Monday Morning Stories With Mookie - Episode 105

The Time Mookie And Friends Got Into It With Dollar Don And His Posse

As you may remember from previous episodes (click HERE and HERE for a refresher), the town I lived in when I was in high school had a resident that everyone called "Dollar Don*." Dollar Don lived in a sorry looking house, and spent his free time driving around town in a van all hours of the night with his wife and children in tow. The legend of Dollar Don and his unfortunate nickname came about because he allegedly had a hole in his gas tank, and because he was too cheap/poor to fix it - he only put in one dollar's worth of gas in at a time. I've heard people swear that it was a witnessed and confirmed event, and I've heard that the story was somewhat true, but may have only happened once. Either way, the legend grew and the name stuck.

In the weeks and months leading up to this story, Dollar Don and his Posse had endured endless amounts of harassment and slander from the high school community. The guy couldn't even drive down the street without someone yelling "F*CK YOU DOLLAR!" However, when all you do is drive around town 4 hours a day - you have to know you are exposing yourself quite a bit. This harassment would occasionally result in a skirmish of some sort, and physical fights between the Dollar Posse and his harassers were not uncommon. The situation usually ended with the police showing up to break up the fight, and members of the Dollar Posse going to jail for beating up minors. All-in-all family fun.

I personally remember one time where the Dollar Gang rolled up into the parking lot I was sitting in with a group of friends, and tried to start shit with us because they thought we yelled at them. We were hardly innocent when it came to yelling things at Dollar Don, however this time he was quite mistaken. I can still picture him leaning against his van with his arms crossed, while his ugly wife (Claude-Head) and kids peered out the window at us. He stood there and MONOLOGUED at us, saying things like "You guys aren't so tough when you aren't in your cars or on the C.B.'s are ya?" We just stood there and stared at him at first, but then we more-or-less ignored him and talked amongst ourselves. Eventually he got tired of being ignored and left.

During the first part of the summer where the "big event" happened, I can remember that the reports of violent confrontations between Dollar and his harassers were few and far between for some reason. This seemed odd even though it was summertime, and the verbal harassment was always ongoing and continual. That is of course until the night in question where things really went down.

For some reason that night, the harassment was at a fever pitch (if that is even measurable). I don't know what it was, but you could sense the tension in the air when the high school kids and the Posse exchanged curse words and veiled threats. You knew something was going to happen. The Dollar Posse must have sensed the tension too, because they all traveled in a caravan of sorts as they drove "the loop." It was as though they were a protective pack of wolves ready to attack if someone lashed out at one of their own. A large group of us who had assembled in the parking lot of one of the auto parts businesses that lined "the loop, "watched them each time they drove by. After the Dollar Posse made a particular pass by our group in the parking lot, someone came up with the idea that we all needed to pull out in front of - into - and behind the Posse with our cars as they drove by the next time - and drive reeeaalllly slllooooowww. We all agreed that it was a "great idea," and all ran to our cars to await Dollar's next pass. What was going to happen? I certainly didn't know but I was excited to be a part of it.

Finally, we spotted Dollar and the gang come around the corner up and were making their way towards us. We were ready. All told, I think there were four or five cars ready to swoop in out of the parking lot into Dollar's caravan. I was riding shotgun in my friend "Rick's*" Mustang, and somehow we were in position to pull out in front of the WHOLE caravan as they came down the street. Just as the Posse entered the beginning of our block, Rick and I pulled out in front. We were followed by the rest of our group - some of which pulled in behind us, but a few others lagged back and pulled right into the middle of the caravan. As planned, we reduced our speed to a crawl of probably five or ten miles an hour. We were literally holding up the entire crowd. All of a sudden one of our friends went FLYING out and around everyone and passed us all - with Dollar right on his tail. What happened next was kind of a blur....cars started turning and speeding down side-streets, all with a Dollar Posse member chasing them. Somehow Rick and I were not being engaged by anyone - yet.

We drove through downtown and circled a particular block until we saw chaos straight ahead. Two or three cars were trying to trap one of our friends' car, and we inadvertently drove right into the mix. Suddenly we realized one of the cars included Dollar Don's vehicle. When we stopped at the stop sign (because we trying to be some-what law abiding kids), Dollar GOT OUT OF HIS CAR....AND STARTED RUNNING AT US! Rick freaked the shit out, stomped on the gas and somehow swerved around the portly Dollar - who unfortunately got a bad jump on us. Rick yelled out his window at Dollar "We didn't do anything!" as we sped away. In our efforts to get away from Dollar, our direction unintentionally took us towards the county jail. When we passed the jail, we saw that one of Dollar's Posse members had somehow cornered one of our friend's car and was trying to pound our friend through the window. This freaked us out big time because not only were these assholes chasing us, they were being violent about it. Rick and I decided that there was no shame in being extreme pussies....and got the hell out of there. Rick ended up dropping me off at home and he retreated to his house as well.

I spent the rest of the night TOTALLY expecting a knock on the door or a phone call from the local police about the incident. Even though Rick and I technically didn't do anything....I was freaked out. Thankfully the cops never showed up.

The next day I had to work at Hardee's, and as soon as I got to work all I heard about was people talking about was the big dust-up everyone had with Dollar the previous night (Its a small town - it didn't take much to get people fired up). It turned out that one of our friends who had pulled right into the caravan, did so with middle fingers extended and vulgarities being verbally exclaimed. That was what set off everything that resulted in everyone and Dollar accelerating past us. We also found out that the friend we saw getting pounded on by Dollar's thug was our friend "Thad.*" Dollar's thug found out pretty quick that this was a BIG mistake because Thad was a BIG MOFO. While Dollar's guy got a few punches in through the window, Thad grabbed the guy in a headlock and went to town on his face. As I said before, this was right in front of the county jail so naturally the cops showed up and broke up the melee. Dollar's thug (who turned out to be his brother) got sent to jail for beating on minors, while our friend just got a verbal "you guys need to leave Dollar alone" reprimand. The rest of my friends somehow avoided any physical harm (body and vehicular) from Dollar and his guys, and did not receive any entanglement or lecture from the police.

While there were still skirmishes here and there with Dollar after that night, there was nothing like the night we engaged his caravan and things got crazy.

Having said that....stay tuned for future episodes where I will tell you the stories of those skirmishes.


* - Names changed to protect the guilty/innocent

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