Al Toon and his twin
daughters moved to Loveland,
Colorado, from outside of
Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The
children (and parents) in
our small but growing Garden
Park neighborhood thought
the Toons were as close as
you could get, in Loveland
anyway, to what you call
"white trash." In
other words, they were poor,
and they had an accent.
In other words, other than
the accent, they were like
every other hard-working,
vanishing, middle-class
family in our neighborhood,
that was just past the
famous Loveland cherry
orchards, just west of Lake
Loveland, at the base of the
great Rocky Mountains.
Al Toon had lost three
fingers on his right hand.
He lost them in Korea, or
maybe a factory accident, I
don't really know. He
was the kind of man who
wanted to shake each and
every person's hand when
they came around to hear him
softly pick his guitar.
As children, we enjoyed
listening to him sing his
hillbilly songs (mostly
Woody Guthrie's) but were
uncomfortable about his
inevitable two-fingered
right-hand handshake.
Even so, many summer
evenings we would sit in
circles and sip lemonade and
listen to the frogs croaking
in the nearby irrigation
ditches, and the young
coyotes yapping close by in
the pink and purple
foothills, and Al Toon
gently two-finger picking
his old Martin guitar.
Al Toon had twin teenage
daughters, who wore Levi
cut-offs high on their
creamy white-trash thighs
and wet B.V.D. T-shirts as
they washed their father's
'56 Buick station wagon with
Tennessee plates, the
kind of car before back seat
belts, with just an
upholstered cord to hold
onto along the back of the
sofa-sized front seat.
I suppose I was as afraid of
the twins and their unknown
thighs as the inevitable
two-fingered handshake
greeting from Al Toon.
Still, I loved many summer
evenings on their front
porch.
This was in the late spring
of 1968. My buddies
and I were in-between
playing kick the can and
Playboys. We were boys
at ten, eleven, and twelve
who wanted to continue
"playing" but knew that
cowboy and Indian time was
swiftly slipping away,
easing into the summer
thunderstorm sky like a
lullaby. Boredom and
boys soon to be teenagers
can be a lethal mix.
Summer was close, school
would soon be over, and
there were no fields for us
to tend nearby.
So this was spring, and
carloads of people from
Denver or Cheyenne would
drive up or down to look in
wonder upon the famous
cherry blossoms in the
Loveland cherry orchards.
The orchards were filled
with blossoms, the ponds
were filled with fat carp
(we would hunt them with bow
and arrows), the growing
subdivision was filled with
bulldozers for children to
climb, and Mr. Al Toon and
his daughters were out of
town.
Before the Toons moved into
their house, their backyard
was the local boys' football
field. Other than a
clothesline pole that had
rusted out and broke off,
sticking up now like a
sharpened iron spike, the
yard was perfect for our
games. So while the
Toons were away, we returned
to play football in their
backyard. One
afternoon Bobby Leasenhope
accidentally punted our
over-inflated plastic
Rawlings football through
the Toon's garage window.
When we climbed in through
the broken window to the
garage to get the ball and
then the hell out of there,
one of us checked the door
to the kitchen and found
that it was unlocked.
This unlocked door scared us
more than the broken window,
but being we were boys, we
decided to go on into Al
Toon's home. Just to
look around, not to cause
any trouble. Actually
most of us had been in the
house before anyway.
Certainly I had been welcome
in the Toon house before.
I’m not sure why I led the
way into the house. Perhaps
I was trying to impress my
older brother, or had
curiosity about the twins’
room, or was excited about
doing something bad, or
maybe I was just a young
bored boy?
Either way, every single one
of us going into the house
that day knew it was wrong,
but not a single one of us
said a word about it.
Like silent and scared
church mice, we made our way
from the clean kitchen,
through the living room, to
the teenage twins' underwear
drawer. We touched the
wire and lace and white
cotton garments as the black
light poster of Elvis looked
down from above. The phone
rang, and we fled.
Now I suppose with our good
Christian upbringing we
should have left the house
and that experience for what
it was- over. For some
odd and unexplainable
reason, we didn't.
Butchie, Tommy, and Ronnie
King were three demented
(demonic our mothers said)
brothers living in a broken
home on our block.
They were from Texas and had
an accent too, but they
seemed to have money.
They smoked cigarettes, or
cancer sticks as Ronnie
called them, shoplifted at
the Safeway, and, of course,
got in trouble when they
were in school. I
remember Tommy chasing his
little, naked brother
Butchie outside around the
house, in the cold air one
snowy Sunday morning with a
rake. One time Butchie
explained to us his family
was rich- he proudly told us
they had three rakes. Our
mothers encouraged us not to
"play" with the King boys.
But we were growing out of
that "play" stage now, and
we had an adult discovery we
wanted to share. The
last time we dealt with the
King boys, Ronnie King (the
oldest) and my big brother
Si arranged for a big
bicycle race. All the
younger kids pooled our
allowance money and savings
to buy candy awards and
prizes for every rider and
winner. While we
pumped our way around the
block twenty-five times or
so on our stingray bikes,
Ronnie and my brother Si ate
all the candy awards.
My brother Si was a good
guy; Ronnie King just sort
of had a bad boy way about
him that got people to do
things for him, like steal
cancer sticks from the
Safeway.
My group of playmates
proudly marched over to the
King boys and brother Si and
announced the grand news
that we had snuck into the
Toons' house. They put
down their Mad
magazines and Ronnie's eyes
lit up as he demanded to
know how we got in. We
lemming-like told him and
off we all went to re-enter
the forbidden zone.
By the time we arrived at
the broken garage window, my
friends and I knew we made a
mistake in telling this
secret information to the
Kings. Maybe a big
mistake, but it was too
late. What could we do?
Two of the younger boys, I
think the Goldberg brothers,
left the Toons' backyard in
tears as Ronnie threatened
them to keep their big baby
mouths shut about this when
they got home. The
thought of running away and
telling an adult about this
crossed my mind, but only
briefly. I was with
the big boys now. I
climbed in the window after
my big brother Si.
All of us watched passively
in horror as Ronnie King
started ripping open kitchen
cupboards and breaking
plates and smashing drinking
glasses on the floor.
He went a little mad, or
more mad, as far as Ronnie
was concerned, which wasn't
far at all. He tore open the
refrigerator door and then
squirted French's mustard
and Heinz ketchup out of
squeeze bottles all over the
walls and floor. He
poured Log Cabin syrup on
the kitchen placemats.
He laughed hysterically as
he emptied the milk bottle
and then threw all the good
fruits and vegetables down
the basement stairs.
My brother Si told him
enough was enough.
Ronnie smiled a scary smile
and pulled out four cans of
sixteen ounce Coors beer
from the fridge. He
threw us a church key and
the Coors and dared us to
suck up the beers while he
finished up. Ronnie had
become something out of a
Graham Greene story but
without the justification. I
believe he wanted to destroy
the whole inside of this
house, or at least destroy
the inside of something.
The younger Kings and kids
and my brother and I just
gulped down the stolen Rocky
Mountain beer and watched,
just watched, in disbelief.
Ronnie tore open all the
rest of the cabinets and
flung everything to the
floor. He plugged up
the sinks and turned on both
faucets. He was
finished with the kitchen
and was headed to the living
room, when again,
mercifully, the phone rang.
Panic. Everyone fled.
Ronnie first. Then my
brother Si turned off the
kitchen faucet, like big
brothers are supposed to do.
On the way home my brother
asked me if I was O.K.? As
if I didn't just break into
a neighbor's house, as if I
didn't inform the lunatic
fringe of the unlocked door,
as if I didn't watch as a
neighbor kid almost
destroyed the inside of a
neighbor's house, as if I
didn't know big trouble was
coming my way because of all
this...I guess I'm O.K. I
said.
Two days later, when the
Toons returned, my brother
and I knew the police were
finally in our Garden Park
neighborhood; they were
searching, like ranchers for
lost lambs, for us.
They would find us,
eventually, we knew.
Like Cagney and Bogart, we
snuck upstairs to our shared
room to hide and divert
ourselves with a game of
Chutes and Ladders.
The King boys fled from
their broken home to the
police and told them my
brother and I were the
ringleaders behind the
wanton destruction and
senseless vandalization.
Actually, I was the first
one to enter the house, and
I was the one to inform
Ronnie King of the unlocked
door. That insight gnawed at
my stomach, the fact that I
inadvertently caused the
damage, or was it fear from
my heart pounding inside my
feeble ribcage?
I was basically blubbering
before the police knocked at
our door. When they
did, they sternly spoke to
our mother (our father was
away on business) and then
took my brother and myself
and the King boys and a few
of my playmates, with our
parents, down to the
Loveland police station.
The police and our parents
wanted to scare us, and they
did. They showed us the jail
cells, and I thought that's
where Ronnie will one day
end up. They explained
to us about juvenile hall
and Ronnie said, under his
breath, he had already been
there in Texas. For some
reason I was thinking about
Pinocchio and Pleasure
Island when my mother clued
my brother and me in on the
whipping we were going to
get as soon as my father
returned. All these
images flooded my mind.
But what I remember most was
Al Toon telling the police,
in his gentle Southern
drawl, that he wasn't going
to file any charges, then
picking up a Bic ballpoint
pen with his thumb and one
right finger, signing a
release form, and then
coming over to me,
comforting me to stop
crying, telling me it's over
now, saying everything was
going to be O.K. Just A.O.K.
Later, during that summer,
at first, only the innocent
neighborhood children
returned to Al Toon's front
porch for his song sessions.
The King boys never returned
(come to think of it, I
don't think they ever were
on the porch). But one
summer night when the
fireworks stands were just
opening up again, after my
brother and I had just mowed
a fresh-recruit crew cut on
our lawn, my mother gave my
brother Si and me a fresh
baked cherry pie to take
down to the Toons.
Reluctantly, but relieved,
we did. Al Toon opened
and offered us up a piece of
pie, and shook both of our
hands. He asked one of
the twins to bring a pitcher
of lemonade and some forks.
Then he sat on his front
porch and serenaded me with
the sweetest sound I can
ever remember- the sweet,
sweet song of forgiveness.
Like an angel singing on a
sweet summer night, a
lullaby of forgiveness, a
pitcher of lemonade, a
fresh-baked cherry pie given
to good neighbors, a golden
melody of bliss, a warm and
hearty two-fingered
handshake, and Al Toon
picking his old Martin
guitar...sweet, sweet song
of forgiveness.
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