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Wednesday, May 29, 2013
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***Reflection On A Veterans For Peace Memorial Day 2013 - A Remembrance Worthy Of The Day
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
To The Fallen-In Lieu Of A Letter
The mere mention of the name Veterans For Peace evokes images of hard-bitten ex-servicemen and women, many old, ramrod straight holding their beloved black and white peace dove-emblazoned banners flying proudly in all weathers. Of images of quickly written urgent and militant calls for withdrawal of American military personnel from conflicts somewhere in the bewildering number of places that this American government has planted its forces. And too images of relentless exposure of the thousand and one ways that this American government (and not just this government) tries to hide its atrocities against overwhelmed opponents and the innocent civilians who get caught up in the juggernaut. Those exercises of our democratic and moral obligations are what drives VFP most days but I want to put politics aside this day, or put them aside at least long enough to speak of another role that we have taken on over the past several years here in Boston on Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for our fallen.
Others can address, and eloquently, the origins and purposes of the day, a task that usually would come easily to this writer. Others will throw symbolic flowers into our beloved homeland the sea, into Boston Harbor, to give somber recognition to the fallen of current conflicts. Still others in other commemorations can, and will, speak of valor, honor, duty and unquestioned obedience to orders accompanied by the far-away tattoo of drums, the echo of the distant roar of cannon, cannon headed to some unmarked destination, and the whish and whirl as an unseen overhead airplane unloads it sacrilegious payload.
Today I choose though to speak of long ago but not forgotten personal remembrance, and to give name to that remembrance. To give name, James Earl Jenkins, old North Adamsville rough-house Irish neighborhoods friend and fellow of many boyhood adventures not all fit for public mention, a name now blood-stone etched in Vietnam War memorial black marble down in Washington, D.C. To give name, Kenneth Edward Jackman, my brother and James’ friend also, a name not etched in black stone but a causality of war nevertheless who, despite his fervent desire, “never made it back to the real world” from his tour in “Nam and spent his shortened lonely life reliving the past.
James and Kenneth, what happened to each of them and why, take on special meaning today as I utter their names publicly from the misty past for the first time in a long time because those names link to those we remember today. Not just those, like James, who served under whatever conditions and for whatever personal reasons, those seem beside the point just now served died, but those like my brother, those who do not show up in any official casualty report but all those nevertheless damaged by the close-hand experience of war.
But enough of this, as it only brings another saddened tear. But, as well, enough of war.
***Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Fort Meade Maryland On Saturday June 1st At 1:00PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
A couple of years ago (2011) I wrote a little entry in this space in order to motivate my reasons for standing in solidarity with a March 20th rally in support of Private Bradley Manning at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia where he was then being held. I have subsequently repeatedly used that entry, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner, as a I have tried to publicize his case in blogs and other Internet sources, at various rallies, and at marches, most recently at the Veterans For Peace Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade in South Boston on March 17th.
After I received information from the Bradley Manning Support Network about the latest efforts on Private Manning’s behalf, an International Day Of Solidarity on June 1st at Fort Meade, Maryland as he prepares for his June 3rd trial date scheduled for April 24th and 25th in Washington and Fort Meade respectively I decided that I would travel south to stand once again in proximate solidarity with Brother Manning at Fort Meade. As one would expect when the cause is still the same, Bradley Manning's freedom, unfortunately most of the entry is still in the same key. And will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Brother Manning until that great day.
*****
Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Fort Meade , Maryland on April 25th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led war in Iraq. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
Of course I will also be standing at the front gate of Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25th because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient for my standing at the front gate at Fort Meade on April 25th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an additional reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a citizen-soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this comment after all is about brother soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came”.
Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me get through the tough days inside. So on April 25th I will be just, once again, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, Brother Manning, are a true winter soldier. We were not able to do much about the course of the Iraq War (and little thus far on Afghanistan) but we can move might and main to save the one real hero of that whole mess.
Private Manning I hope that you will hear us and hear about our rally in your defense outside the gates. Better yet, everybody who reads this piece join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to high heaven against this gross injustice-Free Private Bradley Manning Now!
A couple of years ago (2011) I wrote a little entry in this space in order to motivate my reasons for standing in solidarity with a March 20th rally in support of Private Bradley Manning at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia where he was then being held. I have subsequently repeatedly used that entry, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner, as a I have tried to publicize his case in blogs and other Internet sources, at various rallies, and at marches, most recently at the Veterans For Peace Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade in South Boston on March 17th.
After I received information from the Bradley Manning Support Network about the latest efforts on Private Manning’s behalf, an International Day Of Solidarity on June 1st at Fort Meade, Maryland as he prepares for his June 3rd trial date scheduled for April 24th and 25th in Washington and Fort Meade respectively I decided that I would travel south to stand once again in proximate solidarity with Brother Manning at Fort Meade. As one would expect when the cause is still the same, Bradley Manning's freedom, unfortunately most of the entry is still in the same key. And will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Brother Manning until that great day.
*****
Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Fort Meade , Maryland on April 25th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led war in Iraq. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
Of course I will also be standing at the front gate of Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25th because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient for my standing at the front gate at Fort Meade on April 25th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an additional reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a citizen-soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this comment after all is about brother soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came”.
Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me get through the tough days inside. So on April 25th I will be just, once again, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, Brother Manning, are a true winter soldier. We were not able to do much about the course of the Iraq War (and little thus far on Afghanistan) but we can move might and main to save the one real hero of that whole mess.
Private Manning I hope that you will hear us and hear about our rally in your defense outside the gates. Better yet, everybody who reads this piece join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to high heaven against this gross injustice-Free Private Bradley Manning Now!
From The Boston Bradley Manning Support Committee Archives (April 2012)
Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning In The Boston Area On Friday April 27th In Davis Square, Somerville And Saturday April 28th At Park Street Station In Boston
We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq War timetable but we can do much to save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.
Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning In The Boston Area On Friday April 27th In Davis Square, Somerville And Saturday April 28th At Park Street Station In Boston
According to the Private Bradley Manning Support Network (see link above) there are a series of actions planned next week in Washington, D.C at the Justice Department on April 24th and at Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25th and 26th in connection with the next round of legal proceedings in his case. I had originally intended to travel down from Boston to take part in those events that week but some other obligations now prevent me from doing so. Nevertheless there are two on-going activities in the Boston area where those of us who support freedom for Bradley Manning can show our solidarity during this week.
Every Friday from 1:00 -2:00 PM there is an on-going solidarity vigil for Brother Manning at the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop in Davis Square, Somerville.
Every Saturday from 1:00-2:00 PM there is an on-going peace vigil/speak-out in our struggle against the war (or wars) of the moment being orchestrated by the American government and its allies at the Redline MBTA Park Street Station in Boston (Boston Common). Bradley Manning’s case is a natural extension of those struggles.
Here is a little comment that I have made previously whenever the call to defend Private Manning in the streets has been issued as motivation for standing in solidarity with him in his time of need:
Of course I will be standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning in Davis Square and at Park Street Station on April 27thand 28th respectively because I stand in solidarity with the alleged actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious war-like doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led war in Iraq. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning may have exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justifications rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.
I will also be standing in solidarity with Private Bradley Manning because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some“beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.
These are sufficient reasons to stand in solidarity with Private Manning and will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Brother Manning until that great day. Please plan to attend either or both of these events on Friday April 28th (Davis Square) and/or Saturday April 29th (Park Street) to stand in solidarity with Bradley Manning.
***Boston Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out As Part Of An International Day Of Solidarity -Saturday June 1stPark Street Station – 1 PM
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us At Park Street Station In Boston On June 1st At 1 PM For A Stand-Out In Solidarity Before Bradley’s June 3rd Trial
Plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3rd trial. Check with the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/for information about going to Fort Meade from your area.
If you can’t make it to Fort Meade come to Park Street Station on June 1st in support of this brave whistle-blower.
*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom, and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system, civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/
*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion. For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 plus days is enough. Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.
Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us At Park Street Station In Boston On June 1st At 1 PM For A Stand-Out In Solidarity Before Bradley’s June 3rd Trial
Plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1st for an international day of solidarity with Bradley before his scheduled June 3rd trial. Check with the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/for information about going to Fort Meade from your area.
If you can’t make it to Fort Meade come to Park Street Station on June 1st in support of this brave whistle-blower.
*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- as the trial date approaches funds are urgently needed! The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And the Obama government is fully using them. We have a fine defense civilian lawyer, David Coombs, many supporters throughout America and the world working hard for Bradley’s freedom, and the truth on our side. Still the hard reality of the American legal system, civilian or military, is that an adequate defense cost serious money. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/
*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ )to the Secretary of the Army to free Bradley Manning-1000 plus days is enough! The Secretary of the Army stands in the direct chain of command up to the President and can release Private Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him at his discretion. For basically any reason that he wishes to-let us say 1000 plus days is enough. Join the over 25,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
***Brother (Or Sister), Can You Spare A Dime?
****
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931)
For C.M., North Adamsville Class Of 1964
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Banks and country economies are failing left and right, being bought up by bigger banks up the food chain or being bailed out by some multi-national entity enhancing the “too big to fail” or“two small to let everything up the chain fail” syndromes that got us into this economic mess in the first place. Unemployment is still way up, and staying steadily up as jobs worldwide, working people jobs, have been replaced by computer-generated productivity and factory workers in Europe and America have gone the way of the town crier, the hand-loom weaver, and the lamplighter. The plight of international youth is so stressful, hell, let’s call a thing by its right name, desperate, that the long term repercussions are almost frightening. Housing values are down on the floor, and after heading to the basement are now only on a slight uptick, with no real upswing, meaning people buying homes rather than investors going in for the kill, in sight what with overstocked, unfinished housing and foreclosures still glutting the market. A retirement account, the previously much vaunted savings for the “golden years,” are subject to the daily twists and turns of the financial markets sensitive to global economic pressures and so that term retirement may become like some quaint word no longer in use out the middle ages.
And that is the grim news factor on an average day. Other days just ratchet up the doom and gloom from there. And some of those other days just turn off the television, radio, computer, horoscope, tarot cards or however you learn the news of the day. The whys and wherefores of that news, however, is not what this writer wants to comment on though. One of the very few virtues of growing up "dirt poor," 1950s dirt poor in the “golden age” of the post-World War II American economic boom, first in an old jerry-built housing project which were provided in order to ease returning veterans back into civilian life and give them a leg up on that aforementioned dream in old tired working- class Adamsville and then across town in an old shack of a house on the wrong side of the tracks on Maple Street near the North Adamsville High School is that even now I am personally inured to the vicissitudes of the economy. Hell, when I was young hard times were the only times, except maybe harder times around the Jackman household. I did not, except by rumor, know there were any other kinds. That knowledge came with a certain resentment and attitude.
All of the above is by way of making this point. I have been broke more times than I could shake a stick at, both by choice and by the fickleness of fate. The fickleness of fate (and my own stupidity or angst) having a slight edge. I have been flat broke, dead broke, broke six ways to Sunday, and every kind of broke you can think of. At one time I almost make a religion of it, dressing it up in an eloquent moral and philosophical covering. I have been in the clover a few times too, but those have always been very near things and provided by the largesse of other (meaning usually I latched on to some sugar mama whose family had dough and I was able to ride that wave for a while).
Let me put it this way. I have leisurely strolled across the Golden Gate Bridge, some companion in hand to while away the time, taking in the sea salt breezes and the spectacular views. I have also slept huddled, in solemn and fearful aloneness with a tattered newspaper for a pillow, under the Golden Gate Bridge having ill-advisedly burned some other bridges behind and found out about the hardness of that size of existence. I have eaten at restaurants where one does not ask the price, or need to. I have also eaten free-for-all stews and watered-down coffee, gladly, from Salvation Army soup lines. I have sat idly on hopeless park benches in nameless forsaken towns another town’s newspaper for a pillow, too many nameless forsaken towns. I have also sat idly, ice-cubed drink in hand, in a beach chair on some deck watching the surf rise and fall on the rocks at Bar Harbor. I could go on in this vein but you get the idea. Here is my accumulated wisdom though-it is much better to have the dough.
See you don’t have to be some high theory radical or socialist equalizer to figure out that down on the mean streets, down there at the edge of society, down where the jack-rollers and con men meet the fragile working drudges in battle that the struggle for existence, for the daily bread, is too hard and time-consuming to the neglect of other more healthful existences. Some days just getting from point A to nearby point B takes all the effort and pluck of some superhuman angel mad monk. There, frankly, has to be a better way to organize the ways of the world. But until that day and just in case the times get even worse than they are now I am keeping in shape. Keeping my long ago dirt poor wanting habits in check. I will just bone up on the mantra of the hard mean outlaw streets, cup in hand if it comes to it later. Brother (Or Sister), Can You Spare A Dime?
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931)
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember, I'm your pal?
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,
Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal?
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
***The Walking Daddy Of Joy Street-Take Two
Walking Daddy’s place then, the time when I would see him around, was smack dab in the center of the action, right there on Joy Street up on Beacon Hill right near the State House. Now the place itself wasn’t anything, maybe less that anything to speak of, two small rooms, a living room and a bed room with a small kitchenette, a studio really. But what made it a magnet was that Walking Daddy, all forty-four years of him, all six-one and one hundred and ninety pounds of him, all long brown hair, beard, eyes of him, was the main man cocaine dealer around that area at a time when cocaine (sister, coke, snow, girl, or whatever you call it in your neighborhood) was just emerging as the drug of choice for those with discretionary incomes who wanted to get their kicks after tiring of marijuana or other lesser drugs.
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The Walking Daddy Of Joy Street was a piece of work, a real throwback to ancient times, maybe back to Pharaoh times, if that guy needed a fixer man, and to ancient dreams not all pleasant. A time back in the 1960s Boston from whence he came when everything touched by, washed by, the young, held some kind of big flower, big cloud puff promise. He held himself among the young although maybe cutting the high side a little since he had come of age at the tail end of the be-bop beat era, the tail end of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady rushing through mad monk existences before beat, beat down, beat around, beatitude became just another commercial venue, and had smoked his first joint in some poetry- strewn back room of some Harvard Square coffeehouse in about 1959.
See he had fed right in that new scene, fed right into that big cloud puff stuff as the max daddy ganja man in town, at least the white section of town. Yah, it was that way then too. Christ, the stories they told about him when he was on the high wire, the stories they told about his own mad monk madnesses that played fast company with anything his fellahin beats did. Stories, just to get this straight not told by some fried-brained fool all twisted up and brain-mashed from too many hits, way too many, of the pipe making stuff up in order to walk in Walking Daddy’s reflected glory. Stories told straight up in ganga bong pipe smoke-filled rooms and rolled dollar cocaine snort dens about when Walking Daddy turned, or helped turn the town hip.
Walking Daddy was right there at the beginning, right then at a time when everybody who had caught that 1960s breeze that came out kicking from the stinking dinosaur 1950s (Jack and company excluded) at the time when everybody was practically giving as much dope away as they were selling. The righteous of the earth bent on a mission, a magic puff mission. No sales pitch, no come-on, but just to, well, just to turn the brethren on, new age a-borning turn the sleepy-headed brethren on. He was seen, day and night, passing out big rough-edged blunts like they were going out of style, and righteous stuff too.
They told a story of some Back Bay bust, booze-busted, dope-busted, maybe some underage sex thing busted too, such things were all kind of mixed up together then on police blotters, where some number, maybe twenty, guys and gals were busted at some too noisy party and hauled into to the stationhouse. Somehow Walking Daddy heard about their plight and through some nefarious and slinky connections got a pouch full of Acapulco Gold into the jailhouse and by the time they were done the place smelled like some college dorm, or some Chinese opium den. Beautiful. (Somebody else who had another part of that same story said that Walking Daddy had gone bail for all of them as well. That sounds right too.)
Then that cloud puff all kind of turned in on itself. Too much war madness, Vietnam War madness for those too young to remember or who have forgotten, too much parent authority anger and counter-offensive against the stillborn new age, too much hubris, too much bad dope, and hell, too much, too much. The always lurking greed-heads got greedier, the product got poorer, or really some slap-dash quick- change artists looking for easy money, started passing oregano and other crap as dope to make a fast killing and broke the high. Yah, just broke the high. Walking Daddy just soldiered on though, after all he was a dope-dealer and that was his profession, and had been an honorable one too before the greed-heads burned the thing to the ground, but it was not the same, not the same at all when the tide ebbed sometime in the early 1970s..
Nobody knew his real name, although the name Bob and Tom had been thrown around the place by some young women who seemed to know him more personally, and whom he employed under some unknown conditions to package his product, but Walking Daddy will do just find because this memory blast is not about a name but more a sense of the times. (We can skip the reference to the Joy Street part of his moniker too since we know where his kingdom was). A sense of the times and of some of the denizens who survived in that heady atmosphere of 1970s in Boston before everything turned to ashes, to violence, and to some bizarre behaviors once cocaine became the drug de jus. See Walking Daddy had a sense of that earlier time too, that 60s time, a sense that weed had been played out just like when he had started out and beat had turned to retreat , and people wanted to move on and get their kicks on Route 666 then. Get their kicks on cousin cocaine. Walking Daddy’s place then, the time when I would see him around, was smack dab in the center of the action, right there on Joy Street up on Beacon Hill right near the State House. Now the place itself wasn’t anything, maybe less that anything to speak of, two small rooms, a living room and a bed room with a small kitchenette, a studio really. But what made it a magnet was that Walking Daddy, all forty-four years of him, all six-one and one hundred and ninety pounds of him, all long brown hair, beard, eyes of him, was the main man cocaine dealer around that area at a time when cocaine (sister, coke, snow, girl, or whatever you call it in your neighborhood) was just emerging as the drug of choice for those with discretionary incomes who wanted to get their kicks after tiring of marijuana or other lesser drugs.
This all happened at a time before guys were winding up very dead in some Sonora dusty dirt road, some Mexican dirty road trying to make a score without connections. Guys like his friend Billy Smoot who didn’t know the whole thing was rigged up, that the fix was in, and that it had been since eternity and wound up face down with two slugs in him for trying to go “independent” when the cartels moved in. That shook Walking Daddy to the core, but what was he to do the great Mandela has turned the wheel and called his profession. A time too before cousin cocaine got whipped around in some crack bong pipes and guns started to foul the play. And so Joy Street became a Mecca and Walking Daddy “walked with the king.”
Sure Walking Daddy wanted to make money, make lots of it from an overheard conversation passed on from one of his“employees” but he also had, and this was passed on too, an idea that he would make his Joy Street digs something of an old time opium den, a place when select company could unwind, could do their lines, and get their kicks in a friendly environment. And what allowed Walking Daddy to do that was two, no, really three things. First he was, unlike poor Billy, connected, connected down Mexico way and so would not expect to find himself in some dusty back road ditch, face down. Second he was connected at the State House at just that moment when cocaine was getting to be the marijuana of the 70s generation who wanted good stuff and had the dough to pay for it. (Some wag said that he could have been an honorary member of the Bar Association for his client services to that community. Another said he knew more Assistant-Attorneys-General than the Attorney-General did. And he certainly more about their private recreational habits.) So while, once in a while, out on the streets he had to stand for a drug pat-down by some clueless cop who thought he was on the level, was just doing his job, the cop that is, before higher powers stepped in, he was left alone. Third, and this is where Walking Daddy took a certain pride in his work, he was inclined to give away as much stuff as he sold, especially to the bags full of young women college students who dotted the area.
Strangely though he wasn’t tagged with any woman, although there were always plenty of women around including those previously mentioned “employees” and while there was a little talk that maybe he was a fag, gay, a homo, by those who were outside his circle it seemed more like he was just not into sex, or women or stuff like that although a few were more than ready to give him a chase. Oh yes, and he never touched the stuff himself, maybe a little weed like in the old days if it was passed around but no sister.
So on any given day back then, starting in late afternoon Walking Daddy could be seen walking around Cambridge Street, Charles Street, maybe Beacon Street if he was heading to the Common picking up acolytes, picking up a stray a woman or two to add some zest to the nightly doings. Picking up some low-lifes too, some hard-edged corner boys, some North End toughs or Southie hard guys, maybe just out of Deer Island or Walpole, some beat down old winos from Berkeley Street, or some guys from anywhere who had maybe taken too many hits from the bong in the 1960s and never got over it, since Walking Daddy liked to think that he could cater to all kinds with the common denominator of snow to bind his “nation” together. Yah, Walking Daddy was a piece of work.
***American Pyscho Number 34 – With Joseph Cotton’s The Killer Is Loose In Mind
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
The Killer Is Loose, Joseph Cotton, Wendell Corey, 1956
I don’t know about you but I like my American psychos, the cinematic variety okay, strictly, well, bonkers, and with a certain flare. You know guys like Robert Walker in Strangers On A Train or Anthony Perkins in Psycho. Guys you wouldn’t want to invite dinner, or any meal, and would feel ill at ease having within sixteen towns of where you live. So your average Walter Mitty psycho, like this guy Leon Poole I am going to give you the “skinny” on, left me flat. Left me flat because maybe with about a six drug cocktail his weasely little problems could have been brought under control and maybe he could have led a civilized life like the rest of us. Instead he was last seen dressed in drag with about thirty-three (hell, that is only a guess) cop-directed slugs in him on some fellow copper’s lawn. Let me tell you how he got there and you will see why I only go for stone-cold psychos.
This Leon, like a lot of guys back in the1940s and 1950s, maybe now too but that was the time of Leon’s time so let’s stick with that, was kind of clumsy, kind of a guy who couldn’t really navigate in the world, a guy who was naturally the butt of every prank. A guy fit for nothing else but to be a fall guy. A guy, a Walter Mitty guy, who would be afraid to say boo in response. Yah, that was Leon Poole. Not a stone-cold killer bone in his body. Not like the guys who were nurtured into evil from the cradle practically. But see even Walter Mitty-type psychos have a breaking point, or rather points.
First Leon, a seemingly mild-mannered and loyal bank employee by day, was really the finger man for a heist of the bank’s goods, you know money. See Leon had a honey of a wife, who like all wives likes nice things and you know they cost dough, real dough. So Leon took the famous bank robber Willie Sutton’s advice and when where the dough was. In this case right at work. But like all Leon things, like everything he ever touched, the cops were hip to his part in the crime in about two minutes and so they so ran to his apartment house with guns at the ready. They called him out but he refused their kind offer. Cornered like a rat he fired a shot through the door nicking a copper. They returned the fire and in the process wasted Leon’s lovely wife, the only person who ever was kind to the guy. And then the madness started, started like some slow descent into hell. That turned out to be Leon’s breaking point number two.
Of course Leon drew a dime at the state pen for the bank robbery and nicking the cop he wasn’t arguing that, no at all. What started eating at him was that his wife fell at whim of the copper’s guns. That was worthy of revenge. And so in those long lonely nights watching the days turn to night and back again Leon got himself worked up enough to figure a way to get even. He would take out not the cop, some lifer copper, a guy named Joe to give him a name, who liked his shiny badge, liked being a cop, but his wife. Yah, the old eye for an eye story, literally. He became a model prisoner and as part of that act got himself transferred out to an honor farm, a farm outside the walls. That was like giving candy to a baby.
Then the spree started, the relentless spree to get to that dirty copper, no, that dirty copper’s wife back in the city. First off he murdered the guard who was supposed to use his services to unpack some product boxes from the truck at some town market. Leon cut him dead leaving him face down in some watery ditch. Leon then had wheels to make his getaway. He killed a hapless farmer for his truck, a change of clothes, and other provisions to get back to the big city and hi sweet revenge. In the big city, seeking refuge to plot his next moves, he killed an old army NCO right in front of his wife, a guy who had made fun of him when he was in the service. That was definitely not the day to be in Leon’s crosshairs when he shed his Walter Mitty garb. An old score settled but not the big old score.
That was not the finale. This was. Leon headed to that copper’s house. Joe’s house. Of course Joe had the equivalent of the 82nd Airborne Division worth of coppers at the house. And of course too the cop’s wife, some headstrong red-head, Rhonda to give her a name, who was tired of being a cop’s wife, was not in said house but was innocently waking down the street to that house after a fight with her hubby cop when Leon made his move.You know what happened, you know too that Leon Poole was strictly an amateur, strictly from jump street. And you know too why Leon Poole never made any American Psycho hall of fame. Enough said.
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