From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-“The Women Question –Redux”

-For Neal

Lindo, lindos. Spanish is the loving tongue and has been for a while now against the harsh light of English faux- forked loving tongues but that is not what he meant, he a man now well-versed in pocas palabras, okay. And English forked tongues too. But then, the time he, Peter Paul one besotted night, was talking about then, 1960 then, holy hell’s fool, muttering a mile a minute as if to stop would break the spell, and break any chance for, well, happiness, kiddish happiness. Muttering that mile a minute for Irish girls don’t go nears (same parish even, Sacred Heart, Christ, no double christ), don’t even think about nears (same parish or not), or half-irish nears either (heathens like him, as his very, very Irish grandfather would say, giving his sonny boy, him, a dispensation for some mother‘s fault, but of that more later).

What he meant was this girl that was sitting next to him, this 1960 eighth- grade girl, Irish or half-Irish sitting next to him in art class. (Irish by surname but mix is the name of the game in golden age America, in Jack’s America being born and to call Irish is the beginning of wisdom and eight hundred year tyrannies by bloody English forebears don’t hurt either the big question though, the dispensating grandfather high on high mass incense question is-is she “one of us?”) She had to be Irish or half Irish, no question, because in the Little Dublin section of old North Adamsville then everybody was one or the other, or else. But that question out of the way (and he, devilish he had thought of several scenarios, several genealogical scenarios to entice her to talk) she disturbed his sleep although to her he did not exist, had not existed, would not exist, ever.

And whatever glory she would go on to, or him, for that matter, that would always be the case because he had come the wrong year, 1959, and, in case anyone had forgotten, from over in the Adamsville projects. Or he had not lived in North Adamsville all that long and had not started out with her at North Adamsville Junior High School (like that was a reason, but it was, such are the ways of junior high social pecking disorder learned if at no other place then at the weekly “no dance” school dance, and it smarted). Or she didn’t like guys who were smugly smart-assed (learned from Frankie Larkin, corner boy leader Billy’s brother, who, as it turned out he found out later that she loathed because he would not give her a “tumble.”) Or he was too catholic church damn blasphemous laughing at splashed holy water, getting high on high mass incense, and muttered, exhaustively muttered Stations of the Cross.

Memory, refreshed memory continuing, she preferred (as it turned out later) football guys and not half-artists, half-bookish nerds, half- mad poets, although he also didn’t know it, the half-mad poet blood curse part. She was most definitely not interested in some bay rum-trumped cowlick- haired be-bop stumble bum flannel-shirted (even in summer), wearing black chinos (handed down from ancient brotherhood brothers in hard family progressions because, because my friends, they were still wearable even in 1950s change your style with your mood America, daily if possible, good aged America touted golden age, America wanted to beat beatnik, faux beatnik, if the real story be told.)

Beautiful, beautifuls, beatitude, beat, beat up, beat around (around the bush I guess) beautiful streets walked eternally walked searching beauty, she was not beautiful, not spanish exotic beautiful or at least not from later class picture for remembrance looked beautiful but she was, she was, well, siting right there next to him in art class, and she was, well, spunky, and alive and distantly noblesse if anyone, male or female, in that crowded little one-size-fits-all two by four town, Adamsville to name signify it, later working class to social signify it, would name the damn thing but then just project boys and proper across the tracks (right side of tracks) girls fond of football players, class leader-ness, and cheerleader jumps would not do.

Disturbed sleep, yes, walked streets, yes, worn-out sneakers (or shoes, forgotten buster brown Thom McAn shoes), yes, fussed dreams yes, endlessly walked streets with head prepared notes just in case the winds passed by and they (he and lindo she) were caught on the same sidewalk. Things like that happen you know, and did happen once, but he averted his eyes, crossed the street, and revised his prepared notes, just in future case. And she passed, passed like the wind, and sweet schoolgirl fragrance, or some scented soap, and no sorrow and no remembrance, and no talk at school about how they just kind of missed each other and what were you doing just then, and such of revised notes.

And without a murmur, without as much as a by your leave (quaint expression), she graduated from eighth grade (see the system was different then and eighth grade junior high led to ninth grade high school crushed invisibleness and misspoken dreams). And he with her. And she to football player-reflected glory and he to nerdish road running, mad poet existence, stealing out in the North Adamsville night to hide, hide his flannel face, his black chinos, his eternal be-bop midnight sunglasses in early morning subway trains headed toward Harvard Square and a new day borning, and he (as he explained to me later), crazy to be there but still longing, although no longer lonely streets wandering (or revising notes either) to see if she was made of anything more than stuffed straw, and spunk.

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. Those lonely glance streets beckoned, he swore they beckoned, even in passé corridors anonymously passed even though in a right world any god child should have been able to call on ancient school memories to nod that simple nod that men nod to each other without qualm or qualification, even in lonely Harvard Square Hayes-Bickford four- in- the- morning beyond desire, or distracted dream night.

Later Spanish-style exotics would line up, line up if you can believe that, with no averted eyes and maybe, hopefully maybe, some exotic-tinged dreams in need of sharing but that was later and so some fluff Irish no nonsense closed streets femme, hankering for her gridiron goliath (nice, right) filled his anguished night. And he too silly to tumble, to tumble to dancing Spanish-eyed senoritas with lust in their hearts and a couple of James Joyce something books on their laps. Jesus, were you crazy.

Such was the new decade a-borning, a-borning but not for him, no jack swagger or reflected glory of jack swagger kick ass cuba, or trying to, kick ass vietnam, kick ass boom-boom soviet union, or bobby goof, sending missiles or dreams to jim crow Mississippi, as they tried to run the table on old tricky dick or some tired imitation of him. Him, he would take exotics, or lindos, and grab each and every one as if his life depended on it, and it did, if they ever cross his path, his lonely only path. He would sort out the other stuff, the remembrance stuff (jesus, would he), the right and wrong way stuff, and that faint, ever faint fragrance, every woman, including halfback-addled irish (all irish, he checked, or rather grandpa“is she one of us” shamrock proud checked) demons girls sitting next to him in eighth grade art class emitted on passing means streets. That last one had passed just then on sun-filled forsaken early morning streets and would disturb his sleep that night.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches- "The Long Road Home-Redux"

 

–For Jack

A bridge too far, an un-arched, un-steeled (or is it un-ironed), unsparing (no question on that one), unnerved bridge too far. A divided heart metaphor, perhaps, an overused metaphor, maybe, but sometimes that dividing line, dividing lines really, represented by a childhood bridge’s span is the only way to describe what is what. And more importantly is the only way to describe physically, hero of this saga, although hero is maybe just too large a word evoking greek gods, hubris and serious testing of fates, the bicycle boy’s dilemma.

One speed bicycle boy, handed-down Schwinn diamond blue red bicycle boy with pedal foot-slammed brakes to guide against crashes, stray dogs, swerving autos making diagonal rather than right hand- cornered turns and absent-minded pedestrians carelessly crossing in designated crosswalks just when he gathered speed, one speed, pushed on toward that divided bridge and the latest version of his the point of no return test.

Wearing a Fruit of The Loom tee-shirt, white, with a trace outline of wetness showing for all the world, all the looking world, to see up under arms. Hell it was summer and humid already, maybe a dog day July or probably August, they, the days and months, all rolling together and he had made this trip before in such weathers, in fact all weathers except hard northern winter gale snow squalls. And dungarees, faded from hundred times washed hand-me-down whirlpool washing machine use of older brothers in hardscrabble no work for father, or not much work, and mother wish working her stale life away in some franchise donut shop, serving coffee and off the arm to working class customers going to and fro working spots and leaving, leaving working class-sized tips, meaning not much, not much at all. Except wish dreams, and work damns.

Dungarees, faded or not, rolled up against dog bites, no question anymore since last summer, he Schwinn bicycle boy, had actually been bitten once by a stray alert dog who came out of some foggy mist seaside house without warning and without provocation, and rolled up guarded against meshed gears of cloth and metal, but you knew that, or you knew that your mother warned you against such a fate if you left the world unrolled, oh well, yah ma dismissal, at least one hundred times.

Yah, now bicycle boy, we no longer need to identify him as Schwinn, or wearing white tee-shirts or faded dungarees bicycle boy, is up to speed, safely past dog house and moving along friendlier shore roads this time riding across seaside town day to get that eternally thankful breeze blowing off Adamsville Bay. Now churning through endless tar pit heated, sweated, beads of sweat coming off the manhole cover to match, did I say match, no to trump, his own heat and underarm circle wetness, no handkerchief, damn of all days to forget a handkerchief, streets. No railroad man’s soiled sweated, stink handkerchief, red, solid red, found in some forgotten railroad track siding when he made another leap to break out of the hard-edged 1950s be-bop night and day dream of freedom, and train smoke.

Street names passing, all the parts of ships, taffrails, captains walks, quarterdecks, sextant-blasted wheelhouses, galleys, even the planks, a special place where treasure , and betrayal, fight it out for tribal loyalties or some stick, stick signifying simply youth, not stick-in-the-mudness, not yet anyway, maiden’s blushed kiss, stolen treasure worthy of more than railroad handkerchief, red, solid red, wipe. Bicycle boy laughed to himself as he rode, thinking of backlogged thoughts in sunnier (and less humid) times. And some stray blushed kiss that would not let him be, would disturb his sleep on more than one night.

Street names, all the seven seas, atlantic, pacific, indian, artic, coral, china, ah he forgot the order, not a good sign, must be the humid-numbing weather, for a boy who could make a joke, and make stick (remember stick signifying youth only) maidens unashamed of blushed kisses laugh at the thought, of knowing enough geography and knowing exactly where to find the place on the map to call himself the Prince of Lvov once. And know too that he wished to “discover” all those seas, and their names not just from maps, if only, if only he could get out of the stinking projects. The stinking born in projects from which he at one time, although not now of course did believe could ever be escaped from (and he later realized that maybe, just maybe he couldn’t). And funny he had gotten out or better had moved out, or his family had with him in tow, and still he was wishing about those seas even if he had forgotten the order of the names, and half-forgotten prince lvov kisses that had turned to ashes. And he still wished about getting out of that stinking project, yah, getting the stink blown off his back from that low-rent scene.

Street names, all the fishes of the seas, tetra, halibut, cod, of course, grown and harvested just some miles, not bicycle miles but automobile miles, a few miles down the road, mackerel, holy or not, he laughed to himself at that, scrod, pickled herring, jesus, who could eat that, oil-soaked sardines, ditto, red scrupper, macko some shark, infinite sea oceans names to go with seven seas and adventures, hardly wait to get out of town adventures but just now needing, desperately needing to get back to back born places, to get some familiar ground under his feet, to take the curse off that stink that has clouded his mind, the one to match the low-tide mephitic stinks down by the shore that he was then passing. And fetid swollen river swamps and reedy mud-caked straw wind marshes breezing that life-saving sea breeze too.

Street names, all the fauna of the sea, seaweed, algae, sea salad, sea cucumbers, see sea, all mixed up, all washed rumble tumble to shore in rushing torrid, churned-up waves crashing aimlessly but relentlessly to shore. But not today, today no crashing waves to help along the slight lip sweat-forming wheels churning boy, a displaced boy(no need to speak of bicycles anymore either) except for that tepid splashed flat pancake of a wave that also heads aimlessly to the waiting shore million year stones waiting to turn to sand , to wash them clean a while. He laughed at that too, washed clean alright. Not him, never him.

Names.

Twelve-years old, almost thirteen, hard-churned boy numberless miles to go before sleep, after the bridge battle, which way home or the sea. Which way, find the hidden quest route to Chinese splendor or buried treasure beneath those stones, at least in his mind, and go back to old time haunts, and small age memories of, okay, stick maidens, blushed kisses (this time his) and “going to the plank.” Ah, memory, memory-etched memory be good (and do not disturb goodnight sleeps, for once).

Searching, ever searching for the wombic home, is there such a word, and should he say it, should he write it, or should he even think it in his sin-heavy world. Searching for the certainties (silly childhood certainties he knew, but could do nothing about except search), for the old haunts (secret mirror caves, seaside rest graveyards before those sea breeze marsh grasses, and dank cellars filled with stolen kisses, and small wave booty trinkets, but don’t tell), for the plank, for the seaside graveyards with the dusted, rotting bones of ancient mariners, tars all, who filled the seven seas with their desires, their venom, and their hubris. He knew there was such a word as that, that hubris, because he had looked it up, and had actually, personally seen it in action more than once, although the acts seen had nothing, nothing in this wicked old world, to do with greek godly things. With titanic struggles to roll rocks up hills, to right wrongs against the powerful misbegotten night, to challenge god things, and fates. He didn’t laugh at that word though, but turned red first with anger, anger that he would duck things rather churn up waves, and offend no gods. No sir.

Searching, once again for other Schwinn travel friends (de riguer Schwinn, logo-conscious), for the old friends, the old drifter, grifter, midnight shifter petty larceny friends, the heist boys, the “clip” artist boys snatching penny candy, valentine, may day boxes of candy, onyx rings with diamonds in the center, five and dime trinkets, anything that fit into speak of love (not lvov), faded dungaree pockets, and didn’t bulge too much , that’s all it was, petty and maybe larceny, but it had cemented them together for “eternity,”boyhood projects eternity broken when he wrong-crossed that bridge span, and didn’t turn back.

Yah, bicycle boy this day is searching, searching hard against the named ships, hard against the named seas, hard against the named fishes, hard against the named fauna, searching see.

And searching hard too against the unnamed angst, hard against those unnamed, maybe unnamable, changes that kind of hit one sideways all at once like some mack the knife smack devilish thing and no bridge can stop that, not on this hot humid day, and maybe not ever but he would have to see about that, see about that it as it came along.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-"Those Old Homesick Blues"

“Good luck, and don’t forget us, Peter Paul,” yelled John “Swifty” Sweeney as the last of the Markin household goods were placed in the moving van for the trip across town to their new digs in North Adamsville. “Don’t worry Swifty I’ll be back in a couple of days. No way as I going to leave my friends here in the projects. I didn’t want to move so I’ll be back just like nothing happened,” yelled Peter Paul right back. And that simple statement, kind of, for the moment at least, put Peter Paul’s, and his best friend Swifty’s world back in order.

Peter spoke the truth when he said that he didn’t want to move, move even from the projects that he had been moaning and groaning to get out of for years, once he realized that there was no cache, no respect and no percentage in being from that far down on the totem pole once he escaped to North Adamsville. The taste, taint, touch of the projects followed like some low-tide mud flat fetid clam swamp.

His parents had, in that hard-scramble both working crumb bum jobs 1950s “golden age” gathered enough dough together to get a midget house in North Adamsville where his mother, Delores, had grown up and where his grandparents had always lived. But when push came to shove and moving day arrived he went “on strike.” Tears streaming down his face he had refused, utterly refused, to help load things up in boxes and crates and it was all that he could do to compose in his bravado “farewell” to his friend.

And so a few days later, boxes and crates settled in the house, unpacked mainly, although as always with moves it takes time to get everything new set up, Peter Paul got out his old Schwinn one-speed bicycle with the patented foot brake petal and started out across town to the projects like some stray lemming back to the sea, and back to the only life that he had known in his long twelve, almost thirteen years of life. He rode like the wind through the town hardly containing himself, his thoughts, and his energies to be back with the old tribe, the guys (mainly) who made project life at least bearable. And number one, numero uno, in that universe was Swifty (and had been for a while now that Billie Bradley, king hell king of the Adamsville projects night, junior division, had “stepped-up”to robbing gas stations with older guys and Peter Paul had backed off, backed way off from that scene) .

Sure enough as Peter Paul headed up Captain’s Walk the central hang-out place there was Swifty. He was hanging out with Bennie Bopper, a guy from school, a goof in a lot of ways but a guy to keep company with until something better turned up, AND Theresa Green, Peter Paul’s old crush flame goddess save-the-last-dance-for-me sitting very close, very, very close to Swifty. Peter Paul flushed and then yelled out, “She’s your girl now, I guess, Swifty.” And already feminine female Theresa soft-whispered back, “No sir, Peter Paul I am just keeping Swifty company, Benny’s my honey now, now that you’re gone.” Peter Paul flushed again, flushed that Theresa, who did not say word one when he told her his family was moving across town and flushed that Benny Bopper took his place. Although now that he had“new” eyes he could see where a girl like Theresa might go for Benny on the rebound. Good old Swifty, no way.

So that day, a week later, and a couple of weeks and a couple more times after that Peter Paul would show up and he and Swifty and Benny’s Theresa (with or without Benny) would cut up old torches. And on those days Peter Paul was happy, happy for the smells, sounds and sights of the old neighborhood, the old blessed projects.

Then one day a couple of months later Peter Paul mounted his trusty bike for another trip “home.” Damn that it would have to be a windy day, a windy day when he decided, not exactly knowing the best route, that if he travelled along the shoreline he would probably make good enough time and maybe cut across some of that wind. Now for those who must know the exact route this effort required going over the high-span Squaw River Bridge, the bridge that separated North Adamsville from Adamsville proper. Not a big bridge not a Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate concoction, far from it. But almost as if there was some mystery pull (or push, for that matter) to it that bridge seemed a bridge too far, an un-arched, un-steeled, un-spanned, un-nerved bridge too far.

See Peter knew that the die was cast that day, or at least he did when he had time to reflect on it later. Knew one- speed bicycle boy, dungarees rolled up against dog bites and meshed gears, 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 that the old home was past. That once twelve-years old, now thirteen, bicycle boy had hard churned miles to go before sleep, searching for the womblike 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 had to move on. End of story.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches- "For The "Projects" Boys... And Girls"

For The "Projects" Boys... And Girls

Tom Waits Jersey Girl Lyrics

Got no time for the corner boys,

Down in the street makin' all that noise,

Don't want no whores on eighth avenue,

Cause tonight i'm gonna be with you.

'cause tonight i'm gonna take that ride,

Across the river to the jersey side,

Take my baby to the carnival,

And i'll take you all on the rides.

Down the shore everything's alright,

You're with your baby on a saturday night,

Don't you know that all my dreams come true,

When i'm walkin' down the street with you,

Sing sha la la la la la sha la la la.

You know she thrills me with all her charms,

When i'm wrapped up in my baby's arms,

My little angel gives me everything,

I know someday that she'll wear my ring.

So don't bother me cause i got no time,

I'm on my way to see that girl of mine,

Nothin' else matters in this whole wide world,

When you're in love with a jersey girl,

Sing sha la la la la la la.

And i call your name, i can't sleep at night,

Sha la la la la la la.

*************

Peter Paul Markin comment:

Funny how some stories get their start. A few years back one of my old Adamsville South Elementary corner boys, Denny Romano, he of the squeaky burgeoning tenor in our impromptu 1950s back end of the school-yard summer nights doo wop group (and I of the squeaky bass, low, very low bass) “connected” with me again. He did so through one of those looking for old high school graduates-based Internet sites that relentlessly track you down just as, in your dotage; you think you have finally gotten out from under that last remnant speck of fighting off the last forty years of your teen alienation and teen angst.

Denny asked me to speak of the old “corner boy” days down at “the projects,” the Adamsville Housing Authority low-rent housing where the desperately poor, temporarily so or not, were warehoused in our town in the post-World War II good night when some returning veteran fathers needed a helping hand to get them going back into civilian life. Corner boys, in case you were clueless (or too young to know of anything but mall rat-dom), were guys, mainly, who “hung out” together. Poor boys getting a long way from home, or trying to, no money, no other place to go, or with no transportation to get some place, hung out in front of a million mom and pop variety corner variety stores, corner pizza parlors, corner bowling alleys, corner fast food joints, hell, even corner gas stations in some real small towns from what some guys have told me when I asked them.

Here is the odd part though. Yah, we were corner boys even that young, although we had no corner, no official corner like a corner mom and pop variety store, or a pizza parlor like I did later at Doc’s Drugstore in middle school and then later as the king hell king’s scribe to Frankie Riley in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor but just the back end of the elementary school, as long as we were quiet and nobody cried murder and mayhem to the cops. The following, in any case, a little revised, represents my“homage” to Denny and the gang from those by-gone days and even the girls that ninety-three point four percent of the time I was scared to death of/ fascinated by. Well, some things haven’t changed anyway.
*******
Taffrail Road, Yardarm Lane, Captain's Walk, Quarterdeck Road, Sextant Circle, the Old Sailor’s Home, the Shipyard (abandoned now) and Sea Street. Yes, those streets and places from the old public housing project down in the Irishtown section of Adamsville surely evoke imagines of the near-by sea that touched its edges, of long ago sailing ships, and of battles fought off some mist-driven coast by those hearty enough to seek fame and fortune. And with the wherewithal to hold on to their booty (no, not that booty, dough, prizes, stuff like that) But, of course, we know that anyone with even a passing attachment to Adamsville had to have an instinctual love of the sea, and fear of its furies when old Mother Nature turned her back on us. Yes, the endless sea, our homeland the sea, the mother we never knew, the sea... But, enough of those imaginings.

Today I look to the landward side of that troubled housing project peninsula, that isolated expanse of land jutting out of the water and filled with wreckage of another kind, the human kind . No, this will not be a sociological survey of working class pathologies made inevitable by the relentless struggle to scramble for life's necessities, the culture of poverty, or the like. Nor will it be a political screed about rising against the monsters that held us down, or the need for such a rising. Nor even about the poetic license necessary to cobble pretty words together to speak of the death of dreams, dreamless dreams or, maybe, just accepting small dreams to fit a small life. Rather, I am driven by the jumble of images that passed through the thoughts of a ragamuffin of a project boy as he tried to make sense out of a world that he did not create, and that he had no say in.

Ah, the scenes. Warm, sticky, humid summer nights, the air filled with the pungent, overpowering soapy fragrance from the Proctor & Gamble factory across the channel that never quite left one's nostrils. Waking up each morning to face the now vanished Fore River Shipyard superstructure; hearing the distant clang of metals being worked to shape; and, the sight of flickering welding torches binding metals together. The endless rust-encrusted, low-riding oil tankers coming through the channel guided to port by high whistle-blowing tugs.

The interminable wait for the lifeline, seemingly never on time, Eastern Mass bus that took one and all in and out through that single Palmer Street escape route to greater Adamsville. Or that then imposing central housing authority building where I was sent by my mother, too proud to go herself, with the monthly rent, usually short. Oh, did I mention Carter's Variety Store, the sole store for us all the way to Sea Street but police take notice off limits to corners boys young or old, another lifeline. Many a time I reached into Ma's pocketbook to steal money, or committed other small hoodlum wanna-be larcenies, in order to hike down that long road and get my sugar-drenched stash (candy bars, soda, a.k.a. tonic but that word is long gone, Twinkles, Moon Pies, and so on, sugar-drenched all)

And the kids. Well, the idea in those “golden” post-war days was that the projects were a way-station to better things, or at least that was the hope. So there was plenty of turn-over of friends but there was a core of kids, kids like me and my brothers, who stayed long enough to learn the ropes. Or get beaten down by guys just a little hungrier, a little stronger, or with just a little bigger chip on their shoulder. Every guy had to prove himself, tough or not, by hanging with guys that were "really" tough. That was the ethos, and "thems were the rules." Rules that seemed to come out of eternity’s time, and like eternity never challenged.

I took my fair share of nicks but also, for a moment, well for more than a moment as it turned out, I was swayed by the gangster lifestyle. Hell, it looked easy. With old elementary school classmate Rickie B., Denny knows who I am talking about, who, later, served twenty years, maybe more for all I know, for a series of armed robberies, I worked my first ‘clip’ in some downtown Adamsville Square jewelry store, Sid’s I think, the one with all the onyx rings on display in the front and the twelve signs about how you could have anything in the place on very easy terms, only a million installments (with interest piling up, of course). No, thanks.

The clip, again for the clueless, is nothing but kids’ stuff, strictly for amateurs because no professional thief would risk his or her good name for such a low-rent payoff. The deal was one guy went in and got the salesperson’s attention while the other guy ripped off whatever was “hanging low on the tree.” In that arrangement I was usually the “tree” guy not because I had quick hands, although come to think of it I did (and big eyes, big greedy eyes for all the booty, and you know what booty means here now since I told you before, dough), but because I didn’t have the knack of talking gibberish to adults. Hell, you probably did the clip yourself, maybe for kicks. And then forgot about it for some other less screwy kick. Not me.

Okay, so at that point maybe every kid, every curious kid ready in whatever manner to challenge authority and I (and most of my then corner boys, although not Denny if I recall correctly) are even. Here is the tie-breaker though. Moving on, I was the "holder" for more expansive enterprises with George H. (who, later, got killed when a drug deal he was promoting, a lonely gringo deal down in Mexico, went south on him). See George was a true artist, a true sneak thief who was able to get into any house by stealth and sheer determination. Mainly houses up in Adams Shore where people actually had stuff worth stealing unlike in the projects where the stuff was so much Bargain Center specials (the local Wal-Mart-like operation of its day).

George needed me for two, no three, things. First, I was the “look-out” and even the clueless know what that means. Secondly, I actually held and carried some of the loot that he passed to me out of the window or door, and one time out a backyard bulkhead (the good stuff, televisions, silverware, a stamp collection, a coin collection, and some other stuff that I have forgotten about, was in the basement family room). Lastly, as George started to draw school and police attention I actually “held”the stuff in a safe location (which I will not disclose here just in case the various statutes of limitations have not run out). That went on for a while but George got busted for something else, some unruly child baloney rap thing, and that was that.

That was just a kid’s gangster moment, right? It was not all larcenies and kid dreams of some “big score” to get himself, and his family, out from under though. It couldn’t be for a kid, or the whole world, poor as it was, would have just collapsed over my head, and I would not be here to honor Denny’s request.

Oh, the different things that came up. Oddball things like Christmas tree bonfires on New Year’s Eve where we scurried like rats just as soon as neighbors put their trees out to be taken away in order to assemble them on the beach ready to be fired up and welcome in the new year. Or annual Halloween hooliganism where we, in a sugar frenzy, worked the neighborhood trick or treat racket hitting every house like the 82nd Airborne Division, or some such elite unit running amok in Baghdad or some Iraqi town ...

Hey, wait a minute, all this is so much eyewash because what, at least in my memory's eye, is the driving "projects" image is the "great awakening." Girls. Girls turning from sticks to shapes just around the time that I started to notice the difference, and being interested in that different if not always sure about what it meant. You don’t need a book to figure that out, although maybe it would have helped. And being fascinated and ill at ease at the same time around them, and being a moonstruck kid on every girl that gave me a passing glance, or what I thought was a passing glance, and the shoe leather-wearing out marathon walking, thinking about what to do about them, especially when the intelligence-gatherers told you about a girl who liked you.

And the innocent, mostly dreaded, little petting parties, in dank little basements that served as 'family rooms' for each apartment, trying to be picked by the one you want to pick you and, well, you get the drift. Remind me to tell you some time, and here is where Denny comes in, how we put together, a bunch of corner-less corner boys, a ragtag doo wop group one summer for the express, the sole, the only purpose of, well, luring girls to the back of the school where we hung out. And it worked.

Now a lot of this is stuff any kid goes through, except just not in "the projects." And some of it is truly "projects" stuff - which way will he go, good or bad? But this next thing kind of ties it together. Just about the time when I was seriously committed to a petty criminal lifestyle, that “holding” stuff with my corner boy comrade George, I found the Thomas Crane Library branch that was then in the Adamsville South Elementary School (now located further up the street toward Adamsville Square). And one summer I just started to read every biography or other interesting book they had in the Children's Section. While looking, longingly, over at the forbidden Adult Section on the other side of the room for the good stuff. And I dreamed. Yes, I am a "projects" boy, and I survived to tell the tale. Is that good enough for you, Denny?

Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Night- You've Got To Be A Football Hero....

Click on the headline to link to the "Boston.com" high school sports section. Hey, it's the only link that I could think to give some flavor to this post.

Markin comment:

Well, I guess I can trust Frankie after all. Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, my old middle school and high school pal who I have been telling one and all about in a few stories, stories that prove, prove beyond a doubt, that teen angst, teen alienation, teen love, teen whatever is not some recent invention. Hell, even we now celebrated (maybe) baby-boomers had those maladies. I would further argue that we developed them into rarefied art forms, but that is for another time.

What I have on my mind at this time is based on Frankie’s creditable story about his pre- friendship with me (with me, Peter Paul Markin) adventures in the great carnival skees night. I got kind of nervous at first when he started right off the bat about my take on his attempt to be king of the teen dance club night scene but by the end of his tale I kind of automatically dismissed his early remark as just sour grapes and a rather unreasonable bitterness about a mere passing fancy. The carnival skees story, well, it was good. Frankie good.

Like I said in the introduction to Frankie’s guest skees story I have plenty of my own carnival and amusement park stories to tell, with and without Frankie, and will, but today I am, once again, giving my space over to Frankie, Frankie straight up, Frankie in his own voice, and his story about how he fared as a budding young football star. The time of this story is, as least the heart of it, also once again just before I linked up with him in middle school (I didn’t arrive at the school until about mid-school year of seventh grade). As I also mentioned in introducing the skees story the other stories I have told you about were from later, later, when I was there as an eye witness so I can trust them a little. This one though also seems kind of, well, Frankie-like so let him take responsibility for telling it.

Note: I do not have, other than as sporting propositions (bets, okay), as a fervent youthful follower of the hometown North Adamsville High School football team, and a rooting interest in the results of the “mythical” college football national championships, have much insider information about the nature of the game on the field and so do not really know much about the inside stuff that Frankie will tell you, if he does so. You know things like how to crack block a guy across from you and not get caught by the refs, or what kind of jaw-breaking stuff to have in your hands for the close in-fighting, or talking trash about the mother of the guy across from you to throw him off his game. Kid’s stuff really. If it sounds kind of fishy to you don’t blame me, or if you, can let me know where something is off and set me straight so I can tell Frankie off.

Francis Xavier Riley comment:


Football is serious business, American-style football that is, manly football, not that namby-pamby old sod knee pants and polo shirt soccer stuff everybody else in the world calls football. At least it was serious, American serious, business in my 1950s growing-up cold-water flat in a North Adamsville tenement, Sagamore Street tenement, presided over by one Patrick James Riley, my father, but known far and wide (neighborhood, far and wide, especially Shamrock Grille far and wide) as “Boyo” Riley.

Who knows, I certainly don’t in any case, when I got my first inkling that football was indeed the serious business of the Riley quarters. Maybe a Cold War night pick-up sandlot grade school game where blessed, or half-blessed, maybe, Patrick “Boyo” Riley, cheered bloody murder from the sidelines when my oldest brother, four years older brother, Tommy (known as “Tommy Thunder” in his high school playing days for those who remember that legendary North Adamsville High name) pushed one over the goal-line.

Or, maybe, even back before memory, before football name memory, sitting in the old (now old), wind-swept, uncomfortable-seat Veterans Stadium watching, totally confused and only marginally interested, as North Adamsville duked it out with cross-town arch-rival Adamsville for bragging rights for the year on hallowed Thanksgiving Days. Or, maybe, and more probable than not, hearing the lord Boyo making another of those ill-timed, ill-advised “sneak” (sneak from my mother, blessed mother, not half-blessed, no way, Maude) bets over the hushed telephone on “Fighting Irish” Notre Dame in their ignoble 1950s black night period.

Although I cannot name that first time, for sure, I can name the time of the time of Francis Xavier Riley’s understanding of when he knew he had better make football serious business, or else. Yes, indeed it was that sandlot grade school game, that now inevitable Riley baptism game where that self-same blessed, or half-blessed, maybe, Patrick “Boyo” Riley, cheered bloody murder from the sidelines when my next older brother, two years older brother, Timmy (known as “Timmy the Tiger” in his high school playing days for those who remember that also legendary North Adamsville High name) pushed one over the goal-line. That’s where Boyo laid down the law that come next fall, that 1956 next fall, I would be getting my Riley turn to tear up that sandlot over the younger brothers of those on the field that day.

And I bought into it, bought into it heart and soul, then anyway. So, naturally, dutifully the next fall I was in passed down uniform as one Patrick “Boyo” Riley screamed bloody murder from the sidelines as I performed my Riley baptism in that sandlot grade school game, and pushed my own football over the goal-line. Pushed that football for all it was worth, moaning and groaning, twisting and turning, all one and ten pounds of me, maybe, over some guys like Fallon, McNally, and Hennigan, who would take their own places alongside Tommy Thunder and Timmy the Tiger come their Class of 1964 North Adamsville time.

But I have to tell you about the why, seriously. The why of why I bought into the Riley curse. Sure I was just a grade school kid of ten and didn’t know what the hell I wanted, or didn’t want. And, yes, before you all go off and try to psycho-analyze my behavior to kingdom come, I wanted to please Boyo. Or else. That "or else" being a boxing, or six, behind the ears, if you didn’t know. And actually football was fun, for the minute it took anyway, to find “daylight” and run like crazy, unimpeded, on that field toward that goal-line. With Boyo, and his cronies screaming that bloody murder like crazy. (I didn’t know until later, about twenty years later, that the damned fool bet, “sneaky” bet, from my mother, as usual, heavily on these games with said cronies. Jesus.)

But that’s just the obvious stuff. Here’s the boy’s-eye stuff that kept me going for more than a while. Tommy (I won’t use the Thunder part, although Markin would probably beat that nickname to death if he told the story) was beginning to make a name for himself up at the high school, even if it was only the junior varsity at first, when I started to notice how I fit into the Riley scheme of things. See, because Tommy, tough, hard, chip off the old block (of Boyo, naturally), corner boy, hell, king corner boy who else would it be, bulging tee-shirt, swivel-hipped Tommy was getting attention for his football exploits. People, old people, and others would give me the “nod.” You know the nod, right. Nothing said, just a little tip of the neck to signify that you were somebody, or related to somebody that mattered in the North Adamsville universe. And, of course, I gave that same nod back to signify that I knew that they were paying proper respect to the brother of their knight-errant. Ask Markin about it, about the nod. I think, now that I have had a good amount of time to think on it, that half the reason that he hung around me was to bask in that nod glow. Yah, ask him, although on this so-called "pre-markinian” stuff he may be agnostic. The bastard. Whatever else I swear just the nod, and the expectation of the nod, kept me on track for a year, maybe more.

There’s more though, and maybe in today’s hyped-up and pampered football world when serious prospects start getting the royal treatment at about age six this is no big deal. Tommy started to get some serious attention from my father’s cronies (there is no other way to describe this Irish mafia lot, who inhabited that Shamrock Grille like it was a holy sanctuary, and, although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was) and “cadging” an occasion drink, a liquor drink, a fellowship liquor drink from them. Yah, everybody wanted to be around Tommy, just for the rub off. And you know, I still don’t know whether all that crazy attention was good or bad. See, the idea was that they thought that he was going to be picked up by some college team after high school (he really was that good) and they would have inside information on some real bets. Of course, they all secretly or openly, were praying, if they knew how to pray, or remembered, wanted that college to be black night 1950s Notre Dame but I don’t know for a fact that they were all that choosy about what school took him.

Okay enough with the early reasons. They were all right, and sufficient, but as Tommy’s fame grew a little wider (and Timmy started making moves in that same football star direction) all of a sudden (all of a sudden for then girl-shy, but girl-interested, girl mystery charms interested anyway, me) girls, good-looking girls, some from the high school, some from I don’t know where, started showing up at the Sagamore Street cold-water flat. With cars. And with letting Tommy drive those cars. And not some dumpy your father’s car either (if your father had a car, which Boyo, like Markin’s father, usually didn’t which is probably why we both friendship connected on the car issue).

Sure the cars were a draw early, sweet Chevvies, some convertibles, a little of this and that but as I got older just having those girls around when I started to know the what’s up about girls, although there still was plenty of mystery about them, was enough. See, the girls were practically camped out in front of the house. They obviously didn’t notice or care about the crooked, jammed front door that you had to lift just right to get in the front door of the tenement downstairs. Or that paint, that paint that was desperately needed about six years before as the shingles had that weather-beaten look, that weather-beaten look that spoke of careless renters and not owner-occupiers. All I know was that there were horns at all times of the day and night, especially in summer, pushed down by nervous girls of all sizes and shapes, all foxy sizes and shapes that is.

This you will not believe but one time three girls showed up together. I asked them where they were going to meet the other two guys on the date at just to pass the time of day (and, as Tommy’s brother, to see whether they met my secret worthiness test). And one, one honey blond, slender with black Capris on, and, and , well, let’s leave it at that, plus about a hundred pounds of purring sexuality (and who caused me more than one restless night, and a few hundred Hail Marys) said, “Oh no, we’re all going together with just Tommy.” What? And Tommy, Tommy said, well, you know what he said- “What can a man do?” Yes, indeed, what can a man do. So I will give you three guesses about what kept me motivated, football motivated, when the nod thing got old.

And so, as 1958 arrives and “serious” seventh grade organized middle school football was all the talk, you expect me to now go into my own Riley legendary status. Right? And I would, except there isn’t one. See, old rugged, chip off the old block, corner boy tough (and that was tough in those days if you wanted to keep your place in front of some mom and pa variety store) Tommy and old muscle-chiseled Timmy got whatever one Patrick “Boyo” Riley (and sainted Maude) had to give in the way of football genes to his progeny. Tommy weighed in at about 210, a mean football field 210 (heck, that was a corner store hangout, beach shoreline drinking bout complete with hanging girls, off-hand barroom brawl 210 as well) and chiseled Timmy (no drink) at 195. I never weighed more than 120 (or more than 140, wet or dry it seemed, all through high school) once I made my big move at that sandlot debut I told you about before. More than that though, I had the "slows" that need no further description, and was un-coordinated to boot. Finished. So in seventh grade, the autumn “pre-markinian” (watch Peter Paul go crazy over that one like he did when he read my skeets story) seventh grade part, I tried out for the team but didn’t make it. And, funny, the old man, the old man for once did not box ears, or moan and groan about some mystical Fighting Irish lost and continued black night because I was not going to, single-handedly, save their “bloody arses” (a Boyo quote on that last part).

But still, and blame this strictly on Tommy and Timmy not the old man, the half-blessed old man, maybe, and certainly not sainted Ma, Maude, I developed a very, a very healthy, interest in girls, and kept looking for one like that honey blond that I interviewed and told you about before. (Ya, the one that gave me the restless nights, that one.) But, see, that kind of thing takes a whole different skill set. You bet it does. So when I didn’t make the team I started going book nutty. Oh sure I liked books before, and liked to read, especially detective stories (that’s where I got half the names I made up to call twists, oops, girls), but now I started to read everything and anything.

Why? Well, maybe you don’t remember, or maybe you’re just too young to know, but when we were growing up and Markin will back me up on this, christ we talked about it enough, the “beat” thing, or as Markin put it in one of his foolish stories about me the “faux” beat thing, was in high gear. What I noticed, or two things I noticed, was that the “beat” girls I saw in Boston and Cambridge looked kind of foxy (and kind of easy to get to know) and that some of the nubiles (ya, girls, I learned that one from going to the Museum of Fine Arts over there on Huntington Avenue in Boston. They had some neat Egypt stuff there too.) at old North Adamsville Junior High (ya, ya, I know just like Markin that it’s now middle school) were dressing kind of “beat.” So I started dressing (much to Maude’s and Boyo’s displeasure, especially Maude’s) beat-flannel shirt, work boots (couldn’t afford engineer boots that I would have died for), black chino pants (no cuffs, Markin, get it) and my own personal touch, what I was known for from middle school to the end of high school- my midnight sunglasses.

So with my dressing the part and my new found wisdom I started to make my moves, my “faux” beat moves, quietly at first just a little off-hand remark here or there to some girl. Most moved off, offended by something, probably the midnight sunglasses in school. But here is where psychology comes in. If I started saying stuff in a sing-song way, a really be-bop way like you’d see or hear the beat poets do, and I kept at it rather than give up after a few words some of the girls, and here is the beautiful part, some of the best looking, cutest, and brightest girls, the girls that counted started to stay around me. That’s where Markin came in, came to our school, and cashed in on my psychological insights.

And guess who one of the girls was who liked my pitter-patter, although not the first, definitely not the first with her little Catholic rectitude thing (a serious copy of Ma Maude’s little Catholic rectitude thing), my everlovin’ sweetie, my main squeeze (although I wouldn’t dream of calling her that to her face, even in private), my middle school and high one and only, Joanne. Now Markin said this thing was about football so I will see if I can talk him into letting me tell you about the ins and outs of my “courtship” of Joanne another time. Probably not, see, they, Markin and Joanne, didn’t get along, although they were always civil to each other, at least that’s how I remember it. But, maybe, I can tell you something here that will cause him to relent. Markin was sweet, sweet as a girl-shy, off-beat, hell, timid, boy could be, in middle school, on Joanne. And she was sweet on him, at least that’s what I heard. Sweet on him before I worked my be-bop in the 1950s schoolboy beat night on her. After that, strictly no contest.

As for the football. Did I regret not growing big enough to eat a house for lunch and have room to spare and also not having to work overtime to have the girls come ‘round the house like they did with Tommy and Timmy. Well, yes I did, but like Tommy always used to say- “What’s a man to do?’’ Do not get me wrong, I spend many an enjoyable granite-grey autumn Saturday afternoon watching and screaming my head off as the lads, some of those same lads that I ran roughshod over in sandlot grade school, did their business, especially that final victory over arch-rival Adamsville High in November, 1963. The thing is what they did the rest of the week? Those six periods of gym per day must have been exhausting. Those 'study' halls must have really taxed their abilities to the limit. Moreover, being fed the victor's grapes by nubile young women must have atrophied their mental capacities. Meanwhile this long gone daddy, this arcane knowledge-ladened long gone daddy, with Markin in tow, always in tow, be-bopped his way into the 1960s night.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The " Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-"When Billie Sought To Be Church Hall Dance Champ"

Click on the headline to link to a <i>YouTube</i> film clip of the Teen Angels performing <i>Eddie, My Love</i> to add some flavor to this sketch.

I, Peter Paul Markin, seemingly, had endlessly gone back to my early musical roots in reviewing various compilations of a classic rock series that went  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, we small-time punk (in the old-fashioned sense of that word), we hardly wet behind the ears elementary school kids, and that is all we were for those of us who are now claiming otherwise, listened our ears off. Those were strange times indeed in that be-bop 1950s night when stuff happened, kid’s stuff, but still stuff like a friend of mine, not Billie whom I will talk about later, who claimed, with a straight face to the girls, that he was Elvis’ long lost son. Did the girls do the math on that one? Or, maybe, they like us more brazen boys were hoping, hoping and praying, that it was true despite the numbers, so they too could be washed by that flamed-out night.

Well, this I know, boy and girl alike tuned in on our transistor radios (small battery-operated radios that we could put in our pockets, and hide from snooping parental ears, at will) to listen to music that from about day one, at least in my household was not considered “refined” enough for young, young pious you’ll never get to heaven listening to that devil music and you had better say about eight zillion <i>Hail Marys</i> to get right Catholic, ears. Yah right, Ma, like Patti Page or Bob (not Bing, not the Bing of <i>Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?</i> anyway) Crosby and The Bobcats were supposed to satisfy our jail break cravings.

And that pious, quietist, chase the devil and his (or her) devil’s music away, say a million Acts of Contrition, church-bent, Roman Catholic church-bent, part formed a great deal of the backdrop for how we related to that break-out rock music. And why we had to practically form a secret cult to enjoy it. Now you all know, since you all went to elementary school just like I did, although maybe you didn’t attend in the Cold War, red scare, we could-all-be-bombed-dead tomorrow 1950s like I did, that those mandatory elementary school dances where we rough-hewn boys learned, maybe we learned, our first social graces were nothing but cream puff affairs. Lots of red-faced guys and giggling girls. Big deal, right?

What you maybe don’t know, especially if you were not from a working class neighborhood (or a public housing project) made up of mainly Irish and Italian Roman Catholic families like I was is that “cream puff” school stuff was seen by the Church (need I add any more identifying words?) as the “devil’s playground.” Later, I found out from some Protestant friends that their church leaders felt the same way. No, not those Universalist-Unitarian types who think everything humankind does that is not hurtful is okay but real hard-nosed Protestants, like Episcopalians, Baptists, and Presbyterians. So to counter that secular godlessness, at least in our area, the Church sponsored Friday night dances. Chaste, very chaste, or that was the intention, Friday night dances.

Now these dances from an outside look would look just like those devil-sponsored secular school dances. They were, for example, held in the basement of the church (St. whoever, Our Lady of the wherever, The Sacred whatever, or fill in the blank), a basement, given the norms of public architecture, was an almost exact rectangular, windowless, linoleum-floored, folding chairs and tables, raised stage replica of the elementary school auditorium. That church locale, moreover, when dressed up like on those Friday nights with the usual crepe, handmade signs of welcome, and refreshment offerings also looked the same.

And just so that you don’t think I am going overboard they played the same damn (oops) music as at school, except the sound system (donated, naturally, by some pious parishioner, looking for good conduct points from the fiery-eyed "fire and brimstone" pastor) was usually barely audible. The real difference then, and maybe now, for all I know, was that rather than a few embarrassed public school teacher-chaperones drafted against their wills, I hope, or like to hope, every stick-in-the-mud person (or so it seemed) over the age of eighteen was drafted into the lord’s army for the evening. Purpose: to make sure there was no untoward, unnatural, unexpected, or unwanted touching of anything, by anyone, for any reason. So, now that I think about it, this was really the Friday night prison dance. But not always.

Of course all of this remembrance is just so much lead up to a Billie story. You know Billie, Billie from “the projects” hills. William James Bradley to be exact. The Billie who wanted fame and fortune (or at least girls) so bad that he could almost taste it. The Billie who, as I related before, entered a teenage talent show dressed up like Bill Haley and whose mother-made suit jacket arms fell off during the performance and he wound up with all the girls in schools as a consolation prize. Yes, that Billie, who also happened to be my best friend, or, maybe, almost best friend as we never did get it straight, in elementary school. Billie was crazy for the music, crazy to impress the tender young girls that he was very aware of, much more aware of than I was and earlier, with his knowledge, his love, and his respect for the music, rock music that is.

During the summer, and here I am speaking of the summer of 1958, these church-held dances started a little earlier and finished a little later. That was fine by us. But part of the reason was that during July (starting after the Fourth of July, if I recall) and August there was a weekly dance-off elimination contest. Now these things were meant to be to show off partner-type dancing skills so I never even dreamed of participating, although I was now hip to the girl thing (or at least twelve year old hip to it), and gladly. Not so Billie. You know, or if you don’t then I will tell you so you know now, that Billie was a pretty good singer, and a pretty good shaker as a dancer. Needless to say these skills were not on the official papal list of ways to prove you had some Fred Astaire-like talent. What you needed to demonstrate, with a partner, a girl partner, was waltz-like, fox-trot stuff. Stuff you were glad to know when last, slow dance time came around but not before, please, not before.

But see, if you didn’t know before, I will remind you, Billie was a fiend to win a talent contest, a contest that, the way he figured it, was his ticket out of "the projects" and into all the cars he wanted, all the girls, and half of everything else in the world. Yah, I know, but poor boys have dreams too. And I don’t suppose it is too early to remind you, like I did with the lost sleeve teenage talent show, that Billie later spent those pent-up energies less productively, much less productively once he knew the score, his score about life. This night, this Friday night, at the start of the contest Billie was going for the brass ring though. See, Billie, secretly, at least secretly from me, was taking dance lessons, slow dance lessons with Rosalie, Christ Rosalie, the prettiest girl in our class, the girl that if I had known the word then I would have called fetching, very fetching. That was, and is, high praise from me. And, see also, teaching the pair the ropes is none other than Rosalie’s mother who before she became a mother was some kind of dance queen (I don’t know, or don’t remember, if I knew the details of that woman’s prior life before then). It was almost like the “fix was in.”

Now you know just as well as I do that I have no story to tell, or at least no story worth telling, if Billie and Rosalie don’t make it out of the box, if they just get eliminated quickly. Sure they made it, and now they were standing there getting ready to do battle against the final pair for the sainted dance championship of the christian world, projects branch. Now my take on the dancing all summer was there wasn’t much difference, at least noticeable difference, between the pairs.

I think the judges thought so too, the junior priest, a priest that the pastor threw into this dance thing because he was closer to our ages than the old-timer "fire and brimstone" pastor was, and four ladies from the Ladies' Sodality usually took quite a bit of time before deciding who was eliminated. Rosalie’s mother (and my mother, as well) thought the same thing when we compared notes. See, now with Billie under contract (oh, yah, naturally I was his manager, or something like that) I had developed into an ace dance critic. Mainly though, I was downplaying the opposition to boost my pair's chances, and, incidentally, falling, falling big, for Rosalie. And not just for her dancing.

So here we were at the finals. It was a wickedly hot night in that dungeon basement so the jackets and ties, if wore (and that needed to be worn by the contestant males), were off. Also, by the rules, each finalist couple got to choose their own music and form of dancing. The first couple did this dreamy Fred Astaire-Ginger Rodgers all hands flailing and quick-movement thing that even impressed me. After than performance, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billie talking to Rosalie, talking fast and talking furiously. Something was up, definitely, something was up.

Well, something was up. Billie, old sweet boy Billie, old get out of the projects at any cost Billie, old “take no prisoners” Billie decided that he was going to stretch the rules and play to his strength by doing a Bill Haley’s <i>Rock Around The Clock</i> jitterbug thing to show the judges his “moves” and what we would now call going "outside the box." And he had gotten Rosalie, sweet, fetching, deserves better Rosalie, to go along with him on it. See, Rosalie, during all those dance lesson things had fallen for old Billie and his words were like gold. Damn.

I will say that Billie and Rosalie tore the place up; at least I guess Billie did because I was, exclusively, looking at Rosalie who really danced her head off. Who won? Let me put it this way, this time the judges, that priest and his coterie of do-gooders didn’t take much time deciding that the other couple won. Rosalie was crushed. Billie, like always Billie, chalked it up to the "fix" being in for the other couple. Life was against the free spirits, he said, something it took me a lot longer to figure out. Rosalie's family moved away not long after that contest, like a lot of people just keeping time at the projects until their ships to better days came in, and I heard later that she was still furious at Billie for crossing up her chances of winning like that. Yah, but, boy, she could twirl that thing.

 

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-"Save The Last Dance For Me"

Save The Last Dance For Me

A tow-headed boy walks, endless forget waiting for erratic Eastern Massachusetts bus-stop non-stop walks, up named streets, Captain’s Walk (evoking New England Captain Ahab great white madnesses and avenging angel purities, a kindred spirit, and land-bound searches for the great blue-pink American west night drive the frenzy instead of holy death-seeking sea drifts, although that is unnamed just now), Snug Harbor Avenue (evoking, well, just evoking home, or the theory of home, or some happy black and white television version of home), and Sextant Circle (like such a useful nautical instrument could guide some lonely, lonesome boy out of the fetid bog-fed marshes and visions of  pirates seeking booty, or death). On to Taffrail Road, ah, Taffrail Road evoking ship-wreaked damsels, young, waiting for swashbuckling sailor boys raised from local old tar graveyards to restore their honor, their freedom, or just to share their bed. That last is the rub and that is the heart of the matter along those endless non-stop streets where erratic buses serve as the only way out of those clinched-fist producing streets. That tow-headed boy is enthralled, no better, enraged and engorged with his first stirring of interest in damsel time, girls if you must know, thus the time of his time. Yes, clinch those fists very tightly brother and take the ride.  

Unnamed streets abound too, up crooked cheap, low-rent, fifty-year rutted pavement streets, deeply-gouged, one-lane snow-drift hassles streets impassable in winter hard glare and summer sweated heat. A Street cutting off the flow to that old tar cemetery seeking exotic writ names deep-etched in granite slab washed now by birdsong, and dung, rather than damsel sweet smell perfumes. B Street the same, C Street the same, same like some alphabet conspiracy against the boyhood night, against the boyhood dream night when he dreams of manhood, or better feelings of manhood but is clueless, utterly clueless, about what those feelings portent, ominously portent. But what knows he of ominous, or portents for that matter. He confesses, and no church confession either, but etched, gravestone old tar etched, no mortal, not even hangmen evil brothers or harassing cousins, boy or girl, should ever have to face the fifth-grade night rudderless, compass-less and with the mark of Cain upon his neck.

After walking, endless walking through named and unnamed streets, he heads home, not the home of home but his dream home with her, her house home. After all who in their right mind could curse and rail against the fifth grade-night, and why, if not for budding portentous romance with some green tree-coded she. He dare not speak her name for fear of jinx, or unrequited-ness.  The year before, that innocent last fourth-grade year, they, the shes of his enflamed imagination, were all just sticks, hardly distinguishable from boys except perhaps a little smaller, just sticks to be avoided, or ignored, but this year a few, and she among the few, suddenly got interesting and he was stuck, struck really, by that ironic fact, or would have been if he had known what ironic travails he would go through before the end.        

But here, watch him from afar, as he crosses for the fifth, or fifteenth time, or fifteen hundredth time past trees are green, coded, coded fifty years coded, endless trees are green secret-coded waiting, waiting against boyish infinite time, infinite first blush of innocent manhood, boyhood times, gone now, for one look, one look, that would elude him, elude him forever. Such is life in lowly spots, lowly, lowly spots. She some fair Rosamund and he a mere serf, and they knew it, or he knew it although it did not stop him from wanting, or waiting for that one glance, and that dancing blue-eyed smile.

The dance of all damn things, the upcoming one-size-fits-all school dance, parent-approved, headmaster-approved, hell, bishop-approved when you came right down to it, and, hell, blessed too from what he had heard, maybe jesus, blessed, is what has him in a mental whirl. Such tow-headed fifth-grade boy whirls made an existence, a walked streets existence, possible just as well as “reds under every bed” scare, russkie atomic-bomb-dropping, get out of the stinking projects and get a new shirt at all costs that disturbed his other nights. But, christ, a two bit dance, some later laughable Podunk gym fiesta, crepe-hanging, some surly drafted, imprisoned teacher to “spin platters” from some RCA music box, and her with the dancing blue-eyes and rounding shape. Yes, that thing drove him crazy, or the possibility of it, in the fragrant perfume-soap, some girlish bath soap for all he knew or heard about from girl cousins, american bandstand night,

And dreams of private dances in dark shadow corners while that silly hung crepe begins to droop above their “spot” and he first, and then she, laughs about how some fourth-grader must have hung it, their private laugh. And dance too, no Fred Astaire waltz old-time fox trot (except maybe that slow one at the end of the night although that was mere planned dream echo in walked streets), but full-blossomed be-bop wild hands and ass gyrating to some Elvis good night rocking or Chuck driving some car over the cliff for love, or something, something unspoken, or ask the older kids who know, know through their well-tuned grapevine, what “it” is. If they will tell you.

All a dream, a street-walked dream until, and when, really when he got up the nerve, the endless streets walking nerve, to ask her. But no dance floor numbness would slake that footsore walking thirst not then, and no high school confidential dance either (hell elementary school was tough enough, man), handy man, breathless, Jerry Lee freak-out blaring off some truck-bed bandstand too improbable for words. So Rosamund fate, young damsel sighted off the sea-side taffrail slid by, and with time the footsoreness turned into dust, or some other psychic pain whirl. But here and now when it counted, at least, know all the rage potato sack stick-turning-into-shape dance with coded name, trees are green, brunette. That will come, that will come. But when?   

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- FromThe "Ancient Dreams, Dreamed" Sketches-"Tales From The 'Hood- The Endless Road?"

Peter Paul Markin comment:

This was the fifth and final story about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series entitled “History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga” that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor gets implanted early in life. The poor really are different from you the reader. The “what to do about it” part I have discussed discuss, ad infinitum, elsewhere.

As I wrote this final piece a line from a song was going through my head, Jerry Garcia’s Ripple-“There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night” That idea of the road, as I will discuss below, very neatly sums up the situation here. Some of this tale is meant as obvious metaphor, other parts are the real deal. In any case here is the central axis of this story line. In this series of sketches I  have been talking about growing up in the 1950’s. This was quintessentially the 'golden age' of the automobile in America. You know the vast possibilities of the open highway – the road-and the promise of adventure-fast and effortless.

The hard fact for the Markin family was that through most of this period we did not have that automobile to break out with. When we did this writer remembers mainly “clunkers” with their inevitable breakdowns in odd and foreboding locations. But, mostly, we had no car. Even in a housing project there was a social dividing line between those with automobiles who could get out and those who were stuck. We were, forever it seems, dependent on the kindnesses of neighbors. Or, usually, walking, public transportation in that isolated location then, as now, being haphazard. I learned to dread the weekly walk to get groceries, etc. Ouch, I can still feel those hot summer roads baking my feet.

Okay, so you can now say that walking is good for you. Fair enough. But here is where the tale gets weird. I have mentioned on several other occasions another wealthy peninsula (detailed in the first tale – “A Story of Two Peninsulas”) that abutted the peninsula where my housing project was located. I have also mentioned that I had been stopped, young as I was, in that locale by the local constabulary who asked where I was from and what was my purpose in being there. Hell, all I wanted to do was to walk along the streets that paralleled the ocean there. The tip-off for the police, apparently, was that I had entered the area on foot (as opposed to having been driven there like ‘normal’ people, I suppose) and they took it from there. When cops start infringing on your right to walk in public space wherever and whenever you feel like then you know that you are in a very class- bound society-at least in these neighborhoods. In short, I was guilty of walking while poor. Enough said.

What have I tried to present here? Clearly, not all class struggles are limited to the visible ones of the picket line or the barricade. Certainly the working class struggles that I have noted here fall well below the radar of history but they also point some hard facts about why we have so little working class political class-consciousness. Putting up with their class hatred of us, their social humiliation of us, the mere fact of being poor, of being constantly on the edge of violence, and of facing the hazards of life in a dysfunctional family that as detailed in these stories are all impediments to political class consciousness. And that is before we even get to the streets. Remember though “there is a road, no simply highway”-the class struggle road.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- From The "Ancient Dreams, Dreams" Sketches- "Growing Up Absurd"

Peter Paul Markin comment:

This was the fourth of a short series of stories about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series entitled “History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga” that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family, the Callahans, from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor got implanted early. That the poor, the edge of society poor, the working poor mixed in with all the other flotsam and jetsam down there, really are different from you, the reader. The “what to do about it” part I have discussed, ad infinitum, elsewhere over the past forty years or so.

The previous tale in this series that you may have just read , “A Piece of Cloth,” about my less than heroic misadventures as an up and coming square dancer (apparently in preparation for an career on the Grand Ole Opry)  set the tone for this story. In that tale I was subjected to a poor working class mother’s rage for cutting up one of my precious few pairs of pants in order to impress a girl, a rich girl, well rich compared to us. I learned then, if more painfully than was necessary, the hard lesson that the Markin family was poor, dirt poor, in this wicked old world.

Those kinds of incidents involving my mother and I (and my brothers, as well), although generally more severe and less amiably subject to public treatment than that bittersweet tale of pants and love lost, were standard fare in the Markin household. Such incidents are, moreover, well documented in literature and the media and would be merely cumulative if discussed here. Only the reality is grimmer than anything portrayed in book or film. Not physically, there was thankfully little of that in our household, but the psychological warfare was almost as devastating. Let me nevertheless try to put this thing in some perspective now, although Lord knows I was incapable of that as I was going through it.

I have mentioned elsewhere some of the small details of my parent’s struggle for survival. I have also mentioned that their life profiles fit into a familiar pattern similar to others who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought or endured World War II. I still feel no need to go into great detail about that here. I however find that I need to mention that my mother married my serviceman father just out of high school and quickly became a teenage mother. Moreover, she had great difficulties with the births of my brothers and me. The three of us furthermore were only separated by a year or so each. In short, a handful.

Those facts along with my father’s continual and constant difficulties in holding onto the unskilled jobs that he was forced into meant a very, very tough existence for a woman who was something a princess (a working class one, to be sure-there is a different but a princess nevertheless) to her parents and brothers. The woman’s respond to her conditions was to be in a constant rage. It was not pleasant. We called it, among us boys, the Irish “shaming” routine. In short, what is apparent here is that the nuclear family structure was far too narrow a basis for her and us to survive under the circumstances. I survived. My brothers did not.

Sherry my invaluable ‘hood historian has related some of the same kind of stories to me about her family life except her family was larger, her mother died when she was a teenager, and she found herself as the oldest girl taking care of the household. Others survivors of ‘the projects’ have related very similar stories, almost monotonously so. We need not even speak here of such things as the effects of alcoholism, and later, drugs, and other social maladies on this fragile nuclear family structure.

To be sure, even under socialism, it will take a massive reallocation of funds to right these kinds of situations. Moreover, and here is the hard part for many to understand today, rich or poor, the nuclear family structure is just too narrow a setting to free up the potential energies of humankind. It needs be replaced.

Despite all the pains of growing up poor, despite all the dislocations of psyche that I have dealt with over lifetime to fight the good fight for socialism it has still been worthwhile if only for the promise that some future generation will not have to go through my childhood experiences. Although I will not live long enough to see the replacement of the nuclear family with something better and more attuned to human potentialities I am satisfied with that. On reviewing this piece I find that it was not really a story after all but one of my political screeds. However, remember that mother’s impotent rage against her fate. That is the story.

Peter Paul Markin comment:

This was the fourth of a short series of stories about growing up in the 1950’s, the childhood period of the generation of ’68 and of my own. This series got its start as a spin-off from a previous series entitled “History and Class Consciousness- A Working Class Saga” that came from a look back at the trials and tribulations of a family, the Callahans, from my old working class neighborhood where I came of political age. The stories here go back to an earlier time and different location to that of the housing project where my family first started out. They are motivated by a search to find out the whys and wherefores of how consciousness of being poor got implanted early. That the poor, the edge of society poor, the working poor mixed in with all the other flotsam and jetsam down there, really are different from you, the reader. The “what to do about it” part I have discussed, ad infinitum, elsewhere over the past forty years or so.

The previous tale in this series that you may have just read , “A Piece of Cloth,” about my less than heroic misadventures as an up and coming square dancer (apparently in preparation for an career on the Grand Ole Opry)  set the tone for this story. In that tale I was subjected to a poor working class mother’s rage for cutting up one of my precious few pairs of pants in order to impress a girl, a rich girl, well rich compared to us. I learned then, if more painfully than was necessary, the hard lesson that the Markin family was poor, dirt poor, in this wicked old world.

Those kinds of incidents involving my mother and I (and my brothers, as well), although generally more severe and less amiably subject to public treatment than that bittersweet tale of pants and love lost, were standard fare in the Markin household. Such incidents are, moreover, well documented in literature and the media and would be merely cumulative if discussed here. Only the reality is grimmer than anything portrayed in book or film. Not physically, there was thankfully little of that in our household, but the psychological warfare was almost as devastating. Let me nevertheless try to put this thing in some perspective now, although Lord knows I was incapable of that as I was going through it.

I have mentioned elsewhere some of the small details of my parent’s struggle for survival. I have also mentioned that their life profiles fit into a familiar pattern similar to others who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought or endured World War II. I still feel no need to go into great detail about that here. I however find that I need to mention that my mother married my serviceman father just out of high school and quickly became a teenage mother. Moreover, she had great difficulties with the births of my brothers and me. The three of us furthermore were only separated by a year or so each. In short, a handful.

Those facts along with my father’s continual and constant difficulties in holding onto the unskilled jobs that he was forced into meant a very, very tough existence for a woman who was something a princess (a working class one, to be sure-there is a different but a princess nevertheless) to her parents and brothers. The woman’s respond to her conditions was to be in a constant rage. It was not pleasant. We called it, among us boys, the Irish “shaming” routine. In short, what is apparent here is that the nuclear family structure was far too narrow a basis for her and us to survive under the circumstances. I survived. My brothers did not.

Sherry my invaluable ‘hood historian has related some of the same kind of stories to me about her family life except her family was larger, her mother died when she was a teenager, and she found herself as the oldest girl taking care of the household. Others survivors of ‘the projects’ have related very similar stories, almost monotonously so. We need not even speak here of such things as the effects of alcoholism, and later, drugs, and other social maladies on this fragile nuclear family structure.

To be sure, even under socialism, it will take a massive reallocation of funds to right these kinds of situations. Moreover, and here is the hard part for many to understand today, rich or poor, the nuclear family structure is just too narrow a setting to free up the potential energies of humankind. It needs be replaced.

Despite all the pains of growing up poor, despite all the dislocations of psyche that I have dealt with over lifetime to fight the good fight for socialism it has still been worthwhile if only for the promise that some future generation will not have to go through my childhood experiences. Although I will not live long enough to see the replacement of the nuclear family with something better and more attuned to human potentialities I am satisfied with that. On reviewing this piece I find that it was not really a story after all but one of my political screeds. However, remember that mother’s impotent rage against her fate. That is the story.