Otherwise know as "How I Spent the Summer of '65." (Pretty much a true story . . .)

It was a couple of years before the so-called summer of love, "Mary Jane" hadn’t swept through the neighborhoods yet, the Beatles were just getting big, and we were a bunch of guys hanging around "the corner." Now "the corner" was actually a little joint owned by a baldheaded guy named Jimmy DiLustro appropriately named "Jimmy’s." It was in the middle of a block on Academy Avenue which, in turn, was in a middle class neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island. We called it "the corner" because that sounded cool. Everybody who was anybody in those days hung around a "corner." It may have been the Sixties but we were still back in the good ol’ Fifties, wearing black leather jackets, combin’ our hair straight back, listening to rock n’roll, and driving "hot cars" (sometimes that meant something besides fast, but that’s another story). The guys were mostly Italians, a couple of Irishmen, and two or three whatevers. Jimmy’s was a coffee an’ place. You know, coffee an’ a donut, coffee an’ a cruller, whatever. Oh yeah, there were two pinball machines. And a jukebox.

Me? My name’s Alex. Alex Bevilacqua, but my friends always called me "Leaky," probably because my name in English means "Drinkwater." Benny DiPietro hung that one on me one day and it stuck. (Christ, even my mother called me that after a while.) Benny stuck a lot of nicknames on people. (He wasn’t immune – we called him "DeePee," or even "PeePee" since he had a habit of leaving his pecker hanging out of his fly at the damnedest times. Like at Rico Carbone’s funeral . . . but I get ahead of myself.)

Anyway, I was talking about Benny, or I should say DeePee. He wasn’t a big guy, maybe five-nine, with brown, wavy hair and blue eyes (his mother was Irish, I think) and a permanent grin on his face. He was the funniest guy on the corner. I remember the time he jacked up Nickie Falcone’s ’64 Impala and lifted his mag wheels. Right in broad daylight! He was singing "Whistle While You Work" as he spun the lug wrench in the middle of the parking lot of the A&P super market next door to Jimmy’s. He rolled the damned things down the sidewalk and stuck them in Jimmy’s back room.

Jimmy was pissed. "DeePee, what the fuck are you doing? Whose wheels are those?"

"Jimmy, don’t worry about it. They’ll be outta here in a coupla days."

"Are they hot? You stole those cocksuckers, didn’t you? DeePee I don’t want no goddamn trouble from the cops. Danny D’Angelo was in just the other day checkin’ the joint out."

Gustavo "Danny" D’Angelo, Sergeant, Providence Police Department, made a career out of busting our balls. One day he came into Jimmy’s and started pickin’ on one of the guys for no good reason. DeePee said something like "Aw, get outta here, will ya, Danny? Leave us alone for Chrissake."

Cops, especially Providence cops, don’t like being addressed by their first names by "punks." So he pulls out a notebook and says "What’s your name, wiseass?"

As soon as I saw that look on DeePee’s face I knew we were gonna get lugged down to the station, but there was nothing I could do about it but enjoy the show. Anyway , DeePee gets up and says "Hey fellas, he wants to know my name." That was their cue. Within thirty seconds or so there’s four guys dancing around D’Angelo, chanting "He wants to know my name, he wants to know my name," clapping their hands in rhythym.

D’Angelo stands there for a minute, his face gettin’ redder as his blood begins to boil, and then he screams "That’s it, you’re all goin’ downtown!" Another cop comes in and helps him round us up, and the next thing you know there’s six of us in the back of the paddy wagon making the three-mile trip down to the police station in LaSalle Square. So we spent the usual four hours in the "drunk tank" and then they’d let us go, and we’d have to walk home. Sometimes we’d get slapped around a bit if we talked back to them, but it was no big deal. We took it out his son, Billy who was a little shit.. I’ll bet he wondered why his kid got beat up school every other day.

Anyway, DeePee made good on his word to Jimmy. He heard Falcone was crying about the loss of his "mags" and he went up to him just a couple of days after he’d boosted the wheels. DeePee tells the poor sucker that he "happened to have" a set of mags just like the ones he "lost" and that Falcone could have them for a C-note. Falcone says "Oh yeah?" and DeePee shows them to him. Falcone looks at them and says "Wow, they’re just like mine! How much?" Stupid bastard ended up buying his own mag wheels back from DeePee for a hundred bucks. At least Jimmy was glad they were out of his back room.

But I gotts to tell you about Rico. One day I’m sittin’ at one of the pinball machines, sippin’ a cup of Jimmy’s coffee, when DeePee comes up to me. "Hey, Leak, check out this shit."

At this point, I’m maybe a few hundred points from a free game so I don’t want to be disturbed. "DeePee, not now."

"Naw, naw, never mind the game. You gotta see this guy." And then he pulls me away from the machine so hard the fuckin’ thing tilts. Less than a hundred points from a freebie.

"DeePee, PeePee, what the f . . . " And that’s when I saw Rico Carbone. Now this kid’s about five feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds soakin’ wet with a face like a rat. His hair’s slicked back with a DA (that’s a "duck’s ass" in case you don’t remember). He’s got on a dirty tee shirt on with cuffed jeans and black pointed shoes. All he needed was the pack of Luckies rolled up in the sleeve.

He looks around the joint for a minute and then turns to DeePee. "O! I’m Rico Cahh-bone. Butt me, pal." (For you uninitiated types, Italians sometimes holler "O" (sounds like "Oh") when they want your attention. It’s kinda like "Hey!" only stronger.)

DeePee gets this shit-eatin’ grin on his face and starts pulling down his pants. That’s when Jimmy almost lost it. "Whoa, DeePee, what the fuck? Pull your pants back up! What are you nuts? There’s a couple of broads in here!"

DeePee didn’t give a fuck who was in there, but that was beside the point. "Jimmy, the guy said ‘Butt me.’"

"So?"

"So I figured I’d stick my ass in his face and give ‘im what he wants!"

By this time I’m laughin’ my own ass off. Rico Carbone didn’t even change his expression.. "Naw, not that kinda butt, a cigarette. I wanna fuckin’ cigarette, pal." He held up two fingers to his lips.

"Aw, I see. A smoke." DeePee fixes his pants with one hand and pulls out a pack of smokes with the other.

Carbone looks at the pack. "Fuckin’ filters! Ain’t ‘chu got Luckies pal?"

"Hey, ‘pal,’ take what you get. They’re free." DeePee turns to me and says, "You believe this guy?"

Anyway, Carbone takes a weed, breaks off the filter and sticks the other in his mouth. Now he snaps his fingers, looks at DeePee and says, "Match me." I though DeePee was gonna cold-cock him.

So Jimmy’s son, who was also named Jimmy but we called him "JJ" for "Jimmy Junior," walks up to Carbone. "So who the fuck are you anyway?"

DeePee looks at him and says "Didn’t you hear him, JJ? He’s fuckin’ Rico Cah-bone, right Rico?"

"Yeah, dat’s right. From ‘the Hill.’"

DeePee looks properly impressed. "Not the Hill? No shit!" Now I know DeePee’s pullin’ the kid’s leg and so does everybody else. Except Rico.

"Yeah, yeah. I hang around with Jimmy D, Nickie G, and Billy C."

DeePee slaps his forehead and looks wide-eyed at JJ, who by now is playing along with him. "No! Not the Jimmy D, Nickie G, and Billy C!"

"Yeah. Dem guys."

DeePee sticks his nose right in the kid’s face. "Know what?"

"What?"

"I never fuckin’ heard of ‘em."

The whole place cracks up. Even Jimmy. Carbone looks around, as though he’s Al Capone and not getting any respect. "I’m Rico Cah-bone! From da fuckin’ Hill! Waddafuck is the matter wichyu guys?"

JJ, who’s got a hot temper, starts walkin’ over to Carbone. "Lemme throw the little cocksucker outta here."

But DeePee puts his arm around Carbone and says "Naw, naw JJ, this here’s an important cocksucker, not just any cocksucker." He finally light’s the cigarette hangin’ out of Carbone’s mouth. "Have a match, pal. You want a cup of coffee?" I knew DeePee wanted to keep him around. For laughs.

Well, it turned out Rico wasn’t a bad guy. He said he hailed from "the Hill" which wasn’t quite true , but nobody gave a shit. (In case you’re wondering, "the Hill" means Federal Hill, the "Little Italy" of Providence, and home of some of the toughest wiseguys in town. Everybody wanted to be from there. Carbone lived about six blocks away but I guess he figured that was close enough.)

Rico drove around in a hand-me-down Ford station wagon, a fifty-nine, I think. Anyway, I don’t know what was in it but that car could burn rubber like nothing I’ve ever seen. And he was all too willing to demonstrate. He must’ve gone through a set of tires each month. I remember Joey Ziti was duly impressed. We all liked fast cars, but Joey was the real car nut. DeePee used to say Joey would take Hot Rod Magazine instead of Playboy into the bathroom to jerk off. Anyway, we used to all pile into Carbone’s car and go around town to raise hell. We called it the "War Wagon."

It always started the same way. We had a few laughs in front of Jimmy’s, a few beers and then in the War Wagon to go "do some heads." Usually we didn’t get into any fights, nothing serious anyway. I remember one night we got pulled over on the East Side. The cop said he was chargin’ us with something called "codagery" which he said meant impersonating a police car (forget about it -- I couldn’t find it in the dictionary either.) Anyway I guess it was because DeePee, Dukey Donato, and I had our heads out the windows howlin’ like sirens while Rico drove. Must have been a good imitation! We figured we were gonna spend a few hours in the drunk tank downtown, the usual "penalty" we got when we got caught fuckin’ around. Then DeePee worked his particular brand of magic.

As I remember it, we were standing around the car when DeePee looks at one of the cops and says "Hey, don’t I know you?"

The cop looks at him funny. "Where from?"

"I’m Benny DiPietro, you know, DeePee!" The cop’s still drawing a blank. DeePee lights up a cigarette and puts his arm around the cop. "About two weeks ago you busted me for takin’ a piss in the middle of Chalkstone Avenue, don’t you remember? Jesus Christ, I’m insulted!"

The cop starts turning red while his partner’s laughing. "Uh, yeah I remember now. Look, you really shouldn’t, uh, relieve yourself in public . . . "

"Yeah, yeah. Hey, you guys wanna come over the house, have a few beers and talk over old times?" Now the cop’s partner’s laughing so hard he’s practically pissin’ his own pants.

The first cop gingerly removes DeePee’s arm from his shoulder and says "Uh, no thank you. We have to finish the shift. Why don’t you boys just go home okay?"

So DeePee grabs his hand and starts pumping it. "Really a pleasure to see you again. You know, we’re all so proud there are fine young men like you keeping law and order in this town. Ain’t that right guys?" But when he turns around, we’re already in Rico’s car. The cop finally extricates himself from DeePee’s grasp and gets back into the cruiser where his partner’s still laughing his balls off.

Now we were just happy we didn’t have to end up calling our parents from the station. So what does Rico do? He starts power breakin’ right in front of the police car! (You know, when you hold the brake with one foot while you give it the gas with the other so the tires are spinning trying to get going. You can only do it with an automatic though.) The smoke is already coming from his tires when Dukey grabs him by the arm. "What the fuck are you doin’? We just got outta one bust, you wanna get us into another?"

From the back seat, DeePee says, "Don’t worry about it. That cop’s a friend of mine!" But Rico backs off, wisely, I thought. A lot of Providence cops are guys who just traded their black leather jackets in for brown ones. Most of them didn’t take any shit.

He turns to DeePee and says "Butt me, pal."

In the Neapolitan dialect of Italian many of our parents spoke, there’s an expression, "capo tosto," usually pronounced cahpadawst’ which means "thick head." Rico Carbone was a cahpadawst’ if there ever was one. He waits until the cruiser pulls out from behind us and gets a block or two down the road. Then he executes a U-turn, and steps on it, putting down one hell of a strip of rubber, going the wrong way on Angell Street (which is one way – the other way). To this day I don’t know if those cops noticed us or not. Maybe after dealing with DeePee they said the hell with it . . .

Yeah, we had a lot of laughs that summer with Rico and the War Wagon. But one story sticks out in my mind. It was the night Rico found out what big pricks some of those cops were. And Sergeant D’Angelo was the biggest prick of all.

On the side of Jimmy’s facing the A&P, there was a billboard which, on one particular night (in July I think it was), it happened to be between ads. Well that large expanse of whiteness was too good to pass up. We had it all figured out. One of the Irish kids, Mickey Malone, stood on Dukey’s back with a spray can nicely painting our "message." Rico stood by in the War Wagon just in case the Law showed up. Mickey had just sprayed on the last letter when Rico sticks his head out the window and hollers "Fuzz!" Two cops in a car had entered the A&P parking lot from the side street across from Jimmy’s with their lights off. (One thing about Rico, he could smell cops. He noticed them right away, lights or no lights.) Anyway, instead of trying to get into the Wagon, we break in every direction. Rico pulls out onto Academy Avenue and goes into his "screaming tires" act. Trouble is, he can’t get very far when he does that. He stopped when a cruiser pulled in front of him.

I saw the whole thing from behind a bush in front of the house on the other side of Jimmy’s, next to Blessed Sacrament Church. Sergeant D’Angelo himself gets out of the cruiser and swaggers up to the Wagon. "Turn it off and get the fuck out of the car, you little punk!"

Rico did what he was told and D’Angelo grabbed him by the T-shirt, pulling him over to the cruiser. I could hardly believe what happened next. D’Angelo starts pushing him into the car when Rico tags him right in the face! D’Angelo jumps back, probably shocked that someone would take a swing at him, and Rico starts running like hell down Academy Avenue. That’s when I made a break. I ran out of the bushes to my motorcycle which was parked behind Jimmy’s (I had this black and silver Honda Hawk – it was only a 250 but it looked and sounded mean as hell. I had a buddy I used to ride with, and when I went over to his house, his mother would call it the "hoodlum bike.") I managed to get out of there while the cops chased Rico. Eventually they caught him and dragged him back to the car. And I mean dragged.

A couple of days later Rico walks into Jimmy’s all beat up. JJ walks over to him and looks him over. "What the fuck happened to you?"

"Aw, that fuckin’ D’Angelo worked me over. No big thing. Butt me, will ya?"

He had balls; I’ll say that for him. The cops told his old man that he "fell down the stairs." The way he looked, I guess he must have fallen several times. Well, Rico and us got the last laugh. There it was, in big, red letters for all the world to see:

JIMMY’S A GO GO

WHERE THE ACTION IS

CATCH US IF YOU CAN, D’ANGELO!

That sign lasted for months, right up until Christmas when they papered it over with a liquor ad . . .



The following summer I joined the Army and ended up in ‘nam. I had heard that Rico had joined the Marines of all things, but I was totally unprepared when he showed up in Chu Lai, just south of Da Nang. I belonged to a unit that had taken over a base from the Marines while they moved north. I was lying in my bunk flipping away pain-in-the-ass ants when I heard "O! Butt me pal!"

I jumped up. "Holy shit!" I couldn’t believe it. I even gave the little guy a hug. And a Lucky. (Yeah, I "matched him" too. I don’t think he ever bought his own cigarettes.) It was great. We spent the afternoon bullshittin’ about "the corner" and all the guys. Not long after I started wearing a uniform, drugs swept through the neighborhood and a lot of guys got fucked up. I was shaking my head as he told me about who had OD’d, who was in jail, and so forth. He told me DeePee had joined the Air Force and was statoned in England. God help the Queen. (I ran into DeePee a couple of years later and he told me that, while he was on leave, he visited Paris and took a piss off the Eiffel Tower. But that’s another story . . . ) After a couple hours of this, and a couple of beers, Rico got going. He was headed north with the Marines up to Da Nang and had to join his unit. We swore we would get together again back in the States. I never saw him again.

I got out of ‘nam in one piece and took a couple of weeks leave before my next duty tour. Naturally, I went down to "the corner." The only one in Jimmy’s was Jimmy. "Hey, Alex, how are ya?" (Jimmy was probably the only one down there that called me by my real name.)

"Jimmy, what’s happenin’, how’s the family?"

He wiped the sweat off his baldhead with a towel. He got me a cup of coffee and a chocolate donut without even me asking. Just like old times! "Aw, all right I guess. My son’s all fucked up, though. Dumb shit."

I had heard about JJ. Apparently he had gotten busted with a trunk full of grass up in Massachusetts. I didn’t want to belabor the point. "Yeah. You hear from Rico or DeePee?"

He looked surprised. "You didn’t know?"

I put down the cup. "Know about what?"

"Rico took one on the belly in Vietnam."

My eyes opened wide. "Dead?"

He nodded. "K.I.A. The body came home two months ago."

"Shit." Then he actually smiled. "What the fuck is so funny," I asked.

"Well, you shoulda been there when they planted him. DeePee was there. They threw him out of the Air Force, you know."

It didn’t surprise me. "What’d he do?"

"Dumb sonovabitch was runnin’ a drug ring from the base in England. Everybody knew it, but they couldn’t get nuthin’ on him. The fuckin’ base commander finally made him a deal just to get rid of him. They let him out early with no charges just so’s he’d go home. You believe it? Not even a dishonorable discharge!"

I shook my head. "So what happened at Rico’s funeral?" I could hardly wait!

"Well, DeePee shows up at St.Anne’s Cemetery with his black leather jacket and a little black hat, you know? So he’s standing there, all through the ceremony with his . . . " He started to laugh. "With his fuckin’ dick hangin’ out!"

I spit my coffee all over the counter and looked at him. "Are you shittin’ me? Aw, shit! Sorry, Jimmy."

Jimmy looked at the coffee and wiped it up with the rag he had around his neck. "Don’t worry, it’s not the first time anybody messed up my counter. Yeah, that’s what happened. I was there."

"Didn’t anybody notice besides you?"

"I saw the priest look at him a couple of times but I guess he didn’t want to interrupt the service. DeePee even had the balls to walk up to him after and tell him what a nice service it was!"

"With his pecker still hangin’ out?"

He nodded in between laughs. "Yup. Bigger n’shit. So the priest thanks him and says something like ‘Uh, thank you. Young man, are you aware that your private parts are showing?’ DeePee looks down and zips it up like nothins’ unusual, you know? Then he puts his arm around the priest and tells him how Rico really died." Jimmy chuckled a few times. "Remember, me and Dukey, Joey Ziti, JJ, and a couple of other guys are not more than three feet away listenin’ to this shit, right? So he tells the priest that Rico wasn’t shot, see, what really happened is that he said ‘Butt me, pal’ to a sergeant and the guy hit him in the head with a fuckin’ rifle butt and killed him!"

I almost spat out some of the donut to go with the spilled coffee. Jimmy went on. "The priest looks at him like he’s got a few screws missin,’ you know? Between me and you I think that was the fuckin’ case, anyway. So the priest asks him why his pecker was hangin’ out – of course he didn’t say it that way – so DeePee looks at him real serious like and says ‘Out of respect for the dead, father, Rico would have wanted it that way!’ The fuckin’ priest says somethin’ like ‘Bless you my son,’ does a 180 and gets the hell outta there!" Jimmy was laughing so hard at this point the sweat beaded up on his baldhead, causing him to wipe it off with the coffee-drenched rag.

Knowing DeePee, I believed every word. I know it sounds weird to say about a guy’s funeral, but I wish I had been there! When we both finally calmed down, I asked Jimmy where DeePee was now.

"I dunno. I hardly see anybody any more. You know a lot of them guys got screwed up on drugs."

I shook my head. "Yeah, I heard something about that. How’s business?"

"Naw, no good. I’m closin’ the place pretty soon anyway."

I held out my arms. "Naw, Jimmy, no way! This joint is an institution."

"Yeah, I’m hangin’ it up. I’m opening a bar over on Smith Street. I’m still gonna call it ‘Jimmy’s Place.’"

I sighed. "How much do I owe you for the coffee an’?"

He waved me off. "Forget about it. It’s on me!"

That was a surprise. "You cheap prick, that’s the first time you ever gave me something for nothing!"

He smiled. "Tell you what, when I open the bar, the first time you come in, I’ll buy you a beer. How’s that sound?"

"Jimmy, I’ll make a point of it." I shook his hand. "Jimmy, I gotta go. Stata’buon, eh? Take care of yourself.

"Yeah, you too."

I never stopped by for that beer. And I never saw Jimmy again either. I don’t know why, I guess I wanted to remember Jimmy’s like it was. The jukebox, the pinball machines, those great donuts, and Jimmy wipin’ off his head and hollering "O! Shut the fuck up!" when the guys got too loud. It’s quiet in there now . . .

A few years later I was working for Uncle Sam down in D.C. and I came home one summer to see my mother. I was heading back to D.C. when I decided to swing by the old neighborhood. I didn’t like what I saw. Jimmy’s was gone, the whole building, just gone. There was a fuckin’ flower shop there instead. And a liquor store. I sat in my car for a few minutes, listening to oldies and remembering all the times we had. Now Rico was dead, JJ was probably in jail, and who the hell knew where DeePee was. Then I noticed the cop sitting in the car across the street.

I don’t know what came over me or why I did it but I just had too, you know? I was driving a new Cougar XR-7 then and it had a few balls. Anyway, I looked at the cop, put it in first, and screamed out of the parking lot, laying down a nice strip on Academy Avenue. Naw, it wasn’t as impressive as the ones Rico used to put down with the War Wagon, but it wasn’t bad as strips go. Naturally the lights and siren came on instantly behind me. I just pulled over across the street from the church and waited for the inevitable.

The cop walked up to me as I lowered the window and looked down, "What the fuck, are you stupid? Didn’t you see me over there?"

"Yeah I saw you," I said calmly.

"And you took off like a bat out of hell anyway. Let me see your license and registration, buddy."

As I handed him the paperwork I noticed his nametag: D’Angelo. That’s when I realized he must have been Billy D’Angelo, Danny’s kid! I couldn’t help but smile.

"What the fuck is so funny?"

"Nothing. I just thought of a joke, that’s all." I didn’t know what the hell else to say.

"A joke? You think this is a joke? Wait here!"

He took my paperwork and went back to the car. So I was going to get a ticket. I didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t going to pay it anyway. I sat there while he did whatever cops do in the car, thinking about the irony of it all. I felt like asking him how a little candy-ass like him could become a cop. His father must have pulled some strings . . .

Finally he came back and handed me the papers. "I’m writing you up for reckless driving. Are you staying in town for a while?"

"Nope. On my way back right now."

"Then you’ll have to call the Providence Court House and find out how much the fine is when you get back to Washington and mail it in. The number’s on the back. Okay?

I shrugged. "Yeah, whatever."

His eyes narrowed. "I don’t like your attitude. Why did you do that anyway? Aren’t you too old to be layin’ rubber?"

I smiled at him. "Naw, you’re never too old. It was, uh, for old times sake."

He looked confused and pissed off at the same time. "I don’t know what ‘old times’ you’re talking about but if I ever catch you doing something like that again, I’ll jack up your ass but good. You read me, Mister Bevilacqua?"

"Loud and clear. Thanks. Oh, and Billy, give my regards to your old man. Tell him Leaky said ‘Hello.’ "

His eyes grew wide as I slowly pulled out and left him standing there. I could see him in my rear view mirror, hands on hips, probably wondering what the hell I was talking about! I watched my speed as I made my way down Academy, with the little prick becoming ever so smaller in the mirror until he shrunk into insignificance, along with what had been Jimmy’s and the old neighborhood. As I made the left onto Atwells Avenue, I threw the ticket into the glove box and said, "Fuck it." I hit the gas and headed down the hill toward Route 10, which would take me to Route 95, and back to the "real" world. Rico, DeePee, JJ, Jimmy’s and all the guys were behind me now. Yeah, even Leaky stayed behind.

And Alex? He was headin’ south.

THE END