RE-ENTRY
from chapter #25
When we arrived in Richmond, it felt wonderful. I was looking forward to hooking up with some of my old friends, especially the girls. The air was fresh and warmed to a tee. We stopped at first joint we could find that sold fried oysters, a ritual I always perform whenever I go to Richmond. I ordered a large take out dinner, to christen or returned trip. We sat in the car outside the "Drive- thru" and enjoyed the view of the people coming and going, and we discussed what our next moves would be. We already had a brand new apartment on the south side of town, only a few blocks from where I was raised. We also had a 1956 Chevy Beach Wagon that was painted a bright orange and jacked up in the back with "mag" rims. We were good to go. The car was sitting in front of the apartment as we pulled up. I couldn’t wait to hit the streets in that baby. We didn’t bother to unpack right away, because my brother had already set the place up before he came to New Bedford to get me. We just went in, turned on the air conditioning, and listened to some of the best music I had heard in years.
Unfortunately if you live north of New York City, you don’t have a clue about how much good music you’re missing, music, singers and bands that you will never hear. When tunes like.xxxxxxxxx.....pop on the radio, it just makes you crazy to know that you just left a place that doesn’t have a clue about the broad range of music that’s out there. Richmond is a music city, always has been, hosting and delivering some of the best musicians ever. The Jarmels, Little Walter & The Rythmettes, Sterling Harris, Major Harris, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters are some of the more notable ones. There were several established bands that had been around for years before I went into the service. I was feeling much more confident about my music skills and was itching to find a band to join. There were a couple of really hot music stores located in the heart of the city. It was Thursday afternoon, and I was still suffering from the jet lag of the eleven hour trip to Richmond, but that didn’t stop me from hitting the pavement determined to find a band in which I could play. The record shops were the places to go to find out what the music scene was like in town. I was visiting my second shop when I got my first lead on a band. What to my surprise, it was one of the most popular bands in town. The word was out that they were looking for a bass player, so I took the phone number from the clerk and gave the bandleader a call. He set up a rehearsal time for the next day, which was Friday.
I couldn’t believe I was playing in a band in Massachusetts just two days prior, and now I’m in Richmond, and I’ll be playing with one of the hottest bands in town. It was good that I hooked so soon with a band, because I was still musically energized and I was familiar with some of the songs they were doing. The band also backed up an awesome singing group that was busting some serious tunes, i.e." I can sing a Rainbow”, The Dells, etc. We practiced all day on Friday, because my first gig would be the next day, Saturday. In fact we would have to play at two different places on the same night. The guys in the band were really cool, and they treated me really nice. I guess I must have been an o.k. Bass player, because the guitarist, who was also the bandleader, was very good indeed and quite professional. If I was good enough, I’m sure he would have tossed my butt out of there right away.
The lead guitar was very good as well, and he did a good job of backing me up on some of the more difficult songs. The trumpet player was doing his second year at the Julliard School in New York, and we became very good friends over time. The singing group was very professional in the way they conducted themselves at rehearsal. I was totally impressed with the band, which caused a bit of gloating. This elated feeling I was having was making it a little difficult for me to pick up some of the stuff as quickly as I could have. I was trying to get use to the strange sensation I was getting listening to the southern drawl of my new friends. Sometimes when they were talking or singing, it sounded as if they were choking. They knew that I was having some difficulty understanding the some of the words they spoke. They were very patient as I worked to learn a complicated series of tunes that went with the choreography of the singing group.
Saturday couldn’t come quick enough, but it did as I found myself sitting comfortably in a van with some of the other band members. We were off to God knows where, some seventy miles or so south of Richmond across the North Carolinian border. To me it was like a ride into the unknown, and it actually was. Everything was new to him, so of course some anxiety was to be expected, but as we drove we were able to continue rehearsing in the van. It was dark now and I didn’t have a clue where I was, but it was obvious that we had turned off the main highway, and was now riding on a dirt road. After we had nearly gone airborne crossing a couple of railroad tracks, we arrived at the club.
The club looked like some God-forsaken place in the middle of a field of dreams, except he didn’t know if it was a dream or a nightmare. It had been a while since I had been home or in the South for that matter, but this is the way it was in the South, but I just couldn’t get over how the place looked like a throw back from the wild, wild west. We didn’t past through any kind of metro center prior to arriving at the club, somehow it suddenly the building just showed up. I couldn’t figure out how anyone could know how to get to this place. We started taking our equipment in as soon as we got out of the van. It was an easy ‘load-in’; just one step up and you’re inside the club. The building was a basic rectangular shape, and it reminded him of an old army barracks. The stage was near the front entrance, and off to the right side as you entered. The walls were draped with various cloths, like curtain material. The stage was covered with carpet, which gave the place a wonderful acoustics. This effect would have made any band sound very funky, even if you weren’t a funky band.
The locals started arriving about nine o’clock. It was obvious that they were ready to party, because each person had something to say as they filed passed the stage. The smell of fried chicken and Brunswick stew was cooking in the rear of the club. We opened up with a few instrumentals that included some very nice solos by the trumpet player and the lead guitarist. “What does it take”, by jr. Walker & the All-stars was a favorite in the south at that time, and anything by king Curtis i.e. “Memphis soul stew” would work as well. The place didn’t take long to fill with the funk-seeking locals. They loved out-of-town bands, and since we were from Richmond, were treated like royalty. We would only be playing the first three sets, and then we would have to pack up and head back to Richmond to play another gig. The singing group came out with a slamming rendition of, “please return your love’, and “I can’t get next to you”, temptations, followed by” Stay in my corner”, The Dells. Then they ended with their signature song, “I can sing a rainbow”, the dells. The crowd really enjoyed the performance, and I did a good job of holding down the bass parts too.
We didn’t waste any time packing up the equipment and heading out to Richmond. We had another gig to do and we didn’t want to take any chances on being late. We would be playing at the largest venue in Richmond at that time; a place called the mosque. It was a huge building that could hold a few thousand people at a time. We were going to play as part of a marathon type gig, that included about eight to ten bands. The gig would start at a normal time, nine o’clock, and would continue until five or six o’clock the next morning. We had a pre-arranged time to go on, which was about three o’clock in the morning, just before the Winstons. They were one of the featured groups and we had to open up for them. They were known for the song,” I'll always love my mama”. We had a two and a half-hour trip back to Richmond, arriving at the mosque at one o’clock. That gave us a chance to re-group after the first gig and the trip.
I was still riding high from the thrill of playing with such a popular group and the change of environments from New Bedford a few days prior to Richmond. Richmond is a large city, and playing on this scale was quite a rush for me. A few days ago I was playing in front of a crowd of about fifty people, and now, I just left a crowd of two hundred in North Carolina, for an audience of three thousand. Plus the group I was with was the hometown band indeed. The group had established itself long before I showed up, but I was still very proud to be a part of the action anyway. We hung out for a couple of hours before it became our turn to play. Even though I wasn’t use to working these kinds of hours, I had no trouble keeping my energy up. When we hit the stage, we kept the crowd going with the music, because the bandleader knew via experience just what the people wanted to hear. Of course when the singing group hit the stage, there was no turning back.
It was Monday and I had only been in town for a few days, but I wanted to get established as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to depend on the band as my major source of income, so I found a job working in a machine shop. Rebuilding crankshafts would be my day gig f or the next six months. I also had enough space in my apartment to do my artwork. I made connections with a couple of local record shops to take my drawings of musicians on consignment. This adventure was a smashing success. I had more orders for drawings than I could manage. The demand was overwhelming, but I did my best to keep up with the demand until I made adjustments to the idea. The money from these adventures was enough for me to have a comfortable lifestyle.
After a few weeks had passed I was ready to find some of my old school pals to see what they were doing, and to let them know that I was playing in the band. I found one of my pals because his name popped up while I was traveling in the musicians’ circle in the city. His name was Harold. I remembered him as a cool dude, and a close friend of the centaurs social club from our high school days. He wasn’t in the club, but he lived in my neighborhood, and he always came to our parties. Someone mentioned that he was a singer, so I was really anxious to find him. It had been at least six years since I last saw him, and I was happy to find that he was still living in his same childhood home. He was only a few blocks away from me. I gave him a called and invited him over to my place. When we met for the first time in six years, it was as if no time had passed at all. We were just a little older and freer to do what we wanted as adults did and not as kids. We spent a few hours going over the past, and later we would get on with the business of having fun.
I had the next day off from work, so we made plans to get together and check out the town. He picked me in his 68 Buick and we headed out to parts unknown. He had already served his time in the army and returned to Richmond to re- establish himself as a singer. He always was a ladies man of a sort; therefore he had no problem finding the ladies. After a short spin around the city, he headed for a pre-determined house where he knew two ladies were waiting for us to arrive. They were of course two of his regular female fans, and for me it was a blind date and a delightful surprise as well. He knew what the deal was, and he wouldn’t dare introduce me to a girl that didn’t meet the high standards of the past. “I see you haven’t lost anything”, I thought to my self, then whispered to him later. Well, I guess my date like me all right, other wise it would have been a little awkward for him and we probably would have had to ride around some more, but I’m sure that wouldn’t have been a problem for him at all.
It was a beautiful day as we cruised around the town in his smooth riding vehicle with the windows down and the soulful tunes were conveniently playing on the radio. Tunes like ...xxxxxxxxxxxxx.....
Made it easy for us to become aquatinted with each other. My newfound date was smooth and very pleasant. Even though it was a nice day, it was still hot and we decided to head for my place. We arrived at my crib, where we settled down in a nice air-conditioned atmosphere. The music was fired up and the girls put together some lunch for us. Harold and I made some drinks to help cool us after the sunny ride around the city. Unlike the parties and get-togethers I had in the north, we didn’t smoke any grass. We didn’t have any and there was no mention of it, but we still managed to have a good time without it. We did have good strong drinks to make up for any other aphrodisiac that may have been missing. Plus we were getting off on each other because we knew we were being bad girls and boys.
Somehow the subject of orgies came up, and that lead to a lot of giggling and laughter. It was a really hot day, as it was, and the girls were scantily dress anyway, so it didn’t take much imagination to get the sex parts started. We were all half in the bag by now and the originals was singing, “the bells followed by other tunes like;” The hunter gets captured by the game’ ” The Marveletts; “The one who really loves you.xxxxxxxx....
The girls started to take their clothes off, and naturally we just followed suit. There was no shame in this group that I noticed. There was only the four of us, so I don’t know if that constitutes an orgy or not, but there wasn’t any time wasted getting into action. I wasn’t tripping, but I felt like it because I had never done anything like this before. I just assumed that this was kind of southern hospitality that I should have expected. We were just having sex, right there on the living-room floor with the cool air blowing all over us. Now we were making a different kind of music. After this episode, I didn’t think I would ever leave this town again.
I was doing well with my band, but being the music lover that I am would never turn down an opportunity to play a gig, especially with musicians I liked. Harold invited me to play a gig with him in West Virginia. It would be a job that was set up by a popular local music agent. I excepted the invite right away, because I really liked the challenge of learning new songs and was eager to do as many gigs as I could in this new southern environment. I was well over the choking sensations I was feeling with my ears as I listened to the drawl of my musical peers. Harold said we would be doing a lot of tunes by Tyrone Davis. One of his popular was “Turn back the hands of time”. Other tunes included “Something she’s got xxxxxxx.. I went to work learning the tunes I would be playing with this new bunch of musicians.
A couple of weeks later Harold and I was on the road heading for west Va. This was another adventure trip for me and I was excited about reaching our destination somewhere outside of Charleston. The ribbon of asphalt tended to put me to sleep as we wound our way through the bituminous layers of the West Virginia landscape. Eventually we would reach a dusty looking building in the middle of countryside. I had no idea where I was. It was the first time any of us had been there. Some of the band members were already there when we arrived. I was riding with the star singer, so we were naturally expected to be late. “This is going to be an easy gig”, Harold said as we unpacked our gear from the car. We only had to do one set, so we only had to bring our instruments along.
While we were unpacking, I noticed a poster on the wall that was announcing, ‘starring Tyrone Davis”. I ask my buddy about the poster and that's when he said,” that’s us”. He could see the panic starting to show on my face as he broke the news to me. “Don’t worry,” he said. These people don’t know what Tyrone Davis looks like. Everything is cool. I really didn’t believe him, but I had no choice at that point. I didn’t think any more about it and played the game along with him and the rest of the band. I was the only one in the band that didn’t know what was going on. We kept a low profile backstage until it was time for us to go on stage. This was the opposite of what I wanted to do. I was looking forward to hanging out with the people in the club, but not this time.
The other band was done with their set and now it was our turn and the club was packed with people by now. We kicked off the set with Jr. Walker’s What does it take? We followed that tune with Otis Redding’s version of Papa’s got a brand new bag. Then it was time for Tyrone to come out, and out he came with, Turn back the hands of time, etc. Everything was going along very well all the way through the last song, when one of the half drunk patrons started yelling, “that ain’t no Tyrone Davis”, that ain’t no goddamn Tyrone Davis. He was being very obnoxious, in spite of that fact, he was right. Unfortunately he placed a spark in the minds of some of the people in the crowd, which started to erupt into a ruckus. The people started to surround the stage and started to hound the band members about the singer who was already packed up and out the back door. Luckily for me, I was with the singer, and we were pulling out of the parking lot just as the people we coming out of the front door looking for his ass. We could hear them swearing and cursing like there was no tomorrow. I could here glass breaking as we sped up the road, with our hearts beating faster than the car engine was running.
We were not sure of what happened to the rest of the band, but we were lucky to get out of there in one piece. I was scared shitless, and had no idea of what was going to happen. I just kept my eyes on the road ahead and kept praying. Harold had that old Buick nearly floored as we descended from the dusty hills of Charleston. I don’t know how we got out of there without being caught by the clubbers or the cops for that matter. I started feeling better when I saw the Washington skyline and the capitol dome was becoming more and more visible as we slid down the road in a southerly direction. I should have had a little more confidence in my friend than what I was exhibiting. After all he was a post “Centaurian” supporter, and I knew he wouldn’t do anything to bring shame upon himself or me. Doing mischief was never a problem with a Centaur, but getting caught was absolutely unforgivable.
This trip reminded me of the time; I was exploring an area of woods, which was about four miles from my house, and completely in an area of town where I shouldn’t have been. These woods were neat because they were adjacent to the railroad tracks and one could easily hop a train from there and conveniently ride it to several jump off points on the way home or back into my territory. Even when the train guards would see us, they could never catch us. We were much too familiar with every inch of ground in the area. It was our business to know every hiding place that was available. I think I was either placing 16 penny nails on the tracks that would be flatten by the train and with a little filing here and there, the nails could be easily fashioned into arrow heads or little knife blades. Or maybe I was looking for a new source of tadpoles, or checking some snakes we had staked out to dry in the sun like so many strips of sun dried tomatoes. We would later make belts or wristband from the skins depending on how long the snakes were.
Whatever it was that brought me to the area was not a good thing on that day, because I was discovered by a gang of guys from that area, and they knew I wasn’t suppose to be there. When the saw me in the woods they immediately came after me. I took off running along a path with which I was quite familiar. I though that would be enough to throw them off, but it wasn’t. I had to keep running until I reach the railroad tracks where I was hoping I could jump a train. Unfortunately there was no train in sight, so I had to keep running. Now I was running along side the tracks on a narrow little well- worn path. The path was precariously close to the ties of the tracks. One trip on those ties and I would have been dead. I was in a bad position now because I was in the open and when I looked back I could see that there was five of them. That’s when my heart kicked into overdrive. I really wasn’t a long distant runner because I suffered from asthma during my teen years, but I was away out of my territory and I knew I had at least another mile and a half to go before I reached my turf.
My heart was beating faster than ever because I knew I had put myself in a bad situation. I never should have been in that area without my boys, but it was too late for regrets now. My afterburners were on full throttle, and I’m sure I was doing a two-minute mile. These guys were good. They were gaining on my butt. Now I had reached a major four-lane street I had to cross with out slowing down or losing too much time crossing. They were still gaining on me and I had to make a quick decision. I was almost in my territory but not enough to be safe. I had only one choice that I knew would put some distance between us. I had to head for a briar patch, which was located on the opposite side of the street, and in the rear of a service station. I barely made it across the street without getting my ass knocked off. Cars were screeching and slamming on their brakes, as the crazed youth pursued me with vengeance. The guys were getting so close I could feel their breath on my back. That’s when I jumped over the white post and rail fence into the briar patch.
I was very familiar with this patch of blackberry thorns. It was an acre of fully developed thorns that was difficult for a rabbit to get through, but for me it was a matter of life or death. I don’t know how I did it, but I hoped through the briar patch like Brer rabbit. It worked. Those guys came to a sudden halt. There was no way anyone other than an insane person would have done what I did. I didn’t stop running until I was on the other side of the patch, which was well in my turf and just a block away from my boys and a host of secret hiding places. There was no way for them to catch me now because they would have had to travel totally around the block to get to me.
I started laughing as soon as I got on the other side, and actually stopped, turned around and started taunting them. Then I took off again and headed for a hiding place a block away in a set of woods in my territory. I was totally whipped at this point; out of breath and amazingly very few rips and scratches from the briars. I ran into my woods and lifted the well-camouflaged top from an underground space we had dug out just for such an occasion. The hole in the ground was six feet deep and big enough to for a lawn chair and a couple of milk crates. The hole was dry and cool, maintaining a temperature of 65 degrees most of the year. We also keep it stocked with a first aid kit, radio, food and drinks. It was a serious fortress, well planned and well placed. It was very solid. One could be standing on top of it and not know it. It was one of two such hiding places we had built, and we used them often. I knew I had done something stupid that almost cost me my life, but now it was over. I could laugh to help ease the pain of the fear those guys had put in me, but I didn’t get caught and to a Centaur that’s all that mattered.