From A Dimmed Elegy For The Late Peter Paul Markin Series- A Day In The Life Of A Member Of The Generation Of '68-For Mary, Class Of 1967 Somewhere

 

 

From The Pen Of Sam Lowell

 

A while back, a few months ago although the project had been percolating in his brain for the previous several years after some incident reminded him how much he missed his old corner boy from the 1960s North Adamsville night, the late Peter Paul Markin, Bart Webber wrote up what he called, and rightly so I think, an elegy for him, A Dimmed Elegy For The Late Peter Paul Markin. Frankly any other kind of elegy but dimmed would fail to truly honor that bastard saint madman who kept us going in that big night called the early 1960s and drove us mad at the same time with his larcenous schemes and over-the-top half-baked brain storm ideas and endless recital of the eight billion facts he kept in his (estimates vary on the exact number but I am using the big bang number to cover my ass, as he would). I need not go into all of the particulars of that piece except to say that the consensus among the still surviving corner boys was that Bart was spot on, caught all of Markin’s terrible contradictions pretty well. Contradiction that led him from the bright but brittle star of the Jack Slack’s bowling alleys corner boy back then to a bad end, a mucho mal end murdered down in Sonora, Mexico in 1976 or 1977 when some drug deal (kilos of cocaine) he was brokering went sour for reasons despite some investigation by Frankie Riley, myself and a private detective Frankie hired were never made clear and he was found on some dusty back road of that town face down and is buried in the town’s forlorn potter’s field in some unmarked grave. That is about all we know for sure about his fate and that is all that is needed to be mentioned here.

That foul end might have been the end of it, might have been the end of the small legend of Markin. Even he would in his candid moments accept that “small” designation. Been the end of the legend except the moaning to high heaven still every time his name comes up. Except this too. Part of Bart’s elegy referenced the fact that in Markin’s sunnier days before the nose candy got the best of him, brought out those formerly under control outrageous “wanting habits,” in the early 1970s when he was still holding onto that “newer world” dream that he (and many others, including me and Bart for a varying periods) did a series of articles about the old days and his old corner boys in North Adamsville. Markin before we lost contact, or rather I lost contact with him since Josh Breslin his friend from Maine (and eventually our friend as well whom we consider an honorary Jack Slack’s corner boy) met out in San Francisco in the Summer of Love, 1967 knew his whereabouts outside of San Francisco in Daly City until about 1974 wrote some pretty good stuff, stuff up for awards, and short-listed for the Globe.

A couple of years ago pushed on by Bart’s desire to tell Markin’s story as best he could(a job that he did pretty well at since Bart is not really a writer but rather a printer by trade who must have been driven by some fierce ghost of Markin over his shoulder to do such yeoman’s work), he, Frankie (our corner boy leader back then who had Markin as his scribe and now is a big time lawyer in Boston), Josh, and I agreed  that a few of the articles were worth publishing if only for ourselves and the small circle of people whom Markin wrote for and about. (Markin’s oldest friend from back in third grade Allan Johnson who would have had plenty to say about the early days had passed away  after a long-term losing fight with cancer before this plan was hatched, RIP, brother.) So that is exactly what we did. We had a commemorative small book of articles and any old time photographs we could gather put together and had it printed up in the print shop that Bart’s oldest son, Jeff, is now running for him since his retirement from the day to day operations last year.

Since not all of us had everything that Markin wrote, as Bart said, what the hell they were newspaper or magazine articles to be used to wrap up the fish in or something after we were done reading them, we decided to print what was available. Bart was able to find copies of a bunch of sketches up in the attic of his parents’ home which he was cleaning up for them when they were putting their house up for sale since they were in the process of downsizing. Josh, apparently not using his copies for wrapping fish purposes, had plenty of the later magazine pieces. I had few things, later things from when we went on the quest for the blue-pink Great American West hitchhike road night as Markin called it. Unfortunately, we could not find any copies of the long defunct East Bay Eye and so could not include anything from the important Going To The Jungle series about some of his fellow Vietnam veterans who could not adjust to the “real” world coming back from ‘Nam and wound up in the arroyos, canyons, railroad sidings and under the bridges of Southern California. He was their voice on that one, if silent now.  So Markin can speak to us still. Yeah, like Bart said, that’s about right for that sorry ass blessed bastard saint with his eight billion words.  

Below is the introduction that I wrote for that book which we all agreed should be put in here trying to put what Markin was about in content from a guy who knew him about as well as anybody from the old neighborhood, knew his dark side when that came out later too:  

“The late Peter Paul Markin, also known as “the Scribe, ” so anointed by Frankie Riley the unchallenged self-designated king hell king of the schoolboy night among the corner boys who hung around the pizza parlors, pool halls, and bowling alleys of the town, in telling somebody else’s story in his own voice about life in the old days in the working class neighborhoods of North Adamsville where he grew up, or when others, threating murder and mayhem,  wanted him to tell their stories usually gave each and every one of that crew enough rope to hang themselves without additional comment. He would take down, just like he would do later with the hard-pressed Vietnam veterans trying to do the best they could out in the arroyos, crevices, railroad sidings and under the bridges when they couldn’t deal with the “real” world after Vietnam in the Going To The Jungle series that won a couple of awards and was short-listed for the Globe award, what they wanted the world to hear, spilled their guts out as he one time uncharitably termed their actions (not the veterans, not his fellows who had their troubles down in L.A. and needed to righteously get it out and he was the conduit, their voice, but the zanies from our old town), and then lightly, very lightly if the guy was bigger, stronger than him, or in the case of girls if they were foxy, and mainly just clean up the language for a candid world to read.

Yeah Makin would bring out what they, we, couldn’t say, maybe didn’t want to say. That talent was what had made the stories he wrote about the now very old days in growing up in North Adamsville in the 1960s when “the rose was on the bloom” as my fellow lawyer Frankie Riley used to say when Markin was ready to spout his stuff. Ready to make us laugh, cringe, get red in the face or head toward him to slap him down if he got too righteous. Here is the funny part though. In all the stories he mainly gave his “boys” the best of it. Yes, Bart is still belly-aching about a few slights about his lack of social graces that old Markin threw his way, and maybe he was a little off on the reasons why I gave up the hitchhike highway (what he called sneeringly my getting “off the bus” which even he admitted was not for everyone) but mainly that crazy maniac with the heart of gold, the heart of lead, the heart that should have had a stake placed in its center long ago, ah, that’s enough I have said enough except I like Bart still miss and mourn the bastard.

Here is something Markin, who took a hand at writing articles for a lot of small circulation “idea” journals and off-beat magazines meaning no dough publications wrote about one of his experiences coming of age in North Adamsville (dedicated to an old flame who did not marry him, did not give him a tumble, refused to even date him but that never held Markin back from writing some teary thing when he was in that mood)l which was very much like the rest of us had experienced when our world was fresh:  

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A Day In The Life Of A Member Of The Generation Of '68-For Mary, Class Of 1967 Somewhere

 

"In that time, 'twas bliss to be alive, to be young was very heaven"- a line from a poem by William Wordsworth in praise of the early stages of the French Revolution.

He was scared, Billy was scared, Billy Bradley well known member of the North Adamsville Class of 1967 was scared, as he entered the foyer of the North Adamsville Holiday Inn for what was to be his class’ 5^th reunion on this 1972 November weekend, this Thanksgiving Saturday night. Yes, he reflected, those were his glory days, those days from 1964 to 1967 when he had been the captain of the billiards team three years running. A time then when he could have had every good-looking, every interesting girl that he wanted, and, well, whatever else he wanted from the girls who hung around Joe’s Billiard Parlor after school during the season, and some of them after the season as well.

Of course in those glory days when everyone in town, and other places too, bled raider red the football players, even the dinks, had first dibs on the girls. But after that, well after that, it was open season and the girls, the interesting girls, found their way to Joe’s Billiard Parlor. Billy had to chuckle even now as he thought about it, about those basketball bozos, those hockey hoboes, those tennis touts, those golf goofs, and those soccer scum who were clueless about why the girls didn’t flock, all a-flutter,  to them and their dink sports.

And in their flailing, their anger, and their clueless-ness these pseudo-jocks, en masse, in those days started spreading vicious slanders around about how Joe’s was nothing but a rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out of a pool hall. Run by a “connected” bookie, Joe, on top of all that. Like those girls, those interesting girls, knew or cared a fig, hell half a fig, about the finer distinctions, as important as they are to aficionados, between pool and billiards as they draped themselves languidly around the empty billiard tables and filled the place almost to the rafters at Joe’s. Or that Joe made book right in front of them. Yah, those geek guys were, no question, clueless.         

But that was then and tonight was a whole different ballgame. See Billy, after deciding to come back and tweak a few noses at this reunion thing, started to get some cold feet. Of course he blew off the traditional Thanksgiving Thursday football game between North and cross-town arch-rival Adamsville High in order not to send his classmates a telegram about his new world. Although he had not been back in those five years since graduation, he knew, knew in his heart, that the blue-collar working class ethos that had practically buried him alive back in those so-called coming of age days would still be in play, still be in play in the “us against them” world, and the them was the “monster” government that was intent on wreaking havoc with its giant footprint every place it could, including right this minute in Vietnam, to the cheers of the North Adamsville thems.

And they, the thems, certainly the father and mother thems would definitely not understand that Billy Bradley, a son of the blue-collar working class, a kid who started out like them, and their kids, who thankfully never went to college but straight to work, saving, mercifully saving, the old man’s wallet from extinction, went over to the other side, the “us”,  and helped caused eruptions in places like New York City (Jesus, even New York City, is nothing sacred, he could hear them say snickering in the background chatter of this ill-starred reunion dinner), in Washington, D.C. and points west, Yes, he knew that story, knew it first-hand, chapter and verse, from those occasional calls back home to mother. Hell, she had led the chorus, at least the chorus about what was he going to do with his life and how was he going to use his hard fought for, ever harped on desperately paid for, education. He would not even mention her tirades about marriage, family and producing kids, grandkids. And, as he thought of it occasionally, maybe she led the snickers too. Yes indeed, he knew the story chapter and verse, and as well from the odd-hour telephone calls sent homeward to mother’s house threatening the usual “if-I ever-see-that-s.o.b.,” and that was just the mildly curious expression of bad vibes ready to pounce on him this night, or so he feared.           

See, if you didn’t realize it before, Billy was now a vision of heaven’s own angel choir. As he looked at himself in the hotel lobby mirror he sensed that he was out of place here, and not just in the family-friendly, take a vacation to historic North Adamsville, land of late presidents, and earlier revolutionary brethren long gone and best forgotten, forgotten for what they were trying to do with that fragile democratic experiment idea they had on their minds as they civilized this green-grassed new continent, Holiday Inn scene gathered around him. Yes, unquestionably he was out of synch here with his symbol of “youth nation” faded blue jeans, his battle-scarred (Chicago 1968) World War II Army olive drab jacket, Army-Navy surplus store purchased, his soft, velvety well-worn (and slightly smelly, sorry) moccasins that had many hitchhike miles on them, and his longish pony-tailed hair with matching unkempt beard. No his act would not play in Peoria, Adamsville’s kindred.

This is a mistake, my mistake, he said to himself and he was ready to turn around just then. But just as had made the pivot he heard a voice, “Hey, Captain Billy you old pool hall hoodlum.” And then, “Come on now don’t turn the other way on me.” Finally he recognized the voice if not the person yelling it out.  “Wait a minute that’s “Thundering” Tommy Riley, ace football player, captain of the vaunted 1967 team, class president, and, in earlier times, his bosom buddy,” Billy blurred out to no one in particular. Now envision Buffalo, Bill Cody although Billy was not sure if Cody was as big as Tommy, with fringed-deerskin jacket, the obligatory “youth nation” faded blue denims, some exotic roman sandals, and long straight hair, longer than Billy’s, with matched beard. Another vision of heaven’s own, well, own something, not angels, not angels, no way. And standing right next to him, right next to him and very like heaven’s own angelic, or maybe Botticelli's versions of the angelic, or Joni Mitchell if you don’t know Botticelli’s work, was Chrissie, Chrissie McNamara, a secret long ago Billy flame, very secret, although maybe not so long ago at that.

Now Tommy and Chrissie were an “item” back in ’67, a big item, and Chrissie was, among other things, other things like an actress, a school newspaper writer, and a high- scoring ten pin bowler,  head cheerleader (mainly to be around Tommy more, from what Billy had heard) but Tommy’s girl, head cheerleader or not, Chrissie was a fox. A fox though who had no time for billiard parlor romances, or even to step into the rat-infested, hoodlum hang-out joint where the guy who ran it “made book.”  No, not pristine Chrissie. Tonight though Billy understood why he had that crush on her for she had on a shapely sarong thing and wore her hair, more blondish hair long now, very long as was the fashion amount hipper women. The only word he could think of, newer world or not, brothers and sisters in struggle now or not, was fetching.                   

Tommy motioned Billy to come over and the trio greeted each other heartily. Tommy, never at a lost for words, started telling his epic saga from his football career-ending injury freshman year at State U. to his getting “religion” about the nature of the American state, the need to transform that state to a more socially useful one, and the need have people be better, much better toward each other. Yes, here was a kindred, no weekend hippie tourista. Chrissie was another matter; she seemed less sure of her place in the sun, questioned whether any change, especially disruptive change, mattered and whether maybe it was better just to try to do the best you could within the system. Yes, Chrissie I see your point, for you anyway Billy found himself thinking.  Hell, he had “crushed” such arguments, from male or female, like so much tissue many times before but not tonight, not this Chrissie in front of him night. Yah, Billy thought it was still like that with Chrissie. Tommy and Chrissie also made it very clear as well, reflecting the new “religious” sensibilities of youth nation that they were just friends. And Billy did notice Chrissie giving him several side glance peeks while they were talking, and he was insistently peeking right back.

After than conference ended the trio prepared themselves, or rather fortified themselves, to make the rounds together of the other classmates milling around the now somewhat crowded lobby waiting for dinner to start. This tour, this death-march tour, caught Billy feeling like he had a pit in his stomach, especially after a couple of guys started to bait them with the “hippie-dippie” taunt that was standard fare among the squares, and that he would normally shrug his shoulder at except it was here at North. Then a couple of guys from the billiards team came rushing up to him, a couple of alternates, at best, began a play by play of the North Adamsville-Adamsville contest. No, not the recent Thanksgiving football game as one might expect but the 1967 senior year billiards match against the old arch-rival. Billy thought they will probably go to their graves reciting the excruciating details on that one. Move on with your lives, boys, please.

Moreover, with one exception, Janie Thompson, well two, if you count Chrissie, none of the good-looking billiard hall hanging-off-the-rafters girls, or any others that had caught his eye back then, gave him a tumble. They were there but they either didn’t recognize him, or didn’t want to.  Many of them had the look, the married look that dictated eyes straight ahead, or the pregnant look (now or in the recent pass) that spoke of greater concerns than giving some bearded hippie boy a tumble.  Most, whether they had caught his youthful eye in the past or not had that secure job hubby, little white picket fenced house in the real suburbs, preparing for parenthood look. Chrissie though, mercifully just then, was still giving her peeks, and Billy was right back at her.

Right then though he began talking to Janie, Janie Thompson. Now Janie had certainly blossomed out some because back in the day she was just a wallflower hanging around with a couple of beauties whom Billy had taught how to play billiards, and a couple of other things. Janie told him that she had just graduated from Radcliffe (which he had vaguely remembered she was heading to) but more importantly she had followed, followed closely, his various anti-war activities while in and around Cambridge. Well, things are looking up, or so he thought. But a closer look around, and a conference with Tommy, convinced him that this was neither his place, nor his time and that they (Billy and Janie, Tommy and Chrissie in no particular combination) better go out back and have a joint, and then blow this place. Janie, although she had never smoked before, was game, Billy was certainly game. And off they went, blowing the dust of the place off the in the process. Who was it, oh yes, Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the book You Can’t Go Home Again. Billy thought he should have read that novel long before he actually did and then he would have known, known for sure, that the generation of ’68, his generation of ’68,  was fated to be a remnant.