Tales from the Trails of a Rock ’n’ Roll Bus Driver

by Jerry Fitzpatrick

  When I called the office, Robin announced that she had another tour to send me on right away. She said I would be driving the same truck, and I turned her down and told her I wasn’t interested. I took the truck to a Ryder shop and headed to the house. When I got home, my girlfriend at the time insisted I get a job in town and settle down. I got a job right away that I wasn’t really interested in and tried the home life. I felt like I was missing things, and one day while going through some paperwork, I came across the business card that Mario with Gristmill Coach had given me.

  I called him and identified myself as “that truck driver who took such good care of my truck.” I told him I had gotten rid of the truck, and he laughed.

  “Are you ready to drive a bus?”

  I told him I thought I was, and the next day I was on a plane to Pensacola to become a bus driver. Not too long after that I didn’t have a girlfriend anymore.

  Sometimes The Job Blows

  When you work the night shift, your evening is in the morning. When that sun creeps through the blinds, many people rise, open the fridge and crack open some eggs. For those who clock out in the morning, cracking open a beer is more likely. Seeing a bus driver sip on a cold one at 8 a.m. to unwind is not an uncommon thing. In the 1980s, there were no drug tests for drivers, so occasionally I would sit back and relax with a joint.

  One morning while on tour, I was sitting in the front lounge of a coach after a long and grueling overnight drive. Everyone was off the bus and headed into the arena to start his or her day. I did my normal cleanup activities and sat down at the table in the front lounge. There were some reefer roaches and unfinished joints in the ashtray. Common knowledge is you don’t throw away passenger drugs. If weed is left in the ashtray, anyone can have it – a typical unwritten bus rule. I grabbed a half-smoked joint and fired it up. I was enjoying the subdued atmosphere waiting on the time to head to the hotel with the other drivers. That’s when the real rest would come to gear up for our day’s work – the coming night’s run.

  The quiet was disturbed when one of the roadies riding my bus abruptly swung open the door. He shot me a weird look as he passed me going into the bunk area. He returned shortly and sat down at the table across from me. A large clear bag of cocaine in his hand. With a coffee spoon, he took a scoop and spread it on the table. Roadies doing drugs in the ᾽80s, whether to party or to wake up for work, was not an uncommon sight. He didn’t say much as he chopped and prepared his lines. I sat there taking a few drags on the joint looking out the window.

  My attention was drawn to him because of the desire he expressed as he prepared to top his morning coffee. His tongue was slightly sticking out in anticipation as he drew the two skinny lines with the laminate backstage pass hanging around his neck. He rolled up a hundred dollar bill, leaned over, and in one breath, snorted the first line down, kicking his head back and wiping his nose. I looked at him, not saying a word, and touched my nostril. It can be embarrassing getting caught with that little white ring around your nose or cocaine boogers, as the condition is called. I took another drag on the joint and was squashing it out in the ashtray when he took his other line. Snorting cocaine can be similar to taking a drag off a joint. You draw the blow into your nose and hold your breath a second and let it out like you would the smoke from a joint. As he raised his head again, the veins in his neck protruding from still holding his breath, he said, “People who smoke pot are STUPID.”

  He exhaled and licked the side of his laminated badge, straightened it around his neck and started to pack up his drugs. I just looked at him and said nothing as I touched my nose again. Another ring of residue outlined his nostril. He wiped his nose again, put his stuff away and hit the door. With the morning rush over, it was time for him to get back to work and time for me to go to the hotel for 12 hours of rest.

  Chapter 4 The Power Of A Woman

  Burt Hasselton, a good friend and a well-known driver from Michigan, was assigned with me in 1987 to drive The Powerful Women of Wrestling, better known as POWW. Burt had been driving buses for years. Once I heard him tell another young driver that he had pissed on more highways than that driver had driven on. He had been driving coaches for years, taking care of The Beach Boys back in the day, among others. I hadn’t been in buses long, and Burt gave me a few pointers about how to approach things.

  POWW had evolved from the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) in Las Vegas, and after the split, POWW had moved its headquarters to Indianapolis, Indiana, where the producer and owner, David McLane, lived. McLane had thought this whole group into being and even performed as the ringside announcer.

  I was driving Beachcomber, the older model Eagle that was my first bus to drive, and Burt was driving one named Mermaid. Beautiful artwork of ocean things, and of course mermaids, decorated the sides of his bus. How perfect for a bunch of lady wrestlers. That old Eagle was the grand product of two Greyhound buses that had each been in accidents. One had front damage, and one had rear damage. The bus owner had chopped them in half and made one good one out of it. After some refurbishing, he put it out to lease. Its crooked stance made the tires go through some tough times, but it worked. For a period of time, many Nashville companies pursued this practice.

  We arrived in Indianapolis the night before having to pick up the group of women. Burt and I had followed each other up from Florida and decided to get to the pick-up point in the middle of the night before the next morning’s traffic. We would just nap in the coaches until the next morning. We arrived at IUPUI, a college in Indy where the girls were living and practicing, around three in the morning. We weren’t supposed to be there until 11 a.m., our pick-up time. We parked up close to a dorm we had been told they were in, and I started to do a little clean up on the old bus when there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, a couple of the wrestlers were staring at me.

  “Is this our new bus?” one of them asked. They were laughing and giggling, obviously a little tipsy. I put on a business face.

  “Why, yes it is.”

  “Can we see it?”

  “Sure. Why not? It’s your new house.”

  I pushed the door open and stepped back so they could enter. The second girl in the door reached out as she entered and grabbed the collar of my shirt, pulling me toward her.

  “I’m going to fuck you before anyone else,” she said in the way only a woman wrestler can.

  I’m sure I turned three shades of red. She shoved me backward a little and took off, going through the bus, acting like a happy kid in a new playground. The girls hung out for a few minutes and then disappeared into the night. Burt and I thought it was going to be a weird tour compared to the normal Rock ’n’ Roll tour, if there is such a thing.

  After several days of rehearsals, the tour was kicking off in Dayton, Ohio, and I was walking around the arena through the backstage area. There, I met Queenie, the largest woman in the world, or close to it. Queenie was a passenger on Burt’s bus. Queenie was so big she had to sleep in the floor of the bus since there were no bunks big enough for her. She was standing by the entrance about to make her appearance to the crowd. She had been in show business for a long time when I met her, the star of 25 films and hundreds of shows. She did roller derby and Slam-A-Grams... OUCH! … in the Los Angeles area. She was a singer, comedienne and stuntwoman. Queenie did it all. She had been in movies like Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs” and in Aerosmith’s “Love In An Elevator” video dancing with the world’s smallest man on her shoulders. She was a hoot!

  I was wearing a sports coat, starched white shirt, pressed jeans and cowboy boots. As I was walking by, she reached out, grabbed me by the head and pulled me against her huge boobs. She started beating my head against her chest in a Tarzan-style fashion, and I couldn’t make her stop.

  “Stop-op-op it-it-it Queen-en-en-ney!!”

  And she is yelling right back at me.

  “Why are you dressed up, you fuck?” I know she screamed a bunch of other obscenities at me, but I was m
ore concerned about being tossed around like a rag doll. She pushed me away and I almost fell down. She then turned and charged out into the arena, and the crowd started cheering and sneering at her. Weird to be treated like a rag doll by a large woman! I learned from her later that she was just “getting into character.”

  We stayed in Dayton for a couple of days and then moved on to the next town. We stayed in each city for a few days at a time while the girls practiced their moves for shows and that week’s taping. As the days went by, several of the girls and I started hanging out in the towns we were staying in. We would eat and go out to the bars, museums, and parks together. We made some outings to lakes in South Carolina and Georgia.

  We spent several weeks in Florida hotels that were on or near the beach as we made the rounds through the Sunshine State. As the time went on, one of the girls in the group and I started getting close. We enjoyed each other’s company, and in every town, we were hitting the streets seeing all the sites together. Philly, New York City, Cleveland, everywhere we went. We spent many nights dancing and days sightseeing when not working. Most nights there were no driving duties for me.

  In Atlanta one night, about eight of the wrestlers and I went to the Limelight Club, a popular party spot, and partied for a few hours. Everyone was drinking heavily, and one of the wrestlers named Pocahontas started to get sick.

  One of the girls yelled, “Let’s get her out of here!” We headed for the door, a girl under each of Poco’s arms. At the door, bouncers saw us coming and the look on Poco’s face and they swung open the entrance as fast as they could. As everyone crossed the threshold, Poco heaved chunks at least 20 feet in front of her and down the entrance way. There were dozens of people waiting to get in, and they were positioned along the side of the wall. When she blew chunks, they all hugged the wall to avoid the mess.

  “EEEEEEEWWWWW!” everyone screamed.

  A bouncer, who had probably seen it all before, yelled out, “ANOTHER SATISFIED CUSTOMER!”

  This was the way it was with this group – a great time had by all. The tour went on for several months with TV tapings of the matches and interviews of the wrestlers, all the things you would imagine in a wrestling world. We traveled the country with the girls doing their work in big venues like the old Omni in Atlanta, an armory in South Carolina and Hammond, Indiana, a big wrestling town. Much fun can and was had traveling the country with 24 women wrestlers.

  When the tour was over, I went out on a run with a country band. We traveled to a bar in Four Corners, Texas. Find that one on the map, friend. No, not the one close to Houston.

  Michelle, the wrestler I had befriended, drove out from California and met me. She found Four Corners, which was pretty impressive. She followed me back to Atlanta where we parked her car at a dealership, and she hit the road with me for several more days on tour.

  The next year we went out again to film a second season with POWW, but the practice facilities had been moved to Miami Beach, Florida. I went down between tours and stayed with Michelle in an Art Deco hotel right across the street from the beach. A delectable location, and what fulfilling times I had living on Miami Beach, hanging out with the wrestlers, partying and seeing the sites for several weeks before we headed out across America again to start a new season. Michelle was starting to become more than a friend. A year later she became my wife.

  Chapter 5 Stealing The Star

  One thing you have to realize about driving buses for celebrities is that like any other business where the goal is making money, someone will come along and cut your throat to get ahead. Sometimes this is not a “do a good job, work hard, get paid” kind of environment.

  Every industry is like this, and I saw my share of shady deals driving trucks, but the ability to rub elbows with all types of celebrities and to be paid while doing it can turn some in the business into monsters. Being able to service the biggest acts gives one mega bragging rights, and in the ’80s, it seemed it could trump even the money being made.

  I hadn’t been driving coaches for long when I got the call to see bus owner Mr. Grist about an opportunity that I would have been crazy to turn down. Mr. Grist was the head of Gristmill Coach, and on top of that, he was a prominent figure in Mississippi government. A wealthy Southern businessman and a politician? That isn’t always a good combination. I went to see Mr. Grist and his manager, a man named Mario, who hailed from New Orleans and was the one who had given me his business card.

  Mario is a very loud man who must enjoy his loudness because he cannot stop talking. He talks so much that you want to buy whatever he is selling just so he’ll shut up. Within a few months, I came to know him as a loveable guy, and we shared some great times. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t above getting his cut of money by any means necessary.

  I walked in and saw both of them sitting, waiting for me.

  “Sit down, Jerry,” Mr. Grist said.

  As much as Mario loved to talk, Mr. Grist was almost the opposite. He didn’t waste time, and he didn’t mince words. I hadn’t sat down for more than a second when the offer came up. “How would you like to go on the Eddie Murphy tour?”

  What? Eddie Murphy? Those two words, especially uttered in the late ’80s, were about as big as one could get. Murphy was the hottest comedian and on his way to becoming one of the biggest movie stars in the world. This was a man who revived Saturday Night Live and became an icon before he was 25 years old. I think the first words that came out of my mouth were, “Holy crap!”

  Eddie was about to head out on the “Raw” tour, which wound up turning into a huge concert movie, which in turn made him an even bigger star. Hearing those words sent my mind racing. Not only would I be involved with a first rate tour, driving one of the biggest celebrities in the world and his entourage, but I knew I would instantly be upgraded to a better coach and a better lifestyle. This could only lead to better things. How could I say no?

  I didn’t get a chance to say anything before Mario chimed in.

  “If you want to do it, Jerry, you’ll give me five hundred dollars.”

  There’s always a catch.

  “You give me $500, and I’ll put you on the tour right now.”

  Everything I was just thinking stopped in midair. Five hundred dollars? I was thinking that these guys wanted me to pay them in order to get the job?

  “Wait a minute.” My mouth finally caught up with my brain. “You want me to pay you to go on tour?”

  “Oh, yeah, baby!” Mario had a way with words.

  I hadn’t been thinking about negotiating for a driving job. I was definitely put on the spot. So I said the first thing I could think of.

  “Well, I better think about that.”

  Mario jumped right back in.

  “You better not take too long ’cause there is a long line of guys that would jump at this chance.”

  Was there a long line? There had to be. If I got this excited about the tour, there had to be plenty of people that wouldn’t even consider not paying Mario. Still, I needed some fresh ears. I went into the next office to call my girlfriend.

  “How long is the tour?” Michelle asked.

  I told her.

  “How much do you get paid a day?”

  I told her.

  “For how long?”

  I told her.

  “Then go back inside and pay the man his $500.”

  It was that simple. I paid Mario, took the job and learned a mega-lesson about the new career I had chosen, mainly that I was going have to find a new bus owner to work for, one that didn’t charge me to make him money.

  So it all came together. After the money changed hands, I was assigned the Murphy tour. I was introduced to George Fitzgerald or “Georgie,” as everyone called him. He had been Eddie’s first bus driver ever since Eddie had become a big touring act. The Raw tour would be his third go around with Eddie, and I was now along for the ride.

  I knew I didn’t want to screw this up, so I listened to everything Georgie told m
e. I knew what was expected of me and what I should expect from my passengers and how to respond. That could be the most important advice.

  So the assignments were handed out. I was to drive Eddie’s brothers, Charlie and Vernon. Charlie became famous in his own right a few years later, appearing on Dave Chappelle’s show and writing with Eddie. But for now, it was his brothers, two security guards and a couple luggage handlers on my bus. The five-bus convoy started in Florida and headed to St. Louis to get our passengers at the St. Louis airport. At the time of the pickup, it was just about getting our passengers from the airport to the hotel along with their luggage. It ended up that there was so much luggage, we needed a truck to come back and transport it.

  We then went through general introductions at the airport and back at the hotel. Needless to say, everything was going according to plan and I thought everything would be just fine.

  The next morning, we had our buses in line along Market Street outside the Omni Hotel located in the old train station in downtown St. Louis. Everything was ready for the hundred-mile drive to the first show in Carbondale, Illinois. All the drivers stood on the top of the steps of the train station to admire our fleet, while waiting for the “talent” to come down from their rooms. We were standing around, talking the standard operational bullshit waiting on our passengers when a brand new incredible looking Eagle bus drove by. It slowed as it cased the other buses in line. Then it sped off and around the corner.

  “Wow! Who the hell is that?” one of the drivers asked, goggling the beautiful coach. “I think I recognize him,” Georgie said, adding, “He’s probably not lost.” That put a concerned look on his face.

  Joe Mooney, AKA Mickey Moe Johnson the Social Director, wasn’t lost at all. He was driving in circles doing what his bus owner told him to do. The coach was owned by one of the Calhoun brothers’ Florida Coach companies. Joe had been driving entertainment coaches for years and knew the ends and outs of the business very well. He knew what he had to do that day to turn Eddie Murphy’s attention to his beautiful new coach.