A Death in Garden Grove

There are no multi-million dollar professional athletes hanging out at the Tartan Room, a sports bar in Garden Grove, just a bunch of people dressed in blue jeans, t-shirts and the odd tatoo.

They come there after a hard day or a hard night, to play pool, throw darts or have a cold one, the neighborhood haven away from the reality of life.

But there are really no escapes from reality, it often hits home no matter where you are and such was the case Tuesday night in this blue-collar Orange County suburb where Steve Martin went to high school and where the massive influx of Vietnamese immigrants have created "Little Saigon."

At some point Tuesday night, somebody tried to cross Chapman, a major thoroughfare that runs past Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral and they were hit by car, an accident so devastating that the victim’s head was completely severed from the body.

No we didn’t see it. None of us did. There were only sirens and by the time any of us slid off our stools at The Tartan Room to see what happened, the Garden Grove police had cordoned off Chapman.

On the road there were two yellow tarps, one covering the torso and another, 50 feet away, covering the head. Down the street, a car had been pulled over with a shattered windshield.

One rumor was the driver was so distraught that he had torn off his clothes and writhed in agony, another suggested that the victim had raced across the street naked.

"Did anybody see it," a policeman asked but the Tartan Room bunch could only shake the collective head and across the street in front of the Weinerschnitzel, the crowd that formed could only do the same thing.

"You ever seen anything like this?" a Tartan Room patron asked me and I shook my head, my only closeup view of a dead body being a drug overdose in San Francisco’s Alamo Square long ago.

Everybody stood around and watched, but nothing happened because the police were waiting for the Orange County Coroner to show up and nobody knew when that would be.

"It all depends on how many are on duty," a policeman said with a Starbuck’s in his hand. "They may be elsewhere. Death is a natural part of life."

So we went back inside and on ESPN, they reported the passing of Byron Nelson, the golf legend, and there were statements from the sport’s elite about a great loss it was and you wonder if anybody would say the same thing about the poor soul on Chapman Ave.

Andy Warhol once said something about everybody enjoying 15 minutes but more appropriate was Henry David Thoreau who said in Walden, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation," and that fits the Tartan Room bunch most of all.

"It looks pretty bad out there," said the waitress who had just finished her shift at the Red Robin on Harbor Blvd and then she ordered a Grey Goose and Cranberry and lit up a Camel.

Another couple showed up and asked what happened.

"How gruesome do you want to get?" said Smitty the bearded bartender who favors NFL jerseys and was wearing a San Francisco 49ers model with quarterback Alex Smith’s name on the back.

A group of about six men and women came back in. They had been there for awhile and they had been shaken by the incident, but finally the young blonde said, "Let’s play darts."

They did just that as Smitty poured them another pitcher as the juke box played The Eagles’ Tequila Sunrise and the Rolling Stones Can’t Get No Satisfaction.

Close by is Disneyland, which Walt Disney once called "The Happiest Place on Earth" and you wonder if the deceased had ever been there, had ever experienced the thrill of the Matterhorn or heard a Jungle Cruise guide say "Do you know what the difference between the crocodiles and the alligators are? The crocodiles are made of plastic and the alligators are made of fiberglass."

But it was Thornton Wilder who wrote in The Bridge at San Luis Rey: "We ourselves may be loved for only a brief time…Even so, that will suffice…There is a land for the living and a land for the dead."

In Garden Grove on a Tuesday night, there was both the living and the dead and they came face-to-face outside the Tartan Room on Chapman Ave.