by Ingrid Croce
Jim sat still, listening to the new tune. Maury wrote most of his songs from beginning to end without interruption. He’d write the words down in ink in a composition book, hardly ever crossing out or changing a single word. Slowly Jim began playing along, setting his capo on the third fret and trying out harmonies.
When they finished playing Maury’s tune, Jim took the lead with his new song, “Time in a Bottle.” Maury accentuated Jim’s tender words with classical flourishes. “Hey, Maury, let’s practice that again. I like what you’re doing.”
Jim was energized by Maury’s skillful playing. It took the pressure off, and Jim could concentrate on the melody and lyrics. They played until dinnertime, only taking a break for my vegetable lasagna. Then, back in the living room after dinner, Maury picked up his guitar and started tuning it. There was a hard knock at the door, but Maury ignored it, concentrating on his strings. Another knock prompted Jim to yell, “Come on in!”
Bill Reid opened the door and walked through the living room, disregarding Maury sitting on the overstuffed couch. He joined Jim and me in the kitchen, and Jim offered him a beer.
“God, he looks awful,” Bill said. “What a spaced-out, pimple-faced creep he is.”
“Bill, don’t be an asshole. You’re so rude. Do you want some lasagna?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he said, before adding, “Is he a faggot? What the fuck’s the matter with that guy? He’s so puny.”
“He may look that way to you, but the girls follow him in droves,” Jim said, enthusiastically. “And I guarantee you that Maury gets more ass than you do.”
I was offended by Bill’s comments but happy that Jim defended Maury. While Bill brought out the rowdy, prejudiced, and angry side of Jim, Maury encouraged Jim’s sensitivity. With Maury around, Jim wouldn’t step out of line for fear of offending his friend, and seemed genuinely softer and more caring. On the other hand, Jim saw it as his duty to introduce Maury to life’s harsher realities. Like a big brother, he began taking him along on the vegetable runs to Philadelphia and introduced him to Melvin’s colorful friends. He also recruited Maury to help solve a raccoon problem.
The three apartments of the Kaltenbachs’ farmhouse shared a common area where trash cans were kept. Every morning our garbage was strewn all over the yard.
“I hate picking up this shit,” Jim yelled one day. “I swear someone is trying to play a practical joke on us.”
The next evening, Jim’s neighbor George was sitting on the toilet in his second-story bathroom when he heard a loud scratching outside. From the window he could see a raccoon sitting on the fence, feasting on our garbage. The next morning he told Jim about it.
“That critter sat there just like a person, trying to pry the lid off of your trash can. It was the biggest son of a bitch I ever saw.”
Night after night the raccoon raided the garbage can. Jim took the varmint on as a personal vendetta. “I swear I’ll catch that goddamned son of a bitch,” he said, placing a heavy rock on top of the trash-can lid. When that didn’t work, he tried to trap it with bait. But still he had no luck.
One afternoon when Jim railed on about the trash-can dilemma, John Kaltenbach joked, “You know, raccoons can be dangerous. They can get as big as Ingrid and twice as mean!” Jim stayed up several nights sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the window with his rifle and his guitar, but as long as he watched, the damn raccoon never appeared. In exasperation, he asked Maury and another friend, Jimmy Wright, to stay up with him one night.
“Guys, I’ve got a treat to help us stay up tonight.” Jim held out a handful of little white pills.
“What is it?” Maury asked hesitantly.
“They’re ‘white crosses.’ To help us stay awake. Don’t worry, they’re prescription.” Jim was becoming an expert on pharmacology. His pharmacist friend had given him a Physicians’ Desk Reference, and Jim was experimenting with whatever his friend offered. That night’s agenda definitely called for uppers.
In the middle of the night, while the boys were sitting around the kitchen table, Maury heard what he thought was the raccoon. Jim handed Maury the rifle. When he saw the reflection of the animal’s eyes, Maury proudly took aim out the kitchen door and fired. “I think I got him,” he yelled, “right in the eye!” He triumphantly held the rifle up over his head. “He’s over by the outhouse, I think!” Cautiously Jim went out the kitchen door to the garbage can, Maury and Jimmy following close behind. A great stench exploded on them. “Jesus Christ, Maury!” Jim shouted. “It’s a fucking skunk! You didn’t hit him in the eye; you shot him in the ass.”
Awakened by the gunfire and the stench, George came down. When he found out what had happened, he laughed, ran upstairs, and grabbed his bottle of brandy to share with the boys. Early the next morning in the clear light of day, while Maury was fast asleep, the raccoon brazenly appeared. Jim finished it off with a single shot. With great satisfaction, he and George toasted the victory over coffee.
_____
Every few weeks, Jim called Tommy to see if he had made any headway in getting an album deal or other artists to record his songs. One afternoon, while I was cutting out a pattern for a baby sleeper, the phone rang, and both Jim and I picked it up at the same time. I didn’t hang up.
“Hey, Tommy, what’s happening, man?” Jim asked.
“Well, not much. But the songs are really good, Jim, your best ever.”
“Thanks.”
“So just keep writing. We need a whole album’s worth.”
“Yeah,” Jim said sullenly. “I’ll keep writing. In fact, I’ve got a couple new ones I’ll play for ya soon. Maury put some great licks to them, too.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about these songs, Jim,” Tommy reiterated.
“Yeah, but good feelings don’t pay the bills. Give me a call when you get me something, okay?”
I had followed the conversation and was surprised and grateful that Jim had expressed himself so directly to Tommy. He came into the kitchen with his guitar and headed for a chair.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if these songs don’t get me a deal, Ing. I’d be a terrible salesman, and I’m not ready to go out in the job market again. Villanova prepared me for life in the twelfth century.”
“Jim, it’s gonna happen. Please don’t worry so much. The baby won’t take much money, and I’m going to breast feed and wash diapers. We’ll be fine.”
“What about our health insurance? Remember we didn’t send a check in last month.”
“I already spoke to Maury. He said he hadn’t cashed the last couple of checks you gave him for $100 each. So I sent a check in for the insurance, and we’re reinstated.” After a short silence, I added, “It’s gonna be okay, Jim. Your music is terrific, and it’s gonna work.”
“Well, if any of my songs could make it, ‘You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,’ should,” he said and began to play.
Uptown got its hustlers,
The Bowery got its bums.
Forty-Second Street got big Jim Walker,
He’s a pool shootin’ son of a gun.
Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come
But he stronger than a country hoss.
And when the bad folks all get together at night,
You know they all call big Jim “Boss,” just because . . .
And they say, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape,
You don’t piss into the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger,
And you don’t mess around with Jim.”
Well, outta south Alabama came a country boy.
He said, “I’m looking for a man named Jim.
I am a pool shootin’ boy, my name is Willie McCoy,
But down home they call me Slim.
Yeah, I’m lookin’ for the king of Forty-Second Street,
He drivin’ a drop-top Cadillac.
Last week he took all my money and it may sound funny
But I come to get my money b
ack.”
And everybody say, “Jack, whoa, don’t you know that:
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape,
You don’t piss into the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger,
And you don’t mess around with Jim.”
Well, a hush fell over the poolroom,
Jimmy come boppin’ in off the street.
And when the cuttin’ were done
The only part that wasn’t bloody,
Were the soles of the big man’s feet.
Yeah, he were cut in ’bout a hundred places,
And he were shot in a couple more.
And you better believe they sung a different kind of story,
When Big Jim hit the floor.
“And you don’t tug on Superman’s cape,
You don’t piss into the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger,
And you don’t mess around with Slim.”
Yeah, big Jim got his hat,
Find out where it’s at,
Not hustling people strange to you.
Even if you do got a two-piece custom-made pool cue. Shit. . . .
And you don’t tug on Superman’s cape,
You don’t piss into the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger,
And you don’t mess around with Slim.
_____
During the spring of 1971, Sal brought an astrologer to the farmhouse, a slight man with sandy blond hair.
“Dan’s a psychic,” Sal announced. “He can tell the future.”
“Oh, so he’s been looking at your crystal balls, has he?” Jim smiled at Maury, who had been over all day playing music. “You know, Ingrid’s psychic, too. She’s convinced we’re having a son, so tell us what else we need to know about our baby.”
Dan Wexler sat everyone down on the floor of the living room and spread out the astrological charts that matched their zodiac signs.
“How did you know when we were born?” I asked.
“Oh, Sal filled me in on you,” Dan said. He spoke with an effeminate lilt and gave Sal, his cohort, a glance. “I know more about you than you’ll ever want to hear.” He smiled mysteriously. First he said, “You will have a son,” with his eyes transfixed on the chart of constellations. We listened closely. “And he’ll be born with a strange birthmark.”
“Far out!” Jim said, imitating “Roger the Amazing.”
“There’s more,” Dan continued with a studied expression. He moved his hand across the charts. “Your son will be very rich one day.”
“Is he going to be a bank robber?” Jim asked with a laugh. “Or maybe Ing’s bought a big insurance policy.” Dan’s expression grew even more serious.
“It seems that he’s only going to have one parent by the age of two.”
“Hey!” Jim forced a laugh but looked at me and bit his lip. “Are you going to leave me for someone else?” I smiled and rubbed his thigh, but Dan’s words had jolted me like lightning.
I never told Jim, but I had often had premonitions about something happening to him. Maybe it was because both my parents had died young and most of my family was gone by the time I was nineteen.
“I’m yours forever, Jim,” I told him. “Maybe it’s the other way around,” I whispered.
All at once the apartment was strangely quiet. Dan excused himself to go to the kitchen.
“Does the chart say anything about my career?” Jim yelled out. “Or a murder I might commit if something doesn’t happen soon in New York?” He grabbed his guitar.
Jim changed the subject and played a new song he was working on, called “Photographs and Memories.”
“Try this in G Maury.”
Photographs and memories,
Christmas cards you sent to me;
All that I have are these
To remember you.
Memories that come at night,
Take me to another time;
Back to a happier day,
When I called you mine.
But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when,
Morning walks and bedroom talks,
Oh, how I loved you then.
Summer skies and lullabies,
Nights we couldn’t say goodbye;
All of the things that we knew
And not a dream survived.
But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when,
Morning walks and bedroom talks,
Oh, how I loved you then.
Photographs and memories,
All the love you gave to me;
Somehow it just can’t be true
That’s all I’ve left of you.
But we sure had a good time
When we started way back when,
Morning walks and bedroom talks,
Oh, how I loved you then.
Jim began to work feverishly on music, often sleeping only a few hours a night before getting up to head to the quarry. He also began making regular visits to see the pharmacist. On one occasion when he was depressed that he hadn’t heard from Tommy, he took me with him to the pharmacy in Media.
“I’ll be just a couple of minutes,” he said, as he got out of the driver’s seat and went into the store.
I waited in the car while he was gone, and when he reappeared, he looked revived and walked happily to the car holding a bag of what he called “candy.”
“What do you have in there?” I asked.
“Just a little medicine to cure what ails me,” he joked.
“They aren’t drugs, are they, Jim?”
“Think of them as vitamins that keep my spirit healthy.”
It worried me greatly that Jim was turning to pills. Although grass was as commonplace as wine within our circle of friends, acid and prescription drugs frightened me. I had grown up wanting to be as healthy as I could be. I was petrified from what I had seen my mother go through with her addictions to drugs and alcohol. And I was scared that Jim was getting too comfortable with his pharmaceutical “candy.”
With the baby on the way, Jim professed to have a renewed commitment to me. He wanted things to be right for our family. One of the songs that came from that prolific period was “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be a Brighter Day,” an apology for the hard times we’d been through.
Well, I’m sorry for the things that I told you,
But words only go so far;
And if I had my way I would reach into heaven
And I’d pull you down a star, for a present,
And I’d make you a chain out of diamonds,
And pearls from a summer sea;
But all I can give you is a kiss in the mornin’
And a sweet apology.
Well, I know that it hasn’t been easy
And I haven’t always been around
To say the right words, or to hold you in the mornin’,
Or to help you when you are down.
I know I never showed you much of a good time,
But baby, things are gonna change;
I’m gonna make up for all of the hurt that I brought you,
I’m gonna love away all your pain.
And tomorrow’s gonna be a brighter day,
There’s gonna be some changes;
Tomorrow’s gonna be a brighter day,
This time you can believe me,
No more cryin’ in your lonely room, no more empty nights,
’Cause tomorrow mornin’ everything’ll turn out right.
Well, there’s somethin’ that I gotta tell you,
Yes, I got somethin’ on my mind;
But words come hard when you’re lyin’ in my arms,
And when I’m lookin’ deep into your eyes.
But there’s truth and consolation
In what I’m tryin’ to say
Is that nobody ever had a rainbow, baby,
Until he had the rain.
&
nbsp; The baby was due on August 16, what would have been my father’s fifty-third birthday. Jim convinced me that we didn’t need to go for Lamaze instructions and that we could do it by ourselves. I guessed that Jim was avoiding classes for his own reasons, yet as the due date got closer, I was becoming increasingly nervous.
“Are you sure you know what to do, Jim?” I asked. “My mom always told me that childbirth was the most painful experience she ever had, and I’m really scared.”
“I know just what to do,” he assured me.
“Great, but you’re not having the baby!”
“Carole says that breathing is essential.”
“Yeah, I know, but we don’t have any of those techniques down. Come on, practice with me, Jim.”
“I read that singing is better than breathing during childbirth. But the book said it had to be a simple song. How about ‘Yankee Doodle’? Come on, let’s practice.” With concentration he started singing, “Yankee Doodle went to town. . . .” He kept time like John Stockfish, and his mood was just as serious.
I breathed in and exhaled, “Riding on a pony.”
Jim said, “Now inhale.” He had me lie down and watched my chest rise.
“Come on, sing, ‘Stuck a feather in his cap.’”
I tried again, choked on the words, and began to giggle. “I’m hyperventilating, Jim.”
“Try again: ‘He stuck a feather in his cap’! Sing it, Ing!”
“I don’t think this is going to work,” I said, lying on my back laughing hysterically.
“Don’t worry,” Jim shrugged. “When it happens, you’ll know what to do.”
“I don’t think so. That’s why they have classes, so we can learn.”
_____
Money grew even tighter over the summer. Jim operated a jackhammer at the quarries, joking with the guys that it was teaching him rhythm, but inside he was wearying of construction work and had grown impatient for Tommy to cut a record deal. Tirelessly, he wrote new songs and refined ones he had already written, often singing them into his tape recorder as he drove the big trucks.
I continued to develop creative ways to save money. With my old pedal sewing machine, I made all my maternity clothes, as well as shirts and jackets for Jim. I knitted him sweaters, embroidered over the holes in his work shirts, and put trim on the hems of his worn-out jeans. Wanting to help relieve the financial pressure, I even entered my blintzes in the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest. “I think I’ve got a good chance,” I told Judy. “And just think of the house we could buy with the $10,000 prize money.”
