Their Basement Is a Steppingstone to Sobriety

Last call for the Hole in the Ground Gang grows near at their basement clubhouse in Huntington Park, and the ghosts are on the loose.

“They talk to you in here,” says Ray, the man they call the Mayor of Tijuana. Ray, who got so liquored up that his leg got lopped off in a train accident half a century ago, has been dry since 1954.

“Don’t talk to me too much or I’ll start crying again,” says Verna, who stumbled down the steps the same year as Ray, running from the bottle. “As far as I’m concerned, this room saved my life.”

And the lives of too many others to count.

Arson Annie and San Quentin Bob. Kitchen Charlie and Mousetrap Johnny. They all came in looking for courage, and some of them stayed awhile.

Dec. 7, 1941, was the day of the first meeting. Yes, Pearl Harbor Day. But the Hole in the Ground Gang won’t make 60 years in this location, because a church group has bought the old Ebell building, and it’s giving them the boot to make room for a youth program. This coming Friday will be the end of it.

“No group of Alcoholics Anonymous anywhere in America has met longer in the same room than this one,” says Bud, who has been sober nearly 50 years.

The home office in New York couldn’t confirm or deny the group’s longevity claim. But Bud says he’s pretty sure of it after checking in with other old-timers around the country.

Bud used to be with another notorious gang in the 1930s. He won a spelling bee as an 8-year-old, got his picture in the paper, and producer Hal Roach had never seen a kid with freckles like that. Roach called him in for an audition and Bud recited a poem that began:

Little fly upon the wall

Ain’t you got no clothes at all?

Roach put him to work the next day, and Bud’s freckles were in “Our Gang” episodes, Laurel and Hardy movies and other features over the next three or four years.

But his parents split, he moved to Oregon with his mom, and it went all wrong for him after that. Bud got locked up for “doin’ a little beggin’ with a gun,” and read about AA in the joint. “I had clipped and clouded, stolen from and lied to just about everyone I knew,” he says. It was time to get clean.

Soon as they sprung him, Bud bought a 1937 Chevy with a cracked cylinder for $75 and drove to his first meeting at Clarendon and Malabar in Huntington Park. That was 1953, and no member has been coming here longer.

Back then, Huntington Park was upper middle class, and Pacific Boulevard was where the elite shopped, says Bud. “But this was always the poor man’s Betty Ford clinic.”

“Easy Does It” says one ancient sign in the basement, which looks a little bit like the inside of an old shoe. “Freedom From Fear” says another.

Yet another boasts:

“Celebrating Our 59th Year.”

The Mayor of Tijuana limps to the podium and gazes upon a dozen souls who’ve straggled in on their lunch hour.

“Listen to what we’re trying to teach you,” the Mayor says to an audience of men and women younger than he. “It might not make you sober, but you’ll be the most intelligent drunk at the bar.”

One by one they step up and take a place under the 12-step board.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.

A middle-aged woman begins:

“My name’s Trish and I’m an alcoholic.”

And the room responds in unison:

“Hello, Trish.”

Banker and beggar are equal here, and the stories they tell are of frailty and desire. Of pain suffered and pain inflicted. Of reclaimed lives and broken hearts.

“I love her more than I loved her when I was drinking,” a man named Richard confesses to the room. “She threw a lamp at me, but I still love her like the Holy Ghost.”

Over the years, says Verna, more than one visitor got the shakes and lost it. A full outbreak of the DTs, convulsions and all. “We’d drag them off into the kitchen and deal with it there.” They were washed out by floods, wiped out by break-ins, and nearly went broke more than once. But they held on. No one knows how many were saved from the bottle here in this hallowed hole in the ground; no one knows how many were lost to it.

“Whenever I came down these steps, I knew I was home,” says Al, who’s been a regular for 28 years. “I can go to a meeting in another place, but this building means a lot to me.”

Bud is trying to keep the light on somewhere. He’s been looking for another clubhouse in the area and has a couple of prospects. First, though, they’re having a proper send-off at Clarendon and Malabar. They’re calling in every old-timer they can get hold of, putting on a big pot of coffee, and kicking old tales around.

“The place is full of stories and miracles,” says the Mayor of Tijuana.

Bud’s got a pretty good story himself. By his count, he’s been dry for 17,966 days.

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Steve Lopez can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.