Rebel Without a Cause

When I wasn’t working I was on the suburban streets tooling around with school buddies. It was fairly common to be popping wheelies through Steak and Shake or sneaking into the drive-in movie in the trunk of someone’s car. Once we planned to jump the fence at the drive-in and meet friends at their car.  In order to get there Danny Barthels and I took my Honda through Dunnegan Park, down the dirt trails through the woods.  It was dark already and I was doing about 25 on a narrow trail, almost there.  Just ahead was a skunk on the trail.  I was going too fast to stop but applied the brakes and sped past.  The skunk was more startled than we were and gave us a squirt as we passed, then scurried off into the brush.  The whole left side of my bike, along with both of our left legs were skunked.  What could we do?  We continued down the path, laid the bike down, jumped the fence and found our friends car.  As we attempted to climb in, however, we found them to be less than welcoming… so we sat outside on the gravel for the rest of the evening.  I think we all know the smell of a skunk.  I know I will never forget it.  And my clothes went straight into the trash.

One Saturday when I was 17 in Florissant I got 3 speeding tickets from the same cop on 3 different streets with 3 different people on the back of my Honda Super 90. On the 3^rd stop he chuckled and shook his head.  I went to court with my Dad and of course the judge was not amused. He suspended my license for 30 days. I could tell Dad was pissed but there was no conversation. He chained up the motorcycle and locked the key in his dresser.

During the 30-day suspension I went to New Orleans for vacation. My sister, Liz, had "escaped" from our household with the help of my Grandparents who had offered to put her through college at Loyola. She always was there favorite. I loved my sister and I respected her. She was smart, at least in school she got good grades. I thought I was smart, too but my grades were only average.

While on vacation one night we went to Audubon Park with a male friend of hers. He had a joint and we all smoked it. Since this was my first time I don't think I got very high. We then went to one of the college bars where I proceeded to get very drunk. They helped me get home on the streetcar.

A few days later I went to visit my cousin Buddy out in the suburbs. I didn't know him real well. I knew he was "cool" because Liz had told me so. His parents were going out of town and a few of his friends were coming over to spend the night. My cousin told me he and his friends were gonna do some Orange Sunshine that night. I got a hit of brown Mescaline from a friend and took it with them.

What a trip! We burned for 12 hours. It was just like "they" said it would be...all the colors, the hallucinations, the insights into the meaning of life, etc., etc., etc. I went back to St. Louis in a different frame of mind than when I left.

I went back to Florissant after the vacation and back to work at Bonanza Sirloin Pit.  They had a lighted sign out front that someone would tend by changing the letters to display a message.  My limited marketing skill was exhibited prominently for the very first time on that sign with little ditties like “Our Reputation is at Steak” and “Have your Steak and Eat it Too”, and “Enjoy our Texas Toast, Like us, it’s Well Bread”.  I missed my calling…….

The owner/manager, Mr. Grebe, was a Christian Minister as I mentioned, and was very straight-laced. We generally did a good job for him but he knew a lot of the staff, including his Head Cook were getting wild, drinking in the back parking lot and dabbling in drugs.  Though it wasn’t just me I’m sure he thought I was a bad influence on the other staff.  One night after the shift ended he just said that they didn't need me anymore. No other excuse, but I knew what he meant.

So now, I thought, there was no longer any reason to stay in St. Louis.  After the vacation experience with smoking pot and the freedom of New Orleans I was done with Florissant.  On the day I was to get my license back I packed up all of my worldly goods into a duffle bag.  The contents were really just another pair of jeans, some t-shirts, dress shoes, socks and underwear.  Oh, and my twenty or so albums gathered over the two most important, and current, years of my life.  You just can’t leave Black Sabbath Paranoid or the Chambers Brothers Time Has Come Today behind when you leave home.

During the late afternoon while Dad and Mary Lou were at work I snuck into their room and found the key to the motorcycle in his dresser. Without looking back I put on my half-shell Confederate flag helmet and my American Flag t-shirt and I road my little Honda Super 90 from St. Louis to New Orleans in 22 hours. What a feeling of freedom.  The bike had a top speed of about 55 miles per hour and the highway speed limit was 70 so the truckers would speed past me and I would slide in behind them and draft along at 65.  I slept under a picnic table at a rest stop in Mississippi.  I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't care. I just knew that I wanted out; that I wanted to be my own boss, to make my own decisions. I did not leave a note.

When I got to New Orleans my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and my sister were all shocked. Dad hadn’t called them because he didn’t know my destination. They couldn't take me in because that would put them in the middle and they were my real mothers' family. That just wouldn't work now that Dad had married Mary Lou. Within a day or two close personal friends of my mother, Peter and Loraine Chopin, finally offered me a room at there house. Lorraine had gone to school with my mother at LSU.

Soon after moving in I started looking for a job and easily found one at a Bonanza Sirloin Pit in Metairie doing exactly what I had been doing back home, cooking steaks.  Loraine registered me and I started my senior year at Warren Easton Senior High, an inner city high school that was 95% black, 4% Hispanic and just about 2% white.

The school was easy. They were at least 2 years behind in their educational level. I was getting A's and B's here where I had been getting by with C’s in Florissant. I had a little trouble socially/racially until I made friends with Alvin Dersone, a rather large black guy who looked out for me. I hung around with my cousin Buddy and his friends out in the suburbs when I wasn't at work. Out in Metairie the high schools had fraternities and I became kind of a mascot for PDX, Buddy’s fraternity at Archbishop Rummel High School.  I guess they thought it was kind of cool that I left home at 17 and was on my own.  We partied hearty, not every night, mainly on weekends or nights off work. Even though we were only 17 it was wide open in New Orleans. If you knew where to go you never got carded. I was having a good time coming and going as I pleased. I loved to go to the French Quarter and hang out on the street, watching people. It was quite a zoo.

The Chopins were very nice people who never had any kids of their own.  They lived quietly with Peter working in the family business and Loraine staying home with the dog, a poodle, not one of my favorite breeds.  They bought my favorite snack foods and told me I didn’t need to pay them rent as long as I saved some of my money each week.  We didn’t see much of each other because I would leave for school each morning and return at night after work and on weekends I’d be out and about with friends.  I don’t think they liked the situation much but they never expressed any negative feelings and there were few conversations.

As Christmas approached I started to get homesick. New Orleans was fun but the job was just a job, the school was an alien world and the excitement of freedom was losing its luster. I'd been gone 4 months and my Dad had not even called me to talk even though he knew exactly where I was. I called him and asked if I could come home.  He said yes, as long as I followed his rules.

I told Lorraine and Peter I was going home, thanked them and I was gone.  In retrospect I didn’t really show them much appreciation for what they did for me.  It was winter so I couldn’t drive my Honda back to St. Louis.  I flew to St. Louis and Dad loaned me the Ford station wagon to drive back to New Orleans and pick up the Honda over a weekend.  With the back seats down and the Honda laid on its side I drove back to St. Louis… home in time for Christmas.