The Ford Maravilla Kid at Johnnie's

By kiki

One hot summer night in 1953, my Simons friend, Tomate, AKA Thomas, and I were out cruising with two girls who were cousins. Tomate and I had decided earlier that night that once we got hungry we would take the girls home and then go to Johnnie's on Whittier Blvd and Eastern Ave. in East Los Angeles, for a burger. 

Unfortunately, we couldn't take the girls with us to Johnnie because Tomate and I only had two dollars between us. So in 1953 at Johnnie's: a burger, fries, and coke would set you back six bits (75 cents). "It's time to take the girls home," Tomate whispered to me. So I turned my '38 Chevy around and headed to the Silver Lake district where the girls lived. The girls were not happy that we were taking them home at 11:00 PM. I think they thought that we were going to take them somewhere to eat. Sorry girls but we have no money.

We got to Johnnie's around midnight, order, and got our burgers. As we were chowing down our burgers in the car, a dude walked up to the passenger side window and asked Tomate, "Orale ese, where are you from?" Tomate looked at the dude and answered him, "nowhere, man, nowhere" the dude wanted to kick Tomate's ass! "I am from Ford Maravilla and I am going to kick your ass, get out of the car," the dude said to Tomate. Tomate told the dude, "man, I don't want to fight you" The dude kept insisting that Tomate got out of the car, and Tomate kept telling him no, that he didn't want to fight him. 

After going around with the dude for about five minutes, Tomate told him "okay, I'll fight you" and as he started to open the car door to get out, the dude told Tomate, "wait a minute, I'll be right back" The Ford Maravilla Kid run and jumped into a car with some buddies and they drove off. We thought he had just decided to forget about fighting so we hung around Johnnie's talking to some girls, soon two cars full of guys drove up to Johnnie's, parked, the guys piled out of the cars and with a tall guy leading the way they came straight at Tomate and me. The tall guy came straight at me and got me in a bear-hug and with a burst of laughter asked the Ford Maravilla Kid, "these are the guys you need help beating up?" "Yes, kick their asses," the Kid told my friend Goma, AKA Richard. Goma said to the Kid, "this my friend kiki, and I ain't going to kick his ass, not sure that I could even if I wanted to" (he could).

 Goma and I had become friends when I had moved from Simons to Old Pico and it turned out that he knew the Kid too. Goma told us that he and some other guys from Pico had been at a party with the Kid and asked Tomate and me if we wanted to go to the party with him, we did, and the Kid never gave us any more trouble.

Years later Connie and I became Godparents to Goma and his wife Della's daughter, Debbie. My friend Tomate, would later become Godfather to our oldest son, Frankie, AKA Fernie.