A teen disco. Open a teen disco. It’s a way to keep us out of trouble. It’s a way to give back to the youth of Palo Alto. There’s money in disco. These are the points we use to sell Moms and Perry on the idea.
In 1976 a teen disco seems like a fun plan. Why not.
What do we know about opening a club? Not a thing.
Does that fact scare us? Not one bit.
My-O-My, Lilly comes up with the name. Mom and Perry come up with the cash. Shaun and Ingrid come up with the waitress uniforms. Larkin is our General Manager, trouble shooter and the one we all look up to. Paul, Idiots drummer, builds our sound system. Tad does our graphics. Ivan and I wire the place and set the lighting. It is total Mickey Rooney time. Instead of an old barn, we find an old car showroom on High Street. It is a beehive of teenagers with power tools. Underage and unskilled. No one is getting paid. Who gives a rat's ass. We are actually doing something. Building something.
My DJ booth is a giant jukebox, it even has Lucite tubes with colored water and a bubble blower. The waitresses, Shaun, Ingrid and her younger sister Johanna, wear cute Betty Boop sailor suits. They invent non-alcoholic cocktails. This place will be class all the way.
I am in the ceiling, a crawl space so thin I only have a couple feet above me. I am wiring lights. I don’t turn the circuit breaker off. I am smarter than electricity. I am smarter than other electricians. I am seventeen and don’t want to climb down the ladder. So fuck it, I’ll be careful. When I short the fixture, 240 volts blast through my body. The spasm slams my body up into the roof. It blows a Connie high top off my foot. I am one smart son of a bitch.
The club is a success. The youth of Palo Alto line up to give us two bucks at the door and a buck for Cokes. My-O-My at Homer and High is the only place to be Friday and Saturday nights. Each night after we close, Lark and I walk the neighborhood picking up beer bottles, cigarette butts, burger wrappers, the flotsam and jetsam of the rising tide of teenagers we have attracted. Once the club is cleaned and all the paying customers are gone, we lock the doors and crank up The Tubes, Stones or NY Dolls. Our music. Collected girls from the night hang out. Drink Bacardi and Coke. Fuck in the office. No one’s getting paid, but working here is your buy in to the best late night party in town.
Lark is good at this club deal. Later he will make stacks upon stacks of ducats, building and running clubs in Texas. But for now it is just what keeps him from self-destructing. The club gives all of us a place to put unspent energy. I am driven to be an actor. Direct movies. To write. My creative passion is stronger than the booze. Not by much, but enough.
When Lark was thirteen and Moms found him smoking, she bought him a cool hat to get him to quit. He said he did. He smoked for another thirty-five years. I smoked too, just never in front of my mother. I was thirty and still sneaking out to grab a nicotine hit. On a purely non financial level, I think she got it right when she and Perry invested in the club. It was a lame horse in a bad race, but it was the horse we needed.
For a time My-O-My was the darling of Palo Alto. The Times wrote us up, gushing about the good work we were doing. We were keeping drugs and booze out of the club. Cops liked us. For a short time we were treated like lads with a future. But nothing lasts.
In the winter I moved to L.A. for six months to study acting. When I returned that summer the climate had changed. At My-O-My people were actually getting paid. The crowd had shifted. It was almost entirely Black. My-O-My was attracting kids from East Palo Alto, and no one in Palo Alto was happy about that.
“Soon as we started getting Black kids, the White kids stopped showing up. Fuck ‘em, money’s money.”
“You got any DJ shifts open?”
“Nope.”
“Fuck you, I’m your brother. I helped build this joint.”
“And you went away, and now I have DJ’s. What I need are doormen.”
“Do you mean a bouncer?”
“I guess I do.”
“Cool.”
The first night goes relatively alright. Mostly good kids, just looking for a place to dance and meet chicks. Hardcore thugs in general go to titty bars, not kiddy bars. The only tense moments come when we check for weapons and booze. A White boy searching you doesn’t always go down so well. But we are polite and professional. If the kids are regulars, they know the drill so there’s no drama. The cops have taken to cruising the area. Flashing the lights on anyone sitting in their cars. Palo Alto, home to Stanford, liberal bastion. Racist yuppy scum.
We continue to keep our side of the street clean, literally. We keep drugs out. We give the kids a safe place to party. It is a drama free zone, for a clientele who have enough drama at home.
The man leaning on the bar and hassling Shaun, looks thirty and hard.
“Excuse me sir.” I am six kinds of polite.
“Watchu want young blood?”
“You have to be under eighteen to be in the club.”
“That right?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, it’s the rule.”
“I got a .357 in my coat. Now what’d you say? Yeah that’s what I thought. Want me to show it to you.”
“God no. That is the last thing I want to see. Really, trust me, I believe you.”
“So what we gonna do? Huh?”
“You’re going to leave. Or you’re going to pull out the .357 and try and shoot me.”
“Damn straight.”
“OK, follow this down, you take out your .357 and shoot me. A White boy in Palo Alto? Dude you’re done. No way you hide from that. They take you in and after years of appeals they fry you. Or, you pull that .357 and I pull an amazing kung fu move, disarming and bitch slapping you in front everyone. It could happen. Or the waitress calls the cops, I mean there is just no way this will work out for you.”
“Man you talk too goddamn much. Bitches are nasty, no booze selling punk club. Fuck this noise.” I watch him walk out. Only when he is out of sight do I take a deep breath.
“You know kung fu?” A short kid in a sailor's cap has been watching.
“Fuck dude, I barely know goo fee.”
“Then you a stupid mother fucker. Nigger had a gun.” No arguing that fact. Stupid.
Jeffy Greenback, a skinny junky from Lark’s past reared his ugly head. He kited a check with the doorman. Said Lark had approved it. Hundred and twenty bucks. Lark told Steve not to sweat it, we would get it back. We? Fuck.
Lark made three calls and had Jeffy’s address, a one bedroom cottage up in Woodside. Lark and I rolled on it. Got lucky. Jeffy was home. “JJ, when we go in, you stand back, hand in your pocket like you’re packing a piece.”
“Wouldn’t packing an, um, actual piece be a better idea?”
“Fuck no. I’m over eighteen, I get popped it's big boy prison. It's rape in the shower and a permanent record.” So that is how we go in. Lark knocks on the door, Jeffy opens it a crack. Sees us and tries to shut it. Lark kicks the door. Jeffy stumbles back. Lark grabs his shirt and shoves him. The shirt rips. Jeffy hits the mattress on the floor. Lark kicks him in the side. Jeffy is winded. Larkin screams about the hundred and twenty. Jeffy says he doesn’t have it. Lark starts swinging. His punches power into Jeffy’s ribs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lark this angry. He pounds on the helpless junky. I hear a rib crack. Jeffy howls. Lark is about to hit him again. Then he holds himself back. He stands up. Looking around the room he sees a classic Gibson SG. He picks it up and nods toward the door. He gives Jeffy two days to get the cash or the SG is sold.
“I thought you were going to kill him.”
“Yeah, so did I.”
Two days later Jeffy calls to tells us he has the money. He wants to do the trade at the filling station in Woodside. We arrive an hour before. We have seen way too many crime films. We are sitting up the street in the Firebird. Watching the corner. Scoping it out. Two gnarly looking bikers disappear behind the station. They don’t reemerge. Fuck. Another greasy cat on a Harley parks across the street from the station.
“Larkin?”
“Yeah bro, I’m with you.” He hits the pedal and whips the Bird in a 180. We are burning rubber all the way down the block. If it feels wrong you don’t question it. You just roll. If left feels bad, turn right.
A day later Lark trades the guitar for the cash. They make the swap on the steps of the Palo Alto police station. We never hear from Jeffy again. No one writes any more bad paper at the My-O-My. Lark never shoots dope again. Are these events connected? I don’t think so. Nothing is ever that purely linear in life. If it is true the butterfly flapping its wing in Beijing is the cause of a storm on the coast of the Carolinas, then the mechanisms of fate are much weirder than a dyslexic drunk can fathom. If that’s just Zen hippy bullshit, then it is still too wild for me to fathom. There are gears and levers at work. Cogs and cosmic wheels. But no one gave me the schematic. So I stumble on blindly doing the next thing. Following the next glittering piece of paste down the trail.
The riot has been building for several weeks. We are getting more and more baby hoods coming down to the club. They are threatening to shoot Lark and me so many times a night that it gets silly.
“I’m comin back gonna blow your White ass away!“
“Can’t, I’m bullet proof.” Lark is digging this part.
“Maaan! No. No one is bulletproof.”
“Haven’t you heard of Superman? ”
“Fuck you ain’t Superman.”
“How do you know?”
“Come on, this fucker crazy.” And they roll hard down the street.
My favorite is,
“Getyoumotherfuckinghandsoffme, I’m a kill you!”
“OK, sounds good, what’s your name?”
“What?”
“I need your name. ”
“NAME?”
“For the wait list.” I have a pad in my pocket for getting license numbers. I flip it out and start reading. “I have, um, Jimmy with the head thing”
“Bandana?”
“That’s him.”
“Jimmy Wilson. Live over on Oak.”
“After Jimmy Wilson we got Andre,Jherycurls James, and the guy with the glasses... what is... the fuck dresses nice.”
“Thick glasses.”
“Coke bottles.”
“That's Tyrell Jenks.”
“No shit, Randy’s little brother?
“You know Randy Jenks?”
“Yeah, we went to Ravenswood together. So it looks like if Coke bottle eyes Tyrell doesn't do me in, you get your shot right after him.”
He looks at me for a long moment. He is gauging the threat level. I’m doing the same. Each of us is ready if it snaps off.
“Shhhhit, you fucking with me.” He is grinning.
“A bit. Actually there is no wait list. So if you wanna kill me I’m free.”
“No man, all your talk wore me the fuck out.”
“OK, here’s a free pass for tomorrow night. Come back, leave the attitude in the short and you can dance with some warm honey. Or keep the attitude and whack me. Win, win.”
“Man you screwed up in the head, right?”
“Dude, dude, you do not know the half of it.”
He comes back the next night, tells me his name, John Luke. I send some drinks over to his table where he is trying to score some points with a lovely lass.
Mostly it doesn't go that way. Mostly ends with a threat to remove our genitals or fuck our girlfriends or some other empty bullshit.
The front porch always has more drama than The Globe. Our bounce staff now exceeds our waitresses and DJ’s combined. Manuel from Cuba, knows some martial arts, he is peaceful, some. Steve is Black, big and smart. Greg is a burn victim, his face is melted and he has no fingertips, raised in the ghetto he is a scary badass. Lark and I are, well, we are us. To keep the tide of trouble out of the club, we build a dam that consists of bouncers, dress code, $2 door charge and body search. This works for a few more weeks.
It’s Saturday night. It’s July, we are having a mini heat wave. Not bad, just still warm at 10 PM. Lark is on the porch. Steve is on the porch. Mom is on the porch. A Candy Red dropped Chevelle stops in the middle of the street and a cat in his early twenties gets out of the passenger seat and moves with intention toward the door. If he ain’t a dealer, he plays one on TV.
“Sorry sir, no one over eighteen allowed.” Larkin uses polite words but his voice is flat. Hard.
“Fuck it.” The man pushes Lark’s chest. Lark stumbles back, but doesn’t fall. Steve is across the porch dealing with his own trouble. Lark squares himself and moves in, his hands are in fists. He can sense how this will go down.
“Motherfucker, White boy please. Get the fuck-” He cocks his arm.
“Stop it this mo-” Moms steps between them. The guy's fist is already flying. It connects with a five foot nothing older White woman. She recoils back into Lark, moaning. Her arm hangs limp. The guy susses the situation. He just hit a White woman in Palo Alto. Instantly he is back in the Chevelle and gone.
The cops are called. The club is shut down for the night. Some of the rougher kids are pissed. They all want their money back, even the ones I know slipped in the back door. Seeing Moms get hit hasn’t put Lark in a forgiving mood. He’s barking. Snapping. Paul, our friend and sound tech takes Lark into the office for some strong rum therapy. Steve and I get this bitch shut down. Nobody is happy on either side of this dealio. But it is Saturday night, a whole week before we open again. I’m sure it will have chilled by then.
Lark and Paul and me all go to the hospital, Mom has her shoulder set. It was dislocated. She has a spreading hematoma in the shape of a fist. Lark stares at the bruise. Hard. We get Mom home and in bed, loaded up on Percodan for her pain. We each borrow two for our pain. You can tell a good drug one of two ways, you have the doctor's Drug Reference Guide, or you read the label, Percodan take 1 every 4 hours for pain. Do not mix with alcohol. Do not operate heavy equipment. Bingo! We chase the pills with rum. Not an MD in the group, but we know our medicine.
“They can't skate on this little brother.”
“No, they can’t.”
“Cops won’t find them.”
“Cops won’t try. They think it’s our own fault for bringing Blacks into their city.”
“Then it’s on us.” I have no idea what he means. It doesn’t matter. I’m down.
The Firebird crosses over the bridge, moving like the predator it is. Paul is riding shotgun. He doesn’t think this is a good idea. But he loves our mother, like many of my friends do. So Paul is in for a pound. Behind him, I sit loading my military S&W with homemade hollow points. When I snap the cylinder into place, Paul looks back. I can see the flash of fear in his eyes. But he sacks up and keeps it to himself.
Stallings Boys are rolling hard tonight. My mind is too busy running possible scenarios to worry.
“There they are.” I look up and across the street to Speedy Liquors.
“You sure that’s them?” Lark is the only one who saw their faces.
“It’s their car.”
Lark pulls into the parking lot. His headlights sweep across four men all over twenty. All prison hard. Lark parks the car sideways so that the passenger window faces the men.
“Josh, one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t hit me.” He winks. We are running on the perfect combination of rum, Percodan and adrenaline. I watch Lark move around the hood of the car. The men are smoking and drinking out of brown paper bags.
“Paul, roll that window down now and get on the floor.” He doesn’t ask why, we are traveling way outside his four dots. I cock the revolver. I lock in on the men. The tall one in the middle is clearly the alpha. He goes first. I am rationally deciding who I will shoot and in what order. Lark is careful not to put his body between them and me.
Lark is speaking to them; I can’t hear anything over Radio Free KSOL playing on every car that passes us.
Lark turns and walks back to the Firebird. I don’t let
my focus leave the men until Lark is behind the steering wheel. “Wasn’t him.”
“You sure?”
“Said it didn’t I?”
We cruise East Palo Alto for two more hours and never see the guy. I have no proof, but I suspect the guy in front of the liquor store was the same guy who hit Moms. I suspect that was an alley Lark chose to turn right at. I don’t ask him. He doesn’t offer.
In bed that night I fall apart. All the fear floods into my head. Tears run down my face. I know I would have killed those men. Somewhere inside I am broken. Not a moral man. My father and other Quakers went to jail defending nonviolence. My grandfather was proud to have never discharged his service revolver outside of a range. And I’m in a car calmly planning which life to end first. My brother tells me a gun is a totem that makes him feel safe. They make me feel afraid. Afraid of what I am capable of. Afraid of arming the beast. Afraid I won’t need the beast to act with dark intention.
I am 50. I am editing a trailer for a Johnny Depp animated film. Early stages, just pencil tests. Animatics. My cell buzzes and I know it’s Lark, not some brother bond thing. It’s Wednesday, he brings the program to the jail on Wednesday. He gives back to the kids we didn’t become. When we say, there but for the grace of God go I, it ain’t a metaphor.
“What are you writing about?”
“My-O-My.”
“What a ride that was. I tell you what, man. That was...”
“Yeah it was.”
“There are three times I felt totally emasculated. ”
“Only three?” I joke uncomfortably.
“My first week at Ravenswood I was robbed in the locker room.”
“You went in the locker room?”
“Yeah I didn’t have anyone to tell me not to.”
“Who robbed you?”
“No one actually, I just gave him my stuff. He asked and I gave it to him. I gave him my manhood. Second time was when that cat broke Mom’s shoulder. I got drunk, and took out the pistols and did a Travis Bickle in the mirror. I felt like if I didn’t kill the guy who hit Mom I wasn’t a man.”
All the Wild Children Page 14