Trolls in the trees!

Timber!

The epitome of karma can be summed up thus: do not piss on the Christmas trees.

I was released from my duties at the research arm of Disney in November of ’83. Together with a cast of thousands we had knocked out Tokyo Disneyland, EPCOT in Florida, helped bring a a cable station online and revamped  and freshened up Fantasyland in Anaheim. I watched as folks I got to know and love leave WED on a daily basis. By the end of October I knew the routine. HR would come up and pull the cards of the soon to be unemployed from my check-out box and then go off in search of  items to be returned. When the library manager came up and pulled a name from the box herself I knew my time was up.

Being consolidated wasn’t so bad. I was back to living at home, had an older girlfriend who made me feel like a gigolo, had a beater of a car that was nothing but trouble and had absolutely nothing in the bank. I knew that I could go down to the unemployment office as soon as I wanted to. My mom made it clear that I “wanted to” so I set up a file, pulled a few cards from the board, talked to a job coach who then put in a couple calls. Set me up for an appointment for a warehouse job. Interviewed for a position the next day with a swim suit manufacturer, Barely Legal. Went out that night with Uncle Max, got so loaded that I missed the first round of return calls from my future employer the next morning. When I finally had sense enough to grab the phone in the afternoon I was asked if I wanted the job. The holidays loomed, of course I wanted the job.

So, I got to know the denizens of Costa Mesa through that short bit of employment. My line of work kept me downstairs. I was officially titled “Fabric Inspector”. Not as racy as it sounds. I didn’t get to see the fabric after it was made into bikinis, nor did I get to check out the fabric while it was on the models. My job had me loading up huge rolls of wildly colored rayon and assorted polyesters onto a massive light box with rollers. I spun the fabric from one cardboard spool to another, looking for flaws, tears, what have you. My handy, loyal plastic tagging gun was there for me and with the help of that gun I marked the places on the roll that were not going to make it in swim suit land.

I know, that sounds a bit snarky. I should have been pleased to be gainfully employed at Christmas time and believe it, I was. I got to hang with some very interesting and disreputable people, deal with a couple of bosses who lived a toney life in Newport Beach and who both drove matching Mercedes convertibles, work in the vicinity of scantily clad models and ride around in a delivery truck when the other warehouse guys were too busy to do it themselves. It was also through Barely Legal that I got to meet the world class photographer, Jennifer Griffiths, who taught me all there was to know about being a photographer’s “tech assist”. Sheesh, who would of thought that holding the bag would be so much work?

Christmas meant parties to me back in those days. Once the bosses threw their shindig for the staff I had it in my head to throw one of my own. Living with mom made that dream easy to do. She was going to barber school at the time and had a wild group of student pals to pull from. We had the space, a wonderful big, old Craftsman house with towering ceilings. All my life growing up I wanted a tree that would reach up to the top of the living room. I decided one evening to make that dream finally happen.

Once again Uncle Max came to the rescue. He had a beater of truck in those days and it would do nicely to haul a tree home. We met downtown, took in some merry forms of refreshment at the Goat Hill Tavern and then went off in search of a bit of mota. I was feeling somewhat like that character in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I felt we were stocking up on contraband but instead of making a major road trip out into the desert we were just going up the block in search of an evergreen tree. After a bit of cruising we found just what we were looking for, a garish tree lot with a ten footer at a reasonable price. But all that gathering of drugs and drinking of beer had its price. Two men had to water their horses and water they did, but not in a trough or a barnyard but in the back shady corner of a night darkened tree lot. All we knew was that OUR tree was dry!

The night of the party was wild and memorable. It started out fairly quiet as the ground work of that particular party was set by family and ancient relations. Elder aunts and baby brothers can only get so kooky on sparkling apple juice. Once folks from the barber college arrived the noise level in the house increased dramatically. The holiday music took off, the keg was tapped and then a few car loads of fabric folk showed up direct from the warehouse. In the mix was one character in particular, Patrick, who I didn’t dislike as much as I distrusted. He was a crazed sort of young drunk who lived behind the complex in an old abandoned sailboat. Funny, yes, unpredictable, definitely, and was destined to be the man who would put more than just a star on the top of the tree.

It was a good time there for a while. I got to hang with folks that I might not otherwise get to know in a work setting. The barber bunch was artsy and cool, the family was grooving on the full house and festive atmosphere and there were friends and pals who came all the way from Disney just to wish me a happy new year. All was going well until we heard the crash issue forth from the living room. 

We spent a good amount of time getting that tree up the week before. It was no small feat to get lights and decorations on a ten-foot tree. I would have never suspected that someone would have thought it needed more but Patrick was the man that night to recognize that something was amiss on the top of the tree and he was going to be the man to fix it.

With the help of a guy who will go down in the annuls of time being known as Boy George, and with assistance of another sodden guest known as Biker Billy, Patrick made it his quest to remove what he considered an offensive star and put one up of his own. I have no idea where he got the aluminum foil but his ornament, well, looked like something a very creative kindergartner would fashion after a severe night fever. Did he use a chair or did one of his accomplices hold him up? I’ll never know because at least one of them made it up the trunk while the others helped to bring the tree down to the floor.

The party wasn’t salvageable after that as someone had to help get the drunks home. While Patrick and pals were ushered out the remains of the crowd helped pick up the mess. When everyone was gone Uncle Max and I stepped out onto the porch and fired up a doobie and thought about what we had done. Nothing there at the party, mind you. It was that ignoble act in the Christmas tree lot that had done it, that had brought the bad ju-ju into the house. Or not. Maybe it was just a case of one too many Patricks..

We went back inside and admired the now well-broken-in tree. It was a merry Christmas season, no doubt about it, and a wild holiday party to boot.

Salud!