Chapter 2 – Winter Break
Everything worked out fine. We handed in our papers on the last day before the week-long winter break started, and we had to wait until after vacation to get our marks, but we were confident. Tom and Win each handed in a paper in their own handwriting that was about two-thirds my words, but enough of their own style that Miss Randall couldn’t tell the difference. We hoped, anyway.
That brought us very close to being caught up with our backlog of extra work, except for French. Mrs. Pratt kept threatening to make us take the class over in eighth grade, which would have been a disaster. The way they did it, the two years of French in Intermediate School was considered the equivalent of French 1 in High School, and if you passed both years, you could go right into French 2 as a Freshman. But if we had to repeat a year, we wouldn’t qualify for that, and it would cost us a year’s credit in High School. So we still had to get caught up to Pratt’s satisfaction, which seemed impossible.
Meanwhile, Amy was already finding me some business at the High School. I had several short essays to write over the break, and she had two year-end term papers lined up for me already, with prospects for more. It was a good start.
We had a whole week off from school, and lots of time to do whatever we wanted. On Tuesday morning, Win and I were walking out Pearl Street to Tom’s house. We were going to meet Tom and Rollo there and head over to another kid’s house to watch “The Planets” practice. The Planets were a recently-formed rock and roll band composed of four High School kids, all of whom were on the Police Department’s “shit list” as juvenile delinquents. One of them was Karl, who had grown up on the same street as Win, and had been our primary supplier of “liberated” building materials and supplies when we built our cabin in the woods the previous summer.
It was a great time for music. Win and I were singing “Tell Her No,” by the Zombies, as we left his house and headed towards the shopping center. The Kinks and the Stones had had big hits in the last month, the Beatles had two new songs in the charts, and there were new U.S. groups like the Beau Brummels breaking into the scene. The biggest change in the music scene, for us, anyway, was all the Black music we were hearing. Before 1964, the Burlington radio stations almost never played any songs by the Black groups. Vermont was the whitest state in the nation, and they, the DJs, or whoever made the decisions, thought we wouldn’t want to hear that stuff. But the Supremes changed all that, and now we were hearing the Temptations, the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, and the Four Tops, just to name a few. It was a revelation.
We were bopping to “My Girl” as we passed the Essex Shopping Plaza, and we decided to stop at the Bake Shop. I knew Amy wasn’t working that day, but it would be nice to have a hot chocolate to sip on the long walk out to Tom’s house.
There were three men sitting at the counter, and the one closest to us turned and smiled at us while the man in the center continued an animated monologue directed at the third man. The man smiling at us was an olive-skinned man of about thirty, good-looking in a classic Mediterranean way. His name was Stefan Poulos, and he was well-known to everyone in Essex Junction as the gregarious bartender at the Jackson Inn.
Win and I had gained our own measure of notoriety in the village by skipping six weeks of school, and Stefan was one of those villagers who looked on our escapade with amusement, rather than outrage. He greeted us warmly, and, as seemed to be the fashion with all the local Greeks, signaled his approval by reaching for his billfold and telling the waitress to bring us whatever we wanted.
Rosemary was the waitress today, a plump, middle-aged woman with a pretty face and a friendly manner. I think she was a cousin of Amy’s; at any rate she was related in some way to the Ducharmes. I explained to Stefan that we just meant to get hot chocolates to go, not wanting to offend him, and he waved away my concern.
“Of course, of course. You have places to go and things to do on your holiday.”
We thanked him profusely as Rosemary went off to fix our HCs.
The man in the middle, who was still talking, was Jean-Claude Bouchard, usually called “J.C.” He tended bar at the tavern on Railroad Avenue owned by his older brother. J.C. was another popular local figure; when a bartender’s tenure at one establishment stretched past a decade, he tended to become an institution. He glanced briefly at the two of us, but never stopped talking. He was one of those adults who didn’t regard children as real people, at least until they were old enough to order a drink.
The man he was talking to was my friend and fellow library rat, Sergeant Smithers. To his adult friends and customers, he was “Smitty,” but I always addressed him as “Sergeant.” We shared an interest in Military History, and we had some great conversations at the library. He had also been a huge help in solving the murder of Sally Delisle. The Sergeant, a retired thirty-year-man, tended bar at Todd’s Restaurant. The three had formed a sort of bartenders’ fraternity, each stopping for a drink or two at the others’ establishments on his night off, and they always met for coffee on Tuesday morning at nine-thirty at the Best-Ever Bake Shop.
When J.C. finally had to stop to take a breath, the Sergeant turned on his stool and said “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Sergeant. We’re just headed out to our friend’s house.”
“Did you both get your English papers done on time?”
We both nodded. “Sure,” I said, “It wasn’t easy, but we did it. As I explained to you, I was able to use the same research on both my papers. I had enough information on the campaign to support a totally different thesis.”
“Good, good. I really liked your paper on the Fitz John Porter case; I’d love to read the other one when you get it back.”
“Sure. I should have it soon after we go back.”
We left a few minutes later, holding our lidded cups of hot chocolate in our mittened hands, and headed out towards Tom’s house.
Win had asked Karl if it would be alright for us to watch one of their band practices, and he had said he didn’t mind. We weren’t sure how the other guys would like it, since they were all three or four years older than us, and they all had reputations as mean kids, if not outright bullies. But Karl liked us, and he was a pretty dominant figure, so we were hopeful that we would be tolerated. We were heavily into music, obviously, and we were dying to find out if local kids could really play the kind of music we were hearing on the radio, and make a success of it as a band.
Rollo was at Tom’s house and they were listening to the radio, of course. We stayed there for almost an hour, listening to the hits on DOT. Of course, there was a lot of crap, too. We’d hear “Heart of Stone,” by the Rolling Stones, then the hapless DJ would follow it with Trini Lopez, singing “Lemon Tree.” We’d hoot and yell at the radio, but we couldn’t stop it, so we’d just laugh and ridicule both Trini and the DJ.
Get this – the new, part-time DJ was named “Johnny Strong.” Tom and Win and I started laughing hysterically when we heard his name, while Rollo just kind of stared at us.
“What are you guys laughing at?” he asked.
“Rollo, didn’t you hear it?” Tom said, “His name is ‘Johnny Strong.’ It’s the most obviously made up name I’ve ever heard!”
So Rollo started laughing, too. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s like ‘Dash Riprock’ and ‘Biff Steele’ on the ‘Beverly Hillbillies.’”
“Yeah, but it’s even worse!” Win said, “’Johnny Strong!’”
Well, we laughed long and hard at that, and listened to some more tunes before we headed out. One of the guys in The Planets had a big garage at his house, which was in the Villa Drive neighborhood, and that’s where the practice was.
It was about a ten minute walk. We went along Warner Avenue, on the western edge of the neighborhood, and past the woods that bordered it to the west. As he usually did, Rollo started singing “Settin’ the Woods on Fire” as we passed. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that Win, when he was five or six, had actually set the woods on fire. Win just grinned, knowing that he would be reminded endlessly for the rest of his life, or at least as long as he hung out with us.
We heard Karl before we got there. He was warming up on his drums while the other guys set up the simple equipment they had. He laughed his booming laugh as we walked up the driveway towards the open garage. The other three guys, predictably, just gave us a sneering glance before turning back to their amps and their cigarettes. I think Karl had told them we were coming over, but that didn’t mean we were really welcome.
It was pretty cold, and they were arguing about whether they should leave the garage door open, and probably wishing they had closed it before we showed up. Anyway, we were perfectly aware of our status, so we found some stools and boxes to sit on and kept our mouths shut while we watched them finish setting up.
The Planets played a lot of surf songs and car songs; that’s what the “frat boys” wanted to hear. They ran through five or six of their regulars, like “Surfin’ Safari” and “Little GTO.” Then they practiced a couple of new songs they were learning, which was interesting, but a little tedious. We loved the songs, “All Day and All of the Night,” and “Laugh, Laugh,” but I, for one, and probably the other kids, too, hadn’t really realized how long it took to learn to play a song, and how much stopping and starting there was. They took an hour and a half on those two songs, and they weren’t nearly ready to play them in public.
Rollo was a little bored, I think, though he wouldn’t admit it. He was also hungry (when wasn’t he?) and he had no trouble admitting that, so he walked home for lunch. Tom and Win and I were still fascinated, so we stayed for the rest of the practice. They finished with a couple of regulars – “Louie, Louie,” of course, and “Rollerland,” which was a regional hit, but probably never heard outside of northern New York and Vermont.
Rollerland was a roller-skating rink in Plattsburgh, and they had dances once a week, with local bands. One of the bands had written a song about “takin’ my baby to Rollerland,” and got it released on a local label, so a lot of bands played it around the region. Karl and his buddies had all been to Rollerland, and to Saxony, which was a nightclub in Rouse’s Point. The drinking age in New York was only eighteen, so lots of kids drove over there to drink and dance. None of these guys were eighteen, of course, but we gathered that it was pretty easy to get served.
Nobody would ever claim that “Rollerland” was a great song, but it was fun, and it suited Karl’s drumming style, which was as aggressive as his personality. That was the last song of their practice, and it left us with ears ringing and a strong desire to see more live Rock and Roll.