Homies

The particular Lyons Restaurant of which we are about to speak was at one point in time the mainstay of Citrus Heights every Friday and Saturday night.

It stood there on the corner of Greenback and Sunrise for many years, until its purpose was used to such an extent the owner had enough and sold the place.

Every weekend, sometime after one in the morning, those who frequented dance clubs would arrive en masse, descending on the poor establishment. It was easy to do with the large parking lot shared by the restaurant with other nearby businesses: a pool hall, a Dollar General, a Red Lobster, and other various oddities.

The staff of Lyons knew to be prepared for the arrival of the drunk and wasted dancers. They had extra wait staff, bus boys, and cooks. The food was prepped before hand for all the orders of curly fries, burgers and omelets that would be ordered. And of course, all the coffee pots were full in expectation of being emptied within the first minutes of the restaurant filling up.

On some nights, depending on what dance club or bar was hosting its particular type of theme night, there would be gangster and hip hop crowd, or maybe the cowboy crowd with their cowboy hats and boisterous good ol' boy banter, or maybe the gothic crowd, who would chain smoke until the break of dawn while eating curly fries and drinking coffee. The cowboys did not like the gothic crowd, and no one liked the cowboys. But there was generally no violence other than pleasant and friendly exchanges of "Freak!" followed in return by a cordial, "Hick!" or maybe a nice and decent, "Homie!"

Some think that "homie" is a term of endearment, used often in the life of a thug who, while in his natural environment, needs to maintain a close friendship with many in order to, as they say, get medieval on someone's ass when necessary.

As this story will show, this definition is not entirely accurate.

Our story begins on a Saturday night, sometime after one in the morning. It may have been a Friday, as some legends tell it, but we do not agree with these preposterous and baseless claims.

But one Saturday night, there was a young man named Chris, of the age of eighteen years, sitting in Lyon's restaurant. He was a slender young man, having recently left high-school. His hair was up in a mohawk and was kept in that state by an application of boiling hot Knox gelatin poured on his head, followed by half a can of Aquanet. This torturous method worked once it dried and was not to be dispensed with no matter how painful the application was.

His jacket was of black leather, and upon the shoulders there were spikes. He had bought the spikes with his birthday money, along with the jacket, and spent a considerable amount of time cutting holes in the leather shoulders of the jacket in order to attach the spikes just so. The spikes looked like trees, tall pine trees of doom, blown over by the wind and laying on their sides and a threat to no one. But the young man could - and would - adjust the spikes every so often and make them stand upright once more.

His boots were Doc Martens, though he loathed the neo-fascists. He never was sure what color of laces he was supposed to wear, so he wore laces of different colors, to confuse potential neo-fascist predators coming at him from the wilds of Sacramento suburbia.

There was a young lady this young man was interested in, whose name was Dion. She was a fair young lady, slender, and like all women of genteel nature willing to give it up, as they say.

Chris and his friend John sat and talked with Dion and her friend. Both persons of both parties were trying to get engage in a traditional mating ritual called "hooking up," and Chris was becoming quite successful in his mating calls. His cheesy one liners of "Hey baby, don't say maybe," made Dion swoon with rapture, while her dainty and lady like sucking of an ice cube aroused no small amount of honorable feelings on the part of Chris.

They decided to leave the restaurant, and with the hidden meanings of body language and language itself, decided to pursue further interaction on a more personal level.

Chris, completing the mating ritual, paid for the entire bill, and out they went into the wilds.

But there was a problem.

Chris' friend John was skinny. He was not slender, but skinny like a toothpick. This gave the impression to some when looking at his long hair that he might be a gay, or even a girl.

On this particular night there was a homie who walked by, and asked John if he by chance happened to be a faggot.

"No," John meanly said, "I am not."

The natural protective instincts of Dion were aroused, and without further hesitation, she exclaimed her protective roar upon the homie: "You are such a dick!"

Now homies cannot back down from a fight. Their tribe does not allow for cowardice. And so, in response to the roar of Dion the homie replied, "What? You wanna suck my what?"

Now Chris knew the appropriate thing to do was to just walk away, and stand on the higher moral ground by which he could look down upon the homie. This would have sealed the deal with Dion, and brought the mating ritual to a successful end.

Unfortunately, he chose a different course.

"You wanna suck my what?" Chris responded.

"What bitch?" said the homie. "You want some, bitch?"

Chris knew the best way to deal with this was to show his fearful tribal war skills, so he proceeded to go to his car, a trashed out Datsun B-210, with a cracked windshield and toggle switches for a starter, and pulled out his sword.

It was a ninja-to, not a real one of course but a mock one, of the swords used by ninjas. Chris had a black belt, you see, and rather fancied himself as quite an expert in the art of fisticuffs.

Fisticuffs yes. Swords no.

Now it was at this point the amazing thing happened. The homie yelled a very distinct battle yell, warlike and fierce: "Homie's got a sword! Get my gun!" We do not know why this homie decided to use a familiar form of address with Chris, yet this was sufficient to arouse the wrath of the three car loads of homies waiting for their friends to return from using the bathroom at Lyons. It is a shame, a sad shame, Chris did not see these fellow tribesmen of the homie before Chris reached for his ninja sword.

"Oh shit," Chris and John said as if with one voice. "Run!"

Out they ran, scrambling out of cars, yelling their cries of war and dancing their homie war dances. The advanced in a storm upon the Datsun B-210, which was now occupied by Chris and John, who were frantically trying to make the toggle switches toggle and start the car. The battery terminals were corroded, and no amount of toggling would bring a successful toggle on of the engine.

Smash! went the passenger side window and through this window out went John, to be pummeled repeatedly by a number of homies.

Smash! went the drivers side window, at which point Chris opened the door and stepped out.

Before him, in a manner of biblical telling, stood the Goliath to Chris' role of David. The homie wilderbeast, the biggest homie Chris had ever seen, bigger than the homies that chased John and Chris when they through a big water balloon on their car. Even scarier, since John and Chris escaped those homies, and this homie was standing right in front of Chris, holding a bat.

"Put the sword down," the homie said.

Standing up for his honor, and that of his soon to be mated woman, Chris said, "Ok," and put down the sword.

At this point, the original homie sucker punched Chris from behind. What a bitch.

"Let he and I fight a duel of honor," Chris implored upon the homie with the bat, and indeed, prevailed upon his sense of respect.

"Ok," said the homie with the bat, "This I gotta see."

Chris squared off, and could see the fear in the face of the sucker punching homie, but he grew bold when a swarm of homies surrounded Chris, and beat him soundly with a fold out baton.

This story of tribal violence has a place in modern society, and indeed can be a lesson to all of us, young and old.

Never pull out a ninja sword unless you are a ninja and really know how to kick ass with it, and never, ever, ever bring a ninja sword to a gun fight.