Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

24 - THE "BROKEN OPEN"

In Broken Heart Park dumbfounded is considered a higher state of consciousness, and I was soaring high after browsing through The Bakersfield Beagle when I come across a full-page color picture of Ferris and Rosa Twain big as all get out.  They was squeezing real close together and decked out in fancy plaid shorts and aloha shirts and baseball caps with a Broken Heart Park logo stitched across the bill.

Now, I could not remember the last time I seen Ferris or Rosa around Broken Heart Park, or even noticed their double-wide coach a’rockin’.  Hell, to pay my back rent I just shoved a couple of twenties under the mat.  But here they was, grinning out at me and locked arm-in-arm with a bunch of sitcom has-beens.  Behind them, and looking all serious and official, stood Sheriff Al and Deputy Perro with their hats on straight and their mirror glasses gleaming.

The accompanying article told how Broken Heart Park, Inc. was partnering with the Bursting Pride Condom Co. to sponsor a golf tournament here in Bakersfield.  According to the paper, the corporate backers was planning to host the first annual Broken Heart Park & Bursting Pride Condom Celebrity Golf Tournament (a.k.a. The Broken Open), and it was to be held at the Pronto real estate development which was now a golf course called Jasmine Links.

Now, while our septic tank still needs fixing and there’s no plastic geraniums anywhere in sight, our co-Park Managers would be over at Jasmine Links whacking divots with a bunch of entertainers who couldn’t make it to Branson.  The singing Cowridge family from the old TV show “The Cowridge Family” would be making an appearance, at least those who was out of rehab and still alive promised to be there.  And get this, an appreciative crowd would be entertained by the song stylings of Jezabel Jewett, star of stage, screen and tabloids, who’s famous for pitching Wheezer Appliances on TV commercials where she’d hug herself and chatter, “Brr-brr-brr, if you don’t have a Wheezer freezer, baby, you don’t know what’s c-c-c-cold!”

Throw in free drinks and Little Smokies sausages wrapped in bacon, and I am so there.

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction~

  BROKENHEARTED IN BAKERSFIELD Story by: Nelson J. Hall & Michael Eastman Cover art by: Joel Rivers   This story happened in Bakersfield not long ago.   Or maybe it didn't.  The names have been changed to protect the guilty, fictitious or not, living or dead…. [The sequel is here: https://the-feet-of-god.blogspot.com ] Comments?  Please email michael_eastman@msn.com
Read more

Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

  15 - TRACKS OF MY TEARS I sadly reflected on our recent horrific losses in Broken Heart Park as I perused the obit section of The Beagle : THE BAKERSFIELD BEAGLE “Digging Up The News” OBITUARIES Bakersfield, CA— At approximately 4:20 p.m. yesterday a freight train moving at approximately 26 miles-per-hour jumped its tracks and tore into the trailer park compound known as Broken Heart Park, taking the life of Edna Peevy and destroying nearly 15 vacant mobile homes. The late Ms. Peevy was home alone and reportedly seeking comfort from a bottle of O Promise Me premium scotch whiskey when the runaway train plowed into her trailer. An unnamed neighbor said that as the train roared through Broken Heart Park, causing untold dollars in damage, he thought he heard Ms. Peevy scream, “Is that you?"  It's unclear who Ms. Peevy might have been addressing. The distraught engineer of the train, one Jesús F. Castro , told authorities that youthful hoodlums had tossed pi
Read more

Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

  1 - BROKEN HEART PARK It’s hot in Bakersfield.   A lazy heat shimmers off asphalt streets laid out flat and wide across the urban sprawl.   Downtown’s filled with boarded quickie marts and storefront churches and dilapidated American Dream homes slammed up against vacant lots heaped with rusted machinery and a lingering sense of abandonment.   On the outskirts of the city, in a sheltering hollow of low brown camel back hills, set alongside an elevated concrete freeway, sits a collection of personal mobile homes called Broken Heart Park. Broken Heart Park is about as quiet as you’d expect.   Oh sure, there’s nights when some damn fool will drink a little too much and just for the hell of it start shootin' out someone else’s windows.   Then the law will ride on out and haul him off.   Things have a way of calming down again, and almost before you can get around to checking your own place for bullet holes your neighbor’s been sobered up and released.   It’s all just an occasio
Read more