Southern Exposure: Romance, Misgivings and Tragedy in the Big Easy

By John Latka

Two impovished, fatherless families, parented by Joan Adams in New Orleans and Charlotte Kingston in Fayetteville, NC struggle mightily during the great depression to raise a family while surrounded by crime, corruption and bigotry. Bobby Joe Adams and Rico Alverez, juvenile criminals preying on the elderly at night, are arrested and face either jail time or a stint in the army.

The boys end up fighting the German army during WWII in Belgium. Bobby Joe survives but Rico dies saving his life. After the war, Bobby Joe meets Charlottes daughter Mary who becomes pregnant and gives birth to Jane. Bobby Joe abandons Mary and attends law school in New Orleans where he meets William who is seeing Mary. Bobby Joe, now a lieutenant in the Marino crime family, marries a wealthy socialite Louisa Marie and has a daughter, Pauline. Not receiving love or affection, Pauline seeks companionship outside home, while in sharp contrast Mary struggles to support her family. While at home, William is seduced by his childhood sweetheart Pricilla who becomes pregnant. William forced into marrying Pricilla, causes Mary to commit suicide.

Fast-forward 15 years, Michael McGuire, a young naval officer seeks out a fortune teller in New Orleans to find if there is romance in his future, is told he will meet two young women, Jane and Pauline, who do not know they have a common father Bobby Joe. Michael falls in love with Pauline and she becomes pregnant. Pauline becomes gravely ill and dies. Michael and Jane share their sadness over the loss of Pauline and become close friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491767139

John Latka

John Latka, a retired Communications Engineer has a BS Degree from the City College of New York and been employed by educational institutions, the US military, national intelligence agencies and various state and federal agency contractors in senior level technical and managerial positions. He is a US Navy veteran and previous published Staten Island Memoirs by Author House. He and his wife Lorraine live in Warrenton, VA.

Book preview

PART I

CHAPTER 1

HERITAGE

I am Joan Adams; my mother Marie De Galluette was a French-Haitian artist, but largely a practitioner of the occult, which was evident in her paintings. My father Pierre De Galluette was a wealthy French coffee importer-exporter, and sculptor, raised and exposed to a rich European culture steeped in the arts, contributing to the soul of a sculptor.

In 1915, my mother met my father in Paris. He was then a young French Army Lieutenant during the turmoil of WW I, after which they fell in love and married. My mother followed my father to New Orleans where he established an art studio and auction, and we lived in the apartment above his studio.

After my father’s sudden death from tuberculosis, we moved into an old house in the French Quarter, where she started what promised to be a thriving practice in the occult. According to official city records, our new home was haunted; my mother was delighted.

I loved my mother, kind and gentle, she took good care of my sister Katrina, my baby brother Pierre and me. However, my mother had a dark side that was as secretive as it was mysterious. I believe it was congenital, built into her at birth, inherited from her ancestry in Haiti. When I reached eighteen, she allowed me to enter her library to read her books, writings and notes on the occult through generations in Haiti. As a young girl who read comic books, saw Frankenstein, The Vampire and Wolf Man movies, I was very inquisitive.

Her frightful stories included vivid accounts of orgiastic feasts taking place in her family village in Haiti, each ritual performed by a voodoo mambo or high priestess, with the assistance of several priestesses. The proceedings included all manners of sexual acts performed amongst the village people and with animals, while under the influence of secret drugs and potions.

I recall listening intently to my mother’s stories of natives drinking animal blood, chanting and singing prayers of sacrifice, while gathered around gyrating dancers, their naked, convulsing bodies covered in animal blood, while under the influence of mind numbing, sensory altering drugs. There were natives dancing around a big fire in wild abandon under a full moon, with the bodies of decapitated sacrificial animals strewn all about on the ground, and shrunken heads, brown and leathery, prominently displayed,-perched atop poles stuck in the ground for everyone to see. She told me about her recollections of seeing many naked men and women, their bodies magically levitating above the ground, suspended by an evil anti-gravitational force, concocted by the prayers of the all-powerful voodoo queen.

However, what kept me spellbound most of all, were my mother’s stories of the creation of Zombies, the dead restored to life, after going through long, tedious ceremonies and procedures on carefully selected dead bodies, those obtained by exhuming fresh gravesites, or by stealing cadavers from morgues, private homes, churches, and funeral parlors in the middle of the night.

My mother stressed that the practice of creating evil spells or doing harm to people was not the purpose of Vodun cult magic. She said it is mostly about performing good deeds by helping the mentally ill, terminally ill, and terribly diseased people. All of these images and more, left a lasting impression on me, while in my heart and soul, I struggled with the righteousness and ethics of practicing these and other awesome powers, bestowed upon me by my mother, when I was a young girl and later, as a young woman.

Like many people of Haitian heritage, I inherited and maintained a deep interest in the Vodun religion. By talking to other people in New Orleans who practiced Vodun, and by doing a considerable amount of reading and research on my own, I came to the conclusion that most stories my mother told me were exaggerated and as far from reality as one can only imagine in their wildest dreams, yet some remained inconclusive unexplainable. In my visits to the library, I found in my research that mostly Haitian refugees from Africa practiced the highly organized religion know as Vodun. Many of these same refugees later settled in the southern part of the United States, in and around the city of New Orleans.

I found references to Voodoo, which received public attention because it was oriented towards doing evil deeds as romanticized by Hollywood. Voodoo appeared to be an imaginary or fiction based religion, largely created for use in, novels, plays, horror movies, and comic books. Replete with sacrificial ceremonies, secret prayers, potions, voodoo dolls, and bizarre rituals, it does not in fact exist except in the minds of the non-Vodun movie going public. In good conscience, I could not see myself sticking pins in stuffed dolls to seek revenge, disable, or inflict pain in someone, no matter how much I might have disliked or hated that person.

At one time, the act of sticking pins into voodoo dolls was a method of placing a curse on an individual by some followers of Vodun in New Orleans. The practice continues in some remote parts of South America, and unfortunately has become the uninformed public’s perception of Voodoo through popular Hollywood horror movies on the subject.

My mother had many voodoo dolls, each one of a kind. They came in a variety of shapes and sizes, the popular small stickpin variety fitting easily in the palm of your hand. Momma preferred to personalize her dolls by giving those names, using soft natural fibers, finished in a wide variety of colors, style, and textures. She made sure the new owner understood her doll was not a toy, and was completely prepared for and confident in its use as intended, instructing each in his or her home as to its magic, application, care, and potential impact. Over the years, she sold several dolls to her most trusted friends, requiring as a condition of purchase, a sacred blood ceremony.

Commercially constructed dolls were nameless, made of durable cloth or leather, and stuffed with fine straw, horsehair, or other filling materials.

My mother never left her highly valued dolls out for anyone to see. Under lock and key, these dolls were very powerful tools in the hands of experienced priestesses because of their high degree of sensitivity and proclivity for drawing the attention of the spirits, as well as their ease of communicating with them upon making initial contact.

All dolls in this category originated in Haiti under the strict supervision of a high priestess. She sold only a few of these to very close friends or special individuals she personally knew and could trust, but they had to repeat an oath to my mother that they would never give or sell the doll to any one, or reveal my mother’s identity, or they would suffer a horrible death. To these very few special owners these were special dolls and they really worked.

Her voodoo dolls could be a passive centerpiece, or to invoke special blessing or healing from the owner’s patron saint (Loa). As the owner gained experience working with his or her doll, it soon became the main means of access to their Loa. God help anyone who stole or otherwise illegally gained access to one of my mother’s dolls without the expressed consent of the owner, for untold pain and suffering would surely come to such an individual, such that he or she would wish they were dead.

Once a month my mother would gather groups of her Catholic friends in our house and have them take part in rituals, share experiences, and learn from each other. I remember holding my ear up against the closed door to the room in which they gathered. I could hear my mother and her guests moan eerie singsong incantations to help their children at home, sick with whooping coughs or the grip, spit up the evil spirits within them.

My mother let me sit in on some of her meetings, but told me I must be a fly on the wall, to be seen but not heard. I remember at one meeting, a young mother suddenly stood up and cried out in tears - She is under the influence of an evil eye. Someone close by wants to bring my baby harm. It is probably a jealous neighbor or a bill collector.

On another occasion, I remember seeing my mother, alone in her bedroom, with a candle burning, while she rocked back and forth under a large framed color print of The Last Supper willing herself into a deep trance as she meticulously spread exactly forty kernels of corn on a table, arranging them in even rows.

My baby brother Pierre was staring intently at her from a goose down stuffed cradle perched on her dresser, babbling encouragement.

Here is the stranger, my mother chanted, moving her finger over the first row of corn, then moving to the other rows of corn in turn, she chanted, here is your heart, here is your head, here is your tongue, here are your eyes, here are your arms, here is your mouth. She methodically continued her incantations in cadence and in a monotone, until every kernel of corn was accounted for and given an identity.

Momma stole her secrets from my grandmother who in her day pretended to be an observer, yet all the while with great patience and perseverance, she systematically memorized the incantations and rituals of white magic, and admonish her peers.

"No one, not even you Joan, will ever be able to fully understand and teach others what I know, only through cunning will you achieve that goal, and by the patient observation and study of the rituals. It is the sure and only time-proven way to learn the occult and our ancestor’s way to acquire the power, and to this day, remains the only way."

In uncovering my mother’s many secrets surrounding the occult, I found Vodun to be a religion steeped in Catholicism, with a mixture of various traditions from cultural backgrounds. My mother’s guests were Catholics of different cultures and backgrounds, each following a somewhat different set of spirits, while worshiping a slightly different patron saint from the pantheon of gods called Loa, which means mystery.

I learned that like Christianity, which honors God the father, a being that defies identity and description, there is a similar hierarchical structure to Vodun, with a traditional belief that honors a chief God called Olorun who cannot be perceived as an entity, and is inaccessible and unknowable by the living.

I found there to be hundreds of lesser spirits or deities, which take care of all our earthly needs and endeavors, these deities are Rada. Additional deities are Loa, the ghosts of deceased leaders, roughly equivalent to Catholic saints.

I discovered a number of similarities between Roman Catholicism and Vodun:

Both believe in a Supreme Being.

The Loa resemble Christian Saints, in that they were once living people who lead exceptional lives, each given a singular responsibility, specialty, or attribute.

Both Catholicism and Vodun:

Believe in an afterlife,

Have as the centerpiece of their ceremonies, a ritual sacrifice, consume flesh and blood, and;

Believe in the existence of invisible spirits or demons.

Followers of Vodun believe that each person has a Met Tet or master of the head, which corresponds to a Christian patron saint.

I soon realized it was within the rituals themselves that everything my mother taught me and later learned on my own all came together as an organized body of knowledge through communication with the spiritual world.

The main purpose for rituals is to make contact with spirits and to gain their favor by offering them sacrifice and gifts. In return, one may obtain help in the form of more abundant or better quality food, a higher standard of living, and improved health. Humans and Loa need each other to co-exist. Humans provide food and other material things and the Loa provides health, protection from evil spirits, and good fortune. Rituals are also useful to enrich life by celebrating good fortune or lucky events, to escape bad fortune, to promote a happy marriage through healing, to promote the healthy birth of a child and a peaceful demise at the time of death.

The various components of the rituals are:

A feast held before the main ceremony.

The creation of a Veve, a pattern of flour or cornmeal placed on a floor unique to the invocation of a specific Loa. The invocation ceremony often includes the shaking of rattles and the beating of drums, which have been carefully cleaned and purified.

In addition, dancing the mambo by the Houngan (established practitioners of Vodun) and the Hounis (new students studying Vodun) is performed; the dancing typically building in intensity and reaching a crescendo, whereupon one of the dancers is possessed by a Loa, becomes exhausted and falls down to the ground. The transition is complete, and at this point, the spirit is in complete control. The possessed dancer assumes the role of the Loa, thus treated with respect and ceremony by the other participants.

There is an animal sacrifice consisting of a goat, a sheep, a chicken, or a dog. They are usually expired humanely by slitting their throat and the blood collected in an appropriate vessel for consumption by all the participants. The possessed dancer may drink the blood resulting in the hunger of the Loa being satisfied. The animal is cleaned, butchered, cooked and eaten. Animal sacrifice is a method of consecrating food for consumption by followers of Vodun, their gods and their ancestors.

The houngan and mambos most often confine their activities to white magic, which brings good fortune and healing. However, caplatas and bokars perform acts of evil sorcery or black magic. Rarely will a houngan or mambo engage in such sorcery; or alternate between white and black magic.

One belief unique to Vodun is that a dead person can be revived or cause to rise from the dead after having been buried. After resurrection, the so-called Zombie has no will of its own but remains under the complete control of others. A Zombie is under the influence of a powerful spell placed by an evil sorcerer. Although most Haitians believe in Zombies, few have ever seen one. At risk to their reputation and perceived sanity, there are only a few recorded instances of responsible people claiming to be Zombies.

I Joan Adams, was a student when I met my husband Joseph James Adams at Tulane University during the great depression; we fell in love and married one year later. I was a struggling artist and he a struggling writer. We had two daughters, Madeline and Loretta and later a son, Robert Joseph Adams aka Bobby Joe.

I brought Bobby Joe into the world with the help of a midwife, in a low rent apartment, located on Exchange Place, a narrow street in the Vieux Carre section of the French Quarter, only a block away from the main thoroughfare, Canal Street. My place looked like Satan himself had been living there. My living quarters, considered substandard by any measure, was above a billiard parlor, a popular hangout for gamblers, drug dealers, and pool sharks. Three sleazy bars in which prostitutes and homosexuals were frequenters, and a fourth bar used as a front for illegal book operations shared Exchange Place.

My husband Joseph James Adams, the father of my two girls and newborn son was not at the hospital to witness the miracle of his son’s birth; rather he was in a New Orleans bar with his friends getting drunk. No longer able to support our family, he deserted us later that year. A victim of the great depression, he like many other working class men lost his livelihood, along with his confidence and self-esteem. In a rundown section of town known as Little Hoover Ville, he found temporary refuge sleeping in a cardboard box in a secluded alleyway.

CHAPTER 2

BOBBY JOE ADAMS

B obby Joe was my street name while growing up in New Orleans. My boyhood was at a decided disadvantage, being smaller than most of the other boys who constantly teased and pushed me around at school and in the neighborhood. I became a scapegoat and found myself on the receiving end of abuse and harassment. Then everything changed for me when I met and became good friends with a big kid named Rico.

Rico Alvarez and I met when we were freshmen in high school, immediately connected and became very good friends; I mean blood brother friends, and remained tight ever since. Our friendship was born out of sheer necessity; well, let us just say it was born out of mutual need and respect for each other. It made a whole lot of sense from a practical point of view for both of us. Rico was big, and I was small, he could offer something I needed - protection from bigger kids in the neighborhood, and I could offer something that he needed - intelligence in making decisions, I had something to offer him, and he had something to offer me.

We had achieved what our English teacher Mrs. Collins called symbiosis. At first, I did not know what symbiosis meant. I asked Mrs. Collins what it meant; she looked at me and smiled, then put the meaning of the word on the backboard for the whole class to see – Symbiosis - The relationship of two or more different organisms in a close association, resemblance, or convention that may benefit each other.

Bobby Joe, it is what occurs in the animal world by nature, she said.

Mrs. Collins’ definition was perfect for Rico and me. We were blood brothers and members of the Wolves. We had each other to trust and rely on. We fit together perfectly. We had symbiosis.

Even our permanent school records paralleled each other, including ongoing incidents of truancy, vagrancy, assault and petty larceny, all resulting in court proceedings held with our mothers Joan and Rosalie attending. Our moms had several visits by the New Orleans Public School System Truancy Office, as directed by our principal’s office. It was a routine follow-up, based on reports by our teachers of excessive absences from class.

The Truant Officer, one Theodore R. Perkins was a tall, friendly man who smiled easily. When he arrived at our house, my mom welcomed him with a cup of tea and showed him respect and tolerance for a man doing a difficult job. He was sympathetic and apologetic to my mom for interrupting her day, and regretted his bringing her more grief.

One evening, without saying where we were going, Rico and I did what we had to do in order to survive in the sidewalk jungle of New Orleans; we participated in the official blood ceremony to become members of the Wolves.

Belonging to a gang providing Rico and me with a sense of belonging to a family of blood brothers, in which devotion and dedication with your life (if necessary) was paramount to survival. Another gang, the Barracudas, was our number one enemy. An unwritten, never the less ongoing declaration of war existed between the Wolves and the Barracudas.

The FBI and the New Orleans police considered the Wolves a highly organized, dangerous teen-age gang due to our alleged ties to organized crime as mules for the powerful New Orleans family of La Costa Nostra.

There were occasional visits by police officers who were routinely following up on recent street rumbles between gangs in which a member was shot, cut up in a switchblade knife fight, or beaten with a baseball bat or chains. Fortunately, the Wolves or Barracudas had no gang members killed, but both the police and my mom knew it was just a matter of time. The FBI was interested in other things; namely, the so-called delivery boy (Fagin) service provided by the Wolves for organized crime, riding a bicycle, wearing a jacket and cap, a service logo on our backs, delivering packages in unsuspected plain unmarked packages, covered in ubiquitous brown wrapping paper.

All too often, I would come home with torn clothing, dirty, bruised, and cut after fighting in the streets. I did not want my mother to see me then nor could she afford to buy a new pair of pants and shirt whenever this happened. I would routinely get out of my clothes, wash my hands and face, sew my pants and shirt, wash them on a scrub board in the kitchen sink, and hang them on a clothesline in the backyard, when she was out of the house.

Because my mother could not provide my sisters and me with proper care and clothing, she would cry in her bedroom, while staring at a statue of the Blessed Mother on her dresser, recite the rosary, and ask the Blessed Virgin to spare me from a life of self-destruction.

Due to my small body size and low weight, I could not fight back effectively during street fights between the two gangs, and the Barracudas ongoing harassment, disrespect and insults continued towards me until I reached the age of sixteen.

It was then suddenly one night I found me facing two Barracuda gang members in a back alley, holding baseball bats, threatening to beat me to a pulp. At that very moment, a switch turned on inside me, and suddenly everything changed. In a blind rage, I permanently altered the faces of the two Barracudas with my switchblade knife. After that faithful evening, I not only gained the respect of my peers, they also feared me. I learned the great lesson of the streets; you must earn the respect and fear of those around you, no matter how you go about doing it. You have to pay for what you want, or use force to take what you want; no one will give it to you free. Respect in the neighborhood meant making your bones; it was the law of survival.

My two sisters, Madeline, Loretta and I were living outside the mainstream of America, part of the extraneous items of humanity, left behind from a dysfunctional family. We became wards of the Louisiana State Child Care System, until Mom brought us together again under one roof, through the help of state welfare payments, as well as her hard work at various house cleaning jobs. She was able to show evidence to our caseworker she could support my sisters and I as well as paying for other essentials.

A product of New Orleans streets, schoolyards, back alleys, and billiard parlors, over time I grew and became streetwise and tough enough to become a blood member of the Wolves, one of the most feared gangs in New Orleans. Sneaking out of the house and lying about my whereabouts became a frequent occurrence, and a regular part of my routine was prowling the city streets at night with the Wolves. Instead of being in school, I played hooky, hung out in billiard parlors, hustled bets, pilfered unguarded cargo on the docks, and mugged tourists in the back streets of New Orleans.

My nighttime activities were far away enough from home so as not seen or heard by my mother, so she was not able to track me down or know what I was doing. When she called out my name as loud as she could to come home for dinner, my friends said her voice echoed off surrounding tenement buildings in the neighborhood.

Joseph Adams was legally my biological father but that was all he was, as he took no part or interest in caring for me. Any knowledge, socialization, or life skills I managed to acquire I picked up in the streets from other gang members. After time spent in reform school, at 17 I returned home.

I had grown to a height of five feet ten inches; I was tall, lean, and strong. My features, wavy brown hair and startling light gray eyes were disconcerting to those who met me; so much, so the girls at Beauregard High School considered me at once spooky and handsome. When in school, the girls often lined up during lunch period in the schoolyard to take turns, letting me peer deeply into their eyes and hypnotize them.

If only my ex girlfriend Shirley could see me now; she would leave that fag David in a heartbeat. Screw the both of them, I have my pride; there are plenty of girls to go around.

Then suddenly it became clear, I had become the victim of the insult of all insults, the hurt of all hurts - Shirley, who I had truly loved, trusted, and going steady with for almost a year, was becoming less and less available. She never seemed to be at home when I called to ask her out on a date. When I called, Shirley’s mother would answer the phone, and when asked where Shirley was, made excuses for her absence.

For the first time in my life, I felt the pain of rejection, and being alone. After almost a month of her stringing me along, the truth finally came out …

Because Shirley was two inches taller than me, my lack of stature became more and more embarrassing for her, so she dumped me. She did this in response to her shallow girlfriends ridiculing her about how awkward we appeared together at parties.

In a show of shallowness, with the urgings of her equally shallow friends and parents, Shirley decided she no longer wanted to see me. This sudden turn of events in our relationship was not because I was an active member of a notorious New Orleans street gang, not because I had a violent temper and was a juvenile delinquent with a police record, not because I did not go to school, but simply because I was too short.

She found a new boyfriend three inches taller than me. His name was David Moriarity. David was socially redeeming and had a way of putting Shirley’s parents and friends at ease. He was tall, good-looking, bright, Irish-Catholic, and a freshman at the University of New Orleans. To Shirley, her new boyfriend David was everything I was not, or could ever hope to be. To any of Shirley’s friends, it was a match made in heaven. However, neither Shirley nor David had a clue how close they had come to facing my revenge after I found out about what really caused the end of our relationship.

Although my conduct and actions set a poor example for my sisters, I looked out for and protected them to within an inch of my life. They were recipients of our Catholic upbringing, and unlike me, my mother was able to instill in them a strong sense of religion, love, caring and honesty. They both possessed the self-discipline and determination to lead a Christian life, avoid premarital sex and unwanted pregnancies. Graduated from high school and now at the age of 22 and 20, they were single, living on their own and held clerical jobs downtown. They shared a one-bedroom walk down basement apartment on Dauphine Street, a short walking distance from Canal Street, known for its tourism, entertainment, nightlife, shopping, and its world famous trolley cars.

Following my wishes, Loretta felt it was her sibling responsibility to watch her younger sister Madeline. Loretta had succeeded up to a point; Madeline met Juan, a handsome young Hispanic leader or El Capitan of the Barracudas and fell head over heels in love with him. It seems that as fate would have it, one night at a Barracuda’s gang meeting, Juan introduced Madeline to the temporary heady pleasures of sniffing cocaine and in doing so, contributed to a general downward spiral in her life, leading to her accidental death and eventually to his own.

I was not as diligent as I should have been about my sister’s personal affairs and unaware of her cocaine habit. Madeline’s young life ended abruptly at the age of 20 while crossing a street on her way home to join her sister, when a speeding motorist snuffed out her life. He was so drunk that when the police measured his blood alcohol content, it was off the chart. I arrived on the scene with tears in my eyes. In an emotionally charged scene, I would not let anyone touch my sister; instead, I gently picked her limp body off the blood soaked street and carried her in my arms to an awaiting ambulance.

After over a one-year long vendetta, trying to find the guy responsible for getting my sister hooked on cocaine, I finally succeeded and left the Barracuda’s leader Juan Ramirez bleeding to death, his throat slit and both eyes cut out. Later, a railroad worker found the body in several pieces, on the tracks, in a railroad freight depot in Algiers.

CHAPTER 3

THE MIDNIGHT WELCOME WAGON

A n elderly tourist, out all night partying, having had too much to drink, became dizzy and paused. He tucked his shirt into his pants, and wrapped his arm around a lamppost for support. Looking upward, he saw a street sign illuminated by the yellow glow of a sodium-vapor street lamp, surrounded by a swirling swarm of moths. He squinted, and tried to read the street sign beginning with a T. He squinted some more, then stared at his gold watch. It was 12:15 AM. When he finally focused his eyes, he saw an unfamiliar name, Toulouse. Not knowing where he was, he shook his head, muttered a few obscenities, and continued on his way, precariously weaving a path through a labyrinth of city streets in the Old French Quarter. Under the numbing effects of bourbon whiskey, he did not realize his vulnerability to the dangers that lurked within the dark city streets, instead, he maintained a false sense of security and assumed the machismo of a forty-something year old. Unbeknownst to him, he was about to become a statistic - one more inebriated tourist, who offered himself up to would be muggers and robbers, as he slowly plied his way through the seedy back streets of the French Qua rter.

Distinguished looking with a receding gray hairline, he was a well dressed, well groomed senior citizen, one that would give the appearance of being well healed to a would be assailant, not expected to put up a struggle. At sixty-eight years of age, our tourist is about to become one more victim added to the growing crime statistics in New Orleans.

Seeking romance, he went about finding it on his own, apart from the senior citizens tour group he had joined earlier in the evening. The type of satisfaction he wanted was not going to come from debating world affairs, drinking tea, or staring at a hand of playing cards while engaged in a game of canasta or bridge with a bunch of sixty plus year olds. It would come instead while in the company of beautiful twenty and thirty something year old women, sleek felines that come out at night to play.

That morning, he drank an iron-rich syrupy diet supplement to fortify his tired blood, and within an hour, he imagined feeling forty-eight instead of sixty-eight. However, on this particular evening, he had made the mistake of being overly adventuresome, out alone in a dangerous neighborhood.

Earlier in the evening, our tourist visited three nightclubs, drinking his favorite bourbon. The first nightclub pleased him with his favorite music - jazz. The second featured entertainment that both delighted his eyes and titillated his senses, namely several well endowed female strippers dancing for an audience. They gyrated, shook, spun, and wiggled their supple young bodies to an incessant drumbeat, satisfying the prurient interests of the mostly male audience.

In the third nightclub, he ordered a shot of bourbon and promptly knocked it down. He soon found himself surrounded by two sexy young women seated on either side of him at the bar. He smiled at them and they smiled back. He introduced himself as they did in turn, and with a dignified motion, signaled the bartender to make for Diane and Jessica their favorite drinks. With a smile, the bartender promptly responded, serving the two women a round of watered-down vodka martinis, and for him, another shot of bourbon.

Unbeknownst to our friend, both girls were doing double duty. As prostitutes, they were fulfilling their job descriptions, turning a trick. They were also satisfying the owner’s wishes by filling in the time between turning tricks by hustling drinks. Diane and Jessica were close friends and worked well as a team. Besides their profession, the two young women shared a lot, coming from broken homes with unemployed fathers who deserted them during the closing years of our nation’s great depression.

Perhaps not having a live in father during their informative years, would explain their attraction to older men, namely to satisfy a need for a father image. Human psychology aside however, the reason for Diane and Jessica’s desire to be in the company of well-groomed, well-dressed older men was simply to share in the large amounts of cash they carried.

This evening Diane and Jessica gave their attention to a lonely, rich sugar daddy, who will probably return to them for their favors. To these young women, performing a service for an older man gives them a sense of caring that leaves them with a warm feeling. As they took turns slow dancing with Horace, pressing their soft supple bodies against his, he was hoping against hope that he would feel some energy building within him, but alas, nothing happened, just as it has not happened in the past five years. A cocktail waitress wearing fishnet stockings appeared with more watered-down drinks for Diane and Jessica, and straight bourbon on the rocks for Horace.

The two women listened to his stories from the past, feigning interest, pretending to hang onto his every word, while their beautiful faces and fragrant perfume rekindle memories of romantic adventures and erotic experiences in years gone by. Like Homer’s Sirens, they softly whispered in his ear soothing words of hope and encouragement, and then they beckoned him to enter a comfortable dimly lit chamber, set aside for privacy and pleasure.

Ladies if this were thirty years ago, your virginity would be in great peril, he proudly announced to the two young women.

The two women laughed in unison and Diane replied, Virginity, what is that?

Besides, if this were thirty years ago, we would not be here right now, said Jessica laughing.

Touché Horace answered, as he raised his glass in a toast to both of them, Ladies, let’s have one more drink for the road.

Sure, here’s to Horace, one more drink for the road, the girls replied.

He gave each girl a twenty-dollar bill that each folded several times into tiny squares. Diane lifted her skirt and placed it in her stocking, while Jessica unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse and placed it between her breasts. Then they quickly redid their makeup, each in turn kissed him on his cheek, and went back to the lounge, sat down, and had one more watered down drink for the road.

Two new male customers walked into the bar and Diane and Jessica quickly joined them in anticipation of turning another trick.

Once outside, our man continued on his way, his gait unstable, his equilibrium compromised.

In an alley at the far end of the street, Rico and I, wearing nylon stocking masks patiently awaited, watched his every move to pounce on him, our muscles coiled in preparation to spring out of the darkened alley to surround him. Horace’s heart stopped as terror suddenly gripped him. Rico held Horace in a chokehold from behind, his left arm held tightly around his throat, while I shoved the business end of a 38 revolver into the trembling victim’s ribs. Staring into his eyes, I shouted orders at Horace.

Your wallet mister, C’mon let’s have it!

There was no response.

C’mon old man, we don’t have all night, I told him.

He is having trouble hearing me Rico, should I whack him or what?

No please, please don’t shoot me, pleaded Horace, tears coming to his eyes, his voice trembled.

Then the victim reluctantly reached behind himself, retrieved his wallet from his pants pocket, and dropped it on the wet, dank sidewalk.

Good. Now give me the gold watch you’re trying to hide, I told him.

No please, don’t take my watch; it was given to me by my wife before she died.

You have two choices Grand Pa, you can hand your watch over to me, or I can take it from you. If I were you I would make it easy on yourself by taking the first choice, instead of the second, which would be painful and messy.

Again, there was no response.

Would you like to join your wife right now? We can arrange that for you, I told him.

No please, don’t shoot me.

Horace handed over his gold Swiss watch to me.

"I’ll bet your tour guide didn’t tell you about this part of New Orleans, did he Pops?

Yeah Grand Pa, you might think of us as the unofficial welcoming committee in this neighborhood, said Rico.

Rico looked at the gold watch in admiration, and then without warning hit the old man squarely on the head with the butt of his revolver. The victim crumbled to the ground and we dragged him into the nearest alleyway, out of sight of would be passer-bys.

Check out his wallet Bobby Joe, said Rico.

I looked through the victim’s wallet.

Man, there must be over two hundred bucks here, Rico.

I counted one hundred and ten dollars and handed it to Rico.

Let’s get out of here Rico, before someone comes by and sees us wearing these stocking masks!

Let’s take them off, what are we waiting for, replied Rico.

We pulled off the nylon stocking masks, stuffed them into our pockets, and disappeared into the darkness while the victim lay crumbled and unconscious on the sidewalk.

In a notoriously bad neighborhood, this assault with a deadly weapon transpired, leaving the police to investigate and connect the dots.

Meanwhile, not far away, on the top story of an empty loft above Saint Peter Street, a lone black jazz musician was working his chops on a legacy, a sixty-year-old silver signature Bb Trumpet, handed down by his grand daddy who played his heart out on it fifty years earlier.

He was playing a 12 bar Blues melody in Eb Minor with all the pain and sorrow that a good blues musician can muster; and to the down and out street people within earshot, the sweet melancholy notes worked like strong medicine, soothing their lonely hearts …

Moreover, a short while later …

Mom, I’m home, I announced loudly, as I closed the door behind me and entered the dimly lit apartment. Look Mom, I have some money for you; go buy yourself a nice, new dress.

Happy to see me, my mother hugged me, and looked me over to see if I had been in another fight.

Bobby Joe, tell me where have you been all night? I have been looking all over the neighborhood and worried sick about you. I made your favorite dinner, Spanish rice and chicken. I wanted you, the girls and me to have a nice quiet dinner together. Now you suddenly appear and hand me this money. I do not know what to think any more. I am really worried about you, where did this money come from?

She looked straight into my eyes and at the gold watch on my wrist.

The gold watch you are wearing, where did it come from?

I could not look my mother in the eyes, nor could I answer her without telling her another lie, so instead I looked away.

I want you to tell me the truth; did you steal this money and the watch you are wearing?

I did not answer her.

I want you to return it immediately to its rightful owner, do you understand?

I glanced down at the watch and whispered to myself, ah shit, why did I not remove this watch before I came into the house? After several seconds, I invent my story and am ready to tell her,

"Mom, I didn’t steal any money. I worked hard all day for it on the dock at Pauline Street. I was unloading bananas. I can explain about the watch too. I found it lying on the sidewalk while walking home. Look at it Mom, it is an imported gold Swiss-made watch. It even has initials and some engraving on the back. I guess that someone must have lost it. If you do not believe me, just ask Rico, he can tell you. He was with me the whole time. I am not lying Mom; I swear to you, I am not lying.

My friend Rico and me, we went down to the Pauline Street docks. We got there just in time, just as the dockworkers were shaping up for the day. I guess the union boss was short-handed because he saw us hanging around, and asked us if we wanted to make a day’s pay. He said he needed a couple of guys in the ship’s hold to help unload bananas that just arrived from Ecuador."

Bewildered, my mother let out a sigh of frustration, then went to the window and stared out at the crowd of tourists in the street below. I went to my mother’s bedroom, picked up her wedding picture, and came out. Holding it before her, I said,

Mom, I want you to look just like you are here in your wedding picture, happy and smiling, the way you looked before Poppa ran off. I want you to buy yourself a pretty, new dress, and matching shoes, and then I want you to go to the beauty parlor and get your hair done up curly and soft looking, like in this wedding picture; then we will all go out to dinner just as we used to when we were a real family. Can you please do that just for me, Mom?

Tears came to her eyes as she hugged me.

Sure Sweetheart, I’ll do that just for you, we’ll be just like a real family again.

"Mom, you didn’t allow the girls and me to get split up; you kept us together and out of foster homes in spite of how hard it has been for you since Poppa ran off. Now that I have made some money, the four of us, Madeline, Loretta, you, and me, should get dressed up in our Sunday best, and have a nice dinner at Madeleine’s Restaurant in the French Quarter. We can celebrate as a family by having a real fancy, sit down dinner, with escargot, hors d’oeuvres, a bottle of French wine, all served to us by a waiter, just like the rich Yankee tourists do.

Mom, look at these, I brought them for you; they are all the way from Ecuador."

I reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out a bunch of bananas, the very same bananas I purchased an hour earlier from the supermarket on my way home.

After a bungled robbery that I narrowly escaped, I decided to work the neighborhood during the cover of darkness. In order to have a greater presence on my turf, I teamed up with Rico Alvarez, a big muscular Puerto Rican street hood who made up for his lack of intellect and cunning with fearlessness and brawn.

Smug with the knowledge I pulled the wool over my mother’s eyes, and that Rico and I, were successful in pulling off several street hold ups of tourists, two grocery stores and a gas station, we felt sure we were ready for a big payday by hitting a neighborhood bank.

When the doors opened on the morning of March 18, Rico and I nonchalantly walked through the main entrance doors of a local branch office of the First Bank of New Orleans. We stepped up to a teller, handed her two brown paper bags, and quietly asked her to put all her receipts into the bags. Not having done our homework, we did not realize this particular branch was just around the corner from the police precinct. We found ourselves holding the paper bags full of cash, surrounded by police just forty-two seconds after the teller set off a silent alarm.

After our unfortunate experience that day, Rico and I quickly learned after the fact that if you plan to rob a bank, have a plan, know what to expect before you arrive by having prior knowledge of the bank’s activity schedule, and anticipated teller traffic. In addition, you need to have your getaway car parked close by unless you want attention running from a bank holding brown paper bags.

CHAPTER 4

ON BECOMING A MAN

O ur knees shaking, Rico and I stood bolt upright in front of Judge Jessie Jamison to hear his deci sion:

Since this is your first felony conviction, I am going to give you two boys a choice between either jail time or the opportunity to serve your country in the US Army. Which will it be boys, the Louisiana State Penitentiary for five years, branded as criminals, or the US Army for four years, with a clean slate and pride of serving your country?

We looked at each other and then at our mothers.

This is your decision to make, Bobby Joe, said my mom.

That goes for you too Rico, said his mom.

I spoke first, I’ll take the army.

Rico’s response quickly followed, Me too.

Our mothers smiled and hugged each other. Judge Jamison smiled approvingly.

Rico Alvarez and I, two convicted eighteen-year-old felons, found guilty of felonious assault, robbery, and a variety of misdemeanors, were about to become privates in the US Army. The next morning, Master Sergeant Robert Sullivan stood before us at a podium, holding a bible in his left hand, before him a court order signed by Judge Jessie Jamison, and a release from custody by each boy’s mother. Sergeant Sullivan swore both boys into the US Army for four-year enlistments.

"As per their acknowledged understanding and signatures herein, Mr. Bobby Joe Adams and Mr. Rico Alvarez agree to duly perform their duty, follow and obey orders, cooperate with their fellow soldiers, and avoid any counterproductive activities that would place them or their fellow soldiers in harm’s way.

Furthermore, they agree to conduct themselves as such, while performing their assigned duties, both at their duty stations and while on official leave. Not to do so, would result in their immediate discharge from the US Army and to be turned over to civilian law enforcement authorities in New Orleans, to serve out their postponed five-year terms in the State Penitentiary in Shreveport.

Jessie P. Jamison, Third Circuit Court Parish of New Orleans"

Giorgio Mancini, a tall, well-groomed gentleman, wearing a pin stripe suit, sat in the back of the courtroom during the conduct of the trial, listening attentively and taking notes. Later, at an undisclosed location in New Orleans, a conversation took place:

Godfather, after one hour of deliberation, the jury found the two boys guilty of attempted armed robbery. Judge Jessie Jamison gave the two boys the choice of either spending five years in the state penitentiary at Shreveport or enlisting in the US Army for four years. With the signature approval of their mothers, the boys choose to join the US Army. Godfather, the boys clammed up, they did not say a single word. As far as the court record is concerned, they did the holdup strictly on their own, and as far as the judge is concerned, they were two misguided young amateurs, two kids without a father who needed discipline, as only the US Army can offer.

Excellent, I want you to keep track of these two boys; I want them taken care of. You are right Giorgio; they are the kind of boys that will make good soldiers for us in the future.

After some serious thought, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Harry Fox, himself coming from a broken home and spending time in reform school, decided to take a chance by allowing us, two young partners in crime to serve together under his command.

Rico and I raised our right hand and touched the top of the bible with our left. Not ever having done anything like this before, we were scared. We stood there motionless during our induction into the US Army, looking straight ahead, not smiling, and not saying a single word to each other, during the swearing in ceremony. Upon completion, we kissed our moms goodbye, and even though we had caused them heartache over the years, they did not seem relieved to let us go, instead they cried. Lead to a cafeteria nearby, we joined other recruits and for the first time had lunch on Uncle Sam. Afterwards, we assembled outside and joined fifty or so other recruits for a long bus ride to Camp Flora, Mississippi.

Fresh from civilian life we joined others like us, bearing the sadness of leaving our homes and loved ones. The reality of facing the ordeal ahead of us did not faze us until our arrival at the Training Center in Camp Flora, where a crazed old Master Sergeant by the name of Festus O. Grimly immediately began screaming at us to show he was the boss. At first, we did not realize we were unlucky enough to get one of the toughest sergeants in the entire U.S. Army as our Drill Instructor; he lost no time proving it.

The war in Europe was in its third year. The ranks of American troops engaged in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium under the Supreme Allied Commander - General Dwight D. Eisenhower were thinning out. Rico and I were just two of many replacements assigned to the waning ranks of the 105th Infantry Division. American lines along the border between Belgium and Luxembourg had gaping holes and lacking in strength. What remained of the 105th Division spread out along a twenty-one mile front, this in comparison to the normal five-mile front a division normally covers. To survive, the 105th Division badly needed replacements.

This is where Rico and I ended up, in Europe, serving in the US Army, right smack in the middle of World War II. It scared the living daylights out of both of us, but Judge Jamison was right - it did us much good. Our timing was good too. We arrived just in time to catch the brunt of the Battle of the Bulge. We were about to find out just how tough and mean we really were …

Master Sergeant Grimly ordered us to line up in a single column alongside the bus. After a lot of milling about, we finally learned the proper manner in which to fall in and respond to our names when addressed at roll call. We then proceeded in single-column, lock step formation to an unknown destination. Then, like a herd of sheep, ready for shaving, a sergeant corralled us into a big, brightly lit room with twelve barber chairs, whereupon a group of grinning barbers shaved our heads in the customary manner. We watched in silent horror as our wavy pompadours fell onto the white tiled floor, resulting in all of us looking alike.

The next day, at precisely 0600 hours, we experienced the raucous, chaos of our first army reveille. Sergeant Grimly, wearing a sinister smile, banging away on a large galvanized steel trash barrel, rudely awaked us.

Our Drill Sergeant from Hell systematically began to break us down to size in twelve weeks of military discipline and grueling basic infantry training; all of it considered a prerequisite to becoming proud members of Company B, Ninth Infantry Training Battalion, and Camp Flora, Mississippi. Prior to this, I had heard about the horrors of Army basic training from older GIs who were home on leave, but did not realize how tough it would be until going through it myself.

Here we were in good ole Mississippi, the land of hot sunshine, sweat, and red dust. In temperatures 90 degrees or more, we marched with full packs, for what seemed like forever, sometimes for as much as 25 miles, until we got it right. Poison Ivy, mosquitoes, chigger bites and Mississippi mud were our main problems. To simulate actual battle conditions, no lights allowed at night, so inadvertently many among us fell into deep mud holes and slept all night wet and muddy. A few unlucky GIs fell into cesspools, had to scrub with sand soap, and sleep by themselves outside the next day. The reward for all of this reality was a weekend pass in Jackson that is only if it was your turn, and you had been a good soldier for two weeks. We endured physical training and field calisthenics that drained every ounce of energy from our bodies, leaving us exhausted.

We got through mock battle conditions we thought we would never survive, including live automatic weapons fire going by, barely inches over our heads, resulting in us never forgetting the importance of keeping our heads down while under combat conditions and enemy fire. After several sessions, while assuming the prone position on the firing range, I was proud to say, Rico and I both qualified as Expert Rifleman with scores of 185 and 188 respectively. We proudly wore that designation attached to our silver infantry rifles pinned to our uniforms. In those trying days, it was close formation drill, KP duty, mopping floors and waiting during mail call to hear your name called, sometimes in the rain, or hoping to hear your name on the shipping out list.

After our basic training was completed, Rico and I went home for a delay in route. This is Army talk for a two-week furlough allowing us to go home, sleep in the clean comfort of our own beds, get together with our girls, and enjoy Mom’s home cooked meals, God willing, not for the last time.

Although we did not realize it at the time, it turned out that basic training made a big change in Rico and me, an experience that became a major turning point in our lives. We came out of it two entirely different men and a whole lot better for it. It was hard, but like most hard things in life, worth it. My mom and Rico’s mom immediately noticed the difference in our behavior, posture and the way we carried ourselves. Much to their surprise, we were what they always dreamed we could be - disciplined and polite, with good table manners, good posture, and speaking only when addressed. In their eyes, we were two perfect young men while in the company of others, and not the professional killers the U.S. Army was training.

Tears came to their eyes when we first walked through the doorway in our uniforms. They never stopped feeding us the whole time we were home. I know that this may sound too hard to believe, but while we were home, Rico and I visited his honor Judge Jessie Jamison in his chambers at the courthouse, and thanked him for turning us over to the US Army instead of sentencing us to a five-year term in jail.

His Honor was very happy to see us. He smiled and shook our hands. I think we made his day because he told us, I am very proud of both of you. You two boys coming here in uniform to visit me like this in my chambers today makes it all seem worthwhile.

Our next base assignment was the First Army Infantry Battalion at Fort Bragg, North Carolina for Advanced Infantry Training. For the very first time in our lives, we came to understand and appreciate the meaning and value of responsibility, respect, and discipline. The training gave us both a new lease on life and a one-time opportunity to escape from the only world we knew, a world of crime, revenge and deceit. It felt good to be free from the revolving door of crime and punishment.

Rico and I transferred to the 105th Infantry Division, 222nd Regiment, J Company, Second Platoon, where we trained in the operation of the US Army’s 30-caliber water-cooled machine gun and the 81 mm mortar. The battalion command issued J Company 81 mm mortars and 30-caliber water-cooled machine guns to support infantrymen in the 105th Infantry carrying either the Garand M-1 rifle or the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).

After completing our training at Fort Bragg, we received our new orders. We thought we would get into a truck to transport us to the train but instead we ended up lugging all our gear to the waiting train. After the usual delay, we began our long trip to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. I remember at the time how amusing it was to eat chow out of our mess kits while on a moving troop train. We rode that train for the next two days, stopping at every town along the way. Our daily routine went something like this: eat, play cards, climb into our berth, climb out of our berth, eat, play cards, climb into our berth, climb out of our berth, etc, etc …

Our sharp creases now gone, our suntans were a baggy mess when we got off the train. We settled into the camp of shakedowns, slowdowns, and short arm inspections. In three days, we were processed, the official title for the one act drama to get ready and then wait, and wait we did for the General to arrive at our humble abode for inspection.

The scene - A barracks full of men standing at attention in front of their bunks, each one with their clothes neatly and exactly displayed, combat boots spit-shined so that you can see your face in them, all of which took hours to accomplish.

After inspection, through the door bounced a young corporal wearing spectacles, carrying a load of papers, and then at the top of his lungs he yelled, Has everyone got everything?

Though we did not know exactly what everything meant, in a chorus we all answered, Yes!

We spent the next two hours putting all of our gear away into our lockers, departing Camp Kilmer by bus, arriving at a ferry to take us across the Hudson River to Manhattan in the middle of the night. With four hours sleep, we lined up on the pier and a group of Red Cross girls appeared with the inevitable coffee and donuts. After downing our coffee and donuts, while a band on the dock played