***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-With Warren Smith’s Rock and Roll Ruby In Mind -Take Three  

 

…he knew, knew deep in his bones, knew on the face of it too that he could not keep her, keep her to himself, keep her settled down and so he accepted that she would blow away like the wind on him sometime and it was just a matter of how long he could keep her. It was not that he was perceptive about women, girls really, or about anything like that or that as a wet-behind-the ears high school kid trying to survive in the doldrums 1950s he had some inside knowledge about what was going to happen when his generation broke out of the straitjacket but he just knew that she was like the wind and would get caught up in everything that was breezing across the land. Him, well, he was what she called when she was angry at him when he would not dance or got mad when she did with other guys or he was smothering her with his forever plans (her take, not his) a “square”, Jesus, a square and with his strict Jehovah upbringing and his dreams maybe he was. He knew that he would not be able to go with her when she broke out, knew that for sure.

It hadn’t started out that way, at least he did not see it like that at the beginning, see that she was a wayward wind, see that she had the desire to  deeply imbibe the new wave coming across the continent. That wind born of the wild boy, motorcycle, surf city, hot rod Lincoln,   reaction against the staid Great Depression and World War II parents’ generation search for the security blanket in a hostile red scare Cold War world where they just wanted their Johnny coming home music, big Cadillac, two car garage with two cars and stardust memories.

You know what I mean, don’t you, the mood change that started when Elvis and a bunch of other hungry guys [and a few women like Wanda Jackson and Laverne Baker] ripped it up with a new sound, a new not your parents’ tinny sound, but blessed, no, twice blessed rock and roll. And then other guys, other be-bop guys who had been around but were just then getting noticed called the beat, called the beat down to rise up and play themselves true, no hassles man, no hassles. All under the umbrella of dropping that dragged out, square, red scare cold war night thing the ancients had everybody stirred up about. Yeah and his has-been crowd. A little later, in Billy and Jenny time, the he and she here to introduce them but they could have been any of ten thousand kids on the bible of the new religion American Bandstand, standing on corners looking be-bop beat, or throwing nickels and dimes at some Doc’s Drugstore complete with soda fountain and jukebox to hear the latest about twenty times the music changed up again, and square was nowhere to be. Billy sensed it, sensed before Jenny even but he with ten thousand worries in his head blew it off, called it at first a passing fad then got real scared when his Jenny got testy with him more often.       

They had met conventionally enough in senior year at old North Adamsville High, although they had seen each other around for ages as most of the kids in town had and had not pay particular attention to kids they knew for ages, or kids that were not in their clique, had grown up together on the wrong side of the tracks and wore a few scars to prove it, had been at endless school assemblies, rallies, dances. Something clicked though in that senior year as they both had responded to each other’s furtive glances in Miss Williams’ study hall, had furtively danced around each other at Doc’s Drugstore where all the kids hung out after school to listen the latest music, their music juke box, and had finally gone out on a double-date (he without a car at the time and so they had doubled up with her girlfriend Terry in her beau’s car, a “boss” Chevy since that beau was out of school and working as a welder down at the shipyard) at the local drive-in theater where she, sitting in the back seat with him, surprised him with her sexual advances.

Stuff that he wasn’t all that familiar with but which he liked and which she knew that he liked. He, at least, was embarrassed when Terry and Eddie kept telling them to quiet down a little while she was doing her thing on him. She on the other hand took that as a signal to make him crazier. Yeah, he liked it, liked it like any guy would, especially since she was one of the prettiest girls in class and had a reputation for being kind of “unapproachable.”  Yeah, he liked it but also thought to himself that night and the several other nights they found themselves in some secluded spot on the beach (the Squaw Rock end not the Seal Rock end where parents and young kids hung out) when she did her thing to him, those times when she got all loud and screamy when he touched her where had she picked up that knowledge of what made a guy moan (and a girl all screamy). When he asked her about it later, not any of the nights when they were alone down the beach but a couple of weeks later, she just said girls knew stuff like that and she had learned it from her first boyfriend who was older. Said that older guys, older guys who had been out in the world, guys who knew how to turn a woman on, and who expected to be turned on showed girls like her what was what. He let it pass.  So they were an “item” that last year of school and many a Monday morning before school when the other guys were speaking of weekend conquests he just smiled a knowing silent smile.   

Then the music at Doc’s jukebox changed, got more charged, frankly, got more sassy and sexual far different from their parents’ sappy sentimental stuff that didn’t get anybody’s heart rate up. And she changed, well maybe not so much changed as got caught up in the new dispensation, the new moves. When they went on dates then it wasn’t to the movies or to some restaurant but to Smiley’s Bar & Grille on the outskirts of town where old Smiley had a hot new cover band, the Rocking Rockets, playing all the latest big beat stuff from guys like Warren Smith with his Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby that she flipped out on. Not that she, like Warren said, would dance on the tables and stuff like that but that she would dance with lots of guys, would be flirty, tease flirty right before his eyes. When he questioned her on it she just said “don’t be a square, daddy” and refused to discuss it further. And then it began. Some nights when he called her mother answered to say she was not home, had gone out with the girls, or something like that. Yeah, he knew deep in his bones …       

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…he had changed, Billy had changed too much for her tastes, changed into a “square” just like all the parents in town and all the kids who didn’t want to have fun and just be like them, be like their parents and worry like Billy’s parents’ did Jehovah worry about the new devil’s music coming on the scene to replace, square, square Pat Boone and those clowns. Billy, Jesus, Billy worrying and just barely out of high school about some house, kids, dogs and two cars. Funny though he never complained, not one word, when she did her thing with him down at the beach. Oh, he asked, Jehovah hypocrite asked where she learned how to satisfy a man but he never asked her to stop but just moaned like every other man. So she knew, knew sooner or later she was not sure which, she would have to drop him, drop him for somebody who was fun, who liked what she did and didn’t act the hypocrite about it. Hell, in one of her fantasy moments maybe drop him for the first guy who wanted to dance with her close and fast, maybe had some reefer or Scotch and didn’t ask forever how she knew what she knew about sex and just enjoy it (and enjoy her).

The problem was that in square old North Adamsville that someone who was fun and the rest had not passed her door, but she had hopes. In the meantime she thought she would have to stick with old gloomy Gus as he fretted his life away.  As long as he kept his mouth shut  when she started swaying when the juke-box played some hot, latest rock and roll tune or the cover band at Smiley’s started her dancing to the beat on something like Warren Smith’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby. Started guys looking through Billy her way too, and licking their chops.

Funny, as she thought back to that time a little over a year before when they had eyed each other in Miss Williams’ study hall that she was then attracted to his easy manner, his sly boyish-ness which she thought she could talk him out of with a little coaxing (he had made her laugh when after they became an “item” he said that the eyeing had really been furtive glances-he said funny things like that then). They had not spoken a word until they had spent what seemed like a lifetime dancing around each other at Doc’s Drugstore where he put in endless nickels and dimes in the juke-box and then just sat there dreamy-eyed looking at her until she said enough and went over to him and stood right in front of him and dared him to ignore her with her look. He had surrendered easily enough and they became an “item” after a subsequent drive-in movie date where she had shown him a few things in the back seat of her friend Terry’s boyfriend’s car. He liked her doing that stuff and she knew he liked her doing that stuff although he was a very shy boy for the first few times. So this was how they had spent their last year of school together in some kind of bliss.

Things changed though, changed when a new breeze came through the town, when Doc’s juke-box started to almost jump off the walls what with the latest rock tunes coming one right after another. But he did not catch on, wanted to stay mired in his parents’ music and so the frets began-his about marriage and settling down, hers about having fun rocking the night away. The worse times had been when  they went to Smiley’s, the hot-spot bar on the outside of town and who had plenty of booze and bop and guys who eyed her, maybe not  furtively shy like Billy had  but eyed her like they wanted to have a good time, wanted to have fun rather mope around and be square. He would just sit there and be mopey while she danced with a few guys, a couple of whom she had given her telephone number to although they in the end had not worked out. She began telling her mother sometimes that when Billy called to tell him she was out and that she didn’t know when she would be back.  Even when, like this night, she was just sitting up in her room waiting for a new guy who had danced her off her feet the night before was supposed to call and maybe, just maybe, want to have fun …