Mission Delta 88

People drove big cars in the early 70s. My father bought a four-door Delta 88 Royale in 1973. Only 7000 were made that year. The overhead-valve high-compression V8 engine owed its existence to muscle cars such as the GTO. The Delta 88 was no family car. A heavy foot on the pedal rocketed the ton of steel to 100 mph with ease. The tundraesque back seat was designed for teenage submarine races. I had been arrested once for a high-speed chase. The Delta 88 begged for gas. My father rarely let me drive this Detroit monster. It was a bad story waiting for a beginning.

Late summer of 1975. My cousin Cindy had fell in love with a student from Oxford. His family hailed for Rhodesia. His uncle founded National Geographic. A step up from her previous beau, Joe, who had given her a V-8 engine the previous Christmas.

Cindy was flying to London to meet Oliver. She was 22. No parental supervision. Our goodbyes ran long at her house in Wollaston, Massachusetts. Her mother cried a salty Neponset River. My mother joined the current of tears. The two sisters were very close, but the clock ticked overtime on their theatrics. Her father didn't want to say good-bye. Uncle Dave looked at his watch.

12:10.

Cindy's flight was at 12:45. The distance to Logan Airport was 14 miles. Cindy ran to the front door. Someone had to drive here to the airport fast. Uncle Dave looked around the room. His son was too young. My older brother was in law school. His eyes fell on me. He held up his car keys.

A Ford Pinto. Another American car unsafe at any speed.

"They'll never make it in that." My mother stuck the Delta 88's key in my hand. My father opened his mouth. My mother's regard shut it. "Get her there on time."

"I'll do my best." I had driven taxi three years during college. My diploma read 'sin laude'. No one booked more money on the weekend than me. Boston was my city. I took the keys.

"In one piece." Uncle Dave said what my father couldn't.

"I'll call from the airport."

12:11 I started the car. The V-8 was in shape. Our mechanic loved big engines. 303 cubic inches. I goosed the gas and turned on WBCN. BALLROOM BLITZ by Sweet. My two sisters wanted to come along for the ride. My mother stopped them.

"Better only two." She tapped her watch. Cindy's boyfriend was several social stratae higher than ours. We were family.

"No red lights." Cindy fastened her seat belt. She was in love. Women are funny in that state. They have no fear.

"No red lights." My mental map counted four. The Quincy cops changed shifts at noon. Their schedule worked in our favor. The Delta 88 peeled rubber from Anderson Street. Cindy said one word, "Faster."

The Delta 88 fishtailed onto Newport Avenue. A straight line to North Quincy. Traffic was light. Cindy and I had protested against the war in Vietnam. She pulled out a joint.

"I got to get rid of this before I get on the plane."

"Light it up." The light at Beale Street was green. We were going 70. The road dipped past the intersection. The Delta 88 traveled a hundred feet in the air. The suspension prevented our panning out on the asphalt. I pushed the engine. 80. 90. 95. I passed two cars like they were running on lead glue. The lights at West Squantum Street went yellow.

I obeyed the old adage.

"Yellow means faster."

Horns blared in our passage. We were in another time zone. Nothing was in my rearview mirror but empty road. We smoked the joint in peace for several seconds.

"Keep your eyes open." We whipped into Neponset Circle like Bonnie and Clyde. No one was prepared for outlaws. I stomped on the gas. The V-8 honored Detroit with power. I was back up to 100 up the onramp of the Expressway.

"12:17." Cindy had a Cartier watch. Her beau had given it to her as a token of his love. The watch kept good time. WBCN's DJ segued to Slade's "Mama Weer All Crazee Now". Cindy was more into Cat Stevens, but TEA TO THE TILLERMAN was not writing for this ride.

More luck.

No traffic on Route 3. No cops either. I hit 110 at the Mass Ave exit.

"12:20." I was ahead of schedule. The odometer had gained 8 miles. Only 6 more to go.

"You see any cops?"

Cindy had better eyes than me.

"No."

The Delta 88 reached 110 entering the tunnels of Central Artery. I dropped down to 60 in the Sumner Tunnel and we arrived at British Airways' terminal at 12:26. Cindy jumped out of the car. She was carrying one bag. A wave and my cousin was inside the terminal. A state trooper appeared from the right. My trembling hands tensed on the steering wheel. The plastic melted into my flesh.

"Move the car, sport."

"Yes, officer."

I drove away according to the traffic laws of the Massachusetts Commonwealth. I stopped at a bar on Mass Avenue. Kelly's. They had 50 cents beer. Three of them brought me back to earth.

I didn't get back to Wollaston until 1:30.

"Did she get away okay?" My aunt wanted to know.

"Fine."

I told them about the trip intown.

None of them believe me.

"What about the red lights?"

"They were none."

None of them after that statement believed me.

None of them except Uncle Dave.

He thanked me with a beer and I was grateful.

Still am.

Just the way I am.

October 10

In two days some of America will celebrate Columbus Day. Many will curse the Genoan navigator.

On October 10, 1492 the great navigator was two hundred miles from land.

In 1973 Vice President Agnew was deposed as Nixon's vice president for graft.

He once said, "An intellectual is a man who doesn't know how to park a bike."

Millions of my generation said, "Go fuck yourself."

Pseudo-intellectuals are not nattering nabobs of negativism and I celebrate Agnew's exile into non-existence every year.

Fuck the GOP.

ps Columbus' fleet had yet to sight land on October 10, 1492. The day meant nothing to his crew, but they all studied the west for a sign of land. Their Admiral had promised a gold coin to the first man to sight China. He reneged on that prmise and doomed the inhabitants to extermination.

Lady Snowblood (1973) 修羅雪姫 - Movie Trailer - Far East Films

From ALMOST A DEAD MAN

The casino at Hamburg's Hotel-Intercontinental was quiet on weekday afternoons. The only action was a solo woman at the roulette table and a Japanese businessman playing baccarat. The head executive in a Savile Row suits displayed no emotion, as his fingers slashed down like samurai sword to take a hit. Win or loss was not as important as his wager’s fearlessness. The money was all black money unspendable in Japan.

After another losing hand the Joshi or boss nodded to his three underlings. The youngest separated from the table and went to the polished roulette table. The low-echelon salaryman did not understood the rules. His boss glared at him and he placed a chip on black, while observing the play of the towering brunette in four-inch stiletto heels.

Her short hair stuck out in punk spikes. Her right eye moved independently of the left. Forces had ravaged her visage. The woman in her mid-twenties resembled Meiko Kaji, if the Japanese movie actress had crashed a Porsche into a wall. There was no beauty in the gaijin gyaru.

The Japanese company man considered Occidental women ugly. This woman was more scarred as a battle-word samurai warrior. irginity was a requirement for a naked sushi body back in Japan. His boss was not so fussy in Germany. His boss was not so fussy in Germany. All the women in Hamburg were whores to them, yet she emanated a defiance rarely displayed by Japanese women other than Meiko Kaji. The pink film star was a goddess. The nameless company man loved the 1973 classic revenge movie THE LADY IN SNOWBLOOD, WHICH TARANTINO LIFTED FOR KILL BILL.

ALMOST A DEAD MAN's gaijin gyaru or western woman is Lotte Wessel, once the leader of the women of the Reeperbahn working women seeking to form a union to overthrow the pimps or Zuhalterai. They almost kill her and now she is seeking revenge.

I wrote this novel in the west of Ireland 1997.

All the cow farmers in the pub beneath the Connemara Mountains asked, "Why yer writing a book about Germany in Ireland?"

"My mother's death wish was that I go to Ireland and marry someone like my sisters or aunts."

"Now that's a death wish. How ye faring with that task?" Mikey came up to my chest and lived in a stone hut on the ocean.

"I'm here drinking with youse." None of the first born farmers had married. Women fled the West of Galway before they could get knocked up by family or friends.

I wrote THE END in December. I returned to New York. Shannon Greer, photographer read it back then in an evening. p>I rewrote it several times without submitting it to publishers or agents.

It's now on page 289 of the 2025 rewrite.

Good then, better now.

October Crow Screening

Dr Neil Nepola.

Three nights ago an audience of fifty young peple showed up for the first screening of OCTOBER CROW. The crowd were mostly tgere for Brigette who is a star. But my dear friend of fifty-four years was drivinf from Staten Island. He was running late.

To stall tge impatience of the young, I regaled the audience with a tale of how Neil and I had hitchhiked across the USA in late August 1973, ending up trying to catch a ride to the East Coast on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Scores of hippies bound for colleges across America after another Summer of Love in the Bay Area competed for a lift. Cars and vans stopped every thirty minutes to pick up a traveler. Once a math major in university I calculated our waiting time. At least a day. My first economics class at Boston College started in four days. Getting there on time looked unlikely. I only had $23. Neil, could have flown, but he hadn't wanted to abandon me.

A few hours later a crapped out Pinto driven by a frazzled mother with a young daughter crammed in a backseat packed with what looked like all their possessions stopped and asked if one of us wanted a ride to Denver. Neil shrugged and said, "You go. You have to finish college."

"Are you sure?"

Neil was leaving the States for med school in the Phillipines two weeks later.

"Yeah, I'll see you in Boston,"

I jumped in the Pinto and we drove East. Marilyn had left her husband, a dancer in the Cockettes, a transvestite dance troupe. She had a friend in Denver. I took over the wheel. Her daughter was quiet in the back. Once she fell asleep, Marilyn joined her and I drove through the night, stopping once for gas in Reno. When we reached the Bonneville Salt Flats, I stopped at a desolate rest area. Neither had anymore drive in us. Her daughter asleep in the Pinto, we crashed in my sleeping bag. That night we made hippie love. At sunrise we awoke veneered by the dead lake's brine. Hours later we showered in Little America. Later that afternoon Marilyn dropped me in Cheyenne and turned south to Denver, saying she'd meet me in Boston.

Doctor Nepola showed up a day later at my house in Bug Village.

"So?"

"Yes."

"Good, because I would have been really pissed if you hadn't."

Forever friends.

ps Marilyn showed two weeks later.

With her daughter. I thought hell yeah. Instant hippie family, except my next door neighbors called her name. They had gone to college together. Shocked she and her boyfriend Andy was there. Shocked was I when she accepted their offer to crash with them, realizing I had been cock blocked. The young audience were gobsmacked by the tale.

Last night Andy's son was in attendance.

Neil was greeted with a standing O.

A small word and a long life.

ps the screening was a success.

Several minutes later when I introduced Neil the audience rousing applauded as my medical saviour and legendary traveler. Then the lights dimmed and the screen filled with the image of Alex standing by a grave.

The first seconds of October Crow.

Seventy nine minutes to go.

ps everyone loved the movie. Even Doctor Nepola. Then again what was there not to like.

VERMONT WINTAH 1973

Vermont Wintah 1973

A blizzard buried Montreal
The temp was arctic.
Minus zero.
I was staying with two New Zealanders
Across the street
From the Winston Churchill Pub
Only forty feet
Going out for beer was a gamble.
Life, death or frozen limbs.

The snow was chest high.
More storms on the way
A day of sun came.
I said good-bye to my friends
To Marie-claire
A waitress at the pub
"I'll be back in the spring."
I hitchhiked south.
Boston bound.
Grey low clouds
Overhead
Snow dropped like clots of cream

A farmer took me to the border.
I was waved through the frontier.
I stood on the America side.
There were no cars
No trucks
Only snow.
And cold
And the cold wind.
It was getting dark.
I was freezing
Bones shivering
My tears were ice. No traffic and snow and cold.

Headlights
An Oldsmobile Toranado
Front end transmission
A Rocket V8
Over 4000 pounds.
It was made for the snow.
It stopped
The lock popped up
I brushed off the snow
Sat inside.
It ws warm

The driver was an old woman.

Her headlights barely pierced the snow.

"My name's Meryl. You want to drive? You can drive in this."

"I'm from Maine."

We switched seats.

I drove 20 mph.

The only vehicle on the road.

Into the night.

To Burlington.

I stayed the night

Meryl had stew slow cooking on the stove.

She started a fire in the living room.

We talked about the cold.

The snow howled around her house.

The fire burned in the fireplace.

The room smelled on New England

The North

Wintah

1973.

The Fire Of Rampant Consumerism

In October 1973 an industrial neighborhood in Chelsea, Massachusetts was burned to the ground after a row of chemical storage warehouses burst into flames. The fire could be seen from fifteen miles away in the Blue Hills, but that conflagration was nothing in comparison to the last week's toxic waste fire at Ruihai Logistics in Tianjin, China, which is 159 kilometers downwind to the southeast of Beijing. Over a hundred people were killed and nearly a thousand injured by the fiery cocktail of calcium carbide, sodium nitrate, and potassium nitrate.

According to Wikipedia the first detonation in the port area happened near 11pm. Its blast was estimated to have the power of 3 tonnes of TNT. Seismographs registered 2.4 on the Richter Scale, however the second blast was ten times more powerful. The resulting fireballs reached hundreds of meters high and a Japanese satellite filmed the series of deadly explosions.

After the disaster Chinese authorities arrested a dozen executives from Ruihai Logistics China and the West have a common agreement to quash any reports on the country's near-lethal pollution levels. That danger is the price of progress and profit.

Despite both starting the 'Ch', China is no Chelsea.

But a good fire is always a good fire.

BURN CHELSEA BURN

In the early 1970s Chelsea, Massachusetts on the north bank of the Mystic River exemplified a failed post-industrial city. The Expressway split the city in two and thousands of people had moved out of the working-class community throughout the 50s and 60s. The coffin was nailed shut on October 14, 1973, when the rag shop district burst into flames, burning eighteen blocks into ashes.

That windy Sunday I left my Brighton apartment after finishing my college studies and traveled on the MBTA to dine at my parents' house on the South Shore. My cousin Cindy was visiting from Quincy. During the meal WBZ Radio reported that Chelsea was ablaze.

"Fire." My older brother loved the stuff.

"Ssssh," my father quieted the table. He had fought the Great Maine Fire of 1947 and liked a good fire.

The radio reporter announced that the Mystic River Bridge had been shut down and the governor had called out the National Guard.

"This I have to see." My older brother had almost torched our house in Maine playing with matches and at 14 we had set the nearby woods on fire toasting marshmallows. The school psychiatrist said that his pyromania was a release of anxiety or a search for euphoria. My mother thought Frunk's perchance for arson as a threat from Satan.

"Fire is a tool of the Devil." My mother was a serious Catholic.

"God spoke to Moses from a burning bush." I had argued, but didn't mention Vulcan had been spawned from a spark in his mother's womb and fire symbolized purity to the Zorasterians, since my mother had little patience with pagans and knew nothing of my devout atheism.

"I just want to see." Frunk was her first-born.

"From where?" asked my mother.

"Just from the top of the hill."

The Blue Hills behind our suburban neighborhood were the highest elevation on the South Shore.

"From there and nowhere else," my mother commanded and my older brother nodded with averted eyes, for he had another destination in mind. "Yes, m'am."

"I'm coming too." Cindy attended an all-girl college. We protested the war on Boston Commons, but a love of fire ran in our family.

"I want to go," said my younger sister, who was a year behind me at BC.

"Not a chance. It's a school night." My mother refused Gina's every entreaty. My father knew better than to intercede. My mother wasn't losing any daughters to the Devil.

"I'll drive Cindy home afterwards. Him too." Frunk pointed to me. I had early morning classes at college and Cindy lived on Beacon Hill.

I kissed my mother good-night. She blessed me with her rosary and slipped me a twenty, which was enough for a week's worth of Labatt Beer.

My older brother drove his VW to the parking lot below Chickatawbut Hill.

Cindy, Frunk, and I climbed to the old CCC tower. Gusts of wind rushed through the trees. Atop the stone tower two teenagers in leather jackets drank beer and smoked cigarettes.

"Good fire."

My brother gazed through my father's binoculars.

"Is it bad?"

"Take a look." Frunk handed me the glasses.

Fiery tongues of yellow and red leapt through the black smoke into the sky. Fire engines raced along the expressway. Chelsea needed help or else the city wouldn't exist in the morning. I passed the binoculars to Cindy.

"Ooo, that's big." The twenty year-old coed was impressed by the conflagration.

"I want to see this closer." Frunk descended the stairs. Chelsea was miles away, but the fire was a powerful magnet to an arsonist.

"From where?"

"From closer." He ran to the VW. I hadn't seen the law student this excited since he talked the cops out of arresting me at a college anti-war protest.

"Closer?"

"Chelsea." He turned to Cindy. "I'll drop you off first."

"No, you won't." The willowy brunette studied ancient history at Harvard. "It isn't every day that you get to see a city burn like Rome.

"I hosey co-pilot." My sense of direction was the best on either side of my family and I held open the door for Cindy. She jumped in the back and I sat in the front. My brother screeched from the parking lot and I pulled out a Massachusetts map, plotting a route to Chelsea.

Frunk turned on the radio.

The WBZ announcer said that the wind-blown fire was out of control. The city's hydrants failed to provided enough water for the hoses. Fire companies from all over the Bay State were descending on the burning city. The National Guard was stationed on Everett Avenue.

"You know anyone in Chelsea?" asked Cindy, as we sped on the inbound Route 3.

"No one."

"Then let's make up a name, so that if the police asks us about why we're there, then we can say we're the_____what?"

"Dwight Evans Volunteer Brigade." The Red Sox right fielder had a good bat and a strong arm to the plate.

On the way into the city my brother pulled over twice on the Expressway for convoys of fire trucks guided by State cruisers. Frunk followed one and drafted on the tail of a ladder truck from Marshfield. Over the radio the Chelsea Fire Chief requested that spectators stay away from the city.

"He's not talking to me." Fire branded my brother's soul, but it was a love for flames not Satan pulling to the burning city.

The Artery was jammed with fire trucks and at the Sumner Tunnel I said, "Get off the Expressway at Chinatown."

Frunk obeyed my directions. We cut through the Combat Zone and climbed over Beacon Hill.

"I don't see any smoke." My older brother peered into the night sky.

I pointed through the North End towers to a wavering orange glow. "Wait till we get to the river."

As we passed the Charles Street Jail, an awesome glare pulsated beyond the Bunker Hill. The sun was setting over the Charles. People lined the Longfellow Bridge. Cars slowed for the drivers to rubberneck the spectacle, but the police were setting up roadblocks on the Cambridge side of the river and Frank asked. "How are we going to get there?"

"Turn onto Memorial Drive."

I piloted him under the trolley viaduct across the railroad tracks to New Rutherford Avenue past the site of the old Charlestown Prison, which had been replaced by Bunker Hill Community College.

We skirted fire barricades and were surprised by the extant of the conflagration upon reaching the Alford Street Bridge over the Mystic River. Red and gold flashed off the water underneath a plateau of the fire trucks' spinning lights. A single Chelsea cop car manned the other end of the bridge. The officer leaned against a light-pole smoking a cigarette.

"We live in Chelsea. We got to get our dog and we're with the Dwight Evans Volunteer Brigade," I said quickly.

"I love Dewey. Where do you live?"

"Everett Ave." It wasn't close to the fire. "I'll cut across Riley's Way to get there. Is there fire there?"

"No, but you be careful." He looked exhausted and ordered, "Take a right on Beachem Street."

"Thank you, officer."

The back road skirted a huddle of fuel tanks.

"If these caught fire, it'd really going be something." Frunk's eyes shined with hope.

"Don't even think about it." Cindy knew my brother well.

A line of cops guarded the street at the end of Island End River.

The police were too tired to enforce the no-go zone.

"Park the car here."

Flames rocketed into the night. Oil-soaked rags and drums of rancid oil fueled the conflagration. An explosion rattled the cobblestones like fallen domino tiles. Fire hoses snaked north of Second Street. A fireman glanced at Cindy. The pulsating lights heightened her Irish beauty.

"The cops say the fire started over there." The long-haired townie pointed to the left. "In the rag warehouses."

Firefighters aimed jets of water at a lost building and another townie said, "I heard on the other side of the fire, hoses are running all the way from Bellingham Square. That's almost a half-mile from the frontline."

A boom rocked the air. Two fireballs whooshed into the sky. My skin felt the heat from three hundred feet away and Frunk said, "Let's get closer."

Embers soared overhead. Ashes rained on us. I expected to see Godzilla breathing lava on Chelsea.

"This is far enough for me." The townie stopped before twin columns of fire.

"The burning bush of Chelsea." Frunk was drawn forward in a hypnotic trance to where the walls of flames rose overhead to form a hellish tunnel. There wasn't a fireman in sight and I grabbed at his arm. He shrugged off my hand.

"And I'm not seeing my brother barbecued."

"I'll be fine. Heat rises. C'mon. You'll never see something like this ever again in your life. It's like Chelsea had been bombed by the Luftwaffe."

"Or Hanoi by the Air Force," I sneered, since Frunk had voted for Nixon to end the war.

"That too."

I stared into the fiery maw. The wind shifted and the enflamed corridor opened to the stars, but the gauntlet's intense heat baked my skin and a face grew in the fire. I was a lifelong atheist, but the eyes belonged to the Devil. He called my name. Frunk's too. We were wanted in Hell and I had no idea why, but shouted, "Run."

I waited for Frunk and Cindi to go ahead of me. I was the fastest, but didn't want to show my fear to the Devil.

At the end of the block firefighters shook their heads. I had wanted to be one when I was a kid.

Not anymore.

"Where did you come from?" a black-faced fireman asked, ready to spray us down.

"From there." Frunk nodded over his shoulder.

"Stupid hippies. Get out of here."

This night was for professionals.

"What did you see back there?" Cindy asked as if she might have seen something.

"Nothing and you?" I asked Frunk.

He didn't say the word.

Cindy and I walked him back to the VW. Ambulances idled on the road. No one had been hurt in the fire, but Frunk was in a state of shock. I took the keys and drove us to Charles Street. I parked the car and we went into the Sevens. Frunk liked Brothers better, but this was my choice. I ordered us three beers and we sat at the bar. My brother watched Patriots highlights on the TV. There weren't many. The home team had lost to the Jets 9-7.

The barman sniffed at us.

"You start a fire?"

"No, but we saw the one in Chelsea." Cindy was seeing an Englishman and had a nice way of saying 'Chelsea'.

"No way."

He expected a report and I told him everything.

"No one died, but that city is burned toast." I left out of the face in the fire, because I was happy with atheism and sipped at my beer, because while there might not be a God, other creatures haunted the flames at night especially when a city burns to the ground and wherever they lived no beer will not be served throughout eternity.

Of this I was sure after surviving the Great Chelsea Fire of 1973.

PHOTOS FROM THE GREAT CHELSEA FIRE OF 1973

fotos by Stanley Foreman

LAX-SFO - SUMMER OF 1973

Back in August 1973 I hitchhiked across country to Tulsa. My friend Neil was staying with a woman there.

We had planned to drive to the West Coast in his BMW 2002, however prior to my arrival the Staten Islander had been distracted by a State Fair roller coaster and rear-ended a truck. The car had been towed to a repair shop into Oklahoma City.

"How long," he had asked the mechanic.

"We don't get many foreign cars out here. Figure two to three weeks for the parts to arrive and then a day or three to get it drivable."

After a truck driver dropped me in Tulsa, I phoned his girlfriend's house. Vickie picked me up in a Chevy. Neil was in the passenger seat and I asked, "Where's the BMW?"

He explained about the accident and that night we discussed the options with Vickie and her sister, Marilyn, which were either stay in Tulsa, fly to LA or hitchhike to California.

"There are all kinds of murderers on the road," warned Vickie.

"We'll be careful."

"Please."

Two days later Vickie drove us out to a strip of Route 66 south of Sapulpa. She kissed Neil goodbye and said, "See you in a month."

I stuck out my thumb and a van stopped for us. The driver was a Yale medical student heading to LA. We took turns driving practically non-stop through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona into California. The driver was no killer.

Neil's cousin met us in Hollywood and that night we slept at his Surfside beach cottage.

Oil rigs sprouted from the Pacific and the ocean was flecked with black tar that stuck to your feet. Neil and I were happy there. I loved the orange smoothies. One night we went to the local bar on the PCH. A convertible Porsche Roadster was parked outside with the keys in the ignition. Neil and I were no car thieves and handed the keys inside to the owner. He bought us drinks all night and offered us to drive the Porsche. We said thanks, but returned to his cousin's house by foot.

The next morning we decided to head north. College friends were waiting up in San Francisco. We crossed the PCH and once more stuck out our thumbs.

Orange County wasn't cool with hippies and neither was LA county.

By nightfall we had only made it as far as LAX.

A mere twenty-seven miles.

Neil and I stood on Lincoln Boulevard and looked at each. He pointed to a PSA sign promoting a $25 midnight special flight to San Francisco. "What you think?"

My money was running low and my final year at Boston College started in less than ten days. Still north of LA the PCH ran along the coast through Santa Monica, Malibu, Ventura,Santa Barbara, Big Sur, Monterrey, and scores of small towns and beaches with magical names.

"We might never come here again."

"That's true, but we're going nowhere tonight."

I thought about Vickie's warning and said, "And we're going nowhere fast. Let's fly."

A taxi brought us to the PSA terminal. We killed the wait drinking at the LAX Theme Building. The 727 took off on time and landed a little after 1.45 at SFO. No one was waiting at the terminal other than taxis. The ride to Haight-Ashbury costed as much as one of our flight tickets and the hotel near City Lights Bookstore was $15. We flipped a quarter for the choice of beds. Neil won and slept by the window.

"That way the ax murderer will get you first."

"Thanks."

I woke with the dawn.

Neil slept with the sun in his face.

We were 3000 miles from the East Coast and over 400 from Seal Beach and six years past the Summer of Love, yet I had learned one thing from our abandoning the road and it was only about how to travel and that was "If I had of known I would have flown."

The Hustlers Convention LP 1973

According to Wikipedia "Lightnin' Rod" was the pseudonym of Alafia Pudim, one of the Last Poets, when he released his seminal 1973 Hustlers Convention LP featuring tracks such as "Sport" and "Spoon" and "Coppin' Some Fronts for the Set".

The album released on United Artists featured Tina Turner and the Ikettes, Bernard Purdie, Billy Preston, Cornell Dupree, and Kool and the Gang. Most of the lyrics dealt with the way of life in ghettos, i.e. hustling, drugs, gambling and money with the outcome being a shoot out with the cops followed by jail where the hustlers learn "The whole truth".

A sequel, The Hustlers Detention is purportedly in the pipeline with the final part being "The Hustlers Ascension".

To hear Hustlers' Convention, please go to the following URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zAkm6MiKQU

DRUNK DRIVING HOUR by Peter Nolan Smith

During the early 1970s my college comrades and I drank at the Hi-hat Lounge in Brighton. The girls were young, the drinks were cheap, and we sold 'ludes and mescaline at the bar. Neither of them were the best available in Boston, but we were always in supply, so the bands playing on Commonwealth Avenue visited us before and after gigs. I even sold LSD to AeroSmith and they invited us to their show. They weren't big yet, but the band attracted co-eds from every university within 25 miles.

That night my friends and I crammed into my VW Bug.

"Can you drive?" Peter Gore asked from the passenger seat. We had hitchhiked across America in 1971. A carload of drunks had begged me to drive their Riviera from Reno to San Francisco. Peter had sat in the back. We drank warm whiskey through the Sierras. He hadn't trusted me behind the wheel since.

"Of course I can drive." I had only dropped a 'lude and guzzled several whiskey cokes. Something about his question bothered me and I said I was going to run every red light to Kenmore Square.

"Don't do that." Peter buckled up his seat belt. No one in 1971 wore one. We had all seen too many films where the passengers burn in their cars, thanks to a defective seat belt. The other passengers were more enthusiastic, then again they weren't in the suicide seat.

I blew the light at the first BU dorms and then another by the Boston Club, however we were approaching the Charles River Bridge. This was a much busier intersection with cars coming all directions.

"Don't."

Everyone cried out with good reason and I braked too late to avoid slamming into the back of a Mustang.

"Asshole." Peter was pissed.

"Anyone you hurt?" I pulled over to the curb..

"No."

Everyone was fine.

"Sorry, I was an asshole." I got out of the car to examine the damage to both vehicles.

My front fender was slightly bent.

My friend at a body shop in Dorcester could fix it for maybe $200, but the Mustang bore a major dent.

Maybe $1000, which was a lot of money.

Cars were swerving around the Mustang. The driver was puking out the open door. I walked up to him and he wiped his mouth, saying, "Sorry, for running that light. Are you okay?"

"I'm good."

"I'm really sorry."

The drunken fool thought the crash was his fault.

"Don't worry about it." I was lucky.

"How much you want to fix your car?" He pulled out a wad of cash.

"Nothing." Peter pushed me back toward my car.

"Nothing isn't going to fix my fender." Five $20 bills seemed fair.

"Thanks." The Mustang driver got back in his car and drove off toward Cambridge.

Later at the Aerosmith show we laughed, when, Peter calling me, "Boston's worst driver."

"But I met my match with Mr. Mustang."

Drunk driving hour was a weekend ritual in the last century, but several years ago the Palm County police had a world-class violator in their sights. The driver refused to stop for the officers in pursuit. He ran red lights, crashed into another car, a fence, fled the scene, and when they finally stopped him, the cops cited the offender with 50 tickets.

One was not wearing a seat belt.

All sounds too familiar.

I wonder if Peter Gore wherever he is thought the same thing.

"Asshole."

I don't drive anymore.

I drink no less.

Best for everyone if I walk and I'm sure that Peter Gore feels the same way too.

SHADOWS OF THE COMBAT ZONE by Peter Nolan Smith

In the late 60s lower Washington Street was anointed Boston's Combat Zone for sex and sin. Working-class drinking dives became go-go bars named the Naked I and Two O'Clock Lounge. Gay clubs like Jacques and The Other End flourished freely in the alleys. Porno theaters openly screened XXX-rated to enthralled men and the cops ceased to persecute the flesh trade, so hookers plied their trade in front of Goodtime Charlie's on La Grange Street.

Everyone was getting their cut.

The Mafia, the bartenders, the pimps, the musicians, and the taxi drivers scored cash off these strippers and hookers.

They were a gold mine.

From 5pm to 2am the hookers strutted their stuff. Hospital workers, lawyers, firemen, and sailors loved them and the girls loved them back for a price.

A quickie was $20.

An hour ran $50.

Showgirls cost a lot more.

The nearest hotel was the Avery, although most johns opted for the short-time rooms above Goodtime Charlie's.

Sherri was the hottest girl in the Combat Zone. The blonde's long legs stretched out of tight hot pants and her cupcakes breasts popped under a tube top. Platform heels transformed the 18 year-old into an Amazon.

She was better than good.

Sherri was wicked.

But she was far from easy.

Sherri was a freelancer in the Combat Zone. Many pimps tried to recruit the freelancer into their stables, but the blonde teenager was too hot for a single man and the police protected her for the sheer pleasure of her smile.

A few of the go-go dancers offered Sherri competition, but they needed beer, booze, and a three-piece band to create her aura of lust. The trios of sax, organ, and drum played low-down soul and the dancers loved grinding flesh to James Brown covers.

The strippers danced like ballerinas on 'Ludes.

It was a true art form.

Bad people walked on Washington Street

The Combat Zone had dark alleys. Crazy Jack was the King of the Shadows. No one was scarier on those back streets.

Crazy Jack was running ten girls. The pimp treated them bad. He asked Sherri to be his queen. She told him 'no' every day of the week and Crazy Jack wasn't happy hearing those nos.

Sailors from the navy Yard haunted the go-go bars. The girls never fell in love with them. Sailors had sweethearts in every port. One lieutenant said he loved Sherri.

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

"Only you, Sherri. Only you."

It almost sounded true.

Sam had gold braid on his shoulders.

He was an officer and a gentleman.

Normally Sherri ended her nights at the Hillbilly Ranch across from the bus station. The 45s on jukebox were mostly country-western. Hustlers drank at the bar and none of midnight cowboys queers bothered her.

A gin and tonic cost $1 and she liked the music on the jukebox.

Sherri came from the South. She never said where, but she listened a lot to Patsy Cline.

The Hillbilly Ranch was her home away and after work she pulled on a red wig to be someone other than herself.

Boston's bars closed at 2am. Combat Zone was empty by 3. Sherri walked out of the Hillbilly Ranch at 3:10. The owner asked if she needed a cab. She shook her head. "I'll walk."

Her apartment was short walk across the Commons on Beacon Hill.

She took a shortcut down an alley. Someone followed her into the darkness. Sherri walked faster, then heard a wet smack.

Crazy Jack lay out cold on the sidewalk.

The sailor was walking the other way.

She called out to Sam.

"You want to have a coffee?"

"Sure."

"I'll meet you at the coffee shop in ten minutes." Sam walked away into the shadows.

Where she didn't ask.

Nine minutes later Sherri checked at the clock. Sam was almost late.

A girl like her didn't wait more than fifteen.

She had someplace to be.

And that someplace was bed.

With or without Sam. FOTOS BY JERRY BRENDT, ROSWELL ANGIER, AND JOHN GOODMAN.

LITTLE AMERICA IN HOT WATER by Peter Nolan Smith

In September 1973 Nick and I stood on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley with a horde of other hippies flocking home after a California summer. Nick was headed to Oklahoma, where his BMW had been repaired after a crash in Tulsa. My destination was Boston to complete my final year of university.

I sat on my bag and surveyed a road map of the USA.

Our paths would separate either in Cheyenne or Denver and I pointed that out to Nick.

"Wyoming is one-third the way across the country." Nick glanced at the map and lit a cigarette.

"Looks a long way from here." No one was stopping for the hippies.

"We can crash in a hotel."

"I don't think so." Staying at a hotel tonight was out of my budget. "You want to lend me $50."

"Not right now." He had about $100. "But once we get to Tulsa, sure."

"Tulsa's out of my way."

"Not yet."

"You're right about that." I stuck out my thumb, hoping to get a ride coast to coast.

A battered Ford Maverick stopped at each set of hitchhikers. Each one shook their heads. A woman with long brown hair was behind the wheel. A young girl sat beside her. The small car was packed with bags. It rolled up to us and the driver said, "I'm going to Denver. I have space for one person. Either of you want to come with me? I need someone to help with the driving."

"Nick?"

The woman was attractive.

Her daughter looked scared of me.

"You want me to take the ride?" Nick's girlfriend was waiting in Tulsa. Vickie was a tall blonde. He didn't have to be anywhere for two weeks.

"Not really, I have to start school in four days. There's no way I'll make it, if I go to Tulsa."

"So you want to ditch me?"

"I only have $20." The cross-country trip took at least four days and $5 a day was starvation rations.

"Go. I'll see you in Boston." His smile was a green light and I threw my bag in the back seat of the Maverick.

The woman's name was Marilyn. She told me her story within ten minutes. Marilyn was leaving San Francisco, because her husband had joined the gay dance group THE COCKETTES.

"He's more a woman than me."

"Mommy didn't like his boyfriends." The daughter had seen too much for an eight year-old.

"We're going to see a friend, Dorothy, in Denver, then stay with her for a month before heading out to Boston."

"I'm from Boston." I had a cold-water apartment in Brighton's Bug Village. "If you need a place to crash, then you can crash with me."

"Cool." The daughter liked my hair.

We drove over the Sierras and crossed Nevada at the car's top speed of 92 MPH.

That night we stopped at a rest area in the Bonneville Salt Flats. A few semi-trailers were parked in the desolation. The salt pans stretching in every direction shone under a crescent moon.

Marilyn put her daughter in a sleeping bag, then took out a joint. We smoke the weed and admired the stars. Trucks

"Weren't you scared asking for someone to share the driving?" I traced Orion with my finger. The belt was easy to find in the cosmos.

"I was scared, but I spent the last two years with a man who didn't want to be with a woman, because he wanted to be a woman and ended up looking like Peggy Lipton."

"From MOD SQUAD." Everyone wanted her.

"Yes, and no one touched me in that time. San Francisco is going gay. They made me feel ugly. Am I ugly?" Her voice warned of tears.

"You're not ugly." Her face was kissed by the beauty of starlight and I touched her shoulder. I knew how gays treated women. The 1270 in Boston was my secret pleasure. The boys at that gay bar passed me off to the fag hags as 'on the fence'. I stroked Marilyn's neck. "You're beautiful."

"You're only saying that for one reason." She was thinking that reason was sex and shivered under my touch.

"Two reasons." I pushed her down on my sleeping bag and looked over to her daughter. She was dead asleep.

"Which are?" Marilyn hadn't resisted my slight show of force.

"That you want it as bad as me." I unbuttoned her shirt. Her nipples were hard. I licked them.

"More," she moaned under the blessing of the stars.

And I gave her more.

The next morning I woke with the sun rising over distant mountains. I pulled up my jeans and tapped her on the shoulder.

"It's time to go." Sleeping in the open wasn't safe.

"Give me a minute."

She got her daughter up. Marilyn understood the danger. We were in the Mormon lands.

Later that day we stopped at the truck stop in Little America Wyoming. Marilyn and her daughter went into the ladies showers.

The men's section was filled with truckers. Some of them were not straight. I stepped into a shower stall and turned on the hot water. It came out cold and then hosed my back with a scalding outburst.

I hit the wall like spam chucked from a catapult.

The man in the next stall asked, "Do you need any help?"

He was only wearing a smile and suds. His cock was enormous.

"None." I had been in a hot shower before and I knew that his smile was an invitation.

I exited from the showers without toweling dry.

"You ready to go?" Marilyn and her daughter were sucking down a milk shake.

"Whenever you were."

Cheyenne was only three hours away.

Marilyn dropped me on the highway.

"See you in Boston."

"See you then."

She drove south and I headed east.

I never expected to see her again.

As usual I was wrong.