Summer in Loughborough Park

By Mark Tindell

It's 1974 and we are living in wild and dangerous times. My name is Steven Powers and along with my younger brother Carl, we own a boxing gym on the southside of St Louis called RayJays Gym. We see our gym as a safe haven for young people to get off the streets, but now local mobsters Jimmie Cohen and the cowboy Bob Miller, powered by the syndicate, are determined to tear apart all that my family has worked to create. Their one goal is to start peddling their poison to all the young people through our gym and neighborhood. Can we survive this ordeal? I do not know, but we must find a way to stop them and protect our families at the same time.

Johnathan Powers and his cousin Stevie are two teenagers who belong to a family in St. Louis that has a strong reputation to live up to. Their grandfather and his brothers were the finest boxers and street fighter's the old city had known. Their father's Steven and Carl are just as good. Follow all three generations, each with their own quest to accomplish in this extraordinary tale of love and survival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662418570

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Summer in Loughborough Park

Mark Tindell

Copyright © 2020 Mark Tindell

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 979-8-88793-200-2 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-1858-7 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-6624-1857-0 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

The Death of Gaylord Jones

Chapter 2

More Trouble in the Neighborhood

Chapter 3

Jimmy Coehn Getting Married

Chapter 4

Goldy Makes Piece with Gaylord

Chapter 5

Michael and Leana May Together Again

Chapter 6

A Good Start

Chapter 7

A Rainy Day Funeral

Chapter 8

Flashback to WWII

Chapter 9

Steven Stayed with Ernie Pyle

Chapter 10

Flashback Is OverBack to 1974

Chapter 11

Dealing with Their Pain and Loss

Chapter 12

Dougie, You Haven't Seen Anything Yet

Chapter 13

Heading Out to Cape Girardeau

Chapter 14

Flashback to 1957The Lord's of Battle and Lean Sanders

Chapter 15

Eddie's Pawnshop

Chapter 16

The Roman Gladiator in Service of the Senator

Chapter 17

The Power Kids Meet Marty

Chapter 18

The End of Goldy's Pain

Chapter 19

The Stakeout

Chapter 20

The Awaking of Cowboy Bob's Soul

Chapter 21

George Fisher's Master Plan

Chapter 22

Stupid Wins Again

Chapter 23

The Avenging Angels

Chapter 24

Time to Start a New Game

Chapter 25

Eddie Fisher's Recon

Chapter 26

Good Old Sheriff Joe and His Deputies

Chapter 27

Back Home in St. Louis

Chapter 1

The Death of Gaylord Jones

Johnathen

When Stevie and I walked out of the movie house, we were excited and were talking about the way Bruce Lee seemed invincible. We just watched the best martial arts film of our young lives. It was a movie called The Return of the Dragon. The movie starred Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. Bruce Lee seemed almost godlike with his fighting abilities, and Chuck Norris's fighting skills was nothing to scoff at either. We were imitating their fighting techniques and laughing. Stevie is my favorite cousin. He always has a smile on his face, and he is a really likable guy—the kind of guy people naturally gravitate to. He caught me a little off guard and landed one on my left cheek. It made my head turn just right to see Goldy standing over Chrissi, who was sitting on a park bench across the theater, waiting for us to come out of the show. Chrissi was my girlfriend, and we have been together for one year now, and in my young heart, there was no better love to be found. I got instantly jealous. Goldy used to be her boyfriend before we started dating. Lucky for me, Goldy got drunk on red Ripple wine and slapped Chrissi one night. Chrissi was the kind of gal that takes no crap from anyone, and she had seen her mom get smacked around by her last boyfriend, and Chrissi always said, Not me. If somebody treated me that way, I would cut him, and she meant it too. She wasn't a violent person. She was just strong.

Goldy always regretted slapping Chrissi, and if he could take it back, he would in a heartbeat because he still loved Chrissi, and we all knew it. He was standing over her with one leg on the bench to her right. He was too close to her his hip was almost perpendicular to her face. In a flash, I crossed boulevard avenue, not even caring if there was a car coming or not.

Stevie was yelling at me, Come on. We have to get home! Then he saw what I saw and said, Oh crap! Here we go again.

Goldy just stood there, smiling. He looked at me, threw his dark sunglasses, and said, I have been waiting for you, Southpaw Johny. I want a rematch.

Two weeks earlier, I got lucky at Ray Jay's gym when I knocked Goldy out cold in what was supposed to be a friendly sparring match. He was right. Goldy just received earlier that week a bad beating by his father, and I could tell he wasn't all there. I told him that I didn't want to spar with him and that he needed more time to heal up, but Goldy wouldn't listen to me to any of that.

He just said, Bring it on, and slapped his padded hands together. We didn't even have our boxing gloves on yet, so I knew it was going down right now, and Goldy was out for blood. He couldn't stand that I was with Chrissi, and it was driving him mad. Every time he saw us together, it was tearing him apart. When he crossed the ring, I knew he was favoring his right side, where his dad hit him with an oil-soaked two-by-four that he used in his driveway underneath their old 1957 Chevy Nomad Station wagon. Goldy's dad was always working on that car, and he loved it. Goldy hit a rock with a baseball bat and hit the back tailgate and glass and put a dent in it and cracked the tailgate glass. His dad went ballistic and grabbed the oily two-by-four and hit his son with it in the back and his ribs, then threw down the board and took off his belt and went to work on him.

It wasn't the first time that Ron Crowley beat his kid in front of the whole neighborhood to see. He did love his family, but at times, he had a heck of a way of showing it. Ron's father was a mean man with a lot of demons, whom he inherited from his father and so on, and Ron Crowley was keeping a sad tradition alive in his bloodline, and everyone needs to remember that this is 1974, and child abuse is a common thing to see.

Now back in the ring, Goldy crossed over to me and gave out a warlike yell. He came into contact with me with a one-two stick and a jab just like most boxing matches started. I blocked his punches, and with great speed, I came into Goldy with a right to his rib cage and started working on him there, but it didn't last long because Goldy was no slouch. He crossed his leg behind mine and pushed me off-balance, and I fell sideways. That's where he gave me a left to the side of the head that made me see stars. I rolled away from him, and he followed me with a kick to the stomach. This definitely was no sparring match. This was a brawl. I slung my right leg behind him and brought him down to the mat with me. That's where I gave him an elbow to the nose. Blood splattered across his face and the mat. We both jumped up, but I got up quicker. When Goldy stood up after me, I was ready. I landed the fastest, hardest uppercut punch of my young life, which was a left-handed punch. I am a southpaw, and most people are not, so when you get it on that side with force, it's always surprising to you.

Goldy actually came off his feet. It seemed like, at that point, everything went into slow motion watching him fly backward with his legs straight out and both arms down at his sides. He came down flat on his back with a resounding thud. It was my first knockout in the boxing ring even though I wouldn't call it a boxing match. It was a street fight. I never considered it a victory either. I knew Goldy wasn't ready to face me or anyone at that point in time, but he didn't care between losing Chrissi and being ashamed of getting beat by his dad in front of half the neighborhood and in front of Father O'Malley, who always looked out for all of us kids.

It was Father O'Malley that day who stopped Ron Crowley from beating his son. He came into Ron's driveway and grabbed Ron until he calmed down, telling him the whole time, No matter what, God loves you, Ron, and he loves your boy. William and I won't let go until the devil passes. I love listening to Father O'Malley talk. He was from Northern Ireland, and his accent always reminded me of the Lucky Charms commercial on TV and one of my favorite cereals. Father O'Malley loved to box, and he was a great fighter back in his youth, and we could count on him to bring in boys to the gym that needed a place to get off the streets and have a purpose in life. I heard my father and uncle talking about him more than once when I was growing up, saying something about him being in the struggle against England and why he turned to a life dedicated to God.

It turned out that he had a small part in some people being blown up on a bus and had to leave his beloved Ireland. Robert O'Malley's group was the forerunner to the IRA (Ireland Republic Army). Up to that point, I had no idea what they were talking about, but it all became clear when I was old enough to understand. Goldy sat down next to Chrissi on the bench and pointed over to Loughborough Park and said, Southpaw, that is where I get my satisfaction with you. Meet me here Saturday at 12:30 p.m., and we will settle this once and for all.

I sat down on the other side of Chrissi and bent forward and turned and looked at Goldy then said, That sounds like a plan. We will see you there.

Chrissi and I got up. I told her to walk with Stevie to Green's Neighborhood Store and wait for me there. Goldy just sat there with his sunglasses on, and I couldn't see his eyes, and that bothered me.

They walked a few feet away, then Goldy said to me, You know, life is funny, Southpaw. We were best friends all our lives, and all it took was one girl to turn everything around.

I looked at him and said, That's all it ever takes, I reckon, Goldy, and we never call each other by our Christian names hardly anymore. Now it's always Southpaw Johny and Goldy.

His real name is William Crowley and mine is Johnathen Powers. They called Billy Goldy because he was pure gold in the ring. There was only one other person who was near his speed, and it was Southpaw Johny. My nickname was plain and simple. I was a southpaw, which meant that I was left handed. It's funny how things work out in the neighborhood twenty-five years earlier.

My dad, Steven Powers, and Goldy's dad, Ron Crowley, fought over the same girl too, but the outcome was different. Ron Crowley married the girl that my father loved at the time, but that's a whole other story in itself. But it all worked out, my dad told us, because he met my mother a year later, and the rest was history. It was funny how things tend to work out, how things come around and go around in the neighborhood.

I looked at Goldy and told him, I will see you then, buttface.

He got up and said, You better, stink breath, and you're not going to knock me out again ever, and he was right. I never did knock Goldy out again. He was just too darn good.

I walked down to old man Green's Neighborhood Store. It's a store that has been in operation for over seventy-five years now. His father owned it before old man Green did. When you walked in there, you could just sense the history of the place. Stevie and Chrissi was sitting on the stools at the soda fountain, having an orange Nehi soda pop. Old man Green was helping some old woman who lived four or five blocks away. I was wondering why she was all the way over here instead in her own neighborhood. It turned out that she was banned for shoplifting, and she had to walk all the way to Green's for cigarettes and bread. Old man Green was acting like he was just interested in helping her, but we knew he was watching her like a hawk. I grabbed a Coke out of the Coke cooler and opened it up, but when I did, I hit the bottle too hard on the bottle opener and broke a piece of the glass bottle. Shoot, now I have to buy another one, and all I have left is fifty cents. Cokes are a quarter, so I put the broken top bottle with a piece of glass in it on the countertop and grabbed another Coke out of the cooler and put my fifty cents on the counter next to the cash register then sat down at the counter.

The old soda jerk machine was still there, but old man Green never used it. Bob Green said that its time had come and gone. He is a nice old man, and Mrs. Green is always happy to see us kids. They had a son when they were first married, but he died in childbirth, and she wasn't able to have any more children, so they are both always happy when we come in for soda pops and candy bars. Mrs. Green would give us a Snickers bar when Mr. Green wasn't looking, and I always had a feeling that he knew and didn't care even though he acted like he did. He always said, Edna Green, you're gonna run us out of business giving away the stock, and then he would look at us with a wink of the eye and a smile. Ever since I was a young kid, when I would sit down at the soda fountain in Green's store, I would turn the stool all the way around 360 degrees as fast as I could just once, and it's just for good luck. It's just a silly thing that kids liked to do.

I looked at Chrissi and said, Chrissi, I thought you were going to your dad's house. Why in the world were you sitting in the park alone? Are you just asking for trouble or what?

Johny, you know that I can take care of myself, and anyways, my dad called and canceled. He had to go back into rehab.

Chrissi's dad, Denny Carter, had been trying to get straight, and after eight DWI, he finally hit rock bottom and had been doing really good at staying off the booze, but it was a long hard road to haul. I know for sure because there was hardly a family around that hasn't had or had someone in it, battling alcoholism.

Then Chrissi said, Anyways, Billy came by and kept me company until you guys got out of the movies, and then she tried to change the subject by asking us how we liked the Bruce Lee movie, and Stevie and I couldn't resist the bait, and I trusted Chrissi.

Oh man, it is the most awesome kung fu movie ever made. It didn't have all that unrealistic crap in it, like flying on wires. It was just hard-core, over-the-top fighting. It is the best of the best. I definitely want to be like Bruce Lee and, for the fact of the matter, Chuck Norris. Their fight scene was the best. I believe to be ever put on film. It was definitely phenomenal.

Then we started playacting, doing karate chops, and laughing.

Chrissi said, No thanks. You know it's not my thing. Then she sat there, looking out the window over at Loughborough Park and said, I hate violence, and we have enough of that in the neighborhood already.

This I knew to be true, but it didn't bother any of us. We were born into fighting family. All my grandfather ever wanted was to be a great boxer, and he almost was, but as in most cases, all it took was a crooked promoter and the right punch to the head to stop a man's career and dreams. Every night since we were toddlers, Grandpa would recount the days of his youth and recall to us fabulous stories of great boxing matches and the fighters who fought them. Great men of courage and stamina of the past. Grandpa's father was a minister and deplored violence, but he wasn't so far above it that he would whoop Grandpa regularly for fighting in his neighborhood, but his daddy died when he was just thirty-five years old, leaving their mother and her boys very little money. My grandfather was the youngest of five boys, and after his dad died, his oldest brother moved the family from Chicago to St. Louis, where he had a friend who worked at the brewery and was able to get him a job there, and the family has been here ever since.

Grandpa's oldest brother name was John. He was named after John the Baptist, and that is who I am named after. Stevie asked me if I thought I could get that piece of broken glass out of the bottle because he couldn't stand to see a good Coke go to waste, and I knew if I left it there, he would drink it, so I made sure Mrs. Green took it when she came by. Then Stevie started griping about the five-cent deposit that we could have gotten even though he knew when we drink soda pop at old man Green's store, he kept the bottles, but Stevie didn't care. He was irritated about it.

All of a sudden, we saw people running toward Loughborough Park. Then we saw blue lights and sirens screaming by, so in excitement, we ran out of there with Mr. Green behind us. It didn't matter how old you are. Curiosity never fades. We looked up at the commotion that was happening at the park, where we just left half an hour earlier, and I had a bad feeling that this all had something to do with Goldy. Goldy wasn't a bad guy to the people in the neighborhood, but he had a thing about picking on bums, and he didn't mind stealing their Ripple when he could. We ran over when they were just pulling the sheet over the head of a local bum, whose name was Gaylord Jones. As far as bums went, Gaylord was always nice to us kids and would pick his old Sears and Roebuck guitar for us if we had any change to give him, that was. I looked over and saw Gaylord's guitar all busted up and asked Ms. Winters who was standing there what in the world happened.

She said, Poor old Gaylord, somebody took his guitar and beat him to death with it.

We were all shocked. There hadn't been a murder in our neighborhood for years; in fact, it was the first one that I knew of personally but, unfortunately, not the last. I was wondering where Goldy was. He wasn't in the crowd, and I started to look around and wonder if he had anything to do with it even though, inside, I felt like there was no way Goldy was a murderer. As I looked up through the park, I saw him as he was walking on the other side of the old Civil War monument, dedicated to the fighting men of the Union.

I told Stevie and Chrissi, There goes Goldy behind the monument.

They both looked, but he was gone already. More police were showing up by then. Officer Grassco asked us if we were hanging around and if we saw anyone else who might have been in the vicinity. We told him no and that we didn't see anyone else around. I started wondering if Goldy knew what had happened and if he saw anything. I patted Stevie on the arm and gave him a nod toward the monument. I grabbed Chrissi's hand, and we started running up to the old monument. When we got there, we went to the other side, half expecting to find Goldy there, but he was gone already. We started to head back down Boulevard Avenue to our alley. We usually rode our bikes but not when we went to