New Orleans, May 2003 

"The Ride"

The Ride

Copyright By

Michael McAteer

In Cramer Hill, the neighborhood in Camden New Jersey where I grew up, fathers were a rare commodity. I didn't have one in 1968, and out of the eight or nine kids in my tight circle of friends only two had dads. Of course we all had fathers at one point or another, but fathers in Cramer Hill seemed to have a habit of flickering and fading away early, like the light from a cheap candle.


Of my two friends who did have dads, Val and Nick, I think their Dads may have loved them a little too much. In their dad's eyes, they could do no wrong. I guess it was this love that made them bold and gave them the confidence to be our ringleaders. Nick or Val inspired just about every adventure we got into. Usually Nick. In 1968 Nick and Val were fifteen years old, older than I was by a year. They were the first in our gang to hit puberty and they were proud of it, never passing up a chance to show off their new manliness. They were also the most mechanically inclined. I guess because they had dads. They were two natural engineers. I was never with them when they hot-wired a car, but they did come by and take me for a joy ride occasionally. The rides were always short, just a couple of hours, and the owner always got the car back as good as when it was taken. Except once, when Nick turned into the woods and decided to see if he could do with a '64 Chevy Impala what Evil Kneivel does with a motorcycle. When I realized he was serious, I unbuckled my seat belt and rolled out of the car while he shot for a fifteen-foot high mound of dirt. The engine was smoking and screaming when they hit it. The car flipped end over end and slammed down squarely on all four wheels. Val and Nick escaped, laughing like madmen, just before the car burst into flames. These guys were charmed, every day of the week. The hand of the law was greasy when it came to Val and Nick. It could never get a grip on them, no matter how often it tried. The longest stretch they ever did in Juvy' was three days, though they had been notorious since they were twelve.

Anytime Nick or Val got into trouble, their dads would just shrug and laugh it off as the kind of things boys do. Out of all of my friends, the two with dads were the only ones to go to prison as adults. Its possible the other Cramer Hill dads, the cheap-candle, quick to burn-out kind, knew something Val and Nicks dads didn't; that Cramer Hill dads tended to do more damage than good if they stayed.

Cramer Hill was a dangerous place to be fatherless. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the vacuuming power of a father vacancy can draw in all kinds of junk. In places like Cramer Hill, there are no shortages of Fagin's, trolling for boys to do their dirty work or Sligo's, offering free trips to Pleasure Island, only to transform and enslave them as braying Jackasses.
Cramer Hill boys knew allowances only as something that TV kids got weekly, like on "The Brady Bunch" or "Father Knows Best". Middle-aged homosexual men cruised the entire city, propositioning boys directly with cash. Others were subtle, making an acquaintance and then deviously assuming a fatherly role. They would usually offer an attractive sum to do some chore at their home like yard work. Other well paying odd jobs may follow, and as time progressed, the predator would feign an empathy and interest in the boy. Soon they were going to ball games, carnivals and shopping together. Whenever the kid needed a ride somewhere, the fag would be there in a hurry. Eventually the evil one would make his sexual advance. Some kids were seduced, ensnared in the Svengali's influence, made forever ill by his toxic vapors.

Often other boys, of a stronger nature, would string the creep along and take him for what he was worth, then spit in his eye and break off contact, just before the molester could make his move. One neighborhood boy, Ian Sweeney, did this often, and was adept at it too. When he was sixteen he was killed by one of his jilted benefactors. The killer sneaked through his bedroom window one summer night, put a '45 to Ian's back and blew his heart out of his chest. On the run, the murderer terrorized us for weeks as rumors of his being seen in the neighborhood circulated. He was captured in the attic of an abandoned home two-blocks from Ian's house. The molester-to-be told the police that if he could not have Ian no one would.

Until Ian's death, I regarded the solicitous perverts as a minor nuisance, just part of Cramer Hills infernal landscape. It would never occur to any boy to call the police, since the police treated all Cramer Hill boys with disdain, whether they were predisposed to commit an act of delinquency or not. If you were a good kid, the cops just figured you were good at getting away with whatever bad thing you were doing. Many boys succumbed to the material offerings, dark arts, and psychological pressures of these most talented queer vermin. Once a boy did, he was kept at arm length from those who would not, but he was not a total outcast either. Just somebody you used to know but is Queer Harry's little friend now. Just part of the landscape.
As I became older, a desire for respect and dignity grew in me also. I think it came from my Grandmothers, who had very high standards for themselves and others. Whenever I was caught, or about to get caught doing something, my first thought was a fear that either of my grandmothers would find out.

Ian's death made me mad. Being stalked as prey began to grate on my changing self-image and vision of what a better life and a better neighborhood should be. One night, while walking home about ten-o-clock, a man cruised by slowly in a new Cadillac and it really pissed me off. Fatherless neighborhoods are always good hunting grounds for predators. It is a law of nature, whether lions or hyenas, that when stalking the herd, identify the weak or injured, and attack there.

Cramer Hill is bounded on three sides by a large curving rail freight yard, and the Delaware River on another. There is no way to get into Cramer Hill without crossing a bridge. Between the neighborhood and the river, is a swath of woods and tall swamp weeds, about two hundred yards wide. It is a haven for illegal dumping, illicit drug, drinking, and an occasional suicide or murder. It is and always has been littered with condoms, booze bottles and old porn magazines. "Considering perverts and misfits, I now recall Fritz and Heinz. They were a couple of middle aged pot-bellied ex-Nazi soldiers who emigrated together from Germany and settled in Cramer Hill I know not when. They liked little boys and girls, and let their house be a hangout. Empty beer bottles littered the house, dirty dishes and laundry decorated the rooms, and the yard was dirt and trash. Cigarette puffing pre-teen boys and girls had the run of the place, like the boys turned jackass on Pleasure Island. Fritz and Heinz would sometimes put on a drunken show, goose-stepping in their jackboots, underwear and Nazi helmets. They would parade around, boisterously singing Nazi Party songs, yelling "Heil Hitler!' and reveling in their Nazi-ness to the delight of the kids. Sometimes they would get a train of kids following them through the house and yard and back again, imitating their every move in a Third Reich conga line.

But what scared me from ever entering that house was the wrestling matches that were a Fritz and Heinz mainstay. They claimed to have been professional wrestlers in Germany. They sure looked like it. They would put on demonstrations for the kids, then offer to teach them some holds and techniques. It was during one of these lessons that I first caught sight of Fritz and Heinz. I was about ten or eleven years old. I had heard about this place, and walked over there to see if there was someone I could bum a cigarette from. I walked down the skinny alley along their house to the yard. Fritz's eyes lit up when he saw me, like I was a T-bone steak. On occasion I would tentatively approach kids lingering near the house for a smoke, but I never encountered the Krauts up close again.

There is no shortage of surrogate fathers in neighborhoods like Cramer Hill.
Burglars and other felonious types always kept an eye out for a protégé. A fatherless boy is always cash strapped, if he is too young for working papers. Any seasoned criminal knows that.

Enough felons had the beat of the neighborhood down to the point it was constantly worked. A young kid can get away with a lot more than an adult can. An eleven or twelve year old casing the house next door just looks like he is "playing army" to an adult. And kids have the pulse of the neighborhood down better than anyone does. They have an internal clock so precise that they can stand in an alley and know that in ten seconds they will hear your shower go on, Mrs. Donohue will shout for Mitchell to come in and Mr. DiNardo's Buick will pull up any second. They know who is going to be on the street when they turn the corner, who is home and who isn't. And when you'll be back. And when your neighbors are distracted and busy. And what it takes to open that window. Every kid can do this, whether he has any intentions or not. A Fagin who knew a fatherless boy who was in tune to the neighborhood has inspired many a life of crime.

By the time I was in fifth grade, I pretty much detested authority of any kind. I gave all authority figures as wide a berth as those German wrestlers. On the first day of fifth grade I darted to the back of the room to claim a seat as far as I could from the teacher. Behind me, at arm length, was a bookshelf with one hundred blue little reader biographies of America's most important historical characters. They fit snugly and secretly inside my large math book, and allowed me to fool the nun into thinking I was studying my fractions diligently. It was my first exposure to History. I was thrilled by the exploits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Mad Anthony Wayne, Ulysses Grant and others. Every book started with when they were boys, about my age. None of them had ever been in trouble, (except for George. You know, the cherry tree scandal) had been studious, polite and ambitious. I was fooled and awed completely. Although it would take a lot more to take the Huckleberry Finn out of me than 100 little readers, those books took a lot of rough edges off of me. When the blue readers ran out, I began checking biographies out of the library.

That same year, 1965, I lied about my age and got a paper route. The current and real world exploded into my consciousness. VIETNAM, MALCOM X, LYNDON JOHNSON, McNAMARA, BUDDHIST SELF-IMMOLATION, DIEM, CIVIL RIGHTS, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, STUDENT UPRISINGS. I began to recognize and search for greatness, the same greatness in my little blue readers, within the content of the newspapers I delivered. One man seemed to stand out above all others; Martin Luther King. His arguments seemed irrefutable, and he just emanated kindness. I considered myself a fan of his and my respect and admiration for him just grew with the subsequent years. Kids intuitively know a good man from a bad man, and don't need one hundred blue readers to show them who are who. King often talked about all gods' children, and he seemed like he really cared. I never believed in a god that talks to people, but I always believed in people who talk to god. I've never been one to pray myself, but it seems to me that people who pray are often the best kind of people. I felt that god was as absent as a Cramer Hill father every where I looked, but Martin Luther King was a pretty good surrogate for gods children.

Dominick Amoroso was the same age as me, on this night in 1968. He would meet anyone's strict definition of a sweet kid. He was always the most polite out of our gang, he loved his mom and did everything right. He liked everybody and would never curse or say anything bad about anyone. Why he hung out with us I couldn't tell you. Maybe, out of all the kids in Cramer Hill, despite our occasional joy rides and rowdiness, we arguably were the least bad kids in Cramer Hill. So maybe Dominick just ended up with us by default.
Brian and Mitchell Devlin were another two fixtures in our crowd. Brian was older, and the one I felt closest to. Brian was a certified genius and never got a grade lower than "A" his whole life.

He had a sixth sense about when we were about to get into trouble, and would always leave before the shit hit the fan. His sixth sense must have failed him this night. Mitchell was dangerously impulsive, quick tempered and liked to fight you for no reason. He really was just tolerated, for Brian's sake. Mitchell could often be agreeable, but he always made you nervous. In later years he would take a little too big a hit of LSD once and spend the rest of his life on a trip he never returned from.

My brother Patrick is a year younger than I am. He really had a crowd of his own but we often hung out together. I always figured he wished he had been with his regular gang this night. Many years later I said this to him and he was surprised.
"No way". "No way in hell would I have wanted to miss that night. Miss The Ride? Are you kidding?"

So forever after we just refer to this night as "The Ride".

We were all together this night, Val, Nick, Dominick, Brian, Mitchell, Patrick and me.
Now there are all kinds of fathers, and to some boys just a father to drive you around town is father enough. Nick and Vals dads loved them, but not enough to give them, let alone us, a ride somewhere every time one was needed. Walking across town this night, we spotted a '52 Plymouth on sale for seventy-five dollars. Nick became excited.
"How much money do we have between us? Lets count it." The count came to twenty-seven dollars and some cents. Nick asked me, "Did you turn in your paper route collections yet?"

"No way. I can't spend that! I'll go to jail!
The rest of the group cajoled me with promises to pay me back tomorrow.
"Look, if we don't come up with the money, the car is all yours. How can you lose?
This made sense, sort of, so I caved in.

Nick grabbed my money, bounded up the driveway and knocked on the door. A man answered and surveyed our gang suspiciously.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Like to buy your car"
"I can't sell a car to a bunch of little kids"
"You don't understand mister. We're in auto shop at Vocational School. We have to have a car to work on or we get flunked out."

Nick was always quick with a lie.

"Well that’s different. I'll be happy to sell a bunch of good boys like you that car. Not much for you to work on though. It's in perfect condition. I took good care of that car. Seventy-five bucks. I'll go get the title."
"Wait", said Nick. "We only have fifty dollars".
"Well, I'm sorry then. Come back when you have all the money."
He was closing the door on Nick when Val ran to the top of the steps, tears about to burst from his eyes.
"Please mister, please. If I flunk out of Vocie my father will kill me. Please sell us that car."

They rest of us did our best to fake that we were upset or gonna cry.
"Alright damn it. I'll get the title and keys."
He went inside and Val and Nick winked at us. The man came back and handed Nick the title and keys.

"You little kids can't drive that car. How you going to get it out of here?"
"We'll push it to my house and my dad will get it over to school for us in the morning'" Nick said.
"Very well. You boys get an "A" for me in that auto class, okay?"
"Yes sir mister", we shouted back, seven innocent little cherubs, "Thank you mister".
"God bless you and your family sir" Nick yelled to the man.

Nick may have reached puberty, but he was still the smallest guy in our gang. He got behind the wheel, but was too short to see over the steering wheel, and had to stretch all the way to reach the floor pedals.
"Dominick, give me your books, so I can see over the wheel".
Dominick always had his schoolbooks with him. The only way Dominick's mother would let him out of the house was if he was going to the library, so every evening he said he was going to the library. He had no clue what the inside of a library even looked like. You would think his mother would have caught on since he was getting straight "D's since first grade. Dominick might have had a premonition early on that for him studying would be a waste of time. A little more than four years after this night and two days after Dominick would get his drivers license, a drunk driver would run a red light at high speed, and broadside Dominick's car. His brain damage would be permanent and so severe that he would never talk again or control his limbs, he would shake violently and have his mental capacity reduced to that of a three-year old. And like I said,

Dominick was the sweetest, kindest and most innocent kid Cramer Hill ever produced.
Dominick gave up his books and Nick peered over the steering wheel.
"Now I can't reach the pedals!"
Val the engineer told him. "Take one book out, lower yourself and look through the steering wheel".

Nick did it. "That works", he said.
Nick put the car in neutral and steered it as the other boys pushed. It was a three speed on the column. As soon as we were out of sight of the mans house who sold us the car, we stopped. Val took a screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and stole the license plates off a parked car.
Hurriedly, Val and Nick placed the tags on the Plymouth and jumped back in. Nick was behind the wheel, Val was next to him as co-pilot, and I was in the front passenger side. The other four jumped in back.

"Gino's Big Burger, here we come!" we exclaimed.
"Crank it up!" we yelled.
We were all in such an excited state. The engine roared smoothly.
"Damn that engine sounds great. Lets get to Gino's and pick up some girls."
Nick held down the clutch while he looked for a gear.
"Peel rubber man!" we shouted.
Nick revved the engine louder, holding down the clutch, still-hunting a gear. The car sounded like it was itching to break loose.
"Hey Nick, you do know how to peel rubber don't you?" someone asked.
"Fuckin' ay I do!" Nick responded.
"Then smoke these tires man. Lets go!"
Val looked quizzingly at the gearshift. "Is that first gear?" he asked
"Yeah its first gear. What do you think I'm stupid?
"Whoee! Let's go!" shouted the rest of us.
"It looks like third gear. If that’s third gear, we'll stall" Val said.
Four or five of us started singing the Gino's radio commercial. "Everybody goes to Ginos, ' cause Gino's is the place to go!"
"Its first gear" Nick answered, revving the engine louder. He let the clutch out. The stick shift was not in third, it was in reverse. The Plymouth shot backwards like a screaming Banshee out of Hell, tires spewing smoke and flame. We all screamed, while Nick kept his wits and maintained control of the car. The car shot backwards through an intersection, causing mayhem but striking nothing. Nick practically stood straight up on the brake pedal and struggled to steer the car by seeing in the rearview mirror. The car spun 180 degrees then screeched to a halt. Everyone held their breath for another second then shouted in jubilation, "That was great!"

Now we thought that Gino's was the hippest place in Jersey as far as high school hangouts go. It was in what we considered to be an upper-class snobby suburb, Cinnaminson, forbidden territory for us as far as the people of that community were concerned. To be from Camden is the bottom of the social caste system in South Jersey. Gino's still seemed pre-Sixties, unaffected by the turbulence of the times. Girls from sororities and jocks in lettered sweaters hung out here, just like their younger aunts and uncles, or older brothers and sisters. The times may have been a changin', but not at Gino's. And the girls were soooo pretty and developed. These were the vestiges of the last innocent tribe in America.

Into the parking lot pulled seven midgets in a sharp looking '52 Plymouth. They got out and strutted like roosters across the parking lot, nodding and winking at the older, much taller girls. They were hot stuff, a bunch of barely teen, bad-asses from Camden, come to steal the women and nobody but nobody better try and stop them.
A girl in a lettered sweater said to another, "They're not midgets, they're little kids".
Our crew was getting the full attention of the high schoolers, who were drawing closer for a better look.

One of the regular Gino's guys asked us, "Did you little kids drive that car in here?"Half of us said yeah and the other half denied it. Most of the high-schoolers were amused.
"Man, I can't believe you kids are driving around, did you steal that car?"
All the questions were getting us nervous. We avoided them, scraped up the last of our loose change and ordered milkshakes. We fanned out, prowling for chicks. Val and Nick were the most aggressive when it came to girls. Must have been the puberty. They approached a booth containing the best looking girls in the place.

"Do you mind if we sit down?" Nick asked.
The girls suppressed their giggles and slid over. Nick sat next to the most physically developed one and stared wide-eyed at her breasts until he caught himself. The girl asked him,
"Don't you go to Rutgers University?"
"Yeah, that’s right, you probably saw us at a frat party there," Nick answered.
Another girl asked him. "What is your major at Rutgers?"
"Love, baby, Love is my major".
The girls all cracked up laughing. A Doris Day wannabe said, "Isn't it past your bedtime?" to
Nick.
"Anytime I'm with a beautiful woman like you baby its bedtime" he said with a velvet tone. Nick was succeeding at charming them.
"You're a little devil aren't you?"
"Big surprises come in small packages" he answered. They giggled and thought they were having sport with him, but they were playing right into his hands. They may have been three or four years older, but Nick was light years ahead of everyone when it came to being manipulative. Ten years into the future his manipulation would take on a more sinister character. He was destined to overplay his hand one-day and he would spend most of his life in prison. But now he was just charming, and before his character turned dangerous, he would move to Texas with his mother, never to cast his spell on us again. But until he moved to Texas, we loved him and he was our leader.

"I'll bet you don't even know how to kiss" a girl said to him teasingly.
"Yeah, check this out" he boldly offered. He pulled her face smoothly down to his. She laughed at him but he just ignored her and began kissing her like he was Fabian or Frankie Avalon, or some other love god like that. She got into it, realizing that Nick may be a little younger, but he really did know how to kiss. It was a long one. She pulled back breathless and dewy eyed.
"Holy shit!" she said with satisfaction.

The next girl over grabbed Nick by the collar and pulled him close, planting her lips on his mouth and they went at it like two kissing fish. Val, being in the right place at the right time, got fussed over by the other girls and got plenty of good lip too.
The rest of us were having no luck as the girls seemed to sense we hadn't reached puberty yet or weren't very far along anyway. They brushed us off with dismissive laughs, as if we were just children. Our shakes were ready. I went over to Nick and Val.

"Come on," I said, "Half the people in here think we stole that car. We've got to get out of here before the cops come".

Nick and Val left their bevy of beauties swooning. Nick sauntered out like the Cock-of -the-Walk, winking and nodding at the rest of the girls on the way out. Some of the older boys were getting irritated and I was glad to be going.

We got back in our Plymoth laughing and in high spirits. As Nick started the engine a motorhead in a souped up '57 Chevy pulled alongside and revved his engine. Nick nodded toward the highway, the motorhead nodded back, and there we went, tires squealing and smoking, engines screaming, drag racing south-bound on New Jersey State Highway Route 130.
In seconds we were hitting speeds of 80 and 90 miles an hour. Our Plymouth was in great shape, and it had plenty more to give.

Route 130 is the main highway in South Jersey. It is six lanes wide, three in each direction with a three foot high concrete barrier in the middle, three feet wide at the base tapering to about two inches at the top.

Racing, we blew past one car after another. The motorhead toyed with us, letting us take the
lead occasionally, then easily and mockingly taking it back. Nick resented the taunting and declared we were keeping the lead no matter what. The next time Motorhead tried to take the lead, Nick cut him off, pressuring him toward the barrier. Motorhead tried to pass us on the right and Nick almost drove him off the road.

The situation was becoming serious as both cars fought for the lead, blowing one red light after another at high speed.

My heart was in my throat. One part of me was terrified; the other part was thrilled like never before. I didn't want to stop and neither did anyone else. But I believe I speak for everyone when I say the cheeks of our asses were biting the buttons in the seat upholstery.
After eight or nine minutes of this we tried to shake Motorhead off our tail by making a last second high speed turn off Route 130 onto Haddonfield Road, a two lane road, one in each direction.

Motorhead stuck to us like glue. We were doing 100 miles an hour and he was one inch from our
bumper. Suddenly he was alongside of us and passing. He had a murderous look on his face that made me shudder. Nick gave him the finger as he passed and Motorhead tried to run us off the road. Nick didn't give an inch, and when Motorhead realized that Nick would rather crash into his car than yield, he pulled back behind us, frustrated and stammering but still on our bumper.
My nerves now had all they could take. I stuck half my body out of the car, sat and positioned myself in the window frame then fired my milkshake at his windshield. The white creamy foam covered every inch of glass, blinding his view of the road entirely. He slammed on the brakes and went wildly out of control and almost flipped before coming to a stop.

My aim couldn't have been better but my timing couldn't have been worse. Two New Jersey State Troopers sitting in a car at a speed trap had a front row seat. Before Motorheads car had even come to a stop the troopers were on our tail, lights flashing and siren wailing.
I sat there in the window, my left hand gripping the clothes hook inside the car, my right hand on the door frame, and my chin on the roof, mouth open wide, frozen in disbelief. I tried to blink away this hallucinatory vision of Armageddon. But it was real. A heavy sense of doom pressed me back down inside the car.

I think I went into shock. I stared straight and stiff at the white lines flashing and disappearing beneath our car in a blur. I couldn't talk. Jimi Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower" played loudly in my head, repeating the lines over and over:
"There must be some kind of way out of here, said the Joker to the Thief…"
In the back seat everyone was in a panic and crying. Coming up ahead was Pennsauken Junior High School with its wide athletic fields between the road and the buildings.

"Listen," Nick assured us, "There is no way I'm going to let these cops catch us, so relax."
Everyone in the back just started bawling louder.
"My father will kill me if I get caught," Val said.
"Mine too'" replied Nick.
"Yeah right!" I thought to myself. "Their dads will probably buy them each a beer and say...Tell me about this exciting night you had. Sounds like it was a lot of fun..."
We shot off the road and onto the football field, under one goal post and then the other, onto the empty parking lot and then round and round the buildings, trying with no luck to shake off the troopers. The idea was to get far enough ahead off them that we could stop, scatter and out-run them on foot. But they never gave us an inch. We crisscrossed the grounds of that school over and over again, streaking the parking lot with skid marks and tearing deep rutted crazy patterns in the athletic fields.

Hopeless here, Nick took us back onto Haddonfield Road, back the way we had just come, back toward Gino's.

Nick had a determined crazed look on his face. "This could only end in a terrible crash or a complete getaway" I thought to myself. I began to worry about my younger brother in the back seat and turned around to see how he was doing. I was surprised to see that he hadn't been crying.

"Do you think we should give up?" I asked him.
He just smiled and said, "Hell no."

We were off Haddonfield Road now, back on Route 130 travelling north. The troopers pulled along side us and the one in the passenger seat aimed a bullhorn at Nick.
"Pull over now or we will shoot you."

Nick gave them the finger and rammed our car into them. He pressed them up against the barrier until the trooper car only had two wheels on the road and the other two up on top of the barrier. They were almost on their side. The sound of gnashing metal and sparks filled the air. We shot ahead of them as they came down hard back on all four tires. They caught up to us in an instant and rammed our bumper. Traffic was building in front of us. Nick picked his slots keenly and worked his way smoothly through the crowded field of cars. A couple of civilian cars tried to play hero and pinch off our escape but we rammed right through them, running them off to the side.

We got off the road and drove high speed down the sidewalk, smashing down every little thing in our way, trashcans, signposts. I could see Gino's coming up fast.
"We're going to bail out at Gino's. Get ready," Nick ordered.

I gently opened my door but held it close, not wanting to tip off the troopers. We went off the sidewalk with a bounce. Nick aimed at Gino's driveway but we missed it, hitting the curb and parking blocks with a bang that popped our front end up in the air. Somehow the troopers arrived at Gino's just as we did and they rammed us hard. We circled Gino's once hoping to shake them before heading back on Route 130 Northbound.

As we tore through Gino's parking lot, seeing the jaw-dropped looks on the faces of the teenagers we were hobnobbing with just twenty minutes earlier made this debacle almost worth it. I wish I had had a camera. I thought I noticed someone point to us in astonishment and say, "Look, its those little kids!"
In the middle of all this Nick said,"Look, there's the girl with the big tits I kissed."

Seconds later it started raining and I felt the end must be near. We really were in danger now.
"Look Nick, just stop anywhere and we'll make a run for it. At least five of us will get away."
"It would never work. The five would have to walk back through miles of suburbs to get to The Hill. I've got to get us southbound again. We're getting too far from home."

Val chimed in. "The two who got caught would talk."
"They probably already ran these stolen tags back to our neighborhood. They’ll have all entrances covered," said Brian.

"Bullshit," said Mitchell, we know ways in and out of The Hill no cop could ever cover."
"I don't want a criminal record. Let's loose these cops," said my brother Patrick.
"They're not taking me alive," said Nick.
"Me either," said Val
"We're going to crash in this rain," opinioned Dominick.
Brian, Mitchell and Dominick stopped bawling just long enough to speak up and then they went right back to it.

"We've been running too long. We're bound to hit a roadblock any minute," I said.
"I'll plow right through the son-of-a-bitch" swore Nick.
"Oh shit", I thought, "we're all going to die."
On the southbound side of the highway we could see the flashing lights of about a dozen police vehicles speeding our way.

"A couple of minutes and its all over," I said to myself. "Look at all those cops coming. I'm going to be in jail a long time if I live through this".
I felt ready to cry now myself. To our surprise, the dozen or so police cars continued speeding southbound right past us, heading toward Camden.
"That was weird. What do you think they are up to?" I wondered out loud.
Nick for the first time seemed perplexed and concerned. "I don't know. It's strange. They're up to something."

Another lame attempt by more civilians to block us in didn't slow us down a bit. We just banged right through them. The troopers got caught in the resulting mess of skewed cars. Nick floored the gas pedal.

"Here's our chance!"
Again a large contingent of police sped southbound.

The road was covered with water, the rain pouring down. Our windshield wipers weren't that good and it was a strain to see. We hit, 70, 80, 90, 100 miles an hour. I had a sensation of becoming airborne. We were hydroplaning, our tires no longer in contact with the road. The car glided on a 45-degree angle toward the telephone poles on the side of the highway. Everybody screamed but Nick. I closed my eyes, expecting death. The car hit the curb, and instead of jumping it, was ricocheted toward the barrier, again at a 45-degree angle. It smashed into the barrier and started to glide toward the curb again, like that primitive video game "Pong", but slow enough for Nick to regain control. We all started breathing again.
We whipped into the parking lot of the Blue Lantern Motel and drove toward the back.

Everyone, even Nick, had their door open and was getting ready to jump, when the troopers seemed to come out of nowhere and rear-end us again. One was hanging out the window with his gun aimed at us. We closed our doors and headed back out onto the highway. Tears began to roll down my cheeks as I thought of all the years I would soon be wasting in jail. Probably eight years, until I was twenty-one. Through our rain-splattered windshield we could see the roadblock, about a half-mile ahead.

Flying toward it at one hundred miles and hour I had no doubt Nick would try and crash through it. I blessed myself. We begged him not to do it but he wasn't listening. I could make out two cop cars blocking our path and about six cops aiming their guns at us.

At the last second, Nick spied an unblocked road veering off to our right. He jammed on the brakes and expertly got the car off the highway and on that road. But it wasn't a road, just a "jughandle" that allowed you to make a U-turn. It funneled us right into a parallel position alongside the roadblock, the best possible outcome for the police. Instead of driving into them, we would be going right past them, like ducks in a shooting gallery.

The speed at which we hit the U shaped road caused us to spin wildly out of control. As we slid past the roadblock the troopers opened up on us, guns blazing. We skidded across the highway and down an embankment. The car flipped onto its left side and then righted itself in a swamp.
I was unhurt and ready to surrender. Val pushed his way past me and made a run for it through the swamp. A cop at the top of the embankment fired warning shots over his head. Val didn't realize it, but the swamp weeds only came up to his shoulders, and his head was clearly visible and a good target everywhere he ran.

"Next one goes through your buckin' head" the trooper shouted.
Val kept on running.
"Stop Ed", I yelled, "We can see you easy, he's aiming at your head!"
Val stopped instantly. Arms up, he turned and walked back to the rest of us. I looked into the car to see how many of us had been shot or injured. Everyone was fine. I looked at Nick just as a cop was grabbing him.

"Was this night a trip or what?" he asked.

By now the cops were slamming all seven of us up against the car and making us "assume the position." The cops were so pissed and wild. Lucky for us the scene drew a big crowd, or there's no telling what might have happened to us right there. The troopers told us not to look up, but the crowd made me curious and I couldn't help myself. A trooper kicked me hard in the head and I turned my face back down, resuming the position. After they got our names and all, I heard then muttering in astonishment at our ages, 12-15, and Nicks incredible driving skills.

All that shooting had only been directed at our tires. They had shot out all our tires as we slid past the roadblock. They handcuffed us together, four in one group and three in the other.
As we were getting in the car I asked the trooper who was shooting at Val, "Did you say the next one goes in your buckin' head, with a "b?"

He said "Shut the buck up and get in the car."
I persisted. "Shut the BUCK up, with a "b?"
He said, "with a b."

I got in the back seat with the rest of the guys I was chained to. I thought about that "b" afterward. It made an impression on me that in the midst of all this anger and tension, someone could retain enough class not to let himself become foul. I had never seen an adult in Cramer Hill act that way.

Off we went to jail in the rain. Our chase had run five miles in one direction and fifteen in the other, through five towns. I was full of dread but I had to be honest with myself. This was the most thrilling night of my life. Again another contingent of police cars, lights flashing, sped southbound.

"Have the riots started in Camden yet?" one of the troopers asked me.
"What riots?" I said.
"I wouldn't want to be a white boy in jail tonight," said the one driving.
"Why? What is going on?" I asked them.
"Martin Luther King is dead. He was assassinated in Memphis a couple of hours ago. I'll bet the blacks try and burn this country down."

I felt the same stunned numbness come over me that I felt four and a half years earlier when they killed John Kennedy.
"What is your father going to do to you when he gets a hold of you? Beat the living shit out of you I'll bet," a trooper said with a laugh.

"I don't have a father" I answered coldly, staring out into the rain.

"When Empty, Return to Camden, New Jersey"

I woke up to America when I was fourteen, the morning after my ride with the good souled madman who slept at the wheel of his speeding gasoline truck.

It was a short hitchhike from the southwest corner of Virginia, where I had slept soundly in the woods my first night on the road, to the south-east corner of Tennessee, where Gods best intentions, expressed in natural beauty, met mans worst intentions, in the spring of 1967. The too often ugly nature of man, expressed in the treatment of his fellow man, was staged in force, in the Negro shotgun shack village in the shadow of the grand Chattanooga rail-yard.

As I hitchhiked, I kept my head high and my thumb low, as instructed, and survived the inquisitive glances of a number of police representing all jurisdictions. It took over a dozen rides of a dozen type to get to Chattanooga. I only accepted rides under fifty-miles, based on the last road sign I had seen, always wanting to appear as a local, and not a runaway a thousand miles from home. I tried to imitate the Southern drawl so I would appear as a native to everyone that picked me up. The Southern accent was so thick and differentiated from the Northern in 1967 that they seemed almost like two different languages. I not only couldn't understand what was being said to me, I wasn't even sure of what I was saying back to them, after I added on my own version of their dialect.

I would catch a ride, hop in, the driver would say something that I figured meant, "Hello, where are you going?" and then I would tell him, based on the last road sign I had seen, in my version of the drawl he had used. The first and only reaction I ever got was a perplexed look on the driver's face that said:
"What the fuck?"

I would repeat it in a reworked fashion, receive a variation of the same look with a "huh?" or"come 'agin?" We would go back and forth trying to understand each other. I was intent on getting this Southern thing down. I don't know what confused them more, my Northern accent or my attempt to sound familiar. After awhile I realized most of them thought I was mildly retarded, and this could work to my advantage. After all, if I could communicate I may have said the wrong thing and given myself away. So after that, I practiced seeming retarded along with my Southern accent whenever I got a ride. That would end the talking game, as the driver would quickly conclude: "Oh, I see, you have a problem." And I would nod back dumbly. "Uh-huh." I never thought it was right to make fun of the mentally retarded. After awhile, I felt guilty, as if I was doing exactly that. So I scaled back my act to being an imbecile, which worked just as well.

I knew railyards, having grown up in Cramer Hill, sandwiched between a switching yard and the Delaware River. Many a lonesome caboose I did raid, stealing blasting caps, Playboy magazines, and bottles of liquor that I would sell or trade to the older boys. A big event in Cramer Hill was when a "Miller Beer" boxcar would roll through the neighborhood. The Miller beer people, in all their marketing wisdom, had designed their boxcars to look like actual six-packs of beer. They stood out so sharply, you could see them while they were still in Philadelphia, approaching the bridge to New Jersey. They arrived at a somewhat irregular schedule, but a cumulative sixth sense would develop throughout the neighborhood. Someone would say:
"You know, it's been awhile since there was a Miller train around."

Talk like that would increase in frequency until it got to the point where boys would take turns at a post on the thirty-sixth street bridge watching the Philly side of the Delaware. As shifts would change, blasting caps would be handed off. When the squinting lookout spotted the Miller boxcar, he would excitedly race down the tracks toward the approaching train, still a few miles away. He would wrap the blasting caps over the tracks and race back to the Hill. Ten or fifteen minutes later the exploding caps (which were actually quarter sticks of dynamite designed to warn engineers of trouble ahead) boomed through Cramer Hill like thunder, alerting everyone that today was "Miller Day", free beer for all. Young men and boys would race to the tracks and cover the slowing boxcar like monkeys. It became a very highly developed, systematic heist over the years, since the blasting caps notified the authorities also. The boxcar had to be emptied in two minutes or less. A gang of strong boys up top would support a chain of other boys hanging upside down over the door; the last boy had the bolt cutters. Whenever the twisted spikes through the latch got bigger, the bolt cutters just got bigger. No matter what Miller security came up with, the Cramer Hill boys outsmarted them. They would cut the door lock on one side, then hang over the other side and cut that lock. Different monkey teams slid the doors open; others would jump in and feed cases of beer to runners on each side. As much or more beer was dropped and smashed in the process, but there was always enough to go around. More than one Camden cop had been spotted over the years carrying cases of Miller into his house on Miller Day. I don't know how many Miller cars made it through the Hill undetected over the years, but enough didn't that eventually the marketing department at Miller changed their policy, denying future generations of Hill boys the excitement of Miller Day.

As I approached Chattanooga, I could sense the big rail junction out there, and homed in on it. It was a bustling one, with trains banging and hooking up all over. The numerous shacks that filled in the unused portions of the rail-yard were constructions of throwaway any material that could be stuck together any somehow. These weren't temporary hovels, but homes, you could tell, that had been lived in for years, and maybe generations. Some had gaps wide enough to see through one side and out the other. Virtually all had hanging cloth for doors, and pot-bellied woodstoves inside. Everything inside was covered with the black stove soot, and everything outside was black from the locomotive soot. I saw the wide-eyed black faces of all ages peering fearfully through the cracks at me. It was a sad, eerie feeling.

I walked between the lines of boxcars and read the shipping instructions posted near the doors: "WHEN EMPTY RETURN TO ALBANY, NY", "WHEN EMPTY RETURN TO CHICAGO" "WHEN EMPTY RETURN TO ROANOKE, VA." No good. I needed an empty going south or west. This was a very active "switching yard" where boxcars are coordinated, integrated and lined up to form trains. Active means a lot of workers and a lot of eyes, and I began to feel watched. So I wandered out of the yard and into downtown. I was starving and feeling desperate anyway, a situation that had to be resolved before all others.
I didn't know whether to beg or steal. I noticed a kid, maybe fifteen or sixteen standing on a corner, the most potentially sympathetic ear around.
"Excuse me," I said, "I'm just travelling through and I was wondering if…"
"Beat it" he snapped at me.
"I'm sorry, I just…"
He looked cross. He was really fidgety, puffing down a cigarette in a hurry and swaying, looking around.
"Boy, you can't be here when the guy gets here. Get the hell out of here."
"Guy? What guy? I'm just…."
He leaned in my face. "Beat it or I'm going to beat the shit out of you." I backed off and walked away.

I was starving and feeling too impatient to beg. Across from the train station was a greasy spoon luncheonette. I went in and ordered three large cheeseburgers with everything and three large fries. The waitress, done up like a little girls doll in high-heels, didn't seem to have a problem understanding me. It was a place where locals and lay-overred train travelers mixed. I approached a man in greasy mechanics coveralls who was leaning on his elbows and taking big bites out of his sandwich. His hair hung down into his face and he needed a shave.
"Excuse me. I was wondering why all the shacks in the railyard don't have doors?"
He looked at me curiously and said, "You talk funny boy. You from up north?"
"Yeah," I answered with nervous honesty.
"What you doing here? Changing trains?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Where up north?"
"Pennsylvania" I lied.

"You got a big Nigger problem in Pennsylvania 'cause you let them live anywhere they want. See, that railroad yard ain't zoned for housing. If we let them Niggers start putting up doors and patchin' up things, they'll get a little too comfortable. And once they got doors and plumbing, they'll think they can live anywhere. And then they'll get uppity, and then they'll get pushy, and then they'll think 'they as good as white people… Well you see all the trouble it could start."
"But they must get awful cold in the winter."
"What are you boy, some kind of Negro loving troublemaking Freedom Rider or something?"
It seemed like a trick question. He looked me over hard as I considered my answer.
"No, you're too little to be a Freedom Rider. What are you fourteen, fifteen?"
This trip was aging me fast. "Fifteen" I said boldly.
A man of a similar type bellowed from the back of the restaurant. "You're lucky you ain't no Freedom Rider or we would have hung you by now. Get your burgers and get your little commie' ass back to Pennsylvania." Everybody laughed.
The waitress returned with my order in a greasy white bag.
"Honey, that will be one dollar and sixty-three cents" she said.
Time stood still. I had not one red cent. I looked at her beehive hairdo with the pink paper tiara and white paper lace trim, fixing my stare on the "Bo's Burgers" logo. Slowly I took the bag from her hand. I looked at the guys eating. I looked up at the light fixtures. I looked out the window. I looked at the door. I looked back at her, and at the precise moment she realized I wasn't going to pay, I turned and ran my ass off down toward the freight yard.
She ran after me on her tiptoes, cursing me and screaming for the cops, and got spun like a turnstile by the guys chasing after me.

Being fourteen, small and agile, I had the advantage. I rolled quickly under and out train after train, whether moving or still, made no difference to me. But the chase did cause a stir, and no sooner would I loose one bunch of guys then another would be on my tail. I kept low, scurrying under and alongside boxcars. I could see the legs of men moving from all directions towards me. I saw their faces peering under, occasionally locating and losing me. They shouted back and forth, like the excited bark of Hell Hounds. I felt the noose tightening around my neck. I rolled out from under a train and right into the heart of the Negro shotgun shack village. It was laid out crazily. I didn't know which way to turn through the maze. I crouched down low and ran the path of least resistance, my sleeping bag dragging and bumping. I stumbled as I began a sprint, tumbling through a rag blanket door, falling over furniture in the middle of a room.
I terrified a poor old man who jumped up and ran backwards into a wall, almost bringing the entire shack down. (That's why they called them "shotgun shacks," because one blast from a shotgun could bring the whole place down.) He held a fireplace poker in his hand, ready to defend himself, and shook like a leaf. I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack. I couldn't go back outside. I tried to calm him.

"It's okay, it's okay. I'm a Freedom Rider!" I assured him.
I gained a little trust. He looked at my greasy sack of burgers. He was at least as hungry as I was. I handed him a burger, as he looked worried through a crack at the posse closing in. The old man got busy. He moved some stuff and ushered me behind it, then covered me up.
"They kill Freedom Riders", I heard the old man say. I thought maybe saying I was a Freedom rider wasn't such a good thing to say after all.
Outside a cop sniffed the air and entered.

"Where did you get that burger boy?" I heard him insist with authority.
My protector's voice shook with terror.
"A white boy ran by and dropped it sir."
"Nigger, that's stolen property. You know how long you can go to jail for receiving stolen property?
"Oh, please suh…"
"Give me that" I heard the cop say meanly. "That's evidence." The cop snatched it out of his hand, bruising the old mans spirit.
I heard the paper unraveling and the cops stuffed mouth mumble, "If that white boy comes by here again, you bettah'….mmmmm, this is a good burgah'!"
"Come on out. Big boss is gone," my new friend whispered.
He looked sadly at my burger sack. "Here. Have another. I've got plenty." I gave him French fries too. We relaxed and lunched together.
"So you's a Freedom Rider!" he exclaimed, impressed.
"That's right," I said, wondering what a Freedom Rider was. I didn't want to disappoint him.
"Do you know Martin Luther King?" he asked wishfully.
"Yes, I do!" I said convincingly, suddenly choking on my fries and my lies.
"Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!" he reached around and picked up a framed portrait photograph of Martin Luther King and gazed at it with warm affection and awe.
"What's he like up close?" The old man was energized and full of childlike wonder.
"Well….,well, uh. Well, he's like.., like he's in this world, but, uh, not of this world. Jesus, I don't know, it's kind of hard to…well yes, that's what I mean, he's…he's just like Jesus!" My face grew hot as I realized I would burn in Hell for this one. But oh, I had somehow said the right thing. All the sweetness and hopeful dreams of this kind old man dripped out onto me like chocolate syrup on vanilla ice cream.
"Just like Jesus! I knew it, I knew it!

What a liar I was turning into. I couldn't help but enjoy the pleasurable vision I gave him. He rocked back and forth in pure ecstasy, and held that picture of Martin Luther King close to his heart.
"You stay here tonight. My guest. Its Saturday, that means good times tonight. You'll like the people here. They's never seen a Freedom Rider before, but we pray for y'all all the time."
"I'd love to stay here. I'll stay here as long as you want me to."
He brightened, turned and put the portrait of Martin Luther King back in it's sacred place, next to a picture of John F. Kennedy, turned the other way and picked up a jar of moonshine. He filled two glasses and handed me one. With second thoughts, he took the glass out of my hand.
"How old are you anyway?"
"Old enough!" I said.
"You sure don't look it."
"I know. I got a glandular problem. Its called…delayed puberty. I know I look like I'm fourteen don't I? Ha! Ain't that funny?" I laughed and snatched the glass out of his hand.
He seemed doubtful but raised his glass: "To the Promised Land!"
"To the Promised Land!" I responded. I couldn't get past the smell and pretended to take a sip. He chugged his down. I had tried to drink whiskey before, tapping my father's bottles, but found it too harsh. But I was determined to find out what it was like to get drunk. I figured it must be worth getting past the taste, since every man I ever knew got drunk every chance he got.
"Ahhhhhh…." He moaned, savoring his drink and poured himself another. The sun was going down and lovely orange streaks of sunbeams cut across the room. One crossed his face and for a second he looked like gold. I became increasingly aware of Saturday night coming to life, with neighborly conversation and music. Just like home, Cramer Hill. I realized this was the first black person I had ever had a conversation with. In Cramer Hill, blacks were talked about like a plague. Not a single Black person ever lived in the Hill, or ever even dared enter it, so vehemently repugnant were they viewed. "What was the fuss?" I wondered, mystified.

He told me his story. His name was Morgan. When he was a young man, in Alabama, he was accused of whistling at a white girl in town. A lynch mob formed. He went wild, fought his way out with his sledge-hammer like fists before the crowd got too big, and fled into the Talahachi woods, where he fished and lived off the land for eleven years. He tried to make it north several times, but always got picked up and jailed on some trumped up thing or another, from vagrancy to robbery. But they never found out his real name, and that he had supposedly whistled at a white girl, or he would have been hung. For a Black man in the South, that was a capital offense.
"That poor Emmett Till, he didn't know the ways of the South. If he did, he would never have whistled at that white girl."

"That's right," I said.
" After they did what they did to Emmett Till, I was afraid to be anywhere except where a black person was allowed to be. I was right here in this Chattanooga freight yard when I heard about Emmett, saw the picture of his body, and I've been afraid to leave ever since.
While playing like I knew about Emmett Till, I found out that Emmett Till was a black teenager from Chicago who whistled at a white girl while visiting his aunt in Mississippi for the first time. A white mob took him prisoner and he was beaten to death. The boy's uncle managed to get the body out of Mississippi before the Sheriff could have it and the evidence destroyed. He took it back to Chicago where his mother gave him an open coffin funeral. He had been beaten so badly he was not recognizable as human. She displayed the cruelty of what was done to him for the entire world to see. Six hundred thousand people viewed his body. After international publicity, the two principal killers were put on trial. They attempted to justify the murder to the court by saying they only wanted to scare Emmett Till when they took him away, but after he refused to repent for whistling at a white girl they had no choice but to kill him.
"What else could we do?" said one of the killers during the trial. "Till was hopeless. I'm no bully; I've never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers in their place. I know how to work'em. But I just decided it was time for a few people to get put on notice".
The jury agreed and set the men free.

"Oh yeah. I thought about trying to get up North many times. I would see these open boxcars rolling by saying, "WHEN EMPTY RETURN TO CINNCINATTI" "WHEN EMPTY RETURN TO BOSTON", but then I thought about Emmett."
The good-time din of partying was rising over the shacks. Morgan rose.
"I'm going to tell everyone we got a Freedom Rider here."
"No don't!" I tried to stop him but he just went on. It was tough enough keeping a tale straight for one person.
"Damn it!"
I looked at the glass of moonshine. "Well, here goes!" I put it to my mouth, pinched my nose and swallowed it in one Olympian gulp. I caught fire inside then out, gagged and jumped around in a St. Vitas dance. "Arrrggghhhh! Yuk! I swore I would never do that again. After awhile I started to feel pretty good and had another.

I heard giggles and saw the faces of curious children spying on me. The word was out: There was a Freedom Rider in town. I staggered out to find my friend, and headed for the glow of a bonfire, where people danced, sang and played music.
As I walked, people sized me up and mumbled about the credibility of my story, relevant to my age, which was obvious to many. As I wandered high on moonshine, I stopped dead in my tracks:

"Wow! What the hell kind of music is this?" It was the first time I had ever heard Blues music. It was a religious revelation; an epiphany. It just grabbed me and sounded so good it gave me goose bumps on my arms and ran chills up and down my spine. I impulsively went into a spontaneous moonshine fueled dance, and Blues waltzed my way to the band. The crowd, many of whom had their own jars of moonshine, parted for me, and yelled "Go Freedom Rider, Go!" I would never dance at a party before, but I was liquored up and loose as a goose.
The band was a group of wise looking, big strong men, made of rocks instead of flesh and bone. They sang about good-looking women, ugly women, hard work and low pay, and how they expected to be free of one thing or another someday. They did it with a rhythm and beat that made suffering sound worth it if it made music this sweet. The next song was about women bringing their shoes to a particular shoemaker to have them stretched for a better fit. It was loaded with sexual innuendo; in fact, it didn't take me long to figure out the song had nothing to do with shoes at all. The next song was about a dog crossing the tracks. A train came along and cut off a piece of his tail. He turned around to look for it and another train came by and cut off his head. He was just one more fool who lost his head while looking for a piece of tail.

During a break in the music, the harmonica player looked at me while he was saying something to the band. They all studied me and nodded slowly in agreement. With a serious look on his face, the harmonica player, "Howlin' Jack" they called him, fingered me ominously and said, "Come here boy." I approached this Herculean circle with trepidation. He grabbed my forearm and rubbed it hard with his other hand.
"You sure you ain't Black under there?'
Everybody laughed. "No I ain't sure," I said.
"I want you to try something," he said. He handed me a harmonica and walked me over to Big Joe Fishman, the lead guitar player.
"Tap the beat of the last song we just played with your finger on Big Joe's guitar".
I did it, exactly as they played it.
"Now blow in the third hole of that harp, that same beat with your breath, just like you tapped it on the guitar".
I did it; just like they played it, the crowd howled, and man I thought I was pretty cool. Howlin' Jack turned to the band with delight and said, "See, what I tell you. The boy's a natural!"
I beamed proudly.
"Whoa now, whoa now. There's more to it than that. Blow air into the third hole, suck air out the third hole, blow in the fourth and draw in the fourth, and tap your foot as you go," instructed Howlin' Jack.
I did it.
"Yeah, alright, alright. Now do it again, but blow out the fifth hole, hold it, then do it over and over again, third to fifth, third to fifth, up and down backwards and forwards, tap that foot and hang with us. Hit it boys".
They went into a straight Blues and damn if it didn't sound like I was playing it too!

In the morning when I awoke with a massive headache. It was Sunday morning and I heard a chorus of angels; a makeshift open-air church was set up near where the band had been. I wandered out to find over a hundred dignified churchgoers, in their Sunday best, singing old spirituals with all their hearts. I felt good, and wanted to give praise too, especially for the wonderful previous evening. As I approached the gathering, many eyed me suspiciously. A couple of elders stopped me before I could get too close.

"Look at yourself boy. You slept in those clothes, you need a bath and you've got liquor on your breath! I don't care if you are white; you can't approach the Lord's House in such filthy condition. Go On!'

Embarrassed, I staggered on to Morgan's shack. He had grits and biscuits on the stove.
"You sure had yourself a good-time last night!" he laughed.
I surely did. Yessir, I surely did."
I stayed on at Morgan's for another three weeks, mostly to take daily harmonica lessons from Howlin' Jack. I found out that the moonshine drinking, Blues loving residents of this shantytown were really a tiny minority of the population. The churchgoers were the majority. It was a community of temperate, hard working people. There were rules of conduct. No one but Morgan believed me about being a Freedom Rider. To him Martin Luther King was the Messiah, and I was one of his prophets, and no one had the heart to tell him any differently. No one challenged me; everyone remained friendly.

As I got to know the place better, I became aware of the many beautiful handcrafted objects of art; quilts, wood carvings, fancy walking sticks, clay sculpture, paintings, ornamental iron work and basket weaving. Most of the raw material was throwaways found in the freight yard. There was a large community of craftsmen who seemed to have a knack for bringing the novel out of the ordinary. Spontaneous creativity continually combusted, from the music, to the art objects, and within the speech and dance of everyone. The black soot that seemed to cover everything when I first arrived melted from my perceptions like snow in the sun. All was color.
I watched in amazement as circles of industrious women wove baskets from pine needles, swamp cane and corn husk. No two were the same; each piece represented the feelings of the creator at the moment. They created all shapes and sizes: round, oval, scalloped, bowl, and gourd, dyed in different colors to create intricate patterns. When I was curious about where an artist got the idea for a piece, often the answer was something like:
"In a dream I had last night."
"I played with it until what was inside came out."
"The spirit moved me that way"

Cramer Hill seemed drab in comparison. But I knew I couldn't stay here. It was just a matter of time before my presence caused a problem, either with the cops or within the community. The night before I decided to leave I heard a heated argument break out amongst a group of young men, that wasn't about me, but might have consequences for me later if I stayed:
"Fuck Martin Luther King and his love thy enemy bullshit. I'm gonna hop a train to Oakland and join the Panther's. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees."
Yes, it was time to leave. When I told Howlin' Jack this would be my last lesson, he was sad about it, but he knew it was coming. He had a present for me, a "special" harmonica. "I had a witchy woman in Mississippi put a spell on this harp for me. It will play out of tune if there's a cop on the train. I want you to have it. When you get out there and them white boys ask, you tell them Howlin Jack taught you to blow." We shook on it and I headed over to Morgans.
Morgan tried to talk me out of leaving. The old man and me took a true liking to each other. I said the only thing I knew that would get him to give up.

"Morgan, I'm a Freedom Rider. I've got to ride."
"I guess you do, I guess you do" he quietly, sadly, agreed. "Is Dr. King gonna come to Tennessee soon?" he wanted to know.
"I don't know exactly where or when, but I did hear him say he's just got to get to Tennessee" I lied.
Morgan pondered.
"I'll bet he won't come to Chattanooga before he goes to Nashville. No, he wouldn't go to Nashville before he goes to Memphis. Yep, that's where I'll bet he'll go, to Memphis! I would hop a train to see Dr. King in Memphis!" Morgan declared. "Are you going to be there too Colm?"
"You betcha I'll be there."
"Well, then Colm, look for me when Dr. King comes to Memphis"
"You know I will." I thanked him for everything and headed into the freight yard, looking for my next south or westbound. I had no luck, so I started hitchhiking again.
The next morning I woke up in a tool shed on the edge of a Georgia farm. It was a lovely morning and my spirits were high, but I was hungry. I walked up to the farmhouse and tried to look as hungry as possible. I knocked on the door, and a kindly white lady in an apron answered.
"Excuse me miss. Is there a restaurant around here? I'm huunnnngry!
She flicked her hand at me as if to say, "What a stupid question!"
"Honey, there ain't no restaurants around here. Set down right here on the porch, I'll feed ya'"
Just like that. It was that easy. Southern hospitality for real. I had eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon, potatoes, milk, toast and orange juice. Before I left she packed a sack of sandwiches and banana's for me and sent me on my way, no questions asked.

In Alabama I pulled my thumb in as I walked by a chain gang covered by shotgun wielding prison guards on horseback. It was a sorry sight. The chained men looked at me with pleading eyes. I looked back at them in a way I hoped would tell them my heart was with them, and that I knew most, if not all of them, were guilty of nothing except being born black in the south, as they labored under the hateful eyes of the palace guards.
I sneaked through Mississippi uneventfully.
Outside of Ruston, Louisiana, a group of rich white boys cruising the back roads and sipping wine from wineglasses (instead of passing the bottle around like normal people) gave me a ride. They were so enthralled and intrigued by my situation that they sort of adopted me and let me live in their frat house at Louisiana Technical Institute, where they were taking summer classes.
They let me have the run of the place. Even gave me my own room. They took me everywhere: to parties, fishing with them, sporting events.
One Saturday night four of them let me come to a poker game with some locals in a house out in the boonies'. There were four rough looking characters completing the game. Everyone, even the college boys, had a pistol packed in their belt. The room was thick with cigarette and cigar smoke. The drunker everyone got, the more frequently they accused each other of cheating.

Every now and then someone would get pissed off at someone, aim their gun and threaten to shoot the person. Then everyone would talk the gunman down, tensions would ease and they would resume playing.
At one point everyone was up at the same time, and each was pointing a gun at someone while someone was pointing a gun at him. They were screaming in each other's faces. I tried to slip out the door. One of the grizzly locals said, "Sit down pipsqueak or I'll shoot you too."
Eventually everyone calmed down and the game resumed. It went on until sunrise and then just fizzled out, with everybody parting as friends.

The guys at the frat house said I could stay there until regular classes started up again in September. I was delighted. But after a few weeks everything broke down. During a party one night, a couple of engineering students loaded the civil war cannons on the lawn with cement filled beer cans and started blasting holes in the wall of the gymnasium three-hundred yards away. I fled out the back door just as the campus cops were raiding the place and I never came back.

I made my way down to New Orleans and blended in with the always-accepting low-lifes. A couple of skanky but kindhearted hookers developed a maternal concern for me and let me stay with them. They themselves had run away at a tender age.

But this world was more seediness than I could stand. It only took a week for wicked old New Orleans, with its hustlers and con-artists, some younger than I, to wear me out. I went to the railyard to look for a westbound, for I had run completely out of south. I was happy to be getting out of the south, and the subterranean world I had managed to slither my way through.
I walked between a long row of trains, reading the labels for something west. Nothing. I walked on and on. I was feeling beat and drained from being on the run. I was lonesome and missing my brother and sisters. I dragged my tired lonesome self on, checking boxcar after boxcar. It was all starting to catch up with me now. One label caught my eye and stopped me dead in my tracks. I thought about it, but knew I had to get in. I had nothing left inside me, I was spent. I climbed in, lay down on my back, closed my eyes, and waited for the train to roll. Outside the door the label read: "WHEN EMPTY RETURN TO CAMDEN, N.J."

"John"

John

copyright by
Michael McAteer

When I lost my innocence at the age of twelve it came without warning. A punch in the face, literally, from my stepfather.

It was a snowy mid-winter day in New Jersey. I had been sledding and having so much fun; I lost track of time and missed supper. Earlier, my buddies and I were playing a game; you lay face down on the sled and shoot past the guys in a line. One by one they dive on until maybe four or five kids are on top of you as you rocket down the hill. This particular hill was a paved alley between row homes. The sled shot out from under me and I became the sled. The weight of the pile shoved my face into the partly ice, partly asphalt, ice, asphalt, asphalt. The skin tore off one side of my face. Covered with blood I called it a day. Then I realized I had missed supper. Torn up bloody face. Good, that will save me. Who can get mad at a kid with a bloody face? And my stepfather John wasn’t a bad guy anyway.

When I walked into the door I was met by a red faced crazed madman, eyes bulging.
"Where the have you been?"
Bam. A fist in the face and I went down. He had become a different person in the course of one day. If I had known more about life then I would have seen it coming.
My mother had been crying and whining in front of John every day more and more, that she missed and still loved my father, who had completely vanished without a trace so many years ago I couldn’t remember what he looked like.

For the next two years it got worse. My punishment for coming home late was immediate confinement to my room everyday after school, no TV or radio. For two years I wasn’t allowed to eat dinner with the family, and was confined to my room, as the madman descended into the darkness of alcoholism and paranoia, violently trashing the house on a regular basis. Once I woke in the middle of the night to see fire reflected on my ceiling. I looked out the window and saw my stepfather orbiting a bonfire fueled by every stitch of clothing my mother owned. He staggered around it with a can of beer in his hand muttering, " You bitch." Everyone in
the neighborhood was out in the street watching, cold stone still and quiet.

My mother had been under confinement for quite some time now herself.
Once John came home from work and noticed a Public Service utility van with a handsome driver pulling away. He exploded into the house screaming "You whore!" I was in my room, she was in hers. He yanked her into the hallway and screamed for me to come out.
"I want you to see what a fucking whore your mother is." She was too terrified to speak or move. My mother and I went quietly back to our rooms.

John was six foot two, and built like Hercules. He was the greatest athlete the city ever produced. In high school, he had played every sport.

At my high school there was the biggest trophy case you had ever seen, fully loaded. It was dedicated to one athlete only. My stepfather John. And it was full with pictures of him too, in triumphant poses, victorious in every game. I had to see it every day.
Now he was a sheet metal worker in a dirty factory in his late thirties, who came home after work and lifted weights in the basement and got drunk in the kitchen every day.
One day he caught me out of my room after school, in the kitchen, getting some cookies. "You fucking thief" and ‘bam’ I was KO’d. When I got back to my room I decided I had to leave. I had heard a rumor that my father was in California. I hitchhiked and hoped freight trains all the way to Texas, where I got wore out and turned myself in. The Texas state police called my parents and put me on a plane back to Jersey.

When the plane landed the stewardess asked me to stay seated, that someone was coming on board to meet me. After the plane emptied, a cop came in, handcuffed me and took me to jail. In a room nearby, my parents were filling out the legal paperwork to put me away until the age of twenty-one for being incorrigible. I was fourteen.

As I waited for the van to take me to the reformatory, a black Camden city detective came by and asked all the kids what they were in for. I told him my parents were putting me away until I was twenty-one.
"Why?"
"Because I ran away."
"Why?"
"Because my step-father knocked me out for taking cookies without asking."
The detective almost blew up in front of me. He went into the room where my parents were and closed the door behind him. Crash, boom, bang.
He came out, holding my stepfather by the scruff of his neck.
"If this motherfucker ever lays a hand on you again call me. I’ll be right over.
I went home with them, but the tension was too great. My mother arranged for me to live in a boarding house, where I did for a year.
One day the phone rang and the lady of the house tried to hand it over to me.
"Your father wants to talk to you." I was stunned.
"I don’t want to talk to that asshole."
She was insistent so I had to get on. It was my real father. It was the first time I had heard his voice since I was seven.

Turns out he really was in California, and my grandmother knew where he was all along. She didn’t like me living in a boarding house and had twisted his arm until he agreed to take me to live with him. Two days later I was in Hollywood and one year later I was back in the boarding house. My real father was an asshole too.

My mother begged me to move back home. "John’s changed’" she insisted. I moved back. He hadn’t changed at all. But he looked much smaller. I had had my growth spurt that year in California, and went from five foot one, one- hundred twenty pounds to five foot eleven one hundred ninety pounds that fast.

The old shit reached a peak to where I knew I had to kill him to be free, even if freedom meant life in prison. After I decided to kill him, a calmness and sense of peace came over me that I had never known before. In ten minutes he would be dead and I would be free! I was feeling giddy with joy.

I took a short souvenir baseball bat that I had got at a Phillies game, hid it behind my back and walked confidently into the living room.

He jumped up and began to shout "What the are you doing out of your room?" But his voiced trailed meekly. For the first time he saw that I had no fear of him and he turned pale and quivered.

"Whats the matter with you? You’ve snapped!" he declared.
"That’s right," I said calmly, with a true smile.
"I’m putting you away for good this time," he said. He moved for the phone. I revealed the bat and tapped it slowly into the palm of my hand.
"Go ahead. Call the police," I said with a grin.
I let him inch toward the phone and dial a few numbers before I let loose with a powerful whack aimed right at his head. But I missed and only broke his hand. He ran out the back door and never came back.

I never saw him again. In the intervening years his high school trophy case was vandalized, ransacked and destroyed. All trace of his victories were gone forever from City High.
When he graduated from high school he did so with a perfect 4.0 grade average, was president of his class, voted most popular, best looking, and most likely to succeed.
At his graduation party he mulled over with friends his professional baseball offers. Yankees? Or maybe the Red Sox? Or take one of the college offers. Should he quarterback for Penn State or Notre Dame? As the party petered out, he went looking for his father for advice. He found him in the garage. Dead, swinging from a rafter, hangman’s noose around his neck; suicide.
There would be no Yankees, Sox, Notre Dame or Penn State. Only alcoholism, a dirty sheet metal shop and paranoia. I knew all this back then, before that snowy sledding day. It meant something different to me now at John’s funeral.

I learned that during his thirtieth year working at the sheet metal shop the owner died. But not before, unbeknownst to everyone, bankrupting the company and draining everyone’s retirement fund. John lived out the rest of his life in abject poverty, added to everything else.
Everything bad I had ever wished for him came true, and I cried at his funeral, broken-hearted over all that had been lost.