Beatdown By Enraged Polygamists

We underestimated what happens when you get between some old school polygamists and their KFC on the one day they get to dip their toe in the real world. Polygamist Day at the local amusement park.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should be clear. I was one shredded T-shirt away from being mauled by an enraged mob of Polygamists. A severe beatdown avoided by a few centimeters.  I’ve learned many a hard lesson. One that day. Do not get between a clan of old school Polygamists and their buckets of KFC on Polygamist Day at the local amusement park. I’m sure they weren’t happy about the tater salad, tater chips, and other assorted goodies we were helping ourselves to, but it was the KFC that really did it.                                                                                                   

Hell, they shouted as much in the big chase that broke out, and when we dropped it, keeping only what we were already eating, most of the clan dropped out of the chase to secure the goods. 3 second rule. It’s a universal wisdom. But, a dozen fully committed kids had their mind all made up and were gonna savor this beatdown. 

My false sense of security derived from the fact I was with a legendary neighborhood tough guy. Everyone feels ten feet tall and bulletproof next to someone like that. We’d spent our swimming pool time like we always did. Doing things that would land us in handcuffs in 2017. Lying on a towel, and using a towel spread over the top to form ginormous 10" boner shapes, reaching for the sky. A glorious faux-phallis, wanna-be throbbing member of manhood that always received the same reaction.                                                 

Screaming. pre-teen and teenage girls, shrieks of terror on the way to inform the lifeguard. We had at least 3 seconds to remove the boner tower and feign napping.   Of course, the lifeguards always played dumb. Except for a few eager to catch us in the act, most were dudes that thought it as funny as we did. Operation boner tower never got old. Never. As 14 year old knuckleheads, it the funniest thing ever. We usually ended up getting hungry and decided overpriced lemon-heads, junior mints and nibs weren’t gonna feed the bulldog. “Yogi Time, who’s in?”                                                             

 I was always in. That day, being with “Thor” we didn’t even bother to help ourselves to the picnic baskets and then flee. We sat right there, a*s on the picnic table under terrace. “Dude, let’s go eat this somewhere else,” I suggested. “Dude, they’re polygamists, what are they gonna do, beat our a*s?”  We both laughed heartily while still stuffing our faces.  We didn’t know, but that’s exactly what they had in mind.  We didn’t have a care in the world. We weren’t even watching our flank. Before we knew anything was amiss, a deep voice, the biggest gnarliest looking dude in the crew: “Get em’!!!!  We’re gonna whup their behinds!” Polygamist for “you’re f*****g dead!” And man, they were fast. You wouldn’t think dudes in overalls, and young ladies in prairie skirts w/ jeans underneath had such speed. 

Keeping all our ill gotten goods suddenly wasn’t possible. The first 100 yards Thor was cradling the KFC bucket like a Heisman candidate. It looked so funny, but they were gaining on us. Dropping the bucket slowed down most, as mentioned, not the roughest boys and girls though. I was praying the hole in the fence near the back gate was still there. If that hole had been repaired, we were in a for bad summer afternoon. I don’t think climbing it was an option. Thor yanks it back, and scurries through, then pulls it back for me. Before I made it through, “Gotcha, you little b*****d.” Him pulling on my T-shirt, Thor pulling on my outstretched arms, the tug o’ war began. 

One big lunge for freedom, nothing. A second, nyet. And finally, on the third, the T-shirt gave way. “Riiiiiiiip”  What happened next was a good bit of improv by Thor. Quickly followed up by a major mistake. “You come through there and you can’t get back in!”  It wasn’t true, but they froze. The spokesman “Dag nabbit!”  Polygamist for f**k and f**k you. Then Thor broke into some sort of bizarro double-bird dance 6 feet from their faces. Hopping around, middle fingers extended w/ pride and victory. “Nice overalls dude did you knit em’ yourself?  Wheres your bonnet and frock over the top?”   

Spokesman grabbed that fence, and that was our cue to GTFOT. Get the f**k outta there. We turned and sprinted, I could hear Spokesman hot on our tail. Then, his clan piped up, “Noooo, you can’t get back in! It’s 30 shekels to get back in, STOP!”  We turned around to see spokesman back on the other side of the fence. Of course, this motivated Thor to begin his double-bird dance w/ more gusto than the first time. 

 

"Let’s go. C'mon man. They still wanna kill us.“   We both kept craning our necks all the way home, waiting for their wagon train to ambush us. As the home stretch of our street meant safety, and final victory, I was finally ready to rehash how f*****g awesome that was.                                           

As always, I somehow made it out intact. Another of many close calls that would only get more serious into my later teen years. I made it home just in time for "The Wild Wild West,” the most badass show to ever grace the small screen. A prized component of my DVD collection to this day. I like to fancy myself more Artemus Gordon than Jim West, but you can’t go wrong either way. However, Artemus always learned something and took away a bit of knowledge after each near collision. As these stories will show, I never seemed to figure that part out. Some would say I still haven’t. Stay Frosty, Stay Aerodynamic. Me gone.