Crazy Is As Crazy Does
(From TWAB-
Starsky’s POV)
All things considered, I had a pretty good childhood. I
know that sounds kinda strange coming from someone that lost his Pop when he
was a kid, but it’s true. Before Pop died, and even after he left Ma to raise
me and Nicky alone, I had more than a lot of kids had back then. We had warm
food in our bellies, a roof over our heads, and all the love that existed in
Ma’s big heart. Sure, our jeans weren’t the hottest brands on the market, and
maybe our sneakers went a little bit farther than they should have, but Ma
always liked to say that we were rich in the ways that counted.
When
Ma sent me to live in
Oh,
yeah, I was going to tell you about Sammy Pearl. I don’t know what made me
think of him that day. Maybe it was all those abandoned buildings with their
big, plate glass windows. When I was growing up, it wasn’t unusual to see
vacant buildings like that. Stores came and went in my neighborhood. If you
barely had enough money to pay the rent and buy food, there wasn’t much left
over for extras. The furniture in our apartment came from second-hand stores
and the Salvation Army, not McBride Interiors.
Anyway,
when me and Hutch faced Soldier and Allison at the end
of that deserted street, I was wracking my brain for a way to get us all out of
that mess. Soldier had three of his meanest thugs with him, and they were armed
to the teeth, but that isn’t what I was worried about. We’ve faced worse odds
than that in the past. But Allison was standing right in the middle of Soldier
and his goons, and I didn’t want her to get caught in the crossfire of a
shooting match. That’s when I thought of Sammy.
I
know that seems like a weird time to have childhood memories come crashing
back, but you gotta understand something. Allison and I knew each other when we
were kids. Her name was Laura Anderson back then, but I thought she was a
pretty neat kid, even if she was a girl. She was the prettiest girl in class,
and could run as fast as any boy. She wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty,
like a lot of girls did that age. When she was with us, she wasn’t a girl any
more; she was one of the guys.
I
guess you’re starting to wonder what Sammy had to do with what was going on in
that deserted street. Well, let me set it up for you. Soldier was using Allison
as a way to get to me and Hutch. We’d stepped on the toes of his boss a few too
many times and Soldier’s orders were to take us out. He killed Allison’s dad
and yanked her right out of Hutch’s apartment, to use as bait. His deal was to
exchange Allison for one of us. Now, I’m not stupid. I knew that it didn’t
matter which one of us went. As soon as the exchange was made, we’d all be
lyin’ in the street with our toes sticking up in the air. That’s when I
remembered the crazy stunt Sammy had pulled down on
They
didn’t call Sammy crazy for nothing. He was always trying stunts that could put
him six feet under. You see, Sammy didn’t have a mother. She died of pneumonia
when he was just a little kid. So, it was just him and his dad. I guess it made
him feel a little left out on parent’s night at school, just like I did
whenever there was a father and son picnic. You could say that we were both
outcasts in a way. And when you don’t think you fit in, there’s no telling what
you’ll do to be one of the guys.
When
Sammy took a header through the window that day, I figured he was done for. I
mean, the kid didn’t weigh eighty pounds soaking wet. How could he make it
through all that glass without being cut to ribbons? Was he worried about it?
Did he stop to think that day that he might be going to meet his maker? Or, did
he know somehow that if he went through the glass fast enough, he wouldn’t get
a single scratch? I don’t know. Did we try to talk him out of it? Of course we
did, but if you want the truth, we didn’t try too hard. I never thought the nut
would try it, honestly. But when he went flying through that glass and came up
on the other side grinning like a fool, you could have knocked me over with a
feather. After that, we still called him Crazy Sammy Pearl, but it was more like
a tribute than a put down. Any kid with that kind of balls could have all the
friends he wanted.
Anyway,
after arguing with Hutch about who was going, I convinced him to let me try my
plan. If he’d known what I was going to do, he would have snatched me up and
ran behind the nearest building. Instead, he just threw our guns on the ground
like Soldier ordered and let me go. As soon as I got close enough to Allison, I
started talking. I knew if I could just get her to remember what Sammy did,
she’d see it was the only chance we had. She took some convincing, you can bet
on that. But I finally got her to go along with me. I think she knew what the
alternative would be. What were a few scratches compared to a bullet in the
head? So we both took a deep breath then I grabbed her around her waist and
went flying through that window. Before you could say Crazy Sammy Pearl,
Allison was out of harm’s way, and we were taking out Soldier and his band of
thugs.
I
didn’t have a lot of time right then for gratitude, but you can bet I thanked
Sammy plenty later on. It’s funny how memories like that can follow us all through
our lives. Sammy couldn’t have known right then that he would save three lives
when he crashed through the window on