Joe & Steve Padilla

Joe & Steve are my step-mother's brothers.  So technically they are my uncles, or step-uncles, but Joe is four or five years older than me and Steve is about a year older than me, so I always thought of them more like cousins.  I've known them since I was four or five years old.

I was never all that crazy about going to visit them.  There were three main reasons.  First off, Joe was always doing something to get us, well, really them, in trouble.  Secondly, when they pissed their mom off, she would come at them with a "bull whip"!  I don't really know if it was a bull whip, but that's what they called it.  It WAS a whip though.  One of those long braided leather jobs.  The first time I saw it happen, we were in their room and were supposed to be asleep, but Joe kept making Steve and me laugh.  Suddenly the door burst open, the light switch was flicked on and their mom started swinging that whip at them.  She never, ever tried to punish me, but I was close enough to them that it scared the Hell out of me.  Plus, Joe and Steve were screaming bloody murder!  I was petrified!  I had only been spanked once in my life!  She finally yelled at them to shut up and go to sleep, turned off the light, and slammed the door shut.  Joe and Steve immediately started giggling.  Their secret was to hold their blankets suspended several inches above their bodies to absorb the blows and to scream, so their mom THOUGHT she was hitting them.  Lastly, their dad had a miniature pinscher named "Rusty" that creeped me out.

I can only think of two capers involving Joe or Steve that didn't involve the other and those incident have been written up as separate stories.  One about my "Uncle Bill" and one about my dad.  Joe and Steve grew up in East Los Angeles on 4th Street, west of Chicago Avenue.  Steve wasn't as innocent as me, but he was close.  Joe was another story.  Joe fancied himself a junior ese. There were some old time gangs up in East L.A. and Joe decided he wanted his own gang, so he formed The Torture Club.  To get in you had to put up with things like having the guys in the "club" throw a football into your stomach as hard as they could from a few feet away.  Kid's stuff, but none of them was over ten years old.  The club didn't last long.  It lasted until the day there was a knock at the door and a couple of older kids, that Joe didn't know, asked if he was Joe Padilla.  Joe said he was and they immediately punched him and said, THEIR gang was the ONLY gang in the neighborhood.  When Joe tried to explain that it was just a club.  His answer was a kick to the ribs.  Torture club, disbanded.

 If his folks hadn't moved the family up to Santa Rosa, when he was in junior high, Joe would have undoubtedly wound up in prison, or dead, or both.  When we got into trouble, Joe was ALWAYS behind it.  Joe was always encouraging us to do stuff that wouldn't have even occurred to me to do.

I probably first met Steve and Joe in 1965, MAYBE the last part of 1964, At any rate, it was the 1960's.  There were no video games to entertain us.  There were hardly any color televisions and most televisions had 12-18 inch screens.  So, kids in those days actually had to use their IMAGINATIONS to entertain themselves. I sometimes hear adults lamenting their belief that kids today spend too much time playing violent video games instead of using their imaginations.  In the future, bear some of the following stories in mind when considering the relative merits of violent video games versus I-MA-gi-NA-tion (and IMAGINE sparkly things in the air around the word)


One 4th of July, when I was about six.  Joe gathered a bunch of smoke bombs and shoved them into all three of our pockets.  We then snuck into the three story apartment building next door to his house.  Starting on the top floor, we ran silently down the hallways, floor by floor, dropping smoke bombs in front of each doorway as we ran, until we ran out the front door yelling, "FIRE!", at the top of our lungs.  We then ran down the street and hid, until a crowd had gathered and the fire department had arrived.  At that point we came up and blended into the crowd to watch the excitement.  Good times.  And like I said, I WAS SIX!  That's the magic of a child's I-MA-gi-NA-tion.

A year later the endearing qualities of children's imagination was again let loose. The following 4th of July, was spent at my step-mother's older sister's house.  Mary Ellen lived in Monterey Park, just west of Atlantic Avenue and about a half mile to a mile north of East L.A. Junior College.  Joe gathered up a bunch of those cone shaped fireworks that shoot a boatload of colored sparks about fifteen feet into the air for about thirty seconds to a minute.  When it got dark, we went down to an ivy covered hill on the west side of Atlantic and hid in the ivy.  Whenever we saw the headlights of a car coming, we would set a cone up in the street and light that puppy's fuse, then we'd run to the ivy, lie down and wait.  Usually the fireworks would ignite when the car was several car lengths away, giving the driver several seconds to react.  On our last cone, the car got closer and closer. Just when I had decided we had a dud, the cone ignited sending a thick shower of colored sparks fifteen feet into the air.  The car was almost on top of the cone when it ignited and the driver slammed on the brakes.  The car skidded over the cone, out of control, before the shower of sparks had even been going for three seconds.  The car came to a stop when the front tires hit the curb in front, and about 30 feet south, of us.  After a couple of seconds, with the sparks still flying high into the sky, the car's four doors popped open and five Mexican gang bangers came out with bats, chains and pipes.  They were pissed!  They started beating the ivy with their improvised weapons and I could hear them yelling things like,
"GET YOUR PINCHE ASSES OUT HERE, BEFORE WE FIND YOU!" (we silently declined that invitation)
"WE KNOW YOU LITTLE VATO BASTARDS ARE IN HERE!"
"WE'RE  GONNA KICK YOUR LITTLE ASSES!"

For my part, I just froze and squeezed my eyes tightly shut, under the popular theory among kids under seven, that, "what you can't see, can't see you" (that part's actually more wishful thinking than imagination)

The theory proved correct that evening and, after the pissed off gangsters loaded back into their car and took off, we ran our asses back to Mary Ellen's house.  I glued my right side to my dad's left side for the rest of the night. NOT so good times.

My step-mother's family was all Catholic.  Up to that point, my religious education consisted of watching my dad set up Christmas lights and the Christmas tree, watching the baby Jesus and assorted animals and royalty being set up in mangers all around the neighborhood and watching various historical epics, usually starring Charleton Heston.  I had never been inside of a church.  I later found out that my dad's family is ALSO Catholic, except for him.  When he was taken in to be baptized, he cried so much, the priest told them all to leave.  My grandmother was mortified and never took him back for another go-round.  Anyway, Joe and Steve were altar boys at their neighborhood church, St Mary's, at 4th and Chicago.

One Sunday, when I was about seven, my step-mother asked if I'd like to go to church with Steve and Joe.  I said, "Sure."  No offense, to my Catholic friends and relatives, but THAT was a mistake.  First off, it was echoey, which was scarey.  Secondly there were a bunch of scary statues, especially, "The Big One"!  Then the priest was speaking in another language half the time, and when he was speaking English, I didn't understand what he was talking about, but it sounded scary!  On top of that, everyone was periodically standing in unison, kneeling in unison, sitting in unison and speaking in unison. THAT was scary.  Then, everyone got in a line and the priest put something in their mouths, THAT was scary. And to top it all off, my dad wasn't there! THAT was scary!  I NEVER went inside St Mary's again!  Bet THAT!

Joe and Steve spent a lot of weekends at our house in Westminster.  Joe introduced Steve, me, a select couple of my friends and our entire neighborhood to the fun of, "Ring and Run".  He also introduced Steve, me and the Hendricks family to the annual challenges of stealing Christmas light bulbs.  The Hendricks family didn't enjoy this game as much as we did.  More imagination at work.

My friends and I used a lot of our IMAGINATION reenacting the latest war movie, or western that we had seen.  We killed us a lot of imaginary Nazis and redskins. If we hadn't seen a movie, the latest episode of Davey Crockett, Daniel Boone, or Rat Patrol would do.  We all liked the Andy Griffith Show, but I don't recall ever reenacting an episode of that show. Joe and Steve were no different. But Joe took reenacting an episode to a WHOLE new level.  He BECAME Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.  He BECAME James West of the Wild Wild West, even when we weren't playing.  Steve was his Migelito Loveless, to Steve's dismay.  Steve and I could be peacefully sitting on their front porch reading comics, when their bedroom window would fly up and Joe would jump out onto the porch humming, dun dun... dun dun... duh dun dun duh duhdun dun dun... then he would start punching and kicking us.  For Joe, this kind of hero worship lasted waaaaay beyond the time normal kids stop.  He was reliving his favorite Billy Jack and Bruce Lee scenes well into his late teens, maybe early twenties.

Speaking of Joe's James West impersonations.  Joe had a 6" long switch blade that he kept hidden from his folks.  He kept it hidden outside, under a loose brick in the chimney.  One day, he slipped into his James West mode and started humming the show's theme song while brandishing his switch blade and slowly stalking toward Steve. dun dun (step and flick of the switch blade held head high behind him)... dun dun (step)... duh dun (step) dun duh (step) duhdun (step and starting to swing the blade back and downward in preparation for a circular upswing from behind) dun AIIIEEEE! Fool had swung the knife into the back of his skinny ass thigh! HA HA HA on him!

Joe quickly clamped off his own scream, pulled the knife out of his bleeding thigh, hobbled over to a wrought iron fence behind their house and rubbed his bloody hand all over one of the points.  He held a finger to his lips, shushing his little brother, and hobbled to the side of the house, where the chimney was, while worriedly keeping an eye on the screen door to the back of the house.  When he reached the chimney he wiped the blood off the blade, hid the blade in it's hiding spot and shushed Steve again.  Then he hobbled BACK to the wrought iron fence, laid down on the ground and finally started screaming his head off.  Their mom came rushing out the back door to her little mijo and asked what happened.  Joe whimpered out that he had been climbing the fence, slipped and fallen on one of the points.  He shot Steve a warning glare, as his mother checked his leg.  THAT'S imagination!

I had a box full of plastic army men.  We used to go in my backyard, and divide the yard up between us.  Then we'd divide the plastic army men into three armies and set them up.  After that, we would grab dirt clods and rocks and try to knock each other's armies down.  Thrilling.  One day, when I was about six, I reached down to grab a nice rock and I took one on the cheek.  It didn't hurt, but I rubbed it all the same, mostly to get whatever dirt was there off.  As I did this, I looked over at Joe and Steve.  There jaws were hanging open and their eyes were wide.  Before I could wonder what was up with them, Joe yelled, "DON"T LOOK AT YOUR HAND!"  He could see I was unfazed by getting hit, so his instincts were surprisingly good for an eleven year old, in theory.  But in reality, what are you gonna do when someone says, "Don't look at your hand", for no apparent reason?  You're gonna look at your hand and that's just what I did.  I immediately discovered why Joe didn't want me looking at it.  It was covered in blood, from my fingertips to the heel of my hand and pouring down my forearm!  And what does a six year old do when he sees a bunch of his own blood?  That's right.  I went screaming around the side of the house to the front of the house, across the front of the garage, up the walkway and into the house.  My step-mom came running and asked what happened.  I told her, "Joe hit me with a rock!"  I was crying, but I was mostly mad and I wanted Joe to get a spanking.
"Oh well, I'm sure it was an accident.", she said.

I should have expected THAT.  I was learning that she NEVER took my side in ANYTHING.  I was temporarily miffed, but then an inner smile stole across my soul. My DAD would be home in a few hours. THEN Joe would be in for it.  Joe, Steve and my little sister were taken next door to the DeAngelo's house.  Joe and Steve were told to behave until we returned and my step-mom took me to the doctor's for stitches.

The shot to numb the pain was painful and didn't really numb the pain, so the cleansing of the wound was painful and the stitches were painful.  But that was okay, because, as I gritted my teeth, in my mind's eye I was seeing my dad coming home and seeing my face.  He would ask what happened and I would tell him.  OOOH! I would squeeze out a few tears as I did so, but pretend to be trying not to cry!  It was brilliant!  Joe was finally going to get what was coming to him! My dad was going to blow like Krakatoa east of Java!  All the way home I was picturing my dad grabbing Joe by one of his skinny arms and wailing away on Joe's behind with his free hand, as Joe danced around him, while my dad just spun in place smackin' his ass, like Harry Belafonte playin' the bongos!  My imagination was in full on overdrive!

As we pulled up in front of the house, I saw my dad's truck in the driveway. My dad was stooped over, with a rag and a bucket of water, cleaning the drops of blood. This was even better than I had imagined!  Before the car had fully stopped, I had bailed out and was running for my dad.  He stopped me, looked at the stitches on my left cheekbone and asked,
"What happened to you?", as he grabbed my chin with his free hand and turned my face for a better look at the damage.
"Joe hit me in the face with a rock!", I said, (OHH, I need to start a lower lip tremble and squeeze out a couple of tea...)
"Hmph!  It makes you look like more of a man.", my dad casually stated, as he released my chin.

Then he handed me the wet rag and said, "Here, why don't you clean the rest of this blood up?  I'm going to go in the garage and play some pool."  Then he turned and walked into the house, leaving me holding the rag and bucket.  I just stared after him, with my jaw hanging open.
"WHAT!  I get yelled at for getting his friend's name wrong!  Steve gets yelled at for cheating at a stupid kid's game!  But Joe does this to ME and NOTHING!  I have to clean my own blood up! This is WRONG!", I said that to myself.

Later I found out that Joe had been picking his nose at the DeAngelo's house and chasing their three kids around to rub his boogers on them.  So I didn't even get the satisfaction of having Joe being scared for a few hours that he MIGHT get into trouble.

Once Joe and Steve moved to Santa Rosa I didn't see them as often, but when I did see them, I saw them for longer periods of time.  They would stay with us in Westminster for a week or two and I'd stay with them in Santa Rosa for a month or so, during Summer.  One Summer, when they were at my house, I was about nine years old.  It was Sunday and they were going to a little clapboard church on Main Street.  It was a little walk south of 5 Points Shopping Center in Huntington Beach.  My step-mom said that if I went with them, afterwards, I could go to the movies with them at the 5 Points Shopping Center.  I had never been in the church, but I knew what it looked like.  It looked like one of those little wood churches you see in cowboy movies.  Not intimidating at all.  So I agreed.  She dropped us off and said she'd be back to get us when church was done.

Church finished and we had been waiting for half an hour for our ride.  We decided to walk to the movies.   It was less than a mile away.  As we walked, we crossed some railroad tracks.  Along the railroad tracks was some dumped 2"x4" lumber.  Sticking through the lumber were several 6" nails.  Naturally, having just sat through a church sermon, Joe immediately put his imagination to work,
"What a great idea it would be to lay the lumber across the road... with the nails up".

So, we did that.  Then we continued on our way to the movies.  A couple of cars passed us.  A few seconds later, we could hear screeching brakes and slamming doors.  We looked back over our shoulders and saw four, or five, cars stopped with the driver's gathered in conference in the middle of the street.  When we looked back, most of them looked our way and one pointed at us.  Steve and I immediately turned away and Joe sensed that we were going to bolt.
He immediately hissed, "NO!" and we hesitated.
"Just keep walking.  Play it cool.", he said.

We did.  A Huntington Beach police car passed us heading to the stopped cars. We just kept on walking and enjoyed our movie and popcorn.

When I was 13, Joe, Steve and I went to see The Exorcist.  It was the first time, since the 4th of July incident in Monterey Park, that I ever saw Joe scared.  The fact that Joe and Steve were scared by this movie was laughable to me, because I thought it was one of the phoniest movies I had ever seen.  Of course, I had only been to church twice and I had never even heard of possession.  Even Hell, demons and the Devil were only vague concepts to me. So when Linda Blair's head started spinning, I almost laughed.  Steve and Joe were scared to go to bed that night and (mocking baby voice) wanted the light on. HA, HA, HA, HA, pussies!

When  I was 15, the movie JAWS was released. Joe, Steve and I went to see it.  It was frickin' GREAT! I had grown up at the beaches of Huntington and Newport, because I spent a lot of weekends during the school year, and a month of every Summer, with my grandparents who lived, first on PCH and then on Balboa.  In all those years the closest thing to a shark I had ever seen at either of those beaches, were a pair of tiger shark jaws that my grandparents kept on their wall. My Grandfather had caught the shark during World War II.  The jaws were big enough to easily go around a large man's shoulders.  Having grown up seeing those jaws on the wall, the movie JAWS was not a far-fetched idea for me.  It wasn't nearly as far-fetched to me as the movie The Exorcist, which terrified Catholic Steve and Joe, but I had found laughable.

After the movie, we, like several people around us, laughingly joked about never going in the ocean again.  HA HA HA! The next day we went to Huntington Beach.  On the way, we continued joking about sharks and imitating the movie's iconic theme. da duh...da duh...da duh, da duh, da duh da duh da duh DA! HA, HA,HA!  When we got to the beach, we unloaded our stuff, staked out our stretch of sand near lifeguard station 3 and headed for the water.  We were still laughing and joking about sharks.  We stopped at the water's edge... to check the waves... you know.  one of us made a lame joke about sharks. Ha. Then we headed in... ankle deep.  The water off Huntington is cold, because there is a deep water trench off shore that feeds the beach cold water.  So, you have to adjust slowly.  We stared silently at the deeper water.  Then moved cautiously (to adjust to the water temperature) into waist deep water.  We kept our hands and arms out of the water and nervously turned in all directions, trying to peer into the particulate filled, dark green water.  OKAY, OKAY WE WERE SCARED!  ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!  (That was also an example of imagination, but not as destructive as some of the previous examples) We decided the waves weren't worth going any deeper and decided it was a good day to work on our tans.  I bet the lifeguards were able to identify every single person who saw JAWS that summer.