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 3rd 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.
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