The Roots Is The Toots: The Music That Got The Generation Of
’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-When Mister Warren Smith Fretted
To Perdition Over His Rock ‘n Roll Ruby
Sketches
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
***********
He and She-With Warren
Smith’s Rock and Roll Ruby In
Mind
…he knew, knew deep in his bones, knew on the face of it
too that he could not keep her, keep her to himself, keep her settled down
and so he accepted that she would blow away like the wind on him sometime,
that same wind would take her away as the one on which they had proclaimed,
or maybe better he had proclaimed and she went along with, that their love
was written on, and it was just a matter of how long he could keep her. It
was not that he was perceptive about women and their needs, wants, desires, nothing
like that, not women in any case, girls really since he did not know anything
at all about women who were older than say twenty, twenty-one except relative
women, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and what was there to know about them to
help him, help him with a wild side woman they all placid and proper, or
about anything like that. And even on the girl thing he was filled with as
much mystery and awe as with any real knowledge, his knowledge like everybody
else, every guy, in town acquired on the street, in the boys’ sports locker
rooms, and on the corner when he hung out with guys, or did before she took
up his time but a lot of that was just flat-out wrong, half church-truth,
half-just getting it wrong, about what made them tick, and about how to hang
onto them.
And it was not like he could lay claim to as a
wet-behind-the ears high school kid trying to survive in the doldrums 1950s
some inside knowledge about what was going to happen when his generation, the
generation which would post-war born be called baby boomers and who would not
fall into the false security, or at least he did not think that then, that
their from hunger parents craved, broke out of the straitjacket but he just
knew that she was like the wind and would get caught up in everything that
was breezing across the land. He knew in his knotted stomach that what was
happening in the cold war red scare night could not be the end of things, the
end of the world and that when the time came for the break-out all hell would
break loose. She would imbibe, joyfully imbibe the “newer world” was the way
she put it to him one night when she wanted to go to a dance and he wanted to
just hold hands or something at the movies (they went to the dance and she
danced like Fred Astaire going up the walls in some movie they had seen),
everything that was coming whether about ways of getting high not just the
illicit liquor but some drugs that were beginning to make their way into the
neighborhoods among the hipped; ways of dressing, especially ways of dressing
sexy without old prudes scolding or guys leering; ways of dancing, dancing
free from the old forms; and ways of hearing the music that always seemed to
exist in her head just below the surface of what drove her personality.
Him, well, he was what she called when she was angry at
him when he would not dance, wanted to square parent hold hands, or got mad
when she did dance with other guys or he was smothering her with his forever
plans (her take, not his) a “square.” Jesus, a square and with his strict Jehovah
upbringing and his “get out of from hunger and get ahead dreams” maybe he
was. He knew that he would not be able to go with her when she broke out,
knew that for sure. Knew from that one time some guy at a dance at the Surf
Ballroom down by the beach gave them a couple of shots of rotgut Southern
Comfort which she dug and on which he just threw up, knew that other time in
downtown Boston when some college guy was giving her the once over and passed
them a “joint” (marijuana for the squares like him) and she got all high and
flirty (and he did too except he could not go with the flow of the thing);
knew when she started wearing her dresses shorter showing her well-turned
legs and challenging guys to look; knew when she got all esoteric in her
dancing like she was of the she with the seven veils; knew that when she
began to dig electric blues and some helter-skelter hipster jazz, that he
would not be able to go with her. No question.
It hadn’t started out that way, at least he did not see it
like that at the beginning, see that she was a wayward wind, see that she had
the desire to deeply imbibe the new
wave coming across the continent. That wind born of the wild reckless
feckless boys sunk knee-deep in alienation and angst, of outlaw motorcycle bikers
who played for real and played rough, of surf city guys searching for perfect
waves with golden-haired girls waiting patiently on shore for that event, of
hot rod Lincoln “chicken run” guys with boffo girls sitting high-breasted
wearing cashmere sweaters in that coveted passenger seat turning the radio
dial reaction against the staid Great Depression and World War II parents’
generation search for the security blanket in a hostile red scare Cold War
world where they, the parents, just wanted their Johnny coming home from the
war music, big Cadillac, two car garage with two cars and stardust memories.
You know what he meant, don’t you, the undefined but
vital mood change that started when Elvis and a bunch of other hungry guys
[and a few women like Wanda Jackson and Laverne Baker] ripped it up with a
new sound, a new not your parents’ tinny sound, but blessed, no, twice
blessed rock and roll. And then other guys, other be-bop guys who had been
around but were just then getting noticed called the beat, called the beat
down to rise up and play themselves true, no hassles man, no hassles. All
under the umbrella of dropping that dragged out, square, red scare cold war
night thing the ancients had everybody stirred up about. Yeah and all their
old has-been crowd. A little later, in Billy and Jenny time, the he and she
here to introduce them but they could have been any of ten thousand kids
hooked on the visual bible of the new religion American Bandstand, standing on corners looking be-bop beat, or
throwing nickels and dimes at some Doc’s Drugstore jukebox complete with soda
fountain to abate hungers in order to hear the latest about twenty times the
music changed up again, and square was nowhere to be. Billy sensed it, sensed
before Jenny even but he with ten thousand worries in his head blew it off,
called it at first a passing fad then got real scared when his Jenny got
testy with him more often.
They had met conventionally enough in
senior year at old North Adamsville High, although they had seen each other
around for ages as most of the kids in town had been at endless school
assemblies, rallies, dances together but what of that in teen life had, for
as such things go, they had not paid particular attention to kids they knew
for ages, or kids that were not in their clique.. Had moreover grown up
together on the wrong side of the tracks and wore a few scars to prove it
although mostly they just acknowledged the slights from the Brahmins, noticed
the no nods, the no look of approval, their slightly under-cool cheap Bargain
Center dressing against the latest hip thing from Filene’s or Macy’s and
didn’t talk about it thinking it was uncool to talk about roots, about
yesterday, about anything but the moment, and Billy all bunched up about the
future.
Something clicked though in that senior year as they both
had responded to each other’s furtive glances in Miss Williams’ study hall,
had furtively danced around each other at Doc’s Drugstore where all the kids
hung out after school to listen the latest music, their music juke box, and
had finally gone out on a double-date (he without a car at the time and so
they had doubled up with her girlfriend Terry in her beau’s car, a “boss”
Chevy since that beau was out of school and working as a welder down at the
shipyard) at the local drive-in theater where she, sitting in the back seat
with him, surprised him with her sexual advances.
Stuff that Billy wasn’t all that familiar with but which
he liked and which she knew that he liked. He, at least, was embarrassed when
Terry and Eddie kept telling them to quiet down a little while Jenny was
doing her thing on him. She on the other hand just to show how wild she could
be if provoked took that as a signal to make him go crazier. Terry later told Jenny there
would be no more double-dates after she told her that Eddie had asked her to
do what he called “doing the Jenny” on him before he left her off at her
house. Terry said she did not know how to do that mouth thing and refused him
flat when he said he would show her how. Jenny told Billy later after she had
taught Terry the technique and Eddie coaxed her into doing it one afternoon
after school she would chide Terry with a little “so did you do the Terry”
again Saturday night down at the beach when they compared notes on their
respective weekends before school on Monday morning. Somehow that “do the
Terry” got around school and when Terry dumped Eddie guys would try to coax
her into it. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. That is when Billy and Jenny would
go back to double-dating with whatever new beau with a car that Terry had.
Yeah, Billy liked it, liked it like any guy would,
especially since Jenny was one of the prettiest girls in class and had a
reputation for being kind of “unapproachable.” (Billy later found out it was not so much
the stuck-up thing as that she had been dating a college guy and at that time
was strictly under his sway after they had a few sexual experiences which had
kind of loosened her up. Joe College eventually took off with some girl from
some college in Michigan once he was done with Jenny.) Yeah, he liked it but
also thought to himself that night and the several other nights Jenny and he
found themselves in some secluded spot on the beach (the Squaw Rock end not
the Seal Rock end where parents and young kids hung out) when she did her
thing to him, those times when she got all loud and screamy when he touched
her where had she picked up that knowledge of what made a guy moan (and a
girl all screamy). When he asked her about it later, not any of the nights
when they were alone down the beach but a couple of weeks later, she just
said girls knew stuff like that and she had learned it from her first boyfriend
(that Joe College) who was older. Said that older guys, older guys who had
been out in the world, guys who knew how to turn a woman on, and who expected
to be turned on showed girls like her what was what. He let it pass. So they were an “item” that last year of
school and many a Monday morning before school when the other guys were
speaking of so-called weekend conquests by the billion he just smiled a
knowing silent smile.
Then, a couple, a few years out of high school, Billy
working taking a few classes at the local junior college at night, Jenny
working a couple or three nights a week as a high end restaurant waitress,
the music at Doc’s jukebox changed, got more charged, frankly, got more sassy
and sexual far different from their parents’ sappy sentimental stuff that
didn’t get anybody’s heart rate up. And Jenny changed, well maybe not so much
changed as got caught up in the new dispensation, the new moves. When they
went on dates then it wasn’t to the movies or to some restaurant but to Smiley’s
Bar & Grille on the outskirts of town where old Smiley had a hot new
cover band, the Rocking Rockets, playing all the latest big beat stuff from
guys like Warren Smith with his Rock
‘n’ Roll Ruby that she flipped out on. Not that she, like Warren said,
would dance on the tables and stuff like that but that she would dance with
lots of guys, would be flirty, tease flirty right before his eyes. When he
questioned her on it she just said “don’t be a square, daddy” and refused to
discuss it further. And then it began. Some nights when he called her mother
answered to say she was not home, had gone out with the girls, or something
like that. Yeah, he knew deep in his bones …
********
…he had changed, Billy had changed too much for her
tastes, changed into a “square” just like all the parents in town and all the
kids who didn’t want to have fun and just be like them, be like their parents
and worry like Billy’s parents’ Jehovah worried about the new devil’s music
coming on the scene to replace, square, square Pat Boone and those clowns.
Billy, Jesus, Billy worrying and just barely out of high school about some
house, kids, dogs and two cars. Funny though he never complained, not one
word, when she did her thing, her “doing the Jenny” thing they laughingly
called it when they were in that mood, with him down at the beach. Oh, he
asked, Jehovah hypocrite asked where she learned how to satisfy a man but he
never asked her to stop but just moaned like every other man. She had learned
all about sex from a college guy she had been dating before Billy when she
was a sophomore in high school but who had ditched her for some college girl
from Michigan. Had done a couple of sexy turn on one-night stands with some
other college guys before latching onto Billy who she suddenly became
attracted to senior year when they shared a study class together and she kept
taking furtive glances his way until they began talking to each other after
school at Doc’s Drugstore, the one place in town which had an up-to-date
jukebox and a soda fountain, and that was that.
He was fun at first, fun when she did her thing with him,
went down on him, and he got all soft and stuff and she could have gotten
anything she wanted from him. Then he started on his ten million plans for
them. So she knew, knew sooner or later she was not sure which, she would
have to drop him, drop him for somebody who was fun, who liked what she did
and didn’t act the hypocrite about it. Hell, in one of her fantasy moments
maybe drop him for the first guy who wanted to dance with her close and fast,
maybe had some reefer or Scotch and didn’t ask forever how she knew what she
knew about sex and just enjoy it (and enjoy her).
The problem was that in square old North Adamsville that
someone who was fun and the rest had not passed her door, but she had hopes.
In the meantime she thought she would have to stick with old gloomy Gus as he
fretted his life away. As long as he
kept his mouth shut when she started
swaying when the juke-box played some hot, latest rock and roll tune or the
cover band at Smiley’s started her dancing to the beat on something like
Warren Smith’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Ruby. Started
guys looking through Billy her way too, and licking their chops.
Funny, as she thought back to that time a little over a
year before when they had eyed each other in Miss Williams’ study hall that
she was then attracted to his easy manner, his sly boyish-ness which she
thought she could talk him out of with a little coaxing (he had made her
laugh when after they became an “item” he said that the eyeing had really
been furtive glances-he said funny things like that then). They had not
spoken a word until they had spent what seemed like a lifetime dancing around
each other at Doc’s Drugstore where he put in endless nickels and dimes in
the juke-box and then just sat there dreamy-eyed looking at her until she had
said enough and went over to him and stood right in front of him and dared
him to ignore her with her look. He had surrendered easily enough and they
became an “item” after a subsequent drive-in movie date where she had shown
him a few things in the back seat of her friend Terry’s boyfriend’s car. He
liked her doing that stuff and she knew he liked her doing that stuff
although he was a very shy boy for the first few times. So this was how they
had spent their last year of school together in some kind of bliss.
Things changed though, changed a couple of years later
when a new breeze came through the town, when Doc’s juke-box started to
almost jump off the walls what with the latest rock tunes coming one right
after another. But Billy did not catch on, wanted to stay mired in his
parents’ music and so the frets began-his about marriage and settling down,
hers about having fun rocking the night away. The worse times had been
when they went to Smiley’s, the
hot-spot bar on the outside of town where there was plenty of booze and bop
and guys who eyed her, maybe not
furtively shy like Billy had
but eyed her like they wanted to have a good time, wanted to have fun
rather mope around and be square. He would just sit there and be mopey while
she danced with a few guys, a couple of whom she had given her telephone
number to although they in the end had not worked out. She began telling her
mother sometimes that when Billy called to tell him she was out and to tell
him that she didn’t know when she would be back. Even when, like this night, she was just
sitting up in her room waiting for a new guy who had danced her off her feet
the night before who said he would definitely call and maybe, just maybe,
want to have fun …
***********
"Rock And Roll Ruby"
Well I took my Ruby jukin'
On the out-skirts of town She took her high heels off And rolled her stockings down She put a quarter in the jukebox To get a little beat Everybody started watchin' All the rhythm in her feet She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul Now Ruby started rockin' 'bout one o'clock And when she started rockin' She just couldn't stop She rocked on the tables And rolled on the floor And Everybody yelled: "Ruby rock some more!" She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul It was 'round about four I thought she would stop She looked at me and then She looked at the clock She said: "Wait a minute Daddy Now don't get sour All I want to do Is rock a little bit more" She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul One night my Ruby left me all alone I tried to contact her on the telephone I finally found her about twelve o'clock She said: "Leave me alone Daddy 'cause your Ruby wants to rock" She's my rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll Rock'n'roll Ruby, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul Rock, rock, rock'n'roll Rock, rock, rock'n'roll Rock, rock, rock'n'roll Rock, rock, rock'n'roll When Ruby starts a-rockin' Boy it satisfies my soul |
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