“Wakey, wakey, boys. No sleeping on the beach. It’s time to go downtown,” said the cop nudging us awake.
“Downtown?” mumbled Ricky.
“It’s off to see the wizard, boys. Come on, get up.”
“Hey, we’re awake. Just let us go to our car and we’ll get out of here,” said Marty.
The second cop laughed at that. “No, no, no! We are going downtown. Do you want to do it the easy way or the hard way?”
“What’s the difference?” asked Ricky, scratching his head and rubbing the sand out of his hair.
“Do it the easy way and you pay the fine in the morning and go home. Do it the hard way and we cuff you and book you and throw you in jail for a couple of days first,” was the reply.
I looked at my friends. “We’re going to vote for the easy way,” I said for all of us.
“Most do. Come on, get your asses up and off the sand.” I got my feet nudged again.
We grumbled some, but climbed to our feet. I put my shoes on, but then kicked them back off, since they were full of sand. I dumped them out and trudged barefoot across the beach to the roadside before slipping them back on. We were loaded into the back of a paddy wagon sort of truck, where a half dozen other criminal snoozers were already loaded, and headed on down the road. We made two more stops and picked up another three sleepers, and then we headed off to the Jacksonville Beach police station.
The easy way was definitely the smart move. A couple of the guys who were already on the truck had been cuffed, and were cussing up a storm. They got separated from the rest of us and taken away into the back of the station. The rest of us just got frisked for weapons (they took my Buck knife and camera) and tossed in a chicken wire cage off to the side of the main squad room. There were a few guys already sitting there.
To what extent Ricky and Marty had ever been in a police station was questionable. Certainly Marty was nervous. I think he expected that he was about to become the prison bitch for Jacksonville Beach. I pushed the pair of them over to a bench at the side of the cage, as much to get out of the doorway as any other reason. “Go sit down, guys. It’s going to be a long night.”
Ricky and Marty sat down on one end of a bench along the wall. There was an empty space between them and a thin and nervous guy at the other end, so I sat down between them, not saying anything, but nodding when he shifted over slightly. “What’d they grab you guys for?” he asked.
“Sleeping on the beach. You, too?” I replied.
He shook his head. “Nah. Somebody claimed I hit a liquor store.”
I smiled at him. “No kidding!”
“Hey, I didn’t do it!”
“No, that’s cool. I was just thinking, the first time I went to jail I ended up next to a guy the cops said boosted a liquor store. Small world, huh?”
“What’d they get you for then?” he asked. He didn’t seem at all surprised to find himself in jail with another ex-con. My buddies next to me were staring at me with slack jaws and open eyes.
“Three guys were trying to shake me down, so I put them in the hospital for a week. I got hauled off anyway,” I said, making myself sound tougher than I was.
“Fucking cops’ll do it every time,” he agreed sourly.
Before anybody could say anything, a cop came to the cage and yelled, “COLEMAN! Get over here!”
My new friend stood up and said, “Good luck,” and then shuffled over to the door. He was taken out of the cage, handcuffed, and then pulled away. I wished him luck, too. It pays to be polite, even in jail.
After the cop and Coleman left, Ricky grabbed my shoulder. “Were you serious with him? You’ve been in jail before?”
“It was no big deal, guys. I was out the same day, no charges.”
“How many times have you been in jail?” asked Marty.
“Including that time and today?” They nodded and I grinned back. “Twice! And both times I end up next to a guy who robbed a liquor store! What are the odds?”
They looked at me like I had just sprouted horns and a tail. “So what happened?”
“It’s like I said to Coleman…”
“You knew his name?!” asked Ricky.
“The cop over there said his name. Anyway, like I told him, these three guys wanted me to pay them to leave me alone, you know, a protection racket, and I decided I didn’t want to pay them.”
“When was this?” pressed Ricky.
“My thirteenth birthday. They were, like, fourteen or fifteen.”
“So what happened?” asked Marty.
“Well, I ended up with a black eye, but I gave one of them a concussion, broke another guy’s nose and jaw, and tore the third kid’s knee apart,” I answered.
“Holy shit!” muttered Marty.
I smiled at my friends. “Don’t sweat it. When we get to the big house, I’ll protect you. Just pay me a pack of cigarettes a day — each of you! — you’ll be just fine.” I laughed and put my head back, closing my eyes. I was still tired.
At nine the next morning we were all pulled out of the cage and paraded before a judge. It was pretty straightforward. Watch your mouth, plead guilty, pay $50 — ‘NEXT!’ I got my Buck knife back and had one of the cops take a picture of us through the walls of the cage. Then we got the hell out of Dodge! The last twenty-four hours were highly overrated!
We were all pretty beat at this point. We gassed up and turned the Buick north and just started driving. We drove straight through, only stopping for gas, food and pit stops, and made it to Troy the next day. The Great American Adventure was over!
Thank God!
Chapter 32: Meet The Parents, Part 1
We spent a week hanging around the house drinking and smoking dope and sleeping late and telling war stories to Jack and Swayzack. I had the film to the Instamatic developed and I got three sets of prints, one for each of us. Then it was Friday, and it was time to head south. I could have lived without this trip, but I was going to have to introduce Marilyn to my family at some point. Family was one of those critical things that she simply could not understand being apart from. Even before, when Hamilton hadn’t been so crazy and I had actually spent time with my family, it was nothing for me to go weeks without talking to them. Now it was months. This would be my first visit since I had come to RPI in August of 1973, almost an entire year ago.
It took me a day to drive south, and I got to Lutherville around dinner time on Friday. My plan was to hang out for a day and maybe go see some of my old friends, and then be there when Marilyn drove down on Sunday. We would stay for a few days, or until I snapped, and then head off to the beach. At some point we would make a return trip, and then I would drive north with Marilyn following. I was still nervous about her driving from Utica to Lutherville. Before I had left for basic I had sent her detailed instructions and a marked map showing how to get to my folks, but Marilyn can’t find her way out of a paper bag with a neon map and GPS. It’s a genetic thing; Buckmans marry women who can’t navigate. Mom can’t navigate and Parker’s wife Janine can’t make it out of the driveway without GPS!
My homecoming to the tender embrace of my warm and loving family was strained, to say the least. Suzie was ecstatic, as was Daisy. Dad was quite happy, also, and he and I spent several hours swapping lies about my road trip, along with a trip or two he took at my age. I pulled out the photos from the trip and showed them to my family. Mom was a bit cold and distant, as if my estrangement was totally my fault, but she was also dutifully happy to see the prodigal son return. Hamilton was openly hostile.