#45 - Shirtless Hoods

Lucky Little

#45 - Shirtless Hoods

It was like 1984 or 1985; I’ve got the exact date from the sheriff report. Anyhow, we’re over at a buddy of mine’s named Joey’s house. I’m living in Alief some years now. He’s a couple of doors down from me. He’d had the house himself for a couple of years. When his mom died, she left him the house. He kicked out his dad, and his brother and his sister.

His dad, Old Big Joe, old knee breaker from up in Rhode Island. They were from up in Rhode Island, an Italian family from up in Rhode Island. They had moved down to Alief, a step up from where I was in South Houston but definitely they were the only ones on the street that had a pool in their backyard. The people had some money; owned Houston International Speedway. His brother, Jimmy, used to steal cars when they lived in Rhode Island. He got to Houston and invented an anti-theft product to keep people from stealing cars. Ended up putting it on thousands of 18-wheelers across the country, becoming a multi-millionaire and making Joey pretty rich in the meantime installing them. Big Joe, Joey’s dad, the knee breaker from up north. You would not want to mess with this guy. I got seven stories with just Big Joe.

Jimmy races funny cars at the Houston International Speedway that they own and drives a Ferrari. He gets out of the car one day with his girlfriend. A Houston Oiler cheerleader, Derrick Doll, I think they were called. Man, I’m a little kid. When I first met Jimmy when I first got into the neighborhood, “Hey, Little Elvis! Hey, that’s who this is! Little Elvis!” Continued to call me that. Joey’s sister, Linda….awesome, awesome lady.

Anyhow, so we’re over at Joey’s. We’re playing some cards one night. It’s about ’84 or ’85. Joey owns the house. It’s our hangout. There’s probably about 10 or 12 of us there. Some playing cards, some hanging out, some with their girls in the back. Next thing you know, a couple of guys walk in, “Hey, it looks like some of our girls are over at one of the parties over in the Dulles area. Which we knew. We were Alief. We were like that movie, The Outsiders. And Dulles, it was a number of steps up. The houses, the cars, and the clothes and everything else. So we hear that a couple of our girls are over there. We weren’t out looking for trouble but we’re definitely going to defend our reputation that may be out there. Especially if our girls are over at some other party. With some guys that got some big money. New cars. So we load up, five of us. Climb in Rocco’s little light blue 1976 Chevette; four door, jammin’ Alpine system though. And we head over to this party in Fort Bend. So we get over there. Giant house, beautiful house, nice cars all around. It’s a high school party. We kind of mosey on in. Some people hanging outside. Some people right inside the house. We walk in; get some eyes on us right away. As we pull up to the house, you see a giant bay window. Some guys playing pool right in the front room. We can see in. Some sizable guys, too. And a number of them. And some of their pretty girls, too. So as we get inside and we’re just kind of moseying through the party, get through the pool area, through the den, different people in different areas, but we’re definitely getting stares from everywhere. And some guys turning, looking like, “What the hell are y’all doing here?” See one of the girls who was from our side of town (maybe 7th or 8th on the list of who we were looking for). So we weren’t necessarily concerned with sticking around too long. After we find her, we go upstairs, a couple of us split off upstairs, a couple of us through the kitchen, the den area, out in the backyard, we notice there’s not a lot of reason for us to stick around. Some of these guys are starting to buck up to us. Especially as we’re leaving to go out the door. I mean they’re turning, holding their pool sticks, one big boy holding his pool stick, tapping it on his hand like he’s going to do something with it real soon. We get out the door about the time some of them follow us in. “Yeah, you need to get on out of here.” We just keep on walking, don’t even need to look back at them. We turn, get in our car, we’re heading out. About this time, they’re waving their arms at us and flipping us off and waving us back. We holler out the window, “We’ll be back.” And we were on our way back to Joey’s to gather up the rest of the crew, over to the Jack-in-the-Box where everybody hung out to grab some guys that generally we may fight with but now we were going to call them in to go fight with us.

So we go back over to Joey's. We pick up a few rollers there. Sean, Bobby, Quint, Ronnie, Eddie, most of the usual crew. Joey. I think Joey wasn't around that night. Joey didn't go to a lot of the group fights with us. Then we headed over to the Jack in the Box. That's where everybody hung out and that's where you found out everything. There weren't any beepers. There weren't any cell phones. You may pick up a pay phone but you're generally going to the Jack in the Box to find out what was going on from there. So we go to the Jack in the Box, pick up a couple more guys. Even pick up some guys that we would generally fight with or fight against. We picked them up. "Hey, y'all want some trouble?" "No, hey, come on. We're going over to a Dulles party.” They get in with us. They take us to a few other places or they get a hold of a couple of their crew. We go find a couple more guys from some different girls' houses or whatever. Sure enough, there's about 10 cars of us heading that way. And sure enough, with the idiots we ran with, about seven make it there. Probably 20 of us to start with. Maybe down to about 10 that actually were fighting at the end of the night.

So we pull up about six houses down. Everybody gets out. We all take our shirts off. We want to know. Their shirts were skins. If somebody doesn't have a shirt on, it's one of us. Don't hit 'em in the back of the head. Mike was just craziest. Me and him had watched so much black belt theater since we were young. And this guy was skinny and scrawny but just had an attitude on him and a kick. You'd think we knew karate from just copying all the moves from BBT we'd watch on Saturday mornings. Sure enough, Mike's leading the crew. He was passionate. Next thing you know, we're all jogging down there. A couple of kids are sitting in a jeep. Mike jumps up on the hood. BAM! Kicks one guy right in the head. Other guy stands up. Boom! Punches him. Had some speakers up on the back cabinet about the size of half a shoebox. Rips those out. Runs right up to the front bay window. Throws it through the window. Boom! These guys freak out. About that time, we're coming up. The house---they just come running out of the house. Five, six, seven of them. And as soon as they're coming out, it's just boom! boom! boom! Everyone's one on one, two on one, two against them on one of us. Everybody. We're just brawling. I mean, all areas of the yard. I look back. I see Mike. He's against one of the biggest guys there and he's got his foot up in the air and his hands up in the air doing his Bruce Lee impression. I remember just charging over there knowing he's just about doing some flying Bruce Lee head kick on this guy. Knocking him down and out of the picture. Would've killed Mike. On to some other guys. I remember even punching this one guy. This guy, I mean, I gave him a couple of good punches and, man, it didn't even phase him. I moved on. By this time, there's five or six guys that are in the house. Then, one of the guys that we had brought from one of the crews we used to fight against was holding a pool stick like it's his pecker holding it to his crotch, "Hey, y'all want some of this? Want some of this?" Rocco grabs it from him, smashes it across the biggest guy in the room's face.

Next thing you know, it's on. Pool sticks are flying, they're throwing pool balls out the windows at the guys that are fighting in the yard and those are getting thrown back in the windows. Four or five guys inside. Rocco cracks the guy with the pool stick. Next thing you know, there's just a brawl right in the foyer. Just managed to get outside. Rocco, a couple of the other guys. Kenny didn't get out though. Kenny ends up taking a pool stick to the back of the head. Boom! Boom! The door closes. Kenny's inside. Another couple of guys are probably inside. Rocco runs to the edge of the sidewalk, runs flying, does his own flying Bruce Lee kick. Boom! The whole door, the frame, everything, caves in falling on top of people that are in the foyer. Our guys get outside. We're going at it. Eddie and ___ was there or, if not, someone that was in his position was the one that, "Hey, we’ve spent enough time here. We're about to hear sirens. We gotta get out of here!" Boom! We all take off. He's gathering everybody. Whoever, like I said, had that assignment that night. Gathering everybody, "Let's go! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" Sure enough, we start taking off towards our cars. And here they come running at us! And I'm pretty winded. I've been going pretty good. I remember stopping and five guys with five or six girls who are right around them are right at me. I mean, I just turn and give them my most psycho I'm ready to eat all y'all for lunch look and maybe throw a few karate-looking kicks up in the air. “Come on! Come on!” And these guys are backing off. They don't none of it. And I tell you what. Out of the corner of my eye, I'm just watching the girls. I'd much rather spend the time with the girls. Sometimes this show of manliness is what gets us there. I look over there and their biggest guy is like six or seven inches taller than my friend, Bobby, that just was the one that we knew would cause the most damage. Bobby had him down on the ground, just drilling him. And he's stopping; when not just beating these guys bloody pulps. It was a couple of punches like you would with your brother till hey, you say stop and you're covering your face and we know who's dominant here. Or I’ll keep going. This guy wanted no more of it. Big guy. Big guy, too. Ended up getting a phone call from him three or four or five days later when there was about to be some school rivalry going on. About to be some retribution from this other school. Calling letting us know up front. I do not want any trouble. I'm not in on this and anything that y'all just planned against y’all.

Anyway, we all scrambled back to the cars. Get back to Joey's. I mean we're busted and bruised and cut open. One guy’s got his ear lobe busted open. Another friend, Mickey, and Mike's over there with needle and thread sewing this guy's ear back together. We're laughing, we're crying. Half our girls never even ended up over at the party. We're cut up, we're bruised up and the headline read in the little Alief Advocate or the Fort Bend Advocate (it probably was). I'd love to find that now. “Twenty Shirtless Hoods Attack House Party in Fort Bend.” That was insane. And we certainly found out who were the fighters, who were the runners, who were the we-need-to-get-out-of-here people. Hey, it was a good night. The core of us found out who the true brothers were, who had each other's back. And the girls found out what we'd go and do to keep our reputations is keeping our girls happy. So, it was quite the event. Quite the event. Quite the story.