The Vulgarians

Bonnie and Clyde was on HBO yesterday - still a pretty good movie, 39 years later.
I only saw the end, when the law brings them down in a hailstorm of lead.
The vintage clothing, the bullets and the blood suddenly brought to mind my youth,
and the years when the Vulgarians lived next door.
Actually, they were the Rs - a doctor, his wife and their 4 blonde kids,
but we called them the Vs because that's what they were.
Where I grew up, most families still had dinner together almost every night.
At my own house, there were rules; beds got made, dirty stuff got washed
and sex was a secret (not a verb).
And while I would discover a great deal between then and now,
at the time we seemed 'normal', functional - intact.
Which our neighbors absolutely did not.
Their huge house was cluttered and filthy most of the time.
They walked around naked with no curtains on their windows
while the kids drank vodka and ate from the fridge with their hands.
The doctor was a little man - little beard, little glasses, little hands.
His wife was big; a blowsy blonde - and unless she was cooking,
she spent her time in bed.
In a small farming town, in 1969, these people stood out,
and their presence was a nightmare for parents like mine.
Over at the V's adults slapped each other, and often hit the
kids no matter who was there to see.
They had a 'conversation pit', a free standing wood stove shaped like a saucer,
and books like I Am Curious Yellow in their living room.
I had my first drink there, and saw my first naked man
(and naked woman - together).
I watched people pass out drunk, smoke pot and inject drugs,
wipe their snot on the walls and pee in the bathtub because they could.
For Easter, they made eggs that said "fuck" and "Cum on daddy"
and instead of mowing their field, they set it on fire while their horses
went crazy runnning through the smoke and flames.
They got a dog one winter, by spring she'd had 8 puppies.
Dr. V made them stay in the garage, where he ran over two of them
while rushing off to work.
He never slowed down, just called from his office later
with instructions for his son: "Clean up that mess and while you're at it,
take the the rest of those bastards and bury them out in the field."
It was the first time I ever saw a boy cry.
People talked about the Vs (and talked a lot), but they were forbearing;
at least until the spring of the Bonnie and Clyde extravaganza.
It was a dress-up party, "Come as a gangster and BYOB."
For atmosphere, Dr. V got an old Ford coupe towed out from town,
and left it half-slid off the drive in front of their house.
Somebody made dummies that looked like Bonnie and Clyde,
dumping him just outside the car, and slumping her over behind the wheel.
Just before the party, when everything was in place, Dr. V went to his garage
and came back with a rifle.
He turned toward the car, and without a word, just started blazing away.
He shot up the car, the windshield, the tires - he even shot Bonnie and Clyde.
Then he brought out the bags of blood he'd taken from the hospital and
splattered that everywhere.
All us kids were beside ourselves, this was extreme insanity!
This was theft and gunfire and blood for God's sake - in our town, in our own back yard!
Not long after that the party started, by dark it was in overdrive.
It ballooned from their living room into the night, (which I only got to hear about,
since the kids all got shipped to the drive in).
Music and shouting and clothes coming off, drunks running wild
through the alkali-covered sagebrush fields,
and doing unspeakable things.
It was legendary stuff for Cowtown, USA.
By summer, Dr. V had lost his hospital privileges,
all that blood was a major mistake -
Mrs. V and the kids disappeared.
Sometime near Christmas, a new wife showed up,
younger and stranger than the first.But after her second arrest
(for running down the highway half-naked and tripping on acid),
the house went on the market and eventually sold to a middle-aged couple
who taught English and raised dogs.

I had all but forgotten the Vs until today - it's sad how legends fade....


You’ve read the story of Jesse James
Of how he lived and died
If you’re still in need of something to read
Here’s the story of Bonnie and Clyde....

From heartbreak some people have suffered
From weariness some people have died
But all in all, our troubles are small
'Til we get like Bonnie and Clyde.....


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