When cousins Paul and Jerry were young and impressionable, they made good names for themselves in their bad Detroit neighborhood. Like most kids, they went through phases. When they discovered a subject, they invested their time and allowance - until finally abandoning it to a new avocation. The summer they turned eight, two major passions presented themselves.

 

The first, Star Wars. They both wanted to play Han Solo. Since they couldn’t afford action figures, the duo settled for acting out the scenes with sticks.  

 

Mid-June, tragedy struck. Paul’s dog, Fenris, asphyxiated on a chicken bone and choked out a loathsome death on the kitchen floor. Nobody home was old enough to react properly. Those who witnessed the senseless death were too young to save her. Paul and Jerry mourned their own way - by starting an exclusive organization and baptizing it after Paul’s deceased pet...The Fenris Club. Membership was open to anyone under 13 committed to becoming a veterinarian. To school themselves in canine first aid and anatomy, Jerry and Paul smuggled every book on dogs, cats, and horses out of the library for the club’s “personal use.”

 

Now that they had a cache of medical books to maintain, the club required a clubhouse. Their secret lair would need to be waterproof and electric. Primo security went without saying. A few chairs, table, bookshelf, and maybe a mini cooler for a Dew stash.

 

Living 14 dilapidated houses apart in a Detroit neighborhood not known for dressed-up colonials and well-manicured lawns, the cousins didn’t have much roaming room to spare. They had three choices:

 

The wooden storage section built in Paul’s garage was three levels high. The ground level brimmed with bicycles and camping gear. The second level, stacked with cardboard boxes. The top level, however, had enough head space that we could all stand up. The dream was within reach via rickety ladder that the neighborhood kids had proven themselves too frightened to attempt. Fear. That’s security. As cool as a three-story clubhouse might be, there was one big drawback. There was no way they could carry everything up and down three flights. The Fenris Club demanded secrecy, after all.

 

Option two required allowing Brian to join our club. He was an awkward neighborhood kid. He offered to hollow out the “interior” of an overgrown copse of evergreen trees and had already begun. When the cousins inspected the potential clubhouse, they were horrified to discover Brian sawing the branches off the trees. With a dull steak knife. They probably wouldn’t survive. Paul and Jerry didn’t want to start a club where the founding act was murder. Brian was unceremoniously 86-ed from their club.

 

Forlorn and exhausted from their afternoon of clubhouse hunting, Paul and Jerry’s mouths hit the cement when they saw what was parked in the driveway of Jerry’s digs. Parked side-by-side were two tomato-red Volkswagen Beatles, one slightly more experienced than the other. They were late sixties. One was up on blocks. Jerry’s dad was elbows deep, wearing his cammo pants from Vietnam and a black 82nd Airborne t-shirt so filthy it could tell its own stories. He turned around when he saw the boys and held up a piece of the engine like it was a glowing talisman, saying in a deep, cartoonish voice, “Behold! The mighty distributor cap! Soon to be extinct.” He winked at Paul and Jerry, pride oozing out of his every pore, as he proceeded to install the functional distributor cap in the functional-ish Beatle.

 

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jerry whispered to Paul.

 

“Yeah, but how do we pull it off without your Dad losing his shit?” Paul made no bones about the fact that he feared the hand of Jerry’s father, who was famously volatile.

 

Jerry led Paul upstairs to his room, where they designed a plan of attack. A clubhouse that met meet their requirements. Jerry was tall enough and knew how to drive. So long as he stayed in the neighborhood. They needed a parking place no one would notice.

 

Six blocks west there was an abandoned car wash on John R that would do the trick. More than once the boys had broken in and helped themselves to vintage junk from the sixties - the innocent bells and whistles of a car and a nation on edge. The cars were classic glam, in perfect condition, abandoned by their owners as when some riot broke out.

 

Plan in hand, the boy’s bee-lined to the kitchen for an afternoon snack. From the counter, they could see Jerry’s father hard at work, but also his snarky, little sister - the six years-old - watching and scheming the way little girls do. He wasn’t fluent in sister yet but could usually read her mind. Not this time. Before he could move, his little sister began using the VW Beatle’s roof as a trampoline. Her friend from next door joined and soon the Beatle’s roof looked like something that had been stepped on by the Monty Python foot. A squashed tomato.

 

Jerry and Paul rushed outside to stop them but were corralled by Jerry’s father’s sweaty arm. “Don’t tell your mom.” He eyeballed Jerry meaningfully, then indicated the VW with the collapsed roof. “I’m letting your sister use the spare parts Beatle for her new trampoline.” Then, laughing and tossing a can of spray paint to his daughter, don’t forget to tag it, sweetheart!”