***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation
Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Elvis’ One Night With You
A lot of boy-girl things didn’t make sense in the mad world
of the iced down 1950s (we will keep ourselves to the boy-girl thing here
recognizing except in exotic Hollywood/ North Beach/Village outposts that other
now acceptable relationships were below the radar, below the radar in North
Adamsville anyway, except in a titter of faggot/dyke-baiting in the boys’ gym
locker room after school). Nobody, or almost nobody, talked about sex in any
but very hushed tones except maybe the school tramps and whoremongers who were
more than happy to explain the facts of life to innocent youth. But they were
not listened to as a rule so that it was up to you to ask your older brother or
sister as the case may have been in order to get some information they picked
up from the streets to fill you in where parents with their birds and bees
silliness, the church (you name the denomination at your leisure) banned the
words and talk of such words like things were done by osmosis or tarot cards as
one guy actually explained to one gal one night and she believed him, Jesus, or
school, locus parentis school and
thus as clueless as parents about their charges, came up nada. Empty.
Of course half, maybe more, of that street talk was wrong,
dead-ass wrong coming from sources that barely knew more than those asking the
questions. And so there was an epidemic of young women being plucked out of
school for a time to visit some forlorn aunt in Topeka (sorry, Topeka).The
whole wide world had never known such devotion of wayward young nieces for
out-of-town aunts during those times. So when boys and girls started getting
attracted to each other, when they touched, when they danced swaying with the
big new beat coming up to grab them out in that cold war night sure they were
confused, sure they wanted to know what those tingles were all about –and do
something about it just like the “he” and “she” of this sketch…
…she was not exactly sure why she felt that way, felt warm
in what all the girls in the before school “lav” called their “honey pot.” Honey pot a term picked up from some older guys
they dated who got it from around jazz clubs or who talked fresh to them trying
to pick them up around town and who had picked it up from who knows where,
maybe sailors in Boston, or those older brothers trying to be hip. Some of the
rougher girls, the girls who smoked in the “lav” against school rules, drank
cheapjack liquor, mainly whiskey, on dates and “did the deed” as some modest
girls called the sexual act and they called it “fucking” called that spot other
things, pussy/ cunt kind of things which she did not find out until later, much
later, and not much before she got married that guys called that spot those
words too but she modest then stuck to the euphemism and even saying that term out
loud made her blush crimson red).
That warm feeling had come over her lately, since turning sixteen
lately,
whenever she heard the local radio station, WJDA, the station teenagers
were now tuned into since the station manager bowing to demographic shifts
changed the format from jazz to what the station called popular music or when the
kids at Sal’s Pizza Parlor up in Adamsville Center were on the juke-box
endlessly playing Elvis’ suggestive One
Night With You (suggestive of what she would not find out until later,
until Tommy one night tried to have his way with her and she kind of let him,
kind of, kind of also did not let him, which she would not explain at the Monday
morning before school “lav” talk about what went on over everybody’s weekend except
to say they were finished, done as an “item,” no further explanation given).
Someone, Betty Arlen, she thought, one time said it was just
her coming into “her time,” although she did not know what to make of that idea
since she had that same feeling before and after she came into her time. She had
thought Betty meant “got her friend” (translation: began to have her period,
her cycle, which was late since at least most of the girls she knew had gotten
their “friend” a year or two before her). Betty had giggled and said she did
not mean that, that thing every girl had, her “friend” (Jesus, would no one but
tramps and whoremongers use anything but prissy words when speaking of sex and
its functions) but the time when everything was confused and when a teenager
did, or did not, know which way to jump. A time of teen angst and alienation which
created sullen jack-rolling corner boys (guys in white tee-shirts and denims
hanging their feet against storefront walls daring said walls to object,
formally called juvenile delinquents), made heroes of hot-rodding “chicken run”
kings out on Thunder Road, and icons of “cool” actors like Marlon Brando and
James Dean.
Betty said the stuff was news in all the newspapers and her
father had mentioned it to her and asked her if she felt alienated. Betty said
“no” quickly under the circumstances since “yes” would have probably kept her
in the house until her father determined that the epidemic had run its course. All
our distraught she knew was that the old songs on the jukebox or radio, the
ones that she loved to listen to last year (on that same WJDA that now was
formatted for popular music meaning not her parents’ music) Frank, Bing, Patti,
Rosemary, did not make her feel that way anymore. Didn’t make her feel that she
wanted to jump out of her skin.
One night as she thought wistfully back to when her urges
had all began, thought about her now seemingly girlish silliness since she had
moved on in her big beat tastes, when Big Joe Turner’s Shake, Rattle and Roll came on the radio and she swaying to the
beat at Doc’s or up in her room dancing by herself would get warm in her “honey
pot.” She also gave a thought about Tommy Murphy from school, from North
Adamsville High, from her class, her Problems in Democracy class, whom she had
thought might have had a better handle on it, have had a better sense of what
turbulence was going on inside her when he told the whole class in Current
Events that there were some new songs coming out of the radio, some stuff from
down south, some negro guys sound from out of Mississippi plantations heading
North from down in Memphis somewhere, some white hillbilly guys sound from the
farms and small towns from that same town, that he would listen to late at
night on WJKA from Chicago when the air was just right. Sounds that made him
want to jump right out of his skin. (She never dared to ask whether it made him
feel warm in his “honey pot” since she didn’t know much then about whether boys
had such pots, or got even warm there like she did when the beat jumped). When
he said that, said it was about the music, she knew that she was not alone, not
alone in feeling that a fresh breeze was coming over the land, although she,
confused as she was would not have articulated it that way (that would come
later).
As she continued to muse she remembered that she had asked
Tommy about it after class and talking awhile both getting animated on the
subject agreed to let him walk her home after school. One thing led to another
as they found that they had so much in common, and then a few weeks later they
had their first date, first date to go to the Surf Ballroom down at Adamsville
Beach and listen to some guys, a band, The
Ready Rockers, play the new music. She had wondered to herself before he picked
her up at her house whether she would feel warm again in her honey pot when
they danced (she could not speak of such things to Tommy), she had hoped so.
Later, not that night but a few weeks later, when they
skipped the dance part and just went to the far end of Adamsville Beach in his
father’s car and they listened to the radio and the song that got her going,
going strong as Tommy made his moves, was Elvis’ One Night With You which got her fantasizing about him all swaying
hips, snapping be-bop fingers, snarl and slicked-back hair and between the beat
and Tommy’s hands she let him have his way with her, kind of. The kind of part
being that while she let him undress her, partially anyway, she was not sure
what he did, not sure if they had done the deed. In any case she got angry at
Tommy, got angry assuming that he had had his way with her and that he should
have stopped. That night was the beginning of the end of their short romance
especially after she had heard at the Monday morning before school “lav” talkfest
some girls mention that they had successfully held off their boyfriends who
wanted to “go all the way” and she was doubly furious. (Later, much later, she
found out that one of those girls who had claimed to have fended off her boyfriend
suddenly announced she had to go see an ailing aunt in Topeka or some place
like that. More importantly Tommy, as inexperienced as her, had not really done
anything, any penetration anyway. Poor Tommy).
After giving Tommy his walking papers she still got those
urges and still wanted to try to figure out what to do about them when Elvis or
Jerry Lee came on the radio (and, truth, had secretly thrilled when she thought
Tommy had done the deed, had made her a woman, although she believed he really
should have stopped and thus the break-up). One night, one Friday night she
went with Betty and another girl to the Surf Ballroom to hear the Ready Rockers
play. And maybe find another guy, a guy who would respect her. Then she saw
Lance, Lance all black hair and brown eyes, slim, dancing up a storm to Bo
Diddley’s Who Do You Love. Later she
went over to see if she could talk to him, to see if the music hit him the same
way as it did her and they talked.
Later, not that night, they had their first date and after
he picked her up in his ’55 Chevy he suggested they skip the dance and go to
the far end of Adamsville Beach. She said she would really wanted to but told him
he should stop before things got out of hand. Once they got there Lance turned
on the radio and turned on his hands. She didn’t resist and while she was not
sure which song got her going that night between Lance’s quick moving hands,
the moon, the sound of the ocean roar and her own desire Lance had his way with
her. And she knew this time from her aching hips and other stuff that he had “done
the deed.” Come Monday morning before school girls’ “lav” talkfest she was the
first girl to tell the group how she had successfully fended Lance off that weekend.
Let’s tune into Tommy Murphy’s take on the situation now
that he is single and lonely.
… he could hardly wait until the weekend, wait to hear the new sounds coming out of the south, rhythm and blues stuff, rockabilly stuff, that he could hear on his transistor radio up in his room coming on clear nights out of WJKA in Chicago, stuff called rock and roll. It didn’t come in clear every week but when it did he would start snapping his fingers to the beat, the swinging beat that “spoke” to him somehow. He could not explain it but it made him feel good when he was down, was confused about life, okay, okay, about girls, school, and that getting ahead in the world that his parents, his mother especially, kept harping on. Made him think that maybe he would be a musician and play that stuff, play and make all the girls wet. Yeah, as little as he knew, he knew all that part about girls, about how this music was making them get warm, warm in all the right places, in their “honey pots,” according to George his older brother who knew all about girls and had explained what that term meant (and who really knew all he knew like everybody else from the streets). Make that new girl of his, Susie, warm too. He hoped.
Funny how they met, he and Susie met, or not really met but started out, started out in school of all places, in class. Jesus. In Current Events one week when it was his turn to make a presentation and he chose to talk about that radio station in Chicago and about the sounds he heard that made him want to jump out of his skin. He couldn’t exactly explain why when Mr. Merritt asked about why he felt that way except to say that it made him feel good, made him less angry, less confused. After class Susie had come up to him and practically begged him to tell her his feelings because she had said when she heard Big Joe Turner coming all snapping fingers on the radio on Shake, Rattle and Roll, she felt funny inside. (He knew what kind of funny but he knew, knew because George had told him, not to say that to girls.) That had started it since he walked her home a few times and he found that she was easy to talk to. So before he knew it he had asked her to go see the Ready Rockers at the Surf Ballroom down at Adamsville Beach who were playing the new sounds.
He didn’t know what would happen but he hoped that she would get that funny feeling inside when they danced, he sure hoped so. And she did, but nothing happened that night. A few weeks later, when he had his father’s car and suggested that they skip the dance and head straight down to the far end of Adamsville Beach, he had turned on the radio while they were “making out” (kissing and some fondling of her breasts with his hands moving nervously all over the place and she sighing at the touch) when Elvis came on with his One Night With You and she did not stop him when he took off her underpants and he got on top. He made a bunch of moves but she was not paying any particular attention. Fact was he did not know what to do so he just rubbed his “thing” against her “honey pot” but did not go inside. At least he thought he had not gone inside. After he was done she asked him whether he had “done the deed.” In a panic and not wanting to show his inexperience he said yes. She got furious, said he should have stopped and what if she got pregnant and had go visit an aunt. That, in any case, was the beginning of the end of their short romance. She gave him his walking papers that next Monday afternoon saying that he should have been like other girls said their boyfriends did and stopped before anything happened. Tommy had no comeback that would work and so he just walked away, forlorn…
