RUBBER CHILD THE NEXT CHAPTER kevindeclue.com

WHAT UP WHITE BOYS!

Walking out the MSJ doors should have been a traumatic experience for me, I should have really been losing my shit- but for some reason I felt pretty good! Being in limbo land (or Purgatory for the Catholic folk) was not pretty and I looked forward to the summer ahead. Kasey was still on track to graduate from Rutland High School and it was starting to get warmer…finally! My next goal while I waited for the end of the school year was to start another band. Earthride was a very serious band and we practiced all the time. Andy and Trevor were very cut throat you better play every day kind people. So for me at the time playing in a group that was really about having fun was my focus. I really wasn’t interested in writing any songs that said anything- just creating and having a good time sounded fine to me. A friend of Kasey’s that she had know since grade school named Lee was looking for a singer to front his band. And from what I was told these were my guys. The bass player was tremendously artistic and basically didn’t say a word. The drummer actually would sit and listen-he wasn’t that advanced at drumming yet so it was a nice turn of events. And the guitar player was a wild man. Always telling jokes and singing these love songs that were very good. He would Jam on his Les Paul guitar and sing with an almost southern Tom Petty type of a drawl. One fine day we all got very stoned and jammed in a little woodshed outside a friends house. I remember all of us looking at each other with red shiny eyes waiting in anticipation for a song to rise from the ashes. We didn’t know each other at all and had no songs whatsoever but sure enough all of a sudden we were singing “can you get me more lemonade please”? in Spanish. Lee the guitar player was playing some odd flamenco rhythm and the drummer Jim followed with a Doors type of drumbeat. Steve the bass player came in nice and simple and we were off. I knew right then we were going to put this thing together and I cannot remember why but for some reason we called ourselves Cricket. Now that I had my band I had to think of our next crazy adventure. I wasn’t feeling Cali at the time. The last experience wasn’t a very good one but I still wanted warmth and the ocean. The only connection I had was my mother’s family in North Carolina. My grandmother lived on Okra coke Island but I sure as hell wasn’t about to go there. I also had one other connection out in NC and that was my mother’s half sister Katherine. She was very cool and her husband had a huge Boa. I remember visiting as a kid and my aunt Katherine would be playing rock music through the loud speakers as the two of them let the snake slither around in the living room. Now this was an experience I could go for! The idea was to bring the entire band to North Carolina. I was the only one who had traveled outside of Vermont let alone New England and the band thought it was a crazy but fun idea. Kasey was looking forward to getting out of Vermont for a while and trying something new so we started coming up with a plan. I wouldn’t call it a plan-it was more like a Hail Mary but we put together an adventure we would soon never forget. The plan was to leave the day that Kasey graduated from Rutland. We were going to hop in the old blue Toyota with a U haul hitched to the back and drive all the way to Raleigh Durham North Carolina. Once we got to Raleigh we were going to call my aunt up and crash with her until we found out what our next move was going to be. We wanted to start playing some gigs in the NC-SC-area so at least we had the beginnings of a plan. On graduation day the entire band sat on the side of a hill at Rutland High as we watched Kasey graduate and get her diploma. She was all smiles but I knew that she was sad to leave her friends. She was also sad to leave her sister and her mother as well as her little brother Joey. On the other hand she was very adventurous and unlike the rest of her family at the time-was looking to spread her wings. The beat up car with the U haul was ready to go and once we had the diploma in hand we were off. One new band with $800 a very foggy idea and a taste for adventure. Leaving Vermont -just-5 eighteen year olds on our own was a pretty cool feeling. No cell phones-no guarantee we were going to get there, and no idea of what was going to happen next. We had no posts to worry about on social media and if you took a pic of yourself back then you would get your ass kicked. It was just open widows, great music, cheap cigarettes, brown weed and a group of kids getting to know each other as well as ourselves. After what felt like hours of driving we were finally in Raleigh Durham. It was hot as hell and didn’t look all that pleasant. We were nowhere near the ocean and the LA vibe was kicking in. We stopped at a gas station and I called my Aunt to let her know I was in town. The phone was busy so I hung up and waited a few minutes. As I was waiting- the rest of the group started talking about how cool it would be to live near the beach. It didn’t take long for this far off idea to start becoming a reality. And before you knew it we were all back in the car- driving towards what we thought was the beach. We drove and we drove until honestly I think everyone started hallucinating because out of know where we all started to smell the beach. Now remember we had no phones to guide us safely to our destination. You had maps and if I remember correctly we didn’t even have a map that led us to the coast. We just had a trip map from AAA -so breaking off the initial trail could get ugly. But of course we decided to get off the highway in a town called Goldsborough. I couldn’t tell you how the hell we chose this location or how we dropped off the U-Haul or even better yet how we found an apartment within the hour but somehow we did. I remember paying some slimy bastard around 500 to move in to an apartment we hadn’t seen. No credit check and I don’t even think we showed him our identification. He just grabbed the money, gave us the keys and the address and we were off. The address was on Keniggy street and as we rolled into the neighborhood all I could see was very confused African Americans laughing as we rolled by. Hey white boy! I heard somebody say as we started hauling in all of our equipment. The laughing got louder as the neighborhood realized that we were going to show everyone in the damn town that we had guitars, and amplifiers, drums -microphones. We were basically saying “ Hey guys! Were some dumb white kids from Vermont and I know your about to beat the snot out of us and take our shit but I’m your new neighbor and my name is Kevin. Very quickly an elderly gentlemen came up to me and warned me of how serious the situation actually was. The # 1 was that we were in the projects, the # 2 was that “ The Jungle” yeah that’s what they called it hadn’t seen a white person move in over 20 years and the last thing was that this was a gang oriented project and you were about to get tore up. As I shat a little in my pants I looked around and realized that we were in big trouble. The next light bulb that appeared in my thick scull was that Kasey was nowhere to be found. Kasey had the unbelievable knack of picking up a conversation with basically anyone that you could imagine. It didn’t matter who it was or where they were from she could strike up a conversation. I’ve even seen her make friends with a group of Peruvians and they couldn’t even speak the same language. They just giggled and smiled and became friends. So once again I hear giggling and Kasey is across the street on the porch laughing with a young 20 year old women who was holding a baby. Next to them was the biggest baddest darkest looking man you had ever seen. From the way he held himself you could tell very quickly that he was a somebody. I called her to come grab the keys and get in the apartment because yes I was scared when we all realized that we had no electricity. And with no electricity we very quickly realized after one very cold shower that we had no hot water as well. We were basically surrounded by individuals that surly didn’t want are crazy asses around and now we had no way to refrigerate food, plug in the amps, or clean ourselves. I mean we wouldn’t even be able to see in the dark for God sakes. Nightfall was on its way and I’m positive that all of us were scared. We made mats on the ground in the living room and tried to keep calm. We rolled over to the 99-cent store and purchased whatever we could with the remaining amount of money that we had. We even built a giant spear out of a long piece of wood and a hand knife just in case somebody broke through the door. Ahhhh it was home and we were all terrified. That night somebody did start slamming on the doors and windows. I was already up with my spear but when Kasey jumped up I grabbed her and put my hand over her mouth. It was like a damn B rated movie and we were in this MOfO son of a bitch. I think someone was just trying to scare us but it rattled all of us nonetheless. The next morning once again I couldn’t find Kasey and I started to panic. She had walked across the street again and was talking with the same neighbors. Laughing-eating food-playing with the baby. Pretty soon the guys who hadn’t eaten really anything in at least a day were over on the neighbors porch as well. A BBQ popped up and other people came by and I just looked out the window waiting to see what was about to go down. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was being the asshole just assuming that these neighbors were anything other then nice people but the elderly gentlemen that I met on the first day had really put me in a state of panic. I made my way over and introduced myself. The rest of my crew was already chowing down on delicious food and drinking beer, laughing and smoking cigarettes. As the crowd gathered and it started to look more like a block party the big guy stood up and walked over to us. Again my narrow-minded small town brain thought shit was about to go down but then the biggest beautiful smiled appeared on this guys face and he introduced himself. “ My name is J dog and this is my wife Tess. Tess and Kasey were already becoming fast friends and because of her not narrow-minded awesome attitude J dog thought we must have been alright. As the party progressed and the beer started to flow and the blunts started to light up J dog called out for everyone to listen to what he had to say. The crowd silenced immediately as everyone waited for him to speak. “ I want everyone in the neighborhood to know” he started with a booming voice “ That the new neighbors that moved across the street will not be touched” he paused for a minute as we all looked at each other like the ultimate gladiator just gave us props. “ Anyone that touches the new neighbors” he continued “ Will have to deal with me!” you could hear the crowd mumbling and shaking there heads that they understood what he was saying… and it was done. The crazy Vermonters that craved to see other cultures, other music and food had just gotten a pass. The pass was a doorway into a world that changed all of our lives. And the friendships and conversations we shared -the bonds we forged were everlasting for all of us. Now that we had the security that we were not going to die we had to come up with a way to make money and quick. We didn’t have any more and the 99 cent food kept you alive but that’s about all it did. As we all scoured the streets for a job it was Steve the bass player that landed the first employment opportunity. It was delivering pizzas around town and it included tips plus minimum wage. Steve being the trooper that he was didn’t tell the pizza joint that he had no idea where her was! He didn’t say …”you know what-?? I’m from the smallest fucking town you’ve ever seen!” “The only thing we have going for us is the fern capital of the world”! Instead he took the job and rolled with it because we needed the money. So the night rolls around when Steve is suppose to start his deliveries and he takes off. Hours go by and Lee and I think “SHIT this guy may have pulled it off”. I don’t know how 

(NO GPS) but he may have. All of a sudden a car pulls up nice and slow. The headlights stay on. The car doesn’t shut off-and I know its Steve. We all come running out to see how the night went and Steve is just staring out the front windshield. I can tell he’s upset but I just don’t know why so I clear my throat knock on the window and ask..” So uh Steve how’d it go?. As he rolled down the window I could smell the most awesome pizza clam bake holy F%$^& you have like 11 pizzas in the back seat kind of smell. Turns out Steve couldn’t find the first house. Being the quite guy that he is he panicked and just picked up the next round. He must of done this a few times because like I said this wasn’t one or two pizzas. He was scared shitless and didt know what to do so we did what any scared kid in the ghetto that was hungry did. We grabbed Stevo and brought him inside for some weed and warm beer and had pizza for the next few days. Tes stealing is bad-and we shouldn’t of done it-but we did. I remember Lee and I having little meetings on the back porch which was basically a swamp. At one of these meeting the two of us realized that without more money we were going to be in deep shit. It wasn’t like we all weren’t looking for jobs because we were. But it was hard with zero references and no resume. At this point we did the worst thing possible. We pawned Lee’s beautiful Les Paul. I mean he had a name for this guitar, it meant everything to him. Well almost everything. Our well-being obviously was even more importantto him. So we pawned the guitar and got the ticket for 30 days to get it out of hock. This is when we decided we would do anything-and anything is what we did. To this day I cannot remember who got us the interview but some how some way the entire crew got a job at a pig farm. Now were not talking about the small-oh look at the little piggy VT awesome looks like Scotland kinda place. Were talking about a giant commercial pig farm where we had to take special showers and put on these weird suits just to get in the barns. And What kind of job did we have? You ask at this little Chorizo heaven. Our job-well at least my job was to artificially inseminate pigs. Wait not just artificially. Our first job was to actually go in with a wild male giant pig-and as he’s flailing about in the genitalia area our job (HOPEFULLY) was to guide him in. If this didn’t work I had to use this bayster looking thing. The pigs wanted to kill you-it was hot as hell –but we needed to get that guitar out of the pawn shop and find our way closer to the beach. Now unfortunately Lee and Jim had a different station. Now your going to say “HOW COULD ANYTHING BE MORE UNFORTUNATE THEN YOUR STATION”? And my answer honestly be- I don’t know. All I know is every day Lee would pop out of his station area and look at me like a ghost and say the same thing. “ I don’t want to talk about it” And so we never did. I remember the last night driving home with the farm crew-my band was tired but we knew we finally had enough money to get the guitar and get the hell out of Goldsboro. The big guy driving asked us our age and we replied that we were 18. He was quite for a minute and then replied in a southern accent. Yall got about 35 years of good pay here at the pig farm if you keep your nose clean. I remember us all looking at each other in sheer terror which eventually turned to laughter because we finally knew it was time to go.