Eddie and the Cruisers Read online

  “You promisin’?”

  “Sure. What do you do?”

  “I run the library, Wordman! You should’ve seen the mess when I took over. But now it’s all organized, top to bottom, a place for everything and everything in its place. I guess you know about the Dewey Decimal System …”

  He was off and running before I could intervene, a tape unreeling inside the wreckage of his mind, dots and numbers playing where the music used to be. Not a subject you couldn’t cover, not an area you couldn’t find, Wendell said, once you learned the system. Mr. Dewey was some smart man: he got it all together.

  “What kind of book you writing about Eddie?” he finally asked.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, there’s fiction and there’s nonfiction. It could be biography, I guess, or autobiography, or history or music. You send one over, Wordman, I’ll tell you right where it fits. Any book at all, you just try me. You can’t stump me and Mr. Dewey.”

  “I’m still working on the book, Wendell. That’s why I need your help.”

  “You know as much as I do about those times, Wordman. You know what fits and what don’t fit in a book. We were all in it together. That’s what I was telling Mr. Hopkins.”

  “Mr. Hopkins?”

  “Sure. You remember Kenny. He’s a preacher now. Come’s visiting sometimes. Got us a new World Book Encyclopedia for the library …”

  “You talk to Hopkins, Wendell?”

  “I sure do. We talk about the old days, him and me. I find myself remembering things I thought had slipped away for good. Old Kenny, he likes to reminisce.”

  “Lakehurst?”

  “What’s that, Wordman?”

  “You talk to Kenny about Lakehurst?”

  “Talk about ’most everything. It sure does please me, to see him come. He grew up fine, Wordman. Believe me, he’s not like he used to be. He’s changed. Used to always want me to date him up a colored girl. Always wanted to be doing it, he did, but you ought to see him now, you ought to look him up. You’d be surprised.”

  “Wendell … for this book I’m working on … there’s a weak spot. I think you can help me out.”

  “You just ask. You just ask me anything.”

  “Lakehurst. That month in Lakehurst. None of the rest of us were in on it.”

  “No,” Wendell conceded, almost as if he owed me an apology. “I guess you weren’t.”

  “I need to know what was happening out there. What were you and Eddie working on? Ever since his records became popular again, there’s been rumors going around.”

  “What those rumors say, Wordman?” For the first time, I sensed that Wendell was reluctant.

  “All kinds of things. This one reporter came to me, he said maybe there were famous names out there, working on the sly. Elvis Presley. Buddy Holly. People like that. And Sally remembers crashing a party out there one night, and the place was filled with a bunch of blacks he didn’t recognize.”

  “Sally wasn’t never too good at recognizing blacks,” Wendell said. “The Ink Spots, the Mills Brothers, maybe Billy Eckstine. That’s about as soulful as old Sally got.”

  He laughed at that, not bitterly; he was never bitter. But he was uncomfortable about something.

  “We got a few records in the library,” he meandered. “It don’t amount to much. Folks donate their seventy-eight’s. Big bands. Kay Kyser. We got just about every Kay Kyser side there is.”

  “Wendell … ”

  “I promised I wouldn’t say nothing about Lakehurst, Wordman.”

  “Who’d you promise?”

  “The man himself.”

  “Eddie’s gone, Wendell. Been gone. Nearly twenty years. You think he’d mind at this late date?”

  “That’s what Mr. Hopkins said. I try telling him, a promise is a promise. I just don’t know what Eddie’d want, Wordman. Specially since you’re workin’ on a book.”

  “Twenty more years, we might all be gone, Wendell. What’s the meaning of your promise then?”

  “I know, but … ”

  “The music and the book … that’s all that’s left of Eddie now. The part that doesn’t die. I want to make it a good book.”

  “Yeah, I hear you.” He clasped his hands and looked down at the ground. “That Eddie. That crazy Eddie. Never left nothin’ alone for long, that white boy. Always something else he wanted to do. Always wanting to bring things together. Which is when they fall apart. You follow me?”

  “I’m trying.”

  “You know how it started, the whole Lakehurst thing? You were there. You ought to remember.”

  “when?”

  “That night at the Regency.”

  I guess they’re gone now, demolished, urban-renewed, or grinding out kung-fu features: the Apollo in Harlem, the Regal in Chicago, Uptown in Philadelphia, and the Newark Regency. Vast, tumbledown, inner-city movie houses that smelled of sweat and popcorn, where melty ice cream ran down the aisles, springs popped out of chairs, and the black legends of Motown were born.

  It started as a joke. All of us were sitting around at Vince’s one afternoon, gabbing away, and Eddie asked each of us what we figured might be the toughest possible place for the Cruisers to play. Where could we go that would really scare us?

  “Don’t take me no place where there’s old folks,” Sally said. “St. Petersburg, Florida. They’d die on us.”

  “Or Roseland,” Hopkins ventured. “Some big old ballroom where the Arthur Murray graduates hang out. No way.”

  “Country-western,” Wendell said. “Those other folks just walk away. Them rednecks come after you!”

  “Your turn, Wordman,” Eddie prompted. “Where’s the toughest place for us to hack it?”

  “This is hypothetical, right?” I asked him. “I mean, we’re just bullshitting?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  “Go ahead and say it, Wordman.” I’m sure he already knew what was coming.

  “Negroes,” I said. “Sorry, Wendell.”

  “Don’t apologize to me, man,” Wendell answered. “I don’t want to play in front of bloods. Not with you fellows.”

  “Hell yes!” Sally said. “He’s right. ‘Sheeeit, Rastus, whuts all that light up onstage!’ Jesus, I’d enter a pissing contest with a skunk before I stepped on a stage in South Philly.”

  “Relax, Sally,” Eddie said. “It’s not South Philly. It’s Newark.”

  These days, with Motown transplanted from Detroit to L.A. and Diana Ross a movie star and blacks copying white music almost as much as whites copy black, you forget the fear and awe with which we used to regard black music. Everything crosses over now—I won’t say it combines—but it crosses over. Not then. They were worlds apart back then, with no connections, except maybe a late-night radio show that barely reached Vineland, New Jersey. That, I guess, was enough.

  Sure, we knew about black music. We heard Little Richard, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry. Fats Domino seemed like a jolly old soul, and Frankie Lymon’s “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” was something we sang in the car, traveling from club to club, everybody taking parts, everybody but Wendell who was laughing too hard, just as he laughed at Sally’s Amos and Andy bits and Hopkins’ Johnny Mathis imitation. Yeah, black music was fine. But it was music from another world, a place we’d never travel.

  Then one Saturday afternoon, we turned off the parkway near the airport and headed into Newark and, damn right, it was another country. We’d all squeezed into the station wagon. “If we get jumped, we all get jumped,” Sally insisted. He left the hubcaps at his aunt’s place in Asbury Park.

  “Jesus, Wendell,” Sally said, “you got any family in this town? Any relatives you know about? Some little pickaninny cousin can watch the car while we inside? Otherwise, we can kiss this car good-bye. Might as well not even lock up.”

  Boarded-up apartment buildings, bombed-out lots, drinkers and garbage on every corner. Sally jabbered nervously, “Hey, Wendell … get this

&nbs
p; ‘What’s the word?

  Thunderbird …

  What’s the price?

  Fifty, twice …

  What’s the action?

  Satisfaction …

  Who drinks it most?

  Us Colored Folks.’

  Ever hear that one?”

  “No sir,” Wendell answered.

  “Oh hell, Eddie, what’re we gonna lead off with tonight? ‘Stranded in the Jungle’? Our Al Jolson medley? And, say, when Doc booked us here, he didn’t happen to mention what color we were. I mean, did he say black or white?”

  “Neither one,” Eddie said. “Italian.”

  “Very funny,” Sally answered. “I tell you what. You put Wendell up front tonight. ‘Wendell and His Trained White Slaves.’ They’ll love it.”

  “Calm down, Sally. It’s near here.”

  Sally drove extra slow, rolling up the windows at every stop light. When cars full of blacks pulled alongside, he’d grab for a road map and run his fingers up and down, like he was looking for the road to Irvington.

  “Hey, Eddie, who’s starring tonight? Teresa Brewer? Gogi Grant?”

  “Coasters and Drifters, Doc said.”

  “None of them spade bird groups. No Flamingoes or Orioles or Robins or Crows?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Penguins? Meadowlarks? Sparrows?”

  “You want to be a bird group, Sally? The Five Chickens?”

  “They whip out their knives, we’ll be the Funky Capons. Then we can all grow tits and sing falsetto. How much we makin’ for this suicide mission?”

  “Doc set it up,” Eddie said, “like always. Why? You want to change your next of kin?”

  “Oh? Doc took care of it? The good doctor? We’re lucky we get a pail of chitlins … ”

  “Holee shit!” Eddie shouted. “Look at that line of people! What’s going on here?”

  “Must be they’re waitin’ for the library bookmobile,” Sally said. “It breaks down, they get worried.”

  We’d arrived. They were lined up around the block, in front of liquor stores and barbershops and rib joints, and it felt like every one of them was watching us pass. We stopped, turned a corner, and the line continued, all the way to the marquee. As soon as Sally read the marquee, he was laughing hysterically.

  “So Doc set it up, you say? Our faithful coach? Sure he did!”

  I was sitting in the back seat with Wendell and Kenny, so I couldn’t see the marquee. All I heard was Sally howling.

  “That does it, Eddie. That’s fucking it! Let’s split!”

  “We’re here,” Eddie said, but even he seemed down. Whatever was on the marquee was an unpleasant surprise. I leaned forward, over the front seat, but I still couldn’t see.

  “Don’t break your neck, Wordman,” Sally said. “I’ll read it to you. Marquee says tonight we got the Coasters, the Drifters, La Vern Baker, Lee Andrews and the Hearts. You know what else we got tonight? Amateur night!”

  “We’ll do it,” Eddie said. “I swear to God, we’ll do it.”

  “Amateur night is what we’re booked for! Can you dig it?! The Parkway Cruisers are giving it away for nothing! A benefit performance for a worthy cause. Spades!”

  “Parking lot’s around the back,” Eddie said quietly.

  “You kiddin’ me?”

  “Pull in.”

  “My grandparents never owned no slaves. Came over in the twenties in a ship they hammered together out of old Mazola oil cans. I don’t owe these colored folks nothin’.”

  “Pull in, Sally.”

  “Uncle’s bakery got knocked over once already this year. I figure we already donated for civil rights, you know?”

  “Pull in.”

  You can guess what happened that night at the Regency. White group faces audience of hostile blacks. Only other white face in the place is the Jewish theater owner, so he doesn’t count. Otherwise, its solid rows of stingy brim hats, do-rags, imitation leather jackets. Tired domestics fresh from dusting Goldberg’s apartment. Men passing the bottle after a hard day at the car wash. Surprise, laughter, scattered boos when whitey appears onstage, all turning to astonished appreciation when the honky boogies like Blind Lemon himself. Before long the house is rocking. They’re dancing in the aisles, jumping onstage, begging whitey to do another one just like the other one. “Sheeit, where them ofays learn to play like that?”

  Guess again. For one thing, it was amateur night at the Regency, and amateur night was an evening of almost medieval cruelty: Mardi Gras, inquisition, and pillory all in one. Never was an audience more skeptical, more jaded, more ready to destroy careers before they began. We all have an enormous appetite for other people’s failures—no victory occurs in a vacuum—and amateur night served up a smorgasbord of losers to an audience of have-nots. It was an orgy of humiliation, a night for fools, and a fool presided, a faggoty black comedian with a spotted clown suit and a dunce hat and a long cane. That was the hook, and few escaped it. He was always in the wings, staring at groups waiting to go onstage, confident that his moment would come. At the first sign of audience restlessness, he’d peek around the edge of the curtain; a few more derisive laughs, and he’d tiptoe out onstage.

  Sometimes the performers saw him coming. I remember a gang of school kids, heartbreakingly hopeful, singing their hearts out on “A Sunday Kind of Love.” They’d rehearsed steps, spent money they couldn’t afford on shiny shoes and nearly phosphorescent suits, and the moment they stepped onstage, they fell apart. They tripped over wires, missed harmonies, and the lead singer’s falsetto broke like chalk against a classroom blackboard. This time the clown came out fast—sometimes he gave an act time to pull itself together, but not this one—and the audience shouted unanimous approval. But the lead singer saw him coming and darted away from the advancing cane, like a hookey player skipping away from a truant officer, only he was still trying to sing. So the clown stepped on the microphone cord, picked it up, and advanced toward him, hand over hand, till he reached where the lead singer was kneeling at the edge of the stage, reaching for notes that were off the scale, praying for a reprieve, and the clown popped down beside him, mimicking his gestures, and finally the kid collapsed, handed over the mike and ran offstage.

  “Nice crowd, nice place,” Sally muttered in the wings. “Classy. Very classy.”

  “Kid sounded okay to me,” Hopkins said. “Coulda let him finish.”

  “Hey, Eddie,” Sally whispered, “you know anybody could use five identical suits with matching shoes. An undertaker, maybe? Quintuplets die in a car crash, he’ll be sitting pretty.”

  Eddie ignored Sally, but I remember he looked worried. He talked to me.

  “I’d love to knock them on their asses tonight, Wordman. I’d trade a dozen Claude Richards for an encore here.”

  “Are we ready?”

  “Are they?”

  A blues-singing bus driver. A Johnny Mathis drag queen. And a beautiful black woman who wanted to be Dinah Washington was jeered at, hooked, and led offstage in tears. The clown looked at us as he passed. “Be seein’ you.”

  “Wendell,” I asked, “has there ever been a white group here before? Is this a first?”

  “Been plenty white groups here,” Wendell answered.

  “Yeah?” challenged Sally. “Who?”

  “This here used to be an opera house. That was a long time ago.”

  “Thanks, Wendell. I feel better already.”

  The clown picked up an offstage mike.

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Are you ready for somethin’ different? I mean something un-pre-ce-dent-ed, you catch my meaning? Mr. Eddie Wilson and the Parkway Cruisers. Make ’em feel at home. They ain’t. Eddie Wilson!”

  The curtain took forever to rise. “Coulda been worse!” Sally whispered. “He coulda said we were South African sailors in the market for poontang.”

  Now if Elliot Mannheim ever hears about the Regency, he’ll turn it into a triumphant evening. Or maybe I’ve underestimat
ed him. Maybe he’d go the other way, recount a tragic failure, a noble ahead-of-time effort to span what was still an unbridgeable gap between white and black America. No matter, the truth is that we played three songs pretty well, received a polite hearing, closed to moderate applause, avoided the hook, got offstage and out of town in one piece. Now, to Sally that was a triumph to rank with Livingstone and Stanley. Catching up with the Russians was small change compared to our daring escape from Congolese New Jersey.

  Not for Eddie. I now realize that, just as dance weekend was my effort to bring worlds together, this was Eddie’s. Wendell said it best, that morning down at Rahway: “Always trying to bring things together … which is when they fall apart.”

  That Newark night Eddie learned there were people his music couldn’t reach, a world he couldn’t enter. Eddie wanted it all, wanted it now, and that was the night he learned he couldn’t have it. That night, it was his turn to play Toby Tyler.

  “He wasn’t the same after that,” Wendell said. “Maybe you others didn’t see the difference, but I sure did. You remember what happened after we finished playing?”

  “No … not exactly. Didn’t we just pack up and leave?”

  “You guys did. You waited in the station wagon.”

  “That’s right. You and Eddie were missing. You disappeared someplace.”

  “We caught the show. The pro-show. Some hell of a show it was too, even from way up in the balcony. Me and Eddie in the last row of nigger heaven. Condrums and bottles on the floor, broken seats, the two of us. Know what we saw that night?”

  “No.”

  “We saw … he saw … folks doing what he couldn’t do. The Coasters working on ‘Searchin’ ’ and ‘Young Blood’ for half an hour. The Drifters singing ‘Ruby Baby.’ Lee Andrews and the Hearts doing ‘Teardrops.’ Those last years, before the Beatles and psychedelic shit and all, those last years were good. People forget how good those black groups were, how strong they came on, singing, dancing, carrying on. Eddie ate his heart out, because they were where he wanted to be. He wanted to bring it all together. That’s what killed him.”

  Eddie hadn’t given up. After the so-so reception at the Regency, he was determined to bring off the impossible, some fantastic union of black and white music. Now, more than ever, he was drawn to the dark side. During the months before Lakehurst, when I assumed he had simply withdrawn from the rest of us, he was out with Wendell, embarked on the last struggle of his life.