Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood

by A. J. Albany

  III.

  One Sunday, Mom took me to the park, along with two goofballs chased down by a bottle of Ripple. She was perfectly elegant when she passed out. She would fall with grace and pick herself up like a queen who’d fallen off her throne. Halfway through the park, she was facedown in a little stream. My biggest fear was that the water spiders might attack her, so I tried to pull her out, but I was a skinny kid and it was to no avail. When a man walking by stopped and asked, “Is that your mom, kid? Are you all right?” I decided to simply sit by her trying to look carefree.

  “Yeah, we’re fine, thanks—she’s resting,” I said with shaky authority. Previous experiences had made me reluctant to ask for help. The man left but looked suspicious, and I started really shaking her, saying that the police were on their way, which got a slight response out of her. After a seemingly endless amount of time, she started to shift, and was finally able to make it to her feet. Somehow we made it back home. That evening, Mom confided: “When you were born, I could see you were Joe’s baby and not some trick’s kid, so I decided to keep you.” One week later, she left without a word. I was five years old, and it would be years before I’d see her again.

  part two

  pops

  It was in late 1967 that my father worked with the great Louis Armstrong. I’d been a big fan since infancy, according to my dad, who said I’d laugh and dance madly the second I heard the gravelly voice of Satchmo. At five, I slept with a 78 of “Sugar Blues”—or maybe it was “Sugar Foot Strut”—that was pressed on blue vinyl.

  So it was arranged that I would accompany Dad to work one night to meet my hero. I can’t remember where this club was. It was more of a hall, really, bright and big, and when we walked inside, it was wall-to-wall people. Dad, at six feet, looked over the top of this crowd, spotted Mr. Armstrong, and pushed us through toward the front. Everyone started to part, like in a movie, and looked down at me, a sea of smiling faces that made me all the more nervous. As the last few people moved aside, there he sat on a chair, looking straight at me with a bigger-than-huge smile, arms outstretched. “You must be little Jo I’ve heard so much about,” he said, drawing me to him. I corrected him that my name was Amy Jo—I was always embarrassed by my dad’s litany of nicknames. “Well, Miss Amy Jo, I’ve got a song that’s just about you,” at which point he stood me directly in front of him while my dad got on the piano—I’m afraid I can’t recall the other musicians—and started to sing the verse to “Once in Love with Amy.” I was frozen. I kept staring at his knees. Here was this man, better than Santa or God to me, singing my song. I almost blacked out—just kept concentrating on his kneecaps, too terrified to blink. Afterward, he gave me a hug and a sloppy kiss, and I stayed there until I fell asleep that night. Two days later, Dad gave me an autographed picture: “To little Amy-Jo, always in love with you—Pops.” That became my new item to sleep with, right up to the day it mysteriously disappeared. It probably found its way to the pawnshop.

  visiting day

  In January 1968, Dad played out and did a three-month stretch at CRC—California Rehabilitation Center in Corona. Every couple of weeks, one of my father’s two sisters would drive my grandmother and me out to visit him. When I was young, my aunts’ glamour, as I perceived it, was the stuff of movies. They were a symphony of shiny jewels, bright lips, and voluptuous décolleté. Between the long drive and the dueling perfumes that competed for space in the airtight car, I’d spend the whole trip throwing up and dry-heaving into a beige plastic bucket that was provided for just such occasions.

  The prison garb at CRC was all denim, with dark blue denim button-down shirts. There was a large visiting room

  with round tables and slick Formica floors, great for sliding across. Dad seemed to find religion during this time, at least partly because access to the center’s piano was through the pastor. One of his strange, often beautiful letters to me began, “Darling Daughter, may the great and gentle savior smile on you, and His divine hand touch you with benevolence and benediction.” It sounded like he was tripping.

  Visiting days were my singular source of joy, and the best part of these visits—next to seeing Dad—were my encounters with the vending machines. There were at least ten vending machines that dispensed everything imaginable, the most impressive being a cocoa machine that gave you the option of ordering plain, with marshmallows, or “extra rich,” whatever that meant, and you could see it being made through a tiny magic window. While I emptied handfuls of dimes into the machines—stocking up for the pukefest on the ride home—Dad would sit with his mom and a sister, listening distractedly to the latest news, hands folded on the table, head of soft curls nodding slowly. I’d look at him, admiring his strong, straight mouth, Roman nose of distinction, and overcast colored eyes that always caught mine, and when they did, something lovely would pass between us. I’d go home and cry to think of it and spend much of my life looking for that connection with someone else.

  For the three months Dad was at CRC, I lived with my grandmother. Gram was born Angela Stella Cecelia LaRocca in Philadelphia in 1903, first-generation Sicilian and Calabrese. We lived in a duplex on Wilton Place between Franklin Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard, and I attended school when I was well enough, but usually I was sick, battling chronic asthma.

  One consolation was the stereo. I was holding on to Dad’s records for him. I also had a book on Greek mythology with great, gory pictures in it that I must have read twenty times. It was a comfort to read about the gods and goddesses who suffered far worse than I did—Cronus eating his children, et cetera. It more than compensated for my prior shaving cream consumption. I’d marvel as Gram’s old able hands rolled out sheets of fresh pasta for ravioli that were so thin you could see through them. She even made her own sausages and let me crank the meat into the casing. She could combine three simple ingredients—tomato, garlic, and olive oil—and turn them into something worth living for. “Time,” she’d say, “is the secret. You can’t rush cooking. That and a good iron pan.”

  At night we’d sit together on her old olive green sofa and I’d listen to sad tales of missed opportunities with “good guys” from her past who she could have, should have married instead of Grandpop, who she usually referred to as “the jerk who couldn’t even dance.” Sometimes Gram would put on a record and we’d dance to an Italian mazurka or “The Lady in Red.” She’d take out the Ouija board and make it move, I swear to God, without even touching it. Strong, sad, loyal, and leagues above everybody, Gram was a martyred saint. The only woman I ever loved.

  the witch of wilton place

  Gram had a real bona fide witch in her neighborhood named Grace Moon. Though most of the kids crossed the street to avoid her old, ivy-strangled craftsman house, I was drawn to it like a magnet. Exotic smells and great music always wafted out through her open door, and she had many friendly cats. I’d been obsessed with the possibility of modern-day witches, particularly lovely ones, ever since seeing the movie Bell, Book, and Candle.

  For a while, I just milled around the front porch playing with her pet Siamese, Beelzebub, until one day she invited me in for a cup of nasty-tasting tea. I was bowled over by her record collection, which she said belonged to her old man, who was serving three years in Chino Prison for some undisclosed crime. Grace was nice, but she was on junk, and it crossed my mind that she might know Dad, since they shared a common interest. I came to understand later that most addicts were solitary souls. They were too paranoid and entrenched in the business of securing their next fix to be bothered with socializing. It was a hard and crooked road to travel.

  At Grace’s house, I would sit and listen to the Stones’ Out of Our Heads a hundred times over, and it never seemed to faze her. I knew from experience with my dad when it was all right to speak, and when the sound of my or anyone else’s voice would be as welcome as a mouthful of rusty nails. My mother had read palms, tarot cards, the stars, and whatever else struck her fancy, but Grace added spell books, rituals, and potion
s made from dragons’ blood and bats’ balls into the mix, which was terribly exciting to a kid like myself, hell-bent on escaping her life.

  Mrs. Broad, the old fossil living to Grace’s left, was known by all to be a mean dose of trouble who hated just about everything. After she proudly announced one morning that she had poisoned Grace’s favorite cat Spooky for entering her yard, Grace cast a mighty spell on her. Five days after the incident, word spread that Mrs. Broad had miraculously contracted oral gonorrhea. The hygienic Mrs. Broad, who’d been a lifelong spinster with a frigid disdain for human contact, was now relegated to a life of antibiotics and peroxide gargles. Grace took credit for it, and I for one wasn’t going to argue with her. Once I asked why she didn’t consider casting a spell on herself that would end her heroin habit. She looked at me with eyes that were jewels from a sunken treasure. “I have no desire to stop.” Until then, that possibility never occurred to me.

  Once Grace’s husband was released, we lost touch. Now the door was always locked, the heavy black curtains were drawn, and even the cats were kept inside. Grace was stricken from my memory in the usual expedient way I’d become accustomed to. The trick was to keep enough distance between yourself and all the transitory unreliables you’d meet from the get-go. It was the only way to handle the disappointment that came when they invariably decided to dismiss you.

  koko

  After Dad’s release, we moved into the St. Francis Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard, just west of Western. It was a nondescript four-story brick building with a large lobby and small rooms that housed a vast assortment of misfits. It’s where we would reside, periodically, over the next few years.

  There was a fire escape just outside our window at the St. Francis. Fire escapes are sublime. I spent endless days and nights out there, watching madness and nothing at all, from the safety of three stories up. The old Hollywood House of Billiards was catty-corner to the hotel. I loved to watch the sharp-looking hustlers with alligator cue cases, and the not-so-sharp suckers who’d get drunk and grifted, come and go. The corner of Hollywood and Western was always alive.

  If the fire escape was my sanctuary, then staying in the care of Koko the clown was my damnation. Dad wasn’t working too much around this time, and his habit started raging. However, his reputation did land him the occasional job. Some of his gigs were in hardcore titty bars, which was both sad and demeaning for a musician of his caliber. It was during these seedy jobs that I would be left with our friendly neighbor Koko, who—according to him—had been Barnum and Bailey’s biggest circus star back in the day. Koko was bald except for a few tufts of orange hair. His eyes were the mad eyes of a ferret, and his skin was shiny and pink. He had no eyebrows and reminded me of the sideshow geek in Nightmare Alley. He did a lot of mescaline, if I remember right, and he made me a very nervous six-year-old.

  Koko had lots of little games he liked to play, like Find Mr. Elephant—a can-you-grab-the-elephant’s-trunk (i.e., his dick) kind of game. He could never get me to do it. I was a fairly sharp kid and just sat in silent repulsion while he squealed and jumped around, basically got himself off. To his credit, he never hurt me, never forced me into anything. I think he adored me, in his own way. He would always bring me little broken toys he’d found and make up songs: “A.J. is an angel bright who lights up Koko clownie’s night.” I never told my father about Koko’s game—I knew Dad would kill him if he found out, and then I’d really be screwed. A year later, Koko threw himself over a freeway overpass and died. Dad was hesitant to tell me. Over dinner one night he said, “Koko has gone away, A.J., but he liked you very much.” Indeed he did.

  magic gizmo

  Trying to look out for yourself at all of six years old can be a brain-twisting experience. Sometimes I’ll walk by a kid now and be able to tell immediately, that’s where their life is at. You can recognize it in the hard way they set their face, and in the eyes, at once empty and wise, ready to weep and tell you to fuck off at any time. I look at them and see myself as a kid.

  Joy in its various forms is strictly a luxury item. There’s no room for frivolous thoughts when your stomach is empty and the next day is an uncertainty. Ever watchful and cautious, you’re on the lookout for cops, molesters, shopkeepers, landlords, and all the “well-intentioned” adults who are full of concern only when their schedule allows. Now and then someone comes along, dangling a candy apple full of false hope and poison in your face, and for an instant your battered wisdom is knocked unconscious by the possibility of a proper meal or soft pillow. Crazy as it sounds, at times one kind smile in your direction is all it takes. Suddenly your guard is down, and you abandon your credo for survival: “Say nothing, trust no one.”

  I forgot this on a couple of occasions, and ended up in the company of some creep who promised me salvation all wrapped up in ribbons, if I’d only sit on his lonely lap for a while. “Let me show you my magic gizmo,” said one.

  “That’s not magic,” I answered, dodging his advances with the help of quick reflexes and sheer dumb luck. Turning out of the alley, I felt completely numb, as I made my way back to nowhere with the determination that somewhere, surely, couldn’t be far off.

  hollywood and vine

  I always looked forward to our weekly visits to the musicians’ union on Vine Street. Dad would go in to check for possible work and take a minute to flirt with Agnes at the front desk, who hounded him because his dues were always in arrears. They had a recreation room there with a pool table and a television where I’d go to watch the guys shoot eight ball, though with all the smoke, it was pretty hard to see.

  After these visits, we’d head north to the late, great corner of Hollywood and Vine. I thought it was tops, even as late as ’68, ’69. There was the Big Owl drugstore on the southeast corner where I’d shoplift, and the Broadway Department Store on the southwest, where I’d do likewise. There was the Firefly, where my dad and Charlie Parker had played—though perhaps not together—and the Brown Derby with the fancy Bamboo Room next door, where I went once for my birthday. Best of all was the On Tray Cafeteria, the best cafeteria, in my opinion, ever. Every time we walked in, Billy Barty, the “little actor with the big career,” would be holding court at one of the tables. Somehow my dad knew him. He would wave us over, always with a cigar in his mouth, and have me sit in his lap. Billy was less than four feet tall. It’s a little strange, sitting in a midget’s lap, but I adored him. He was very animated, as was his circle of colorful friends—guys with names like Lefty, an ex-middleweight southpaw, and Jocko, an alcoholic jockey. I would sit eating my neon Jell-O in sheer heaven, listening to their stories. It was better than Damon Runyon.

  My dad, being very funny, a big boxing fan, and an old movie buff, fit in nicely with everyone. Billy called him “Jersey Joe.” All of these places are gone now, but back then, the four corners of Hollywood and Vine held some of my brightest memories.

  meeting the chairman

  In the summer of ’68, Dad and I took a Greyhound bus down to Palm Springs, where he was booked on a two-week gig with a singer named Jimmy Valentino at some mob nightclub. Jimmy was sort of a Vic Damone knockoff, lots of Brylcreem and pinky rings, who smiled too often. What a mismatch they were, but times were lean—Dad took what work he could get. Once in Palm Springs, he hooked up with a local named Dorothy. She was very attractive, a showgirl past her prime but well preserved. Her high baby-blond hairdo was perfectly set and never moved a step out of place. Dorothy’s tan was a little well done. She kept her smile tight and controlled so as not to enhance the appearance of laugh lines around her frosty blue eyes.

  Dorothy started showing up at every show and coming back to our motel at night. She seemed fairly normal. There was no sign of the weirdness to come. Dad finished fairly early at the club. Palm Springs isn’t exactly hopping past a certain hour, and we’d get back in time to see the last half of Johnny Carson and have a pastrami sandwich before bed. One night, Dad stepped outside to fill the ice bucket when he suddenly gasped, jum
ped back in the room, and locked the door. “Get under the bed,” he said to me frantically, waving his arms, which I didn’t do. A second later, Dorothy was pounding on the door, screaming things like “You fucking greaseball musician, I’m going to kill you!” Dad and I went to the side window and peeked out to see her stabbing the door with a pair of haircutting scissors, and each time she lunged, her patent leather purse with gold chain strap fell down, and she kept hitching it up, stabbing at the door. I asked my dad what he did to her, why she was mad, but he wouldn’t bite—just shrugged. I’ve wondered, over the years, what would’ve set her off like that. Maybe he gave her the clap or something.

  After fifteen minutes of this, it became apparent that the only thing she was going to hurt was her scissors. We looked at each other and started laughing until we cried, jumping on the bed with my dad doing an evil impersonation of poor old Dorothy out there. It was very surreal. The best part came two nights later, when Jimmy Valentino showed up at the club with Dorothy on his arm. Dad pulled him aside and said, “Good luck, paisan,” and left it at that. Jimmy and Dad didn’t get along too well.

  Aside from the crazy dame incident, the only other highlight in the desert was meeting Frank Sinatra. He came into the club one night, listened to the music for a couple of hours, then waved my dad over during his break. They had an animated chat about New Jersey, their mothers, baseball, just a couple of nice Italian boys. He bought me a Shirley Temple, shook my dad’s hand, told him, “You’ve got a great book, kid,” put a hundred dollars in the tip kitty, and left. I’ve been down to Palm Springs a few times since then without my dad, but didn’t like it too much. Anywhere I went with him sparkled like a fun fair.