CHAPTER 3 A Studebaker Is A Fine Lover

Bonnie Hooper walked into Eighth Grade Study Hall one day, a transfer student from another part of the city. She had just enrolled and this was her first class. She had not had an opportunity to meet anyone else. For me, the situation could not have been more perfect. Her hair was ridiculous but her eyes were brown and huge, offsetting a long and lovely face. Her body was incredible.

There was no question about it. There was an unmistakable "zing" when our eyes met - at least in mine. I went directly to her when study hall was over. Inside of two minutes we were going steady. We were lovers in less than two weeks, and it continued through several readings of "Peyton Place" for the greater part of High School. Whatever had prompted my father to buy me a car at my premature age of fifteen, it was the other lover in my life. The car was right off a used car lot and had originally been laquered in a deep maroon, then painted with a neutral shade of gray enamel. The previous owner of this bedraggled 1950 Studebaker Champion two-door coupe had been a woman. She must have been insane. The car had been painted a third time in a gross shade of sunshine yellow, and with a paintbrush yet. Worse, she had used indoor house paint. It stunk. It was seven years old.It also ran well and could be had for $125.00 cash. For $125.00 my father changed my destiny. He did that several other times also, at varying prices and rates of interest. I was becoming plainly spoiled.

Comedian George Carlin was a disc-jockey in those days at KXOL radio in Fort Worth. At nights and on weekends he spent his apprenticeship as a comedian at The Cellar. In most all of my spare time I could be found in the garage listening to his show and working on the Studebaker. He was hip in the extreme, there was no doubt about it. Short takes from his nightclub routines leaked out over the air and I was often in stitches over his quips. I began to wonder what it would be like to be a DJ and pretend that I was in the world of normal people. The Studebaker began to show the aspects of a diamond in the rough. George Carlin was undoubtedly made of similar, if not finer stuff. The Studebaker began to take on a personality of its own and I began to accept what had first appeared to be a very awkward design. She had a style about her that had been trashed up by Detroit. When I was finished with it a year later all the body seams had been filled and smoothed off. All the remaining chrome was gleaming and the dozen or so emblems, unnecessary trim and decorative garbage had been removed. She was porcelain white with a nice flame job around the bullet grille and headlights. She finally had the look that her designers had intended, that of a jet. I had removed the engine, overhauled it and hand-cleaned the entire block. It too, had been painted white with five gallons of lacquer. The engine was left absolutely stock and I dreamed of one day transplanting a Chevy engine into the car. There was just barely enough room in the back seat for one very determined couple to do anything they wanted.

There are times in any relationship or love affair where things do not go smoothly. In the first few weeks of eighth-grade passion between Bonnie and I, there was the emergence of a rival in the form of Danny Yancy. He was more of an obnoxious nuisance than a real danger, a master of pushing himself right to the line. He was after Bonnie or me, whichever he could provoke first. His style was part punk, part clown and part real challenger. There were a few schoolyard threats and it appeared as though the problem would continue to the point of confrontation, or indefinitely. Whenever it appeared as if I had had enough and was about to lay him out, he would back off. It continued tediously for two weeks. Enter an unexpected friend and hero by the name of Billy Telford. Billy was the team quarterback, All-American Good Fellow and knew when to butt in. I was prepared for my usual early morning pre-class meeting with Bonnie and the inevitable nasty presence of my quasi-rival, when a most amazing thing happened. Danny arrived on campus in his usual bop-slither-shuffle gait, walking in our general direction. I prepared for the usual half-boring, half-challenging annoyment, or something close to a fight.

Billy Telford with his usual entourage of buddies, suddenly assumed a "High Noon" stance directly in front of Danny about thirty yards away. He began to stalk purposely toward Danny with fire in his eyes. When they were approximately ten feet apart, Danny stopped uncertainly. What happened next was so unexpected that no one could have stopped it if they had believed it. Billy pulled out a pistol, cursed Danny and fired several shots at point-blank range. Reeling away to his right, Danny grasped wildly over his chest in several places with head thrown back, eyes wide - grimacing in horror. School yard assassinations are commonplace now but in 1956 it was unthinkable for something like this to happen. To die in a school ground shooting at the age of fifteen is not easy for anyone who has planned to someday turn twenty-one, regardless of the generation. In spite of the fact that he was such an asshole, I felt for Danny. My God, for him to die so young just wasn't fair!

Danny in spite of his wounds, continued to stand in place for what seemed like forever. The look on his face was a glazed bewilderment. It was the kind of expression that reflects what everyone must experience when they get the call from God to come Home. He stood. He continued to stand, even as stone-cold dead as he obviously was. People moved out of the way in the direction it appeared he was about to fall. His mindless grasping at his chest became an honest exploration. There was no blood, there were no holes. Danny had been shot five times with a track officials gun, the kind that has a plugged barrel and fires blank cartridges to start the runners at sprint races. The guffaws were long, loud and merciless. The prank served two purposes. It got Danny off my back, and it also signified to Danny that he had been accepted. He smiled proudly. It was on that day that Danny Yancy's behavior changed. He became downright likeable. A few weeks later, his family moved again and Danny was forced to transfer to another school. In the meantime his visits to the Vice Principal's office became far less frequent. His grades improved. I heard that just before he left Forest Oaks, he had found a girl. A year later though, I heard that he had been severely beaten at the Berry Street Bowling Alley. Someone had repeatedly smashed his head against a car bumper and a friend of his had been bludgeoned to death with a tire iron.

Forest Oaks Junior High became a school with a reputation quickly, and it was not all the fault of the student body. The Fort Worth Independent School District's Building Planning, Architectural and Construction Department in the 1950's must have been inhabited by people who were either without brains, common sense, or without sex. The Girl's locker room and Boy's locker room were placed handily within a few feet of each other, adjacent to the Gymnasium. If you happened to be standing in any of several certain positions in the hallway or Gym, you could see right into the dressing rooms and showers of either locker room. Like I said, whoever designed that must have been without brains, common sense, or without sex. It bears repeating. One of these ideal points of view was the water fountain in the hallway. There were several fountains INSIDE the dressing areas of course but once in the hall, innocents of both sexes suffered from the Thirst of The Damned. Among these was a small clique of young missies in the seventh grade whose behavior was like that of a flock of gossipy, thirsty birds. There were always sexual innuendos to be heard in their conversations and those innuendos were just a bit louder than the other girls. It was supposed to give the impression of worldliness. These virginal hypocrites were part of the fountain scenery at almost every bell.

There are boring times at any school. Unholy Boring Times when nothing is going on, times when something must be made to happen or none of us would remember having been alive. Those of us who are True Leaders come somehow to sense those times as they arrive and instinctively, we know what to do at those times. My shining moment of glory came one day at that fountain. Having learned to play pool, I had also discovered a dispenser in the bathroom at the pool hall. For twenty-five cents you could buy all the sophistication you could want in the form of a condom. Using my best Slight of Hand, I dropped a naked "rubber" into the water fountain. Behind me was the small cliquish flock of gossipy, virginal birds. I was most of the way down the hall when the screams began. They continued as I made my way to class. The Vice Principal was very understanding. I got two understanding licks with a paddle, and a third that wasn't even friendly.