Fiction Based on Factual Chisme:
By Augie Bareño

During the 1940s and 50s, the only thing that East San Diego shared in common with Shelltown was that they both were defined by Chollas Creek. The Creek ran east to west from East San Diego through the Southeast San Diego neighborhoods of Valencia Park, Southcrest and Shelltown, at which point, it would cross the 38th and Z Street bridge and thread it way, to Wabash, then empty into the San Diego Bay.

In the East San Diego portion of Chollas Creek, it was maintained by the City of San Diego, as a Flood Control Channel and bulwark for maintaining property values. The good part of Chollas Creek would end about Euclid Street, which coincidentally, marked the point where the neighborhoods, started to be a bit more “working class” and the further west you traveled in the creek, the closer it reflected its natural state.

By the time, it reached Oceanview, Southcrest and Shelltown, it looked like a jungle, in a Tarzan movie. It was pitch black, with Bamboos 10ft high, growing wild and with a series of footpaths cut out of the bamboos. The pathways were made into hideouts and Jump you points, where no one would hear or see a thing, until it was too late. Old Ten High bottles, Falstaff and Lucky Lager beer cans, Tokay wine and nasty magazines, underwear and old clothes would usually mark the spot, of the outdoor latrine, in the creek.

Neighborhood Chisme, has it, that at the 38th and Z Street bridge part of the creek, there have been three deaths, one an overdose of a neighborhood kid named Nando De La Rey, who came back from Korea and could never kick the horse.

The second was an AWOL sailor from the 32nd Street Naval Base, As a Buckman from a little town in Arkansas called Big Fork, who had gotten a Pilipino gal at the Mabuhay Café, pregnant and was afraid to take her home to Arkansas. He was planning to skip town, when, her family found out, they didn’t take too kindly to it and he was found in the creek stabbed to death with a “Cavite Attention Getter”. There were never any arrest and the case died.

The third one and the most mysterious involved an old drunk called “Howard Two Guns Morales,” who was discovered dead sitting in an old wicker chair, in the creek, looking like he had been scared to death, with his mouth and eyes opened, as if he had seen something so frightening, it killed him.

What made it very strange was the coroner said his body had no traces of alcohol and a tattoo with the words “Ana-darko” was no longer visible on his forearm.

Howard “Two Gun “Morales was a Creek Indian from Anadarko, Oklahoma, who joined the Marines in World War II and never went back home. He stayed in San Diego to be with his buddy Fernando “Hobo Joe” Avilando, who had saved his life, during the war, on more than one occasion. Life, alcohol, and schizophrenia had not been kind to either one of them and by the time of his death, Two Gun and Hobo Joe were living on the Wabash side of the Chollas Creek. They had been there since right after Korea, having been run out of a rooming house, right behind Bohemian Bakery on Market Street, for drinking and starting the communal bathroom on fire.

The Wabash side of the Chollas Creek, where Two Gun Morales, Hobo Joe, Shorty Pushamump and the other winos lived, was very spooky looking, with the giant bamboos trees that had been darkened from the exhaust of the Navy Ships. In the middle of their Bamboo shacks, sat a sewage pond, which was the run off from the Navy, it had the nastiest smell and gave off a grey cloud.

The place was called Zombieland, because at night, the Winos would march in a zombie parade, up and down National Avenue, in the direction of either Woody’s Liquor on the east or Base Liquor to the West, to get their nightly snort of Tokay or Petrie Wine. Happily they would march right back to Zombieland, to enjoy their Hooch. It didn’t matter that people would yell insults or throw things at them, they would endure anything cause they really didn’t care about anything, but their wine.

Hobo Joe and Two Guns Morales had gotten used to all the neighborhood kids bothering them. The little kids would be afraid of them and they would run the other way. The older ones, especially the teenagers made it a game to harass, Hobo Joe, they would find a phony reason, to start argument with him, then get him mad and because of his schizophrenia and alcoholism, he would get violent, at the drop of the hat and attack them, they would of course, out number him.

They would use this reason to sucker punch him, and then they would run, he would chase them, half of the kids would double back and knock over everything in his Bamboo shack, just to piss him off further.

Since the death of his buddy Two Guns Morales, Hobo Joe felt very alone and troubled. The voices in his head kept repeating, what he had been told by Two Guns, many years earlier, that the spirits avenge the wrongs we do to others and they show you, by taking things from your body, as a sign of accounting.

That would, Hobo Joe reasoned, with the voices explain, why Two Guns Morales was found without his Anadarko Tattoo on his forearm.

In what would be a great spiritual accounting, the teenagers who harassed Hobo Joe the most and were the meanest, Lorenzo, Nando and Patas were walking home from Southcrest Park, very late at night. It was an extremely foggy night, where you could only see, inches in front of you.

They took the path of the creek, on the Acacia Street side, which had a little bit of indirect light from the houses.

At about a hundred feet from the 38th and Z street bridge, part of Chollas Creek, where all the evil things had happened, there is a path, that crosses from the Acacia side to the Z street side and leads to a part of the bridge, that is lighted by St Jude church and it takes you on to Z street and more lighting.

In the fog they miscalculated and walked directly to where Two Gun Morales had died of fright and all the other evil things. Just as they realized, where they were, they panicked and started screaming and crying, they try to huddle together, but they couldn’t move. Just then, a giant figure with a torso of Bamboos and a tiny face and arms that looked like long Bolo knives, came out of the Fog. The figure came towards them in an aggressive manner, in their panic, they take off running, the figure stays with them, the more they try to run, the bigger the figure seems to get, finally after running for what seemed like forever, they drop to the ground, they can no longer resist, they expect the figure to kill them. They all close their eyes and wait death.

An hour later, they wake up at the door step of St Judes church, not knowing what happened or how they got there, but what they do know is that they need to change their lives. In the accounting of spirits, what was taken from Lorenzo, Nando and Patas, was their Innocence and they never bothered Hobo Joe again.

About a year later, Hobo Joe heard the voices in his head, one last time, he was never seen again.