From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Down In The Hills And Hollows, Part 1

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Mississippi John Hurt performing Spike Driver’s Blues.

CD Review

Before The Blues: The Early American Black Music Scene: Volume 1, Yazoo, Records, 1996

Calvin Marcus Jackson (called Calvin Mark to distinguish him from his father, Calvin Marcus Jackson, Sr. by Mother Jackson and anyone else who was unsure of themselves when calling out for a Jackson, father or son) knew how to tell a story, knew the rhythm, knew how to keep it the right length, knew how to get emotionally involved with whatever subject he was going on about, and best of all he knew how to wrap it up with a snappy punch line or some ponderous moral. Yah, Calvin Mark, could tell a story, tell it in that southeast Kentucky drawl that was not as harsh as deep south planation two hundred years at the bourbon barrel, handkerchief in hand mopping off the midday (hell midnight too) sweat in high season summer, rousting n----rs out of their pre-dawn cabins to go to the fields and cut that damn white ball boll cotton in order to keep that bourbon barrel well-filled. Nor was that Calvin Mark drawl so pale, so say Maryland tidewaters pale that those from further south thought the speaker was trying to pass, pass for a yankee. So put the drawl, the two hundred years secluded drawl perfected by those who did not go further west than Kentuck when the soil finally ran out, or decided to come west but wound up in the hills and hollows and for lack of anything better to do settled in, poor boy settled in, put in

a thousand years of grit, put in some detail and you had a classic storyteller, a plebeian master at work. Except Calvin Mark had one problem, or maybe two problems but they kind of go together. A problem for me anyway when I decided that I would try to get some of his stuff printed. First, he couldn’t read, read so good anyway, and what he could read was done in such a painfully halting fashion that it was better not to put him, or me, in that quandary. Second, Calvin Mark could not write, write much more than his name. When I asked him why he never learned those two skills he said, “there weren’t no call for learning them,” and so he didn’t.

Me, well, I just kept up with his stories as best I could, writing down little notes, or keeping them in my head for sunnier times when they could be expanded into some bigger, but for now, a sketch will have to do-a sketch from Calvin Mark about what it was like on Saturday night, or at least one Saturday night down in the hills and hollows, down where the mountain winds blew through and create a song of their own. A night when fearing some Sunday morning preacher man retribution, but willing to risk it, the god-fearing brethren let loose, let the liquor (corn of course where would one get city Johnny Walker some color down in the rutted ravens, or have cash money for such city goods) flow, got out the fiddles, banjos, guitars, mandolins, bells, washboards and whatever else would make noise and headed for Farmer Johnson’s old unused broke down red barn (unused except for Saturday night dances and drinking bouts as long as anybody around the hollows could remember, and they are a long-memoried people). This one night, the night Calvin Mark spoke of, the Prestonsburg Sheiks (some of whom would later go on to form the sectionally-famous Kentucky Sheiks and receive a record contract from Decal Records, after they had been heard over in Hazard by one of their agents who had been sent out to scour the countryside, sour those damn hills and hollows, looking for talent for their mountain music division in the wake of the success of the Carter Family) were brought in to play since the banjo player was engaged to Miss Catherine Prescott, one of Moonshine Prescott’s daughters.

In any case bringing in this locally famous talent in the music-starved hills and hollows assured a great turn-out. And plenty of business for Moonshine Prescott (plenty of corn liquor business if you are clueless), plenty of loose talk, plenty of flirting (and more) and plenty of heaven- sent music. Listen to the details of this one, about a guy, a yankee guy, a guy named Frank, who found himself at that dance that night with a gal, a flat-lands Indiana gal named Angelica who had kin in area and who came just in time to learn about the magic of the mountains down Calvin Mark’s way. They had started out in Steubenville up the Ohio River where Angelica had been serving them off the arm at some back water truck stop diner when Frank drifted in after being let off by a truck driver who had picked him up in Boston. This was just supposed to be a way-station west for Frank who was heading west to California, in search of whatever guys were searching for in the late 1960s. They hit it off right away, and in 1960s fashion, Angelica ditched her job and joined Frank on the road west. This story is a detour as will be explained because they headed south first before moving west. Calvin Mark said some other stuff I forgot before but let’s pick it up where this yankee guy started explaining how they wound up at that red barn:

“In the few weeks that Angelica had been working long hours at the diner she served many of the truckers whose rigs were idling in the truck stop rest area we were cruising for rides. So, naturally, she tried to find out where some of those that she knew were heading. This day, they were heading mainly east, or anyway not west. Finally, she ran into one burly teamster, Eddie, who was heading down Route 7 along the Ohio River to catch Interstate 64 further down river and then across through to Lexington, Kentucky. Angelica was thrilled because, as it turned out, she had kin (her term, okay), a cousin or something, down in Prestonsburg, Kentucky whom she hadn’t seen in a while and where we could stay for a few days and take in the mountain air (her idea of rest, mine then and now, was strictly ocean breezes, thank you). I tried, tried desperately, without being obnoxious about it, to tell her that heading south was not going to get us to the west very easily. She would have none of it, and she rightly said, that we were in no rush anyway and what was wrong with a little side trip to Kentucky anyway. Well, I suppose in the college human nature course, Spat-ology 101, if there was such a course then, and they taught it, I should have had enough sense to throw in the towel. After all this was Angelica’s first, now seriously, whimsical venture out on the road. And I did, in the end, throw in the towel, except not for the reason that you think.



What Angelica didn’t know until later was that I was deathly afraid of going to Kentucky. See, I had set myself up to the world as, and was in fact in my head, a Yankee, an Oceanside Yankee, if you like. I was born in Massachusetts and have the papers to prove it, but on those papers there is an important fact included. My father’s place of birth was Hazard, Kentucky probably not more than fifty to one hundred miles away from Prestonsburg. He was born down in the hills and hollows of mining country, coal mining country, made famous in song and legend. And also made infamous (to me) by Michael Harrington’s Other America which described in detail the plight of Appalachian whites, my father’s people. And also, as a result of the publicity about the situation down there, the subject in my early 1960s high school of a clothing drive to help them out. My father left the mines when World War II started, enlisted in the Marines, saw his fair share of battles in the Pacific, got stationed before discharge at a Naval Depot in Massachusetts and never looked back. And see I never wanted him to look back. Sure, now, among other things, I can thank winsome, head-strong Angelica for making that move, but then, well, like I said I threw in the towel, but I was not happy about it. Not happy at all.



Actually the ride down Route 7 was pretty uneventful and, for somebody who did not feel comfortable looking at trees and mountains, some of the scenery was pretty breath-taking. That is until we started getting maybe twenty miles from Prestonsburg and the air changed, the scenery changed, and the feel of the social milieu changed. See we were getting in the edges of coal country, not the serious “Bloody Harlan” stuff of legend but the older, scrap heap part that had been worked over, and “worked out” long along. The coal bosses had taken the earth’s assets and left the remnants behind to foul the air and foul the place.



But, mostly, and here is where I finally understood why my father took his chances in World War II and also why he never looked back, shacks. Nothing but haphazardly placed, unpainted shacks, hard-scrabble patched roofs just barely covering them. With out-houses, out-houses can you believe that in America in the 1960s. And plenty of kids hanging out in the decidedly non-manicured front yards waiting… well, just waiting. All that I can say about my feelings at the time was that I would be more than willing to crawl on all fours to get back to my crummy old growing up homestead rather than fight the dread of this place.



Fortunately Angelica’s kin (second cousin), Annadeene, husband and two kids all at about age twenty, lived further down the road, out of town, in a trailer camp which the husband, Fred, had expanded so that it had the feel of a small country house. Most importantly it had indoor plumbing and a spare room where Angelica and I could sleep and put our stuff. Fred, as I recall, was something of a skilled mechanic (coal equipment mechanic) who worked for a firm that was indirectly connected to the Eastern Kentucky coal mines.

This Prestonsburg was nothing but one of a thousand such towns that I had passed through. A main street with a few essential stores, some boarded up retail space and then you are out of town. Moreover, Route 7 as it turned into Route 23 heading into Prestonsburg and then further down turned into nothing but an old country, pass at your own risk, country road about where Angelica’s cousin lived. What I am trying to get at though is that although these people were in the 20th century they were somewhat behind the curve. This is, as it probably was in my father’s time, patriotic country, country where you did your military service came home, worked, if you could find it, got married and raised a family. Just in tougher circumstances than elsewhere.



I understood that part. What I did not understand then, and am still somewhat confused about, is the insularity of the place. The wariness, serious wariness, of strangers even of strangers brought to the hills and hollows by kin. I was not well received at least first, and I still am not quite sure if I ever was, by Angelica’s kin and I suppose if I thought about it while they had heard of “hippies” (every male with beard, long hair, and jeans was suspected of belonging to that category) Prestonsburg was more like something from Merle Haggard’s Okie From Muskogee lyrics than Haight-Ashbury. Angelica kept saying that I would grow on them (like I did on her) but I knew, knew down deep that we had best get out of there. I kept pressing the issue but she refused to listen to any thoughts of our leaving until after Saturday night’s barn dance. After all Fred and Annadeene had ‘specially invited us to go with them. We could leave Sunday morning but not before. Christ, a hillbilly hoe-down.



I would have felt no compulsion to go into anything but superficial detail about this barn dance but something happened requiring more detail. Otherwise this scene lacks completeness. I will say that I have a very clear picture of Angelica being fetching for this dance. All her feminine wiles got a workout that night. What I can’t remember is what she wore or how she wore her hair (up, I think) but the effect on me (and the other guys) was calculated to make me glad, glad as hell, that we stayed for this thing. What I can remember vividly though is that this barn dance actually took place in a barn, just a plain old ordinary barn that had been used in this area for years (according to the oldsters since back in the 1920s) for the periodic dances that filled up the year and broke the monotony of the mountain existence. The old faded red-painted barn, sturdily build to withstand the mountain winds and containing a stage for such occasions was something out of a movie, some movie that you have seen, so you have some idea of what it was like even if you have never been within a hundred miles of a barn.

Moreover the locals had gone to some effort to decorate the place, provide plenty of refreshments and use some lighting to good effect. What was missing was any booze. This was a “dry” county then (and maybe still is) but not to worry wink, wink there was plenty of “white lightning” around out in the makeshift dirt parking lot where clusters of good old boys hovered around certain cars whose owners had all you needed (and who all worked for Moonshine Prescott. Just bring your own fixings. After we had checked out the arrangements in the barn and Annadeene had introduced us to her neighbors Fred tapped me on the shoulder and “hipped” me to the liquor scene. We went outside. Fred talked quietly to one of the busy car owners and then produced a small jar for my inspection. “Hey, wait,” he said “you have to cut that stuff a little with some water if you are not used to it.” I took my jar, added some water, and took a swig. Jesus Christ, I almost fell down the stuff was so powerful.



Look, I used to drink whiskey straight up in those days, or I thought I drank whiskey straight up but after one swig, one swig, my friends, I confess I was a mere teetotaler. Several minutes later we went back inside and I nursed, literally nursed, that jar for the rest of the night. But you know I got “high” off it and was in good spirits. So good that I started dancing with Angelica once the coterie of banjo players, fiddlers, guitarists and mandolin players got finished warming up. I am not much of a dancer under the best of circumstances but, according to her, I did okay that night.



Hey, you’d expect that the music was something out of the Grand Ole Opry, some Hee-Haw hoe-down stuff, some Arkansas Jamboree hokum, right? Forget that. See back in the mountains, at least in the 1960s mountains, they did not have access to much television or sheet music or other such refinements. What they played they learned from mama and papa, or some uncle who got it from god knows where. It’s all passed down from something like time immemorial and then traced back to the old county, the British Isles mainly. Oh sure there was a“square” hoe-down thing or two but what I heard that night was something out of the mountain night high-powered eerie winds as they rolled down the hills and hollows (hollers, if you are from there). Something that spoke of hard traveling first from the old country when luck ran out there, then from the east coast of America when that got too crowded and just sat down when it hit those grey-blue mountains, or maybe, although I never asked (and under the circumstances would not have dared to ask) formed their version of the blue-pink great American West night, and this is as far as they got, or cared to go.

Some of this music I knew from my folk experiences in Boston and Cambridge earlier in the 1960s when everybody, including me, was looking for the roots of folk music. Certainly I knew Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies when the band played it instrumentally. That was one of the first songs, done by gravelly-voiced Dave Van Ronk, I heard on the folk radio station that I listened to. But, see, back in those early days that stuff, for the most part, was too, well you know, too my father’s music for me to take seriously. Bob Dylan was easier to listen to for a message that“spoke” to me. But this night I thrilled to hear real pros going one-on-one to out-fiddle, out-banjo, out-mandolin, out, out-any instrument each other in some mad dash to appease the mountain nymphs, or whatever or whoever was being evoked to keep civilization away from the purity of the music. That night was as close as I got to my roots, and feeling good about those roots, and also as close as I got to Angelica.



About 12:30 or one o’clock the dance broke up, although as we headed down the rutted, jagged street we could still hear banjos and fiddles flailing away to see who really was “king of the hill.”Angelica said she was glad that we stayed, and I agreed. She also said that, yes, I was right; it was time to head west. She said it in such a way that I felt that she could have been some old time pioneer woman who once she recognized that the land was exhausted knew that the family had to pull up stakes and push on. It was just a matter of putting the bundles together and saying goodbye to the neighbors left behind. Needless to say old resource road companion Angelica, sweet, fetching Angelica put that fetchiness to good use and had us lined up for a ride from another Eddie truck driver who, if he was sober enough, was heading out with a load at 6:00 AM to Winchester just outside Lexington from where we could make better connections west. 6:00 AM, are you kidding? I am still wearing about eight pound of that white lightning, or whatever it was. Angelica merely pointed out in her winsome, fetching way that nobody forced me to drink that rotgut (her word) liquor when softer refreshments had been available inside. Touché, 6:00 AM it is.



Dog tired, smelling of a distillery, or some old time hardware store (where the white lightning ingredients probably came from) Angelica and I laid our heads down to get a few hours sleep. Gently she nuzzled up to my side (how she did it through the alcoholic haze I do not know) and gave every indication that she wanted to make love. Now we are right next door to the two unnamed sleeping children, sleeping the sleep of the just, and as she gets more aggressive we have to be, or we think we have to be, more quiet. No making the earth under the Steubenville truck stop motel cabin shake this night. And, as we talked about it on the road later, that was not what was in her mind. She just wanted to show, in a very simple way, that she appreciated that I had stayed, that I had been wise enough to figure out how long we should stay, and that, drunk or sober, I would take her feelings into account. Not a bad night’s work. And so amid some low giggles we did our exploration. Oh, here is the part that will tell you more than a little about Angelica. She also wanted to please me this night because she did not know, given the vagaries of the road, when we would be able to do it again. Practical girl.



In the groggy, misty, dark before dawn, half awake, no quarter awake night Angelica tapped me to get up. We quickly packed, she ate a little food (I could barely stand never mind do something as complicated as eat food), and we made our goodbyes, genuine this morning by all parties. As we went out the front trailer door and headed up the road to the place where Eddie had said to meet him I swear, I swear on all the dreams of whatever color that I have ever had, that the background mountains that were starting to take form out of the dark started to play, and to play like that music I heard last night from those demon fiddlers and banjo players. I asked, when we met Eddie, who was only a few minutes late, and who looked and felt (as he told me) worst that I did (except that he proudly stated that he was used to it, okay Eddie) if those musicians were still at it over at that old devil of a red barn. “No,” he said. “Where is that music coming from then?” I said. Old Eddie (backed by Angelica) said “What music?” That angel music I said. Eddie just looked bemused as he revved that old truck engine up and we hit the road west.



Several years ago I was half-listening to some music, some background eerily haunting mountain music coming from a folk radio station when I had the strangest feeling that I had heard the tune before. I puzzled over it sporadically for a few days and then went to the local library to see if they had some mountain music CDs. They did and I began on that date a feverish re-acquaintance with this form of music that I have occasionally reviewed here, especially the various Carter Family combinations. I, however, never did find out the name of that song.



And in a sense it has not name. It was the music from that old mountain wind as it trailed down the hills and hollows that I heard that last night in Prestonsburg. See here is what you didn’t know as you read all this stuff, and I only half knew it back then. I had been in Kentucky before that trip down from Steubenville, Ohio with sweet Angelica. No, not the way you think. My parents, shortly after they were married and after my father got out of the service, took a trip back to his home in Hazard so his family could meet his bride, or maybe just so he could show her off. They stayed for some period of time, I am not sure exactly how long, but the long and short of it is, that I was conceived and was fussing around in my mother’s womb while they were there. So see, it was that old mountain wind calling me home, calling me to my father’s roots, calling me to my roots as I was aimlessly searching for that blue-pink great American West night. Double thanks, Angelica.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Blues Is…, Take One

 

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Howlin’Wolf performing Killing Floor.

The blues is, praise be… He had just barely gotten done with his work for the day, his sun up to sun down work helping Brother Barnes shoe the horses on Mister’s cotton boll massive ten thousand acre delta plantation, than his father took him aside and asked, really ordered, him to wash up and get ready to go over to Lancer Lane. The words Lancer Lane made him jump for joy inside, for this Saturday night he would finally, finally, get to play his new guitar, well no really new for that instrument had been passed down to his father from who knows when, maybe back to pharaoh times when those old pyramid slaves needed something to take their minds off their back-breaking work on their relax minute, in front of a real crowd at the Lancer Lane juke joint and not just before his father, his siblings, and a few stray cats at Mister’s company store.

No, he was stepping up in the world, the world that mattered, the world of those rough-hewed, hard drinking daddies (and their clinking women, praise be) that populated the juke house on Saturday night (and paid penance, serious penance at nearby Lancer Lane Lord’s Work Baptist on Sunday morning, many times sliding directly from one site to the other, smoothly if stinking a little of sweat and hard, hard Sonny Boy’s golden liquor), who would decide whether he had the stuff his father thought he had. And decide it in the only way such things were decided, by throwing dollars, real dollars, at him if he was good and broken whisky bottles (or, if tight for dough and so bought their whisky by the jar, jars) if he panned. He had asked his father repeatedly since he had turned sixteen to let him accompany him on his journeys (as performer and as, ah, imbiber) to Lancer Lane, but his father maybe knowing the wisdom of sheltering the boy from those whisky bottles and jars if things didn’t work out just like his father, bless him, before him had held off until he was sure, or fairly sure of the night’s outcome.

What sonny boy did not know was that father had relented as much because he was in need of an extra pair of hands in case Big Nig Fingers showed up that night as that he was ready. The nature of the dispute between Big Nig Fingers and his father was simply enough explained, a woman, rather Big Nig’s woman, Lucille, a luscious light- skinned mulatto (many though through grapevine, the who belonged to who grapevine, that she was Mister’s daughter, or granddaughter, who had an eye for dark as night black men like Big Nig, and his darker than night father, to atone for some miscegenation sin, in any case she stirred men, black as night men, and also through the grapevine the white as white Captain who oversaw Mister ‘s plantation) and her roving eyes, roving eyes that landed, allegedly landed, on his father (and he, he when Big Nig wasn’t looking or had had one or two jars too many had taken his own eyeful).

A few hours later, washed up, dressed up in a clean work shirt and denim pants he and his father having walked the two dusty miles from Mister’s plantation arrived at the juke house, really nothing but a cabin, a log cabin, belonging to Sonny Boy Jackson who used the place as a front for his golden liquor sales as well. (Yes, that Sonny Boy before he went to Clarksville and began the road to some local fame as the best harmonica in 1920s delta Mississippi, even getting a record contract from Bee Records when he was “discovered” by one of the agents that they had sent out scouring the country for talent for their race record division.) Now, like most cabins around those parts, there was no electricity, hell, nobody practically except Mister (and the Captain, that deduction crazy and Lucille-whipped Captain) had electricity, or a reason to use it just a few chairs, tables, a counter to belly up to for whiskey jar orders (bottles were sold out back away from prying eyes), and for the occasion Sonny Boy had a small stage jerry-rigged so the entertainment would not get pushed around too much when things got rowdy, as they always did, later in the evening.

That night he had a surprise coming, or rather two. His father, taking no chances, had arranged to have a few members of the Andersonville Sheiks from up the road, who would later in the decade, some of them anyway, go on to form the Huntsville Sheiks and also get that coveted record contract from Bee Records, to back his son up. So he was going to have a real ensemble, a jug player, a harp player (harmonica, okay) and a washboard man, his father to play banjo (if he was sober enough, and while that was in question most of the night he held up, held up well enough to slide over to Lord’s Work Baptist for the eight o’clock service even if stinking of sweat and liquor). Papa had done right by him, Big Nig Fingers and his Lucille (to his father‘s dismay) had decided to take a night off so he would need no cut knife help, and he blasted the place with his strange riffs, riffs going back to some homeland Africa time, some primordial time when mankind heard sound made by men to stir their unending longing. Proof: twenty seven dollars as his share of the house.

Oh, the second surprise. Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy Barnes, Miss Lucy Barnes, a sweet sixteen going on thirty, a dark- skinned beauty, all cuddles and curves, the daughter of his boss, the plantation blacksmith, had taken notice of him and kept sending small jars of Sonny Boy’s golden liquor his way which just made him play more madly, hell, let’s call it by its right name, he played the devil’s work like he was the devil himself. They too were seen sneaking into that eight o’clock service at Lord’s Work’s Baptist a little sweaty and stinking of liquor, just in case you wanted to know.

******
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a good woman on your mind, all curves and cuddles, all be my daddy, daddy, build for comfort not for speed just like your daddy, your real daddy, not your long gone daddy just now serving a stretch, a nickel’s worth for armed robbery up in Joliet for some Southside heist that went sour, hell, you told long gone daddy that guns didn’t make the play any better but long gone was just a little too long gone on that twinkle dust and so when Danville Slim called the shots, long gone was long gone, told you about when you were knee high and needing instruction about who, and who not to, mess with when you got your wanting habits on. (Stay away from big women, like the song, the blue blue blue song says, don’t forget, they will wear you out, ditto, long thin gals with wanderlust eyes, and twinkle dust noses, itching, checking out every daddy, every daddy that came by her eyes, flashing five dollars bills and another twinkle line, ditto, god’s girls, Sunday morning moaners, smelling of gin, washtub gin, and juke joint slashes, some mean mama cut her up when she wrong- eyed mean mama’s daddy, now Sunday looking for, can you believe it, forgiveness, and trick, getting it, stick with curves and cuddles, an easy rider, she’ll treat you right and no heavy overhead, and no damn where have you been daddy questions.

She, Miss Lucy she, all cuddles and curves she, an easy rider, yah, a sweet and low easy rider, to make a man, well, to make a man, so far away, so far from uptown downtown Chi town, far down in sweaty delta Mississippi, maybe still in Clarksville like you left her that night, that moonless 1942 night, when you had to break-out from delta sweats, from working sunup to blasted sundown for no pay, for chits, (Christ what are you supposed to do with company chits when you had your Miss Lucy wanting habits on, needed, no craved, some of Sonny Boy’s honey liquor), from the Mister on his ten thousand acre cotton boll plantation (selling every last boll too, good or bad, to the U.S. Army, for, for what else, bustling war uniforms), and stripes from the Captain, for, for sassing (really for seeing him and Lucille laughing as they were coming out of Mister’s barn all sweaty and straw-filled. He guessed she decided she wanted her progeny to “pass” after all), and grabbed that bus, that underground bus, out on Highway 61, and headed, yah, head north following the north star, following the migrant trail up-river.

Maybe a quick stop at Memphis to see if any of the guys, B.B. (no, not the one you are thinking of), the Slim, Delta Dark, Bobby Be-Bop, Big Joe, Muddy (yes, that Muddy slumming down river and on the low from some Chi town wench whose man was looking, knife-looking for the guy who messed with his baby and left her blue, real blue. True Muddy story.) and if not straight to Chi town and work, work in the hog butcher to the world, work in the Casey Jones steel driving hammering foundry to the world , work in the grain elevator to the world, work in the farm machinery equipment factory to the world , good, steady, sweaty work, five day work and done, five day work, maybe overtime, glad-handed overtime on Saturday, and done, no Captain’s stripes, except maybe some rough Irish cop night stick but, mainly, just hell work, and then off to bumbling squalid three- decker hovel, overcrowded, over-priced, under heated, damn, nothing but a cold- water flat with about six different nationalities chattering on the fetid Maxwell connected streets.

Home, home long enough to turn overalls, sweated blue overalls, into Saturday be-bop blues master, all silk shirt, about five colors, blue blue, green green, sun yellow, deep magenta, some violent purple, all fancy dance pants, all slick city boy now shoes (against that po’ boy Clarksville no shoe night to make daddy, real daddy cry, and mama too), topped by a soft felt hat, de riguer for Saturday prances. For a while singing and playing, he, mainly playing that on fire guitar (electric) first learned from daddy, real daddy, down the delta when he was from hunger and he and daddy Saturday juked for whiskey drinks (for daddy) and sodas and ribs for him, for nickels and dimes with his long gone daddy (gone daddy previously mentioned tired of nickels and thus plugging an ironic nickel’s worth) out behind Maxwell Street(only the prime guys, the guys Chess, or Ace, or Decca, or, some race label were interested in, for a while, got to play the big street, the big attention, the big sweep, everybody else behind for nickels and maybe an off-hand stray piece, a joy girl they called them, hell he called them when he had his wanting habits on, not all black or mixed either, a few white joys looking for negro kicks, looking for kicks before Forest Lawn stockbrokers, or futures traders make their claims, looking over the new boys in order to say that they had that, had that before they headed out to Maxwell Street glare or sweet home, yah, sweet home Joliet. And Miss Lucy waited, waited down in some lonesome Clarksville crossroad, dust rolling in, sun beginning to rest, watching the daily underground bus heading north, north to her Johnny Blaze, Johnny quick on that amped- up guitar and the stuff of dreams.

The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a bad woman on your mind, a woman walking in your place of work, your stage, your Carousel Club, you just trying to get that damn guitar weapon, baby, mama, sugar, main squeeze, in tune, the one just off of Maxwell Street, mecca, with her walking daddy, eyeing you that first minute, big blond blue eyes, and even walking daddy can feel the heat coming off her, animal heat mixed up with some Fifth Avenue perfume bought by the ounce , feel that he was going to spend the night on a knife’s edge. The Carousel Club got a mix, got a mix on Friday nights when the be-bop crazy white girls, not all big blond blue eyes but also mixed, decided that be-bop jazz, their natural stomping grounds, over at places like the Kit Kat Club was just too tame for their flaming 1950s appetites and so they went slumming, slumming with a walking daddy, a black as night walking daddy, make no mistake, in tow just in case, in case knives came into play. She had her fix on him, her and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now that it looked like that damn rock and roll, that damn Elvis who took all the air out of any other kind of music, had run its course.

Then it started, like it was started back to Miss Lucy times, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his superb playing on Look Yonder Wallaccording to Millie the waitress who delivered the drink, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying, walking daddy was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and was still finishing up his nickel at Joliet. She made her way to the stage as the first set ended. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in that polite way they have been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition of Mean Mistreatin’Mama,and left it at that.

After work she was waiting for him out in back, he nodded at her, and she pointed at her car, a late model, and they were off. They didn’t surface again for a week.

*******
The blues ain’t nothing but…He, Daddy Fingers (strictly a stage front name, with a no will power Clarence Mark Smith real name needing, desperately needing, cover just like a million other guys trying to reach for the big lights, trying to reach heyday back in early 1950s Maxwell Street, hell, maybe trying get a record contract, a valued Chess contract, and that first sweet easy credit, no down payment, low monthly payments Cadillac, pink or yellow, with all the trimming and some sweet mama sitting high tit proud in front), had to laugh, laugh out loud sometimes when these white hipsters asked him what the blues were. He, well behind the white bread fad times, having spent the last twenty years mostly in the hidden down South, the chittlin’ circuit down South, from Biloxi to Beaumont, working bowling alleys, barbecue joints (the best places where even if the money was short you had your ribs and beer, a few whisky shots maybe, some young brown skin with lonely eyes woman lookin’ for a high-flying brown skin man in need of a woman’s cooking , or at least a friendly bed for a few nights), an odd juke house now electrified, some back road road-side diner converted for an evening into a house of entertainment, hell even a church basement when the good lord wasn’t looking or was out on an off Saturday night had not noticed that these kids asking that august question were not his old Chi town, New Jack City, ‘Frisco Bay hipsters but mostly fresh-faced kids in guy plaid short shirts and chinos and girl cashmere sweaters and floppy skirts were not hip, not black-hearted, black dressed devil’s music hip. For one thing no hipster, and hell certainly no wanna-be hipster, would even pose the question but just dig on the beat, dig on the phantom guitar work as he worked the fret board raw, dig on being one with the note progression. Being, well, beat.

Plaid and cashmere sweater crowding around some makeshift juke stage, some old corner barroom flop spot or like tonight here on this elegant stage with all the glitter lights at Smokin’ Joe’s Place, Cambridge’s now the home of the blues for all who were interested in the genealogy of such things came around looking, searching for some explanation like it was some lost code recently discovered like that Rosetta Stone they found a while back to figure out what old pharaoh and his kind said (hell, he could have deciphered that easy enough for those interested- work the black bastards to death and if they slack up, whip them, whip them bad, whip them white, and ain’t it always been so). So he told them, plaid guy and cashmere bump sweater girl, told them straight lie, or straight amusing thing, that like his daddy, his real daddy who had passed down the blues to him, and who got it from his daddy, and so on back, hell, maybe back to pharaoh times when those slave needed something to keep them working at a steady death-defying pace, that the blues wasn’t nothing but a good woman on your mind. And if some un-cool, or maybe dope addled wanna-be Chi town hipster, or some white bread all glimmering girl from Forest Hills out for negro kicks, had been naïve enough to ask the question that would have been enough but plaid and cashmere wanted more.

Wanted to know why the three chord progression thing was done this way instead of that, or whether the whole blues thing came from the Georgia Sea Islands (by way of ancient homeland Africa) like they had never heard of Mister’s Mississippi cotton boll plantation, Captain’s lashes, broiling suns, their great grandfathers marching through broken down Vicksburg, about Brother Jim Crow, or about trying to scratch two dollars out of one dollar land. Wanted to know if in Daddy Finger’s exalted opinion Mister Charley Patton was the sweet daddy daddy of the blues, wanted to know if Mister Robert Johnson did in fact sell his soul to the devil out on Highway 61, 51, 49 take a number that 1930 take a number night, wanted to know if Mister Mississippi John Hurt was a sweet daddy of an old man (also“discovered” of late) like he seemed to be down in Newport, wanted to know if black-hearted Mister Muddy really was a man-child with man-child young girl appetites, wanted to know if Mister Howlin’ Wolf ever swallowed that harmonica when he did that heated version they had heard about of How Many More Years (not knowing that Wolf was drunk as a skunk, high shelf whisky not some Sonny Boy’s home brew, when he did that one or that, he Daddy Fingers, had backed Wolf up many a night when Mister Huber Sumlin was in his cups or was on the outs with the big man).

Wanted to know, laugh, if Mister Woody Guthrie spoke a better talking blues that Mister Lead Belly, or Mister Pete Seeger was truer to the blues tradition that Mister Bob Dylan (like he, Daddy Fingers, spent his time thinking about such things rather than trying to keep body and soul together from one back of the bus Mister James Crow bus station to the next in order to get to some godforsaken hidden juke joint to make a couple of bucks, have some of Sonny Boy’s son’s golden liquor, and maybe catch a stray lonesome Saturday woman without a man, or if with a man, a man without the look of a guy who settled his disputes, his woman disputes, at the sharp end of a knife, wanted to know, wanted to know, wanted to know more than the cold hard fact that, truth or lie, the blues wasn’t nothing but a good girl on your mind. Nothing but having your wanting habits on. But that never was good enough for them, and thus the fool questions. And always, tonight included, the fool Hey Daddy Fingers what are the blues. Okay, baby boy, baby girl, the blues is …

Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- Ain’t Got No Time For The Corner Boys-Harry's Variety Store

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Tom Waits performing his song Jersey Girl that formed part of the inspiration for this sketch.

Markin comment:

Riding down the old neighborhood streets a while back, the old North Adamsville working- class streets, streets dotted with dilapidated, worn out, and ill-repaired triple-deckers housing multiple families (big immigrant families as of yore, just the countries of origin have changed, trying to make up in person per packed space for lack of dough, as of yore, too) along with close-quarter, small cottage-sized single family houses like the one of my own growing to manhood time. Houses, moreover, that reflected, no exclaimed right to their tiny rooftops, that seemingly eternal overweening desire to have, small or not, worth the trouble or not, something of one’s own against the otherwise endless servitude of days. Suddenly, coming to an intersection, I was startled, no, more than that, I was forced into a double-take, by the sight of some guys, some teenage guys hanging, hanging hard, one foot on the ground the other bent holding up the infernal brick wall that spoke of practice and marking one’s territory, against the oncoming night in front of an old time variety store, a mom and pop variety from some extinct times before the 7/11 chain store, fast food shop, no room for corner boys, police take notice, dark night.

Memory called it Kelly’s of yore, today Kim’s. From the look of them, baggy-panted (actually double-panted the outer pair hanging low, ground low, the latest fashionista footwear name sneakered, baseball cap-headed, all items marked, marked with the insignia (secretly, and with no hope of outside decoding) signifying their "homeboy" associations (I would say gang, but that word is charged with deep negative old time juvenile delinquent murder and mayhem associations these days and this is not exactly what it looked like, at least to the public eye, my public eye). They could be the grandsons, certainly not biological because these kids were almost all Asians speckled with a couple of Irish-lookers, red-faced, blue-eyed shanty Irish-lookers, shanty Irish –lookers out of the ghost be-bop night guys that held me in thrall in those misty early 1960s times.

Yah, that tableau, that time-etched scene, got me to thinking of some long lost comrades of the schoolboy night like the hang-around guys in front of Harry’s Variety, although comrades might not be the right word because I was just some punk young kid trying to be a wannabe, or half-wannabe, corner boy and they had no time for punk kids and later when I came of age I had no time for corner boys. Yah, that scene got me to thinking of the old time corner boys who ruled the whole wide North Adamsville night (and day for those who didn’t work or go to school, which was quite a few on certain days, because most of these guys were between sixteen and their early twenties with very jittery school and work histories better left unspoken, or else). Yah, got me thinking about when the white tee-shirted, blue-jeaned, engineer-booted, cigarette-smoking, unfiltered of course, sneering, soda-swilling, Coke, naturally, pinball wizards held forth daily and nightly, and let me cadge a few odd games when they had more important business, more important girl business, to attend to.

Yah, I got to thinking too about Harry’s, old Harry’s Variety Store over there near my grandmother’s house, over there in that block on Sagamore Street where the Irish workingman’s whiskey-drinking (with a beer chaser), fist-fighting, sports-betting after a hard day’s work Dublin Grille was. Harry’s was on the corner of that block. Now if you have some image, some quirky, sentimental image, of Harry’s as being run by an up-and-coming just arrived immigrant guy, maybe with a big family, trying to make this neighborhood store thing work so he can take in, take in vicariously anyway, the American dream like you see running such places now forget it. Harry’s was nothing but a“front.” Old Harry, Harry O’Toole, now long gone, was nothing but the neighborhood “bookie” known far and wide to one and all as such. Even the cops would pull up in their squad cars to place their bets, laughingly, with Harry in the days before state became the bookie-of-choice for most bettors. And he had his “book,” his precious penciled-notation book right out on the counter. But see punk kid me, even then just a little too book-unworldly didn’t pick up on that fact until old grandmother, jesus, neighborhood saint old grandmother“hipped” me to what was what in that section of the old neighborhood.

Until then I didn’t think anything of the fact that Harry had about three dust-laden cans of soup, two dust-laden cans of beans, a couple of loaves of bread (Wonder Bread, if you want to know) on his dust-laden shelves, a few old quarts of milk and an ice chest full of tonic (now called soda, even by New Englanders) and a few other odds and ends that did not, under any theory of economics, capitalist or Marxist, add up to a thriving business ethos. Unless, of course, something else was going on. But what drew me to Harry’s was not that stuff anyway. What drew me to Harry’s was, one, his pin ball machine complete with corner boy players and their corner boy ways, and, two, his huge Coca Cola ice chest (now sold as antique curiosities for much money at big-time flea markets and other venues) filled with ice cold, cold tonics (see above), especially the local Robb’s Root Beer that I was practically addicted to in those days (and that Harry, kind-hearted Harry, stocked for me).

Many an afternoon, a summer’s afternoon for sure, or an occasional early night, I would sip, sip hard on my Robb’s and watch the corner boys play, no sway, sway just right, with that sweet pinball machine, that pin ball machine with the bosomy, lusty-looking, cleavage-showing women pictured on the top glass frame of the machine practically inviting you, and only you the player, on to some secret place if you just put in enough coins. Of course, like many dream-things what those lusty dames really gave you, only you the player, was maybe a few free games. Teasers, right. But I had to just watch at first because I was too young (you had to be sixteen to play) , however, every once in a while, one of the corner boys who didn’t want to just gouge out my eyes for not being a corner boy, would let me cadge a game while Harry was not looking. When you think about it though, now anyway, Harry was so “connected”(and you know what I mean by that) what the hell did he care if some underage kid, punk kid, cadged a few games and looked leeringly at those bosomy babes in the frame.

Yah, and thinking about Harry’s automatically got me thinking about Daniel (nobody ever called him that, ever) “Red” Hickey, the boss king of my schoolboy night at Harry’s. Red, the guy who set the rules, set the style, hell, set the breathing, allowed or not and when, of the place. I don’t know if he went to some corner boy school to learn his trade but he was the be-bop daddy (at least all the girls, all the hanging all over him girls, called him that and later alone down at some splash Seal Rock ocean front rendezvous did whatever daddy wanted, although that is strictly hearsay on my part) because he, except for one incident that I will relate below, ruled unchallenged with an iron fist. At least I never saw his regular corner boys Spike, Lenny, Shawn, Ward, Goof (yes, that was his name the only name I knew him by, and he liked it), Bop (real name William) or the Clipper (real name Kenny, the arch-petty Woolworth’sthief of the group hence the name) challenge him, or want to.

Yah, Red, old red-headed Red was tough alright, and has a pretty good-sized built but that was not what kept the others in line. It was a certain look he had, a certain look that if I went into describing it now I would get way overboard into describing it as some stone-cold killer look, some psycho-killer look but that would be wrong because it didn’t show that way. But that was what it was. Maybe I had better put it this way. Tommy Thunder, older brother of my middle school and high school best friend and a corner boy king in his own right, Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, who was a big bruiser of a legendary North Adamsville football player and human wrecking machine and who lived a few doors up from Harry’s went out of his way not to go near the place. Yah, Red was that tough.

See, he was like some general, or colonel or something, an officer at least, and besides being tough, he would “inspect” his troops to see that all and sundry had their “uniform” right. White tee-shirt, full-necked, no vee-neck sissy stuff, no muscle shirt half-naked stuff, straight 100% cotton, American-cottoned, American-textiled, American-produced, ironed, mother-ironed I am sure, crisp. One time Goof (sorry that’s all I knew him by, really) had a wrinkled shirt on and Red marched him up the street to his triple-decker cold-water walk-up flat and berated, berated out loud for all to hear, Goof’s mother for letting him out of the house like that. And Red, old Red like all Irish guys sanctified mothers, at least in public, so you can see he meant business on the keeping the uniform right question.

And like some James Dean or Marlon Brando tough guy photo, some motorcycle disdainful, sneering guy photo, each white tee-shirt, or the right sleeve of each white tee-shirt anyway, was rolled up to provide a place, a safe haven, for the ubiquitous package of cigarettes, matches inserted inside its cellophane outer wrapping, Luckies, Chesterfields, Camels, Pall Malls, all unfiltered in defiance of the then beginning incessant cancer drumbeat warnings, for the day’s show of manliness smoking pleasures.

Blue jeans, tight fit, no this scrub-washed, fake-worn stuff, but worn and then discarded worn. No chinos, no punk kid, maybe faux "beatnik," black chinos, un-cuffed, or cuffed like I wore, and Frankie, Francis Xavier Riley, king of the faux beatnik middle school night, including among his devotees this little too bookish writer, who was as tough a general, colonel, or some officer anyway, as corner boy Red was with his guys. Frankie example: no cuffs on those black chinos, stay home, or go elsewhere, if you are cuffed. Same kingly manner, right? Corner boys blue-jeaned and wide black-belted, black always, black-belt used as a handy weapon for that off-hand street fight that might erupt out of nowhere, for no reason, or many. Maybe a heavy-duty watch chain, also war-worthy, dangly down from those jeans. Boots, engineer boots, black and buckled, worn summer or winter, heavy, heavy-heeled, spit-shined, another piece of the modern armor for street fight nights. Inspection completed the night’s work lies ahead.

And most nights work, seemingly glamorous to little too bookish eyes at the time, was holding up some corner of the brick wall in front, or on the side of, Harry’s Variety with those engineer boots, one firmly on the ground the other bent against the wall, small talk, small low-tone talk between comrades waiting, waiting for… Or just waiting for their turn at that Harry’s luscious ladies pictured pinball machine. Protocol, strictly observed, required “General Red” to have first coin in the machine. But see old Red was the master swayer with that damn machine and would rack up free games galore so, usually, he was on that thing for a while.

Hey, Red was so good, although this is not strictly part of the story, that he could have one of his several honeys right in front of him on the machine pressing some buttons and he behind pressing some other buttons Red swaying and his Capri-panted honey, usually some blond, real or imagined, swaying, and eyes glazing, but I better let off with that description right now, because like I said it was strictly speaking not part of the story. What is part of the story is that Red, when he was in the mood or just bored, or had some business, some girl business, maybe that blond, real or imagined, just mentioned business would after I had been hanging around a while, and he thought I was okay, give me his leftover free games.

Now that was the “innocent” part of Red, the swaying pinball wizard, girl-swaying, inspector general part. But see if you want to be king of the corner boy night you have to show your metal once in a while, if for no other reason than the corner boys, the old time North Adamsville corner boys might be just a little forgetful of who the king hell corner boy king was, or as I will describe, some other corner boy king of some other variety store night might show up to see what was what. Now I must have watched the Harry’s corner boy scene for a couple of years, maybe three, the last part just off and on, but I only remember once when I saw Red show “his colors.” Some guy from Adamsville, some tough-looking guy who, no question, was a corner boy just stopped at Harry’s after tipping a couple, or twenty, at the Dublin Grille. He must have said something to Red, or maybe Red just knew instinctively that he had to show his colors, but all of a sudden these two were chain-whipping each other. No, that’s not quite right, Red was wailing, flailing, nailing, chain-whipping this other guy mercilessly, worst, if that is possible. The guy, after a few minutes, was left in a pool of blood on the street, ambulance ready. And Red just walked way, just kind of sauntering away.

Of course that is not the end of the Red story. Needless to say, no work, no wanna work Red had to have coin, dough, not just for the pinball machine, cigarettes, and soda, hell, that was nothing. But for the up-keep on his Chevy (Chevy then being the “boss” car, and not just among corner boys either), and that stream of ever-loving blond honeys, real or imagined, he escorted into the seashore night. So said corner boys did their midnight creep around the area grabbing this and that to bring in a little dough. Eventually Red “graduated”to armed robberies when the overhead grew too much for little midnight creeps, and graduated to one of the branches of the state pen, more than once. Strangely, his end came, although I only heard about this second hand, after a shoot-out with the cops down South after he tried to rob some White Henconvenience store. There is some kind of moral there, although I will be damned if I can figure it out. Red, thanks for those free games though.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Brotherly Love, Circa 1957

 

Jimmy LaCroix’s older brother, Evie, usually didn’t speak two words to Jimmy, or let him speak two words to him. (Jacques and Evian, by the way, to mother, mother Daphne, and all still up around Gaspe French-Canadian relatives but to Jimmy and Evie, strictly Jimmy and Evie, among themselves and their respective Olde Saco corner boy crowd in that odd second generation, first generation-skipping rush to become Americanized, to be like the bloody old time oppressor English and bog-grown Irish, and shed that blasted patois adieu thing, that down from cold Canada farms and mines hunger thing, that damn Gallic saint this and saint that thing and bless yourself before every meal, at night, in front of every passed church thing, and vanilla melt in with souped-up hot rods, Luckies cigarettes rolled up in a white tee-shirt sleeve, and a Coke bottle beside you at all times in order, hell, what else, in order to “pass” with the swamp yankee Down East lobster fisherman’s daughter and that Irish mill hand mick’s colleen daughter, the one with that flaming red hair, prayer book in one hand and her other hand in, well, let’s leave it at that since Irish colleens, or for that matter wistful mermaid yankee, swamp pedigreed or otherwise, girls do not figure in Jimmy’s, or Evie’s, life just now.) Evie LaCroix fully subscribed to the prerogatives of being an older teenage brother, an older American teenage brother moving hard and fast toward twenty something and different troubles.

Moreover Evie one all-American teenager (black French-genetic hair, long thin build, wiry, and a smoldering something that girls, women, found sexually stirring) rushing to twenty with both a valid license to drive , no suspensions, no drunk stuff against his record (although he had been seen on back roads, the dirt roads and gravel pit ruts that passed for roads, around Gorham Road, just off U.S. Route One, out in farm country, driving full-throttle, some cheap jack whiskey, probably some Johnny Walker color, some blond, he favored blonds, joie blondes, excuse the patois, tied close in the front seat, or his corner boys from Mama’s Pizza Parlor over on Main Street front and back, when he was barely fourteen and sans license), and an automobile, or rather the automobile, a late model flash red (make that very cherry red) ’56 Chevy. A car that said, unmistakenly said, watch out, move over, pops, in your Dodge wagon, Plymouth whatever, Ford tank, and take note of this stud-mobile.

That hard fact car was nothing but a girl magnet (hell, Evie had picked up a few real women, already twenty something and experienced, looking for kicks, night time is the right time kicks, and ready to do what was necessary in the sex department to get to that front seat on more than one frosty Friday night when her walking daddy was just away, and according to rumor, even a very married woman, a thirty something woman, a Mayfair swell woman with kids from over in swanky Ocean City who got her kicks for a while, very hush, hush and out of town up in Portland nestled up against his shoulder) added fuel to the flame of the “no talk” rule between the brothers.

See teenage guys in the Acre (the French-Canadian section over on Atlantic Avenue, so called for either god’s little acre or hell’s, take your pick, near Jimmie Jakes Diner II, the one where all the young no car teenagers hung out in the summer nights since time immemorial not the one by Ocean Avenue for the blue-haired luncheon ladies and summer touristas long gone) had too much to do to keep those fast cars up in order to keep that girl magnet headed their way to talk to inconsequential brothers. Every day after school let out (and some weekends too) when the joint began to hop until closing Evie LaCroix could be seen at the Adventure Car-Hop doing solemn duty to car-filled cars as a short order cook serving greasy burgers with all the fixings (twenty -six possible combinations)and oil-drenched fries (one combination)to the multitudes. (Evie, in the time-honored Acre tradition, like all his corner boys, had no use for further schooling once he got some dough in his jeans, dropped out at sixteen once the school hours proved inconvenient to his new lifestyle.)

Every once in a while, work while, Evie, pulling his head up from the splattering stovetop to turn over some burger with fried green peppers would eye his girl of the moment, Lorraine Champlain, the ace carhop of the place, and one fox that every guy in town, every guy maybe from young guys like Evie to old, maybe thirty- year old guys, wanted to get next to. Just in case you don’t remember or don’t have Wikipedia handy a car hop was, well, a young, good-looking woman who came (in some places via roller skates) to the side of your car, took your order, and eventually brought you your burger with whatever on it, fries and soft drink on a tray. Nice touch in car- conscious 1950s America, even in sleepy old dying mill town Olde Saco, Maine.

Lorraine, all blond hair (real, by the way, Evie said so real), small breasts like all F-C girls, long forever legs, legs made for wrapping around some guy, made forever longer by the short shorts she wore in summer along with midriff- revealing halter, and some perfume thing that made you do a double-take when she took your order (if Evie did not have his head up, otherwise pass, wisely pass, please). And while many guys ogled Lorraine (and left big tips as tribute) she was true blue to her Evian (not Evie, not to her, or anything like that by the way and no mother’s boy talk about him letting her use that forbidden name, not unless you wanted to mix knuckles with corner boy tough Evie, no, leave that noise at home, or better stand in some sullen corner if that is your line). So you can see that Evie certainly would have had no time, no time at all for bon Jimmie.

Except Jimmy, all twelve years of him, had to, just had to break his armed truce with Evie and speak two, maybe more words. Jimmy was smitten (local Olde Saco corner boy, junior division, word for love, puppy love learned, or half-learned, from a poem, some old- time Robert Browning thing picked up in Miss Genet’s class and immediately adopted in junior division corner boy society) with one Mimi Dubois, Lorraine’s cousin, and someone who might one day challenge Lorraine as the ace car hop in town. But that future prospect was not what was bothering Jimmy that day, the day he got up enough nerve to ask Evie the big question.

He had asked Mimi to go to the movie theater, the Bijou where they had sci-fi stuff and monster movies not the Majestic where they only had old time film noir fare with guys getting themselves blasted up for dames and getting nothing for their efforts, except an off-hand slug in the chest or something, with him on Saturday afternoon to watch the double feature and he needed a please, please favor because the theater was too far from her house to walk and her parents would not let her go without a ride. (They in time-honored tradition did not make the social faux pas of suggesting that they take the pair to the theater, jesus, no, they had been told in no uncertain terms to not even mention that possibility.) Also Jimmy’s parents were out for the very good reason (although not as good as the “in no uncertain terms” one) that Mr. LaCroix had been laid off from the dying textile mills where he had worked most of his life and he didn’t have an automobile at the moment.

So Jimmy spoke, spoke to Evie on the fly after school one afternoon as Evian was preparing to enter his chariot very cherry red Chevy to head to Adventure Car Hop about driving him to the theater. And here is how young Jimmie laid out his case to his older brother. One day at Doc’s (the local Acre drugstore where the junior high school kids hung out because, one, it was right across from the school, and two, Doc’s had a soda fountain and super jukebox that played all the latest teen hits)Jimmie had cornered Mimi. It was there that Jimmy approached his sweet Mimi to ask about going to the movies. And Eddie Cochran saved him. No, not Eddie in person, but his latest hit, Sittin’In The Balcony.

Jimmie kind of came at Mimi sideways, like twelve- year old goofy guys will, and asked Mimi off-handedly a hypothetical question concerning her choice for movie seating options. Down in the orchestra which meant a silly date, like old people did, watching the movies, and maybe eating popcorn or up in the balcony where in Olde Saco tradition (and maybe every other civilized place as well) the young, very young sans automobile, sans money, sans any idea of what was going on went to “make out” and not watch some silly old double feature (although they might come up for air for popcorn occasionally).

[The whole teen Saturday afternoon double feature movie arrangement, circa 1957, the etiquette if you will, bears some further detailed description. Not for the under eighteen Acre/Olde Saco/Maine/U.S.A/ World teenage crowd. Hell no, this was (is) almost instinctive stuff, not stuff that had to be mentioned, has to be instructed about from one generation to another or one older sibling to younger sibling, has to beat around, beat down by every academician, sociological or anthropological academician especially, looking to make a nice career instructing bright college kids about the mores of this heathen cult. That movement was genetic. But there might be some clueless parents who maybe never went to the movies, or who only sat in the orchestra section (to see the movies better, jesus), or went to the library on Saturdays, whatever, so here is the skinny:

The 1950s Saturday afternoon double- feature (already this is something very different for more modern ears) at the Bijou was where almost every kid had to learn the basic social skills necessary to survive in cut-throat Olde Saco teen world. First off it was strictly the Bijou that produced a double feature of monster movies (The Blob That Devoured Toledo, Godzilla Meets King Kong, stuff like that), thrillers (The Night Of The Living Dead, etc.) or weird alien stuff. Sci-fi stuff with scary things for outer space. And that is why every kid (and his or her date, if applicable) lined up early. The other movie house in town, The Majestic, was strictly, well, for maybe those library-goers taking a break one Saturday, or kids who wanted to go into the film industry, or adults who had enough sense to stay clear of the Saturday matinee at the Bijou to watch silly romances (adult hard to follow the plot stuff because it was not clear who loved who, or who didn’t, or who ran off with who, and why, stuff like that), or arty stuff. Maybe people who today need some instruction on what went on at the Bijou.

The great divide though (and another reason to get in line early) at the Bijou, in the Acre, in Olde Saco, in Maine, in the U.S. of A, maybe in the World, was where dated up kids would sit, orchestra section or balcony (singles, guys or girls, groups, guys or girls, don’t count here and took their lame dumb luck seats down below, including those clowns who were there to actually watch the movies, again jesus, why would anyone do that). So every date situation from twelve to eighteen (nobody older, not on Saturday afternoon, they were saving their energies for the night, the night time is the right time and not at some silly movie house but rather down at Olde Saco Beach, really Seal Rock at the far end), began with that critical question.

Needless to say the balcony was off-limits to anyone over eighteen, ushers, the management, anybody once the film started. Now here is where those lucky enough to make the cut had things working their way at the Bijou. Those B-films (hell, maybe C, D, or F, who remembers) were great for “making out” (wink, wink). Why? Not every girl or guy who went up in balcony was brazen, or all that knowledgeable about love, or anything, or about how to“get in the mood,” although all wanted to get in the mood. So those dopey scenes on the screen where some gigantic monster devoured a building, or weird trapezoidal beings took over average American bodies, or where some seaweed looking blot sucked the life out of some average American kid were just scary enough to make the couple, and it wasn’t always the girl, draw closer for protection. Nice, huh, and then you didn’t have to look at the screen after that (except for a little popcorn, or something like that.]

And Mimi?

Mimi answered like this, and thus caused Jimmy his boldness in asking his brother for help. “If you are asking me just to ask me a silly question while Eddie Cochran’s Sittin’ In The Balcony is playing then I’d answer orchestra but if you are really asking me to go to the movies with you then it’s the balcony. Evian laughed, laughed out loud at that and then grabbed Jimmy by the shoulder and said, “Sure kid, I was young once too.”

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-Not Your Father’s Automobile, Circa 1955

No question kids today, what with a new technological innovation every minute and so much social networking opportunity that it would keep even a civilized adult busy 24/7/365, grow up faster (read: learn the facts of life, that’s the facts jack) than we did back in the 1950s be-bop minute, the minute when the generation of ’68 began to twist and turn with the hard facts of life. The hard facts of life for boys then (oh yah, and now too but with less useful help back then) being what to do about girls (and girls, or other combinations today, can chime in with their own sagas on the just teen personal relationship heartache road). The thing consumed many an abandoned night, a sweaty toss and turn night up in some lonely bedroom, hopefully not brother-shared, trying to sleep after listening to the Midnight Special Rock And Roll Hour on the local radio station, WJDA, on your very private iPod (oops) transistor radio, the granddaddy (or grandmamma if you prefer) of that former invention, trying figure out if Sherry this liked your best friend Willie that. Or, more seriously, your own plight-if that glance from Jenny meant what the Be-Bop Kid (my moniker for a while in junior high school) though it meant when she passed him and looked back in the hallway between classes. And he looking back, detecting, microscopic detecting, just a pale and wan smile emanating from the corner of her ruby red- lipped mouth in response, enough material though to keep those bedclothes sweaty more than one night. Stuff like that. Purely kid’s stuff but the glue that held us together.

See a lot of stuff was from ignorance, willful ignorance brought to us by our parents (our frightened parents who also didn’t learn anything from their parents going back eons and so we learned it on the streets or from some “wise” boyfriend of girlfriend just like, well, just like they did), our churches (who were frightened , frightened worse than our parents, because they actually knew more, more about what they would call human depravity, and didn’t want us within a hundred yards, make that one thousand yards, or call your number, of sinful sex) and our schools (acting as substitute parents, I won’t use the common Latin term because this is no dead language screed but about rock and roll, oh yah, and sex) to keep us in the dark about, well, sex, for openers. Nowadays every ten year old kid knows more real stuff about the subject (and probably as much unreal stuff as back in the day too) than you could shake a stick at. And I hope that knowledge helps them through teen angst and teen alienation time in those sweaty toss and turn bedroom hours after they shut the iPod down.

But I wonder about a certain period, that period when for boys, some boys anyway, when girls turn from sticks to shapes. About whether that aspect of the rules of the game have changed. You know what I am talking about. When Jenny, who last year was nothing but a nuisance, a giggling nuisance chattering away with her six girlfriend armada seen everywhere and acting as one, acting as one or else, and making odd-ball remarks about you being this or that kind of goof, donk, nerd, dweed, etc. pick your generational term of art, or maybe taking a hard punch at you just for looking at her the wrong way, or saying some wrong thing, or even maybe thinking about saying the wrong thing, now looked kind of, well, interesting. And maybe she is taking her first blushed kind of interesting, not punch-provoking, peeps at you too.

Here is where it all got really confusing though, that time when Jenny (and her girlfriend armada naturally-the hours they must of spent on who did, or did not, make the cut, jesus, just be thankful you made it and now could finish junior high school without having to live in the catacombs, or some desert island which would be a more friendly environment if you had not made that precious A-list) invited you, you of all people, based on that very scant blushed peep she took a couple of weeks back, to her house for a party and you went, you trembling went (taking two showers, applying enough deodorant to make the whole world smell pretty, and gulping down enough mouth wash to float a battleship, trembling went).

As the evening wore on (maybe eight o’clock kid’s time late, junior high Friday night late), after half-dancing (praise be, rock and roll- induced dancing apart and plenty of room for faking dance moves studied assiduously from teen movies) the inevitable lights went out and the “petting” began and she, without an armada by the way, came over and sat right next to you, interesting blushed peep you. You fumble kissed, not exactly sure who made the first move (clueless about such protocols from clueless parents who would not discuss even that innocent question for fear, yah, for fear of the next question), and exactly sure (she too, she trembling too) that you did not know the next move. And then you would think about what old rock and rock king Chuck Berry meant when his latest single, Almost Grown, hit the airwaves (and was played a couple of times at said party). Jesus, kid’s today have it a hundred times easier. Right.

Those Oldies But Goodies…Out In The Be-Bop ‘60s Song Night- The Chiffons’ He’s So Fine – The X-Rated, Well PG-Rated, Version Anyway

Click on the headline to link to aYouTube film clip of The Chiffons performing the classic do lang do lang  song He’s So Fine.

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment:

Lest anyone be confused by the headline of what X and PG-rated refer to it is the commentary by Susie Murphy. I originally told her boy meets girl story in a straight forward misty love angle way. The way we original agreed to present it. After reading my version Susie balked. She wanted to give her own version of the Johnny Cain saga no holds barred. Her reason? Simply enough she wanted every young girl or guy, and everyone else, to know that back in the day girls and women had strong sexual feelings, acted on them, and what about it. Fair enough. Some of her Johnnie Cain dream fantasy though might not be appropriate for tender ears. Oh no, not the kids, not the kids today anyway, they know most of this stuff, or can figure it out, by the time they are ten or eleven, but sensitive 1950s growing up absurd adult ears who were a little late in coming to realize that girls (women) can have naughty dreams too. They might get a blush or two and, given their ages, best be forewarned just in case they have high blood pressure or the doctor recommends no excitement.

Certainly this is not a tale, as some might have mistakenly thought looking at the headline, of some formerly undiscovered, hidden in a New York City record vault in some ready to be torn down tenement or some old time run down office building housing repo men, failed dentists, shady private eyes specializing in peeping through adulterous keyholes facing the wrecker’s ball, X-rated version that couldn’t be published or aired at the time of the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine. That censor was real enough though, real enough in a place like Olde Saco which had an official paid, I think, censor. I first learned of that office when he (name forgotten) would not allow WMEX to play the Rolling Stones’ cover of Willie Dixon’s song, made famous by Howlin’ Wolf, Little Red Rooster. WMEX was the local rock station that we kids were glued to on our transistor radios, those were like iPOds except you couldn’t up or download anything, and had to listen to the endless commercials for this and that disposable income (allowance) kid- related thing. More importantly you could put it close to your ear up in your room or some such place and not have to deal with your parents’ disapproving sneers (or their corny, then corny, music for World War II) downstairs.

Now that all that had been resolved here is what Susie has to say.

Susie Murphy comment:

Gee, can it be over a year, over a whole year since I spotted Johnnie, Johnnie Cain at the Adventure Car-Hop over in Centerville where I was working as a car hop at the time trying to put nickels and dimes together so that I could go to secretarial school up in Boston , Fisher College, you might have heard of it, to study in order to become an executive secretary to some big businessman and not be stuck, stuck like my sister, Sandra, in some lowly steno pool over at the John Hancock Insurance Company being bored to death just pounding the keys all day and dreaming of, dreaming of I don’t know what. I don’t know what lately moreover as Sandy and I don’t cross paths so much since I started working as a nighttime car-hop to take advantage of my curvaceous body in those halters and short shorts Sal insisted that we wear and which I wore in a certain way to get better tips, maybe get laid once in a while if an interesting guy with an interesting line struck my fancy (or I had the itch that night, for a one night stand), or best of all landed some sugar daddy willing to pay the freight for school after getting a little sugar from me. Hey, a girl has to take care of herself and that is reality and has been for me since I first let Jimmy LaCroix, beautiful Jimmy LaCroix, have his way with me, all the way, and you know what that means, “doing it,” okay, getting a little sugar in my bowl like the old song said, when I was fourteen and first got my “itch.”

Can it really be almost two years since I graduated from Northfield High (Class of 1961) and broke up with my senior year high school flame Frankie Larkin after that graduation night when he tried taking certain liberties with me when I didn’t want such liberties taken (although, I am not prude, and on previous occasions it was just fine for him to fondle my breasts through my blouse , a real turn-on to get me going ever since Jimmy LaCroix, beautiful Jimmy LaCroix, found my button, and then cured my itch anyway he wanted, except when I was having “my friend” and then I would just give him some skull to, uh, lower his temperature after he got all heated up). Let’s just leave it at that although our break-up was almost a sure thing since Frankie was going off to college in New Haven (which is why he thought that he could do what he tried to do to me as a lasting symbol of our love before he left, left to screw around with every girl from New Haven to New York City that would give him the time of day. Yah, right Frankie no girl has ever heard that line before). I was, moreover, determined to make some money that summer to go to school and not burden my poor widowed mother who was barely able to make ends meet without Sandy’s help. So sex, and the possibilities of getting pregnant were, low on my calendar that night and for a while thereafter.

Come to think of it can it really be over two years since I started working at the car-hop, first the afternoon family and after school shift (and no serious tips, although plenty of guff, plenty of get me this and get me that, from harried mothers with a carful of kids and snooty high schoolers, dopey boys trying to impress their still virgin girl friends who though that I was an indentured servant) and then nights and plenty of tips, big tips from guys hanging out expecting a little something extra for their generosity along with their hamburgers and Cokes. Like a buck or two got them some privilege to get more than a grateful thank you. Of course they were guys, single guys, in their souped-up cars, or a bunch of guys “cruising” the strip (really Main Street but everybody calls it the strip since that movie, that James Dean movie, Rebel Without A Causehad come out a few years before . Guys with their honeys, guy with their girlfriends might give me an eye but mainly they were eyes straight forward, or else, and coin tips.

Most night though it was fun, although my feet were tired by the end of the shift (one in the morning weeknights, two, weekends, Wednesday through Sunday). I enjoyed, enjoyed from a safe distance, a distance enforced by Morey the short order cook and part-owner if one of his car-hops was in need of such protection, guys hitting on me with their silly lines. I think they must have learned their lines from some junior high school boys’ lav wall where they are etched for eternity, and eternal use, because after a while I could almost recite the lines back to them. A couple of times I went out, quietly went out, with a guy but that just didn’t work out since he was married, very married (with two kids) which he told me about on our third or fourth date after we had spent a torrent night over in Mechanicsville at the hotel, motel, no tell The Dew Drop Inn. Torrent since that was first time I let a guy have me in the Italian manner, back door, look it up, after he really got me going. Funny he said he learned it from his wife, who before they were married said she would only let guys do it that way because she wanted to be a virgin on her wedding night. Strange. But I still get wet thinking about that night and, usually on a first date I will insist that a guy only go that far, if I let him get that far, that is.

Then one night, one slow Thursday night ( a slow night even in summer since everybody was saving their burger and shakes money, with tips, I hoped, for the weekend and the prospect of , well, I am no prude, the prospect of getting lucky, sex lucky, okay), Johnny, dreamboat Johnny, came in, came in alone, came in his sedate-looking Pontiac. Probably his father’s on loan I thought since it showed no souped-up signs. I waited on him, took his order (cheeseburger, medium well, no ketchup, no onions, fries, and a cherry Coke, large), left to put in the order, returned with it from the cook station and placed the tray on his front door window. I gave him the bill for two dollars and some change; he paid me and added a generous dollar tip. Like always, like always except he didn’t give me any snappy come on line like every other single guy that evening, didn’t say anything except a manly mannerly thank you, I appreciate the service, a thank you like it meant something to him to say thank you in just that way.

Like always, as well, my usual friendly service except I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. He was beautiful; or rather he had beautiful, meaningfully beautiful, blue eyes which made the rest of him beautiful too. (A fellow car-hop, who had waited on him on previous occasions, said it better perhaps, he had “bedroom eyes.”) I watched him as I waited on other customers wondering what he was all about, wondering why he didn’t make a pass at me when I thought I distinctly gave the impression that I was Johnny make-a- pass-able. Okay I practically unhooked my halter to show my stuff as I passed him his trap. Nothing. He finished his order and left. He came back several times over the next couple of months after that, sometimes I waited on him (usually the same order, always the same generous tip, and always with me having a big sign on me saying “make a pass, brother, brother, make a pass, you’ll be glad you did” –nothing), sometimes one of the other girls would beat me to him.

I had pretty much given up on my Johnnie boy, figuring that he was either married like that other guy I dated on the job (although I am no prude and would have still given him a tumble and no back door stuff either, first date rule or not), on the run, a homosexual, or something because, frankly, no guys had ever said that I was hard to look at. And I wasn’t. Especially in my car-hop uniform (in summer a halter and short shorts which showed off my long legs to advantage) that made more than one guy think bedroom thoughts. Still many nights, and not just nights when he came in, I would toss and turn over him, and maybe do some other things too, some private things with my hands , okay, before going to sleep.

Then one night, late afternoon really, Carla, my closest car-hop friend told me that she had heard that Johnnie (who she was interested in too and put out a bigger “make a pass, buddy” sign out than I did when she waited on him) worked for his father over at the John Cain& Son law office near Smith Street downtown. She said that she was going to go over there the next afternoon before work and take her chances to see if he would bite when she was not in uniform. I panicked.

The next morning about nine o’clock, still tired from the last late night shift I was sitting in the law offices of John Cain &Son when Johnny came walking in the office door. I turned red, beet red, when he looked at me, looked at me not recognizing me at first and then something clicked and he said something like he didn’t know Adventure Car-Hop had a take-out service. We laughed and then I turned red, beet red again. I froze, froze for a moment, realizing this was all wrong, that he was not all that interested and was just being polite to a dumb cluck and then just ran out of the office. What a foolish thing, what silly high school kind of thing to do, although later that afternoon as I was getting ready for work I was glad I at least tried, tried for the brass ring. And that…

Oh, sorry, I hear a honk outside and I have to leave now. I have to leave because Johnny said he would pick me up at eight so we can celebrate our first anniversary together. I can’t stay out late because I have an early class tomorrow but he insisted we celebrate tonight. See, my foolish girlish stunt at the office touched something in Johnnie, something that his lawyer’s mind (first year law school student actually which explained a lot) said “needed further investigation” (I am quoting him now). That night, really morning, just before closing, he showed up at the restaurant , waved off the charging Carla, and just sat there, not saying a word until I came over to his car, took his order (same old, same old) except this time he said and I quote- “I’ll wait for you until you finish work, alright?” And that night he and I both got our ashes hauled. And my itch for Johnny calmed down for a day or two, well, a day.