**Out In The Be-Bop Night-The Old "Beat" Town-2010-With Jack Kerouac In Mind

**Out In The Be-Bop Night-The Old "Beat" Town-2010-With Jack Kerouac In Mind

By Josh Breslin -for old town corner boy Peter Paul Markin




Crossing the Neponset River Bridge from the Boston side these days, walking-sore-footed, ankle-ached, worn-out, scuffed leather shoes, rounded-heel shoes, soles thinned-out shoes walking-just as was almost always my mode of transportation, and maybe yours, in the old days, and sometimes for me in the not so old days-ain’t like it used to be. That new (1970s new, anyway), higher-standing , pot-holed patched, unevenly asphalt-paved even on good days, uninviting, if not just plain dangerous, walk-way, ugly slab-concreted, built by the lowest bidder, bridge that routes traffic, hither and yon, is not like the old one, “ walking to think things over friendly."



Not today, anyway, as I brace myself for a serious look see at our beat-up, beat-down, beaten-back, back-seat-taking, smudged-up, blood and sweat-stained, bitter-teared (very bitter-teared), life-drained, seen better days (although I do not, personally, remember having seen those better days, but people keep saying, even now, there was a such a time so let’s leave it at that), almost genetically memory embedded , character-building (yes, that old chestnut, as well), beautiful (yes, beautiful too, oddly, eerily beautiful, or as mad, shamanic poet Yeats, he of that that fine Anglo-Irish word edge, would put it, "terrible beauty a-borning" beautiful ), old working class home town.



It’s silly, I know, to get misty-eyed over it but I miss the old archaic pre-1970s drawbridge bridge with its ghastly-green gates to stop car traffic (how else could you describe that institutional color that no artist would have on his or her palette, and no serious professional business painter would stoop to brush on anything much less a gate) and the lonely stony-eyed concrete medieval fortress of a tower (and its poor, bored, had to be bored, keeper, or tender or whatever you call that “look out for the big boats coming and going” guy, and it was always some old guy who looked like he could swap stories, buddy to buddy, with King Neptune, and probably did) to let the bigger boats, courtesy of the law of the seas, make their way to dock.



Or, better, I hope, I fervently hope, for the boats to get clearance from that old codger, old Neptune’s brother, to race, to crawl, to put-put, to hoist sail or whatever such boats do to get to the open sea, the wide open blue-grey, swirling, mad, rushing, whirling dervish of a sea, out to beyond the breakwaters, out to beyond the harbor islands, to the land becoming mere speck, and then mere vanish, and more adventure than I could even dream of, or think of dreaming of. At least I hope those oil-stained, diesel-fuelled (including those awful faint-producing fumes), powerfully-engined, deep-drafted, fully–stocked boats that drove river traffic and stopped car traffic came back or went out in search of those adventures away from the placid wooden-lumbered doldrums docks up along the Quincy side of the river.



But, one thing is for sure, whatever happened to the boats, or on them, that old bridge, that old green-gate painted monster of a drawbridge, gave you a chance to pause mid-bridge, fright-free, not-having-to-watch-your-back-for-fast-cars-caroming-by free even, to look up and down midstream; to dream, perhaps, of tidal drifts and fair winds to the far reaches of this good, green planet, as far as you could carry yourself and your backpacked, bed-rolled belongings, or as long as the money held out; to bestir yourself afresh to think of oneness with the seventy-eight trillion life forms (hey, I didn’t count them, alright, this is just an estimate, a very rough estimate) that flow in the murky, and on some days very murky, depths right before your eyes down to our homeland, the sea; to dream vista dreams of far away picture postcard cooling ports-of-call in the sweaty, sultry summer day airs or churn madly with the flow of wild summer night airs that led from the old home town west, north, south, somewhere, anywhere; to dream the dream of dreams of misspent (no way, no way misspent), suggestive, very suggestive, radio-blared Lets Spend The Night Together or The Night Time Is The Right Time, whiskey-bottle in hand (or, maybe, beer-canned if dough was tight, or way back when and you were underage if your wino buyer didn't show that night), best-gal swinging (quaint, okay, but we are all adults and you know what I mean) Saturday nights; and, to think that one thought, that one midstream on the bridge-driven thought that would spring you from the woes of woe begotten, troubled-filled (for me, and, maybe, you) dear, (now dear, anyway) beat, ancient-ached, old timey, presidential graveyard of a growing-up home town.



This new one, this new bridge, as I stand mid-bridge and peek back to my left routes, if you can even call it that, traffic via a Daytona race track-worthy, curvy-swurvy ramp to the beach, Wollaston Beach, down the now, in places anyway, three lane-wide, freshly-paved and white-lined Quincy Shore Drive. That’s our old Wollaston Boulevard, down by shore everything’s alright, of sacred ashy memory. And as I watch the traffic flow, the car traffic I think not of vanilla, too bright, too light, too slight day time beach, for now, because I am flooded with visions of the “real” beach of my manic dreams- “the night time is the right time" beach. Enough of daytime, kiddish, bucket and shovel whines and childish butterfly daydreams, enough. Alright?



I just now, and you can follow along too, float dream of teenaged Saturday nights, or maybe even Friday nights, or both, cruising, nowhere, somewhere, anywhere, to the pink- blue, cloud-swollen, sun-devouring, Western nightdream skies, always just beyond our reach. Of you riding "shotgun" in your buddy’s car, a be-bop car, or, I hope, at least bop, late 1950s, and pray hard for a ’57 Chevy or something “cool” like that, borrowed from his old man, stopped at close by high school (remember), Merit gas station and filled, two-dollars-worth-of-gas-check the oil-please-filled. Or his own car, your buddy's, the old man's, leavings, given gratis, when that self-same old man stepped up to a new, bigger-finned, power-steered, rumble-engined, airplane of a car, a new sign that he had “made it” in hard dollar America. Of stolen sickly-sweet wines or breathe-soured whiskeys to ward off the night-forebodings, made sweeter or more sour by the stealing from that same old man’s, or maybe your old man's, liquor cabinet, if they had such an upscale thing, or else just from some dusty high cupboard shelf so the kids can’t get at it place. And, and, oh boy, visions of those moon-beamy, dreamy, seamy, steamy Saturday night beach parking, car-fogged, car-wrestled, “submarine races” watchings that were the subject of Monday morning boys’ rest room (okay, “lav”) roll call, recital and retailing (or, hell, probably in the girls’ room too, I bet, but the now women can tell their own tales). Whoa!



Beatified night-dreamed beach Quincy Shore Drive also routes, now that my blood pressure has returned to normal, to daydream summer sunbathing, or maybe even before summer sunbathing for early tans to drive away the fierce, ghost-like New England winter pales, in the real sun daytime down by the weather-beaten yacht clubs (tumbleweedy, seedy, paint-needy Wollaston and Squantum). Away, well a little away, from the early encountered mephitic sea grass marshes near the Causeway (you know where, right?-the old First National supermarket, now CVS drugs-for all occasions-store location), away from the deadened, fetid, scattered sea grasses and the muck, and in plain kid talk, away from the “stinks”, away from the tepid waves apologetically splashing on the ocean smooth-stoned dunes, away too from the jelly-fish (are they poisonous, or not?) spawning and spattered along the edges of the low tide line, and, most fervently, away, away from the oil-slicked mud flats of childish shovel and pail clam-digging adventures, clams squirting and screaming from their sand hovels that need not detain us here, that story has been told elsewhere by me, and often.



Once you have passed the fetid swamps, the mephitic marshes…, but wait a minute, who knows such un-childlike, or un-teenager-like, for that matter, words like fetid and mephitic and where, as a child, even if you knew the words, would you connect those words with pail and shovel digging to China, or some faraway place, beach; with tide-melting, furtive but fevered, sand castle-making, beach; with coolly and focused looking for treasure, somebody’s leavings, some body’s rich leavings so you think, beach; with learning about the fury of Mother Nature and the pull and push of tides first hand when old Mother (like womb mother) turns her fury on, beach; with later finger (or stick) sand-tracing of your name defying the tides to erase your brand as you fight, and fight hard, for your place in the sun (and maybe linking up your sweetie’s name, just for good measure, in that struggle with eternity), beach; with fellaheen digging for clams for fun or profit (or food for table, who knows) down at the Merrymount end, beach; with family barbecue outings, hot dogs and hamburgers, extra ketchup, please, beach. With, well, beach, beach. No, fetid and mephitic will not do, I like my dreams, my child remembrance dreams, cloud puffy and silky.



This bridge, this too far bridge, this man-standing memory bridge, or however you named it, or whatever you thought of it, or wherever you were heading, destiny-heading, heading to your growing-up-like-a-weed town, heading just like a-lemming-to-the-sea town pushes the brain in a couple of directions. Heading south anyway, shore drive south, south to the rivieras, south to the old time kid’s Paragon Park. Rickety, always needed, desperately needed, fresh paint coat, landlocked, off-limits showboat bar-entranced (gay place, before gay word existed as a social category, but what did we know then, or care, just quarters for skeets, please, ah, please), ocean-aired, between-the toes-sanded, sun glass-visioned against the furious midday sun Paragon Park. Roller coaster Paragon Park (hey, maybe sick, before you got the hang of it, right), wild mouse (kid's stuff, ya I know) Paragon Park, cheap, colorful skeet ball points trinket prize, sugar high, lips smacked cotton-candy, stuck to the roof of your mouth, roof of the world, salt water taffy-twisted, hot-dogged (hold the mustard, no onions), pin ball wizard’d, take your baby to the carnival feel the tunnel of love, Paragon Park.(Or later, coming of another age, the Surf, and a whole other memory bridge of dreams, not for now though.) Or south of that south to some old time, unnamed, misty adventure, some ancient Pilgrim-etched mayflower rocky shored adventure, some ancient forebear's praise Jehovah plainsong heard whistling through some weed-filled granite slate graveyards, not mine; mine is of shanty Irish "famine" ships and old kicked out of England convict labor, hell-hole, "hillbilly" Appalachia work the coal mines, boats. Down along that old slow as molasses, take your time, wait at every just barely red stoplight, watch out for side-glanced cop cars, two-laned, white stripped, no passing (hardly), ocean-touched (in places) road. Memory-washed, memory-etched, memory south youth road, ah.



Yes, that cotton-candy dream is enough to stir even a hardened soul, but as I shift, stiffly shift, weight on my tired old high-soled, age-qualified, age-necessary, bop-bop shoes(no more of "young" fashionista statement, skinny-soled, fire engine red Chuck Taylor’s, now of sturdy, new age, aero-flow, aero-glow, aero-know, aero-whatever, for this heavy work, this airy memory work, bop-bop shoes), I stand straight up in mid-bridge balance and veer my head to the right. That move makes me focus my mind’s eye to the heart, the soul, the guts of the old growing-up town via a narrow, straight and narrow, slit in the road, a road constructed in such a way as if to say no cuts-ups, fops (quaint, again), or oddballs wanted here, as it swerves to the edgings, the bare edgings, amidst the gathering flotsam and jetsam as it piles up on riverside old Hancock Street and as it meanders along like some far-removed river of its own, river of its own sorrows, river of its own pent-up angers, toward the Square.



But more than sorrows, ancient sorrows, more than angers, angers of whatever age, I am attacked, and not just in my mind’s eye either, by the myriad mirror-glassed buildings, mostly office buildings, maybe some apartments or condos but I hope not, that reflect off each other in some secret Bauhaus bright light, dead of night pact, post-post-modern architecture I am sure, functional I am sure, although when future, future generations dig up the artifacts I am also sure they will be as puzzled by the idea of such forms of shelter and commerce as I am. And beyond those future subjects of artifact a picture, a picture to feed the hungry buildings, of tactless, thoughtless pizza shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, donut shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, hamburger shop, take-out or eat-in, of whatever name, Applebee’s family-friendly food named, now you-name-it-for-me, please, fast-food shop, mini-mart shop, fill-up gas-station of many names, Hess named, that dot, no, deluge strip mall-heavy Hancock Street up pass our sanctified raider red-bled high school. And beyond to dowdy, drowsy, dusty–windowed (really, I actually touched one once, not a white glove inspection but it, the window that is, didn’t pass muster even by my liberal standards), how do they stay in business against the pull of the major chains (or their chains), small-stored, small-dreamed business ownership, Norfolk Downs.



Norfolk Downs, the good old “Downs” (although we just called it plain, old, ordinary, vanilla-flavored, one-horse Norfolk Downs back in the day) anchored still by named pizza shop, Balducci’s. Balducci’s of after school pizza slices or after nightime across the street hang-around underground bowling alley hungers. Plain, please, no one hundred and one choice toppings, thank you, and coke (bluish-green bottled Coca-Cola, okay, for the evil-minded): of nickels and dimes dropped in one-armed-bandit jukebox to hear the latest Stones (or Beatles) tune, or whatever struck a chord in those jumping-jack times, maybe some mopey thing if girl desire was high; yes, but also of weary, so weary, lonely, so lonely night time standings up against the front door wall, waiting, waiting for...(and, maybe, someone, some guy, some long side-burned, engineer-booted guy, cigarette pack, unfiltered, rolled in tee-shirt guy, some time machine guy, is still waiting, still holding up that wall today. Nobody told him the world, the world that counts, the teen world, had moved to the malls). And beyond Norfolk Downs, up that asphalt river, on to the fate of a million small city centers, ghost-towned, derelict, seen better days, for sure, no question, no question, Quincy Center.



But I find myself , just now, as a stream of cooling air, finally, finally crosses my bridge-stuck, bridge-dreamed path, not in thoughts of jumbled mist of time high school-hood Saturdays nights (nor Friday nights either) in Norfolk Downs pizza parlors or bowling alleys, but of whirling past anciently walked, shoe leather-beaten (always leather-beaten, crooked-heeled, thinning-soled shoes that could be the subject of their own separate bridge-like dream thoughts), oceaned-breezed (just like the breeze crossing over me now , ‘cause that is where it is coming from, it has to be), sharp-angled memories: some of hurt, some of high-hatted hurt, worse, a few, too few, of funny kiddish, ding-dong dumb done things (ever when too old to hide under that womb-like kiddish umbrella), the memories that is, of Atlantic streets, of breezing Quincy bays, of oceans-abutted streets etched deep, almost DNA deep.



Name names. Okay. Well-trodden Appleton Street sidewalks, drawn like a moth to flame to some now-forgotten she, by flickering, heart-quickening, unrequited, just barely teenage, but self-consciously teenage anyhow, romantic trance longings, doggedly working up non-courage, yes non-courage a very common thing in those days, to speak, or better, to write that one word, that one word still now not easily come by, that would spark interest (her interest), as I turned from boy to the buddings of manhood; of the close-quartered, no space, no space for anything but small pinched, tightly pinched, dreams , no room to breathe, no room to breathe anything but small breathe, hacked up, asphalted-up, lawn-free yards to quench driveway car thirsting, two and three-decked Atlantic Street houses passed on quick high school cross country practice runs; of family relative-burdened, just getting-started in adult life, small, cramped five room and tiny bath apartment dotted Walker and Webster Streets; of the closely-cornered, well-kept small manicured-lawn’d, busily repair-worked, no beach parking on the street in summertime, working class cottage-mansions of Bayfield Road (I always forget which is North and which is South, but no matter the description fits both as they feed to the endless sea stopped by that infernal stop light that keeps you waiting, waiting beyond impatience, to cross to the much repaired and replaced seawall and view of seaward homeland.); of Atlantic Junior High School’d (ya, I know, Middle School) teen angst (under either junior or middle school names), mad, hormonally mad, teen-brokered years, world wised-up with some twists, but also world sorry, straight-up, Hollis Avenue; and on and on, through to the beach-drained, tree-named streets. Sanctified beyond name streets all; beat, beatified streets all; mist-filled dream streets all; memory-soaked streets all; be-bop, then real gone daddy, now hip-hop, big old pie-in-the-sky looking for the universe somewhere, streets all.



But enough of old dog-eared memories let me get moving, after all with this bridge, this “new” bridge, one has to cross with purpose, serious purpose, and maybe a wing and a pray that one can get back to the old home town in one piece or, at least, be able to think that one precious thought that drove me, lemming-like, here in the first place. I walk down the broken hand-railed, dirt-piled , drift winds-sent littered steps to get off the bridge and immediately stretched before me ; one million water-logged, stubbed cigarette-butts; one thousand stray, crushed, empty, cellophaned cigarette-packages blown around seeking their rightful owners; one hundred infinite brand-named (ice cold something pictured Bud Lite seems like the winner), crushed (or at least dented) beer cans; assorted, unnumbered, brown whiskey(or were they gin) bottles, mainly cheap from the look of them, a drunkard’s feast at one time; high gloss advertisement mailings(endless CVS drugs to take your world’s pain away, Shaw’s food to curb that incurable hunger that gnaws away at your stomach, Wal-Mart back-to-school trinkets, gadgets and throw-aways when the kids find out, and find out fast, that this crap is not “cool”, K-Mart holiday bargains, three for a dollar); yellowing, dated, newspapers (local this-and-that news, distant war drum news, more war drum news from some other earth corner, bad news badder, and celebrity relief news, Lady GaGa, or some such doings, that’s the ticket for our times) strewn every which way, discarded fast food packages of all descriptions that I have no time to describe. On to the street I step, the hard-scrabble North Quincy street. Home.

Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Hey Guys, Crime Doesn’t Pay- John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” - A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for John Huston's, The Asphalt Jungle.

DVD Review

The Asphalt Jungle, starring Sam Jaffe, Sterling Hayden, James Whitimore, (and a small, but striking, role by a very young Marilyn Monroe) directed by John Huston, M-G-M Pictures, 1950

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) I have even tried to salvage some noir efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the edgy musical score, with more zither than you probably ever thought possible, as well). That brings us this film under review, 1950's The Asphalt Jungle, starring Sam Jaffee as the wizened, harden old con trying for one last chance at “easy street” with a big caper, and Sterling Hayden as, well, the “hooligan,” the “muscle”, the guy who has to clean up after, but also is looking for his own version of that easy street.

From the headline to this review you can tell that I have kind of telegraphed the problem here; crime doesn’t pay, okay. But that “wisdom” has not stopped a million "from hunger" guys (and not a few dames) from taking the quick plunge to easy street since way back, way back in phaoroah’s times probably. And it has not stopped Hollywood directors and producers from using that theme as the plot line for their cinematic efforts, some good, some bad, here very good. But in this film the beauty of the thing, despite the familiarity of the plot line and the predictable ending, is that the acting carries the day, especially by Jaffee and Hayden.

Doc (the role played by Sam Jaffee), old time con that he is, just released from stir for some previous big plan crime, had plenty of time on his hands up at the pen to work through his latest plan for easy street. A big plan involving knocking over a big jewelry store, having the merchandise “fenced,” and then off he goes to sun and senoritas, young senoritas by the way, the dirty old man, down in Mexico. Mexico before the drug cartels.

Such an effort need up front cash, and some major backing, to procure the master safe cracker, the expert wheelman and, just in case things get rough, the hooligan,(here Bix, played by Sterling Hayden), the guy who takes all the pot-shots for short money and also to secure a conduit to fence this high roller stuff after the heist. And that is where things start to go awry.

See, one of reasons that crime doesn’t pay, pay in the long or short haul, is that not everybody is on the level. Sure the safe cracker, the wheel man, and the hooligan, the “proles” are on the level. Especially farm boy Bix turned loose in the ugly, asphalt jungle city just looking for a stake to get back home to Kentucky and out of the city soils. Problem is the up-front dough guys, one way or the other, are not on the level. One has no dough (although it was easy to see why that was so since he was, well let’s just call it “keeping time” with a young honey, played by Marilyn Monroe, and even I could see where keeping her "happy”, and gladly, would eat up a guy’s wallet), and the other will wilt under the slightest pressure, police pressure. A few slap arounds and he will sing like a bird, the rat. But who had time to check with the Better Business Bureau when you are in the rackets to check the “fence’s” references (and bank book). Needless to say that while the jewel heist is pulled off, although not without complications, deadly complications in the end, the rest of the story is one where everyone in the theater gets the very painful message already telegraphed above.

Director Huston, however, is aiming at more, as he mentions in the introduction to the film, he wants to investigate that thin line between the bad guys and the good guys, and the good guys are not always the cops and respectable folks. Doc, for instance, is cool customer, and although he makes a few serious mistakes of judgment in whom to, and who not, trust he is a likeable crook. Bix, ditto, because he is a stand-up guy, gives one hundred per cent, for what he is paid to do, and does not leave his buddies in the lurch.

There is no real femme fatale here driving the male action forward to their oblivions but there is Doll, and Doll, Doll has got it bad for Bix, ya, real bad, and so the tensions between them help round out this film. Doll though never figured out the ABCs-that hanging around wrong gees, even stand-up gees, was anything but heartbreak hotel. But sometimes that is the way dames are, thankfully.

Note: I have on previous occasions needed to act the scold in regard to certain actions of the characters in crime noir films. Here I have to take Brother Hayden to task for not learning that crime does not pay. Hayden played Johnny in the 1953 crime noir The Killing, also a caper involving big dough, big dough from a racetrack handle and another perfect plan gone awry. The Asphalt Jungle precedes The Killing, so Brother Hayden shouldn’t you have learned by 1953 that these perfect plans, cinematically at least, are bound to go awry. Smarten up.

*Out In The Be-Bop, Literally Be-Bop 1960s Night-A Walk Down "Dream Street"- For Jimmy J., Class Of 1966

Click on the headline to link to the North Adamsville High School Graduates page on Facebook for a picture of the current "fake" front of North Adamsville High.

Markin, Class of 1964, comment:

When you were a high school student did you ever sit on the main entrance steps of North Adamsville High and dream of your future?

Ah, literary license. Where would we be without it? At least those of us who, cursed, try to stand under its umbrella and not abuse the language and the reader’s patience too much. This particular license violation revolves around the rather seedy history of this entry. Dreams. But not just any dreams, and not anytime dreams. Those, as I have found out, and you have too, are a dime a dozen, maybe cheaper. No, I am talking about fresh dreams, fresh, creamy, minty dreams from youth, from high school, especially from the 1960s high school be-bop night of youth that I was pitching my question to, and future prospects. And, more importantly, how they, the dreams that is, if not the prospects, worked out.

In line with that question I also needed to know, and maybe that is really what I was looking for, was how hard anyone thought about the subject, and in what way and where. In short, was I among a small or large number of people who were driven to distraction, no, beyond distraction, no, had their sleep disturbed by the question. And, that simply put, was the little, very little, idea that got the ball rolling. Now this wee idea started life in this space about three years ago as a couple of paragraphs, a couple of stretched out paragraphs, ginned up, if you really wanted to know. Over time it blossomed into several paragraphs without really any effort, or any added insight into the question. And now it is going to be expanded, don’t ask me how much longer, with that same core question at the center. That tells me (and the reader) two things; someone has a little time on their hands; and, the little ball be-bop high school night dream thing was (is) of far greater import than my original cavalier notion of the theme when I first presented it would have indicated. For those who are experiencing this blockbuster entry for the first time I have left the previously outlined parameters of the question just below so you will be able to follow along, although I am not sure now if it is the original one or some later mongrel son of the original.

*****

This now seemingly benighted entry, originally simply titled ,A Walk Down “Dream” Street, started life as an equally simple question posed to fellow classmates in the North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 (although the question is also suitable to be asked of other classes, and other schools, as well) in the year 2008 on some cyberspace class site, a site that finally reconnected me with my old high school friend, Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, be-bop king of the North Adamsville schoolboy night in the early 1960s . I had “discovered” the site that year after having gone through a series of events the details of which need not detain us right now but that drove me back to memories, hard, hard-bitten, hard-aching, hard-longing, mist of time, dream memories, of North schoolboy days and of the need to search for my old high school friend and running mate (literally, in track and cross country, as well as “running” around town doing boy high school things, doing the best we could, or trying to).

Naturally, the question was posed in its particular form, or so it seemed natural at the time for me to pose it that way, because those old, “real”, august, imposing, institutionally imposing, grey granite-quarried (from the Granite City, the unofficial, or maybe official for all I know, nickname of the town, reflecting the Italian immigrant labor-sweated quarries that dotted the outer reaches of the town and that was one of its earlier industries) main entrance steps (in those days serious steps, two steps at a time steps, especially if you missed first bell, flanked by globular orbs and, like some medieval church, gargoyle-like columns up to the second floor, hence “real”) is a place where Frankie and I spent a lot of our time, time when he wasn’t out on a single date with his ever-loving honey, Joanne, Joanne Marion Murphy, the “queen” of the be-bop night although she was never called that, and would have heaped scorn, big scorn on that idea, that was a Frankie-Markin secret shake thing), talking of this and that.

Especially summer night time talk (Joanne, lace curtain Irish, lace curtain working class Irish if you will, Joanne went “summering” with her parents and siblings for several weeks of those summers, the summers that mattered: hot, sultry, sweaty, steam-drained, no money in pockets, no car to explore the great American teenage night; the be-bop, doo-wop, do doo do doo, ding dong daddy, real gone daddy, be my daddy, let it be me, the night time is the right time, car window-fogged, honk if you love jesus (or whatever activity produced those incessant honks in key turned-off cars), love-tinged, or at least sex-tinged, endless sea, Adamsville Beach night. Do I need to draw you a picture, I think not. But we are sitting, sitting hard, granite steps bound, dream fluttering like mad men.

And some more details of that night missed for the less sex-crazed. Say, for the faint-hearted, or good, denizens of that great American teenage night how about a Howard Johnson’s ice cream (make mine cherry vanilla, double scoop, no jimmies, please) or a trip to American Graffiti-like fast food drive-in, hamburger, hold the onions (just in case today is the night that that certain she I had eyed, eyed to perdition, eyed to eyes sore, in school all spring shows her tight-bloused, Capri-panted form in the door), fries and a frappe, not wimpy milk shake (I refuse to describe that frappe taste treat at this far remove, look it up on Wikipedia, or one of those info-sites) Southern Artery night. Lost, all irretrievably lost, and no thousand, thousand (thanks, Sam Coleridge), no, million later, greater experiences can ever replace that. And, add in, non-dated-up, and no possibility of sweet-smelling, soft, rounded, bare shoulder-showing summer sun-dressed (or wintry, bundled up, soft-furred, cashmere-bloused, for that matter), big-haired (hey, do you expect me to remember the name of the hair styles, too?), ruby red-lipped (see, I got the color right), dated-up in sight. So you can see what that “running around town, doing the best we could” of ours mainly consisted in those sweat stairs nights.

Mostly, we spoke of dreams of the future: small, soft, fluttery, airless, flightless, high school kid-sized, working class-sized, North Adamsville-sized, non-world–beater-sized, no weight dreams really, no, that’s not right, they were weighty enough but only until 18 years old , or maybe 21 year old, weighty. A future driven though, and driven hard, by the need to get out from under, to get away from, to put many miles between us and it, crazy family life (the details of which need not detain us here at all, as I now know, and I have some stories to prove it, that condition was epidemic in the old town then, and probably still is). And also of getting out of one-horse, teen life-stealing, soul-cramping, dream-stealing, small or large take your pick, even breathe-stealing, North Adamsville. Of getting out into the far reaches, as far as desire and dough would carry, of the great wild, wanderlust, cosmic, American day and night hitch-hike if you have too, shoe leather-beating walking if you must, road (or European road, or wherever, Christ, even Revere in a crunch, but mainly putting some miles between).

The question, that simple question that I asked above, moreover, did not stand in isolation. As part of that search for “run around” Frankie, king of the night Frankie, for figuring out tangled roots, for hard looking at past, good or evil, for hard longing connectedness to youth, for bleeding raider red days I took advantage of that non-descript North Adamsville Class of 1964 message board to fire off, what now seems like an small atomic bombardment of entries about this and that, some serious, most whimsical. (They are, for the most part, still there if you are interested). Obviously though not every question I intended to pose there, or here, especially not this one, was meant to be as whimsical as the first one that I did about the comparative merits of the Rolling Stones and Beatles. With this long-stemmed introduction the rest of the 2008 original entry is (edited a bit) is, in the interest of keeping with its original purpose of trying give my answer the question posed, posted below:

“Today I am interested in the relationship between our youthful dreams and what actually happened in our lives; our dreams of glory out in the big old world that we did not make, and were not asked about making; of success whether of the pot of gold or less tangible, but just as valuable, goods, or better, ideas; of things or conditions, of himalayas, conquered, physically or mentally; of discoveries made, of self or the whole wide world, great or small. Or, perhaps, of just getting by, just putting one foot in the front of the other two days in a row; of keeping one’s head above water under the impact of young life’s woes; of not sinking down further into the human sink; of smaller, pinched, very pinched, existential dreams but dreams nevertheless.

I will confess here, as this seemingly is a confessional age, or, maybe just as a vestige of that family history-rooted, hard-crusted, incense-driven, fatalistic Catholic upbringing long abandoned but etched in, no, embedded in, some far recesses of memory that my returning to the North Adamsville High School Class of 1964 fold did not just occur by happenstance. A couple of months ago (December 2007) my mother, Arlene Margaret Markin (nee O’Brian), NAHS Class of 1943, passed away. For a good part of her life she lived in locations a mere stone's throw from the school. You could, for example, see the back of the school from my grandparents' house on Young Street. As part of the grieving process, I suppose, I felt a need to come back to North Adamsville. To my, and her, roots. As part of that experience as I walked up Hancock Street and down East Squantum I passed by the old high school. That triggered some memories, some dream street memories, which motivate today's question.

If my memory is correct, and I am not just dream-addled, I had not been in North Adamsville for at least the pass 25 years and so I was a little surprised to see that the main entrance steps of the high school, and central to the question posed here, were no longer there. You remember the steps, right? They led to the then second floor and were flanked by, I think, a couple of lions or some gargoyles. (I have since then, after viewing a copy of the 1964 Manet, found out that they were actually flanked by a sphere and a column on each side. (I was close though, right?) I can remember spending many a summer night during high school, along with my old pal from the class Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, the legendary be-bop, “faux” beatnik king of the night, sitting on those steps talking about our futures. Now for this question I am only using the steps as a metaphor, so to speak. You probably have your own 'steps' metaphor for where you thrashed out your dreams. How did they work out?

A lot of what Frankie and I talked about at the time was how we were going to do in the upcoming cross country and track seasons, girls (although Frankie, when the deal went down always had his ever-loving Joanne to keep him warm against the hard edges of the teen night), the desperate need to get away from the family trap, girls, no money in pockets for girls, cars, no money for cars, girls. (Remember, please, those were the days when future expectations, and anguishes, were expressed in days and months, not years.) Of course we dreamed of being world-class runners, as every runner does. Frankie went on to have an outstanding high school career. I, on the other hand, was, giving myself much the best of it, a below average runner. So much for some dreams.

We spoke, as well, of other dreams then. I do not remember the content of Bill's but mine went something like this. I had dreams for social justice. For working people to get a fair shake in this sorry old world. That, my friends, has, sad to say, not turned out as expected. But enough from me. I will finish this entry with a line from a Bob Dylan lyric. "I'll let you be in my dream, if I can be in your dream". Fair enough?”

*Out In The Be-Bop Night-Scenes From The Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-The High White Note -2007

Markin comment:

The scene below stands (or falls) as a moment in support of that eternal search mentioned in the headline.

Scene Eleven: Scenes From Search For The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-The High White Note-2007

The High White Note, The High White Western Night and The High White Wave Merged
I am a driven man. I am a driven man, imprisoned, six by twelve room driven, but more by a mental six by twelve internal, eternal, infernal almost paternal quest, and that is the only word that fits for the elusive high white note, or the high white something, that I have spent a lifetime searching for. Certainly longer that other search, that more physical search for the blue-pink great American West that disturbed my youth, and beyond, and pushed me through many a long, lonesome highway hitchhike mile. But you know that story already now that you have read the previous scenes.

This one is more wistful, although I have caught a whisper of it here and there along the way. Now it looks like I’m stuck with it to the end, the quest that is. Here I sit, in any case, quarantined, in desolate, high, hard wind-swept, sunless-sea-ed, busted sand-duned, green sea-grass-blown, icy white-capped waved, Atlantic–oceaned, ragged, rugged, jagged Maine-coasted shack of a room getting ready to search, and search hard this time, for that white puff of a thing that keeps disturbing my rest.

I will, for the duration, put up with an ill-lit stove, half broken from generations of use by others, passing strangers, maybe seeking their own high white notes, or high white something. Or, maybe, just passing sweaty, drunken nights in some fore-doomed attempt to avoid oblivion. I will, moreover, put up with that high-pitched, annoying, buzzing refrigerator in back of me that means, at least, a touch of civilization. And the bubbly, perking, hard-hearted coffee-making machine, chipped plates, moldy-cushioned sofa, and this stuffy-aired place in order to make sense of what drove me here once again to place my shoulder against the wind, the whistling wind that signals that it is time to take note, and to seriously take note, of the demands of the quest.

And I came here for a purpose, always a purpose, to leave home and sweet-loved, sweet love. And to get away, to clean a man’s mind from the humdrum, fairwayed, fresh-ponded, sun-walked, run-runned, walk-runned, city-maddened depths. Also while we are on the subject from the technological-driven, cell-phoned, personal computer-strapped like some third hand or second-brained, four-walled nightmare. Nightmare-evading Maine fits the bill just fine, although truth to tell Maine figures, Maine always figures in the white note fight, although it is hardly the only place.

I can almost read your thoughts about my thoughts right now. It goes something like this- here he goes again, you say, on some incensed holy grail trip of the mind, or maybe he is for real, real time, real places but still a trip that would embarrass and shame any self-respecting errant knight of yore, searching for that perfect fair damsel in distress to bring home, or more likely, to carry off, kicking and screaming, to some cozy, stone-faced, thatched-roofed, smoke-filled, forested cottage for two. Or of old mad, maddened, maddening Captain Ahab and his foolish fish, or whatever woe begotten thing that he was really looking for in the Melville deep. Or, maybe, some fiendish, freakish, madman pioneer monkishly doing his own shouldering against the storms, against the snowstorms, against the storms of life of the white-peaked Western trek nights. Ah, the vision of the blue-pink Western sky. I wish you well pioneer brother, wherever you landed.

No, it is not like that at all. This is not some half-baked, half-bright, half-thought out, interior dialogue that I usually get myself tangled up into. Tangled so bad I have to break it up for a while. No, none of that this time. No intellectual gymnastics, no mental tepidity, no squarey circles or circley squares. No this is purely, or almost purely, a memory trip and that seems about right, you know, if you really want to know it has been painful at times, but no way, no way at all, that it is one of those ill-digested whims that you are thinking of. No way.

And, beside that, from the great American West night hitchhike road I have already gone through many pairs of worn-out, worn-soled, worn-heeled, down at the heel shoe leather (now thick-soled, thick-heeled, logo-addled running sneakers); worn-thumbed, back-pack-ladened, some forgotten town destination sign-waving, hitch-hiked mile (that means bumming free rides on the road, the wide American highway, for those too young, or too proper to the know the long gone, way long gone, exotic word that sustained many a hobo, tramp or bum in his (or her) search for the Great American night) through every nowhere, no-name, no wanna know the name, bus-depot-ed, stranger-unfriendly town from here to Mendocino. Moreover, here I have marks, and here you can call it intellectual or spiritual or whatever, from every diesel-trailed, oil-slicked, mud-flatted, white-lined, white-broken-lined, two-laned, no passing , hard-bitten, steam-fooded truck stop from here to Frisco as well. So don’t tell me I haven’t paid my dues.

Or it could have been some smoke-filled, nicotine-plastered walls in some long defunct coffee house (when smoking was de rigueur), or some gin-sweated, smoke-fogged Cambridge bar (in the days when smoking was allowed), listening to some local group trying to make it out of town, one way or another. Or it could have been being chained-smoked cigarette (ditto above) writing like crazy, every soul thing, every non-soul thing, every anti-soul thing after passing on the last call train out to the sticks at that old reliable, just don’t have the eggs scrambled Hayes-Bickford, where we all believed that if you just spent enough nights, enough hot, heavy-aired July nights, or enough snow-bound, frost-bitten January nights (this before Super Bowl suspense filled in January) maybe something major would come out, and maybe fame, big fame too, fame etched by the gods.

Hey, did I tell you how I got here, got here to ocean-winded Maine, this time that is? Did I forget that in my frenzy to tell you what is? Ya, I guess I did forget reading back. Let me tell you of my dreams, or at least the story of my dreams to make it right, okay? One recent, sweat-drenched night I woke up, or was I woken up by one of the cats, in a start. I had a weird old dream, or maybe just a flash of a dream, where I saw, in living, livid color a big old beautiful high white note floating, free and easy, as you might guess on a very stormy high white wave. After than flash, if that is what it was, I could not get back to sleep and lay there, soaking a little and trying to soak off that soaking with an old bedraggled railroad man’s roaring red handkerchief. Or that is at least what I call them ever since I first saw a railroad guy walking down the line when I was a kid, carrying one in the left back pocket of his dirt-stained denims as he uncoupled one train from another, maybe sending it into the great western night.

But we have already been into that great Western night, or what I think is my idea of the great Western night so I don't know how it figures in the meaning of this dream. It is really bothering me, and it should because, lately, I have been thinking and thinking hard about that very subject. The relationship between the two. No, it did not just come out of the blue, come on now, you guys know better than that. Ain’t you read Freud, or his acolytes or renegades, these things all have secret meanings of their own. But no surprise if you think about it. I have been thinking about the high white note for a while, ever since I read poor old, black, gay, exiled against his will, writer James Baldwin and his infernal short story, Sonny’s Blues.

You know I really should make you read the whole thing and then you could come back and get an idea about my dream, or the thought of what my dream was all about. And then the great Western trek into the night, hell in the day time even, would make a great deal more sense. But I am going to let you off the hook this time and just tell you that old “Sonny” is a story about brothers, and I have been thinking about that too lately, although not in the friendly, gee I should get back in touch with my own brother sense, but about brothers who drifted back and forth in each others lives until one day the reality set in hard and hard was that Sonny, a high white note-seeking jazz pianist really got high on the white note. Busted, busted hard, busted back to clean but busted and his brother, would you know that it was his big brother, had to help him put back the pieces, even though the pieces were what made Sonny interesting and alive. That's me, living on old sweet, sweet dream of that white note, and, as well, Angelica-ish-driven memories of that old time blue-pink night before I go.