Going to Church in the Strawberry Patch

Trying to Grow Up In Spite of Myself

A Memoir by Tom Bessette

Copyright 2009 BessetteBooks

 Chapter 7
Politics and Cruelty

My tongue prodded my teeth, seeking release, pushing, seeking resistance.
This is wrong, I need to stop.
Surely something bad will happen.
I can’t stop, I push again, worried, sweating.
Out of control, in despair.
I must stop, I must stop, I MUST STOP.
I push harder. A tooth moves…

Sr. Althea Ann Connelly offered a new class for juniors called ‘Crucial Issues’ and I signed up for it.  That specific class woke me up to the political and social world beyond my piddley high school problems.  We studied and brazenly discussed current events, and many in the class developed a strong attitude about Nixon and Agnew and how they should be roasted at the stake with daggers in their hearts, like so many Godless dogs. 

This is all not to say that I hadn’t been interested in politics before this class. While in 7th grade, our lay teacher had staged mock debates between student representatives of the 1968 Presidential campaign.  There had been three of us in that class who were decent speakers.  Mike Bodaire was a Nixon Republican and debated for his (or his father’s) idol.  Kathy Moreau and Jenny Dickinson made just the sweetest posters for Hubert Horatio Humphrey, spelling his full name out in arcing bulbous letters festooned with American Flags and hearts.  There was a third party candidate that year, George Wallace, of Alabama, who had spent a career pushing the old idea of separation of the races.  My gregarious father, friend to all, accommodating and generous to a fault and as loving a man as I knew, was strongly in favor of Wallace’s candidacy, believing his policies would solve the race problems we had seen on TV throughout the 60’s.  So, I spoke for Wallace in the debates, fiery of words and intense in presentation, and in the mock election after the debate, Wallace won in a landslide; a tribute to how a population will listen to the loudest voice and strongest voiced claims, regardless of underlying merit.  I thank God now that I wasn’t speaking for him to the country at large.  Who knows?

Now, in my junior year, I was hearing a point of view different than my father’s, and this view seemed to be supported by undeniable facts. I became a Democrat, though I hated local democrats because of the local machine politics.  In late spring 1971, Nixon spoke in Albany at an early rally and Sr. Althea organized a number of us to go, and being in that crowd, with the protest signs waving, voices yelling and police cordons, was a brisk slap in my small town face.  I was coming up on draft age and damned well wanted to avoid fighting in this stupid fucking war for these asshole fat cat politicians who wouldn’t send their own kids to fight, Jesus Kee Ko, they were a pain in my GODDAMN ass.

I started reading everything about Students For a Democratic Society but never actually joined.  I resolved to escape to Canada before the draft got me like it did my brother, yeah, go get my ass blown off in Viet Nam so our country wouldn’t look bad. Shit!  I became militant about student rights and started talking back to anyone in authority I came across.

McGovern was my man but we all knew Nixon would take it again, damn him and as the election neared that fall, we were in a frenzy of hatred and patriotism, dreading the outcome.

Our principal was a priest named James Kelly, a progressive man who had serious ideas about how to govern an unruly bunch of catholic school students. We knew him affectionately as ‘Craze.’  His Vice Principal was Sister Emerita and she had gotten the reputation of careening around the halls on roller skates, because she was expert at quickly turning up everywhere bad things were being done.  She would sail in and right the wrongs, swab the decks and aim us back in the right direction.

In addition to Crucial Issues, I had signed up for the class I really wanted to take: Journalism.  Of course there was no hard hitting investigative reporting going on at Keveny, no we produced the school paper, the Kevenian, filled with headlines like ‘Bill Mooradian sparks Sabers to Victory in Parochial League Battle’ and ‘Father Kelly Makes Historic Speech about New Cafeteria Vending Machines’ and the like.  Those on the yearbook had it even better; they spent their class periods and considerable after school hours laying out and assembling the yearbook.  I tried my hand at reporting but was blocked each way I turned by Sr. Dennis, the Journalism maven who wanted no part of a rabble rousing, attitude rich teenager.  I was moved to yearbook but couldn’t seem to stop spilling the glue and many layouts had to be redone because of my clumsiness. Gee, too bad.

So, I did the one thing there was left to do.  I recruited Jay Wilson from my Committee days and a few other trusted friends and we decided to produce an independent school newspaper.  Jay had access to the old blue ink mimeograph machine and a number of reproducible negative sheets used to print menus at Smith’s Restaurant where he worked as a dishwasher.  Roll a negative into a typewriter and type away; you could even add your own illustrations by scratching them directly onto your negative.

Since we were rebelling against everything mainstream at Keveny, especially the hated Kevenian, the paper was born ‘NaineveK’ and we were off and running.  I wrote a searing and scholarly editorial denouncing boring and run of the mill reportage, singling out as reprehensible the very articles I had contributed.  Jay’s editorial was titled the ‘Bitchin’ Bonanza’ and was filled with exciting school rule bashing.  Mick Bailey wrote the ‘KMA Jail Files,’ a step by step primer on how he found himself imprisoned in our brick building.  Jay added a music column praising Yes’ new Album ‘Close to the Edge’ as lyrical, mystical mind candy.  My friend Tom Ballargeon, not even a student at Keveny, contributed an in-depth analysis of the derivation of the name Kodak, getting only as far as the first letter, K, and thus ushering in the serial in school news reporting. 

Tom also got his friend Dave Grasso to do a sports page, devoting it to his newly invented game of ‘Knertney.’  This game, described in detail in the article, consisted of attempts by opposing teams to toss ping pong balls into a goal, which was in turn guarded, not by players, but by a pair of huge high intensity fans.  As I understand it, the fans had no fan guards and players would regularly lose limbs to the nearly invisible rotating blades; obviously they needed to get in really close to be able to power the balls through the rush of air.  Substitute players were always on hand to pick up dismembered flopping arms and legs, mop blood and get into the game. Dave was busily inventing additional new sports and had promised to write about another, which he called ‘Elephruit’, for the next issue. In that game, players would lead recalcitrant elephants up and down a field, passing small fruits, like strawberries and raspberries, to each other at each end.  If a team’s fruit got too mushy they were disqualified.  Sometimes the elephants got unruly and stomped spectators. I’m not sure the game was ever actually played professionally.

We got tacit permission to publish the paper in that we asked and no one came right out and said no.  Lisa and Colleen got going on the artwork and the front page was graced with a lifelike drawing of Father Kelly above the caption ‘Big Brother.’  Inside was a cartoon titled ‘Future Shock’ depicting a pregnant nun on roller skates.  We never said it was supposed to be Sr. Emerita.  I think she was pissed. We printed 300 copies of the paper and sold them for fifty cents each and were completely sold out in less than an hour, not bad for a school with a tad more than 400 students in all grades.  Over the next few weeks, we received hearsay reports that the paper had made its way into English classes at Catholic High, and every public school in a 20 mile radius, but many of those reports were unsubstantiated.

Jay and I were the only Keveny students who were credited in the paper.  The day after the publication, while we were writing and soliciting articles for the second issue, we were called to Craze’s office.  He pressed us for the names of the other Keveny contributors; we took the fifth and were promptly expelled.  We marched out the door proudly, kids skipping classes to see us off, nuns and teachers trying to herd them away, a near riot breaking out.  The fire alarm was set off three different times that day.  After earnest conversations between our parents and school administrators, we were reinstated as students and given only a 5 day suspension for conduct unbecoming a Keveny student, on the condition we cease and desist all publishing operations immediately. Not our number one choice but our parents were very worried and we felt we couldn’t put them though more political pain. 

Five days of delicious freedom followed; we weren’t allowed on school grounds but we could hang out on the tracks out back, and held court there before and after school with throngs of our schoolmates of all classes, basking in the celebrity between trains.  One senior talked us down, calling us bad influences, stupid assholes and poor writers to boot.  As soon as he went back inside, a crowd got his Volkswagen from a side street, broke in, released the hand brake, rolled it past the crossing and bodily lifted it onto the tracks.  A train was due in less than a half hour; unfortunately a good Samaritan passerby called the cops, who in turn called Berdar’s to come and tow the vehicle off the tracks. It sustained considerable frame damage from being dragged over the rails; everyone felt so bad.  Craze decided it was my fault and summarily expelled me again, but lobbying on the lack of evidence by my father turned it into a mere 5 day extension of my suspension.  Jay and I wondered if we should put the VW on the tracks in another week and get more vacation.

On the eleventh day, I returned to Journalism class.  Sr. Dennis stopped me at the door and said “Oh, no you don’t.” Back at Craze’s office, I was told that there was no room for a muckraker on a school yearbook staff, and was banished to a religion class offered at the same time period, run by a tough son of a bitch named Father D’Amato, who took no shit from anyone, especially lawless, Godless rabble.

Although I was no longer easy going enough to hang out with the Committee, I still had my contacts.  Two weeks after getting back to school, a number of seniors were going off on a weekend religious retreat and hit me up for an ounce of pot (dope, weed, smoke, toke) to get them through it.  At that time the going price for an ounce was $20, but I could get it for fifteen dollars wholesale from my man, Jeff, so I agreed. 

In my weirdness, I decided that it would look good to walk up the hill to meet Jeff at the ordained street corner to do the deal, so I prevailed on Tom Ballargeon to borrow his dad’s car and drive me up, and he loyally agreed, crabbing the whole way about getting in trouble and why was I doing this?  I had daydreams about big business and riches and respect, finally, from the heads in town. On the street corner, it was dark and chilly and there were some definitely scary looking guys milling about.  Tom stayed meekly in the car while they yelled taunts and insults to him.  Jeff walked sinisterly over and demanded his money and gave me the rolled up baggy in return.  I felt worldly and important, the tough guy chants of ‘wuss,’ and ‘fag’ not withstanding. On the ride back, Tom said “well, we got through that without dying.”

Next day, in Mechanical Drawing class, the seniors were after me for the stuff so I decided to turn it over right in class.  I was preparing it when a freckled, hairy hand clasped down on mine and there was Father Kroon, the instructor, holding me in an iron grip.  You know the feeling you get in a fast elevator when the bottom drops out from under you?  As I looked up at him, my mind shutting down while drops of sweat formed on my forehead, I heard a whisper from the back of the room, “Tell him its hamster food.”  I tried it and Father Kroon said, “You vill not fool me, as I know vhat dis is.  You vill come wit me.”

Back at Craze’s office, this was a serious offense.  I was again immediately expelled but before I got out the door, he relented and decided to punish me on his own.  The offer was to either tell the police and my parents (I could have gotten about five years in prison for dealing) or submit to his decisions on punishment.  I was just crazy enough to see jail as a romantic interlude on my way to total rebellion, but I had those vestigial memories of bread and water in jail from when I was a kid, and so chose to abide by Craze’s selections. So, as punishment, I was assigned the duty of cleaning all the bathrooms, on all three floors, every day after school until the end of the school year, seven long months away.  Better than the possibility of five years in jail and a record, I guess.

In no time, the whole school knew that their prized underground journalist was now demoted to custodial duties, and for months I was subject to taunting and the meanest tricks.  The women were the worst.  This was before most were using tampons, I guess, and they took their Kotex whatever’s and left used ones hanging on door transoms, supine in sinks, and stuffed into toilet drains.  In every girl’s bathroom, every day for at least a month, I would have to untie and dig out bloody wads of padding before I could actually clean anything.  Boy was I getting an education.  There were so many every day that it was clear that they had brought in help from other schools, recruiting from as far away as Albany, even.  The guys would only bring in buckets of dog shit to spread on the floor and that was certainly more manageable.

After two weeks, Craze decided that all things considered, he was duty bound to tell my parents. That meeting in his office was a silent, sour affair and I saw a certain light go out of my father’s eyes that day.

Craze added one more punishment to his repertoire.  He had, that fall, instituted something called Physical Punishment.  It was a formalized spanking process and there were rumors that a few had already succumbed to it.  I was offered 10 sessions of 20 whacks with my pants up or 5 sessions of 10 whacks with my pants down.  Always a strong believer in getting bad things over with quickly, I chose the latter.

I will never forget those sessions.  We met in his office and discussed the punishment in detail. Excruciating detail! Then he would have me face the wall displaying the American Flag and portrait of the Pope, and drop my pants and underwear to the floor, though I didn’t have to step out of them.  I would bend over, head almost touching the wall, hands braced.  He would place his hand on my shoulder blades and wield his special wooden paddle, acquired just for this purpose.  He would then ask if I was ready, take a deep breath, and whack as hard as he could, my glutes jumping at impact.  He’d pause, pat my shoulder and ask if I was OK.  Then another whack, another pause, another inquiry.  He made the 10 whacks last at least 15 minutes every time, and as we got to whack 6 or 7, he’d be breathing deeply and his voice would be rusty.  At whack 8, he’d pause and bring a mirror, positioning it so that I could peer around my shoulder and see my reddening ass, my dingus hanging free and swinging.  At the end, he would offer to pull up my pants for me in case I was too sore to bend down, but I bucked it up and did it on my own.

He scheduled sessions a week apart and they lasted longer as the series progressed, you’d almost think he had congestive heart failure they way his breathing got ragged.  This all happened long before the recent spate of priestly pedophilia reports, and it is interesting to note that Craze was one of those busted in the last few years, accused by a kid a year younger than me for something that happened the year after I graduated.  I think I see a pattern here. I do know that very soon after that reported incident, Craze was transferred to Boys Town in Nebraska so he could introduce even more young men to the joys of a Catholic influence.  This all said, other than the curious sessions of physical punishment I endured at his hands, I myself saw no other specific instances that would support the allegations to come in later years.

The whole experience did have a beneficial effect in that I really toned down on drug and alcohol related illegal behavior.  I was sobered by the very real prospect of prison and how idiotic it would be to throw my life away.  The idea that I could be seen as a sleazy drug dealer instead of just a rebellious kid was an eye opener.

Drugs were endemic at Keveny in those first years of the 70’s. Joey Podgorsky had set up shop in his locker and if you wanted anything in pill or tab form, you would dutifully line up before first period and wait your turn.  The third floor boys room was where the pot and hash was and you could pick up what you needed and either do it in the boy’s room or take the steps up to the roof.  The door had been busted and it was common for 20 or 30 kids to be toking up there on nice days.  We had this great babe for a Studio Art teacher and she could often be found smoking with us in the same third floor bathroom and, in deference to her position, we always posted a number of strategically located lookouts to watch out for Sr. Emerita (on her roller-skates and with child).  Joey and his friend Billy Maloney, both seniors, had gone down the path that I could have and were saved from prison one summer night when the car they were in crashed through a barrier and fell into the river, drowning them.  The babe art teacher lasted the one year and then was gone, no word why.

Craze and I had an interesting relationship.  He seemed to see me as a fixable kid, and I really believe that his conscious ideas about molding kids had some merit.  His obvious problems (seen in hindsight) aside, he helped me through a time where I could have gone either way.  My father was clueless and thus helpless; Craze was the adult male influence in my life that had knowledge of the type of thinking I was mired in.  After the bust, I had completely lost my parents’ trust and had near completely lost my friendship with my father, though to his credit when I behaved decently he accepted me back.  But there were many times when we’d argue violently and I would throw Craze up to him, threatening to go to him for advice rather than talk it out with my father. And Craze, for his part, parlor psychologist that he was, was always ready to jump in.  I could see my father slowly but surely losing sight of him as a priest and seeing him anew as a meddler who was stealing the affections of his kid. He wore his cloudy look for Craze too.

At sixteen, I was still going squirrel and rabbit hunting with my father and others such as Billy Bluteau, and all this idiocy happened during hunting season my junior year. Hunting was the last thing that I did regularly with my father and, like him, I never had given any thought to killing animals, actually bringing squirrel and rabbit sandwiches to school when we had been successful.

One trip to Dutchers Mountain outside of Troy, Billy, Dave Ballargeon, Dave Adams, my father and I were bravely stalking wascally wabbits.  My father scared up a snowshoe hare and we boys were off charging headlong down a path, each of us firing at will, shotgun pellets whizzing past each other’s ears as one or the other led the way.  The hare zigged this way and zagged that way, and we got all confused and found each other in a crossfire.  My father finally caught up, wheezing with the effort and calmed us down, the hare long gone.  After a stern reminder about proper hunting and gun safety, we were off to scare up yet another hare, which we chased; fired through thick brush and faced snapping branches, making our eyes smart.  It was a good thing we only had double barrel shotguns; automatics and one of us may have been killed.

Many afternoons we spent stalking into a promising wood to sit under a tree and wait for the squirrels to resume their foraging.  Billy, Dave Ballargeon and I were especially interested in acquiring undamaged animals as we had gotten head over heels into taxidermy and it worked better with skins that were not holed by shot.  We tried shooting a bit off center so that perhaps we’d kill the squirrel with just enough shot and not too much.  This usually resulted in gravely wounded, but not dead, squirrels that would then have just enough life to crawl into their nests out of sight to die their painful death.

Up to Hopie’s farm woods one school evening, and after a short wait, the squirrel began to skitter through the fallen drying leaves in search of acorns.  Alerted, I drew a bead with my trusty 16 gauge Savage, calculated the spread of the shot pattern, aimed a bit wide and fired.  I got him and scurried down the slope to inspect my kill, only he wasn’t dead.  He was clean, no visible damage or blood, still alive, and crawling slowly away from me towards the nearest tree. He was grasping at twigs, inching further, looking back at me, trying to escape, wounded.  I stood for a few minutes, considering backing up a bit to shoot him a second time and finish him.  I thought maybe I should just blow him away close up to be sure.  The desire for a good specimen won out, and while he quivered, I backed away about 15 feet and aimed off to the right again and fired.  Spray of leaves just to his right, he still shivered and scrabbled.  Tried again from 10 feet, trying my best to hit him only with the edges of the shot pattern, missed again, trying too hard to hit him just enough.  I write this now thinking about Rumsfeld and his ‘just enough’ strategy in Iraq; maybe he wanted a trophy too.

Four shots and the squirrel was still alive, still trying to get away, thrashing lightly in the forest duff.  I needed to end him now.  I approached and crouched next to him and he started a rapid shaking, staring back at me in horrible fear.  I held back, conscience smiting me, and then reached and picked him up.  I held his body with my left hand to steady him and used my thumb and forefinger to choke the life out of him.  He grabbed my fingers with his little claws, looking into my eyes, and I slowly increased the pressure until he went limp and his eyes dulled. 

I sat there for another 30 minutes, dampness wrapping me, holding my conquest in my lap, stroking his fur, conflicted.  My father had been calling me and I hadn’t answered. When he spotted me sitting in wet leaves he thought I had accidentally shot myself and hurried closer. 

I looked up.  He said,

“Jesus Kee Ko, I’ve been calling you for Christ’s sake, didn’t you hear; are you all right?”

“I’m OK, just thinking.” 

“Well think yourself up to your feet, we gotta get home or your mother will skin us alive.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK, I’m coming.”

Dad said, “You got one huh?  I saw a few up the other ravine but missed the sons of bitches, Goddamn it; you gonna stuff that one?”

“I guess so.”

The next time my father wanted to head out for squirrels I pleaded homework.  Sure, like I ever did homework.  I just couldn’t get that squirrel out of my mind.  I had been taught all the standard hunter positions.  It was good for animals to hunt them, it cleared out the population and made the survivors stronger, more feed in the woods, game management, they’re only animals and so on.  But I just felt that I didn’t have any right to put that little guy through such pain just so that I could do my hobby.

That was the last time I hunted. I threw away all my taxidermy supplies and specimens. I sold my gun to a dealer.  I couldn’t tell my father the reason because I just knew he wouldn’t get it.  I think he saw it as another rejection, another nail in our coffin of separateness.

My father supported Nixon in the ’72 election and we had argued a lot about the relative merits of the candidates.  He complained that my mother was a ‘dyed in the wool Democrat’ and told me insistently that McGovern was a fool and the country would go to hell if he were elected.  I spoke incessantly to him about the evil that was Nixon, and how he’d see in time, how bad things would get.  Here was a man whose son was shot up in this stupid war and he was still supporting all this peace with honor bullshit. 

We argued all through the winter while I was cleaning bloody rags in school and we argued into the spring as summer approached.  We’d argue about politics and the freedoms that I wanted, that I felt I was entitled to.  These included the right to smoke in the house, the right to drink when I wanted, the right to stay out until any hour I wanted, the right to stay out all night if I wanted to and the right to smoke pot in the basement with my friends.  We yelled passionately at each other, neither giving an inch; if he’d only known that I was already voluntarily easing off on the drinking and drugs and had already realized that staying out late was unbelievably boring, perhaps he would have stopped talking about it.  He actually had no objection to my having an occasional beer with him and had no complaint about cigarettes at all, being the lifetime smoker he was.

My mother, as always, stayed out of the political battles but got her digs in about behavior, telling me that it would be nice to behave ‘just for her, just to do something nice for her.”  Unfortunately, the guilt approach just plain never worked.  She could sorrow all she wanted about her lot in life and how I was treating her, it just didn’t affect me, perhaps because I saw it as manipulation, which it probably was.

As spring approached, people were talking about the prom.  I, of course, wanted nothing to do with such foolishness, especially since I didn’t have a steady girl to ask and who would say yes anyway?  It was all just so stupid.

On a Friday afternoon on the way home from school, I was browsing the small record selection at Woolworth’s downtown when Cindy Relyea came in.  She was pudgy, wore glasses, had freckles and I knew her only in the way that everybody knows everybody in a small school.  She was not one of those who I would have considered attractive or someone worth dating, a thought process unfortunately reflective of typical teenage thinking, at least of mine, at least then. In fact, when any discussion of spectacularly unattractive girls came up, she was always on the list, near to the top. So, she came in red faced and nervous, which is about what I knew of her personality; nothing seemed unusual.  She began by asking in a friendly way who I was going to the prom with, and I answered cluelessly that I wasn’t going with anyone YET.  I had no idea that she would see this as an opportunity.  She began talking about how her mom had offered to pay for prom tickets and drive and even buy her and her date dinner and I remember thinking that some guy was really getting a free ride here.  Then, she asked if I would go with her.  Without a thought in my head I said sure, I’ll go!  You know, flattered that a girl had asked me! She bleated and grabbed my arm and jumped up and down a bit and then whirled out the door, smiling like I had never seen, yelling over her shoulder that she’d tell her mom right away and they’d handle everything.

She was gone and I stood staring blindly at a Pink Floyd album jacket for at least 10 minutes while the enormity of what had just happened slowly dawned on me.  I had just been asked to the prom by a girl, astounding in itself, and it was Cindy Relyea of all girls, and I had said yes, and now had to go.  I would be harassed and ridiculed all the remaining days of my life; I may as well just grab my father’s gun and blow my head off right now and get it over with.

At home, I told my mother and she thought it was wonderful, because Cindy wasn’t a loose girl and would make an absolutely wonderful prom date and wasn’t I lucky to be asked. Typical mother reaction, no help there!  When dad got home, I told him and he said,

“Isn’t she that heavy one with the straight black stringy hair with the glasses?  I’ve been at her house to sell insurance and know her mother, big battleaxe she is, Jesus Kee Ko. If you wanted to go, why didn’t you pick one you liked?”

I said “Should I go?” and he said “It’s up to you,” and “Nixon’s gonna trounce that asshole McGoogle,” and then he went and cracked a beer.

I worried and fretted all weekend, feeling that I should buck it up and go, all the while completely dreading the thought.  The guys would laugh and laugh. Monday at school, the word was out.  All the girls I was friendly with came to me and hugged me and told me what a great guy I was and I felt good, then all the guys I knew came up to me and sniggered and said they didn’t know I had such a crush on a fatty and boy would I have a good time rolling around with that in the back of her mother’s car.  By last period, in a total turmoil, I found Cindy in the halls and told her I couldn’t go, that I had to be away that weekend and had forgotten.  Her jaw dropped, her face sagged and she sniffed, “That’s OK,” and slunk off to the girls’ room.

Next day, I was a pariah.  Most girls just gave me looks of utter hatred but the ballsier ones told me to my face what a piece of shit I was.  All the guys that had joked about it now told me they were going to kick the crap out of me for hurting her: Why’d you say you were going to go with her, asshole?  I heard that Nicky Moreau hadn’t made plans yet; she was generally considered the prettiest in class, so I approached her forlornly and asked and she said straight out “No way.”  So there I was. 

I was so proud of myself this year. I could strangle a squirrel, come within a whisker of prison, clean toilets clogged with rags, bash my father with my words and take the smile off a decent girl’s face. On prom night, I walked down to school to see people going in.  The whole class was there, including Cindy, all decked out and looking pretty good, on the arm of a cadet from LaSalle, ushering her in.  I had the feeling she had not pined away at my rejection. I turned and went home, put on some Crosby Stills and Nash, a little ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,’ felt sorry for myself, went to bed early in a funk and dreamed about losing my teeth for the fiftieth Goddamn time.

Craze hadn’t given up on me.  There might have been some conversation with my mother, possibly he did it on his own, but Billy Bluteau and I were suddenly offered summer jobs at Camp Tekakwitha up on Lake Luzerne.  Craze was the camp superintendent and he hired me as a kitchen helper for the seven week program.  I would get a small salary, free room and board and be supervised pretty much twenty-four/seven.  Great idea, I couldn’t wait, a whole summer, full time, hanging out with spank-happy Craze.

Camp started the last week of June and ran through mid-August. and my job was to work three meals a day, seven days a week. 

The kitchen was supervised by head chef Fred who was assisted by Tom, who was a genuine, bona-fide, left-over hippie.  These two had worked together for a few years and Tom referred to their team as Mot and Derf; original, huh?  Mot was laid back and anything was OK with him as long as Craze didn’t get in his face, but Derf was all business and took an instant and obvious dislike to me. He must have been able to spot trouble. God knows, he had me pegged.

The food was basic camp mass production.  Derf made fried eggs by spraying cooking oil in a three-by-four foot shallow pan, cracking fifty eggs into it and throwing said pan into the oven for a few minutes.  Everyone got square fried eggs that were good and rubbery.  Ketchup from unbranded number ten cans was ladled into flyspecked dishes with teaspoons. Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, pretty much everything was cooked the same way.  The standard drink was ‘bug juice,’ an institutional Kool-Aid knock off that tasted like old stale soda and had the consistency of rendered animal fat. Billy and I, along with our co workers Ed and Spike, served and cleaned up and fetched whatever Derf wanted to fulfill his culinary creations. Rubbery eggs, leathery pancakes, beer coaster hamburgers, rancid hot dogs, stale rolls and stale animal fat drink, this was our fare and we always got the leftovers.  I’m surprised we didn’t have more cases of Ptomaine.  Craze must have been proud. Now, that would be physical punishment!

We quickly found the girls on the other side of the lake.  Their parents had camps and they were accompanied by the rich boys whose parents had the rest of the camps.  These kids had known each other a lifetime of summers and we camp workers were a yearly annoyance, and treated as such.  When we were off duty and Craze thought we were in our cabin for the night, we would sneak through the dark compound and either swim across the lake or walk around the side road to meet up at the public beach for adventures.

Try as I would, I made absolutely no headway with any of the ladies, nor did any of our crew.  Weeks went by and we were a tolerated band of usurpers, allowed to tag along on the fringe as the group went here and there between the beach and Howie’s store and back again, gabbing, flirting and walking in general confusion.

One evening, half way through the summer, Mot showed up with a case of Tequila that he had gotten from somewhere and offered us all a small drink.  Derf was against it but acquiesced and then lost all objection after drinking about half a bottle.  We went through the stupid ceremony of the salt and the lemon, considering ourselves to be debonair and worldly.  After Mot and Derf had both passed out, we took a supply of fresh bottles and walked around to the public beach, where we were instantly a hit with all the regulars and much tequila was consumed.

As was typical when I was overdoing it, memory got fragmented.

I was talking on and on and on to Nancy Myokopoulos who was listening intently and fading in and out of my vision…

…arguing with Billy who was telling me I was a fucking asshole and a jerk and should go drown myself in the fucking lake…

…trying to walk down the steps of the public beach, tall and gangly, losing my balance and biting my lip when my mouth smacked the pipe railing…

…aiming to go in the lake but having trouble determining where the beach ended and the lake began…

I woke up at dawn on the beach, wet, caked sand covering me head to waist, my legs trailing in the water, mouth full of sand.

My head was pounding viciously and after I spit out the sand, I found the water fountain and drank and drank until I spewed sour water all over the beach steps.

Thought about swimming, decided against it and started the walk home.  Found Billy dead at the side of the road about halfway back, head in tall grass, legs flopped in the road itself.  He was surely dead, then I pushed him a few times and he moaned, so he was OK after all and I left him and made my way back to camp, slowly and painfully.  In the back pathway to the cabins, I found Ed sprawled in pine needles, clothes all sap, blowing bubbles and snoring, so he was OK too. Spike was missing all day and wandered into camp with no memory next evening, unable to tell us where he’d been.

We all missed our breakfast duties, Mot and Derf too, and Craze was livid and had the camp counselors serve a makeshift breakfast. We all got a good chewing out for dereliction of duty and threatened with expulsion for conduct unbecoming a Tekakwitha employee.  Derf blamed me for suggesting we go to town with the tequila and Craze agreed, it being lost in the conversation how these two older guys had brought in the tequila and offered it to us in the first place. No one commented on how Derf was passed out well before we left for town and how did he know who suggested what?

We were guarded heavily the next few nights but in a few days it all went away and we resumed our nocturnal commissions. We found that we had won over the girls and the guys and were now in good graces and accepted by the group.  Maybe we could get more good stuff? 

I immediately offered to host a picnic on Cobblestone Mountain the next Sunday afternoon, and agreed to supply food and worthwhile drink.  I asked Derf and he said “Fuck You.”  I went to Mot and said Derf said OK and Mot said OK and gave me the key to the pantry and cooler so I could lay in my supplies.  He even agreed to drive into town and buy me a few cases of beer, which we hid in the cooler so no one would drink it.

The picnic was a success; there were about 40 of us up there at the lookout.  We had guitars and warm girls and enough beer to get friendly. Two of the youngest girls got significantly drunk and had to be carried down after nightfall and left on their father’s porches.

Next day, Derf was as pissed as anyone could be, again at me.  I told how I had lied to Mot to get him off the hook and in the end I was fired and directed to go home, my father was already called.  Dad was mad and silent at first, then his mouth twitched and the rest of the ride was OK.  I wasn’t even grounded.

Senior year was a relative breeze. It seemed that we were done, just marking time until we graduated.  There were high level physics and chemistry classes offered but they weren’t required so those of my mentality blew them off, preferring to laze the days away in sandbox classes.  My father, who hadn’t finished high school, was no big fan of education anyway and felt that I would be fine without any further aspirations.

Seniors were not required to report to homeroom or stay past their last class so the school day was shortened.  On the nice fall days, we could leave if we were done and a group of us had scheduled our easy classes so as to be done by a little before 2 PM.  Then we’d leave and go to Charette’s for fries or behind the bowling alley for anything else.

I had gotten my first car, a beat up ’66 Chevy Impala, for two hundred dollars from a lot on the island.  It was a rag top and was about as cool a car as any kid had, and even ran most of the time.  As decoration, I had somehow acquired a roll of fifty-six ‘Bullshit’ stickers; quarter sized stickers, black background, and bold white letters.  I stuck them all over the interior of the car and challenged everyone to find all fifty-six.  I thought that the whole Bullshit concept worked perfectly as a metaphor with my position in the world, secure and confident on the outside and totally messed up on the inside.  The car became known as the ‘Bullshit Chevy,’ again a great commentary on American cars and our relationship with them.

The Bullshit Chevy got the girls interested again and I was forgiven for abandoning Cindy.  Jay Wilson, Mick Bailey, Lisa and Colleen and I formed the core of a group, all just buddies, that could actually drive out of the city, really a big deal at that time.  We found great country spots, down overgrown lanes, with ponds and streams and grassy nooks where we could relax and yak the afternoons away. 

Mick was a tad older and much worldlier than the rest of us.  I had sat next to him in sophomore Biology class and he had impressed me with his detached manner and knowledge of deliciously evil things.  He knew all about women and had bedded down more than his share and we less experienced guys wanted nothing more than to be like him.  In Bio class, he told me his exploits and one morning I sat down next to him and blurted out, “Hey Mick, I got laid last night!”  I don’t know what I expected but he just said “great” and started reading in his book.  Of course I hadn’t gotten laid, had hardly talked to a girl in months and had no prospects of doing so, but now I had a rep to live up to.

I had developed a horrific crush on Sally Bruno. Dark hair, blue eyes and a slightly unkempt look about her. My friend Billy was seriously dating her best friend Mary Donohue.  Sally and Mary started passing around a sex survey in school and finally got to me.  The first question was, Are you a virgin?   I was, but had to lie and say no, because what if Mick had spread the word?  Then what?  Part of the survey was that Sally and Mary had to tell if they were and they admitted they both were and felt that we all should be.  Defeated again.

A few nights later, after a party near my house, Billy and I took the two girls back and sat in my living room listening to music.  Billy and Mary disappeared after a while and there I was alone with Sally.  We sat side by side on the couch and in no time, the bullshit started spewing out my mouth.  I lectured her on the joys of sex and how a knowing man could lead a woman to exquisite experience.  I went on and on, trying my damnedest to shut up, but unable to stop.  I was obsessed in trying to explain myself, and was completely blowing it. She sat there, hunched in, staring down at her hands clasped in her lap.  I would touch her and she would lean away.  I’d continue talking and she would look away. She finally got up to look for Mary and, unable to find her, said she had to go, left and never talked to me again. ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes all over again.’ So much for my long term crush.

I worked part time at the Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Latham during my senior year.  I started as a dishwasher, then busboy and ended up as short order cook.  I was an indifferent worker in general, but held my own.  HoJo’s specialized in fried clams.  These came frozen in half gallon containers exactly like modern milk cartons.  We’d thaw them out, dump the wads of clams into dry batter and bread them.  We much preferred to have clam fights.  Toss a wad at a waitress and the clams would splat onto her chest and slowly slide down her open necked blouse.  When the boss wasn’t looking and it wasn’t busy, the kitchen would turn into a war zone; unbreaded clams and uncooked french fries flying everywhere.  When the battles were over, we gathered clams from every surface, including the unswept floor, rinsed them off and tossed them into the breading batter like nothing happened.  I’m sure we provided some exciting taste sensations to our unsuspecting customers.

I had started smoking at 13 and was smoking three packs a day by the end of my senior year.  I often worked the late night shift at the HoJo grill and kept an ashtray right on the grill with my smoldering cigarette at the ready, dragging between hamburger flipping.  My guidance counselor at Keveny, such as she was, had recommended that I attend Schenectady County Community College for cooking, since I was already involved in that profession and it would be a good fit, career-wise. 

Hearing no other options, and not being the type to seek employment options on my own, I just stayed with HoJo after graduation, beginning a long drift of nothing jobs and nothing life.  By good luck I had avoided prison; I had a smattering of a so-so education, and few prospects.  I wanted to have a girl, and sort of wanted money and a home, but was content to live in my own room at home, blasting music, staying out late; a thorn in my parent’s side, paying a token board, and accomplishing nothing.

A Ho Hum life was on the horizon.