From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Out In The Seals Rock Inn Night -Wasn’t That A Mighty Storm

Funny he, Adam Evans, thought, a little sweaty and overheated from the turned too high thermostat put on earlier to ward off the open- eyed chill of the room, as he laid in his toss and turn early morning Seals Rock Inn, San Francisco bed, the rain poured down in buckets, literally buckets, at his unprotected door, the winds were howling against that same door, and the nearby sea was lashing up its fury, how many times the sea stormy night, the sea fury tempest day, the, well, the mighty storm anytime, had played a part in his life. He was under no circumstances, as he cleared his mind for a think back, a think back that was occupying his thoughts more and more of late, trying to work himself into a lather over some metaphorical essence between the storms that life had bestowed on him and the raging night storm within hearing distance. No way, too simple. Rather he was just joy searching for all those sea-driven times, times when a storm, a furious storm like this night or maybe just an average ordinary vanilla storm passing through and complete in an hour made him think of his relationship with his homeland the sea and with its time for reflection. And so on that toss and turn bed he thought.

He thought first and mainly about how early the sea came into his life, almost from birth down at those ragged edge of the sea slopes around Granitetown, the 1950s old time sea air country farm turned modern housing development of single three bedroom homes and duplexes for up and coming World War II veterans like his father with plenty of kids to house and some prospects, where he lived growing up and was tumbled into the sea early. Literally tumbled early to the sea as an errant older brother, aged maybe five, rolled him, maybe aged four, in a barrel, a tinny old trash barrel, down those ragged slopes that formed the outer perimeter of the housing development and gateway to the sea and he would up in about three feet of water crying to get out. Crying also that he had gotten his new trousers and jersey all wet and seaweedy and that he would catch hell (not the word he would have used then but appropriate) when he got home and Ma saw his condition. And Teflon older brother would get away scot-free and he, no snitch even then, would Velcro once again some mother trouble. And he did, although, damn age, he could not recall the penalty, maybe a few days without television.

And learned the power of the sea early when one winter storm night, maybe about fourth grade but in any case a situation that would, minimum, call for at least one no school day, Mother Nature played a dirty trick on her seaward brethren and tried to bring them home to her bosom all in one lashed-up swoop as the exploding high water, ignoring painfully constructed man-made seawalls, came right up to that home’s front door and the lot of them, two parents and three brothers, only reached higher ground in a split second before a big foam-flecked (aren’t they always foam-flecked like some angry man ranting to a rapt crowd when they come in that hard, fast and furious) wave crashed down on their home. A few nights spent in the gymnasium of his elementary school, Snug Harbor (jesus, what a name after that episode), and weeks of clean- up and smells of bleach to get rid of mold and other stuff taught him well the fickleness of old Mother.

And later, childhood later, a few years after the winter storm later anyway, when he, bravo he, decided, yes, consciously decided that the impeding summer storm he could sense coming (he had developed a sense about weather, sea weather anyway, without the need for television prompts) would be no deterrent to his taking that somewhat water-logged log he eyed on the beach and using it to help him swim to China, or some such place, on the current. The China, or someplace being prompted, that day by episode 234 in the Velcro Ma wars that he had just lost another round in and was ready to chuck it all if he could just get away to make his fame and fortune . The subject of the dispute, a case of missing money from her purse (money missing and spent the night before on sweet roll crème-filled Twinkies, ditto cocoa rich chocolate cupcakes, and a few off-hand pieces of penny candy, mary janes , no, not that mary jane what would he have known of weeds, dopes, and such in those suburban dark ages, tootsie rolls, stuff like that, maybe adding up to a dollar, a big dollar just then with Pa just out of work and no dough rolling in and mortgages to pay, and hungry, not sweet tooth hungry kids to feed, and so every penny counted. Round to Ma, and adieu, no more burden son.

But enough of motivation, and enough of not having the sense that god gave geese because just then he let go of the log to do something, something forgotten. And with the sea picking up steam that log kept eluding his grasp as they, he and the log, headed to open water. And losing the log in the churning waters he, not a strong swimmer then (or now) almost drowned, and would have and fate changed, except for the screams of his panic beach-bound older brother (the rolling barrel older brother, thanks, he owed older brother one) seeing his plight sounded the alarm for help and some Madonna savior swimmer, beach-bound too, came and swooped him up before he went down for the third time. And later he yelling beach-bound and still full of water, yelling to his savior bother “Don’t tell Ma, jesus, don’t tell Ma.” And he didn’t.

Or that night, that funny night (funny night in retrospect, then and now retrospect) when he, his buddy since elementary school Will (and proper subject of some wild non-mighty storm tales) and his girl, Carrie he thought although it could have been Donna, Donna whom Will later married and divorced after about three weeks of marriage right after he caught her running around with about four different guys, and a couple of dykes to top things off, and who would wind up a very senior cadre, if cadre is the right word for those times and that feeling, in the summer of love in San Francisco, 1967 not fifteen blocks from this stormy night Seals Rock Inn, and she, she Terry Wallace, his mostly through high school flame, sat in Will’s father-bought high school car, a ’59 Dodge, “making out” (term of art for “doing the do,” “going all the way,” sex, hell, fucking) while the sea churned up around them at old Nippo Point Beach just up from home Granitetown and the police, spotting the storm blasted car and the fix, came and rescued them rescued them while they were in, ah, compromising positions (you figure it out, back seat car figure it out, or read the Karma Sutra, position number twenty- one, or just read it and dream figure your own position, he just laughed his thought laugh) because in the throes of love they had not realized that they were in a couple of feet of sea water and rising that had splashed over some poor man-made seawall built against Mother’s angers. And the cops, the cops snitching, snitching like they always do, snitching like crazy to Ma (and Pa too on all sides), talking about court and under-age, even when Donna, yah, that’s right, it had to be Donna, she was just that bold and sassy, offered to give them a piece, or maybe some head, if they would forget the whole matter. Mas and Pas didn’t and Will and he walked, walked alone all summer, and all summer heard Karma Sutra laughs from fogged up cars down at that broken Nippo Point seawall they claimed.

Or that day, that wind- swept, foam-flecked sea day (okay, enough of foam-flecked seas, enough of rough seas. big swirling rough seas, immense, beyond man-sized immense out in the deep blue deep all green gloss gone falling but almost tepidly to thankful womb shores, cluttered with jetsam and flotsam, logs, ancient memory logs, China-worthy logs, from hurt penny-pinched childhood, cigarette packages, maybe discarded from some white tee- shirted corner boy venture out in the submarine race night, lobster traps, useful for student ghetto table, every smashed and swirled thing, enough of wind, enough to fill a lifetime wind , a lifetime of sad blown winds, a lifetime of false trumpet winds, Miles Davis be-bop full-throated winds, if they, the winds could have “dug” be-bop instead of aimless fury), when his world fell apart, the day when Diana, his first wife, had left him, left him for good, for good after about seventeen mad bouts of irreconcilable differences and about sixteen almost reconciliations. Enough of almost reconciliations to fill a book, a book of how to, and how not to, his version, his final truth version, screw up the genteel, gentle, the broken, or better half-broken women (nah, woman, she ) from saddened youth spills, damnations, and mishaps without really trying.

Funny, although not humorously funny like his nymph tryst with Terry, or ironically funny like his bonding with the sea from birth, but kind of sad sack funny he and Diana had met, met in Harvard Square in the summer of love, 1967 (check it out on Wikipedia for the San Francisco version of that same year but basically it was the winds blowing the right way for once when make love not war, make something, make your dreams come true with sex, drugs, music had its minute, has its soon faded minute via self –imposed hubris and the death-dealing, fag-hating, nigger-hating, women-hating, self-hating bad guys with the guns and the dough leading, and still leading, a vicious counter-attack), she from Podunk Mid-West (Davenport out in the Iowas if you need to know) far from ocean waters, but thrilled by the prospect of meeting an ocean boy who actually had been there, to the ocean that is.

Oh yah, how they met in that Harvard Square good night for the curious, simplicity itself (his version), she was sitting about half way across the room, the cafeteria room, the old Hayes-Bickford lunch room just up from the old end of the red line Harvard Square subway stop (and no longer there, nor is the subway stop the end of the Red Line), if that name helps (and it did , did help that is, if you had any pretensions to some folkie literary career, some be-bop blessed poet life, or just wanted to rub elbows with what might be the next big thing after that folk minute expired of a British invasion of sexed-up moppets and wet dream bad boys and poetry died of T.S. Eliot and rarified air, or, maybe just a two in the morning coffee, hard pressed sudsy coffee, but coffee, enough to keep a seat in the place, after a tough night at the local gin mills, and hadn’t caught anybody’s attention, sitting by herself, writing furiously, on some yellow notepad, and she looked up.

He, just that moment looked up as well (although he had taken about six previous peeks in her direction but she ignored them with her furious pen), and smiled at her. And she gave him a whimsical, no, a melt smile, a smile to think about eternities over, about maybe chasing some windmills about, about, about walking right over and asking about the meaning of, well, that smile. And he did, and she did, she told him that is. And in the telling, told him, that she had half seen (her version) him peeking and wondered about it. And all this peeking, half peeking, got him a seat at her table, and her a cup of coffee and a couple of hours of where are you from, what do you like, what is the meaning of existence and what the hell are you writing so furiously about at two o’clock on Sunday morning. And one thing led to another and eventually the sea came in, although, damn age against he couldn’t for the life of him remember how that subject came up, except maybe something triggered when she mentioned Iowa, or something.

And what did she look like, for the male reader in need of such detail, especially since she was sitting alone writing furiously at two in the morning, maybe she was, ah, ah, a dog. Nah she was kind of slender, but not skinny, slender in that fresh as sweet cream Midwestern corn-fed way that started to happen after the womenfolk, not prairie fire pioneer women any longer, had been properly fed for a couple of generations after those hard Okie/Arkie western trek push on days of eating chalk dust and car smoke trailing dreams. With her long de riguer freshly- ironed brown hair pulled back from her face (otherwise she would have constantly had to interrupt her furious writing to keep it out of her face as she wrote). And a pleasing face, bright blue eyes, good nose, and nice lips, kissable lips. Nice legs from what he could see when he went over. But who was he kidding, it was that whimsical, no, melt smile, that smile that spoke of eternities, although what it spoke of at that two in the morning was gentle breezes, soft pillows, of that Midwestern what you see is what you get and what you get, well, you better hang on, and hang on tight, and be ready to take some adversity, to keep around that smile. But that was later, later really, when he figured it out better why he tossed and turned all that night (really morning) and that thought would not let him be.

And memory bank of their first time up in ocean’s kingdom, the next day actually she was so anxious to see the ocean, or maybe anxious to see it with him, they talked about it being that way too but let’s just memory call it her anxiety, the rugged cross salvation rocks that make up Perkins’s Cove in southern Maine, up there by Ogunquit. There are stories to be told of his own previous meetings with Mother Perkin’s but this is Diana’ s story and those stories, his stories, involved other women, other treacheries, other immense treacheries, and other delights too. That day thought she flipped out, flipped out at the immensity of it, of the majestic swells (and of her swaying, gently, but rhythmically to the rise and fall of each wave) of the closeness of a nature that she, she of wind- swept wheat oceans, of broken- back bracero wet back labor to bring in the crop, of fights against every form of injury, dust, bugs, fire, drought had not dreamed of. And as if under some mystic spell, or some cornfield mistake, she actually plunged fully-clothed (not having been told of the need for a swimsuit since the ocean itself was the play, the hugeness of it, the looking longingly back to primordial times of it, the reflection in the changings winds of it), in to the ocean at that spot where there was just enough room if the tide was right, just ebbing enough to create a sand bar to do so (today there is no problem getting down there as the Cove trustees have provided a helpful stairs, concrete-reinforced, against old time lumber steps breakaway and lost in some snarled sea) and promptly was almost carried out by a riptide.

He saved her, saved her good that day. Saved her with every ounce of energy he had to take her like some lonesome sailor saving his shipmate, save just to be saving, saving from the sea for a time anyway, or better, saving like the guy, that long gone daddy, who did or said some fool thing to his woman and she flipped out and make a death pact with old King Neptune (and wouldn’t you know want to bring him along for the ride) from that song Endless Sleep by Jody Reynolds. But get this, and get it from him straight just in case you might have heard it from her. That day she was so sexed-up, there is no other way to say it, and there shouldn’t be, what with the first look ocean swells and her swaying , and her getting dunked good (with wet clothes and a slight feverish chill), and her being so appreciative of him saving her (the way she put it, his version anyway, was that save, that unthinking save, meant that whatever might come that she knew, knew after one day, and knew she was not wrong, that he would not forsake her for some trivial) that she wanted to have sex with him right there, right in the cove. (In those days there was a little spot that he knew, a little spot off a rutted dirt path that was then not well known, was unmarked and was protected by rows of shrubbery so there was no problem about “doing the do” there and frankly that thought got him sexed-up too. Today there are so many touristas per square inch in high season and that old rutted path now paved so that the act would be impossible. It would have to wait hard winter and frozen asses, if that same scenario came up again.)

Here’s the thing thought she, Diana, from the sticks, new to Harvard Square summer of love and Boston college scene school didn’t take birth control pills or have any other form of protection that day, although she was fairly sexually experienced (some wheat field farmer and then the usual assortment of colleges guys, some honest ,some, well, one-night stands). And he, he not expecting to be a savior sailor that day carried no protection, hell condoms (and, truth, his circle, the guys anyway, and really the girls knowing what the guys expected, left it up to their partners to protect themselves. Barbarians, okay). So before they could hit the bushes, before they could lose themselves in the stormy throes of love he had to run (yes, he ran, so you know he was sexed-up too) up to Doc’s Drugstore (no longer there, since Doc passed away many years ago and his sons became lawyers and not pharmacists) on U.S.1 right in the center of Ogunquit. And red faced purchased their “rubbers” (and wouldn’t you know there was some young smirky I-know -what-you-are-up- to-right-now sales girl behind the counter when he paid for his purchase, jesus). So as the sun started blue –pink setting in the west and to the sound, the symphony really, of those swells clanging on those rugged cross rocks they made love for the first time, not beautiful sultry night pillow love in some high-end hotel (like later), or fearfully (fearful that her prudish dorm roommate would bust in on them) in her dorm room but fiercely, fiercely like those ocean waves crashing mercilessly to shore. The time for exotic, genteel, gentle love-makings (“making it,” out of some be-bop hipster lexicon their way of expressing that desire) would come later, later intermingled with the seventeen differences and sixteen almost reconciliations.

And funny too in that same sad sack love way they early on had vowed, secular vowed (no, not that Perkin’s Cove love day, sex is easier to agree to, to make and unmake, than vows, religious, secular, or blasphemous), that they would not, like their parents fight over every stupid thing.. That night in her dorm room after that full day of activity they stayed up half the night (hell with a little benny that wasn’t hard, and perhaps they stayed up all night, and although her roommate never showed that night they did not, his version, did not make love) remembering his Velcro Ma wars and, as she related that night and many night after, her Baptist father repent sinners weird wars. He related in detail his various wars, wars to the death that left him with no option, no he option except to leave the family house and strike it on his own, on his summer of love terms if possible, since he had sensed that wind that storm swell coming for a while and was as ready as any “hippie” (quaint term, although he did not, and never did, consider himself a hippie but rather traced his summer of love yearnings to beat times, to be-bop boys and girls with shaded eyes and existential desires) to run with the tide. She related in detail her devil father, with seven prayer books in all his hands on Sunday and a thwarted creep up to her room every other day, and of his bend bracero hatred short-changing the wages of the wetbacks who came via train smoke and dreams to bring in the crop (or have the complaisant county sheriff kick them out wage-less, or with so many deductions for cheap jack low rent shack barely held together against the fury of prairie winds room and board, food just shy of some Sally, Salvation Army, hand- out in some desolate back street town (and he knew of such foods, and of kindly thanks yous but that was give away food not sweated labor food) that it made the same thing. Justified of course by some chapter and verse about the heathens (Catholic heathens and he, the father , still fighting those 16^thcentury wars out on prairie America and, and, winning against hard luck ,move on to the next shack and hand-out worthy food harvest stop, endlessly, braceros), and their sorrows .

And they didn’t , didn’t act like their parents, their he and she parents, that summer of love, that overblown ,frantic , wind-changing summer of love, when they sensed that high tide rolling in, hell, more than sensed it, could taste it, taste in the their off-hand love bouts not reserved for downy billows (and he glad, glad as hell, that she, his little temptress she, had freely offered herself to him up on those rugged cross rocks so that he, when he needed a reason, easily coaxed her to some landlocked bushes, or some river, some up river ,Charles River, of course hide-out and she, slightly blushing, maybe, with the thought of it, followed along giggling like a schoolgirl),taste it is the sweet wines handmade in some friend experiment , hey try this (and experiment yogurts, ice cream, dough bread, and on and on, too) , taste it in the tea, ganga, herb, hemp smoke curling through their lungs and moment peace, or later, benny high to keep sleep from their eyes on the hitchhike road, or later too, sweet cousin cocaine, cheap, cheap as hell, and exotic to snuffed noses to take away the minute blues creeping in, taste it in the new way that their brethren (after all not everybody got caught up in the minute, some went jungle-fighting, some went wall street back-biting, some went plain old ordinary nine to five-routining, some went same old same, old love and marriage and here come X and Y with a baby carriage (and mortgages , and saving for junior’s college and ,and…)offered this and that, free, this and that help, this and that can I have this free, taste it in, well, if you don’t want to do that, hell, don’t and not face Ma, or kin, or professional wrath (or she father fire and brimstone), taste it out in those friendly streets, no not Milk Street, not Wall Street, not the Loop, but Commonwealth Avenue, Haight Street, Division Street, many Village streets, many Brattle streets, many Taos streets, Venice Beach streets, all the clots that make the connections, the oneness of it all, the grandness of it all, the free of it all.

And they, they made the kindness, the everyday kindness of it, the simple air-filled big balloon kindness of it like some Peter Max cartoonish figure, and when they filled that balloon with enough kindness and against the slut remarks of high Catholic Ma disapproving of heathens (see not all bigots were out in the prairie wheat field strung out on the lord and, wheat profits) and she Pa disapproving of hippie (never was , beat, beat, yes) they married , justice of the peace high wind Perkin’s Cove- consummated married she all garlanded up like some Botticelli doll model picture (his mistress, his whore, from what they had heard, and Diana blushed at that knowledge), flowered, flowing garment, free hair in the wind and he some black robe throw around , and feasting, feasting on those rugged cross rocks . Too much.

And for as long as they could see some new breeze blowing that they felt part of they were kind to each other (and others of course). Then the winds of change shifted, and like the tides the ebbs set in, maybe not obvious at first, maybe not that first series of defeats, that Loop madness in ’68, that first bust for some ill-gotten dope and some fool snitch to save his ass from stir turned on him, some brethren (he hated snitch, the very word snitch, from that time down in that rolling barrel slope in the water episode with his older brother, his older brother now name-etched in black marble in Washington along with other old neighborhood names), that first Connecticut highway hitchhike bust as they headed to D.C. for one more vain and futile attempt to stop the generation’s damn war, that several hour wait in Madison for some magnificent Volkswagen bus to stop and get them from point C to point D on their journey to this now very storm- driven San Francisco spot (a few blocks up over in North Beach the old beat blocks, Haight Street hippie having turned into a free-fire zone, that “no that is six dollars for those candles , not free brother” sea-change, and the decline of kindness, first casualty their own kindnesses, their own big balloon kindnesses more less frequently evoked, more tired from too much work, more sorry but I have a headache ,he too, and less thoughts about trysts in hidden bushes, or downy billows for that matter. Worse, worse still, he went his way, and she went hers, trying to make it (no longer their “making it” signal to chart love’s love time) in the world, hell, nine to five routining it but it was the kindnesses, those big ball kindnesses that went (and that they both spoke of, marriage counselor spoke of, missing), and seventeen differences, substantial differences, and sixteen almost reconciliations,, they grew older and apart, and…

She left him for another man, another non-sea driven man, a man who hated the outdoors, hated the thought of the ocean (he grew up in lobstertown Maine and had his fill of oceans, of fierce winds, of rubber hip boots, and of rugged cross rocks thank you, she told him of the other man) when she called it seventeen times is enough quits after they had spent a couple of months up in that storm-ravaged Maine cottage that he insisted they go to reconcile after the last difference bout where she, quote, was tired as hell of the sea, of the wind, of the stuff that the wind did to her sensitive skin ( big old sadness at that remark by him for he never said, kindness said, anything about that, or never said he could stop the ravages of time), and, and, tired of him playing out some old man of the seas, some man against nature thing with her in his train, unquote. Yah, she up and left him. Damn, and he had had thoughts of eternity, of always being around that smile, that quizzical smile, or the possibility of that smile, that he first latched onto that first Harvard Square night when he had smiled at her across the room, and she had smiled that smile right between his eyes at him.

Or that time later with Sarah, jesus has it been twenty years now, as the winter seas once again bore down their fury when they, at her insistence she from coastline Oregon near Coos Bay, had moved to water’s edge Marblehead outside of Boston away from city crowds and city concerns and city madnesses and city doubts and too city delights, and the seas came up over a painfully constructed double seawall (watched over time turn from single storm blasted sea wall), damn double seawalls and still not enough, and almost touched the top of their front door steps. And they seeking shelter again in a make-shift home school like he in in kid time and spending obligatory weeks with bleach and mop buckets. She, Sarah she, too eventually calling it quits, although not over another man, or over his man and nature obsession, or over that breeched double sea-wall but just her calling it Sarah quits. Just like the way she came in to that meeting, the Park Street church meeting, some pressing urgent meeting to stop another generation’s war and they connected like the passing air that night they met, both on the hurt rebound, and both clingy, clingy as hell, and both without a word shortly thereafter, maybe a couple of days not more than a week, deciding quickly to stay together for a time, not kid foolish eternity time, an indeterminate time. And she brought forth a rebirth of kindness in him (she was organically kind, needed no winds of time shift, no big world- historic motion motive to do that) and of shared funny times, mature now (ragged bushes, and up river hide-aways just a laugh and tingle memory), although rugged cross rock still travelled, mature travelled and no fair maiden rescues. And he sorry, end of youth, end of mystery awe, end of mad adventure sorry, strangely more than Diana sorry, when she left.

Or that Maine time a few years back when, alone to clear some troubled thoughts after the end of his last marriage (and last marriage), a sudden winter storm came up the coast of Maine and he was stranded in his Thoreau-like lean-to shack not build for heavy gales but summer frolic for a couple of days when Mile Road the sole road in or out, drowned smothered flooded marshland on both sides and so no escape except for the boat-worthy , was cut off sunken under five feet of water, he short of supplies and house fuel not having heard any forecast, his life-long sea trouble radar apparently failing him or maybe unadorned hubris from his quick decision to head north against all cautions after he gathered himself together post-court battle, and he finally knew what it was like to be totally dependent on happenstance, to siren call Mother Nature, on others, and, in the end on his own devises.

Or tonight, the winds blasting away against the open air door to his room, rain splashing down the wind -battered door seeping into the room a little, torrents of rain, torrents of thoughts, momentarily left to his own devises, left to his own thoughts. Just then he thought, that no, no he had been wrong, he really had been searching for that metaphor, that metaphor, that mighty storm metaphor, that would sum up his life.

Ancient Dreams, Dreamed-To The Tune Of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl     

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964 and thus already past sixty-four, comment:

Many of my fellows from the Generation of '68 (a. k. a. baby-boomers) will be, if you can believe this, turning sixty-four this year. So be it.

*******

Ancient dreams, dreamed.

Yah, sometimes, and maybe more than sometimes, a frail, a frill, a twist, a dame, oh hell, let’s cut out the goofy stuff from youthful reading too many Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe tough guy detective stories, or chasing after Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade for that matter, and far too many Saturday afternoon double-feature matinees at the old Strand Theater uptown woman monikers, and just call her a woman, and be done with it. Such women (frail, etc., okay) will tie a guy’s insides up in knots so bad he doesn’t know what is what, and not just guys who did not know what was what but guys who had been around a bit, had tasted the fruits, hell, knew the score, or thought they did. Tie up a guy so bad he will go to the chair, you know the big step off jolt chair, the ‘lectric chair, kind of smiling, okay maybe just half-smiling thinking about that scent he could smell even in that last dingy cellblock although he had not smelled that smell in the flesh in years.

Frank, Frank Corbett (but read: future Markins and a million, more or less, other guys) had it bad as a man could have from the minute Ms. Cora (excuse the anachronism) walked through the door in her white summer blouse, shorts, and the then de rigueur bandana holding back her hair, also white on that hot summer day, no breeze to be had except hers, in 1946. She may have been just another blonde, very blonde, (and a real blonde, always a question in the back of every guy’s mind as he would find out to his satisfaction once they hit the satin sheets) frail serving them off the arm in some seaside hash joint but from second one she was nothing but, well nothing but, a femme fatale to our boy, our boy Frank with the big hungry eyes. I, Peter Paul Markin, swear, I swear on seven sealed bibles that I yelled, yelled through the womb or from some toddler’s crib maybe, how would I know, all I know is that I did, at the movie screen that year for him to get the hell out of there at that moment. But do you think he would listen, no not our boy. He had to play with fire, and play with it to the end. Play his hand out right up to the big step-off smile, half-smile whether I had yelled or not. And hence my own Frank troubles from that day forward:    

Nose flattened cold against the frozen, snow falling front window “the projects” apartment, a place built on “wait on better times, get a leg up, don’t get left behind in the dawning American streets paved with gold dreams” but for now just a hang your hat dwelling, small, too small for three growing boys with hearty appetites and desires to match even then, warm, free-flow oil spigot warm, no hint of madness, or crazes only of sadness, brother kinship sadness, sadness and not understanding of time marching, relentlessly marching as he, that older brother he, went off to foreign places, foreign elementary school reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic places and, he, the nose flattened against the window brother, is left to ponder his own place in those kind of places, those foreign-sounding places, when his time comes. If he has a time, has the time for the time of his time, in this red scare (but what knows he of big red scare Cold War doing heard on some gloomy radio and later seen on some gloomy black and white small television, only brother scares), cold war, cold nose, dust particles floating aimlessly in the clogging still air night.

More.  A cloudless day, a cloudless blasted eternal, infernal Korean War day, talk of peace, merciless truce peace and talk of uncles, cold war, cold feet, cold bite, coming home in the air, hot, hot end of June day laying, face up on freshly mown grass near fellowship carved-out fields, fields for slides and swings, diamonded baseball, no, friendlier softball fields the houses are too close, mixed in with thoughts of gimps, glues, cooper-plated portraits of wildly-maned horses, of sweet shaded elms, starting, now that he too, that nose-flattened brother, has been to foreign places, strange boxed rooms filled with the wax and wane of learning, simple learning, in the time of his time, to find his own place in the sun but wondering, constantly wondering, what means this, what means that, and why all the changes, slow changes, fast changes, blip changes, but changes.

Nighttime fears, red-flagged Stalin-named fears, red bomb aimed right at his head unnamed shelter blast fears, named, vaguely named, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg hated stalinite jews killed fears [laughing thoughts fifty years later of Allan’s one million Trotskyites mushrooming on American negro streets, sorry brother, off by almost a million], jews killed our catholic lord fears, and what did they do wrong to get the chair, the ‘lectric chair just like Frank, did they cause somebody like Cora to be killed, anyway fears against the cubed glass glistening flagless flag-pole rattling dark asphalt school yard night. Alone, and, and, alone with fears, and avoidance, clean, clear stand alone avoidance of old times sailors, tars, sailors’ homes AND deaths in barely readable fine- marked granite-grey lonely seaside graveyards looking out on ocean homelands and lost booty. Dead, and the idea of dead, the mystery of dead, and of sea sailor dead on mains, later stream thoughts of bitch proctoresses, some unnamed faraway crush teacher who crossed my path and such, in lonely what did he do wrong anyway prison cells, smoking, reading, writing of the mystery of why dinosaurs die and other laments. Dead.

Endless walks, endless one way sea street water rat-infested fear seawall walks, rocks, shells, ocean water-logged debris strewn every which way, fetid marsh smells, swaying grasses in light breezes to the right, mephitic swamps oozing mud splat stinks to the left making hard the way, the path, the symbolic life path okay, to uptown drug stores, some forgotten chain-name drug store, passing perfumes, lacquers, counter drugs, ailments cured, hurts fixed and all under a dollar, trinkets ten cents baubles, gee-gads, strictly gee-gads, grabbing, two-handed grabbing, heist-stolen valentines, a metaphor in the making for future conned hearts without the valentines, ribbon and bow ruby-red valentine night bushel, signed, hot blood-signed, weary-feet signed, if only she, about five candidates she, later called two blondes, two brunettes, and a red-head, sticks all, no womanly shape to tear a boy-man up, would give a look his way, his look, his newly acquired state of the minute Elvis-imitation look, on endless sea streets, the white-flecked splash inside his head would be quiet. Man emerging out of the ooze, and hope.

Still more. Walks, endless waiting bus stop, old late, forever late, story of a young boy’s life late, diesel-fueled, choking fumed non-stop bus stop walks, no golden age car for jet moves in American Dream wide-fin, high tech automatic drive nights, walks, walks up crooked cheap, low-rent, fifty-years not fix rutted pavement streets, deeply gouged, one-lane snow-drift hassles, you get the picture, pass trees are green, coded, secretly coded even fifty rutted street years later, endless trees are green super-secret-coded except for face blush waiting, waiting against boyish infinite time, infinite first blush of innocent manhood, boyhood times, gone now. For what? For one look, one look, and not a quick no-nonsense, no dice look, no time for ragamuffin boys either that would elude him, elude him forever. Such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots. And no dance, no coded trees are green dance, either, no high school confidential (hell elementary school either, man), handy man, breathless, Jerry Lee freak-out, at least no potato sack stick dance with coded name trees are green brunette. That will come, brother, that will come. But when?

City square, any-town America, his American city square, filled with no  trespassing- police take notice signs meant his eyes, his sneak-thief eyes on the hunt for trinkets, the first in a long line of trinkets to dazzle some forlorn damsel, not so different from Frank, Frank from the movies when he got his wanting habits on, his chaste wanting habits which would build to those lust wants that drove Frank to the big step,   no standing either, no standing in front of low-slung granite buildings everywhere, bank vault exterior solid buildings, granite steps leading to granite doors leading to granite gee-gad counters, hated, no name hated, low-head hated, waiting slyly, standing back on heels, going in furtively, coming out ditto, presto coming out with a gold nugget jewel, no carats, fools’ gold didn’t you know that was your station, no russkie Sputnik panel glitter for his efforts such is the way of young lumped-up crime, no value, no look for value, just grab, grab hard, grab fast, grab to get yours before the getting is over, or before the dark, dark night comes, the dark pitched-night when the world no longer is young, and dreamed dreams make no more sense that this bodily theft. Those damn trinket thefts would do him in, if he was not careful.

First interlude: A bridge too far, an unarched, unsteeled, unspanned, unnerved bridge too far. One speed bicycle boy, Schwinn maybe, or low-sling English racer that was all the rage, dungarees before they became jeans and sleek, rolled up against dog bites and geared meshes, churning through endless heated, sweated, no handkerchief streets, names, all the parts of ships, names, all the seven seas, names, all the fishes of the seas, names, all the fauna of the sea, names. Twelve-year old hard churned miles to go before sleep, searching for the wombic home, for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, hard against the unnamed angst, hard against those changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing.

Then back to business, back to trinket worries (and sprouting up like no tomorrow, underarms stenches, daily lathers, acrid mouth, unkempt, cow-licked hair sans Wild Root solutions worries before he even got out the door). Si, lindo, lindos, beautiful, beautifuls, not some spanish exotic though, maybe later, just some junior league dream fuss though, some future cheerleader football dame though (smelling of Raymond Chandler influences and Bogie growls), some sweated night pastry crust and he, too slip-shot, too, well, just too lonely, too lonesome, too long-toothed before his time to do more than endless walks along endless atlantic streets to summon up the courage to glance, glance right at windows, non-exotic atlantic cheerleader windows. Such is the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for him, no jack swagger, or bobby goof as they run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. Me, I’ll take exotics, or lindos, if they every cross my path, my lonely only path.

Moving on. Sweated dust bowl nights, not the sweated exotic atlantic cheerleader glance nights but something else, something not endless walked about, something done, or with the promise of done, for something inside, for some sense of worth in the this moldy white tee shirt, mildewy white shorts, who knows what diseased sneakers, Chuck Taylor sneakers, pushing the red-faced Irish winds, harder, harder around the oval, watch tick in hand, looking, looking I guess for immortality, immortality even then. Later, in bobby darin times or percy faith times, who knows, sitting, sitting high against the lion-guarded pyramid statute front door dream, common dreams, common tokyo dreams, all gone asunder, all gone asunder, on this curious fact, no wind, Irish or otherwise. Stopped short. Who would have figured that one?

Main street walked, main street public telephone booth cheap talk walked searching for some Diana, greek goddess, wandering wholesale on the atlantic streets. Diana, blonde Diana, cashmere-sweatered, white tennis –shoed Diana, million later Dianas although not with tennis shoes, really gym shoes fit for old ladies to do their rant, their lonely rant against the wind. Seeking, or rather courage-seeking, nickel and dime courage as it turns out; nickel and dime courage when home provided no sanctuary for snuggle-eared delights. Maybe a date, a small-time after school soda split sitting at the counter Doc’s drugstore date, or slice of pizza and a coke date at Balducci’s with a few nickels juke-boxed in playing our song, our future song, a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall song, and dreams of I Want To Wanted sifting the hot afternoon air, maybe just a swirl at midnight drift, maybe a view of local lore car parked submarine races and mysteries unfurled, ah, to dream, no more than to dream, walking down friendly aisles, arm and arm along with myriad other arm and arm walkers on senior errands. No way, no way and then red-face, alas, red-faced no known even forty years later. Wow.

Multi-colored jacket worn, red and black, black and red, some combination reflecting old time glories, or promises of glory, cigarette, Winston small-filtered, natch, no romantic Bogie tobacco-lipped unfiltered blends, hanging from off the lip at some jagged angle, a cup of coffee, if coffee was the drink, in hand, a glad hand either way, look right, look left, a gentle nod, a hard stare, a gentle snarl if such a thing is possible beyond the page. Move out the act onto Boston fresh-mown streets. Finally, that one minute, no, not fifteen, not fifteen at all, and not necessary of the fame game, local fame, always local fame but fame, and then the abyss on non-fame, non- recognition and no more snarls, gentle or otherwise. A tough life lesson learned, very tough. And not yet twenty.

Drunk, whisky drunk, whisky rotgut whisky drunk, in some bayside, altantic bayside, not childhood atlantic bayside though, no way, no shawlie way, bar. Name, nameless, no legion. Some staggered midnight vista street, legs weak from lack of work, brain weak, push on, push on, find some fellaheen relieve for that unsatisfied bulge, that gnawing at the brain or really at the root of the thing. A topsy-turvy time, murder, death, the death of death, the death of fame, murder, killing murder, and then resolve, wrong resolve and henceforth the only out, war, war to the finish, although who could have known that then. Who could have known that Tet, Lyndon, Bobby, Hubert, tricky dick war-circus all hell broke loose thing then, or wanted to.

Shaved-head, close anyway, too close to distinguish that head and ten-thousand, no on hundred-thousand other heads, all shave-headed. I fall down to the earth, spitting mud-flecked red clay, spitting, dust, spitting, spitting out the stars over Alabama that portent no good, no earthy good. Except this-if this is not murder, if this is not to slay, then what is? And the die is cast, not truthfully cast, not pure warrior in the night cast but cast. Wild dreams, senseless wild dreams follow, follow in succession. The days of rage, rage against the light, and then the glimmer of the light.

Second interlude: The great Mandela cries, cries to the high heavens, for revenge against the son’s hurt, now that the son has found his way, a strange way but a way. And a certain swagger comes to his feet in the high heaven black Madonna of a night. No cigarette hanging off the lip now, not Winston filter-tipped seductions, no need, and no rest except the rest of waiting, waiting on the days to pass until the next coming, and the next coming after that. Ah, sweet Mandela, turn for me, turn for me and mine just a little. Free at last but with a very, very sneaking feeling that this is a road less traveled for a reason, and not for ancient robert frost to guide you… Just look at blooded Kent State, or better, blooded Jackson State. Christ.

Return. Bloodless bloodied streets, may day tear down the government days, tears, tear-gas exploding, people running this way and that coming out of a half-induced daze, a crazed half-induced daze that mere good- will, mere righteousness would right the wrongs of this wicked old world. But stop. Out of the bloodless fury, out of the miscalculated night a strange bird, no peace dove and no flame-flecked phoenix but a bird, maybe the owl of Minerva comes a better sense that this new world a-bornin’ will take some doing, some serious doing. More serious that some wispy-bearded, pony-tailed beat, beat down, beat around, beat up young stalwart acting in god’s place can even dream of.

Chill chilly nights south of the border, endless Kennebunkports, Bar Harbors, Calais, Monktons, Peggy’s Coves, Charlottetowns, Montreals, Ann Arbors, Neolas, Denvers by moonlight, Boulders echos, Dinosaurs dies, salted lakes, Winnemuccas’ flats, golden-gated bridges, malibus, Joshua Trees, pueblos, embarcaderos, and flies. Enough to last a life-time, thank you. Enough of Bunsen burners, Coleman stoves, wrapped blankets, second-hand sweated army sleeping bags, and minute pegged pup tents too. And enough too of granolas, oatmeals, desiccated stews, oregano weed, mushroomed delights, peyote seeds, and the shamanic ghosts dancing off against apache (no, not helicopters, real injuns) ancient cavern walls. And enough of short-wave radio beam tricky dick slaughters south of the border in deep fall nights. Enough, okay.

Third Interlude: He said struggle. He said push back. He said stay with your people. He said it would not be easy. He said you have lost the strand that bound you to your people. He said you must find that strand. He said that strand will lead you away from you acting in god’s place ways. He said look for a sign. He said the sign would be this-when your enemies part ways and let you through then you will enter the golden age. He said it would not be easy. He said it again and again. He said struggle. He said it in 1848, he said it in 1917, he said it in 1973. Whee, an old guy, huh.

Greyhound bus station men’s wash room stinking to high heaven of seven hundred pees, six hundred laved washings, five hundred wayward unnamed, unnamable smells, mainly rank. Out the door, walk the streets, walk the streets until, until noon, until five, until lights out. Plan, plan, plan, plain paper bag in hand holding, well, holding life, plan for the next minute, no, the next ten seconds until the deadly impulses subside. Then look, look hard, for safe harbors, lonely desolate un-peopled bridges, some gerald ford-bored antic newspaper-strewn bench against the clotted hobo night snores. Desolation row, no way home.

A smoky sunless bar, urban style right in the middle of high Harvard civilization, belting out some misty time Hank Williams tune, maybe Cold, Cold Heart from father home times. Order another deadened drink, slightly benny-addled, then in walks a vision. A million times in walks a vision, but in white this time. Signifying? Signifying adventure, dream one-night stands, lost walks in loaded woods, endless stretch beaches, moonless nights, serious caresses, and maybe, just maybe some cosmic connection to wear away the days, the long days ahead. Yah, that seems right, right against the oil-beggared time, right.

Lashed against the high end double seawall, bearded, slightly graying against the forlorn time, a vision in white not enough to keep the wolves of time away, the wolves of feckless petty larceny times reappear, reappear with a vengeance against the super-rational night sky and big globs of ancient hurts fester against some unknown enemy, unnamed, or hiding out in a canyon under an assumed name. Then night, the promise of night, a night run up some seawall laden streets, some Grenada night or maybe Lebanon sky boom night, and thoughts of finite, sweet flinty finite haunt his dreams, haunt his sleep. Wrong number, brother. Yah, wrong number, as usual.

Fourth Interlude: White truce flags neatly placed in right pocket. Folded aging arms showing the first signs of wear-down, unfolded. One more time, one more war-weary dastardly fight against Persian Gulf oil-driven time, against a bigger opponent, and then the joys of retreat and taking out those white flags again and normalcy. The first round begins. He holds his own, a little wobbly. Second round he runs into a series of upper-cuts that drive him to the floor. Out. Awake later, seven minutes, hours, eons later he takes out the white flags now red with his own blood. He clutches them in his weary hands. The other guy he said struggle, struggle. Yah, easy for you to say.

Desperately clutching his new white flags, his 9/11 white flags, exchanged years ago for bloodied red ones, white flags proudly worn for a while now, he wipes his brow of the sweat accumulated from the fear he has been living with for the past few months. Now ancient arms folded, hard-folded against the rainless night, raining, he carefully turns right, left, careful of every move as the crowd comes forward. Not a crowd, no, a horde, a beastly horde, and this is no time to stick out with white flags (or red, for that matter). He jumps out of the way, the horde passes brushing him lightly, not aware, not apparently aware of the white flags. Good. What did that other guy say, oh yes, struggle.

One more battle, one more, please one more, one fight against the greed party night. He chains himself, well not really chains, but more like ties himself to the black wrought-iron fence in front of the big white house with his white handkerchief. Another guy does the same, except he uses some plastic hand-cuff-like stuff. A couple of women just stand there, hard against that ebony fence, can you believe it, just stand there. More, milling around, disorderly in a way, someone starts om-ing, om-ing out of Allen Ginsberg Howl nights, or at least Jack Kerouac Big Sur splashes. The scene is complete, or almost complete. Now, for once he knows, knows for sure, that it wasn’t Ms. Cora (now no anachronism) whom he needed to worry about, and that his child dream was a different thing altogether. But who, just a child, could have known that then.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Cold War Night- Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer Is On The Case- “Kiss Me Deadly”- A Film Review

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_Me_Deadly

Click on the headline to link to a <i>Wikipedia</i> entry for <i>Kiss Me Deadly</i>.

<b>DVD Review

Kiss Me Deadly, Ralph Meeker, Cloris Leachman, directed by Robert Aldrich, 1955</b>

Sure I‘m a <i>film noir</i> buff. And sure I like my film detectives that way as well, Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, Phillip Marlowe and so on. Normally Mickey Spillane and his 1950s-style detective, Mike Hammer, would no hit my radar though. Believe me I did, however, spent many a misbegotten hour reading Spillane’s detective stories, maybe as much for cover art work that ran to provocative bosomy, half-clothed <i>femme fatale</i> dames in distress as for the insipid story line that ran heavily to Mike’s anti-communist warrior pose ready to smash heads at the drop of a hat, and grab an off-hand kiss from every dame he ran into along the way. Aside for the question of that scurrilous (now scurrilous, maybe) cover art that is better left for another day my tastes in detectives were more to the “highbrow” Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and their more knight-errant-worthy story lines, and a little more reserve in the fist department, although for a damsel in distress they were ready to duke it out with anyone, and gladly.

That said, now along comes this classic 1950s <i>film noir</i> Mike Hammer story line, Kiss Me Deadly,  and I was hooked, well, maybe not hooked so much as intrigued by it. Moreover, director Richard Aldrich seems to have had a flair for the <i>noir</i> film, from those black and white filmed shots of streets scenes in the seamy Los Angeles be-bop night (and day too, come to think of it), to an incredible be-bop jazz bar scene, complete with “torch” singer where after the loss of a friend Mike gets plastered (drunk), to the endless line-up of high end “golden age of the automobile” cars on display. Of course there is the normal bevy (maybe two bevies, I didn’t count) of alluring, mysterious women just waiting to fall into Mike’s arms when he comes within fifty paces of them, and he is, as usual, ready to put on his white knight uniform when he senses that something in evil in the world, and he most definitely is willing to thumb his nose as the governmental authorities who are always just a step, or seven, behind the flow of the action. But most of that is all in a day’s work for a <i>noir</i> detective. What makes this one stick out is the doom’s day plot.

Of course, the 1950s was not only about the rise of the “beats” and of teen alienation and angst-driven rock and roll but the heart of the international Cold War, a scary time no question, where if things had taken a half-twist a different way. Well, who knows, but it was not going to be pretty. And part of that Cold War, a central part, was the presence of the “bomb,, and for those who are too young to remember that was nothing but the atomic and hydrogen bombs that could, at any non-be-bop minute, blow the planet away.

And it is that threat that underlines old Mickey Spillane’s tale. See, with that kind of threat, but also the power potential, private parties, evil private parties could think of all kinds of nasty ways to wreak havoc on the world. If only they could get just a little of that bomb power. And that lust, that seemingly eternal lust, for power by certain of our fellows is where we are heading. See, someone privy to the atomic secrets had a little pot of the stuff ready for the highest bidder. And the highest bidder, so to speak, also happens to be a guy with plenty of dough to buy a ton of modern art (and a fondness for classic quotes). I knew there was something funny about those modern art collecting guys. Didn’t you?

And all it takes to spoil that nefarious plan is one Mike Hammer. Now, and here is the beauty of the Spillane method, this is not for governmental agents to handle, as one would think in trusting 1950s America, although they are hot on the trail but one thread worn detective. Thread worn? Yes, threadworm. See Mike is nothing but a low-rent, dirt-peddling divorce work detective (in the days when such dirt was necessary to get that desperate divorce), working this racket with his girl Friday (and lure), Velda. But see maybe Mike just fell on hard times and needed some dough (although his car, office set-up, digs… and fetching Velda belie that). But once Mike gets on the case, and only when he knows in his gut that something is wrong and he has that feeling here, then they are no limits. He faces off the mob (naturally, if there is something evil to broker they are in on it), half-mad women (one that he picked up on the hitchhike road, kind of, and her roommate) and that relentless modern art collector before he is through. I could go on but, really, this is one you have to see. And add to your list of <i>film noir</i> be-bop nights.

From The Pen Of Peter Paul Markin- Out In The Jukebox Saturday Night

Recently I, seemingly, have endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a classic rock series that goes under the general title <i>The Rock ‘n’ Roll Era</i>. And while time and ear have eroded the sparkle of some of the lesser tunes it still seems obvious that those years, say 1955-58, really did form the musical jail break-out for my generation, the generation of ’68, who had just started to tune into music.

And we had our own little world, or as some hip sociologist trying to explain that <em>Zeitgeist</em> today might say, our own sub-group cultural expression. I have already talked about the pre 7/11 mom and pop corner variety store hangout with the tee-shirted, engineered-booted, cigarette (unfiltered) hanging from the lips, Coke, big sized glass Coke bottle at the side, pinball wizard guys thing. And about the pizza parlor jukebox coin devouring, playing some “hot” song for the nth time that night, hold the onions I might get lucky tonight, dreamy girl might come in the door thing. Of course, the soda fountain, and…ditto, dreamy girl coming through the door thing, merely to share a sundae, natch. And the same for the teen dance club, keep the kids off the streets even if we parents hate their damn rock music, the now eternal hope dreamy girl coming in the door, save the last dance for me thing.

Needless to say you know more about middle school and high school dance stuff, including hot tip “ inside” stuff about manly preparations for those civil wars out in the working class neighborhood night, than you could ever possibly want to know, and, hell, you were there anyway (or at ones like them). Moreover, I clued you in, and keep this quiet, about sex; or rather I should say “doin’ the do” in case the kids are around, and about the local “custom” (for any anthropologists present) of ocean-waved Atlantic “watching the submarine races.”

Whee! That’s maybe enough memory lane stuff for a lifetime, especially for those with weak hearts. But, no, your intrepid messenger feels the need to go back indoors again and take a little different look at that be-bop jukebox Saturday night scene as it unfolded in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Hey, you could have found the old jukebox in lots of places in those days. Bowling alleys, drugstores (drugstores with soda fountains- why else would healthy, young, sex-charged high school students go to such an old-timer-got-to-get-my- medicine-for-the-arthritis place. Why indeed, although there are secrets in such places that I will tell you about some other time when I’m not jazzed up to go be-bop juke-boxing around the town.), pizza parlors, drive-in restaurants, and so on. Basically any place where kids were hot for some special song and wanted to play it until the cows came home. And had the coins to satisfy their hunger.

A lot of it was to kill time waiting for this or that, although the basic reason was these were all places where you could show off your stuff, and maybe, strike up a conversation with someone who attracted your attention as they came in the door. The cover artwork on this compilation that I am thinking of just now shows dreamy girls waiting for their platters (records, okay) to work their way up the mechanism that took them from the stack and laid them out on the player. There is your chance, boy, grab it. Just hanging around the machine with some cashmere-sweatered, beehive-haired (or bobbed, kind of), well-shaped brunette (or blond, but I favored brunettes in those days) chatting idly was worth at least a date (or, more often, a telephone number to call). Not after nine at night though or before eight because that was when she was talking to her boyfriend. Lucky guy, maybe. 

But here is where the real skill came in. Just hanging casually around the old box, especially on a no, or low, dough day waiting on a twist (one of eight million guy slang words for girl in our old working class neighborhood) to come by and put her quarter in (giving three or five selections depending what kind of place the jukebox was located in) talking to her friends as she made those selections. Usually the first couple were easy, some old boyfriend memory, or some wistful tryst remembrance, but then she got contemplative, or fidgety, over what to pick next.

Then you made your move-“Have you heard <em>Only You</em>? NO! Well, you just have to hear that thing and it will cheer you right up.” Or some such line. Of course, you wanted to hear the damn thing. But see, a song like that (as opposed to Chuck Berry’s <em>Sweet Little Rock and Roller</em>, let’s say) showed you were a sensitive guy, and maybe worth talking to … for just a minute, I got to get back to my girlfriends, etc., etc. Oh, jukebox you baby. And guess what. On that self-same jukebox you were very, very likely to hear some of the songs from that compilation I am thinking about. Here are the stick outs (and a few that worked some of that “magic” mentioned above on tough nights):

<em>Oh Julie</em>, The Crescendos (a great one if you knew, or thought you knew, or wanted to believe that girl at the jukebox’s name was Julie); <em>Lavender Blue</em>, Sammy Turner (good talk song especially on the word play); <em>Sweet Little Rock and Roller</em>, Chuck Berry (discussed above, and worthy of consideration if your tastes ran to those heart-breaking little rock and rollers. I will tell you about the ONE time it came in handy sometime); <em>You Were Mine</em>, The Fireflies; <em>Susie Darlin’,</em> Robin Luke (ditto the Julie thing above); <em>Only You</em>, The Platters (keep this one a secret, okay, unless you really are a sensitive guy).

From The Pen Of  Peter Paul Markin-Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When Frankie Roamed The Teenage Dance Clubs

In a recent series of sketches that I did in the form of scenes, scenes from the hitchhike road in search of the great American West night in the late 1960s, a time later than the time of Frankie’s early 1960s old working class neighborhood kingly time, I noted that I had about a thousand truck stop diner stories left over from those hitchhike road days. On reflection though, I realized that I really had 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 alright).

Yah, you already know the Frankie (see I told you I could do it) story 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 copping his “style” like many things associated with one-of-a-kind Frankie proved unsuccessful as it turned out.

But as this story will demonstrate old Frankie, Frankie from (oops, I forgot I am not doing that anymore) was not only the king of the old neighborhood but roamed, or tried to roam far afield, especially if the word "girls" was involved. So this will be another Frankie and the girls story, at least part way. The milieu though will be somewhat different for those who only know Frankie in his usual haunts; the wall in front of Salducci’s pizza parlor where he was the undisputed king hell king of the high school corner boy night all the way through high school, the wall in front of Doc’s drugstore where he was the undisputed corner boy king of the junior high school night and later when he merely held up a wall as a corner boy prince of various mom and   pop variety stores. This time, in a way, Frankie goes “uptown.”

One of the other places where Frankie tried to extend his kingdom was the local teen night club (although we did not call it that then but that was the idea). You know a place where kids, late teenage kids, could dance to live music from some cover band and drink…sodas. Yah, the idea was to keep kids off the streets, out of the cars, and under a watchful eye on Friday and Saturday night so they didn’t drink booze and get all crazy and messed up. Of course, anyone with half a wit, if they wanted to get booze, had no real problem as long as there was some desperate wino to make your purchase for you. But, at least, the idea was no booze on the premises of these clubs and that was pretty much the case.

Now this club, this teen dance club, that Frankie has his eye on, was the primo such place around. Sure, there were other smaller venues, but that was kid’s stuff, young teen stuff, no account, no matter stuff. If you had dreams of kingship then the Sea ‘n’ Surf Club was the place to place your throne. But, see, this club was several miles away from the old neighborhood, and that meant several miles of other guys who were kings of their neighborhoods, but also several miles of all kinds of different girls that Frankie (and I, as well) had no clue about. And the beauty of this, the real beauty for Frankie was that it was doable. Why? Old ball and chain girlfriend forever, junior high and Doc’s wall girlfriend forever, main squeeze and one thousand up and down flame battles that I have no time to speak of now forever , Joanne was not allowed by her parents to go to teen dance clubs, period. And period meant period, to old Frankie’s smiles.

This club had the added advantage, as its name gives away, of being by the sea, by the ocean so that if the dancing got too hot, or it was too crowded, or if you got lucky then there you were handy to a ready-made romantic venue. Now American Great Plains prairie guys and dolls may not appreciate this convenience (although I am sure you had your own local lovers’ lane "hot spots") but to have the sea as a companion in the great boy meets girl struggle was pure magic. See, and everybody knew this or found out about it fast enough, if a girl wanted to catch some "fresh air" and agreed to go with you then you were “in like flint” for the night. That also meant though that, when intermission ended, or when the steamed-up couple came up for air that nobody else was supposed to cut in on their scene. This may all sound complicated but, come on now, you were all teens once, and you figured it out easily enough, right? This in any case is what Frankie wanted to be king of. The scene, that is.

This club, by the way, this hallowed memory club, could not stand the light of day, although at night it was like the enchanted castle. By day it looked just like another faux Coney Island low-rent carnival, bad trip place ready for the demolition ball ballroom. But the night, oh, the night was all we cared about. And for weeks before Frankie was ready to make his big move the conquest of this place thing, the imagining of it, took on something like the quest for a holy grail.

Finally, Friday finally, summertime Friday night finally, came (he had a date with his ever- lovin’ big flame Joanne for Saturday that week so Saturday it was) and he was ready to make his move. Let me outline the plan as he told it to me. The idea, if Tommy 40 Winks (I did not make that name up; I don’t have that kind of imagination. That was his nickname, hell, mine, was, for a while, Boyo, and later Be-bop Benny, go figure), showed up was to make the scene with whatever girl he was dancing with, at least that was the idea. 40 Winks, for lack of a better term was the “king” of the club, although by default because no one had messed with him, or his crowd before.

And also he, Tommy 40 Winks,  was the “boss” dancer of the universe and the girls were all kind of swoony, or at least, semi-swoony over his moves, especially when he got his Elvis swivel thing going. Yah, now that I think about it he did seem to make the girls sweat. Sure, 40 Winks was going to be there. See Frankie was going to upset that fresh air “rule” and since nobody, not even me, ever accused Frankie of not being in love with himself, his “projects,” or his “style” he figured it was a cinch. Now, forty or fifty years later I can see where there was a certain flaw in the plan.

Why? Well, let me cut to the chase here, a little anyway. When we showed up at the club everything was fine. Everybody kind of conceded that this was “neutral” ground, at least inside, and the management of the place had employed more college football player-types than one could shake a stick at to enforce the peace. So any “turf” wars would have to be fought out on the dance floor, or elsewhere. That night the music, live music from a local cover band that was trying to move up in the teen club pecking order was “hot”. They got the joint, 40 Winks, and old Frankie fired up right away with a big sound version of <i>Good Rockin’ Tonight</i>. Eventually Tommy 40 Winks eyed this one sneeze (girl, blame Frankie and his eight hundred names ) from our school, although none of us, including Frankie, had even come with fifty paces of her, here or in school.

Her name was Anna, but let’s just call her a Grace Kelley-wannabe, or could-be or something, and be done with it. In any case when she had finished dancing that <i>Good Rockin’ Tonight</i> with some goof (meaning non-Frankie friend or associate) the temperature in the place went up a collective bunch of degrees. Even I was thinking of getting closer than 50 paces from her. Okay this was going to be the prize, boys

40 Winks and Frankie both approached Ms. Wonderful for the next dance (and, hopefully, for the full dance card), a slow one it seemed from the way the band was tuning up. Yah, it was, The Platters, <i>Stand By Me</i>. 40 Winks got the nod. Oh, boy. First round 40 Winks. They started dancing and other couples gave them some room because they were putting on something of a show.  I didn’t tell Frankie this but he, his plans, and his teen club crown were doomed. His look kind of said the same thing. But here is where you could never tell about Frankie. After that dance was he went back over to Anna for another ask. Again, no go. And no go all the way to intermission.

Christ, Francis Xavier Riley, pure-bred Irish man was red, red as a Dublin rose by then. He was done for, especially as this national treasure of a girl took the air, the fresh air with 40 Winks. And she made  a big deal out of it in front of half the couples attending, and more importantly, in front of Frankie. Frankie, Frankie from the old neighborhood but not of the wide teen kingdom. For one of the few times in our junior high school and high school careers together I saw Frankie throw in the towel. It wasn’t pretty. He didn’t show up at that club for a long time afterward, and I didn’t blame him.

But here is where life, teenage life was (is) funny sometimes. My brother, my corner boy king, my be-bop buddy Frankie was set up, and set up bad. How? Well, Anna, old sweet Grace Kelley wannabe Anna (and now that I think about could be), actually was smitten, or whatever you want to call it, with Frankie from seeing him around school. Yes, Frankie. But, and this is the way Frankie told me the story some time later after the event, Anna and firebrand Joanne, sweet Frankie girlfriend Joanne, had classes together and, moreover, were related to each other distantly like a lot of kids were related to each other in the old neighborhood. Anna knew that Frankie was Joanne’s honey (I am being nice here we didn’t get along well many times) so they talked it out and Anna passed on old Frankie. But, see, Joanne got wind of Frankie’s no ball and chain Joanne teen dance club scheme and she and Anna patched this deal up to keep Frankie out of harm’s way. Women!

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘50s Song Night- The Teen Queens’ “Eddie My Love” (1956) - A 55th Anniversary, Of Sorts- Billie's 1956 View

<b>Markin comment:

</b>

This space is noted for politics mainly, and mainly the desperate political fight against various social, economic and moral injustices and wrongs in this wicked old world, although the place where politics and cultural expression, especially post-World War II be-bop cultural expression, has drawn some of my interest over the past several years. The most telling example of that interest is in the field of popular music, centrally the blues, city and country, good woman on your mind, hardworking, hard drinking blues and folk music, mainly urban, mainly protest to high heaven against the world’s injustices smite the dragon down, folk music. Of late though the old time 1950s kid, primordial, big bang, jail-break rock and roll music that set us off from earlier generations has drawn my attention. Mostly by reviewing oldies CDs but here, and occasionally hereafter under this headline, specifically songs that some future archeologists might dig up as prime examples of how we primitives lived, and what we listened to back in the day.

<b>EDDIE MY LOVE

(Aaron Collins / Maxwell Davis / Sam Ling)</b>

The Teen Queens - 1956

The Fontane Sisters - 1956

The Chordettes - 1956

Dee Dee Sharp - 1962

Also recorded by:

Lillian Briggs; Jo Ann Campbell; The Sweethearts.

Eddie, my love, I love you so

How I wanted for you, you'll never know

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait to long

Eddie, please write me one line

Tell me your love is still only mine

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

You left me last September

To return to me before long

But all I do is cry myself to sleep

Eddie, since you've been gone

Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast

The very next day might be my last

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

You left me last September

To return to me before long

But all I do is cry myself to sleep

Eddie, since you've been gone

Eddie, my love, I'm sinking fast

The very next day might be my last

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

Please, Eddie, don't make me wait too long

(Transcribed from the Teen Queens

recording by Mel Priddle - May 2006)

**********

Billie here, William James Bradley, if you don’t know already. To “the projects” born but you don’t need, or at least you don’t absolutely need to know that to get the drift of what I have to say here. I am here to give my take on this latest song, <i>Eddie My Love</i>, that just came out and that the girls are going weepy over, and the guys are saying “that a boy, Eddie.” At least that’s what the wiser guys I hang around with say when they hear the record played on the radio. Except, of course, sappy Markin, Peter Paul Markin if you don’t know, my best friend at Adamsville Elementary School (or maybe best friend, he has never told me one way or the other what it was with us from his end, but sappy as he may be at times, he is my best friend from my end) who thinks Eddie should be righteous and return to his forlorn girl. What is he kidding? Eddie keep moving wherever you are, and keep moving fast. And please, please don’t go within a mile of a post office. 

Why do I hold such an opinion and what gives me the “authority”, some authority like the pope of rock and roll, or something to speak this way? Well, first off, unlike Markin, I take my rock and roll, my rock and roll lyrics seriously, hell, I have written some myself. Also I have some talent in this field and have won vocal competitions (and dance ones too), although there have been a few more I should have won. Yah, should have won but the fix was in, the fix was in big time, against project kids getting a break, a chance to make something out of the jailbreak music we are hearing. I’ll tell you about those bad breaks some time but now I am hot to straighten everybody out, even Markin, on this one. Markin pays attention to, too much attention to, the “social” end of the question, looking for some kind of teenage justice in this wicked old world when there ain’t none. Get it, Peter Paul.

Look, I can read between the lines of this story just like anybody else, any pre-teenage or teenage anybody else. Parents, my parents, Markin’s parents, Ozzie and Harriet, whoever, couldn’t get it if you gave them that Rosetta Stone they discovered to help them with old time Egyptian writing and that we read about in Mr. Barry’s class. No way. But Billie, William James Bradley, who will not let any grass grow beneath his feet, is wise, very wise to the scene. Hey, it’s not rocket science stuff; it’s simply the age old summer fling thing. Eddie, handsome, money in his pocket, super-charged car under his feet, gas in the tank, and an attitude that he is king of the known world, the known teenage world, sees this cutie, makes his play, they have some fun, some teenage version of adult fun for any not wise kids, school days come and he is off to his next cutie. Yah, he said he would write and, personally, I think that was a mistake. A quick “I'll be in touch,” and kiss on the cheek would have been smarter.

See Eddie, love ‘em and leave ‘em Eddie, is really a hero. What did this teen queen think was going to happen when Eddie blew into town? Love, marriage and here comes the teen queen with a baby carriage. Please. Eddie, Eddie your love ain’t got no time for that. And that old threatening to do herself in or whatever she means by “my next day might be my last,” is the oldest trick in the book, the oldest snare a guy trick that is. Yah, maybe someday when things are better, and guys don’t have that itch, that itch to move on, and maybe can settle down in one place and have plenty of dough, plenty of ambition, and the old wicked world starts taking care of its own better. Whoa… wait a minute, I’m starting to sound like Markin. Jesus, no. Eddie just keep moving, okay. Billie’s pulling for you.