NEW BEDFORD RETURN
excerpts from chapters 31,32,33,34
NEW BEDFORD RETURN
We could smell the ocean in the air as we tumbled out of the van in front of the West End Social Club; a place we would soon call home. We were weary from the early morning drive and the after effects of the party we had abandoned back in the city. It was a crazy move, but we had the courage and the confidence to make such a move. Some how we all had the notion that we were good musicians to venture into the unknown, to find new ears to which we could send our energetic music. I was the first one out of the van with the feeling of being back home. Certainly I knew the neighborhood because I used to live just around the corner from the club. I stumbled up the stairs to the door, not being sure if the owner was there. He lived a coupled of blocks away and he would walk to the club instead of driving. I knew he would be there because the club opened at eleven and it was ten-thirty when we arrived.
WEST END SOCIAL SLEEPOVER
Roscoe was a good friend and I knew he would help me. He was the kind of guy that could pass for Santa Claus, except he didn’t have white hair, nor did he wear a red suit. He had a weasely, under-eyed look of deep skepticism and distrust, that must have taken him years to develop, or he may have learned it during the time he had spent in prison. I think he regarded prison as vacation time, and didn’t care if anyone knew that he was an ex-con. He liked me and he trusted me because he knew that I was a hard worker and I had connections with the local musicians. He knew I was in the Air Force and that I was stationed at Otis Air Base. He knew I had frequented his club many times in the past and always brought other friends with me.
We had a good relationship, where we had something to offer each other. He had the club and I had the music contacts. He was happy to see me and was eager to help me get the band settled so we could be prepared to play ASAP. He took us upstairs above the club where there was a large open space, not unlike the space below. The only difference was the room was not totally finished, but it did have a nice bar and it was cozy and quite livable. We unpacked the van and staked out our spots in the room upstairs, including setting our instruments on a makeshift stage. The space was perfect, and the band members started to feel comfortable once they realized we had a place to stay. Now, all we had to worry about was food.
It didn’t take us long to find a place to stay, thanks to Roscoe. He hooked us up with one of his friends who had recently bought a hotel. The place was a run down four-story building with no elevator. It was dimly lit and had a reputation for housing many prostitutes over the years. Carmel and Raymond, local characters that were thought to be members of the mob, ran the hotel. They were good friends of Roscoe and visited the club often, especially if there was good music there. Carmel came to see us play and he enjoyed the band very much. He remembered me when I was playing with “The Spices” and “Chubby” Tavares. He was happy to see me back in New Bedford with a new band and he offered us a really good deal for rooms at the hotel. Roscoe used us as the house band until we were stable. The arrangement between these two guys made it possible for us to get settled in town.
The first week at the hotel was the hardest week yet and it would test our reserve as a band Carmel helped us out by making a big pot of soup that lasted for a couple of days, then we were on our own. Our collective funds were down to seven dollars and we had six mouths to feed. Six grown men who hadn’t eaten in a couple of days it seemed. We knew that all we had to do was make it to the weekend, and everything would be all right, because we would be getting paid good money for playing at the club. We all put our money together and decided what we could buy to eat that would last for a couple of days. We thought peanut butter and bread would do it, so we gave to money to Robert. That was a tremendous mistake, because when he returned after some time, we opened the bag to discover that he had brought two cans of squid and he didn’t have enough change to buy anything else, not even bread. We had no one to blame but ourselves, the rest of us thought collectively. “I knew I should have gone to the store” one of the guys yelled! It was too late then the damaged was done. The store was closed and it was too late to return the stuff. One guy just disappeared down the hallway. I think he went to the bathroom to throw up. The rest of us were just too stunned to respond. He was the epitome of ineptness. The only thing we could really think of, was how we were going to kill the idiot guitar player, but we were too weak to fight. That’s why we didn’t go to the store in the first place, because of weakness from starvation. We were really thinking bad thoughts and the puny little guitar player never knew how close he had come to losing his life. We were very disappointed and we spent a great deal of time blaming ourselves for the horrible misjudgment, letting Robert go to the store. We were stuck. We couldn’t eat the soup that was left in the pot, because I tried to stretch it by pouring in a bottle of catsup, thinking I was adding tomato sauce, but I forgot that catsup had vinegar in it. Now all we had was those cans of squid and no bread.