Kikuchi and the Bear...

Kikuchi and the Bear

                                                                 Bruce

      In the great hippy crash pad experiment at Midvale in the Palms district there were four young "gentlemen" who inhabitated the rooms of what Zeke turned into a four bedroom house. Being oldest, I took the master bedroom which turned out to be a big mistake. Ed "Tussboy" Carroll took the middle bedroom that had a flaw in that people had to pass through his room to get to the back bedroom where Bruce Alpert lived. Zeke, fresh out of the Army had the sleeper room, attached to the garage where he installed his own wood floor and had precious privacy. There was no bathroom but two in the big house. The landlady was insane for renting us the place since we were terribly destructive and never cleaned the place while staying up, blasting rock and roll music and creating parlor games in the large front room involving balled up socks and a trash  can duct taped to the mantlepiece. There was even a den where a funky TV buzzed with a chunk of aluminum foil attached to the rabbit ears. No one actually cooked but we lived on Tito's tacos and pastrami sandwiches from Johnnies. Since three of us were Gaters we brought a bit of Tweedy boulevard with us to the place but Bruce, a valley dude had a circle of people who visited that ranged from nice to horrible. His brother Gerry was maybe the biggest prick I ever met but his GF was the sweet and sexy Vicki Browne who everybody fantasized about, including my brother. Bruce was a smart guy who went on to become a successful lawyer in Northern California but he had some scumbags who floated around his solar system of drug contacts. In the hippy culture the worst thing you could be would be a fink or a rip off artist. Bruce always had a briefcase he guarded, full of very high grade smoke-ables. The Gate guys rarely saw any sharing out of Bruce but he was a nice guy other than the sanctity of his briefcase. Greg was a college student in these days but did visit Midvale often because it was an ideal place for those without responsibilities or good sense. He liked to mention with utter disdain a pair of rip-off artists just known as Kikuchi and the Bear. I dealt with them once and bought a pound of what was purported to be high grade weed. Instead, it was a paper bag full of seed tobacco that only caused a sore throat and no hint of a high. When we gave it a taste test we immediately coughingly realized I had been bilked out of a hundred bucks. I called and they did not answer.  I asked Bruce to let them know I wantd my money back. Kikuchi and the Bear were the kind of scuzzy hippies who gave the love children a bad name. They shined us  on and kept the money showing an absence of honor. Bruce left me hanging and the two swindlers went their not very peace and love way back to Venice where I hope they were murdered.