A Rainbow Together

By Danny Davies

The socially turbulent summer of 1964 triggers a cyclone of upheaval. For both the nation and Davey Dodd, a sheltered 17-year-old from Kentucky. At the onset, he remains blissfully unaware of the radical changes about to come. He takes a job across the river at a large Cincinnati hotel, which at first intensifies his feelings of unworthiness and self-doubt. His rigid Catholic upbringing has fostered a sort of emotional paralysis. The coarse masculinity of most of his peers intimidates him, yet at the same time he wishes he could be more like those freewheeling guys who boast of sexual escapades and other easy sins. As the weeks unfold, however, the diverse people and situations he encounters open his eyes to a colorful new world: one that emboldens him to explore this disconcerting passion he feels for co-worker, Tony DeStefano. Set against the backdrop of the Freedom Summer’s burgeoning civil rights movement, Davey embarks on a journey toward his own acceptance and personal integrity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jul 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483453651

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A RAINBOW TOGETHER

Danny Davies

Copyright © 2016 Daniel B. Davies.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5366-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5364-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5365-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909793

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 8/17/2016

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Let’s fly way up to the clouds

Away from the maddening crowds

We can sing in the glow of a star that I know of

Where lovers enjoy peace of mind

Let us leave the confusion and all disillusion behind

Just like birds of a feather, a rainbow together we’ll find.

from

Volare

by

Franco Migliacci and Mitchell Parish

© 1958

I live and love in God’s peculiar light.

Michelangelo Buonarroti

CHAPTER

1

Shit! Mother slammed the metal peeler onto the Formica tabletop. Davey, get me a different potato. This damn thing is probably garbage. She snatched the peeler and gouged at the brown-purple cancer. Well, hurry up. I need to have dinner ready when your father gets home.

I gulped half-chewed bologna and dashed into the hallway that led to the basement. A red mesh bag dangled on the coat hook next to my dad’s spring windbreaker. Back in the kitchen, Nat King Cole crooned from the countertop radio about those lazy, hazy, crazy days of sodas and pretzels and beer. I hummed along and searched for the one potato that might meet my mother’s approval-or at least lighten her mood.

I placed my selection next to the pages of newspaper littered with peelings. Mother grumbled a skinny thanks through pursed lips where an unlit Belair jutted from the corner of her mouth. I scarfed down the last slice of bologna, ring-tossed the red casing into the trash, refilled my grape Kool-Aid, and plodded on bare feet into the living room.

A sweet June breeze scurried through the open windows and seductively whispered those promises the summer of 1964 pledged to bring. I turned on the television, slumped onto the couch, and plopped my feet on the edge of the coffee table. It was time for Another World.

School was out for summer, and I could watch the new hour-long soap opera from its 3 p.m. beginning. I was fascinated by the conflicts in rigid Bay City —especially with those of troubled teen Pat Matthews. At that time, I wasn’t sure why. Now I can better understand her dilemma as she tried to calibrate her small town’s moral compass with the confounding passion of her magnetic new boyfriend. Later that summer, I would attempt nearly the same thing. At any rate, I suspected that girl was hell-bent for trouble —the kind that would ruin her life forever.

Get your damn sweaty feet off the coffee table! my mother bellowed. I nearly tumbled from the couch. And put a coaster under that glass. She stomped to the TV set and flat hand slapped the off button. Davey, you need to get up and do something! If you think you can spend the entire summer sitting on your ass watching filthy television trash, you’re sadly mistaken. She snatched her lighter from the pocket of her tatty housedress. She could, at long last, fire up that cigarette —the same one she had held fast in the sharp edge of her mouth. She sucked in a hearty first drag. Now, Davey, you know your father and I are very proud that you have finished your junior year on the honor roll. As she slogged to the chair opposite the couch, Mother muttered that my good grades almost made the $150 annual tuition a worthwhile investment. Almost.

I waited for the second act of this rerun drama in which she would boast that her only child was receiving a good Catholic education. She usually then groused about her own underprivileged youth. Mother had to endure less effective instruction at Newport High School, a heathen public institution. Instead, the scene moved in another direction.

Though I don’t agree, your father has decided you don’t have to wait until you’re eighteen to get a driver’s license. She extended her arm, and the orangey end of her smoldering Belair twirled in my direction. But that doesn’t mean a damn thing if you continue loafing around the entire day. She hesitated before delivering the devastating line that would ring down the curtain. You’re acting just like your Uncle Frank.

That was the lowest blow she could have ever thrown. Uncle Frank was her deceased alcoholic brother and the shame of the Jenkins family. Neither my mother nor Aunt Wanda, her sister, could mention his name without grimaces of disgust. And on the rare occasions when they would speak of him, the tales of his exploits always portrayed him as either a spoiled mama’s boy or a debauched wastrel. After a partial wartime stint in the Navy, he supposedly had never held a job for more than a month at a time. The youngest child and only son of a widowed mother, Frank Jenkins repeatedly disgraced the family name. Generally, his sprees ended with an overnight sober-up at the Newport city jail.

I personally couldn’t remember him. Uncle Frank died when I was three years old. After partying with like-minded undesirables, he had passed out on some sleazy west-end side street. Then, in the dark and early a.m., he was run over by a Cloverleaf milk truck.

One time, at Granny Jenkins’s house, I searched through a shoebox of old photographs to use in an autobiography assignment for sophomore English. I came across a yellowing print of a handsome teenager perched spread-eagle on the fender of an old jalopy. Like me, he was short, slight of build, and densely fair-haired. His eyes twinkled with punch-line laughter. And his lips stretched across his face, forming the same crooked smile as my mother’s. Yet his seemed far more mischievous.

I asked my granny who he was. She reached over the dining room table, took the picture from me, and peered under her glasses to study it. Her face dropped, she sank into a chair, and she slid the print face down across the stiff linen tablecloth. That’s your Uncle Frank, she whispered. Composing herself, she added, He was a real good-looking boy, wasn’t he?

I nodded in agreement. We didn’t speak for a few moments. Granny Jenkins was never speechless and rarely sentimental. I broke the awkward silence. Do you have any pictures of his wife?

Granny kind of chortled, and her voice regained its usual sarcastic snap. Oh, Davey, honey. Your Uncle Frank wasn’t the marrying kind.

I glared at my mother as she stubbed her cigarette butt into the ashtray. I wanted to believe that I wasn’t anything like her brother. I had tried to get a job. On the Friday before, the day after the school term ended, I walked all over Newport, filling out job applications at every conceivable place of business. I wanted to screech, And, Mother, you’ve made it very clear that I have to pay for my own insurance! Rather than argue, I grabbed my shoes and strode out the front door. I slumped on the top porch step and slipped into those well-worn sneakers, which felt oddly uncomfortable. They had fit perfectly that morning. I loosened the laces and debated whether my feet could have undergone a freakish growth spurt in just one idle afternoon.

I stood and gazed toward the Cincinnati skyline. The sun dazzled above the buildings, transforming the view into something quite extraordinary. Brand-new colors pulsed and vibrated. I thought it was a trick of my imagination. It was far too magnificent, as if God himself suddenly decided to share a secret. But rather than interpret the splendor as a beneficial gift, I worried that a brain tumor threatened to steal my sight. I wondered if the Divine had granted me one last whirl of wondrous color, etching a remarkable sense memory before a plunge into complete darkness. Soon enough, my vision narrowed to normal. And with a depressing thud, the enchantment reverted to dull and faded familiarity.

Now, as an adult, I can explore that experience with a kinder eye. I might have seen it as an omen —a harbinger of what the next several months (a period that historians later termed the Freedom Summer) were to bring. Those weeks would unfold into an era when a few brave souls dared to demand individual dignity from an unenlightened nation that for too long had defined itself in expressions of black and white.

But, like much of my country, I wasn’t quite ready to embrace the changes needed for transformation. I, too, had settled for a world that was rigidly monochromatic. Unaware of options, I strained to understand my sixteen-year-old self. Every day frightened and confused me. It was like working a jigsaw puzzle. Yet, the evident image seemed defective. As I struggled to complete the fragmented picture, I discovered pieces that couldn’t possibly fit. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that the problem might lie in the puzzle itself. Instead, I persevered to force those irregular forms into an acceptable impression.

But an unexpected turn of events was about to lure me away to my own Another World —a Technicolor realm that would challenge the cloudy gray core of who I believed myself to be.

CHAPTER

2

Well, for starters, your hair’s too damn long. My father only hires guys with crew cuts or flattops. Robbie Gillette brushed his stubby fingers across his Butch Waxed bristle. Besides that, he sneered, you’re such a little guy. Most of the boxes here are pretty heavy. I doubt you could lift even one of them. Robbie slapped both hands flat onto the countertop. He looked as if he planned to flip his fat body to the other side. Instead, he squirmed through the space between the wall and the end of the tall oak counter. Hopping onto a double-sized rusty milk crate, Robbie then assumed command of his family’s small business. He pretended to shuffle through a stack of yellow invoices. What did you say your name is, son?

The day after my mother’s scolding, I was determined to find any kind of summer job. Wearing my best Sunday clothes, I went to Gillette Brothers, a neighborhood wholesale candy distributor. Robbie Gillette, who interviewed me, knew damn well what my name was. In fact, we both had attended the same grade school and high school. I even wore the uniform necktie of Newport Catholic. Two years older and little more than an inch taller, Robbie Gillette was beyond ridiculous calling me son.

While I wouldn’t consider us the best of friends, we were well acquainted. Just three years before, on my third day at Newport Catholic, he’d found me meandering through the crowded first floor hallway. Slapping me on the back, Robbie smiled as if he had finally located a long-lost cousin.

Plopping his arm around my shoulders, he slipped a Baby Ruth into my shirt pocket and crowed, Welcome to Stud Hill, Davey Dodd!

Newport Catholic’s mascot was a thoroughbred. Hence the slangy title to describe the scenic campus atop one of the city’s highest mounds. The nickname was also a desperate attempt to combat Homo Hill, a slur non-attendees called the all boys’ school.

I thanked him for the five-cent candy bar. While his family wasn’t wildly wealthy, the business started by his grandfather and great uncle, now run by his dad, had provided the Gillettes with a comfortable life. They lived in one of the nicest houses in South Newport, and in grade school, Robbie had always sported the latest fashion trends, at least the clothes that came in huskier sizes. He also bragged of owning all the coolest toys. But he wasn’t at all popular. Perhaps, Robbie’s puppy-like eagerness seemed desperate; so, after a single play date, most potential buddies scuttled away and never returned to his swimming-pooled backyard.

I decided on that September freshman morning to give Robbie Gillette another chance. I doubted that everyone at Newport Catholic had already pegged him as a loser, and I surmised an upperclassman pal might raise my own underdog status. It took me just 48 hours and a pair of PayDays to learn that Robbie Gillette was only being nice because he needed to enlist me into this unsanctioned schoolboy fraternity. I declined, confessing that I couldn’t afford the two dollars monthly dues. Later, Phillip LaDonne, a fellow freshman and former classmate at St. Vincent de Paul, told me that Robbie had also tried to get him to join. Apparently, once any freshman agreed to membership, the recruiter was entitled to use his pledge as a personal slave throughout a long semester of hazing and humiliation. Almost three years later, I understood quite well that I was belatedly suffering the consequences of his unrequited confections.

I glared at the embroidered name badge on his uniform work shirt. ROB was stitched in gleaming white thread against a background of Christmas red. A semester of Introduction to Business at the local community college must have inspired the would-be King of Candy Land to forgo the less commanding Robbie. My name is Davey, I answered. Davey Dodd, Rob.

Before I could remind him of our shared past, he interrupted. I ask that the work force call me ‘Mr. Gillette.’ Robbie leaned over the counter. Davey, a runt like you would be totally useless here. He then returned to the complex trade of counting candy bars. Not looking up, he excused me like a dismissive secretary and spoke in a hissing falsetto. But thank you for aspiring to work at Gillette Brothers.

I slithered through the loading dock door and dashed past a pair of beer-bellied delivery guys heaving cases of Milk Duds and bickering about the baseball talents of young Pete Rose. I sped to the end of Patterson Street, yanked off the necktie, and shoved it into my back pocket. I trudged toward home without a single good thing to show for my effort. Not even a duplicitous Baby Ruth slipped into my shirt pocket.

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I counted each step to the top of the old wooden footbridge. The first twenty led to a square landing just a few yards from the outer line of train tracks. On many a late afternoon, I had watched the luxurious George Washington whoosh by on its way from Cincinnati’s Union Terminal to the District of Columbia and other points east. In my younger years, passing trains had always conjured dreams of adventure. If passengers waited to board at the nearby Newport Depot, the long line of cars would slowly pass, giving me opportunity to wave at some stranger journeying toward what had to be a more colorful destination. At times, one might wave back, his smile gleaming through the window like a travel poster’s promise to whisk me away from my boring everyday. But on that day, the noontime air hung heavy and still. All four rows of tracks were silent, and their silver rails sizzled in the midday sun.

The second flight of seventeen steps turned at a sharp right angle and rose steeply. At the top, however, the air grew softer. A strong breeze almost demanded that I face the Cincinnati cityscape that lay to the north. But I could only imagine plummeting to the bricked-paved street below. I closed my eyes, pushed away, and maneuvered into the middle of the bridge. I just wanted to get home.

I crossed over the woodsy slope that climbed toward Thirteenth Street: the border of my South Newport neighborhood and the reputed right side of the tracks. Something stirred in the bushes. Seconds later, a tall, scruffy hobo burst through a tangle of foxtail and honeysuckle. He tugged the extra long garden hose from Mrs. Webber’s backyard toward the center of a very small clearing. I had seen guys like him before. Along with the drone of idling diesels, those bums were another annoyance of living so close to the tracks. Unless a railroad detective was on patrol, the men generally loitered under the footbridge in the grassy space between the parallel sets of double tracks. Crossing the overpass in the early evening, I could sometimes hear the grumble of their whiskeyed laughter. In the screen of twilight, the mysterious brotherhood shared their stories and waited to hop a slow-moving freight headed to a more hopeful somewhere.

I stayed in the middle of the bridge and watched. The man dropped the hose and it fell heavy, lying like a long, strangled snake coiled near his feet. He then slumped onto the bed of tamped weeds and removed his shoes, carefully picking at the knots of worn-through work boots. He stuffed the socks inside his shoes and kneaded the arches on each red-pink foot. I remained there, fascinated with what he might do next. He rose, collected the shoes and socks, and re-entered the clotted brush. That stretch of shrubs grew unchecked and served as a thick barrier to Mrs. Webber’s otherwise well-tended backyard. I waited several minutes for him to retrieve the garden hose. Finally emerging, he had removed his hat and every article of clothing. His hair was straight and as shiny dark as Hershey’s syrup. The length was two inches or so longer than mine, but he parted his in the middle and tucked it behind his ears. The ends curled toward the hard edge of his bearded jaw. His body was lean and muscular, like that of an athlete. His nudity revealed youthfulness, a stark contrast to how he appeared wearing worn and soiled clothes. I wondered what cruel fate could have possibly brought someone like him to that pitiful end.

With his back to me, he stood steady, his long legs spread wide. In a balletic type move, he stretched his arms toward the sky and extended his hands, palms upward. The pose almost seemed prayerful, like a gesture to some woodland god of summer. I knew that I should leave, but I couldn’t. I slunk to the railing and climbed onto the support bar. He picked up the hose and twisted the metal nozzle. The green rubber snake sprang back to life, squirming and hissing, as it spewed a forceful spray high into the air. Glittering in the sunlight, the drops fell like diamonds, skied down his naked back, and then slid through the dimpled V at the top of his round buttocks. Turning toward me, but still unaware, he held the hose high above his head and drenched his hair. The water drizzled on his rugged face, and his beard sparkled with tiny crystals. The waterfall cascaded his raised arm and the ripples of his torso until it rushed over his woolly manhood and splashed about his thighs. He looked like a Roman fountain or an ancient Greek statue. During my second year of high school, I was often drawn to those glossy photos in my world history textbook. Once stripped of rags, the hobo exuded the very essence of an Olympian god.

A rumbling crawled up my legs and traveled down my arms. It spread through my abdomen and tingled the top of my head. I hopped from the metal support bar, and the feeling stopped. Immediately. I assumed that the titillation was not at all connected to the naked man. The reverberations came from a freight train somewhere around the bend. A powerful diesel would soon pass by.

The hobo raised his head and saw me. Neither shamed by predicament nor shackled by modesty, he made no attempt to escape or cover himself. Instead, he tossed me a wave and a smile. I immediately ran away, pretending as if I hadn’t seen him. Not his genial wave. Not his gregarious smile. And certainly not his exquisite nakedness. I fled toward the opposite end of the bridge and away from the route back home. The train’s engine rumbled forward. The bridge shivered, and hot exhaust belched through the floorboards. I stood directly over the engine and let the monstrous growl reverberate inside me. Squeals of steel scraping against steel assaulted my ears. I slumped against the railing, spread my legs, and dangled my arms over the side. One after the other, the colossal boxcars trudged through, clunking like lead-booted soldiers. The coal cars, near the end of the train, were empty, yet on the bottom of the sixth hopper, sprawled that same hobo. The car rocked and swayed, lulling him like a cast iron cradle. Re-clothed, he grinned once more and tipped his greasy fedora. I waved back, a wistful farewell to that beautiful stranger heading to a more hopeful somewhere.

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When I returned home, I wordlessly tromped upstairs to my room. Mother didn’t follow. I’m sure she muttered about what an ignorant ass I was, and then sat down to enjoy one of the BLTs she had just prepared. Two hours later, I sidled down the stairs, hoping that my sandwich might remain. Mother kept her eyes on the living room television. A ribbon of smoke spiraled from the lower section of the two–tiered end table adjacent to her chair, the overstuffed wingback and the best seat for watching TV. Between puffs, Mother parked her cigarette in the green beanbag ashtray. She needed both hands to put up her hair.

Multi-tasking had always been one of her strong suits. In one thirty minute sitting, she could swig a tall tumbler of sweet tea, smoke two premium-length Belairs, and set her entire head of hair, using all twenty-four rubber Spoolies piled in her aproned lap. She also watered the nearby philodendron with melting ice cubes. The quadruple feat was accomplished without her using a mirror or missing a single second of her favorite soap opera. I collapsed onto the couch and broke the silence. Why are you fixing your hair on a Tuesday? During the week, my mother’s at-home hairstyle consisted of a perfunctory comb-thru and a shoestring tied round her head to keep her wispy, almost shoulder length hair out of her face. Spoolie coifs were reserved for Sunday church and special occasions.

Oh, your Aunt Wanda and I are going to a Stanley party tonight at Mildred Kyde’s. Her tone suggested that she didn’t really want to attend the sales pitch for cleaning products, the type of gathering that Mother snidely called a hen party. Since she didn’t drive, she often let her sister cart her around town to grocery shop and run other daytime errands. That was certainly more economical than calling a taxi, which, at the time, was her only other option. Aunt Wanda had probably wheedled and whined, and Mother’s guilt probably forced her to acquiesce. Mother took a last swig of tea and looked at me. Since you’re not acting so damn pissy, I have a very important question to ask you. I worried about what she expected me to confess. I nodded my comprehension, but just as quickly, I shifted my attention to the television, feigning an interest in that stupid soap opera, The Secret Storm. She heightened the drama by clearing her throat. Davey, I can’t take this much longer. I need to know now … She paused. The bottoms of my feet began to sweat. She then blurted,  …if you would move the fan setting to high?

She cackled at her own joke. I didn’t know whether to be irritated or relieved. I cranked the fan to the maximum speed and pointed it directly at my mother. Her apron rippled, and the last two Spoolies flopped from her lap to the floor. As she scrambled to recover them, I switched the TV to The Match Game,