TO EVERYTHING, TURNER, TURNER, TURNER

Last week I spent a considerable amount of time rescuing old photos from my previous laptop, and while doing so I came across this classic document.

The guy is Bill Turner, asleep next to my long-gone greatest dog ever, Sammy. This pic was snapped sometime in 1979, in the family room of the first house my family lived in in Westport. Seen above Bill is the bottom portion of the infamous huge wooden silhouette of Africa that my dad bought in our San Francisco years during his flirtation with the Black Power movement — which is hilarious in retrospect, as, after my folks split up and divorced, he aggressively reinvented himself from the ground up as a dark chocolate white man — and the damned thing even had gigantic letters spelling out "AFRICA" burnt into the wood in U.S. Military font. It was so kitschy and garish, I would have kept it as a goof, but dad eventually took it and other such items out of the house when he finished stripping the house of everything he owned (and then some).

But I digress. This is about Bill Turner.

After my folks split up, my mother also began recreating herself. Now that she was out from under a loveless and awful 16-year relationship, part of her attempting to build herself anew after having lived her growing up years (and beyond) under the iron fist of her domineering Christian cultist mother, then enduring my father, included her taking her first tentative steps at finding a boyfriend, something she had not done since the late 1950's. She had been raised in a rigid Christian household, so her every activity was closely monitored by her mother and the other women of the James family matriarchy, even down to some of her relatives sneaking into her room to inspect her panties for evidence of sexual activity, and that was when she was a grown woman.

Needless to say, with that kind of shit going on, plus her time with dad, she had a very warped perception of men and dating. She was lonely, but her ideal man was an unachievable fantasy blend of Rhett Butler, Kenny Rogers, and Omar Sharif, only black, and he must always be the exemplar of the perfect southern gentleman. (A fantasy that she unfortunately tried to program me to be from an early age. Not in some incestuous way, but the way she treated me like she was grooming me as a chaste surrogate husband really did a number on my young head. Getting out of that house and going to college was the best thing that ever happened to me.) Nonetheless, she began to reach out to various black men she had met in various capacities, all from other towns since the number of single black men in Westport was practically nil. (Hell, the number of black people at all in Westport was practically nil.)

I believe my mom met Bill Turner sometime during 1978. Bill was a house painter of some small renown who did quality work for a reasonable rate, assisted by a sketchy white guy named Donald. He was nice enough, so mom briefly dated him. It didn't work out because my mom is very much a snob, and Bill, as she herself put it, just was not on her intellectual level. She was not wrong, but Bill was the salt of the earth, even if he did refer to a theme song as a "scheme song." Anyway, despite no longer being romantically involved, they stayed good friends, and he was her go-to guy for any house painting or simple home repairs.

Bill was over at the first house, and later the second house, quite often, and I think mom liked having him around so I would have something resembling a father figure and a positive male influence. I never thought of Bill fulfilling either of those roles, but I liked him a lot. He had a very earthy sense of humor and he was downright hilarious once he got going, with a favorite topic for him to take the piss out of being current Top 40 pop music. His derisive imitations of the songs that he hated made me laugh my ass off, especially his renditions of Billy Joel's "Big Shot" and "Pop Muzik" by M.  He would also sometimes sing a sarcastic version of Mel Tillis's "I'm Just A Coca-Cola Cowboy," as he found country music to be an endless goldmine of ludicrous songs. In fact, he may be the Patient Zero for my love of old school country, the dumber, the better. Unfortunately it is impossible to translate the nuances of Bill's vocal performance of the aforementioned hits in writing, but if you ask me nicely, I would be glad to perform my approximation of his dulcet tones over drinks.

Between the time when I was 13 through to the end of my 12th Grade year, mom would sometimes task Bill with what amounted to babysitting me, despite me being in my teens and being quite a responsible kid. (To call Mildred overprotective would be a monumental understatement.) That was fine by me because what she didn't know was that Bill was a high-functioning alcoholic who always had two cases of Bud in his truck, and that he and Donald drank all day while on the job. There were a number of times when Bill would have to run an errand while I was in his care, so we would hop in his truck and he would whip out a beer, always noting with a sly wink that I was not to tell my mother, after which he would crack open the can and guzzle like a wolf pup at its mother's teat. And since I kept schtum about his drinking, he would hand me a beer of my own, thus introducing me to the timeless joy of "the Connecticut road beer." Those of you out there who grew up in Fairfield County during my era know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. His truck also had a generous supply of some of the scurviest porno mags I have ever seen, really grungy stuff featuring models who looked like worn-out biker hags. I'm talking the kind of stuff that kids would find molding inside a tree stump deep in the woods, what a friend of mine calls "feral porn." Bill always blew it off by claiming they belonged to Donald, but yeah, whatever.

Bill remained an on and off presence until perhaps the early '90's, at which point I never saw him again and my mother never mentioned him. A few times I asked mom if she knew what became of him, but she says she doesn't know. She was raised in a home where the code of silence on family matters and history was strictly enforced, so for all I know she does know what became of him. If I were to put money on it, I could see him doing himself in with the drink. I hope not, because he was a solid dude.

ANCIENT HISTORY: "FEAR IN B-BASEMENT"

This was drawn at SUNY Purchase during the spring of 1986, when an acquaintance gave me what I thought was a date or some kind of dried fruit, but was instead a big chunk of Lebanese hashish. It was a Saturday and I ate it during breakfast in the dining hall, and once I ingested it, the guy, a friend of a friend, told me what it was. I was most displeased, and after about 20 minutes its effects began to kick in.

I hauled ass back to my dorm room and sequestered myself in its cozy confines for the next twelve hours, only occasionally interacting with people whom I called and invited in so I would not go insane. I spent hours playing records in an attempt to ground myself, but I was off on an unintended cosmic voyage. You know the sequence in WATCHMEN where Adrian Veidt eats a ball of hashish and has a cosmic vision/epiphany? I had much the same experience, and I freely admit that on a deep level it changed me and made me more aware of my inner demons.

Anyway, I was too deep into internal cosmic travel to sleep, so I drew this with a Sharpie. Anyone who went to Purchase will remember the oppressive presence of bricks everywhere, so the bricks here were drawn with an intentionally unsettling texture.

While angry at being given a super-string edible without first being informed of what it was — my first experience with such, but far from the last — the experience led to enlightenment, and in the years following, I have gone for hashish whenever it was available. A co-worker in the Marvel Bullpen was from Holland, and when she went for a visit with family in Amsterdam, she sent me a generous supply of hashish that she carefully wrapped so its scent would not be detected, and she further masked the scent by stuffing the hashish inside a half-eaten box of Crunch 'N' Much, so I got two kinds of goodies when I received the package. (I had her send to my apartment, but I had her use "Kyoshiro Nemuri" as the recipient's name.) I used what she sent for a now-legendary batch of serious brownies that I served at a big apartment party. Much cosmic awareness was achieved that evening.

Great. Now I want a hash brownie...

 

PSILOCYBIN PSILINESS

With all the dire shit that's going on lately, both in my own world and the world at large, I have been focusing on positive thoughts and fond memories, and during the evening's reverie I was reminded of the following heartwarming story. Let's set the Wayback Machine to New Year's Eve, 1986 (going into '87): 

I was back from college for winter break and my mom was gearing up to go out for the night to a party. I was granted leave to throw a party of my own in the house, so I invited the usual suspects and one of them brought a big bag of mushrooms that we planned to stew down into a tea. While my mother was still getting ready to head out, I took a suace pot and began brewing down the mushrooms. Before she left, mom saw the simmering pot and asked what it was. I told her it was a Chinese delicacy a friend had brought over and that it had to cook down carefully or it would taste unpleasant and bitter. My mom is very much a "right now" person, so her foodie curiosity was not granted immediate gratification, which disappointed her, but I promised I would save her some of the "soup." That made her happy, but when she got back hours later she was at first annoyed to find out there was nothing left.

Myself and the friend who'd brought the 'shrooms were by that time tripping balls but having a blast, so mom only noted that we seemed happier than usual. (She somehow failed to note that our pupils were as big as eggs.) When she started to bitch about me not having saved any of the soup for her, I was able to avoid a tongue-lashing by telling her it turned out the ingredients my friend had brought had been measured improperly and the end result tasted like bitter tar, so we poured it down the kitchen sink's drain and chucked the solid remains. I showed her the simmered-down mushrooms in the trash, and she totally bought the story. 

From there my buddy and I spent the next couple of hours entertaining my very wasted party guests — most of whom my mother did not realize were bombed; she was very naive — and frequently retreated to the screened-in back porch to smoke joints and marvel at the beauty of the crust on the iced-over snow, which caught the moonlight in a panoply of psychedlic colors. At one point, standing there in the freezing cold, utterly tripped out and mesmerized, the silence was broken when my buddy simply observed "Dontcha love nature?"

IN MY ROOM: THE ORIGINAL VAULT OF BUNCHENESS

I'm currently at my mom's house for Christmas and I can't help but get a bit nostalgic for the days of my misspent youth whenever I stay in what used to be my room during those coming-of-age years. So without further ado, here's look at the converted garage that served as my room during my high school years, breaks from college, and the year and a half in which I attempted to eke out a freelance art living before moving out for good in early 1990 and making my home in New York City. The place was the site of several significant life events, but it is virtually unrecognizable now.

Where that lamp and bed are is where my desk/bookcase used to be. The walls used to be festooned with movie posters, comics in mylar bags, and several vintage PLAYBOY centerfolds some of the early-'80's most zaftig Playmates. All I have to say about that last element is Karen Price, Miss January 1981. Yowza!!!

The medieval torture implement that passes itself off as a foldout couch. Quite far removed from the extremely comfortable frameless double-mattresses I slept on in here three decades ago. When I come home for visits, the morning after the first night I sleep on this fucking thing invariably results in an agonized lower spine.

All that remains of what was once a massive media library that I maintained from August of 1980 through when I moved out for good in early 1990. The bookcase/desk has been in my possession since 1973 and was great for storing comics and books. (The chair that came with it fell apart some twenty years back.)

The lowest point of the double door on the high wall is about eight or nine feet up from the floor, high enough to thwart my mother's snooping during my coming-of-age years. I'm not certain but I think there's still a suitcase up there that contains a couple of homemade bongs and water pipes. If it's still up there, that suitcase has not seen the light of day since the infamous "Weedfest" of the Summer of 1989.