Ch. 4 Excerpt: The White Peugeot Bicycle

Ferine could see the reflection of Johnny in the condition of his bicycle. He had escaped on it from the soccer hoodlums at Dyker Park but it was scratched up, the wheel was bent, and the gears no longer worked smoothly. For months he had been taking two buses to Ferine’s home, sometimes walking the five miles and beating the bus there as infrequent as they were. He was even having a harder time getting it up for Ferine, an intolerable byproduct of the depression and drugs.

Ferine had a good idea; an exchange of birthday gifts and a graduation gift for Johnny who was finishing high school. “I’ll buy you a new bicycle and you buy me one, How about that?”

“I want a Peugeot; a white Peugeot,” Johnny moaned.

“And so do I,” said Ferine excitably. She envisioned to him a side by side ride up the Ocean Parkway bike path to the Prospect Park zoo. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? And we can find a nice secluded spot,” she whispered. Johnny moaned.

“And why wait until our birthdays when the summer will be half over; let’s get them now!” Ferine said and jumped up excitedly.

“I guess we could go to Weber’s and pay on time,” Johnny was lightening up. “Okay. Let’s go to Weber’s this Sunday and put in our order.” To Weber’s they went, Weber, an orthodox Jew with a bicycle shop across from the shuttered Borough Park Theater under the el on 51^st Street. Johnny had seen a white ten-speed Peugeot there recently. There was even a smaller female version with a low bar for a girl to gracefully get on without having to mount it like a cowboy.

By the time graduation day came and school was out for the summer, even forever, the bicycles were paid up, delivered, assembled, and ready to ride. That first Monday with no school, it poured all day. Their side by side ride would have to wait until Ferine got back from a Fourth of July weekend with her family in Red Hook. Johnny had a lot of time on his hands and he couldn’t wait to ride. He would blow a joint and get on that shiny new bike for a ride to Manhattan, Washington Square Park.

July Fourth was one of those special New York City summer days with plenty of asphalt sucking heat and no wind to blow it away, even in Brooklyn. Kids in the neighborhoods knew what to do on such a day: open up the fire hydrants with big old wrenches and dance in the streets in torrents of freezing cold water. Splash the passing cars, whether they wanted a wash or not. Watch the old passengers in buses frantically trying to close their windows before the kids could aim their water at the openings with garbage can lids

Johnny took off for the two hour ride, long wavy hair tied back in a pony tail, short cut black jeans, maroon t-shirt and Converse All-Stars with white athletic socks folded over the laces so they wouldn’t get tangled in the peddles, an official factory-made Peugeot canteen of water in the holder, up the hump of Sunset Park and a right down the slope at Fourth Avenue, a straight four-lane left on Prospect Avenue and into Hamilton Avenue under the Gowanus Expressway; right on Hicks Street. He followed Hicks Street alongside the submerged Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to Atlantic Avenue, left and down along the piers at Furman Street to Old Fulton and onto the Brooklyn Bridge. Ah, the gallons of fresh water, a new gush across every cross street, a new gang of neighborhood teens splashing a participating bicyclist with their joyous summer flood, cold Catskill wine and wet again; what a thrill! Carry the bike up the steps and you’re there on the smooth cement path that turns into rickety wooden board that thump in time like music to the ridden over. Ride up the incline and around the anchorage to the main span. What better place to rest and have a smoke than mid-span on a Brooklyn Bridge bench with East River breezes blowing away any evidence? Woodstock was overtaking Altamont again.

Johnny glided down the loose wooden slats on the Manhattan side of the bridge dodging tourists taking photos of the famous Manhattan skyline with their backs to Brooklyn. The boards become cement at the anchorage straight down to City Hall Park, right at Church Street that turns into Avenue of the Americas. At St. Marks Place, turn right and Washington Square Park is right there.

 Johnny was feeling high in Washington Square Park watching folks playing chess, children hopping in and out of the pool around the fountain with parents casually sitting nearby. Elderly citizens sat on benches on either side of the arch near Good Humor ice cream carts, shaved ice stands, fruit drinks vendors, and music, everywhere music, music from guitars, a steel kettle drum, and further out an NYU student practicing clarinet, a Broadway musician playing his violin. The park was filled with smells of incense from Hare Krishna followers and the sweet smell of ganja; not a pig in sight.

Johnny walked his bicycle over to a group of young long-haired men and found a place to sit on the ledge. They passed around a joint casually to Johnny who took it all in then passed it on. He’d just met these young men but already he felt like he’d known them for years; that’s the way it was with hippies and that’s what weed will do to you.

“Hey man, would you like a fruit drink? I know the man. Hey, boss, give my friend here lemonade.” What a contagious scene of love, how bright life was when you were in the Tao, "so unlike the old folks they were," Johnny thought. They were something new. They didn’t quite know what it was or particularly cared; they just ‘did it.’

“Hey man, cool bike,” one of his new friends remarked, Johnny nodding his head, proud that he noticed. “Hey man, you wouldn’t mind if I took a quick ride around the park, would you?”

“Sure, check it out,” Johnny nonchalantly said, then flinched unconsciously wrapping his mind around the phantom idea of communalism for a second. It was natural that everyone brought what they had to share in the Age of Aquarius. He saw the anonymous friend weave the bicycle around the outside paths of the park, out of sight, and then back through the trees to the fountain, and then he weaved out of sight again. It was only a few minutes, he thought and the other young men had moved on and wandered off the ledge It was so peaceful in the city park and fifteen minutes had passed. Johnny stood up thinking he saw the man on his bike talking with someone near a distant tree but it wasn’t him; it wasn’t his bike.

At thirty minutes, the dusk was gathering in the sky, but it was dawning on Johnny, the dream was over. The nightmare was racing in his heart, from Woodstock to Altamont, paranoia striking deep. The shadows in the park met lazy days head on as the last shimmer of golden sun slid from the reflecting town house windows and the children found their parents heading home. Johnny spun around slowly in a 360^o last look, head lowered, walked to the IND subway. “Before wild Medusa’s serpents gave birth to hell disguised as heaven, those were the days.”

At the new college in September, Johnny stood on the quad a week before registration, tossing a Frisbee with friends. A young man on a blue bicycle rode up to the edge of the grass and called out. “IS anyone interested in buying a bicycle?” Johnny paid attention.

“Let me see it,” The young man got off the bike and walked it over to Johnny who looked it over. “How much you want?”

“$50 would be okay,” said the young man.

”Why are you selling your bike?” Johnny asked suspiciously.

“Oh, it’s not mine. I found it in the backyard of a house.”

“Really? May I try it out?” asked Johnny innocently.

“Sure,” said the backyard bike thief.

He never saw Johnny Livewire, or the bike, again.

Ch. 1 Excerpt: The Day Jim Morrison Died

      He was 17 years old in the summer of ’71. Johnny Livewire needed a job. He searched through the want ads and found something he thought he could do: messenger. Being a messenger at the American Blueprint Company suited Johnny fine. He hated the thought of being cooped up in a building all summer. He could spend his time grooving in the streets of Manhattan and New York City grew him in. The handsome, six foot tall, haggard youth with long wavy brown hair to his shoulder, parted in the middle, Romanesque nose, facial hair he didn’t bother shaving, in his black, unmarked, v-necked t-shirt, black high-top steel-toed construction boots blending into black denim jeans, wrapped his hard body with leather belt to fit. Johnny’s deep, sharp, hazel-green eyes carried the warmth of his soul to many a high school coed convinced and willing to feel his tenderness, mold herself to his tenderness, and become a woman with him, almost become a rebel with him. LSD, marijuana, Hiram Walker blackberry brandy and Marlboro red; the chute was greased and many a young lady slid him in.

      Mom didn’t take too kindly to Johnny’s wide-open disregard for house rules. At least she didn’t bother him about smoking cigarettes in the apartment; she smoked Tareyton herself. But she only gave him $5 allowance a week. In the fall, Johnny would be a high-school junior. He had to work the summer just to try to earn a dollar. He took the West End BMT up to Times Square on 42^nd Street and walked to 5^th Avenue. The American Blueprint Company, with offices on the fifth floor, south side, would be his headquarters. When he learned they would give him carfare to deliver the parcels, he had an idea: the first day of work he left Brooklyn early to avoid the rush hour crush and carried his bicycle onto the ‘T’ train, riding it past Bryant Park and the Main Library, chaining it to a parking sign pole on 41^st Street; no one would know. He pocketed the tokens.  

      The time he saved he would have wasted underground or walking perusing the Midtown records, especially King Karol. He would leave a deposit on a record he wanted and pick it up before heading home. Many a record was the first test copy in New York, like a Blues Image or Iron Butterfly album. His collection grew and his rock knowledge deepened. The rest of his earnings went for slices of pizza, nickel bags, and Forex natural lambskin condoms.  

      Hank sat on one of the dozen mismatched chairs in the grubby messenger lounge. The wobbly ceiling fan kept the smudged windowless room barely cooled in the summer swelter, the air tinged with the smell of blue ink and oil from the presses outside in the large, worn, high-ceiling workroom stuffed with drafting tables looking like a bland pool hall. The tangy smell of unwashed clothes wafted off of Hank and tinged Johnny’s sorry nostrils and he sat waiting for his next assignment reading his pocket copy of Quotations of Chairman Mao protected by its shiny red plastic cover.  

      Hank sat a few feet across from Johnny, shoes off, cross-legged, only brown-spotted tumors on his down-turned balding head, picking fuzz bunnies from between his toes through the hole in his sock. Hank waited his turn, too. Philip Unger, an unkempt overweight man-child in his late twenties waited, too, doing a word jumble. They didn’t mind waiting; they got paid by the hour. The trip meant carfare and tips from clients to Johnny; he took their turns, gladly. Hank was saved for special deliveries the manager didn’t think Philip, Johnny, or the other young messengers could find. Johnny sat like a roach in a corner come to life by the manager’s call:

      “Johnny, come here,” the manager called into the drudging room holding a three-foot long cardboard cylinder. “Bring this to this address on 65^th off Madison. Take the IRT.”

      “Okay boss,” Johnny said jumping to his feet, placing the two tokens in his pant pocket. Stepping into the dilapidated hall to the original hand-cranked elevator, Johnny waited for the filthy worn uniform of an old black elevator-operator to reach his floor, pushed open accordion door and closed in, cranked, for the slow trip down. He walked around the block, unchained his bike, and headed up Madison, swerving through the Midtown congestion to the client, delivered, tipped by, and returned to base.

     Johnny was just about to enter the building when a headline on a stack of NY Post newspapers outside a curbside kiosk caught his eye. “3d Rock Star, Jim Morrison, Dead at 27.” The date was July 9^th. It said he had been discovered almost a week before. Devastated, Johnny went to Zum-Zum, the fast food restaurant next to the blueprint building, for bratwurst with the snap when you bit into it, sat and read the dreadful news. His hero was gone.

Roadhouse Blues by Johnny Livewire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc3aYrmLkSo