Street Cred

By C.W. Spooner

Nicholas Shane Jr. heads for work on a bright June morning, his first day on the job with the Vallejo Street Department. Nick has definite goals in mind: earn a baseball scholarship to a major university, bank a few dollars to pay the bills, and hold on to Donna, his first love. But his most important goal is to honor the legacy of his late father, a legend for his blue-collar work ethic. With his fathers lunch pail by his side, Nick has no idea of the adventures ahead or the characters he will meet along the way. Its a road with many potholes, but it teaches him the lessons of friendship, loyalty, love, and loss. Nick travels far from home, but his heart never leaves the streets of Vallejo.

C. W. Spooner returns to his roots for this story of home, family, and friends both old and new.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532057885

C.W. Spooner

C.W. Spooner began his love affair with baseball on the sandlots of his hometown, Vallejo, California. He was honored to serve as a judge for Spitball Magazine’s 2019 CASEY Award, presented to the author of the year’s best book about baseball. He currently resides in Aliso Viejo, California, where he pursues his passions for golf, jazz, storytelling, and grandchildren, not necessarily in that order.

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STREET

CRED

C.W. SPOONER

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STREET CRED

Copyright © 2018 C.W. Spooner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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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 Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-5789-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-5788-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018910850

iUniverse rev. date: 09/11/2018

Contents

Prelude

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

Author’s Note

Acknowledgments

For three of Steffan Manor’s finest:

Roger Ashlock, who shared the experience;

Jerry Warren, for that classic ’46 Ford convertible;

and Bruce Bigelow, who knows why—or should.

Also by C.W. Spooner:

‘68—A Novel

Children of Vallejo

Yeah, What Else?

Like a Flower in the Field

PRELUDE

T he North Bay city of Vallejo, California, was awake before first light on this June day in 1970. Women toiled in their kitchens, eggs and bacon frying, biscuits baking, and rich black coffee steaming in heavy mugs. Their men buttoned blue work shirts, buckled worn leather belts, and laced up their boots. Lunch pails sat on countertops, packed by loving hands. A hearty breakfast, a kiss goodbye, and out the door they went.

Most of the men heading off to work were bound for Mare Island Naval Shipyard—The Yard for short. Others would find their way to the Benicia Arsenal, or Sperry Mills, or C&H Sugar over in Crockett. On the way, they would pass the night shift crews, heading home for a well-earned rest.

Vallejo was proud of its Navy heritage. From its founding in 1854, The Yard became the chief maintenance depot for the Pacific Fleet, builder of a long line of warships, and later the West Coast base of nuclear submarine construction. Mare Island had launched seventeen nuclear subs, beginning with the USS Sargo in 1957. Seven of that number were what the sailors called boomers, armed with nuclear-tipped Polaris missiles. These proud ships carried the names of American icons: Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Daniel Boone, Stonewall Jackson, Kamehameha, and Mariano G. Vallejo himself.

Nineteen seventy was a busy time in Vallejo. The war in Vietnam was at its peak and war meant jobs for Mare Island. Civilian employment on the shipyard hovered around twelve thousand with no drop-off in sight. In addition, the city had committed to urban redevelopment, locking in federal funds for a massive project to rebuild the blighted downtown district known as Lower Georgia.

Georgia Street, the main street of town, ended at the waterfront. The final two blocks of Georgia and several surrounding streets had evolved into a city within a city, packed with bars, gambling dens, whorehouses, and more blazing neon than anywhere in the country, Las Vegas excepted. A popular business model went as follows: a bar as one came in off the street, gambling in the back room, prostitution upstairs. Lower Georgia was notorious throughout the Pacific Fleet as a place for young sailors to raise hell.

And raise hell they did!

Shipyard commanders, likely reaching back to David G. Farragut, demanded a cleanup of the district. City fathers, on the other hand, wanted the sailors coming ashore on liberty to confine their activities to Lower Georgia and stay out of the decent neighborhoods. Under threat and pressure from the Navy, periodic efforts were launched to crack down on vice. Those efforts were short-lived.

By June 1970, all of that had changed. Lower Georgia was gone, razed, flattened. One hundred twenty-five acres stood ready for redevelopment. Of course, mistakes had been made along the way. Historic buildings that should have been preserved were demolished along with the honky-tonks and cathouses, including the YMCA, the Carnegie Library, and the Women’s Club designed by famed architect Julia Morgan. Even the York Street hill, where the state capitol building once stood, had been bulldozed and leveled, the earth used as landfill in the marshlands along the waterfront.

Vallejoans would look back on this time as a tipping point. In May, just a month earlier, The Yard had celebrated the launch of the USS Drum, a fast-attack sub of the Sturgeon class. It would be the last of the nuclear ships built at Mare Island, and the long, slow decline toward base closure would begin, culminating in April 1996.

None of that was known to the workers heading out that morning. They couldn’t know the Drum would be the last, or that Vallejo would decline in tandem with the shipyard. It was just another workday in a blue-collar, lunch-pail town.

There was one small exception.

1

N icholas Shane Jr. sat behind the wheel of his 1946 Ford convertible coupe, turned the key, and engaged the starter. He listened to the rumble of the flathead V-8 and turned on the windshield wipers to clear away morning dew. He shifted into first gear, let out the clutch, and pulled away from the curb. Nick had no idea what lay ahead, but he was ready for the adventure.

At the end of the block, he made a left onto Georgia Street, accelerating into the light traffic along the broad, tree-lined boulevard. He loved the sound of the old Ford, enhanced by the dual pipes and glass-pack mufflers he and his dad had installed. They’d purchased the vehicle for two hundred dollars from a neighbor and then poured hours into the classic coupe, tuning the engine, replacing hoses and brake linings, cleaning and polishing the dark gray exterior. All it needed now was a new convertible top. That was where he and his dad had left it, just before the heart attack. Nicholas Shane Sr. was gone at sixty-two.

Nick crossed the I-80 overpass, heading west, his dad’s beat-up lunch pail resting on the seat beside him. Today was different from all other workdays. Today, June 15, 1970, Nick would go to work for the Vallejo Street Department.

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Nick was suddenly aware of his boots: the oiled leather and white crepe soles unblemished, pristine, fresh out of the box labeled Red Wing Shoes. Geez, why hadn’t he thought to stomp around a field somewhere just to get ’em dirty? He looked around the corporation yard where a group of thirty men gathered, talking, laughing, smoking, and waiting for the day’s assignments. Were they gesturing toward him and snickering, or was he imagining? It was conspicuous enough to be twenty years old, starting work with a group of men who looked to be in their fifties, if not older. He’d made it worse by showing up in these damn boots.

Gus Cordeiro, superintendent of the Street Department, strode into the center of the group and took charge. Gus was short and round, his olive complexion reflecting his Portuguese heritage. He looked younger that his fifty years, even though his hairline was in serious retreat. His men knew him as an affable, empathetic boss, quick with a laugh and a barbed comment,