Search and seizure and the Stepford Son.....

REVIEW:

September 1980--

Out of no-where while getting ready to move from our Van Nuys apartment, not knowing where we were going, Eric G. recommended us (naively) for a 60 unit complex in West L.A. a couple of blocks west of La Cienega, a pleasant neighborhood. We interviewed with the owners of the building; Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Chong, a soft-spoken duo that took to us right away (there you go, that first impression).

Got the job, which included a roomy two-bedroom apartment with a private garden/courtyard. A nice place.

It seemed that my vague hopes were answered. This was our opportunity. A golden opportunity to finally get things right. Sally and I were finding God; acquaintances would visit with Jesus lessons. Simultaneously, I’d drag our little family down to the Crenshaw district for rousing gospel services with Reverend Fred Price. I started to pay attention. I was still driving the cab, an occasional gig on the weekend and learning my new duties as a ‘premier’ apartment manager. I was charged and filled with hope.

Al and June---The Cave Snake and the Lemming:

Sally’s parents; Al and June, moved to Fullerton, California (near Disneyland) from Connecticut a couple of years after Sally and I. Al who loved his Manhattans, preferred leaving a smile up to the other fellow and where a smirk could break his face. Showing as much emotion as a German Cave Snake (Lampropelitis pyromelana Germana) laying eggs. A difficult man to be around. And June; a sniveling, persistently giggling-nervous lap-woman who treasured drinking her Vodka Martini’s in Al’s cave.

Al never liked me, feeling all our previous problems were of my making. Al would ignore all whispered-entreaties by me on his once troubled daughter.

December 1980—

8560 Olympic Blvd. is an address that’s hard to forget, insanity extraordinaire took place there.

A typical West L.A. apartment building. Only a few years old, spanning all of the Olympic Blvd block with terraced balconies and a ground level garage. I was proud of our new position, determined to make it work.

One afternoon I was changing a lock in an upstairs unit when suddenly I heard yelling coming from the first floor. Running down the stairs to investigate, I found the door to our apartment opened, the yelling coming from within. I found Sally cornered in the living room by two of our tenants. One of the tenants crying and yelling at Sally, “That’s my blouse, and my gold cross!” Sally was balling as well. A horrific scene, what the hell was going on?!

As it were, Sally was stealing from the apartments and wearing some of these things while collecting rents! Answering the doorbell while modeling stolen property in front of the victims. Not to mention the medicine cabinets that were pilfered. I was staggered, shocked, bewildered…and fucking completely dumbfounded. Cant’ even begin to get the ‘moment’.

We lost the job and with the inherent chaos that ensued, I lost the cab job as well. My taxi boss wanted nothing to do with me when he heard the (I’m sure, the twisted version) story. I went back to him several times asking for a second chance…some ‘maybes’ but ….no dice.

Sally left to go live with her parents, promising to seek psychiatric care and promising to get better! Was emphatic… “I am going to get better Michael…you’ll see!” Mr. Chong saw my anguish and dilemma, feeling sympathy for my toddler son Eric and me. He let us temporarily stay in a one-bedroom unit he had vacant. My mother moved in to help. And I set out to find a job, weak kneed.

Trying again....and again

My mother, Eric and I began to settle into a routine with the promise to Mr. Chong that we’d find a place to live as soon as I could get back on my feet. Sally would visit every couple of weeks; the three of us would make day trips to Disney Land, The zoo, etc. I had the dream (a malignant delusion) that we would all heal and live happily ever after. Sally would write telling me of her progress in therapy and would explain with things like; “ I know I have something wrong with me, I want to get better and I will.”

It was a Friday night, I was at work and we were expecting Sally for a visit Saturday morning.

I suddenly get a frantic call from my mother in the middle of my car parking; “They’ve taken the baby, they’ve taken the baby!!” Screaming, “Come home now!!”

I jump in our beat –up Opel Kadett (a car my mother had been given months before). What the hell was going on, agonizing with every Wilshire stoplight I breached.

Run into the apartment and find my mother in hysterics. She’s frantic, “The intercom rang, I answered…. it was Sally…I buzzed her in…when she came to our door I opened it…she was with two men and a woman, they barged in, shoved me aside, one held me down, while Sally and the others took Eric from his bed!!”

“Hit me, Hit me”, my mother screamed, tears streaming down her face, crouched like a sumo wrestler, hands whirling, pointing to her face….”hit me, hit me…Michael…. HIT ME…they’ve taken the baby!!…They’ve taken the baby!”

I did, I became the Stepford Son; a suddenly hypnotized, wholly limbic robot.

I punched her in the face as hard as I could.

She fell to the floor, gripping her eye, moaning… “Good Michael good!”

Running back outside, I found the two nitwits on the steps trying to hand me papers. Shoving all aside ran down the side street, finding Sally behind the wheel of an idling car with my son in its back. Seeing me, she gunned it… racing past me. As she passed, I ran behind screaming for the police, while Eric looked at me puzzled through the rear window. Eric in the window turned the corner and disappeared.

I rushed back to the front of the building confronting the two…one of which I learned later was her father’s brother and who (allegedly) raped Sally as a young teen. I screamed at him and to the rest of Olympic…as he frantically tried to make me take the papers, “You fucking idiot, she’s a liar and a thief, POLICE, POLICE! You have no idea what you’re doing you fucking ASSHOLE, POLICE, POLICE!!” The nitwit grabbed me and that’s all I needed. I threw him in the bushes and began to Eighty Deuce beat him (mom taught me good…how to get someone’s dumbbell-goat). His friend knocked me from behind, threw the papers at my feet and they both ran. All the while, I’m screaming “POLICE, POLICE!” at the top of my screeching lungs.

By the time I get back to the apartment my mother has a terrific shiner sitting on her left eye. And when the police finally do arrive she tells them in detail and veracity how Eric was abducted and how the “older one” belted her. She was brilliant (in many respects). The Papers? 1) Suing me for divorce, 2) Suing me for custody of my son, 3) Restraining order keeping me away from Al and June’s house. Al had sicked his fellow cave-snake lawyer on me.

December 1980-

ANOTHER desperate letter to the figment-of-dad:

Daddy— Sorry for the long silence but I’ve been through a lot. Sally and I have separated and I have my boy. After three years of marriage I discovered Sally has some very deep mental problems. I hope the holidays have been well to you. There has been so much that has been happening, so hard to explain in a letter. Love Michael and Eric.

My new address 8560 W. Olympic Los Angeles, CA. 90035 (###) ###-####

I was betrayed, so familiar, and so comfortable. A self-fulfilled prophesy. My son was gone. Taken hostage.

The date in Santa Anna family court was March 20^th. I had lees than three weeks to build the case.

I thought it would be open and shut, why… I had the letters from Sally with her self-admitted pathologies and Mr. Chong stating the reason we were fired. But I knew having a lawyer would better my chances. But of course… I had no money.

So I desperately went up into the hills and sought out my new friend Charles Nelson Reilly for help.

Mr. Reilly was aghast at my story, “My God, Michael I’ll do anything to help!” He made several calls while we sat. Talked to a judge friend, talked to his lawyer.

I was revitalized, now confident things would be ok when Mr. Reilly set-up a meeting for me to see his lawyer in Newport Beach.

Borrowing a car from a friend, I headed down to affluent Newport Beach.

The affluent made it more definite that I would be vindicated ( I was convinced).

I had friends in high places. Al certainly didn’t.

Mr. Reilly's lawyer heard the story, took a look at my letters as I wore my heart on my sleeve…. telling all.

A few days went by, Mr. Reilly would never call me back, nor his lawyer.Understandably, they wanted nothing to do with our insanity.

But my mother and I were confident that between the letters and her faux assault and battery charge against the nitwit… we would prevail.

March 20^th was a Friday, Susanna, my friend Eric G. and I sat in the Family Court of Santa Anna waiting hall. Santa Anna was having a heat spell, the air-conditioning barely worked…it was hot and miserable, court sucks in any weather. Al’s appendage and I waited to be called into the judge’s chambers.

We waited.

Al’s Lawyer reminded me of Al Hirsch, remember Al Hirsch the first and only manager for The Sugar Blues Band? The fellow that always seemed dirty with a jaundice-like day-glow that haloed his every move? Who coveted little boys? Remember him? The Susanna Foster Chronicles-Phantom of the Heart: Mom's Sugar Blues Band...and the rock and roll manager.

Sitting in the Judge’s chamber, the judge first scanned the Al- dog’s papers and then asked for mine.

I handed him Sally and Mr. Chong’s letters. It didn’t take long for the judge to say, “Mr. Evans’, your papers are not in order. I’m ordering temporary custody to Mrs. Evans pending a 90 day review.”

I began to cry and plead with the judge, “Can’t you see what she’s done?” “You can’t do this!” “See right here she admits she’s crazy!” He didn’t want to hear it. He ordered that I was to have Eric the first and third weekend of the month pending the ninety-day go over, seeing as though it was the third weekend of the month I could pick Eric up that evening and return him on Sunday. I didn’t hear “temporary,” I didn’t hear “every other weekend.” All I heard was “Custody to Mrs. Evans.”

As Susanna and Eric G. waited in the car, I knocked on Al and June’s door. Al answers holding Eric in one arm and a Manhattan in the other, saying through scrunched lips, he hisses, “I hope you can read.” I grabbed my son as if he was the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Al was right I couldn’t read. I never looked back.

I was on the run… a soon-to-be- felony child stealing warrant on my head.

Susanna called her sister Vicki (Baby) in Pomona asking if I could stay with her. I did briefly, witnessing first hand her brand of the Larson insanity. An insanity that was repulsive even to me. Her dilapidated house, her non-stop drinking, the sleazy boyfriend whom she’d sit on his lap and uncontrollably urinate across his thigh. Her pretty and lost daughter Suzanne (17). Not knowing that I was witnessing the genesis of her alcoholism and schizophrenia.

And how Vicki would use her pretty daughter, forcing her to sexual favor for the urinated thigh. A horror show.

One of our hide outs wasa room (The Bell Motel) in Glendale with Susanna for many months. The three

of us in two beds. Sorting things out, hand to mouth.

The author of the 'Whatever Became' series (of which Susanna was featured twice) Richard Lamparski came to visit The Bell Motel. Was putting together a new “Whatever Became Of…?” book.

All puffed up, self- righteous and happy and smiley trio in their motel room...with a warrant felony on my head.

I was immortalized again.....'What Ever Became of....Michael?' A Freudian can of worms.