Out In The 1960s Be-Bop Jukebox Night

By Zack James

 

Everybody knows, or should know by now, and even if you have forgotten I am here to put you straight that Josh Breslin was one of those guys, one of those working-class neighborhood guys, our particular working-class neighborhood being the Acre section of old North Adamsville where the poorest of the poor eked out their existences was what they called then a JD, juvenile delinquent. We called ourselves, as did others who were in the same condition the literarily more romantic “corner boys.” Corner boys who mainly worked their way up the age-defined grapevine to hang out in front of Salducci’s Pizza Parlor by high school time. In our time the king hell king of the corner boy night was one Francis Xavier Riley, Frankie, Josh’s best friend from junior high school days until a few years ago when they finally laid the bloody bastard to rest.    

No question Frankie was our leader, and no question either that whatever legend was built up about him, true or false, had Josh’s fingerprints all over it. See Josh was Frankie’s “flak,” his PR man if you like and at some point Josh had him built up like the “second coming,” set up so heroically that Josh almost believed half the stuff he wrote about Frankie himself, and maybe he did too. Frankie did nothing to dissuade anybody of that notion, at least not that I ever heard him utter.  

No question Frankie, a really good-looking guy in the dark hair, blue-eyed Irish good-looks way and a fast-talker also in the Irish budding politician way had all the girls our age around the neighborhood, some older girls too, all wrapped around his finger. Frankie, of course, although they had some tight moments, giving the devil his due, guided Josh, fairly well through the intricacies of, well, ah, girls, girlish ways, and girlish charms. He took Josh under his wing after his family had moved to the Acre from Olde Saco up in Maine and they had moved in across the street from Frankie’s house. No question that Josh, as he would be the first to admit, would have been left out to dry, alone, utterly alone, in that great teenage angst night if not for Frankie. Frankie was always hipping Josh to different techniques he had worked out in his fertile brain, some of which worked, worked for him and some that busted out, busted out for Josh.

What got me thinking about this old tricks business was just the other day I was at a diner which had a jukebox where you got exactly one selection for a quarter  and I  was telling someone about how in the great 1960s teen corner boy night a lot of our time, our waiting around for something, anything to happen time, was spent around places like pizza parlors, drugstore soda fountains, and corner mom and pop variety stores throwing coins into the old jukebox to play the latest “hot” song for the umpteenth time. This was the corner boy scene that Frankie ruled over wherever he set up his throne. I also wound up telling that person about a little “trick” that Josh told me about that he used to use when he was, as he usually was, chronically low on funds to feed the machine.

See, part of that waiting around for something, anything to happen, a big part, was hoping, sometimes hoping against hope, that some interesting looking frail would come walking through that Pizza Parlor door (“frail,” a girl in the old neighborhood terminology, corner boy terminology from watching too many 1930s gangster movies, first used by Frankie, and then picked up by everyone else). And, especially on those for us no dough days, would put some coins in that old jukebox machine. I swear, I swear on anything, that girls, girls, if you can believe this, always seemed to have dough, at least coin dough, in those days to play their favorite songs.

 

So here is the trick part, and see it involves a little understanding of human psychology too, girl human psychology. Okay, say, for a quarter you got five selections on the juke box like you did at Salducci’s who used the cheap juke price as an enticement to get kids in after school for pizza and soda. Well, the girl, almost any girl that you could name, would have a first pick already set in her head, some current boy romance thing, and the second one too, maybe a special old flame tryst that still hadn’t burned out. But, see after that, and this is true I swear, they would get fidgety about the selections. And, boy, that is where you made your move. You’d chime up with some song that was on your “hot” list like Save the Last Dance for Me, or some other moody thing and, presto, she hit the buttons for you.

 

Here’s where the psychology came in, the girl human psychology. That sentimental choice by you rather than, let’s say Breathless by Jerry Lee Lewis which had been your real “hot” choice told her you were a sensitive guy and worthy of a few minutes of her time. So you got your song, you got to talk to some interesting frail and maybe, maybe in that great blue-pink great American teen night you got a telephone number even if she had a boyfriend, a forever boyfriend. Nice, right?

 

But here is the part, the solemn serious part that makes this a Frankie story although he is not present in this scene, at least not physically present. Who do you think got Josh “hip” to this trick? Yes, none other than Francis Xavier Riley, Frankie, king of the teen night, king of the North Adamsville teen night.  After a while Frankie was so smooth at directing the selections that girls would not even get a chance to pick those first two current flame and old flame selections but he would practically be dropping their quarters in the machine for them. Hail Frankie.