Chapter Twenty
Julie's mother, Grace, had been working diligently for two years to destroy our marriage. She did her work mostly on Julie; methodically trying to drive a wedge between us: I was no good, wouldn't amount to anything, didn't love her or our son David, etc.
Whether Julie ever believed her or not was immaterial. The split was inevitable. Grace was a powerful adversary.
I didn't know what I wanted in life. The sudden awareness that I was alone was overwhelming. I had a lot of hate inside me towards the a.m. and was confused in my emotions toward Julie and David and the rest of the world for that matter, including myself.
We moved into the house the a.m. had recently sold with the proviso she could live in it rent free for the twelve months following the sale.
Things went from chaotic to worse and Julie and I found that "Truce!" didn't work anymore. We tried joining a church (Grace thoroughly planted the un-godliness idea in her head) but it didn’t help our relationship. We talked. We argued. We were young and foolish and ignorant and we split up.
One day, in a phone conversation with her, Julie asked if I was going back to Europe; I'd always said I wanted to.
I hadn't thought of it till then; but it sounded like a good idea, so I did. I thought it would be a good way to get over the marriage and the a.m.’s death.
Her will, the original instrument, provided for a trust fund to be set up. If I earned a college degree, the trust would be dissolved and revert to me at age 26. If not, I would have to wait till age 30.
I opted for the latter.
The trust provided the money to travel and I took it. It wasn't a lot but it kept me alive.
But first, I needed some recreation and ended up back in Las Vegas, this time at a roulette table. I knew little if anything about the game but I had money in my pocket that needed to follow the little bouncing ball.
I was up and down all night.
The beauty of Vegas casinos is there’s no awareness of time. I had no knowledge of how long I’d watched reds and blacks and odds and evens and zero and double zero come up.
When I had $500, or so, on the table in front of me a blond goddess sat down next to me.
I glimpsed her out of the corner of my eye as I placed my bets.
Her long tresses dangled just below her shoulders and gently drew the eye to her décolletage framed by the deep cut her light blue evening gown.
When I finished she asked if I was doing well and, now, toying with a twenty dollar chip I said I was a little down at the moment.
The dealer deftly turned the handle of the wheel and spun the little ivory ball in its trough in the opposite direction.
I glanced at my neighbor’s breasts and asked how she was faring. She was bored. Her husband was off somewhere playing Keno. They were in town for a convention of Doctors and medical specialists.
Her breasts were tanned, and beside the blue, seemed to glow in the perennial daylessness of the room.
Without thinking I placed the chip I’d been idly fingering onto the number twenty, even, red.
An instant later the dealer advised, “No more bets” and seconds later the little ball dropped into the spinning wheel’s collection of lucky-numbered slots. It bounced as I imagined the objects of my concentration might do as she ran through open fields clad only in the wind.
“Twenty. Even. Black.” came the call.
She shrieked. I looked at the wheel. The dealer began culling the losing bets leaving my chips on the red square.
The odds of any single number coming up on a “double zero” wheel, as used in Vegas, is paid at the rate of 37 to one.
As the gentle deity had taken her place by my side I had also made what are known as 2 and 4 number splits on the 20 as well. They pay out at 18 and 8.5 to one respectively.
I tipped the dealer, as I had done on every winning spin, from the $1,800 he pushed to me across the baize.
I gathered my chips and bid a fond farewell to my fetching muse and “got the hell out of Dodge”!
If she was the distaff half of a conventioneer, I was heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey!
Lesson: Never bet on a “sure thing”.
My first stop in Europe was back in Geneva where I went on a poetry writing binge. For two solid days I wrote poetry without stopping. I was laid up in bed with the flu and I became absorbed. I haven't any idea what happened to the manuscript. Only three short poems remain.
Perhaps my signature piece:
Slowly, as the candle burns,
And tallow drips a-floor,
And hearts of golden wonders,
Learn of Love’s life evermore...
I drip my tears on weary cheeks.
-Geneva, 1966
I wasn't doing anything there. I had no plans. I was just hanging out in an area I was familiar with.
Out of the blue I ran into Andy Coleman, a young woman I'd gone to Highland Park with, at the Movenpick Restaurant, my regular school-days haunt.
She was hanging out too, living in Munich but visiting Geneva. She said she was going to the University of Maryland on the McGraw Kaserne (a U.S. Army base) there.
She explained there was a loophole in their contract that allowed any American citizen to attend the University’s night school classes without being in the Army or a dependant.
Being thousands of miles away from my recent bad memories, and in a foreign country, played tricks with my reality.
It was as if the dissolution of my family had never happened, at least on the surface. The distance in miles made it appear as distance in time as well.
I'd always been friendly with, and attracted to, Andy in school and I now wanted to get to know her better as an adult.
Alas, she made it quite clear she only wanted to be friends with me.
She told me she'd tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists and she said she didn't want any involvements right now.
I got the distinct feeling from our conversation she was upset over the loss of a lover and that the lover had been a woman.
I felt compassion for Andy and her broken heart but didn’t share with her my own recent situation. I caught the train to Munich with her and we talked about Dallas and Highland Park High and nothing in particular on the trip.
Once arrived I enrolled in classes. I signed up for International Law (International Organizations) and Sociology. The professor of the former was the director of Radio Free Europe at the time.
I preferred the sociology class. I learned about Eskimos and also about Ishi, a Yahi Indian who walked out of the mountains in California and became the last living example of stone-age humans.
He was completely unimpressed with modern life. When shown an airplane flying overhead he said he’d seen eagles fly higher. A skyscraper? He’d seen taller mountains.
He would demonstrate his skills in the University of California/Berkeley Museum where he lived after he was discovered near death in 1911.
Literally a stone age man, in one of the demonstrations Ishi gave, he would chip flint for arrowheads. If a piece flew into his eye, he’d simply pound on the top of his head until it dislodged.
I lived in the Hotel Adria in Munich; an old pension that, at one time, had been a home for show business types.
There came the time when I was behind in my rent, and was waiting for my monthly trust fund check from the bank, when the manager confiscated my passport and wouldn't return it till I paid up.
Things escalated to loud voices and she called the cops. I protested that I had money in Dallas and the check was just late. She didn't believe me and wouldn't make a long distance call, which she could have charged to my bill, to verify my story.
When the politzie arrived I convinced them I was telling the truth and persuaded them to take me to the American Embassy. There I told my story to some lesser functionary on duty who looked official but, like all American Embassy personnel the world over, didn't give a shit.
The police even suggested calling Dallas but the embassy wouldn't pay for the call.
Coincidentally, I had just been admonished by my banker not to make any more collect calls, which was a regular occurrence, asking for money; they would no longer accept the charges.
I explained this to the men standing around. I argued that if the kindly American -who the hell are your representing, anyway- Embassy paid for the call, the veracity of my statements could be immediately verified and I would then be able to reimburse them with the money coming in the check. Mr. Here-only-to-serve Embassyman said they wouldn't dream of paying for the call; he thought I was just some ragamuffin -his word- trying to pull a fast one on the hotel.
Reluctantly, he allowed me use of the phone and I placed a collect call to James Dulworth, a preposterously overweight man who was my assigned, and long suffering, banker.
As I knew he would, he refused to accept the call. I tried to yell to him before being cut off that I was being held hostage at the American Embassy in Germany and would he just speak to me.
I was unsuccessful.
I swear that visions of eminent Nazi torture as punishment for hotel scamming raced through my jingoistic mind for an instant.
The kindly officers drove me back to the hotel in their official Politzei VW Bug.
I always thought it was odd that the taxicabs were luxurious Mercedes and the police cars were bugs.
During the drive they spoke to each other that they thought I was a nice kid but was getting the short end of the stick.
I understood more German than I spoke and broke in at one time to correct them about some point they were making.
They were obviously pleased I at least had tried to speak with them. In halting German and English I apologized for the trouble they had to go through on my account and thanked them for trying to help out at the Embassy.
When we got back to the hotel they quietly handed me my passport and said they'd talk to the manager on my behalf.
I wrote a letter to James Dulworth instructing him to send a check for the rent directly to the pension.
For the last couple of weeks I had been planning to hitchhike to London with Jules, a guy I met at my favorite hangout, the P.N.Hithouse, a rock club in Schwabing -the Bohemian area of Munich. We were both regulars there, and, after the trouble with the hotel, I decided it was time to move on. We hit the road New Year's Day 1967.
We arrived at the Swiss border at night fall. Traffic was non-existent so we decided to sleep the night in the tool shed of a farmhouse about a hundred yards before the crossing point.
It was freezing outside and the wind was steady. I was dressed in a woolen sport coat over a good sweater, jeans and suede cowboy boots: barely sufficient protection from the cold.
Inside the the threee sided, roofed shed we were cold but protected from the wind. A hundred feet away contented cows lowed in the heated barn. We listened to the heater go on and off automatically all night as we lay on the concrete floor of the shed.
I found a large sheet of plastic and wrapped myself in it against the cold and breathed into my sweater to keep my chest warm.
Jules wanted to sleep in the barn but I was afraid of being caught. Out here we could run if an angry farmer didn't like our freeloading. In the barn it was too much like trespassing and I didn't want to get in trouble with the police. I’d heard even the modern German jails left a lot to be desired.
When morning came I couldn't feel my feet. The first step I took brought me crashing down because I never felt my foot hit the ground. Jules was alright and I hobbled alongside of him to the border crossing.
It was a nice, brightly lit new building. We presented our papers and said we were students traveling to London. We were passed through without fanfare and I asked where the bathroom was and could we use it.
Inside I took off my boots and warmed my feet beneath warm running water. I dried them under a blow drier. It did the trick. I'd warmed them just before the frostbite set in.
We thumbed our way to Geneva where I borrowed some traveling money from Jane Peel, a friend from the days when she and I were members of the Theatre Circle. Her husband, Frank, was a lawyer with the United Nations and she was an acclaimed author and translator of Polish manuscripts.
From there Jules and I went on to Versoix and rented a room at the same pension I stayed at in '63, to await the arrival of my monthly check which I’d wired to be sent there.
When it arrived, about 3 days later, we hitched on to Paris and Calais and ferried across the channel to Dover.
Jules was worried he'd not be let in the country. He had tried before and had been rebuffed. This time he had more money with him and was allowed in.
This was my first time to England. I think being an American carried more weight than being German at the time. Jules confirmed it, telling me it was much more difficult for Europeans to enter Britain.
It didn't take too long to make it to London and, once there, to get a bed-sitter in Chelsea - the one where I'd soon "read" Maureen and have my identity “stolen”.
We became regulars at the Cafe des Artistes where everyone called me Tex, my old Geneva nickname.
Jules only stayed the month allowed on his passport before having to hitch back to the continent. I was on a “student” visa without a time limit.
On a lark one afternoon around Easter time I shaved my head completely bald. I had a goatee at the time and the look was quite interesting.
The Battersea Fun Fair was just opening for the season and I crossed the River Thames to look for a job.
The Fun Fair was a permanent Midway in Battersea that operated during the warmer months. While in Munich I'd read a book about carnies and the thought of working in one excited me. I made the rounds of the various "pitches" -game stalls- and found work at the penny-pitch. Punters (customers) tossed a penny, about the size of our half dollar, onto a checkerboard grid of black squares with white circles painted inside. The circles are precisely painted. The object was to get the penny centered exactly inside the circle with white showing on all sides of it -almost impossible to do. The prize was either candy...or a coconut.
With my bald head and goatee I looked exactly like a coconut which is why I got the job.
And it was a wonderful time. I made about 10 pounds a day and all I could fiddle.
The fiddle, as described earlier, was the shortchanging of the punter. Since we dealt in coins the job was a little trickier. We'd count change into our own palm and then turn it over, dropping it into the player's hand. The middle finger comes up and catches a coin or two as the hand is turned over. It's all in the rhythm. Count, turn, finger, release, then return the hand to the pocket with the fiddle.
Since the change had been counted out correctly before their very eyes they rarely counted it again. The wise ones did and if caught you'd give them the difference. No hard feelings. It was only a shilling or so at a time.
But it added up.
Everyone in London seems to work a fiddle one way or another. It comes in all sizes. In fact, I grew to think it's the National Pastime!
I worked at Battersea for 3 months before returning to Dallas. During the time there I taught myself how to shove a safety pin through the skin on the back of my hand without hurting myself, or bleeding: a trick I’d learned in the book I’d read on carnival life.
I used to amaze folks regularly by doing it. I have fun today pretending it was me who started the “punk” craze of sticking safety pins in various parts of the body for decoration because, as the word got out, people would come to me and ask me to demonstrate it.
I didn't wear the pins in my hand for long periods of time, but I did stop a few hearts from time to time by sliding it back and forth through the skin to prove it was really in there.
It caught up with me one night a few months later, after I‘d returned to Dallas.
J David and "Johnny" the sideman
at The Chatterbox
One night I wasn't getting anywhere with the crowd so I asked for a safety pin. I had a volunteer from the audience hold up the skin on my left hand and shoved the pin through.
I was telling the audience how I'd done this hundreds of times and it never bled when, suddenly, there was a frantic scream and a few gasps from the audience. I looked at my hand and saw blood welling up all over the back of it.
I had nicked a vein!
I said I was alright and began looking for a napkin to mop up the blood. Do you know how hard it is to find a napkin in a beer bar? Virtually impossible.
But there are thousands of beer coasters around.
Unfortunately they don't absorb blood too well. There I was patting the back of my hand with a Schlitz Beer coaster and all I was doing was splashing it all over my shirt and the floor.
Finally someone threw me a bar towel and I stanched the flow to a big round of applause.
Lesson: Audiences love blood.
There was a waitress at Dottie's named Sharon. She was 38 and looked 18, but she had a 19 year old son. I was 22.
The first night we slept together she said she wanted to marry me. I wasn't too sure if I wanted a stepson 3 years my junior and told her so.
She wanted to marry me real bad and kept after me all night long. I was keeping after her, too.
She'd been divorced for about a year and liked the way I made love. Seems her ex-husband didn't do it the way I did it.
I told her they must have because she had a son. She explained they did it that way in the beginning but for 18 years they’d only paid it only lip service.
She liked the feel of a penis inside her, she said, and didn't want to lose it now she'd found one she liked there.
For the few weeks of my engagement at Dottie’s I tried to accommodate her, without engagement.
Lesson: Sometimes, the old ways are the best.
One night after work, and having made the rounds of a few other clubs, I went into a 7-11 near my apartment to get a package of Twinkies and to make a phone call.
I parked next to a cop car and noticed he gave me a really intense once over. I didn't pay it much attention at the time, bought my snack, made the call and headed back to my car.
As I was about to get in the cop asked me if I had any ID on me.
"Sure. Why? Who do I look like?" I asked.
He stared at me intently before he looked at my driver's license and radioed for backup. Within about 15 seconds every cop in that part of Dallas was either in the parking lot or circling the block in cruisers or on motorcycles.
"You look just like the guy who held up a 7-11 not far from here", he told me and asked me where I'd been that evening.
I told him I'd been working at a few clubs doing my act and that several hundred people all across town could verify it. I listed the clubs for him while they searched my car: an classic old red Triumph TR-6 convertible.
I noticed one cop getting close to finding it so I told him about the .22 Derringer I kept under the dashboard near the steering wheel. He retrieved it and unloaded it. I asked for it back but he said I'd have to come downtown to pick it up the next day.
Now, all of a sudden, the 7-11 parking lot was empty, again. There were no cruisers or motorcycles anywhere in sight. The original cop handed me my license back and said they were satisfied I wasn't the robber, but that I sure looked like him. Cops hate to be wrong. I told him I understood and bid him good night.
I picked up the gun the next day, sans bullets ("We lost them."), and was told I'd have to appear in court on a misdemeanor charge of carrying a prohibited weapon.
I got Attorney Kelsoe to handle it for me and, without even appearing in court, recieved a year's probation with a record-wipe if I didn't get in trouble for the next twelve months.
A few months later I returned to England for the second time and began working in Soho.
I had been very worried that night at the 7-11. I didn't trust the Dallas Police.
Frankly, I’m not very trusting of anyone who's legally allowed to carry a firearm and use it at his or her own discretion.
I was very thankful I wasn't shot that night.
Remember, Dallas is a place where anyone could get shot, be he President...or, possibly, a precedent.
As a matter of fact, Dallas police are known to have shot innocent citizens on numerous occasions.
In the 70's, twice, after being called to investigate a prowler, the responding officers shot and killed the callers because they were standing on their own porches holding a weapon and wouldn't put it down when told to do so. Never mind one victim was a man in his 70's and the other a woman in her late 60's and that both were hard of hearing and scared for their lives.
In their cases, rightfully so.
Dallas police are very power minded.
They were very full of themselves in those days.
So much so they raided all of Lee Park one lovely Sunday afternoon in 1971 when, motivated by 30 “John Doe” warrants, they swooped through the park in search of suspected drug dealers.
It came to be known as the “Lee Park Massacre”.
Lee Park is the Central Park/Golden Gate Park equivalent in Dallas, albeit much smaller.
Instead of just checking ID's of suspicious individuals, the Dallas Police, in full force, loaded everyone in the park that afternoon into cars and paddy wagons and buses and took them all downtown to the police station for processing.
There were between 500-600 people enjoying the park that day! And every single one of them was handcuffed, or the plastic strip equivalent, and transported downtown without so much as an explanation, or a Miranda warning, or even an official "you're under arrest"...because, in fact, they weren't.
They even transported a couple in their 60's who were walking their dog. Fido went to the pound and, to add insult to injury, they were made to pay to get him out!
There were families with children of all ages, from infants on up, picnicking in the park, teenagers throwing Frisbees, folks sunning themselves, couples necking and nuzzling, and groups of people sitting around guitarists singing or just listening to the music.
In other words a typical day in the park was in progress when squads of Dallas Police goons descended on them in search of those 30 hard nosed, albeit unidentified, drug pushers and regardless of race, age or infirmity, took everyone downtown.
One of those they certainly weren't seeking was Jim Mattox, candidate for the Texas State Legislature. He was rounded up with the rest and processed, too.
The next day the shit did hit the fan just a little bit. There was never any public apology for the incident: Chief of Police Frank Dyson said it was the action of two rogue Captains who had acted totally on their own.
The fact 11 felons were captured in the dragnet was supposed to justify the sweep.
One captain was transferred to a desk job and the other was put in charge of the property room.
Mattox went on to win his race for the State House of Representatives and later became Texas Attorney General.
He and I had met at the KLIF Radio station while third wife Jeanette was Continuity Director.
I had recently finished my campaign for the Mayor's office and would run into him from time to time at the station.
One of his campaign workers was Michael Bik, a collapsible-bicycle riding newsman for KNUZ-FM, the sister station housed in the same building.
He went on to become a Dallas judge.
Lesson: Sometimes it’s not all a walk in the park.
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