When confronted with some of the strange practices and lifestyles that are tolerated in our modern liberal culture, I sometimes become distressed. One way of dealing with this is to indulge in the bittersweet memories of youth, and recall that some of the things that I did would never have had to have been reprimanded by Ward Cleaver or any other contemporary TV Daddy. They wouldn’t have been depicted there, but they DID happen in the real world.
So rather than condemn our new found decadence, I remember the old. So I have to come down a peg or two. So what?
After a cursory investigation on Mischief Night (the only kind possible when armed with nothing but a computer and the internet ), I found that this ‘tradition’ had its origins in England. Since I’ll not be going to Rutgers Library for more thorough research, I’ll accept this as the truth; it actually makes sense for a few good reasons.
The industrial revolution spawned the cities that were needed to provide a high concentration of workers centered around the factories, and this also generated many young people with plenty of steam to blow off. After all, shining shoes and hawking newspapers isn’t very much fun, and most adolescents lack the ability and wherewithal to partake in grownup pleasures. Also, what else could a bunch of kids do in a 19th century crowded city where the weather was so bad and it was always foggy?
So, Mischief Night was born, and most commonly observed on the night before Halloween, or 30 October in the land where Children Were to be Seen and Not Heard.
I feel that it is also noteworthy that the articles that I was able to find online, that are available to computer users all over the world, made it clear that this custom is observed in the U.S., in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and New Jersey; but when it came to Jersey, no less than six specific counties were cited.
That’s where it happened: Jersey: our most densely populated state.
Bobby Kejelas and I got off the bus and walked the short distance together that lead in the direction of our respective homes.
“You comin’ out tonight?” he wanted to know.
“Yeah. I told you I would yesterday,” I said.
“Good. You can forget the toilet paper and the soap. That’s for little kids.” Bobby seemed to be dead set against being perceived as a little kid. He continued, “See if you can get a big bag of fresh dog poop from one of your friends up on the hill.” Ok, he chose to use the ‘p’ word, so, maybe he wasn’t THAT concerned about his image.
Bobby’s allusion to my friends up on the hill needs some explanation. There were two groups of boys that I ran with in those days. They all lived in the same Avondale housing development that was built in the early 1950s, but the one group was a little different from the other. There was a subtle class distinction to the families that lived up on the hill that the families in the lower section lacked. As you walked down to the lower section of the development the change was gradual and was finally complete when you got to the area where the sewer sometimes overflowed. That was the area where Bobby and I would be cavorting on this Mischief Night.
After Bobby turned down his street, I went directly home. For me, that afternoon was just like any other day with the family. Got home, did some homework, saw some TV (probably Soupy Sales, or Joe Bolton and the 3 Stooges) and then told the folks that I was going out. It still surprises me to this day that they didn’t at least try to stop me from going out to raise hell. I had an older brother, and they knew about Mischief Night. I guess the mischief that had been caused in years passed had been minor, or, probably more to the point, the old adage ‘Boys will be Boys’ was still commonly referenced and believed. Anti-bullying campaigns and sensitivity training were still light years in the future. It was a hardier, more realistic time.
I remembered Bobby’s request for the dog doo, so I took off on a fast walk to Jimmy Flynn’s house and in about 10 minutes I was ringing his door bell. His mother opened the door, and I was soon talking to her with the spirit, if not the actual intent or words of Eddie Haskell, as she sparred with me in her jocular way. “I’m SO, sorry, but Jimmy won’t be going out tonight, Eddie.”
“Oh, that’s perfectly understandable Mrs. Flynn.” I countered, “I hadn’t planned on asking him to go out on a night such as this. I wanted to ask him for some advice concerning Tipperary, or, really, dogs in general.”
“Whatever for, Chonathin? You want to get one?”
“Well, I didn’t want to mention it, but, yes that’s what I’m thinking.”
“Jimmy, take Tipperary and your friend for a walk. I’m sure that many of his questions will be answered as a result.”
I immediately intoned, “Thank you Mrs. Flynn, that’s very big of you.”
“Don’t mention it, Eddie…. Please.” She then continued, “I’m kind of glad that you’ll be back soon, I mean with the dog. He’ll definitely slow you down, so you probably won’t be going after anything else. Like skirts… I’m sure you’ve seen them.”
It was Jimmy’s turn to answer, “No, Ma.”
I couldn’t believe my luck; we were going to take the dog for a walk. We went out the back door, but not before I retrieved a small paper bag from the kitchen garbage. It had the name of a Pharmacy on it, but that didn’t matter. It would suit my purposes perfectly.
Tipperary was a big old dog and he was only too happy to go out on the leash on this or any other night.
We walked along the sidewalk for a little while before Jimmy said, ”Your mother won’t allow any dogs in your house. Fer Christ’s sake, we gotta take off our shoes as soon as we walk in the door.”
“Yeah, I know.” I countered.
It was then that Tipperary stopped to make his contribution to the evening’s festivities, and I stopped to gather up the prize in the bag that had St. Elmo’s Pharmacy printed on it. Fortunately, I was able to find a small stick with which to complete the process.
Now this was in the mid 1960s, long before dog owners were intimidated by the Dog Doo Police of the 21st Century Nanny State into picking up dog doo and putting it in a bag, so it was probably the first time that Jimmy had ever seen it done, and it was definitely the first time that I ever did it. So, Jimmy’s tone of voice betrayed his surprise, “What are you doing?”
I found it difficult to answer him straight forwardly, even though what I said was an indirect verification of the obvious; it was just too weird. I couched my answer in terms of a request from someone else, “Bobby Kejelas requested this. This is all I wanted. I don’t want no dog.”
When we got back to the door to his back porch, he said,”You’d better be careful. That Bobby’s pretty wild.”
“Well, I’m not exactly an Altar Boy.” I said.
Jimmy didn’t have a rejoinder for this on the tip of his tongue, so he just went into the house with Tipperary and probably went back to playing his guitar. He did that a lot. I hadn’t yet graduated from record players.
I was soon walking down the hill toward Bobby’s house with the bag in my hand, just like a community minded dog owner of the future, with my dog’s droppings securely contained at my side. I was soon joined by Bobby who immediately took over the proceedings.
“Is that the poop in the bag?” he wanted to know.
“No, it’s a Duncan Butterfly.” I answered.
“Is there a lot there?”
“Sure,” I said, ”Feel the weight of it yourself.”
When Bobby did as I suggested, he was suitably impressed. We were now both satisfied with the bag’s contents.
Bobby took the bag, suck it in the crotch of a tree, and then said, “We gotta go to Foodtown.”
This didn’t make any sense to me, so I said, ”What? Why? You wanna get cigarettes?”
“No.” he answered, “Rotten vegetables.”
Foodtown was one of the last remaining examples of a Small Grocery Store on a main street in what was essentially a residential neighborhood. The fact that it lacked a parking lot made it even more quaint. Inside, the store had four narrow isles and two cash registers that made satisfying mechanical sounds when being operated and punched by the checkout girls, and that didn’t need to be plugged in to work (not the girls, the cash registers).The original full complement of the store’s shopping carts had slowly been decimated by women pushing them home, and then being commandeered by the local kids before they could be returned. (I guess it’s a bit crass of me to make the above assumptions, but I never saw any checkout boys, never saw any men pushing carts down the street, and I don’t think that Mrs. Wudjahuskie or any of her friends were responsible for shopping carts being found in ditches, creeks, or in the woods.)
In short, it wasn’t the place to go if you wanted to fatten up your Green Stamp books, but it was adequate and open during normal business hours. Let me further affirm that while Foodtown’s produce was sometimes less that supreme, it was not rotten; as Bobby’s suggestion might make you think. Let me explain.
Since there was no parking lot, deliveries of foodstuffs had to be make from the street to the back of the store. The delivery truck would park in the street next to the store, and an old fashioned conveyor would be set up connecting the truck to an opening at the back of the store. The delivery man in the truck just had to put the boxes on the conveyor, and let gravity take them down the continuous bed of roller skate wheels, until they got to the recipient in the store.
Now comes the significant part: Right before entering the store, the conveyor had to make a 90 degree turn. This turn was made after gravity had been accelerating the progress of whatever was careening down the conveyor, and, unfortunately, it was not a banked turn. So, sometimes the vector addition of the forward motion and centrifugal force that the conveyer’s abrupt change imposed on the item was just too much…. and the box, crate, or bag of potatoes, would end up on the ground. If the delivery man was in a hurry, and he pushed the item from the truck to hasten it’s progress, a toppling at the turn was more likely. His lack of patience would probably ensure that he also wouldn’t bother to pick it up.
Well, no one had bothered to pick up a box of cabbages and tomatoes that was still on the ground behind the store, and Bobby had had his eye on it. He had a knack for such things; we all have our gifts. The box was about a foot and a half by three feet, and about six inches deep. There was one layer of vegetables inside; tomatoes, and cabbages. The tomatoes were softer than the cabbages. This subtle difference would soon be pertinent.
“You gonna throw these at somebody?” I inquired.
“Yeah. Whaddya think? Help me carry em’ out to the street.”
At first it was a bit difficult, but after we got out from the cramped quarters behind the store that was overgrown with weeds, we had a much easier time of it. The box was small and light enough to be handled by one person, so we took turns carrying it as we continued down the hill. As we approached the tree where the dog doo was, Bobby gave me the box and got the loaded pharmacy bag down from the crotch where he had stowed it earlier.
As we approached Prospectus Avenue we saw some little kids with water balloons. We glared at them malevolently, lest they thought that they could throw one of their balloons at us; whatever its contents.
When we got to the next street, Bobby took the box from me and laid it down on the ground, and then doubled back up to Prospectus again with the pharmacy bag in his hand, and me at his heels.
‘Now we’re gonna use this,” he said, holding up the St. Elmos’ Pharmacy bag.
“How?” I asked, although I had a pretty good idea of what was to come.
I guess Bobby figured that the answer to my question was obvious, so he ignored it and then said, “You know that house where the mean guy with the strange accent lives?”
I knew. “You mean where Hildegard Hess lives?”
“Yeah…. stop there.”
We soon arrived at our destination. The house next door to the Hess house had a hedge at the edge of the front yard that provided a convenient cover for us. We crouched behind it, and Bobby said, “Stay here, and be ready to run.”
As I squatted behind the hedge and watched Bobby gingerly walk up to the door, a strange mixture of fear and excitement started through my veins, I could see him in the moonlight walking on the neatly trimmed grass alongside the curved walkway leading up to the front door. Nerves and premature guilt made me look around the area, half expecting to see someone catching us red handed in our first act of mischief of the night. When Bobby got to the front porch, which was little more than a small concrete platform, he placed the bag to the left of the door. I then watched him do something that upset my excitement:fear ratio, heavily favoring the fear portion. He took a Zippo cigarette lighter from his pocket, and started the bag burning, and before the flame became too robust, he pushed the illuminated door bell button, rapped his knuckles on the door three or four times, and ran back to where I was. He was giddily laughing as he crouched down next to me. I was looking around wondering in which direction it would be best to run.
After about two seconds, a light came on inside the house, the inside door was opened, and the silhouette of a tall man appeared in the doorway. The fire was now more obvious than it had been a few moments before, so, as if on cue, we heard, “Vats Dis?” and saw the man open the screen door, step around to the left where the fire was, and immediately start stomping on the burning bag. We then heard what I guess were a few European curse words with a couple of ‘Dam Kids’ syntactically included, as the man put out the fire with the shoes on his feet.
Bobby’s laughter was now clearly audible in the still of the night, and so the victim of our prank was now looking in our direction. This state of affairs was making my endocrine system more confused by the second: Bobby’s laughter was as infectious as Herr Hess’s bearing was intimidating, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to run while laughing or laugh while running.
We then heard another ‘Dam Kids’, in conjunction with what must have been some foreign expletives, and then our victim went back into the house, slamming the door behind him.
“Let’s get out of here!” I said.
Bobby stopped laughing just enough to say, “No. Wait until he gets the surprise.”
It’s usually difficult for me to judge time when I am preoccupied with a Sword of Damocles, or when there are vast amounts of newly dumped adrenaline in my system, so I’m not sure how long we stayed there behind the hedge. But, sure enough, Herr Hess must have found out how he was duped, because he came running out of the house in our direction saying “You Sonamabitch. I gonna turn your head around!”
Two seconds later, I was running down the street toward the poor side of town with Bobby by my side in hysterics. I felt like I was running next to a hyena, and being chased by an executioner from Nuremberg. We were moving so fast that the thought occurred to me that it’s a pity that I couldn’t conjure this frame of mind when running the 50 yard dash. I would’ve broke records. He couldn’t catch us, of course, but I just kept running and didn’t look back.
It wasn’t until I got to the back of the stores on St. Elmo’s Avenue that I noticed I was running alone, with no one beside, or behind me. So I was able to catch my breath as I walked up the narrow alley between Charlie’s Sugar Bowl, and Teresa’s Pastry Shop. Force of Habit got me to walk into Charlie’s, and, this would afford me the opportunity to sit and be in familiar territory.
It was a two or three story building with an old fashioned candy store on the first floor, and probably an apartment above. I didn’t realize it then, but it was one of the local holdouts from the Roosevelt Era. Periodicals, cigarettes, penny candy, and a tiny soda fountain was their stock in trade, and my recollection is that most everything inside and outside the store was gray.
Even before I heard the bell above the door tinkle, I looked over and saw the larger than life poster of Babe Ruth that was attached to the wall right inside the doorway. The way I remember it, it might as well have been wall paper. There he sat, in his pin stripes and old fashioned cap, with his bat in his hands, resting on his left shoulder, looking like he had just done something bad. The look on his face made him look guilty; like, maybe he had just devoured all of the hot dog vendor’s profits.
Leaving The Bambino, I took the three or four steps that brought me up into the store proper, where about four more steps to my left brought me to the soda fountain. This was unusual for me. I usually went right to the comic book twirll-arounds, but THIS night I went over and sat on one of the red leather covered stools because I was winded and tired. (Yes, they weren’t gray; they were RED.)
I don’t remember if it was Charlie or his brother-in-law, or whoever that other guy was, who asked me what I wanted. They both wore gray work pants and shirts that were designed to be forgettable. Obviously, it worked, and rubbed off on other aspects of their personae.
I asked for a 7 up with complete confidence that they would comply, because this was before the Coca Cola bottling company had pressured distributors to push Sprite on everyone. I remember when it was possible to get Coke and 7 Up in the same place. Imagine that!
I sat sipping my soda while admiring the completed model airplanes that were suspended by strings from the ceiling in the corner, over the soda fountain. A Spirit of St. Louis seemed to be on a collision course with a set of Blue Angels. Uncharacteristically, the Blue Angels were NOT in perfect formation.The presence of a B17 bomber a few feet away further marred the effect of matching scales and contemporaneity, and a Piper Cub in the other corner completed the effect.
I heard the front door open, and in walked Bobby. He bounded up the stairs and said, “There you are. Let’s get going.” I finished the soda and slipped off the stool, but didn’t see Bobby.
I then heard Charlie’s voice,”Hey, you don’t belong back there. Come on out.”
I should have known. Bobby had gone to the front corner of the store, where the Playboy Magazines were. This was before there were Playboy competitors; before the covers became even more obvious in order to get people to judge-a-book-by-its-cover, and buy it based on a perceived sex quotient. This was also before there was complete nudity in Playboy; for that you still needed National Geographic.
“I’ve told you about going back there before.” Charlie continued, “Now get out of here.”
Wordlessly, we walked out. I just hoped that Charlie would let me back in in a few days to get the latest Superman comic. Unfortunately, when I did come back a couple of days later for the latest Man of Steel’s installment, I found out that on the way out that night, Bobby had planted a big wad of A.B.C. Bazooka Bubble Gum on the Number one Bronx Bomber’s nose. This must have been what happened, because I know that I didn’t put it there; which made it very easy for me to plead innocence when confronted by Charlie. I guess he believed me because he sold me the comic. But, then again, maybe he just figured, 12 cents is 12 cents.
We walked out, made two quick rights, and were walking down the alley that I had come up 10 minutes earlier.
Bobby was the first to speak, “What happened to you, ya big sissy? That guy gave up after two blocks.”
A little taken aback, I feigned indifference and said, “I just wanted to make sure that he didn’t know where I was going. I wanted to go to Charlie’s for a soda, and I kept running because I also wanted to test my wind.”
“Sounds and smells like you’re testing your WIND right now. I never saw anybody run so fast in my life. Did you wet your pants too?”
My response to this was, “You’re just jealous because you couldn’t keep up, and because I’m wearing my Keds and you can’t even afford P.F. Fliers.”
(This was in the days when only kids wore sneakers, and athletic footwear didn’t look like something that was designed to be used by little green men on the surface of another planet.)
Bobby didn’t respond, but pointed to our box of organic missiles that he had obviously brought down the hill while I was in Charlie’s. He then said, ”C’mon, Kedso. Let’s see if you can throw as well as you can run.”
We took the box of vegetables down along the rudimentary street that ran parallel to St. Elmo’s Avenue, and walked a short distance. We then walked toward St Elmo’s through a vacant woodsy lot that was between a service station that advertised Eddie’s Valve Grinding, and a trampoline center called, Jumpin’ Jimminy. We were now within projectile distance of St. Elmo’s, with the added advantage of being slightly elevated, and on an overgrown lot on the periphery of a small group of trees.
St. Elmo’s Avenue was a state highway, and had a fair amount of businesses and traffic. Today, there is at least twice, and possibly three times as much on that road as there was then, but there was enough there for us that night. We soon started our barrage.
With each throw, Bobby let out a maniacal laugh. He was exuberant, and he must have thrown two or three cabbages before I mustered the nerve to throw one. After a short while, as infectious as Bobby’s exuberance was, my enthusiasm started to wane, as our ammunition started to get low.
I can say with some authority that throwing vegetables at moving cars is no different from throwing snowballs at them. To effect a direct hit, the thrower must lead the target; that is, throw the projectile where the target will be when the projectile gets there. And that was just what I was doing. Most of our bombs fell harmlessly on the pavement, but I would soon make Juvenile Delinquent history.
It pains me today to relate to you, Dear Reader, that it was a white 64 Buick Riviera, traveling south, that was my confirmed kill. Bobby had stopped to light a cigarette, and there was one tomato and one cabbage left in our cardboard ammo dump. I threw the tomato first, and immediately followed it with the cabbage. I had no sooner let fly with the cabbage, when I saw that the tomato had found its mark, landing with a splat on the line between the left front fender and the hood, and spreading its contents over a good portion of the hood and windshield. The driver immediately applied the brakes with great force, thereby providing the environment with a sound that was common in antiquity, but all but gone today: Screeching Brakes. For this was long before the Government and the auto industry made it impossible for drivers to lock the brakes on cars. (Drivers today are SO dumb, they can’t possibly figure out how to stop without locking their brakes!) But, more to the point, as I stood there with mixed feelings as the driver’s door opened and the sound of the Four Tops wafted up to my ears, I could see the cabbage on its parabolic path and stood there watching it much as I had seen old movies of The Bambino, or Mickey Mantel on television, nonchalantly looking toward the outfield, as they calmly laid down the bat and took their first steps down the first base path, the guy in green sharkskin emerged from his car, and the cabbage hit the roof about a foot away from his head, landing with a bonk instead of a splat, getting several pieces of cabbage shrapnel on his head and back. Once again, it was time to leave.
It really wasn’t much of a chase. He obviously didn’t want to leave his car in the south bound lane, so he didn’t come very close to us. We were soon running through back yards and hurtling fences. We ran roughly parallel, with Bobby’s maniacal laugh ever present on my left.
Many steps, jumps, and gasps later, I emerged from one of the front yards lining Elijah Avenue and took a look to my left. After about five seconds, Bobby poked his head out from behind a hedge, took off on a easy jog in my direction, and made his pleasure felt.
“Man, what a couple of Sputniks! I never saw such perfect aim! You must be eating your Wheaties.You not only run like the wind, you could probably throw somebody out from center field.”
“Never mind that.”, I said,”What if that guy knows these streets and comes back here looking for us?”
“Don’t worry. Just be on the lookout for a white car with tomato on the hood. When you see him, pick up a rock, and hit him on the head. You can do it!”
“You’re not funny. Let’s go over toward Wyatt.”
Bobby’s jollity was not to be denied, so, amid guffaws he said, “OK Kedso. Lead the way.”, after which I discreetly joined in, and allowed myself to laugh.
Wyatt Street was the one that we had run down about 45 minutes earlier, in our great escape from the Teutonic wrath of Herr Hess. I guess where Wyatt Street and Elijah Avenue intersected was the lowest spot in all of Avondale, because it was only about one lot away from where the sewer oft times overflowed. We walked in the direction of Wyatt street because there was probably some activity there. After all, this was Mischief Night, and twilight was over.
When we got there, there was activity all right. The sewer water had overflowed, and there were three or four little kids playing Sink the Bismarck. This was a pointless game that somehow gained some notoriety during my childhood and adolescence. All that was needed for this game was a body of water, a floating piece of wood, and several rocks. The participants simply threw the rocks at the piece of wood, in a futile attempt to sink it. Sink the Bismark was rarely played for very long, because the participants usually found something more interesting to do. This game was about to end abruptly.
The body of water in play was on the lot that was adjacent to the yard of Mr. Joe Kidder’s house. Joe was a cantankerous old electrician that lived on the corner of Wyatt and Elijah. He was not a fan of Sink the Bismark, either as a participant or a spectator, and he came out onto his front porch and made his discontentment known. (He had a bad ticker.)
“Will you kids stop doing that? You wanna get sick? That’s sewer water you’re playing in.”
The kids were small enough so they still automatically obeyed a grown up. That was my opinion at the time, but, actually, the truth was that if Joe had been talking to me about what I was doing, I probably would have obeyed also.
About a block away, the Jaques brothers were working on something on the opposite corner. Bobby and I walked over to where they were to investigate.
Homer and Randy Jaques were always good for some kind of hell raising, and on this Mischief Night, they were in good form. They had a one piece pair of coveralls that was fitted out with hands that consisted of stuffed gloves sewn to the arm cuffs, and feet that consisted of stuffed socks sewn to the leg bottoms. The anthropological representation was made complete by a spherical attachment to the shoulders with one of those stiff fiber masks from a child’s Halloween costume attached to the front. The mask made this dummy look just like Popeye the Sailor, and as Homer and Randy stuffed it with leaves, Popeye put on more weight than he ever did from eating spinach.
At first, we didn’t know what they were going to do with the Old Salt, so Bobby asked,”Whataya gonna do with that?”
“We’re gonna hang him in effginny; just like in the history books.”, said Randy. He knew a little more about history than Homer did…. Randy could read.
Intrigued, Bobby and I watched the two brothers as they worked. After a time we figured out what they were up to.
These streets didn’t have much traffic, so Randy didn’t have to wait long to go into action. First he tied a long clothes line rope around Popeye’s neck, and at the other end of the rope he tied an old pair of sneakers that were joined at the laces. He then took the sneakers and Popeye out into the middle of Wyatt Street and, after a couple of attempts, managed to lob the sneakers over an overhead wire that traversed the road. He then provided enough rope for the sneakers to come down to the pavement, where Homer was waiting to receive them. Homer did so, and then started walking, diagonally, toward the curb, away form the middle of the street, where he had received the sneakers. With each step that Homer took, Popeye rose higher, until his head was almost up to the wire; about 20 feet in the air, over the middle of the street.
Bobby walked over to Homer, and piped up exuberantly, “What a great idea! You gonna drop that on a car?”
Homer, who’s face had been graced with an ear to ear grin, now looked at Bobby with a disconcerted quizzical look. Randy had heard the question as he walked over to his brother and answered it,”Yeah Whaddya think we’re gonna do? Kejelas, sometimes I think you’re not too bright.”
Again, Bobby was not to be denied.”But if you let go of the sneakers, the weight of the dummy might pull them up too high for you to reach them again. And you shouldn’t just drop it on just ANY car!”
“Yeah! Don’t worry, Kejelas, we’re gonna wait for a convertible police car with the top down and a lady cop behind the wheel! Go soap up some windows, will you?” Randy could be cutting. He must have come from a long line of psychological butchers.
While this exchange was taking place, Homer had resumed his grinning countenance, and looked east, up Wyatt street., apparently waiting for a car to come down the hill. Randy disentangled himself from Bobby and I, and said to his brother, “Don’t look for a car coming down the hill from Prospectus, look toward St. Elmo’s, there’s got to be more traffic coming off St.Elmo’s than down Wyatt from Prospectus.
I guess it was just Homer’s simplicity, and/or his brother’s faith in it, that explains why Homer found it problematic to look in two directions at once for a potential victim for his Let-Homer-put-Popeye-in-the-driver’s-seat stunt. So, he took his brother’s advice, and turned to face west, where he could see the building on St. Elmo’s that housed the Pharmacy of the same name on one corner, and the Dunkin’ Donuts, on the other. (For many of the local young people, this area would be the center of the universe for several years.)
I don’t know if it was just luck, or the fruit of a more probing mind, but I took an occasional look east, and so I was the first to see the Black and White 64 Ford with the cherry on the roof about three blocks away, slowly coming down Wyatt. He wasn’t advertising, but I saw him just the same.
As I had seen done in the movies or cartoons whenever a character wanted to appear innocent or invisible, I stuck my hands in my pockets and started to whistle softly as I slowly walked away from this potential crime scene. “Bobby.”, I said, as I calmly walked in the opposite direction from whence I had run earlier, trying to seem like just exactly what I was: An Innocent Bystander. Continuing in this vein, I said, with a little more volume, “Look up yonder, Bob.”
I can only try to recall what happened in the next five or ten seconds:
As I walked TOWARD the approaching police car, I turned around and then saw what the Jaques brothers had been waiting for: a car had turned down from St. Elmo’s and was approaching Popeye’s rendezvous point. And, when I reached Joe Kidder’s house, I saw him appear at his door, wave at the cop car, and point in the direction of Popeye’s impending indiscretion. By this time, the car (sorry that I can’t relate the model and year, only that it wasn’t a convertible) was almost at ground zero and Popeye had started his descent. Homer must have had some finesse about him after all, because Popeye did not come down like a ton of bricks; he floated and did some bouncing before impact. Right before Popeye hit the windshield, the driver hit his brakes, there was a scream from the car that sounded female, and the police car that no one but I had noticed pulled up abruptly and stopped.
I found out later that it was Bobby who supplied the classic announcement, “Jiggers, the cops!” for the benefit of all the confederates, who then started running in various directions.
I saw the officer get out of his car and go over to the car that had been accosted, but I didn’t hang around long enough to see any more.
In another thirty seconds, I was up on Avondale Street, traveling in the general direction of home. It had been an eventful night, and I figured I would go home and listen to that new Four Seasons record album. It was in Stereo.
When I reached the corner of Avondale and Prospectus there was Bobby, all out of breath, walking along Prospectus to Avondale.
I wasn’t certain if I was glad to see him or not. As usual, he started the dialogue with an emphatically asked question, “What happened to you? I saw the cop car and you were gone.”
“I tried to warn you about him, but you only had eyes and ears for Homer, Randy and Popeye.”
“Boy that was a riot! Did you ever see anything like that before? That dummy came right down on that car!”, Bobby said, with his characteristic enthusiasm. Something told me the night wasn’t over. Frankie, Bob, Nick and Tony or Vito or whatever their names were, would have to wait.
Bobby then looked across Avondale Street, and said, “Let’s go to Dirty John’s.”
Now there was an unappetizing proposition: ‘Let’s go to Dirty John’s’.
I think that the official name for this place was ‘Slokski’s Confectionery’ or ‘Smdgeski’s Confectionery’, or something like that, because that was what was on the tinplate sign above the window. However, I can say with conviction, and, without fear of contradiction, that everyone in Avondale referred to this place as ‘Dirty John’s’.
It was a single story building well set in from the curb allowing plenty of room for sidewalk traffic, but that was about the only nice thing about it. And, actually, at that time I think that I was still under orders from my mother to ‘Not Go in There’. On the rare occasions when I did go there, the place invariably had people in there that were, or in the future would turn out to be, undesirables. I’m sorry, 21st century sensitive readers, but I can think of no better, or more accurate way of putting it.
Bobby was advancing across Avondale Street when I asked, “Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why do you want to go there?”, I persisted.
“I donno. We’ll make the scene.”, he said.
“We’ll what?”
“We’ll see what’s happening.”, he persisted.
“Why do we care about what’s happening in there?”, I said. I was having trouble following his logic, and I was a little behind in the lingo department too. Bobby was starting to watch the cool television shows like ‘Where the Action Is’ and ‘Hullabaloo’, while I was still watching Joe Bolton and Jack McCarthy. So, Bobby was becoming more contemporary and with-it than I was.
Then, with the air of a man loosing his patience having to explain something to a simpleton, he said, “I’ll buy cigarettes. That woman will sell them to me. Let’s go in.”
The mention of, ‘That Woman’, was enough to send chills down the backs of better men than me.
She was small, thin, and dark haired, with a perpetual look of irritation on her face. I’m not sure if she always wore dark clothing, or she just always looked dark because it was so dark in the store. She gave the impression of a fortune telling gypsy with bad news. The only other distinguishing characteristic about her that I remember, was that she always wore a skirt; never pants.
As we walked in, she satisfied my preconceptions. There she was behind the counter, looking for all the world like The Wicked Which of the West; the only difference being, that she had an olive tinge to her complexion, and not, out and out green. She immediately eyed us up and down and then took in the whole store, obviously reshuffling her mental image of every inhabitant, as if the clientele in her establishment were pieces in a grand malignant game of chess.
Connie Lagorgia and Teresa Campania sat at the soda fountain, smoking cigarettes. They each had a glass in front of them on the counter, no doubt to legitimize their occupation of the stool, and gave the appearance of two people trying very hard to look and act alike. They both wore long black leather coats, black stretch pants with straps at the ankles that went under their feet, and white low slingback shoes. They both had blond hair that looked to me like yellow cotton candy in a long transparent bag up-ended on their heads. Their eye makeup looked as though an effect of disguise was intended.
Teresa was smaller than Connie, and had a much tougher exterior: hard boiled. Connie was more easy going, and smiled at Bobby and me as we walked past them on our way to the magazine rack in the back of the store. I think that their presence here was just a preliminary stop for them. THEIR night was still young.
The only other people in the store were two guys about fifteen feet away from the girls, playing a game of eight ball on the pool table. Red Mulligan, and George Whitino.
The table was illuminated by a hanging overhead light that had a shade shaped like a hat that a Chinese woman would wear while working in a rice paddy. The shade was painted the obligatory dark green, and the light hung at the exact height to provide enough light to illuminate the playing surface of the table only, and not the surrounding area. The whole scene would have pleased any number of producers and directors who had created scenes just like it in countless movies and television shows in the 50s and 60s, when wanting to depict cheap low life people who are either gamblers, alcoholics, or criminals.
This was after the James Dean era, when tough with-it guys had worn blue jeans with cuffs, and white T-shirts with a pack of Camels or Luckies rolled up in one of the shirt sleeves. That was now all in the past. These two exponents of modern male adolescent virility wore much dressier clothes than the old rebels without causes. Red Mulligan sported shiny black pointed shoes (said to have been designed to kill cockroaches in corners), tight-fitting bright blue sharkskin dress pants, and a white-on-white dress shirt with french cuffs and a long collar. The color of his hair earned him the nickname, Red, and his hair style would have suggested to even the most casual observer that he might someday be a Sailor in the Navy. He had what we used to call a Chicago Box haircut: long on the sides and flattened to his head with butch wax, and short and flat on the top. This made his head look like a red aircraft carrier.
George Whitino was also, every inch the 60s sophisticate: Brown Suede dress shoes, beige dress pants and a dark brown golf cardigan over a matching ban-lon knit shirt. By a strange coincidence George’s hair also suggested the sea. His carefully coiffed mane was perfectly formed and wavy. Indeed, it was SO wavy, it gave the impression of being a frozen tsunami.
Their two black leather fingertip length coats were lovingly draped over a nearby bumper pool table, where no harm would come to them.
The conversation between these two guys was minimal: “Two ball, corner.”, ten ball, combo.”, and that was about it. They calmly and cooly walked around the table, waited their turn, chalked up the cue sticks, and when their turn came, carefully took aim with smooth concentrated warm up strokes before making impact with the cue ball. The only sound in the place was the occasional colliding of billiard balls on soft green wool felt, and that of the balls rolling down the chutes, when pocketed.
I made my way to the magazine rack at the back of the store, and searched in vain for a Superman Comic. There were plenty of magazines, but no Supermans or any of his friends, no Spider-man or Fantastic Four, no Archies, no Dells, no Classics Illustrated…..Then I heard Bobby’s voice, “A pack of Winstons, please.”
Her voice was unpleasant as she said, “I’m not selling you any cigarettes.”
The vestige of Bobby’s exuberance was still in his voice, as he answered, “Whatdayou mean? I bought cigarettes in here before.” ,
That woman’s voice then became even more unpleasant, piercing the ambiance like a wood rasp on a piece of sheet metal, as she answered, “Not from me you didn’t. You’re just a kid. Now get out of here!”
That was ok with me, so I started walking away from the magazine rack toward the front of the store, and said to my friend, “C’mon, Bobby. Let’s go.”
Two seconds later, we were both walking toward the door when it was suddenly opened from someone on the outside. A tall skinny guy dressed all in black, wearing a clown mask said, “Say your prayers, folks!”, and rolled into the store the largest fire cracker that I had ever seen. It was a bright red cylinder about a foot long, and must have had a diameter of four or five inches. As it rolled into the store, the lit fuse that was attached to the end twirled around, giving off sparks and smoke, creating the impression of impending doom.
I had seen a few ash cans and cherry bombs in my day, and was aware of what they could do when they exploded. When THIS monstrosity came rolling toward me, I panicked and raced for the door exclaiming,”It’s a BOMB!”
Bobby was right behind me and I didn’t look back until we were on the opposite side of Avondale Street. George and Red then came running out, in a much more agitated state than they had been mere moments ago. They crossed the street also, and, as they got closer to us, I kept watching the building expecting to witness a gigantic explosion like those I had seen in an endless stream of movies that had cluttered my consciousness over the years.
Connie and Teresa then came out and took off on a fast walk down Avondale Street.
Red then turned to George and said, “Hey, my leather’s in there!”
Much like TweedleDum would mimic TweedleDee, George said, “So’s mine!”
“Why didn’t you remind me about our jackets?”, Red wanted to know.
“I was shooting. YOU should have thought of them!”, George retorted.
“Jesus, mine came from The Red Rooster Shop! What’er we gonna do?”
As we stood there, time passed, and I started to detect a not unpleasant feeling of doubt concerning the expected explosion at Dirty John’s. But, alas, it does pain me to say, that my doubts were verified, and thereby, consummated by That Woman, when she came out onto the sidewalk with that big firecracker in her hand, and said in her raspy voice, “You can come back in now, BOYS. The fuse went out.”
I found out later through the grapevine, that it was only a Quaker Oats container painted red and full of sand.
Red and George were then free to go back in and sheepishly retrieve their leather coats, while I intended to ‘Walk like a Man’ all the way home to listen to my new Four Seasons LP.
“Bobby, I’ve had enough mischief for one night. I’m going home.”, was all I said to my compatriot.
“Ok, Jon. See you tomorrow at the bus stop.”, was all he said as he took off down the street.
For the second time, I was on my way home….or so I thought.
I was only two blocks from home when a 49 mercury going down Avondale Street slowed down, and a guy in the front passenger’s seat said to me, “Hi, Jon. Where you goin’?”
It was my brother, Roger.
“Home, I guess. I’ve been out for a while.”
As the car slowed down to a crawl, my big brother made an unprecedented suggestion, ”Hey, hop in the back. We’ll take you for a ride with us.”
“Sure!”, I said. The car then stopped, and I opened the passenger side rear door, and got in. (Yes, it was a 4 door and not the Club Coupe.)
I got in and as my eyes got used to the interior light, I saw Al Cantorie behind the wheel. He turned around and favored me with a smile and said, “Hi, Jon.”
Roger sat in the front passenger’s seat, and next to me in the back seat was Roger’s friend, Brendan Jack, who said, ”Hi, Junior. You out makin’ trouble tonight?”
“A little… I guess.”. Was all I could think of to say. I wasn’t sure of what, or how much I should admit to.
Brendan then made the astute observation,“Hey, he talks just like you. Rog; takes his time to answer, and says nothin’, when he does.”
At this point, Al saved the day by turning on the radio. This then made it possible for Bruce Morrow to try to get us to buy something that would make our hair irresistible to high school girls. It must have been a hair preparation of the greasy type, because this was during the time when girls couldn’t resist guys with greasy hair and they had not yet become enamored with guys sporting what would someday be called ‘The Dry Look’.
I then started to take notice of a long cylindrical piece of wood that was sitting diagonally in the interior of the car. It rested on the right side of the instrument panel in the front, ran diagonally across the top of the front seat, and finally ended on the left side of the car on the back deck, behind the back seat. Both my brother Roger, in the front, and Brendan, in the back, were sitting with one of their arms draped over this mysterious piece of wood.
I decided to throw caution to the wind and risk a sophomoric interlude, by asking, “What is this thing?”
As I expected he would, Brendan said, “What thing?”
I rapped on it loudly enough for the impact to be heard above the Beatles singing ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’ on the radio, and said, “THIS thing!”
Brendan said, “Should we tell him, Rog?”
Characteristically, Roger said, “Yeah…. I guess.”
After a short silence, it was Al again who interjected with what turned out to be a great idea. He said, “Jon, why don’t you tell us what you did tonight, and then, we’ll let you in on the secret about this piece of wood in my interior?”
Al and Roger then turned around and looked at me, so, I looked at all three faces and said, “Ok.”
It took a while for me go over everything that I could remember that Bobby and I had done, and they got a big kick out of all of it, except for the tomato and the cabbage hitting the Buick. I just hoped that they didn’t know the guy. I don’t think they did; at least, they didn’t say so.
When I was finished, I said loud enough to be heard, “Well?”
Roger then said to Al, “Go up to the top of Minnow, and we’ll find some cans.”
We were now south of Avondale street, which is the opposite side from where my stomping ground was, and where Bobby and I were earlier. There was no hill on this side and the streets were straight and fully populated with houses. We had gone to the top of Minnow Avenue, and were now slowly driving down the street.
After contemplating what my brother had said, I then said, inquisitively, “Cans?”
Roger then verified my supposition by specifying, “Yeah, garbage cans.”
Now this was in the days when garbage cans were made of galvanized steel, with lids that had to be pulled off by a man with strong hands, arms, and a back to match. The plastic cans of today with the nicely fitting pop-off tops would have been considered an anomaly by any self-respecting man-of-the-house who took the garbage out to the curb. And, those great big ones that were designed to be picked up by a great big metal arm on the garbage truck while the driver sat in the cab controlling the whole operation by merely pushing buttons, would have been considered science fiction. Such technical decadence was not yet even on the horizon.
Also, this was before the days of garbage segregation of any kind. There were no specially marked recycling containers, that were to be put out next to the traditional garbage cans on alternating days, or weeks, or any such rigamarole. This is an important point to keep in mind because when these garbage separation practices took hold, they engendered tidy garbage habits across the board, eventually making for neater containers of garbage in those Mr. Milquetoast plastic cans. The garbage that was in the cans on that mischief night so long ago, was not of this ilk, and had been thrown in, loose, indiscriminately, and was of every imaginable type. Neatness did not count.
When the Men-in-Green came to collect the garbage in the morning, they had to pick up these steel cans in their gloved hands, forcibly pull off the tight-fitting metal lids, and then, turn the cans upside down over the opening in the back of the truck, banging the edge of the can on the rim of the opening, thereby depositing the garbage. The cans and lids were then roughly returned to the curb, maximizing the impact that they made on the pavement, and also the resulting noise. Steel though these cans were, they were sometimes less than secure due to this rough handling, and the integrity of the lids became compromised over time.
It didn’t occur to me then, but we were extremely fortunate that night: not only had mischief night coincided with a tale-out-the-garbage night, but we were about to find a house where despite this happenstance, the inhabitants had actually put a full garbage can out at the curb. What were they thinking? They must have just moved to Jersey.
Roger and I spotted one at about the same time. I tapped him on the shoulder and he said, “Yeah, I see it. Slow down, Al.”
He then extended the piece of wood, or should I say, lance, out the window and brought it along the side of car. He then told me to grab the end that was now right outside the rear window and hold on as he pointed the other end at the garbage can while we were moving at about 15 or 20 miles per hour. I was about to find out just what that piece of wood was for: Garbage Can Jousting; and not as an observer, but as a full fledged participant.
The initial impact was loud, but that was just the beginning. The lid flew off, and somehow the end of the lance entered the now lidless top of the can, went through the garbage, and hit the bottom of the can, pushing it down the street while making an awful racket.
Roger said to Al, “Stop for a minute, will you?”
With the car stopped, he was able to lift the can with the end of the lance, move it at a right angle to the car, and deposit the can on someone’s front lawn. He was able to do this because the can was now empty, it’s contents having been strewn along five or ten feet of the street at the curb, proudly displaying all of the cast offs, uneaten food and other unmentionables that the family next door had chosen to dispose of.
Al didn’t have to be told to leave in a hurry. Even before Roger had gotten the lance back in the interior, the car was leaving the scene of the crime at a good clip, and after a couple of turns we were going down Prospectus toward Avondale with a little too much jollity and joyous abandon. John Law noticed this and was about to intervene.
This was the second 64 Ford with the red cherry on the roof that I saw that night. It was just a single red light that twirled around, and, presently, it started doing just that. The car was behind us and the implication was clear: PULL OVER. The sobering effect in the car was galvanic as Al brought the car to a stop at the curb right before getting to Avondale Street.
My brother turned around and gave me some big brother advice, “Don’t say anything.”
The cop slowly walked over to the driver’s window. He was a well known big local cop named Carl Liebchen. I had heard my brother speak of him before, but this was the first time that I encountered him, and it was not to be the last.
“So what are you guys up to? I could hear you laughing over the static of my radio.”
“You mean, our laughing was on your radio?”, Al innocently said.
Officer Liebchen ignored this question as being, either an obvious attempt at a joke, or an example of pure stupidity.
“Cantorie, you guys are too big to be making any trouble tonight…. right, guys?”
It was now time for all of us to adopt the monosyllabic style of speech that Brendan had attributed to me and my brother earlier. “Yep”, “Yeah, I guess so”
Carl shined his flashlight in the back seat, and said, “Right, Brendan?…Hey, whose that next to you?”
Brendan lost no time as he replied, “Roger’s little brother.”
As if reluctant to meet a new adversary, Carl slowly walked around the front of the car to the passenger’s side. As he approached, my endocrine system again started me on another glandular roller coaster ride. I wasn’t sure how many times this had happened that night, but this was the second time that the source of my anxiety was a man with a badge, and this time, I wouldn’t be able to dissipate it, or, escape, by running.
“That’s your brother back there?”, he said to Roger.
“.. Yeah..”, at least this time he didn’t say ‘I guess’.
Carl then made the perennial observation, “He doesn’t look like you.”
“Just lucky…. I guess”, was the rejoinder, and Roger supplied it without clarification.
“Hey, what’s your name?”
The context of the discourse and Carl’s eye contact made my response mandatory.
“Jon”
He then asked me, “What is that thing in there?”
“Huh?”, I eloquently replied.
He then came to my rescue by elaborating further,”What’s that thing? That pole in there?”
My brain went into high gear and I answered, making use of HIS observation, “It’s a pole.”
“Oh, REALLY?”, he incredulously intoned.
I really feel that there is an adrenaline for the brain, or, that the same adrenaline that gets our muscles ready to fight or flight, also gives our brains a boost to think fast, because that is just what I did that night so many years ago. It’s nice to know that I didn’t, ‘Fold Under Questioning’.
I heard myself say,“It’s for the pole vault.”
Now this was in the days when The Wide World of Sports was the ONLY place where ANY sports that were not baseball or football were televised; and that was only on Saturday afternoon. The only exceptions to this were an occasional aberration like Roller Derby or Baseball from Puerto Rico that would appear as half hour fillers on late Saturday or Sunday afternoon, or, an occasional golf or bowling tournament on a weekend. In short, it was before ‘We the Consumers’ had 500 television channels to choose from, and the Olympics were televised for our enjoyment every four or five years, complete with long winded explanations, discussions, and lurid details when one of the participants would get killed. This incident that night was long before the vast majority of our population knew anything about slaloms, or curling, or rugby. So it’s easy to see why Carl then said with an interrogative tone,”Pole Vault?”
“Yeah.”, I answered, and then started to weave my tangled web.”Roger made it in wood shop.”
Carl then said,“That’s when the guy uses a pole to jump over a stick way up in the air, right?”, incredibly, he seemed to be swallowing it.
“Yep. That’s it.”, I said, with the air of a man putting a period at the end of a sentence.
Carl then threw me a curve and said, “Gee, I didn’t know that they had a lathe that long at the high school. That’s got to be one piece. How big is the lathe Roger?”
Roger then said, “Oh, yeah. It’s big…..It’s real big… enough.”
Carl then busted my bubble and continued, “Boy, they didn’t do any pole vaulting when I went to the High School.” after relating this observation, he then made another, “This pole looks a little too short for pole vaulting.” (Drat my luck, he must have watched the right Wide World of Sports episode!)
I was right there in good form with, “It’s for the junior pole vault. It’s only about 6 feet high.”
The silence in the car was deafening as these faux facts were digested by all.
I wasn’t sure what to expect next, and thought that maybe our interview was over when Carl looked in the interior and said, “And which one of you guys is gonna use this thing for the pole vault?”
Roger looked over at Al, who looked back with an expression of consternation that I hoped Carl couldn’t see. There followed an exchange of looks among all occupants of the car in a round robin style, that was clear evidence of a chain of collective panic. Roger then broke the chain, in this case, by being the STRONGEST link, and said, “Ch…Charlie.”
“Oh….. That Farington boy?”, Carl knew all the local teenagers.
“Yeah, him.”, Roger replied, thankfully leaving out the ‘I guess’.
“Yeah, he’s probably the only one of your crowd that’s skinny enough to do it”
Again, I thought that we would soon be done with the interrogation and be on our way to resume normal blood pressure, when Carl reached into the car and pulled on something that was on the pole.
My anxiety that night knew no bounds. I could almost hear an Alfred Hitchcock / Bernard Herrmann spine chilling cadence as he said, “What’s this?”
The object in question was a piece of a bread wrapping bag that had impaled itself on the pole just a few short minutes ago when we had done the deed. Carl now held it in his hand. It was only a fragment, but enough of it remained to leave no doubt as to its origin. The familiar white words on the red background could be seen, spelling out ‘SILVERCUP’.
After a discreet, but uncomfortable interval, Roger said, “Oh… That…..”
I then felt another exhilarating eureka moment, like as if I were on one of those TV game shows where the contestant first has to push a button and then answer a question before the guy next to him to win a trip to a far-away-place-with-a-strange-sounding-name as I blurted out, “It’s for the WAX.”
Carl looked at me with obvious cognitive dissonance. “Wax? What wax?”
“The wax on the bread wrapping paper. You wipe it on the pole to increase your grip; just like surfboards.” was my offhand reply.
Fortunately for us, it seemed as if Carl had also had about enough. He looked at me and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He started to walk back to his prowl car, and then he stopped and turned to us and said, “Try to keep out of trouble. You guys aren’t bad kids. Let’s keep it that way.”
As we made a right onto Avondale Street, nothing much was said, and right before dropping Roger and me off, Al said, “That was quick thinking, kid.”
I responded, “Yeah… I guess.”
I entered the warmth and security of my home and bedroom and reflected on the ups and downs of the night; the times feeling 10 feet tall and the times feeling 10 inches tall, and I wondered if the different highs and lows balanced each other.
This turned out to be my last Mischief Night as a participant.
As I sat there contemplating, I learned something else: if you go out, and you don’t wear your Red Dress….. they’ll call you a Rag Doll.
Jonathan Womelsdorf 2014