The Stories

Gang Fight on Kensington Rd.

When I was younger and I didn't have a car or even a license I would generally never stray too far away from home. As this is such, I spent a lot of time at my friend Lee's house. Lee lived around the corner from me and so I could ride my bike, roller blade, or even walk to his house with minimal effort. My friends Dave and Chris also lived relatively close to Lee and often times the four of us would get together and do a myriad of things that we thought were cool, but in retrospect, were anything but.

Most, if not all, of our get togethers involved playing poker, playing Risk, or playing FIFA Soccer on Lee's Super Nintendo. I believe it was FIFA '94, the first year the game was ever made. During these funfests we would often drink Caffeine Free Pepsi. This isn't relevant to the story at all and in actuality we didn't prefer Caffeine Free Pepsi to any other beverage, Lee's mother just happened to stock a lot of it in their basement refrigerator. Since we were generally relegated to the basement when in Lee's house, it was the easiest beverage to gain access to.

On many nights Dave, Chris, Lee, and Myself would find ourselves in Lee's basement partaking in one of the aforementioned activities until about 12 or 1am, at which point We'd either walk home or one of our parents would come and pick us up, provided they were still awake. One one particular evening Chris's dad, Steve, ws slated to pick us up and drop us all at home. This was at roughly 1am and I believe it was a Saturday night in the Spring. Now, many 15 year olds have better things to do on Saturday nights, and sometimes even we had better things to do on a Saturday night, but on this particular Saturday, we had decided to just take it easy. Anyway, I haven't even gotten to the interesting part yet.

We were all walking up the stairs from Lee's basement to the side door of his house, which is at the top of the staircase. Chris was in front and he peeked his head out the door to see if his dad was there yet. It was raining outside, so he didn't step all the way out, he just sort of craned his head around the corner to see if his dad was there. Chris paused and a look of surprise came over his face.

"Oh my God. Oh wow, I think they hit someone." Chris said.

This was a fairly interesting thing for Chris to have said and we were now all intrigued as to what was happening. Dave and I tried to get to the top of the staircase to see who was exactly hitting who and catch all the action. Lee was unfortunately ahead of us on the staircase and deemed it best to simply stay in the house.

At this point, Lee decided that he had to take control of the situation. He asked Chris, "Are you sure they hit someone?" to which Chris replied, "Yeah, I think so." which then triggered a rapid fire chain of events. Lee's instincts kicked in and he all but shoved Dave and myself back into the basement with orders to stay put. He pulled Chris out of the doorway and told him to do the same.

"I'm going to call the police. You guys stay here and don't leave the basement."

"Hello police. Yes, My name is Lee, I live on Kensington Road, there is a big fight outside my house, they're beating someone up, I'm not sure how many people there are, but you have to please hurry over here."

Lee then bounded up the staircase and woke up his parents who he also informed of the large scale battle currently taking place outside their suburban home. There was no need to worry, he informed them, because he had already called the police.

Dave and I had no clue what was happening. All we knew was that there was a fight outside the house, we were not allowed to go upstairs for our own safety and that Lee was in control of the situation. Dave and I speculated as to the scale of the fight, who might be involved, and all of the other details. Our minds danced with visions of a terror squad wreaking havoc on the neighborhood, or exacting revenge on one or even several unfortunate victims. Chris had only peaked around the corner and had not gotten a great view of what was happening. When he tried to step out of the house, he was pulled back in by Lee who had quickly taken control. He was therefore unable to give many details about the events transpiring.

From our perspective in the basement something of quintessential excitement was taking place outside, but we didn't dare venture any closer than we were for fear of the repercussions. As this is such, we didn't even catch a glimpse of the events outside.

Just as our fear, curiosity, and genuine interest were coming to a head, there came a knock on the side door. Lee again sprang into action expecting either a gang member or a police officer or someone of importance whom he would have to reckon with. Instead of any of the above choices it was simply Steve at the door.

We were moderately surprised to see him there, and looking so calm at that seeing as how there was a grand scale riot taking place just out front in the street. We quickly asked him if he had seen anything strange outside and what exactly was happening. His explanation was not at all what we expected.

As he pulled up, Steve saw two kids in the street hovered over the rear of their car. Apparently what had happened was that they came around the corner a little too quickly on that rainy night and they hydroplaned the car. The rear of the car swiped the tree in the front of Lee's yard and they had been inspecting the damage just as Chris poked his head out. Chris saw the two kids leaning over their car and figured that they had struck a person in the street. His dad was set to arrive any minute and Chris became worried that he might have been struck, thus his eerie reaction. It turns out that the two kids driving the car were two kids we went to high school with and who were anything but threatening to human life, except perhaps when driving too quickly in their fathers' cars. Their was a bit of damage to daddy's car that night and they inspected it thoroughly and perhaps put together a good cover story as well.

In any event, the excitement had come to a quick end. There was no fight, no riot, and nothing at all to be concerned about. We all chided Lee for his overreaction, something which we still make fun of him for to this day and we all stepped outside to the car.

At this point, the evening turned very interesting. During the two minutes it had taken to sort out what had actually happened outside Lee's house, the Teaneck Police Department had sprung into action, ready to find an all out war on Kensington Road. There are 4 different streets that converge onto Kensington Road outside of Lee's house and on all four paths a police car zoomed up with lights flashing and screeched to a halt as we reached the car.

The police had deployed their entire force in the rain to drive as quickly as possible to the scene of a terrible fight only to find four kids and one dad getting into a car when they got there. Lee was then forced to explain to the police how he had overreacted and that there wasn't actually a fight outside his house, nor were there any injured parties, no damage, and in fact no reason at all for them to be there.

The most classic moment came when the police officer who had been heading the mission tried to explain the importance of accurate reports when hailing the police. He tried so hard to conceal the look of utter contempt and astonishment aimed at this obviously well meaning 15 year old kid who thought he was doing the right thing, but it was clear to all of us there that the cop was pissed. He explained to Lee that if something like this were to happen again in the future he whould recall the police department and retract his story. He had sent his men speeding through the rain to a non-event and he was none too happy about it. Lee again apologized and watched as the 6 police cars present left the scene, again leaving only the five small figures by Steve's car.

We drove home that night and went to bed, content in the fact that our community was safe. Events of any actual excitement rarely take place in my town, but it's nice to know that if they did, 6 police cars would be there within 2 minutes. Lee has yet to live down his overreaction to a simple statement by Chris, and to this day I don't know why Chris didn't do more to stop Lee from reacting the way he did, since he was the only one who had actually viewed the events. Alas, these are all things we have left to ponder. Perhaps the truth may come to light one day, but until then we're left with a situation that wasn't actually a situation at all, but then turned into one, but then again, it really wasn't.