Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood

by A. J. Albany

  While he was in Europe, his career took off. After so many years when he went unrecorded, he released a lot of LPs. It made me feel like I had somehow kept him down when he was with me. Not quite a jinx, but certainly no good luck charm. On the other hand, I felt I had been deserted. I had often sacrificed my own childhood to play parent to him, but perhaps he had sacrificed his art to play parent to me. I became a mass of pissed-off rebellion: boys, petty crime, drugs—all the usual suspects.

  losing it

  In 1972, a correspondence began between my grandmother and my mother’s sister, who lived in San Francisco. It was arranged that I would travel up north for visits four times a year to acquaint myself with the “other” side of the family, and perhaps fill some of the hole left by my father’s departure. I began menstruating at ten, had an extravagant bust size by eleven, and at the age of twelve, during one of my Frisco visits, was seduced by my mother’s kid brother, Uncle John, who was twenty-one years old. There were those who knew and did nothing. Tragic, all the dirty little secrets we allow to live comfortably on our backs. These sexual episodes continued for many years until, with the help of lots of amphetamines, I found sufficient confidence to tell him I wanted it to end. After I said my piece, he looked at me with anger, and perhaps some fear, then jumped on his motorcycle and drove wildly away without a word. That evening, a call came to my aunt’s house. John had lost control of his bike and crashed into a concrete retaining wall, dying on impact, his neck broken. I wasn’t sure how I should feel. For a moment, I felt I was to blame, but that passed quickly. There were others who felt that was the case and let me know it by their expressions of extreme distaste or by the way they’d refuse to look at me at all, but I was never one to back the popular opinion.

  brothers

  Somewhere in my twelfth year, I began to lose faith. Dad was far away, and it seemed I’d lost myself when I lost my virginity. Life was looking like a sucker bet that would never pay off. Entering junior high was the last shabby straw.

  Le Conte Junior High doubled as a pharmacy back then. Baggies of whites and black beauties were easily obtained at a good price. My school was also a hangout for half the gangs in L.A.—Rebels, Clantone, Crips, Bloods. There was a fight every day, and the cops were ineffectual. Around this time, I became friendly with two brothers—Tommy, fifteen, and Johnny, sixteen. They lived in a dilapidated house on Garfield between Franklin Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. Both were on probation, with arrest records as long as their waist-length hair. I spent the spring of ’74 hanging around watching them work on an old Mustang they planned to drive across the country. Cruel spring: it lies lightly on the surface of your skin and fills you with unattainable desires. I lusted after both boys with equal devotion, to no avail. I felt certain that if I could persuade either brother to sleep with me, I’d have a shot at cleansing the creeping stench of incest that made me feel like a monster. However, these boys were noble as knights. Besides, I was so pimply and insecure at the time, my chances were decidedly slim.

  In late July, they moved away, in search of a father long lost who was doing time in some Detroit pen. They took their Black Sabbath records, angel dust, and astonishing beauty with them. I was shattered. I started cutting class more often, ducking into shops when the truant police drove by. A root beer float at the Woolworth lunch counter was my usual starting point. I’d make my way over to the Orient shop, attempting to lift something while the inscrutable proprietor watched me like a hawk. Vogue Records and Books was the next stop, and my journey always ended at the Pickwick Bookshop. It was a two-story heaven where one could get lost all day. I’d learn more in a few hours there than in two semesters at school. Though I still attended a couple of classes that were of interest to me—art and American literature—I stopped wasting my time with the likes of math and California history, which was surely the most boring course known to man. With my daily routine firmly established, I found a way to drift awkwardly through the minefields of adolescence.

  the proposition

  The route I took to junior high was a short but perilous one. All the local perverts were clued in to the paths traveled by young schoolgirls. There was a desolate stretch that ran along the freeway on Wilton Place by radio station KTLA that was a prime location in which to be accosted.

  One May morning, as I plodded along trying to decide whether I’d last another month and make it past the seventh grade, I became aware of someone walking beside me. The sideways assault was fairly common. You’d look to see who was walking in step next to you, only to be confronted by the sight of some sad purple rod peering out of the perpetrator’s pants. Expecting the worst, I glanced first at his shoes, and was struck by the sight of huge red snakeskin cowboy boots. As my eyes traveled upward, I spied a brass horsehead belt buckle and finally the pleasant profile of a blond-haired man wearing a red ten-gallon hat.

  I had encountered plenty of street-corner cowboys in Hollywood, some hustlers, some plain hicks, both young and old, but this one seemed somehow different. He looked earnest, almost sweet around the edges. He reached into the pocket of his black denim jacket and pulled out a lot of cash, neatly folded and clasped together with a gold dollar-sign money clip. He held it between his ring and middle fingers like Dad’s friend Jimmy Black the card shark did when he was dealing a game. “I’ll give you fifty dollars for a look at one of those,” he said evenly, gesturing toward my chest, which, at the tender age of twelve, was an absurd C cup. I lifted my notebook self-consciously and pressed it tightly against the objects of his desire.

  The outside bill was a hundred, the first I’d ever seen. I wondered if he’d give me the hundred for a look at both. We continued to walk side by side in silence, like old friends, as I thought of what I could do with fifty dollars. I’d take twenty at least and go over to Vogue Records and Books to buy a stack of records, for starters. I briefly entertained the idea of getting ahold of the money first, then making a break, but decided against it. This guy was six foot four or taller, and most of that was legs. He’d have me hog-tied before I could make it two yards. I also felt it would be rude on my part. After all, he’d made a direct offer, nothing outrageously crude.

  Just then, two boys came racing toward us on their mongoose bikes, and from the corner of my eye, I saw my million-dollar cowboy pivot quickly and walk with giant steps in the opposite direction. “Is he who hesitates lost or saved?” I wondered. I had been ready to tell him, “Sure, okay, why not?” I knew that my mother did a hell of a lot more for fifty, and sometimes less, if she was up against it. I half hoped he’d show the next day, but he never did. I thought, with some shame, how appreciative I was of any kind of attention or empty flattery, even from a twisted stranger. Then I thought of Bunky’s mom, on the night she came to our door requesting ice for a freshly blackened eye. “Why do you put up with it” Dad had asked. She sighed centuries of pain: “At least he’s not ignoring me. At least I’m not alone.” I must remember, I thought, to never feel that low.

  kissing the orangutan

  When Dad got booked into the North Sea Jazz Festival, he sent me an airline ticket so I could see him play with other jazz luminaries like Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Red Rodney, and Art Blakey, to name a few. It was good to see Dad earning some respect, even getting paid in the bargain, and enjoying the company of his fellow artists, who were the last of a dying breed. I remember sitting next to Eubie Blake and being hypnotized by his hands the whole time he talked to me. He had to repeat all of his questions two or three times, so mesmerized was I watching those long, lined fingers moving like hawks through the smoky air. Exasperated, he finally asked, “Honey, let me see your hands,” taking them and turning them over in the awkward yet gentle way that old folks do. “Yeah—you’re going to play piano with those fingers, just like your daddy.” Though it was true that my E.T.-like hands would have found their way easily around the keys, I showed a total lack of talent in that area, much to my father’s dismay.

  While Dad was l
iving abroad, he did his bit for international relations by romancing women from all four corners of the globe. “I love the broads I’ve met abroad,” he’d sing while turning to catch the tail end of a too-young, attractive girl. There was, however, one notable exception. Her name was Berta, and she was homely, unhip, and quite a bit older than Dad. I’ll always remember the first time I met her. Dad, Eubie Blake, and I were sitting in the booth of a nightclub when she appeared through the haze and stepped into the light of a baby blue spot near our table, which added to the ghoulish effect. Like some four-eyed dashboard tiki in a Joey Ramone wig, she headed our way with head bobbing from side to side. Dad nudged me as I turned to see him shrug and roll his eyes. “It’s like kissing an orangutan,” he whispered. I remember thinking that men were terribly cruel, and felt somewhat sorry for Berta, until I got to know her better. I quickly figured out that she despised me. She hated the bond I had with my father, and to spite my efforts, she was determined to be nasty. In her defense, the woman had narrowly survived the Holocaust and seen most of her family murdered. Whenever she spoke of it, her voice and body shook like Jell-O, but I began plotting her demise regardless. By the time I left for L.A., their relationship was on the skids. For my grand finale, I had “accidentally” broken some teacups that were apparently priceless, then denied it so tearfully to my father that he turned on Berta and called her a lying dog. Although distance and, in some strange way, success were slowly building a wall between us, the connection with my dad was still intact. Berta learned the hard way that nothing could come between a father, particularly a Sicilian one, and his daughter.

  homesick

  The first time I went to Paris was in 1974. Dad and I were living in Denmark and took the train through Germany and Belgium. Paris was staggeringly different from the icy white world of Arhüs, Denmark’s second-largest city. It was my father’s favorite place, and when he exuded enthusiasm for a city, or a song, or anything else, it was highly contagious. We stayed at the Hotel Esmerelda. Mornings were spent hanging out our third-story window, drunk with sounds and the beauty of rooftops. Afternoons, we’d wander in and out of shops, my favorite being La Parfumerie. Inside its walls, a thousand exotic smells collided, and a vast collection of bottles, in lovely shapes and colors, graced the shelves like scented jewels.

  I had no desire to return to bleak Arhüs. We lived above the bar where Dad was playing, and each night I’d lie in bed trying to fall asleep to the sound of drunken Danes singing along to the one same ABBA song on the jukebox. I loved the Danes. They were totally honest and open. It’s no wonder they have such a high suicide rate. When Dad’s job ended in Denmark, we ferried across the North Sea to England, living briefly in a dreary new town called Harlow. Fortunately, we weren’t there long, and moved into London right off the Portobello Road. Dad was playing at a topless bar in Soho while I experienced my usual difficulties making friends. English girls were the hardest of nuts to crack, particularly miserable and unapproachable. Dad had a twenty-four-year-old girlfriend who was living with us, and I began to feel out of place and homesick.

  I realized that it was no longer necessary to protect my father from himself. He wasn’t using hard stuff, and there were suddenly plenty of others willing to care for him should the need arise. People lined up to hitch onto his star, and I was a reminder of a past he fought to forget. I missed my grandmother. She had bad feet and ringing ears, and I could still be useful to her. When I left, there was an unspoken understanding that I wouldn’t be living with my father again. The chasm that had grown between us deepened. Our goodbye was brief and silent, aside from an empty promise that we’d be together again soon “when circumstances were better.”

  With dreams of homemade ravioli, sunshine, and the wild irreverence that was Hollywood, I returned home to the sanctity of a world Gram had carved out for herself, and now graciously shared with me. For the most part, I’d have been content never to leave our apartment, outside of the occasional walk arm in arm to the market for supplies, and a weekly visit to the Tick Tock restaurant, where the food was soft and cheap. I could have grown old with Gram, falling asleep in front of the TV watching Bowling for Dollars in side-by-side ragged recliners with mismatched doilies on the chair arms. However, my other half attended school and concerned itself with the banal obsessions of youth. I had buckets of sand in both my shoes that needed to be emptied outside, in the hugely wicked world.

  the broken girl

  I had a friend when I was thirteen named Kim. She wasn’t the brightest girl, but she possessed a kind heart and many secrets. She lived with her family off Santa Monica and Western Avenue. It was one of the more depressing parts of town. We were in eighth grade together and got up to a fair amount of mischief.

  She was the only kid who didn’t laugh at my love of Busby Berkeley musicals. She thought it was swell, and I, in turn, did my best to be a companion in whom she could confide. Her father was as mean as a junkyard dog. He molested Kim’s older sister, who OD’ed at the age of eighteen, and beat her younger brother, who erupted at fourteen and stabbed a policeman during an attempted car theft. He spent more time behind bars than not. Kim didn’t give me the details of what her father did to her, but I gathered it was much the same. Her mother survived by turning up the Tammy Wynette to drown out the cries of her tormented children. Kim, understandably a dark soul, enjoyed sneaking into the Hollywood Cemetery after closing. We would shimmy right under the iron gate and commune with Douglas Fairbanks and others. “Here’s to the great beyond,” she’d toast, raising her Mickey’s bigmouth. She could polish off a six-pack handily. I never liked to drink. Couldn’t even stand the smell of it.

  Kim had a bad habit of daring the fates to dish out more troubles for her. One Sunday, she and I were at Griffith Park when a guy on a motorcycle stopped next to us and asked me if I wanted to go for a ride. My intuition smelled a rat, and I declined his offer. He looked abnormally normal, and his smile was insincere. He was obviously not legit. He then turned his attention to Kim, who jumped on the back of his bike before I had a chance to protest.

  No one heard from her for two days and nights. The police brought her home on Tuesday evening. The tragedy of those lost days was as follows. The guy on the bike drove Kim to a crappy apartment building on Vine, just south of Santa Monica, to “meet a friend,” who was a second-rate pimp. The pimp handed the guy fifty dollars and told him to take off. He then tied Kim up and spent the next two days raping her in an apparent attempt to convert her into a whore by breaking what little spirit she had. Sometime on Tuesday, the pimp stepped out, warning her not to try and escape. She chanced it, and ran all the way to the police station at Cole and Fountain. The pimp was picked up and thrown in jail for a total of twelve hours before two of his “ladies” got him out on bail. He was never convicted for kidnapping, rape, corrupting a minor—nothing, as far as I know. The creep on the bike made a regular living out of picking up foolish, lonely girls and selling them like spring lambs to whoever he could for a lousy fifty bucks. The police gave Kim the third degree: “Don’t you know better than to go off with strangers?” “What exactly were you wearing?” This incident was somehow twisted into my being a bad influence by her worthless mother, who forbid her to see me again.

  I didn’t see her for three years. I was on the bus headed for Hollywood High School when I noticed Kim, sitting in the back by herself. An unlit cigarette hung from her smudged purple lips, her hair was the back-teased victim of a bad dye job, and there were deep, dark circles under her too-old eyes. She looked loaded, and I didn’t feel like approaching her. She pulled the bus cord for the Highland stop, and I waited for her to walk by before following her out. The bus stopped with a jerk, and two packs of condoms fell from the pocket of her dog-eared rabbit-fur jacket. I instinctively bent over to pick them up, then stopped myself. “Hey, stranger,” I said uncomfortably, searching for a safe focal point. She looked up with her dark eyes and gazed straight through me and all of the world, giving a wea
k smile. She stepped off the bus, heading south toward Sunset, probably over to one of the motels around Highland and Orange that rented by the hour to johns and their hard-working girls, girls without much dignity to lose or family to speak of.

  It could have been me, but it was Kim. What saved me was a crazy conviction. I had the idea that something along the lines of an all-purifying love did exist, in some corner of the messed-up universe. I hung on to that thought with stubborn determination. I wished I could bottle it and give it to all the beat-up, broken-down Kims in Hollywood. Kim died the following year. Gram saw it in the obits. Cause of death wasn’t mentioned. “Are you going to send the family a card?” asked Gram. And say what? I thought. “Congratulations. All your years of abuse and neglect have finally hit pay dirt”? I let it go. There was nothing to do but let it go, and go on.

  the lamp peddler

  I never had any desire to be a bad kid, despite my circumstances. I viewed shoplifting as an attack on big business, conveniently overlooking the fact that behind every store was an owner with a face and a wallet that I made lighter, as sure as if I’d picked his pocket. My behavior was at its dishonest worst when I was running around with a guy named Johnny B. At only eighteen years old, Johnny prowled the streets of L.A. like he was the only cat in the jungle. In his company I became a fearless and invincible thirteen-year-old, and feeling fearless was as foreign to me as it was desirable. He taught me how to hot-wire cars and run shortchange scams, which I did only once but still feel lousy about to this day. Johnny wasn’t even from L.A. He’d started out in Queens and slowly made his way across the States, running one step ahead of the law. I once asked where he’d go if his luck ever ran out in Hollywood, which made him roar with laughter. “My thimbleful of luck ran out the day the courts threw my sorry ass into foster care. If I get busted here, it’s straight into the Pacific Ocean for me.”