Read an Excerpt
The Last Call
By David Wambaugh
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2012 David Wambaugh
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-6274-0
Chapter One
"
I thought you weren't going to bullshit people anymore."
"Jesus, gimme a break."
"What about the man who just called you? He poured his heart out to you and you told him that if you were able to do it, so could his son. That's bullshit! Without me, you'd be long-gone dead by now."
"What was I supposed to say to the guy? Should I have said, 'Well, sir, one day a voice that I cannot identify came into my head and my heart and changed my life forever? The guy would think I'm crazy if I told him that."
"Well, you are crazy!"
"So what do you want me to do?"
"I want you to call that man back and tell him the truth about your life as it was, what happened, and what it's like now. Tell him you were once just like his son."
"Okay, I'll tell him, but he'll probably think I'm psychotic like most people that hear voices."
"I want you to tell him about the only hope remaining for his son."
I suddenly realized that I'd been so fast-forward on the road to redemption for the past few years that I hadn't had the time or the desire to verbally relive my miserable life.
I was staring out of my window, watching the surfers on the morning glass, and I was overcome with gratitude. There were no bars on my windows! I'd been behind bars of one kind of another for much of my lifetime.
* * *
I'm not a writer like my father. I don't have his talent, education or even his DNA. I entered the world on July 15th 1964, at Harbor General Hospital in Los Angeles, the biological child of alcoholics or drug addicts like almost all of the others that ended up in the care of L.A. County. I was born into the "hard to adopt" group at the L.A. County Adoption Agency and was shuffled around in foster homes until I was six months old. I would have been an easy-to-adopt child if not for my worrisome heart murmur. I was blond, blue eyed, and very cute. Someone told my future parents that it was possible that my heart murmur would heal itself if I got into a secure and loving home, and they were right. However my new parents weren't told that my bouts of anger would cure themselves on their own, no matter how secure and loving the home might be. My forehead was constantly bruised during that first year from me banging it on the floor when anything pissed me off. And everything pissed me off.
In my new family, I had a brother named Mark who was two years and two days older. Mark was adopted when he was a mere seven days old, and also was most likely the product of a pair of addicts. He was Latino, with dark hair, dark eyes, dark complexion, a slender happy-go-lucky little ball of fire who was already well established in the Wambaugh family. In contrast, I had pale skin, blue eyes, blond hair, was a little on the chubby side and had a permanent scowl on my face. My new parents had no idea what they'd signed up for. We came with factory-installed problems that could never have been anticipated. My parents probably had hopes and dreams that someday I would be headed to Penn State, not the state pen.
My parents had wanted to adopt another baby, but one that would "fit in" with Mark so he wouldn't feel "different," hence, a county adoption worker told them that I was half-Mexican, probably just to appease them. Sure. I always figured I was about as Mexican as Mickey Rooney, but I went along with it.
* * *
My dad was a Los Angeles police officer and my mom was happy to stay home with her boys. My parents were both driven and highly disciplined people. My dad went to school at night, and acquired both a bachelor's and a master's degree in English from Cal State, L.A.. His goal at that time was to become an English teacher after retirement from the LAPD. In addition to being a cop, student and father, he moonlighted, selling cheap suits out of the trunk of his car to fellow cops for their court appearances. His inventory was provided by an Arab who wholesaled suits in the garment district of Los Angeles.
My mom, who was artistically inclined, had a little art studio in the basement of our home. Eventually, she opened a retail art supply shop called "Dee's Art Shack" where she could work on her paintings, and display some them along with the works of other local artists. On some weekends, she would load up my brother and me, along with her paintings, and off to the outdoor bazaars we would go where she would display some of her art for sale. She managed to sell enough of them to buy new canvases and paints, and to be involved with her art association group. For a while, she even taught painting classes in our garage on Saturday mornings. We were of modest means, but my parents were always struggling to earn a few extra bucks, hoping to climb up the economic ladder. My earliest memories were that our family was very close and my parents were nurturing and attentive.
My brother and I attended a Catholic school near our home, which was in the rural area of Walnut, about an hour outside of Los Angeles. I remember getting my ears tugged and knuckles smacked by the Cuban nuns who had to run from Castro, so maybe they took it out on us. I began having behavioral problems at a very young age, and those early beginnings were probably indicative of a not so promising future.
I was a mean spirited little kid who took my anger out on Mark, and over the years sent him to the emergency room a couple of times. One assault left him with an injury that sent him to the hospital where he was in traction for a month. I was five years old when we were playing tag in a large tree and I intentionally pushed him off the branch he was climbing. He crashed to the ground and shattered his elbow, which never properly healed and was disfigured forever. Mark didn't realize that I'd pushed him, and my parents never knew.
While my brother was in the hospital, my parents took turns at his bedside, morning, noon and night. During that time I stayed with my paternal grandparents, Nana and Pappap. Nana loved her daily routine of soap operas and Budweisers, so every afternoon she would park herself in the recliner and enjoy her soaps and suds.
Nana was large women, so it was a real effort for her to get out of her La-Z-Boy, make the trip to the fridge, grab a Bud, and get back to her seat by the end of the commercial break. Therefore, she assigned me the job. My first job. Maybe the only job I ever had that I didn't get fired from. Her favorite Bob's Big Boy glass held eight ounces, and a standard beer is twelve, so by the end of each day I abandoned all my GI Joes for my new friends, Mr. Anheuser and Mr. Busch. I was five years old when the spark was ignited.
* * *
At our home in Walnut, we had a corral containing an old horse, a stubborn pony, three dogs, and a goat named Charlie who thought he was a dog. In fact, when my dad jogged on the country roads, the dogs followed, and Charlie trotted right along with them. We had Happy, Dolly and Cleo, all big dogs that my parents had adopted from the pound. Happy, the young male, and Dolly, attacked two of our neighbor's sheep and my parents had to pay them for the dead animals. We had to find Happy a new home, away from that kind of temptation.
Charlie, our goat, got so horny after he grew up that he started dry-humping Mark and me, and then when he started doing the same thing to my mom, we all complained. Dad thought Charlie was just behaving like a friendly dog, but when he finally tried to dry-hump Dad, he decided we had to find old Charlie a new home.
Mark, Dad and I, had some interesting misadventures. Once when we were pretty young, my dad came up with a bright idea for an outing. He wanted the three of us to ride his beat up old bicycle over thirty miles from our home in Walnut to my grandparent's house in Fontana. The plan was for my mom to meet us there, have dinner, then drive us all back in the car. It was an old three-speed bike that was totally rusted out, had only one seat, and the tires were frayed. With Dad taking the seat, there were only two other places left for Mark and me. One was the crossbar, which was my brother's seat, and the other place was in the basket attached to the handlebars, which is where I sat. Of course, for our ultimate comfort, Dad padded the crossbar and the basket with towels, and off we went on a smoggy summer day.
He pedaled his heart out and we made it over half way, but eventually he stopped at a McDonald's and called my mom to pick us up since he was close to a heat stroke. When she arrived, she really didn't need to say much because her eyes did the talking. The look she gave my dad before driving us to Nana's house said, "You idiot, what were you thinking?"
A more pleasant memory of a ride we had with the old man was when he was a uniformed sergeant doing crowd control in downtown Los Angeles for Chinese New Year, and my brother and I rode with him along the parade route on a three-wheel police motorcycle, gaping at all the colorful dragons. And just for fun that day, he took us into the station and snapped black and white mug shots of each of us with "Los Angeles Police Department" and booking numbers printed on them. Little did he know that it would wind up to be the first of many to come.
* * *
In 1971, the first of my Dad's many books was published. It immediately landed on the New York Times bestseller list where it stayed for nearly a year. He'd taken creative writing classes at night, and had hopes of one day getting a short story published. He'd been met with continued rejection from all the popular magazines until eventually, he got a personal letter from The Atlantic Monthly saying that his short story wasn't the type of material they were interested in for their magazine, but if he should write a novel with that same flavor, they would be interested in seeing it. It didn't take him long to turn that short story into a novel, and The New Centurions was born. My dad became known as the father of the modern police novel, and his early books all became movies or TV shows starring actors like George C. Scott, William Holden and Lee Remick. His anthology TV series, Police Story, guest starred people like William Shatner, Angie Dickinson, and young Sylvester Stallone.
After his second novel, The Blue Knight, was published, our family moved from a middle-class lifestyle to a mansion in San Marino, a pricey residential suburb of Los Angeles. My brother was nine and I was seven, still little boys, so we didn't quite understand what was happening, but it must've been totally surreal for my parents. They became rich and famous almost overnight! But even so, my dad remained a cop for nearly three more years, making the commute to the cop shop every day.
Right away, my mom was inundated with new responsibilities. She typed, and retyped, while doing minor editing of my dad's books, which was a big job before word processing and computers. She also managed their growing wealth and position, ran a big home, and looked after three high maintenance guys: my brother, my dad, and me.
My mom remodeled our new home, creating beauty and comfort. Some of the amenities on the property included a tennis court, pool and spa, and a state-of-the-art gym and sauna. Our new life was amazing. We were privileged and indulged. My brother and I took tennis lessons, golf lessons, guitar lessons, dance lessons, all sorts of lessons. Needless to say, my mom, brother, and I were pretty busy in those early days.
* * *
My dad had become a celebrity. He was famous, and was treated like he was famous. While he was still on the department working as a detective, he also made time for appearances on The Tonight Show, Good Morning America, Today, and just about every national chat show. It was a drastic change from horses, horny goats and rusty bikes. Finally, the fame and fortune became too much, and my dad had to resign from the LAPD after fourteen years.
Over the next several years we did a lot of traveling, and we went first class all the way. When we were in London my parents would go antique shopping, and my brother and I would be driven around the city in a Rolls Royce limo, doing whatever we fancied while my parents shopped. We went on numerous ocean cruises all over the world. We traveled to Egypt and rode camels in front of the Great Pyramids. We visited incredible places like Turkey, Greece, Russia when it was still a communist country, Sweden, Italy, France, Caribbean Islands, Hawaii, and the Mexican Riviera.
When we were in Tahiti, we stayed in bungalows that were built on stilts over the water. At night, we could turn on the floodlights that shined into the water directly beneath the bungalow, and within a few minutes, manta rays with just under twenty-foot wing spans would come up, and do graceful back-flips.
* * *
After settling into our new home in San Marino, I was off to elementary school where I was entering second grade, halfway through the school year. We'd come from a Catholic school that had a dress code, but now we had the freedom to wear whatever we desired. There was no way my brother and I were going to show up in the hillbilly clothes we had from our past life, so my mom took us on a shopping spree prior to starting at our new school.
I was very careful in choosing a wardrobe that would most likely allow me acceptance with the other seven-year-olds. I got a bunch of Hang Ten shirts and matching pants in an array of colors: purple, green, yellow, red, in assorted patterns. In the early seventies, the wild choices were vast, and I thought my new Keds were to die for. I honestly believed I was going to be the sharpest kid on campus, and I was ready to make a grand entrance. Mom even gave me her signature haircut, which I wasn't too keen on, but that was just part of the deal.
On the morning I was being introduced to my second grade class, I almost bolted when the whole room erupted in laughter. As I scanned the room, I could see that everything about me was totally different from my new classmates. Compared to them, I looked like a goddamned rodeo clown. There I was, wearing purple pants, matching purple shirt, and Keds with zebra stripes on them. I felt really sick, and the other kids were in hysterics. I was devastated but I managed to laugh with them, and assured my new classmates that I would have a new wardrobe immediately. The only thing I couldn't change was my haircut.
My new classmates wore brand names like Polo, La Coste, Levi's 501 authentic straight leg, Sperry Topsiders, Stan Smith Tennis Shoes, and dry-clean only Khaki pants, so after that first day, my mom took us to Bullocks Wilshire in Pasadena, which was the right place to go. When I showed up to school the next day, I definitely looked like I belonged, however, I didn't feel like I belonged.
No matter what kind of clothes my brother wore, he never looked like he fit in, being dark skinned, overweight by then, with thick eyeglasses and a bush of dark hair. San Marino was almost lily white, so most of the Mexicans seen around town were either maids or gardeners. There were no blacks, and at that time, very few Asians, so basically, my brother was a minority kid in our new world. Maybe I was too, but you couldn't tell it by looking at me.
Right away I was a hit with the rich kids of San Marino. I was the class cut-up. They found me funny, and of course I loved being center-stage. I became one of the most popular boys in my class, and it was amazing how quickly it happened. Instantly, I had three or four sleepover invitations every weekend. I declined invitations all the time, which is ironic because later in life, I wouldn't be invited anywhere.
Although I'm sure I appeared settled and confident in front of my classmates, I had constant anxiety and feelings of inferiority around them, with no idea why. I felt unattractive inside and out, and couldn't find any peace. I lived with an unidentifiable fear, and couldn't escape it. I guess I had the makings of an alcoholic, an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. In my neighborhood I was the alpha male and leader of the boys. The only person who challenged my self-appointed position was my brother Mark. When he and I fought, it was big neighborhood news. Kids would miss dinner in order to see us scrap. We had knockdown fights that seemed to last forever. He was much taller, stronger, and a lot heavier, but I would always give him a run for his money.
Our last fight took place a few years later at our house in Newport Beach, and that time I kicked his ass, but in the process we knocked my parents' most treasured painting off the wall. Luckily it wasn't damaged, because we never would've been able to explain that one away. After the dust settled, we put the house back together, re-hung the painting, hugged each other, and said, "Peace!" We agreed that we should call a truce and stop assaulting each other. It was too painful for both of us.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Last Call by David Wambaugh Copyright © 2012 by David Wambaugh. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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