28 “I Was a Patsy” & “The Village Harmonica Rescue Squad” Song: “Angie”

While I was a student at Kent State in 1970, just before the May 4th shootings, I got off work as usual washing dishes at the Brown Derby until closing, and began walking through the snow to where I was living in my first dorm, during my first winter semester. I had no idea that my father had taken time away from Brandywine to, behind my back, become involved with my dorm resident advisor, until my advisor informed me. When I finally reached my dormitory all ready for sleep, I was shocked to discover that all of the doors were chained shut! It must have been because I had gotten so used to being out of the loop, and carrying on in the best way that I could with my long history of head injuries, and confusion… I had totally forgotten when the two week winter semester break would begin, and only discovered when all the dorms were locked, everyone was gone, many of the lights were out, the doors were chained shut, and the whole campus was dark, and empty. I was slapped in the face with the reality that I felt was the reality which my father wanted me in, preferred me being in, and had continued placing me in, unless he was totally convinced that I was doing EVERYTHING exactly in the way in which he wanted. My father had become a total prima donna, and his demands for me included those which I knew, and he knew, I could never do. After finding it impossible to get through on any of the Brandywine phones, I knew that I would have to find somewhere warm to sleep. Again, I had no choice but walk through the snow looking for a place, any place, to go. I found myself crying just like I had unintentionally, and secretly witnessed my father crying decades later, and I now realize that we were similar, at least in the way we cry. I innocently witnessed him cry in our Naples home decades later after he had received a phone call from my very angry brother screaming at him. My father cried when my brother hung up on him during that Naples phone call. He accused our father of trying to control even my brother’s children, by giving them presents and money, against my brother’s will. Because of that, my brother screamed that he was stopping all future visitation rights with his two children. And, as far as I knew, they never came to visit Naples, again.

I wandered through the closed Kent State campus with no place to sleep, stay, or go, and with no car. (After my father took away my driving privileges, then stole my motorcycle, I earned the money to also buy my own car, but then he also took away MY visitation rights after I began visiting Brandywine in my own car, and skiing with my mother’s permission, but NOT with my father’s permission!)

I felt awfully stupid being locked out of my dorm, and having to wander aimlessly through freezing winter nights like I had to at age 15, when my father first kicked me out. I was wearing only a blue denim shirt jacket which was what I always wore everywhere throughout all of my college years. My winter jackets were actually stolen from out of my high school locker two years in a row. My father replaced the first one stolen from my locker during my rural high school JUNIOR year, but he angrily held me responsible by not allowing me to buy a second jacket after it was stolen from my school locker during my SENIOR year in my rural high school from hell. I remember that I also had a sleeveless rabbit fur jacket which a girl who I gave a ride on my brand new chopper gave to me. She was a die hard Led Zeppelin fan (wasn’t everyone?), except she actually knew drummer John Bonham. I actually wore that sleeveless fur coat on my motorcycle once. It was when I went riding around Kent, and I only got to ride my motorcycle for the couple of weeks after I had purchased it with what I earned from working full-time all summer long sandblasting inside railway cars. Unfortunately, after visiting our rented home on it a couple of times to see my mother, my sister told my father about it (against our mother’s suggestion not to), and that was when my father ordered his employees to steal it, and throw it in the same ditch he had the lodge piano thrown in. I know, now, which employee got it, but to this day, he won’t admit that he was the one. I learned this, anyway, on my own, because I happened to see it parked right outside of the Dojo in Cleveland where I stopped in, and my friend happened to arrive. Unfortunately, I believe that my instructor friend, fearing that I had seen him arrive on MY bike, or would see my bike, and see him, quickly arraigned for me to be gutted in the stomach during a sparring with a highly advanced tae kwon do expert which he suggested for me to do. My ski instructor friend obviously feared that I had seen my bike, thus would know that he had received it (instead of helping another fellow employee dump it in a ditch, which is what my other employee friend eventually told me my father had ordered the two of them to do with it). But, I only knew that the lodge piano was dumped at Brandywine, and that was after it had been GLUED SHUT so that it couldn’t possibly have been used. Perhaps my father was paranoid that I could have repaired it? In any case, as soon as my fellow ski instructor friend had seen that I saw my bike parked at the dojo, he suggested that I spar with that expert, followed by me being so severely injured in the gut, that I had to be immediately taken to the hospital. So, my fellow employee instructor friend figured that I didn’t see my motorcycle parked there, but I did! He also thought that I wouldn’t forgive him, because he never admitted to be the one who saved it from being thrown in our ditch with the lodge piano. But, I am forgiving… that’s who I am.

I ended my first college semester stuck outside my own campus dormitory in the dead of winter late at night, and all I could do was walk aimlessly trying to find a phone to talk to my own parents, but couldn’t get through, or even find somewhere still open to get warm. All the phone lines were just recordings with snow conditions, etc. So, after crying out loud, I walked through the frozen campus, and empty streets of town, then walked toward Ravenna wondering if, or where, I would ever find a place to sleep. I remembered a girl who I had met, and I was very lucky to find her home, but I didn’t want to impose on her. The next day, I walked back to my dorm, and luckily got in through the kitchen entrance only to retrieve a handful of clothes, and my guitar, and I took them to work where I could also get a meal, but I still couldn’t talk to either parent, or anybody on any of the ski area phone lines.

After walking with my guitar to work at the Brown Derby, out of the blue, this Kent State student who I only knew his first name came in to eat right before closing time. It would much later become obvious to me that my father had to have been behind why this guy suddenly appeared at the diner where I was stranded with my guitar. He finished his meal as I ended my shift, and he gave me a ride to where he suddenly said that he would show me where I could stay! It was the first trailer right off of the main road where Kent turns into Ravenna, and he showed me this key, and points to the trailer, opened it, and we went inside. He said that he would help me figure out where to turn on the heat, then wouldn’t let me know what the circumstances were behind how he got the key to that trailer! He wouldn’t tell me, but he was certainly making me realize how lucky I was to suddenly have a warm place to be, and to sleep. After not getting any answers from him, I thanked him, and bid him goodnight.

It was very emotional not being able to get through on the Brandywine phone lines to inform either parent that the college dorms were closed for my winter break. However, my father had already made it abundantly clear that I wasn’t allowed to be at Brandywine, and I especially missed not being able to ski there. But, I also knew that I really only had myself to blame for that, too. And, I only had myself to blame for being locked out of my dorm , and not to know, beforehand, that the dorms would be closed when the campus was closed. I really didn’t want to be living in that dorm after I was made aware that it was Kent’s gay dorm, and I wondered what else my new gay acquaintance who showed up where I worked, was trying to make me realize, other than making me realize how lucky I was to suddenly, and unexpectedly, have a warm place to sleep. I wondered who was behind the key to this trailer, but I figured that out. It had to have been my father. What I DIDN’T realize until after my father died, was that my FATHER was gay. Why didn’t he just TELL ME? A day later, this same fellow student who gave me that trailer key, came back to the trailer, supposedly, just to stop in and say hi, but I only remained confused, felt that the whole thing was absurd, and still feel that way today. So, after I pressed him about if he was gay, he shared with me the fact that indeed, he was gay, but he still wouldn’t give me ANY IDEA whether he knew my father or not, or would discuss how, or why, he got the trailer key. I had absolutely no idea, then, that I was renting that trailer with my own interest accruing money which I had earned working for my father since age 13. However, it became more obvious to me, despite my life long naivety, and confusion as a result of head injuries, that my friend was really just one of my father’s puppets.

I felt that I was still a screwed up teenager in a screwed up world, in a screwed up situation, trying to live my screwed up life, while my screwed up father was trying to control everyone, and everything, including me, and everyone, or anyone I knew. A day or two later, this guy showed up again at the trailer, and he acted as if he was even more confused than me, while explaining that he still wanted to be my friend. But, I barely even knew him, and I tried as politely as possible to reason with him by asking, “How can you expect me to become better friends with you when you can’t even tell me the truth about the trailer, or how you got the trailer key?” He simply wasn’t being honest with me. I was brought up to believe that honesty was/is above everything else in terms of importance in this world.

I was lucky to suddenly have a trailer to sleep in, and my own key, while my dormitory doors remained chained for two more weeks until the end of the winter semester break. When I finally got through on the Brandywine phones, I was only allowed to talk with my father, and he reminded me, again, that as long as I was working a full 40 hour work week at any job which he approved of, he would consider helping me out with first week, weeks’, or months’ rent. But, even my own father wouldn’t discuss anything about that trailer, or that guy, except to repeat the same words he had just spoken. It was as if he was confidently, and pompously proving how much smarter he was than everyone. One of my father’s pompous remarks was, “Do what I say, don’t ask questions, and admit that I’m always right”. The next few snowy winter days and nights dragged on through Kent’s winter semester break with me terribly missing skiing, but I was very thankful for having a warm trailer to walk to after work, and for sleeping in.

One night after work washing dishes, as I walked out, a couple who had just finished paying for their meal walked out at the same time that I did. I asked if they were headed in my same direction, and if I could get a ride to that trailer. The driver said yes, and on the way, he explained that they were heading to New York City, and told me that if I wanted to go with them to NYC, that he could use some help with the driving! He explained that the girl with him didn’t drive. My dad had the same exact car when we lived in Grosse Pointe, MI. So, because I loved to drive, and I loved their(?) car, a Chrysler New Yorker, I said, “Sure! I’ll go with you to New York… in your New Yorker!”

I grabbed my 12 string from out of my(?) empty trailer, and off we went! They explained that they would be stopping to pick up a friend, and then they would be going straight into the city. About six hours later we arrived at their friend’s house right off the highway with a big barn. It was in the outskirts of somewhere. A guy walked out immediately to greet us, but when we all got out of the car, he jumped in the car and drove it up the snowy driveway to a big barn where he quickly stopped, jumped out, opened the large sliding barn door, jumped back in the car, drove it inside, and shut the sliding door behind him. The girl and I sat inside the house in front of a large glass picture window in the kitchen, as the guy she was with went straight back outside. The big sliding barn door opened again, and the car backed down to where it was when we had first arrived. Then, the two guys stood outside the car talking. It looked like they began to argue, and it seemed odd to me that his friend looked as if he had become very angry. As we watched through the kitchen window, the girl told me it was because they brought me with them, and I could see that she looked seriously concerned about what was happening out there. This was when I, too, started thinking more seriously about everything that was happening. Before the girl and I left the house, the two guys were still, obviously, arguing outside, and that was when she very emphatically warned me saying, “It could get dangerous”. I thought to myself, “Oh great, that was NOT something I wanted to hear”.

When she was telling me that it could get dangerous, I saw the two outside taking my 12 string guitar from out of the back seat, and putting it into the trunk of their(?) car, and immediately, they both stood behind their(?) New Yorker, and stared at me standing inside looking through the kitchen window looking at them staring back at me. That was when I started figuring out that this was very possibly a stolen car, which suddenly made me also realize why this girl said that she didn’t drive, and would have been why he let ME drive for much of the way. And, I didn’t even have more than seconds to think about why they pulled that car into that barn, or what they had taken out of it. Drugs? A dead body? But, based on this girls comment, I suddenly feared that their next move might be killing me, and putting me in the trunk along with my guitar. I actually sensed that anything might happen now in the middle of nowhere and, while I really had no proof that it was a stolen car, I didn’t have much of a choice, then, but to cautiously ride on into the city with the three of them, while my Martin 12 String guitar remained in the trunk.

While the girl and I walked out and got into the car, she explained that I couldn’t stay with them in Greenwich Village because there wasn’t enough room for me to even physically fit to sleep on the floor in their tiny apartment. She also mentioned that I shouldn’t even be walking around where they were going, after dark, but that part went right over my head, because I was way more excited about being in NY, than about staying in Kent and washing dishes. I remember telling this girl, “I grew up in NY”, and remember answering her comment by saying, “Don’t worry, danger is my middle name”.

The trip to NY in their New Yorker was actually enjoyable. We sang, I got to drive, and I played my guitar. And, we played some typical car-games to pass the time. We even enjoyed noting the changing license plates from state to state, except now, we had this additional guy driving us on our way into the city, and I definitely remember the silence because no one was saying a word, and the silence revealed how the friend of theirs they had stopped to pick up, appeared to be only begrudgingly going along. The day went from sunny and clear, to grey and pale colored, with such thick flaked snow, snow, that it became dark well before it even began approaching dusk. The silence in the car became deafening, and I started having the annoying thought that I might never even make it to the city alive.

When I was thinking that this latest guy (with my 12 string Martin in his(?) trunk) was definitely considering getting rid of me, I broke the silence leaning toward the two guys in the front, and said with a forced smile, “Seriously guys, you can drop me off right here in the snowstorm if you want, or wherever you want to. Or, I’ll just go all the way to wherever you’re going in the city, and then I’ll go my own way from there, OKAY?”, adding another forced friendly docile smile. To my dismay, the scary guy driving IMMEDIATELY slowed down from going really fast on the two lane highway, to nearly skidding out of control to a stop just off the side of the road, and then over some more. It was obviously in order to let me out one way or another in the middle of nowhere, but it was 5 degrees, and snowing very hard. And, I thought THAT would have definitely been where I would have parted with my Martin 12 string, which was still in the trunk. I quickly added a little louder, “OR, I’ll just ride with you into the city like we talked about, right?” Luckily, he jerked the car back onto the highway, sped up again, and headed toward the city. I still had no idea whatsoever where we were going (but then I knew that they weren’t going to kill me). I think that the driver knew that I really didn’t have a clue where we were even going. And, I certainly didn’t know where I, and/or my guitar would end up, let alone what would happen next.

We finally arrived in the city, and as I saw that their tiny apartment on the third floor didn’t have enough room for anyone to even sleep on the floor, their friend disappeared. The guy and girl I rode with to NY stepped inside their tiny Greenwich Village apartment when suddenly her roommate, too, bolted past me, and also vanished, possibly in his effort to catch up with that other guy who was more of a dangerous character. The girl immediately suggested that I should take my guitar and go. But, I was still trying to figure out where I actually was, before I could possibly figure out where I was possibly going. So, I asked her to please watch my guitar for just a few minutes, and I bolted, too.

I went running down the three flights of stairs lightning fast to do the following… (Since I had no idea what I was planning on doing once I had actually arrived in NYC), I suddenly realized in that moment that I would definitely have to immediately 1. find something really nice to eat for all of them… 2. find a place to sleep before it got dark (which it was already doing), and 3. quickly land a job somewhere for a source of food and money just like I had successfully accomplished at least three times, and learned was what my father had always drilled into me that I could do anywhere. I walked right next door into a narrow little deli where I bought two huge NY “Rye bread Reuben sandwiches”, (the famous ones). I raced back upstairs with all of the food and drinks that I could carry, and offered them that food in order to say thanks, with the intention of leaving with my guitar. But, both guys were still gone, and the girl was still there with my guitar. I gave her the food and drinks, and said how excited I was about being there. She repeated more emphatically this time that I couldn’t stay there. I said that I totally understood, and like an idiot with the sense of a duck, left my guitar there bolting one last time while saying that I’d be right back to get my guitar, and then leave. I bolted back downstairs again to figure out where to extremely quickly get a job, a gig, or trade my musical services for a place to stay. Or, I had to figure out how to get back to Ohio after dark with my Martin 12 String guitar, alive. Since my dad had completely drilled it into me that I should be able to easily get a minimum waged job anywhere I go, and survive JUST LIKE HE HAD TO DO, I entirely believed him, and I had already discovered how I had to do so in order to feed myself again, again, and again. I was a normal teenager who just happened to have head injuries, a severe case of ADDHD, deja-vu, and amnesia all at the same time, or intermittently, while hurriedly walking around somewhere in Greenwich Village, NYC after dark looking for a job (preferably one that came with a place to stay), and/or a place to sleep.

I took the chance of leaving my 12 string Martin guitar one last time in their third floor apt/room, and starting walking nervously down the street in the other direction of the deli, and around the corner, but I had absolutely no idea of where I was walking to (other than it was on the street below where their apartment was. Before I had gotten past the length of that long apt. complex, someone dropped a steel-spring bed frame which crashed into the concrete sidewalk nearly crushing my skull, and only barely missing my toes because it happened to be at the precise instant that I happened to decide to pivot, and cross over to the other side of the street! There were no street lights whatsoever, and soon I was walking in near pitch blackness.

I now understood how serious that girl was when she told me that it would be dangerous. I walked even faster for a couple of more blocks at full-speed on the other side of the street, and made a couple of turns in the darkness, then stopped to gather my thoughts. I firmly decided that I‘d go right back to their apartment as quickly as possible, grab my guitar, and leave just as quickly, with no plans to EVER return to that area (wherever that area was). I started walking back just as fast, and even more determined, almost angry, feeling that the timing would be crucial if I expected to still be able to get back without another bed frame dropping on my head, to still be able to get my guitar, and leave alive. I was recalculating my route in reverse, but in the near pitch blackness, I only realized that I was definitely LOST! Then I had the very very annoying thought, “How could I find my way back to where I just was, if had no clue where I was now?” I stopped in the blackness, and felt that I had made a huge mistake coming to NYC at all.

So there I was, lost in the dark, and there were no street lights where I headed walking in Greenwich Village NYC. I finally saw someone, and impulsively started asking him for some directions because I really was lost. Then I realized, AFTER opening my mouth to ask this stranger for directions, that I didn’t even know where it was that I needed to ask directions for! I should have known not to accept a free ride from strangers to anywhere, and I shouldn’t have walked in a “drop zone” without at least a hard hat for protection. Now, I was about to learn even more…

I tried to describe the deli that I had been to, and he said, “Oh, yeah, sure, I know exactly where ya needs ta go, I even got a map I’ll give ya, no prob’, right around here, c’mon we’ll take good care of you. I will give you MY map. C’mon, I’ll get it for ya.” Like the trusting and gullible person I’ve always been (and still remain, in theory), I followed him up a set of concrete stairs just like the apartments I had just come from blocks away. When we reached the first level of a walled staircase, he turned back around, pulled out a knife, and told me to give him all of my money, rings, and anything of value, including my socks and shoes! I remembered that I had taken my cash out of my shoe to pay for all the food at the deli, and had put it back securely. Now, I was thinking like a detective INSTEAD of fearing for my life, and/or dying from multiple stab wounds. I thought, “Was there someone in that deli who saw me paying for the food and drinks, who ratted me out to him about my hiding place where I stashed my cash?” I told him that I had no cash, (and knew that I had no brains being there in the first place). But, I was sharp enough (or stupid enough) to start negotiating with this guy. After handing him my first ring (my gold Grosse Pointe high school ring), I explained that it was really hard for me to get my other ring off, and as I kept explaining, I pulled my harmonica out of my pocket. This actually startled him when he saw it, and he asked “What the (blank) is that?” His reaction convinced me that he actually didn’t really know what it was, and I sensed that I was the one who sort of had a possible slight advantage to somehow use the distraction in order to negotiate with him possibly a little more. He only had a pocket knife, not a huge Bowie knife like the one which my neighbor used on me in my childhood NY neighborhood. And, he wasn’t nearly as big, or intimidating. So, I started playing on that harmonica, and the first song that came into my head was “Shortnin’ Bread”. He actually was relieved to know that it wasn’t my own weapon, although it really was. And, he appeared to like it enough that he actually start tapping, and even clapping along. We were there making music! In fact, we made a fairly good improvised creation by combining the rhythmic high registered squealing pitches of the harmonica with the audible beats he made with his hand-claps, and/or our feet stomps.

He even started singing perfect harmony when I went straight into “Down On The Corner” (which was one of many other songs I sang every weekend at a bar named JB’s off of Water Street in Kent, Ohio, with a friend of mine named Paul who also sang with with Joe Walsh).

Anyway, I think that the reason that the guy who started to rob me at knifepoint in that afro-mentioned stairwell, made the decision to give up continuing his armed robbery, initially, because he suddenly got paranoid when he saw my harmonica. Then, I think that he got even more paranoid when I turned, and blew on my harmonica very loudly. He may have been thinking that I was alerting someone nearby, and because it was REALLY loud coming from out of that stairwell, it could have easily been heard from the streets even blocks away. In any case, HE suddenly started negotiating with ME. Maybe he was thinking that I was an undercover cop working the neighborhood?

He actually started pleading with me saying, “Please, please, don’t turn me in”. I’m guessing he was thinking that I was an undercover cop in plain clothing policing the neighborhood. Why else would HE be suddenly negotiating with ME? He either believed that the cops would be arriving pronto, and that he’d be going (again?) to jail or something, or that someone, or some people I knew, would quickly be running to my aid. Did he think that it would be the “Harmonica-Rescue-Squad”? Or, perhaps “The Harmonica-Hero-Brigade” better known as the “H.H.B”? I really think that he simply had a change of heart because he liked the cool beat music I was playing on the harp, and perhaps because he realized that I had just as much soul as he had. Whatever he was thinking, he never made me show my socks, or remove my shoes, and we sort of had a truce. I even negotiated my ring back, and we made friendly conversation as we walked down the stairs, then sang even more harmonies together, as they echoed harmoniously together as we walked down the street in the dark. When we reached the main street, he pointed me in the right direction to get to where I could catch a bus to the main bus terminal, and from there take a bus back to Ohio. So, it turned out that the one who pulled out a knife to rob me was actually the one who showed me where I could get on a bus to get back to Ohio.

I raced back to that third floor apt., picked up my guitar from the girl who warned me that it could be dangerous, and found the bus stop only because the guy who robbed me at knifepoint told me where the bus stop was. I caught the first bus to the main bus terminal, forgot about trying for a gig, or job, or even trying to get to see Broadway. When I arrived back to Ohio all in one piece, and alive with my guitar, I was glad to be back happily washing dishes at my full time job in Kent. In fact, I continued working while finishing college for eight more college semesters, and all of my paychecks were mine to keep. I REMEMBER ASKING A FRIEND WHEN I GOT BACK TO KENT…. “WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE SEMESTER BREAK?

I never had a doubt about my belief in God, and during my brief time while staying in that trailer which my dad had obviously rented for me during my semester break, I had gotten a ride going to a praise Jesus meeting which met weekly in different rural barns, and I was hitchhiking back from Newton Falls after one of those meetings, and after I had visited my new girlfriend who I met at one of those meetings. There had just been another heavy snowstorm-blizzard, it was well below zero, and everyone, everywhere around, was staying inside their homes because of how cold it was. I had walked for hours throughout what was left of the day on a road that looked like it had always been covered with hard packed snow, and there were close to zero cars for hours. I knew it would soon be getting dark, and more desperately cold, when finally, I heard what I thought was a vehicle approaching. But, of all things, it was an Amish horse drawn carriage, and it was barely big enough for the Amish couple to sit in that small black varnished box on wheels. I remember thinking that the only way for me to get a ride would be to jump up, sit on their horse, and ride it bareback. The horse must have been reading my mind as he trotted by, because his ears poked back threateningly, and he noticeably sped up even turning sideways away from me a bit. The horse looked as frozen as me, and the Amish couple looked frozen, too. I walked all of the way to Route 631, and amazingly, got picked up right away hitchhiking, and dropped off right in front of my(?) warm trailer.