WHAT A LIFE!!

He goes on to tell about how he practically becomes a legend in Roxbury, (the black ghetto of Boston), when he gets picked up by this fine white woman, a blonde he calls Sophia, which was like totally forbidden in those days. She had her own car, a convertible, and her own cash. Which she was spending on him, and pretty soon, he’s parading her all over the black clubs and bars in Roxbury. All the big time hustlers and gamblers were salivating over her, and he says he felt like all eyes were on him when they were out together. And he’s still only sixteen! I know that feeling - that’s how it is when I am around Esperanza.
I fall asleep for about an hour and a half, before I have to wake up for school again and I’m only on page seventy-two - the book is four-hundred and sixty-six pages long. I can’t wait to get at it again!
For the next few days, it’s like I’m not even living my life. I’m not Joey Montaperto, in Roselle at this moment in this world anymore. Instead, I find myself cruising along on this odyssey, this journey with Malcolm X, our lives somehow oddly intertwined. Every opportunity I get to sneak away and satiate myself with this adventurous addiction, I grab it. I’m poring over every passage, sometimes three or four times, intent on slurping up each morsel of flavor, and bathing in the particular mood of those words.
He becomes known as Red, or “Detroit Red,” because of his reddish toned skin, and his bright red ‘conk’, which is what they called this process of using lye, to burn their hair straight, to make it look like a white man’s hair.
But my favorite part, no doubt, was the way he described how he got out of the draft in 1943, for WWII. The prevailing consensus among the young ghetto dudes was:
“Whitey owns everything. He wants us to go and bleed for him? Let him fight.” Which of course, I totally agree with, in the first place. So I love it when he said he went down to the draft board totally bugging out, wearing his wildest zoot suit, frizzing up his red conk and talking a mile a minute with ghetto slang, like, “Crazy-o, daddy-o, get me movin’.”
He said a lot of the prospective white inductees in the draft room looked at him with that vinegary, ‘worst kind of nigger look’. Freakin’ hilarious. Anyway, he finally convinces the Army psychiatrist to 4F him, which is the rejection card for the physically/mentally incompetent, when he comes into the room all jumpy. He’s peeping under doors, and tells the guy he wants to get sent down South so he can organize the Negro soldiers, steal some guns, and kill them some ‘crackers’.
Now my admiration grows for him by the minute.

RIO MUCHACHO

Here is the 2nd chapter of Joe Montaperto's new memoir - Escape From the Planet of the Arts

Young German girls. They are everywhere at Rio Muchacho. All around twenty one, twenty two. Dreadlocked hair. Nose rings, armpit bushes. Tattoos. Also, they seem to be radical anarchists.
I imagine though, that in five years or so, most of these girls will be wearing sensible shoes and corporate approved haircuts. When you’re in your very early 20s, you have a lot of romantic ideals. Let them have fun while they’re young though, y’know? They’re not hurting anybody.
I have to say though, Rio Muchacho has been a sweet landing spot. The other volunteers are mostly a bunch of 20 something pseudo-hippie types from all over Europe. They all speak excellent English, pretty good Spanish, and we’re all mixed in here with the local Ecuadorian workers.
Everybody has been very kind though, and have really helped me settle in - even though I still feel a little awkward from not really knowing anyone.
There’s this one German kid who’s kind of hilarious though, he’s absolutely been an ice-breaker... he always tell me to go up to these German girls and say:
“Ya, fraulines, Ich möchte dein Lederhosen sein" - and - "Ich möchte dein Venischnitzel sein."
I go up to them and say this, and they laugh hysterically, which of course, cracks me up. Later, I find out this means, “I want to be your lederhosen '' (German tight leather pants), and “I want to be your venischnitzel'’.
Complete nonsense, of course. It makes no sense. But it’s good for some hearty laughs, and definitely helps me connect a little better, y’know?.
Also, miraculously enough - I’m sleeping pretty well!
Thank God.
Everything changes drastically, however, one day, maybe ten days after I get there... one of the Rio Muchacho staff tells me to move my stuff off the top bunk, where I’m the only one staying - because there’s a new volunteer coming in.
“Gimme a minute, and I’ll have all this shit outta here, ok?”
The new guy walks in and, oddly enough, seems to be studying me for a minute.
“I know you”, he says.
I’m immediately suspicious.
“What?! From where?!”
“Weren’t you at Omega Institute (this holistic center in upstate New York) - maybe nine or ten years ago?”
“Oh my God… yeah… yeah… you’re the … the… French guy - right?!
Olivier, or something…
Philippe.
Yeah… yeah.. Holy shit, man, that’s crazy! You worked with me in the cafe that summer, right?”
We shake hands, embrace, and start catching up on the past 10 years. Then we make plans to go to town next week to celebrate.
This is where it gets interesting..
So, we go to this bar in the next town, Canoa, where everybody goes to hang out, right, and for some reason - this bar has no vodka! I mean - a bar with no vodka… that’s kind of insane, y’know?
I have a lot of congestion, I don’t know, maybe a cold, or something, so I wanna drink a few screwdrivers (vodka and OJ) and even though I’m pretty annoyed about it, I say yeah, gimme gin and orange juice then, alright? Me and Philipe are talking, and I’m throwing down one after another like a madman - to the point of where I lose count.
Pretty soon, I get into this absurd argument with this Colombian guy sitting next to me - about shrimp - and whether the shrimp they have at Rio Muchacho is really organic or not! It soon becomes really heated - we’re actually on the verge of exchanging blows - and Philiipe has to separate us!
Next thing I know, the bartender kicks us all out! Me and Philippe immediately proceed to another bar - which does have vodka - and now I’m downing a bunch more screwdrivers - until the bar closes at, like, two in the morning. Somehow, we then wander onto the malecon (kind of a cement boardwalk), where we run into this bunch of teenagers who are drinking Aguardiente. Little do I know that this is some extremely potent shit, man! One hundred and 20 proof, or something!
Deadly

A REVOLUTION

After all the volatility he is feeling - Joey wants to do something significant with his life.

My eyes are darting wildly around the room, searching for something to occupy them. Or maybe to enflame those eyes even more. Finally, they converge on my nightstand table. The copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the Professor had lent me a couple of weeks ago. I grab it maniacally, start flipping through the pages. Briskly at first, then browsing, then finally….reading…reading…reading…reading…
Next thing I know, I look at my clock radio - and it’s almost 5:30 in the freaking morning. Holy shit! I was so into it, I had no concept that four hours have passed by, just like that. This Malcolm X, man, he was the shit! This guy comes from intense poverty. His father is murdered by white men when he’s just a kid His mother is eventually taken away to a mental institution. He goes from a detention home in Mason, Michigan, to his half-sister Ella’s place in Boston. In a short while there, he finds himself right in the eye of the happening black culture of the time. All by the time he’s about fifteen years old! Basically around the same age as me.
I’m totally entranced by his description of the lindy-hopping that went down into the wee hours of the morning at Boston’s Roseland Ballroom. How black folks would just go wild into a frenzy on the floor. Sweating, soaking wet, the crowd cheering you on, then pounding your back, gleefully, as you got swept off the floor, exhausted.
Famous big bands of the era, wailing. Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, Count Basie…man, that’s living!
I had always felt self-conscious and awkward when I saw the black kids showing off new dance moves to each other in the hall. I want to dance. I don’t want to be stiff! The white kids don’t care, they’re just content to sit in circles at their parties. Passing around a joint, and nodding their heads to Lynard Skynard and Judas Priest. But I want to let loose! I want to just fly, man! And in the back of my mind, someday I know I will.

TROUBLING THOUGHTS

After Joey’s conversation with Na-Na about his war with Contreau, he becomes agitated with all the nonsense in the world

Making my way home from work that night, Na-Na’s words are still tossing around in my head, like sneakers tumbling in the dryer. 

 It’s not only his words, really. It’s something more. A sadness. Actually, a foreboding begins descending upon me now. Something is going to happen. I’ve had this feeling before. This kind of intuition. Thick, murky, and vague, it takes over my whole body.  Whatever it is, or going to be - it gives me the shakes, as I navigate the isolation of the frigid, dimly lit streets.  

Ten after one in the morning. Can’t sleep. In my bed flipping from one position, then gyrating into another, in crazy, restless mode. Kicking away against the impenetrability of the covers my mother has tucked in ridiculously tight again, at the end of the bed.  Damn! Why does she always have to do that?  I can’t move! It’s like she’s in the Army, or something. She probably flips a quarter on the bed after she’s made it, too, to make sure it’s perfect. Bet you. My father would always tell stories about when he was in the Army, how the sergeant would come into the barracks to inspect things, and he’d flip a quarter on your bed. If the quarter didn’t bounce back up, it meant the sheets and covers weren’t tight enough, and he’d make you do it again. And you had to do 50 push-ups, too.  She always listened to my father. I just hope he hasn’t made her do 50 push-ups, also.

God, I would hate the Army. I would never join up, even if they drafted me. I’d definitely go to Canada or Mexico, or wherever. Especially after hearing the stories from a couple of guys around the neighborhood, who had served in Vietnam. Guys who came back all fucked up. Mentally. Physically. Missing limbs, fingers.  For no good reason, either.  

They would tell me how these sergeants would totally humiliate you, right in front of everybody in the platoon. And then, you’d have to, like, pledge you would die for these same assholes on the battlefield!

Fuck that, man. No way. I’d always hated that hierarchical type of shit. I remember, I even quit the Cub Scouts because of that. No, actually – I got kicked out of the Cub Scouts. By my Aunt Tina, no less. Yeah, she was the den mother for our Pack 51. I didn’t want to do those stupid Twelve Achievements in the Cub Scouts Handbook that you had to complete before you could graduate to - ooh - the Webelos.

I did do a few of the achievements anyway, though. I tied those eight different knots. I built a campfire and stuff like that, until I got to the one, the ninth achievement, I think, where you have to build a birdhouse. That was it. No freakin’ way! Now, why would I want to build a fucking birdhouse?  What was the point? I wouldn’t do it.  So, she kicked me out. My Aunt Tina.

I remember Gerald Schoenfeld (from our pack) told everybody in our 6th grade class that I refused to build the birdhouse – and it was, like, the big scandal of the year.

I pretty much hated organizations, in the first place. Especially, like, The Junior Achievement Club, where you had to make hangars, for some reason. Now, my mind just lurches forward in a sea of free association. Each more agitating than the next.

The Church. Sears. Yeah, I really despise Sears. Especially those damn catalogues. I remember a few years ago, Sears had this big parade in town, to celebrate the grand opening of their Super Shopping Center, in what used to be part of Smith’s Woods. Marching bands, cheerleaders, banners – even clowns. Clowns. They were the worst. I never did understand why they were supposed to be funny, anyway.  I mean, what, just because they wore a lot of make-up and big shoes? They were supposed to be, like, hilarious?  

I have aunts who wear too much make-up, and big shoes, too. I seriously don’t remember anybody laughing uproariously, when they walk down the street.

Anyway, the whole town turns out to celebrate this moronic parade. Everybody. There are these pretty girls up on the floats, waving, blowing kisses, and tossing ‘complimentary gifts’ out to the crowd. Cheap shit, like, Hershey’s Kisses, and Lifesavers. And stuff like little soaps.  God, you should see these ninnies diving and scurrying all over the street, like it’s a freakin’ gold rush, or something! What, they can’t just go to the store, and spend a freakin’ nickel for their own Hershey’s Kisses?

The worst part of all this, to me at least, is that apparently nobody cares that Sears had destroyed the remaining bit of the beautiful Smith Woods, the last woods around for many miles. Just so they can open up another one of their junky shopping centers.

I swear, it doesn’t matter if you have a parade for dropping bombs on people, or inventing a new flavor of toothpaste. Just as long as you have marching bands, clowns, and Hershey’s Kisses! People will always come out to cheer.

I’m really on a roll now, my mind bursting in a cynical diatribe. What annoys me even more than the whole parade nonsense is that afterwards, Sears keeps sending their freakin’ catalogues to our house! With those private-school-type Hardy Boy looking motherfuckers they have modelling the clothes. Man, that burns me! These guys standing around pointing to each other’s pants admiringly, and tittering smugly, like they’re at some kind of exclusive Aryan Youth Tea Party.

“Gosh, Chad, those sure are some really nifty Sears khakis you have there.”

I endured years of wearing Sears Tough Skins, and, I can assure you, not once did I have as much fun wearing them as these cornballs did.

I’m all hyped up now. Agitation in overdrive. No way I’m gonna sleep tonight. Turn on the lights. Pacing. Pacing. Pacing. I feel like breaking into somebody’s house right now…a bunch of people’s houses…smashing some fucking windows…