96 broken ave, p.1
96 Broken Ave., page 1
96 Broken Ave.
Joe Zito
Copyright Joe Zito 2017
Published at Smashwords
Copyright © 2017 by Joe Zito
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Intro
I’d like start off by saying thanks for reading my latest book, 96 Broken Ave. I had a blast writing it. I hope you dig it. But, before you dig in I’d like to point out that this is a semi-autobiographical story. Yes, it is fiction, but some of the ideas and situations were taken directly from different stages of my life throughout the nineteen nineties. This piece of work contains three separate stories, but is not presented as a collection. They are all connected, taking place on the same night in the same town, to make one complete story. I’ll zip it now and let you turn the page or rather scroll to the next. So settle in and get comfy, because there’s one hell of a storm coming.
Summer 1996
Dark Days Past
“Drink up people! Six hours till last call!” There was an unenthusiastic rumbling from the few people sitting at the bar around eight o’ clock at All Nighters. The female bartender, who declared the warning of the quickly fading time slot for drowning your sorrows, had long black hair and eyes as big as quarters. She sighed as she threw a white dish towel over her shoulder and looked drearily out into the dark seating area of the bar. Another Friday night pissed away, she thought glumly. A 6’2 hill jack in mud caked blue jeans and a Cummins hat hooted as a striped seven ball dropped easily into the corner pocket of the bars only pool table. Three ladies sitting around a tall round table laughed simultaneously, more than likely about how good they imagined their shop foreman would be in bed and or his cock size. The bartender rolled those big quarter eyes and began wiping down the bar area. She sighed once more knowing that the Friday night rush was on its way. Soon there would be an eclectic mix of jocks, first dates, and parents on temporary leave of their screaming children. Hallelujah! And they all will be sitting around the bar having conversations about work, their relationships, the upcoming derby at the county fair, who was fucking who around town and other small town pleasantries. But for now it was the calm before the storm. The bartender grabbed the remote control for the TV sitting above the sparkling glass bottles full of fuck it all liquid. She reluctantly changed the channel from MTV to ESPN, which she couldn’t stand. Some clean cut, twenty something newscaster spoke rapidly about sports statistics. Boring.
On the far right side of the bar, a cute twenty three year old female with shoulder length blonde hair was flirting with an old man of about sixty. He had a head of pure white hair and white sideburns to match and big, hairy, arms that could destroy Popeye. He took a generous gulp from his frosty beer mug and laughed along with the twenty three year old hottie who was buzzing already and had her hand on the old guy’s meaty shoulder.
On the other end of the bar a man in his mid-forties sat nursing his second beer. He wore an ugly dark brown suit with his yellow tie loosened at the collar. He was flicking a matchbook with his finger, staring out at nothing. He reeked of despair.
And sitting dead center in the middle was a man in a long, tan trench coat, sipping on a whiskey double straight. His name was Barry Lebbon and his daughter hated him.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. It was slightly disfigured due to the glass bottles; a perfect representation of his inner self. He took a lazy sip of his whiskey. Should’a just kept my mouth shut, he thought. It’s too late.
“You good here, friend?” The bartender asked, sliding in front of him, obscuring the broken image of himself. He only nodded. He wasn’t in the talkative mood. He had done enough talking back in 1976 when he told a highly respected and professional record producer to go fuck himself. These days, Barry doesn’t talk much. He figured his mouth has caused enough misfortune and that he should take his own advice and shut the fuck up himself.
The bartender with the big eyes shrugged, not really caring if he was all right or not. She went and took a seat behind the bar on a bar stool and began reading a newspaper. And Barry drank on.
In 1976, Barry and the rest of his bandmates found themselves in an amazing career enhancing situation: a recording session with one of rock’s top producers, Jack Goldman, to cut their demo. Their band, Daze, formed in 1973 in the depths of southern Indiana. They were a four piece rock group whose sound closely resembled their heroes Black Sabbath along with pre Alive Kiss and early Judas Priest. Barry was their shred master. He ripped out guitar riffs like a sorcerer conjuring up Satan in a hail storm. Evil, dark and heavy was the Daze sound. The only problem was Barry’s mouth. He couldn’t keep it shut. He had something to say about everything, every day, all the time. The other guys in his band hated it but they put up with it because indeed, Barry had the goods and the talent. They would mostly laugh and tell him to shut the fuck up. However, they weren’t laughing in the spring of 1976 when Barry came charging out of the control room at Gold Star studios, fuming and enraged like a toddler who wouldn’t get it’s way. There had been a blowout inside the control room between Barry and Jack. It was a shouting match of dominance that centered around who was right and who was wrong, and all because of one single note. That note, no matter how decent and okay it sounded during playback, had turned Barry into a red face, near heart attack victim at twenty four, yelling banshee. At first Jack told him very calmly that the wrong note sounded fine and not to worry about it. They could fix it in the final mix if need be. Barry disagreed and after ten minutes of a heated discussion, Barry was in Jack’s face, cursing and spraying his hate spittle rudely on him.
The big stink was over one lousy off key note during Barry’s guitar solo. It was an honest mistake on his part because he was nervous and wanted to get it right the first time. Funny thing is, the off center note didn’t sound that off center and actually sounded good during playback. But that’s what Jack’s trained ear was hearing. He had worked with Blue Oyster Cult, Rainbow and countless others. The man knew his work. He even tried explaining to Barry that there is a certain beauty and realism in minor mistakes that sometimes gives the song an edge it didn’t have before. Barry’s response was telling the producer to go fuck himself. That’s when Jack got up, walked out and resigned himself from the project, saying he had better things to do than waste his time with some amateur hick from Indiana. Barry stormed out and another near fight broke out between him and Martin Blane, their bass player.
That one note incident was the end of the road for Barry and the end of his days in Daze. They fired him right there on the spot.
The band recovered quickly and found another guitarist two weeks later. He was a team player by the name of Gordon Mallard.
Barry, in a state of shock of how his former bandmates canned him, tried to form another band and then another and then another until he finally realized that maybe his mouth was the problem. They all failed. And Daze went on to sign a major record deal with Casablanca records and then open for Kiss on their north American tour in 1977.
Barry took the news rather hard. He was for sure that Daze would be nothing without him and that they would fail miserably, but in reality it was Barry who was the failure. He went to the local record store and bought Daze’s debut album, took it home and downed a bottle of Jack Daniels while sitting slouched and disgruntled in his lazy boy, listening to some fuckhead play the notes, hooks, and riffs that he wrote. Three years all for nothing. He threw his empty whiskey bottle at the record player and missed. It hit the wall instead. “Quiet down in there!” Someone yelled in the next apartment over.
From then on Barry rarely picked up his guitar. Instead, he sulked and brooded about his firing, but knew deep down that it was his fault. You and your big mouth. ’77 turned into ’78 into ’79 into ’80 into ’81 and Barry watched his old band rise to the top of the rock and roll mountain, year after year, album after album, tour after tour. And every year it would get worse with that relentless feeling of what if.
What if what, old guy?
That could’ve been me playing in front of fifteen thousand fans screaming my name.
What if?
I should have kept my mouth shut and just cooled down.
What if?
How would my life be different. Fame. Money. Sex?
And then the bottle became his best friend.
***
“Sure, Jack. It sounds great. Don’t change a thing.”
The bartender looked up from her paper. Her big eyes looked directly at Barry.
“You say something, hon?”
He looked at her, shaking his head slowly.
“Nope, sure didn’t.”
“Oh,” she said with a half ass smile on her face like she knew this guy had demons and for a split second felt for him but really couldn’t give a shit. She had her own demons.
Just then the main entrance door opened and a group of bikers piled in. They were laughing and carrying on about whatever bikers laugh and carry on about. Maybe some college pretty boy riding his little Honda sports bike with his gal holding onto him and her in a pair of tight white jeans that made her ass pop out and stop traffic.
Barry laid down a ten dollar bill on the bar and got up to leave.
Barry walked past the group of jolly bikers. He had his hands buried deep into his pockets, his head was down. One of the bikers gave him a strange look. A little warm for a long coat like that, ain’t it friend? The biker thought and then, this nut job looks like he could off the fringes any second.
As Barry opened the door to leave, a thirty something man walked in. He was wearing more appropriate summer attire. Blue jeans and sandals and an untucked white, button down shirt. Mr. Casual. The bartender looked up from her paper and saw the man standing in the doorway entrance. She lost her breath for a moment when they made eye contact and her big eyes grew even bigger. Everyone has demons and a past. Sometimes they show up unexpectedly. Like at eight o’ clock on a Friday night at the local bar. The man half assed waved and gave her a goofy smile. She gave him a sour look, rolled her big eyes and tried not to smile back at Mr. Casual who thought it would be nice to just show up out of the blue and say hi after two years.
Barry was gone.
***
The sounds of summer echoed all around him as he walked home, strolling along the downtown sidewalk, still with his hands in his coat pockets. Birds chirped and bounced on the sidewalk going from one scrap of food to the next. There were distant, high pitched screams of children playing in a sprinkler somewhere. As well as the rumble of a Harley Davidson, a dad mowing the front lawn, and an obnoxious, booming rap music from a small car. Dusk was getting close. And then it would be dark and Barry would be alone again.
He stopped at the local liquor store and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels. He had just enough cash to pay for it. He didn’t make a lot of money working as a part time janitor downtown at an office building.
The cashier was a retiree with liver spotted hands and wore thick, black framed glasses. He was sucking on a toothpick. He knew Barry fairly well, at least as an acquaintance. He called him by his name.
“How are we doin’ Barry?”
Barry only grunted in response. The cashier smiled and shook his head as he put the bottle of Jack Daniels in a brown paper bag.
“I hear ya, I hear ya,” he laughed good naturedly.
Standing behind Barry was a tall twenty something kid with long hair, wearing ripped blue jean shorts, doc martens, and a sleeveless Anal Cunt t-shirt, 40 More Reasons to Hate Us.
“You have a good evenin’ now,” the old cashier told Barry. “And stay safe. We got them storms comin’ in later tonight.”
Again, Barry said nothing and left.
On his way out he passed a man entering the store, wearing hospital scrubs. Must be getting off of work, Barry thought. Whiskey, the perfect remedy for a long hard day. Or night.
He continued on down the sidewalk going past all the familiar buildings and shops of the downtown area where he lived. The threat of those oncoming storms made themselves known. A subtle flash of heat lighting lit up the sky. A distant rumble of thunder followed. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes stared straight ahead into nothing as he walked. He went past the Marathon gas station, Delmer’s Insurance, Happy’s grocery store and the In Safe Hands women’s shelter where a young, twenty something blonde sat on the front steps, wearing a pair of too short shorts, playing with her two year old son and smiling timidly at the guy she was talking to; the one she had been seeing now for two weeks and the one that was giving her butterflies in her stomach, knowing that he was the one and would never lay a hand on her.
He approached his apartment building which sat right above a shoe store called Thompson Shoe Company. Barry’s rent was cheap and he didn’t mind the cockroaches. He sat down on a green park bench on the sidewalk. A light breeze full of summer evening balm sifted through a small tree that was implanted into the sidewalk. Its leaves shook lightly back and forth. Barry stared forward, gazing at the other buildings across the street. His mind started to drift like that wind moving through the tree. He was doing that a lot lately. Drifting. He thought of that time long ago when he made a bad decision and how it still had a death grip on him. He also thought of his daughter Kathy, and how she hasn’t spoken to him for almost three months. They were in off mode currently of their on and off relationship. She was his only child. She don’t give a damn about me. I can’t blame her.
The brown paper bag crumpled up in his hand reminded him of why she hasn’t spoken to him in three months. But it always wasn’t like this. No. There had been a time when they couldn’t leave each other’s side; Daddy’s little angel that could do no wrong. Hours spent at the park pushing her on the swings, chasing her around the play area as she laughed and screamed in her euphoria of being chased, vanilla ice cream cone dabbed noses in the summertime.
All of this occurred in Barry’s pre Daze life. It was a time when life was nothing more than loving his young wife and baby daughter and when playing his guitar was fun and not an obsession.
His daughter’s life changed the night his best friend convinced him to start a band in 1973. Kathy was eight years old.
In the beginning it was fun to watch her daddy play music in the basement after dinner time. She would sit on her mother’s lap and wear a pair of oversized headphones because it was loud. She would laugh and clap along to the beat. Barry’s wife would clap along too and try to contain her feelings of excitement for her husband, knowing that he was gifted and could possibly have found his calling. As they played covers of Jimi Hendrix, Creem and Black Sabbath, she fantasized about him up on stage with a throng of raised, outstretched hands reaching for his guitar and her sitting next to him in a limo, knowing that he was all hers and the groupies would never have him.
But things changed as they always do. As the band progressed and got better they started writing their own songs. And practice time became work time. No more clapping and singing along and young wife daydreams of her rock star husband. For his wife and daughter, it was back upstairs.
What was once fun for Kathy had now turned into a nightmare. The more they practiced and the better they got, the more focused and obsessed Barry would become. And Kathy and her mother paid the price.
He spent less time with his family. And when the band wasn’t practicing, he would do nothing but play his guitar and write songs and be constantly on the phone, booking shows, trying to find management or a recording studio. Daze took over his life but he was blind to it and didn’t see the damage it was causing his family. His wife didn’t care when they found a manager or had eight original songs or had the privilege of opening for two new bands called Rush and Kiss in 1974. She didn’t even go to the show. She and Kathy went to a movie instead.
Hey dad, wanna get some ice cream? Hey dad, let’s go for a walk. Hey dad, I got an A on my math test. Hey dad, wanna see that new James Bond movie? Hey dad, wanna watch the stars like we use to?
Dad? Dad? Hey, Dad?
And by the time Barry got kicked out of the band he had abandoned his family for, it was too late for apologies.
His once sparkly eyed young wife moved out and she and Kathy did just fine on their own without him. But there were nights that Kathy’s mom didn’t know about. Nights when Kathy would cry herself to sleep, missing her daddy, not really because he wasn’t physically there, but missing the old him and the good times before the band took over.
After his firing, he did come back to her but it wasn’t the same. And she hated it how he reeked of whiskey every time he would visit. They both did their best to play the roles of father and daughter, but there was always that wall between them. The wall Barry built when he put his music ahead of the well-being of his daughter.
Ten years went by and he would visit her every two weeks and would get the same straight face look from his ex-wife that always said, we don’t want you around, so stop showing up, all with her clean cut, sweater wearing husband behind her with his hands on her shoulders. C’mon dad, let’s go.
