Rock and Roll High School: Growing Up in Hollywood During the Decade of Decadence

by Marisa Tellez

  “So are you guys still hooking up?” I asked. “NO WAY. It only happened that one time because I was wasted,” he said.

  “You’re always wasted,” I said bluntly.

  “No, but that night was really bad. I haven’t been that drunk since, and it’s never going to happen again.”

  He held my hand and looked at me as if he were asking for forgiveness. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Are you with me?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Certainly he couldn’t mean as a girlfriend. After all, we just had that relationship conversation a few hours earlier at the beach while he was using the ducks as target practice.

  “I don’t know what you’re asking,” I said.

  “I’m asking if you’re with me,” he reiterated.

  The only thing I could think to say was no. So that’s what I said to him.

  “Oh so you’re NOT with me?” he asked as he unleashed my hand.

  “No, no I am. I am with you,” I said, waiting to see if I answered correctly.

  “Cool, you’re with me then,” he said.

  He grabbed my hand again and popped a few Reeses into my mouth.

  What the hell was he even talking about?

  Although I was clueless as to what my official relationship status was with Sebastian, I continued to hang out with him. And the more we hung out, the less I saw of Hannah, who I was starting to miss.

  A few weeks later, Sebastian mentioned The Kids and Fizzy Bangers had a show in Bakersfield coming up, so I took it as an opportunity to invite Hannah. I figured a fun road trip was indiscretion with Sheldon on to the time frame Sebastian exactly what she and I needed to get in some good bonding time. Boy, was I mistaken.

  When I called Hannah to invite her, she snapped at me for even suggesting she go to the show. She said Sebastian and his friends were nothing but mooches and that she didn’t like any of my Hollywood friends. She also mentioned she had just started a full time job with real responsibilities and wasn’t about to drop everything just to go to some dumb show. She ended our conversation by saying I needed to “grow the fuck up”. So in a nutshell, no, she didn’t want to go to Bakersfield with me.

  Borrowing any car from my family that weekend was out of the question, and I couldn’t drive up with Sebastian because he was already riding in a full car with his band. I was bummed I couldn’t go and enjoy the show, but then again we are talking Bakersfield, not Las Vegas.

  With Sebastian being in Bakersfield, I made the strange decision to stay home that weekend and organize my bedroom, which was in complete shambles. It was the first Saturday night I had stayed home in months.

  I was still cleaning my room around 2:00am, when Faye called to tell me about her night. She said she went to a party and got yelled out of the house by a bunch of girls who were calling her a slut. She ran outside crying when Vinnie from Pretty Boy Floyd of all people, happened to be there and comforted her. Once she calmed down, he disappeared and she bumped into Paul, the singer of Swingin Thing, who she had a major crush on at the time. Somehow she ended up getting into an argument with him because she was drunk and emotional, so she hopped in a cab and came home. Just hearing her describe her night had me completely exhausted.

  She also mentioned Charlie was at the party and that he asked about me. I never told Faye the truth about why I dumped him, nor did I tell her about the ratings he gave her in his phonebook. She had enough people showering her with compliments. I figured there wasn’t anything he wrote about her that she hadn’t already heard before.

  A few days later, I had just come home from running errands when my mom told me Hannah had called. She said she sounded very upset, like she had been crying and wanted me to call her the moment I got home. I figured she felt bad for being snippy with me about the Bakersfield trip, but I hardly thought it was worth shedding any tears over.

  When I called Hannah back, she was crying hysterically. It took me a few minutes to finally calm her down just so I could figure out what the hell she was saying.

  She told me she had just talked to Ariah and Arwen’s mom. Apparently the twins had taken a drive with some friends to Tijuana that past weekend and were in a car accident. She said everyone in the car was okay, except for Arwen. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt and her head went through the windshield. She died on impact.

  I just couldn’t believe it. We were only 18 and our birthdays were two days apart from each other. We had our whole lives ahead of us. How was this even possible?

  My first thought was to call Ariah, but Hannah said their phone had been ringing off the hook all day, so I didn’t want to be a bother. She mentioned their mom would call her as soon as funeral arrangements were made and give her that info to pass on to any of Arwen’s classmates.

  About a week later, I went to Arwen’s funeral. I arrived a little early and was standing outside the church when Ariah arrived. As I looked at her walk up the steps to the church, she looked like a completely different person. It was as if all the light had been sucked out of her. There was no warmth in her big brown eyes anymore. They were completely vacant now. I saw no trace of the girl that ran around Rosemead High like an energetic little spider monkey, laughing her ass off and making funny noises. The girl standing before me was basically a zombie.

  People walked up to Ariah, one by one and gave their condolences. Like a robot, she’d say, “thank you” without looking them in the eye. There were quite a few people going up to her, so I felt it was best to wait until after the services to talk to her.

  When I walked inside the church, it looked like a high school reunion. Each pew was full of my classmates, many that I graduated with almost a year earlier. I took a seat and an usher handed me a memorial card with Arwen’s graduation picture sprawled across the front. She looked so pretty in her cap and gown with a big smile across her face.

  People continued to pile in, and the services started a few minutes later. I’ve always tried to be the strong person in situations like that, but the moment I heard Ariah have a complete meltdown halfway through the services, it absolutely destroyed me. I cried so hard, I literally couldn’t breathe.

  I pulled myself together by the time the services concluded. When I finally got the chance to go up to Ariah, all I could do was hug her. We held onto each other for a long time as she broke down in my arms, and I kept telling her how sorry I was. I didn’t know what else to say to her. I felt I didn’t have the right to tell her that everything would be okay because I knew it wouldn’t be. My heart broke for her and for the fact that I never got to make amends with Arwen over what happened at our graduation.

  When I got home later that afternoon, I fell back on my bed and stared at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. I didn’t watch TV or listen to the radio, and I didn’t take any phone calls. I just thought of Arwen. I thought about all the fun times I had with her and Ariah in high school. Silly things like when they gave me a new wave makeover by dressing me in their funky clothes. When we spray-painted their bedroom walls with skulls while their mom was on vacation. And when Arwen fell into one of the school toilets while climbing a stall to spy on Brandon and Erica for me. There were many random moments we shared that were so unimportant at the time, and I didn’t realize how special they were until Arwen was gone.

  Losing Arwen really made me sit back and think about what was going on in my life. I had been flying by the seat of my pants since graduation with no game plan in sight and that needed to change. I really needed to figure out what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life.

  As the spring flowers started to bloom, so did my relationship with Sebastian, as well as a new shithole right around the corner from his apartment called Thai Ice Café.

  Thai Ice Cafe was a small club on Hollywood Blvd near La Brea. On Tuesday nights they sold $1 beers and had bands play on their teeny tiny stage. Chuck was going there to meet a girl, and since Sebastian and I didn’t have any immediate plans, we decided t
o tag along.

  I was halfway through my horrible beer when Chuck and the girl he went to meet started arguing. He walked away from her, came up to us and said he wanted to leave. He mentioned a party just around the corner on Yucca Street where some of the guys from a band called Alleycat Scratch supposedly lived. I was hesitant on going because that particular area of Yucca was really sketchy. There was rarely any parking, so you’d usually have to park far away, and I knew several girls that had gotten mugged while walking to and from their cars in that area. Regardless, we ended up going there anyway.

  When we walked into the party at Yucca, it was hardly a party. Michael, the singer of Alleycat Scratch, was there along with Strange. We only stayed long enough to finish a drink, then left and went back to Sebastian’s.

  When we walked down the hallway to Sebastian’s, we noticed Angela standing outside her front door. She told us that Bam was out of control and to keep a good vibe when we walked into the apartment. Sebastian rolled his eyes and walked right past her into the apartment.

  When we walked in, Ronnie was there along with Bam, Jack, and Susie. Bam saw me, put me in a headlock, and we started play fighting. We took slow motion punches and kicks at each other and would fly across the room when the other would land a blow. When we both finally landed on the ground, we happened to look over and notice Scooby sitting in corner staring at us. Bam burst out into song.

  “Scooby doobie doo. Donde estas? He’s sleeping in the corner!” We both rolled over on our sides and cracked the hell up. Ronnie asked us what was so funny, but we were laughing so hard we couldn’t talk. For some strange reason after that night, Bam and I starting calling each other Scooby and never referred to each other by our real names again.

  I finally got off the ground and took a seat next to Sebastian on the couch. He was playing some video game on a Sega Genesis system when Harley suddenly bolted in the front door and tore the controller out of his hands. She took away the entire console, saying it belonged to her and abruptly walked back out. Sebastian laughed and suggested we go behind the tarp.

  We had just sat down on his bed when we heard people yelling from outside, just below his balcony. We went out on the balcony and looked down to find Spider, Chris, and Sunny trying to climb up onto the balcony. They were on someone’s balcony below on the second floor.

  Sunny climbed onto Spider’s shoulders and latched onto the rails of Sebastian’s balcony. He pulled himself up and over onto the balcony, climbed over Sebastian’s bed and casually strolled into the apartment. Next in line was Chris, who also got a boost from Spider. He was hanging onto the rails and yelping, “Someone help me up!’ as his long legs dangled below him. We kept telling him to kick his feet up, but he couldn’t. Chris dangled for a minute or two, then eventually went around the building and came in through the front door with Spider. Why all three of them didn’t do that in the first place? I have no idea.

  I know it all sounds like some kind of crazy Fellini movie, but that’s just how things went when I hung out with this crowd of people. There was another night when a group of us were walking to a party when Dizzy and Mandie stole a real estate flagpole off someone’s lawn and tried pole-vaulting with it on the concrete streets. Random things like that were always happening, and I never asked why any of them did the things they did. I just sat back and enjoyed the ride.

  And while we’re on the subject of crazy, lets talk about the day the city of Los Angeles quite literally lost its damn mind in the spring of 1992.

  I was home watching TV and happened to catch live footage of the verdict that had just been reached in the Rodney King beating trial. The verdict? All officers were found not guilty.

  Riots immediately erupted all over Southern California. Shops were looted, businesses were set on fire, and people were beating each other in the streets. Every television station was streaming live riot footage taking place all over Los Angeles. I even watched Silo, an electronics store right by Sebastian’s place, get looted.

  “Wow that’s right around the corner from Sebastian’s house!” I said to my mom as I grabbed my purse and was about to head out the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “I’m going to Sebastian’s,” I said casually.

  “Are you crazy? Look at what’s going on out there!” “But…I already had plans to go out.”

  “Sufrah!” she said sternly.

  Which basically means, “suffer” in Spanish. But in terms of

  my mom talking to her foolish daughter, it translated to “tough shit, you’re not going anywhere.” Over the next few days, I continued watching news footage of the ongoing violence and looting that swarmed over the city. It was beyond what the L.A.P.D. could handle, so the National Guard and the Marines were called in. They bulldozed through the city to regain control and enforced a temporary “dusk till dawn” citywide curfew, which basically meant no one was allowed to walk the streets after dark.

  CHRISPENKETH( Swingin Thing):Weheardmachinegunsgoing offondifferentrooftops.Itwascrazy.Wegotup ontheroofofthe Martelbuildingandweretryingtosecureit.Wefilledupemptybeer bottleswithlittlerocksthatwereontheroof,andwewatchedpeople comingdown,tryingtobust intoourbuilding,sowe startedwhipping bottlesdownatthem.

  We saved the liquor store next door too. Some guys took a trashcanandsmashedthe liquor store window,sowe were whipping bottles down on them too. The next day,the liquor storeowner came byand gaveusacaseofbeerto thankus.

  You could see smoke coming from a bunch of buildings, and we actually got busted a day or so later for being out after the dusk/dawn curfew. I remember walking the streetsat night. It was soquiet anddesolate.It was soeerie.

  JOEL PATTERSON ( Blackboard Jungle): I was at the Burbank houseright when theL.A.Riotsbrokeout. Blackboardhada showin Arizonathefollowingnight,sowe allmet at the house andleft from there.We endedupdrivingonthe 10freewayandit was awar zone. People were on bridges throwing shit down onto the freeway, palm trees were on fire. We were stuck downtown in traffic, but we finally made it out.Idon’t think we realizedit was going to be that bad whenweleftthehouse.

  One week and one billion dollars worth of damage later, the citywide curfew was finally lifted. With things finally going back to normal, I borrowed my dad’s truck and made my way out to Sebastian’s.

  My first outing post-riots was a party at some random person’s apartment in Hollywood. When I got to Sebastian’s, we gathered up the usual’s from the Martel Estates, then walked outside and stood at the curb like a bunch of kids waiting for our school bus to arrive.

  After standing in silence for a few moments, the bickering started between the few people who actually had a car. The debate was who should drive, who drove last time, and if someone was pinpointed to drive, they bitched at why they shouldn't have to drive. I just wanted to get to the damn party, so I chimed in.

  “Well my dads truck is over there and…” Before I could finish my sentence, everyone made a b-line right for my dad’s long bed truck and started piling in the back.

  The party wasn’t that great, so we only stayed for about an hour. We eventually migrated out of the apartment building and tried to think of where to go next. While we lollygagged in the street being our usual loud, drunk selves, a woman walked out onto her 2nd floor balcony just above us and started screaming for us to be quiet.

  She looked to be in her late 40’s or early 50’s. I didn’t understand why someone so old would be living in that area of Hollywood. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for some of the guys in our little group to start yelling back at her to shut up. She quickly disappeared back into her apartment, and we resumed our socializing. Normally, I would’ve felt bad, but it was a Saturday night and I’ve always said it’s free game on weekends. It wasn’t even that late either, so I don’t know why she was so angry.

  About five minutes later, she reappeared and began putting small buckets and pots of water on her balcony. Then out of nowhere, she started throwing the water over her balcony
to try and hit us. Water was flying towards us and expletives were flying back up to her. In the midst of this craziness, Michael, from Alleycat Scratch, stumbles into the middle of the street completely drunk off his ass.

  He looked up to the grumpy neighbor with his hands up in the air and pleaded, “CAN’T WE ALL...JUSSSSS GET ALONG?”

  She threw another bucket of water that narrowly missed him as he came scurrying back toward us. I was laughing my ass off until I noticed her go back into her apartment, sans buckets. I had a feeling she wasn’t going in to get more water. She was probably going to call the police. Luckily, there were enough of us that had the good sense to wrangle up those that didn’t, and we got the hell out of there.

  It was shortly after midnight when we left the party, which was much too early for us to go home. Without any other bright ideas, we went with our usual default plan and made our way to Errol Flynn’s, a huge empty park in Hollywood at the top of Fuller Avenue.

  I never understood why they called it Errol Flynn’s because the late, great actor never owned the land. He was just one of many celebrities that stayed on property during the late 1950’s. Obviously Errol was long gone, as was the entire structure of the house. So we turned it into our own personal nighttime playground.

  CASSIDY: ItwasalmosteverysingleweekendwewenttoErrol Flynn’s,andevery singleweekendwegotwalkedoutby thecops.The cops knewmost of us byname,buttheyneveroncegaveusaticket.

  Everyone hopped the large steel gates of the estate except for me. There was a strange bend between two of the bars in the gate, as if Superman himself had pried them apart to trespass for a midnight stroll. Luckily, the gap was just wide enough for me to wiggle my way in.

  We walked up the wide dirt road to “the pool” area, just off to the left side of the entrance. There were five wide steps leading up to the pool with cactus plants and bushes on either side. I walked up the steps to take a peek. The only thing I could see under the moonlight, was that the pool was marked up with graffiti and partially filled with leaves and other garbage. We sat on the steps for a bit passing around a fifth of Jim Beam and a liter of Coke, then decided to stumble further up the dirt road. We passed the beat up tennis courts with their tattered nets and reached a flat area of the property where the house once stood and overlooked the city.