The big party and the only time I ever saw Phil Kendall fight

I only remember seeing Philip fight once, although I do not believe he was a complete stranger to fisticuffs. He was no shrinking violet, certainly. I don't think he was averse to fighting, but thought along the same lines as I did. What could ever be the point of duking it out with some brain-damaged moron? To teach him a lesson he would forget the instant he awoke from his beer-fogged stupor the next morning? To have another great tale to toss in when the fellas were chewing the fat? To gain credibility among the gang of knuckleheads we chose as our virtual family?

In fact, the one time I did see him fight was not so much a fight as him coming to the defense of a friend who was being pummeled on the ground by a nearly-retarded ex-football player from Kent, Washington. I remember watching some fights with him and I believe we also discussed the omniscient satisfaction of watching others pummel it out from a comfortable perch, beer in hand, on the sidelines. And we did indeed have several opportunities to watch memorable dust ups outside parties, and most often, outside bars and taverns.

I don't know if Philip and I were on the same page on fights or not, but my feeling was similar to how some of the lesser animals probably felt as they watched a couple of Tyrannosaurus Rex decimate each other. If they actually did succeed in seriously injuring themselves, well, then, the world would be just a little bit safer.

Within a few weeks of when Phil, Kevin, Jerry, and I moved in together at 1721 Iron Street, we decided to have a party to inaugurate the place. We wanted to meet more people. People, as used here, specifically refers to girls. We also wanted to have a good excuse to entice our old pals back in Kent, Washington to make the 80 mile trek up to Bellingham. And what was better enticement than two kegs of Rainier beer, college girls, and the various sundries that people brought along to enhance the merrymaking? As a side note, the party also occurred at the height of the Psilocybe semilanceata mushroom season.

We saved our money to buy plenty of beer. I also recall putting out some sorts of snacks--we did not create canapes, but did put out bowls of potato chips. Maybe even some clam dip. And salt peanuts. Ah, but we're moving ahead too quickly.

A couple of weeks before the party, we contacted everyone we knew in Bellingham and Kent. A lot of our old gang were still around the old home town and most agreed to make the trek north. We chatted up everyone we knew in Bellingham (alas, I knew about eight people there, since I'd only arrived at WWU a few weeks ago). It was looking good. Everyone we knew or had met was coming to the party.

That Friday, we broke out the Pine Sol™, mops, Windex™, and rags, and swabbed out 1721 Iron Street in the first and last serious cleaning she underwent that year. We didn't place vases of flowers around the house or put up candles and streamers, but the place was modestly respectable for a houseful of grungy bohos.

Also on Friday, unbeknown to us, Jerry made a run to campus and around town with dozens of Xeroxed™ fliers, to insure full attendance.
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3 KEGS ● 3 KEGS ● 3 KEGS
Beer on ice, food,
rock and roll, dates, etc.,
BIG FUN!
1721 Iron Street 8:00 October 8, 1973
Bring friends, leaf, and your thirst
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Jerry stapled fliers to bulletin boards, on the doors of bathroom stalls, outside classrooms at college, in the hallways of dormitories, at the student union building, in the cafeteria, around the music listening room, in the gym, near the bars and taverns of State Street, and even on the telephone poles lining the streets of downtown Bellingham and Fairhaven. He papered every square inch of town where people were not likely to have previous plans, and it worked. They all began arriving at our crib promptly at 8:00.

There is nothing more nerve-racking, as you know, than waiting for your own party to start. Those kegs were singing out to us from the back porch. By 7:00, pre-party jitters prompted us to tap the first keg, and by the time of the first arrivals, we felt no pain.

By 10:00, 1721 Iron Street was throbbing wall to wall with hundreds of people. The rented sound system pumped out Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Humble Pie, Nils Lofgren, and The Beatles at about 120 decibels. It was fantastic! A dozen cars arrived from Kent, filled with old friends, friends of friends, and people who didn't know any of us but were providing transport, or other sundries. The house was elbow to elbow, the backyard was full of people, the front yard was full of people smoking, chugging beer, groping each other, laughing hysterically, firing up bongs, and drinking shots of Jack Daniels, Mescal, and Hennessey's. The party was better than we'd ever imagined. We were cooking with gas! There were hordes of women from the dorms, and every girl we'd ever met who succumbed to our invitation. High school girls from Kent rolled in. Dozens of boys and girls from the dorms showed up, on their first foray off campus.

Around 11:00, one of the visitors from Kent drove his Road Runner through the fence in our front yard and parked inches from our front door. In the backyard, one of our old classmates was crawling across the lawn, in the throes of an angel dust (a/k/a PCP) vision. Inside the house, things began to go awry. People were getting in snits over perceived and imaginary affronts. The ex-jocks and red-doggers (red-doggers: folks who enjoyed losing all control under the influence of barbiturates or Quaalude) from Kent, frustrated by a lack of success scoring with the college girls, and compounded with massive brewski intake, an unending succession of pipes and joints, and other comestibles, began to get surly. I remember Mort having a heated discussion regarding literacy with one of the knuckleheads from Kent. "He's literate. I'm literate. She's literate. You're illiterate." His name was Ace. Of course it was.

The best party ever suddenly pivoted and it was like the Sword of Damocles was hanging over the entire gathering. The vibe shifted dramatically following the demolition of our fence and events just ran downhill from there. Some of the more sensible folk began to sense violence in Pepperland--like the animals sense an incipient earthquake--and began easing toward the doors.

By midnight, the first fight erupted. The fights, naturally, were initiated by or mainly involved the attendees from our home town, and most of the culprits were friends of friends or friends of friends of friends. In any case, by the witching hour the beer, drugs, xenophobia, romantic frustration, noise, and even the long work week had taken their toll. A few preliminary dust-ups occurred, mostly settled before any serious damage was done. Twin brothers from Kent made it a mission to peg someone. They did. Mostly the attacked walked away, and were allowed to walk away.

Ace, with whom Mort was discussing literacy, soon decided to even the score for Mort's accusation of illiteracy ("whatever the f*** that is!"). And the first all out fight began.

They were rolling on the ground and Ace somehow got the advantage despite the barbiturates roiling his melon. He was about to bang on Mort's head with some object when Phil came charging from across the yard yelling. He put a workboot to the head of Ace, and ended the fight by dragging Ace off and leaving him in a heap on the lawn (Ace had a nice shiner the next morning...incredibly, he stayed overnight at our house). Other fights broke out now that the taste of blood was in the water. One departing car from Kent dug a doughnut in our front yard as they left, and hurled a wine bottle against the house. By the time the police arrived, there was no one to arrest and the minors were either gone, or safely hidden away.

Keelin remembers the party as being absolutely frightening and mortifying "scary and weird." Between Jerry's fliers and the belligerent out-of-towners, the party was doomed from the start.

The wreckage the next morning was, of course, considerable. We angrily swabbed out the place just as we had lovingly cleaned it the day before. We drank tomato juice and the leftover beer and the boys relived their moments of combat the night before. Either Phil or Kevin had a shiner (although nothing like Ace's). Mostly we were stunned. For a couple hours, our planned for party triumph actually looked like it would succeed. We would become the party masters of Western Washington University--a band of convivial Hugh Hefners who hosted the best parties in town. By the end of the party, virtually every guest fled in hopes of saving their own skins.

We had a party the next month. Mort recalled that party in an email to me. By nine o'clock about four guests had shown up. We sat huddled with the keg of beer around the wretched oil burner in our front room that supplied all the heat for the house. And four people showed! Thinking this was an anomaly, we threw another party a month later. If anything, even less people showed up. There was Phil, Mort, Jerry, me, and a couple of our most die-hard friends staring dejectedly at a door that never opened. More people would have shown up to an open house at a Leper Colony. We now had a reputation even worse than that of the rugby player's house at 1000 Indian Street. The word was out. If you want to take your life into your hands, go to a party at 1721 Iron Street. Thus ended our days as party hosts extraordinaire. We were scarred for life, or at least as long as we remained in that house.

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