CBGB

-I was a child, and she was a child in our Kingdom by the Sea-

There was a man named Eric as he came down the hall of St. Patrick’s.

I sat on the bench at the Piano. The Priest knew me from nights he would let me in to sleep

in the Church, many nights. I wasn’t fooling him. I thanked Anne in absolute nervousness,

Eddie looked at me. The man came around the corner of the door.

Being scared is life and part of the enjoyable part. The nervousness is part of the ride.

Eddie stood across from me, smiling.

I looked over at the doorway and saw a nice man standing alone in the doorway.

“My name is Andrew”, as I sat at the piano.

The woman, Anne, had saved us at the station from the officers. She had told them she

was there to give us a ride to our dad at St. Patrick’s.

The Priest had followed the instructions for me in Kelly’s notes.

“My name is Eric. You need a dad, huh?” smiling. “One that’s yours?”

Lying bugs the heck out of me. “Yeah”, I said, “Not necessarily one that’s mine”. I smiled.

“One that you like.”

“Yeah. One that likes me.”

“Your fourteen.”

“If its OK.”

“Its OK. Nothing more til later, so it is said. You don’t have to tell me your life story in one

night.” he paused. “Can I say that I missed you?”

“Yeah. I apologize for that. Fourteen and now I show up. I live on the road. Lots of time with

the concert tours. I was at Woodstock though“

“These will be the best. My friend drove me. He’s a song writer, Rick. I don’t have a car in

NY. I told him I think I’d like to be a father. Do you know who she was?”

“No. I have been living with someone else.

“How did you find me?”

“A bird in Albuquerque told me.”

“A Bird, huh? Eddie said on the phone that you would enjoy the studio. Is that how your Bird

knows us?”

“Yeah. I had an apartment set up from her in Albuquerque. I love the desert. Eddie and I left

there just now. There is a Bulletin Board down there at a coffee shop that keeps track of

artists wanting to hook up on tours.”

“Did you go to school?”

“No.” I said reluctantly. “I’m a Genius. And I prefer studios.”

“And I’m smarter”, Eddie said from across the room.

“Did you not like school”, he said to Eddie.

“We go sometimes”

“She goes by Keller. Ms. Keller”, Eddie said, “The lady who told us about you. We mention

her wherever we are, and they let us attend school together. We graduated in sixth grade.

Do you travel?”

“Yes. I am in the Navy, but I work for a company.”

“Keller said you were 34 and used to be in a band on tour.” I said – but I said it to the

woman across the room, Anne, who had been thinking the whole time it was just a scam to

get a ride to St. Patrick’s. She hadn’t said it, and she was pleasant as a caring friend for a

kid. I was proud. My father had shown up. And he was nice. Kelly picked a nice guy out for

us in NY.

“Yeah, I just turned 34. And I was in a band I guess I was in my early twenties in the very

early sixties. The band did not have a name or an album. We were an instrumental like

Spyrogyra. About twenty of us. We were the main band not a warmup. We played in parks

on pay.”

“I was born on the cusp of the Bay of Pigs.”

And then he walked towards me and knelt down and touched my check. He looked up at

the Priest and looked at my cheek and saw the scar across my face. As an adult I would

have a beard, but until then.

Eric looked up at the minister with his hand softly touching my cheek with his knuckles. He

looked at the minister. “Yes, he’s my son.”

And he stood up and patted Eddie on the stomach and said, “And I get two of em.”

Eddie ran down the hall to tell his friends that we were leaving with Eric.

I told Anne I was indebted to her and she looked at me and I realized how quickly she went

from idea to idea.

Eric handed the Priest $500 and thanked him for bringing me and Eddie in and asked if he

could have a tour of the Church with Eddie and I and Anne and the Priest said yes. We

walked down the hall together and ran into Rick laughing and talking with Eddie and his

friends.

I had told the Priest once when he and I one night were sitting out in the Garden after he

had fead me, that Eddie and I hadn’t run away from home. That saying it that way infers

that there was something back there. And there wasn’t. It infers that you might go back. A

town is always the same. We didn’t run away from anything.

You find out things if you let them happen and you allow responses that may not be in

place otherwise. For example. If you never get hit by someone you have saved getting hit or

have you. If you had gotten hit, then you know. If you bypass the situation the persons

actions are never shown.

As it was Eddie and I were simply not wanting to wait on life and getting out there. We

weren’t children of the sixties. We were children of the seventies. The lost decade of

cocaine and drugs. The sixties had meaning. The seventies had Studio 51. I steered clear of

drugs, and alcohol never affected me except a nice taste.

I walked into the Sanctuary alone. By myself for a few moments, but with Eddie. It was

1973. And Eddie was hugging me. “We have a home. He’s going to take us to Rick’s play.

Thank you.”

****

Eddie was two years older than I was. We had lived in an upper-class neighborhood where I

attended an accelerated elementary school in the late 1960s. Eddie was my best friend. My

father was being investigated by the DA’s Office and the FBI, with an agent down the street.

And two houses down from Eddie the family had ties to organized crime.

I slept good as long as I wasn’t at home otherwise, I slept between 6:00 AM and 7:45 AM.

One of the girls in the beginning of seventh grade told me my hair was so pretty if I would

wash it in the morning. That year in ’73 or ’72 my neighbor, the Lead Prosecutor in the DA’s

Office and friend of the Governor, arranged to host Cadets from West Point on Choir Tour.

And my family hosted four of them.

For school my parents never made me lunch. There was never anything for me to make. My

brother and sister I don’t know, but I didn’t eat. No lunch. No lunch money. Every once in a

while, I would get a neat new lunch box and no follow through. Until I met Vic I was getting

my yearbook signed. I remember him wearing a tshirt that read something about a tire

shop. The Church that he went to was doing Youth Outreach while at the same time Gil’s

Church was also inviting school friends.

And Joel and I went to go see Tommy at the movies. But Vic and I started going to the

Methodist Church together and he arranged with our upper-class school for he and I to do

dishes for a free meal, and he would give me his dollar from his parents and get another

one in the evening, and he and I would go down to the YMCA to take Tae Kwon Do and get in

to the Y for $1.00.

Other times at night I would go up to the gym at my school at nights and sit while my

friend’s played basketball.

And Eddie and I started traveling after a little while.

***************

When I was a kid in the Northwest in Kindergarten and 1st grade I was told years later that

my school had a cart that came by for lunch where you could buy milk to go with your

packed lunch. I realized one time at Christmas that the stories my family would tell of our

childhood were not memories that I shared. They were just stories that I listened to. And

that I had no memories of them. I have only about 50 memories. And I don’t remember

Disneyland, or Hearst Castle.

I was born in the northwest In Washington state.

So there was a man in our neighborhood back in Spokane, and my mother told me that I

was so cute that I never came right home from going out to visit friends. She said once that

I found a quartz rock by the side of the road to examine. And one time she walked up to find

out what was taking so long and this man about fifty who lived with his wife with his kids

grown up was out talking to me and he said to my mother… please don’t make him go

straight home, I so much like his company.

*************************

When I was seven we moved from the Northwest to the Midwest into a town that my father

used to drive through on his way in to Picuenne. It was Eddie’s hometown. My father knew

Eddie’s family already. We moved there in ’69 when Eddie was nine and I was seven. I

remember in my life only 1973 when Eddie and Chris and Jay moved and Vic moved.

It was 1973 and I was 12 years old in ’73. One year later we would be going into 7th grade

and Jay moved. We were school friends in third grade and had not seen each other much

since third grade. Chris and I had just walked home from school. My birthday was coming

up and I found out that One: the Choir group from West Point was coming to stay with us

for a few days and Two: that Jay was also moving and that so was Eddie.

Jay had come over and given me a birthday present. It was the first time a kid from school

had given me a birthday present. It was a water-propelled rocket.

*************************

“Eric, can we talk for awhile?” I managed. I was scared. “I don’t like lying”

Anne was watching me walk off with Eric down the street. Eddie was following behind us.

“Eric, I did something awful and it hasn’t been the first time. Could we still be friend’s if I

wasn’t your son?”

“Of course.”

“Really. Can we be friends?”

“Because of why you travel?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah”

“Good”

“Lets go have fun for awhile and talk more later when we know each other more. That’s all

you have to say for now.”

“I have friends like Keller that arrange Train rides and Bus rides for me and people to stay

with. Eddie and I tour with the artists in concerts. We’ve been to Woodstock together.”

“Lets go back to the Piano for awhile.”

I remember vaguely coming into NYC in 73 and being afraid that they would pick us up for

Truancy. I remember Eric and the woman that took us into St. Patrick’s and the Priest. They

say my memories will come back. That I probably will live to 94, another 30 years and that

all signs show that someday I will remember more. I am already recalling languages, and

they are explaining how my conceptualization is working and how that indicates my

awareness and progress. And there’s a kid back there in my past that was fascinating. I

think writing what I can recall as fiction will help heal the neurology.

There Are Men Two Gentle To Live Among Wolves.

Eddie and I walked down the street.