You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!™
Having a 7 foot long, life size horse hanging from your ceiling.
In the days before we moved into Scarff Street, we were living in the Delta Chi house. The house next to ours was the Kappa Sigs.
They hated us, and we hated them. We competed for girls, and in fraternity sports and for space on the street.
The Kappa Sigs were known on 28th street for a row wide party they hosted. It was called Rodeo Days. These douches threw straw on the asphalt and put hay bails on the curb. They donned cowboy hats and boots and walked away chewing tobacco. They pumped country music into the ghetto and promoted line dancing contests.
As part of this gala, the Kappa Sigs had a 7 foot long horse on the front of their house. The horse was brown and tall and it sort of captured the attention of all who drove by. A life size horse on top of a Frat House tends to do that.
If the Kappa Sigs annoyed me, that horse annoyed me more. They were so proud of the horse. It was the symbol for their entire gala.
One night I decided; enough was enough.
I waited till the evening’s festivities concluded. I waited for the Row to grow quiet. I found some black shoe polish and painted my face like a commando going on a raid.
Then with a handshake from Delta Chi brothers who never had the “Crazy” to do anything like this,I walked into the Kappa Sig house.
Like every frat house on the row, the door was open. The main floor of each frat house is basically a big open space reserved for meetings and parties. Being they were the enemy, I had never been in the house before. I knew the horse was on the 2nd floor and toward the front of the house on a landing.
But how to reach that spot?
While I pondered this, I also imagined every Kappa Sig member suddenly waking and beating my Delta Chi ass.
But crazy is where I have always hung my hat and I was too deep to stop now. It’s not like I was jumping off the top of a 2 story building into a seven foot pool, right?
decorations courtesy of Budweiser
I made a calculated decision and moved up the stairs with a degree of stealth. I got to the second floor and rounded the corner.
The hall was quiet. All the doors leading into the rooms were closed. I was lucky so far, but the possibility of an ass whoopin certainly loomed large.
I stopped at the far wall and stared at a door that my instincts told me lead to the front of the house. I took a deep breath and turned the knob. The door was unlocked. I slowly pushed the door open a crack.
I gazed inside. The room was dark, and I could tell there was someone inside. I dropped to a knee and pushed the door wider slithering into the room like a reptilian commando. My heart was racing. This was crazy. I was dressed in fatigues and my face was painted with shoe polish. I closed the door behind me and tried to listen past the pounding in my own ears.
Rodeo Days was a major Kappa Sig function and there’s no doubt this guy had participated, because he was on his back, breathing that labored drunk frat boy breath.
He was totally unconscious. I slithered to the window and lifted myself up on his desk. I pushed the blinds back and opened the window.
I had made it. I could see the horse on the landing some 5 to 6 feet below.
I lowered myself out the window, and jumped to the landing. I looked at the Delta Chi house. A couple of the brothers were huddled together in the entry way. When they saw me they started squealing like little girls.
I put my finger to my lip to quiet them. I felt pretty alive standing 15 feet above the row, having just snuck through a dude’s room to get to this point. I moved to the horse which was not secured in any way.
I guess the Kappa Sigs never thought anyone would commando onto their house to pull off such a stunt.
My first thought as I reached the horse: This thing is big. My 2nd question: how heavy is this fiberglass equine?
I lifted the horse by his hooves. It was bulky, and weighted oddly, but because it was hollow, it was light.
I pulled a rope from my fatigue pants. I tied a noose around horses neck and dropped the rope over the edge of the landing. I moved to a rain pipe and shimmied down to the ground. By this time the Delta Chi’s were howling with laughter.
Once on the ground, I grabbed the rope and pulled it taught. The horses head was poised over the edge. I gave the rope a sharp tug. The horse head was pulled forward and its hoofs followed. Amazingly, the horse did a complete flip and landed, believe it or not, hooves into the soft mud.
THUD
I was shocked. All I heard was laughing. I signaled for help. Within moments, 2 guys were helping me lift the horse and place him in the back of my pick up truck. The horse barely fit. I tied him down and took off down the Santa Monica Freeway.
What a scene. I had shoe polish on my face and I was driving 70 mph with a six foot tall horse staring down the 10 freeway.
I stashed the horse in a remote alley in Santa Monica, behind a dumpster.
To make a long story short, the next day, the Kappa Sigs were vocally distraught. The horse was their mascot. The stallion had stood high and proud on top of their house for days. It was a shining symbol of their arrogance. Now, like taking super man’s cape, they were weak and sad.
We sat as a group on the Delta Chi roof looking down upon the sad Kappa Sigs. I saw the guy whose room I snuck through. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but one after another, frat brothers came up to him, as if to say;
“The horse was outside your room. What the hell happened?”
2 days later, we moved into Scarff Street. Armed with a can of white spray paint, I transformed the Kappa Sig horse into Mr. Ed, named after the television character from the late 60’s.
With the help of the Scarff Street Derelicts; Geroux, Gilmore, Schultz, we lashed Mr. Ed to the ceiling of our new home like most people put out a welcome mat.
Years after I moved from Scarff Street, Mr. Ed was stolen from me. I had him chained up to a rail road tie in a Redondo Beach garage. One night, someone, presumably wearing shoe polish and a Kappa Sig T-shirt cut the chain and stole him back.
I haven’t seen Mr. Ed now for 20 years, but he lives on in my pictures and my memory.