Sometime in New Haven - Part VII

SOMETIME IN NEW HAVEN
The Story of the New Haven
Berlin Survivors

Part VII

As we left, I made it a point for us to walk down Lynwood Place, a short but absolutely beautiful piece of paradise off Elm Street between Rudy’s and Fitzwilly’s. With old multi-family brick homes and apartments lining one side and brownstone apartments on the other, Lynwood Place is a thin, one lane road about a quarter-mile long that I stumbled upon once by accident. Tony, one of the other cooks at Fitzwilly’s, has an apartment on Lynwood and I could usually hear him practicing his trumpet whenever I walked through at night.
On warmer days, there were usually people hanging out on the front steps of the buildings, reading, talking or playing music.
“This would make a great drawing! I never knew a little street like this really existed except on a sketch pad,” Sara said. “It’s beautiful.”
“This city is full of tucked-away spots like this,” I said.
“So, did you and Jack join the Air Force together?” Sara asked.
“No, I met him while we were stationed in Germany,” I said. “I’m sure if we had known each other before hand, we would have talked each other out of joining. Once we started hanging out together, we made it our mission to get out. I only had about 18 months left at that time, but Jack had about three years left so he was more desperate. I would do stuff like refuse to wear my field gear during base alerts in the hope that they would just throw me out. Everyone would walk around with their helmets, canteens and gas masks and weapons and I would have a cowboy hat and sheriff’s badge. I was into some fun protests. Jack, though, would write letters to the base commander and other high-ranking brass requesting a discharge. He put himself into a terrible position at times, writing letters and citing Tolstoy and Thoreau. He wrote in one letter that he thought the launching of the Seawolfe nuclear submarine in Groton should have been a cause for sorrow and not a celebration. These military types hated shit like that. All it did was piss them off.""
"And did they let you out early?”
“No, my time just ran out,” I said. “I tried some harmless protests, but compared to what Jack was doing I was just providing some comic relief.”
“Do you keep in touch with some of the people you were stationed with?” Sara asked.
“Not really. It seems like I spent most of my time saying good-bye to people and making new friends. There’s a lot of turn over. People are always moving,” I said. “I just looked at most of them as temporary friends, which is how they all probably looked at me. I got so good at saying ‘Good-bye’ that I never tried to learn how to call someone and say, ‘Hi, how’s it been going?’ I never even stayed in touch with my old friends in Stratford, and I really loved those people.”
“But did learning to say ‘Good-bye’ make it easy?”
“A little, I guess,” I said. “I don’t really know. At least I wouldn’t get tormented every time someone left. Why? Do you think it would be easy?”
“I’ve always tried not letting myself get too close to people ever since I was little just because I know I’ll only have to say good-bye at some point,” Sara said. “I guess I never got as good at it as you have.”
“I’m not sure I’m really good at it,” I said, reaching for another cigarette. “I just learned to say ‘Good-bye.’ Everything else, all the emotions, are still there.”
“Yeah,” she said. “There is no easy part.”
“Have you had to say ‘Good-bye’ a lot?” I asked.
“Enough,” she said.
“Is enough a lot?” I asked.
“Enough is enough,” she said.
We walked to Goldie & Libro Music Center, which was an everyday thing with me so I could longingly admire the bass guitars lining the walls. I loved my Rickenbacker, but I dreamed of a day I would have two or three bass guitars to choose from.
“You know, I feel like a piece of me died,” one customer said as he grabbed a guitar off the wall. “All I want to do it play, but I don’t know if that’s enough.”
“Hey, maybe that’s all any of us can do,” said one Goldie’s clerk. “Keep playing John Lennon’s music. Otherwise this will truly be the day the music died.”
“Rory, how’s it going?” came a voice from behind me.
“Ed, what’s up?” I asked.
Ed was one of my best friends in high school, although I hadn’t seen him in months. While in high school, Ed would play keyboards in clubs with a rock band on Friday night – even though he wasn’t old enough to be in bars – then play pipe organ for the Saturday afternoon mass at a church in Stratford. I used to accompany him to the mass and, during communion, while he was supposed to play religious stuff, he would play gothic versions of music by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, and the Beatles. Most people had no idea they were receiving communion to “Mind Games” or “Carn Evil 9.”
“Man, today sucks,” Ed said, giving me a big bear hug. “I can’t believe what happened.”
“Yeah, it sucks,” I said.
I introduced Ed to Sara and asked him what brought him to New Haven.
“I bought the album ‘Double Fantasy’ when it came out a couple of weeks ago, but it had a scratch at the beginning of side two that made the needle leap over half the album,” Ed said. “I put it in my car last week so I could bring it to Cutler’s and exchange it but forgot about it. This morning, when I heard about John Lennon, I figured I would just take off from work and exchange the album. I didn’t feel much like working today anyway.”
“So, did you get a good copy?” I asked.
“No, the album sold out this morning,” Ed said. “These people buying it today didn’t give a shit about the album when it first came out. Now they all want it.”
“Now it will sell millions,” I said.
“Well, that sucks, although I can’t help thinking that John Lennon would probably chuckle at the irony of it,” Ed said, giving me another bear hug as he headed to the door. "Take care man.I gotta run."
"You take care," I said.
One guy with a Martin guitar started playing “Isolation,” which drew a small crowd around him–and some applause when he was done. Throughout the day, in conversations you hear while walking about, the words John Lennon and murder were always heard. I thought it strange that those two words would be linked – probably forever. So unfair, I thought.
We left and followed Chapel Street into the Wooster Square area, browsing through some of the stores we passed. At Wooster Square, the brownstones and old houses lined the street and surrounded a large, but quaint, village green. It was after 5 o’clock and neither of us had eaten anything all day except those muffins at the Copper Kitchen. There was really only one culinary option, since I was trying to show off the city, and that was pizza, made in a brick oven on Wooster Street.
“This is really beautiful,” Sara said.
“You’ve been to Wooster Street before, haven’t you?” I asked, ready to fall over dead at the thought that someone could live in the state even for a short time and not visit either Sally’s or Frank Pepe’s pizzerias.
“Only in the evening, and we would always drive and park on the street somewhere,” she said. “I never walked around New Haven unless a bunch of people from work decided to go someplace after our shifts. Even then, it seems to always be someplace near Fitzwilly’s.”
Since it was a Tuesday, and Pepe’s was closed, we hit Sally’s. If both were open, and you had the right mix of people with you, there could be an hour-long debate on which pizzeria to hit.
I was always firmly in Pepe’s corner. But Sally’s was great also. If it was a weekend, it was best to have those debates while waiting in line at one of those places – especially since you will probably end up waiting an hour just to get in the door at either. On a Tuesday, though, we got in and seated right away.
As it turned out, we didn’t even debate what topping to have on the pizza. We immediately agreed on mozz and mushrooms.
I always figured that agreeing on a pizza topping is a key compatibility test.
“If you didn’t live in New Haven, where would you want to live?” Sara asked.
“New York City,” I said, without hesitation. “How about you?”
“Maine,” she said.
Oh, I thought, the anti-New York. I started reconsidering my pizza topping/relationship compatibility theory.
“When was the last time you went to New York City?”
“In high school,” she said. “We went to see a play on Broadway.”
“You need to really see the city,” I said. “We should go there some afternoon. Take the train, visit the Village and really take in the city. The people, the buildings, the art, the atmosphere; everything.”
“Have you ever been to Maine?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“I’ll spend a day in New York City with you if you spend a day in Maine with me,” she said.
“Done,” I said, as if I had to think twice. The pizza topping test may work after all.
“If you visited Maine, you would probably have a whole different view on this city living stuff,” she said. “Besides, if John Lennon lived in Maine, he would probably still be alive.”
“Look, you can find a nutcase with a gun anywhere,” I said.
“Yeah, but this one was in New York City,” she said.
“I really don’t agree with any of that,” I said, trying to talk softly. “Who knows what would have happened if he lived in Maine, Connecticut, New York or Wyoming. Maybe it still would have happened. Maybe it was just his time. I just can’t figure out how someone like John Lennon could end up dead by bullets ripping through his body anyway. None of this makes sense to me today.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “It’s just that I always feel so much safer whenever I visit Maine. Like no one could ever find me up there. You can hike for miles, for hours, for days even, and still never run into any people. It’s such an inspiration. The land is beautiful. But you’re right, I guess. John Lennon could have gotten shot anywhere.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess. It’s just that I always feel safer when there are a lot of people around. Like no one could ever find me in the crowd.”
There was a major non-compatibility factor here, but I figured it was nothing to get too concerned about right then.
The walk back down Chapel Street at dusk was chilly and almost depressing. It was a great day and I didn’t want it to end. The giant Christmas tree on the Green looked great – the lights shining like a treasure – but I still felt empty.
Once we got to College Street, we hung a quick left and got to the Anchor Restaurant.
“Let’s have a nightcap,” I said.
“Do you always have nightcaps at 6:30?”
“That’s about the only time I do have them,” I said.
We went to the bar and ordered two Rolling Rocks. I went to the juke box, tossed in a quarter for three songs and looked for some Beatles. I couldn’t find any so I played “Summerwind” by Frank Sinatra.
“I hope you like Sinatra, because I couldn’t find any Beatles,” I said.
“There’s a Beatles record in there,” Eileen the bartender said. “‘All You Need is Love’ is in there.”
I found it, but played the B-side, “Baby You’re a Rich Man.” I left one free song for the next person. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to play “All You Need is Love.” The television had some sort of news special about John Lennon on, although the sound was off.
“This is a neat place,” Sara said.
“Yeah,” I said. “There’s usually an interesting mix of people. I think most of the people that hang out here are the literary types. You know, either writing stories and plays or in stories and plays, although most don't know it.”
“Well, that woman is writing over there,” Sara said, motioning to a woman at a table writing in a cloth-covered notebook. “This looks like a great people watching place.”
“What time do you have to leave?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll have to call about a ride in a little while.”
We left the Anchor after our beers and cut through the city Green to Whitney Avenue. It grew chillier with the darkness, but a small group of about twelve people were standing in a circle talking about John Lennon. Some were crying.
We stopped to listen as three people in the crowd, two guys and a woman, started singing “Across the Universe.” One of the guys was playing a mandolin while the other two were playing guitars. They sounded great and the people around them started joining in as the song started rolling.
“Who are these guys?” I asked a guy standing near me.
“Irish Jones,” he said. “They are the only band I know that plays those Irish songs John Lennon wrote.”
“What songs?” someone nearby asked. “You’re not thinking of ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ but that was written by Paul and Linda McCartney.”
“No,” the guy said. “They do that one too. But Lennon wrote two Irish songs he recorded on ‘Some Time in New York City.’ I think Lennon did his Irish songs before McCartney did his.”
“Hey, Rory,” a familiar voice nearby said. “What’s happening?”
“Jamie,” I said, recognizing my favorite cousin’s voice. “What’s up?”
“My girlfriend wanted to come to New Haven because she heard some people were going to meet on the green,” he said. “I figured if no one was up here, at least we’d see the tree. But, hey, this is New Haven, the tree will probably be up until May or June.”
“So what have you been up to?” I asked. “Are you still working in that piano store in the Trumbull Shopping Park?”
“Sure enough,” he said with his usual upbeat tone and curly black hair hanging in his face. “I had a John Lennon marathon today. For most of the afternoon, I played along with WPLR. They haven’t played one non-Lennon song all day.”
Every time I visited Jamie at the store, he would be sitting at a piano by the front entrance of the store playing rock-n-roll. While growing up, his family was only a few miles from ours, so we were always in touch.
When I introduced him to Sara, I told her how, during the summer before I joined the Air Force, I always checked the front porch when I woke up to see if Jamie was crashed on the couch. If he was partying a little heavy at the Frog Pond or Lion’s Den – a couple of local Stratford dives – he would just leave his car and walk to my parents’ house and crash on a couch in the screened in porch. My mother would always bring him breakfast and say, “Jamie, come into the house next time. It’s much more comfortable.”
At the piano store, Jamie would sit all day playing, always wearing a sharp suit. Most of the time, he would play music by The Beatles since he often said Lennon/McCartney songs provided “the absolute best examples of all types of music ever written.” Jamie was also fond of saying, "you know, the songwriting team of Lennon/McCartney are right up there with George Gershwin."
The amount of people meeting on the Green was growing, some telling stories between songs.
“My favorite Beatle story happened in Boston in 1974,” one guy said. “It was one of the first Beatle conventions. Back when the conventions were actually good. I hitchhiked up to Boston with my friend Gary and we checked out the convention. We didn’t have much money, just enough for a little food and a couple of six packs of Schlitz draft style bottles. In the lobby of the hotel where the convention was, a large group of people were hanging out killing time while they converted the convention hall from a Beatles memorabilia flea market to a theater where they were going to show Beatle movies all night. Anyway, this guy who played guitar with John Lennon on “Instant Karma” started jamming in the lobby. It sounded great and people were clapping along with him. Then this old guy, wearing what looked like his Sunday best brown suit and hat, started walking through the lobby. But he stops and starts dancing. It was a riot. A real nice moment. It bridged generations. It was great!”
“This is a tough day for me,” Jamie said. “I always thought that the absolute perfect day for me would be to play the piano at work, like I always do, and have John Lennon sit down at a piano across from me and jam. It was just a silly thought, a fantasy I would have while playing sometimes. Like he would travel to Trumbull, Connecticut, to buy a piano. But hey, crazier things have probably happened. And it kept me playing all day. Man, what a bad day. A real bad day for all of us.”
“Maybe you can play with Paul McCartney some day,” someone next to us said.
The Jones's played another Lennon song and then one of the guys playing guitar, who introduced himself as “Southside Ed,” said that each of us had to find a way to carry on with John Lennon’s message of peace. He said it was up to Lennon’s fans to insure his legacy continued. It made sense, I thought. We said good-bye to Jamie and his girlfriend Yolanda, left the circle of people, which was still growing steadily, and headed up Whitney Avenue to find a pay phone so Sara could call home. We were also getting pretty cold.
“I can see where this would have been a fun trip to make while in high school,” Sara said.
“Yeah, we used to park in front of one of the churches and hit the music shops and then Wooster Street for pizza at least once a month while we were in high school,” I said. “But my first taste of New Haven came when I was about 12 years old. Me and this kid Dan were hanging out at the Trumbull mall when we decided to jump on a bus to Bridgeport. In Bridgeport, we decided to catch another bus and head to Milford. We just stayed on the bus, though, and ended up here. It was quite an adventure.”
“And you guys weren’t afraid taking bus rides to places you’ve never been to?” Sara asked.
“Only once was I afraid in New Haven,” I said. “I think it was about 1971, when I was 13. Actually it was May 1 - May Day. Dan and I had saw on the television how the Green was packed with bikers because Bobby Seal of the Black Panthers was on trial up here. I was living in Stratford and there were a few bikers who were sleeping out in this park near my parents’ house. I thought the motorcycles were really cool looking. They had these really clean looking choppers. So, Dan and I hopped on the bus and headed to New Haven to see all the bikes. During the entire bus ride, which was about an hour and 15 minutes, we were talking about how much we wanted to mingle with the biker crowd. But once the bus took the corner around the mall to the bus stop on the Green our jaws dropped. There were more people than I imagined. The bikers all looked tough and pissed off. Really mean. And there were groups of Black Panthers standing around with their arms crossed looking like they were guarding the place. The bus drive looked over and said, 'Are you fellas getting off?' Dan said, 'No sir' and sat down. I called him a 'chicken shit' even though, deep down, I was sure he made the right choice."
“What do you think would have happened if you got off?” Sara asked.
“Probably nothing,” I said. “Actually, we figured that our parents were a bigger threat to us. If we got off the bus and somehow ended up in a picture in the newspaper or on the television news, our parents probably would have killed us.”
“Well, I can see how someone could move to New Haven,” Sara said. “It’s a neat city.”
“Yeah, I really love it here,” I said. “When I got out of the Air Force, I could have gone anywhere. I knew I wanted to come here.”
“And you seem to know people wherever you go,” Sara said.
“Hey, it’s my city,” I said, joking. “Actually, it was great running into Ed and Jamie, I haven’t seen them in months and the odds of running into both of them during the same day are probably amazingly high. But I’m sure we won’t see another person who knows me.”
A car pulled over. “Rory, is that you?” someone yelled out of a car window. “You want a ride?”
We looked in the car and saw Ziggy Manfredi, another cook at Fitzwilly’s.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To your place, actually,” he said. “I talked to Ronnie before and he said there was a party going on. And I have to say, Rory, sorry about John Lennon, I know you were a big fan.”
“I still am,” I said. “Let’s go see what’s happening up there.”
We both climbed in the car and took the quick ride to the house.
“This is a neat old house,” Sara said of the historic grey salt box. “Is the barn yours as well?”
“No, that’s the Whitney Barn they use for art shows and plays and stuff,” I said.
As soon as we opened the car doors we could hear the music blasting from the house; John Lennon, of course.
“Hey guys, welcome,” Jack said, opening the front door, holding a stein of beer in one hand.
While in the military, I collected a lot of glass steins and beer mugs. Unfortunately, every time someone brought a keg of beer through the door everyone scrambled to grab one. Inevitably, during the night of drinking, one of the steins would end up in pieces.
“Sara, is that really you?” Jack asked.
“Hi Jack,” Sara said.
“Yeah, I saw these two walking along Whitney Avenue so I loaded them in the car,” Ziggy said.
“You mean Rory was hanging out with Sara? He actually talked to you?” Jack asked Sara.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t he?” Sara said, looking puzzled at me for the answer.
“Because these guys think I'm too shy to talk to anyone except them,” I said. “Don’t pay attention to Jack. Hey, Jack, have another beer. Its obvious that the few dozen you already had aren’t working.”
“Well, I guess I better do something about that,” he said, as we walked into the house and awaiting party. “Everyone’s a little bummed, as you can expect. There’s only about 25 people here, and I think we know most of them. Our buddy Brian, or Dick the waiter, is here. He’s pretty popped as well; zipped on cocaine and bopped on booze. He came over with John Marshall, or I think he maybe met John Marshall here or something. I’m not sure. But the two are hitting it off famously and acting like assholes.”
“Oh well,” I said. “At least they are outnumbered. What else is up?”
“Ed and Kyle stopped over before with their acoustic guitars and sounded really good. They may stop back later.”
“That sounds cool,” I said. “So, how have you been holding up, Jack?”
“Alright,” he said. “All day, no matter how I run this through my mind, it doesn’t make sense. I hate when things don’t make sense.”
“Maybe it never will,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s probably it, but shit, I don’t know,” Jack said. “It just seems like there was so much left. How does someone work for peace, and sing about peace and people loving each other and then end up shot in the street?”
“That’s what we may never know,” I said, although Jack had already started walking towards the kitchen.
“Is there a telephone I could use?” Sara asked.
“Sure, there’s one upstairs on the table in the hallway,” I said. “I’ll show you. You probably need to plug it in.”
Sara called home and talked to her brother Ray who agreed to pick her up. I got on the telephone and gave him directions.
“Sounds like a party over there,” he said after writing down the directions I hoped would get him to the house, but not in a hurry.
“We just got here ourselves, but there are some people hanging out and having a good time,” I said. “Sara tells me you are a huge John Lennon fan.”
“Yeah, it sucks, man. I heard the guy who shot him was a fan that was hanging out in front of Lennon’s apartment building,” Ray said. “The radio was playing Lennon all day and people were calling up the station talking about how fucked-up this whole thing is. How much they will miss him. I wish I went to New York this morning, at least I would have run into a lot of people who understand this.”
“Or who at least understand what each other are going through,” I said. “I don’t think I will ever understand this. But there are a few people here who understand what’s going on. We’ll see you in a little while.”
We went downstairs to the living room, where the main party was. The Lennon music was taken from everyone’s record and tape collections in the house – including mine, those bastards – and everyone was sitting or standing around drinking beer and talking over the loud music.
We had to move from the doorway when Jeremy, one of the housemates, came through pulling a kids’ wagon that had a bottle of Jack Daniels and about a dozen shot glasses in it.
“You guys want a shot?” Jeremy asked.
“No thanks, not for me,” I said. “I think I’ll grab a beer.”
“It’s in the usual spot,” Jeremy said.
As we walked out of the room, the song “Give Peace a Chance” came on and everyone started singing the chorus with it.
We went to the kitchen where we found Jack, Ronnie, Ziggy and some guy I never saw before standing around the keg.
“Thank God we have you fellows guarding this,” I said. “Ronnie, I stopped by Fitzwilly’s looking for you this morning. I see you survived last night. Did Aragon get off alright?”
“Yeah, he left last night as planned,” Ronnie said. “Cathleen picked him up from the Times Square and they drove off to Boston. I stayed to watch a little bit of Monday Night Football because I needed to resolve some of the ‘Berlin’ album stuff before I went home. That’s when Howard Cossell told everyone about what happened to John Lennon.”
“Yeah, I heard it from Cossell too,” Ziggy said.
“Jeez, of all people,” I said. “At least he was a fan, I think. I mean, he interviewed Lennon during a Monday Night Football game once.”
“It’s been a fucked-up day,” Ronnie said. “I couldn’t sleep last night and I was a mess at work. I’m just glad there were people here when I came over today because I really needed to talk to someone.”
“But, you are a Berlin Survivor now,” said Jack, who was slightly slurring his words.
“What’s a Berlin Survivor?” Sara asked.
“Do you have a little time, I have a cassette tape you can listen to,” Jack started. “Hey, you too, by the end of this night even, can be a Berlin. . .”
“Don’t even think about that now,” I interrupted. “Besides, I thought we were layin’ off that?”
“We are, but I feel like I have to use the cassette one last time,” Jack said. “O.K. then, what can we talk about? What did you guys do today?”
“I ran into Rory at Fitzwilly’s,” Sara said. “I was stranded in New Haven and he showed me around.”
“Oh yeah? Nice job; where did you guys go?” Jack asked.
“Sprague Hall for some music, Sally’s for some pizza and we hit some shops in between,” I said.
“Sally’s? You guys should have hit Pepe’s,” Ziggy said. “It’s thicker and the sauce is more flav. . .”
“No,” Ronnie jumped in. “Sally’s is the best.”
“Fellas, it’s Tuesday, Pepe’s is closed,” I said, hoping to end the debate.
“Yeah, but if it were Wednesday, then you should have hit Pepe’s,” said someone at the keg who I didn’t even know.
“What about if it was Thursday?” asked Jack, not too drunk to know a stupid argument when he heard one.
“Come on, Pepe’s has the best pizza in the world,” Ziggy said. “I’d put Sally’s third, behind Pepe’s and Modern Pizza on State Street.”
As the great pizza debate got underway, I grabbed a couple of glass tumblers from a cabinet and poured us two beers.
I leaned over to the guy I had never seen before and introduced myself.
“Oh, hi, my name is Adam,” the guy said. “I came this morning to check the furnace. Your landlady wanted me to check it to see if it needs cleaning. It was my first stop of the day and I heard about John Lennon when I got here. It just seemed like it would be a miserable day, man. I just wanted to sit down and cry, and these guys let me do it here. I’ve been listening to music with them. We picked up the keg and some grub in my work van. I just never left. These guys are really cool. They helped me out on a bad day.”
“There are good people here,” I said. “Just watch out for the great New Haven pizza debate, sometimes they get physical.”
“O.K.,” Adam said.