***Out In The 1950s Be-Bop Night-Rick’s Flying Saucer Rock Moment

He was glad, glad as hell that angel thing, that guardian angel hovering over you and at your beck and call making sure that you don’t fall off some wagon, don’t do any of the one thousand one hundred and one that Mother had warned you off, and don’t do anything he (or she as the case maybe), the angel wouldn’t do, was over and done with. You know that Sunday school thing they beat you over head with about how your guardian angel was there to keep you on the straight and narrow, or else. Yes, Rick Roberts certainly was glad that was over although now that he thought about further it just kind of passed out of sight as he got older and other things filled his mind. Things like girls, the mystery of girls at first, but no strictly the mystery of his June ("June Bug" was his pet name for her but he had better not hear you call her that, especially one Freddie Jackson, or else). Yes, Rick was now large enough, strong enough, and smart enough strong, not to have to worry about some needlepoint guardian angel looking out for him. He could look out for himself and his June Bug. Although truth to tell he was worried, a little anyway, kind of vaguely like a long of the talk around the subject, about this Cold War red scare Russian bear thing (his father, Rick, Senior, an old World War II warrior and just as patriotic as the next man called them Russkies) over here to take his brain away, or maybe put the big heat on him, the A-bomb heat and creating alien things from outer space to haunt his dreams. But only a little.

What was exercising Rick these days was his June (you know her pet name but don’t say it, please) and causing him no end of sleepless nights was that thing about Freddie Jackson, June’s old flame. At least according to his sister, Celia, a reliable source of North Adamsville High gossip, and not afraid to spread it when it pleased her, was that Freddie was taking his peeks at June, and she was peeking back. So, lately, in order to pass those sleepless fretful nights Rick had begun to sit up in his bedroom at night with his transistor radio on, the one that he had forced his parents to buy him, batteries included, last Christmas, rather than the practical ties in some god awful colors and styles that he would not be caught wearing they had intended to foist on him. And what Rick listened as the hour turned to midnight was The Crazy Lazy Midnight Madness Show on WMEX, the local be-bop, no stop, all rock radio station the that got the sleepless, the half-awake, the lame and the lazy through the 1950s Cold War night, and into the dawn.

Now this Crazy Lazy Show fare was strictly for night owls, stuff that would not appeal to daytime rockers, you know, those listening to guys like Elvis, Carl, Bo, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee, or just stuff that appealed to Lazy’s off-center, off-beat funny bone. One night, one really restless night, as Rick was revving up the transistor around midnight he heard Buchanan and Goodman’s silly The Flying Saucer, parts one and two back to back no less, so you see Crazy was serious about presenting goofy stuff. That was followed by Sheb Wooley’s devouring the Purple People Eater, and then, for a change of pace The Royal Teens be-bop Short, Shorts and that got his to thinking about how good June looked in them, and then back to zaniness when Bobby Pickett’s flattened Monster Mash hit the air, and as he got a little drowsy, The Detergents waved over Leader of the Laundromat.

That last one got to him, got to him good, because, believe it or not the song had sentimental value to him. See he met June at the North Adamsville All-Wash Laundromat one day. His mother’s washing machine had broken down and she needed to bring the Roberts laundry to the All-Wash and Rick drove her over. During that time June had passed by, he had said hi, they had talked and then more seriously talked, and that was that. Freddie Jackson was after that dust, a memory, nothing to June.

All this thinking really got Rick tired this night and as the last chords of Laundromat echoed in his head he fell into a deep sleep. Around four o’clock in the morning though he was awoken with a start, with the high pitched whining sound coming from somewhere outside his window. Next thing he knew a huge disc-like object was hovering over most of Adamsville, and stayed there for maybe a minute before departing just as quickly as it appeared. Rick took this for a sign, a sign that he and June would hang together. And a sign, maybe a sign from some unknown benefactor, that Freddie Jackson probably should have taken a trip on that flying saucer while he could, or else.