Part One

Back in 1977 I was sixteen years old and lived in a big old house out in the central California countryside. There wasn't too much to do out there amongst all the alfalfa fields, vineyards and orchards but one thing I absolutely loved was the Sunset Drive-In a few miles down the road from my front porch. My family were poor and there was never money for the movies. But who needed money??
I guess it was sometime in early July when my aunt and uncle and their kids popped up unannounced, without a dime in their pockets or a home to go back to. They'd come to California all the way from Arkansas in a 1951 International Harvester Metro Van, that sputtered it's last and gave up the ghost in our drive way.
But there's a funny thing about poor folks. At least poor folks like my parents. They never turned away family or friends in need, no matter how bad off we were. And so, rather than bitching and grumbling my dad eyed my uncle's clunky metro van appreciatively and speculated on how soon they could have it running again (we didn't have money to fix it) and mom and my aunt (her sister) caught up with one another while figuring out where everyone would sleep.
I mostly stared open mouthed at my cousin Laurel. She was the same age as me, give or take a couple of weeks (I forgot which of us was oldest). Tall for a girl, blonde, blue eyed, leggy with a body so perfectly proportioned and curvy in all the right places it made you want to weep.
It was mom's idea that I take Laurel to the movies, and I could have kissed her for it. It was about a week after our relatives first arrived, and I'd been thinking the same exact thing myself, but Laurel had a strange effect on my brain. Whenever I thought of something particularly brilliant or witty to say in order to impress her, one look from those ice blue eyes and my tongue went numb and all those formerly smart words just tumbled out of my mouth end over end and came out sounding like the inebriated ramblings of a paperbag lush. Then I'd walk away red faced and embarrassed, while Laurel giggled.
About an hour before it would be time to leave for the show, my twelve-year old brother started badgering our mom to let him go too. And the fact that he was wearing her down, both annoyed and alarmed me. My dad stepped in for the save though. I guess he knew I had a major case of puppy love going on and he told my brother in no uncertain terms he'd be home in bed that night instead of watching Smokey and the Bandit or Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, the double feature playing at the Sunset that weekend. The man was a saint.
About dusk Laurel and I sat out down the side of the road. I was in my favorite top, a black Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirt, bell bottom jeans and my old Keds. Laurel had on a very tight pair of jean shorts that showed off every line and curve of her perfectly rounded rear end (including a good inch of her ass cheeks), flip flops and a black tube top that her tits strained the seams of. I could barely breath walking beside her.
"Why did you bring that??"
"Huh??" I squeaked like Peter Brady.
She pointed at the little yellow transistor radio in my hand. I stared down at it dumbly.
"Oh," I remembered. "We'll need it at the drive-in. They run the audio over the radio."
"Really?? That's kind of neat," she said. "Can we listen to some music until then??"
"Sure!" I clicked it on and used my thumb to dial the black tuner wheel to my favorite station. I caught the Eagles halfway through Best of my Love. Laurel squealed.
"I love that song!"
I really liked the way she jiggled when she squealed.
She started singing along with the song, pausing now and again to ask me questions.
"So, you have many friends around here??"
"Not really," I admitted. "I used to know some kids from school, but we kind of lost touch when I dropped out."
"There aren't any kids around here??"
I shook my head. "Just a couple black families and a lot of Mexicans. We don't really hang out. Nobody likes anyone else."
Laurel would know how that was I reckoned, she was from Arkansas afterall.
"I thought California would be different," she seemed disappointed.
I shrugged. "Guess not."
"Well you aren't like that are you," she asked. "Cause I don't like bigots. My best friend back home was a black girl."
"No," I replied quickly, shaking my head. "It's not me. It's them. It's everybody else," I tried to explain. "It's just the way it is here. The blacks and Mexicans don't get along either. Everybody just keeps to thereself."
"Well that's dumb," Laurel opined and then started bouncing around a little when "Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann started up at the end of the Eagle's tune. She bounced even better than she jiggled.
A truck passing by honked its horn and an old farmer whistled. "Shake it but don't break it honey! Woohoo!"
Laurel frowned and shot him the bird. He laughed and kept driving.
"See that over there??" I pointed across a wide alfalfa field.
"What??" Laurel stared. "A barn??"
"Yeah," I nodded. "That's old man Keane's place. If you're going to be living around here you need to know to stay away from there. And definitely don't let your little sister or brother go near it."
"Why??" She asked.
"Keane and his wife," I said. "There crazy. He used to be the milk man around here. They fired him for...." I stopped.
"What??" Laurel pressed me.
"It's gross," I said.
"Tell me!" She insisted.
I hesitated, then "Well, he used to be known for these big banana and coconut cream pies he carried in his truck. His wife made them special. He'd just sort of give them to his favorite customers from time to time."
Laurel rolled her eyes. "Wow, that's really crazy cuz. The mad pie giver away'er."
"No," I said. "You didn't let me finish. What I was about to say is, people found out he'd been jerking off into the pie filling. He got his rocks off feeding his junk to his customers."
"Ewwwww!! !!" Laurel made a perfectly horrible yuck face, I started laughing despite myself.
"That's not funny," she said. "That's disgusting!"
"I told you," I said, feeling pleased with myself for having grossed her out.
"But besides that," I said after a moment. "Old man Keane and his wife are father and daughter. Rumor is, after the original Missus Keane kicked the bucket, he married their daughter and eventually she had a baby too. Only it's so hideously deformed that they keep it locked up there on the farm."
Laurel's eyes narrowed. "Now your just making stuff up."
I raised a hand as if swearing by it. "Not even. Ask anybody around here."
"Has anyone ever seen this child??" She asked.
"Well," I sighed. "Ain't so much a child no more. Would be about our age. But no, I reckon not. Nobody that lived to tell of it anyway. Keane has a shotgun. He shoots at anybody that comes onto his land."
"Then how do you know it's true??" She asked.
I shrugged. "I guess someone must have seen it sometime and lived to tell the tale."
She blew air threw her lips and laughed. "Bullshit!"
I grinned and kicked a flattened, sun bleached Orange Crush can down the shoulder of the road. We were actually talking and I wasn't making a fool of myself. She was smiling. I'd made her laugh and totally grossed her out at least once. I was on top of the world.

When we came to the entrance to the Sunset, we just kept walking on past. there werent as many cars as I hoped. That meant the old black man who worked as security, Pops Lightfoot, would be on our ass half the night if we weren't careful.
I took Laurel all the way around to the cluster of Oleander bushes behind the big screen (the Sunset only had a single screen).
"There's a hole back here," I said. "They patch it from time to time, but kids break it open again."
"You sure you just aren't trying to get me into those bushes all alone with you cuz??" She smiled prettily.
I felt a flush of heat rise up the back of my neck and flood into my cheeks and across my forehead.
"Oh wow," she giggled, "your blushing. That's so cute!"
I didn't think it was cute. I thought it was exactly the sort of thing a baby would do, not a man. I entered the bushes, clearing a path and she followed behind me. I found the hole and stepped through. I turned and helped Laurel in after me. We were alone, behind the big screen. A sea of crushed cigarette butts, empty cans and garbage lay at our feet.
"Now," I said. "We wait back here until the lights go out, or Pops Lightfoot will be on our asses faster than a fly on shit."
Laurel looked around and frowned. "It smells back here."
It did. People had been using the area for a bathroom as well as an entrance to the theater.
"Well," I fished in my pocket and brought out a joint. "We can smoke this while we wait."
"Is that...," Laurel's eyes widened. "Is that what I think it is?? Oh wow..... it is isn't it??"
"Grass," I said.
"Fuck yeah!" She smiled. "Let's smoke it."
I blinked. "You smoked grass before??"
She shook her head. "Never. I always wanted to try though."
I laughed and we found an old plastic milk crate to share as a seat. I lit it up and we passed the joint back and forth. She was a natural, she didn't have a single coughing fit and she took long, deep drags.
"Oh wow," she smiled, her eyes already slightly glassy. "I really hope you have more of this."
"At home," I said. "My dad has his own little crop growing."
She laughed and leaned her head against my shoulder. It felt great there. "You'll give me some, right??"
"Sure I will," I nodded, finished the joint and flicked the tiny bit that was left onto the dirt.
"Is it dark enough to walk out from behind here yet??"
"Not yet chica," a voice said through the hole and a chubby Mexican poked his face through and grinned leacherously at Laurel. I immediately felt protective and stood up, gratified by the slight weight of my pocket knife resting in my jeans.
Three Mexican guys in their early 20's crawled through the hole. They all looked bigger and meaner than me.
"Damn," Fatso sniffed the air. "I smell something good."
"I see something good," one of his friends said, smoothing the ends of his mustache with the thumb and pointer finger of his right hand and staring directly at Laurel. The other, a tall bald man with a lot of tattoos just grinned.
I pulled Laurel up by the hand and we started around the side of the screen.
"Hey, what chu doin??" Fatty called. "Ol' Pops he gonna getchu man. It aint dark enough yet."
"Yeah essay," Mustache added. "Why don't ju and Blondie hang back here and share some of that mota ju been smokin??"
"Why don't chu share some of Blondie too??" Baldy cracked, and they started laughing.
Laurel told them to go fuck themselves and they laughed. I just pulled her around the screen and past the playground where kids still rode the plastic animals on their spring bases and swung in the swings and climbed the jungle gym. If Pops was on the look out he'd have us cornered and on our way back home within a couple of minutes. But it was better than staying in back with those guys I thought. As it was we got lucky. Pop apparently pulled a no show for one of the few times in his career.
We went over to the snack bar where I managed to snitch a couple of Cellophane topped Pepsi's with ice and a little bucket of popcorn and walk out without being spotted.
"Where are we going to sit??" Laurel asked, tossing the Cellophane from her drink and sipping her Pepsi. I lost myself in her blue eyes for a moment, then shook my head clear. "Oh, uh...I was thinking over there."
She looked. "Beside the palm trees lining the fence??"
"Well," I shrugged. "We can't stand around the parked cars. And at least over there we'd be out of the way and in the shadows. We wouldn't be seen."
She smiled and sucked on a piece of ice. "So, you are trying to get me alone in the dark."
I fought down the blush this time. "Maybe."
Her smile broadened. "Naughty boy. We're cousins."
I matched her grin and started toward the fenceline. "And??"
She laughed.
There wasn't a good place for a girl in barely there short shorts to sit. So I took off my shirt and laid it on the ground. It was a warm night anyway. I envied my shirt having that ass sitting on it.
We listened to more music and talked and even flirted a little waiting for it to get dark enough for the first movie to start. Finally, the lights dimmed and a Pink Panther cartoon began. The night's first movie would be Herbie, for the kids. The Sunset always played Pink Panther before the first movie and Woody Woopecker before the second. I tuned the radio to the right station and the familiar Henry Mancini theme with it's smooth sax came out of the transistor radio's tiny speaker.
Just after midnight, Laurel and I stood and stretched out or kinks and I brushed the back of my shirt off and pulled it back on over my head.
"Thanks for taking me to the movies," she kissed my cheek. As she did so her boobs pressed against my arm. I felt an immediate reaction in my groin.
"No problem," I said. "Hey, maybe we can do it again soon."
"Sure," she nodded.
We left by the front entrance. With the show over there was nothing to fear from Pops, just the people driving. We dodged a few cars and finally found ourselves on the opposite shoulder of the road on the way back home. It was a moonless night, with the sort of ink black dark you only get in the country. Still, there were plenty of stars overhead and we could see well enough after our eyes adjusted.
About halfway home we heard the voices behind us. Maybe two hundred yards back. The three Mexicans. I looked back and sure enough, I could just make them out on the far shoulder because of the white shirt Fatso wore.
"Fuck," I said.
"What??" Laurel asked.
"Those guys," I told her. "The Mexicans. There after us."
"Why??" She asked, a little fear creeping into her voice.
"Why do you think??" I asked. "They probably want to kick my ass just for fun and then pull a train on you."
"I can run real fast if I take my flip flops off," she said. "You wanna try and beat feet for home??"
I shook my head. "No, still too far away. Fat ass wouldn't catch us but his two friends would, way before we even got within sight of the house."
"What do we do then??" She asked, now definitely scared.
Up ahead I saw a big rig coming toward us. It's lights illuminated a dry, shallow canal bed that ran beneath the road and across fields on either side.
"Ok," I made up my mind. "When the rig passes and blocks us from view, we jump down into the canal bed and make for Keane's place."
"You said not to go there," she reminded me.
"Yeah well, you want to take your chances with the rape gang behind us or old man Keane??"
"Keane," she whimpered.
We sped up a little and as soon as the eighteen wheeler blew past, we ran for the canal and slid down the dusty bank. Once down on the floor we ran toward the east and Keane's place. After a minute or so we heard faint cussing and I turned and saw the Three Amigos looking all around trying to spot us. I thought maybe we were home free when one of them yelled "Over there! In the canal!"
They were after us like coyotes on a pair of scared jack rabbits, Baldy and Mustache rapidly outdistancing Fatty. Once our cover was blown there was no reason to remain hidden, so I grabbed the edge of the bank and hauled myself up and then yanked Laurel up behind me. She kicked away her flip flops and flew. I strained to keep up with her.

Part Two ( #15050 )