The sunny morning I had to return the guitar, I stood in front of six or so of the neighborhood guys and gals in my backyard. I gave my first and last show for quite a while: I held the guitar . . . I shook it . . . I shouted at it . . . I banged on it . . . I sang voodoo nonsense . . . I did everything but play it . . . all to their laughter and great amusement. I sucked. It was a joyful and silly-assed pantomime. That afternoon, sad but a little relieved, I dropped the guitar off back at Diehl’s Music. It was over for now, but for a moment, just a moment, in front of those kids in my backyard . . . I smelled blood.
EIGHT
RADIO DAYS
My mom loved music, Top 40 music; the radio was always on in the car and in the kitchen in the morning. From Elvis on out, my sister and I shuffled out of bed and downstairs to be greeted by the hit records of the day pouring out of the tiny radio that sat on the top of our refrigerator. Slowly, certain songs caught my attention. At first it was the novelty records—the Olympics, “Western Movies”; the Coasters, “Along Came Jones”—the great narrative clowning records where the groups let loose with rock ’n’ roll comedy and sounded like they were just having fun. I wore out the jukebox at our local luncheonette pumping it full of my mom’s dimes to hear Sheb Wooley’s “The Purple People Eater” over and over again (“Mr. Purple People Eater, what’s your line? . . . Eatin’ purple people and it sure is fine”). I stayed up all one summer night with my tiny Japanese transistor radio tucked under my pillow counting the times they played Lonnie Donegan’s “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (On the Bedpost Overnight)?”
Records that ultimately held my interest were the ones where the singers sounded simultaneously happy and sad. The Drifters, “This Magic Moment,” “Saturday Night at the Movies,” “Up on the Roof”—records that summoned the joy and heartbreak of everyday life. This music was filled with deep longing, a casually transcendent spirit, mature resignation and . . . hope . . . hope for that girl, that moment, that place, that night when everything changes, life reveals itself to you, and you, in turn, are revealed. Records that longed for some honest place, some place of one’s own . . . the movies, downtown, uptown, up on the roof, under the boardwalk, out of the sun, out of sight, somewhere above or below the harsh glare of the adult world. The adult world, that place of dishonesty, deceit, unkindness, where people slaved, were hurt, compromised, beaten, defeated, where they died—thank you, Lord, but for now, I’ll take a pass. I’ll take the pop world. A world of romance, metaphor; yes, there is tragedy (“Teen Angel”!), but there is also immortality, eternal youth, a seven-day weekend and no adults (“It’s Saturday night and I just got paid. I’m a fool about my money, don’t try to save”). It’s a paradise of teenage sex where school . . . is permanently out. There, even that great tragedian Roy Orbison, a man who had to sing his way out of an apocalypse waiting around every corner, had his “pretty woman” and a home on “Blue Bayou.”
Through my mother’s spirit, love and affection, she imparted to me an enthusiasm for life’s complexities, an insistence on joy and good times, and the perseverance to see the hard times through. Has there ever been a more comforting, sadder song than Sam Cooke’s “Good Times”? It’s a vocal performance steeped in weary self-knowledge and the ways of the world . . . “Get in the groove and let the good times roll . . . we gonna stay here ’til we soothe our soul . . . if it takes all night long . . .” Slowly the musical sounds of the late fifties and early sixties drew down into my bones.
In those days if you were broke the only family entertainment you had was a “drive.” Gas was cheap, thirty cents a gallon, so nightly my grandparents, mother, sister and I cruised the streets to the outer edges of town. It was our treat and ritual. On warm nights, with the windows in our big sedan wide open, first we’d roll down Main Street, then on out to the southwest end of town to the edge of Highway 33, where we’d make our scheduled stop at the Jersey Freeze ice-cream stand. We’d bounce out of the car and up to the sliding window, where you had your choice of two flavors . . . count ’em . . . two . . . vanilla and chocolate. I didn’t like either but I loved those wafer cones. The guy behind the counter who owned the place would save me the broken ones and sell them to us for five cents or slip me one for free. My sister and I would sit on the hood of the car in silent ecstasy with the Jersey humidity smothering all sound but for the night crickets humming in the nearby woods. The yellow outdoor lighting would act like a neon flame for hundreds of flitting, circling summer bugs. We’d watch as they buzzed the exterior of the whitewashed ice-cream stand, then we were off and away as the huge plaster Jersey Freeze ice-cream cone, perched precariously on top of the little cinder-block building, slowly disappeared in our rear window. We’d ride the back roads to the north end of town, where scratching the sky in the fields bordering the Monmouth Memorial Home was the town radio tower. It had three bright red lights rising along its gray steel structure. As our radio glowed with the otherworldly sound of late-fifties doo-wop, my mother would explain to me that there in the high grass stood a tall dark giant, invisible against the black night sky. The ascending lights were merely the shining red “buttons” on his jacket. We would always end our journey with a ride past the “buttons.” As my eyes grew heavy and we turned toward home, I’d swear I could see the outline of the giant’s dark figure.
’Fifty-Nine, ’60, ’61, ’62, ’63 . . . the beautiful sounds of American popular music. The calm before the storm of the Kennedy assassination, a quiet America, of lost lovers’ laments wafting along the airwaves. On the weekend, sometimes the “ride” would take us all the way to the shore, to the amusements and carnival of Asbury Park or the quieter beaches of Manasquan. We’d park facing the waters of the inlet. Besides the kitchen table, the Manasquan Inlet was my dad’s favorite spot in the world. He would sit for hours alone in the car watching the boats come in from the sea. My sister and I would eat hot dogs at Carlson’s Corner, changing into our pajamas with a towel wrapped around us on the beach as my mother stood guard. On the way home we’d stop for a double feature at the Shore Drive-In, falling asleep in the backseat, to be carried to our beds by my dad once back in Freehold. As we grew older, we’d step rock by rock out along the dark Manasquan jetty, which jutted east, disappearing into the night sea. There at jetty’s end we’d stare out into the pitch-black nothing of the Atlantic, with only the distant sparkling lights of night-charter fishing boats revealing the horizon line. We’d listen to the ocean waves crashing rhythmically on the shore far behind us, the sea lapping against the rocks onto our bare and sandy feet. You could hear a Morse code, a message moving in over that great black expanse of water . . . with the stars burning the night sky bright above us, you could feel it . . . something British this way comes.
NINE
THE SECOND COMING
From over the sea, the gods returned, just in time. Rough days at home. My face exploding with acne, that old bastard and now national hero of mine, Ed Sullivan, was doing it for me one more time. Let the battle begin. “Ladies and gentlemen, from England . . . the Beatles!!” Ed said the words “the Beatles” better than anybody else in the world. He’d wind up on the “the,” quickly punch and emphasize the “Beat,” and then he was outta there on the “les.” All rushing by me while jolting my system with ten thousand watts of high-voltage anticipation. I sat there, heart pounding, waiting for the first real look at my new saviors, waiting to hear the first redemptive notes come peeling off the Rickenbacker, Hofner and Gibson guitars in their hands. The Beatles . . . The Beatles . . . The Beatles . . . The Beatles . . . The Beatles . . . The Beatles . . . an “it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive” mantra and simultaneously the worst and most glorious band name in all of rock ’n’ roll history. In 1964, there were no more magical words in the English language (well . . . maybe “Yes, you can touch me there”).
The Beatles. I first laid ears on them while driving with my mom up South Street, the radio burning brighter before my eyes as it strained to cont
ain the sound, the harmonies of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” Why did it sound so different? Why was it so good? Why was I this excited? My mom dropped me off at home but I ran straight to the bowling alley on Main Street, where I always spent my first after-school hours hunched over the pool tables sipping a Coke and eating a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I slammed myself into the phone booth and called my girlfriend, Jan Seamen. “Have you heard the Beatles?”
“Yeah, they’re cool . . .”
My next stop was Newbury’s, the five-and-ten-cent store in the center of town. In the front door and an immediate right brought you to the tiny corner record section (there were no record stores in those days in our neck of the woods). There were just a few racks of singles for forty-nine cents a pop. There were no real albums for me, just a few Mantovani records or middle-of-the-road vocal artists, maybe a little jazz on the bottom shelf. They were never looked at. They were for “adults.” The teenage world was a world of pure 45s. A small circular piece of wax with a half-dollar hole in the center you had to fill with a plastic adapter. Your record player at home still had three speeds, 78, 45 and 33 RPM. Hence, 45s. The first thing I found was something called The Beatles with Tony Sheridan and Guests. It was a rip-off. The Beatles backing some singer I’d never heard of doing “My Bonnie.” I bought it. And listened to it. It wasn’t great but it was as close as I could get.
I went back on a daily basis until I saw IT. The album cover, the greatest album cover of all time (tied with Highway 61 Revisited). All it said was Meet the Beatles. That was exactly what I wanted to do. Those four half-shadowed faces, rock ’n’ roll’s Mount Rushmore, and . . . THE HAIR . . . THE HAIR. What did it mean? It was a surprise, a shock. You couldn’t see them on the radio. It is almost impossible to explain today the effect of . . . THE HAIR. The ass whippings, insults, risks, rejections and outsider status you would have to accept to wear it. In recent years, only the punk revolution of the seventies would allow small-town kids the ability to physically declare their “otherness,” their rebellion. In 1964, Freehold was redneck ugly and there was no shortage of guys who were willing to make their rejection of your fashion choices a physical affair. I ignored the insults, avoided the physical confrontations as best I could and did what I had to do. Our tribe was small, maybe two or three in all of my high school, but it would grow to be significant and mighty, then meaningless . . . but not for a while . . . and in the meantime each sunrise held the possibility of a showdown. At home all it meant was more fuel for the unpleasant fire burning between my dad and me. His first response was laughter. It was funny. Then, not so funny. Then, he got angry. Then, finally, he popped his burning question: “Bruce, are you queer?” He wasn’t kidding. He’d have to get over it. But first, it would get a lot nastier.
• • •
At school I made my way. I only got in one real scrap on my walk home from high school. I’d had enough with the jokes and squared off against a kid I was sure I could beat in the driveway of a neighborhood home. We were soon surrounded by a small circle of sensation seekers. Before we started, in the spirit of full disclosure, he told me he knew karate. I thought to myself, “Bullshit. Who knows karate in 1966 New Jersey? . . . NO-FUCKING-BODY!” I threw a few haymakers and he caught me with a perfect karate chop to the Adam’s apple . . . aaarrrrrgh. I spit up. I couldn’t speak. It was over. Another great victory. We walked the rest of the way home together.
That summer, time moved slowly. Every Wednesday night I sat up in my room charting the weekly top twenty and if the Beatles were not firmly ensconced each week as lords of all radio, it would drive me nuts. When “Hello Dolly” grabbed the top spot on the charts week after week, I was beside myself. Nothing against “Satchmo,” one of the greatest musicians who ever lived, but I was fourteen and on a different planet. I lived for every Beatles record release. I searched the newsstands for every magazine with a photo I hadn’t seen and I dreamed . . . dreamed . . . dreamed . . . that it was me. My curly Italian hair miraculously gone straight, my face clear of acne and my body squeezed into one of those shiny silver Nehru suits. I’m standing tall in a pair of Cuban-heeled Beatle boots. It didn’t take me long to figure it out: I didn’t want to meet the Beatles. I wanted to BE the Beatles.
• • •
After my father refused to pay a rent hike, we moved to 68 South Street and had . . . hot water! But to get it, we moved next to a Sinclair gas station, into another half house. In the half we didn’t occupy lived a Jewish family. My mom and dad, no racists or anti-Semites, still felt the need to caution my sister and me that these were folks who . . . DID NOT BELIEVE IN JESUS! Any theological issues were immediately forgotten when I saw two gorgeous daughters, my new next-door neighbors, who carried with them a fabulous voluptuousness, full mouths, smooth dark skin and weighted breasts—oy! I immediately began imagining warm nights on the front porch, their tan legs pouring out of summer shorts, as we debated the Jesus question. Personally, I would’ve quickly thrown over our savior of two thousand years for one kiss, one run of an index finger over the coffee-colored ankle of either of my new neighbors. Unfortunately, I was shy and they were chaste, still solidly under Yahweh’s and Mom and Pop’s sway. One evening when I did bring up the Jesus thing, it was like I’d said “fuck.” Sweet palms were quickly raised to rose lips, followed by red-faced girl giggling. There would be many restless teenage nights at 68 South Street.
We had black friends, though only rarely did we enter each other’s homes. There was a détente in the streets. The white and black adults were cordial but distant. The children played together. There was a lot of easy racism amongst the kids. Insults were exchanged. Arguments were either brushed off, settled by an apology or resolved by a quick beating, depending upon the severity of the offense and mood of the afternoon; then the games would continue. I ran into racist kids, kids who learned it at home a few houses down from mine, but I never ran into kids who wouldn’t play with black kids until I bumped into the middle and upper-middle class. On the bottom, we were all lumped in together because of physical proximity and the need for another guy to play the outfield. Fifties racism was so presumed and casual that if a black friend was excluded from a game one afternoon at our “better” friend’s house, so be it. Nobody took up the flag. A day later the usual gang, black and white, would all be playing together again and it would be forgotten . . . by us.
I was pals with the Blackwell brothers, Richard and David. David, a lanky, thin black kid, was my age and we hung out quite a bit. We rode bikes, played ball and spent a good amount of time together. We fought to see who was toughest. He’d clock me on the kisser with a couple of good rights and it was over; then we’d go back to playing. His brother Richard was a little older, tall and one of the coolest things I’d ever seen. He’d developed his own walk. It was a piece of art: a step forward with one leg and then a slow drag pulling up the other, a slight bend at the hip, the other arm bent at the elbow, wrist cocked as if smoking a cigarette in a holder; never in a hurry, he’d stride through the streets of Freehold like a jazz musician, his face expressionless and his eyes near half-mast. He spoke long and slow. He’d grace us with a few moments of his time and we’d leave like we’d been blessed by the pope of cool.
Racial tensions at Freehold High exploded into violence. If you entered the wrong restroom, it was lights-out and a beating. I entered the first-floor restroom one afternoon, walked up to the latrine next to a black friend. I went to speak. He just looked at the wall and said, “I can’t talk to you right now.” I was white and he was black; the lines had been drawn, even amongst neighborhood friends. There would be no communication until it was over, and it wouldn’t be over for quite a while. The town erupted in rioting. There were harsh words spoken between two cars at a South Street light and a gun was fired into a car full of black kids. At my corner sub shop there was a demonstration after an elderly black man had been thrown out and had fallen and been injured. I stood on my porch watching just two houses down as th
e proprietor rushed into a black crowd wielding a meat cleaver. It was taken from him and it was amazing no one was killed. Someone was chased up onto the porch of the house next to mine and pushed through the front window. The times they were a-changing . . . the hard way.
TEN
THE SHOW MAN (LORD OF THE DANCE)
My showmanship skills developed early. Seasoned by the Zerilli blood that flowed through my veins, I was born 100 percent grade A ham. So to grab the spotlight before I could play, I DANCED! . . . somewhat. The main thing was I was willing to risk the ridicule of half of the neighborhood’s population (the male half) because I’d found out that the other half found a guy who would dance with them to something other than a bone-grinding slow song enthralling.
Bimonthly on Friday nights, St. Rose of Lima would open up its basement cafeteria and host a heavily chaperoned Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) dance for its wild-hormoned teens. On the dance floor I already had a head start. I’d been pulled out onto the living room rug at family gatherings to Twist with my mom ever since Chubby Checker smashed the hit parade to bits with “The Twist.” (My mom even took us to the Atlantic City Steel Pier to see Chubby “live” as he lip-synched to his hits. Then we went across the boardwalk and caught Anita Bryant on the same sun-filled summer afternoon.) Also I’d been going over to the YMCA Friday night canteen, just fifty steps from the door of my South Street home. This was absolutely forbidden territory by nuns’ decree, and you would be racked and tortured in front of the smugly satisfied class of eighth graders on Monday morning if word leaked out that you’d joined the heathen class and their satanic Friday night rituals.
Born to Run Page 5
