Frankie’s Song -With Elvis' Jailhouse Rock In Mind
Jailhouse Rock
The warden threw a party in the
county jail
The prison band was there and they began to wail
The band was jumpin' and the joint began to swing
You should've heard them knocked-out jailbirds sing
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone
Little Joe was blowin' on the slide trombone
The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang
The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Number forty-seven said to number three
"You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see
I sure would be delighted with your company
Come on and do the Jailhouse Rock with me"
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Sad sack was sittin' on a block of stone
Way over in the corner weepin' all alone
The warden said, "Hey, buddy, don't you be no square
If you can't find a partner, use a wooden chair"
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Shifty Henry said to Bugs, "For Heaven's sake
No one's lookin'; now's our chance to make a break"
Bugsy turned to Shifty and he said, "Nix, nix
I want to stick around a while and get my kicks"
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
The prison band was there and they began to wail
The band was jumpin' and the joint began to swing
You should've heard them knocked-out jailbirds sing
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone
Little Joe was blowin' on the slide trombone
The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang
The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Number forty-seven said to number three
"You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see
I sure would be delighted with your company
Come on and do the Jailhouse Rock with me"
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Sad sack was sittin' on a block of stone
Way over in the corner weepin' all alone
The warden said, "Hey, buddy, don't you be no square
If you can't find a partner, use a wooden chair"
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Shifty Henry said to Bugs, "For Heaven's sake
No one's lookin'; now's our chance to make a break"
Bugsy turned to Shifty and he said, "Nix, nix
I want to stick around a while and get my kicks"
Let's rock; everybody, let's rock
Everybody in the whole cell block
Was dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Dancin' to the Jailhouse Rock
Songwriters: LEIBER, JERRY / STOLLER, MIKE
Jailhouse Rock lyrics © Sony/ATV Music
Publishing LLC
A while back when I was doing a
series of scenes, scenes from the hitchhike road in search of the great
American West night in the late 1960s, later than the time of Frankie’s,
Frankie Riley’s early 1960s old working- class neighborhood kingly time as our corner
boy leader in front of Jack Slack’s bowling alleys that I want to tell you
about now, I noted that there had been about a thousand truck-stop diner
stories left over from those old hitchhike road days. On reflection though,
I realized that there really had been about three diner stories with many
variations. Not so with Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood, stories. I
have got a thousand of them, or so it seems, all different. Hey, you already,
if you have been attentive, know a few Frankie, Frankie from the old
neighborhood, stories (okay, I will stop, or try to, stop using that full
designation and just call him plain, old, ordinary, vanilla Frankie just like
everybody else).
Yeah you already know the Frankie story
(see I told you I could do it) about how he lazily spent a hot late August 1960
summer before entering high school day working his way up the streets of the
old neighborhood to get some potato salad (and other stuff too) for his
family’s Labor Day picnic. And he got a cameo appearance in the tear-jerk,
heart-rendering saga of my first day of high school in that same year where I,
vicariously, attempted to overthrow his lordship with the nubiles (girls, for
those not from the old neighborhood, although there were plenty of other terms
of art to designate the fair sex then, most of them getting their start in
local teenage social usage from Frankie’s mouth). That effort, that attempt at
coping his “style,” like many things associated with one-of-a-kind Frankie, as
it turned out, proved unsuccessful.
More recently I took you in a
roundabout way to a Frankie story in a review of a 1985 Roy Orbison concert
documentary, Black and White Nights. That story centered around my
grinding my teeth whenever I heard Roy’s Running Scared because one of
Frankie’s twists (see nubiles above) played the song endlessly to taint the
love smitten but extremely jealous Frankie on the old jukebox at the pizza
parlor, old Salducci's Pizza Shop, that we used to hang around once in a while
during our high school days. It’s that story, that drugstore soda fountain
story, that brought forth a bunch of memories about those pizza parlor days and
how Frankie, for most of his high school career, was king of the hill at that
locale. And king, king arbiter, of the social doings of those around him as
well.
And who was Frankie? Frankie of a
thousand stories, Frankie of a thousand treacheries, Frankie of a thousand
kindnesses, and, oh yeah, Frankie, my bosom friend in high school. Well let me
just steal some sentences from that old August summer walk story and that first
day of school saga because really Frankie and I went back to perilous middle
school days (a.k.a. junior high days for old-timers) when he saved my bacon
more than one time, especially from making a fatal mistake with the frails (see
nubiles and twists above). He was, maybe, just a prince then working his way up
to kingship. But even he, as he endlessly told me that summer before high
school, August humidity doldrums or not, was along with the sweat on his brow
from the heat a little bit anxious about being “little fish in a big pond”
freshmen come that 1960 September.
Especially, a pseudo-beatnik “little
fish”. See, he had cultivated a certain, well, let’s call it "style"
over there at the middle school. That “style” involved a total disdain for
everything, everything except trying to impress girls with his long-panted,
flannel-shirted, work boot-shod, thick book-carrying knowledge of every arcane
fact known to humankind. Like that really was the way to impress teenage girls,
then or now. Well, as it turned out, yes it was. Frankie right. In any case he
was worried, worried sick at times, that in such a big school his “style”
needed upgrading. Let’s not even get into that story, the Frankie part of it
now, or maybe, ever. We survived high school, okay.
But see, that is why, the Frankie why,
the why of my push for the throne, the kingship throne, when I entered high
school and that old Frankie was grooming himself for like it was his by divine
right. When the deal went down and I knew I was going to the “bigs” (high
school) I spent that summer, reading, big time booked-devoured reading. Hey,
I'll say I did, The Communist Manifesto, that one just because old Willie
Westhaven over at the middle school (junior high, okay) called me a Bolshevik
when I answered one of his foolish math questions in a surly manner. I told you
before that was my pose, my Frankie-engineered pose. I just wanted to see what
he, old Willie, was talking about when he used that word. How about Democracy
in America (by a French guy), The Age of Jackson (by a Harvard
professor who knew idol Jack Kennedy, personally, and was crazy for old-time
guys like Jackson), and Catcher In The Rye (Holden was me, me to a tee).
Okay, okay I won’t keep going on but that was just the reading on the hot days
when I didn’t want to go out. There was more.
Here's what was behind the why. I
intended, and I swear I intended to even on the first nothing doing day of that
new school year in that new school in that new decade (1960) to beat old
Frankie, old book-toting, mad monk, girl-chasing Frankie, who knew every arcane
fact that mankind had produced and had told it to every girl who would listen
for two minutes (maybe less) in that eternal struggle, the boy meets girl
struggle, at his own game. Yes, Frankie, my buddy of buddies, prince among men
(well, boys, anyhow) who kindly navigated me through the tough, murderous parts
of junior high, mercifully concluded, finished and done with, praise be, and
didn’t think twice about it. He, you see, despite, everything I said a minute
ago he was “in.”; that arcane knowledge stuff worked with the “ins” who
counted, worked, at least a little, and I got dragged in his wake. I always got
dragged in his wake, including as lord chamberlain in his pizza parlor kingdom.
What I didn’t know then, wet behind the ears about what was what in life's
power struggles, was if you were going to overthrow the king you’d better do it
all the way. But, see if I had done that, if I had overthrown him, I
wouldn’t have had any Frankie stories to tell you, or help with the frills in
the treacherous world of high school social life (see nubiles, frails and
twists above. Why don’t we just leave it like this. If you see the name Frankie
and a slangy word when you think I am talking about girls that's girls. Okay?)
As I told you in that Roy Orbison
review, when Roy was big, big in our beat down around the edges, some days it
seemed beat six ways to Sunday working-class neighborhood in the early 1960s,
we all used to hang around the town pizza parlor, or one of them anyway, that
was also conveniently near our high school as well. Maybe this place was not
the best one to sit down and have a family-sized pizza with salad and all the
fixings in, complete with family, or if you were fussy about décor but the best
tasting pizza, especially if you let it cool for a while and no eat it when it
was piping hot right out of the oven.
Moreover, this was the one place where
the teen-friendly owner, a big old balding Italian guy, Tonio Salducci, at
least he said he was Italian and there were plenty of Italians in our town in
those days so I believed him but he really looked Greek or Armenian to me, let
us stay in the booths if it wasn’t busy, and we behaved like, well, like
respectable teenagers. And this guy, this old Italian guy, blessed
Leonardo-like master Tonio, could make us all laugh, even me, when he started
to prepare a new pizza and he flour-powdered and rolled the dough out and
flipped that sucker in the air about twelve times and about fifteen different
ways to stretch it out. Sometimes people would just stand outside in front of
the doubled-framed big picture window and watch his handiwork in utter
fascination.
Jesus, Tonio could flip that thing. One
time, and you know this is true because you probably have your own pizza dough
on the ceiling stories, he flipped the sucker so high it stuck to the ceiling,
right near the fan on the ceiling, and it might still be there for all I know
(the place still is, although not him). But this is how he was cool; he just
started up another without making a fuss. Let me tell you about him, Tonio,
sometime but right now our business to get on with Frankie, alright.
So there was nothing unusual, and I
don’t pretend there is, in just hanging out having a slice of pizza (no onions,
please, in case I get might lucky tonight and that certain she comes in, the
one that I have been eyeing in school all week until my eyes have become sore,
that thin, long blondish-haired girl wearing those cashmere sweaters showing
just the right shape, please, please, James Brown, please come in that
door), some soft drink (which we called tonic in New England in those days but
which you call, uh, soda), usually a locally bottled root beer, and,
incessantly dropping nickels, dimes and quarters in the jukebox.
(And that "incessantly" allowed us
to stay since we were paying customers with all the rights and dignities that
status entailed, unless, of course, they needed our seats). But here is where
it all comes together, Frankie and Tonio the pizza guy, from day one, got along
like crazy. Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, map of Ireland, red-headed,
fair-skinned, blue-eyed Frankie got along like crazy with Italian guy Tonio.
That was remarkable in itself because, truth be told, there was more than one
Irish/ Italian ethnic, let me be nice, “dispute” in those days. Usually over
“turf”, like kids now, or some other foolish one minute thing or another.
Moreover, and Frankie didn’t tell me
this for a while, Frankie, my bosom buddy Frankie, like he was sworn to some
Omerta oath, didn’t tell me that Tonio was “connected.” For those who have been
in outer space, or led quiet lives, or don’t hang with the hoi polloi
that means with the syndicate, the hard guys, the Mafia. If you don’t get it
now go down and get the Godfather trilogy and learn a couple of things,
anyway. This "connected" stemmed, innocently enough, from the jukebox
concession which the hard guys controlled and was a lifeblood of Tonio's
teenage-draped business, and not so innocently, from his role as master numbers
man (pre-state lottery days, okay) and "bookie" (nobody should have
to be told what that is, but just in case, he took bets on horses, dogs,
whatever, from the guys around town, including, big time, Frankie's father, who
went over the edge betting like some guys fathers' took to drink).
And what this “connected” also meant,
this Frankie Tonio-connected meant, was that no Italian guys, no young black
engineer-booted, no white rolled-up tee-shirted, no blue denim- dungareed, no
wide black-belted, no switchblade-wielding, no-hot-breathed, garlicky young
Italian studs were going to mess with one Francis Xavier Riley, his babes (you
know what that means, right?), or his associates (that’s mainly me). Or else.
Now, naturally, connected to "the
connected" or not, not every young tough in any working class town, not
having studied, and studied hard, the sociology of the town, is going to know
that some young Irish punk, one kind of "beatnik' Irish punk with all that
arcane knowledge in order to chase those skirts and a true vocation for the
blarney is going to know that said pizza parlor owner and its “king”, king hell
king, are tight. Especially at night, a weekend night, when the booze has
flowed freely and that hard-bitten childhood abuse that turned those Italian
guys (and Irish guys too) into toughs hits the fore. But they learn, and learn
fast.
Okay, you don’t believe me. One night,
one Saturday night, one Tonio-working Saturday night (he didn’t always work at
night, not Saturday night anyway, because he had a honey, a very good-looking
honey too, dark hair, dark laughing eyes, dark secrets she wouldn’t mind
sharing as well it looked like to me but I might have been wrong on that) two
young toughs came in, Italian toughs from the look of them. This town then , by
the way, if you haven’t been made aware of it before is strictly white, mainly
Irish and Italian, so any dark guys, are Italian period, not black, Hispanic,
Indian, Asian or anything else. Hell, I don’t think those groups even passed
through; at least I don’t remember seeing any, except an Arab, once.
So Frankie, your humble observer
(although I prefer the more intimate umbrella term "associate" under
these circumstances) and one of his squeezes (not his main squeeze, Joanne)
were sitting at the king’s table (blue vinyl-seated, white Formica
table-topped, paper place-setting, condiment-laden center booth of five, front
of double glass window, best jukebox and sound position, no question) splitting
a Saturday night whole pizza with all the fixings (it was getting late, about
ten o’clock, and I have given up on that certain long blondish-haired she who
said she might meet me so onions anchovies, garlic for all I know don’t
matter right now) when these two ruffians come forth and petition (ya, right)
for our table. Our filled with pizza, drinks, condiments, odds and ends papery,
and the king, his consort (of the evening, I swear I forget which one) and his
lord chamberlain.
Since there were at least two other
prime front window seats available Frankie denied the petition out of hand. Now
in a righteous world this should have been the end of it. But what these hard
guys, these guys who looked like they might have had shivs (ya, knives, shape
knives, for the squeamish out there) and only see two geeky "beatnik"
guys and some unremarkable signora do was to start to get loud and menacing
(nice word, huh?) toward the king and his court. Menacing enough that Tonio,
old pizza dough-to-the-ceiling throwing Tonio, took umbrage (another nice word,
right?) and came over to the table very calmly. He called the two gentlemen
aside, and talking low and almost into their ears, said some things that we
could not hear. All we knew was that about a minute later these two behemoths,
these two future candidates for jailbird-dom, were walking, I want to say
walking gingerly, but anyway quickly, out the door into the hard face of
Saturday night.
We thereafter proceeded to finish our
kingly meal, safe in the knowledge that Frankie was indeed king of the pizza
parlor night. And also that we knew, now knew in our hearts because Frankie and
I talked about it later, that behind every king there was an unseen power.
Christ, and I wanted to overthrow Frankie. I must have been crazy as a loon.
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