MONSTER ON THE LOOSE
From chapter 6
It didn’t take long for me to settle in to my new environment, about one week. My first trip off base landed me in Boston, where I hung out with the gang, Danny David, Clifton, Richard , and etc, who were in charge of all of the social life in and around Central Square and the Western Ave area, not excluding Harvard square. I met these guys through some minimum connections I had in Richmond. It wasn’t unusual to find that these guys were music nuts to the greatest extent anyone could imagine. These guys turned me on to the likes of Jay Wiggins, “Sad girl,” Tousaint McCall, "Nothing takes the place of you," Darrell Banks, "Open the door to your heart,” etc.
I would hit Central Square about seven o’clock on Friday night and that would be it. Sometimes the guys would meet me in Central Sq. Or at a divvy little soda fountain joint on Western Ave. Everybody that was any body seemed to have met there prior to nine o’clock. It was a place where the folks would grab a burger and soda and listened and danced to the sounds coming off the jukebox. The locals would cram into this place religiously every Friday and Saturday night to get hyped up for the party, wherever it was. The place tended to empty out by ten, because by then everyone would have chosen which party or parties they would attend. Most of the people that met there were not intoxicated or drugged at that time of mixing at the spa. Some times we would drink before arriving at the spa. We would get a litter of wine, ruby red port or white port, or other disgusting types i.e. Twist, Thunderbird, Mad Dog20/20, or anything disgusting like that. It wasn’t the lack of money that caused us to buy that crap, but it was more of a trend.
It was as though it wouldn’t have been any fun if you didn’t have a fierce headache or puked your guts out the next day. Some didn’t make it to the next day. Sometimes we would meet girls there or we may have gone off to Revere beach to meet some girls there, and then off to some party. Even though we were “half in the bag” sometimes the girls didn’t seem to mind, and went along with us to whatever party we were attending. There wasn’t a lot of “dope smoking” at that time, at least not in our circle; mostly drinking and various forms of pill popping. The parties were much like the parties I remembered from my pre-service days. A few more records maybe, a lot of slow dancing and impromptu sex, and the lighting was right, virtually non-existent.
Every weekend thereafter was simply a carbon copy of the one before plus trying to get in that extra bottle of wine somehow. Many of my trips to Boston were made solely to purchase records; not only for myself, but for other guys on the Base, especially for my next door neighbor in my barracks. His name was David; he was a cool, slick, slim, black dude from Georgia. To him, I was just a twerp, fresh in the war and apparently not ready to mingle in his circle of friends, which was very small, in fact limited to one or two guys in his room at any one time. I was new to the base and he wasn’t sure of who he was even though I was in the room adjacent to his. I later found out his paranoia was primarily due to his excessive herb smoking. But this guy had what seemed like every record on the face of the earth. His routine was work and back to his room to relax and spin his records from the time he arrived in his room, until sometime in the wee hours of the morning. He played a wide variety of music from jazz to pop and I had no problem with the sounds that were leaking through the walls at all. I could never hear too music. Once he heard some of my tunes blasting back his way he wasted no time making friends with me, which led to me buying records for him and several others on my visits to Boston. Some weekends I would buy three to five hundred dollars worth of records for my pals back at the yard. The majority of these purchases were made at the infamous Skippy Whites.
It didn’t take me too long to settle into a routine at my new base. A typical day consisted of eating breakfast, working an eight-hour shift. We would hit the chow hall, then head for the barracks to clean up, and hit the road. The destination, Onset, Wareham, Marion or New Bedford, which was the closes city to the base. It was usually easy to get there, even if you didn’t drive. Hitchhiking was no problem because some of the troops from the base lived there, and commuted every day. When I was not in Boston, you could easily find me in one of the other places. If you heard a lot of laughing, saw smoke, heard dynamite un-familiar music or some other kind of commotion, then you would probably find me near by. Other than living, my primary objective was to have as much fun as possible. Other than working, eating and drinking, meeting new people were also at the top of my priority list. I was an expert at meeting people, because when I started drinking the most fantastic stories/ lies would come out, and once you started laughing it was difficult to stop. I was just a silly guy who was having a good time and enjoying life. Sometimes I would start with a story i.e.
The time my brother and I were caught crossing an eight-lane highway with our arms filled with Twinkies, Yodels and Moon Pies precariously balanced. We had just removed them from a truck that was parked in front of a bakery. Suddenly an under cover cop pulled up right in front of us in the middle of the street blocking our escape route into a densely wooded area just a few steps away.
He asked my brother, "Boy, what you got there?” My brother said nervously “ca-ca-cakes.” At that point, I burst out laughing and the pastry went flying onto the street. The cop burst from the car in an effort to catch us, but he stepped on one of those moon pies and his ass went straight up in the air. He was so high in the air, he reached zero gravity. He must have been six feet off the ground. That’s when we made a dash into the woods. Once we were in those woods we knew there was no way for him to catch us. The woods were about six square acres and the path from the street dropped quickly from street level to about fifteen feet. If one were not aware of this drop in the terrain, it would be like stepping off a cliff. It was pitch black and only a person familia with this path or a fool would challenge it. The woods were a maze of paths and housed there was every kind of bug and animal you could imagine. there were copper-head moccasins, brown snakes, raccoons, rats and a swampy area that was particularly tricky with quick- sand qualities. It posed no problem for us, since we played in these woods often. We knew every inch of the area. Besides we did most of our dirty work on nights when there was no moon, using the darkness much to our advantage. We were half way through and on our way out via a secret exit, when we heard the cop give out a little yelp when he hit the ground. We also heard car horns blowing, because the street was a major throughway, and I’m sure he was interrupting traffic with all those pastries in the street.
I would tell these kinds of stories, one after the other, until the whole group was in hysterics or had just become so exhausted that some just passed out or would have to leave altogether. Whenever we had our little ‘Git-togethers”, there would always be some music playing in the background. Some Gladys Knight, James Brown, Mad Lads, O Jays, or Sly and the Family Stone, Eric Burton and Hendrix. The types of music played varied from session to session, depending on whether the herb came from New Bedford or Plymouth, which at that time was kicking out some of the best stuff I ever had. Hell, you could get a four –finger bag of “Colombian Red” for thirty-seven dollars. Some of that shit was so strong we used to cut it with loose tobacco and roll up the whole can in one sitting. Then we would grab a hand full of joints and ride around the back roads of Carver in thick fog looking for gophers in the cranberry bogs.
On the weekends it was a little different. I would go to some of the local clubs that was happening. The Golden Clef in Onset, Joe Pete’s in Mashpee, the "Greenway", The Big House in Falmouth, The “Blue Flame”, and the PAC. Club in Marion, etc. There were quite a few good clubs to go to for the locals and the GIs from the base. When I found out about these clubs, I had to alternate my trips to Boston. I had discovered a gold mine of new music and new faces that I could mingle with and that was good. The Golden Clef in Onset was my favorite place. It was close to the ‘Yard’ and they had good bands every weekend. Three of the areas favorite bands that use to play there were “Big John and The Blends”, and “Chubby and the Turnpikes.” I would try to make it there as much as possible. I really liked the atmosphere. It was a ranch styled type building that had a fairly low ceiling inside and excellent acoustics. The stage was tight with an even lower over head and just barely enough room to accommodate a six-piece band. The occupancy was probably one hundred and fifty people, but somehow I knew they had managed to fit in two hundred or more. It was perfectly tight.
The monster was on the loose
The bass player in the Blends was the coolest guy on the face of the earth. His name was Joe; he played a 1956 Gibson EBO with a single Humbucking pick-up. He stayed tucked in the corner of the stage, with his dark sun glasses and the sound the he put out was perfectly mellow it carried the whole band wonderfully. You could hear the bass playing from the outside of the club, which was a great attraction for me. Once I arrived at he club and heard that bass I just had to get in line and wait for a chance to get in. He was my inspiration to play the bass guitar after watching and listening to him over a six-month period.
