rely on my far from perfect memory to dredge them back up and fill in the blanks creatively in the places where the wiring in my brain is far too burnt out to produce the truth. I'm pulling roughly from about 1984 (a nod to Orwell) to around 1994 (in sad memory of Cobain).

I've put myself in some of these stories as the narrator in a quasi-journalist HST gonzo style, another nod to one of my heroes, though I doubt I will live up to his brilliance. But full disclosure here, I was never a journalist, not even for my high school newspaper. Instead, I was (and am) the quiet severely introverted near Rain Man like social outcast observer type. Hence the journalist persona. So, what you read here are the stories that dug themselves deep enough into the memory pathways and have been screaming to be dumped out onto the page ever since, nothing more, nothing less.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Howard
• Release date: Apr 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201146108

Steve Howard

Steve Howard has a BA in creative writing from Western Washington University and has published flash fiction, short stories, haibun, and creative non-fiction in numerous literary journals. His novella The Adamantine River Passage was released in 2017. He currently teaches English in Japan and is a semi-professional stand up comedian. He can be reached at [e-mail]  

Book preview

The Nor Cal Crash Stories

Steve Howard

Published by Steve Howard, 2022.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

THE NOR CAL CRASH STORIES

First edition. April 26, 2022.

Copyright © 2022 Steve Howard.

Written by Steve Howard.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Satan's Keg Party 2 booze and drugs

VW Speed Collectors 12 cars

Slaughter Slough 19

The Dirt Tribe 23

The End of Jeff Spicolli and the Rise of the Surf Punks 27

Concord Ave Car Crashes 32 cars

Duck Hunting on Acid 39 booze and drugs

The Limey From Brooklyn 43 crime and criminals

Two Times Gunning and a Taco Shotgun 47 guns

The Biker Chronicles 52  crime and criminals

Left for Dead Drunk 63 booze and drugs

The Biology Student's Not so Immaculate Conception 65 random

Gangster Wannabes Go Down 69 guns

Jackey's Mafia Pizza 78 crime and criminals

The Illegal Immigrant Song 83 cars

Homophobia and My Worst Behavior 90 random

Crack House Eviction Orders with Shotguns 92 crime and criminals

Heavy Metal Rib Stomping 96 random

Blame it on Fucking Tom Cruise 100 random

A Conclusion or Just a Cowardly Run For It? 103

A Bomber Trip and an Epilogue 104

"the past is dead, the future unborn." -The Buddha

––––––––

Preamble: This is a work of Tricktion, some truth and a lot of fiction (Am I allowed to make up a new word?). I don’t know, but fuck it, that’s what this is. Also, it is some truth and some fiction that has been tricked out (70’s-80’s slang for custom cars) to make it a more interesting read. Some of these stories I experienced firsthand, many of them I heard second, third, and even fourth hand, if there is such a thing. All of them have been altered if for no other reason than to preempt any potential lawsuits. Or even attempted murders if revealing some of them happens to really piss those involved off. And most of these stories happened well over twenty years ago, so I have to rely on my far from perfect memory to dredge them back up and fill in the blanks creatively in the places where the wiring in my brain is far too burnt out to produce the truth.

I’m pulling roughly from about 1984 (a nod to Orwell) to around 1994 (another nod to Cobain). And ten years is a nice round number I can count on my fingers and toes, a great advantage for a guy like me who sucks at math and who grew up when the metric system was usually only called upon in America if you were a drug dealer.

I’ve put myself in these stories as the narrator in a quasi-journalist HST gonzo style, another nod to one of my heroes, though I doubt I will live up to his brilliance. But full disclosure here, I never was a journalist, not even for my high school newspaper (if they even had one at the time). Instead, I was (and am) the quiet severely introverted near Rain Man like social outcast observer type. Hence the journalist persona. So these are the stories that dug themselves deep enough into the memory pathways and have been screaming to be dumped out onto the page ever since, nothing more, nothing less.

Satan’s Keg Party

There is a lot of standing around and waiting. Me and about two dozen other teens are in the middle of an abandoned walnut tree orThchard. The flinty Northern California peat dirt kicks up clouds of hazy dust in the rising late autumn moonlight. The dark forms of the dead trees contrast eerily with the wild gyrations of the makeshift mosh pit that spins around a large bonfire. Long haired boys and girls in black heavy metal t-shirts, faded 501 Levis, and white Reeboks or Nikes dance and shove along to the hyper fast music that blares out of a huge black boom box. Metallica’s Ride the Lightning is the orchestra for this violent waltz tonight. On the perimeter of the mosh pit a few cigarettes and a weak joint glow red in the darkness. And almost everyone is holding a bottle or can of Budweiser. Two bottles of Jack Daniels also circulate. Not far from the dead walnut trees and lively mosh pit a four story mound of sandstone rises out of the old orchard. It is about twice the size of the standard two story house in these parts and completely void of any vegetation. It has several names, Warlock Rock, Witch’s Mound, Stoner Cave, but the leader of the coven and the supposed real reason we are all out here tonight says that the Native Americans called it Blood Drinker’s Place". Lyla, the leader of the coven dressed in all black ceremonial robes and the other members of the inner coven are all inside the cave tending to a smaller bonfire of their own that is in the shape of a pentagram. Three of the inner coven members, all dressed in red robes, chant something as the circle the pentagram fire in a clockwise, then counterclockwise fashion.

Lyla is a stunning seventeen-year old slightly marred by a gibbon shaped nose that many of the boys and young men at this party in an abandoned walnut orchard would happily overlook. Her voice takes on both a mystical wispy and commanding tone when she talks about Wicca. She wears her Danish blonde hair straight and long sometimes adorns it with a wreath of herbal flowers based on the seasons and the powers they supposedly impart according to the Wicca and alchemical sources she has studied. She claims an unbroken Wicca lineage going back before Christianity was brought to Northern Europe. And there are rumors that she has a fifteenth century spell book written in Welsh that her grandmother taught her to read and speak.

But I think like me, the reason most of the guys are here is because the word in our high school has gotten out that on the full moon she comes to the small cave out here in the middle of this dead orchard with her fellow Wiccas, does a bunch of ceremonial shit, strips naked, and sacrifices an animal (usually a lamb), to a moon Goddess she worships. The drugs, beer, heavy metal music, and rumors of an after sacrifice orgy are enticing as well.

Her rival the Wicca/Satanists/Heavy Metal teen community is another seventeen-year old who calls himself Evil Alex. Evil Alex, unlike most of the kids here tonight he attends an alternative high school not far from the main one in town for kids that can’t get it together enough to pull the usually six hours of classes in a regular school. Two months earlier he was expelled from the regular high school. He’s a short skinny nearly spastically fast speaker who missed out on the Ritalin drug wave by a few years. Like Lyla, he wears his black curly hair long and dresses in all black, black 501’s, heavy metal t-shirts, and black riding boots. He has dark intense eyes that he focuses on people intently with. His long thin face ends in a slowly developing goatee. His credentials as a warlock are lot less traditional than Lyla’s and much more pop culture. But he can quote Aleister Crowley and he has his own small group of followers. Lyla claims he is a poser and that the term warlock is a Christian word and that there are only witches, male and female. This schism has caused Evil Alex to cast a death curse or spell on Lyla. He has a Ouija Board that was, according to him, carved from the coffin of a witch burned in Salem, Massachusetts. Using it to call up evil spirits is his specialty and many stories at our high school and junior high abound about late night parties at the tiny condo he and his mother live in where he freaked the shit out of his friends with the Ouija Board.

So far Evil Alex hasn’t arrived tonight. Lyla says that he has been seduced by the dark powers and therefore is far weaker than she is since she honors both the light and the dark, though focuses her worship on the light and white magic. Because of this she says if they meet face to face Evil Alex will drop dead on the spot. Many people question this, me included, since they sat next to each other in pre-algebra class for months before Evil Alex was kicked out of school.

Yeah, but did you notice that he would never look at me in class? Lyla says when asked about it.

Evil Alex is a lot less cordial usually saying something like, That bitch is gonna burn like Bridget Bishop.

When told of this Lyla responds, See, he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Bridget Bishop was falsely accused of witchcraft and hung not burned. Just a fucking poser.

So far the lamb and kegs of beer have not shown. It is going on eleven thirty and I wonder if we will miss the midnight window for the ritual to take place. Bobby Darrett, Lyla’s boyfriend is responsible for stealing a lamb from one of the farms that dot the Northern California Delta region. He’s got a 1968 Dodge Charger with a trunk large enough to hold just about any barnyard animals. Someone’s twenty-one-year-old cousin is supposed to bring the kegs, but he hasn’t