Vasquez Rocks: Can't we all get along?

By DENNIS ANDERSON
Valley Press Editor

What went before:

Plucky Melba Trousdale lost her boyfriend during an engagement picnic at Vasquez Rocks. He was snatched by a giant tentacle near the set of one of the science fiction action flicks frequently filmed at that location. The tentacle snapped her boyfriend, Aaron Slingfact, into a pool of greenish-blue light. Somehow, the tentacle seemed a good deal more real than the cheesy movie the luckless pair stumbled into, messing up a perfectly good take involving a rampaging bipedal lizard.

Seeking help from her ex-brother-in-law, a six-foot-six, 258-pound bail recovery agent named Gort, Melba rode into the Big Rock Inn. At the inn, west of Palmdale, but east of Sumatra, Melba and Gort encountered Don Diego Rivera O'Reilly, a reputed UFOlogist and sometimes shaman who wanders the desert between Edwards Air Force Base and Area 51.

Just when the trio was getting down to cases to develop a theory on the missing boyfriend, the Antelope Valley's most feared outlaw motorcycle association, the Vegans, showed up. A nasty-tempered lot, not improved by their unslaked thirst for bourbon and branch water, they are seeking room at the inn to settle a score. But with whom? Or whom?

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Chapter Five: Silver doubloon for the one who catches that big biker

The bikers from the Vegans MC, Antelope Valley chapter, bellied up to the bar. But they had no bellies. Eschew meat, and you will be lean.

The bartender was pouring shots and setting up the distilled water that he kept on hand for just such occasions.

"We don't want any trouble," the bartender said, unconsciously reaching under the bar for an equalizer.

"You're reaching for your cricket bat," the head Vegan said. "Don't even think about it."

The bartender blinked and fainted. Diego O'Riley straightened up to his full, nearly 7-foot height.

"I know enough to know that it is me you are looking for," the big-footed medicine man said. "I know it sure as I know you are the local bad boy Phineas, Road Sultan of the Vegans."

"Call me Ishmael," the biker chieftain said.

"I thought that was taken," O'Riley said.

"My first name was Zul," Phineas said. "Ishmael is my middle moniker. Everyone called me 'Zippy.' "

"I see," O'Riley said. "It had to be hard."

"They don't call me 'Zippy' anymore."

Zul Phineas knocked back his bourbon and branch water. He turned from the bar and eyed Gort, the other big fella, by the pool table. Like the other Vegans in his tribe, Zul Ishamael wore mirror-shade aviator glasses - the kind favored by "The Man With No Eyes" who put a bullet in Paul Newman's neck in "Cool Hand Luke."

Six Vegans. Six pairs of mirror shades. Six Levi jackets with giant carrots astride Harleys embroidered on their backs. Six Maori tattoo patterns on their lean cheeks and noses.

"They've got bones in their noses, Gort," Melba said. "What's that all about?"

"When they renounced all things derived from flesh or hide, they get their noses pierced with a polymer bone to remind them of the lives that they left behind."

"That is weird," she said.

Gort's eyes traveled from the Vegan chieftain, to his old friend Big Foot, to Ivy the delightful and fetching hostess, to Melba, his ex-sister-in-law. Gort knew his saddlebag was too far away to snag the M-203, the Vietnam war-vintage M-16 with the 40-millimeter grenade pipe.

Gort left the artillery in his saddle bag because the inn was the Hague of all crossroad bars. It had been a peaceable kingdom for years. Until the Vegans. These boys, and their very stringy girlfriends, were snake mean, even if snake did taste like chicken.

Gort backed to the patio door while the Vegans advanced toward the giant medicine man. One Vegan bolted to the cue rack and was tossing pool cues to his colleagues. They meant to beat the life from O'Riley.

But O'Riley was not backing down. More like towering over the biker chief. Ishmael Phineas barely topped 5 feet. But every inch was vicious. O'Riley had learned in the Marine Corps that the short Marines can be really mean. It was no less with the Vegans.

Gort grabbed Melba and pushed her behind him. He had O'Riley's back.

He pulled the pin and let fly the safety spoon on one of his "flash-bang" grenades - the kind favored by the sheriff's special weapons team. Highly illegal to possess, but as a bail recovery agent, Gort was always disposed to seek forgiveness over permission. He tossed the flash-bang through the patio steel gate.

"Bang! Flash!" The night flashed Fourth of July bright outside the Big Rock's windows. Then there was an explosion.

"Uh, oh," Gort said. "Must have flash-banged a gas tank."

"He hurt our motorcycles!" one Vegan shouted. It was half a war cry, and half a cry of anguish.

The Vegans ran out of the bar into the night to see their motorcycles exploding like so many steel and rubber cherry bombs.

"I think we'd better leave," the giant formerly known as Big Foot said to Gort.

"My bike's out there, too," Gort said. "You got wheels?"

"Oh, I got wheels," O'Riley said. "I've got a real buggy."

"A surrey with the fringe on top?"

"No. A White's M-3 armored car. Vintage 1943, the Normandy model."

While the Vegans' bikes burned, Gort grabbed Melba Trousdale by the hand and followed the giant into the flaming night.

"Reminds me of Quang Tri," O'Riley said. "Or was it Dien Bien Phu?"

Melba groaned. "The next time Aaron says 'Let's go on a picnic,' we're gonna go to Camille's."

Gort lifted Melba up into the White's Scout Car, fully restored, with vintage collector plates and a stenciled insignia from 3rd Infantry, three white stripes, diagonal, two blue.

"I see it's got a .30 caliber Browning to go with that Audie Murphy stripe," Gort said.

"They make you take the firing pin out, but I put it back in and loaded it with blanks," O'Riley said.

The engine turned over like a cement mixer and they rolled off into a night illuminated by burning hogs.

The armored scout car hooked left onto Elizabeth Lake Road, with Gort swinging the .30 caliber toward the mad-as-wet-cats Vegans.

Gort saw a sight that made him mad with joy. His bike, parked a dozen yards east of the Vegan bonfire, was untouched.

"Man the 30, Melba!" Gort shouted, jumping from the scout car.

"It fires blanks, Gort!" she shouted back.

"Yeah, but the muzzle flash looks scary," he shouted back, hitting the ground like a bag of rocks.

Melba swung the .30 caliber toward the Vegans. Gort swung onto his Harley. He was the Pony Express of American motorcycle aficionados.

"Come on, Nellie Belle," Gort said, kick-starting the Harley.

Gort heard the "rat-tat-tat" chatter of a light machine gun and saw flame spitting out of the barrel.

"These rounds are live!" Melba shouted.

"First link of 30 are blank rounds. After that they're all hot," said the medicine man with the armored car.

Roaring off in pursuit of Diego O'Riley's armored car, Gort looked over his shoulder at the charging Vegans.

Gort had always believed the Vegan outlaws were pretty much mutants. It might have been the mental disorder of the evening's events, and it might have been the fireball reflected from the conflagration, but it looked like all those mirror shades were glowing white hot. It was a sort of an "X-Men" moment conflated with "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Only they were all bad. They were all ugly. The good was a plucky little lady manning a .30 caliber, suddenly loaded machine gun. The Vegans weren't dead, so Gort knew the score. It was not settled.

To Be Continued Sunday, Oct. 18

Editor's Note: Now that you "middle of the movie" readers are caught up, what landmark, site or locale in the Antelope Valley do you believe will be part of Melba's quest to find her sensitive and evolved boyfriend? A prize (very small, but earnest) awaits the most creative way point that find its way into the story.

To send potential destinations for Melba's quest, write to editor@avpress.com. Limit the destinations to the Antelope Valley.