The Book of Sheen: A Memoir

In the summer of 1977, back from the Philippines, Charlie Sheen spends days at Zuma Beach and resumes Super 8 filmmaking with friends atop a Point Dume cliff. Emilio directs a violent sequence using “an effects-makeup severed human hand” that Charlie brought home from the Apocalypse Now set (62). The crew includes Sean, Chris Penn, the Heath twins, Miles, and Tony Barrera.

Charlie enters Malibu Park Junior High and finds the campus large and impersonal, his Point Dume cohort dispersed across classes. Daily bus rides past his first elementary school sharpen a sense that buildings feel smaller when friendships deepen. He meets David “Dave the Rave” Anderson, who becomes a close friend. Anderson is Filipino American, and they trade stories that bridge Charlie’s recent time abroad.

Outside of class, he focuses on baseball. The junior high has a field but no team, so he and the Heaths play in local leagues. He develops a reputation for a strong throwing arm and plays shortstop and pitcher. He notes that practical experiences teach him more than classes, and later, he judges junior high as the last school he would “ever enjoy” before a harsher high school period.