From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Ancient Dreams, Dreamed- Magical Realism 101
Introduction
The following sketches, and that is all they pretend to be, flash-colored sketches, are based, mainly, on stories told to me by my old friend Peter Paul Markin, although I have taken the usual liberties with the truth to “jazz” some of the stories up. I might add that these sketches are more or less in chronological order (although exact dates or time periods may be off slightly, like all misty remembrances), although he told them to me in helter-skelter order time over many years, some under, well, let’s just call them trying circumstances and be done with it. I might add that occasionally he will speak in his own voice on stories that are either too fantastic for me to write with a straight face, or too deep for me to comprehend rightly.
Markin and I first met long ago in the searching for the great American West 1960s good night the details of which are supplied in a few of the sketches from that period. This however, is not a “memoir” of that period, although we are both certified members in good standing of the generation of ’68, the generation who at one time promised to fight for a “newer world.” And lost, or retreated before that massive task. The literary universe is thick with, and frankly I am sick unto death of, memoirs from that period, great or small.
What these things pretend to be in earnest, using Markin as a lightning rod, are looks at the extreme variety of human experiences that our wicked old world has spewed forth. Given the very long and arduous human struggle to meet our immediate daily needs, they also underline the narrowness of human expression in facing the great tasks that confront us in living on this wicked old earth. Josh Breslin- September 2012
When Miss Cora Swayed
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1946 film adaptation of James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.
Yah, sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, a frail, a frill, a twist, a dame, oh hell, let’s cut out the goofy stuff and just call her a woman and be done with it, will tie a guy’s insides up in knots so bad he doesn’t know what is what. Tie a guy up so bad he will go to the chair without a murmur, the electric chair for those not in the know or those not wound up in the love game with a big old knot very tightly squeezing him. That is he will not murmur if there is such a merciful chair in his locale, otherwise whatever way they cut the life out of a guy who has been so twisted up he couldn’t think straight enough to tie his own shoes, or hers.
Here’s the funny part and you know as well as I do that I do not mean funny, laughing funny, the guy will go to his great big reward smiling, okay half-smiling, just to have been around that frail, frill, twist. dame, oh hell, you know what I mean. Around her slightly shy, sly, come hither scents, around her, well, just around her. Or maybe just to be done with it, done with the speculation, the knots and all, six-two-and even he would go back for more, plenty more, and still have that smile, ah, half-smile as they lead him away.Yah, guys just like Frank.
Frank Jackman had it bad. [But you might as well fill in future signatures, the Peter Paul Markins, the Joshua Lawrence Breslins, and every corner boy who ever kicked his heels against some drugstore store front wall, name your name, just kids, mere boys, when they started getting twisted up in knots, girl knots, and a million, more or less, other guys too, just as easily as Frank, real easy]. Yah, Frank had it bad as a man could have from the minute Miss Cora walked through that café door from the back of the house, the door that separated the living quarters from the café, a cup of joe in her hand. Just an off-hand plain plank door, cheaply made and amateurishly hinged, that spoke of no returns.
She breezed, Frank thought later when he tried to explain it, explain everything that had happened and how to anyone who would listen, trade winds breezed in although this was the wrong coast for that, in her white summer frilly V-neck buttoned cotton blouse, white short shorts, tennis or beach ready, maybe just ready for whatever came along, with convenience pockets for a woman’s this-and-that, and showing plenty of well-turned, lightly-tanned bare leg, long legs at first glance, and the then de rigueur bandana holding back her hair, also white, the bandana that is. Yah, she came out of that crooked cheapjack door like some ill-favored Pacific wind now that he had the coast right, some Japan Current ready, ready for the next guy out. Jesus.
I might as well tell you, just like he told it to me, incessantly told it to me like I was some father-confessor, and maybe I was, before he moved on, it didn’t have to finish up like the way it did. Or start that way either, for that matter. The way it did play out. Not at all. No way. He could have just turned around anytime he said but I just took that as so much wind talking, or maybe some too late regret. Sure there are always choices, for some people. Unless you had some Catholic/Calvinist/Shiva whirl pre-destination Mandela wheel working your fates, working your fates into damn overdrive like our boy Frank.
Listen up a little and see if Frank was just blowing smoke, or something. He was just a half-hobo, maybe less, bumming around and stumbling up and down the West Coast, too itchy to settle down after four years of hard World War II Pacific battle fights on bloody atolls, on bloody coral reefs, and knee-deep bloody islands with names even he couldn’t remember, or want to remember after Cora came on the horizon. He was just stumbling, like he said, from one half-ass mechanic’s job (a skill he had picked in the Marines) in some flop garage here, another city day laborer’s job shoveling something there, and picking fruits, hot sun fruits, maybe vegetables depending on the crop rotation, like some bracero whenever things got really tough, or the hobo jungle welcome ran out, ran out with the running out of wines and stubbed cigarette butts. He mentioned something about freight yard tramp knives, and cuts and wounds. Tough, no holds barred stuff, once tramp, bum, hobo solidarities broke down, and that easy and often. Frank just kind of flashed that part of the story because he was in a hurry for me to get it straight about him and Cora and the hobo jungle stuff was just stuff, and so much train smoke and maybe a bad dream.
Hell, the way he was going, after some bracero fruit days with some bad hombre bosses standing over his sweat, the “skids” in Los Angeles, down by the tar pits and just off the old Southern Pacific line, were looking good, a good rest up. Real good after fourteen days running in some Imperial Valley fruit fields so he started heading south, south by the sea somewhere near Paseo Robles to catch some ocean sniff, and have himself washed clean by loud ocean sounds so he didn’t have to listen to the sounds coming from his head about getting off the road.
Here is where luck is kind of funny though, and maybe this is a place where it is laughing funny, because, for once, he had a few bucks, a few bracero fruit bucks, stuck in his socks. He was hungry, maybe not really food hungry, but that would do at the time for a reason, and once he hit the coast highway this Bayview Diner was staring him right in the face after the last truck ride had let him off a few hundred yards up the road. Some fugitive barbecued beef smell, or maybe strong onions getting a workout over some griddled stove top, reached him and turned him away from the gas station fill-up counter where he had planned, carefully planning to husband his dough to make the city of angels, to just fill up with a Coke and moon pie. But that smell got the better of him. So he walked into that Bayview Diner, walked in with his eyes wide open. And then she walked through the damn door.
She may have been just another blonde, a very blonde frail, just serving them off the arm in some seaside hash joint as he found out later, but from second one when his eyes eyed her she was nothing but, well nothing but, a femme fatale. Frank femme fatale, fatal. Of course between eyeing, pillow-talk dreaming, and scheming up some “come on” line once she had her hooks into him, which was about thirty seconds after he laid eyes on her, he forgot, foolishly forgot, rule number one of the road, or even of being a man in go-go post-war America.
What he should have asked, and had in the past when he wasn’t this dame-addled, was a dish like this doing serving them off the arm in some rundown roadside café out in pacific coast Podunk when she could be sunning herself in some be-bop daddy paid-up hillside bungalow or scratching some other dame’s eyes out to get a plum role in a B Hollywood film courtesy of some lonely rich producer. Never for a minute, not even during those thirty seconds that he wasn’t hooked did he figure, like some cagey guy would figure, that she had a story hanging behind that bandana hair.
And she did. Story number one was the “serve them off the platter” hubby short-ordering behind the grill in that tramp cafe. The guy who, to save dough, bought some wood down at the lumber yard and put up that crooked door that she had come through on first sight and who spent half his waking hours trying to figure how to short-change somebody, including his Cora. Story number two, and go figure, said hubby didn’t care one way or the other about what she did, or didn’t do, as long as he had her around as a trophy to show the boys on card-playing in the back of the diner living rooms and Kiwanis drunk as a skunk nights. Story number three was that she had many round-heeled down-at- the-heels stories too long to tell Frank before hubby came along to pick her out of some Los Angles arroyo gutter. Story number four, the one that would in the end sent our boy Frankie smiling, sorry half-smiling, to his fate was she hated hubby, hell-broth murder hated her husband, and would be“grateful” in the right way to some guy who had the chutzpah to take her out of this misery. But those stories all came later, later when she didn’t need to use those hooks she had in him, didn’t need to use them at all.
Peter Paul Markin Interlude One: “I swear, I swear on seven sealed bibles that I yelled, yelled from some womblike place, at the screen once I saw her coming through that door for him, for Frank, to get the hell out of there at that moment. This dame was poison, no question. Frank stop looking at those long paid for legs and languid rented eyes for a minute and get the hell out of there to some safe hobo jungle. Hell, just walk out the diner, café or whatever it is door, run if you have too, get your hitchhike great blue-pink American West thumb out and head for it. There’s a hobo jungle just down the road near Santa Monica, get going, and tonight grab some stolid, fetid stews, and peace.”
But here is where fate works against some guys, hell, most guys. She turned around to do some dish rack thing or other with her lipstick-smeared coffee cup and then, slowly, turned back to look at Frank with those languid eyes, what color who knows, it was the look not the color that doomed Frank and asked in a soft, kittenish voice “Got a cigarette for a fresh out girl?” And wouldn’t you know, wouldn’t you just know, that Frank, “flush” with bracero dough had bought a fresh deck of Luckies at the cigarette machine out at that filling station just adjacent to the diner and they were sitting right in his left shirt pocket for the entire world to see. For her to see. And wouldn’t you know too that Frank could see plain as day, plain as a man could see if he wanted to see, that bulging out of one of the convenience pockets of those long-legged white short shorts was the sharply-etched outline of a package of cigarettes. Yah, still he plucked a cigarette into her waiting lips, kind of gently, gently for rough-edged Frank, lit her up, and dated her up with his eyes. Gone, long-gone daddy gone, except for dreams, and that final half-smile.
Peter Paul Markin Interlude Two: “I screamed again, some vapid man-child scream, some kicking at the womb thump too, but do you think Frank would listen, no not our boy. You don’t need to know all the details if you are over twenty-one, hell over twelve and can keep a secret. She used her sex every way she could, and a few ways that Frank, not unfamiliar with the world’s whorehouses in lonely ports-of-call, was kind of shocked at, but only shocked. He was hooked, hook, line and sinker. Frank knew, knew what she was, knew what she wanted, and knew what he wanted so there was no crying there.”
Here is what is strange, and while I am writing this even I think it is strange. She told Frank her whole life’s story, the too familiar father crawling up into her barely teenage bed, the run-aways, returns, girls’ JD homes, some more streets, a few whorehouse tricks, some street tricks, a little luck with a Hollywood producer until his wife, who controlled the dough, put a stop to it, some drugs, some L.A. gutters, and then a couple of years back some refuge from those mean streets via husband Manny’s Bayview Diner.
Even with all of that Frank still believed, believed somewhere from deep in his recessed mind, somewhere in his Oklahoma kid mud shack mind, that Cora was virginal. Some Madonna of the streets. Toward the end it was her scent, some slightly lilac scent, some lilac scent that combined with steamed vegetable sweat combined with sexual animal sweat combined with ancient Lydia MacAdams' bath soap fresh junior high school crush sweat drove him over the edge. Drove him to that smiling chair.
He had to play with fire, and play with it to the end. Christ, just like his whole young stupid gummed up life he had to play with fire. And from that minute, the lit cigarette minute, although really from the minute that Frank saw those long legs protruding from those white shorts Manny was done for.
And once Frank had sealed his fate (and hers too) on that midnight roaring rock sandy beach night when the ocean depths smashing against the shore drowned out the sound of their passion everybody from Monterrey to Santa Monica knew he was done for, or said they knew the score after the fact. Everybody who came within a mile of the Bayview Diner anyway. Everybody except Manny and maybe somewhere in his cheap jack little heart he too knew he was done for when Cora, in her own sensible Cora way, persuaded him that he needed an A-One grease monkey to run the filling station.
The way Frank told it even I knew, knew that everybody had to have figured things out. Any itinerant trucker who went out of his way to take the Coast highway with his goods on board in order to get a full glance at Cora and try his “line” on her (Manny encouraged it, he said it was good for business and harmless, and maybe it was with them) knew it. Knew it the minute he sat at his favorite corner stool and saw a monkey wrench-toting Frank come in for something and watch the Frank-Cora- and cigar-chomping Manny in his whites behind the grille dance play out. He kept his eyes and his line to himself on that run.
Damn, any dated –up teen-age joy-riding kids up from Malibu looking for the perfect wave at Roaring Rock (and maybe some midnight passion drowned out by the ocean roar too) knew the minute they came in and smelled that lilac something coming like something out of the eden garden from Cora. The girls knowing instinctively that Cora lilac scent was meant for more than some half-drunk old short order cook. One girl, with a friendly look Frank’s way, and maybe with her own Frank Roaring Rock thoughts, asked Cora, while ordering a Coke and hamburger, whether she was married to him. And her date, blushing, not for what his date had just said but because he, fully under the lilac scent karma, wished that he was alone just then so she could take a shot at Cora himself.
Hell even the California Highway Patrol motorcycle cop who cruised the coast near the diner (and had his own not so secret eyes and desires for Cora) knew once Frank was installed in one of the rooms over the garage that things didn’t add up, add up to Manny’s benefit. And, more importantly, that if anything happened, anything at all, anything requiring more than a Band-Aid, to one Manny DeVito for the next fifty years the cops knew the first door to knock at.
Look I am strictly a money guy, going after loot wherever I could and so I never got messed up with some screwy dame on a caper. That was later, spending time later. And maybe if I had gotten a whiff of that perfume things might have been different in my mind too but I told Frank right out why didn’t he and Cora take out a big old .44 in the middle of the diner and just shoot Manny straight out, and maybe while the cop was present too. Then he /they could have at least put up an insanity or crime of passion defense. Not our boy though, no he had to play the angles, play Cora’s evil game.
These two amateurs gummed up the job every which way, gummed it so that even a detective novel writer would turn blush red with shame. Murder is, from guys that I know who specialize in such things, make a business out of taking guys out for dough, an art form and nothing for amateurs to mess around with. They tried one thing, something with poison taken over a long time that couldn’t be traced but Manny was such a lush it didn’t take. Then they tried to get him drunk and drown him off of Roaring Rock but that night around two in the morning about sixty kids from down around Malibu decided to have a cook-out after their prom night. In the end they just did the old gag that the cops have been wish to since about 1906 and conked him, threw him in the car, drove to the Roaring Rock and pushed him and the car over the cliff. Jesus, double jesus.
Peter Paul Interlude Three:“Frank, one last time, get out, get on the road, this ain’t gonna work. That poison thing was crazy. That drunk at the ocean thing was worst. The cops wouldn’t even have had to bother to knock at your door. Frank on this latest caper she’s setting you up. Who drove the car, who got the whiskey, who knew how to trip the brake lines, and who was big enough to carry Manny? Why don’t you just paint a big target on your chest and be done with it. She just wants the diner for her own small dreams. You don’t count. Hell, I ain’t no squealer but she is probably talking to that skirt –crazy (her skirt) cop right now. Get out I say, get out.”
If you want the details, want to see how she framed him but good and walked away with half the California legal system holding the door open for her, just look them up in the 1946 fall editions of the Los Angeles Gazette. They covered the story big time, and the trial too. That’s just the details though. I can give you the finish now and save your eyes, maybe. Frank, yah, Frank was just kind of smiling that smile, what did I call it, half-smile, all the way to the end. Do you need to know more?
What Peter Paul Markin Wondered About His World
A young, very young not ready for school young, tow-headed boy, Peter Paul Markin by name, fiery blue, ocean-spooned blue eyes, bulging out of his small head (later in frantic romantic times they would be called “bedroom come hither eyes” or, in bad times, also frantic romantic, Rasputin-like evil eyes or some such thing but just then they were just fiery innocent blue eyes) watched the still accumulating snow falling outside the front window. His nose, childhood cold sniffling red nose, flattened against all caution on the frozen front window pane watching the snow fall as he wondered, and wondered. Cursed wondered, if he had known such evil words, or their meaning against an indecipherable world. Whatever it was, although he did not know it then or if he did he could not name it except as gnaw, lifetime curse wondered, what everything is this blessed universe was about and why, why to distraction why. Maybe it was something sunken deep in those homeland ocean blue eyes, but there he was wondering.
Wondering, young as he was, why he was cooped up, and bundled up, quilt covering him (funny word he thought, all q-starting words were funny then except when he had to utter them which he had the devil’s own time doing and was constantly getting laughed at, laughed at by brothers and playmates, even Ma, jesus even Ma, to establish wonder hurts and maybe a clue to those Rasputin evil eyes). And under the quilt a blanket and under the blanket a sweater to cut down on precious heating expenses as he sat in front of that frozen front window in that cold-water flat down in the Adamsville Housing Authority apartment complex. (The “projects” that even as young as he was, too young for school young, understood and called the place and understood, and was made to understand, constantly understand, by a fuming maternal grandmother across town that it was no place for Mayfair swells, if he had known who, or what, those people were then.)
And wondering why, when it came right down to it, the projects or not, Mayfair swell places or not, that he had to share a small crowded room with his brothers who shunted him over into some scarecrow corner and made him “like” it, or threatened to. And why his mother and father were always bickering (or what he thought was bickering because they sure were not happy when they were talking about not having enough money for this or that, especially for kids’ treat stuff like going to the Paragon Amusement Park down in Ocean Edge like they did last summer).
But this day, this snowing January day, right after the New Year and just after one of his older brothers, Prescott, had returned to school, the first grade, over at Adamsville South Elementary School at the close of Christmas vacation he was wondering most of all about what it would be like when he got his chance to go to school. There was no hint of the madnesses or crazes that he would later have cause to wonder about once he actually got there. It was just wondering. Just brother kinship, brother gone loneliness, wondering. And about the great big world of books, and crayons, and pastes, and drawing, and learning letters (although he knew a few already) and singing songs and well, everything that Prescott told him about, with an air of “know it all” but also an air of “it is not all that it is cracked up to be.”
See what Peter Paul was wondering about really was not so much about what Prescott had to say when he came home from school each day and he peppered his schooled brother with questions about what he did, or didn’t do. Or about being a “know it all.” Or even about the shortcomings of knowing it all but when he would, counting the days in his head, be able to see for himself what it was all about and then be able to wonder some different wonder. Maybe some of that sing-song wonder or book wonder that he had heard so much about.
Oh maybe there was just a little hint of madness after all, or of crazes beyond that sadness, brother kinship sadness, sadness and not understanding of time marching as he, that older brother, had gone off to foreign places, foreign elementary school reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic places and, he, the nose flattened against the window brother, was left to ponder his own place in those kind of places, those foreign-sounding places, when his time came. If he had a time, had the time for the time of his time, in that red scare (but what knows he of “red scares” only brother scares), cold war, cold nose, dust particles in the clogging air 1950s night.
What Peter Paul Markin Learned About His World Despite Himself
A cloudless day, a cloudless Korean War day, talk of peace, merciless truce peace against some heathen communist red menace if not beaten exactly at least held at bay for now day. And blaring over some miniature black and white furry fuzzy television snow in the back room (what did he know of movie house-sized screens) Eisenhower, named, big chief to go to Korea breakthrough this and that. Stern, straight-back, upright, remote grandfather Ike whom Peter Paul Markin would toast, milk toast and god bless, along with Big Brother on later noontime walk home to lunch-breaks television salutes. (No, not Orwellian 1984 Animal Farm Big Brother but gentle uncle or grandfatherly, not Ike grandfatherly, stern military but real gentle, Big Brother and maybe you could even talk to him about stuff and he wouldn’t laugh at you but maybe just put on a wry smile like he was realizing for the millionth time that kids say crazy stuff, real crazy, but harmless, stuff if you let them.) Stern too late military-industrial complex warning Ike whom Peter Paul Markin would come to later loathe for his being too late after the horse was let out of the barn, Ike loathe, when he too late himself realized that he was madly for adlai, even against Irish Jack, Irish neighborhood hero wanna-be Jack, be in that great Los Angeles mad rush summer sweat night a few years ahead.
But that mad rush story, and the loathing part too, is for another time and frankly is not a story that fits in with a kid, even a Peter Paul Markin ambient kid, just starting out in school notching up his first infinite school year finish and who this moment is trying to draw, yes, draw some conclusions out of what had just happened from bright dewy day September to moist and sweaty June rollout. He feeling, feeling then somewhere between “knowing it all” (christ, having that superior feeling based, puny based, on a few letters, a few words, a couple of short stories read, a few numbers put together in different combinations, being able to tell time and tying his shoes, well kind of tying his shoes. He never did really get the hang of such a mechanically complicated task. This lad is headed for big falls, big falls indeed) and it, school, not being “all that big a deal” just like his brother Prescott said.
He, let down that a lot things that were supposed to be hurdles, high hurdles too, he just glided over (after learning some tie shoe tricks from Mike Mitchell who would later fall defending his country in some Mekong Delta swamp and no grandmother consolations against that childhood lost there, ever). It was to be the other stuff; the Rasputin evil blue eyes frantic romantic big fish in a small pond stuff that would unravel him in the end. That too, that saga of unraveling, is for another day.
Grandmother peace talk was in the sweltering air too, later to be learned that it was the only kind that mattered, over brooding sores and sons. The kind of peace being talked over many tables in working-class South Boston of distance cousins beaten up bad in some Inchon snow, North Adamsville uncles now coming home safe and sound, Steubenville, Ohio, unknowns but brothers, lost brothers, later to be seen on memorial stones overlooking harbors and Castle Island retreats. Blessed ocean view to wash away salty grandmother tears.
Somebody’s grandmother and some gold star mother too just look out the window across any street you will see them displayed in South Boston, North Adamsville, Steubenville still in Ohio and Muncie too, Indiana though. Maybe not so many such stars in Back Bay, Wellesley, and Grosse Point but how was he to know that then. He only heard grandmother talk, grandmother peace talk and sons and uncles home soon safe and sound. That is the peace talk that counts about uncles coming home safe and sound, thank god, in the grandmother sweet cakes smelling air. And not even the Fourth of July yet.
But back to figuring, back to hot, hot, hot end of June day not yet the Fourth of July with sweets, tonics (sodas now) , and ice creams to match those sweet cake smells, figuring out about why Miss Winot (whose name forever after he always spelled “why not” just like she pronounced it for the whole class that very first misty crying day of school when he wasn’t sure that he wanted to stay but he was sure he didn’t want to seem like a baby and run home to Ma like Billy Badger did. (Billy, a kid destined for fifteen minutes of fame, although not the kind that he craved, a seamless death and international notoriety in some back alley Mexican dusty street two pounds, or was it kilos, in his satchel trying, trying unsuccessfully to make that big score he always talked about making and winding up face down in Sonora slops for his efforts.)
As Peter Paul placed a blanket, a mother-mandated scratch throwaway blanket so he would not soil his freshly-washed white shorts, only once worn, on grandmother’s sacred parcel one inch by one inch lawn, freshly mown, he thought of the fellowship fields. The welcome young fields that he would play in after the Fourth Of July dust settled down, with his new found clot of friends, all boys of course, although being from a boy full family he wondered, wondered about girls, and being scared of them and maybe lifetime not understanding them when they squealed over every little thing. But he didn’t think much about it one way or the other, just a fly buzzing overhead annoyance kind of think.
Yes, Peter Paul laying face up on freshly mown grass near fellowship carved-out fields, fields for slides and swings, diamonded baseball, no, friendlier softball fields, the houses are too close together, and to the field, in case of oddball batted flies, of gimps, glues, copper-plated portraits, of sweet shaded elms, and one thousand other scenes realized that starting now he too, that nose-flattened against some frozen-paned front window brother of years gone by, had been to foreign places in the time of his time. And ahead some push, some unconsecrated, menaced push, to find his own place in the sun. But fret wondering, constantly wondering, what means this, what means that, and why all the changes, slow changes, fast changes, blip changes, but changes flashing by his head.
What Peter Paul Markin Learned in the Red Scare 1950s Night
Nighttime fears, who knows when they started. Maybe when Peter Paul Markin first learned of, thought of, had self-experience of night. Not just any kind of night, city night, the night blaring with lamppost light, and shadow throws. Stranger misshapen phantom shadows, wolf-eaten fairy tale shadows, and real shadows that contained jack-rollers, or worst. Jack-roll shadows, real enough, if one was not careful, or was too young or too old. He had heard that it happened, happened right up on Captain’s Walk right in the heart of the North Adamsville Housing Authority complex to some old lady who didn’t hold on to her handbag tightly or quickly enough. And off the shadowy thief went with his booty. He, the thief, according to her description a young he maybe one of those depraved juvenile delinquents that she had heard about and was all over the news at six with black hair, black eyes and black heart, white, of course, there were no blacks, browns, yellows, red, in chummy “projects” shadow night, that would come later. It sounded just like Peter’s older, heathen older, brother who had made off with her certified one carat fake gold watch and fifteen cent car-fare. So much for heroic brotherly exploits.
Red-flagged Stalin-named night fears, walking down shadowy back school lanes toward darken sailors’granite-etched cemetery rest thinking about icy blank, snow-frozen bleak Vorkutas of the mind although he could not have fathomed, not in a million years, his own Stalin night fears. And of bloody pick-ax fates awaiting heroic resisters. Knowing even in red-splotched time that some stories told did not make sense or that wasn’t the whole story or maybe he got it confused with the brother jack-roller story and shrieked in the night that no, no way was he to blame and no way that he would not fight, fight the good fight to the end, wherever that end might lead.
Red bomb unnamed shelter blast fears, atomic blow-up fears none the less real for all of that. Get under the bed fears, or under the desk, down in the basement somewhere but mainly as victim and not as victor, once again being jack-rolled by some black-haired, black-eyed, black-hearted hustler who would not come out of the shadows, unnamed, damn unnamed, and unnamable, even worst. Conned fears into that good night and one best stay put and unnamed. And what happens, what the hell happens, when that little old lady now bereft of her sweet gold watch given by some old-time lover as a token, a sincere token of his favor, and who knows maybe her favors, and that black-haired, black-hearted devil, white of course, get into the same cave and start the human race over again. Once those fears start who knows where things lead.
Named, vaguely named, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg hated stalinite jews executed fears. All he knew. Peter Paul knew okay, was jews killed our catholic lord fears, close to the altar sign of the cross blessed fears the smell of incense still stuck in his nostrils from high mass, or was it low, burning incense and praying, praying that this one sacrifice would atone for the million year hurts brought by the vengeful night shadow. But just that minute, maybe less, a thought flashed, flashed so quickly that he almost missed the thought, and he had stumbled into “what did they do anyway” fears, and why. And that why would haunt him through hard anti-semite nights, some liberations, and some knowledge that those atomic dreams that shadowed his nights were not named Julius and not named Ethel and sure as hell were not named jew, gold watch-wearing jew.
And once again as he walked down that shadowy back school lane (why, why in god’s name, did he court danger by leaving small-roomed house, the shelter-less house, bombs or the world to face the shadow night. Whole tomes could be written about that need later but now it remained a book sealed with seven seals). Against the cubed-glass glistening, flagless flag-pole rattling, dark asphalt-rutted pavement school yard night, Peter Paul, alone, and, and, alone with his fears and fears avoidance, clean, clear as he heads to stand alone in avoidance of old times sailors, tars, sailors’ homes AND deaths in barely readable fine- marked granite-grey lonely seaside graveyards looking out on ocean homelands and lost booty. Dead.
Valentines Can’t Buy Her, Can They?
Who knows when the endless walks started? Peter Paul’s endless walks. Maybe it was something as simple as not having, really his parents not having, a car, a reliable car in the 1950s golden age of the automobile, the American automobile fin-tail night. All such Markin vehicles, when there was motor transportation around, and in the early days he had memory-think of his father traipsing out of the house, lunch bucket in hand, to catch, although usually to wait to catch, the first morning public square bus more often than not, always looked like some Joad- mobile breaking down on some Route 66 (really Route 6 but Route 66 spoke of great American West night adventures) dust blow-out road waiting on some stranger’s kindnesses to send Tom into some godforsaken Western plains town for water , battery, or some spare part. Yes, now that he thought about it Peter thought it was just like the Joad’s clunker except for the no family heirlooms hanging from the rafters.
Names like Studebaker, Nash Rambler, and Plymouth (not the new, sexy tail-fin ones but some box thing that grinded along sputtering to the high heavens and smelling of oils, grease and always, always some foul unnamed smell that only went away when the car was properly fixed). And see too Peter had a no driving mother, a no car-driving mother when there was a car around. No Mom to take him here and there, or for just goofing around looking for some new view of the world. All such new views depended on the clunker, and his father’s ability to keep it on the road while a carping wife and three screaming boys in the backseat tried his patience more than any Daytona 500 driver ever had to face.
So mishmash memories of endless waits for early morning, not as early as his father but early, because there was no midday transport, and late afternoon public buses filled his heart with terror. Terror that he would always be stuck in “the projects” waiting on some late-arriving or just barely arriving Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway bus (always called just the bus, except when he wanted to curse, or what he later learned was a curse and paid in penance for the knowledge, when yet again it arrived too late for him to easily do whatever mission he was intent on doing). At times like that Peter Paul always thought about the time when he (and his brother, John James) were to make their first communion at five and six years old (Roman Catholic- style in case there are differences in the way it is done in other kinds of heathen churches, heathen then anyway) and clad in all white. Mom dressed as well as he ever remembered seeing her and Dad as well, although he always seemed ill at ease in fancy dress, had to wait an eternity for the bus and barely, just barely made it to the church. Then they waited for an eternity, maybe more, for the bus afterwards into order to go have an out-of-the-house breakfast to celebrate this latest Christian victory.
So he started walking, walking that endless walk.
Peter Paul established a certain fixed route to his walks not so much because he was enthralled by the idea of an established route, or because he had some idea even that it was fixed as much as “the projects”, which were located on an isolated old-time farm land peninsula near the bay, had only one road out (one asphalt-covered road, rutted even then, although later he would “discover” shortcuts through marshes and reeds, some of them Mother hair-raising, if she had known). And also because he feared, feared to perdition, that if he varied his route he would get lost, the cops would have to bring him home, and that would be the end of his endless walking since his walking was a motherless thing.
See there was a certain practical necessity to Peter’s stealth as well because the mothers, even if just raggedy projects mothers, had some kind of unexplained and unexpected league of mothers-“projects” divisions pledge, that they would raise a hue and cry if one of the kids seemed to be wandering too far from home. So the first part of the journey was always sneaking out the back door down the hill to the shoreline and around the bend about half a mile to reach that lonely road out. Along the way out he passed seemingly endless seawall-flanked sea streets, all granite slabs, leftovers from local granite quarries that gave the town its granite-etched, granite-sweated, granite city nickname. From there he could see shoreline-flashing rocks, wave broken shells, ocean water-logged debris strewn every which way, fetid marsh smells to the right, mephitic swamps oozing mud splat to the left as he slip-shot his way to the main road to the town center (but what did he know then of fetid and mephitic they just stank, stank to high heaven in low tide time).
Most days, most trips, he didn’t care how long it took as long as he was back by lunch, or supper depending on the time of day of his getaway. Today though, this day that forms the basis of the story that he told Billy Bradley one summer night after it was long over, and he had “forgotten” the incident until something, actually someone, made him think about it this old route was making hard the way, the path, okay, to uptown drug stores. See added in was a little rain, the tide was up, and he was running a little late. But he had to get his uptown business (that’s what he called it, what he always called it with a little smirk) done because his tomorrow was an important day. Although when he told Billy the occasion day Billy yawned and wondered why all of a sudden that year of our lord 1956 it was urgent business.
Now the layout of Adamsville’s uptown, like a lot of towns, was a couple of streets of retail stores, a couple of places to eat, a few professional buildings, a movie theater (or two, depending on the town) some government buildings and so on. In short, boring. Except this day all Peter Paul’s focus was on the largest drugstore in town (and for a long time the only one), Rexall’s Drugstore. Why? Don’t laugh, or laugh just a little. Peter Paul, sweating a little from his exertions even on this raw winter day, needed, desperately needed, to get some Valentine’s Day cards. Yah, I know I started to yawn too.
See all of a sudden this winter Peter Paul started noticing girls in his fifth grade class, and started kind of find them interesting, kind of. Kind of except when they started giggling, collectively giggling, about nothing at all or started to tease him. Tease him not in a mean way like they did the previous year, fourth grade year, because he came from the projects, and he didn’t have a father car, and he walked everywhere but blush tease him be because well because, they found him kind of interesting, kind of. And that kind of interesting them and that kind of interesting him were on a collision course.
Like a lot of guys, young guys and old, when girls are in play, Peter Paul went overboard. See, he“promised” about five of these used-to-be-giggling and mean girls, that they would be his valentine. Exclusively. He explained to me how it happened but I don’t want you to yawn any more than you have to so I will just skip it. Besides it sounded (and still sounds) goofy since some of the girls knew each other and some, I think, already had “boyfriends” or what passed for boy friends in fifth grade. Kid’s stuff, yes, kid’s stuff. So he had to hightail it up to Rexall’s with no money really and try to work his “magic.”
And he did. Sending (or presenting in person) each a Rexall’s Drug Store, heist-stolen valentine, ribbon and bow valentine good night , signed, hot blood-signed, weary-feet signed, stating that if only she, five candidates she, later called two blondes, two brunettes, and a red-head, sticks all, no womanly shape to tear a boy-man up, would only give a look his way, his look, his newly acquired state of the minute Elvis-imitation look, on endless sea streets, the white-flecked splash inside his head would be quiet. Jesus.
Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #1, Circa 1955
Peter Paul Markin comment:
I
t’s funny how working now, on one thing or another, will bring back those childhood hurts, those feelings sealed, or is it seared, so deep in memory that one does not expect them to resurface for love or money, although this little piece did not start out that way and probably won’t finish up that way either. This “dream” started off from seeing, a few months ago, an unexpected and fairly unusual surname of a fellow female elementary school classmate innocently listed in an off-hand, indirect North Adamsville Internet connection. The very sight of that name triggered a full-blown elementary school “romantic” daydream, from my days down at the old Adamsville “projects” where I, Peter Paul Markin, came of age, that blossomed into a pining prose sonnet that would have made Shakespeare blush. I’ll tell you about that one some time, but not now.
That flashback, in turn, got me into a fierce sea-faring dreaming, rolling-logged, oil-slicked, ocean water on three sides, stone-throwing Adamsville “projects” mood that turned into a screed on the trials and tribulations of growing to manhood in the shadows of tepid old Adamsville Beach. And that, naturally enough, triggered a quick remembrance of too infrequent family barbecue outings as the old Treasure Island (now named after a fallen Marine, Cady, if I recall correctly). At least I think that was the name in those days. That’s what we called it anyway, down at the Seal Rock of the beach. You know where I mean, you probably had your family memory barbecue outings there too, or a place like that, at least some of them. But enough of that background. Let me tell you what I really want to talk about, the tricks that parents used to use, and still do I suppose, to get their way. The story isn’t pretty, or for the faint of heart.
I swear I knew, and I am pretty sure that I knew for certain early on when I was just a half-pint kid myself, that kids, especially younger kids, could be “bought off” by their parents and easily steered away from what they really wanted to do, or really wanted to have, by a mere trifle. Probably you got wise to the routine early too. Still, it’s ridiculous how easily we were “pieced off”, wise as we were, and I firmly believe that there should have been, and there should be now, something like the rules of engagement that govern civilized behavior in war-time written out in the Geneva Conventions against that form of behavior by mothers and fathers. After all what is childhood, then or now, except one long, very long, battle between two very unevenly matched sides with kids, then and now, just trying to do the best they can in a world that they didn’t create, and that they didn’t get a say in creating.
I learned this little nugget of “wisdom” from battle-tested, many times losing, keep- in-there-swinging, never-say-die, first-hand experience, although I guess I might have been a little too thin-skinned and have been a little too quick to feel slighted about it at the time to really focus in on its meaning. I know that you learned thishome truth this way as well whether you got onto the scam early on or not. Sure, I could be bought off, I am not any better than the rest of you on that score, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t nurse many a grievance to right those wrongs(and, incidentally, plotted many a feverish revenge, in my head at least, some of them, if impractical, pretty exquisitely drawn).
Sometimes it was just a word, sometimes literally just one word, usually a curt, cutting, razor-edged one from Ma that sent me reeling for cover ready to put up the white flag, if I ever even got that chance. Sometimes it was a certain look, a look that said“don’t go there." And, maybe, depending how I was feeling, I did and maybe I didn’t, go there that is. Hell, sometimes it could even be a mere inside-the family-meaningful side-long glance, a glance from Ma, a thing from her eye, her left one usually, brow slightly arched, that said "case closed," and forget about the pretense behind the “don’t go there” look, which at least gave you the dignity of having the opportunity to put up a little fight no manner the predetermined ending. Sometimes though, and this is hard to “confess” fifty years later and ten thousand, thousand other experiences later, that lady switched up on us and "pieced" us off with some honey-coated little thing. That damn honey-coated thing, that “good” thing standing right in front of full-blown evil, or what passed for that brand of evil in those days, is what this dream fragment is all about.
Now don’t tell me you don’t know what I am talking about in the Ma wars, and don’t even try to tell me it wasn’t usually Ma who ran point on the “no” department when you went on the offensive for something you wanted to have, or some place you wanted to go, especially when “desperately” was attached to the "have" or to the "go" part. No, just don’t do it. Dad, Pa, Father, whatever you called him, was held in ready-reserve for when the action got hot and heavy. Maybe, in your family, your father was the point-man but from what I have learned over the last couple of years about our parents from information that I have gathered from some reliable sources that was a wasted strategy. We were that easy. No need for the big guns, because our ever-lovin’, hard-working, although maybe distant, fathers were doing what fathers do. Provide, or go to the depths in that struggle to provide. Ma was for mothering and running interference. That was that. Thems were the rules then, if not now. The main thing was the cards were stacked against us because what we really didn't know was they were really working as a team, one way or another. In any case, I don’t have time to dilly-dally over their strategies as I have got to move on here.
See, here is what you don’t know. Yet. Those family trips to old Treasure Island, whether they were taken from down in Adamsville or later, when we moved "up-town" to North Adamsville, as they tapered off when we three boys (my two brothers, one a little younger one a little older, and me) got too big to pretend that we really wanted to go, were really the ‘booby prize’ for not going to places like Paragon Park down in Nantasket or down to Plymouth Rock or, christ, any place that would be a change of scenery from the claptrap projects. Of course, the excuse was always the same-dad was too tired to drive after working some killer hours at some dirty old dead-end job, or one of a succession of old, hand-me-down, barely running jalopies (and I am being kind here, believe me) wasn’t running, or running well enough to make the trip, or something else that meant we couldn’t go some place.
Yah, that was all right for public consumption but here is the real reason; no dough, plain and simple. Why Ma and Dad just didn’t tell us that their circumstances were so tight that spending a couple of dollars on the roller coaster (which I didn’t care about anyway), or playing “Skee” (which I did care about), or getting cotton-candy stuck every which way (which I didn’t care about), or riding the Wild Mouse (cared about) would break the bank I will never know. Or the extra gas money. Or the extra expense of whatever. How would I know. All I knew is that we weren’t going. Period.
But, here, finally, is where the simple “bought off” comes in, although I really should have been more resolute in my anger at not going and held out for better terms. Such is the fate of young mortals, I guess. My mother, and this was strictly between me and my mother as most things were in those days, dangled the prospect of having some of Kennedy’s potato salad in front of my face on the next family picnic. You remember Kennedy’s, right? If you don’t then the rest of this thing is going to come as less that the “Book of Revelation.” Or ask your parents, or grandparent.
There was one in Adamsville Square about half way down Hancock Street on the old South Adamsville Bank side and there was one in Norfolk Downs almost to the corner of Hancock Street and Billings Road next to the old A&P. I am not sure, and someone can help me on this, whether it was called Kennedy’s Food Shop, or Deli, or whatever but it had the best potato salad around. And fresh ground peanut butter, and sweet fragrant coffee smells, and… But I will get to describing that that some other time. Right now I am deciding whether I can be bought off or not. Yes, shamefacedly, I can and here is the closer -I can even go to Kennedy's and get the stuff myself. What do you think about that? From then on, moreover, I became the “official” Kennedy’s boy of the family. Did I sell out too cheaply? No way.
Fragments Of A Treasure Island (Cady Park) Dream #2- A Family Outing
Do you need to know about all the little family trips over to Treasure Island, a picnic spot down at the Merrymount end of Adamsville Beach that I have threatened to talk about when I mentioned how I “sold out” to my mother for a little Kennedy’s Deli home-style potato salad? Trips, that kind of formed the bookends of my childhood. Jesus, no. A thousand time no, and I say that having lived through them. My childhood memories overall can be best summed up in the words of the now long-departed black rapper extraordinaire, Biggie Smalls. He expressed it best and spoke a truth greater than he might have known, although he was closer to “hip-hop nation” than I ever could be, or could be capable of – “Christmas kind of missed us, birthdays were the worst days.” Ya, that’s the big truth, no question, but not the little Treasure Island truth, wobbly as it might come out. One such episode will give you an idea of what we (meaning me and my two brothers, one a little younger the other a little older than me) were up against but also, in the end, why although there were precious few wonderful childhood memories that are now worth the ink to tell you about, this one serves pretty well. Let me have my say.
******
There was a madness in this country in the 1950s. No, not the Cold War atomic-bomb-is-going-to-get-us-we-are-all-going-to-be-dead-next-week or “better dead than red” kind of madness although there was plenty of that, but a madness for the automobile, the sleeker, the more airplane-like, and more powerfully-engined the better. And, it wasn’t just, deafeningly mad as they were, those guys in the now almost sepia-faded photographic images of tight T-shirt wearing, rolled sleeve cigarette-packed, greased Pompadour-haired, long side-burned, dangling-combed , engineer-booted, chain-wielding, side of the mouth butt-puffing , didn’t care if school kept or not types bent over the hood of some souped-up ’57 Chevy working, sweating pools of sweat, sweating to get even more power out of that ferocious V-8 engine for the Saturday night “chicken" run.
And it wasn’t even those mad faux James Dean-sneered, "rebel without a cause"-posed, cooled-out, maybe hop-headed guys either. And it was always guys, who you swore you would beat down if they ever even looked at your sister, if you had a sister, and if you liked her enough to beat a guy down to defend her honor, or whatever drove your sense of right. And, of course she, your sister no less, is looking for all she is worth at this “James Dean” soda jerk (hey, what else could he be) because this guy is “cute”. Go figure.
No, and forget all those stereotypes that they like to roll out when they want to bring a little “color”to the desperately color-craving 1950s. This car madness was driven, and driven hard, by your very own stay-at-home-and watch the television, water the lawn, if you have a lawn and it needed watering and sometimes when it didn’t just to get out of the house, have couple of beers and take a nap on Saturday afternoon father (or grandfather, I have to remember who might be in my audience now) who always said “ask your mother” to blow you off. You know him. I know you know him he just had a different name than mine did. And maybe even your very own mother (or grandmother) got caught up in the car thing too, your mother the one who always would say “ask your father. You know her too, don’t say no. I hope by now you knew they were working a team scam on you even if you didn’t have the kind of proof that you could take to court and get a little justice on.
Hell, on this car thing they were just doing a little strutting of their stuff in showcase, show-off, “see what I got and you don’t” time. Come on now, don’t pretend that you don’t know what I am talking about, at least if you too grew up in the 1950s, or heard about it, or even think you heard about it. Hey, it was about dreams of car ownership for the Great Depression, World War II survivors looking to finally cash in, as a symbol that one, and one’s family, has arrived in the great American dream, and all on easy monthly payments, no money down, and the bigger, the sleeker the better and I’ll take the heavy- chromed, aerodynamically-designed, two-toned one, thank you. That was how you knew who counted, and who didn’t. You know what I mean.
Heck, that 50s big old fluffy pure white cloud of a dream even seeped all the way down into “the projects” in Adamsville, and I bet over at the Columbia Point “projects” in Boston too that you could see on a clear day from Adamsville Beach, although I don’t know for sure on that, and maybe in the thousand and one other displaced person hole-in-the-walls “projects” they built as an afterthought back then for those families like mine caught on the slow track in “go-go” America. Except down there, down there on the edge of respectability, and maybe even mixed in with a little disrespectability, you didn’t want to have too good of a car, even if you could get that easy credit, because what we you doing with that nice sleek, fin-tailed thing with four doors and plenty of room for the kids in the back in a place like “the projects” and maybe there was something the “authorities”should know about, yes. Better to move on with that old cranky 1940s-style un-hip, un-mourned, un-cool jalopy than face the wrath and clucking of that crowd, the venom-filled, green-eyed neighbors.
Yes, that little intro is all well and good and a truth you can take my word for but this tale is about, if I ever get around to it, those who had the car madness deep in their psyche, but not the wherewithal- this is a cry, if you can believe it today, from the no car families. Jesus, how could you not get the car madness then though, facing it every night stark-naked in front of you on the television set, small as the black and white picture was, of Buicks, and Chevys and Pontiacs and whatever other kind of car they had to sell to you. But what about us Eastern Mass bus dependents? The ones who rode the bus, back or front it didn’t matter, at least here it didn’t matter. Down South they got kind of funny about it.
As you might have figured out by now, and if you didn’t I will tell you, that was our family’s fate, more often than not. It was not that we never had a car back then, but there were plenty of times when we didn’t and I have the crooked heels, peek-a-boo-soles, and worn out shoe leather from walking rather than waiting on that never-coming bus to prove it. And not only that but I got so had no fear of walking, and walking great distances if I had to, all the way to Grandma’s Young Street,“up-town” North Adamsville if I had to. That was easy stuff thinking back on it. I‘ll tell you about walking those later long, lonesome roads out West in places like just before the mountains in Winnemucca, Nevada and 129 degree desert- hot Needles, California switching into 130 degree desert-hot Blythe, Arizona some other time, because it just doesn’t seem right to talk about mere walking, long or short, when the great American automobile is present and rolling by.
It’s kind of funny now but the thing was, when there was enough money to get one, that the cars my poor old, kind of city ways naïve, but fighting Marine-proud father would get, from wherever in this god forsaken earth he got them from would be, to be polite, clunkers and nothing but old time jalopies that even those “hot rod” James Dean guys mentioned above would sneer at, and sneer at big time, at. It would always be a 1947 something, like a Hudson or Nash Rambler, or who knows the misty, musty names of these long forgotten brands. The long and short it was, and this is what’s really important when you think about it, that they would inevitably break down, and breakdown in just the wrong place, at least the wrong place if you had a wife who couldn’t drive or help in that department and three screaming, bawling tow-headed boys who wanted to get wherever it was we were going, and get there-now.
I swear on those old battered crooked-heeled, peek-a-boo soled shoes that I told you about that this must have happened just about every time we were going on a trip, or getting ready to go on a trip, or thinking about going on a trip. So now you know what I was up against when I was a kid. Like I already told you before, in some other dream fragment, I was an easy target to be “pieced off” with a couple of spoonfuls of Kennedy's potato salad when things like that happened. Or some other easy“bought off” when the “car” joke of the month died again and there wasn’t any money to get it fixed right away and we couldn’t go more than a few miles. I blew my stack plenty and righteously so, don't you think?
So let me tell you about this one time, this one summer time, August I think, maybe in 1956, when we did have a car, some kind of grey Plymouth sedan from about 1947, that year seems to always come up when car year numbers come to mind, like I said before. Or maybe it was a converted tank from the war for all I know, it kind of felt like that sitting in the back seat because as the middle boy I never got to ride “shot gun” up front with Dad so I bore the brunt of the bumps, shakes, blimps, and slips in the back seat. I do know I never felt anything better than being nothing but always queasy back there.
This one, this beauty of a grey Plymouth sedan, I can remember very well, always had some major internal engine-type problem, or telltale oil- spilling on the ground in the morning, or a clutch-not-working right, when real cars had clutches not this automatic stuff, making a grinding sound that you could hear about half way around the world, but you will have to ask some who knows a lot more about cars about than I do for the real mechanical problems. Anyway this is the chariot that is going to get us out of “the projects” and away from that fiery, no breathe “projects”sun for a few hours as we started off on one of our family-famous outings to old Treasure Island down at the Merymount end of Adamsville Beach, about four or five miles from “the projects”, no more. It was hot as blazes that day that’s for sure, with no wind, no air, and it was one of those days, always one of those days, you could smell the sickly sweet fragrant coming from over the Proctor & Gamble soap factory across the channel on the Fore River side.
We got the old heap loaded with all the known supplies necessary for a “poor man’s” barbecue in those days. You know those cheap plastic lawn chairs from Grossman’s or Raymond’s or one of those discount stores before they had real discount stores like K-Mart and Wal-Mart, a few old worn-out blankets fresh from night duty on our beds, some resurrected threadbare towels that were already faded in about 1837 from the six thousand washings that kids put even the most resilient towel through in a short time, the obligatory King’s charcoal briquettes, including that fear-provoking, smelly lighter fluid you needed to light them with in those barbaric days before gas-saturated instant-lite charcoal. For food: hot dogs, blanched white-dough rolls, assorted condiments, a cooler with various kinds of tonic (a.k.a. soda, for the younger reader) and ice cream. Yah, and some beach toys, including a pail and shovel, because today, of all days, I am bound and determined to harvest some clams across the way from the park on Adamsville Beach at low tide just like I’d seen all kinds of guys doing every time we went there so that we can have a real outing. I can see and hear them boiling in that percolating, turbulent, swirling grey-white water in the big steaming aluminum kettle already.
All of this stuff, of course, is packed helter-skelter in our “designer” Elm Farms grocery store paper shopping bags that we made due with to carry stuff around in, near or far. Hey, don’t laugh you did too, didn’t you? And what about hamburgers you say, right? No, no way, that cut of meat was too pricey. It wasn’t until much later when I was a teenager and invited to someone else’s family-famous barbecue that I knew that those too were a staple, I swear. I already told you I was the “official”procurer of the Kennedy’s potato salad in another dream fragment so I don’t need to tell you about that delicacy again, okay?
And we are off, amazingly, this time for one of the few time in family-recorded history without the inevitable-“who knows where it started or who started it” -incident, one of a whole universe of possible incidents that almost always delayed our start every time our little clan moved from point A to point B. Even a small point A to point B like this venture. So everything was okay, just fine all the way up that single way out of “the projects,” Palmer Street, until we got going on Sea Street, a couple of miles out, then the heap started choking, crackling, burping, sneezing, hiccupping, smoking and croaking and I don’t know what else. We tumbled out of the car, with me already getting ready to do my, by now, finely-tuned “fume act” that like I told you got a work-out every time one of these misadventures rolled around, and pulled out everything we could with us.
Ma, then knowingly, said we would have to go back home because even she knew the car was finished. I, revolutionary that I was back then, put my foot down and said no we could walk to Treasure Island, it wasn’t far. I don’t know if I can convey, or if I should convey to you, the holy hell that I raised to get my way that day. And I did a united front with my two brothers, who, usually, ignored me and I ignored them at this point in our family careers. Democracy, of a sort, ruled. Or maybe poor Ma just got worn out from our caterwauling. In any case, we abandoned a few things with my father, including that pail and shovel that was going to provide us with a gourmet’s delight of boiled clams fresh from the now mythical sea, and started our trek with the well-known basics-food and utensils and toys and chairs and, and…
Let me cut to the chase here a little. Of course I have to tell you about our route and about how your humble tour director got the bright idea that we could take a short cut down Chickatawbut Street. (This is a real street, look it up. I used to use it every time I wanted to ride my bike over to Grandma’s on Young Street in North Adamsville.) The idea of said "smart guy" tour director was to get a breeze, a little breeze while we are walking with our now heavy loads by cutting onto Shore Avenue near the Merrymount Yacht Club. The problem is that, in search of breeze or of no breeze, this way is longer, much longer for three young boys and a dragged-out mama. Well, the long and short of it was, have you ever heard of the “Bataan Death March” during World War II? If you haven’t, look it up on “Wikipedia.” Those poor, bedeviled guys had nothing on us by the time, late afternoon, we got to our destination. We were beat, beat up, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday, beat every way a human being can be beat. Did I say beat? Oh yah, I did. But Ma, sensing our three murderous hearts by then, got the charcoals burning in one of the fireplaces they provided back then, and maybe they still do. And we were off to the races.
Hey, do you really need to know about mustard and relish crammed char-broiled hot dogs or my brother’s strange ketchup-filled one on white-breaded, nasty-tasting hot dog rolls that we got cheap from Elm Farms or maybe it was First National, or my beloved Kennedy’s potato salad that kind of got mashed up in the mess up or "Hires" root beer, or "Nehi" grape, or "Nehi" orange or store–bought boxed ice cream, maybe, "Sealtest" harlequin (chocolate, strawberry and vanilla all together, see), except melted. Or those ever- present roasted marshmallow that stuck to the roof of my mouth. You’ve been down that road yourselves so you don’t need me for a guide. And besides I’m starting to get sleepy after a long day. But as tired, dusty, and dirty as I am just telling this story… Ah, Treasure Island.
Tales From The 'Hood- A Piece of Cloth
Peter Paul Markin comment:
This was the third of a short series of stories about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series entitled History and "Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga" that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor got implanted early. The “what to do about it” part I have discussed, ad infinitum, elsewhere in other ways of the past forty years or so.
The question posed above concerning how working class consciousness gets instilled is important to know, especially for ‘politicos’ trying to organize working people in order that those who labor can rule this society. So, how does one become conscious that one is poor, comes from a poor family, and lives in poor housing in a poor neighborhood when one is, say, ten years old, the time frame for the story I want to tell here? This requires some reflection because, without exterior prompts, it is not immediately obvious to a ten year old; at least it was not to this ten year old.
Is it the run down school that one goes to? Is it the garbage-strewn unkempt yards? Is it the constant screaming of kids, parents, or anyone who has a voice and wants someone in this sorry and wicked old world to listen? Is it your father home on a workday because he has no work? Or is it that very much smaller portion of Christmas presents under the tree than one had wished for? Well, all of those things are certainly candidates but follow me here and I will tell you exactly how I learned the elemental social facts of life in this society. Moreover, Sherry, my invaluable ‘hood historian (and fellow classmate at old Adamsville South Elementary School where this sketch takes place) for this series was there to witness my baptism of fire. Listen up:
At some point in elementary school a boy is inevitably supposed to learn to do two intertwined socially-oriented skills- the basics of some kind of dancing and also be paired off with, dare I say it, a girl in that activity. I can already hear your gasps, dear reader, as I present that scenario. In my case the dancing part turned out to be the basics of square dancing (go figure, for a city boy, right?). Not only did this clumsy young boy have to do the basic “swing your partner” but I also had to do it while I was paired, for this occasion, with a girl that I had a “crush” on. That girl, moreover, was not from the ‘hood but from that other peninsula, the rich one, that formed the backdrop for the first story in this series- “A Story of Two Peninsulas.” I will not describe her, although I could do so even today, but let us leave it that her name was Rosalind. Enchanting name, right? There is nothing special about the story so far though. Just your average “one of the stages of coming of age” story. I wish.
Well, the long and short of it was that we were practicing this square dancing to demonstrate our prowess before our parents in the school gym. Nothing unusual there either. After all there is no sense in doing this type of activity unless one can impress one’s parents. I forget all the details of the setup of the space for demonstration day and things like that but it was a big deal. To honor the occasion, as this was my big moment to impress Rosalind, I had, earlier in the day, cut up my dungarees to give myself an authentic square dancer look.
I thought I looked pretty good. That is until my mother saw what I had done to the pants. In a second she got up from her seat, marched over to me and started yelling about my disrespect for my father’s and her efforts to clothe me and about the fact that since I only had a couple of pairs of pants how could I do such a thing. In short, airing the family troubles in public for all to hear. That went on for what seemed like an eternity. Thereafter I was unceremoniously taken home and placed on restriction for a week. Needless to say my father heard about it when he got home, and I heard about it for weeks afterward. Needless to say I also blew my ‘chances’ with dear, sweet Rosalind.
Now is this a tale of the hard lessons of the class struggle that I am always more than willing to put in a word about? Surely not. Is this a sad tale of young love thwarted by the vagaries of fate? Maybe. Is this a tale about respect for the little we had in my family? Perhaps. Was my mother, despite her rage, right? Well, yes. Did I learn something about being poor in this wicked old world? Damn right. That is the point. But, ah, Rosalind…
Growing Up Absurd
Peter Paul Markin comment:
This was the fourth of a short series of stories about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series entitled “History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga” that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family, the Callahans, from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor got implanted early. That the poor, the edge of society poor, the working poor mixed in with all the other flotsam and jetsam down there, really are different from you, the reader. The “what to do about it” part I have discussed, ad infinitum, elsewhere over the past forty years or so.
The previous tale in this series that you may have just read , “A Piece of Cloth,” about my less than heroic misadventures as an up and coming square dancer (apparently in preparation for an career on the Grand Ole Opry) set the tone for this story. In that tale I was subjected to a poor working class mother’s rage for cutting up one of my precious few pairs of pants in order to impress a girl, a rich girl, well rich compared to us. I learned then, if more painfully than was necessary, the hard lesson that the Markin family was poor, dirt poor, in this wicked old world.
Those kinds of incidents involving my mother and I (and my brothers, as well), although generally more severe and less amiably subject to public treatment than that bittersweet tale of pants and love lost, were standard fare in the Markin household. Such incidents are, moreover, well documented in literature and the media and would be merely cumulative if discussed here. Only the reality is grimmer than anything portrayed in book or film. Not physically, there was thankfully little of that in our household, but the psychological warfare was almost as devastating. Let me nevertheless try to put this thing in some perspective now, although Lord knows I was incapable of that as I was going through it.
I have mentioned elsewhere some of the small details of my parent’s struggle for survival. I have also mentioned that their life profiles fit into a familiar pattern similar to others who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought or endured World War II. I still feel no need to go into great detail about that here. I however find that I need to mention that my mother married my serviceman father just out of high school and quickly became a teenage mother. Moreover, she had great difficulties with the births of my brothers and me. The three of us furthermore were only separated by a year or so each. In short, a handful.
Those facts along with my father’s continual and constant difficulties in holding onto the unskilled jobs that he was forced into meant a very, very tough existence for a woman who was something a princess (a working class one, to be sure-there is a different but a princess nevertheless) to her parents and brothers. The woman’s respond to her conditions was to be in a constant rage. It was not pleasant. We called it, among us boys, the Irish “shaming” routine. In short, what is apparent here is that the nuclear family structure was far too narrow a basis for her and us to survive under the circumstances. I survived. My brothers did not.
Sherry my invaluable ‘hood historian has related some of the same kind of stories to me about her family life except her family was larger, her mother died when she was a teenager, and she found herself as the oldest girl taking care of the household. Others survivors of ‘the projects’ have related very similar stories, almost monotonously so. We need not even speak here of such things as the effects of alcoholism, and later, drugs, and other social maladies on this fragile nuclear family structure.
To be sure, even under socialism, it will take a massive reallocation of funds to right these kinds of situations. Moreover, and here is the hard part for many to understand today, rich or poor, the nuclear family structure is just too narrow a setting to free up the potential energies of humankind. It needs be replaced.
Despite all the pains of growing up poor, despite all the dislocations of psyche that I have dealt with over lifetime to fight the good fight for socialism it has still been worthwhile if only for the promise that some future generation will not have to go through my childhood experiences. Although I will not live long enough to see the replacement of the nuclear family with something better and more attuned to human potentialities I am satisfied with that. On reviewing this piece I find that it was not really a story after all but one of my political screeds. However, remember that mother’s impotent rage against her fate. That is the story.
Tales From The 'Hood- The Endless Road?
Peter Paul Markin comment:
This was the fifth and final story about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series entitled “History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga” that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor gets implanted early in life. The poor really are different from you the reader. The “what to do about it” part I have discussed discuss, ad infinitum, elsewhere.
As I wrote this final piece a line from a song was going through my head, Jerry Garcia’s Ripple-“There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night” That idea of the road, as I will discuss below, very neatly sums up the situation here. Some of this tale is meant as obvious metaphor, other parts are the real deal. In any case here is the central axis of this story line. In this series of sketches I have been talking about growing up in the 1950’s. This was quintessentially the 'golden age' of the automobile in America. You know the vast possibilities of the open highway – the road-and the promise of adventure-fast and effortless.
The hard fact for the Markin family was that through most of this period we did not have that automobile to break out with. When we did this writer remembers mainly “clunkers” with their inevitable breakdowns in odd and foreboding locations. But, mostly, we had no car. Even in a housing project there was a social dividing line between those with automobiles who could get out and those who were stuck. We were, forever it seems, dependent on the kindnesses of neighbors. Or, usually, walking, public transportation in that isolated location then, as now, being haphazard. I learned to dread the weekly walk to get groceries, etc. Ouch, I can still feel those hot summer roads baking my feet.
Okay, so you can now say that walking is good for you. Fair enough. But here is where the tale gets weird. I have mentioned on several other occasions another wealthy peninsula (detailed in the first tale – “A Story of Two Peninsulas”) that abutted the peninsula where my housing project was located. I have also mentioned that I had been stopped, young as I was, in that locale by the local constabulary who asked where I was from and what was my purpose in being there. Hell, all I wanted to do was to walk along the streets that paralleled the ocean there. The tip-off for the police, apparently, was that I had entered the area on foot (as opposed to having been driven there like ‘normal’ people, I suppose) and they took it from there. When cops start infringing on your right to walk in public space wherever and whenever you feel like then you know that you are in a very class-bound society-at least in these neighborhoods. In short, I was guilty of walking while poor. Enough said.
What have I tried to present here? Clearly, not all class struggles are limited to the visible ones of the picket line or the barricade. Certainly the working class struggles that I have noted here fall well below the radar of history but they also point some hard facts about why we have so little working class political class-consciousness. Putting up with their class hatred of us, their social humiliation of us, the mere fact of being poor, of being constantly on the edge of violence, and of facing the hazards of life in a dysfunctional family that as detailed in these stories are all impediments to political class consciousness. And that is before we even get to the streets. Remember though “there is a road, no simply highway”-the class struggle road.
Save The Last Dance For Me
A tow-headed boy walks, endless forget waiting for erratic Eastern Massachusetts bus-stop non-stop walks, up named streets, Captain’s Walk (evoking New England Captain Ahab great white madnesses and avenging angel purities, a kindred spirit, and land-bound searches for the great blue-pink American west night drive the frenzy instead of holy death-seeking sea drifts, although that is unnamed just now), Snug Harbor Avenue (evoking, well, just evoking home, or the theory of home, or some happy black and white television version of home), and Sextant Circle (like such a useful nautical instrument could guide some lonely, lonesome boy out of the fetid bog-fed marshes and visions of pirates seeking booty, or death). On to Taffrail Road, ah, Taffrail Road evoking ship-wreaked damsels, young, waiting for swashbuckling sailor boys raised from local old tar graveyards to restore their honor, their freedom, or just to share their bed. That last is the rub and that is the heart of the matter along those endless non-stop streets where erratic buses serve as the only way out of those clinched-fist producing streets. That tow-headed boy is enthralled, no better, enraged and engorged with his first stirring of interest in damsel time, girls if you must know, thus the time of his time. Yes, clinch those fists very tightly brother and take the ride.
Unnamed streets abound too, up crooked cheap, low-rent, fifty-year rutted pavement streets, deeply-gouged, one-lane snow-drift hassles streets impassable in winter hard glare and summer sweated heat. A Street cutting off the flow to that old tar cemetery seeking exotic writ names deep-etched in granite slab washed now by birdsong, and dung, rather than damsel sweet smell perfumes. B Street the same, C Street the same, same like some alphabet conspiracy against the boyhood night, against the boyhood dream night when he dreams of manhood, or better feelings of manhood but is clueless, utterly clueless, about what those feelings portent, ominously portent. But what knows he of ominous, or portents for that matter. He confesses, and no church confession either, but etched, gravestone old tar etched, no mortal, not even hangmen evil brothers or harassing cousins, boy or girl, should ever have to face the fifth-grade night rudderless, compass-less and with the mark of Cain upon his neck.
After walking, endless walking through named and unnamed streets, he heads home, not the home of home but his dream home with her, her house home. After all who in their right mind could curse and rail against the fifth grade-night, and why, if not for budding portentous romance with some green tree-coded she. He dare not speak her name for fear of jinx, or unrequited-ness. The year before, that innocent last fourth-grade year, they, the shes of his enflamed imagination, were all just sticks, hardly distinguishable from boys except perhaps a little smaller, just sticks to be avoided, or ignored, but this year a few, and she among the few, suddenly got interesting and he was stuck, struck really, by that ironic fact, or would have been if he had known what ironic travails he would go through before the end.
But here, watch him from afar, as he crosses for the fifth, or fifteenth time, or fifteen hundredth time past trees are green, coded, coded fifty years coded, endless trees are green secret-coded waiting, waiting against boyish infinite time, infinite first blush of innocent manhood, boyhood times, gone now, for one look, one look, that would elude him, elude him forever. Such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots. She some fair Rosamund and he a mere serf, and they knew it, or he knew it although it did not stop him from wanting, or waiting for that one glance, and that dancing blue-eyed smile.
The dance of all damn things, the upcoming one-size-fits-all school dance, parent-approved, headmaster-approved, hell, bishop-approved when you came right down to it, and, hell, blessed too from what he had heard, maybe jesus, blessed, is what has him in a mental whirl. Such tow-headed fifth-grade boy whirls made an existence, a walked streets existence, possible just as well as “reds under every bed”scare, russkie atomic-bomb-dropping, get out of the stinking projects and get a new shirt at all costs that disturbed his other nights. But, christ, a two bit dance, some later laughable Podunk gym fiesta, crepe-hanging, some surly drafted, imprisoned teacher to “spin platters” from some RCA music box, and her with the dancing blue-eyes and rounding shape. Yes, that thing drove him crazy, or the possibility of it, in the fragrant perfume-soap, some girlish bath soap for all he knew or heard about from girl cousins, american bandstand night,
And dreams of private dances in dark shadow corners while that silly hung crepe begins to droop above their “spot”and he first, and then she, laughs about how some fourth-grader must have hung it, their private laugh. And dance too, no Fred Astaire waltz old-time fox trot (except maybe that slow one at the end of the night although that was mere planned dream echo in walked streets), but full-blossomed be-bop wild hands and ass gyrating to some Elvis good night rocking or Chuck driving some car over the cliff for love, or something, something unspoken, or ask the older kids who know, know through their well-tuned grapevine, what “it” is. If they will tell you.
All a dream, a street-walked dream until, and when, really when he got up the nerve, the endless streets walking nerve, to ask her. But no dance floor numbness would slake that footsore walking thirst not then, and no high school confidential dance either (hell elementary school was tough enough, man), handy man, breathless, Jerry Lee freak-out blaring off some truck-bed bandstand too improbable for words. So Rosamund fate, young damsel sighted off the sea-side taffrail slid by, and with time the footsoreness turned into dust, or some other psychic pain whirl. But here and now when it counted, at least, know all the rage potato sack stick-turning-into-shape dance with coded name, trees are green, brunette. That will come, that will come. But when?
Adamsville South Monday, Summer 1957
<b>[Click on the headline to this sketch to link to a <i>YouTube</i> film clip of Danny and The Juniors performing their classic <i>At The Hop</i> to give a little flavor of the time of this entry-JLB].
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<b>Setting The Mood-Peter Paul Markin In His Own Words
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I, once a while back, was asked, in earnest, what I meant by the “blue-pink western skies” that has formed the backdrop for several of Josh’s sketches. Or rather the way I would prefer to formulate it, and have taken some pains to emphasize it this way,“the search for the blue-pink great American West night.” Well, of course, there was a literal part to the proposition since ocean-at-my back (sometimes right at my back) New England homestead meant unless I wanted to take an ill-advised turn at piracy or high-seas hijacking or some such thing east that the hitchhike road meant heading west.
So that night is clearly not in the vicinity of the local Blues Hills or of the Berkshires since early childhood ocean-fronted Massachusetts, those are too confined and short-distanced to even produce blues skies much less that west-glanced sweet shade just before heaven, if there was a heaven shade, blue-pink. And certainly not hog-butcher-to-the-world, sinewy Midwest Chicago night, Christ no, nor rarefied, deep-breathed, rockymountainhigh Denver night, although jaded sojourner-writer not known for breathe-taking, awe-bewilderment could have stopped there for choice of great western night. Second place, okay.
But no, onward, beyond, beyond pioneer, genetically-embedded pioneer America, past false god neon blue-pink glitter Las Vegas in the Nevada desert night to the place where, about fifty miles away from sanctified west coast, near some now nameless abandoned ghost town, nameless here for it is a mere speck on the map and you would not know the name, you begin, ocean man that you are, if you are, and organically ocean-bred says you are, to smell the dank, incense-like, seaweed-driven, ocean-seized air as it comes in from the Japanese stream, or out there somewhere in the unknown, some Hawaii or Guam or Tahiti of the mind, before the gates of holy city, city of a thousand, thousand land’s end dreams, San Francisco. That is where the blue-pink sky devours the sun just before the be-bop, the bop-bop, the do wang-doodle night, the great American Western star-spangled (small case) night I keep reaching for, like it was some physical thing and not the stuff of dreams. And it started early.
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<b>The scene below stands (or falls) as a moment in support of that eternal search.
Scene One: The Prequel- Adamsville South Monday, Summer 1957
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I wake up early, with a sudden start like something hit me but it kind of missed, kind of just glanced off me, something that felt like a pebble, maybe thinner and a little lighter, but I don’t see anything out of my watery, half-closed eyes. And I don’t feel anything around me in this feeble excuse for a bed that my father lashed together out of old blankets when my previous mattress fell apart, something like you see down at the Plymouth Plantation when the Pilgrims, a few hundred years ago, made beds for their kids except not with the corn husking filler they used. See, Ma and Pa couldn’t see their way clear to getting me a new one since my younger brother, Kevin, really needed one for his “problem”. A“problem” that I don’t understand about, and that nobody ever talks about, even Grandma, and she talks about everything and will tell me anything, anything but that, at least when I am around they don’t talk about it, okay.
Maybe, I wouldn’t understand it even if they blabbed about it all day, but here I am with this low-rent sleeping bag, our lord in the manger kind of a bed. And Kevin’s sleeping like a king in the room across the hall all by himself away from this midget-sized room that they must have thought of when kids were smaller than they are these days, what with us drinking more milk with “Big Brother” Bob Emery every school day when we go home at lunchtime. Ma says I should be thankful (including to the Lord, as she always says, without fail) that I have any bed at all as some kids in India don’t even have that. The reasons for that, I guess, are ‘cause those people don’t thank the Lord, or at least thank our “the Lord.”
Darn it, I now suddenly remember, whatever it was that hit me, maybe something from outer space, broke up a nice half-formed dream that was just starting to get somewhere and that was about being on some television show and winning something like a thousand dollars and me getting to buy stuff for me and my friends like serious bicycles or a big record player, and getting girls stuff too, like a box of candy from the Rexall drugstore up in Adamsville Square, and just like that its gone, gone, now long gone. Just like shutting off the television before the end and the good guys, or whoever has the right to be on the right side of the law like Maverick, wins; just like missing American Bandstand before Dick Clark gets to the big dance off thing at the end where everybody’s jumping and grooving and having a good time, the band is rocking, and the guys, especially the guys that get the cute girls and not the left-over ones that they must just put on to be nice, or something are smiling, smiling the smile of the just. Double darn it.
Ya, something’s out of whack, something’s definitely out of whack, or it’s gonna be. Every time I have one of these broken-up dreams something goes awry pretty soon only not today please, and I am scared, no, really scared about it this time. Wouldn’t you be? I suddenly notice something in a split-second that confirms this bad omen coming-Oh no, not again, for the hundredth hundredth time this ratty old summer, this boring never-ending summer that I wish would end so bad I am praying, and praying hard, that it will be over and we can go back to the cool air in Adamsville South Elementary School that we left the last part of last month. I told you it was bad, bad as all that. I’m all sweaty, I feel under my arms, underarms sticky, underwear, all cottony, sticking to me like it’s part of my skin forever, eyes sticky and half shut from a nighttime’s worth of perspiration, and maybe more than a night at that. I don’t think I took a bath yesterday, did I? I sniff, no. Sticky, that me, that’s gonna be my middle name before long if this mind-numbing weather keeps up.
Heck, I’m tired, tired to hell and back, no, farther than that, of these half-sleep, restless nights; god awful humid, sultry, breathless summer’s nights, no relief and no air conditioning in sight. No air, no wind coming from the channel across the parking lot from our house, or I should say apartment. No air, less than no air, coming from Adamsville Bay, so still that throwing a rock on it would make ripples all the way to Merrymount. And certainly no air coming from god forsaken Hough’s Neck. I know that for sure, ‘cause I went over there, walked all the way up to Rock Island and down that dusty dirt road all the way to Nut Island almost before I realized that the air had died, or gone on vacation.
Ma, making fun of me and my sweating every second of every minute of every day for about a week now, the other day told me that this was my own personal preview of what it is gonna be like for me in hell, if I don’t change my ways. Yes, ma. But that is just her con, she’s always conning me and my brothers, trying make us do good by bringing God, his son, his holy ghost, his mother, his father, his sisters and brothers and whoever else she can conjure up using to make us do good, to do as she’s says every chance she gets in order to do God’s work, but that’s impossible using her tried and true method. She must have learned that “method” from some priest over at Saint Boniface, or something. She sure didn’t learn it from that cool doctor, Doctor Spock, I think was his name, that I saw on TV the other day on that Mike Dowling, or one of them talk shows. He knows a lot about kids, they say, at least that’s what someone said. I wouldn’t know, I ‘m stuck with Ma, and that ain’t no nice to kids lady, nor does she want to be.
Saying all that ain’t doing me any good, lying here in a pool of sweat, thinking about getting up. But I’m getting mad, even though I know getting mad today is tempting fate, I guess I was born mad, or got that way early because even though I know it’s gonna get me in trouble , I’m mad . You would think that in the year 1957, in a year when everybody else seems to have money and is spending it, that even in this woe begotten tiny airless apartment filled to the brim with three growing boys and two grown, overgrown if you ask me, adults; in this woe begotten tiny airless room filled to the brim with two growing boys, one sleeping like a log, sleeping the sleep of the just, I guess, across from me right now; in this woe begotten no account housing project where you can’t get anything fixed without about twenty forms and a six month wait and even then you have to wait, nothing less. Even for a light fixture it takes a civil war. Christ, how long, in this woe begotten town before we could have this “necessity,” air-conditioning. Ma says we can’t afford it, or whatever her excuse of the week is. “How about a fan, Ma?” Nope, can’t afford the extra electricity ‘cause Dad just got laid off, whatever that means. He’s always getting laid off so I can’t tell what is so different about this time so that we can’t get air conditioning. Johnny Jakes has it, and his father hasn’t ever worked. Can’t, for some reason.
Enough of this, I‘m getting up, if only to splash some water on my face and get my eyes unstuck, or get a cool drink of water to bring down what has got be about a 110 degrees of temperature running through my body, maybe 115. Nah, that can’t be right, we learned about body temperatures in class. I would have to be some alien from outer space maybe. But I’m feverish, that’s for sure. Just then I am stopped short by a sound, a familiar sound. A sound that if I had just one sound to hear in the whole universe of sounds that I have heard in my long eleven year old life it would be that one. The sound of fleeing this hellish, airless place for parts unknown, any unknown. Ya, that old, sweet, lonesome, high whistle sound that cuts me to the bone, that sweet old fog horn sound when the air is like pea soup down the channel ‘cause that means a big old firemen’s red, rubber tire-draped tugboat, or maybe two, is bringing a low-riding, rusty old tanker, or some ship to port across the channel to the Proctor & Gamble factory, the place of a thousand perfume smells, as we call it when the wind is up and all the world here smells like a bar of soap.
If I live to be a hundred, if I live to be a thousand, I’m always gonna watch, even if only in my mind, when some old tanker comes down the line, dragging or getting dragged by that old tug, whistling away, to keep river traffic away, and like it just as much then I bet. I know what I will be doing this morning, or the first part of the morning, heat or no heat, air- conditioning or no air- conditioning. I will be perched on my very own private, for invited guests only which means nobody, viewing stand at the little point along the shoreline that is my real home, or the home that I wish was my home except maybe in winter, just across from where the big boy boat will settle in.
“Hey, a boat’s coming in, I’m off,” I yell to no one in particular. And from not one of those no one in particulars do I get an answer. My brothers don’t suffer the sweats like I do, they have their own problems which I already sense will be their undoing later, but it ain’t the sweats and so they just sleep away. I rush, and I mean rush, to the bathroom, use the toilet, splash that life-saving water on my face, it always feels good, brush my teeth perfunctorily, and run down the stairs. “Ma, a ship’s coming in,” I say excitedly, even though it’s about the hundredth time I’ve seen one come in, to my mother who is distracted by something, as usual, especially when my father is out of work, and especially today, Monday, when he goes off in search of new work with a lot of hope about getting some job that will keep the wolves from the doors, that is the constant phrase that he uses to deal with the situation. I’ll tell you about him sometime but today I ain’t got any time for nothing but my ship coming in, and that ain’t no lie either.
“Well, it is not our ship that is coming in so don’t worry about it and just eat your breakfast,” she, dear old Ma, blurred out, and then I know she is in a fit and even if my ship wasn’t coming in I know the ropes enough to know to keep low, very low and out of the range of fire that I know is coming from her direction. I go to the cabinet, grab a cracked, slightly cracked bowl, get a spoon and go over to the stove, take the cover off the pot, steam escaping, and without even looking start dishing out my Quaker Oats oatmeal. Rain, shine, sleet or snow, summer, winter, spring or fall that is my nectar of the gods. With a little milk, when we have it, and even if we don’t a little Karo syrup, I am fortified for the day. Ma, can be a pain, Ma and I have a thousand battles a week over two thousand different things, and I know that already things are never gonna be right between us, even if at times we have an armed truce but, mark this down I always got my oatmeal, and always when I wanted it. I guess that put her on the right side of the angels, a little.
A few gulps later, washed down with about a half glass of milk, I am out the door. Hell, even my blessed oatmeal gets short shrift when the tankers blow in. Now going out the door most places that you know about means just going out the door straight. Bu in this urban planner’s nightmarish hangover not at 666 Taffrail Road. First you have the obstacle course of getting around the ten million poles and fences that are plucked right in the“courtyard” when my mother and the other housewives in the other three units that make up our mega-plex hang out their daily washing, or dry their curtains or whatever people like my mother do to keep places like this from reverting back to caveman times. Then I have to cross the parking lot, a lot filled with all kinds of cars, for those that have them. These days we don’t have one, in case I didn’t tell you before, because Dad is out of work so we are all reduced to waiting for an eternity for that slow-rolling, seems never to be here when you need it, Eastern Mass. bus that ambles on to Adamsville Square, making so many stops that I usually just walk it, if I am in a hurry to get something, even on a hot, sweltering summer day like this.
As I hit the already hot asphalt of the lot I look around longingly at the vast array of cars; Plymouths with fins that look like a fish; Chevies, my favorite, sleek and so, Timmy McDevitt tells me, go real fast when you get onto Route 128 and let her rip; Fords that look like something they want to use to go up into space with, and I don’t know what else, but there are plenty. Finally I get to the lower parking lot that’s for guests or people who don’t get a parking spot in front of their house, or maybe just run out of steam before making the turn into hell-bent Taffrail Road. I don’t know and I am now passed that spot on the move along the fence anyhow to get to the little opening that will take me to my grand viewing area. I’m okay though, I still hear the old tug whistle coming up the line so I have some time to wait.
I get to my little sliver of land, just a little jut out of the shoreline, covered with old, oil-slicked quarry rock probably from the ground around here about a million years ago,‘cause this town is known for its granite rock, cause it’s a granite city, even though the real work done around here is over at the Five Rivers Shipyard that is just across the bridge from the Proctor & Gamble factory, and where even on this hot, god forsaken morning I can faintly hear the sounds of metal being banged by hammers or whatever they use to put the ship together, and the flashes of welders’ torches as they put that banged metal in seamless water-tight condition.
I also notice some empty beer cans, cigarette butts, chip bags left haphazardly all over my viewing stand, somebody last night, or the night before, must have said the hell with it and got out one of the sweltering houses and came over here to get whatever little, little breeze that could be eked out of the windless night. I rule the day here in this spot, especially when the boats come in, no question about that, but what others do at night I have no control over. I just wish they wouldn’t leave a mess on my sacred site.
But that is all so much made-up irritation, probably ‘cause I am so hot, for now I can see the first glimmer of the smokestack of a ship coming up the line. I wonder whose oil it is, Esso? Texaco? Shell? Esso has been in the lead this year, and they are bigger ships and ride real low in the water coming in, and real high going out. I can start to see specks on the bridge, human specks that are busy doing the work of preparing the ship for the dock.
I wonder, wonder a lot, about these guys and the work they do and whether they like it and like being on the sea and whether they ever have any trouble like in stories that I read down at the Thomas Crane Library attached to the school, and where they have been and what adventures they have had, and where, and with whom. Maybe that’s the life for me. And I wonder about the girls they know from all over and whether they are nicer than the girls in the "projects" who are beginning to get on my nerves, for some reason. At least I don’t know what to do or what to say around them, or what they want me to do, or want me to say. I hope this is just being a boy kid and that it goes away, and I hope it a lot.
Oh, there she is, an Esso. The tugs are in position, gently nudging her and getting her ready to go dockside, tie up and unload. Wonder how long she will stay? Usually its takes a couple of days and then they are gone, sometimes in the middle of the night and they are not there in the morning depending on the tides and the traffic on the roads, oh, ocean roads, that is.
Hey, it’s almost lunchtime, guess I’ll go home and eat and go down the cellar, maybe to try to cool off. I know one thing now though that kind of had me worried and kind of bothered me for a while 'cause I am just a kid. I now know I will always take time to watch the boats as they blow in, and dream about catching a boat out, wherever I am. Maybe, that is an omen, a good omen, about my future. I'll let you know.
Markin’s Big Date
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Eddie Cochran performing Sittin’ in the Balcony to add a zest to this sketch.
Sittin' In The Balcony
Recorded by Eddie Cochran
Written by John D. Loudermilk
G D7 G
I'm just a sittin' in the balcony just a watching the movie
D7 G
Or maybe it's a symphony I wouldn't know
D7 G
I don't care about the symphonies just a cymbal and a timpani
D7 G
I'm just a sitting in the balcony on the very last row
C G
I'll hold your hand and I'll kiss you too
A7 D7
The feature's over but we're not through
G D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony holding hands in the balcony
D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony on the very last row
C G
We may stop loving to watch bugs bunny
A7 D7
But he can't take the place of my honey
G D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony just a smooching in the balcony
D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony on the very last row
C G D7 G
Just a hugging and a kissing with my baby in the very last row
Written by John D. Loudermilk
G D7 G
I'm just a sittin' in the balcony just a watching the movie
D7 G
Or maybe it's a symphony I wouldn't know
D7 G
I don't care about the symphonies just a cymbal and a timpani
D7 G
I'm just a sitting in the balcony on the very last row
C G
I'll hold your hand and I'll kiss you too
A7 D7
The feature's over but we're not through
G D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony holding hands in the balcony
D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony on the very last row
C G
We may stop loving to watch bugs bunny
A7 D7
But he can't take the place of my honey
G D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony just a smooching in the balcony
D7 G
Just a sittin' in the balcony on the very last row
C G D7 G
Just a hugging and a kissing with my baby in the very last row
You never knew what kind of story Peter Paul Markin my old yellow brick road compadre going back to the1960s was going to come up with back in those California “on the bus” searching for the great American West night days as we roamed up and down that state on Captain Crunch’s merry prankster bus. One day (night, more likely) he might be all high politics and want to talk about what was wrong with various slogans put forth on the workers’ government question at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in 1922. The next day (or maybe that same night if we had hit the right kind of “high” for the occasion) he might just draw back to recall some childhood or teenage angst story. When he went into that mode it usually meant he wanted to discuss some forlorn“chick” that got away in those woe begotten days, or ones that didn’t and he wished they had. This one though is about one that didn’t get away but didn’t work out either. Amazingly, thinking about it later after he told me this story, I noticed how many such no win tales he kept locked in that mind of his.
For this one Peter Paul (I am under the equivalent of a court order not to use his nickname, his childhood stuck to adulthood nickname Pee-Pee when writing about him) reached way back to his elementary school days down at the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (the “projects” in his terms) where he came of age. And where he “discovered”girls, although not without the usual ten tons of trauma, angst and alienation. Of course the ins and outs of the boy-girl thing have eluded every guy from ten to ten times ten since girls were invented so his story is not one that I found so bizarre. Just the particulars of his dilemma.
See, for a guy who thought nothing of spouting off those facts about the trials and tribulations of the Fourth Congress of Communist International Peter Paul was (and is) an extremely shy guy. And was back in the back the day time he was talking about, maybe more so. His thing was always to kind of overwhelm the girls with about ten thousand arcane facts on about eleven thousand different things that he had read about. Well, we all have our ways of relating to the world, and the opposite sex (or the same sex these days as far as preferences go). Personally I always thought he was crazy to do that routine when I saw him in action later when we were on the road. But some girls (and women more than I would have figured) were easily impressed by such odd-ball foolishness. My thing, personally, was just to say pretty things about them and take my chances like most normal guys.
Enter Belinda, Belinda Boylston, a blonde-haired stick (local Adamsville corner boy short-hand for girls who had not gotten a figure yet but who, well, who had some other charms only immature teen boys would notice) who had just that year (1958) moved into the new middle class single family colonial-style houses up the street build for those, unlike Peter Paul’s family, moving up in the golden age of American post- World War II prosperity. She had entered the school in October and so was not aware like all the other girls in his class of his special “skills.” And not knowing that she one day, maybe the second or third day of class, gave him a smile, a thin Mona Lisa smile. He blushed, blushed seven shades of red the lightest being blood red. Done. Gone. Finished.
After that in class Peter Paul poured it on especially when he noticed that she was paying attention when he answered a question, or just started to ramble on. (Jesus, I know that one.) But how was he going to get to talk to her. That is where Billie Bradley, the king hell king of the young teen Adamsville corner boy night came to the rescue. Or rather his sister, Celina, who was a year ahead of the boys, did. She corralled Belinda one day at lunch and just came right out with it. Did she like Peter Paul, or not? Of course came the since time immemorial- let him ask me himself. And with that our tale ends. Not end ends but ends for the few weeks that it took Peter Paul to get up the courage to talk to Belinda. And only under threat that Billie Bradley was going to take a run after her himself.
Well the long and short of it was that Belinda had not been coquettish (although she could be that) when she gave her answer to Celina but was pretty shy herself. She had planned to have her new friend, Maude, Maude Riley, ask Peter Paul if he liked her but Celina got there first. And so, finally, like some false-fated lovers out of some Greek tragedy (or Hollywood B script) they talked and she agreed to go on a“date.” with one Peter Paul Markin that next Saturday.
Now this twelve year old“date” business is not (or was not) like a real date that older teens and we adults have but is strictly around the block stuff. First off it was strictly day time, strictly going to the movies or the beach (in summer) and strictly a few hours, no more. And with no car to drive them to the movies (nobody then, even shy nobodies, and I hope not now either, wanted to be chauffeured by some old foggy parents when they only had that precious few hours to make an impression) they took the bus to the Stand Theater in Adamsville Square for the Saturday matinee double-feature.
Peter Paul dressed in his best shirt and pants and his hair combed picked up Belinda at her house. Belinda looked nice too in her just slightly filling out cashmere sweater all the rage in those days. After the obligatory hi and goodbye (and parental list of dos and don’ts) they headed to the bus stop. Here is a funny part, or I thought it was funny. After leaving the Boylston house they were like two magpies talking about a storm like they had known each other forever. And every once in a while as he was talking she gave Peter Paul that fatal (to him) Mona Lisa smile. Finally they got to the square and headed for the theater.
Peter Paul said the rest of the afternoon was a little hazy. They entered the theater although he confessed that on a stack of seven bibles he could not remember the movies being played that day. Maybe Peggy Sue Meets Godzilla he though, something like that. And here is why things were a little hazy. Now parents and old foggies when they go to the movie theater are looking for the best seats to view the film. Twelve year olds then (and maybe now too for all I know) on their first “date” had a different decision to make. Orchestra seats or balcony? The answer meant an ordinary old foggy-type date or holding hands, and lips, upstairs. Peter Paul shyly asked Belinda where she wanted to sit. She gave him that thin Mona Lisa smile and pointed upstairs.
I wish I could give a postscript that Peter Paul and Belinda lived happily ever after, or until something else came along. However in this wicked old world some things just can’t work out, work out for twelve and thirteen year olds. Peter Paul and Belinda were an “item” for the rest of the school year, or most of it. Then Belinda’s father got a promotion that required a transfer to another part of the state. Such is life. But he still remembers that Mona Lisa smile as she, unable to talk she was so shy at that moment, pointed to those stairs.
Children Of Darkness
“Okay, Peter Paul you’re going to cover me while I ‘clip’ that onyx ring for Sheila the one I told you about yesterday that I saw in Sam’s Jewelry Store, okay?,” slyly whispered one Billie Bradley (not Billy, no way, not some billy- goat name, not for Billie Bradley, no way), the king hell king of the Adamsville projects, junior division, junior division being twelve and under in that fast grow up project small time thief night. And later that day, that hot drawn out summer day, a day heaven-make for larcenies, big and small, Peter Paul, if for no other reason that he was just then in thrall to the prospects of the free and easy small- time hood night, stood his guard eyeing Sam, Sam James, owner of Sam’s Jewelry up the Square to see if he was looking Billie’s way. He wasn’t and Billie, once again, made the ‘clip’ like he did a million times before, or at least that is the number he gave Peter Paul any time he asked. Probably inflated, Billie inflated, but not by much.
Up the Square for those not in the know by the way was (is) nothing but hokey old Adamsville Square, heart of the old time granite city (from the massive quarries, now depleted, that gave work and shelter to many working men and their hard-scrabble families back in the day), city of presidents, some guys named Adams that were presidents, big time United States Presidents if you want to know , back when they just hung out in Washington and did a little of this and a little of that. Not small time grifters like Billie and he from what Peter Paul remembered from school. But maybe they didn’t need to grift, or maybe they didn’t have some lady friend who needed an onyx ring (and as it later turned out on further Billie inspection an onyx ring with a diamond chip in the center).
Funny thing is that Shelia, Shelia McCabe for those who are also not in the know about who was foxy and who was not, junior division, twelve and under in that same fast growing Adamsville projects girl night, could have cared less about onyx rings, even onyx rings that turned out to have diamond chips in the center. She was, let me use a coy word here, smitten, smitten to hell and back by one Billie Bradley, king hell king of the junior varsity night from day one a few months back when she arrived here from poor town somewhere, oh yah, Peter Paul remembered, Lowell up the other end of Massachusetts from Adamsville.
If you can believe this she just wanted him, well, to herself. See Billie, and don’t take this the wrong way, was nothing but a girl trap and the other reason besides thralldom that Peter Paul Markin, late of trusted friend guard duty up the Square, hung with and on Billie was that maybe, just maybe one of his “rejects” would notice this awkward boy that Billie has taken pity on in order to learn the “trade.” The trade for those not in the know, well you already know what the trade is from what happened above.
What Sheila didn’t know, and for that matter neither did Peter Paul, was that Billie was, well let me be coy again, smitten with Sheila and thought that in his little larcenous heart he had to shower her with things or else she would up and leave him for another guy. And Billie, king hell king of the night or not, was not a guy who would take to being “given the air” by any frail (his, Billie’s word, his ever-using word picked up from watching too many double feature 1940s crime noir repeats at the old Stand Theater on Saturday afternoons after a fit of off-hand larceny to pay for the ticket).
So about once a week or so, Billie got the “urge,” and he and some confederate moved out of the safety of the projects and headed for where the jewels were. It used to be George H, then Ronnie B., then Slim P., and now Peter Paul ( Peter Paul, not Peter, or damn, not, P.P. , like his mother called him). I am, by the way, using no last names on those earlier confederates just in case the coppers are still looking for“fall guys” for those up the Square capers, I ain’t no snitch, no way. And Billie, kind of superstitious like a lot of sneaky guys, professional sneaky guys not just guys who are sneaky to be sneaky, always took the same route (or that is what he told Peter Paul once) through the marshes up to C Street, then cross to Main and then on to Adams (yah, the town is hoopy for naming everything for those old guys, those president guys) until he and his pal of the moment got to the square proper.
From there it was nothing but stealthy and shadow boxy moves, no stopping for fear that someone who swore they saw someone just like Billie coming out of (or going into it did not matter) some store and coming out with stuff (no better description that that), might yell copper, and make it stick. And then where would our boy have been, more importantly, where would he stand then in Sheila’s eyes. His creep work was made easier by the set-up of the square all no trespass standing, low-slung granite buildings everywhere, granite steps leading to granite doors leading to granite gee-gad counters, I told you already about the granite that made the city work so you shouldn’t be surprised.
Then when Billie had “selected”his target of the day he went silent (and his confederate had better not have said anything either, or else). Then Billie’s eyes, deep pool blue eyes that some of the older girls, not the junior division girls, not even Sheila, called“bedroom eyes” went stone cold like the granite that was found everywhere as he built up some imaginary hatred for some misbegotten small shop owner who was made to pay for society’s giving Billie, or rather Billie, Senior a raw deal and life in the projects. Yes, that hatred, no name hatred, low-head hatred, drove Billie once he made his move, after waiting slyly, standing back on heels, for the right moment . The, in a flash, going in furtively, hand signals driving the moves to his partner in crime, coming out ditto, presto coming out with a gold nugget jewel.
All this madness for some no carat, no russkie Sputnik panel glitter for his efforts. Such is the grab of young lumpen crime, project distorted values, no value, no look, just grab, grab hard, grab fast, grab get yours before the getting is over, or before the dark, dark night comes, the dark pitched-night when the world no longer is young, and dreamed dreams make no more sense that this bodily theft. And Peter Paul for that minute before he ditched that life (although not Billie, or Billie friendship, no that would takes many long, long days) of silly crime for crime books, or just books, loved every minute, every moves just because it was Billie who made those moves, made the cheap glitter dance.
And what of Shelia, or rather of Sheila and her family. Well, one week-end when Billie was away visiting some distant grandmother, they, not having paid rent from about day one, just flew the coop without a word. And Billie never heard from her again. But get this she left that onyx ring, that onyx ring complete with diamond chip in the center, with Peter Paul to give back to Billie, and with a kiss. See, as she explained to Peter Paul, she really was smitten with Billie, just Billie. And Peter Paul knew exactly what she meant.
A Tale of Two Peninsulas
There was something, something weird about growing up poor, hell growing up dirt poor, certified dirt poor, and about growing up in the 1950s, the “golden age America” childhood period of what he would later call, and maybe would be called too by some smug sociologists but with a smirk, the generation of ‘68. Peter Paul couldn’t put his finger on it just then and that hard fact bothered him. Yes he was at it again, thinking those old memory thoughts, thinking that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from his old working class neighborhood that he had just heard about from its original source. Some, after reading this, might claim that it was really his family that he was talking about, thinking about, but, no, it was, strange as it seems, another family caught up just like his in a downward spiral while all around them that golden age was a-borning.
For the benefit of the two or three people in the world who do not know, hell he wrote about it enough in half the damn unread radical periodicals and progressive journals in the country when such stories were the rage, his own family had started life and he had grown to young manhood in the housing projects, at that time not the notorious hell holes of crime and deprivation that they later became (and which he wrote many investigative reports about) but still a mark of being low, very low, on the social ladder at a time when others were heading to the nirvana of the newly emerging outer suburbs.
The housing project that he grew up in, officially the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments just outside of Boston, was originally meant to serve as a way station for returning veterans from World War II caught up in the post war housing shortage. Thus, his family of five were actually the first tenants in their unit, although it did not take long for the place, small and cramped, of shoddy construction befitting the low bid mentality of the construction company and the political judgment that this was strictly temporary, to seem old. Needless to say as well this project was all white, reflecting the population of city, Adamsville, at the time. Although he was not sure of the city’s current population break-down he had checked to find that that still very existing projects was about 20% minority, mainly Asian-American, reflecting the city's population change.
A recent trip back to the old homestead revealed that the place was in something of a time warp. The original plot plan consisted of a few hundred four-unit two-floor apartment complexes, a departure from the ubiquitous later high-rise prison-like hellholes at least. It looked, structurally, almost the same as in the 1950’s except that it was dirtier, much less kept-up and he believed that the asphalt sidewalks and streets have not been repaved since his family left in the late 1950s to move a quarter- step up the poor rung from dirt poor to just poor as church mice. A very visible police substation was the only apparent addition to the scene. That told him all he needed to know about the doings now. (Although in the old days he had thrilled, vicariously thrilled, to hard-bitten tales of local desperadoes holding up gas stations, robbing liquor stores and, occasionally pulling an armed robbery.)
This housing project is located on what, as local lore had it, was an isolated, abandoned piece of “ghost” farmland on a peninsula that juts out into a bay and is across from various sea-going industrial activities. This complex of industrial sites and ocean-related activity mars the effect of being near the ocean here. Certainly no Arcadian scenes come to mind. Moreover, he recalled (and on that return trip he swore he could almost smell the stuff) the smells and sounds from those activities were nauseating and annoying at times. A particularly pungent smell of some soap product filled the air on many a summer’s evening. Ships unloading, with their constant fog horns blowing, provided the sound effects.
A narrow two-lane, now deeply pot-holed, road was (is) is the only way in or out of this location. Over fifty years later the nearest shopping center or even convenient store is still several miles away requiring an automobile or reliance on haphazard and still infrequent public transportation. In short, and he had asked other people about this, one could live within shouting distance of the place and not know where it was. In short, a very familiar concept of public welfare social planning that he had endlessly railed against-out of sight, out of mind?
The ‘projects” were, in any case, where he passed his early childhood, including elementary school, Adamsville South. The elementary school was, however, located not in the projects but up that narrow one way out road previously mentioned some distance away at the beginning of another peninsula. That other peninsula, with its unobstructed views of the open ocean and freedom from the sight and sound of those industrial complexes, had many sought after old money, old fashioned Victorian houses and a number of then recently constructed upscale colonial-type houses favored by the up and coming middle class of the fifties. The place might as well have been in another world. The school nevertheless, at least in the 1950s, serviced the children of both peninsulas.
He thought hard before realizing that he never had one friend from that other peninsula. Sure he talked to the Jimmy Prescotts but always in school, not outside. Later conversations with others, who also grew up in the housing project, concurred with his observation. He blushed as he thought about the couple of times that he had wandered over into that other peninsula and of his being stopped by the local constabulary, even at that young age, and asked where he was from and what he was doing there.
This is as good a place as any to introduce what he called the ‘hood historian, Sherry. As part of his memory search he connected, by use of various resources including the Internet, with a number of people. One of them was Sherry, who is the real narrator here, and is the source for many of the observations and physical details that fill out this story. He and Sherry went to elementary school together. He remembered her as pretty, a working class pretty that would fade with the effects of childbirths and the toils of motherhood and other sorrows.
Sherry and her family, after his family left, stayed in the projects for almost thirty years so that she saw the place as it evolved from that previously mentioned way station for hard-pressed returning World War II veterans to the classic “projects” of media notoriety. She knew “the projects.” Moreover, from what he had gathered about her, although she did not have a political bone in her body, she now wore her working class background on her face, in her personality, and her whole manner. Not in abject defeat, however, but as a survivor. That too tells a tale.
As they reconnected the obvious place for them to start was a little trip down memory lane to old school days. Naturally, since he had an ulterior motive and had a fierce sense of class society, he wanted her opinion on the kids from the other peninsula. Sherry then related, in some detail, what she had to tell about her life in elementary school, not without a tear in her eyes even at this remove. She spend her whole time in that school being snubbed, insulted and, apparently, on more than one occasion physically threatened by the prissy girls from the other peninsula for her poor clothing, her poor manners and for being from “the projects.”
He said that he would spare the reader the details here, although if you have seen any of the problematic working class ‘coming of age’ movies or suburban teenage cultural spoofs the episodes she related are the grim real life underlying premises behind those efforts. You know the unkind, hell, cruel, snubs about hair not being “permed”just right, about wrong color (for the minute) dresses, or old style (for the minute), about not attending Miss Prissy’s (sic) after school dance classes, etc. Hell, even about her father being the janitor at one of the girls’ father’s shipyards. Moreover, she faced this barrage all the way through to high school graduation as well, including a nasty incident at her prom where one girl threw (or tried to throw) a drink on her hard fought for (and hard paid for too) dress. Jesus
It was painful for him to heard Sherry retell her story, and as he said, not without a few tears. Moreover, it was hard for him to hear because, although he did not face that other peninsula barrage then, he faced it later when his family moved to the other side of town and kids taunted him when they found out he was from “the projects.” Things like about his hand-me-down clothes, about his family not having a car most of the time, about his constant walking around town (rather than being “chauffeured” by mom), about his bringing his lunch rather than buying it at school (if you can believe that). And it got worst later when he went “beat” (well, imitation beat).
Now were the snubs and hurts due to Sherry’s (or his) personality? Maybe. She can be, now anyway, a little abrupt although he remembered a polite young girl. Is this tale a mere example of childhood’s gratuitous cruelty? Perhaps. Is this story the childhood equivalent of the working class battles at their nastiest on the picket lines of a strike? Hell, no. But the next time someone tells you that there are no classes in this society remember this story. Then remember Sherry’s tears. Damn.
Tales From The 'Hood- "The Romance of the Gun"
He, Peter Paul Markin, had spent his early childhood in an all-white public housing project, an unremarkable feat in those days and maybe today too although he did not think so unless you went to deep hill country in some Appalachia coal patch. That fact, that hard desperate white working poor fact in 1950s golden age America, drives this sketch, although only partially explains it. His later childhood, the time of his time, of his coming of age time, of his will he turn right or left, good or bad, up or down, or just get caught up in things like a lot of corner boy guys did was spent in a poor all-white working class neighborhood filled with small, cramped single-family homes packed in closely together with little yards and few amenities. Places where one could almost hear one neighbor snoring in the night or another screaming, usually at anyone, or no one, at any time. And those were the good days. Jesus.
In adulthood time he had lived in poor white neighborhoods, mixed student neighborhoods, the black enclaves of Oakland, Detroit and Washington, D.C., and, back in the days, in an integrated urban commune (for those who do not know that is a bunch of unrelated people living on the same premises by design). He had even, during the few times that he had had rich girlfriends, lived in the leafy suburbs. He now lives in a middling working class neighborhood. In short, he has have been all around the housing question. This story from the‘hood (okay, okay “the projects” just to keep a little literary consistency) deals with the relationship between where you live and crime. More particularly the tolerance for the culture of crime, really, the 'romance' of crime, if you will, that is inherent in living down at the bottom of society. Make no mistake, my friends, that is indeed a dangerous place.
More than one sociological survey has noted the correlation between low income and high crime rates, although I note that they tend to come up short, very short on what to do about it. That is, however, a point for another time. More importantly now is this question-where, dear reader, is that correlation closer than in the housing projects- down there in the mean streets of America, the streets of busted dreams, or no dreams? Peter Paul’s housing project did not start out as a haven for hoodlums. As he explained it to me initially the place was a way station, due to the extreme housing shortage, for returning World War II veteran like his father (and mine too if there had been such a thing up in poor proud Olde Saco in Maine in those days). But, in the nature of things, as those who were going to make it in post-war society moved on and the rest of us (yes, my family too) were left behind that is the reputation that it started to develop well before it was converted to a subsidized low-income housing project in the 1960's. His family had left by that point, but not without the scars.
In conversation with Sherry (his late invaluable ‘hood historian mentioned in an earlier sketch and an elementary school classmate) Peter Paul had asked about the fate of a number of his classmates, mainly boys that he had hung around with. Without exaggerating their numbers to buttress my point here, it appears to me, from her very detailed knowledge of their fates that an extraordinary number of boyhood friends wound up serving prison sentences for aggravated crimes, or died from unnatural causes early as a result of that life. Sherry related a number of such cases in her own family, including one younger brother still imprisoned, through several generations, not without a sense of embarrassment. Down among the desperate working poor the line between respectability and the lure of the lumpen lifestyle is, indeed, a very, very close thing.
Peter Paul, one dark time barroom night when he was in an expansive mood noted that this sociological fact was true, if a little less so, for the neighborhood where he came of age. He shocked me , moreover, when he confess to me that one of his own brothers spent considerable time in state prison for a laundry list of offenses, and another was in and out the county jails for many years for a host of petty crimes (mainly against property). I did not know that he even had brothers as he had never spoken of them and I had known him for many years then going back to the yellow brick road summer of love San Francisco 1960s days. His own brushes with the law have been for political offenses (except for one silly hitchhiking offense in Connecticut way back when, but you know how that state is on hitchhikers, or was) so those do not count. I guess that made Peter Paul the ‘good’ son just like Sherry was the good survivor. What gives here?
Part of the headline of this piece is titled “Romance of the Gun” and with reason. The gun, whether I am using this term here as a metaphor for toughness and a lumpen existence or actual guns, was central to ‘the projects’ culture. Not that he and the other younger boys ever had one (as far as he knew) but he knew older boys and men who did and did things with them. Things like gas station stickups, robbing taxis or the like. Those who were capable of that or, at least, had that reputation were looked up to, if not idolized (with a little fear thrown in). These things did not occur every day nor did they include police shoot-outs, drive-bys or anything dramatic but the thrill of learning about such exploits was palpable. It was like the air he breathed he said.
If imitation is a form of flattery then the lumpen existence of the older boys and men set the standard. The main thing was that they seemed to always have money in contrast to, let us say, his poor father who lived from check to check with hungry young mouths to feed and who constantly feared been laid off from the little work that he was able to obtain. No hero there for young boys, right? His brothers could not resist the draw of the lumpen life style and eventually were drawn into that life, as a way of life. But that is not where lumpen influence ended.
Even for a ‘good’ boy like Peter and some of the boys that he hung around with there were certain rituals to prove ‘manhood’. This inevitably entailed stealing things, at first from grocery stores, then department stores, and ultimately jewelry stores. He did it for a while but the glamour wore off soon enough and he retreated to the library and adventures of the mind. Some others, however, took it seriously and form part of the statistic of the ‘hood mentioned above but for him it was just too much work. But he was in the minority and took more than one physical beating for his nerdishness from the ‘boyos’. Still, he said those ‘hard boys’were something to wonder at.
Well, I can end this story by trying to draw a few conclusions. One of the things that drew me to working to defend the Black Panthers (at the times when they would cooperate with white leftists) and later the Irish Republican Army (Provos) in the old days were the simple facts that they, as least the street cadre, were from their own ‘hoods like mine, knew the busted dream scheme of life by heart just as I did, and were not afraid to pick up the gun to defend themselves, if necessary. I did not need to glorify the lumpen proletariat as the vanguard. I did not need to read Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth to theorize about the purifying nature of violence against the oppressor. I did not need to justify every idiotic criminal act as a revolutionary act. All I needed to do was remember those ‘hard boys’ Peter described, including his brothers, from his youth and what happened to them without a political perspective. So much for the “romance of the gun.” And Peter Paul Markin agrees.
When Billie Sought To Be Church Hall Dance Champ
<b>Click on the headline to link to a <i>YouTube</i> film clip of the Teen Angels performing <i>Eddie, My Love</i> to add some flavor to this sketch.< /b>
I, Peter Paul Markin, seemingly, had endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a classic rock series that went under the general title <i>The Rock ‘n’Roll Era</i>. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.
And we, we small-time punk (in the old-fashioned sense of that word), we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those of us who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billie whom I will talk about later, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.
Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery-operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion <i>Hail Marys</i> to get right Catholic, ears. Yah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of <i>Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?</i> anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.
And that pious, quietist, chase the devil and his (or her) devil’s music away, say a million Acts of Contrition, church-bent, Roman Catholic church-bent, part formed a great deal of the backdrop for how we related to that break-out rock music. And why we had to practically form a secret cult to enjoy it. Now you all know, since you all went to elementary school just like I did, although maybe you didn’t attend in the Cold War, red scare, we could-all-be-bombed-dead tomorrow 1950s like I did, that those mandatory elementary school dances where we rough-hewn boys learned, maybe we learned, our first social graces were nothing but cream puff affairs. Lots of red-faced guys and giggling girls. Big deal, right?
What you maybe don’t know, especially if you were not from a working class neighborhood (or a public housing project) made up of mainly Irish and Italian Roman Catholic families like I was is that “cream puff” school stuff was seen by the Church (need I add any more identifying words?) as the “devil’s playground.” Later, I found out from some Protestant friends that their church leaders felt the same way. No, not those Universalist-Unitarian types who think everything humankind does that is not hurtful is okay but real hard-nosed Protestants, like Episcopalians, Baptists, and Presbyterians. So to counter that secular godlessness, at least in our area, the Church sponsored Friday night dances. Chaste, very chaste, or that was the intention, Friday night dances.
Now these dances from an outside look would look just like those devil-sponsored secular school dances. They were, for example, held in the basement of the church (St. whoever, Our Lady of the wherever, The Sacred whatever, or fill in the blank), a basement, given the norms of public architecture, was an almost exact rectangular, windowless, linoleum-floored, folding chairs and tables, raised stage replica of the elementary school auditorium. That church locale, moreover, when dressed up like on those Friday nights with the usual crepe, handmade signs of welcome, and refreshment offerings also looked the same.
And just so that you don’t think I am going overboard they played the same damn (oops) music as at school, except the sound system (donated, naturally, by some pious parishioner, looking for good conduct points from the fiery-eyed "fire and brimstone" pastor) was usually barely audible. The real difference then, and maybe now, for all I know, was that rather than a few embarrassed public school teacher-chaperones drafted against their wills, I hope, or like to hope, every stick-in-the-mud person (or so it seemed) over the age of eighteen was drafted into the lord’s army for the evening. Purpose: to make sure there was no untoward, unnatural, unexpected, or unwanted touching of anything, by anyone, for any reason. So, now that I think about it, this was really the Friday night prison dance. But not always.
Of course all of this remembrance is just so much lead up to a Billie story. You know Billie, Billie from “the projects” hills. William James Bradley to be exact. The Billie who wanted fame and fortune (or at least girls) so bad that he could almost taste it. The Billie who, as I related before, entered a teenage talent show dressed up like Bill Haley and whose mother-made suit jacket arms fell off during the performance and he wound up with all the girls in schools as a consolation prize. Yes, that Billie, who also happened to be my best friend, or, maybe, almost best friend as we never did get it straight, in elementary school. Billie was crazy for the music, crazy to impress the tender young girls that he was very aware of, much more aware of than I was and earlier, with his knowledge, his love, and his respect for the music, rock music that is.
During the summer, and here I am speaking of the summer of 1958, these church-held dances started a little earlier and finished a little later. That was fine by us. But part of the reason was that during July (starting after the Fourth of July, if I recall) and August there was a weekly dance-off elimination contest. Now these things were meant to be to show off partner-type dancing skills so I never even dreamed of participating, although I was now hip to the girl thing (or at least twelve year old hip to it), and gladly. Not so Billie. You know, or if you don’t then I will tell you so you know now, that Billie was a pretty good singer, and a pretty good shaker as a dancer. Needless to say these skills were not on the official papal list of ways to prove you had some Fred Astaire-like talent. What you needed to demonstrate, with a partner, a girl partner, was waltz-like, fox-trot stuff. Stuff you were glad to know when last, slow dance time came around but not before, please, not before.
But see, if you didn’t know before, I will remind you, Billie was a fiend to win a talent contest, a contest that, the way he figured it, was his ticket out of "the projects" and into all the cars he wanted, all the girls, and half of everything else in the world. Yah, I know, but poor boys have dreams too. And I don’t suppose it is too early to remind you, like I did with the lost sleeve teenage talent show, that Billie later spent those pent-up energies less productively, much less productively once he knew the score, his score about life. This night, this Friday night, at the start of the contest Billie was going for the brass ring though. See, Billie, secretly, at least secretly from me, was taking dance lessons, slow dance lessons with Rosalie, Christ Rosalie, the prettiest girl in our class, the girl that if I had known the word then I would have called fetching, very fetching. That was, and is, high praise from me. And, see also, teaching the pair the ropes is none other than Rosalie’s mother who before she became a mother was some kind of dance queen (I don’t know, or don’t remember, if I knew the details of that woman’s prior life before then). It was almost like the “fix was in.”
Now you know just as well as I do that I have no story to tell, or at least no story worth telling, if Billie and Rosalie don’t make it out of the box, if they just get eliminated quickly. Sure they made it, and now they were standing there getting ready to do battle against the final pair for the sainted dance championship of the christian world, projects branch. Now my take on the dancing all summer was there wasn’t much difference, at least noticeable difference, between the pairs.
I think the judges thought so too, the junior priest, a priest that the pastor threw into this dance thing because he was closer to our ages than the old-timer "fire and brimstone" pastor was, and four ladies from the Ladies' Sodality usually took quite a bit of time before deciding who was eliminated. Rosalie’s mother (and my mother, as well) thought the same thing when we compared notes. See, now with Billie under contract (oh, yah, naturally I was his manager, or something like that) I had developed into an ace dance critic. Mainly though, I was downplaying the opposition to boost my pair's chances, and, incidentally, falling, falling big, for Rosalie. And not just for her dancing.
So here we were at the finals. It was a wickedly hot night in that dungeon basement so the jackets and ties, if wore (and that needed to be worn by the contestant males), were off. Also, by the rules, each finalist couple got to choose their own music and form of dancing. The first couple did this dreamy Fred Astaire-Ginger Rodgers all hands flailing and quick-movement thing that even impressed me. After than performance, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billie talking to Rosalie, talking fast and talking furiously. Something was up, definitely, something was up.
Well, something was up. Billie, old sweet boy Billie, old get out of the projects at any cost Billie, old “take no prisoners” Billie decided that he was going to stretch the rules and play to his strength by doing a Bill Haley’s <i>Rock Around The Clock</i> jitterbug thing to show the judges his “moves” and what we would now call going "outside the box." And he had gotten Rosalie, sweet, fetching, deserves better Rosalie, to go along with him on it. See, Rosalie, during all those dance lesson things had fallen for old Billie and his words were like gold. Damn.
I will say that Billie and Rosalie tore the place up; at least I guess Billie did because I was, exclusively, looking at Rosalie who really danced her head off. Who won? Let me put it this way, this time the judges, that priest and his coterie of do-gooders didn’t take much time deciding that the other couple won. Rosalie was crushed. Billie, like always Billie, chalked it up to the "fix" being in for the other couple. Life was against the free spirits, he said, something it took me a lot longer to figure out. Rosalie's family moved away not long after that contest, like a lot of people just keeping time at the projects until their ships to better days came in, and I heard later that she was still furious at Billie for crossing up her chances of winning like that. Yah, but, boy, she could twirl that thing.
For The "Projects" Boys... And Girls
Tom Waits Jersey Girl Lyrics
Got no time for the corner boys,
Down in the street makin' all that noise,
Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,
Cause tonight i'm gonna be with you.
'cause tonight i'm gonna take that ride,
Across the river to the jersey side,
Take my baby to the carnival,
And i'll take you all on the rides.
Down the shore everything's alright,
You're with your baby on a saturday night,
Don't you know that all my dreams come true,
When i'm walkin' down the street with you,
Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.
You know she thrills me with all her charms,
When i'm wrapped up in my baby's arms,
My little angel gives me everything,
I know someday that she'll wear my ring.
So don't bother me cause i got no time,
I'm on my way to see that girl of mine,
Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world,
When you're in love with a jersey girl,
Sing sha la la la la la la.
And i call your name, i can't sleep at night,
Sha la la la la la la.
*************
Peter Paul Markin comment:
Funny how some stories get their start. A few years back one of my old Adamsville South Elementary corner boys, Denny Romano, he of the squeaky burgeoning tenor in our impromptu 1950s back end of the school-yard summer nights doo wop group (and I of the squeaky bass, low, very low bass) “connected” with me again. He did so through one of those looking for old high school graduates-based Internet sites that relentlessly track you down just as, in your dotage; you think you have finally gotten out from under that last remnant speck of fighting off the last forty years of your teen alienation and teen angst.
Denny asked me to speak of the old “corner boy” days down at “the projects,” the Adamsville Housing Authority low-rent housing where the desperately poor, temporarily so or not, were warehoused in our town in the post-World War II good night when some returning veteran fathers needed a helping hand to get them going back into civilian life. Corner boys, in case you were clueless (or too young to know of anything but mall rat-dom), were guys, mainly, who “hung out” together. Poor boys getting a long way from home, or trying to, no money, no other place to go, or with no transportation to get some place, hung out in front of a million mom and pop variety corner variety stores, corner pizza parlors, corner bowling alleys, corner fast food joints, hell, even corner gas stations in some real small towns from what some guys have told me when I asked them.
Here is the odd part though. Yah, we were corner boys even that young, although we had no corner, no official corner like a corner mom and pop variety store, or a pizza parlor like I did later at Doc’s Drugstore in middle school and then later as the king hell king’s scribe to Frankie Riley in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor but just the back end of the elementary school, as long as we were quiet and nobody cried murder and mayhem to the cops. The following, in any case, a little revised, represents my“homage” to Denny and the gang from those by-gone days and even the girls that ninety-three point four percent of the time I was scared to death of/ fascinated by. Well, some things haven’t changed anyway.
*******
Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, the Old Sailor’s Home, the Shipyard (abandoned now) and Sea Street. Yes, those streets and places from the old public housing project down in the Irishtown section of Adamsville surely evoke imagines of the near-by sea that touched its edges, of long ago sailing ships, and of battles fought off some mist-driven coast by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And with the wherewithal to hold on to their booty (no, not that booty, dough, prizes, stuff like that) But, of course, we know that anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville had to have an instinctual love of the sea, and fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turned her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings.
Today I look to the landward side of that troubled housing project peninsula, that isolated expanse of land jutting out of the water and filled with wreckage of another kind, the human kind . No, this will not be a sociological survey of working class pathologies made inevitable by the relentless struggle to scramble for life's necessities, the culture of poverty, or the like. Nor will it be a political screed about rising against the monsters that held us down, or the need for such a rising. Nor even about the poetic license necessary to cobble pretty words together to speak of the death of dreams, dreamless dreams or, maybe, just accepting small dreams to fit a small life. Rather, I am driven by the jumble of images that passed through the thoughts of a ragamuffin of a project boy as he tried to make sense out of a world that he did not create, and that he had no say in.
Ah, the scenes. Warm, sticky, humid summer nights, the air filled with the pungent, overpowering soapy fragrance from the Proctor & Gamble factory across the channel that never quite left one's nostrils. Waking up each morning to face the now vanished Fore River Shipyard superstructure; hearing the distant clang of metals being worked to shape; and, the sight of flickering welding torches binding metals together. The endless rust-encrusted, low-riding oil tankers coming through the channel guided to port by high whistle-blowing tugs.
The interminable wait for the lifeline, seemingly never on time, Eastern Mass bus that took one and all in and out through that single Palmer Street escape route to greater Adamsville. Or that then imposing central housing authority building where I was sent by my mother, too proud to go herself, with the monthly rent, usually short. Oh, did I mention Carter's Variety Store, the sole store for us all the way to Sea Street but police take notice off limits to corners boys young or old, another lifeline. Many a time I reached into Ma's pocketbook to steal money, or committed other small hoodlum wanna-be larcenies, in order to hike down that long road and get my sugar-drenched stash (candy bars, soda, a.k.a. tonic but that word is long gone, Twinkles, Moon Pies, and so on, sugar-drenched all)
And the kids. Well, the idea in those “golden” post-war days was that the projects were a way-station to better things, or at least that was the hope. So there was plenty of turn-over of friends but there was a core of kids, kids like me and my brothers, who stayed long enough to learn the ropes. Or get beaten down by guys just a little hungrier, a little stronger, or with just a little bigger chip on their shoulder. Every guy had to prove himself, tough or not, by hanging with guys that were "really" tough. That was the ethos, and "thems were the rules." Rules that seemed to come out of eternity’s time, and like eternity never challenged.
I took my fair share of nicks but also, for a moment, well for more than a moment as it turned out, I was swayed by the gangster lifestyle. Hell, it looked easy. With old elementary school classmate Rickie B., Denny knows who I am talking about, who, later, served twenty years, maybe more for all I know, for a series of armed robberies, I worked my first ‘clip’ in some downtown Adamsville Square jewelry store, Sid’s I think, the one with all the onyx rings on display in the front and the twelve signs about how you could have anything in the place on very easy terms, only a million installments (with interest piling up, of course). No, thanks.
The clip, again for the clueless, is nothing but kids’ stuff, strictly for amateurs because no professional thief would risk his or her good name for such a low-rent payoff. The deal was one guy went in and got the salesperson’s attention while the other guy ripped off whatever was “hanging low on the tree.” In that arrangement I was usually the “tree” guy not because I had quick hands, although come to think of it I did (and big eyes, big greedy eyes for all the booty, and you know what booty means here now since I told you before, dough), but because I didn’t have the knack of talking gibberish to adults. Hell, you probably did the clip yourself, maybe for kicks. And then forgot about it for some other less screwy kick. Not me.
Okay, so at that point maybe every kid, every curious kid ready in whatever manner to challenge authority and I (and most of my then corner boys, although not Denny if I recall correctly) are even. Here is the tie-breaker though. Moving on, I was the "holder" for more expansive enterprises with George H. (who, later, got killed when a drug deal he was promoting, a lonely gringo deal down in Mexico, went south on him). See George was a true artist, a true sneak thief who was able to get into any house by stealth and sheer determination. Mainly houses up in Adams Shore where people actually had stuff worth stealing unlike in the projects where the stuff was so much Bargain Center specials (the local Wal-Mart-like operation of its day).
George needed me for two, no three, things. First, I was the “look-out” and even the clueless know what that means. Secondly, I actually held and carried some of the loot that he passed to me out of the window or door, and one time out a backyard bulkhead (the good stuff, televisions, silverware, a stamp collection, a coin collection, and some other stuff that I have forgotten about, was in the basement family room). Lastly, as George started to draw school and police attention I actually “held”the stuff in a safe location (which I will not disclose here just in case the various statutes of limitations have not run out). That went on for a while but George got busted for something else, some unruly child baloney rap thing, and that was that.
That was just a kid’s gangster moment, right? It was not all larcenies and kid dreams of some “big score” to get himself, and his family, out from under though. It couldn’t be for a kid, or the whole world, poor as it was, would have just collapsed over my head, and I would not be here to honor Denny’s request.
Oh, the different things that came up. Oddball things like Christmas tree bonfires on New Year’s Eve where we scurried like rats just as soon as neighbors put their trees out to be taken away in order to assemble them on the beach ready to be fired up and welcome in the new year. Or annual Halloween hooliganism where we, in a sugar frenzy, worked the neighborhood trick or treat racket hitting every house like the 82nd Airborne Division, or some such elite unit running amok in Baghdad or some Iraqi town ...
Hey, wait a minute, all this is so much eyewash because what, at least in my memory's eye, is the driving "projects" image is the "great awakening." Girls. Girls turning from sticks to shapes just around the time that I started to notice the difference, and being interested in that different if not always sure about what it meant. You don’t need a book to figure that out, although maybe it would have helped. And being fascinated and ill at ease at the same time around them, and being a moonstruck kid on every girl that gave me a passing glance, or what I thought was a passing glance, and the shoe leather-wearing out marathon walking, thinking about what to do about them, especially when the intelligence-gatherers told you about a girl who liked you.
And the innocent, mostly dreaded, little petting parties, in dank little basements that served as 'family rooms' for each apartment, trying to be picked by the one you want to pick you and, well, you get the drift. Remind me to tell you some time, and here is where Denny comes in, how we put together, a bunch of corner-less corner boys, a ragtag doo wop group one summer for the express, the sole, the only purpose of, well, luring girls to the back of the school where we hung out. And it worked.
Now a lot of this is stuff any kid goes through, except just not in "the projects." And some of it is truly "projects" stuff - which way will he go, good or bad? But this next thing kind of ties it together. Just about the time when I was seriously committed to a petty criminal lifestyle, that “holding” stuff with my corner boy comrade George, I found the Thomas Crane Library branch that was then in the Adamsville South Elementary School (now located further up the street toward Adamsville Square). And one summer I just started to read every biography or other interesting book they had in the Children's Section. While looking, longingly, over at the forbidden Adult Section on the other side of the room for the good stuff. And I dreamed. Yes, I am a "projects" boy, and I survived to tell the tale. Is that good enough for you, Denny?
Those Old Homesick Blues
“Good luck, and don’t forget us, Peter Paul,” yelled John “Swifty” Sweeney as the last of the Markin household goods were placed in the moving van for the trip across town to their new digs in North Adamsville. “Don’t worry Swifty I’ll be back in a couple of days. No way as I going to leave my friends here in the projects. I didn’t want to move so I’ll be back just like nothing happened,” yelled Peter Paul right back. And that simple statement, kind of, for the moment at least, put Peter Paul’s, and his best friend Swifty’s world back in order.
Peter spoke the truth when he said that he didn’t want to move, move even from the projects that he had been moaning and groaning to get out of for years, once he realized that there was no cache, no respect and no percentage in being from that far down on the totem pole once he escaped to North Adamsville. The taste, taint, touch of the projects followed like some low-tide mud flat fetid clam swamp.
His parents had, in that hard-scramble both working crumb bum jobs 1950s “golden age” gathered enough dough together to get a midget house in North Adamsville where his mother, Delores, had grown up and where his grandparents had always lived. But when push came to shove and moving day arrived he went “on strike.” Tears streaming down his face he had refused, utterly refused, to help load things up in boxes and crates and it was all that he could do to compose in his bravado “farewell” to his friend.
And so a few days later, boxes and crates settled in the house, unpacked mainly, although as always with moves it takes time to get everything new set up, Peter Paul got out his old Schwinn one-speed bicycle with the patented foot brake petal and started out across town to the projects like some stray lemming back to the sea, and back to the only life that he had known in his long twelve, almost thirteen years of life. He rode like the wind through the town hardly containing himself, his thoughts, and his energies to be back with the old tribe, the guys (mainly) who made project life at least bearable. And number one, numero uno, in that universe was Swifty (and had been for a while now that Billie Bradley, king hell king of the Adamsville projects night, junior division, had “stepped-up” to robbing gas stations with older guys and Peter Paul had backed off, backed way off from that scene) .
Sure enough as Peter Paul headed up Captain’s Walk the central hang-out place there was Swifty. He was hanging out with Bennie Bopper, a guy from school, a goof in a lot of ways but a guy to keep company with until something better turned up, AND Theresa Green, Peter Paul’s old crush flame goddess save-the-last-dance-for-me sitting very close, very, very close to Swifty. Peter Paul flushed and then yelled out, “She’s your girl now, I guess, Swifty.” And already feminine female Theresa soft-whispered back, “No sir, Peter Paul I am just keeping Swifty company, Benny’s my honey now, now that you’re gone.” Peter Paul flushed again, flushed that Theresa, who did not say word one when he told her his family was moving across town and flushed that Benny Bopper took his place. Although now that he had“new” eyes he could see where a girl like Theresa might go for Benny on the rebound. Good old Swifty, no way.
So that day, a week later, and a couple of weeks and a couple more times after that Peter Paul would show up and he and Swifty and Benny’s Theresa (with or without Benny) would cut up old torches. And on those days Peter Paul was happy, happy for the smells, sounds and sights of the old neighborhood, the old blessed projects.
Then one day a couple of months later Peter Paul mounted his trusty bike for another trip “home.” Damn that it would have to be a windy day, a windy day when he decided, not exactly knowing the best route, that if he travelled along the shoreline he would probably make good enough time and maybe cut across some of that wind. Now for those who must know the exact route this effort required going over the high-span Squaw River Bridge, the bridge that separated North Adamsville from Adamsville proper. Not a big bridge not a Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate concoction, far from it. But almost as if there was some mystery pull (or push, for that matter) to it that bridge seemed a bridge too far, an un-arched, un-steeled, un-spanned, un-nerved bridge too far.
See Peter knew that the die was cast that day, or at least he did when he had time to reflect on it later. Knew one- speed bicycle boy, dungarees rolled up against dog bites and meshed gears, churning through endless heated, sweated, no handkerchief streets, names, all the parts of ships, names, all the seven seas, names, all the fishes of the seas, names, all the fauna of the sea, names that the old home was past. That once twelve-years old, now thirteen, bicycle boy had hard churned miles to go before sleep, searching for the womblike home, for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, hard against the unnamed angst, hard against those changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing had to move on. End of story.
The Long Road Home-Redux
For Jack
A bridge too far, an un-arched, un-steeled (or is it un-ironed), unsparing (no question on that one), unnerved bridge too far. A divided heart metaphor, perhaps, an overused metaphor, maybe, but sometimes that dividing line, dividing lines really, represented by a childhood bridge’s span is the only way to describe what is what. And more importantly is the only way to describe physically, hero of this saga, although hero is maybe just too large a word evoking greek gods, hubris and serious testing of fates, the bicycle boy’s dilemma.
One speed bicycle boy, handed-down Schwinn diamond blue red bicycle boy with pedal foot-slammed brakes to guide against crashes, stray dogs, swerving autos making diagonal rather than right hand- cornered turns and absent-minded pedestrians carelessly crossing in designated crosswalks just when he gathered speed, one speed, pushed on toward that divided bridge and the latest version of his the point of no return test.
Wearing a Fruit of The Loom tee-shirt, white, with a trace outline of wetness showing for all the world, all the looking world, to see up under arms. Hell it was summer and humid already, maybe a dog day July or probably August, they, the days and months, all rolling together and he had made this trip before in such weathers, in fact all weathers except hard northern winter gale snow squalls. And dungarees, faded from hundred times washed hand-me-down whirlpool washing machine use of older brothers in hardscrabble no work for father, or not much work, and mother wish working her stale life away in some franchise donut shop, serving coffee and off the arm to working class customers going to and fro working spots and leaving, leaving working class-sized tips, meaning not much, not much at all. Except wish dreams, and work damns.
Dungarees, faded or not, rolled up against dog bites, no question anymore since last summer, he Schwinn bicycle boy, had actually been bitten once by a stray alert dog who came out of some foggy mist seaside house without warning and without provocation, and rolled up guarded against meshed gears of cloth and metal, but you knew that, or you knew that your mother warned you against such a fate if you left the world unrolled, oh well, yah ma dismissal, at least one hundred times.
Yah, now bicycle boy, we no longer need to identify him as Schwinn, or wearing white tee-shirts or faded dungarees bicycle boy, is up to speed, safely past dog house and moving along friendlier shore roads this time riding across seaside town day to get that eternally thankful breeze blowing off Adamsville Bay. Now churning through endless tar pit heated, sweated, beads of sweat coming off the manhole cover to match, did I say match, no to trump, his own heat and underarm circle wetness, no handkerchief, damn of all days to forget a handkerchief, streets. No railroad man’s soiled sweated, stink handkerchief, red, solid red, found in some forgotten railroad track siding when he made another leap to break out of the hard-edged 1950s be-bop night and day dream of freedom, and train smoke.
Street names passing, all the parts of ships, taffrails, captains walks, quarterdecks, sextant-blasted wheelhouses, galleys, even the planks, a special place where treasure , and betrayal, fight it out for tribal loyalties or some stick, stick signifying simply youth, not stick-in-the-mudness, not yet anyway, maiden’s blushed kiss, stolen treasure worthy of more than railroad handkerchief, red, solid red, wipe. Bicycle boy laughed to himself as he rode, thinking of backlogged thoughts in sunnier (and less humid) times. And some stray blushed kiss that would not let him be, would disturb his sleep on more than one night.
Street names, all the seven seas, atlantic, pacific, indian, artic, coral, china, ah he forgot the order, not a good sign, must be the humid-numbing weather, for a boy who could make a joke, and make stick (remember stick signifying youth only) maidens unashamed of blushed kisses laugh at the thought, of knowing enough geography and knowing exactly where to find the place on the map to call himself the Prince of Lvov once. And know too that he wished to “discover” all those seas, and their names not just from maps, if only, if only he could get out of the stinking projects. The stinking born in projects from which he at one time, although not now of course did believe could ever be escaped from (and he later realized that maybe, just maybe he couldn’t). And funny he had gotten out or better had moved out, or his family had with him in tow, and still he was wishing about those seas even if he had forgotten the order of the names, and half-forgotten prince lvov kisses that had turned to ashes. And he still wished about getting out of that stinking project, yah, getting the stink blown off his back from that low-rent scene.
Street names, all the fishes of the seas, tetra, halibut, cod, of course, grown and harvested just some miles, not bicycle miles but automobile miles, a few miles down the road, mackerel, holy or not, he laughed to himself at that, scrod, pickled herring, jesus, who could eat that, oil-soaked sardines, ditto, red scrupper, macko some shark, infinite sea oceans names to go with seven seas and adventures, hardly wait to get out of town adventures but just now needing, desperately needing to get back to back born places, to get some familiar ground under his feet, to take the curse off that stink that has clouded his mind, the one to match the low-tide mephitic stinks down by the shore that he was then passing. And fetid swollen river swamps and reedy mud-caked straw wind marshes breezing that life-saving sea breeze too.
Street names, all the fauna of the sea, seaweed, algae, sea salad, sea cucumbers, see sea, all mixed up, all washed rumble tumble to shore in rushing torrid, churned-up waves crashing aimlessly but relentlessly to shore. But not today, today no crashing waves to help along the slight lip sweat-forming wheels churning boy, a displaced boy(no need to speak of bicycles anymore either) except for that tepid splashed flat pancake of a wave that also heads aimlessly to the waiting shore million year stones waiting to turn to sand , to wash them clean a while. He laughed at that too, washed clean alright. Not him, never him.
Names.
Twelve-years old, almost thirteen, hard-churned boy numberless miles to go before sleep, after the bridge battle, which way home or the sea. Which way, find the hidden quest route to Chinese splendor or buried treasure beneath those stones, at least in his mind, and go back to old time haunts, and small age memories of, okay, stick maidens, blushed kisses (this time his) and “going to the plank.” Ah, memory, memory-etched memory be good (and do not disturb goodnight sleeps, for once).
Searching, ever searching for the wombic home, is there such a word, and should he say it, should he write it, or should he even think it in his sin-heavy world. Searching for the certainties (silly childhood certainties he knew, but could do nothing about except search), for the old haunts (secret mirror caves, seaside rest graveyards before those sea breeze marsh grasses, and dank cellars filled with stolen kisses, and small wave booty trinkets, but don’t tell), for the plank, for the seaside graveyards with the dusted, rotting bones of ancient mariners, tars all, who filled the seven seas with their desires, their venom, and their hubris. He knew there was such a word as that, that hubris, because he had looked it up, and had actually, personally seen it in action more than once, although the acts seen had nothing, nothing in this wicked old world, to do with greek godly things. With titanic struggles to roll rocks up hills, to right wrongs against the powerful misbegotten night, to challenge god things, and fates. He didn’t laugh at that word though, but turned red first with anger, anger that he would duck things rather churn up waves, and offend no gods. No sir.
Searching, once again for other Schwinn travel friends (de riguer Schwinn, logo-conscious), for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, the heist boys, the “clip” artist boys snatching penny candy, valentine, may day boxes of candy, onyx rings with diamonds in the center, five and dime trinkets, anything that fit into speak of love (not lvov), faded dungaree pockets, and didn’t bulge too much , that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, but it had cemented them together for “eternity,”boyhood projects eternity broken when he wrong-crossed that bridge span, and didn’t turn back.
Yah, bicycle boy this day is searching, searching hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, searching see.
And searching hard too against the unnamed angst, hard against those unnamed, maybe unnamable, changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing and no bridge can stop that, not on this hot humid day, and maybe not ever but he would have to see about that, see about that it as it came along.
In Teen Dance Club Night
Peter Paul, seemingly, had endlessly gone back to his early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a classic rock series that went under the general title <i>The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era</i>. And, as he furtively pointed out, while time and ear had eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for his generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune in to music.
And they, as Peter Paul confessed to me one rainy booze-soaked night a few years ago, they small-time punk (in the old-fashioned sense of that word), they hardly “wet behind the ears” elementary school kids, and that is all they were for those who were then claiming otherwise, listened their ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of his, not his grammar school best friend “wild man”Billie who he had told me about before and promised to talk more about some other time, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like the more brazen boys; Peter Paul’s (really Billie’s) corner boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.
Well, this Peter knew, boy and girl alike tuned in on their transistor radios (small battery- operated radios mainly held to the ear but that they could also put in their pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in his household (and just a little later my Olde Saco, Maine one too) was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious “you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil’s music” and you had better say about eight zillion <i>Hail Marys</i> to get right Catholic, ears. Yah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of< i>Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?</i> anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy their jail-break cravings.
And they had their own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that< i>Zeitgeist</i> today might say, their sub-group cultural expression. Their “cool” things, nothing hot, nothing sticky to the touch then. He had told me in an earlier sketch about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangouts with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered) hanging from the lips, Coke, big -sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor juke box coin devouring, hold the onions on the pizza I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. And, of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, natch. Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “ inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working- class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them).
But the< i>crème de la crème</i> to beat all was the teen night club. The over fourteen and under eighteen teen night club. Easy concept, and something that could only have been thought up by someone in cahoots with parents (or maybe it was them alone, although could they have been that smart). Open a“ballroom” (in reality some old VFW, Knight of Columbus, Elks, etc. hall that was either going to waste or was ready for the demolition ball), bring in live music on Friday and Saturday night with some rocking band (but not too rocking, not Elvis swiveling at the hips to the gates of hell rocking, no way), serve the kids drinks, tonic, …, oops, sodas (Coke, Pepsi, Grape and Orange Nehi, Hires Root Beer, etc.), and have them out of there by midnight, unscathed. All supervised, and make no mistake these things were supervised, by something like the equivalent of the elite troops of the 101st Airborne Rangers.
And they, from Billie on down, bought it, and bought into it hard. And, if you had that set-up where you lived, you bought it too. Why? Come on now, have you been paying attention? Girls, tons of girls (or boys, as the case may be). See, even doubting Thomas-type parents gave their okay on this one because of that elite troops of the 101st Airborne factor. So some down at the heels, tee-shirted, engineer- booted Jimmy or Johnny Speedo from the wrong side of the tracks, all boozed up and ready to “hot rod” with that ‘boss”’57 Chevy that he just painted to spec, was no going to blow into the joint and carry Mary Lou or Peggy Sue away, never to be seen again. No way.
That stuff happened, sure, but that was on the side. This is not what drove that scene for the few years while Peter Paul and the others were still getting wise to the ways of the world. The girls (and guys) were plentiful and friendly in that guarded, backed up by 101st Airborne way (damn it). And they had their…sodas (I won’t list the brands again, okay). But know this, and know this true, they blasted on the music (and later my corner boys did too). The music on some of those compilations previously mentioned to give you an idea of what was what. I will, in agreement with Peter Paul, tell you some of the stick outs, strictly A-list stuff, from those teen club nights so you get the flavor of those hormonally-maddened times:
<i>Save The Last Dance For Me</i>, The Drifters (oh, sweet baby, that I have had my eye on all night, please, please, James Brown, please, save that last one, that last dance for me); <i>Only The Lonely</i>, Roy Orbison (for some reason the girls loved covers of this one, and thus, we, meaning the boys“loved” it too); <i>Alley Oop</i>, The Hollywood Argyles (a good goofy song to break up the sexual tension that always filled the air, early and late, at these things as the mating ritual worked its mysterious ways);< i>Handy Man</i>, Jimmy Jones( a personal favorite, as I kept telling every girl, and maybe a few guys as well, that I was that very handy man that the gals had been waiting, waiting up on those lonely week day nights for. Egad!); <i>Stay</i>, Maurice Williams and The Zodiacs (nice harmonics and good feeling); <i>New Orleans</i>, Joe Jones (great dance number as the twist and other exotic dances started to break into the early 1960s consciousness); and, <i>Let The Little Girl Dance</i>, Billy Bland (yes, let her dance, hesitant, saying no at first, honey , please, please, no I will not invoke James Brown on this one, please).
“The Women Question –Redux”
-For Neal
Lindo, lindos. Spanish is the loving tongue and has been for a while now against the harsh light of English faux- forked loving tongues but that is not what he meant, he a man now well-versed in pocas palabras, okay. And English forked tongues too. But then, the time he, Peter Paul one besotted night, was talking about then, 1960 then, holy hell’s fool, muttering a mile a minute as if to stop would break the spell, and break any chance for, well, happiness, kiddish happiness. Muttering that mile a minute for Irish girls don’t go nears (same parish even, Sacred Heart, Christ, no double christ), don’t even think about nears (same parish or not), or half-irish nears either (heathens like him, as his very, very Irish grandfather would say, giving his sonny boy, him, a dispensation for some mother‘s fault, but of that more later).
What he meant was this girl that was sitting next to him, this 1960 eighth- grade girl, Irish or half-Irish sitting next to him in art class. (Irish by surname but mix is the name of the game in golden age America, in Jack’s America being born and to call Irish is the beginning of wisdom and eight hundred year tyrannies by bloody English forebears don’t hurt either the big question though, the dispensating grandfather high on high mass incense question is-is she “one of us?”) She had to be Irish or half Irish, no question, because in the Little Dublin section of old North Adamsville then everybody was one or the other, or else. But that question out of the way (and he, devilish he had thought of several scenarios, several genealogical scenarios to entice her to talk) she disturbed his sleep although to her he did not exist, had not existed, would not exist, ever.
And whatever glory she would go on to, or him, for that matter, that would always be the case because he had come the wrong year, 1959, and, in case anyone had forgotten, from over in the Adamsville projects. Or he had not lived in North Adamsville all that long and had not started out with her at North Adamsville Junior High School (like that was a reason, but it was, such are the ways of junior high social pecking disorder learned if at no other place then at the weekly “no dance” school dance, and it smarted). Or she didn’t like guys who were smugly smart-assed (learned from Frankie Larkin, corner boy leader Billy’s brother, who, as it turned out he found out later that she loathed because he would not give her a “tumble.”) Or he was too catholic church damn blasphemous laughing at splashed holy water, getting high on high mass incense, and muttered, exhaustively muttered Stations of the Cross.
Or, refreshed memory continuing, she preferred (as it turned out later) football guys and not half-artists, half-bookish nerds, half- mad poets, although he also didn’t know it, the half-mad poet blood curse part. She was most definitely not interested in some bay rum-trumped cowlick- haired be-bop stumble bum flannel-shirted (even in summer), wearing black chinos (handed down from ancient brotherhood brothers in hard family progressions because, because my friends, they were still wearable even in 1950s change your style with your mood America, daily if possible, good aged America touted golden age, America wanted to beat beatnik, faux beatnik, if the real story be told.)
Beautiful, beautifuls, beatitude, beat, beat up, beat around (around the bush I guess) beautiful streets walked eternally walked searching beauty, she was not beautiful, not spanish exotic beautiful or at least not from later class picture for remembrance looked beautiful but she was, she was, well, siting right there next to him in art class, and she was, well, spunky, and alive and distantly noblesse if anyone, male or female, in that crowded little one-size-fits-all two by four town, Adamsville to name signify it, later working class to social signify it, would name the damn thing but then just project boys and proper across the tracks (right side of tracks) girls fond of football players, class leader-ness, and cheerleader jumps would not do.
Disturbed sleep, yes, walked streets, yes, worn-out sneakers (or shoes, forgotten buster brown Thom McAn shoes), yes, fussed dreams yes, endlessly walked streets with head prepared notes just in case the winds passed by and they (he and lindo she) were caught on the same sidewalk. Things like that happen you know, and did happen once, but he averted his eyes, crossed the street, and revised his prepared notes, just in future case. And she passed, passed like the wind, and sweet schoolgirl fragrance, or some scented soap, and no sorrow and no remembrance, and no talk at school about how they just kind of missed each other and what were you doing just then, and such of revised notes.
And without a murmur, without as much as a by your leave (quaint expression), she graduated from eighth grade (see the system was different then and eighth grade junior high led to ninth grade high school crushed invisibleness and misspoken dreams). And he with her. And she to football player-reflected glory and he to nerdish road running, mad poet existence, stealing out in the North Adamsville night to hide, hide his flannel face, his black chinos, his eternal be-bop midnight sunglasses in early morning subway trains headed toward Harvard Square and a new day borning, and he (as he explained to me later), crazy to be there but still longing, although no longer lonely streets wandering (or revising notes either) to see if she was made of anything more than stuffed straw, and spunk.
So he, too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before his time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic cheerleader windows. Those lonely glance streets beckoned, he swore they beckoned, even in passé corridors anonymously passed even though in a right world any god child should have been able to call on ancient school memories to nod that simple nod that men nod to each other without qualm or qualification, even in lonely Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford four- in- the- morning beyond desire, or distracted dream night.
Later Spanish-style exotics would line up, line up if you can believe that, with no averted eyes and maybe, hopefully maybe, some exotic-tinged dreams in need of sharing but that was later and so some fluff Irish no nonsense closed streets femme, hankering for her gridiron goliath (nice, right) filled his anguished night. And he too silly to tumble, to tumble to dancing Spanish-eyed senoritas with lust in their hearts and a couple of James Joyce something books on their laps. Jesus, were you crazy.
Such was the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for him, no jack swagger or reflected glory of jack swagger kick ass cuba, or trying to, kick ass vietnam, kick ass boom-boom soviet union, or bobby goof, sending missiles or dreams to jim crow Mississippi, as they tried to run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. Him, he would take exotics, or lindos, and grab each and every one as if his life depended on it, and it did, if they ever cross his path, his lonely only path. He would sort out the other stuff, the remembrance stuff (jesus, would he), the right and wrong way stuff, and that faint, ever faint fragrance, every woman, including halfback-addled irish (all irish, he checked, or rather grandpa“is she one of us” shamrock proud checked) demons girls sitting next to him in eighth grade art class emitted on passing means streets. That last one had passed just then on sun-filled forsaken early morning streets and would disturb his sleep that night.
“The Slows Don’t Knows”
-For Allan
Sweated dust bowl nights, maybe dog day July or August, as his memory’s eye kept returning to sweated scenes those months inevitably play their assigned sullen-producing role. After all who would, metabolism whacked out or not, temperature climes hard-wired genetically fixed or not, sweat (really perspire but we will not hang the writer on that distinction, okay) in say January or early February in cold northern hemisphere artic winds drift. But let’s just call it sweated, hand the guy a towel or handkerchief, and let him run himself silly this moonless dank night. Although something more was needed, something more than a handkerchief, more than that old railroad man’s rusted red one found in some abandoned track siding on another sweated night, that time working his furrowed eyebrow to freedom roads, freedom roads before his time, before his generation’s on the road time, and certainly before magical mystery tour yellow brick road search for the great multi-hued American West nights time, and finding them, the nights, for a while too).
The night part is easy, a little cooler time for our sweated boy, but the dust bowl part stands in need of explanation. Simple explanation really, for those who have been around a track. No, not tout track, bet your life on the next sure thing and happiness track, a running Olympic track and field track. A boyhood North Adamsville Hollis Field track which doubled as kickass practice football tract come fall. But year round a running track. Oh, I forgot, and this will tell you sometime about the damn place, five laps to a mile. Aficionados will laugh, so laugh knowing that in all the English –speaking world, at least in that 1961 English-speaking world, there are four laps to a mile. But there is more, more afterthought description. Said track was deeply rutted, summerfallwinterspring, from the lowest contract bidder surface materials scattered, generations scattered, on the pathway. And in all seasons, except the mucks, dry and dusty at the human step, and hence dust bowl. But enough of sweats, mop-moist red handkerchiefs, heavy breathe exhaustions, and dust. This was fun.
No, not the fun of innocent watching (and hoping) shaded windows for visions of irish maidens, ready with prepared notes (a spiel, okay) , frequently revised, and waiting for just that one moment that would bring forth the sweated exotic atlantic cheerleader glance nights but something else fun.
Something not endless walked about, something done, or with the promise of done, for something inside, and for the free spirit rant hammering his brain inside. At least at first after winning a couple of local races against slow (as it turned out) sullen corner boys full of mother’s corn beef, cold misbegotten cheapjack knickerbocker beer, cigarette smoke, unfiltered Camels naturally, and larcenies, great and small. Strictly amateur stuff you see, done, done under coercion, truth, to keep a place in corner boy society, or else. Or else endless running, running the gauntlet, every time that corner came into view and some punk (inside he said punk, not for public disclosure even now, just in case, okay), some beef-fed, beer- bloated, cancerous- smoked felon in the making decided to impress some off-hand girl hanging off his off-hand arm (or better, sitting all dolled-up, cashmere sweater-wearing and worthy in his felon’s goods car, a ’57 Chevy maybe).
He had to laugh, laugh out loud (and it was okay since the closest houses surrounding the field, ah, the dust bowl, were not within earshot and he could have disclaimed the Gettysburg Address in high octave and no one would have heard) that his corner boy fears, and desires, had driven him to this fun. This sweated, dank, summer night fun. And to gather in a sense of personal worth out of the effort. It was laughable, really laughable. Especially (and here the night proved an ally too) the absurd notion that there would be some sense of worth in the moldy white tee- shirt, mildewy white shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, Chuck Taylor sneakers, he was wearing. All kind of, well, as Billy Brady, king hell king of the North Adamsville hard corner boy night and nobody, I mean nobody, disputed that title, used to say, kind of faggoty-looking, or girlish.
But there he was night after night once the weather got too hot to face the blistering hot and foot-burying sands down at daytime Adamsville Beach, daytime girls noticing his appearance too and probably thinking kind of, just like Billy king hell king thinking, yes, kind of faggoty, and knowing, marrow bone knowing, not girlish.
There he was pushing the night away and the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval, watch tick in hand, looking, looking he guessed for immortality, immortality even then.
Later, in bobby darin times or percy faith times, who knows, call it jack kennedy time if you like, but sometime before the third British invasion and before jack death, sitting, sitting high against the lion-guarded pyramid statute front door dream, common dreams, common hero dreams, all gone asunder, all gone asunder, on this curious fact, no wind, Irish or otherwise propelled him forward. No champion dusted field sweeper of all before him, maybe genetically hard-wired that way too although he always favored being poorly coached as excuse better. And hence he, dream champion on sweated July (or maybe August like I said before) dust bowl nights lived with the slows, the anaerobic slows, and was left with only desire, wet clothes and one minute good feels when he hit his practice strides. And many years later he felt that same good feeling whenever he logged more than one jogged mile. Who would have figured that one?
“Hayes-Bickford Breakout 1962”
Peter Paul Markin in his own words:
Here I am again sitting, 3 o’clock in the morning sitting, bleary-eyed, slightly distracted after mulling over the back and forth of the twelve hundredth run-in (nice way to put it, right?) with Ma that has driven me out into this chilly October 1962 early morning. And where do I find myself sitting at this time of morning? Tired, but excitedly expectant, on an uncomfortable, unpadded bench seat on this rolling old clickity-clack monster of a Red Line subway car as it now waggles its way out past Kendall Station on its way to Central Square and then to the end of the line, Harvard Square. My hangout, my muse home, my night home, at least my weekend night home, my place to make sense of the world in a world that doesn’t make much sense, at least not enough much sense. Sanctuary, Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford sanctuary, misbegotten teenage boy sanctuary, recognized by international law, recognized by canon law, or not.
That beef with Ma, that really unnumbered beef, forget about the 1200 I said before, that was just a guess, has driven me to take an “all-nighter” trip away from the travails of the old home town across Boston to the never-closed Hayes-Bickford cafeteria that beckons just as you get up the stairs from the Harvard subway tunnel. Damn, let me just get this off my chest and then I can tell the rest of the story. Ma said X, I pleaded for Y (hell this homestead civil war lent itself righteously to a nice algebraic formulation. You can use it too, no charge). Unbeknownst to me Y did not exist in Ma’s universe. Ever. Sound familiar? Sure, but I had to get it off my chest.
After putting on my uniform, my Harvard Square “cool” uniform: over-sized flannel brownish plaid shirt, belt-less black cuff-less chino pants, black Chuck Taylor logo-ed Converse sneakers, a now ratty old windbreaker won in a Fourth of July distance race a few years back when I really was nothing but a wet-behind-the ears kid to ward off the chill, and, and the absolutely required midnight sunglasses to hide those bleary eyes from a peeking world I was ready to go. To face the unlighted night, and fight against the dawn’s rising for another day. Oh yah, I forgot, I had to sneak out of the house stealthily, run like some crazed broken field football player down the back of the property, and, after catching my breathe, walk a couple of miles over bridge and nasty, hostile (hostile if anyone was out, and anyone was sniping for a misbegotten teenage boy, for any purpose good or evil) Dorchester streets to get to the Fields Corner subway stop. The local Eastern Mass. bus had stopped its always erratic service hours ago, and, anyway, I usually would rather walk, in any case, than wait, wait my youth away for those buses to amble along our way with their byzantine schedules.
Right now though I am thinking, as those subway car wheels rattle beneath my feet, who knows, really, how or why it starts, that wanderlust start, that strange feeling in the pit of your stomach that you have to move on, or out, or up or you will explode, except you also know, or you damn well come to know that it eats away at a man, or a woman for matter, in different ways. Maybe way back, way back in the cradle it was that first sense that there was more to the world that the four corners of that baby world existence and that if you could just, could just get over that little, little side board there might be something better, much better over the horizon. But, frankly that just seems like too much of a literary stretch even for me, moody teenage boy that I am, to swallow so let’s just say that it started once I knew that the ocean was a way to get away, if you needed to get away. But see I didn’t figure than one out for myself even, old Kenny from the old neighborhood in third grade is the one who got me hip to that, and then Johnny James and his brother filled in the rest of the blanks and so then I was sea-worthy, dream sea-worthy anyway.
But, honestly, that sea dream stuff can only be music for the future because right now I am stuck, although I do not always feel stuck about it, trying to figure my way out of high school world, or at least figure out the raging things that I want to do after high school that fill up my daydream time (study hall time, if you really want to know). Of course, as well, that part about the ocean just mentioned, well there was a literal part to the proposition since ocean-at-my-back (sometimes right at my back) New England homestead meant unless I wanted to take an ill-advised turn at piracy or high-seas hijacking or some such thing east that meant I had to head west. Right now west though is Harvard Square, its doings and not doings, it trumpet call to words, and sounds, and actions in the October Friday night all-night storm brewing.
The train now rounds the squeaky-sounding bend out of Central Square and stops at the station. So now I leave my pensive seat and stand waiting, waiting for the driver to release the pressure to let the sliding train door open, getting ready to jump off the old subway, two-step-at-a-time my way up the two flights of stairs and head for mecca to see if things jump for me tonight. The doors open at last. Up the two-stepped stairs I go, get to the surface and confront the old double-glassed Hayes door entrance and survey the vast table-filled room that at this hour has a few night owl stranglers spotted throughout the place.
You know the old Hayes-Bickford, or one of them if you live in Boston, or New York City, or a few other places on the East Coast, don’t you? Put your tray on the metal slider (hey, I don’t know what you call that slider thing, okay) and cruise down the line from item to item behind the glass-enclosed bins of, mostly, steamy food, if you are looking for fast service, for a quick between doing things, pressing things, meal. Steamed and breaded everything from breakfast to lunch to dinner anytime topped off by dishwater quality coffee (refills on demand, if you feel lucky). But this is not the place to bring your date, certainly not your first date, except maybe for a quick cup of that coffee before going to some event, or home. What this is, really, is a place where you can hang out, and hang out with comfort, because nobody, nobody at all, is going to ask you to leave, at least if you act half-way human. And that is what this place is really about, the humans in all their human conditions doing human things, alien to you or not, that you see floating by you, as you take a seat at one of the one-size-fits all wooden tables with those red vinyl seat covered chairs replete with paper place settings, a few off-hand eating utensils and the usual obligatory array of condiments to help get down the foodand drink offered here.
Let me describe who is here at this hour on an early Saturday morning in October 1962. I will not vouch for other times, or other days, but I know Friday and Saturday nights a little so I can say something about them. Of course there is the last drink at the last open barroom crowd, said bar already well-closed in blue law Massachusetts, trying to get sober enough by eating a little food to traverse the road home. Good luck. Needless to say eating food in an all-night cafeteria, any all-night cafeteria, means only one thing-the person is so caught up in a booze frenzy that he (mainly) or she (very occasionally) is desperate for anything to hang the name food on to. Frankly, except for the obligatory hard-dollar coffee-steamed to its essence, then through some mystical alchemic process re-beaned, and served in heavy ceramic mugs that keep in the warmth to keep the eyes open the food here is strictly for the, well, the desperate, drunk or sober.
I might mention a little more about the food as I go along but it is strictly to add color to this little story. Maybe, maybe it will add color to the story but this is mainly about the“literary” life at the old Hayes and the quest for the blue-pink night not the cuisine so don’t hold me to it. Here is the kicker though; there are a few, mercifully few this night, old winos, habitual drunks, and street vagabonds (I am being polite here) who are nuzzling their food, for real. This is the way that you can tell the "last drink" boys, the hail fellows well met, who are just out on the town and who probably go to one of the ten zillion colleges in the area and are drawn like moths (and like wayward high schools kids, including this writer) to the magic name, Harvard Square. They just pick at their food. Those other guys (again, mainly, guys) those habituals and professional waywards work at it like it is their last chance for salvation.
Harvard Square, bright lights, dead of nights, see the sights. That vision is nothing but a commercial, a commercial magnet for every young (and old) hustler within fifty miles of the place to come and display their “acumen”. Their hustle. Three card Monte, quick-change artistry, bait and hook, a little jack-rolling, fake dope-plying, lifting an off-hand wallet, the whole gamut of hustler con lore. On any given Harvard Square weekend night there have got to be more young, naïve, starry-eyed kids hanging out trying to be cool, but really, like me, just learning the ropes of life than you could shake a stick at to set a hustler’s heart, if he (mainly) or she (sometimes) had a heart.
I’ll tell you about a quick con that got me easy in a second but right now let me tell you that at this hour I can see a few con artists just now resting up after a hard night’s work around a couple of tables, comparing notes (or, more likely, trying to con each other, there is no honor among thieves in this little night world. Go to it boys). As to the con that got me, hey it was simple, a guy, an older guy, a twenty-five year old or something like that guy, came up to me while I was talking to a friend and said did I (we) want to get some booze. Sober, sixteen years old, and thrill-seeking I said sure (drinking booze is the coin of the realm for thrills these days, among high school kids that I know, maybe the older set, those college guys, are, I hear, experimenting with drugs but if so it is very on the QT).
He said name your poison, I did, and then he “suggested” a little something for himself. Sure, whatever is right. I gave him the money and he returned a few minutes later with a small bag with the top of a liquor bottle hanging out. He split. We went off to a private area around Harvard Yard (Phillips Brook House, I think) and got ready to have our first serious taste of booze, and maybe get rum brave enough to pick up some girls. Naturally, the bottle is a booze bottle alright but it had been opened (how long before is anyone’s guess) and filled with water. Sucker, right. Now the only reason that I am mentioning this story right now is that the guy who pulled this con is sitting, sitting like the King of Siam, just a few tables away from where I am sitting. The lesson learned for the road, for the future road that beckons: don’t accept packages from strangers without inspecting them and watch out for cons, right? No, hell no. The lesson is this: sure don’t fall for wise guy tricks but the big thing is to shake it off, forget about it if you see the con artist again. You are way to cool to let him (or occasionally her) think that they have conned you. Out loud, anyway.
But wait, I am not here at almost four o’clock in the Hayes-Bickford morning, the Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford morning, to talk about the decor, the food if that is what it is, about the clientele, humble, slick, or otherwise. I am here looking for“talent”, literary talent that is. See, I have been here enough, and have heard enough about the ”beats” (or rather pseudo-beats, or “late phase” beats at this time) and the “folkies” (music people breaking out of the Pop 40 music scene and going back to the roots of America music, way back) to know that a bunch of them, about six in all, right this minute are sitting in a far corner with a light drum tapping the beat listening to a guy in black pants(always de rigueur black), sneakers and a flannel shirt just like me reciting his latest poem. That possibility is what drove me here this night, and other nights as well. See the Hayes is known as the place where someone like Norman Mailer has his buttered toast after one of his “last drink” bouts. Or that Bob Dylan sat at that table, that table right over there, writing something on a napkin. Or some parallel poet to the one now wrapping up his seventy-seven verse imitation Allen Ginsberg's Howl master work went out to San Francisco and blew the lid off the town, the City Lights town, the literary town.
But I better, now that the six-ish dawn light is hovering, trying to break through the night wars, get my droopy body down those subway stairs pretty soon and back across town before anyone at home notices that I am missing. Still I will take the hard-bitten coffee, re-beaned and all, I will take the sleepy eyes that are starting to weigh down my face, I will even take the con artists and feisty drunks just so that I can be here when somebody’s search for the blue-pink great American West night, farther west than Harvard Square night, gets launched.
Last Chance To Glance
Main street walked, a brand new just off the assembly line wild dream 1964 Mustang just passed by (dark green, complete with sally, sassy blonde-haired sally from down the street, with big breasts and no brains, according to shawlie grapevine lore, but still with that green devil of a mustang paid for by some smitten man out for her midnight romp of local manhood, or men-hood according to Frankie Larkin school boy corner boy lore, and he should know). Cursed no car night shade walked, no dough for car walked, no dough for nothing walked, his poor Pa out of work again. Out of work as the ships that keep North Adamsville afloat are now being built in more exotic locales, foreign places like Taiwan and Malta, wherever that is, and so he, unskilled, last hired, first fired, and built for hills and hollows coal mine childhoods and no waterlogged ocean belts, has no dough to spare. Nada.
So he walked, and only dreamed of cars, not some big deal car like Sally’s Mustang or the “boss” ’57 Chevy of his dreams (nothing but a girl magnet car, and choices too, take a number girls), and the stuff of hard corner boy chieftain Billy Bradley’s reality but just something to get around in, something to make the girls raise their heads when he passed by, and not keep them pavement-bound while his flannel-shirted in all climes, black chinos un-cuffed in all climes, Chuck Taylor sneakers in all weathers, and midnight faux- beatnik sunglasses at all hours passed them walking by (all by his lonesome, except when Frankie decides he has had enough of main squeeze Joann, or corners).
And not something, some car not girl, too complicated, mechanically complicated, either so that he would have to spent his time and his no dough down the street at Stewball Stu’s homegrown garage waiting on his lordship to fix some silly thing in about one second like tightening something loose with the flick of a wrench, endlessly talk about his latest conquests (plural is correct, girl conquests, of course, what else could Stu talk about, and for real, he know because they, the girls, and not dogs either, talk about it at school, and giggle, giggle that giggle that meant more than tender smooches, jesus), smell his stinking whiskey breathe (rotgut Johnny Walker something but not top shelf but more like Adams River streaked water, and his oil stained, oil-stained everything (clothes, tee-shirt, kitchen table, Christ, how can a guy live like that). Some girl magnet, who knows how or why but they take numbers to ride the curve with Stu, but that was just him being jealous because a couple of times he got Stu’s “left-overs.” So thanks, Stu, for the favors.
But see his Pa out of work meant no telephone, and no dough to put in a telephone or keep it at the ready that is how close to the vest the family had to play it when Pa got his slip, not even a cheapjack two-party line that they, AT&T, practically give away. So this night he was not just walking, Main Street walking for the hell of it, but to rub a few dimes together and find the nearest public telephone to do his talking into. What it’s was about, the talking, he would get to in a minute he said but he wanted to tell me that this nearest phone was located right next to the Minute Motel. Come on, don’t you get it, that was not the real name of the place but do I have to draw you a picture? This is strictly for the “high society” crowd that does their business by the hour, or less. Day and night it seemed, there were always cars pulling in and out. Not ‘57 Chevies, those and their Billy Bradley corner boy owners are down at Adamsville Beach or at Squaw Rock down across from the far end of the beach watching the “submarine races” at midnight for free but more old guy cars. Buicks and Pontiacs. And seeing the traffic going and out of that joint, and why, what goes on, only made his “job” for this evening that much harder.
See he had been walking this night for a while, a couple of hours, trying to get up enough courage to call this Diana, a girl classmate for a date. Diana, a greek goddess wholesale (although he didn’t think she was greek or wholesale but he had her headed that way, that pedestal way), on this atlantic ocean strictly from hunger working class town means streets is who has him walking (and truth to tell kind of muttering to himself, she was that kind of girl). Naturally, Diana was not her real name just like that hotel, motel, no tell was not really called the Minute Motel, I don’t want any trouble okay, and I will tell you why as I get along with what he wanted to talk to her about. Don’t worry it won’t be long.
This Diana and he have been talking, hard and kind of deep talking in school about world issues, music, poets, crazed poets like mad monk Allen Ginsburg and not so crazed T.S. Eliot (they had read Wasteland together in class, wow). Hard talking about the big break-out they knew was coming, about how things are going to be totally different for them when their time came with no Pa out of work and always no dough, or not enough, and they wanted to be part of it. (See, she told him in confidence, her Pa was on the chopping block down at the shipyards too so she knew about no dough, and sniffed dreams too.) So he took her seriously, and she, he thought, took him seriously although she never had had anything good to say about Frankie, Frankie Larkin, his corner boy, but that was because he tried to give her a tumble, he thought, and she knew he was always ball and chain to Joann, or corners. That part isn’t important anyway. What is important is that he dreamed of her, no, I’d better say she disturbed his sleep the way he described it and be closer to the truth.
And here is why. Diana, blonde, naturally blonde, Diana, filled out a cashmere-sweater nicely thank you, white tennis –shoed like every other girl in town but showing off some very nice, well-turned legs, thank you. So you can see where she might disturb his sleep because usually he went for girls (and this I know from first-hand experience) who wanted to be part of the great breakout, just like him, but who well, since I am trying kind and he was trying to keep his emotions in check before he made this call were only “cute,” at best. Although they too wear those white tennis shoes while reading their James Joyce or Albert Camus (yah, it was that kind of crowd he ran with over in Harvard Square when he had his fill of North Adamsville squares, excepting Diana). See he was making this call, this midnight big time call to ask Diana to go on over to the Square with him, just as friends, see.
Right now as you can sense I bet he was only talking to stall, stall having to do this call, cold call really, because he didn’t know that much about her personally and his intelligence network (Sunday night corner boy guys hanging around the boys’ lav on Monday morning speaking of conquests, and other lies) has run cold to the ground. All he really knew about her was that she wanted to break-out and that was good enough for him, and good enough to disturb his sleep lately until he played his hand out.
So he was seeking this public telephone, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turned out; nickel and dime courage when due to no fault of his own (or his Pa’s really when he thought about it) home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on high school senior errands. Diana
He dropped the dime in ring, ring, ring. Hi, Diana, hi spiel, and then, and then nothingness. No way, no way, damn intelligence no way, see she had a boyfriend, a college guy, probably all done up in plaid shirts, slacks, be serious, slacks, and pennied loafers, and that is where her dream break-out was running. And then dead of night red-face right away, sorry, he didn’t know, alas, red-faced the next day, red faced until parted june freedom fly-out.
And in the telling red-faced even forty years later. Wow.
A New World A-Borning
For Jack-Again
North Adamsville teenage hometown mucks break-out, crying to be broken out of, desperately crying to be broken out of, aided and abetted by break-out musical sensibilities where the message and the messenger were at one. And who were trying to break out of, desperately trying to break-out of the piddle paddle language and the paddle piddle beaten note formulae that had been solid gold guaranteed to thrill, thrill to the marrow, every red-blooded generation of ’68 parent. The kids, well, the kids fell asleep, fell transistor blazing asleep in the cool night dreaming of adventure car hop hostesses, james dean shadow boys, and seaside lore pillowed back seat fogged window noches siestas.
Only at that moment, just that confused and unformed moment, break-out worthy or not, maybe unformed or not, others were trail-blazing after all we were, truth, clueless as to how far that music would take us, and how many acid-etched Dixie cup magic elixirs would have to be consumed before the music died, died of old age, old age at five or ten, and hubris, queen of the downfall night. And we danced, hampton beach surf danced, high building new york city tenement danced, iowa cornfield danced, some tulsa good night two-step danced, rockymountainhigh danced, taos caverns ancient flame shadow ghost-danced, and slipped in oblivion big sur danced, and danced, and died of old age and hubris at five or ten.
That break-out by the way, maybe not so much the physical break-out as getting mentally de-rutted, you know box out, get ahead, go ahead, don’t make many waves, maybe a couple of faux waves for laughs, nothing serious and not taken so, just kid’s stuff done since kids eternity, get schooled, get married, get white picket fence housed, make fewer waves, have two point three kids, make fewer waves, have them do likewise and fade into that tepid splash apologetic wave of some long ago, ancient battered to smithereens clam shell stone cold night at Adamsville beach edge. So, yes, maybe not physical far break-out but far psychic break-out from small town, really small neighborhood, irish neighborhood, and ever those don’t air your dirty linen in public grapevine tap-tapping before the larcenies, adulteries, christ, using the lord’s name in vain, and you know what and whose lord, and worst, not church-going non-scared sacred heart parish show-ups that had the“shawlies” in a stew, gone done.
Gone, strangely gone, that minute anyway gone, as well was last year’s beat, really faux-beat style- which played to the rubes (and inflamed the ”shawlies”) AND fit very nicely, very nicely indeed, with midnight Harvard Square journey haunts, but that was last year, and big cloud puff imitation james dean shadow teen angst and alienation was the style. So gone also, like I said, this minute gone, were those all-weather, all-season (yah, summer too) brown-checkered flannel shirts, those mandatory, Frankie Larkin mandatory, king hell king of the schoolboy beat, ah faux-beat night, black chinos, uncuffed, of course, and those hades-bent work boots, clodhoppers really, although not gone, gone gone, those midnight sunglasses to protect against angst, alienation and barbs.
New age aborning new look. New minute look, so be forewarned. Multi-colored schoolboy jock, okay, okay, faux-jock, jacket worn, raider red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, won by default for long running service and not for glory, not for glory but for slows, but keep that between us, plaid shirt, all the possible shades of plaid if they exist purchased in the bargain center, pre-Wal-Mart night by frugal Ma but for once she hit it right, slacks, with cuffs, thank you, and loafers (sans pennies). Yah, strictly a college guy and no more mister nobody from nowhere but a guy who fit in, and he did, all the girls, all the blue-eyed, blond eight-million people weary Long Island transplants, all the dark-eyed senoritas tired of their own backwater small town grapevine whispers, all the Philly somebodies from somewhere out of a John O’Hara high society novel, were crazy to “check out”this specimen, this talk all night rap, rap irish boyo. And most importantly, most importantly for this boyo, check out or not, they were all not North Adamsville and shames, hidden desires and blunt candid-less-ness Irish girls.
New inner look too, cool, not beat cool but joe college cool, disaffected, looking off to far reaches and not suffering fools gladly cool, learned at Humphrey Bogart’s knee and perfected by some cat on a hot tin roof Paul Newman puffing madly to forget lost dreams of youth but who knew, although the newspapers were full of warning, hell we were going to live forever, cigarette, Winston or Marlboro, filtered, natch, just in case, just in case we were not going to live forever, not by mortality but by bomb boom boom in the cold war night. Yes, cool man jack cigarette, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, drawn deeply in and circles and smoke dreams created. More, amused girls also puffing to prove some equality, and some reflected man cool in that sexed-up, sex- maddened free time.
And get this, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, black, black against all advise, black since late schoolboy Hayes-Bickford Harvard Square drowses searching for that next word, and the next break-out, literary, political, hell, even social, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. But mainly a look, a look of cool distain, of remove, of next please in the never-ending look game. Soon wearied of, very wearied, although not of looks, and glances.
One’s act, fitfully, artlessly but rightly was thereafter moved onto Boston fresh streets, and a little fame. Joe College minute gone, vanished like so much train smoke, and bad dreams. Dressed in blue flannel shirt, blue denim, moccasins and midnight, eternal midnight sunglasses, and dressed, ah, in freedom but no one saw that. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessarily of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame. And then the music stopped, the crowds thinned out, the hardened Long Island transplants kept looking at guys in multi-colored jackets (although not always red and black), the Philly girls turned inward to their own crowd and began to dream of stockbroker mansions and riviera suntans, and the dark-eyed senoritas only knew of one night remembrances, and lust. Then sunk in the abyss of non-fame, non- recognition and not seen snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.
An Unexplained Interlude
Twenty come and gone, dead. Old new uniform, resplendent college joe uniform complete with white-socked penniless loafers, gone, passed on to some Goodwill basket and mercifully back to all- weather, all-season patterned, usually, brown though, flannel shirts (yes, summers too, despite whacked out metabolisms that are out of synch, sweating, okay, perspiring, but we have been through that all before and the writer will just continue to write just as related to him, write through rums sweats and wine sweats and whiskey neat sweats, gone are the slugfest whiskey working-class brave beer chaser days, and the quarters to pay for them too, and take his chances, black chinos and, as if to put paid to those who wondered at the change and made surly comments about beat-ness, beatitude and such, moccasins, comfortable, soft-feel moccasins, in a sea of penniless (mainly) white-socked loafers. Topped off, and gladly, since junior high Frankie Larkin king hell king of the junior league corner boy night times, remind me to tell you sometime about that mad man and his mad escapades as Markin regaled me for many hours telling me him about but not now because we are discussing somber moods, midnight sunglasses to keep the rubes, the cheerleaders, and the plain nosy at bay.
New uniform too. Drunk, whisky high-shelf drunk, when in the chips, whisky back alley low shelf liquor store rotgut whisky drunk, when on the bum, drunk in some atlantic bayside bar, complete with mushrooming arrivisite boats of all sizes and descriptions although most look as seaworthy as the Titanic, looking at delicious nubile sights all dressed, or rather undressed in bikinis, halters and shorts, or any cool and look-able combination which I am too weary, too eye-candy weary to fully describe just now.
Or some Southie hard week’s work done and quarters clinking gents only bar (ladies by invitation and accompaniment only so mostly manly rough-house and steady-handed drinking the rule ) no adornments, nothing but hard stools and wet mahogany countertops with pickled eggs and other strange jerky things to work up hard thirsts, as if the thirst that he (and not just him) came in that unadorned, unpainted door (squeaky too) to quench needed aphrodisiac drunk, with beer chasers (just plunk down the extra quarter and bang).
Or some mondaytuesdaywednesdaythrursday hangover drunk night spent neon-lighted in Kenmore Square chick-heavy dives like Skirt-Chaser’s Pub, High Heaven Angel Cafe, or Come And Get It Brother, If You Can Club (don’t Google look those names up but I don’t need to draw you, you of all people, a diagram that here were meat market-worthy establishments filling the night with bare flesh, plenty is the hope, up from nowhere hope, high-end whiskeys (in the chips or don’t bother), and early morning romps along the Charles.
Drunk and no memories of old time North Adamsville, Irish town, faux Little Dublin town, Irish granite city old time quarries and sweat town, back in the day old time Wasp city of presidents but not lately town, simple storefront father and older brother bars used simply to get a few quick ones before home and bed, or after some convenient excuse softball games until one in the morning (or maybe two depending on blue law local rules for public houses versus cafes versus, hell, bowling alleys and brothels).
And no memories of the first time his Uncle Jim set him up for an underage wink, wink drink and the first few tastes went down hard, and he almost threw up and then the beer chaser (clink those quarters, please), settled him, and sleep, head on countertop sleep. And the shawlies howled at the moon for days (and secretly wink, wink proclaimed manhood, poor Uncle Jim’s sister, his mother, there will be hell to pay before that young lad is done, no question) and then some midnight scandal between Miss Molly somebody and a very married (and child heavy) Mister Midnight Rider somebody took all of their attention away from some half-arsed (no sic here) teenage boy trying to quickly to raise manhood’s bar. That scene, that Uncle Jim who was held in bad odor for other misdemeanors by the shawlies on his own hook, would be filed for future reference and sixteen forms of comparison with their own sparkling white just gone to confession (daily confession it seems now that I think of it, why?) johnnies (before the rage for Seans set in) and kathies.
And damn if they were not right, maybe not future reference right but right on the basics the named bars, Joe’s, Jim’s, Irish Pub, Dublin Grille, Café, Club, to infinity, Artie’s Bayside Club, The Sea ‘n’ Surf (and six forms of cuddle up dancing, drunk as a skunk, but cutting a figure, and best, walking out midnight doors, hand in hand with some foxy red-headed twist out for just the night and heading to some small town home in the morning, some dark-eyed, black-haired beauty with dancing eyes and loose morals who was slumming just then looking for ocean-aired adventure and not kansas hayseeds and she, yes, she, and I quote, hit pay dirt, or some skinny brunette with a hollow leg who just wanted to walk along the adjacent beach but who for one more hollow leg drink, some gin and tonic thing, could be persuaded to watch the “submarine races”), The Shakers (strictly high-end WASP Philly girls looking for shanty irish thrills before marrying some third cousin stockbroker and bliss).
Names, nameless, no legion. Girls and gin get it, no gin no girl, no girl no gin, get it and no bliss and no dreams, no endless night dreams of dainty curves and longing caresses, get it. Endless dreams and endless longings. And whiskey, whiskey with fewer beer chasers.
And the 24/7/365 years fell down drunk. Then some staggered midnight vista street, some 1967 staggered midnight, no dough having spent the last quarters on some fruitless pina colada senorita no go, walking drunken streets cabs stopping for quick jack- roller fares, or funny, real jack rollers coming up empty and mad, maybe killing mad. Walking, legs weak from lack of work and hour on hour of stool-sitting and stewing over pina colada no gos, brain weak, maybe wet, push on, push on, find some fellaheen relieve for that unsatisfied bulge, that gnawing at the brain or really at the root of the thing. A topsy-turvy time, murder, death, the death of death, the death of fame, murder, killing murder, and then resolve, wrong resolve and henceforth the only out, war, war to the finish although who could have known that then. Who could have known that tet, lyndon, bobby, hubert, tricky dick war-circus thing then. And not drunk, get it.
Peter Paul Markin’s War- Circa 1969-An Explained Interlude
Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head, his, or rather private soldier government-issue mind on loan after drafted 1969 drafted purgatories and anguishes, go, not go, go, not go, not go, go, jail, not jail, go, from the ten-thousand, no one hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. No way that close-cropped head, or those ten thousand, no, one hundred thousand others , would survive the Harvard Square (square is right), Village, burned-over Haight-Ashbury night as anything but soldier tourists looking at long-haired freaks smoking dope in some impromptu Kasbah or some vagrant common lawn.
But that wistful thought was so much ancient history, so much bad karma, ghost- danced against some ancient painted cavern-etched shamanic bad karmic night. As was the certitude, the absolute certitude, after only three, hell, one for truth, but three at the most, on more, half-humid, half ground frozen (and he knew, knew from close observation that hard fact just minutes before after having “done ten,” ten push-ups, that half- frozen part ) southern winter days (Georgia, hell-bent segregated Georgia places like Albany and Augusta, if not Atlanta, Sherman scorched and torched) that go, no go, jail, not jail, Canada or wherever, was decided the wrong way and that life from here on in would get quirky (nice way to put it, right, put it just short of facing phantom firing squads).
Start Day One. Four in the morning madness but this time not falling into too much to dream sweet good night of civilian life but cursing some stoolie “orderlie” who has just kicked off his blanket cover and yelled, yelled if you can believe that, right in his ear that if he was not up before that stoolie turned his head to yell at some other shaved- head across from his bunk that he would be “doing ten (or was it one hundred, or one thousand push-ups)”in front of the whole company of fellow raw recruits on some sweet red clay Georgia earth, frozen okay, when the sun came up.
Naturally the trap was set for him, yankee abolitionist John Brown doughboy him, as he, that damn stoolie, some confederate of Stonewall Jackson or one of those lost johnnie reb greybeards, could turn his ugly government-issue head bunk away before he could even uncover that frizzy green blanket and so as a result he was to be parlayed, relayed, surveyed and displayed before a motley of bleary- eyed raws and done, done to a boil.
Why, always why? As an example, a horribly example of slovenliness that would get some rolling hills hayseed Ohio farm boy too scared to say yes sir or no sir, some Kentucky un-shoed hills and hollows (yah, I know hollas) toothless illiterate dragged from mother womb coal veins, or some jet black ebony angel New York City street corner boy caught up in the court system, some petty larceny count to his credit, and warned, judge-warned, into the service, killed for lack of speed. Yes, that go, no go thing went the wrong way, very way wrong, as he sensed those phantom firing squads closing in.
At peek of light, no food in stomach, no eyes, no open eyes, and in bare tee-shirt, white government-issued and two sizes two big just then, he fell down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama (oops Georgia, all these southern red clays seem so very much the same, or would on further inspection) that portent no good, no earthy good. Cold, cold, cold as only a day time hot winter place can be night cold.
And he did “ten” for the entire cherished world to see. That ten, or the cold red clay doing of that ten, however, started a mental civil war between one government-issued private soldier and one hell-bend murderous warring government. Of such incidents great wars, and great struggles against war, swarm the earth, although the latter less frequently than one would suspect. Or hope.
Then those DNA-etched righteous furies kick-assed with his brain, those old time grandmother Catholic Worker stop the goddam wars and stop them now (exactly quoting Irish “shawlie”grandma wisdom, or else) reared their pug ugly (ur-government-issued ugly) head. And that shave-headed (as if shave-headed-ness had exposed on its surface for all the world to see as if written out longhand all the quaint, if shadow, last night I had the strangest dream, stop the war madness previously covered up by long-haired no thoughts and no risks ancient thoughts) red clay foam-flecked private soldier dreamed of crusades and leading great crusades, and marching men back into barracks and locking doors against the killing fields.
And arguing with sneer-snickering (remembering only no sir or yes sir) Ohio farm boys, Kentucky rednecks hell-bent on tunnel-rat-dom like some great cosmic chain held them together, and black as night New York City street-wise (well, half-wise)corner boys this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay for no reason, then what is? Come and face the phantom firing squads too, come cry out to high heaven against the madness, the madness of men, and madnesses stopped by men, by little no “yes siring” men.
The die is cast, not as usual truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the frozen ground red clay night, not massive warrior-king leading home swords turned into plowshare armies, solitary avenging angel cast, but cast. Dreams of running away to elysian fields (or mudded Woodstock farm mires), dreams of lost love (of girls left behind and of secret betrayals), dreams of not doing this or that youth-desired thing keep rearing back and certain character flaws, certain wise guy, small town corner boy (unknown to black knight New York City corner boys all wide-eyed) know-it-all cut corners character flaws stream in the hot, humid, footsore march.
But in the end the drumbeat tattoo beats his beat, and fate.
Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession, day and night. Time has no measure, no measure at all and calendars only form fear for burning red eyes. Angels rage at hell’s door to no avail. Rant, mere rant against the barb wired fix. Sweats, real human sweats, ever present sweats in small airless rooms. Rooms not picked by man, or fit. The days of rage, rage against the light, and then the glimmer of the light. Fame, maybe unearned nickel and dime fame, as poster boy for break-out soldiers crying against the high hellish anguished night and murders, murders called by their right name. Then, that exact moment, those phantom firing squads turn to dust, ashes really, and he is set free.
Peter Paul Markin’s “Masters Of War”
<b>Click on the headline to link to a <i>YouTube</i> film clip of Bob Dylan performing his classic anti-war song, <i>Masters of War</i>.
Masters Of War-Bob Dylan
</b>
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people’s blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain’t worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I’m young
You might say I’m unlearned
But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead
Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
[This story was originally published as Kenneth Edward Jackson’s“Masters Of War” with names and places fictionalized for many reasons (including literary license) but it is actually the story of Peter Paul Markin’s military service. We have decided to leave it in the original as it retains all of its power whether told as a Jackson or Markin story.-JLB]
As I mentioned in an earlier sketch, courtesy of my old yellow brick road magical mystery tour merry prankster fellow traveler, Peter Paul Markin, who seems to think I still have a few things to say about this wicked old world, recently, in grabbing an old Bruce Springsteen CD compilation from 1998 to download into my iPod I came across a song that stopped me in my tracks, <i>Brothers Under The Bridge</i>. I had not listened to or thought about that song for a long time but it brought back many memories from the late 1970s when I did a series of articles for the now defunct <i>East Bay Eye</i> (California, naturally) on the fate of some troubled Vietnam veterans who, for one reason or another, could not come to grips with “going back to the real world” and took, like those a great depression generation or two before them, to the “jungle”-the hobo, bum, tramps camps located along the abandoned railroad sidings, the ravines and crevices, and under the bridges of California, mainly down in Los Angeles, and created their own “society.”
Not every guy I interviewed, came across, swapped lies with, or just snatched some midnight phrase out of the air from was from hunger, most were, yes, in one way or another but some, and the one I am recalling in this sketch had a nuanced story that brought him down to the ravines. The story that accompanies the song to this little piece, Bob Dylan’s Masters of War, is written under that same sign as the earlier pieces.
I should note again since these sketches are done on an ad hoc basis, that the genesis of this story follows that of the “Brothers Under The Bridge” story previously posted (and now is developing into a series).The editor of the <i>East Bay Eye</i>, Owen Anderson, gave me that long ago assignment after I had done a smaller series for the paper on the treatment, the poor treatment, of Vietnam veterans by the Veterans Administration in San Francisco and in the course of that series had found out about this band of brothers roaming the countryside trying to do the best they could, but mainly trying to keep themselves in one piece. My qualifications for the assignment other than empathy, since I had not been in the military during the Vietnam War period, were based simply on the fact that back East I had been involved, along with several other radicals, in running an anti-war GI coffeehouse near Fort Devens in Massachusetts and down near Fort Dix in New Jersey. During that period I had run into many soldiers of my 1960s generation who had clued me on the psychic cost of the war so I had a running start.
After making connections with some Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW) guys down in L.A. who knew where to point me I was on my way. I gathered many stories, published some of them in the Eye, and put the rest in my helter-skelter files. A couple of weeks ago, after having no success in retrieving the old <i>Eye</i> archives, I went up into my attic and rummaged through what was left of those early files. I could find no newsprint articles that I had written but I did find a batch of notes, specifically notes from stories that I didn’t file because the< i>Eye</i> went under before I could round them into shape.
The format of those long ago stories was that I would basically let the guy I was talking to give his spiel, spill what he wanted the world to heard, and I would write it up without too much editing (mainly for foul language). I have reconstructed this story here as best I can although at this far remove it is hard to get the feel of the voice and how things were said. This is Kenneth Edward Jackson’s short, poignant, and hell for once, half-hopeful story, a soldier born under the thumb of the masters of war:
********
Hell, you know I didn’t have to go to Vietnam, no way. Yah, my parents, when I got drafted, put some pressure on me to “do my duty” like a lot of the neighborhood guys in my half-Irish, half- French- Canadian up the old New Hampshire mill town of Nashua. Maybe, you’ve heard of that town since you said you were from up there in Olde Saco, Maine. Hell, they were the same kind of towns. Graduate from high school, go to work in the mills if they were still open, go into the service if you liked, or got drafted, come home, get married, have kids and let the I Ching cycle run its course over and over again. You laughed so you know what I mean. Yah, that kind of town, and tight so if you went off the rails, well it might not be in the <i>Nashua Telegraph</i> but it sure as hell got on the Emma Jackson grapevine fast enough, except if it was about her three boys. Then the “shames” silence of the grave. Nothing, not a peep, no dirty linen aired in public.
See though I was a little different. I went to college at the University of New Hampshire over in Durham, studied political science, and figured to become either a lawyer or teacher, maybe both if things worked out. So Emma and Hank (my father) were proud as peacocks when I graduated from there in 1967 and then announced I was going to Boston University to pick up a Master’s degree in Education and be on my way. That’s where I met Bettina, my ex-wife, who was studying for her Master’s in Government at the time but was mainly holding up a big share of the left-wing anti-war universe that was brewing at that time, especially as all hell broke loose in Vietnam when in early 1968 the North Vietnamese and their southern supporters ran rampaging through the south. That’s around the time that LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson, President of the United States at the time) got cold feet and decided to call it quits and retire to some podunk Texas place.
Bettina, a girl from New York City, and not just New York City but Manhattan and who went to Hunter College High School there before embarking on her radical career , first at the University of Wisconsin and then at B.U. was the one who got me “hip,” or maybe better “half-hip” to the murderous American foreign policy in Vietnam. Remind me to tell you how we met and stuff like that sometime but for now let’s just say she was so smart, so different, did I tell you she was Jewish, so full of life and dreams, big dreams about a better world that I went head over heels for her and her dreams carried me (and us) along for a while. [Brother Jackson did tell me later the funny details of their relationship but, as I always used to say closing many of my columns, that is a story for another day-JLB.]
Bettina was strictly SDS, big-time SDS (Students for a Democratic Society, 1960s version. Look it up on< i>Wikipedia</i> for more background-JLB), and not just some pacifist objector to the war, she really thought she was helping to build “the second front” in aid of the Vietnamese here in America, or as it was put at the time Amerikkka, and I went along with her, or half-way along really in her various actions, marches, and rallies. Later, 1969 later when SDS blew up into three separate and warring factions she went with the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM) the group most committed to that idea of the second front. But that is all inside stuff and not really what was important in 1968. The summer of 1968 when I got, via my parents, notice that my friends and neighbors at the Nashua Draft Board had called my name. And me with no excuses, no draft excuses, none.
So that is when things got dicey, my parents pulling me to do my family, my Nashua, my New Hampshire, my United States, hell, my mother pulled out even my Catholic duty (my father, a deeply patriotic man, in the good sense, and a proud Marine who saw plenty of action in the Pacific in World War II, but kept quiet about it, just rolled his eyes on that one). Bettina, and her friends, and really, some of them my friends too, were pulling me to run away to Canada (she would follow), refuse to be inducted (and thus subject to arrest and jail time), or head underground (obviously here with connections that may have rivaled, may have I say, my mother’s neighborhood grapevine). In the end though I let myself be drafted and was inducted in the fall of 1968.
Bettina was mad, mad as hell, but not as much for the political embarrassment as you would think, but because she, well, as she put it, the first time she said it “had grown very fond of me,” and more than that she had her own self-worth needs, so we were secretly married (actually not so much secretly as privately, very privately, her parents, proudly Jewish and heavily committed Zionists and my parents, rosary-heavy Catholics who were a little slow, Vatican Council II slow, on the news that Jews were not Christ-killers and the like would not have approved ) just before I was inducted.
I will spare the Vietnam details, except to say I did my thirteen month tour (including a month for R&R, rest and recreation) from early 1969 to early 1970, a period when the talk of draw-down of the American troop commitment was beginning to echo through the camps and bases in Vietnam and guys were starting to take no chances, no overt chances of getting KIA (killed in action) or anything like that. I, actually saw very little fighting since as a college grad, and lucky, and they needed someone, I was a company clerk and stayed mainly at the base camp. But every night I fired many rounds any time I heard a twig break on guard duty or in perimeter defense. And more than a few times we had bullets and other ammo flying into our position. So no I was no hero, didn’t want to be, I just wanted to get back home to Bettina in one piece. And I did.
But something snapped in Vietnam, sometime in having had to confront my own demons, my own deep-seeded fears and coming out not too badly, and to confront through my own sights the way my government was savagely conducting itself in Vietnam (and later in other parts of the world) that made me snap when I came back to the “real world.” I had only a few months left and so I was assigned to a holding company down at Fort Dix in New Jersey. And all I had to do was stay quiet, do some light silly busy work paper work duty b.s., have a few beers at the PX and watch a few movies. Nada.
I guess Bettina really did win out in the end, the stuff she said about war, about American imperialism being some two-headed vulture, about class struggle and guys like me being cannon fodder was kind of abstract when she said it at some meeting at B.U., or shouted herself silly a t some rally on Boston Common or got herself arrested a few times at draft boards (ironic, huh).But after ‘Nam I knew she was on to something. Better, I was on to something. So, without telling Bettina, my parents, or anybody, the day I was to report to that holding company at Fort Dix I did. But at that morning formation, I can still see the tears rolling down my face, I reported in civilian clothes with a big peace button on my shirt and yelling for all to hear-“Bring The Troops Home.” I was tackled by a couple of soldiers, lifer-sergeants I found out later, handcuffed and brought to the Fort Dix stockade.
A couple of days later my name was called to go the visitors’ room and there to my surprise were my parents, my mother crying, my father stoic as usual but not mad, and Bettina. The Army had contacted my parents after my arrest to inform them of my situation. And Bettina, in that strange underground grapevine magic that always amazed me, found out in that way, had called them in Nashua to say who she was (no, not about us being married, just friends, they never did know). They had offered to bring her down to Fort Dix and they had come down together. What a day though. My parents, for one of very few times that I can remember said, while they didn’t agree with me fully, that they were proud and Nashua be damned. They were raising money on their home to get me the best civilian lawyer they could. And they did.
Of course for Bettina a soldier- resister case was just the kind of activity that was gaining currency in the anti-war movement in 1969 and 1970 and she was crazy to raise heaven and hell for my defense(including money, and money from her parents too although they also did not know we were married, and maybe they still don’t). She moved to hard town Trenton not too far from Fort Dix to be closer to the action as my court-martial was set. She put together several vigils, marches, rallies and fundraisers (including one where my father, a father defending his own, spoke and made the crowd weep in his halting New England stoic way).
The court-martial, a general court martial so I faced some serious time, was held in early 1970. As any court proceedings will do, military or civilian, they ran their typical course, which I don’t want to go into except to say that I was convicted of the several charges brought against me (basically, as I told the guys at VVAW later, for being ugly in the military without a uniform-while on duty) , sentenced to a year of hard labor at Fort Leavenworth out in Kansas, reduced in rank to private ( I was a specialist, E-4), forfeited most of my pay, and was to be given an undesirable discharge (not dishonorable).
I guess I do want to say one last thing about the trial thought. As any defendant has the right to do at trial, he or she can speak in their own defense. I did so. What I did, turning my back to the court-martial judges and facing the audience, including that day my parents and Bettina was to recite from memory Bob Dylan’s <i>Masters of War</i>. I did so in my best stoic (thanks, dad) Nashua, New Hampshire voice. The crowd either heckled me or cheered (before being ordered to keep quiet) but I had my say. So when you write this story put that part in. Okay? [See lyrics above-JLB]
So how come I am down here in some Los Angeles hobo jungle just waiting around to be waiting around. Well I did my time, all of it except good time, and went back home, first to Nashua but I couldn’t really stay there ( a constant “sore” in the community and worry to my parents) and then to Boston where I fit in better. Bettina? Well, my last letter from her in Leavenworth was that she was getting ready to go underground, things with her group (a group later associated with the Weather Underground) had gotten into some stuff a little dicey and she would not be able to communicate for a while. That was the last I heard from her; it has been a few years now.
I understand, and I feel happy for her. We were fond of each other but I was thinking in the stockade that a “war marriage” was not made to last, not between us anyway. Then after a few months in Boston, doing a little or this and a little of that, I drifted out here where things might pop up a little (it’s tough even with millions of people hating the war, hating it until it finally got over a couple of years ago to have an undesirable discharge hanging around your neck. I’m not sorry though, no way, and if I do get blue sometime I just recite that Masters Of War thing and I get all welled up inside).
I hear the new president, Jimmy Carter, is talking about amnesty for Vietnam guys with bad discharges and maybe I will check into it if it happens. Then maybe I will go to law school and pick up my life up again. Until then though I feel like I have got to stick with my “band of brothers” who got broken up, broken up bad by that damn war. Hey, sometimes they ask me to recite that <i>Masters Of War</i> thing over some night fire.
[The last connection I had with Kenneth Edward Jackson was in late 1979 when he sent a short note to me saying he had gotten his discharge upgraded, was getting ready to start law school and that he was publicly getting re-married to some non-political gal from upstate New York . Still no word from Bettina though.-JLB]
The New Course
The great Mandela cried, cried to the high heavens, for revenge against the son’s hurt, now that the son had found his way, a strange way but a way. Freed from mental prisons and placed in solitary barred, steel-barred root rooms to wager his personal bet, bet of his life, on freedom. Freed from manacle shackled past get aheads, go aheads, keep your head down to get ahead, eyes straight forward, no lefts or rights, hell, no, meet some nice working-class girl, find some forty years, a pension, and a gold watch, and produce, produce what. And prison freed from now sour bourgeois dreams, bobby (kennedy) dreams, okay, okay but that is what they were and one need not be a Marxist (or marxist) to know that road led to perdition and without even trying.
Yah, and that road, that blessed bobby road, represented the character flaw, that certain tilting to the winds instead of against them like some old baby boy donkey ride Sancho Panza and his pal and all the windmills in Holland or Palm Springs could not change that. Yah, free, prison free and his dream hair grows a little longer each day and his dream beard begins to be bushy like some old time Old Testament archangel avenger of hurts, his own first and the other hurts. And like some righteous John Brown, just to name a name, a Calvinist avenger name, blown out of Kansas prairie fires and set smack daub in Harper’s Ferry hellholes he cultivates that long flow hair and beard, dreamed.
But a dame, pardon me, 1971 women’s consciousness-raising and righteous too, a woman always comes with it, the dream hair and beard. One hard night, one tossed night some apparition out of a Puritan dream, all quakerly and severe, he saw some Croton-on-the-Hudson vision. A woman passed momentarily in fierce struggles, fierce outside the walls struggles, not noticed, not noticed until that night, not pretty, not blonde, not, well, not everywoman, but fierce, fierce in about six difference ways and maybe, just maybe capable of fierce loves.
Another hard night, tossed too, a free-form dream of Chicago, hog butcher to the world, wheat fields and wholesomeness just beyond in now no longer John Brown-like prairies. A daughter, some brown-eyed, brown-haired, brown-skinned semite butcher’s, a kosher butcher, maybe, daughter, who spoke of spirit dreams, and wrote blue-eyed poems and of goyim sillies, and he was happy, happy that she wrote of fierce blue-eyes just when he had been ready to throw in the towel. And then that certain character flaw, that fidget, that endless fidget, neither left or right, came in as he tried to have the whole world. Imagine that, imagine some fierce blue-eyed boy could shake all that, and forget those blue-eyed words in that blue-eyed poem. And shake (and forget) to endless sorrows. Hell, damn, hell.
This last time, the last restless night, came one out of hell Manhattan and one thousand and one anxieties, neuroses, and her own father time hurts. No righteous Hudson puritan or Midwestern semite daughter she. No, princess semite she. What a pair they will be. Remind me to tell you sometime how they met, dream met, in some snowy do-good cabin/assembly hall build to curse the darkness of one thousand wars and one hundred fights against those damn wars. And for a minute she, he, they were happy, happy in each other’s vagrant landless company. Then certain madnesses came forth. And short dope snorts, and peyote dream buttons, all mixed in sometimes blank, sometimes the door of perception but I just cribbed that, not the perceptions the thought, okay.
What a ride, lord, what a ride, and lusts and screams and crazed rants were just a little part of it before that damn fidget, what, redhead, blonde, dirty blonde, path crossed his way.
And fame, local lore fame, built out of impossible combinations of minute fortitude, hour righteousness, and day of reckoning, day of reckoning and passing with flying colors. And a certain swagger came to his feet in the high heaven black Madonna of a night. But no such feeling can (or, truth, should), last too long and in that Black Madonna night he began to fidget, fidget just a little. Some fidget ignited by refused dreams of white picket fences, dogs, and two point three kids (exactly two point three he never tired of saying as she, the Black Madonna, reddened at the thought). And he, he made for great leaps, and straw dogs. Hell it could have been easy, very easy but she couldn’t see it that way, and he didn’t except when he needed her refuge, lovingly or just shelter.
And on those shelter days no cigarette hanging off the lip now (she would not allow it see, not cool and it aggravated her condition, whichever one it was at the time. So no Winston filter-tipped seductions, no need, and no rest except the rest of waiting, waiting on the days to pass until the next coming, and the next coming after that.
Ah, sweet Mandela, turn for me, turn for me and mine just a little. He cursed the darkness on those days, and the light too, for he had made that leap that he only heard about in his head when he had had a few dreams and was feeling warrior king brave to take on all comers, tricky dick, vance packard, spiro agnew, hell even sparring a norman mailer now that they were on the same side (or at least he thought they were on the same side, same side advertising for themselves and their heroics, their armies of the night collective moment). And dreams of being right, ha.
Then one day some news came from above, no, hell no, not that above, the above of mundane chain-of-command drop down and let you know freedom day was near. Anti-climactic, anticlimactic for a man who expected to grow old in stir, and kind of dug it (excuse beat reversion memory of Harvard Square leavings when he thought this world would be some literary break-out and not righteous avenger of hurts, did I said his own first of all. If he didn’t, he lied).
Free at last but with a very, very sneaking feeling that this was a road less traveled for a reason, and no ancient robert frost blasted two roads to guide one… Just look at blooded Kent State, or better, blooded Jackson State. Christ.
To Joyell Davin In Lieu Of A Letter- With J.E.D. In Mind
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
In the previous sketch, “The New Course,” mention was made that sometime
Peter Paul Markin would tell how he met that semite princess from Manhattan. This sketch, suitably name changed is essentially the story of their meeting and their fire next time.
**********
Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Freight train, freight train going so fast,
Please don’t say what train I’m on,
So they won’t know where I’ve gone.
-Chorus from ancient folk blues artist Elizabeth Cotten’s Freight Train.
As this story unfolds, Elizabeth Cotten’ s Freight Train, in an upbeat Peter, Paul and Mary-style version complete with Bleecker Street reference, is being covered just then near the well firewood- stocked, well-stoked fireplace of the great room in a hard winter, February version, snow-covered rural New Hampshire old time religious order assembly hall by some upstart urban folkie a long way from his home and a long way from that 1960s folk revival minute that then had had even jaded aficionados from the generation of ’68 clamoring for more.
Meanwhile, the front hall entrance adjacent to that great room where that old-time folkie and his old-time tune are being heard by a small early-bird arrival gathering crowd who never tire of the song, and who this night certainly do not tire of being close by the huge well stocked, well-stoked fireplace where the old brother, hell, let’s give him a name, Eric, Eric from Vermont, okay, is holding forth is starting to fill with more arrivals to be checked in and button-holed. The place, for the curious: the Shaker Farms Peace Pavilion (formerly just plain vanilla Shaker Farms Assembly Hall but the “trust fund babies” who bought and donated the site, ah, insisted in their, of course, anonymous way on the added signature) the scene of umpteen peace conferences, anti-war parlays, alternative world vision seminars, non-violent role-playing skits, and personal witness actions worked out. A handy hospice for worn-out ideas, ditto frustrations, and an off-hand small victory or two.
That very last part, that desperate victory last part, is what keeps the place afloat, afloat in this oddball of a hellish anti-war year 1971 when even hardened and steeled old-time peace activists against the Vietnam War are starting to believe they will be entitled to Social Security for their efforts before this bloody war is over. Hence the urgency behind this particular great room fireplace warm, complete with booked-in urban folkie singer, umpteenth anti-war conference. But onward brothers and sisters and let us listen in to the following conversation overheard in that now crowded front hall:
“Hi, Joyell, glad you could make it to the conference. Are you by yourself or did you bring Steve with you?” asked Jim Sweeney, one of the big honchos, one of the big organizational honchos and that is what matters these dog days when all hope appears to have been abandoned, these now fading days of the antiwar movement trying yet again to conference jump start the opposition to Nixon’s bloody escalations and stealthy tricky maneuvers.
“Good to see you too, Jim,”answered Joyell, who said it in such a singsong way that she and Jim Sweeney, obviously, had been in some mystic time, maybe some summer of love time before everything and everybody needed twelve coats of armor, emotional armor, just to move from point A to point B, more than fellows at one of those umpteen peace things. Joyell knew, knew from some serious reflection last summer, that she had put on a few more armor coats herself and, hell, she was just a self-confessed rank and filer. Their “thing” had just faded though for lack of energy, lack of high “ism” politics on Joyell’s part unlike frenetic Jim, and for the cold, hard fact that Jim at the time wanted to devote himself totally to the “movement” and could not “commit” to a personal relationship.
“Jesus, can’t any guy commit to anything for more than ten minutes,” Joyell thought to herself. From the weathered look on his face Jim was still in high thrall to “saving the earth” although rumor had it that Marge Goodwin, ya, that Marge Goodwin, the “mother” of organizers ever since she almost single-handedly called out the national student strike in 1970, almost had her hooks into him, into him bad from all reports.
“No, Steve and I are not together anymore since he split to “find himself” on some freight train heading west, heading west fast away from me, I think. But you don’t want to hear that story, and besides we have to push on against this damn war, Steve or no Steve and his goddamn freight smoke-trailing dreams.” What Joyell didn’t say was that she was half-glad, no quarter-glad, Steve had split since the last couple of months had been hell. A fight a day it seemed, two a day at the end.
Reason: Steve too was not ready to “commit” to a personal relationship what with the whole world going to hell in hand-basket (his expression). Besides they all had plenty of time, a life-time to get “serious” and, forbidden words, “settle down.” Here is where the quarter-glad part comes in. Steve was getting in kind of heavy with some Weathermen-types and while that did not cause an argument a day between them it didn’t help. Joyell half expected to hear that Steve, Steve the meek pacifist, a freaking meek Catholic Worker guy just a couple years before, blew up something, or got blown up. Jesus, she thought, was I that hard to take, hard to get along with.
“I’m sorry to hear that Joyell. Maybe when we get a break later we can talk.” Of course, and maybe for the same Steve smoke-trailing-freight-dream-escape-seeking-the-great-American be-bop night reason, or maybe a heroic end traced out since boyhood redemptions reason, Jim and Joyell never would meet later, as Jim would be tied up, well, tied up in whatever organizational thing he was honcho of these days. Their time too had irrevocably passed. And now, and from here on in, this is Joyell’s time, her story, her voice as she enters the spacious but cold, distant from the well-stoked fireplace cold, conference room to the left of the great room with its rickety elongated table weighted down with timeless banging against ten thousand flickered night dreams, scarecrow chairs that caused more than one modern arched-back to falter helplessly, and unhealthy air, air make rank from too many spent speeches, and spent dreams.
*******
“Who is that guy over in the corner, that green corner coach, the guy with the kind of wispy just starting to fill out brown beard, and those fierce piercing goy blue eyes, that I just passed? I’ve not seen him around before,” Joyell asked herself and then Marge Goodwin, expecting Marge the crackerjack organizer of everything from antiwar marches to save the, and you can fill in the blank, to know all the players. Moreover Marge and Joyell got along well enough for Joyell to ask such a question, “girl talk,” they called it between themselves although to the “men”this was a book sealed with seven seals since the “correct” thing was to put such girlish things back in prehistoric times, four or five years ago okay. Joyell also sensed that since Marge’s “thing” with Jim hadn’t worked out they had something in common, although nothing was ever said. Nor would it be.
“Oh, that’s Frank Jackman, the anti-war GI who just got out of the stockade over at Fort Shaw last week and he is ready to do some work with us,” volunteered Marge. Later that evening Joyell would hear from a reliable source that Marge had gotten, or had tried to get, very familiar with the ex-army soldier resister. Marge had a thing for“heroic” guys. Heroic guys being guys like Jim, Joan Baez’s hubby, David Harris, who had refused draft induction, the Berrigan Brothers who were getting ready to do time for draft board record destruction (although she, Marge, couldn’t get that damn Catholic trick part that drove their actions) and now this Frank Jackman who had done a year, a tough soldier non-soldier year, some of it in solidarity, in the stockade for refusing go to Vietnam (and refusing to wear the military uniform at one point). Joyell also heard from another source that evening that it was no dice between Marge and Frank.
This source thought it was that Marge, always getting what Marge wanted when it came to “movement men,”figured this guy would just cave in and take the ride. Not this guy, no way, not after taking on the “big boys” over at Fort Shaw. No dice, huh. That’s a point in his favor. But that was later fuel.
“Oh, that’s why his beard is so wispy and he is wearing those silly high top polished black boots and that size too big Army jacket with those bell-bottomed jeans. He certainly has the idea of what it takes to fit in here,” Joyell figured out, figured out loud. Marge just nodded, nodded kind of dismissively that she was right. And then left to do some organization business setting up the evening’s work.
And then suddenly, she, Joyell Davin (suitably Americanized, naturally, a couple of generations back), freshly-damaged in love’s unequal battles but apparently not ready to throw in the towel, got very quiet, very quiet like she always did when some guy caught her eye, well, more than her eye tonight, now that Steve was so much train smoke out in the cornfields somewhere. Maybe it was the New York City armor-coated brashness, hell Manhattan grow-up hard and necessary brashness required in a too many people universe, and learned from her very opinionated father, that her quietness tried to rein in at times like this so guys, guys like this Frank, wouldn’t be thrown off. But whatever it was that drove her quietness she was taking her peeks, her quiet half- peeks really, at this guy. With Steve, and a few other guys, it was mostly full steam ahead and let the devil take the hinter- post. This time her clock said take it easy, jesus, take it easy.
And as she found herself catching herself taking more and more of those telltale peeks she noticed, noticed almost by instinct, almost by some mystical sense that he was“checking” her out, although their dueling eyes had not met. Then, after Jim had finished giving the opening address about what the conferees were trying to do, this Frank Jackman stood up quickly without introduction and started talking, in a firm voice, about the need to up the ante, to create havoc in the streets, and in the army camps. And do it now, and with some sense of urgency. But he said it all in such way that everybody in the room, all forty or fifty of them, knew, or should have known, that this was not some ragtag wispy–bearded fly-by-night “days of rage” kid spirit, freshly bell-bottom pants minted, but some kind of revolutionary, some kind of radical anyway, who had thought about things a lot and wasn’t just a flame-thrower like she had seen too many of lately, including Steve, before he went to find himself.
When Frank was done he looked, half-looked really, quickly in her direction like he was seeking her, and just her, approval. And like he needed to know and know right this minute that she approved. She blushed, and hoped it did not show. And hoped that she had read his look in her direction correctly. But before that blush could subside she blushed again when out of nowhere this Frank gave her a another look, a serious checking out look if she knew her “movement” men, not a leer like some drunken barroom guy, or “come on, honey,” like a schoolboy but a let’s talk high “ism” talk later, and see what happens later, later. Maybe this umpteenth conference would work out after all.
So our Joyell was not surprised, not surprised at all, when during the break, the blessed break after two non-stop hours of waiting, Francis Alexander Jackman (that’s what he was called from when he was a kid and it kind of stuck but he preferred simply Frank) came up behind, tapped her gently on the shoulder to get her attention, introduced himself without fanfare or with any heroic poses, and thanked her for her work on his behalf.
“What do you mean, Frank?”she asked, bewildered by the question. “Oh, when your Peace Action committee came up to Fort Shaw and demonstrated for my freedom,” he replied in kind of a whisper voice, very different from his public voice, a voice that had known some tough times recently and maybe long ago too, but that soft whisper was what she needed, needed to hear from a righteous man, just now. The shrill of Steve’s voice, and a couple of others in her string of forgotten luck, still echoed in her brain.
“That was you? I didn’t make the connection. I didn’t know that was you, sorry, that was about a year ago and I have been going non-stop with this antiwar march and that women’s lib things. Were you in the stockade all that time?” she continued.
“Yah,” just a yah, not forlorn or anything like that but just a simple statement of fact, of the fact that he had needed to do what he did and that was that, next question, came that soft reply like this Frank and she were on some same wave-length. She was confused, confused more than a little that he had that strong effect on her after about five minutes of just general conversation.
Just then Marge, super-organizer but, as Joyell had already gathered intelligence on by then, not above having the last say in her little romances with the newest heroes of the movement, or trying to, called to Frank that Stanley Bloom, the big national anti-war organizer, wanted his input into something. But before he left soft -whispering still, calm still, unlike when he talked, talked peace action talk, he mentioned kind of kid-like, bashful kid-like, and maybe they could meet later. Joyell could barely contain herself, and although she usually acted bashfully at these times, kind of a studied bashfulness starting out, even with Steve and some of the movement guys, she just blurted out, “We’d better.” He replied, a little stronger of voice than that previous whisper, “I guess that is a command, right?” And they both laughed, laughed an adventure ahead laugh.
Later came, evening session complete, as they were sitting across from each other in the great room, the great fireplace room where Eric was going through his second rendition of Freight Train to get the room revved up for his big stuff. Frank came over and asked, back to whisper asked, if Joyell would like to go outside for a breath of fresh winter air. Or maybe somewhere else, another room inside perhaps if she didn’t like the cold or snow. No second request was necessary, and no coyness on her part either with this guy, as she quickly went to the coat rack and put on her coat, scarf, and boots. And so it went.
They talked, or rather she talked a blue streak, a soft-spoken blue streak like Frank’s manner was contagious, and maybe it was. Then he would ask a question, and ask it in such a way that he really wanted to know, know her for her answer and not just to ask, polite ask. As they walked, and walked, and as the snow got deeper as they moved away from the pavilion she kind of fell, kind of helpless on purpose fell. On purpose fell expecting that he might kiss her. But all he did was pick her up, gently but firmly, held her in his arms just a fraction of a second, but a fraction of a second enough to let her know, and let her feel, that they had not seen the last of each other. And just for that cold, snow-driven February night, as war raged on in some distance land, and as she gathered in her tangled emotions after many romantic stumbles and man disappointments, that thought was enough.
The Risen People?-May Day 1971
http://libcom.org/library/ending-war-inventing-movement-mayday-1971
Click on the headline to link to an entry for May Day 1971 in Washington, D.C.
Endless, dusty, truck heavy, asphalt steaming hitchhike roads travelled, Route 6, 66, maybe 666 and perdition for all we knew, every back road, every Connecticut highway avoiding back road from Massachusetts south to the capital for one last winner-take-all, no prisoners taken show-down to end all show-downs. And maybe, just maybe, finally some peace and a new world a-borning, a world we had been talking about for at least a decade (clueless, as all youth nations are clueless, that that road was well-travelled, very well- travelled, before us). No Jack Kerouac dharma bum easy road (although there were dharma bums, or at least faux dharma bums, aplenty on those 1971 roads south, and west too) let her rip cosmic brakeman Neal Cassady at the wheel flying through some wheat field night fantasy this trip.
No this trip was not about securing some cultural enclave in post-war (World War II so as not to confuse the reader) break-out factory town Lowell or cold water tenement Greenwich Village/Soho New Jack City or Shangri-La West out in the Bay area, east or west, but about mucking up the works, the whole freaking governmental/societal/economic/cultural/personal/godhead world (that last one, the godhead one, not thrown in just for show, no way) and maybe, just maybe sneaking away with the prize. But a total absolute, absolutist, big karma sky fight out, no question. And we are, he is, ready. On that dusty road ready.
More. See all roads head south as we and they, his girlfriend of the day, maybe more, maybe more than a day, Joyell, but along this time more for ease of travelling for those blessed truck driver eye rides, than lust or dream wish and his sainted wise-guy amigo (and shades of Gregory Corso, sainted, okay), Matty, who had more than a passing love or dream wish in her and if you had seen her you would not have wondered why. Not have wondered why if your “type” was Botticelli painted and thoughts of butterfly swirls just then or were all-type sleepy-eyed benny-addled teamster half-visioned out of some forlorn rear view mirror.
Yah, head south, in ones, twos, and threes (no more, too menacing even for hefty ex-crack back truckers to stop for) travelling down to D.C. for what many of them figured would be the last, finally, push back against the war, the Vietnam War, for those who have forgotten, or stopped watching television and the news, but THEY, and we knew (know) who they were, had their antennae out too, they KNEW those who were coming, even high-ball fixed (or whiskey neat she had the face for them) looking out from lonely balconies Martha Mitchell knew that much. They were, especially in mad max robot-cop Connecticut, out to pick off the stray or seven who got into their mitts as a contribution to law and order, law and order one Richard Milhous Nixon-style (and in front of him, leading some off-key, off-human key chorus some banshee guy from Maryland, another watch out hitchhike trail spot, although not as bad as Ct., nothing except Arizona was). And thus those dusty, steamy, truck heavy (remind me to tell you about hitchhiking stuff, and the good guy truckers you wanted, desperately wanted, to ride with in those days, if I ever get a chance sometime).
The idea behind this hitchhiked road, or maybe, better, the why. Simple, too simple when you, I, they thought about it later in lonely celled night but those were hard trying times, desperate times really, and just free, free from another set of steel-barred rooms these jailbirds-in-waiting- were ready to bring down heaven, hell, hell if it came down to it to stop that furious war (Vietnam, for the later reader) and start creating something recognizable for humans to live in. So youth nation, then somewhat long in the tooth, and long on bad karma-driven bloody defeats too, decided to risk all with the throw of the dice and bring a massive presence to D.C. on May Day 1971.
And not just any massed presence like the then familiar seasonal peace crawl that nobody paid attention then to anymore except the organizers, although the May Day action was wrapped around that year’s spring peace crawl, (wrapped up, cozily wrapped up, in their utopian reformist dream that more and more passive masses, more and more suburban housewives from New Jersey, okay, okay not just Jersey, more and more high school freshman, more and more barbers, more and more truck driver stop waitresses, for that matter, would bring the b-o-u-r-g-e-o-i-s-i-e (just in case there are sensitive souls in the room) to their knees. No, we were going to stop the government, flat. Big scheme, big scheme no question and if anybody, any “real” youth nation refugee, excepting, of course, always infernal always, those cozy peace crawl organizers, tried to interject that perhaps there were wiser courses nobody mentioned them out loud in our presence and we were at every meeting, high or low. Moreover we had our ears closed, flapped shut closed, to any lesser argument. We, rightly or wrongly, silly us thought “cop.”
So onward anti-war soldiers from late night too little sleep Sunday night before Monday May Day dawn in some vagrant student apartment around DuPont Circle (He, we, thought, but it may have been further up off 14th Street, Christ after eight million marches for seven million causes who can remember that much. No question though on the student ghetto apartment locale; bed helter-skelter on the floor, telephone wire spool for a table, orange crates for book shelves, unmistakably, and the clincher, seventeen posters, mainly Che, Mao, Ho, Malcolm etc., the first name only necessary for identification pantheon just then, a smattering of Lenin and Trotsky but they were old guys from old revolutions and so, well, discounted) to early rise (or early stay up cigarette chain-smoking and coffee-slurping to keep the juices flowing).
Out into the streets, out into the small collectives coming out of other vagrant apartments streets (filled with other posters of Huey Newton , George Jackson, Frantz Fanon, etc. from the two names needed pantheon) joining up to make a cohorted mass (nice way to put it, right?). And then dawn darkness surrounded, coffee spilled out, cigarette bogarted, AND out of nowhere, or everywhere, bang, bang, bang of governmental steel, of baton, of chemical dust, of whatever latest technology they had come up with they came at us (pre-tested in Vietnam, naturally, as I found out later). Jesus, bedlam, mad house, insane asylum, beat, beat like gongs, defeated.
Through bloodless bloodied streets (this, after all, was not Chicago, hog butcher to the world), may day tear down the government days, tears, tear-gas exploding, people running this way and that coming out of a half-induced daze, a crazed half-induced daze that mere good- will, mere righteousness would right the wrongs of this wicked old world. One arrested, two, three, many, endless thousands as if there was an endless capacity to arrest, and be arrested, arrest the world, and put it all in one great big ironic (past ironic) Robert F. Kennedy stadium home to autumn gladiators on Sunday and sacrificial lambs this spring maypole may day basket druid day.
And, as we were being led away by one of D.C.s finest, we turned around and saw that some early Sunday morning voice, some “cop” voice who advised caution and went on and on about getting some workers out to join us before we perished in an isolated blast of arrests and bad hubris also being led away all trussed up, metal hand-cuffs seemingly entwined around her whole slight body. She said she would stick with us even though she disagreed with the strategy that day and we had scoffed, less than twenty-four hours before, that she made it sound like she had to protect her erring children from themselves. And she, maybe, the only hero of the day. Righteous anonymous sister, forgive us. (Not so anonymous actually since we saw her many times later in Boston, and Peter Paul almost would have traded in lust for her but he was still painted Botticelli-bewitched and so I, he, let the moment pass, and worked on about six million marches for about five millions causes with her but that was later. We saw no more of her in D.C. that week.)
Stop. Brain start. Out of the bloodless fury, out of the miscalculated night a strange bird, no peace dove, these were not such times even with all our unforced errors, and no flame-flecked phoenix raising but a bird, maybe the owl of Minerva came a better sense that this new world a-bornin’ would take some doing, some serious doing. More serious that some wispy-bearded, pony-tailed beat, beat down, beat around, beat up young stalwart road tramps acting in god’s place could even dream of. But that was later. Just then, just that screwed-up martyr moment, we were longing for the hot, dusty, truck driver stop meat loaf special, dishwater coffee on the side, road back home even ready to chance Connecticut highway dragnets to get there.
Sweet, Moonless Ohio Dreams-1969
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
In the last sketch which detailed Peter Paul (and my) experience travelling, hitch-hike travelling as was our wont (and mainly our necessity if we wanted to get places with low or no dough) down to Washington D. C. for the ill-fated May Day 1971 action against the Vietnam War mention was made of later addressing the whole ethos of hitch-hiking. In short, a suitable homage to the long haul truckers who, for whatever reason, were the best guys to ride the road with. Here is a good place to put one such experience although it, strictly speaking, breaks the chronology since it takes place in 1969.
And strictly speaking it goes well beyond the romance of the road to another one of Peter Paul’s moon-begotten romances but on reflection the two really do seem to mesh together in that anything is possible time. Thus it is a good representation of the highs and lows of one experience. I have, by the way, a basketful of my own hitch-hike road stories that I could tell, including that fateful trip cross-country from Olde Saco to San Francisco in the summer of love, 1967, where I met Peter Paul but that for another book of sketches.
********
The 1960s asphalt-driven, white-lined, hitchhike road, the quest for the blue-pink great American West night, the eternal midnight creep of over-weight trucks with their company-seeking, benny-high, overwrought teamster drivers, and the steam-driven, onion-filled meatloaf-milk-heavy mashed potatoes-and limpid carrots daily special diner truck stop are all meshed together. You could say that there was no hitchhike road, and no blue-pink dreams, if the old-fashioned caboose (sometimes literally) diner was not part of the mix that glued things together out on that lonely highway.
No, I do not speak of the then creeping family-friendly one-size-fits-all but still steamed meats-milky starches-sogged vegetable franchise interstate restaurants that now dot the roads from here to ‘Frisco but back road, back hitchhike road if you were smart, back old time route one, or sixty-six or twenty road where you had a chance for pushing distance and for feeling America in the raw. Hey, I have a million diner stories, diners with and without truck stops, diners famous and obscene, diners of every shape and composition to tell about. Or rather I have about three basic diner stories with a million steamed meat loaf-mashed taters-carrots (okay, maybe string beans, steamed, for a change-up)-bread pudding for dessert variations. I want to tell you one, one involving a young woman, and involving the great American night that drives these scenes. The other variations can wait their turns for some other time.
Car-less, and with no hope for any car any time soon, but with enough pent-up energy and anger to build a skyscraper single-handedly, I set out for the early May open roads, thumb in good working order, bedroll on one shoulder, life’s worldly goods in a knapsack on the other. It was that simple in those days. Today, sadly, it would take my rental of a major U-Haul truck, for starters. As always in those days as well, and some of you may know the spot if you have ever been in Boston (or, better, Cambridge) there was (and is) an old abandoned railroad yard that was turned into a truck depot near the entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike where most of the truckers, the big diesel-fuelled ones, the doubled-wheeled, eight and sixteen-wheeled ones, picked up or unloaded their goods for further transport. That was the place to check first if you were heading west on the off chance that some mad man trucker was looking for company on that white-lined, hard-scrabble road, and did not mind bedraggled, bearded, long-haired, hippie boy company, at that.
As luck would have it I caught a guy who heading out to Chicago with a load of widgets (or whatever, even these guys didn’t know, or want to know, what was on the manifest half the time, especially if they were running “heavy”).
And why, by the way, although it is not germane to the story, was I heading out on that old California road. Why all that pent-up energy and skyscraper-building anger. Well, the cover story was so that I can get my head straight but you know the real reason, and this is for your eyes only, I had just broken up, for the umpteenth time, with a women who drove me to distraction, sometimes pleasantly but on that occasion fitfully, who I could not, and did not, so I thought, want to get out of my system, but had to put myself a little distance away from. You know that story, boys and girls, in your own lives so I do not have to spend much time on the details here. Besides, if you really want to read that kind of story the romance novel section of any library or the DVD film section, for that matter, can tell the story with more heart-throbbing panache that you could find here.
Now there were a million and one reasons that long-haul drivers back then would take hitchhikers on board, even hippies who represented most of what they hated about what was happening in, and to, their America in those days (in the days before the trucking companies, and the insurance companies, squashed that traveler pick-up idea and left the truckers to their own solitary devises). Some maybe were perverse but usually it was just for sheer, human companionship, another voice, or more usually someone to vent to at seventy or seventy-five miles an hour, especially at night when those straight white lines started to get raggedy looking.
This guy, this big-chested, brawny, beef-eating teamster guy, Denver Slim by name (really, I heard other truckers call him that at truck stops when they gave each other the nod, although as described he was neither slim nor, as he told me, from Denver), was no different except the reason, at least the reason that he gave me, was that I reminded him of his goddam son (I am being polite here) whom he loved/hated. Loved, because that is what a father was expected to feel toward kin, son kin especially and hated because he was showing signs or rebellion (read: becoming a hippie). I, needless to say, was a little queasy and sat close to the door handle for a while until I realized that it was more about love than hate. Old Denver Slim just didn’t get what was happening to his world, especially the part, the huge part, that he had no control over.
Hey, I had countless hitchhike rides in all kinds of vehicles, from the Denver Slim big wheels to Volkswagen bugs (look that up) but the common thread was that there were some interesting (if disturbing and hopeless) stories out there. Let me fill you in on Denver Slim’s story both because it helps explain what is coming up in my own quest and the hard, hard fact that there was a malaise, a palpable malaise, in the land and his story was prima facie evidence for that notion. Denver Slim had gone, like a million other members of my parent’s generation, through his childhood in the Great Depression (Chicago) and did his military in the throes of World War II (Corporal, U.S. Army, European Theater, and proud of it). After the war he started driving trucks, finally landing unionized teamster jobs as an over-the-road long haul driver based in Chicago. As was not unusual then, and maybe not now either, he married a local woman he knew from the old neighborhood, had several children, moved out of Chicago proper to a suburban plot house (“little boxes”, from the description he gave) and bought into the mortgaged, green-grassed lawn, weekly mowed (when he was not on the road), television-watching, neighbor-averting (except for the kids when young) routine that was a blueprint for America 1950s life in the lower-middle classes.
Here is where Slim’s story gets tricky though, and interesting. Of course being on the road, being mortgaged up to the neck on the road, he was never home enough to make the word family stick. He, as he admitted, when talking about his son Jamie, the rebellious son (read: becoming a hippie son), didn’t really know the kids (the other three were daughters whom he , as he said, wouldn’t have known anyway past the age of ten or so the way things work in girl world). But here is the kicker, the kicker for me back then although I get it better now, much better. The wife, Ruth, the ever-loving wife, had along the way taken a boyfriend and, off and on, lived with that boyfriend. Slim went crazy at first about it but somehow got through it and accepted that situation. Oh, you thought that was the kicker. No, that was just the prelude to the kicker. Here it is. Denver Slim, old proud soldier-warrior, old mortgaged to the neck teamster, old work and slave on the road for the kids that he doesn’t know has a girlfriend, and had said girlfriend way before his wife took her lover. A beautiful family values story out of the age of Ozzie and Harriet, right?
But this is the real kicker for your harried hippie listener, old salt of the earth Denver Slim in relating his life story gets a little bit lovesick for his honey (no, not the wife, the girlfriend, silly) who lived in Steubenville, Ohio. And that, my friends, is where we are heading as we are making tracks to Youngstown on Interstate 70 and so instead of getting a ride through to Chicago (a place where I knew how to catch a ride west, no problem, almost like out of Boston) I am to be left off, and good luck, at the diner truck stop just off Route 7 outside of Steubenville, Ohio. Right near the Ohio River, at the eastern end that I was not familiar with. Christ, I never even heard of the place before, never mind trying to get a ride out of there, getting out of there at night as it looked like was going to happen by the time we got to the stop. Well, such is the road, the hitchhike road, and I hope old Slim had a good time with his honey, maybe, maybe I hope he did that is.
Slim must have had it bad, love bug-bitten bad, because he no sooner left me off at the diner than he then barrel-assed (nice term, right?) that big rig back, that big sixteen wheeler, onto the love-night road and to his own dream sleep. So here I am doing graduate-level diner study by my lonesome. Look, I am no stranger, by this time in my wanderings, to the diners, trucks stops, cafes, and hash houses of this continent. From the look of this one (and one judged these things by the number of big rigs idling nearby) it was something of a Buckeye institution, maybe not like the football team or various legendary football coaches but busy (yah, see I know a little about Ohio, although not much outside the bigger cities and campus towns).
As I go inside through the glass-plated double doors I can practically inhale the steam from the vegetables, the dank, faded glory of the taters, and the inevitable onion smell than can only mean meat loaf. Hey, this is what passes for home-cooking on the road. And be glad of it, friend. As a single I would not be so uncool as to take a booth, although at this time of day there are some empties here, but rather hop right up on that old stool at the Formica-top red counter replete with individual paper mat and dinner setting, spoons, folks, knives, various condiments and plastic-entombed menu that every self-respecting diner has for those caught by their lonesome. Their sincere, if futile, attempt at home-away from hominess. It’s not like this is a date-taking place (or at least I hope nobody thinks along those lines, but you never know, maybe people celebrate their anniversaries here) but it is okay out here abandoned in the neon-lighted wilderness of a back road truck stop.
Okay, at long last here is the part that you have been waiting for, the girl in the story part. Well, wait a minute, let me hold forth on waitresses because that is important to the girl part (and it was almost always waitresses in those days, or in a pinch, the owner/short order cook) who served them off the arm. In college towns and big cities, waitresses were (and are) just doing that job to mark time while going to college or some other thing but in the hash houses, the road side diners, the hole-in-the-wall faded restaurants of this continent it was (is) almost universally true that in this type of establishment this was an upwardly-mobile career move (or, maybe, just a lateral move). You have all seen and heard about the typical career waitress- surly, short-tempered, steam-pressed uniform, steamed by the proximity to the food trays that is, hardly has time to take your order because that party of six in the booths is waiting on dessert (and her big tip for this evening, she hopes, although if she thought about it the hard facts should have told her that old lonesome single male trucker was the best tipper). There is a smidgen of truth in those old hoary stories about waitresses but there is also some very hard-pressed, ill-fated bad luck thrown in as well. They all had stories to tell, at least the ones who didn’t scurry away like rats from “hippies.”
Okay, okay I can now tell you about angelic Angelica. That name, the smell of that name, the swirl around the tongue speaking that name, the touch of that name, still evokes strong memories even after all this time. But enough of nostalgia. Let’s get down to cases. First of all she was young, very young for a truck stop diner waitress so at first I thought that she was a career waitress-in-training or that there was a college nearby that I might not have heard of. I will describe her virtues in a second but let me tell you right off that the minute I sat down, and although there were several others at the counter who had come in before me, she came right over to my stool and asked if I wanted coffee. Well, kind of sleepy that I was at the time, I said yes and she went right off, got it, and came right back. And then, while the others at the counter were cooling their heels, she took my order, and as she moved away to put that order in (No, I do not remember what it was but, probably, since I was counting pennies, a burger and fries, meat loaf and other such high-end cuisine was saved for serious hungers) she slightly turned to give me another look and a sly smile.
In those days I was susceptible, very susceptible, to that winsome sly smile that some women know exactly how to throw (hell, I am still a sucker for that one, and don’t tell me you aren’t, or couldn’t be, too, male or female, it works both ways on this one). That sly smile and her, well, looks. Forget that endless physical description stuff about soft auburn hair, full ruby-red lips, bright, fresh, naïve blue eyes, nicely-shaped hips and well-formed legs. Very good legs. Okay, forget all that. I will describe her looks in “on the road” terms because when you were on the road and trying to get across the country the rules, the rules of the road, were a little different. Your take on life and your usually transient relationships with passing strangers, male or female, got a little twisted. Not necessarily in a bad way, but twisted.
There were different protocols for different situations when you were hitchhiking. A lone male hitching was usually not a bad proposition, especially if you stayed close to the highways and knew the truck stops, and appeared to be drug free, or at least that you were not in the throes of a terminal drug experience while trying to hitch a ride. This Hunter Thompson Fear and Loathing In Las Vegasdrug stuff is good road fiction, but fiction nevertheless, if you were trying to get from point A to point B before your old age set in. The same with goofy Dennis Hooper Easy Rider stuff. Good cinema, bad, real bad road stuff. The main problem then, and probably would be today as well, is single middle-age guys, maybe desperate for a little company, picking you up with the idea of making advances. I don’t know about anybody else, as least I never heard anybody talk much about it then, but a simple "no" usually was enough to stop that(and not infrequently got you dumped in some odd spot between exits to thumb down some flying-by traffic). It’s only later, in the early 1970s when I wasn’t on the road so much that things started to get hairy, and the talk turned to weirdness, serious weirdness, out on the white-lined lanes.
In the late 1960s a pair of males was not a bad combination either. Not so much for getting rides from truckers who usually did not have room for two (or, if so, it was uncomfortable as hell) but for the plethora of Volkswagen vans, converted school buses, campers, and pick-up trucks that were out there on the blue-pink seeking road. There were times on the Pacific Coast Highway out in California that you barely got your thumb out and some vehicle stopped, especially if you looked like you were part of “youth nation.” Two more guys in back, sure thing, no problem. Those were good days to travel the roads, and another time I will tell you about some of those experiences but right now I have to get back to describe Angelica, or her road-worthy attributes anyway.
The optimal road set-up though, the one that got you rides the fastest, usually was to be paired up with a woman, truth be told, preferable a good-looking young woman. Ya, it’s not good form today, it’s certainly not politically correct or socially useful today to work from this premise, but back then the idea was that a guy and girl were safe from the driver’s perspective. And it was almost always guys, truckers or loners, or an occasional man and woman, who picked you up. Not single women drivers, young or old. For my perspective, the hitcher’s perspective, a good-looking woman, with good legs, made the road easier. And other delights, of course.
And it did no harm to have the woman act as an upfront side-of-the-road decoy for that same reason. Maybe not in the desert tumbleweed badlands of Arizona or Nevada where the hot sun, or dust, got you a ride from people who knew that area and knew they had to stop as a matter of your survival, and who knows their own sense of survival as well, but between exits on Interstate 80, let’s say, it helped, hell it helped a lot. Maybe not old Denver Slim, high on benny and moaning and groaning for his honey (the girlfriend not the wife remember) in dark night, white-lined blur but a guy like me would have made those lonesome highway brakes squeal to high heaven, and gladly. Angelica, at first glance, would certainly make the road easier, although this little detour is strictly for descriptive purposes in this part of the story. Put a simpler way, she was fetching.
But all of that is music for the future. Needless to say making any kind of move toward continuing the conversation with Angelica required a certain diligence and patience in the middle of diner traffic. As it turned out the diligence was only partially necessary because she was more than willing to talk to me while taking orders all around us. Her story was that she had been enrolled in some local Podunk (her term) business school (Muncie Business College for Women, or something like that) in her hometown of Muncie, Indiana but now wanted to be a medical technician of some sort (radiologist is what it was, I think). But most of all she wanted to get away from home (be still my heart) and had wound up in Steubenville as some kind of way station between dreams. Yes, I can hear the snickers now about some small-town girl seeing the bright lights of Steubenville and going all a-flutter. Stop it. Stop it right now.
In the dark of that night I was obviously not in any particular rush to leave, and as the dinner crowd thinned out we talked some more, as she filled my coffee cup repeatedly so that I could look like I was a "real" paying customer. To say this gal was innocent in some ways would be an understatement, and on the face of it a Midwest naïve and an East Coast hippie just would not make sense, no sense at all. But so would the fact, the hard fact that I would be in Steubenville, Ohio as part of a search for the great American night. Let’s just call it the times, and leave it at that.
And the times here included a very convenient fact. Angelica, as occurred more often than one would have thought out in those highway stops, as part of her job resided in one of the diner owner's motel cabins that dotted the outside ring of the truck stop. These single units provided cheap lodging for someone new, or transient, in town and were basically provided to the help so the newer help could be readily available on call when the inevitable call came in from the drunken cook, the moving-on dishwasher, or when one of the love-smitten senior career waitresses called in “sick”. Mainly though these cabins were for over-weary transcontinental truckers to grab a little sleep before pushing on. Thus they weren’t, at least these weren’t, your basic family-friendly digs that made you feel that you were in some room at home but rather that you were on that hell-bent, weary road, and this is the best you could do to rest those weary bones.
Well, yes we got around to leaving after her shift was over about 11:00 PM and did the ceremonial dancing around that generations, no, generations of generations, have pursued in the“courting ritual” on that initial question of whether, and when, a smitten pair get together for the night. If they do. But this time there is no story if they don’t, right?
Well, to spare any more suspense dear Angelica asked me into her digs. Just to talk, okay, and frankly I was so tired from my long day’s journey that just talk seemed about right then. I will describe that talk in a minute but let me describe this cabin homestead as we approached it on our one hundred, or one hundred and fifty, yard walk from the diner. Now that I think about it though I really shouldn’t have to describe it to you because you have all seen them, that is if you have been on the back roads of America a little, especially out on those one-lane country roads where working class people who don’t have much money go out to the country to get away from the city and this is what they can afford. There are about fifteen or twenty barely whitewashed cabins in a semi-circle, or maybe a few degrees over. If they were not numbered or if you came to them unknowingly on a dark, moonless night like tonight I guarantee that you would be hard-pressed to tell your new-found home away from home from any other in that arc.
The telltale old-fashioned, green oil-based painted screened door tells you immediately that you are not at the Ritz, or even its fifth cousin. As we enter amid the inevitable light-drawn flies, or moths, or whatever those insects are that you need to swat away to get in the door, or else you have to deal with them inside all night. Like I say these places are built for the moment and so the amenities are on the Spartan side.
As we walk inside, if I were to hazard a guess, and I was a professor in some upscale home interior design school, if someone presented this layout in a portfolio I would sent them, and sent them quickly, to remedial work. Or to a job at Sears Roebuck. But we are here and here the basic bed, bureau, kitchenette with a small table and a couple of wooden chairs, small sleeper sofa, and tiny shower ¾ bathroom fill the room. The only things personal about this place are Angelica’s alternate uniform that matches the one that she has on hanging to one side, drying out for her next bout with the ham-fisted crowd at the diner, and a small open suitcase that has her clothes neatly packed in it. On the bureau her “making my face” fixings and a few gee gads that everyone throws on the bureau when they want to unload their pockets. Hey, I have placed my head down to sleep on paper-strewn park benches and under paperless bridges and on up to downy-pillowed, vast, roomy, and leafy suburban estates so a highway motel cabin is hardly down at the low end of my sleeping quarters resume. This, my friends, will be just fine for the night.
So we start the "just talk" that Angelica promised. I don’t and, frankly, no one should expect me to, remember most of what we talked about but here is my lingering impression. Turnabout is fair play. I thought that I was going to get an in-depth view of what “square” small-town Midwest girls dreamed of, or what drove them from the Lynds’ Middletown (that’s Muncie, okay, the subject of a famous study in sociology), to the wilds of Ohio. Instead I was the interrogated. It seems that Angelica had been so “brain-washed” (her term) about “hippies” or what the old town folks thought was hippiedom (basically a variant of their mid-country fears of the “Bolsheviks” under every bed) that she was crazy to “capture” (my term) one. And, as it turned out, in the course of events, I was the one. And on top of that and here is a direct quote from her, “You seemed nice, right from the time you sat down.” (Well, of course, without question, without a doubt, it’s a given, and so on).
But here is the unexpected part, or at least the somewhat unexpected part. Off the top of my head I would not then, in the 1960s, bet my last dollar that a young woman from Muncie (town used here for convenience only) would be coy (nice word, right?) on her first“date.” Coyness here signifying her willingness to gather me to her bed at about 3:00 AM as we both were trying to fight off the sleep that was descending on us. But get this, and I will sign any notarized document necessary in support of this, she asked, yes, asked me into her bed. Well, as I mentioned above, she said I seemed nice, and there you have it. Of course, being “nice” I couldn’t say no. Yes, the gentleman “hippie”, that’s me.
You know the boy meets girl plot lines of most movies have it all messed up. Either they meet, give each other lecherous stares (hell, not even winsome smiles) and proceed to tear each other clothes off in an act of sexual frenzy then spent the rest of the movie justifying their eternal love by that first edenic act. Or, and this is truer of older films (and prudish modern comic book-based superhero flicks), the“foreplay” lasts so long that by the time that they hit the downy billows you go ho-hum and are more interested in the unfolding plot. Novels follow a lot of the same paths except, mostly the sexual scenes are about a paragraph or so and reflect the wisdom of the parties’ involved more than raw sexual energy. Romance novels, a category that would seem to be made for sexual exploits, using don’t get around to hitting the pillows until about page 323 and by then all you care about is whether the sheets are pastel or designer prints.
Real life, real life first encounter romances (read: sexual encounters) are more halting and, frankly, timid. Except, of course, those phantom Herculean and nubile sex-crazed teeny-boppers of urban legend that we have heard about. Yah, I have heard about them too. But that’s about it, heard about them. Think about the awkwardness of that first touch reflecting those ancient memories of being kissed back in about sixth grade, or about those gone wrong affairs that have piled up in your life’s memory bank, or that intense moment when both parties look downward in trepidation at what may come ahead. Or, and here is where memory plays no trick, that woman back home, that woman of one thousand frustrations that you needed to get some distance from, and that set you on this blue-pink road, but whose 999 delights have now surfaced and clouded all thinking. I nevertheless plunge recklessly onward.
For those pruriently-inclined readers who now expect a touch by touch, feel by feel, clothes taking-off by clothes taking-off, flesh against flesh description of our precious, sweet, private, very private love-making look elsewhere. Wait a minute. Look elsewhere, unless you have a written book (and/or movie rights) contract in hand. In that case I will be more than happy to fill in the sweaty, steamy, lurid, blood-pressure-rising details. I will make the earth under that old cabin shake, and the rafters too. I will give details that would make the Marquis de Sade blush, blush profusely. If you have no contract then let’s leave it at this; something deep in that moonless Ohio night, that times out of joint, moonless Ohio night, created a passion, or better, a moment of passion that we both could have bet our last dollars on. Something that it seemed we had both been waiting all our lives for, although we didn’t use those words. Just a couple of sly, knowing smiles, and then sleep.
Suddenly, we are awaken with a start. A still dark of night start and a hard rapping on the door, that damn, fly-flecked, oil-based painted green door. And a voice, a female voice.“Angelica, one of Penny’s kids is sick you’ll have to take her shift.” Even a night of passion, a moonless Ohio sly-smiled night of passion, cannot fend off the day’s realities, Angelica’s day realities. She says: “Yes, I’ll be there in a little while,” almost automatically. But just as automatically she says to me: “Don’t go out on the highway yet.”
Humble, barely whitewashed cabin or exotic, leafy country estate if a woman jumps out of bed and orders me to stay put who am I to disobey, at least until I see what my next move is. I agree and turn over. A few hours later she returns and we mess up her bed sheets again, and again. Then, after some Angelica sleep, and some kitchenette supper she says to me, just as boldly as when she invited me to her bed, that she wanted to go “on the road” with me.
My heart is racing for a thousand reasons, one of them included the thought that our little romance would lead to this although I didn't put it that way in my answer. More like:“Ya, I guess I was kind of thinking, maybe, a little about that idea.” A couple of days later, after she had worked some double-shifts and I did my bit doing some off-hand dish washing for meals and wages we gathered up her stuff off the bureau, place it in that orderly small suitcase, shut that damn, moth-crusted oil-based painted green door and head for the trucks a couple of hundred yards away and our ride out. Our ride out in search of the blue-pink great American West night that I have not told her about, at least not in those exact words, but that that she will find out about in her own good time and in her own way.
The Road Forward, Damn
He (and his buddy, Friedrich, but let’s just keep it as he and save the parsing out of credits to literary agents, skeptics, revisionists, and sworn enemies, left and right, or to some Freudian psychoanalyst who will put some sexual shape on the thing and will get it all balled up anyway) said struggle. He, when asked by some wooden-headed journalist big city newspaper, maybe the London Times but don’t hold me to the exact paper but do hold me to the accuracy of the quote, looking for some fashionable and titillating quote, “What is?” answered struggle, class struggle (although on the news- printed titillating page it came out as mere struggle to avoid upsetting the Mayfair swells and their hangers-on who were a little skittish about threats to their empire in the making). The town was abuzz, no aflame, over that one, worse than when he connected the dots with those wobbly old greying Chartist boys who had raised holy hell a few decades back and kept king cotton from union with their beloved lion.
So struggle, class struggle it was (and is). He said, from his 19th century lonely graveside a head sculpture emblazoned hair flowing stern visage above his lot, and a head above his generation’s candor, push back, push back hard against, part one, Vietnam, and those who vouched for that war in somebody’s name, not mine or his. He said part two, the Vietnam push back part connects with that seemingly long time ago push back struggle to break out of “project boy” shames, and stark inequalities of not keeping up with the Joneses, or not fast enough anyway, and father hurts, and mother rages against unfortunate fates, food for tables and clothes for backs worries, and endless mother father hurts. He said, part three, mix the Vietnam push back, the empire push back learned later, painfully learned, the father hurt push backs and the tribune of the people push back (the hard part in no push back America, at least not too much push back) and maybe just maybe history will take a left turn, a sharp left turn. Parting, ghost shades parting, he whispered do not get mixed-message tied up with their politics, that McGovern do-good juggernaut but organize from the base and then strike the match, when it is time for such matters.
He said some other stuff too, stuff said fast, faster than the part one, two, three stuff. He said stay with your people, the wretched of the earth, whom you have abandoned (hell, he didn’t know it was really run away from, run hard away from with Jack Kennedy/Bobby Kennedy, hell, Hubert dreams of forty years, a pension, a gold watch and whatever could be stolen along the way in the “service” of the people). He said it would not be easy. Hell, he didn’t know the half of it. He said you have lost the strand that bound you to your people, with those gold-flecked dreams of yours. He said you must find that strand. He said that strand will lead you away from you acting in god’s place ways. Damn, he was right.
He said look for a sign. He said, although he did not put it this way exactly, the sign would be this-when your enemies part ways and let you through then you will enter the golden age. He said it would not be easy, again. He said it again and again and would not let it, or me, rest. He said what is struggle. He said it in 1848, he said it in 1871, he said it in 1917, and he was ghost dream saying it in 1972. What a cranky, crazy old guy to disturb Peter Paul’s sleep, huh.
*****
Struggle. But where to start as Peter Paul sat, book in hand, Leon Trotsky’s “History Of The Russian Revolution,” down on a yogurt-spooned 1972 green painted bench on the Charles River near Harvard Square. Having devoured the “Communist Manifesto,” “Class Struggle In France,” “Critique Of The Gotha Programme,” “What Is To Be Done?”,and a few off-hand commentaries on them he was pushing for some sense of how to beat the monster. Beat the monster straight up. For just that Charles River bench seat minute he knew that he had to get beyond books but that books and struggle would be the combination to the golden age. Damn that old guy and his progeny too. Damn them for the heavy task they bequeathed to us ill-prepared descendants.
And for leaving us bends in the road, serious bends, fatal bends. Peter Paul told me how he have done his fair share of kicking one Professor Irving Howe, the late social -democratic editor of the intellectual quarterly magazine "Dissent", around back then and a guy who was supposed to know some stuff about Marxism or socialism when he was trying to figure the road to follow out. [I, on the other hand always appreciated Howe’s literary criticism and thought he had some things to say about politics too before he got indistinguishable from, say right-wing “National Review’s” William Buckley-JLB] But as this is, as is oft-quoted, a confessional age, Peter Paul had a confession, or rather two confessions, to make about his connections to Irving Howe. So for the time that it took to write the comments up he said he would call an armed truce with the shades of the professor. Here is what he had to say:
Confession #1- in the mist of time of my youth I actually used to like to read "Dissent." The articles were interesting, and as we were too poor for the family to afford a subscription, I spent many an hour reading through back issues at the local public library. I make no pretense that I understood all that was in each article and some that I re-read later left me cold but there you have it.
Probably the most impressive article I read was Norman Mailer’s "White Negro." I could relate to the violence and sense of 'hipness' that was hidden just under the surface of the article, especially the violence as it was not that far removed from that in my own poor white working class neighborhood, although I probably would not have articulated it that way at the time. Interestingly, Professor Sorin in his definitive Howe biography noted that Howe thought the article was a mistake for "Dissent" to publish for that very homage to violence implicit in the article. That now says it all.
The funny thing about reading "Dissent," at the time, thinking about it now, was that I was personally nothing more than a Kennedy liberal and thought that the magazine reflected that New Frontier liberalism. I was somewhat shocked when I found out later that it was supposed to be an independent 'socialist' magazine.
Most of my political positions at the time were far to the left of what was being presented there editorially, especially on international issues. I might add that I also had an odd political dichotomy in those days toward those to the left of my own liberalism. I was, not exactly aware then of the basis of the divide between them, very indulgent toward communists but really hated socialists, really social democrats. Go figure. Must have been something in the water, or rather some that said one was closer to solving those project and father hurts than the other.
Confession#2- Irving Howe actually acted, unintentionally, as my recruiting sergeant to the works of Leon Trotsky that eventually led to my embrace of a Marxist world view. But after some 150 plus years of Marxism claiming to be a Marxist is only the beginning of wisdom. One has to find the modern thread that continues in the spirit of the founders. Back in 1972, as part of trying to find a political path to modern Marxism I picked up a collection of socialist works edited by Professor Howe. In that compilation was an excerpt from Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution," a section called "On Dual Power.” I read it, and then re-read it. Next day I went out to scrounge up a copy of the whole work. And the rest is history. So, thanks, Professor Howe- now back to the polemical wars against social-democratic accommodation - the truce is over.
On The Road, Circa 1972-A Detour
For Jack Kerouac
Fidgety. No, not some usual since schoolboy preternatural eternal girl swaying in the mind’s eye breeze, next girl glance, next girl trying to tie old Titan down, next-up girl swaying from some old time film noir fidgety. Fidgety, get out of town, get out of the rut, hit the Jack Kerouac asphalt highway curve- kicking Dean Moriarty as Neal Cassidy American hero daredevil driver with a smirk , magic gear-shifting road warrior (pressing on after a mad midnight to dawn fresh air late 1971 re-reading of “On The Road,” the first time was just 1962 kid’s stuff, schoolboy trying to get out of the house kid’s stuff, and just reading what everybody cool was reading to be cool, to be beat, late faux beat as it turned out), farmer brown get the stink blown off fidgety after wasting away so much breeze on this and that, inconsequential this and that.
And just maybe too, get out of town, get out of the hot humid Boston nights that disturbed his sleep, hit the highway, to rekindle a sagging girl sway relationship (real girl, real girl sway not some white blouse, white shorts femme serving them off the arm in some seashore diner thinking of mayhem and waiting for some Frankie to save her film noir swaying) that was heading to the rocky shores (see I told you that swaying madness goes to the grave, eternal, or close). Name your reason, or maybe no reason but get out, and get out fast before the moment crashes down on you. Yes, a Jack moment and for once he could feel what it meant to be beat, beat down, beat around, beat six ways to Sunday and still come up swinging.
It was that kind of time. Rocky shores, by the way, just then meaning aversion to “commitment,” commitment to white picket fence complete with fully mortgaged white picket fence house, running field dogs, mutts maybe, and flowered gardens (left unspoken those two point three kids to clutter up said house, to pet such dogs and to run amok in the petunias but she, Joyell she, to sagging girl sway name her, at least knew how not to sell her case). Jesus, no, jesus one thousand, no, one million times no, not after he had just escaped, and barely, steel-barred rooms, dram shop de-drunks, and erased sweet bobby kennedy-visioned dreams of forty years, a pension, a gold watch and some minor thefts in the service of the people. No, he roared, let’s just shake the dust of this town and see what happens kind of gentle like. Okay. Ah, okay. Joyell finally seeing the light okay, he thought.
So off into the chili night (no sic, chili, the final southern destination was winter Mexico before the drug cartels blew into mountain breeze Cuernavaca, shooting up red bishops, Mex federales, lefty, the shades of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata and whoever else go in the way. Remind me to tell you sometime about a busted deal back before the serious drug madness when sweet boy Billie Bradley wound up face down in some dusty Mex street just for being, well, greedy) they roamed, or rather prepared to roam. Prepared with Salvation Army’s, Joe’s Army-Navy, Harry’s Cheapo Depot cheap, serviceable camping gear, or rather the bare minimum they could squeeze in that broken down box of a car (a Datsun, a gone automobile name yellow, and far from his (and mine too) boyhood dream ’57 Chevy cherry reds or sweet flame red Camaros or green Mustangs) that he had managed to cadge off some guy, a friend of a friend guy, who had no cash, needed to get west fast (or at least out of town and west was the only way unless he figured on swimming).West fast meaning either girl trouble or some imminent drug crash out, busted no question, knowing whose friend of a friend he was. They, smart they, smart Joyell they, had set aside plenty of funds just in case this rag-a-muffin of a car decided to join its Zen spirit master on some by-road west when they headed north. North, then west, then south in that innocent chili night.
Working funds to see them through thick and thin? Well said white picket fence (complete with house, dog, flowers and creeping one child) dreaming yankee lady had some dough, some father Manhattan NYSE stockbroker (or some such profession he never really did get all the details of his occupation although he acted like a damned proper don in some Mafioso dream sequel and so just in case he or his capo progeny are around let’s stick with stockbroker), which then meant dough, daughter dough. But said princess daughter (WASP daughter, alright) found herself slumming (if dream slumming really, and talking about it too with all her waspish girlfriends like some red badge of courage, but you probably figured that out already) with some half-heathen, half-broken, faux Irishman and while she was not above white picket dreams she still insisted that on this trip they would do frugal, thrifty yankee “dutch treat.” And this fidgety dog-fearing, white paint-hating, and weed-loving (the lawn destroying kind, okay) half-heathen wanted to have his own dough just in case he decided that he had to go to Butte instead of Beverly Hills in a fit of hubris. Oh, freedom, dough freedom.
So our brother, our story brother, Peter Paul just in case you had forgotten his name, worked at this and that and if you asked him (or her, but with scowls) what he did you would receive the usual hobo tramp bum – “a little of this and that.” A little this and that really meaning “the best he could,” just in case the statute of limitations has not run out. And “the best he could” got him that yellow box car, a couple of army sleeping bags(vintage World War II, of course, no Korean War/Vietnam War stuff to revile his dreams, or her dreams of him when she played him a hero, their love was fresh, and they fell fitfully down in first days 1971 New Hampshire snows and kissed gentle kisses just to see what it was like to kiss a hero she later told him and he laughed, and she reddened, and he reached out his laughing hands to her, and, and, but on with our travel story, you can figure out what those laughing hands did, can’t you), a small two-man army surplus tent (excuse me, two person, both to reflect the “new age” of person-hood and that that two part was all that could possibly fit into the damn thing, not even a stray dog could nuzzle his or her nose in), and a “house” worth of utensils. Canteens, Coleman stoves, mess kits, all very travel-worthy stuff as he knew from his minute now expired field army experience. Cheapsville, very cheapsville stuff, got it.
And off, hot August dog days off, heading north to catch a breeze and a dream before it got too cold, or the funds ran out after those first days of spending more than was budgeted because this or that cost more than expected. Backup though- some yankee stockbroker would come through, or some half-heathen would take another stab at “doing this and that.” First stop old time yankee gangway to fresh seas hideout from the Irish and other assorted trash Kennebunkport. (Not Kennebunk, that was for the heathens, she told him without qualification or guile, personal knowledge told him, and he was proud that day she told him, proud of his little smitten waspy conquest and gave just a peep of a thought that maybe a white picket fence might not be so bad with such a find.)
First night sleep out in some yankee farmer’s blueberry late season black fly-bitten field and first crack of setting up camp. Long hours to set “pup” tent (with no room for pup, no way, save that for dream white picket fences and petunias), fix hungry dinner on the big pot averse Coleman stove and wait for eternal, infernal water to boil for fresh day coffees and giggles. They are off, they are finally off, they are free, and they are one day into hard adventure and still in one piece- the morning would tell that same tale. Hey, this is easy, he said, easy before the fidgets could speak.
Heading north bright next morning to yankee Bar Harbors, maybe deeper yankee than Kennebunkport (with no Kennebunk for the heathen refuge, just Ellsworth) and more tents, and more eternal, infernal waits for precious coffees. North more, Campobello, north Calais (callus; don’t call it some French thing though if you don’t want to get into an argument). Then more slowly, more north to New Brunswick, sweet Moncktons and switch off youth hostel indoor one night living (nobody probably every called that dorm hostel sweet before, no reason to, but I will remain discrete and let you just think of laughing hands), north more to Nova Scotia (New Scotland, no question) Neil’s Harbor tents and Peggy’s Cove bed and breakfast inn (figured in the funding, so don’t get nervous). Push until no more norths (or easts) can be seen short of flight or boats and then west, the great blue pink America west night adventure waits and they are both like two intrepid pioneer kids (although now, after a few weeks, old camping hands) hard –faced to the wind.
Still more Canadian lands but island Prince Edward Island lands, sweet Charlottetown, rocked inlet boats, and another bed and breakfast, this time with ocean view and white picket fences but both of them are too rough-hewn now, just now anyway after several weeks on the roads, to care a fig for white picket fences. Or rustic scenes and rolling farm lands, and endless sea-side fishing villages just starting to fog up and rust up with lack of shoals work. Time for the cities, time for Quebec City and Montreal down the mighty Saint Lawrence and ooh, la, la French delights. And lights other than stars, sounds other than night cicadas, and talk other than get firewood, get tent pegs set and hammered, sleeping bags morning dew aired out, and fresh coffee boiling waits, infinity waits. Edge city waits.
The Great Blue-Pink American West Night Ghost Dance
Enough of muddy, rutted, always bum-busting rutted, country back roads, enough of breathless scenic vistas and cows, enough of trees dripping sap, rain, and bugs, strange bugs, not city bugs, that was for sure, but biting frenzy worthy anyway. Enough of all that to last a life-time, thank you. Enough too of Bunsen burners (last seen in some explosive chemical flash-out flame out in high school chemistry class and, maybe, they have rebuilt the damn lab since then, maybe though they have left it “ as is” for an example), Coleman stoves (too small for big pots, stew worthy, simmering pots to feed hungry campers and hard, country hard, to light) wrapped blankets (getting ever mildewed ), second-hand sweated army sleeping bags (in desperate need of washing after a month of night exertions with those ever laughing hands reaching out to his companion Joyell), and minute (small, not speed in throwing up , especially when rains came pouring down and they were caught out without shelter from the storm, a metaphor maybe) pegged pup tents too. And enough too of granolas, oatmeals, desiccated eastern mountain stews, oregano weed, mushroomed delights, and nature in the raw. Cities, please. Large Pacific-splashed roar of ocean cities with life in sheltered caverns and be quick about it.
Quebec City, Montreal, small catholic ile this and sainte that cities, towns really, in between passed in lightning speed, in 1972 lightning speed, deep into westward ho great blue-pink skied American west nights (splashed too). Onward, back to Estados Unidos entrances (studying quick-draw Spanish along the way for the southern Mexican winter and hence use of quick-draw mex words instead of U.S. of A rock landing words). Through fossil-fueled Detroit and radical oasis Ann Arbors of the mind, quickly, and then some Neola cornfields and Aunt Betty breakfasts, non-descript or rather same descript, cornfields that is, breakfasts worthy of the corn-fed. A time to ponder though, cornfield, and more cornfield, and aunt betty wisdom, totally foreign although not alien like they were in some other country, and not estatos unidos (better not say that in corn-fed Neola though you might get an argument, an argument in spades, from the normally give me your hand shake people. Yes, strange people, almost Amish except, of course, the gun-racked pick-up trucks and the odd sign or two about no six-shooters allowed inside breakfast cafes). Then through to white out-eked Denver and Boulder rockymountainhighs and from there down dinosaur roads into the high desert thundering night. And to this dream, this Peter Paul Markin dream:
Damn, already I missed Joyell, road-worthy, road-travel easy, easy on the eyes and easy getting us roadside and campfire friends Joyell as I traveled across Interstate 10 onto the great high desert southwest American hitchhike road after we parted at the Phoenix bus station. She, heading home East, at least New York east, from the road on some pressing family emergency business, some stockholder stuff, and I to the savage search for the blue-pink great American West night. (We are to meet up in some Pacific splash town, probably L.A., and from there head south, tex-mex south.)
I will tell you true, stockbroker yankee father Mafioso don or not I wished to high heaven she had not gone. See she had started to see thing s my way a little about white picket fence commitment once she knew I could be more companionable without such talk, and committed still in my own way. And glad as hell to reach my laughing hands out for her like the first snow-filled New Hampshire high purpose anti-war conference night we met. (And she glad too, the road was our cement and our getting Boston city stinks blown off.) True too I did not relish driving alone, picking up vagrant hitchhikers and other kindred in the hot, arid, high desert sputter.
Right then though I sighted my first connection hitchhike ride heading out of Phoenix and as luck would have it this big bruiser, full tattoo armed with snakes, roses, and lost loves names, ex-truck driver who was obviously benny-ed, benny-ed to perdition and was talking a blue streak was heading to some motorcycle jamboree, heading to Joshua Tree in California, my next destination (although he did not call it a jamboree and I had better not either unless I want to risk offending the entire Hell’s Angels universe at one stroke. Let’s call it a tumble-rumble-stumble and be done with it. They’ll like that.).
All I wanted was company on the ride that day and unfettered thoughts of Joyell but I knew enough of the road, enough of the truck driver come-on part of it anyway, even if ex-trucker, to know that this guy’s blue streak was a small price to pay for such companionship. See, some guys, some trucker guys like Denver Slim, who left me off at some long ago (or it seemed like long ago, really only a couple of years) Steubenville truck stop on my way American south one time wanted to talk man to man. Back and forth like real people, especially as I reminded him of his errant (read: hippie –swaying) son. Other guys are happy for the company so they can, at seventy or seventy-five miles an hour with the engine revved high and where conversation is made almost painful and chock-filled with the “what did you says?”, spout forth on their homespun philosophy and their take on this wicked old world. With these guys an occasional “Ya, that’s right,” or a timely “What did you mean by that?” will stand you in good stead and you can nod out into your own thoughts. Forlorn Joyell thoughts.
And that is exactly where I wanted be, as old Buck (where do they get these names) droned on and on about how the government was doing, or not doing this or that for, or to, the little guy who helped build up, not tear down, the country like him. Me, I was thinking about what Aunt Betty, sweet Neola cornfields grandmotherly Aunt Betty (everybody called her Aunt Betty, even guys who were older than she was, after the name of her sweet Neola diner), said a month or so back when we pitched our tent for a few days in her backyard, we did some chores in kind, and she fed us, royal Midwest fed us, still rung in my ears. I was good for Joyell. Hell, I know I was. Hell, if I had any sense I would admit what I knew inside. Joyell was good for me too.
But see the times were funny is a way. No way in 1962, or ‘64, or ’66, let’s say, that I would have run into a Joyell. I was strung out, strung out hard, on neurotic, long black-haired (although that was optional), kind of skinny (not thin, not slender, skinny, wistfully skinny, I say), bookish, Harvard Square, maybe a poet, kind of girls. If I said beatnik girls, and not free-form, ethereal, butterfly breeze “hippie”girls you’d know what I meant. As a kid I was cranked on pale, hell wan was more like it, dark-haired, hard Irish Catholic girls, and I mean hard Irish Catholic girls with twelve novena books in their hands, and chaste lust in their hearts. So, I swear, when Joyell’s yankee goodheart number turned up, I was clueless how to take just a plain-spoken, says what she means, means what she says young woman who had dreams (unformed, mainly, but dreams nevertheless) that also were plain-spoken. Ah, I can’t explain it now, and I doubt I ever will. Just say I was stunted, stunned, and smitten, okay and let me listen to old Buck’s drone.
****
I have now put many a mile between me and Phoenix and here I am well clear of that prairie fire dream now into sweet winter high desert night California (still hot during the day, jesus, one hundred at Needles, although not humid, thank Christ) not far from some old now run down, crumbling Native American dwellings on Joshua Tree reservation that keep drawing my attention and I still want to utter that oath, that Joyell fealty oath. Buck has gone, and thanks, over to Twenty-nine Palms. (Marines watch out when Buck and his tribe come through.)
Sitting by this Joshua night camp fire casting weird ghost night-like shadows just makes my Joyell hunger worst. And old now well-traveled soldiers turned “hippies,” Jack (something out of a Pancho Villa recruitment poster and, in another age, the look of a good man to have beside you in a street fight) and Mattie (some Captain America easy rider poster boy brimming with all that old long gone Buck found ugly in his America although Mattie did two hard tours in ‘Nam), playing their new-found (at least to me) flute and penny whistle music mantra to set the tone.
Hey, I just remembered, sitting here wrapped up in Joyell and ancient primal tribal memories out of the whistling black star-filled night that I haven’t filled you in on where I have been, who I have seen (like John and Mattie), and how I got here after depositing Buck at his stop on this star –crossed night. Jesus, and here we are only a few hundred miles from the ocean. I can almost smell, smell that algae sea churned smell, and almost see the foam-flecked waves turn against the jagged-edged La Jolla rocks and mad, aging surfer boys from another time looking for that perfect wave. Yah, another more innocent time before all hell broke loose on us in America and crushed our innocent youthful dreams in the rice paddies of Asia, our Joyell plain-spoken dreams, but not our capacity to dream. That only makes the Joyell hurt worst as I remember that she had never seen the Pacific Ocean, the jagged edged, foam-flecked ocean that I went on and on about and I was to be her Neptune on that voyage west to the rim of the world. Well, let me get to it, the filling you in part.
After grabbing up and letting off that strange from blue streak talkin’ hard rider old Buck I did tell you about, I got to Joshua Tree in good order. If I didn’t tell you before, and now that I think about it I didn’t, I (we, before Joyell high-tailed it back east), was to hook up with my now traveling companions, Jack and Mattie, here at Joshua for the final trip west to the ocean and serious blue-pink visions. Jack and Mattie are two guys that I picked up on the Massachusetts highways heading south in the days when I had a borrowed car (from sweet pea Joyell) in the early spring. We had some adventures going south, that I will tell you about another time, before I left them off in Washington, D.C. so they could head west from there. We agreed then to meet up in Denver, where they expected to stay for a while, later in the year.
My last contact with them in late summer had them still there but when Joyell and I arrived in late October at the communal farm on the outskirts of Denver where they had been staying we were informed that they had gotten nervous about being stuck in the snow-bound Rockies and wanted to head south as fast as they could. They had left a Joshua Tree (the town) address for us to meet them at. We stayed at the commune for a few days to rest up, doing a little of this and that, mostly that, and then we headed out on what turned to be an uneventful and mercifully short hitchhike road trip to Phoenix on the way to connect with them. And then my Joyell world fell apart, as you know.
And so here we were making that last push to the coast but not before we investigate these Native American lands that, as it turns out, we, Jack Mattie and I (not Joyell though when I asked her about it one hell-bent night much later), all had been interested in ever since our kid days watching cowboys and Indians on the old black and white 1950s small screen television. You know Lone Ranger, Hop-Along Cassidy, Roy Rogers and their sidekicks’ fake, distorted, prettified Old West stuff. Stuff where the rich Native American traditions got short shrift.
Earlier on this day I am talking about we had been over to Black Rock for an Intertribal celebration, a gathering of what was left of the great, ancient warrior nations that roamed freely across the west not all that long ago but who are now mere “cigar store” Indian characters to the public eye. The sounds, the whispering shrill canyon sounds and all the others, the sights, the colors radiant as they pulled out all the stops to bring back the old days when they ruled this West, the spirit, ah, the spirit of our own warrior shaman trances are still in our heads this now blazing camp fire night. I was still in some shamanic-induced trance from the healing dances, from warrior tom-tom dances, and from the primal scream-like sounds as they drove away the evil spirits that gathered around them (not hard enough to drive the marauding “white devil” who had broken their hearts, if not their spirits though). Not only that but we had scored some peyote buttons (strictly for religious purposes, as you will see) and the buttons had started to kick in along with the occasional hit from the old bong hash pipe (strictly for medicinal purposes as well).
Just then in this dark, abyss dark, darker than I have ever seen the night sky in the citified East even though it is star-filled, million star-filled, in this spitting flame-roared campfire throwing shadow night along with tormented pipe-filled dreams of Joyell I was embedded with the ghosts of ten thousand past warrior- kings and their people. And if my ears didn’t deceive me, and they didn’t, beside Jack’s flute and Mattie’s penny whistle I hear, and hear plainly, the muted gathering war cries of ancient drums summoning paint-faced proud, bedecked warriors to avenge their not so ancient loses, and their sorrows as well.
And after more pipe-fillings that sound got louder, louder so that even Jack and Mattie seem transfixed and begin to play their own instruments louder and stronger to keep pace with the drums. Then, magically, magically it seemed anyway, I swear, I swear on anything holy or unholy, on some sodden forebear grave, on some unborn descendent that off the campfire- reflected red, red sandstone, grey, grey sandstone, beige (beige for lack of better color description), beige sandstone canyon echo walls I saw the vague outlines of old proud, feather-bedecked, slash mark-painted Apache warriors beginning, slowly at first, to go into their ghost dance trance that I had heard got them revved up for a fight. Suddenly, we three, we three television-sotted Indian warriors got up and started, slowly at first so we were actually out of synch with the wall action, to move to the rhythms of the ghosts. Ay ya, ay ya, ay ya, ay ya...until we sped up to catch the real pace. After what seems an eternity we were ready, ready as hell, to go seek revenge for those white injustices.
But then just as quickly the now flickering camp fire flame went out, or went to ember, the shadow ghost dance warriors were gone and we crumble in exhaustion to the ground. So much for vengeance and revenge. We, after regaining some strength, all decided that we had better push on, push on hard, to the ocean. These ancient desert nights, sweet winter desert nights or not, will do us in otherwise. But just for a moment, just for a weak modern moment we, or at least I knew, what it was like for those ancient warriors to seek their own blue-pink great American West night.
Down On The Mean Streets Detour- A Quick Tour
Endless tramp walked streets, waiting for the next fix. Waiting really for some god miracle, some murmured pray sacrilege and redemption seeking miracle. Waiting for all the accumulated messes of this world, this made world to seep into the gutter. Waiting for all past history, all past memoir better, all past sorrows, given and received, all past two roads taken, wrong road chosen, all personal hurts, given and taken, all past vanities to break down in the means streets, and closure. No, not closure, relief. Waiting, yah, waiting but to no avail. And so all roads, chosen and unchosen closed, all forward turned back, all value devalued, all this ….
Five AM , dark turning to a shade lighter, after a hard ground under the Eliot Bridge bed night, cold October cold with all newspapers, Herald, Globe, upscale New York Times for a pillow used for ground cover yelling about some guy named Jimmy Carter and about how he is saved. Running for president too. The guy will need more saving that I need. Ironic though, just that minute when he needed to be saved. Lord saved, mercy saved, some humble Joyell saved (although he did not know it, know it for a very long time, too long and too late).
Long walk along the Charles, supermarket double brown bag (laughed at Mexican luggage) for all worldly possessions, some seedy Jack Kerouac Merrimack walk, Jack’s river, Jack’s childhood going to manhood river and place of refuge from mother hurts and, Joyell, oops sorry, Maggie Cassidy hurts too. A tee shirt, maybe two, no wild boy cool 1950s Brando tight against the chest, maybe a pack of Luckies rolled up one sleeve but Sally’s used wear swear stains showing under the armpits, underwear, ditto, socks, ditto, a half rank pair of pants (no childhood concern about cuffed or uncuffed now, or color even), ditto, no, Goodwill bargain, another shirt to match the one he was wearing, Sally’s or Goodwill forgot, comb, and a bar of soap, Dial, bought precious bought to own something, and done. All worldly possessions reduced almost to grave size.
Long walk to safe downtown Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, and five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. And no ocean to wash them clean. His street bathroom, a splash (unlike those ocean wave splashes on ancient dream Pacific nights now faded) of water on the face, some precious soap, precious coaxed bought soap, paper towel for a wash cloth, haphazard combing (hell, he was not entering a beauty contest, jesus, no), some soap under the stained tee shirt for underarms and done. Worldly beauty done.
Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out under some other Eliot Street Bridge bungalow (switched nightly to avoid cop riffs and fellow tramp rip-offs, real hazards in his new world as he learned quickly, painfully quickly). Walk, stopping for an occasional library break , for a quick nod out, really, and quick read, not some political book though, these days, Genet, Celine, Burroughs, Kerouac (not “On The Road” magic gear master Dean trips but Big Sur traumas), and such self-help books. (Ironic.)
And minute plan, plan, plan, plain mex paper bag in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some gerald ford-bored newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Waiting for the next fix. Desolation row, no way home.
“Down And Out In America-Part I”
Walking down Route 5 west out of Moline, quarter in his pocket, holes in his shoes, patched up, make due patched until sunnier days, by some cardboard graham cracker package cut-out a while back when he had time, endless time to cut out the moon if he needed to, just outside of Gary, Indiana. Damn that was weeks ago, and heading west to those sunnier days and getting out of north and Midwest winter were not get closer, damn not any closer. Hell, he had only himself to blame, no, get that negative thought out of his head because if he dwelt (dwelled ?) on it he could not push forward and get himself straight, get himself clean in some California ocean wash foam-flecked sea baptism.
Stopping for a moment adjusting that damn two-bit cardboard once again he began to reflect on just how he had gotten here, jesus, he had the time for figuring that out on this lonesome Moline road. A road filled with families, farm families from the look of them, prosperous, farm prosperous just now with farm prices rising (fact known through courtesy of a ride a couple of rides back from some Farmer Brown, at one time up against it to the banks but now flush with that prices rising gloat look), heading to some Jimmy Jack’s Diner for the daily special (meat loaf, pot roast, steak, prime rib, for the really prosperous) and decidedly not interested in picking up any obviously non-Moline, non- Midwestern, hell, maybe for all they knew some illegal wetback bracero.
He had that look with his leather-beaten skin now tanned beyond golden day tans and more like some tex-mex broiled sun bracero picking farm product (cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, who knows) and in fact he had spent a few back-breaking bracero-like days stooped over some sting bean field to earn enough dough to move west from stalled Ohio a while back. And then had been bracero short-changed by the farm straw boss for half his pay for room and board. A laugh, room, a dormitory for twenty snoring, stinking winos or their brethren, food, some slops not fit for the sty, but he hard-up needed the money, needed to get sanity west, and needed not to be billy-clubbed by no straw boss (or thirty day “vagged” by his friends, the local cops). And so he took the dough, took his ass out of the broiled fields and headed west from Cincinnati. No, he would get no Moline escape that day from the corn-fed sedan and van traffic that he saw pass him by, pass him by with that sullen, permanent look of scorn, the scorn of those just up the ladder from cardboard-packed make due shoes.
Nor would he get, unless he was very lucky get, a worthwhile ride, from the usually friendly cross state (or country) professional truckers, who more times than not, used to like having the company to spill their guts into the wind to. Or explain their latest theory about how the government, the wife, the kids, anybody, was screwing them over, royally, always royally. And, despite his own hard luck just then, self-imposed or not, he always half-nodded in agreement that the room for righteous guys in this wicked old world was getting small, and getting smaller fast.
But see the company lawyers, probably, or maybe the insurance agents, were putting a serious crimp into old blue-eyed good old boy hankering to tell their untold stories to wayward young guys, looking kind of hippie-like or not, ever since the roads got more dangerous for everybody. So unless some local trucker had not heard the news, or some continental trucker was in a fuck-you mood toward his boss, or some trucker was so lonesome that he needed some rider to take his mind off the road as that trucker headed across state to some forlorn grain silo he was stuck in Moline for a while. Maybe for a while in the pokey too if he stayed here, solo quarter in his pocket, too long. It had happened more than once, although not in Moline. A couple of times in Connecticut and Arizona but he had been forewarned, and, damn, when he thought about it, up in his home state of Massachusetts, not twenty-five miles from home North Adamsville. Jesus.
Again stopping to readjust that cardboard square holding the dust and debris of the road from boring a bigger hole in his white (kind of white anyway) socks he really did want to try to think about how he got on this road, this exact Moline road he had not been on since he had hitchhiked in search of the great blue-pink American West night with fair Angelica, back in, what was it 1969, and they had been forced to shack up in some non-descript motel he thought was located further up the road as he searched for it as he walked along , and memory, because it had rained for something like five days straight. And fair Angelica, thrilled by the road and jail-break from Muncie, Indiana (via a Steubenville, Ohio truck-stop diner) still was enough of a bedazzled young woman not to see the romance in five day rains.
Maybe that was the start of it, the long road down the slippery-slope of this praying for some relief hunger madness. Not the Angelica part , although that ended with her going back to Muncie after some California time, and a few years later, a return to Hollywood, well, not to stardom but some celebrity. He wondered where she was now out in the American night. And he wondered if she would smile, or cry, if she saw her ex-beau, looking bracero-hungry, out on the road. Cry, cry a million tears, probably, that was the way she was, plain-spoken Midwest girl “what you see is what you get,” and what you got was worth getting, although mist-bedazzled non-bracero hungry ex-beau could quite see that point through the “high purpose” search for the American dream night then.
If that was not the start of it, then, no question, the break with Joyell, and with civilized society (as she, Joyell, put it) definitely had been. When he, looking for some quick change, fast dough, with no heavy lifting, and plenty of time to think about the next search dream, started dealing a little dope (nothing heavy at first, a little weed, grass, mary jane, whatever you call it in your neck of the woods, some peyote buttons, in season, in search west season, a little speed for the frantic work ahead, to friends, and their friends, and then their friends, and then somebody’s friends, and then to strangers, and their friends).
And of course when he got caught up in laying around waiting for the search for the next dream, then he started to short weight, just a little, because well because they were just strangers, and their friends. At first. Then some deal went south, or maybe you juts smoked or snorted it up with some stranger friends, and you owed the patron some dough and he wouldn’t take manana for an answer. And so you “borrow” a C-note until next week when the ship comes in, and when it doesn’t borrow a couple of C-notes to cover that original C-note, and expenses. And so on, and so on.
Just then he got tired of thinking about those busted deals, those busted dreams, and the hard fact that in the end he had to hit the road west one dark night, one dark night midnight creep after taking about eighty dollars from Joyell’s pocketbook, and putting some distance between him and her. Some no return distance from the look of it. He started to tear up as he thought about that and did not hear the brakes of a fully-loaded Andersen Grain Company hiss as the truck came to a stop and the big burly driver called out,“Hey, I’m Memphis Slim and I’m heading to Denver and if you don’t’ mind me talking your ear off I could use the company.” He put his rucksack over this shoulder and climbed on board. Yes, he could listen, listen to eternity, to some poor snook talk his ear off heading west.
The Time Of Laura’s Time
Scene: A smoky sunless nameless, or rather legion, bar, urban style right in the middle of high Harvard civilization, belting out some misty time Hank Williams tune, maybe Cold, Cold Heart from father home down in sad sack Kentucky long gone daddy left years before and gladly times. Order another deadened drink, high- end beer these days, gone are rotgut whiskey (or high blend when in the chips) accompanied by that self-same beer, slightly benny-addled. Then, like some misbegotten scene out of Rick’s Café, in walks a vision. A million times in walks a vision, in a million walk in bars, some frail, naturally, but in white linen this time. Signifying? Signifying adventure, dream one-night stands, lost walks in loaded woods, endless stretch beaches searching for meaningful shells, moonless nights, serious caresses, and maybe, just maybe some cosmic connection to wear away the days, the long days ahead. Yes, that seems about right, right against the inflation -beggared times right, and mean street break-down right. And then this Peter Paul Markin tale:
Walking down the narrow stairs leading to the admission window booth at Johnny Fleet’s in good old Harvard Square on this cold Columbus Day 1978 night, jesus 1978 is almost gone already, I was suddenly depressed by this thought-how many times lately had I walked down these very stairs looking, looking for what, looking, as Tom Waits says in his song, for the heart of Saturday night, looking recently every night from Monday to Sunday and not just Saturday. Looking, not hard looking, not right now hard looking anyway after my last nitwit affair, but looking for a man who at least has a job, doesn’t have another girlfriend or ten, and who wants to settle down a little, settle down with me a little. Yes, if you really need to know, want to know, I’ve got those late twenties getting just a touch worried old maid blues.
My parents, my straight-arrow, god-fearing, Methodist god-fearing and that is a fierce fearing, hard-working, lost in some 1950s dreamland parents, my mother really, my father just keeps his own counsel between shots of whiskey and trying to read the latest seed catalogues that keep him and his business alive through the haze, keeps badgering me about finding a nice young man. Yes, easy for you to say you don’t know the nitwits who are out there and they ain’t Rickey Nelson dream jukebox guys, Mother. And then she starts on the coming home, coming home to cranky Mechanicsville (that’s in upstate New York, near Albany, if you don’t believe me) and finding some farmer-grown boy from high school and X, Y, and Z, farmer boys all, still asks about me. No thanks, jesus, that is why I fled to Boston right after college in 1972 (and fled to a far-away, and a no living at home college too but don’t tell her that) and not just because I wanted to get my social worker master’s degree like I told them. And so here I am, a few years later, walking down these skinny stairs again, sigh, yet again.
Johnny’s (nobody calls it Johnny Fleet’s except for one-time people or tourists) isn’t a bad place to hang your hat, as my father always likes to say, when he finds that one or two places in the universe outside of the farm where he feels comfortable enough to stay more than ten minutes before getting the “I’ve got to go water the greenhouse plants” or something itch (read: drink itch). Not a bad place for a woman, a twenty–eight year old woman with college degrees and some aims in life beyond some one-night stand every now and again. Or not a bad place for a pair of women, if my friend and roommate, Priscilla, decides she is man-hungry enough to make the trip to Harvard Square from the wilds of Watertown, and can stand the heavy smoke, mainly cigarette smoke as far as I know, but after a few drinks who knows, that fills the air before the night is half over.
Tonight Priscilla is with me because she has a “crush” on Albie St John, the lead singer for the featured local rock group, The Haystraws. And the last time she was here he was giving her that look like he was game for something although he is known around the Square as strictly a “for fun” guy. And that is okay with Priscilla because she has some guy back home some guy from upstate New York where she is from near Utica, some fresh from the farm guy who she has known since about third grade, who will marry her if and when she says the word.
Here is the funny thing though alone, or like tonight with Priscilla, this funky old bar is the only place around where a woman can find a guy who is the least bit presentable to the folks back home, wherever back home is. I’ve met a couple of decent guys in here, although like I said before, things didn’t work out for some reason because they were one-night stand guys or already loaded down with girlfriends and I am in no mood to take a ticket, stuff like that. So you can see what desperate straits I am in still trying to meet that right guy, or something close, without a lot of overhead. My standards may be a little high for the times but I’m chipping away at them by the day.
Moreover, this place, this Johnny’s is the only place around that has the kind of music I like, a little country although not Grand Ole Opry country stuff like my parents go for, you know George Jones or Aunt Bee, or someone. And is a little bit folkie, kind of left-handed folkie, more like local favorite Eric Andersen folk rock, and a little old time let it rip 1950s rock and roll, like The Haystraws cover. You know, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, those guys, that I never knew anything about when I was a kid since I never got past Rickey Nelson and Bobby Darin, darn him, out in the farm field sticks. Upstate New York, like I said, not far out of Albany but it might as well have been a million miles away with me picking my sting beans, tomatoes, and whatever else pa grew to keep us from hunger’s door.
Not for me this trendy disco stuff, not my style at all, no way, although I love to dance and even took belly dancing lessons although I am not voluptuous, more just left of skinny if I say it but really voluptuous Priscilla calls me just skinny. Also my kind of guy would never, never wear an open shirt and some chainy medallion around his neck. Jesus, no way. Plus, a big plus, Johnny’s has a jukebox for intermissions filled with all kinds of odd-ball songs, real country, stuff, late 1950s rock and roll (the Rickey Nelson/Bobby Vee/Bobby Darin stuff) that nobody but me probably ever heard of unless, of course, you were from Mechanicsville, or a place like that.
After going through mandatory license check and admission fee stuff, saying “hi” to the waitresses that I know now by name, and Priscilla does too, and the regular bartenders as we pass by we find our seats, kind of “reserved” seats for us where we can sit and not be hassled by guys, or be hassled if something interesting comes along. I have been in kind of a dry spell, outside the occasional minute affair if one could really call some of the “affairs” even that, for about six months now. Ever since I started to work, work doing social work, my profession, if you need to know. That’s what I am trained to do anyway although when I first came to town a few years ago I was, as one beau back then said, “serving them off the arm” in a spaghetti joint over the other side of Cambridge. Strictly a family fare menu and plenty of college guys including a few who I wound up dating, low on funds doing the cheap Saturday night date circuit. All in all a “no tips” situation anyway you cut it, although plenty of guff, a lot of come-ons, and extra helpings of “get me this and get me that.”
Before that, out in Rochester in college, and later after a short stop at hometown Mechanicsville it was nothing but wanna-be cowboy losers, an occasional low-rent dope dealer, some wanna-be musicians, farmer brown farmers, and married guys looking for a little something on a cold night. Ya, I know, I asked for it but a girl gets cold and lonely too. Not just guys, not these days anyway. But I am still pitching, although very low-key. That is my public style (some say, say right to my face, prim but that’s only to fend off the losers).
“Laura, what are you having, tonight honey?’ asked my “regular” waitress, Lannie, and then asked Priscilla the same. “Two Rusty Nails,” we replied. Tonight, from a quick glance around the room even though it is a Columbus Day holiday night, looks like it is going to be a hard-drinking night from the feel of it. That means on my budget and my capacity about three drinks, max. About the same for Priscilla unless she is real man-hungry. But that is just between us, okay. Lannie, as is her habit, knowing that we are good tippers (the bonds of waitress sisterhood as Priscilla has also “served them off the arm”) brought the drinks right away. And so we settled in get ready to listen to The Haystraws coming up in a while for their first set. Or rather I did the settling in. Priscilla was looking, looking hard at Albie, and he was looking right back. I guess I will be driving home alone tonight.
As I settled in I noticed that some guy was playing the jukebox like crazy. Like crazy for real. He kept playing about three old timey LaVern Baker songs, <i>Jim Dandy</i> of course, and <i>See See Rider</i> but also about six times in a row her <i>Tomorrow Night</i>. I was kind of glad when the band, like I said, these really good rockers, The Haystraws, began their first set. And so the evening was off, good, bad, or indifferent.
About half way through the set I noticed this jukebox guy kept kind of looking at me, kind of “checking”me out without being rude about it. You know those little half-looks and then look away kind of like kid hide-and-seek and back again. Now I have around long enough to know that I am not bad to look at even if I am a little skinny and I take time to get ready when I go out, especially lately, and although times have been tough lately I am easy to get to know but this guy kind of put me on my guard a little. He was about thirty, neatly bearded which I like and okay for looks, I have been with worst. But what I couldn’t figure out, and it bothered me a little even when I tried to avoid his peeks (as he “avoided”mine) is why he was in this place.
Johnny’s, despite its locale in the heart of Harvard Square, is kind of an oasis for country girls like me, or half-country girls like Priscilla (from upstate New York too, Utica, in case you forgot) and guys the same way although once in a while a Harvard guy from the sticks comes around (or a guy who says he goes to Harvard. I have met some who made the claim who I don’t think could spell the name of the college, I swear). This guy looked like Harvard Square was his home turf and if he found himself five feet from a well-lighted street, a library, or a bookstore he would freak out big time. He might have been an old folkie, maybe early Dylan or Dave Von Ronk that nasal hard to understand kind of stuff, he had that feel, or maybe a bluesy kind of guy, Muddy Waters maybe, but he was strictly a city boy and was just cruising this joint.
But here is where this jukebox joe story gets interesting. At intermission Priscilla had to run to the ladies’ room and on the way this guy, Allan Jackman, as I found out later when he introduced himself to me, stopped her and said that her brunette friend looked very nice in her white linen pants and blouse. He then said to her that he would like to meet me. Priscilla, a veteran of the Laura wars (and I of hers), had the snappy answer ready, “Go introduce yourself, yourself.” And he did start to come over but I kind of turned away to avoid him just in case he had escaped from somewhere (yah, like I said before my luck has been running a little rough lately so I am a little gun-shy). Still he worked his way over.
And this is the very first thing that Allan ever said to me. “I noticed that you kind of perked up when I played LaVern Baker’s "Tomorrow Night". Have you been disappointed when things didn’t work out after that first night of promise too, like in the song?” Not an original line, but close. I answered almost automatically, “Yes.”Then he introduced himself and just kind of stood there not trying to sit down or anything like that waiting for me to make the next move. Then Priscilla came back and said she had run into Albie St. John and he wanted to “talk” to her before the band came back for a second set (she said with a certain twist like she was doing him this big favor and not like she was practically drooling at the idea. Like I said I am definitely driving home alone today.). She left and Allan was still standing there, a little ill at ease from his look. Befuddled by his soft non-threatening demeanor, and soft manners, I was not sure if I wanted him to sit down or not but then I said what the hell, he seems nice enough and at least he was not drunk.
So he sat down, and gently, actually very gently, shook my hand and said “thank you” for letting me let him sit at the table. In the flush of reaction to that gentle handshake, I swear no man had ever taken my hand in such a manly manner without guile or gimme something before, I relaxed a little and asked him, not an origin question but I was curious, what brought him to Johnny’s. He started to tell me about his country minute, about finding out about the wild boys of country music, about Hank Williams (I winched, that was my father’s music) about this guy Townes Van Zandt and so on.
And then he said he was looking for me. I winched again. Not another crazy. No, not me exactly, but me as a person who he sensed had been kind of beaten down in the love game lately like he had. He said he saw that look in my face, in my eyes, when he kind of half-checked me out at the jukebox. (I made him laugh when I said we were kid-hide-and-seeking earlier). I said I thought he had fully “checked me out”but he would only confess to the half. We both laughed at that one.
And after that opening, strange to say, because being a country girl, and being brought up in a Methodist-etched household to keep my thoughts to myself, or else, or else Dad would have a fit, I started to talk to him about my troubles lately. And he listened and kept asking more questions, not in-your- face questions, but questions like he was really interested in the answers and not as some fiendish experiment to take advantage of a simple girl. And then I asked him a few things and before we knew it the evening’s entertainment was over and Lannie kept telling us that we had to go. I still had some doubts about this guy, this city boy and his city ways, and his fierce piercing blue eyes that could be true or truly devilish.
As we got up to leave he asked, kind of sheepishly with a little stutter, asked, for my telephone number. No “my place or your place, honey,” or “let’s go down the Charles and have some fun,” or “I brought you six drinks (we had each bought our own) and so I expect something more” or any of that usual end of the night stuff that I have become somewhat inured to. He simply, softly, said he wanted it because he wanted to call me up tomorrow night. We kind of laughed at that seeing the way we met, before we met. I hesitated just a minute and he, sensing my dilemma, started to turn to leave. A guy who knows how to take no for an answer, or the possibility of no, without recrimination or fuss. Wait a minute, Laura. Before he took two steps I blurted out my number. And then put it on a cocktail napkin for him. As I passed the glass wet napkin to him he said he would call about seven if that was okay. I said yes. And then he shook my hand, shook it even more gently than when he introduced himself, if that was possible. I flushed again as he headed to the door. Something in that handshake said you had better not let this one get away. Something that said you had better be near the phone at 7:00 PM tomorrow night waiting for his call. And I will be.
The Streets Are Not For Dreaming- Detour Redux
Sweating, endless summer sweatings, overheated, brain-addled over heated against the next fix, and the next fix. And the next fix. Wondering around the red-tide beach, a beach filled, filled to the brim if you asked him, with fetid smells, nice word, fetid, fetid clamshell-seeking mud flat smell, and rightly named, and maybe mephitic gases too, gases of some same 1950s childhood seaside marshes some thirty years back, and other schemed wonderings. Always wonderings, eternal wonderings against the brain-heated reality. Wondering this day for the high tide time that signified that he could prepare himself for a new fix, another sure thing to take the pain away, and to scrabble his fired-up brain further.
So he ambled, walked briskly really, these were not the times, and this was not the place to amble (he thought later when the brain had cooled down) away from ocean-flecked (or charred) beaches, ocean logs rolled in, ocean smells described, toward town, his new town. A slack city, a black and white city without color, or need, with a multitude of sinners, some brain-addled like him, some beyond brain-addled, but all waiting for that next fix, that next sure thing that would break them out for some important life work, or not. Like a sign. Signifying? Maybe just to whet the appetite for more fixes, more sure things to chase the hard-hearted day away.
He, uneasily, roamed among them, his fellow addles, trying to hear through the mumble, through the deceptions, through the glassy-eyed stare, the never-ending glassy-eyed stare. And heard shouts about this and that, about the next sure thing maybe, against the coming of the new day, hell, about heaven and heaven’s blessed, and about heaven’s luck, and about the next journey. Yah, that next journey, like maybe there were ten or eleven, hell, twelve gates to the city. Jesus, the brain-addled confusion was starting to kick in, kick in with a thud, as he thought he heard some high white note trumpet blowing some sweet Gabriel blow. But that couldn’t be right because he could clearly see the trumpeter and trumpet although the high white note had turned to air ashes in the hubbub of whiskeys ordered, pizzas consumed, and coffees (no teas here, not among the brain-addled) sipped and slurped, constant milling chatter, chatter beyond that, all inchoate.
Then he started to work, his mumbo-jumbo work, eyes left, eyes, right, eyes up in heaven’s door, looking for that right combination that would fix him, fix him until the next fix, jesus, would l it ever end. Of course he had his maw this day, a few shillings (nice touch he thought), and desire, word desire, number desire, word-number desire, number-word desire, and then silence. He had hit the fix line, the line of no return as he heard, heard in his head at least, the mandela turn once more. And then he heard bells, laugh bells at first, then diminished, and then silent. The waiting began, and the crowd hushed, or merely mingle talked in low places, before the great yawl, before nature’s spin turned.
About eight visions then came to him, one after the other like some childhood parade, all in colors, all in order, all with determined looks. He did not believe in colors, or numbers, or words, just then just mandela fixes, and release. And as the four winds blew across that city just that afternoon and those eight (or was it nine or ten he had never thought to get an accurate count, and didn’t think that he needed to) visions blew this way and that he knew, knew for certain that he was doomed, doomed to repeat that eight -visioned scene over and over. That thought, for just that minute made him think, made him realize that the abyss was not such a bad place. At least the fix-dreaming would be over, and the number worry, the word worry, the color worry would be over. And maybe he could cool off his tormented brain.
Later lashed against the high end double seawall, some unknown, unnamed shoreline below, bearded, slightly graying against the forlorn time, a vision in white linen not enough to keep the wolves of time away, the wolves of feckless childhood petty larceny times reappear, reappear with a vengeance against the super-rational night sky and big globs of ancient hurts fester against some unknown enemy, unnamed, always unnamed, or hiding out in a canyon under an assumed name. Then night, the promise of night, a night run up some seawall-laden streets, some Grenada night, maybe Spanish, maybe Moroccan or maybe a desolate sky boom night, and thoughts of finite, sweet flinty finite haunt his dreams, haunt his sleep. A ring cries out in that abyss night. Wrong number, brother. Yah, wrong number, as usual.
A Hobo’s Lament
Only A Hobo by Bob Dylan
Lyrics
As I was out walking on a corner one day
I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay
His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor
And I guess he’d been there for the whole night or more
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
A blanket of newspaper covered his head
As the curb was his pillow, the street was his bed
One look at his face showed the hard road he’d come
And a fistful of coins showed the money he bummed
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Does it take much of a man to see his whole life go down
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground
To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame
To lie in the gutter and die with no name?
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Copyright © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music
*******
He woke with a start that dreary late October night, early morning really from the look of the lightened sky, last cold night or so, before drifting south then heading west to warmer climes for “winter camp.” Yes, he had the routine down pretty pat back then. Summering in the Cambridges and then wintering in the Keys, or in some Pancho Villa bandito arroyo in desert California, maybe Joshua Tree. But just that minute my summer was interrupted by a loud sound of snoring and short breathe coughing from some fellow resident who had parked himself about twenty feet from his exclusive turf.
Hell, he didn’t mean to tease you about his itinerary (although the gist of schedule was real enough, damn real), or about his mayfair swell digs. The fact was that back then he had been in kind of a bad streak and so sweet home Eliot Bridge right next to the Charles River, but not too next to Harvard Square had been his “home” of late then while he prepared for those sunnier climes just mentioned. Those last few previous months have been tough though, first losing that swell paying job “diving for pearls” at Elsie’s, then losing his apartment when the landlord decided, legally decided, that six months arrears was all that he could take, and then losing Janie over some spat, and getting so mad he “took” a couple of hundred dollars from her pocketbook as he went out the not-coming-back door that last time. So there he was at “home” waiting it out.
He had a pretty good set-up under the bridge, I thought. Far enough away from the Square so that the druggies and drunks wouldn’t dream of seeking shelter so far from their base. But close enough for him to try to panhandle a stake to head west with in rich folks Harvard Square (although apparently the rich those days preferred to tithe in other ways than to part with their spare change to, uh, itinerants). And, moreover, the bridge provided some protection against the chilly elements, and a stray nosey cop or two ready to run a stray itinerant in order to fill his or her quota on the run-in sheet.
All that precious planning had gone for naught though because some snoring be-draggled newspaper strewn hobo had enough courage to head a few hundred yards up river and disturb his home. There and then he decided he had better see what the guy looked like, see if he was dangerous, and see if he could get the hobo the hell out of there so he could get back to sleep for a couple more hours before the damn work-a-day world traffic made this spot too noisy to sleep in. Besides, as is the nature of such things on the down and out American road (and in other less exotic locales as well), the hobo might have other companions just ready to put down stakes here before he was ready to head west.
He unfolded his newspaper covering, folded up his extra shirt pillow and put it in his make-shift ruck-sack, and rolled (rolled for the umpteenth time) his ground covering and placed it next to his ruck-sack. No morning ablutions to brighten breath and face were necessary this early, not in this zip code. he was thus ready for guests. He ambled over to the newspaper pile where the snoring had come from and tapped the papers with a stick that he had picked up along the way (never, never use your hand or you might lose your life if the rustling newspaper causes an unseen knife-hand to cut you six ways to Sunday. Don’t laugh it almost happened to him once, and only once.).
The hobo stirred, stirred again, and then opened his eyes saying “Howdy, my name is Boulder Shorty, what’s yours?” (Shorty later told him that he had never been to Boulder, could not have picked it out on a map if he was given ten chances, and was six feet two inches tall so go figure on monikers. The way they got hanged on a guy was always good for a story in some desolate railroad fireside camp before he got wise enough to stay away from those sites, far away.) H told him his, his road moniker, “Be-Bop Benny.” Shorty laughed, muttering about beatniks and faux kid hobos in thrall of some Jack London or Jack Kerouac or something vision between short, violent coughs.
Funny about different tramps, hobos, and bums (and there are differences, recognized differences just like in regular society. He, Boulder Shorty and he, were hobos, the kings of the river, ravine, and railroad trestle.). Some start out gruff, tough and mean, street hard mean. Other like Shorty, kings, just go with the flow. And that go with the flow for a little while anyway (a little while being very long in hobo company) kept them together for a while, a few weeks while before that short violent cough caught up with old Shorty (you didn’t have to know medicine, or much else, to know that was the small echo of the death-rattle coming up).
In those few weeks Boulder Shorty taught him more about ‘bo-ing, more about natural things, more about how to take life one day at a time than anybody else, his father included. About staying away from bums and tramps, the guys who talked all day about this and that scan they pulled in about 1958 and hadn’t gotten over it yet. About guys who took your money, your clothes, hell, and your newspaper covering in the dead of night just to do it, especially to young hobo kings. And staying alone, staying away from the railroad, river, ravine camps that everybody talked about being the last refuge for the wayward but were just full of disease, drunks and dips. (He let Shorty talk on about that although that was one thing he was already hip to, a river camp was where he almost got his throat handed back to him by some quick knife tramp that he mentioned before about disturbing guys).
Yes, Boulder Shorty had some street smart wisdom for a guy who couldn’t have been past forty, at least that’s what figured from the times he gave in his stories. (Don’t try to judge a guy on the road’s age because between the drugs or booze, the bad food, the weather-beaten road, and about six other miseries most guys looked, and acted, like they were about twenty years older. Even he, before a shower to take a few days dirt off and maybe hadn’t eaten for a while, looked older than his thirty years then.) But most of all it was the little tricks of the road that Shorty taught and showed him that held him to the man.
Like how his approach, my poor boy hat in hand approach, was all wrong in working the Harvard Square panhandle. You had to get in their faces, shout stuff at them, and block their passage so that the couple of bucks they practically threw at you were far easier to do than have you in their faces. Christ, he collected about twenty bucks in an hour one day, one day when he was coughing pretty badly. And a ton of cigarette, good cigarettes too, that he asked for when some guys (and a few gals) pled no dough. It was art, true art that day.
Or about how a hobo king need never go hungry in any city once he had the Sallies, U/U good and kindly neighbor feeding schedule down. No so much those places, any bum or tramp could figure that out, and wait in line, but to “volunteer” and get to know the people running the thing and get invited to their houses as sturdy yeoman “reclamation” projects. A vacation, see. Best of all was him showing how to work the social service agencies for ten here, and twenty there, as long as you could hold the line of patter straight and not oversell your misery. Tramps and bums need not apply for this kind of hustle, go back and jiggle your coffee cup in front of some subway station, and good luck.
[Shorty also taught him the ins and outs of jack-rolling, what you would call mugging, if things got really bad. Jack-rolling guys, bigger and smaller than you but he said he ‘d rather keep that knowledge to himself.]
Funny they never talked about women, although he tried once to talk to Shorty about Janie. Shorty cut him short, not out of disrespect he didn’t think, but he said they were all Janie in the end. He said talking about women was too tough for guys on the road with nothing but drifter, grifter, midnight sifter guys to stare at. Or looking too close at women when on the bum was bad for those longings for home things when you couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Although he did let on once that he was partial to truck stop road side diner waitresses serving them off the arm when he was in the clover (had dough) and was washed up enough to present himself at some stop along the road. Especially the ones who piled the potatoes extra high or double scooped the bread pudding as acts of kindred kindness. One night near the end, maybe a week before, time is hard to remember on the meshed together bum, he started muttering about some Phoebe Snow, some gal all dressed in white, and he kind of smiled, and then the coughing started again.
He tried to get Boulder Shorty moving south with him (and had delayed his own departure to stick with him for as long as he figured he could get south before the snows hit) but Shorty knew, knew deep in his bones, that his time was short, that he wanted to finish up in Boston (not for any special reason, he was from Albany, but just because he was tired of moving) and was glad of young hobo company.
It was funny about how he found out about Shorty’s Albany roots. One night, a couple of nights before the end, coughing like crazy, he seemingly had to prove to that he was from Albany. He had mentioned that he was mad for William Kennedy’s novels, Ironweed and the like, that had just come out a couple of years before. Shorty went on and on about the Phelans this and that. Jesus he knew the books better than he did. He say that is what made hobos the intelligentsia of the road. Some old Wobblie folksinger told him that once when they heading west riding the rails on the Denver & Rio Grande. When holed up in some godforsaken library to get out of the weather hobos read rather than just curled up on some stuffed chair. Yes, Boulder Shorty was a piece of work. He was always saying stuff like that.
Then one morning, one too cold Eliot Bridge morning, he tried to shake his newspaper kingdom and got no response. Old Shorty had taken his last ride, his last train smoke and dreams ride he called it. He left him there like Shorty wanted him to and like was necessary on the hobo road. He made a forlorn anonymous call to the Cambridge cops on his way out of town. But on those few occasion when Peter Paul passes some potter’s field he tips his fingers to his head in Shorty’s memory, his one less hobo king memory.
The Snow Is Falling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C39kQoprfP0
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the Rolling Stones performing Sister Morphine.
Rolling Stones Sister Morphine Lyrics
Songwriters: JAGGER, MICK / RICHARDS, KEITH / FAITHFULL, MARIEANNE
(m. jagger/k. richards/m. faithfull)
Here I lie in my hospital bed
Tell me, sister morphine, when are you coming round again?
Oh, I don't think I can wait that long
Oh, you see that I’m not that strong
The scream of the ambulance is sounding in my ears
Tell me, sister morphine, how long have I been lying here?
What am I doing in this place?
Why does the doctor have no face?
Oh, I can't crawl across the floor
Ah, can't you see, sister morphine, I’m trying to score
Well it just goes to show
Things are not what they seem
Please, sister morphine, turn my nightmares into dreams
Oh, can't you see I’m fading fast?
And that this shot will be my last
Sweet cousin cocaine, lay your cool cool hand on my head
Ah, come on, sister morphine, you better make up my bed
Cause you know and I know in the morning I'll be dead
Yeah, and you can sit around, yeah and you can watch all the
Clean white sheets stained red.
Here I lie in my hospital bed
Tell me, sister morphine, when are you coming round again?
Oh, I don't think I can wait that long
Oh, you see that I’m not that strong
The scream of the ambulance is sounding in my ears
Tell me, sister morphine, how long have I been lying here?
What am I doing in this place?
Why does the doctor have no face?
Oh, I can't crawl across the floor
Ah, can't you see, sister morphine, I’m trying to score
Well it just goes to show
Things are not what they seem
Please, sister morphine, turn my nightmares into dreams
Oh, can't you see I’m fading fast?
And that this shot will be my last
Sweet cousin cocaine, lay your cool cool hand on my head
Ah, come on, sister morphine, you better make up my bed
Cause you know and I know in the morning I'll be dead
Yeah, and you can sit around, yeah and you can watch all the
Clean white sheets stained red.
Snow was falling; at least it was falling snow in his head. A childhood scene of cold New England winter heavy flakes swirling to the ground, some evaporating on contact others accumulating under the relentless driving swirls creating some classic Christmas card, some Currier& Ives sleigh in the snow scene. All of this fevered brain seen from safe inside a frosted front window, child’s nose pressed against the pane creating his own flakes in the always, always under-heated “projects” apartment where he grew up. That ramshackle old place of brothers gone to foreign parts, foreign then meaning a few miles away to schools, of parents frittering away their lives just keeping things together in their little hovel.
But it was the outside snow, or the fever-breaking thought of it just then, that kept him from going over the edge. To the place where he had been before, and a couple of times had almost not made it back. The falling off the edge right then being holed up, brain fevered, against a hot “bracero” tio taco room barely cooler than the one hundred plus degree outside in sunny summer El Paso on the Estados Unidos side of the Tex-Mex border. The falling off the edge part being holed up, as well, waiting for Dora to come back with the goods from down sunny Mexico way, down Sonora way. The falling off the edge being that he needed “something for his head” bad, bad as it had been for a while. And where the hell was Dora. It had been three days.
How he, let’s call him Peter Paul Markin to keep everybody on board, but his name was legion in those days along the Tex-Mex border and not always on the Tex side either. After he, Peter Paul, told his story about how he came to be in a sweat box tio taco bracero rooming house in dusty Mex-town in sunny El Paso in the year of our lord 1983 legion was just about right, I had heard it all before, just the particular circumstances changed with the stories, and even that not by much. His was a bad low- note tale. But he wanted to tell it, tell it all, just in case he didn’t “make it ”out of Mex-town alive. And he wanted to talk, sweat pouring off of him that no handkerchief could absorb fast enough from drinking that rotgut tequila (he never knew there were, like whiskey and scotch, gradations of tequila but when he got to Mex-Town and was waiting, snowless waiting, he learned quickly). I was there when it all got balled up for him and he had to get out of that room for a while, get away from thinking about that snow and childhood dreams. Hell, he wanted a father-confessor or something like that although god and I were not on speaking terms. If you want to listen here it is, sweat, a couple of shakes, some frayed nerves, and all.
*********
He had been nicked up, nicked up a little, in ‘Nam, ‘Nam around 1970, 1971 he wasn’t sure exactly on dates except that he was nicked up, and had the purple heart to show for it. It wasn’t a life or death nick, or it didn’t start out that way any way. Medevac got him (and a couple of buddies) out but on the helicopter to keep him from screaming his brains out the medic gave him a hit of morphine (he kept calling it sister morphine, every other word calling it sister morphine, saying look it up on some Rolling Stones rock lyrics like he had) maybe a couple before he got to the base hospital at Pleiku. Maybe a couple more hits there before they took the fragment out, maybe a couple more later when he was feeling some after effects.
A few weeks later, after some hospital time light duty, he went back on the line, not in bad shape, not enough for that precious discharge that most guys in those days were itching for as their ticket home to the “real world”except every once in a while he would get a pain for a couple of hours. He would go on morning sick call when it stayed for too long , they gave him some prescription stuff (some kind of zombie tranquilizer from the way he phonetically described the name of the drug used and after I looked it later). No go. The occasional pain persisted. He asked, innocently enough, for some morphine but they, the doctors on his case, looked at him like he was crazy. Hey that stuff is strictly for guys coming in off the line wounded, badly wounded. Bad stuff to mess around with.
Bad stuff was right. But this was Vietnam, golden triangle mystery dreams Vietnam, this was a busted up 1970s American army that had no will to fight, fight for anything except survival, buddies, and home, otherwise practically each guy for himself, and his own woes. He made a connection, a G.I. connection (he got foggy on that, on the network, conveniently foggy), an easily done deal, who made a connection with an ARVN (South Vietnamese Army soldier) and he got his “fix.” And got what he needed for the rest for his tour, cheap and no problem.
Toward the end of 1971 he was headed back stateside. He got nervous, no connections with that kind of stuff (hell, he was strictly a whiskey and beer chaser guy, drinking rotgut mainly except when he was in the chips, he from maybe a joint or two to be “hip,” back in the “real world”), and no way of making any stateside connection. Or so he thought then. After the discharge from the Army process was over he went straight to the Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles (he was from North Adamsville in Massachusetts but had meet a girl, a Mexican girl, a girl from Sonora, on the Cambridge Common, back shortly before he was drafted whom he had kept in touch with and who was coming up from Sonora to meet him there). He told one of the medical staff there his story and he was put (after plenty of snafus that he didn’t want to talk about because it only got him mad) in a“de-tox” unit. [Later in checking the details of Peter Paul’s story I found out that he omitted some stuff and had been shaky, very shaky on the timeline of events but basically he story checked out.] He dried out. And for a few years he was fine.
That fine included going back to school nights at UCLA, getting married to that Mexican girl, Dora Del Rios, and making small things happen in the world, his small world. Then about 1978 the pains started coming back. He knew right away the cause, and also knew that he was not going to get relief from what the V.A. (or civilians) was going to give him, those tranquilizer/pain-killer things that were worthless for his pains. He wasn’t going to live with the pain though. No way.
Here he backed up a little to tell about how he had met Dora. When he announced that intention I said it better be quick, and relevant. It was. See Dora, while a student, an exchange student for the summer at Harvard, exchanged from Sonora University down in Mexico, was on Cambridge Common the day he met her selling weed, righteous weed, for coffee and cakes (his expression for walking around money). That is how they met, strangely enough. What he didn’t know, and she didn’t tell him then, was that she had “muled” two kilos of weed on the trip up from Sonora for her brother. Her brother then being some“street” dealer looking to make the move up in that world. Those facts are germane because this Dora connection with her brother was what got him back on Jump Street (his name for “high, sister morphine high.” Dora begged him not to make her go to her brother, but after a few days of on the floor pain she relented. She made the brother connection, no problem.
At first, like in ‘Nam it was just a little something to take the pain away. Something to get him through the work day (he was a whiz at fixing computers up with software and stuff like that, tech stuff then just getting off the ground) and home to Dora and collapse. He then increased the dosage as a couple of hits weren’t enough. As he said you know the rest of the story, hooked bad, real bad. He couldn’t work (or wouldn’t, he got vague on this when he went through the timeline of his dosage increases), Dora was laid off from her job (and had to increasingly spend her time “feeding” him). She also had some vague immigration problems that he was also vague in detailing.
Then the brother “came through,” came through in two ways. One he offered to give the morphine “free.” [Of such small kindnesses civilizations decline, decline big time.] Two, the brother, Diego, wanted he/she/ they to do a little “muling” of snow, you know, cocaine (cousin cocaine he, Peter Paul, called it copycatting from the Stones lyrics) in return for his largesse. At first they balked, no way, no way in hell, but a week, maybe ten days, without sister, without another connection, and without dough, walking around dough, and they took the ride. That was few years ago and that explains why one Peter Paul Markin, shaky like a leaf, gray, sweating tequila sweat was sitting in a stinking tio taco room in El Paso waiting for Dora to come back from down Sonora way to make him “well.”
After he told his story, leaving all gray and shaky still, tequila bottle in hand, he went back to his room. A few hours later, no sign of Dora, somebody heard a persistent low moan from room, and then no sound. [Dora, I found out later, had been held up in Sonora by the Federales who were investigating the murder of her brother by a split-off rival drug gang over some mal deal] A little later that somebody who heard moans and then no sounds, knocked on his door, found it unlocked, entered and found him on the floor face down, face down. Had he been thinking of falling snow?
No More Retreats?
Who knows when the ebb starts, that start to the be-bop king hell king slide down, the question of when the struggle for the top, for being top dog, for being top dog among you and yours, turns from kid (well young man anyway) great blue-pink cloud puff nights to sober star-filled wonders about immorality, your place in the sun, whether it will happen and whether you have enough wherewithal to stand the gaff, the grift, or just the drift toward the infinite. More importantly when the “this and that” of life, the ordinary muck, always present, always damn present from the cradle, takes over.
Let’s put it like this, okay. That minute when you call an armed truce (no, a thousand times no don’t say surrender, please, be like Bob Marley, stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights, don’t give up the fight), to that thing that in 1960 got you running the streets, got you running into Park Street and massive scorn, or some hard stir time courtesy of Uncle Sam, or crushed beneath the May Day red tide. (Ya, Bob had it right, don’t give up the fight.) When you didn’t retire exactly but just kind of ran out of opponents who were ready to beat you down on their way up and of sparring partners, rubber tube around the middle just like you, who decided to take up gardening or whatever third-rate guys do when they move on, move uptown as you always said. But one last call calls. And this…
White truce flags neatly placed in right pocket. Well placed in that right hand pocket in order, right-handed man, pocket ready to call a, uh, strategic retreat from this day’s errands at the drop of that handkerchief, an orderly retreat but a retreat, one of many, nevertheless. Then folded aging arms showing the first signs of wear-down, unfolded. One more time, one more war-weary dastardly fight against the feckless oil-driven times.
This time a mismatch, a mismatch based a little on that rubber tire around the middle, a little greyness in the hair , a little white in the beard, a little ache here and a pain there, once brushed off , and forward in day but now, weeks ache, and months pains. The bigger opponent, mighty muscled, sleek, stealthy, lots of money backing him, the “smart” money, no question. But he had contracted for this one fight, take whatever comes and then, and then the joys of retreat and taking out those white flags again and normalcy.
The first round begins. He holds his own, a little wobbly, a little rubber tire around the middle wobbly, but moving in and out to avoid the bigger man’s fearsome blows. Hell the guy is not even winded. Damn it’s like a phalanx of something driving him to the ground, or about six corner boys from his youth, his sullen youth when six guys decided that he was, what? Mush? A fag? Stupid? Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. He stagger on his knees and then up on the eight count. Another barrage. Back up again on nine. Close. Then another. He wobbles, knees akimbo, if that is possible and after this mauling it probably is. Face down, stay down. A distant muted echo hits his brain, his egg- scrambled brain, don’t give up the fight. Nah, tomorrow is another day. Hell, there are always other days. If not me then some young hungry guy, some barrio guy, some ghetto guy, hell, maybe both. His brain says… Out. He ran right out of time, Christ.
Awake later, seven minutes, hours, eons later he takes out the proud white flags now red with his own blood. He clutches them in his weary hands. His handler, his woebegone handler, some ancient guy picked up on the cheap, a guy who looked pretty weather-beaten but what are you going to do when you make a match with no up-front dough, no real dough, and just a few fans who remember you from the old glory days, the days when, no kidding, you could have been a contender. This old guy, met, or guys like him, met long ago said going into the damn fight and I quote, he said struggle, struggle. Yah, it’s easy for you to say, buddy. You didn’t have to go two rounds with the guy. Jesus he never worked up a sweat. Give me those damn white flags, jesus. And I want my option rematch just like the contract says. Jesus.
No More Defeats
Desperately clutching his new white flags, his new millennium embossed white flags, linen white, exchanged years ago for bloodied red ones. White flags proudly worn for a while now, he wipes his brow of the sweat accumulated from the fear he has been living with for the past few months. A fear that some old thought truce would not hold, that he would mercilessly be called to account. He, still rubber tire around the middle, he brown turning grey turning to white, he comfortable with an off-hand jabbing session and back room talk about old time exploits and when guys were really tough. And about how he could stand toe to toe with the best of them (forgetting to mention, “for a while”). Talk, all talk. But signs portended some danger, some confrontation, some one more beating, and maybe some real damage this time. To his almighty soul condition if nothing else.
His old time opponent, a few pounds heavily, a few tricks wiser after a fistful of fights, a more checkered record than when they first did battle where that big brawny young flash mopped the floor up with him, without a sweat, in two rounds had dusted off the old moth-eaten contract. The old option contract that called for a rematch at either party’s beck and call. No expiration date given. He could see the wheels working in that now slower opponent’s mind. His manager’s really. Hell, he had done the same thing himself on the way up. Use him for a dust mop and then back to the “bigs.” Damn that option, damn that contract, damn that Sam for making him sign the damn thing even though right after the previous match, brains egg-scrambled, he had yelled out rematch, anytime, anyway.
Nothing to do but get ready, get a little, a very little, of that rubber tire off the middle, and learn to back up to the ropes fast, jack lightning fast. Hell, he chuckled, that was the easy part. The big event came and his ancient arms folded, hard-folded against the rainless night, raining, he carefully turned right, left, careful of every move as the crowd comes forward. He eyed their murderous eyes, money in hand, “smart” money as always on the younger, faster man, more a matter of rounds than victories, but murderous eyes, aflame with an easy victory. Glory days be damned the guy in front of him looked plenty tough still.
After the ritualistic formalities were over the bell rang-go to it, boys. The first round begins. He holds his own, like he had always done in every fight (never knocked out in the first round, ever, a source of pride, drink in hand barroom, pride) a little wobbly, a little rubber tire around the middle wobbly, but moving in and out to avoid the bigger man’s still fearsome blows. Hell, after all these years the guy is not even that winded. A memory from the first match flashes before him. It was like a phalanx of something driving him to the ground, or about six corner boys from his youth, his sullen youth when six guys decided that he was, what? Mush? A fag? Stupid? Those guys didn’t know nothing .Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. He stagger on his knees and then up on the eight count. But he notices that the blows were not as fearsome as of old and his opponent shows just a hint of fatigue around his eyes. Another barrage. Down. Back up again on nine. Close. The bell rings. He has survived two rounds. Some “smart” money is not going to be happy this night, no way.
Third round. He faces another barrage, rights then lefts. He wobbles, knees akimbo, if that is possible and after this mauling it probably is. He hits the floor. Face down, stay down. You have proved your point, go collect your dough. Once again, as if on call, a distant muted echo hits his brain, his egg- scrambled brain, don’t give up the fight. He is ready this time though, smart, maybe not ring smart but life smart now. Tomorrow is another day. Hell, there are always other days. If not me then some young hungry guy, some barrio guy, some ghetto guy, hell, maybe both. His brain says… Out.
As he lays on the cooling board locker room gurney he remember old Sam, damn, money-fisted old Sam, and what he said before that last fight. Or was it some other guy. Well, some old guy, met, or guys like him, met long ago said going into the damn fight and I quote, he said struggle, struggle. Yah, it was easy for you to say, buddy. You didn’t have to go three rounds with the guy. Jesus he never let up even with those fatigued eyes. Give me those damn white flags, jesus.
Funny though he noticed as he was carried out to the locker room that white flags, or not, the crowd, not a crowd, no, a horde, a beastly horde, was sullen, not like the old days when they would sent up a Bronx cheer. This was no time to stick out with white flags (or bloodied red ones, for that matter).
Later, dressed, white flags placed in back pockets, he jumped out of the way of the hordes passing through the doors after the feature fight, the horde passing brushing him lightly, not aware, not apparently aware of the white flags. Good. What did that other guy, that old guy say, say, oh yes, struggle.
Hard Times In Babylon
One night, one early 2007 night, Peter Paul was in a pensive mood. He had just written, half-tear written for lost youth and fallen youth comrade a personal commentary about a childhood friend, Kenny Callahan, from back in the old neighborhood in North Adamsville where he grew up in the 1950s and who had passed away some time before. He had also at that time been re-reading the then recently deceased investigative journalist David Halberstam’s book, "The Fifties," that covered that same basic period of his teary remembrance. Strangely Halberstam’s take on the trends of the period, in contrast to the reality of his own childhood experiences as a child of the working poor that missed most of the benefits of that ‘golden age,’ rekindled some memories, a few painful.
It was no exaggeration to say that those were hard times in Babylon for the Markin family (or the Breslin family either up in textile mills-dependent Olde Saco, Maine). Not so much for individual lacks like a steady (and reliable) family car in order to break out of the cramped quarters, house on house, where he lived once in a while. Or the inevitable hand-me-down clothes (all the way through high school, almost), or worst the Bargain Center bargains that were no bargains (the local “Wal-Mart” of the day to give you an idea of what he meant). Or even, for that matter, the always house coldness in winter (in order to save on precious fuel even in those cheap-priced heating oil times) and hotness in summer (ditto, to save on electricity so no A/C, or fans).
Those, and other such lacks, he noted, all had their place in the poor man’s pantheon of hurts and lacks, no question. That was not the worst of it though, not by a long shot when he thought back on those red scare cold war times (but what knew he then of such connections). No, what, in the end, make things turn out badly for him and his kind, was the sense of defeat that hung, hung heavily and almost daily over the household, the street, the neighborhood at a time when others, visibly and not so far away, were getting ahead.
Some sociologist, some academic sociologist, for, sure, would call such a phenomenon the death of “rising expectations.” And for once they would be right, or at least on the right track. Thinking back on those times had also made him reflect on how the hard anti-communist politics of the period, the“red scare” had left people like his parents high and dry, although they were as prone to support those repressive governmental policies, as reflex action if nothing else, as any American Legion denizen. Moreover the defeat and destruction of the left-wing movement then, principally the pro-communist organizations of that period, has continued to leave a mark, and a gaping vacuum, on today’s political landscape, and on him.
There are many myths about the 1950’s to be sure, some media-driven, some simply misty time-driven. However, one cannot deny that the key public myth was that those who had fought World War II and were afterwards enlisted in the anti-Soviet Cold War fight against communism, gladly or kicking and screaming, were entitled to some breaks. The overwhelming desire for personal security and comfort on the part of those who had survived the Great Depression and fought the war (World War II just so there is no question about which in the long line of American wars we are talking about) was not therefore totally irrational. That it came at the expense of other things like a more just and equitable society is a separate matter. Moreover, despite the public myth not everyone benefited from the ‘rising tide.' The experience of Peter Paul’s parents is proof of that. Thus this commentary is really about what happened to those, like his parents, who did not make it and were left to their personal fates without a rudder to get them through the rough spots. Yes, his parents (and mine) were of the now much ballyhooed and misnamed ‘greatest generation’ but they were not in it.
Peter Paul did not want to go through all the details of his parents’childhoods, courtship and marriage for such biographic details of the Great Depression and World War II were (and are) plentiful and theirs fit the pattern. (Moreover, he was uneasily aware that he did not know, know for sure, many of the specific details like where they first met and stuff like that.) One detail is, however, important and that is that his father grew up in the hills of eastern Kentucky, Hazard, near Harlan County to be exact, coal mining country made famous in song and story and by Michael Harrington in his 1960s book “The Other America.” This was, and is, hardscrabble country by any definition. Among whites these“hillbillies” were the poorest of the poor. There can be little wonder, he emphasized (and made a little joke about it too, about his father telling him between the Pacific War bloodbath and the mines he took his chances with the former) that when World War II began his father left the mines to join the Marines, did his fair share of fighting in the Pacific, settled in the Boston area and never looked back.
By all rights Peter Paul’s father should have been able to take advantage of the G.I. Bill and have enjoyed home and hearth like the denizens of Levittown (New York and elsewhere) described in Halberstam’s book and shown on such classic 1950s television shows as “Ozzie and Harriet” and “Leave It To Beaver.” But life did not go that way, not at all.
Why? He had virtually no formal education. Furthermore he had no marketable skills usable in the Boston labor market. There was (and is) no call for coal-miners there. And moreover he had three young sons born close together in the immediate post-war period. Peter related that his father was a good man. He was a hard-working man; when he was able find work. He was an upright man. But he never drew a break. Unskilled labor, to which he was reduced, is notoriously unstable, and so his work life was one of barely making ends meet. Thus, well before the age when the two-parent working family became the necessary standard to get ahead, his mother had gone to work to supplement the family income. She too was an unskilled laborer. Thus, even with two people working they were always “dirt poor.” I have already run through enough of the litany of lacks to give an idea of what dirt poor meant in those hard times so we need not retrace those steps as they apply to the Markin family...
That little family started life in the Adamsville housing projects, at that time not the notorious hell-holes of crime and deprivation that they later became but still a mark of being low, very low, on the social ladder at a time when others were heading to the Valhalla of the newly emerging suburbs. By clawing and scratching his parents had eventually saved enough money to buy an extremely modest single-family house. Hell, Peter blurted out to me while relating this part, why pussyfoot about it, a shack. The house, moreover, was in a neighborhood that was, and is, one of those old working class neighborhoods where the houses are small, cramped, and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless reflected the desire of the working poor in the 1950’s, his parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off into decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder.
But suddenly Peter Paul turned to me to said enough of all that. He was finished, or as finished with the details as he was going to be. Where in this story though is there a place for militant left-wing political class-consciousness to break the trap? Not in an understanding of the sense of social inferiority of the poor before the rich (or the merely middle class). Damn, there was plenty of that kind of consciousness in his house (and painfully mine as well). A phrase from the time, and maybe today although I don’t hear it much, said it all “keeping up with the Jones.’” Or else. But where was there an avenue in the 1950’s, when it could have made a difference, for a man like Peter’s father to have his hurts explained and have something done about them?
Nowhere, nada nunca nada. So instead it went internally into the life of the family and it never got resolved. One of his sons, my friend Peter Paul, has had “luxury” of being able to fight essentially exemplary propaganda battles in small left-wing socialist circles and felt he has done good work in his life. His father’s hurts needed much more. The "red scare" aimed mainly against the American Communist Party but affecting wider layers of society decimated any possibility that he could get the kind of redress he needed. That dear reader, in a nutshell, is why Peter Paul made a point, made a big point, as we ended our talk of saying that he proudly bore the name communist today. And the task for him today? To insure that future young workers, unlike his parents in the 1950’s, will have their day of justice. Good luck, Peter Paul.
History and Class Consciousness –Five Sketches-#1 An Uncounted Casualty Of War
He, Peter Paul Markin, had returned in 2007, while on some unrelated business in the area, to the neighborhood where he grew up, old time North Adamsville just outside of Boston. The neighborhood was (is) one of those old working-class neighborhoods, the old inner suburbs long gone to seed, long past its industrial- centered usefulness in its losing battle (ship-building) to the “race to the bottom” global economy. Also filled with every kind of cheap jack strip mall and excess fast food joint, and where the houses are small, cramped and seedy, the leavings of those who have moved on to bigger and better things. The neighborhood nevertheless back in the day reflected, and still reflected a certain shabby gentility, humbly displaying the desire of the working poor in the 1950s, his parents and others, to own their own homes and not be shunted off to decrepit apartments or dilapidated housing projects, the fate of those just below them on the social ladder. The hellish fate of those cross-town denizens of the Adamsville Housing Authority apartments (“the projects”) that his family had, just barely, escaped from as he came of age.
While there in the old neighborhood he happened upon an old neighbor who recognized him despite the fact that he had not seen her, Maude Brady to give her a proper name, for at least thirty years. Since she had grown up and had lived there continuously, marrying and raising three children , then taking over sole ownership of the family house upon the death of her parents , he inquired about the fate of various people that he had grown up with. She, as is usually the case in such circumstances, had a wealth of information about how Billy, a boy she had prudently turned down for a date, was serving a twenty strength for armed robbery, about how Lannie, a girl that he, Peter Paul, had more than a passing interest in, had had a couple of kids out of wedlock with a married man who would not divorce his wife. A couple of good reports as well about how her Johnny had made the grade and was now on the Adamsville Police Department and how her Susan worked nights at the Adamsville Medical Center as a nurse-practitioner. The usual proud parent stuff, harmless,
But one story in particular cut him to the quick. Peter Paul had asked about a boy named Kenny, Kenny Callahan, who was a couple of years younger than him was but who he was very close to until his teenage years. Kenny, who lived down at the bottom of Glover Street kitty-corner from his own street, used to tag along with his crowd until, as teenagers will do, he made it clear that Kenny was no longer welcome being ‘too young’ to hang around with the older boys, the corner boys, led by one pinball wizard Frankie Larkin, the king hell king of the North Adamsville High School night. And “owner” of the coveted Salducci’s Pizza Parlor corner spot all through high school. But the details of that story are for another day as this is Kenny’s story, not Frankie’s.
The long and the short of it was that Kenny found other friends of his own age to hang with, one in particular from down my street, Maple Street, named Jimmy. He had only a nodding acquaintance with both thereafter. As happened more often than not during the 1960’s in working class neighborhoods all over the country, especially with kids who were not academically inclined, when Jimmy came of age he faced the draft or the alternative of ‘volunteering’ for military service. He enlisted. Kenny, for a number of valid medical reasons, was 4-F (unqualified for military service). Of course, you know what is coming. Jimmy was sent to Vietnam where he was killed in 1968 at the age of 20. His name is one of the 58,000 plus that are etched on that Vietnam Memorial Wall down in Washington. His story ends there. Unfortunately, Kenny’s just begins.
Kenny took Jimmy’s death hard. Harder, as Maude related some of the more public details, than one can possibly imagine. The early details are rather sketchy but they may have involved illegal drug use. Hell, they, including Peter Paul, all knew about drugs, had at the least experienced and experimented with some of them, along with almost all the other member of “youth nation,” circa the 1960s. But Kenny went overboard apparently, way overboard.
Kenny’s overt manifestations were reflected in a flare –up of acts of petty crime and then anti-social acts like pulling fire alarms and walking naked down the street. At some point he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Peter Paul, when he later checked up on that particular mental illness and its causes, said he made no pretense of having adequate knowledge about the causes of mental illnesses but someone he trusted has told him that such a traumatic event as Jimmy’s death could trigger the condition in young adults.
In any case, the institutionalizations inevitably began. And later the halfway houses, and all the other forms of social control for those who cannot survive on the mean streets of this wicked old world on their own. Apparently, with drugs and therapy, there were periods of calm but for over three decades poor Kenny struggled with his inner demons. In the end the demons won and he died a few years ago while in a mental hospital.
Certainly this is not a happy story, and Maude rather steely in talking about Billy and some other local desperadoes, was always on the edge of tears in relating this story. Perhaps, Peter Paul thought later, aside from the specific details, this was not even an unusual one in modern times. Nevertheless he now counted Kenny as one of the uncounted casualties of war. Along with those physically wounded soldiers who can back from Vietnam service unable to cope with their own demons and sought solace in drugs and alcohol. And those, who for other reasons, could no adjust and found themselves on the streets, in the half way shelters or the V. A. hospitals. And also those grieving parents and other loved ones whose lives were shattered and broken by the loss of their children. There is no wall in Washington for Kenny or them. But, maybe there should be. As for poor childhood Kenny, Kenny Callahan, from the old neighborhood- Rest in Peace.
#2-The Old Neighborhood Buries One of Its Own
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
As a matter of historical record for much of the first half of the 20th century January was traditionally the month to honor fallen working class leaders like Lenin, Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. That tradition still goes on, however, more in the European working class movement than here in America. January, however, can and should also be a time to honor other working class people, those down at the base, as well. Here in its proper place is another about a fallen daughter of the working-class who died in January 2008.
In early 2007 Peter Paul Markin went searching for his roots in his old North Adamsville working class neighborhood where he grew up, grew up to manhood. One of the stories he had related to him after some inquiries to an old-time resident still struggling to get by there was about Kenny, Kenny Callahan, an old childhood friend who got caught up in a bad situation. The gist of that story has been told in the previous sketch. But there were more, more stories.
Maybe it was age, maybe it was memory, maybe it was the need at that late date to gain a sense of roots but that return back in time and place haunted Peter Paul for a long afterwards. (I know he would return to the subject, sometimes out of the blue, on many subsequent talking occasions.) He, moreover, had gone back gone back a couple of times after that to hear more of what had happened to those in the old neighborhood from a woman who continued to live there and had related the above-mentioned story to him. This one is about the fate of his childhood friend Kenny's mother Margaret. Read it and weep.
Peter Paul had, as mentioned, lost track of Kenny who as he reached maturity took the death of a friend, Jimmy Jackman, who died in Vietnam in 1968 very hard. Harder than one could have even imagined. The early details were rather sketchy but they may have involved drug use. The overt manifestations were acts of petty crime and then anti-social acts like pulling fire alarms and walking naked down the street. At some point Kenny was diagnosed as schizophrenic. The institutionalizations inevitably began. And subsequently, almost naturally, the halfway houses and all the other forms of control for those who cannot survive on the mean streets of the world on their own kicked in. Apparently, with drugs and therapy, there were periods of calm but for over three decades poor Kenny struggled with his inner demons. In the end the demons won and he died a few years ago while in a mental hospital.
Needless to say Kenny’s problems were well beyond his mother and father’s ability to comprehend or control. His father, like Peter Paul’s, had had a limited education and meager work prospects. In short, there were no private resources for Kenny so he, and they, were thus consigned to endure public institutionalization schemes. The shame of this inability to provide for one’s own, among other things, led to his father’s early death many, many years ago. His mother, strong Irish Catholic working-class woman that she was, thereafter shouldered the burden by herself until Kenny’s death. The private and public horrors and humiliations that such care entailed must have taken a toll on her most of us could not stand. Apparently in the end it got to her as well as she let her physical appearance go downhill, she became more reclusive, and she turned in on herself reverting in conversation to dwelling on happier times as a young married woman in the mid-1940s.
Kenny’s woes, however, as Peter Paul later found out were only part of this sad story. Kenny had two older brothers whom he did not really know well because they were not around. Part of that reason was they were in and out of trouble or one sort or another. Trouble with a big “T,” that spelled some prison time, or times. Peter Paul’s neighborhood historian Maude Brady related to him that at some point both sons had dropped out of sight and had not been seen by their mother for over thirty years. They were presumed to be dead or that is the story Margaret told Maude. In any case, after Kenny’s death Margaret’s health, or really her will to live, went downhill fairly rapidly. Unable, or unwilling, to care for herself she was finally placed in a nursing home where she died in January 2008. Only a very few attended her funeral (and no sons) and her memory is probably forgotten by all except Peter Paul and his historian friend.
Peter Paul Markin, after relating this story to me, tried to draw, as is his wont, some “lessons” from its telling. He is a proudly a working- class political person. That is the great legacy that his parents left him, intentionally or not. He asked -are there any great political lessons to be learned here? No, came his rather quick answer, but he swore that when we build the new society that this country and this world needs we will not let the Kennys of the world be shunted off to the side. And we will not let the Margarets of the world, our working-class mothers, die alone and forgotten. As for Kenny and Margaret may they rest in peace.
#3 -History and Class Consciousness
Despite the highly theoretical sounding title of this sketch it is really a part of the very prosaic working class story that Peter Paul had described to me in several conversations concerning a visit to his old coming of age North Adamsville working class neighborhood. They detailed the fate of a working class family, his boyhood friend Kenny and the Callahan family, from his old neighborhood. Let me continue the tale.
Kenny’s woes, as Peter Paul found out a few years back, were only part of this sad story about the fate of Margaret and James's sons. Kenny had two older brothers, James, Jr. and Francis, whom he did not really know well because they were not around. Part of the reason for that was they were in and out of trouble or one sort or another and were not around the neighborhood much. The neighborhood historian mentioned that at some point both sons had dropped out of sight and had not been seen by their mother for over thirty years. They were (are) presumed to be dead or that was the story Margaret had told the historian. Peter Paul told Maude that if he had time at some point he would try to track down what happened to them and then we would have a five-part story. At that point I will surely need the literary resources of someone like James T. Farrell in his Studs Lonigan trilogy for guidance.
For now, however, let me continue with Kenny’s father James’s fate. His historian friend told him that James and Peter Paul’s father when they were young married men were very, very close buddies, something that he was totally unaware of. Thick as thieves as the old neighborhood adage went. Apparently they liked to go drinking together, when they could afford it. Nothing startling there. He did find it odd though that a South Boston-raised Irishman and his father, a Kentucky-raised hillbilly, hit it off. However, as James lost control over the behavior of his sons he became more morose and more introverted. At this point their long friendship faded away.
James, apparently, was like many another Irish father. His sons, good or bad, were his world. Hell, they were his sons and that was all that mattered. They were to be forgiven virtually anything except the bringing of shame on the household. Peter Paul knew the intricacies and absurdities of that shame culture from his own Irish mother. The boys in their various ways nevertheless did bring shame to the household. Kenny we know about. It is hard to tell but from what the Maude the historian related to him for James, Jr. and Francis there were bouts of petty and latter grand thievery and other troubles with the law. She was vague in her recollections here although crimes, great and small, were not uncommon in the neighborhood. The old ironic saying in the neighborhood that a man’s son was destined to be either a thief or a priest ran truer here than one might have thought.
Well, the long and short of it is that James started to have severe physical problems, particularly heart problems and had trouble holding a steady job. In the end the shock of his sons' disappearances without a word literally broke his heart. Anything, but not abandonment. His end, as the Maude related the details, was not pretty and he suffered greatly.
As I related in an earlier sketch Peter Paul is a working- class politician. That is the great legacy that his parents left him, intentionally or not. As he has asked previously at this point in relating the other parts of the story -are there any great political lessons to be learned here? No, he did not think so but this family’s saga of turning in on itself in the absence of some greater purpose and solution goes a long way to explaining why down at the base of society we have never had as much as nibble of independent working class political consciousness expressed in this country. That, my friends, is why this saga can aptly be entitled history and class-consciousness, but let us put them in small letters. As for Kenny, Margaret and James may they rest in peace.
#4- Markin Takes A Turn As Neighborhood Historian
Despite the somewhat academic- sounding title of this commentary this is really a part of the very prosaic working class story that I have written about previously in several earlier sketches about Peter Paul Markin’s old working class neighborhood. commentaries. in this space. This is the fourth part of what, as I will explain in the next paragraph, now has now turned into a five part saga of the fate of a family from the old working class neighborhood that he grew up in. Let me continue that tale.
In the previous sketch about the fate of Peter Paul’s childhood friend Kenny’s father I mentioned that if Peter Paul had time he would try to find out the fates of Kenny’s two long missing older brothers, James, Jr. and Francis, who had not been heard from by the family in over thirty years. His invaluable neighborhood historian Maude had related to him that Kenny’s recently deceased mother, Margaret, had assumed they were dead, or that is what she told Maude. Peter Paul had become so intrigued by this family’s story that he had made time to dig deeper into it. Now he knows about both of their fates. They, in any case, were not dead.
In detecting information about the whereabouts of the two brothers did Peter Paul need to be a super sleuth? No. Did he need to spend hours poring over documents? No. He has, on more than one occasion, railed against the information superhighway as a substitute for political organizing. But he now admits that for finding public records that lead one to missing people it cannot be beat. That source, and using the old telephone, did yeoman’s service here. He thus found the brothers, or at first the whereabouts of the oldest one James, Jr. whom he interviewed and who had promised Peter Paul in his own cryptic way to lead him to his younger brother Francis. Francis’s story will finish this series of sketches.
Peter Paul found James, Jr. (hereafter, just James) living alone in a seedy, rundown rooming house in a transitional Boston neighborhood. Strangely, James was more than willing to talk to him about his life and family although he was only vaguely aware of Peter Paul’s family, except that he remembered that he was somewhat political. His story, in general outline, is not an unfamiliar one, at least not to me.
Early on James got into petty crime and then more serious crime. As a teenager during the early part of the Vietnam War era, after dropping out of school despite having previously been something of an honors student, he got into enough trouble that he was given a choice by the court system to ‘volunteer’ for military duty or go to jail. He took the military service, for a while. Given orders to Vietnam, he went AWOL not for any political reason but just, as he said, “because.” Later, after time in a military stockade and a civilian jail (for other, unrelated acts) James got‘religion’-that is he figured the percentages of keeping up his then current “lifestyle”did not add up to a long and happy life.
Based on that street wisdom James became a drifter, grifter and midnight sifter (his words) but stayed on the legal side of the line. The inevitable failed marriages, lost jobs and financial problems as a result of such a lifestyle followed, in their seemingly monotonously natural course. This harsh lifestyle, moreover, ultimately wore down his psychological capacities and at some point he was diagnosed as clinically depressed, unable to hold a steady job and was put on welfare. He has subsisted at various times on day labor wages, welfare of one sort or another, and handouts ever since. That pretty much sums up the balance of his life for our purposes here.
Now, about the question that must be on the reader’s mind, as it surely was on mine. What in James’s biography warrants going underground from one’s family for over thirty years? The answer James gave-shame. James just flat out got tired of taking a psychological beating every time his mother, Margaret, berated him in his early youth for some seemingly trivial mistake. To not have to deal with that, as he started to get into real trouble, James just walked away from his family. His rationale was that if they did not know about it then he was doing them a favor. Strange reasoning, perhaps. However, I too know, and perhaps you do also, the wrath of an irate mother when she gets into the shaming ritual. I faced that more than one time myself. It is not pretty. And I consider my mother something of a saint! James may have stayed away too long and, in the end, broke his father’s heart, but I found nothing inherently absurd about his response. We all face our demons in our own particular ways.
I make no claims that James's is a typical working -class story. It is not. Nor is this a typical working- class family saga. But there are just enough of the pathologies that I have over a lifetime of observation noted about working- class existence to make the story serve my purpose. It can serve as a descriptive, if not, cautionary tale about the plight of working people in modern American society. Think about it that way, if you will.
Peter Paul commented, off-handedly, in sketch #3 that at a point where he had been successful in locating the two older brothers he would surely need the literary talents of someone like James T. Farrell in his “Studs Lonigan” trilogy for guidance. That has proven to not be necessary as this is a most ordinary story. What this story really calls for is the skills of someone like the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, or better yet a Lenin, to try to analyze and to generalize how a couple of fairly smart working -class kids like James and his brother turned the wrong way and in the end turned inward rather than become class fighters. It needs an appraisal of how the transmission belt of working class political consciousness that broke down in our fathers’ generation (the so-called “greatest generation” that survived the Great Depression and fought World War II) remained broken in the baby-boomer generation (our generation, the generation of ’68). There is thus something of a ‘lost’ political generation after ours that is not there to give guidance now that today’s youth look like they, at least some of them, are ready to “storm heaven.”
As I have noted before Peter Paul is a working class politician. That is the great legacy that his parents left him, intentionally or not. As he has asked previously in relating the other parts of the story -are there any great political lessons to be learned here? No, he did not think so but this family’s saga of turning in on itself in the absence of some greater purpose and solution goes a long way to explaining why down at the base of society we have never had as much as nibble of independent working class political consciousness expressed in this country. Think about that.
Story#5-And the tin pan bended... and the story ended
The title of this commentary takes its name from what turned out to be the late folksinger and folk historian Dave Van Ronk’s last album. This seems as an appropriate last title as any for the twists and turns of this series. Despite Van Ronk’s alliterative title this is really a very prosaic working class story that I have written about in several earlier sketches above. This is the fifth and final part of what, as I will relate in the next paragraph, has now turned into a saga of the fate of a working class family from Peter Paul’s’ old neighborhood. Let me finish the tale.
In part three of this story, History and Class Consciousness (hereafter, History), about the fate of Peter Paul’s childhood friend Kenny’s father, James, he mentioned that if he had time he would try to find out the fates of Kenny’s two long missing older brothers, James and Francis, who had not been heard from by the family in over thirty years. He had become so intrigued by this family’s story that he had made time to dig deeper into it.
During Peter Paul’s interview with James he was somewhat mysterious in his agreement to get him in touch with Francis. He thus expected that Francis’s story would be similar to James’ (or even more depressing than his). That was entirely not the case. Apparently Francis is to be considered the 'success' of the family. Peter Paul mentioned in the last part that he found James to be smart, if more on the street side than academically. Well, Francis seemed to have traversed both sides. He had interviewed him in a law office in Boston, his law office.
Somewhere along the way Francis figured out faster than James and with somewhat more determination that unless your heart is totally into it a life of crime just takes too much energy. But here is the odd part. He had total recall of Peter Paul as a kid, including his politics. He even remembered something that Peter Paul had not-he was his “captain” in canvassing for John F. Kennedy for President in 1960. I have not been sworn to secrecy by Peter Paul and I checked out the information independently so that I can add that today he is a fairly influential, if not widely known, member of the Massachusetts Democratic Party establishment.
That poses two questions. The first and obvious one, that Peter Paul also posed when he interviewed James, is one that must be on the reader’s mind, as it surely was on mine. What in this biographic sketch warrants going underground from one’s family for over thirty years? Francis answered that unless he got a fresh, totally fresh, start that he would have wound up like his brother James. Fair enough. Moreover he just flat out got tired of taking a psychological beating every time his mother, Margaret, berated him in his early youth for some seemingly trivial mistake.
To not have to deal with that as Francis started to get into real trouble he just walked away from his family. His rationale, like his brother's was that if they did not know about it then he was doing them a favor. Again, strange reasoning, perhaps. However, I know, and perhaps you do also, the wrath of an Irish mother when she gets into the shaming ritual. I faced that more than one time myself. It is not pretty. Francis may have stayed away too long and, in the end, coldly broke his father’s heart, but there is nothing absurd about his response. We all face our demons in our own particular ways.
The second question is why, if he were so politically knowledgeable and alienated, did he become, from Peter Paul’s political perspective, a class traitor. As mentioned above Francis knew that Peter Paul had gone ‘commie’ so that was no big deal to him but here is where the cautionary tale for working class kids comes in- he saw his best chance of advancement for himself by working his way up the Democratic Party hierarchy. This, my friends, is ultimately the problem we have to deal with if we are ever to get our own workers party with some bite. The Francis types that clutter the American political landscape can be had but not until we have leverage.
Peter Paul commented, off-handedly, in an earlier sketch that at a point where he had been successful in locating the two older brothers that I would surely need the literary talents of someone like James T. Farrell in his Studs Lonigan trilogy for guidance. That has proven to not be necessary as this is a most ordinary story. What this story really calls for is the skills of someone like the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, or better yet a Lenin, to try to analyze and to generalize how a couple of fairly smart working class kids turned the wrong way and in the end turned inward rather than become class fighters.
It, further, needs an appraisal of how the transmission belt of working class political consciousness that broke down in our fathers’ generation (the so-called “greatest generation” that survived the Great Depression and fought World War II) remains broken in the baby-boomer generation (our generation, the generation of ’68). There is thus something of a ‘lost’ generation that is not there now that today’s youth look like they are ready to ‘storm heaven’. We better act on this question.
As I have noted in previous sketches in this series Peter Paul is a working class politician. That is the great legacy that his parents left him, intentionally or not. As he has asked previously in relating the other parts of the story -are there any great political lessons to be learned here? No, he did not think so but this family’s saga of turning in on itself in the absence of some greater purpose and solution goes a long way to explaining why down at the base of society we have for a long time never had as much as nibble of independent working class political consciousness expressed in this country.
Time Is Not On Our Side
Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:
He, Peter Paul Markin to give him a name although many of the generation of ‘68 had been on the same quest, for a whole number of reasons both personal and political, had been on the trail of his roots, including trips to the old working- class neighborhoods where he came of political age. Through various methods, including extensive use of the glorious Internet, he was able to track down a couple of guys from the old neighborhood whose family story had gripped him in olden times.
As an unintended result of that research he have also come in contact with some helpful old high school classmates, North Adamsville High School (that’s in Massachusetts) Class of 1964 . One such helpful person, a class officer back in the day, had asked him to answer some questions that her committee was putting together for his high school class with an eye to the upcoming 50th anniversary reunion. You know the “what the hell have you done with your ill-begotten life for the past half century,” how many kids, grandkids, egad, great-grandkids do you have; don’t lie about anything in any answer because we have ways of finding out the truth of your silly life. How do you think we found you after all these years anyway? (Although, as simple matter, a glance a local telephone book would have provided the answer.)
Got it. Peter Paul got it alright. He had answered some of the more pertinent questions, the dream questions, like how did things actually work out as against one’s totally inflated and obscenely optimistic teenage dream goals, as truthfully as possible, or as any of the old gang needed to know and gave forth with the expected fair percentage of lies, half-lies, and bizarre falsehoods that they should have expected for him, despite the fore-warnings. And they, in turn provided their inflated estimates. No foul, no harm. He dutifully posted those on the class website, although not without noting that this “memoir” excursion was getting to be a seemingly endless task as the more questions he answered the more they (really she, she unnamed she, just in case legal action becomes necessary) kept sending him. Such is life. But, through some of the interchange correspondence he uncovered more information about his roots coming from an earlier period, the dark “projects” coming of age period. Such is life, indeed.
He told me, one melancholy barroom veranda afternoon, some of the details of his “discovery.” How his family had started life in a housing project in Adamsville with all that implied, then and now. By the beauties of the Internet social networking he had come in contact with someone who remembered him (or rather his brother, his older brother, Prescott- she was sweet on him in elementary school), a woman named Sherry. She had lived in that housing project during his family’s stay there and for many, many year after his family had left (to move to the other side of town in a broken down single, well, shack was the only work he could think of to describe it) , and saw its transformation from a temporary way station for returning World War II veterans as had been its original intention to a classic drug-strewn crime-ridden ‘den of iniquity’ as portrayed in subsequent media accounts, She agreed to be his ‘hood historian. Moreover she had brothers, sisters, children and grandchildren who had memories from that place and she agreed to pump them for their remembrances.
And that is where I came in. Peter Paul, my old yellow brick road magical mystery tour brother from the 1960s summer of love (summers of love?) generational break-out since we met on the West Coast one sunny year called on me to work out some of the kinks in the stories, something he felt was too close to believe that he could do them some small measure of justice. He presented the concept as something that could very well be a slice of life series on the trials and tribulations of members of the marginally working poor, a section of the working class with which I am also very familiar coming from old time mill town Olde Saco up in Maine. See too from my vantage point the thing could have produced a study, with all its inherent limitations, of the decline and disintegration of working class political consciousness in America since World War II. I had (have) written other stories from the Olde Saco days that played out one way with a section of the working class that was slightly above the one that Peter Paul came from, but just above, the steadily employed working people who dotted the coastal Maine landscape back then. That saga did not paint a pretty political picture. Nor would this one, I feared. But, damn, we both agreed, why shouldn’t these people have their stories told, warts and all.
Again, like that Olde Saco series (with a ponderous series title of History and Consciousness, H&C, I have gotten better with my titles since then, thank you), this series would really narrate a very prosaic working class set of stories. I planned, however, to organize these stories differently because now I know what I am looking for and each story will be able to stand on its own. In H&C the stories as they unfolded piecemeal, frankly, got out of control and I do not believe that when I put all the parts together at the end that it had the power that I wanted it to have, and that it did have for me as they unfolded.
That said, if this time last year somebody asked me, including Peter Paul, if I would be doing another series like H&C I would have said they were crazy. I then wanted to discuss the finer theoretical points of organizing to push for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan Iraq or building a workers’ party in this country. But this series seemed like finding the philosopher’s stone. This was the “real deal” down at the base of society; from a time when with a little tweaking things could have gone in another direction.
I prepared the first story (since published) that dealt with how this poor woman Sherry, Peter’s ‘hood historian, was humiliated by other students (girls mainly) at his elementary school for the mere fact of being from “the projects.” This writer was painfully aware of that type of humiliation as he faced the same thing up in Olde Saco. I expected to use that introductory story to draw some political conclusions, if possible. Again, as I had in H&C, I asked the question- will there be political lessons to be learned? I did not believe so, directly. However, real stories about the fate of the working class down at the base can help explain the very real retardants to working class political consciousness that we face as we try to organize here in America to take back the republic. I have spent a lifetime quoting radical socialist principles, chapter and verse, elsewhere. These stories desperately need to be told. Sadly, after that first story though Sherry passed away and we, Peter Paul and I, have been left a little rudderless. Time is not always on our side. Sherry from the ‘hood, RIP.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-Reflections On A Fierce Head Wind Dream Night
Desperately clutching his newly adorned white flags, his 9/11 white flags, exchanged years ago for bloodied red ones, white flags proudly worn for a while now, he wipes his brow of the sweat accumulated from the fear he has been living with for the past few months. Now ancient arms folded, hard-folded against the rainless night, raining, he carefully turns right, left, and careful of every move as the crowd comes forward. Not a crowd, no, a horde, a beastly horde, and this was no time to stick out with white flags (or red, for that matter). He jumps out of the way, the horde passes brushing him lightly, not aware, not apparently aware of the white flags. Good. What did that other guy say that old 19th century guy, oh yes, struggle.
White truce flags neatly placed in right pocket. Folded aging arms showing the first signs of wear-down, unfolded. One more time, just one more war-weary dastardly fight against big car-fueled Persian Gulf oil-driven time. Against a bigger opponent this time, hell, take the beating, the manly beating and then the joys of retreat and taking out those white flags again and normalcy. The first round begins. He holds his own, a little wobbly. Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. Out. Awake later, seven minutes, hours, eons later he takes out the white flags now red with his own blood. He clutches them in his weary hands. The other guy, some long time ago guy, he said struggle, struggle. Yah, easy for you to say brother.
Lashed against the high-end double seawall, bearded, slightly graying against the forlorn time, a vision in white not enough to keep the wolves of time away, the wolves of feckless petty larceny times reappear, reappear with a vengeance against the super-rational night sky and big globs of ancient hurts fester against some unknown enemy, unnamed, or hiding out in a canyon under an assumed name. Then night, the promise of night, a night run up some seawall laden streets, some Grenada night or maybe Lebanon sky boom night, and thoughts of finite, sweet flinty finite haunt his dreams, haunt his sleep. Wrong number, brother. Yah, wrong number, as usual.
A smoky sunless bar, urban style right in the middle of high Harvard Square civilization, some singer belting out some misty time Hank Williams tune, maybe Cold, Cold Heart from father home times. Order another deadened drink, slightly benny-addled, then in walks a vision. A million time in walks a vision, but in white this time. Signifying? Signifying adventure, dream one-night stands, lost walks in loaded woods, endless stretch beaches, moonless nights, serious caresses, and maybe, just maybe, some cosmic connection to wear away the days, the long days ahead. Yah that seems right, right against the oil-beggared times, right.
Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out. Plan, plan, plan, plain paper bag, Mexican tourista style, in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some gerald ford-bored newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Desolation row, no way home.
He said struggle. He said push back. He said stay with your people. He said it would not be easy. He said you have lost the strand that bound you to your people. He said you must find that strand. He said that strand will lead you away from you acting in god’s place ways. He said look for a sign. He said the sign would be this-when your enemies part ways and let you through then you will enter the golden age. He said it would not be easy. He said it again and again. He said struggle as if to emphasize his point. He said it in 1848, he said it in 1917, he said it in 1973. What an old guy, huh.
Chill chili nights south of the border, endless Kennebunkports, Bar Harbors, Campobellos, Moncktons, Peggy’s Coves, Charlottetowns, Montreals, Ann Arbors, Neolas, Denvers by moonlight, Boulders echoes, Dinosaurs dies, salted lakes, Winnemuccas flats, pueblos, Joshua Trees, embarcaderos, golden-gated bridges, malibus, and flies. Enough to last a life-time, thank you. Enough of Bunsen burners, Coleman stoves, wrapped blankets, second-hand sweated army sleeping bags, and minute pegged pup tents too. And enough too of granolas, oatmeals, desiccated stews, oregano weed, mushroomed delights, peyote seeds, and the shamanic ghosts dancing off against apache (no, not helicopters, real injuns) ancient cavern wall. And enough of short-wave radio beam tricky dick slaughters south of the border in deep fall nights. Enough, okay.
Bloodless bloodied streets, may day tear down the government days, tears, tear-gas exploding, people running this way and that coming out of a half-induced daze, a crazed half-induced daze that mere good- will, mere righteousness would right the wrongs of this wicked old world. But stop. Out of the bloodless fury, out of the miscalculated night a strange bird, no peace dove and no flame-flecked phoenix but a bird, maybe the owl of Minerva comes a better sense that this new world a-bornin’ will take some doing, some serious doing. More serious that some wispy-bearded, pony-tailed beat, beat down, beat around, beat up young stalwart acting in god’s place can even dream of.
The great Mandela cries, cries to the high heavens, for revenge against the son’s hurt, now that the son has found his way, a strange way but a way. And a certain swagger comes to his feet in the high heaven black Madonna of a night. No cigarette hanging off the lip now, not Winston filter-tipped seductions, no need, and no rest except the rest of waiting, waiting on the days to pass until the next coming, and the next coming after that. Ah, sweet Mandela, turn for me, turn for me and mine just a little. Free at last but with a very, very sneaking feeling that this is a road less traveled for reason, and not ancient robert frost to guide you…Just look at blooded Kent State, or better, blooded Jackson State. Christ.
Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head and ten-thousand, no on hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. He falls down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting, dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama that portent no good, no earthy good. Except this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay, then what is? And the die is cast, not truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the night cast, but cast. Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession. The days of rage, rage against the light, and then the glimmer of the light.
Drunk, whisky drunk, whisky rotgut whisky drunk, in some bayside, atlantic bayside, not childhood atlantic bayside though, no way, no shawlie way, bar. Name, nameless, no legion. Some staggered midnight vista street, legs weak from lack of work, brain weak, push on, push on, find some fellaheen relieve for that unsatisfied bulge, that gnawing at the brain or really at the root of the thing. A topsy-turvy time, murder, death, the death of death, the death of fame, murder, killing murder, and then resolve, wrong resolve and henceforth the only out, war, war to the finish although who could have known that then. Who could have known that tet, lyndon, bobby, hubert, tricky dick war-circus thing then.
Multi-colored jacket worn, red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, cigarette, Winston small-filtered, natch, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. Move out the act onto Boston fresh streets. Finally, that one minute, no not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessary of the big fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame, and then the abyss of non-fame, non- recognition and no more snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty years old.
Main street walked, main street public telephone booth cheap talk walked searching for some Diana greek goddess wholesale on the atlantic streets. Diana, blonde Diana, cashmere-sweatered, white tennis –shoed Diana, million later Dianas although not with tennis shoes, really gym shoes fit for old ladies to do their rant, their lonely rant against the wind. Seeking, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore submarine races, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on senior errands (high school senior and not ARRP stuff, Christ). No way, no way and then red-faced, alas, a red-faced “no” known even red-faced forty years later. Wow.
Sweated dust bowl run nights, not the sweated exotic atlantic cheerleader glance nights but something else, something not endless walked about, something done, or with the promise of done, for something inside, for some sense of worth in the this moldy white tee shirt, mildewy white shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, Chuck Taylor sneakers pushing the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval, watch tick in hand, looking, looking he guessed for immortality, immortality even then. Later, in bobby darin times or percy faith times (early 1960s for the unknowing), who knows, sitting, sitting high against the lion-guarded pyramid statute front door dream, common dreams, common tokyo dreams, all gone asunder, all gone asunder, on this curious fact, no wind, Irish or otherwise to drive him. Who would have figured that one?
Lindo, lindos, beautiful, beautifuls, not some spanish exotic though, maybe later, just some junior league dream fuss though, some future cheerleader football dame though, some sweated night pastry crust and he, too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before my time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic cheerleader windows. Such is the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for me, no president jack swagger, or bobby lawyer goof as they run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. He, he would gladly take exotics, or lindos, if they ever crossed his path, his lonely only path
A bridge too far, an un-arched, un-steeled, un-spanned, unnerved bridge too far. One speed bicycle boy, dungarees rolled up against dog bites and meshed gears , churning through endless heated, sweated, no handkerchief streets, names, all the parts of ships, names, all the seven seas, names, all the fishes of the seas, names, all the fauna of the sea, names. Twelve-year old pedaled hard churned miles to go before sleep, searching for the wombic home, for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, hard against the unnamed angst, hard against those changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing
City square no trespass standing, low-slung granite buildings everywhere, granite steps leading to granite doors leading to granite gee-gad counters, hated, no name hated, low-head hated, waiting slyly, standing back on heels, going in furtively, coming out ditto, presto coming out with a gold nugget jewel, no carat, no russkie Sputnik panel glitter for his efforts such is the way of young lumped crime, no value, no look, just grab, grab hard, grab fast, grab get yours before the getting is over, or before the dark, dark night comes, the dark pitched-night when the world no longer is young, and dreamed dreams make no more sense that this bodily theft.
Walks, endless waiting bus stop non-stop walks, up crooked cheap, low-rent, fifty-year rutted pavement streets, deeply gouged, one-lane snow-drift hassles, pass trees are green, coded, endless trees are green secret-coded waiting, waiting against boyish infinite time, infinite first blush of innocent manhood, boyhood times, gone now, for one look, one look, that would elude him, elude him forever such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots. And no dance either, no high school confidential (hell this is elementary school, man), handy man, breathless, Jerry Lee freak-out, at least no potato sack stick (read: girls with no shape teen lingo)dance with coded name brunette. That will come, that will come.
Endless walks, endless sea street seawall walks, rocks, shells, ocean water-logged debris strewn every which way, fetid marsh smells to the right, mephitic swamps oozing mud splat to the left making hard the way, the path, okay, to uptown drug stores, Rexall’s drug store, grabbing heist-stolen valentine, ribbon and bow valentine night bushels, signed, hot blood-signed, weary-feet signed, if only she, about five candidates she, later called two blondes, two brunettes, and a red-head, sticks all, no womanly shape to tear a boy-man up, would give a look his way, his look, his newly acquired state of the minute Elvis-imitation look, on endless sea streets, the white-flecked splash inside his head would be quiet.
Nighttime fears, red-flagged Stalin-named fears, red bomb unnamed shelter blast fears, named, vaguely named, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg hated stalinite jews killed fears, jews killed our catholic lord fears and what did they do anyway fears against the cubed glass glistening flagless flag-pole rattling dark asphalt school yard night, alone, and, and, alone fears avoidance, clean, clear, stand-alone avoidance of old times sailors, tars, sailors’ homes AND deaths in barely readable fine- marked granite-grey lonely seaside graveyards looking out on ocean homelands and lost booty. Dead.
A cloudless day, a cloudless Korean War day, talk of peace, merciless truce peace and uncles coming home in the air, hot, hot end of June day laying, face up on freshly mown grass near fellowship carved-out fields, fields for slides and swings, diamonded baseball, no, friendlier softball fields the houses are too close, of gimps, glues, cooper-plated portraits, of sweet shaded elms, starting, now that he too, that nose-flattened brother, has been to foreign places in the time of his time, to find his own place in the sun but wondering, constantly wondering, what means this, what means that, and why all the changes, slow changes, fast changes, blip changes, but changes.
Nose flattened cold against the frozen, snow falling front window apartment project hang your hat dwelling, small, warm, no hint of madness, or crazes only of sadness, brother kinship sadness, sadness and not understanding of time marching as he, that older brother, goes off to foreign places, foreign elementary school reading,‘riting, ‘rithmetic places and, he, the nose flattened against the window brother, is left to ponder his own place in those kind of places, those foreign-sounding places, when his time comes. If he has a time, has the time for the time of his time, in this red scare (but what knows he of red scare only brother scares), cold war, cold nose, dust particles in the clogging air night.
His mind went back, back to womb times maybe and he thought, thought hard. Yah, sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, a frail, a frill, a twist, a dame, oh hell, let’s cut out the goofy stuff and just call her a woman and be done with it, will tie a guy’s insides up in knots so bad he doesn’t know what is what. Tie up a guy so bad he will go to the chair kind of smiling, okay maybe just half-smiling. Frank (read: future Peter Paul Markin, and a million, more or less, other guys) had it bad as a man could have from the minute Ms. Cora walked through the door in her white summer blouse, shorts, and the then de rigueur bandana holding back her hair, also white. She may have been just another blonde, very blonde, frail serving them off the arm in some seaside hash joint but from second one she was nothing but, well nothing but, a femme fatale. Peter Paul swears, swears on seven sealed bibles that he yelled at the screen for Frank to get the hell out of there at that moment. But do you think he would listen, no not our boy. He had to play with fire, and play with it to the end. Ah, life.
One more battle, one more, please, one more, one fight against the greed cowboy and Indians night, one more questing for the blue-pink great American night dream, and one more struggle against no dreams. He, maybe a little punch-drunk, maybe suffering egg-scrabbled brains after one too many fights, chained himself, well not really chained, but more like tied himself to the black wrought-iron fence in front of the big white house with his white handkerchief. Gone are retreat flags, sullen retreat and pondering armchair potato flags. Another guy, shaking the clotting snow off his old army jacket still useful against driving winds and off-hand city snows, did the same except he used some plastic hand-cuff-like stuff. A couple of women, bundled knowingly against all weathers just stood there, hard against that ebony-etched fence, if can you believe it, they just stood there. Others, milling around, disorderly in a way, started chanting after someone starts om-ing, om-ing out of Allen Ginsberg Howl nights, or at least Jack Kerouac Big Sur splashes. The scene was now complete, or almost complete. Now, for once he knew, knew for sure, that it wasn’t Ms. Cora whom he needed to worry about, and that his black and white television child dream was a different thing altogether. A ruse. And he had no longer to worry about flags, white or red. Just keep pushing against immortality. But who, just a child, could have known that back then.
UUUUUUUUUUUUU
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