All Fired Up : Son’s Derelict Car in Yard Finally Meets Its Match; Mother, Still Hot Under the Collar, Spends Night in Jail

Dolores Zarley had a familiar problem: Her son had left a terrible mess.

But it was not in his room. It was all over the front yard of her home in Whittier--a collection of rusted-out trucks, cars and vans.

There was one that especially bothered her--a wheel-less, windowless, engine-less, 14-year-old Volkswagen Rabbit, spray-painted with such slogans as “Hell no good” and “Nobody cares.”

Zarley said that for the umpteenth time she asked her 40-year-old son, Kurt Wilson, to clean up his junk, and while he was at it, to clear out.

Once again, she said, her son refused.

So Zarley came up with an unfamiliar solution: She struck a match and tossed it onto one of the seats in the Volkswagen.

“I just wanted to make a point,” she explained Wednesday, half an hour after her release from jail, where she had spent the night after her arrest on suspicion of arson.

Zarley, who’s 64, said she really did not feel much like talking about it.

“They’ve dropped all the charges,” she said. “But who knows? Maybe somebody will change their mind.”

According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Tuesday’s incident began shortly after sundown, when Zarley and her son began fanning the flames of their longstanding dispute over Wilson’s collection of aging vehicles.

Zarley says she owns the place--a half-acre lot in the 12300 block of Fidel Avenue that includes her modest house and the dilapidated, 1920s-vintage shack occupied by Wilson, his offspring and some friends. She says she wants her son, his brood and his vehicular collection “outta here.”

No one around was discussing precisely what led to what, but Zarley said that about 9 p.m., she strode to the hulk of the Volkswagen, struck a match and tossed it inside.

The match landed on a seat, which burst into flames.

“I was putting it out with a hose,” she said Wednesday. “I just wanted to make a point.”

With the point made, a brawl ensued. Zarley ended up with a couple of bruises; her husband, Jerry, ended up with a cut under an eye that required five stitches, and Wilson ended up telling sheriff’s deputies that his car had been torched.

Zarley was taken to the sheriff’s substation in Norwalk, where she was jailed in lieu of $50,000 bail.

But by Wednesday morning, everyone had calmed down. All charges--and threats of charges--were dropped, and about 11 a.m., deputies told Zarley she was free to go.

“They treated me real nice,” she said. “But Jerry had already left for work so I had to walk home.” It was about three miles.

Wednesday afternoon found her sitting in a plastic lawn chair under a big jacaranda tree overlooking the front yard.

“I’m locked out of the house,” she explained. “Jerry’s got the keys, and he’s not home from work yet.

“And I’m sure not going to ask him,” she added, as she pointed to the shack a few yards down the driveway.

A reporter’s attempts to raise anyone in the shack--which lacks telephone, gas and running water--were futile.

Zarley said she was comfortable, and is beginning to feel philosophical about the whole thing.

“It was all my fault,” she said. “And you know, things can’t get much worse, so they’re bound to get better.”