Good Time Willie’S Got the Blues

Chapter 1

Roots

Often I think of the beautiful town

That is seated by the sea;

Often in thought go up and down

The pleasant streets of that dear old town,

And my youth comes back to me.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Not much exciting was going on except that after the big bang occurred and the primordial soup had cooled, Princess Andromeda from her celestial throne in the Milky Way looked out into space. There, amongst all those billions of stars was a cute, serene blue marble floating in the sun’s orbit and so tiny she called it Earth. On the cusp of its rugged coastline she noticed a little dot of a town that was situated on the eastern end of a picturesque valley where it greeted a blue ocean and for no reason at all, she named the town Eden.

We thought the name sucked so we called it Paradise.

At this point dear readers I, your humble servant, owe it to you to introduce myself, and how I came to be the town’s spokesman. It was exactly 7:05 a.m. in Paradise many years ago when on a soft dewy morning in a shack overlooking the reaches of Arundel Bay; that I had the occasion to be born.

The last piece of copy had been laboriously set by hand, the frame was set on the crude press and the deerskin ball had been rubbed over the typed page. The moment of birth had arrived. The heavy lever was pulled and out I came, a one-sheet newspaper, and was christened The Chronicle.

I’ll try not to make anything special out of our little port on the sea because frankly, there was nothing special about us. We did however, acquire the pleasantry of being laid back and letting nature take its course. And like a Broadway play we had an all star cast of characters; good guys, bad guys, cads, bums, moochers and most entertaining of all were our untutored home grown lovers. Speaking of that, it is well documented that there are only two types of lovers on this planet. Oh, maybe Alpha Centauri in his large galaxy has more, but right here on earth we had two of them on our own live stage.

The first was an unparalleled enthusiast, a roguish go-for-the G- spot paramour, a stardust twinkling Romeo with a scintillating dash of verve that drove the ladies berserk. He was our own Richard Michael (Hollywood) Grogan, who owned an unbridled lust and carried with it an aura of physical excitement that attracted women like an electromagnetic pulse. The men, on the other hand, had absolutely no doubt in their minds that he ranked right up there with the worlds greatest pervert, Comte Donatien Alphonse Francois, the Marquis de Sade.

Hollywood (his whispered name) had his many rough edges, not because he was the more debauched of the two lovers, but because he was irresistibly drawn to the nubile greenness of anything that resembled being virginal, tender and tantalizing, an Adonis who by day worked on a garbage truck slinging trash cans for the Groovy Garbage Co. To the women watching him with his well carved abs, he was that perfect hunk with his uncapped teeth as white as snow, curly black hair and stomach muscles that rippled every time he heaved a loaded garbage can. When he gave a dame that come hither look, bloomers would fall and his score card would soar big time.

There was absolutely no question in one’s mind that if he had gone beyond the second grade and had an ounce of brains, he would have been up there starring on that big silver screen, and that’s where the men wanted him to be, in Hollywood and not here in Paradise. He was also a devout moocher—there wasn’t a woman in town who hadn’t loaned him money knowing full well that she’d never get it back. Also, loyalty to one woman was an idea that made him puke, yet they still flocked to him for one broken heart after another.

Our second affectionate, was our own dapper Mr. Pierre Monjou Puzzles, a nattily dressed man with a trim mustache that looked as though it had been painted on by Pierre Auguste Renoir. Pierre had that silky smooth continental style that fascinated the older but wiser women. He was also an absolute word magician who could talk a starving dog off a meat truck; a man the Parisians would call a sophisticated boulevardier. His infectious charm was not his only weapon, for he also owned a women’s shoe salon and the thriving Idol Dance Studio above his shoe store where women were allowed to forget about their boring husbands.

Unlike Hollywood, Pierre’s taste in women was more for the sensitive mature type who knew what time it was and could pay their own way. His dazzling specialty on Saturday nights at the Grange Hall was his utterly spectacular moon walk back and forth across the dance floor. That and his twirling, whirling feet made bored housewives swoon in his arms and forget about washing diapers and dishes.

Hollywood on the other hand, was convinced that dancing was for fags. Why should he waste his time on a faggish dance floor when he could get the real thing at his favorite haunt, the Blue Moon Motel with its fake plastic fence, fake plastic flowers, artificial lawn, and a gaudy winking, blinking, neon sign inviting you to pay and wallow in its pleasures?

Hollywood, after heaving garbage all day, did indeed partake of its pleasures, especially on one dark night. With its spates of rain and lighting stabbing here and there he gladly accepted an invitation from a smoldering nubile jail bait beauty who was young enough to have sent him up the river making small rocks out of big ones. Hollywood hopped into his rusty pickup truck and made a bee line straight to Room 325B at the Blue Moon Motel, where his prize anxiously awaited him, all the while tightly clutching a small cloth bag that was stuffed full of quarters to cram into the slot of a machine by the bed that would start the bed shaking and sending its occupants into a vibrating nirvana.

There on 221 Baker Street in the darkness of room 325B, aided only by the light of the gaudy blinking neon sign, Hollywood’s fumbling fingers groped about for that small cloth bag that would send his virgin conquest spinning into another world. Ah, there it is! The coins slid into the slot producing delicious moans and groans of delight from his tasty morsel. Minutes later a high pitched piercing scream was heard throughout the parking lot where a beat up flatbed Ford truck sat with rusted fenders and a license plate that read I. B. Grogan. Our handsome hero was nailing someone, but who?

At this point I would be remiss if I didn’t include a third lover of a different kind, and that was the sensational, and I mean sensational, dy-no-mite doll, Roxie Bean, but she takes up another whole chapter.

Before I get too excited and involved in these escapades, I would like to take a split second to compose myself and explain the difference between us country folks and those people who living in the city. In a small town such as Paradise, Maine, where everyone knows you better then you know yourself, there were absolutely no secrets—even your hidden thoughts were read. It was, however, where we developed into what we are today. And as we walk down memory lane we never forget the good old days of our youth and players like Richard Michael Grogan, Pierre Monjou Puzzles, Roxie Bean and the Blue Moon Motel.

Those of you living in big cities cloistered in cozy concrete cubbyholes surrounded by hoards of diverse humanity, have friends of only a chosen few. When you meet someone new, say at a party, the first question they ask is where are you from? When you answer Paradise, Maine, they look at you as if you have been camping out all your life. Thus, for me to write this little yarn about an unimportant small town, I have to figuratively grab you by the ears and shout I’m from Paradise, Maine.

If it’s true as they say that God made little green apples, then it’s also true that someone, somewhere, said that the first line and the first page of a novel must grab your attention or into the recycle bin you go. I shutter at the very thought of this little gem withering on the vine, so hang in there folks until you find out about our special hero, good time Willie MacCool and why Willie’s got the blues. Especially interesting was our mysterious billionaire hermit, Mr. Jordan McTavish and what happened to his multimillions when he went to that big pasture in the sky. The other astonishing news was when his will was read.

Paradise with all of its breathtaking scenery was also a favorite summer resort for the old line rich who had been coming there for generations. They were the old money who wanted to be like us as they rooted around in their summer gardens pruning and pampering their precious tomato plants.

Other transient tourists, however, were not so kind. They thought we were vacuous, all attitude and no style, stilted, complacent rubes, boobs and hayseeds that were capable of only a single entendre, whatever that meant. They also made it plain that we were living in the twilight zone as they rolled through town in their fancy chrome plated sedans.

Sometimes if we felt like it we’d give them the finger along with gentle laughter and decide what the f#*!&% do they know?

If we were judged by our appearance it was true; we were laid back with a freedom that we attributed to the fresh salty air that gave us contentment. But not being accustomed to clean air made them choke like they were being gassed. To them, clean beaches, clambakes, delicious lobsters and freshly baked pies with mile high meringue from Meg’s Diner would never take the place of a Coney Island hot dog. Can you in your wildest dreams imagine a guy or a gal from Paradise in a big city feeling contentment as he or she inhales smog and ate pies with no meringue?

We had other valid reasons to feel the way we did because our freedom seemed to stem from nature itself. Plus, our roots were deeply planted here unlike big city folks living in cramped concrete quarters stacked high to the sky and who hear only the sound of horns instead of honking geese. But, I suppose you can get used to anything.

Simply because of our quaintness, we almost hit the jackpot one day when who should blow into town but a world-famous film producer of shitkicking, gunslinging, western cowboy flicks, Sam Katzsman by name. I’ll never forget that lazy summer day when he rolled into town and checked in at the Blue Moon Motel. He had come to pay us a visit not because he liked the town, but because, as we found out later, his fancy foreign car had broken down and was in a garage being glued back together.

The mere fact that he had checked in at the Moon caused Paradise to get caught up in a high Hollywood fever. We even went so far as to write an imaginary movie script casting Richard Michael Grogan as the dumb but handsome, lightening-fast, two- fisted, gunslinging hero who dazzled the west and whose only true love was his horse, Nelly. And, of course, who else for the villain but slick, mustachioed, Monsieur Pierre Monjou Puzzles as the ruthless but smooth operator who owned a crooked gambling saloon and a dance hall above with available hot women trembling with desire like super stacked starlet, Roxie Bean.

Sam (never a scene cut) Katzman, besides being a world renowned producer, was also known as absolutely the cheapest guy in Hollywood. Unlike his buddy the great Cecile B. De Mille with a casts of thousands, Sam would strive to make do with any down and out actor who was sober enough and could stay on a horse. Not once would Sam let a frame of film flutter to the cutting room floor.

Sam was impressive alright, splendid you might say, and looked every inch the famous Hollywood mogul you would come to expect. His knee high britches for instance, were made from the very finest Scottish wool, and his long jaunty pipe which probably was packed with cannabis weed looked tres important and then of course, there was his ultra sharp looking French beret.

One late afternoon after having one too many puffs on his pipe, Sam looked like he wanted to float away but was anchored down by a number of beers said, I’m going to tell you guys a story. Well, we were all ears when we thought we were going to get the real scoop about all that hanky panky going on in Hollywood, but that was not the case. Instead, he told us how lucky we were for being rubes, boobs, hicks and hayseeds because that’s exactly what Hollywood was looking for. Then he stopped as if in a reefer daze and stared at our bartender, Luke Lundberg, who was busy combing his drooping Fu Manchu in front of the large bar mirror.

Take a look at Luke for instance he said. We in Hollywood spend millions; I mean millions duplicating what you have here in abundance. He didn’t say it in exactly in those words, but he was dropping so many F- bombs I can’t repeat them here. After having told us the truth about ourselves, gossip spread like wild fire that Sam was actually casing the joint to make a real shitkicking cowboy thriller with lots of tits, fast draws, fire power, horse flesh, cattle, Indians, wagon trains; the good, the bad, and the ugly - you know, stuff like that.

Hollywood fever shot through town and we quickly organized a Sam Katznam film festival at our local Acme Theater that had the audience howling when we watched one of Sam’s false store fronts shake and fall during a gun fight. Then in another film, a 747 jet high overhead left its beautiful white contrail over the doomed wagon trains below, but as we all knew, Sam’s wagon train always made it through. We would leave the theatre smiling and in love with our famous producer.

Only those rich meanies living in their lacy mansions objected to all the nonsense saying that Sam’s horses would be forever dumping turds on their beautiful Ocean Drive. But what the hell, our deer hunters with gun racks in every pickup truck knocking off a few Indians would be a cinch. Sadly, though, it never happened. One day after he treated the guys to a couple of farewell rounds at the Down East Tavern, Sam got into his newly repaired car and zoomed off leaving us sad and dazed.

One thing about Sam though, was that he left with us his endearing love for our imperfections, the kind that Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers were forever preaching about. How could you not love the seven Dwarves if but for their imperfections? they’d say, and if there is a grain of truth to their logic, stick around because you’re going to enjoy being in this idyllic coastal town of ours.

Those of us born here had something to hang on to and that was the simple fact that our roots were here. Take, for example, an old timer by the name of Mr. Elmore Fillmore (yes that was his real name) who owned and operated the feed and grain store down near the B & M railroad station. Elmore has always maintained that if you had no roots you’d be just like a tumbleweed rolling through town, a ship without an anchor, an empty feed bag. Elmore had a checkerboard nailed on top of a barrel head near the cash register so when you checked out you could make a move or two. He was also as wise as a tree full of owls and he knew for sure what he was talking about.

To illustrate our philosophy about roots, I’ll give you the case of our own Sam McGee, tall, gaunt, and sinewy with a bushy mustache and large teeth that made him look like Teddy Roosevelt. It’s important to note that Sam was born here, but two seconds after he was born his family shipped out to try their luck in Tennessee and wouldn’t you know it, some years later Sam McGee waltzes into town as if he had never left and opens up one of those fancy-schmancy blacksmith shops; a blacksmith shop that if someone actually took a real horse there to be shod, he’d probably caca in his pants.

You, who were born and brought up in the big cities, would have accepted him with no questions. But we knew better and that’s why we were flabbergasted when Sam McGee had the nerve to consider himself one of us. One day, though, to our surprise he went into a trunk in the back of his shop and whipped out his birth certificate and nailed it on the wall next to his anvil and we thought we were seeing things. Now, when people walk by his blacksmith shop they proudly point to McGee’s birth certificate and say, He’s one of us, you know. Elmore, between checker moves, admitted that he was terribly wrong about our Sam McGee, formerly from Tennessee.

Miss Edna Springfield on the other hand, who lovingly educated everyone in town, was another story. Miss Edna, as she was called, was an endearing and lovely spinster school teacher who lived with her twin sister on Turnip Farm Lane not too far from where it intersects with Lover’s Leap. Miss Edna, as you can guess, was not born here. She was just two month’s old when her parents moved here and although she was way beyond eighty when she passed away, the last line of her obituary read that she was really born somewhere else.

I write this so that when you move to Paradise you’ll have no illusions about where you stand when your number is called.

When you do come to see us it would help if you’d view us with a kind heart. You may even look fondly at our beloved Blue Moon Motel with its blinking neon sign and plastic flowers. The motel was named after a Tin Pan Alley song of the same name whose lyrics went something like this, Blue moon you saw me standing alone without a dream in my heart without a love of my own. Dreaming is free and if you don’t have a love of your own, you could fantasize about being Richard Michael Grogan and having a torrid clandestine romp of your own in room 325B, the one with mirrors on the ceiling and a machine where you pop quarters into a slot and have the bed shake you into a delirious tremor.

Paradise as you know by now, is nestled at the eastern end of the picturesque Mohegan Valley and alongside the broad moving Mohegan river where it meets the blue Atlantic Ocean. Over the eastern horizon is our imaginary outlet to the world and being a seaport town, we are deeply steeped in the nautical tradition of the sea. Thus, Paradise is born of two parents, the earth and the sea.

The most enduring image in Paradise is the McTavish colonial mansion sitting high on McTavish hill, an impressive mansion by any measure. For a century and a half it has been synonymous with our history and it stands today as a gift to the people of Paradise. Now that he’s no longer with us, that gift is without a heartbeat. Yet it’s groomed gardens, trimmed hedges, manicured lawns and the wrought iron fence that guarded against intruders let us know that his mansion is a reminder of those things we knew we would never have.

However, before Mr. McTavish took that journey to where no traveler returns, he had drawn up a new will which not only left us the mansion but a gift of $175,000,000, as well. Can you imagine a small town such as this inheriting such a sum? We simply couldn’t believe all that money was suddenly ours and as a result our lives were uprooted like fallen trees in a big nor’easter.

This sudden gift was like a gushing oil well sitting on an ocean of oil that would never run dry. But then as the old saying goes, If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. The hammer dropped when the recipients of the old will caught wind of Mr. McTavish’s madness and they promptly engaged a prestigious Boston law firm that had practically written the Constitution, a firm by the name of Schultz, Pattern, Rugby, Sills and Dow.

On our side we were suddenly saddled, not with a gunslinging Shane riding in on a white horse, but with young Willie MacCool, a leather-clad, skirt-chasing, Harley-riding cub reporter for the Chronicle. Though admittedly he was somewhat handsome with a slight dash of élan, who by a quirk of fate became the appointed sole administrator of the town’s huge $175,000,000 philanthropic will.

Thereby hangs our twisted plot. How could Willie possibly stand up to a zillion dollar law firm? It was reminiscent of that kid in the Bible who stood up to Goliath with a slingshot. What we needed instead was firepower like that at the OK Corral. What we got instead was Willie with a BB gun. Much to our astonishment however, Willie became our golden knight. He miraculously rose from the ashes of defeat like Phoenix and together with the brilliant wisdom of an amazing pimp by the name of Harry Morticiai Beaudean from New Orleans; they knocked the legal stuffing out of the dastardly Boston law firm of Schultz, Pattern, Rugby, Sills and Dow.

Unlike the New York Times which only prints news fit to print, I, the Chronicle, reveled in dirt and garbage. That’s why my press would roar and my circulation would soar whenever the Blue Moon Motel was mentioned. The very suggestion of the Blue Moon was an excuse to keep your daughters under lock and key.

In the minds of the rich on Ocean Drive if there ever was a Debauchment Hall of Fame, the Blue Moon and Richard Michael Grogan would certainly be in it. He was our shimmering star with lazy, languid, bedroom eyes and thick luxurious hair that glistened under the lights as if it had been spit polished, the kind of hair that women love to run their fingers and toes through.

However, his luck ran out one memorable balmy night in June when he smoothly sashayed into the Blue Moon Motel with his shoes polished to a high gleam, and his hair glistening in the moonlight. He proceeded to rent two rooms for the following night, but the desk clerk that night happen to be one of his many ex-girl friends, Brigit O’ Shaughnessy, who had recently been dumped by our hero for her succulent kid sister. Mary O’Shaughnessy’s young body would have stunned a bull elephant.

Hollywood pulled a wad of greenbacks out of his pocket that would have choked a horse and Brigit, astounded at the size of the roll, could hardly believe her eyes. That’s when she finally recognized Grogan for what he really was - a cheap, two-timing, four-flushing, two-bit garbage slinger who still owed her big bucks from way back. Lowest of all, Grogan preferred women who were virgins. Then, to make matters worse, he left Brigit a fifty cent tip, adding insult to injury, which attached truth to the slogan, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Well, you can imagine how the wheels were spinning in Brigit’s brain. What sordid debauchery did he have in mind for her young and innocent kid sister? Why two rooms? And, how in the world did he get that big wad of money? So Brigit, who didn’t relish being shafted and had seen a thing or two in her days, alerted Officer Rufus Bowen to keep a tight surveillance on rooms 2 and 3 for any funny stuff with her overly developed teenaged 37-24-34 baby sister.

The following night however, took the cake when a truck load of cheap rot gut booze appeared, followed by an eye popping, bleached blond floozy who looked like she belonged in a strip joint making love to a pole. She asked Brigit at the desk between snaps of her bubble gum where she can find a certain Richard Michael Grogan and where are rooms 2 and 3. Well, bedding down with her kid sister was bad enough, but a ménage aux trois with this bleached blond bimbo was quite another.

Suddenly around 10 o’clock that evening, fifteen cars loaded with the high school senior class fresh from the prom showed up and converged on rooms 2 and 3. They were all kids just barely off their mother’s nipple and now sucking on bottles of booze.

Our town officer Rufus Bullet Head Bowen who fancied wearing Royal Mounted Police uniforms and was bigger than a fully loaded trash truck, was hunched behind a small bush like a peeping Tom and his eyes were glued on those two doors when he saw the big beautiful blond enter. He crouched there until he thought she’d be down to her G-string before he splintered the two doors into a million pieces. All off a sudden the volunteer fire department showed up, lights blazing and sirens wailing away. They quickly surrounded rooms 2 and 3 pulling out hoses and making a great show of it as if it were a four alarm fire.

Brigit had done her work well. Because following the fire trucks were the mayor, the principal, the alarmed parents and what seemed like the whole countryside descending on 221 Baker Street and trampling its fake lawn and plastic flowers. Seconds later, kids being escorted by the ears out of the two rooms, were followed by the bleached blond wearing only a G-string and waving her high heel shoe above her head angrily demanding money. Richard Michael Grogan however, (not being that much of a dumbbell), had long since taken a Greyhound bus to Portland with his anxiously awaiting morsel who was seen earlier carrying a small cloth bag and a tooth brush,

In an article the next day I went into minute detail about how disgusting that bleach blond bimbo looked wearing only a G- string and how she made a dent in Officer Bowen’s badge with her high heels when he tried to arrest her, and about how the kids formed a cheering section for her. They even passed the hat to raise money for her bail. I decided for the benefit of those folks on Ocean Drive that the youth of Paradise had fallen into a pit of decay.

Unlike Sinclair Lewis whose Main Street seemed to be sterile, our Main Street was a delightful diversion from the humdrum of everyday life, more like having a sinful yummy banana split with three different kinds of ice cream, cherries, chocolate syrup, jimmies, and topped with real whipped cream at the counter of Mr. Whiffle’s drugstore.

A criminal excitement occurred the day we got our first stop light. You might ask what’s so criminal and exciting about a stop light? Well, first of all ya gotta understand that our Main Street was like an aorta through which all that came into Maine had to pass on their way to a network of other roads like blood pulsing through the veins unhindered, that is, until the night big ole fat Nelly Potter stood up at the town meeting and said that she had noticed an out of state car going lickedy-split right through town. She wondered why that ton of lard Officer Rufus Bowen hadn’t nailed that sucker for treating our Main Street like an Indy 500.

So there on the spot they voted to shell out for the best traffic light money could buy, a big mother with lots of authority and plenty of arrows and blinking lights like a lit up pinball machine.

After the stoplight was installed we anxiously waited for something to happen. abruptly its three eyes popped opened as wide and as bright as the moon and immediately began blinking a stern warning that there was a new kid in town. It made us feel proud and civilized to obey that light unlike those people in New York City who laugh and think that a stop light is a stand up comic.

It only took a minute for the crime to happen when Sherm Stonehowser, after a couple of belts at the Down East Tavern, tried to beat the huge yellow eye in his old half ton truck. That’s when Officer Rufus Bowen, our 280 pounds of steel and muscles, leaped out into the path of the truck making Sherm practically put the brakes through the floor board to avoid hitting Ruf and damaging his truck.

A heinous crime had just occurred at our new stoplight as our local fuzz whipped the brand new orange ticket book out of his back pocket and waddled around the truck suspiciously studying it for any violations he may have missed.

A mob circled the truck and watched Sherm so that he couldn’t make a break for it. Rufus proceeded to roll and wet the lead end of his pencil on his tongue and wrote the ticket with all the solemnity and seriousness the crime deserved. Then Ruf slapped that little mother right there under Sherm’s windshield wiper so we could all look at it and marvel at our heroic crime fighter. Sherm was so proud of that orange ticket he kept it under his windshield wiper so long that it faded and no one could read it anymore. That crime du jour easily warranted banner headlines and a picture of Officer Rufus Bowen and Sherm proudly holding his bright orange ticket looking like the FBI’s most wanted criminal.

At the far end of Main Street there is a circle with two churches painted a stark heavenly white. The only hostility there was on Sunday morning when the congregations poured out of the churches and eyed each other across the circle in suspicious contempt. One of us is in the wrong church and it sure isn’t us, so it must be them, they would say. Then they would all left feeling heavenly superior to know that God was on their side of the circle.

The Protestants we knew cared little about the Catholics with their mumbo jumbo religion and the Catholics on the other hand were secure in their knowledge that the mysterious code of their religion would never be broken by people who only spoke English.

Bobo Hockmeister and Willie MacCool use to swap churches a lot when they were kids. It was neat because when they went to Bobo’s church they used to sing a lot. Then Willie would take Bobo to his little Catholic church down on Water Street where all the French and Irish and other mongrels worshiped. Bobo would marvel at the mysterious code words in Latin and how they would kneel, or stand, or sit and do all those mysterious things with their hands as if God were directing them. Mrs. Hockmeister however, went ballistic one day when she caught Bobo mumbling strange words about Hail Mary and wearing a Saint Christopher’s medal, thereby ending Bobo’s brief fling with Catholicism.

Come visit us in the fall when all the leaves turn into a riot of colors and people burn them in big piles. Then after the high school football game on Saturdays you can put on your mackinaw and drift on down to the stop light for the opening day of deer season to see deer lashed to the roofs and fenders of their cars.

Sadly, though, the death of our Main Street came when the long awaited super highway was built outside of town and with it a new shopping center and that was that. We had no more traffic and no one paid the slightest attention to the stoplight whether it was red or pink or whatever. Finally they pulled the plug and to this day, it still hangs there—a dead stop light swinging in the breeze and all we do is throw rocks at it.

Chapter 2

The Tender Warrior

Whose First Look of Love Can Never Be Reprieved

Editorial to a Mother

Dear Mom,

Remember in the old days when you were convinced that